Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.

Note to Mir: Merlin did create the Dark One and instruct a budding psychopath, so I think he might require some atonement after chilling in that tree for centuries. It angers me that A&E made that wussy guy Zeus! Ah, yes, should have used Dionysus, Greek rather than Roman. I've fixed that. Thanks! Blame Ares misspelling on my shitty spell-check software. As for Stealthy and Dopey, there was no resentment, the actor playing Dopey quit and I assume A&E didn't want less than seven in that scene, so they had Stealthy live and Dopey, presumably, die in his place in their wish universe, which was also more than likely a subtle "fuck you" to the actor for telling them where they could stick it.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SCISSORS OF FATE

"You have GOT to be kidding me!?" Emma shrieked in aggravation, because not only was she suddenly standing in the middle of Storybrooke's Main Street, but she was once again naked!

And also, she'd appeared three feet from Archie who stumbled and spilled his hot coffee on her tits!

"Oh, gosh, I'm so sorry!" Archie babbled using his tie to clean her up, then apologizing, "That's not appropriate, is it? I'm sorry! I'm just... here!" he pulled off his jacket.

"It's fine," sighed Emma and she used magic to conjured herself in some jeans and a sweater. "I mean, it's a little weird as my kind-of-therapist, but you are gay, so..."

Archie blinked at her. "I... you... what?"

Emma rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on. You're single, thin, and neat. You wear tweed and listen to opera. You carry an umbrella and treat your dog like a person. But that's not important right now. Where's Henry?"

"Presumably at your sister's wedding," answered Archie. "You just missed the procession."

"Her what?" Emma exclaimed, looking around and noticing for the first time that there were flower petals, confetti, horse shit, and an assortment of other trash on Main Street along with fancy floral arrangements on the light posts. "I left to help my true love pass on and that skank throws herself another wedding in a fucking horse and carriage procession!?"

Archie winced. "Yes, well, as I assume you know, all royal marriages are magically recorded in The Book of Royal Marriages and long story short, the only way to remove your name was a royal decree of annulment magically sanctified by the Blue Fairy. Needless to say-"

"My sister and her pirate were eager to be legit again," Emma snorted.

"And decided that given Mr. Purbeck has taken to keeping a rather large and messy homing pigeon coupe on the roof and that the Convent was not presently being used as an emergency shelter for homeless refugees and babies that might be snatched by evil fairies, they would have a proper royal church wedding more in keeping with your parents' ceremony," Archie explained. "I did try to convince Anna to wait, but... she was quite certain you wouldn't want to attend."

"Yeah, not so much," Emma snorted. "Looks like I get to attend Anna's wedding anyway."

She tried to teleport, which made her stumble dizzily. "What the-"

"Oh, apparently there is a three block 'no poofing' ward in place along the processional route. Royal wedding security and all what with the penchant for mayhem."

"Naturally," Emma griped and stomped toward the Sheriff's station to get the patrol car.

Storybrooke's little used church was located on the grounds of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart Convent behind the imposing stone structure and down a gravel path that was, of course, barricaded with a "Wedding in Progress" sign.

Scowling, Emma pulled the patrol car to a stop at the main stairs and then ran past the red Japanese maples up the stairs and through the stone portico that led to a rose garden between the convent and the church.

She did a double take there at an assortment of fancy horse carriages, one a familiar carriage and a familiar horse that she'd left in Central Park but was now festooned in her family's royal livery.

"OH, HELL NO!" Emma growled and pulled open the doors to the chapel. If that bitch had co-opted Geronimo, she would kick her evil ass!

"...speak now or forever hold your - peace," concluded the bishop who'd married Emma's parents (and was currently a veterinarian at the pet shelter) in startlement.

Everyone turned, including the couple at the alter and their entourage who were dressed straight out of The Enchanted Forest. Anna was actually wearing their mother's feathery wedding dress - or a replica of it, anyway - with their grandmother's tiara attached to another god-awful veil pinned to her severely tight hairdo and holding Hook's hands - because he somehow had two of them again to go with a black version of Prince Charming's white wedding suit.

"Really?" Anna harped. "You couldn't let me get for real married without ruining things? It's horrible enough you burned my wedding dress! You are so petty!"

"Not everything is about you, Anna!" Emma snapped, walking up the aisle, her focus shifting for a moment to Henry who didn't look especially thrilled to be there in what seemed to be the capacity of Hook's best man for the second time. "If you want to marry a criminal asshole, fine! It's your life to screw up! I'm here to keep an undead magical psychopath from sacrificing my son to destroy reality!"

"What!?" sputtered Regina.

"Mom?" Henry startled as she hurried toward him, "what are you talking-"

Suddenly Anna and Hook cried out, grabbing at their left hands and the bishop grabbed Henry, vanishing in a cloud of black smoke.

Naturally, pandemonium erupted, people (who hadn't really wanted to be there in the first place) screaming and fleeing the chapel while the not-quite-married couple continued screeching, trying to pull off their rings which seemed to have been laced with dreamshade from the black spidering going up their veins on their hands.

While Hook pulled the sword at his hip and lopped off his own hand - impulsive idiot as always - David rushed to Anna, using his tie to make a tourniquet and slow the spread of the poison.

"You are such an idiot!" Anna hissed at a bleeding Hook who had a glittery-green-gowned Zelena to thank for cauterizing the wound.

Emma was too busy running with a purple-rinestone-gown-festooned Regina into the chapel garden to be bothered with her not-quite-brother-in-law's stupidity.

"What the hell just happened!?" the former Evil Queen gasped, adjusting her cleavage. "The wards are supposed to prevent anyone using magic to enter or exit the entire grounds!"

"Well, if you only designed if for living people then it wouldn't for Merlin's former apprentice," Emma replied, heading back toward the car.

"Wait... what?" Regina sputtered.

"He killed The Lord of Death to escape The Underworld, so I assume the usual rules don't apply to him. He plans to unbind Henry from that quill to use for himself, possibly to destroy all magical worlds, because apparently that stupid pen is actually just a way for Zeus to make us all his toys to play with when we die!"

"Well," huffed Regina and she magically turned her impractical gown into a suit, "at least I was right that my story was being manipulated to never get a happy ending if all endings lead to that awful place!

"And now we know what that alchemist was up to," she sighed and explained, "We apprehended him a few days ago messing with the ruins in Zelena's barn. We thought we'd prevented whatever it was he'd been attempting, but he seemed quite smug and unconcerned about being caught."

Scowling, Emma reported, "Apparently, my traveling to The Underworld was part of this old creep's escape plan, so obviously he got some minion to split me and Anna and facilitate that séance somehow."

"Well, presumably there's some unbinding ritual involved to prevent the quill from calling to a new Author and that gives us time," Regina reasoned before getting in the patrol car.

"So, he's probably either at the barn or at his big-ass mansion?" reasoned Emma after starting the engine.

"The ruins at the barn wouldn't be helpful for an unbinding spell and I doubt he would head to the mansion with the wards placed on it after Fiona used the portal. More likely he's at that dumpy little house. It has a basement that even Gold couldn't unlock. It's been up for sale by the bank ever since his death. I was rather surprised Henry didn't suggest it over that gray monstrosity Hook used to ply off your sister's panties... before realizing he'd intended to set the pirate up to fail."

"Fine, where is this place?"

"South of the Cannery. The wards extend just past the far end of the cemetery."

"Great," Emma replied and floored it, scattering gravel and scarring Mr. Purbeck;'s pigeons.

"Do I even want to ask what happened to my car?" she asked, swerving onto Route Six. "Did you guys just leave it to get towed or did Anna dump it in The Hudson before apparently sailing as fast as possible back here, with a horse and carriage, to get hitched?"

"I believe your car is still aboard the Jolly Roger," Regina shrugged as Emma peeled out of the lot. "And the horse and carriage was my doing, though your parents did help. Henry wanted his father's horse. It was a simple matter of a staged mugging-slash-horse theft, something your mother was once annoyingly skilled at. The glamour to disguise a stolen horse and carriage to get both aboard the ship was not as easy, but I'm sure it all made for an interesting news story.

"And before you declare a vendetta against your sister and not-quite-brother-in-law for using them," Regina continued, "your parents and Henry rode in that carriage. The baroque monstrosity Anna and Hook used is parked on the side so the groomsman could re-festoon the six white horses with their combined royal family crest."

Well, that did make Emma feel slightly better, though considering how her parents had treated Neal, not that much better. "Hold on, did you say combined royal family crest?"

"They went full out with Enchanted Forest tradition this time around," scoffed Regina. "I'm sure you remember that pomp and circumstance from the Wish World."

She did, vaguely. Even if that world only started to exist the moment she was put into it, Emma was given fake memories of a past that included her own royal wedding. And, yes, there was some mess of a royal procession through the kingdom and banners, costumes, and livery even more absurd than when, lacking a brother, she was officially made the heir apparent at the age of thirteen. She could remember her fake parents not particularly liking Baelfire, refusing to give their blessing, lecturing that according to royal decree she could marry whomever she wanted once she reached the age of twenty-five without their permission, but the law was the law to stop impetuous young princes and princesses from making reckless choices in marriage. Of course, she'd dug her heals in on the matter and made her parents' lives rather miserable... until an unplanned pregnancy forced them to give their blessing and plan a royal wedding in a week with the help of the fairies.

"Yeah, well," Emma finally remarked with a glance at the flower tattoo peaking out from under Graham's bootlace on her wrist, "I'll be having words with my sister later about what she can do with her royal crest."

She felt the magic loosen a bit then as they passed a familiar farmhouse. It was Regina who provided the magic and Emma slammed n the brakes as the car suddenly came close to crashing into a mailbox on a suburban street.

"It's that one," Regina pointed to a red and white bungalow set back on a lot of overgrown brown weeds.

Emma pressed the gas, angling toward the driveway - and just then the old red and white Crown Victoria parked at the curb accelerated toward them.

"What the-!?"

Emma swerved and Regina pulled magic around them. They landed in the weeds at the same time the classic car t-boned the patrol car, slamming it into a telephone pole.

"I'd forgotten about the evil possessed car," Regina remarked, locating the front walk in the weeds and heading for the porch.

"How do you forget about an evil possessed car!?" Emma sputtered.

"It's usually hold up in the garage since Tillman was unable to tow it away. I think the door opens sometimes and it tries to run down the mailman... Part of the reason no one has bought the house."

"Yeah, no shit!"

The drabe green front door of the dumpy little bungalow opened easily with Regina's spell but the door off the kitchen behind the stairs refused to budge.

Emma tried, using her knowledge of the spells cast by the Dark One on her sister's basement, but all she got was an electric shock for trying.

Then Henry screamed.

Together Emma and Regina threw their magic at the wards, fighting against the painful kickback until finally the door exploded inward and the charged through.

Down bellow Henry was tied to a table and the dirt floor was carved in ruins, ruins the blood from a cut on his arm was dripping toward.

At the first splash the ruins lit up and Henry screamed again, just as The Apprentice brought down the familiar unsavior-ing sheers.

Emma fired her gun but the bullet did nothing, nor did Regina's fireball. The Shears of Destiny plunged into Henry's chest, he screamed again, and there was a bright flash of light and a lot of blood.

Suddenly a massive bird swooped into the room, but turned out to be a winged woman with a sword, swinging at the old man. He vanished with the Shears just before the blade could strike him down.

Emma and Regina rushed to Henry who sat up and gaped wide-eyed, looking his gaping chest wound.

Emma quickly put her hand over the gaping wound and healed it, then pulled Henry into a tight hug.

"H-how am I not dead?" Henry gasped.

"Thanatos was murdered," the bird-woman said, "which means that there is no death until his replacement has been officially appointed and takes possession of this sword."

"Death is actually dead?" Regina exclaimed. "And... who the hell are you?"

"I am Alecto, Hand of Retribution, Chief of the Furies, bringers of justice, dispatched by Mt. Olympus to retrieve a fugitive soul that murdered an immortal, summoned demons, and seeks to severe the bonds between all magical realms and the gods reinforced by The Quill of Fate and the golden bindings in The Books which record their stories, which together use the magic of the gods and the power of names to bind the souls of those therein to our world."

"The gods are pretending at being God," Emma explained to Henry, "using their magic to funnel us all into an afterlife they made for us to entertain them like a theme park, and making sure there's enough unfinished business and drama and cliché bullshit that no one ever wonders why that's where souls go, why it's a bunch of petty, juvenile, pricks in togas who decide if we get to prance in fields or burn in pits of fire after working our shit out. It's all the ultimate long con, Kid."

Henry looked stricken. "So... what he said is true. I was a pawn. I was hurting people, not helping them."

"You were doing what Zeus wanted you to believe was right," Alecto stated. "You were also doing what that wizard wanted you to believe was right, playing into his scheme to free himself and take it from you. But your mother and father struck an accord with Zeus that this arrangement will come to an end, that while The Underworld will remain, there will be no manipulations to hasten the arrival of souls who will move to their rightful place, and Elysium and Tartarus will return to being a retreat for the gods and a prison for the Titans.

"But this must be undone carefully by Zeus and the other gods, not in the manner The Apprentice intends, an apocalypse that risks destroying not simply this town but all worlds connected to through the axis mundi of Mt. Olympus... which has been tied rather tightly to this town after that mess with the Dark Ones. He will use it as a means to access and break the barriers between the worlds in a far more permanent way than your great grandmother Fiona. If he succeeds, he may bring down Mt. Olympus itself. But for that he will need a power source. As luck would have it, this little town has one uniquely attached to it."

"The Dark Curse," sighed Regina.

"Indeed. Winning the 'Final Battle' did not destroy the curse, it merely re-caged it. To break the curse entirely without equally powerful light magic to take its place would mean Storybrooke ceasing to exist. And while your true love's kiss," she told Henry, "was certainly enough to revive your mother whose heart was partially protected by her sister's physical form absorbing the death blow which set in motion the reverse chain reaction of reforming the realms thrown into the netherworld, it could not alter something intended by the gods to come into being. Not so long as those books remain bound to Mt. Olympus."

Regina inhaled sharply. "So now that Henry is no longer a protection that keeps the books from being destroyed permanently he can destroy them so that when he unleashes the curse it will destroy everything... just to spite the gods?"

"You were willing to destroy a large portion of your world to live in a fake happy ending where you were akin to a god," Alecto reminded. "Revenge spawns a particular madness. And he has been spiraling into it far longer than you. Clearly he wishes to be free of the gods, even if that freedom for himself and everyone is ceasing to exist.

"Which is why I must reconvene with my sisters," the demi-goddess stated. "He has vanished from this realm, no doubt to obtain the ingredients he first needed that quill to locate. There are secrets - and magic - beyond the silly stories about your people hidden in the pages of those books."

Alecto left the sword on the table and told them, "This will bind his soul, but be warned, to wield it with your bare hand and take a life, your soul will be bound to its service, making you Lady of Death. Use it only if there is no other choice, for Zeus would very much appreciate the irony after freeing your lover from his own servitude only to bind you to his will."

Alecto vanished in silvery mist then, leaving the three of them alone in the basement, Henry looking particularly dejected at the revelations.

Regina placed a hand on his shoulder and assured, "You didn't know, Henry. None of us did. But it will be over once we catch this bastard. Everyone will be free."

"Or wiped completely from existence if we're not fast enough," Emma reminded.

"Yes, or that," sighed Regina and she picked up the sword in her gloved hand. "I presume this means the reception dinner is being relocated from that awful Italian place to Granny's at least, so that's something."

Everyone had gathered at the diner, including Hook who now had his hook back on and was looking in dismay at his now poisoned hand in Gold's old jar and Anna who had a flask of the potion Rumplestiltskin had made for David after Neverland and a rather large blood stain on her wedding dress.

When Emma finished her explanation, everyone was floored. And worried.

"Neal is Lord of The Underworld?" Hook goggled. "Neal? But he's so... nice and boring!"

"And got your ungrateful ass resurrected by agreeing to the deal, you one-handed waste of space!" Emma snapped.

"Oi! Too soon!" Hook whined, holding his arm dejectedly.

"So, basically," David restated while adjusting a tassel on his maroon and silver brocade suit, "we have to apprehend this madman before he destroys our existence. Same old story."

"How does that even work?" asked Snow, stuffed rather uncomfortably into a booth in her ostentatious gown. "I mean, I know Fiona nearly succeeded..."

"Like my own curse," grimaced Rumplestiltskin who wore his usual suit because he'd refused to attend the nuptials of two individuals he loathed, "it was siphoned off the Original Darkness, the chaos out of which the Titans created Mt. Olympus, The Underworld, Elysium, Tartarus. In its original form it's simply a black orb the size of... an apple. It wasn't a curse then, just contained raw power. Somehow my mother learned of it from the books Tiger Lily foolishly gave her in her attempt to save me without having to cut me free of my destiny. She found a way to bind it to a spell. Possibly using an Author and the quill. As such, even when the written spell is physically or magically destroyed, the spell itself remains."

"Like burning the book didn't destroy it," Anna nodded. "Henry and the pen were unharmed, so it just... poofed back into physical existence as soon as the curse was re-set."

"Exactly," Rumplestiltskin nodded. "It took my mother a short time in a timeless fairy realm to bind the energy but it took me many centuries to them... tame that energy in a way that curse could be used to transfer and reform matter from one world to another, particularly one with no magic of its own."

"So... you spent centuries turning a bomb into a transporter," sighed Emma. "And this guy is going to use this quill, the shears, and some other divinely created magical objects to tear apart the last of the bindings that are keeping it in some kind of... dormant magical power source for unlimited portal making and make portals instead to unleash all of its concentrated power and obliterate worlds?"

"Not the most theoretically accurate description, but essentially, yes. And it took my mother mere days to undo most of my work, to return to its original destructive state save for Storybrooke itself."

"We don't have long if he doesn't even want to protect Storybrooke," David surmised.

"What if we can't get all the magical doohikies he's collecting to cancel out the silver slipper glitter and unicorn queefs you shoved into it before he destroys reality?"

"I'd say we make sure it doesn't get to that point," stated Regina.

"Can't we just get our hands on this... orb thing?" asked Hook. "Make sure Merlin's ex-lacky can't alter it?"

"No, we can't," Regina groaned, "The town is the curse now. He simply has to get control over it, and while Pan and Snow did that by casting the curse through a sacrifice, there is no death presently and this madman has magical objects created by gods that he can use to alter those requirements anyway. Besides, Fiona proved a sacrifice isn't need if all you want to do is blow shit up."

"But it may play to our favor that Laws of Magic are currently somewhat... mailable," mused Rumplestiltskin.

"And if his intention is to destroy everything, including Mt. Olympus," Belle amended, "it will take longer. Storybrooke itself wasn't destroyed by Fiona not just because she wanted it to remain, but because it would be harder than the other worlds to destroy as the center of all the worlds."

Rumplestitlskin nodded. "Belle is correct. There is a fail-safe, one last bit of magical containment that is not so easy to break as 'sliver slipper glitter and unicorn queefs'. Long before Pandora was born, when the Titans contained what remained of Chaos, they put a spark of Hope at the very center so that Zeus, in his mad claim for Mt. Olympus couldn't destroy reality completely if he was foolish enough to use it against them. At least not so quickly that they couldn't find a way to push back and stop him."

"Theoretically," Belle said, "if we could tap into that spark, we could use it, rather than the darkness, to stabilize the axis mundis between the realms and not have to worry about all these repeated curses. But it would require a light magic equal to the source... and, of course, have to pierce through all the darkness to make that connection... Anyway, it does give us time, a calm before the final storm."

"Can that alchemist give us any answers?" asked Emma. "Maybe even be swayed to our side?"

"Unlikely," Regina grunted, "but if you want to speak to him, he's in the Asylum.

"I will go to my vault," she continued. "While the actual paper incantation was destroyed after Pan's casting, there are remnants that might be useful protections that I can still harness myself... or perhaps augmented to allow at least some to leave town without suffering complete amnesia , if it comes to that."

"You said I can destroy the books," Anna spoke up. "I should start with that, right? I mean, if we can't capture this guy it won't mean anything, but if we do, then it means we're free. And if that means one less bit of magical bullshit telling me who I am, then I'm all for it."

"I'll go too," nodded Henry. "I want to help free the people I accidentally trapped."

"And maybe we can make use of the bindings first before destroying them. We have a few books in our possession," Belle interjected. "Would we be able to trap him with them?"

"It's a possibility," nodded Rumplestiltskin. "Anna may be able to pull the gold thread free so it could be used for other purposes. Then it would be a simple matter of using water from the River of Fire to destroy all residual magic in the books from the ink and quill."

"Simple if you have water from the River of Fire," Hook pointed out. "Or did you steal a vial after shoving Milah in the River of Lost Souls?"

"Don't pretend you still care about my late wife," Rumplestiltskin spat. "And no, I wasn't. But someone," he turned a cool glare at Zelena, "was."

The former Wicked Witch shrugged and sigh. "FIne, yes, I have samples that Hades gave me. I'm fairly certain that alchemist broke into my storm cellar looking for it. But I'm not foolish enough to keep in the most obvious place like my sister does with all of her magical knickknacks."

Regina glared and Zelena smirked and scoffed, "Oh, you're still mad?"

"Of course I'm still mad! You dosed me with a lust potion!"

Zelena scoffed. "I'm sorry. I told you, it's when I was with Hades and-"

"And you didn't bother to mention anything after you weren't!"

"I hardly saw the point. You got split and your less inhibited side went and ruined the prank, and it's not like you were ever going to act on it after that."

"Enough arguing," Emma spoke up, not really following what that was about, but not having the time to care.. "Zelena, you go and get your fire water. Belle, Gold, Henry, and Anna will get the books and try to disassemble them while Regina gets any protections that will help the town in case we can't capture this guy and tie him up with, ah, magical book bindings."

"I suppose," David considered, "Snow and I should warn the towns people. If people want to attempt to leave, they should have that right. But we'll let them know Regina is working on a way to ensure they have memories, even if it's just their curse memories."

"I'll help with that," Hook offered.. "Sure to be a lot of panic even if this should be old hat by now."

Emma watched everyone head out then took a moment to just breath before she too stood up and made her way outside into the rather chilly night, surprised to find her sister sitting alone on the front bench.

"I thought you'd be annoying Gold on the drive up the hill" Emma remarked.

"They're going to bring everything to the Library," shrugged Anna, "and Gold is the Dark One, so my presence isn't really required for book transport."

"I guess that's true," Emma agreed and took a seat beside her sister who was holding her engagement and wedding rings. "Having second thoughts about marrying Captain Codfish?"

Anna threw her a sour look. "No. I just don't feel like wearing rings that nearly took my arm off."

Emma sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "What do you want, Anna?"

"I wanted to talk."

"About what? Accusing me of interrupting your wedding to spite you? Or that you're motivation to try and contact Neal was in the hopes that you'd get rid of me long enough to have your wedding without poor pathetic Savior Emma killing the mood? Cause you don't get credit for doing the right thing for the wrong reasons."

"And you think I'd invite you when you called my relationship abusive crap?"

"Oh, spare me, Anna," Emma groaned. "You're not the victim here because I constantly pestered you into doing good things. I'm the one that constantly had to fight against your inclinations to do bad things. To be selfish. To be a jerk who doesn't care about others. I'm the one who gave up my son."

Anna looked mildly stricken and argued, "I said I was sorry for messing up your happiness."

"No, you didn't actually," Emma shot back. "You made a lot of sarcastic quips and accused me of being jealous."

"Yeah, well, maybe, but if it wasn't for this jerk, Emma, you wouldn't have made it through the first half of your 'story' without ending up as damaged as I am by this blood curse if you survived at all," Anna pointed out. "You needed my nastiness and ambition to get out of that situation by any means necessary. And I'm not sorry that losing your magic made you lose your grip and I got to sit in the driver's seat and play Savior. You were doing a half-assed job of it. You didn't want to accept all the responsibility even before it came with a prophesied death sentence. You wanted to run back to a normal life without magic and storybook characters!"

"But I didn't," Emma countered. "We both know it wasn't you that read Henry's story and decided to go back to that fight."

Anna let out a sigh. "Fine. I'll concede Mom's theory that we both play our parts in that mess."

"We did," Emma agreed. "But I get to be mad, Anna. I'm the one that actually had the savior destiny crap and I was never nasty or ambitious. You can look at that part of our lives now with your unfiltered, apathetic perspective and leave me with the emotional meltdown. You can have your true love and happy beginning or ending or whatever. But me? I'm never going to get the life I could have had, Dark Curse or not, if you never existed - and there wasn't genie magic involved to make it some badly ironic lesson on not basing your life on wishes.

"And you might have liked the person we were - actually liked instead of just more than that simpering princess - but we weren't going back to my life, so that stupid wish world with you sabotaging me actually getting true love is as close as I've gotten since that fucking motel room in Portland."

Anna threw her arms in the air. "You're seriously going to blame that stupid wish world on me? It didn't even make sense! It had a completely different history that didn't even add up, because apparently our family never got blood-cursed so I didn't exist or you'd be dead not being saved by your savior magic and that geezer's spell. But I still had to technically exist since you were inserted into that world instead of being created by it. So, yeah I fucked up you getting everything you wished for. And maybe my liking being a jerk more than a simpering idiot and wanting to get back to my true love is what got us out of that lie as much as you not wanting your actual kid to find out your fake-ass version of him murdered his other mother - though don't even try to pretend you liked that version of us."

Emma's shoulders slumped and she sighed. "Fine, maybe that doesn't count. But how can I not be pissed off that I got the shitty journey and then you come along and get the happily ever after? You even got to create a shared memory with our parents, entwine your love story with theirs. I had a story that was kind of similar to theirs until you changed it, so now I've got nothing to relate to them with. I've got nothing to prove to them in any way that seems to matter to them or anyone in this world that my love, my life, in this world was as meaningful and true as all the fairy tale crap that came before or after. That just ceased to exist because of you."

"Oh, yeah," scoffed Anna, "losing a story is a great sacrifice. I lost our parents love and affection, their trust, Emma. When they thought I was you, I could do no wrong, but the moment I'm a cursed version of you? I'll always be inferior. I'll always be the evil sister."

Shrugging, she concluded, "Killian's the only one who doesn't look at me like a ticking time bomb."

Emma raised a brow and asked, "Is that why you were so quick to get hitched? Because he's the only one you think wants you around?"

"No," Anna defended. "And I'm not with him because he's my only option or because I don't think I can do better or deserve better, which I know is what you're thinking. That's how you interpreted it when you were part of that weird mental ménage à trois. That he was an asshole, but he worshiped you and it was your job to give everyone their happy ending, so if you were his, you could find a way to make that work. But that's you, not me."

Emma frowned, realizing that was true. It wasn't the right way to look at things now. But it had made sense then. Her life had been so hard, filled with so much pain after Portland that she'd closed herself off to loving again. It hadn't helped that both when her mother's (or then roommate's) encouragement and whatever Regina had put in her memory spell to give Henry a good life allowed her to feel hopeful again, that those she opened her heart for were quickly snatched away. Or that when she started dating Hook a year after leaving Storybrooke, it was after a year of being brainwashed into still thinking that Neal had never loved her (one part of Regina's spell she couldn't be grateful for), only to see Neal and yet another man she loved (however foolishly) die.

So when Neal died, when Walsh was killed by Zelena too, Emma had reasoned that she wasn't meant to have that kind of happy ending. Or Anna had reasoned? Or the both of them. That was still a bit confusing sometimes. But it came down to trying to reconcile two contradictory sets of emotions by believing it made sense to throw herself into loving a man who couldn't be a good man without her returning his feelings - and who would never ever leave her if he depended on her that much and had grown that addicted to being seen as a hero. It wasn't healthy, obviously, and she had known that while Anna hadn't cared. But she was the Savior and that meant making sure everyone else had a happy ending, and so she'd given in to codependency kicked in and she allowed herself to become Stepford Swan. It wasn't even about loving the one she was with, it was about loving the one that was left.

At least, that's how Emma had been looking at since getting her independence back. But that wasn't her. And it wasn't even completely Anna, either. It was the two of them engaged in a tug-of-war, and even if Anna usually had the upper hand, the emotional mess that her sister had become during the progression of her relationship with Hook was probably in large part due to Emma either fighting it or making up rather pathetic justifications for it that conflicted with her sister's actual love for Hook... if a part of her actually was capable of that.

"I guess I haven't been entirely fair to you," Emma finally conceded. "It's hard to... separate out my point of view sometimes."

"Well, being a sort of sociopath helps with not getting attached to pointless crap," shrugged Anna. "And being okay with manipulating Mom and Dad into a big-ass wedding again. I figured it was best to strike hot on the guilt before they realized that by law, since I was created by a curse, I'm basically even less an official family member than your bastard kid."

Emma frowned at her calling Henry a bastard but she couldn't exactly argue against that.

"I'm sorry Mom and Dad are so judegy," Emma told her. "I think you're a jerk, yeah, and I don't like you a lot of the time, but I don't think how you were made makes you any less family. You're still my sister."

Anna smiled a little at that. "Thanks, I think."

"Sure," Emma laughed a little and toyed absently with her necklace, drawing her sister's attention.

"I'm sorry about your things," Anna gestured to the keychain. "I really didn't mean for rats to gnaw on your boxes."

"It's not your fault," Emma sighed. "Why would you care about junk that isn't yours? I'm just glad it didn't get poofed into nonexistence with the Dark One thing."

Anna shrugged. "It's supposed to be born of true love, right? That's what Belle said, anyway. I never knew what to make of that. But it means something to you. It did even when that meaning was all twisted up... like Killian's ring, that he gave me when I was the Dark One."

"That his brother made from a gem he got by murdering people?"

"Yeah, that one," Anna nodded. "Finding out its origin makes everyone else think it's a creepy murder trophy that an asshole gave to his gullible kid brother as he was kicking it, a death he had coming as the price for sacrificing all those innocent men to get a magical jewel to get a naval commission. And, okay, maybe that is what it is, technically, but I still choose to see it for what we both believed it was, because that meant something to us, and that's the one pure thing he owned at the time, that he gave to me when I was the Dark One to remind me of the good person I was under that curse. To have hope that I could make it through back to myself.

"And, okay," Anna continued, "I know that I wasn't ever a good person. But Killian hasn't been in three hundred years either. Which doesn't mean we don't want to pretend that we can be. Pretending can keep you sane. And the princess pretend was nice while it lasted, having your magic and being a savior with everyone's unwavering love and support, but now I am what I am and you are what you, and I guess we have to make the most of that," she concluded with something of a resigned expression.

"I suppose we do," Emma agreed.

Shaking her head, Anna told her, "Look, Emma, whether you believe it or not, I am sorry that anything I caused you to lose made you angry and bitter, think you were the loser all those foster parents said so you were unable to see true love when you tackled it in an ally. I never got your thing with Neal, but I'm sorry if any part of me is the reason you weren't able to save him. I know things would have been different for us then, but you could've been happy and then one day maybe I'd have been free to go make the day of a very dejected pirate drinking himself to death, and you'd have been free of me to really find your Tallahassee. And then you wouldn't have to be so sad on what was supposed to be the happiest day of my life."

"But we can't change that," sighed Emma.

Anna grimaced. "No, we can't. And it sucks. We're not so entirely different. We're just... forced by crappy circumstances to be envious of what the other has. That's what I meant. I like to be liked, to be important and adventurous. Be a princess. You'd rather be standing in the background, rather have the ordinary things that regular people have without titles and costumes. We got stuck with the wrong roles, and there's nothing we can do about that."

"Yeah, we just have to make the best of it," Emma agreed and told her sister, "I'm not unhappy for you and... Killian. As your sister, I want to be happy for you, but..."

"You've still got that savior drive in you, even if you don't have the destiny anymore," Anna concluded for her.

"I am sorry your wedding got ruined, though," Emma told her. "Especially the, ah, hand thing. I mean, since now it's..."

"Irreversibly necrotic?" Anna finished for her. "To be honest, it was me who spiked our rings."

Emma's jaw fell open. "You... what... why?"

"Well, I got the idea from Henry... well... Regina when she mentioned that Henry had jinxed our rings... but she thought it was maybe best to leave the contraceptive spell on them considering the Evil Twin curse thing. Anyway, I rather like his hook, and when he showed up all excited that he'd convinced Gold to give him back his hand..."

"So instead of saying something you poisoned your rings at your wedding to destroy his hand forever?"

"Well, our family's weddings need dark magic drama, right? Seemed only right. I didn't know there was any real drama to be had. And we'd have been actually married by the time it kicked in if you hadn't interrupted the ceremony!"

"Again with the you don't plagiarize?"

"Shut up!" Anna huffed. "It was short notice. I wanted a good, properly dramatic family story while I'm still a part of it. I was going to blame that alchemist. And, okay, maybe I didn't entirely think it through. But it all worked out."

"Accept for Hook."

"Meh. He'll whine about it for a few days, call me names, then I'll make it up to him in lots of kinky ways and he'll forgive me."

"You two really are messed up."

Anna sighed deeply. "Fine. Whatever. I don't want to argue about that anymore when we could be obliterated from existence shortly. I just want to be happy that I got to know what it was like to be truly loved, whether I can truly feel that without left over bits and pieces of you or not. You got to actually feel that, all on your own, and it was all yours and Neal's. So even if I can't really get that, no matter what crap Mom and Dad shovel at you, I know you were happy, Emma, and that the good and bad stuff in your life means more to you than just who it made you as a savior. It's your story and that matters, whether it's written down or not."

"I suppose you're right," Emma conceded with a tight smile.

"Are we cool then?"

Emma rolled her eyes. "Yeah, Anna, we're cool."

Anna straightened up and insisted, "Great, so let's destroy all this fake-ass divine crap so more people don't get screwed over, win the war we didn't even know we were in, and kick that old geezer's wrinkled undead ass so I can get married!"

"Yeah, all right," Emma agreed, standing as well. "But first, you really need to change out of that dress. It looks like you brutally murdered a swan and pulled on its bloody carcass."

AN: The description of The Apprentice's house is from the show. He also had a matching 1956 Ford Crown Victoria out front. I decided to Christine it up. Some credit to violetfaust for various posts on tumblr about Emma's terrible justifications for her relationship with Hook. This chapter mentions the Wish Universe, that fucking mess! As for its logistics, A&E said in an interview that the entire history of the wish universe is different even preceding the curse. Adam also said it is now a really real place. Jane Espenson, however, quick to rather (surprisingly) angrily tweet that Adam was essentially talking out of his ass in those interviews and it's not remotely real. So which is true? I won't delve into whether Wish World was vaporized out of existence after we have to presume Aladdin is un-genied or if it still exists and Henry is underage knocking up Lady Violet in a rape flower field in Camelot. (Knowing A&E, it's probably the later just so they can revisit that farce if necessary and have Hook go drinking with his older self or something.)

"You don't get credit for doing the right thing for the wrong reasons." -Jessica Jones