The Outstanding Balance of Morality (revised edition)

by Meresger

There's a new villain in town using old tricks, and when the mysterious thief brings about Storybrooke's latest plot-twist, a lie is discovered and an old enemy re-sworn to revenge unleashes a far worse threat. And is there really such a thing as an "Evil Twin"? [Emma/Other (non-romance), Swanfire] (rated M for language) (Family/Action/Romance/Adventure)

20. V Is For Violet

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

General Note: I forgot to mention 'Christine' in the last chapter's end note. For any who didn't realize, the 1956 red and white Ford Crown Victoria is canonically the car that belongs to The Sorcerer's Apprentice as it was shown outside his house in the episode "The Apprentice". It didn't try to attack Hook and Rumple, of course. Let's say the spell didn't activate until after he was killed to protect the house until he could escape The Underworld.

---

CHAPTER TWENTY

V IS FOR VIOLET

(flashback)

As he helped set the table in his grandparents' farmhouse, it felt to Henry that his family went a bit overboard with holidays. Maybe it was an immigrant thing, either the novelty of a new tradition or some desperation to adopt and assimilate-though there were certainly a lot of ways in which his family clearly had no desire to completely emulate a normal American family... or even an abnormal one.

Thanksgiving was the one holiday that didn't seem to have anything similar in The Enchanted Forest. They could translate their winter and summer solstice customs into Christmas and the Fourth of July and even if there was no Valentine's Day, it was kind of that general theme every day in fairytale lands. Henry supposed that his family and everyone in town sort of saw themselves like Pilgrims, coming to a new and distant land and so it was a celebration of founding a new community and how after the Dark Curse was broken everyone helped out in finding the family and friends that they'd been separated from. Of course, most families weren't as dysfunctional as Henry's.

His family was like a bad soap opera with magic. So sort of like that old one the local TV station showed late at night called Passions.

"Why don't we all go around the table and say what we're thankful for?" Snow White cheerfully began after everyone had taken their seats. "I'm thankful to have this lovely home and a lovely family with which to share this meal.

"Neal?" she prompted the toddler in the booster seat who was already reaching for the mashed potatoes, probably to try throwing them, "what are you thankful for, sweetie?"

"PIE!" Neal shouted, probably what he wanted to be eating now, not what he was thankful for.

"Good answer, bud!" laughed David, ruffling his son's hair. "I'm thankful to have a working dishwasher instead of that piece of junk we had in the Loft. And also, family, of course."

"Some of us more than others which translates to barely at all," uttered Rumplestiltskin out of turn. "I suppose we have that in common, at least."

"Wine," said Regina with a deadpan expression and a slight sigh. "Lots of wine."

"I'll second that," agreed Belle as she kept Gideon from knocking her silverware to the floor and Snow scowled at both women. Her scowl increased when the bookish brunet added, "and setting down in a normal fashion instead of some bizarre mimicking of a painting depicting a foretelling of betrayal and death that also made it very hard to pass the salt and converse with anyone. Whoever's idea that was..."

Henry winced behind his glass of water. Belle had become quite sharp-tongued since her brain tumor was removed and it was pretty obvious she didn't like his grandmother, maybe even less than his mother since she said Regina at least didn't pretend her intentions were good when she used someone and then screwed them over... or used Belle, anyway.

All eyes were on him now, he realized, and Henry shifted in his seat before glancing sideways and remarking, "I'm thankful to have my other mom back - so I won't have to be traumatized this year by walking in on Emma having sex with a diseased pirate in the potting shed when I get stuck taking out the my breakfast that Hook threw in the trash."

"Henry!" Snow gasped.

"Oh, we're all thankful to not have the skank and the pirate here," Regina scoffed, clearly already tipsy. "Don't pretend you enjoyed them giving each other handjobs under the table the entire meal last year and being too preoccupied drooling in their food while making puppy eyes at one another to coherently participate in any table conversation even when we weren't your weird performance meal art.

"You tolerate their inconsiderate and slutty behavior," she continued, "because one of them is your child that you feel guilty for not raising her to be a respectable princess instead of a pirate's blow up doll - and now feel doubly guilty because she's actually cursed to be a selfish bimbo with an unhealthy sexual addiction that predicates using her lover to satisfy both her horniness and her devious intentions - namely to make her infuriatingly moral twin over there as miserable as possible, given a failure to kill her in the womb, by co-opting Emma's happy ending in a hideous house with a hideous man for whom she intentionally neglected Henry whose only escape while living in that house was taking out his breakfast in the trash."

Emma abruptly stood up, uttering, "Excuse me."

"Emma!" Snow called out as the blonde hurried from the room in the direction of the back door and then turned a scowling look on Regina. "I said not to bring any of that up! How many glasses have you had?"

"I chose not to listen to you, and the number required to get through this meal without cursing myself," Regina shot back after taking another sip of her wine.

"We all know this holiday celebration is a farce," Rumplestiltskin spoke up. "In the fine American tradition, we dislike one another immensely and yet punish ourselves once a year by setting down to a ridiculously large meal served inexplicably in the middle of the afternoon. If anyone here is expecting this not to be an acrimonious disappointment, then you're delusional. Don't forget," he addressed Snow and Charming specifically, "you failed to invite me and my wife last year and we haven't just forgotten that fact."

"It didn't seem appropriate when you were fighting after your son was kidnapped," David stated.

"Yes, our son that your wife and daughter threatened to murder in cold blood for sending your little princess' pirate on an unscheduled but not remotely dangerous sojourn that he was always already planning to take, coward that is without having his ego stroked with what I can only hope are lies," Rumplestiltskin replied, "or your wife has extremely low and troubling standards in her daughter's suitors to have been 'rooting' for a syphilitic three hundred year old pirate with a history of murder and rape over my son... or anyone else in this town who is not a murderer or a rapist... which, I realize, given the society we come from, doesn't actually leave quite as many options as one might think."

"Can we not talk about such... violent subjects in front of my son?" Snow huffed. "Don't you care what yours hears?"

"The truth?" he shrugged. "This family is full of terrible people who have done terrible things and gotten away with it, for the most part because you and your husband have let them. So, thank you for that, I suppose." He held up his glass of scotch. "I am thankful for your utter failure to understand the concept of justice even before you cursed two kingdoms with my mother's darkest of all spells and forfeited your right to lock us all in the dungeon of your choosing. Although, it would have been nice if you'd played your old hypocrisy card there and at least executed Regina's waste of magic sister whom, you may recall, murdered my firstborn after which he chose to sacrifice any attempt to save himself from her duplicitous fate so that Zelena could be defeated. Which she wasn't."

"And now she's moping back at her farm," Regina reminded, "because her daughter was erased from existence and she didn't want to sit here having you remind her of that."

"I thought it was because Emma refused to come if she was invited?" Belle interjected.

"Yes, well, I didn't even have to get that far once she knew Rumple was coming," scoffed Regina. "I mean, honestly, I killed one each of their parents," she fingered Snow and Charming, "and they got over it eventually. Hook murdered Charming's daddy and he got over it the very next day."

"They also have had more concussions than an entire American football team combined. Not to mention," Rumplestiltskin amended, "that memory-removal potion tends to cause some irreversible brain damage."

"What!?" Snow gasped.

"Well, you could have requested a spell, dearie, but you wanted-"

"The eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!" Belle chirped.

"And now you the memory of a sixty year old woman," shrugged Rumplestiltskin. "Which, when you think about it, you actually should be. Just don't be surprised if you end up with early onset dementia. You might want to see Whale about that. And have you made a plan for what happens to your son should one of you get hit by a bus crossing the street and the other one also drops dead on account of you sharing a heart?"

"Rumple, that's a little mean," Belle sighed.

"You want to hear mean," David began and Henry stood up.

"What's wrong with you people? I'm pretty sure the holiday was originally supposed to be about putting differences aside and helping each other. Which seems to be something this family only does when the town is in danger. The rest of the time no one can be bothered to step up and do the right thing without being begged, threatened, or blackmailed. Just being family should be motivation enough to help each other, but it never has been, has it? If we were all less selfish in that original timeline, it's no wonder Mom hates it here," he concluded before escaping to the kitchen the extra level of awkwardness he'd heaped on.

There Henry took a couple of slices of pie, not really caring that he left a big empty space in the dessert his grandmother had worked hard on that morning and probably wanted to slice herself.

He grabbed his coat and scarf from the peg in the mud room before heading outside in the direction of the barn where the cars were parked. His intuition had told him right, that Emma had retreated to the Bug. Henry wasn't surprised to find her there. Or that she'd run away. He'd figured out awhile ago that there were things she'd shared with her parents that had strengthened their connection once - but here those conversations erased and it left her a bit unmoored. His mom didn't feel like she could lean on his grandparents to help her adjust, so when she felt vulnerable and confused she retreated to her car, one of the few things left of her life before Zelena's spell that was relatively unchanged.

Henry knocked on the window and his mom reached over to unlock and push open the door.

"I brought pie," he said, handing her a plate and a fork, remembering a few days after a different Thanksgiving when they ate pumpkin pie on the hood of the Bug because Emma had told him that it was his dad's favorite, the only true thing in her story about Neal back then.

"Thanks. I'm sorry I bailed like that, Henry," she sighed, taking the plate.

"It's fine. Like Grandpa Gold said, it's kind of a farce anyway," Henry shrugged. "It's not like we're actually part of America here."

Emma picked at her pie. "That's true..."

"I kinda get it, you know," Henry told her. "When it felt like no one really saw me, really cared, I'd run off to my castle where I could pretend that wasn't really my life, imagine having the family I wanted."

"And is this it?" Emma asked him. "The family you wanted."

Henry shrugged. "Well, in the beginning, I obviously wasn't thinking fairytales. After I got that book..." He let out a sigh and admitted, "not exactly. Everyone's more complicated than storybook characters. More..."

"Thoughtless," grumbled Emma. "The people I remember could be selfish and they could be cruel, but... they were more self-aware of that. Maybe they felt bad, maybe they didn't, but they knew when they were being jerks, when their actions or inactions would hurt people."

"But Anna and Zelena don't, because they're 'Evil Twins', so that influenced how magic reacted to the time travel thing and affected everyone," nodded Henry. "I know. That's what Grandpa Gold said. It's probably why he drank that memory potion so he wouldn't try to save Dad. He just didn't care the way he should have anymore when Aunt Anna opened that portal. If the first spell hadn't been cast by someone cursed like that, if the portal back to the future wasn't created using that wand and channeling your magic through Anna, this universe wouldn't have been... set in stone in a kind of crappy foundation and the other more magically balanced one completely erased."

"Accept for my memories and my magic."

"Yeah," Henry grimaced and told her, "I'm sorry you lost all of that. And I'm sorry that I'm not the son you remember."

Emma's head snapped up. "Henry, you're-"

"Not him," he cut her off. "I appreciate what you said in New York, but we both know that I'm not, even if it's a sort of weird paradox. You talk about that me, how good he was, how much he cared about doing the right thing and helping everyone, and I know that's not me. Not as much as it should be. That other Henry probably wouldn't have suggested letting Marian die so his mom could marry a guy she just met because a missing page from a book said they were soulmates. He wouldn't have been okay with the woman who murdered his dad, even if she was his aunt, getting anywhere near him. Or let his other mom date a guy he knew was bad for her and a bad person -or left said guy to die and only returned to save his useless ass after realizing his mom would probably be more upset Hook was dead than relieved that I was okay - and blame me for the rest of my life."

"No doubt about that," Emma agreed with a grimace, amending, "and I'm sorry my sister's being a bitch who put you at the bottom of her list made you feel like you deserved that or that it was okay, because it's not. And even if your moral compass isn't pointed as true north as I remember, Kid, for the record, I would have been completely okay with you leaving Hook to die."

"Noted," chuffed Henry.

"But you're still my son," Emma insisted. "It might be some quirky paradox, but you're still the kid who gave me morning sickness and stretchmarks even if my magic and memories come from another universe. I suppose I belong to both timelines, but it's the memories of the other one, the way my magic feels out of sync with this one that Zelena screwed up with hers, that makes it hard to feel like I belong here even if it's where I was physically born. My parents here are my parents, but... my magic, my heart, whatever... it feels the absence of my other parents, the ones who met on that forest road. It's just... it's tragic that they were just erased, that everything that came from that moment and all the moments after and made them the people I remember got turned into completely different moments that resulted in different people. And maybe if I was just me from here without those memories, without that original magic, I wouldn't care."

"But you also wouldn't have saved this world maybe and we'd all not exist," Henry pointed out. "You wouldn't carry in your heart the memories of those better versions of all of us, the stories of your parents whose meeting was pure and perfect instead of a contrived mess. Memories of having a son who cared as much about strangers as his family. Who would have fought for the right thing no matter what anyone said instead of going to The Underworld to retrieve an evil pen he destroyed because he's got crap convictions and more of his grandfather's interest in power than he should that helped almost destroy existence."

"We all got played there, Henry," Emma reminded. "And it was the adults who should have been looking out for you, not letting a little boy have that much power in the first place, figure it was suspicious. You were doing what you thought was right, what everyone told you was right, embracing your destiny instead of running from it. I'm still trying to figure out how to handle that for myself, what the right answer is. And I'm sorry that you're stuck with that instead of getting that put-together mother you had in New York who could make you a perfect breakfast in four inch heals and had time to play video games."

"Meh. High heals are stupid," Henry shrugged, "and you're too good at beating me, anyway. Playing Grandpa is way more fun. He's so bad and a worse loser. I've learned a ton of Enchanted Forest curse words I didn't know existed before."

"Wonderful," snorted Emma, but she smiled a little. "I'm still sorry that I'm a mess, Henry. And I'm sorry that you feel like... you're not the son I want you to be. It sucks feeling like I'm not the daughter my parents want me to be. But all you have to do, Kid, is resist the bad impulses that I guess have been harder to fight in this world and follow the good ones that should be easier to now on.

"What I'm thankful for is getting myself back with the time and the past experience to make sure you've got every chance possible to realize your potential to be an amazing person, because I didn't go through nine months of pregnancy and twelve hours of labor to bring some immortal and unimaginative idiot's plot device into the world."

"Ah... thanks, I guess," Henry replied, not exactly at ease with his mother talking about any of that stuff.

Rain started splattering against the windshield in fat drops and Henry looked back at the house where most of the rest of his family was probably eating in awkward silence.

"I guess I should get back. Maybe help my uncles start a food fight or something to break the tension."

"You've got my permission," Emma chuffed.

Henry smiled sadly at his mom. "I miss him too," he said, having noticed the slightly tattered picture she'd tucked into her pocket before letting him in. "But Dad wouldn't want you to be sad, you know?"

"I know," Emma replied. "I guess I'm just not ready to not be sad. About any of it."

Henry nodded in understanding... or as much as he could understand. He'd barely gotten to know his dad, so he mostly missed him in those moments when he accomplished (or failed at) something. He supposed that his mom felt that emptiness all the time.

---

Neal's first morning waking up in the world of the living was... cold. Emma had hogged the blankets, bundled up like she was in a cocoon and oblivious to the clanking and sputtering of the old radiator in the corner. When he tried to retrieve them, she pulled the covers more tightly around herself muttering something about Ingrid, not feeling good, and not wanting to go to school.

Rather than disturb her further, Neal braved the chilly hardwood floor to reach the laundry basket and pull out some sweatpants, a hoodie, and some wool socks on the way to the bathroom.

Neal was swishing mouthwash from Emma's bottle on the vanity and trying not to over think the new chance at life he'd been given with all of its wondrous possibilities and possible disappointments, lest a panic attack break the chill facade he'd spent years perfecting, when the bathroom door was thrown open rather violently, startling him into a spit-take and coughing as a completely naked Emma flew into the small tiled space, dropped to her knees on the yellow bathmat, and wretched into the toilet.

"I fucking hate motherfucking nature!" she moaned before vomiting up more of last night's spaghetti. After which she finally realized she wasn't alone in the bathroom and lamented, "Damn, why couldn't you be getting the paper or something? Naked barfing is not sexy! A f-fuck! It's c-cold in h-here!"

"Yeah, no shit," Neal agreed, grabbing her bathrobe from the back of the door which Emma quickly pulled on after flushing the toilet. "And while any kind of barfing is not sexy, I still love you and think you're hot. Even when you're freezing and puking," he told her, tugging his black beanie down on her head. "And hogged the blankets."

Emma gave him a sheepish smile. "Sorry. Guess sleeping naked in January isn't the best idea when you've got a busted radiator."

"I'm sure I can begin earning my keep by finding a handy man's version of true love's kiss to put it back into working order," Neal joked. "If there's anything I can do to help you feel better-"

"Just let me curl up in a nauseous ball in peace," Emma answered, taking the bottle of mouthwash. "It usually doesn't last more than an hour. Also, I really have to pee, so... if I could have some privacy for at least one bodily function this morning, that'd be great."

"You got it." Neal dared to drop a kiss on her forehead, then shut the door after him.

At the sound of the newspaper smacking the front door as he reached the first floor, Neal retrieved the plastic-wrapped periodical while watching a miserable-looking paper boy kick Emma's insane garden gnome off his bike chain.

They definitely had to do something about that, Neal considered, carrying the paper into the kitchen to see if he could figure out hot chocolate making without those just-add-water envelopes he used for the rare winter day that he felt like having cocoa with those little marshmallows over a cup of joe. It was something he'd intended to learn to surprise Emma, a more concrete intention after they decided to move to Tallahassee, but after that it was hard to drink the stuff with or without cinnamon and not have his heart ache so he'd stuck with coffee.

"You add the milk last," Henry's voice interrupted Neal's pondering the box of cocoa powder and a bottle of milk at the stove while trying to unlock Hook's cellphone that Emma had picked up at her sister's house and given him to use.

"It's easy," the hat-and-scarf-wearing teen explained, grabbing the rest of the ingredients from the Pop-Tart cupboard. "Combine two tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder, 2 tablespoons sugar, and a pinch of salt with just enough water to dissolve them in a medium saucepan. Stir over medium heat until it boils, continue to simmer for one minute, then stir in one cup of milk until it's hot but doesn't start to boil, remove it from the stove, add a quarter teaspoon vanilla extract, pour it into a cup, top with whipped dream sprinkled with cinnamon. Granny puts cinnamon sticks in for effect, but that's kind of waste.

"And Hook's password is 'boobs' with zeroes. Also, his wallpaper is-"

"A shirtless selfie," snorted Neal, feeling rather like the child in the relationship at that moment. "Definitely not surprised."

"Used to be a shirtless selfie of Aunt Anna," Henry replied, dropping two chocolate Pop-Tarts into the toaster, "which is still traumatizing since she still looks exactly like Mom, plus or minus some scars and the glasses Mom wears most of the time now and more like how Mom would look if she was a crack addict or had terminal cancer or something, I guess."

After a shrug, Henry added, "You definitely don't want to look at Hook's photo album. It's dick and hook picks, creepy close ups of Aunt Anna sleeping, even creepier close ups of Gramps sleeping, and lots of downloaded pictures of dolphins and rainbows. He's seriously mentally unstable."

Neal snorted again in agreement while trying his hand at making hot chocolate according to his kid's recipe... which was probably Mary Margaret's recipe, since he vaguely remembered Henry mentioning that Regina didn't like hot chocolate but his grandmother did and she'd shown him how to make it back when she was still his memory-less fourth grade teacher and he'd sneak over to her and Emma's apartment without his adoptive mother knowing. His grandfather, however, according to Henry, could only "make" Pop-Tarts until the last couple weeks of Snow's pregnancy when she was craving pancakes so no longer having any servants (or memory of if he'd learned to cook anything in The Enchanted Forest that year) he had to get a crash cooking course from Granny.

At least I can make pancakes and scramble eggs without burning them, Neal thought as he poured water in the pot, trying to get the cocoa to dissolve over the heat.

"Looking forward to babysitting again today?" Neal asked, unable to help himself from ribbing the teen.

"No," Henry grouched. "Can you at least come over after taking Grandma's car in and visiting your brother and bring food from Granny's? If I have to eat another gluten free anything I might reconsider becoming a villain."

Neal laughed. "Sure."

A horn honked and Henry groaned. "That'd be my ride to Grandparents Duty."

"Then you'd better go before your other mom's homicidal car finishes digging itself out of the garage and takes it out on Regina's Mercedes."

Carrying the other mug and the newspaper upstairs, Neal found Emma back in bed hugging a pillow and looking pretty miserable.

"Henry didn't spit it out," he said of the cocoa, "so it's not horrible."

Emma sat up and took the mug, sipping experimentally. "It'll do."

"Wow, you guys are harsh!" groaned Neal and she smiled.

"It's very sweet of you. Thank you. Don't get offended if I throw it back up."

"I'll try not to give up my culinary dreams," Neal joked, sitting down on the side of the bed.

Unfolding the paper he suggested, "Wanna hear the front page story about your parents to cheer you up?"

"I detect sarcasm," Emma grumbled. "I don't like sarcasm in the morning." She sighed. "How bad is it?"

"'New Year's Eve Party Crashed By Rampaging Royals'," Neal read, "'It was the usual evening of end-of-the-year festivities in Storybrooke with residents attending parties to ring in the new year. While there are usually a few drunk and disorderly arrests and traffic tickets, the attendants of Dr. Viktor Frankenstein's gathering were treated to a couple of party crashers just after midnight when the legendary Snow White and Prince Charming, usually among Storybrooke's most upstanding citizens and public servants, rampaged onto the premises in their evening attire brandishing a sword and long bow.'"

Neal paused while Emma groaned and she grumblingly urged, "Keep going."

"'The couple proceeded to ransack the house, terrifying the invited guests and shredding house plants until their daughter, Sheriff Swan, arrived on scene to disable them and cart them off. According to Dr. Frankenstein, the two royals were dosed with some kind of hallucinogenic concoction, which our sources here at The Daily Mirror have traced back to a party put on by Princess Abigail and Sir Frederick who claim to have no idea who might have dosed their friends. So who is this Party Potion Prankster? Or something more sinister behind this interior decor carnage? Whether this was a cruel humiliation exacted by an old enemy that intentionally put innocent people in harm's way or a wacky party prank gone wrong, one thing is clear: no justice will bring back Dr. Frankenstein's prized bromeliads or repair the arrow-holes in Goldilock's fur coat.'"

As he folded the paper back up, Neal wondered, "Is that implying that Goldilocks skinned those bears and made coats out of them?"

"I think she tried," Emma shrugged, "but they're actually cursed people because were-bears are apparently a thing where Merida is from. They ran the day spa for awhile, until someone found a toe in their footbath."

"Huh. Were-bears."

"Yep," Emma snorted and then smiled at him and his brows furrowed.

"What?"

"Nothing. I just like not being the most Fairy Tale Land ignorant person in the room for a change. And you actually grew up there!"

"In the most dirt poor backwater part of it three hundred years ago."

"No! Don't remind me of the three hundred years thing! It's creepy."

"I was in Neverland. It was like an evil all nighttime Groundhog Day," shrugged Neal. "And I'm pretty sure a couple hundred years there is like a few decades here. My grandparents had similar tastes in creepy-ass alternate realms of existence."

"Got that right!" Emma agreed and pushed herself up with a, "Gotta go barf again. Try holding my hair and I'll punch you in the face!"

Neal watched her hurry to the bathroom, slamming the door and winced at the sound of her retching, but obeyed her command even if he knew she wouldn't actually punch him in the face. Her sister? Now, Anna was the type to actually follow through with her threats, or even more likely just throw punches without any forewarning.

Flipping through the paper, Neal skimmed editorials and finally near the back discovered an odd little section called "Obituary Retractions", which he supposed was a legitimate regular column in Storybrooke.

NEAL CASSIDY, ALSO KNOWN AS BAELFIRE, FIRSTBORN SON OF RUMPLESTILTSKIN (MR. GOLD) who was laid to rest a little over two years ago following his death by the hands of then self-proclaimed Wicked Witch Zelena, returned to life last night after being released from a deceptive contracted by Zeus which he had signed under false pretenses on behalf of Emma Swan (until recently misidentified as Emma Jones, wife of Killian "Captain Hook" Jones, who has since changed her name to "Anna Jones"). Mr. Cassidy had served as Lord of The Underworld following the dethroning of King Arthur who briefly held the potion by the unlawful "first dibs" rule and is succeeded by magically spayed serial killer and brief Storybrooke villainness, fur aficionado, avid eyebrow waxing protester, and hotrod enthusiast Cruella de Vil. (Mr. Cassidy's coffin will be exhumed after the spring thaw and the plot and headstone will be available for repurchase 14 business days later if not reserved for reuse by the family before then. Visit the Storybrooke Cemetery undertaker for details.)

"They're reselling my burial plot," Neal commented when Emma emerged from the bathroom.

"It's a small town. Resell plots or cut down trees," Emma shrugged. "When my sister was off in The Underworld being useless, the town selected Hook's plot by some warn-out headstone that no one could read anymore, so they dumped his dead ass on top of the one already there. I am totally getting my money back. If the coffin's still in good enough condition, I could buy a new furnace and maybe even afford a demon-possessed-car exorcist."

"Are they a thing?"

"I don't know. I'm broke. I didn't bother looking," Emma shrugged and started pulling on her uniform.

"Guess I should really look for a job then," mused Neal.

"Well, it would help. Hook just sat around on his ass for six months until my sister made him a deputy so he could get paid by the town for either sitting on his ass doing nothing, taping my sisters ass in her office, or beating people's asses for no good reason. Even if you're one of the good guys, I am not making you a deputy. There's enough nepotism in this town that I don't think it'd win me any points even if people are clinging to the whole monarchy thing."

"Probably true," Neal agreed, "and cute as you are in that uniform-" Emma snorted, "making out last night while you were on duty was as far as my Fargo fantasy goes."

"I hope I was at least sexier than Francis MacDormand," Emma retorted, amending with a sigh as she fastened her belt, "I'm gonna have to order one of those awful maternity Sheriff shirts soon and the stretchy front pants. I can't even button mine anymore."

"If it makes you feel better, pretty sure those aren't any less attractive than the regular uniform," Neal joked and Emma threw some laundry at his head.

"Get dressed. You're taking my mom's car to the garage."

As Neal obeyed, Emma headed downstairs to find Henry's scarf still hanging on the rack by the door, her winter coat in a heap on the floor... and the ultrasound picture she'd shoved in the pocket the other night laying beside it.

"Shit!"

Emma dialed Henry's phone but it went to voicemail. She sent a text. Waited. No response.

When Neal came downstairs he found her standing there looking pale.

"What's wrong?"

"Henry knows," Emma answered with a groan, gesturing to the photo.

"You had a sonogram done?" Neal asked, smiling as he looked at the amorphous blob.

"Not the point. Henry-"

"Will calm down. You freaked when you found out your mom was pregnant, right? But you came around."

"Mostly I was just distracted by you dying and a crazy woman trying to kill us all," Emma countered. "Then I was conflicted about whether to stay in town or not until I fell down a time portal and my sister had a jealous fit over Mommy & Me class that made my magic go crazy. She came around, sure, but probably only after discovering my parents kind of massively suck at parenting so there's not much to be jealous of him for. I mean, they ditch him whenever possible to go on crazy family adventures. Maybe Anna was actually emulating them! But the point is, what if Henry ends up feeling exactly the same way and I'm just going to screw this kid up even worse than all of us!"

Emma was caught between bursting into tears and hyperventilating and Neal pulled her into a half hug.

"Henry's not going to end up feeling the same way," Neal reassured her. "And you're not going to screw up his brother or sister."

"You don't know that," Emma argued. "I'm already the runner up in his Mom pageant," she said, getting a furrowed brow from Neal. "Henry didn't know me until he was ten. Those fake memories don't count. I don't know if Henry will ever think of me the same way he does Regina. I mean, he calls me 'Mom' and everything, but like I said, even that's from the fake memories. I don't know if we have that connection anymore to go with it, though. That didn't bother me at first, when it felt like there was time to make a connection, but I got body snatched by my sister and Henry's like fourteen going on twenty-one thanks to the whole Neverland crap, and now I don't really know what we are sometimes."

"Maybe not," conceded Neal, "but you love each other. That's what matters most. And Henry isn't as grown up as he looks. He's faced a lot of crazy magical things that have forced him to know more about violence and death than most kids his age, but he hasn't faced those things alone, the way you and I did, and it's pretty clear that he's oblivious to the harsh reality of a lot of it-"

"Because because my parents," Emma rolled her eyes, "suck at acknowledging or dealing with the consequences of their actions, and my sister and Hook are even worse."

"You're a good parent, Emma," Neal told. "You did a really good job without any practice before the whole mess with Anna. You've got a level head. You've got a good sense of right and wrong. And you've seen both sides of that coin as far as foster parents go. You don't spoil Henry. But you're not a crazy disciplinarian like you said Regina was before. And other than Hook head-slamming you into a wall and taking a header off his ship into some metal rigging, you're far more concussion free than either of your parents, which also probably counts for something."

"I guess that's true," Emma conceded. "I haven't had nearly as many head injuries. I probably got more magical and medical treatment than they did back in The Enchanted Forest too."

Neal smiled and placed a kiss to her temple. "You're doing a great job with Henry, Emma. And you'll do a great job with his brother or sister. And maybe he'll throw a jealous fit, because he's a teenager and teenagers are moody assholes a large part of the time. But he's still Henry under all those moody asshole teenager hormones, just like you're still Emma under all these moody crazy pregnant lady hormones. And those two people still love each other and just want to be a family. So give Henry a few hours to be confused and mopey and whatever. I'll meet him at your parents' place after lunch and maybe he'll vent about it and I can remind him that as long as his sibling isn't kidnaped by an evil fairy and turned into a psycho assassin, he should be happy."

"Yeah, you're right," Emma exhaled, smiling a little. "I just still feel so new to this parenting thing. And now Henry's old enough in the Enchanted Forest to be given a knighthood, which is basically a license to stab people with swords for no reason!"

"To be fair, in the Enchanted Forest, people were always getting attacked by someone or something," Neal reminded, "so it wasn't like to big deal to just stab some robber and leave him to bleed to death by the side of the road."

"That doesn't help!"

"Okay, maybe not," Neal conceded. "My point is that we're living in this world and you've looked out for Henry whether you're in your right mind or not. And you tried to do as right by him as you could get your sister to besides, so don't doubt yourself, okay?

"And as for this kid," Neal continued, laying a hand against her stomach, "no matter how not yours Regina's memories are and maybe they're not gonna help with like Lamaze classes or how to work a breast pump or Mommy & Me class, that doesn't mean they're not good for knowing other important stuff like how to secure a car seat or use a rectal thermometer."

That got a snorting laugh from Emma and she asked, "Lamaze class, huh? You're gonna do all that funny breathing with me?"

Neal shrugged. "Lamaze or whatever one of those you want to do. If you want to give birth in a kiddy pool wearing a tiara, that's cool too. But if you wanna have this baby surrounded by fairies, I might have to object a little."

Emma smiled. "Don't worry. No plans here for a convent birth. And no fairy godmothers for our kids, that's for sure!"

Her phone chimed and she sighed when she read her father's text.

Henry just got here. He seems moodier than usual. Something happen with Neal?

Of course, her father would go right to Neal being the cause of it. He clearly had issues with her true love from the start, that maybe made sense then, but he hadn't outgrown them the way she had... or the way he seemed to have warmed up to and accept Hook which just aggravated her endlessly.

Emma typed back.

No. Mother-son issues. Just let him be moody for awhile. Neal will talk to him after lunch.

---

Trying to put Henry out of her mind, Emma spent the morning going down Regina's list of potions makers and suppliers, making house calls and stopping in small hole-in-the-wall shops she didn't even know existed, particularly in what seemed to be a lot of converted abandoned-but-never-actually-occupied warehouses where most of The Land of Untold Stories had ended up being housed in what looked a bit like something The Weasley family might build, held together by magic and a mix of multi-realm technologies and architectural styles.

The community wasn't that far from her new neighborhood, a cluster of a few large blocks behind the Cannery that Regina, apparently with some reluctant help from her sister, had used magic to turn into apartments and small commercial spaces for shops and other businesses like Aesop's Tables, the only time Emma had any recollection of her sister visiting this area. It reminded her of the established immigrant communities in New York City, if they were all thrown together into one weird bohemian mix of cultures. It was very different from the generic, small New England Town America that was Main Street and the rest of Storybrooke... not counting Arthur's old encampment, of course.

Even with the chilly, damp weather there was music drifting out of some shops and eateries and little stands of unusual arts and crafts items were scattered here and there making use of old pallets from the Cannery to display their wares... in one case, outdoor wooden furniture made from old pallets.

Emma discovered that those two Viking brothers her mother beat at darts ran a sauna/spa that also employed some non-Neverland (AKA: non-psycho/illegal-goods-smuggling) mermaids doing seaweed wraps and massages; who knew Vikings were actually known for excellent hygiene as well as warmongering? Apparently the duo were pacifists back home and were disinherited by their father and cast into exile to save the family their disgrace. Then there was a group of steampunk folk from Nemo's world who were using their brand of machine magic to customize cars and boats. A woman from Agrabah who'd fled an arranged marriage ran a small dance studio financed by a man from El Dorado who'd left his kingdom to seek out things more important than gold

Then there was a clearly popular cantina called Magical Meats (and Where to Eats Them) which drew Emma up to the order window with its mix of aromas even if she didn't understand much of anything on the day's chalkboard menu, and if a Kapa was what she thought it was, she wasn't sure she wanted to know the rest.

Fauth Stew (comes with 2 Guinness beer bread biscuits)

Hu hsien Potsickers (served with hoisin sauce)

Kapa Miso Soup (with seaweed and tofu; beak used to flavor broth but not included)

Limoneads Grape Leaf Wraps (served with preserved lemons)

Matzo Ball & Broxa Soup (cup or bowl)

Paella Duende (choice of Kapa or Broxa stock)

Wolpertingerworst (topped with sauerkraut and spicy brown mustard, choice of regular or pretzel bun)

Wood-smoke Barbequed Moksin Tongbop (served with kimchi)

Yakitori Raiju (served with local wild mushrooms)

Yakshas Curry (made with only vegetarian-friendly tree yakshas)

"This place always has a curious variety," a voice startled her and Emma turned to find Jefferson carrying reams of fabrics under one arm. "The Kapa Soup and Yakitori Raiju makes for a good combination, especially when the kapa and seaweed are freshly caught and harvested. Always best to check the tidal schedule for that one."

"Um... I think I'll pass on the Kapa if it's what I think it is. I have no idea what any of these other... magical meats are," Emma admitted.

"Sometimes you don't want to," said Jefferson and he told the man behind the old-timey register, "Two Wolpertingerworsts on pretzel buns . You like pretzel buns?" he asked her then decided, "You have to try them, anyway. They're fantastic. And a Matzo Broxa bowl with a warming charm to go."

"You really don't have to," Emma began but Jefferson waved her off as the guy at the window called into the back:

"TWO SALTED JACKS AND AN ANGRY BIRD BOWL!"

"I poisoned you. The least I can do is buy you lunch. And can I say, it's so lovely to see you as yourself again," the still affluently dressed nutter told her with a smile.

"If you're flirting with me, my boyfriend just came back from the dead," Emma stated, "so don't get your hopes up. Plus, you did poison me, kidnap my mother, and try to shoot us."

"Oh, I'm not much into your type," Jefferson shook his head while getting napkins and utensils at the pickup window.

"What, sane people? Royalty?" Emma asked, confused.

"Har har. People with vaginas," Jefferson explained. "Grace's mother was the exception, though a bit of a unique case. There's a quite curious transgendering potion native to Oz. She was a he when we met but then ran out of potion and we made due. It was more about the feelings than the parts by then. Of course, that resulted in a nine month long consequence. A good one, mind you. Well, most of the time..."

"Extra kraut?" the server asked, handing over to paper-wrapped sausages on buns.

"Always!" Jefferson nodded and Emma shook her head.

Not wanting to get into Jefferson's strange gender bending sex life or what she was about to eat, Emma asked, "Back on the subject of poisoning, I'm looking into what happened to my parents the other day. I don't suppose you know anything about the apothecary over that way... or his supplier?"

"Her, actually," Jefferson corrected while squirting on more mustard, "and it's all herbalist stuff she collects herself from around town. She's probably out gathering mistletoe. She was low last week what with all the rain making harvesting difficult. But the most magical potion you'll find in her shop is the occasional bezoar, and that's only if they're making goat stew here and get lucky."

"So no help then," sighed Emma as they walked. She took an experimental bite of the sausage. It actually tasted sort of like the rabbits Mulan and her mother had caught and cooked for them during their six week camping trip. It wasn't terrible.

"You won't likely find any clues around here," Jefferson told her. "Everyone freed from The Land of Untold Stories and Jekyll's tyranny are just happy to pursue their dreams, write their own stories in ways that were not welcome back in the home worlds they fled or were forcibly exiled from. Storybrooke may not be perfect, but they've no interest in the political rumblings beyond not supporting those who want to impose the sort of backwards-minded monarchies they fled.

"Your parents may be traditionalists of a sort, but they seem to have learned the lesson of trying to impose their unilateral authority on the town after the Doomsday Crystal mess," Jefferson considered, "and besides, I don't think most of the people here are even aware that your parents are in any way more important than your average royal since many are not from The Enchanted Forest and even those that were often got stuck in The Land of Untold Stories before the love affair of Snow White and Prince Charming became an inspirational poster."

"So, basically, what you're saying is that this is the sanest part of Storybrooke," Emma mused and Jefferson laughed.

"Hence my frequenting it. Trying to maintain my sanity by osmosis," he joked, then added. "Since my realm jumping days are likely over - I had a bit of a relapse after using my new hat to evacuate the realms during Fiona's curse and Dr. Whale and Hopper advised me to hang it up - this is as close as I'm going to get to visiting all of those realms I used to frequent. At least my second hat got one good use in, and that's what matters. Sure, this place is not quite the adventure, but perhaps that's not a bad thing. I just wish Grace was more inclined to visit with me. I'd love to show her all of the cultures her mother and I visited. But teenagers... Grace tests my sanity now more than helping, truth be told. I can't wait for this puberty phase to be over with."

"Tell me about," Emma sighed, then asked, "With all that realm jumping, you'd know where someone could get hard-to-come-by magical creature parts for potions, right?"

"I suppose I might," the Mad Hatter replied. "I do dabble in some potions brewing myself for self-medicating purposes when I'm having a spell. Works better than changing the dosage of my antidepressants."

"Well, Regina says the potion used on my parents was mostly manticore venom. Would anyone from Camelot or The Land of Untold Stories traffic in that kind of exotic ingredient?"

Jefferson's brows were raised. "Oh, not very likely. I've been looking for a seller, actually. I acquired some during our one year sojourn to The Enchanted Forest for my self-medicating. But that's two years ago now and my stock is starting to go sour. I wouldn't want to mix that and risk worse side-effects. The stuff becomes rather unpredictable."

"Yeah," Emma nodded, eyes narrowing. "It tends to make people violently hallucinate. Where exactly do you keep this stockpile of venom, Jefferson?"

"At my house," he shrugged. "I haven't used it in awhile. As I said, it was starting to go, so I've been making due with Whale's meds. Before this whole apocalypse thing, I was hoping to schedule a trip on Captain Nemo's vessel and locate a resupply," he explained. "Perhaps commission a poacher or two to accompany me. The whole legality thing is a gray area now, what with Midas' kingdom being emptied out by the Curse, and I was going to ensure they only milked the manticore rather than killing it for its venom sack. I would never condone killing endangered magical creatures, even the sort that like to stab people with a paralytic and then sing about how tasty they're going to be as the poison slowly stops their lungs and heart."

"Lovely," Emma grimaced. "Well, how about humoring me and taking me to check out your supply. And don't offer me any tea."

---

Jefferson's house was just as ridiculously large on the outside and 60's rock star on the inside as Emma remembered. After shutting the front door, the Mad Hatter called out, "Grace!? I'm home! I brought soup! Sheriff Swan is here so if you're wearing those so-called pajamas that make you look like one of those slutty girls on that show you like to watch, go and change!"

The blonde teenage girl was sitting on the furry couch in the livingroom painting her toenails and rolled her eyes. "Please, I know you like watching the Kardashians as much as I do. I've found the episodes half watched on the DVR. And I thought you said Sheriff Swan was the biggest slut in town? No offense, Sheriff Swan."

Jefferson glowered at his daughter and set the plastic bag with soup cup on the coffee table. "I was talking about Emma's sister. She has a twin, remember? It was all over the paper for weeks. We went to Anna Jones' re-wedding parade."

"I don't read the paper, Papa," Grace reminded. "And everyone around here has two names and wasn't there something a few years ago with the mayor having an evil twin that banged Mr. Gold?"

"More like a year ago," Jefferson corrected, rubbing the bridge of his nose, "and this is the original Sheriff Swan who broke the Curse, not her slutty Evil Twin who was using her name and getting STDs from that pirate. And for pete's sake, Grace, close your legs!"

"You really are terrified of vaginas," Grace rolled her eyes. "It's a wonder you and Mom ever made me."

Jefferson just huffed and told Emma, "I keep my supplies in my study."

On the way upstairs he lamented, "You see what I have to put up with? And she still spends a week every month with her mother's cousins who looked after her when Regina trapped me in Wonderland. I'm grateful to them for that, but they're far too lenient with Grace - or Paige as she goes by when she's at their place."

"Yeah, I hear you," Emma nodded. "My sister and her husband barely acknowledged Henry's existence most of the time so between my parents always being preoccupied with their own problems and Regina overwhelmed by the political problems in town, apparently no one told him it's wrong to have drunk sex with your girlfriend at fourteen... and it sounds like the damn pirate actually endorsed that sort of behavior. And I happen to know from personal experience that stolen condoms don't guarantee avoiding those nine month consequences."

"Ah, but we love them anyway," Jefferson sighed.

Emma followed into a familiar room with hats that now had a large steam trunk in the corner where the child's play set used to be.

"I don't do any brewing here," he explained, fishing a key from his pocket. "I use the guest house out back just in case something... well... explodes. But I keep my more high-end ingredients locked up here with my regular medication, just in case. I've had some of the forest dwellers wander onto my property and try squatting in the out buildings."

He unlocked the trunk and opened the lid, then dug around a bit under boxes with orange prescription bottles only to frown. "I know it was here when I locked up my pills last week. No one else knows where I keep it or even that I have it... other than... GRACE!"

Back downstairs the blonde was eating her soup.

Jefferson demanded, "Did you break into my trunk and take my manticore venom?"

Grace snorted. "Why would I do that?"

"Grace Paige Vanderveen-Vanwinkle you will tell Sheriff Swan everything you know. Now."

"Wait... Vanwinkle?" Emma uttered. "As in Rip... you know, never mind. Not important right now.

"Did you tell anyone about the venom?" she asked the teen. "This is serious, Grace. People could get hurt."

Grace thought a moment, then admitted, "Oh, I guess I told Violet."

"Violet? As in Henry's ex-girlfriend?"

"Yeah, she was my partner for a school project. The subject of manticore came up somehow, and I mentioned that Papa," she glanced at her father, "kept some venom for his meds and how we went on this, ah, camping trip to get the stuff. Maybe I mentioned offhand the trunk was his meds stash," she shrugged, "when we were using the arts and crafts supplies in his office. I know Henry can pick locks. He bragged about it like a total douche. Don't know why I ever had a crush on him. No offense. Maybe he taught Violet how."

"Why would your son's ex poison your parents?" Jefferson wondered. "Did they not approve on some royal grounds and get him to break up with her? I can't see it being an issue when your father's a peasant by birth and the lad's already a bastard..."

Emma scowled at that description. "I don't know, but she broke up with him and it's not related to my family, so there has to be another reason."

"Maybe she didn't steal it for herself," suggested Grace. "I know her father gets harassed by the other Camelot people who supported Arthur even after his plot against Merlin. She had to ride her horse here that day we had to work on our project because his car tires got slashed. Most of them hate your parents, right? Could be they agreed to leave her dad alone if she got them some giant scorpion spunk."

"It's venom from their tails, not their..." Jefferson waved his hand in annoyance.

"A sack's a sack," quipped Grace with a shrug before complaining, "You forgot the extra tofu, Papa."

"You know," Jefferson griped, "you were a lot more pleasant when I just watched you from a distance."

"And you were a lot less traumatizing when you just left creepy cards in my bicycle spokes, Captain Underpants."

"I'll leave you to... this," Emma decided, letting herself out. It was at least nice to know she wasn't alone dealing with annoying teenagers. Now if she could just wrap up this case and have an awkward conversation with hers...

---

The arcade was dark, which suited Henry just fine as he took out his frustration on video games, then moved on to Whack-a-Mole when he found his concentration too scattered to put up a decent score. He knew he was being a shit by not waiting for his dad to pick him up, but he just couldn't stand listening to his uncle cry over his latest teething issues, reminding him that the house he'd only just gotten to share with his mom and now his dad too was soon going to be filled with a squalling little replacement just like his grandparents had done to his mother (and his grandfather and step-grandmother to his father instead of trying to save his dad), which just ticked him off all the more!

Probably stealing Geronimo and riding into town wasn't the best idea, but at least there was a now a horse hitch out back and he'd made sure the horse had a blanket and some oats while he went inside to mope.

The last couple of years were sometimes the best and at other times the worst in his life. Admittedly, Henry wasn't even old enough to legally drive a car yet, so it wasn't a very long life and not even artificially extended by curses or timeless realms. But it was a lot to take in. As a little kid, much of the violence and morally questionable acts and sex-related stuff just went over his head and it seemed like a grand adventure after his preadolescent years of a boring, isolated, and soul-destroyingly-routine life. After a year in New York City, though, he'd gone from adolescence to teenager-hood and his perspective on a lot of things had changed. And, of course, on top of that his father had died and his mother had (seemingly) immediately started dating Killian Jones.

It wasn't that she'd started dating so soon. Well, not really. Sure, that aspect of it did tick him off, but Henry knew it to be true from his grandfather that his father's dying wish was for his mom to be happy and make sure Henry shared in that happiness. That was the issue. Killian Jones was a straight up stalkery asshole who didn't give a shit about Henry or anyone but Emma and Emma only in as much as she did what he wanted, was the person he wanted her to be-the person with him. It was all kinds of messed up. But he'd tried to deal. To compromise.

Like that ugly-ass house. It was Hook's idea, clearly an attempt to act like he cared to win points with Emma when she was all Dark One broody and weird. So Henry had gone along with it. Sure, he'd thrown in a hopeful sabotage in his assumption that Emma would hate that specific house and the idea of someone buying it for her... even if she hadn't seemed adverse to Hook trading a ship for her. Henry had known that he was pulling at straws, but on principle, scheming on either side aside, it was trying to imagine that a future even existed beyond the "Dark Swan" insanity with his mother in it... awful mother as she'd already become.

The way Henry had seen it then, Emma had begun changing when his father died. In retrospect, he supposed she was just in shock then and overwhelmed by Zelena and him not having his memories. It was only like a week later that he got his memories back and Zelena cast her spell, so admittedly, he didn't have the best mindset himself to judge his actual mother until right before she literally stopped being his mother.

He hadn't known that, though. It had just seemed like the lying and avoidance of his pre-memory-regaining period escalated into full-on deadbeat parent status. Henry had tried to deal. He'd tried to accept it the way he'd tried for years to accept Regina putting work before him. Sure, it hurt to assume his mother was writing him out of her life because she reminded him of his father and that made her feel guilty about being with Hook, particularly given the history regarding his grandmother Milah, but that hurt less than thinking she'd just stopped caring, that the True Love that had saved his life and broken the curse had faded, been eclipsed by something new and romantic and maybe never even existed at all between his parents, shattering that illusion all kids probably had their parents shared something special.

His book was always big on romance and short on any other kind of love, so it had seemed like the way of things and Henry had grudgingly believed and accepted that... for as long as he had to before he could change it. No deal, though. Even Authors didn't have control over "reality", or as he supposed it actually was: a world not bound to a magical book. And hoping he could get his father back from The Underworld in place of Hook and get his mother to see what a selfish jerk was being hadn't worked either.

Instead, she had moved in with the pirate in their ugly house and fully devolved into a weepy, clingy, needy, violent-tempered, selfish, unapologetic jerk who was essentially a blonde, female, two-handed version of Hook. Who, like Hook, only acted like she cared about Henry if it benefited her somehow and ignored his existence the rest of the time.

She hadn't cared when Hook threw his breakfast in the trash, when Henry ditched school, when he went out without word and came home late or not at all. She didn't seem to care if he was out with Violet and didn't notice that he'd never made any other friends. She didn't help him grieve for his dad or encourage him to have a relationship with his grandfather (rather discouraged it viciously if Gold was even brought up). They didn't play video games anymore or get hot chocolate at Granny's. She watched Netflix with Hook and drank coffee and threw his dad's dreamcatcher in the trash with the rest of them. And worst of all, she either didn't even remember he was around to tell him when she thought she might die or she didn't care to tell him because she was more concerned with Killian losing the happy ending he apparently deserved for some reason that was invisible to everyone else than Henry losing his.

That's what had sucked the most.

Not that his mom couldn't "give in to love" for his dad after he saved all of them but could for some deadbeat asshole pirate who didn't care about any of them and who none of them gave a shit about in return. Not even that she failed to find and defeat Zelena to make his sacrifice worth it.

Emma had promised his dad that his happiness was as important as her own. She had promised that Henry wouldn't grow up like they had, feeling alone, abandoned. And she had broken both promises in only a few short months. It was baffling and infuriating and ultimately Henry had felt useless to do anything but support her selfishness. There was a glimmer of hope during Fiona's curse when taking his mother to the rooftop where she got married did jack shit to restore her memories of dressing up like a life-sized lace doily from Granny's parlor; during that awful ceremony, all he could think was that the Emma Swan whom Henry had loved would have punched Mrs. Emma Jones in the face.

But for some reason the body snatching possibility had never crossed his mind. He'd just given in to sharing a creepy house with the mother her had to share with a stepfather who sold his actual father to a child abusing demon and didn't even seem sorry. There was Emma grieving in her own way and then there was just being an insensitive bitch who'd apparently been half right when she gave up because she thought she couldn't be a mother. Half because it was more that she didn't want to be a mother. Not to him, anyway.

He'd just accepted that. And now he felt shitty that he had, even if his mom said it wasn't his fault. It still sort of was. And now two years had been lost for them on top of the first ten of his life. Not to mention with his dad. It just felt like all the important moments in his life, the ones shared with parents, had passed them all by. Regina hadn't cared enough to appreciate them for more than how it flattered her for most of his life and his birth parents were absent once she finally got a clue and stopped being a selfish bitch and wasn't being obsessive and weird over Robin, and then most of what his mother did was just trying to shield him from the trainwreck of his presumed other mom's love life with painfully obvious distractions.

Which brought things to the present. A present in which Regina was once more distracted by work most of the time - though Henry couldn't blame her now - and Emma was an emotional wreck most of the time - for which he couldn't exactly blame her either. Then his dad suddenly came back from the dead and that was cool for all of a day and a half before he had to go and search his mom's jacket pockets for candy stashes and found that fucking sonogram!

"Henry?"

Missing the mole he was whacking at, Henry turned and gave Violet a sheepish look. "Er... hey."

"Are you okay? You see a little... um... manic. I hope... it's not because of us?" Violet asked, wringing her hands nervously.

Henry sighed. "No. It's... family stuff. Yesterday my life was great. My dad was back from the dead..."

"Your dad? Really?"

"Yeah, some reward for helping Hera take down Zeus," Henry explained.

"Well, that is great isn't? What could be so awful today that has you beating up fake forest creatures?"

Scowling, Henry answered, "My mom's pregnant."

Violet's eyes widened. "Oh. You mean... your birth mom? But... um... if your father was until recently dead...?"

Henry shrugged. "I dunno. Weird shit happens in my family, obviously."

"So... now it's not just your parents with siblings born far apart," Violet mused. "Maybe it's a new weird magical family tradition?"

"Feels more like a curse," grunted Henry. "I know Mom was never thrilled about my uncle, even if she said she's not jealous of him. Maybe that's cause my grandparents are kind of crap at parenting and almost got him killed when he was like two minutes old," he snorted. "And I don't really know how my dad really feels about Gideon. But none of that will probably translate to them having a kid together. I mean, it's the chance they didn't get with me and I'm old enough to take care of myself, so now I won't get to spend hardly any time with either of them!" he concluded in a huff, whacking another mole.

Violet smiled in her understanding way. "I'm sure it feels like your happiness got usurped by this, Henry, but at least you have both of your parents and another mother and grandparents, enough to offset the homicidal extended family. Me... it's just me and my father. All of his family died centuries ago while he was trapped in Camelot and, sure, we could try to track down his siblings' descendants and pretend we're long-lost cousins, but we wouldn't be able to tell them about any of this so it wouldn't be the same.

"Would I be upset if my mom came back and she and my dad suddenly had another baby?" continued Violet. "Or if my dad remarried and had more children? Of course I would. My sister or brother would get everything that I never had. There would be bedtime stories and riding lessons and all sorts of things I didn't have while my father was grieving my mother's death more than he was raising me. But... I'd also be getting someone else to call family, someone who'd look up to me and probably think I was really cool and smart, unlike most everyone else who knows me and thinks I'm a weird foreigner who'll never understand or be part of this town the way they are. Plus, throw liking girls into it."

"Who knows, that might make you cooler?" Henry shrugged. "And maybe you're right. I don't know. I want my parents to be happy. I mean, I bent over backwards to endure Hook being part of the family when I thought my mom loved him, because I didn't want her to be miserable and alone forever after my dad died, even if that turd was never going to replace him and I fantasized about killing him in various creative accidental ways, wishing I had more of my grandfather's asshole-ness in me to actually go through with leaving him to die on Nemo's ship. And back when we all thought those two freaks were having a kid, it sucked, but by that point-"

"Your assumed your mom was basically Hook in a dress and had resigned yourself to not being part of her happy beginning," Violet nodded, remembering all of his emotional tantrums leading up to and after the wedding she hadn't attended because of the flu. "I know you'd emotionally distanced yourself from her to keep your sanity and now you finally were able to start connecting with her again-"

"And now instead of taking a family trip to Disney World this summer," Henry sighed, "I'll be helping paint a nursery. And I'm pretty sure Whale wasn't gonna get fooled again by demon spawn, so it won't be repurposed into a sex toy storage room after a demonic gremlin burrows out of my mom's stomach and rampages through town."

"That was kind of cool, though," Violet sniggered, "you have to admit."

"Yeah, it was pretty awesome," Henry agreed, recalling his not-mom's sudden, inexplicably accelerated pregnancy and them rushing her to the hospital but not in time for Whale to do anything as the "baby" sliced its way out of her swollen stomach like something out of The Walking Dead and revealed it clearly wasn't human as it bared bloody fangs at them and then flew out the window that Whale complained was still not repaired properly from when Flying Monkey Little John flew out of it. While Hook had fainted, Whale had kept Anna from bleeding to death until Regina got there and splashed some anti-Incubus potion in the wound to heal her up good as new.

Thankfully, they'd decided to put off actively trying to have a child for a bit after that... or rather his aunt had decided to cockblock Hook without him knowing that they weren't trying because he was hell bent on replacing Henry with his own progeny and like the pirate she never wanted to hurt his feelings with like honesty and shit so it was just easier to lie in the rare instance she wasn't laying on her back for him. But since their actual first born would be a cursed psychopath with Hook's regular asshole genes that ate its better half in the womb, those two reproducing for real probably wouldn't be any better than an Incubus.

At least, Henry supposed, whatever kid his actual mother popped out wouldn't be an Evil Twin and probably not terrible either just based on genetics if his dad had gotten what little good his own parents passed on without the selfish jerk genes and his mom didn't seem to have inherited his other grandfather's violent tendencies or grandmother's stupidity. Although, to be fair, her diminished mental capacity was apparently due to the potion she got from his Grandpa Gold and lots of head injuries, but she was also like really girlie and domestic, which Emma wasn't, so if he ended up with a sister or gay brother, hopefully the odds were less of having the house taken over by fashion trends and squeeing over boyfriends... although he'd hopefully not be living at home when his sibling was old enough to date...

"I'm sure this was a shock for your mom too," Violet pulled Henry from his wayward thoughts. "I mean, who plans to get pregnant in Hell? I'm sure she's just as worried that this will screw things up between you. She's not your aunt, Henry. She has issues with her brother and she'll totally sympathize and I bet try to handle things better than her parents have with her. At the very least, she won't name your brother or sister after some recently killed loved one of yours."

"Hey, you're insinuating I'm going to end up with more dead loved ones!" Henry huffed, then shrugged, "But it is kind of a thing with us. What if it was Aunt Zelena and Mom and Dad named their next born after her? That'd be so weird! Aunt Anna and Hook totally would do that, though. They were gonna name their not-actually-a-kid 'Robert' after my great grandpa that Hook murdered which should actually be my uncle's name since Robert was really a great guy instead of a deadbeat alcoholic.

"I think they should change his name," Henry continued, "but he's just figured out that his name is 'Neal' and that'd be confusing so it's probably too late. Which I guess means my dad is going to have to go by 'Baelfire' now, which is weird and I don't think he likes it much. It was kind of a cruel joke of a name by his mom, I think, like Grandpa Gold's father giving him a shitty name just to take his anger at his ex wife out on their kid. My family is so fucked up!"

"Everyone's family is fucked up, Henry," Violet argued. "Stop being so full of yourself."

"I'm fourteen. I'm supposed to be full of myself."

"Fine, then be full of yourself by normal teenager standards, not full of yourself by your already full of themselves family's standards," Violet corrected. "It makes you twice as full of yourself as everyone else our age. It's why you don't have any other friends. Well, that and the propensity for people close to your family getting murdered by recently revealed other family members. Can't you just use that globe of your grandfather's to find all your blood relations, check up on them with a crystal ball or mirror magic spell, and then go imprison or kill the evil ones?"

"I think you have to actually personally know them to get that specific," shrugged Henry. "Best Mom was able to do was find all of Hook's blood relations in town to make sure I didn't date any of them... or possibly to get him drunk enough to sleep with like his great great great granddaughter and then reveal it at a family dinner just to see how creepily not disgusted anyone would be and how long it would take my aunt to shrug off him incest cheating on her as being all my mom's fault for manipulating him rather than him being a manwhore who'll only 'love'," he made air quotes, "my aunt because he has an obsession with owning her like property and that's totally different from where he sticks his dick, not that even he'd admit to that. Like I said-"

"Your family is fucked up."

"But so is everyone else's," sighed Henry ,"so I'll try to stop being a totally narcissistic dick like my uncle and give my parents the benefit of the doubt."

"Good."

Henry smiled a little. "Why'd you have to be so smart?"

"I don't know," shrugged Violet, "but it's a good thing I like girls, because then you'd look really dumb with a super smart girlfriend like me," she teased.

"Oh, ha ha!"

Violet frowned. "I am really sorry that I didn't figure myself out sooner, Henry, and got you involved in my own mess. You really are a good, kind person when you're just being yourself and not hung up on what your family expects or what you think you need to do to be part of their dumb hero squad. I know now that I need to be myself, to stop being afraid of what people will think, including my father, so you should be yourself too.

"You don't need magic powers or dragon-slaying skills," she told him. "It wasn't you being that author or your royal family that made me like you and want to hang out with you. And, okay, maybe wanting to tick my dad off because he thought writers were losers was part of it at first, but once we came here and he got over that I wouldn't have stuck around if you weren't just a nice guy who made me feel like I wasn't weird. Just... try to be that more often. And maybe don't slack off on your school work so much that you can't even get into an online fake university and have to make your quest in life realm-jumping until one day you wake up hallucinating cartoon birds and get diagnosed with whatever Grace's dad has and show up to your kid's career day in your underwear when you run out of meds."

"Thanks, I thi-"

"THE DWARFS ARE GOING CRAZY!" someone at the front of the arcade shouted just before the sound of car alarms drown out the arcade games.

Kids and stripe-shirted employees hurried out to the sidewalk to see the Seven Dwarfs rampaging down Main Street with their pick axes, smashing car windows, store fronts, and mail boxes while singing a song that was more of a very dirty limerick of the sort Hook would use to drunkenly serenade Henry's aunt.

As they reached the post office, Grumpy and Dopey suddenly abandoned the group smash fest that had turned into more of a peeing names in the snow fest to argue heatedly until they were throwing punches.

Which was when Henry's adoptive mother appeared from the direction of the town commons and with a wave of her gloved hands knocked the seven angry men out cold. Moments later, Emma pulled up in her car.

"A little late, Sheriff," Regina admonished.

"I was investigating the origin of the magical acid," Emma answered. "It was stolen from Jefferson. By Violet."

"Wait what!?" Henry sputtered. "No way! Why would Violet-"

"She's right," the brunet admitted, shoulders falling.

"Why would you do such a thing?" Regina demanded.

Emma interjected, "Grace figured it was to pay off Arthur's exiled supporters to stop them harassing her father."

"It wasn't for them," Violet answered, shaking her head. "When we had a school fieldtrip to the hospital this janitor pulled me aside. He said Dr. Whale had talked about Mr. Jefferson having some spoiled manticore venom and he knew I was in Grace's class. He also knew I was... well that I Iike girls but I hadn't told anyone."

"So he blackmailed you to steal it?" asked Henry.

"Not exactly. Maybe he was going to," shrugged Violet. "But I knew about manticore venom from back home, what it could be used for, and I said I'd steal it for him if he'd use the first batch to brew a potion I could use to make Mary's parents embarrass themselves."

"Mary... Contrary's parents?" Emma asked.

"When she came out at the winter formal," Violet explained, "they made her quit the volleyball team. And she hasn't been into town at all over winter break. Gretel said they're threatening to take her back to The Enchanted Forest as soon as the barrier spell is shut off to cure her of this Land Without Magic nonsense."

"They're not known for being tolerant," Regina recalled. "I was at Granny's the morning they discovered Ruby had 'turned lesbian' and run off to Oz and let's just say they're lucky Granny didn't fetch her crossbow before kicking them out for voicing their opinion on the matter. I can definitely understand wanting to humiliate them."

Emma looked over her case notes. "And they were at Abigail and Frederick's party." She raised a brow at Violet. "And you were my parents' house as an alibi, I take it?"

Violet's shoulders slumped. "Gretel said she'd dose the drinks. But it was my idea. Please don't arrest her! Arrest me!"

"I'm not going to arrest you, Violet," Emma sighed. "Or Gretel. I don't think Jefferson or my parents will press charges. But I have a feeling Mayor Mills might give you some community service."

"That does seem likely," Regina agreed. "Less likely as a punishment for whomever brewed that potion. And who exactly is this janitor? I'm guessing it's not Leroy. He can't even brew floor cleaner without mixing bleach and ammonia."

"Jack Horner."

"Little Jack Horner who drilled a hole in the corner of the girl's locker room," Henry recalled. "He put his hand in his pants and he pulled out his willy and said-"

"He got caught peeping on the girls, making videos," Regina cut him off. "It was only a few weeks before the Curse broke. He was suspended while the school considered expulsion and pressing charges, but then it was decided no one could be held accountable for their Cursed actions so he was allowed to return and graduate with his class. It should be easy enough to find his address from the hospital."

"I met him in the woods, to drop off the venom and to get the potion," Violet offered. "Near Hiking Trail 13. I think he has his lab out there."

"Then I have a pretty good idea where that lab is," Emma considered.

"Well, at least we can get this mess cleaned up quickly," Regina stated, telling Emma, "so you can get back to trying to appease all the citizens your sister and her manchild husband brutalized."

"I'm really sorry, Miss Swan," Violet reiterated. "I feel pretty stupid."

"I'm sure you do. It's called puberty. It passes," Emma joked, then turned to her son and admonished, "I get that you're upset about the... ah... thing you found earlier, Henry, and we'll talk later. Right now, I have a pervy little shit to arrest."

Emma didn't give him time to respond, instead getting back in her car and heading toward the forest.

Regina turned to her son and his pale-faced girlfriend. "I suppose I need to transport these seven idiots to the hospital before they wake up and start hallucinating and urinating again. You can help with that, Henry."

"Do I have to? I have Geronimo out back."

"Then Violet can take him and muck his stall as part of her community service."

"Isn't that indentured family service?"

"If it frees up my time to work on keeping this town from being overrun by pitchfork and torch carrying nutters from Camelot, their brainwashed followers, and those two idiot puppet royals, then it counts as community service. Start loading those pickaxes into my trunk."

---

Emma turned off the highway onto Old Yale Road, continued past the playground and further still beyond the stables to the where the road became gravel and ended at a jogging/riding path that, not surprisingly, had the muddy tread marks of an ATV bike which she found about a quarter mile up the trail and off into the woods a few hundred yards by an Air Stream trailer.

She'd never figured out where the trailer had come from. August hadn't brought it and told her (or her sister rather) that he suspected it could have been out there before the Dark Curse was cast and that magic kept it, like everything else in town, relatively unaged. There had been nothing but an old bong and some early 1980s era cans of beer in it before a puppet and a typewriter occupied it. Now, however, colorful smoke was billowing from an exhaust stack.

A dirt bike was parked by a tree strung up with Christmas lights and Emma crouched to pull out a spark plug before making her way toward the door. Of course, before Emma had even reached the door, it flew open and the young man burst out with a backpack over his shoulder.

"SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT! STOP!" Emma shouted, which never seemed to work.

The kid went for his bike as she'd expected and the time it took him to realize it wasn't going to work was all the time she needed to fire off a shot at the ground and demand he, "FREEZE! HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM! GET OFF THE BIKE SLOWLY!"

Jack Horner complied, but then the snapping of a twig behind her got Emma to turn and suddenly there was a sharp pain in her side as she blinked at what turned out to be a deer.

She turned and Jack was running, but her feet wouldn't move and then her fingers went slack and her gun fell to the forest floor. Blood, she realized, was staining her shirt on her right side where she'd felt the brief pain - and something that looked like a very large and black stingray spine was protruding from her body, the blunt end dripping some kind of viscous pink goo onto the ground.

"That can't be good," she tried to say, but her tongue and jaw weren't working right, and then her legs weren't either and it was actually getting rather hard to breath, she realized as she slumped to her knees and managed at least to list sideways instead of face down.

This definitely was not good at all.

---

"I really do feel bad about all of it," Violet apologized while handing Geronimo over to Neal.

"You're still a kid," Neal told her. "Kids do stupid..."

He trailed off as he felt a strange shiver run through his body. Something was wrong with Emma. He didn't know how he knew it, but he did.

---

Neal knew the hiking trail where Violet had met Jack Horner; he'd crossed it with Emma after Cora had sent them to the forest. As that disconcerting feeling grew, he urged Geronimo toward the woods, glad he'd skipped stopping at Granny's for lunch before returning the somewhat fixed Suburban to Emma's parents.

The thick woods of the Wildlife Preserve ran adjacent to The Charming farm and just as he was about to reach the trail head, a figure emerged from the treeline, a lanky young man in jeans and a blue jacket - with a bloody hand. Neal wasn't generally a violent tempered person, but when the man stumbled at the unexpected site of someone so close and then bolted back into the woods, Neal gave chase. Riding horseback through a forest wasn't exactly easy as the guy was at least smart enough to stay off the trail - and neither was he the priority when the feeling of Emma being in danger continued to seize his heart.

Making a decision, Neal reached into his coat pocket and pulled out one of Regina's apples that was meant to be a treat for Geronimo and lobbed it at the presumed Jack Horner. While Neal had never missed out on a career as a major league pitcher, he had spent years in Neverland throwing rocks and other things at Pan's minions, so his marksmanship wasn't bad. Still, he was surprised when the apple struck its target square in the back of the head - and that it was hard enough to drop the guy to the ground.

There was no time to celebrate that, though, and Neal turned the old city horse in the opposite direction, presuming Horner wouldn't be running back toward the scene of his crime. It took only a few minutes to reach the familiar trail and spot boot prints in the mud leading off in the same direction as tire treads.

Neal urged Geronimo through the woods until the sun coming through the trees glinted off metal, a trailer parked oddly without anything to pull it. At first he didn't see anyone, but then he spotted Emma's blond hair protruding from her knit cap, her brown uniform otherwise blending into the heaps of pine needles and dead leaves where she lay twisted oddly on her side.

"Emma!"

Dismounting, Neal ran to her and rolled her onto her back, feeling the stickiness of blood that had stained the sparse snow on the ground, seeping from a wound just bellow her ribcage, the metallic scent mixing with the ammonia of urine. Her eyes were open and for a moment he thought she was dead but her lids twitched and a gurgling sound came out of her throat.

Emma had been paralyzed.

And Neal knew enough about the case and what manticore venom did besides making for a bad party prank to worry on multiple accounts. At least she was still breathing, her heart was still beating, and the only thing staining her uniform pants was pee... which would be something to make a family joke about considering her parents' situation the other night if the situation wasn't otherwise so dire. The diluted stuff could be looked at as a bad joke. Stabbing someone with pure manticore venom, even past its potions-making expiration date, and leaving them in the middle of the woods alone was attempted murder.

"It's gonna be okay. Violet called Regina," Neal told her as he lifted her up. "I dunno if she can teleport, but I'm sure she can locate you via Henry with blood magic or something and has an antidote and an ambulance. Just keep breathing."

Carrying a woman who was basically limp as a corpse on horseback wasn't easy, but given the mud it was probably easier than trying the dirt bike. Neal could feel Emma's puffs of breath getting weaker and had never been so relieved for a sudden swirl of purple magic to appear and surround them, sucking them through space with a brief vertigo feeling and spitting them out next to a small lake.

Geronimo whinnied in startlement, but thankfully didn't throw either of them while skidding to a stop, perhaps because Regina and Henry were standing there. A medical team appeared from the hospital located adjacent to the lake with a collapsible paramedic gurney.

"Mom!" Henry gasped, hurrying forward as the nurses transferred Emma to the gurney.

"She got stabbed in the side with this," Neal reported, pulling the spine from Geronimo's saddlebag.

"There's an antidote, right?" asked Henry, worried as Emma labored to breath.

"Yes, and we're going to get it now, but it may take a few hours to prepare it. You stay with Emma. She'll need your support," Regina ordered, not that he needed to be told, taking his mother's limp hand as Whale joined the group to check Emma's vitals on the way to the ER's entrance.

Once the team and their son was out of earshot, Regina stated, walking toward the wheelchair ramp that went to the parkinglot, "I made sure Whale had mixed together a cocktail that could delay the progress of the pure toxin and its effects should it be necessary, but I was hedging my bets that it wouldn't be needed. I wasn't going to risk life and limb to retrieve an actual antidote if it was never required, or some idiot amateur potions maker accidentally stabbed himself. But I should have known better, I suppose. If there's an opportunity to get injured by running off halfcocked into danger, a Charming will take it. At least Anna would have had her pirate glued to her ass whether she wanted him there or not and he'd have probably taken the spine for her and I could have wished her luck before shoving her through a portal on her own..."

"I thought you couldn't create any portals," Neal asked, "until the healing spell was broken?"

"You made it here. A different sort of portal, but still a portal," Regina reminded, "which means the barrier has weakened, if only a little. Hopefully, that little is enough to unseal The Apprentice's wardrobe portal. It's a stable, self-contained portal already echanted with direct access to our world. It's unlikely it could be utilized presently to reach any other realms it's tangentially enchanted to access, but we should be able to reach the direct opposing portal in The Enchanted Forest, which according to that creepy glowing globe sphere my mother stole from your father, isn't far from Lake Nostos. It probably uses some underground aquifer to keep it anchored there."

"Which is near the Dark Castle," Neal recalled. "You think my father has an antidote there?"

"If he had it, it would be good and well spoiled by now," Regina shook her head. "But that's about a half a day's ride from where the antidote can be found."

"Does Emma have a day?" Neal asked, worried and Regina grimaced.

"Perhaps if Whale ends up putting her on a ventilator. The baby? Unlikely. But we won't be riding."

Neal blinked. "We?"

"You're going to sit by her bedside being useless?"

"Being at Emma's side isn't useless," Neal argued angrily. "She could lose the baby. I wasn't there for anything when she was pregnant with Henry-"

"And she has Henry to play supportive family and stay out of danger himself if there's no one else to do it," Regina cut him off, "instead of running off trying to play hero while pretending to use the bathroom because he feels guilty for being upset with Emma for getting pregnant and thinks she'd rather have you there at her bedside. You may have sired that boy, and Emma might have given him more hugs in a year than I did in ten, but I did raise Henry and I know how he thinks, and how he thinks is a mix of your father's guilt complex and low self-esteem loner tendencies and his other grandparents' reckless stupidity fueled by good intentions. If he isn't given a singular task he believes will help Emma, then he'll go looking for one and get himself killed.

"And, besides," she concluded, "even if you're probably worse with a sword than Charming in his current vertigo-afflicted state, I also have found that true love magic with Charmings can provide unexpected assistance."

"I'm not a Charming," Neal pointed out beside Regina's Mercedes. "True love hasn't exactly done much assisting where my father is concerned and I'm not sure my mother was ever capable of it."

"Snow White isn't technically a 'Charming', is she?" Regina countered. "Don't get self-defeatist relying on the patriarchy and her parents' less than generous opinion of your place in their family. Emma considers you family. Together you produced a child with a particularly magical heart in a world with very little magic. That should matter more than your in-law's hatred of your father and hypocritical judgment for abandoning their daughter on the disingenuous promise of the son of their blindly trusted, duplicitous ally. Try not to let them get to you. They think everyone's but their own shit stinks."

"Thanks... I think," Neal replied as Regina opened the trunk. "What do you need me to do?"

She pulled out a rolled up carpet and replied as she handed it over, "Hold onto this. And try not to get yourself killed before you're a useful distraction."

Before Neal could comment on the carpet or the implied insult, they were whisked away in a puff of purple magical smoke.

---

AN: Poor Emma just can't catch a break. On the matter of Jefferson's hat, WTF in the Season 6 finale? His hat was BURNED TO ASHES in the second season and people were desperate ever since to find portals but suddenly two years later the dude has "his hat"? Even if his failure to replicate the hat was only due to lack of magic in Season 1, why did it take him so long to make another one that they had to come up will all kinds of other portal bullshit from Season 2-6? Fucktard, writers! And wasn't it heavily implied that Jefferson's mental state was directly related to too much realm-jumping, which was the reason he "hung up his hat" and really didn't want to take another trip for Regina... which resulted in him going insane so if he had Grace back and had been schooled that FTL was full of ogres and no place to raise a kid, WHY WOULD HE EVEN MAKE ANOTHER HAT AND DRIVE HIMSELF EVEN MADDER? Plus, wouldn't that mean Season 7 Adult Emo Douche Henry, if he spends a decade or whatever jumping from Enchanted Forest to Enchanted Forest, will one day go bonkers like Jefferson? I kind of hope it does; if Henry willingly reduced his story to abandoning his family for years without even popping back in for holidays to write down other people's stories, he's just as reckless and stupid as Jefferson was when he worked for Rumplestiltskin and didn't care about the people hurt. Sure, I'd rather be shitting in the magical woods than living under the same roof as CS, but he didn't even mirror call Regina? Not cool!

Next up: Has anyone ever said "I really want a Neal/Regina bromance adventure!"? No. But you're going to get one anyway!