Ashley peeks up from her book to see whether Ruby's showing any sign of leaving. Nope. The brunette is still absorbed in painting her nails a vivid scarlet while reading a glossy magazine. Ashley sighs slightly and turns her eyes back to her notes, but she's not really seeing the lines of formulae. She's seeing the new girl, Emma, and the fire in the blonde's eyes as she told Ashley to change her life.
She will. She'll do it.
Her left hand runs over the swell of her stomach and she feels a tear forming in her eye. She wants to keep this baby more than anything, to see the precious life she's carried for eight months inside her unfold into a perfect human being without the threat of separation or the aching sorrow and bitterness that Sean left behind.
She wants to be a mother.
Emma has given her strength. The girl slipped into her life with a compassionate, wary smile and a bleached sheet as a complete stranger and walked out of the room having supported her more than many people she's known her whole life would have. A friend, Ashley dares to think, but then presses the thought away.
She won't have any friends tomorrow. Not after what she does tonight.
She glances at the bag leaning beside the door. Pepper spray. Money. Clothes.
The child growing inside her is hers, and she's going to do whatever it takes to keep it.
xxx
Emma whimpers, a horrible, broken sound. Her shoulder is a searing, burning, stabbing agony, her rib is only slightly better, and her head is a muddle of pain-filled confusion. Random details flit into her consciousness and slide out just as easily.
Her jacket is ruined. Too much blood.
The swan keychain swings hypnotizingly from her neck.
It's pretty.
Round.
Shiny.
The swan looks sad.
She's slipping.
She's slipping-
She yanks herself upwards and stifles a guttural scream as her broken rib shrieks a complaint and her shoulder is hacked into a million pieces by the movement. Her arms still around the rock, she twists her head slightly and checks that it's still in one piece- somehow, it is- and tries to steady her breathing. Now for the next step of the plan.
Her shoulder twinges and she bites her lip, tears brimming in her eyes.
What was the next step?
A metre above her, the dragon roars in frustration and it comes back to her in a rush of information. She curses and swings herself slightly with her right arm so that she's hanging from the ledge and is directly under it, hidden from view.
Focus, she tells herself. Yes, I know it's hurting; yes I know it's too much to bear. But right now, if you don't focus, you're going to die. You're never going to see Nicko and Eva again.
Gradually, she pushes the pain out of her consciousness until all that is left is a distant pocket, a reminder to be careful. She can do this. She's done it before after all.
It becomes easier with each passing second, almost as if someone is helping her numb the pain.
Above her, the roaring has stopped, only to be replaced by a menacing slithering, sliding sound as Maleficent unfurls her wings. All according to plan. The dragon is getting antsy, unable to see whether she fell to her death or not from its vantage point, which means that, any second now-
There is a scraping of claws and then a giant whoosh as the dragon hurtles into the chasm, flashing past her in the blink of an eye, and Emma is hit with the stench of twenty-eight years' worth of dust and dragon hide. Good. Let it rummage around at the bottom - if there is one - for a few minutes while searching for her crumpled body. It'll give her the time she needs.
She has just over fifteen seconds to make her move.
She swings lightly, trying to keep most of her weight on her right side, but she still has to grit her teeth and stifle a scream as she vaults upwards, landing silently on the rock ledge she was hanging from. Thank you, Mom. Now she's only a few feet from the top; if she stopped to crane her neck, she could see outside, see the sword lying on the ground and the arrangement of boulders that she carefully memorised in the time she had.
Now for the next part.
(There is no pain. No agony. Warm rivulets of blood are not running down her arm this second. The pain in her chest is not flaring white-hot with every breath. She's fine.)
She reaches up and finds a firm handhold along the edge of the chasm before levering her leg up for support and rolling onto the ground. There. Easy.
She grabs her sword.
Eleven seconds.
Runs to the lowest boulder and jumps onto it.
Thirteen.
Climbs onto the next one, the perfect position for what she's planning. Close to the chasm and just the right height.
Fifteen.
She grasps her sword in her left hand and waits. She'll need her good hand free for the next part.
Is that the dragon coming?
No, she's just imagining stuff. There's nothing.
Silence.
She waits.
An eternity passes, and she's beginning to think that the beast is never going to come back up when she spots a glimmer of yellow deep inside the chasm, and it's rapidly growing, and then it's here, it's gaping maw rising up to snap her in two, and then she jumps-
And lands on the dragon's neck.
xxx
Ashley sighs in relief when Ruby finally throws the magazine onto the coffee table. The blonde watches as the other girl stands up, dusting off the short red dress that barely covers her long limbs. About time. Who knows where Mr Gold will move the contract if she has to wait another day.
"See you tomorrow, Ash," Ruby says, checking her watch. Ashley nods, trying to look casual.
She watches as Ruby walks out into the tiny hall of her cramped apartment and then listens for the soft rustling as Ruby slides on one of her ridiculous feather coats. The girl's probably going out for another one of her flings. She honestly can't remember how many boys have passed in and out of her friend's life, but Ruby never seems to care for any of them the way Ashley and Sean used to love one another. The memory brings back a bone-deep guilt, and she forces it down.
Sean leaving was not her fault. It was all his mistake, his decision, his weakness in listening to his father. His wanting a life better than the one they could have had. He left her. He left her alone and pregnant and scared and without the one rock she thought she would always have in her life. It was his father's fault for convincing him to leave and making the deal and his fault for listening.
Wasn't it?
The bell rings.
She starts to heave herself off the sofa, but Ruby shouts to her from the hall, telling her not to bother.
There's a moment of silence after the door opens. Then she hears Ruby violently cussing and a wooden scraping that can only mean she's trying to push the door shut on whoever it is. Her eyes widen, and she strains to make out the voice of the visitor, but all she can hear is a low rushed murmur as the person apparently pleads with Ruby.
"Ruby, who is it?" she calls after a few seconds, but the argument at the doorway doesn't come to a halt.
She's not waiting any longer.
She pushes herself up and takes a step in the direction of the door, and then-
"Ashley?"
Her heart stops.
She knows that voice. Knows the way it lilts and turns while whispering words of love and the way it deepens while telling her truths she never wanted to hear. Most of all, she knows the silence it left behind.
Sean.
There's a slight scuffling at the doorway, and then he ducks into room, Ruby right behind him.
"He slipped past me-" Ruby starts to say, her eyes burning furiously, but Ashley's not looking at her.
She's looking at Sean, and his eyes are fixed on hers, and there is nothing else in the room apart from the anger and bitterness that is growing inside her, gnawing at her, and there's a small corner of relief too- she hasn't seen him for so long (it seems like years; years and years and years), and a few happy memories fade in and out of the moment, but the harsher emotions outweigh them all in the end.
He left her.
She crosses her arms and tries to hold back her anger, tries to rein in her tears. She hopes her voice is steady.
"What are you doing here, Sean?"
He looks pained and guilty and hopeful and wary all at once. She knows him so well.
He takes a deep breath. "I needed to tell you in person. Mr Gold cancelled the contract."
Mr Gold cancelled the contract.
He's not going to take her child away.
She staggers, her hand flying to her unborn child, barely registering it when Sean rushes to her side to support her.
She can keep her daughter.
She can keep her.
The information slowly sinks in and the tears finally fall. She lets go of the weight that she's been holding for as long as she can remember, the knowledge that her child wouldn't grow up with her because of a desperate choice she made, a decision she agreed to when she could see no other option.
But now, she's been given a second chance.
And she's going to do right by her daughter, no matter what that means.
It's only then that she realises that Sean is still holding her up, and she backs away, almost falling over until Ruby rushes to her and helps her. A sliver of doubt creeps into her mind. What if this is another trick, another way for Mitchell Herman to use his son to humiliate her and leave her in the dust? What if it's a lie?
"How do you know?" she asks him, looking at a point a foot above his head. She can't meet his eyes. Not yet.
Sean starts explaining, and she's half listening to him and half marvelling at the facts as they click into place. It's true.
She focuses back on the father of her child once he's finished. There's too much heartbreak here. Too many months of being alone.
He should go.
She opens her mouth to thank him and ask him to leave as civilly as she can, but he beats her to it.
"Ashley," he says, and his voice is gentle, with none of the hesitation and guilt that he had when he was leaving her. This is her Sean's voice. The one she used to know before a controlling parent ripped him away. "I am so sorry. I never should have left you."
The world spins under her feet, and the first thing she feels is anger. The old Ashley would have been happy; these were the very words she had been waiting for ever since the day his father convinced him to leave. But she is not the old Ashley. This Ashley has fire. This Ashley would have stolen a contract and then snuck away in the dark of the night to protect her child.
"No," she tells him and her voice is cold. "You can't come back into my life just because a deal broke down. I spent months without you. Months." Sobs are hitching in her throat. "All that time, I was carrying your child, and you never fought for her. You weren't there when I felt the first kick. You weren't there when people called me horrible names. You weren't there. Even though you didn't want to, you never fought for your family." She's almost shouting at the end, and the tears are dripping down her cheeks.
Sean steps forward and takes her hand. "I can never be forgiven for that. My father thought one way of life best for me, and I listened; I tried to be the person he wanted me to be. I tried to believe that you were a mistake from my past. And I know you'll never really forgive me. But then something happened today." He pauses, and she watches as his features soften. "I learnt we were going to have a daughter." His eyes fill with wonder as he says the word, and she gives a small smile in response. "And then I couldn't live the same anymore. College didn't matter. I saw that I had everything I needed, and I had already messed it all up by leaving you. And then Mr Gold's call came, and I thought that this could be my second chance. All I'm asking, for now, is that you don't shut me out from our daughter's life if you don't want me back."
From the back of the room, Ruby clears her throat. "Ash-" she begins, but Ashley cuts her off.
Yes, there is heartbreak here.
But there can be healing too.
She looks at their intertwined hands. Sean left her because he was too weak to fight his father. He didn't leave her because she was pregnant with his child.
She stares into his eyes. There's so much hope in them, and so much of the strength and quiet determination that had been missing for so long, and the news has driven it back; maybe it's made him try to be the person he once was.
Maybe he can change.
Maybe they both can.
"It's too early for me to want you back," Ashley whispers, and sees his eyes fall. She clasps their hands tighter and brings their entwined fingers to her swollen stomach. "But if you promise never to leave again, maybe we can start over."
It carries in the still air.
A whisper. A vow. An echo of another life.
"I promise."
xxx
The dragon roars in annoyance and thrashes wildly as Emma clings to its neck, gripping the pointed scales with her knees and hooking her right elbow round one of the black spines that run down its back.
Step two accomplished.
Now for the trickiest part.
Flames paint the roof of the cavern a bright orange as the dragon rears its head, and she raises the sword, holding it with both hands, waiting for the perfect moment.
There is no room for pain. There is no room for mistakes.
Focus, she tells herself.
She feels the banded muscles beneath her ripple as the dragon lowers it head and then starts thrashing again; left, right, down, up-
Now.
The sword slices down.
xxx
Eva runs through the tunnels, Nicko at her side, both of them following the pain she can sense radiating from Emma.
They're not far now.
Suddenly, a change ripples through the air, a wave of magic that only the two of them can sense.
There's a rumble, like the roar of the dragon they're heading for, but it's cut off abruptly, and then there's an earth-shaking thud as something heavy strikes the ground. Eva pulls up short.
Is Em alright?
She can't tell. There's too much pain, too much fear and desperation around her to make out individual people in the chaos. She doesn't know if Em is alright.
"What happened?" she starts to ask Nicko, but he holds his hand up, his features taut with worry.
"Quiet," he hisses.
She opens her mouth to argue- he can't order her around- but then she feels it too.
The walls are shaking.
There is one breathless moment of panic, and then Nicko's head whips around and he tells her to run, and then they're both sprinting and she's gasping for breath and sobbing as tiny stones rain down on them and the shuddering only grows worse.
She's not ready to die yet.
xxx
Regina smiles as she surveys her handiwork. Eighteen years of making lasagne in this world have made her quite the expert.
She brushes her hands off and walks to the dining room, checking the polished wooden clock on the wall. Graham will be here soon.
She sits down at the table and starts eating, going over what's happened during the day. The tremor. She'll have to have that tunnel blocked up before anyone can find that infernal coffin and start to question the thin veil she's put in everyone's minds. Which brings her back to the matter of the only people in Storybrooke who are not under her thrall. No doubt, Emma Swan and her two siblings are an unanticipated nuisance. She can only hope that they are nothing more.
All curses can be broken, the imp cackles in her head, and she grimaces. If it's true, well... she'll find a way to deal with that particular problem. It might require a visit to a certain crazed eccentric living on the borders of her little kingdom, but she'll not let anyone, least of all the offspring of Snow White, ruin her happy ending.
Even though sometimes it doesn't feel like one anymore.
She stills as she feels a ripple in the air, a wave of magic washing over her.
That was magic.
Magic.
The fork falls from her nerveless fingers, and she freezes for a minute before clutching the edge of the table so hard that her knuckles turn white.
There are only three people who could have done that, who could have killed Maleficent and released that shockwave of power.
Three people who could destroy the life she's built.
Three people who could break the curse.
The thought spurs her into action, and she strides towards the door purposefully, barely pausing to pull on her coat.
Three people, she thinks, who are going head to head with the Evil Queen.
xxx
They run for mere seconds before Nicko senses the tunnel before them weaken dangerously with the shuddering tremors that are still running through the ground.
Nononono. They have to get out of here; staying in here is suicide; he can feel it, can feel how the walls will slowly collapse inwards and bury them alive in the rubble, can feel danger screaming at him from every corner, constantly warning him, keeping them safe.
Maybe if they run faster they can make it.
Maybe.
He puts on an extra burst of speed and tries to use some of his magic to make Eva safe, to protect her from the oncoming rocks, but there's so much going on that he doesn't know if it worked.
He's not able to protect anyone.
"Take care of your sisters," Dad tells him again.
And then it's too late.
He pushes Eva down a millisecond before the tunnel in front of them collapses, bringing down a wall of rubble and sealing them in their coffin of rock.
xxx
The man lying on the hospital bed has gone by many names, but for now, he is nameless.
His thoughts are scattered, his unconscious mind fragmenting the many lives he's lived (some are not real, he knows, but he can't tell which) and dredging up the broken pieces to build his nightmares, destroy his hopes.
A raven-haired beauty he does not recognise is murdered by a sneering woman in a black cloak.
A blonde woman who he does not love fights with him violently on the porch of their white blue-trim house.
Three children wait for their parents in an empty house.
It never ends for him; he is trapped in his own mind, sometimes aware, sometimes not. When he is, he tries to hold on, tries to wake up.
But in the end, the nightmares always drag him back down.
xxx
Eva huddles in a ball, holding back a whimper as the tunnel caves in mere feet from them. Nicko is crouched over her, shielding her, but she can't move past the panic that is clawing its way out of her throat and threatening to drown her in its folds.
"Eva," Nicko says quietly, and she opens her eyes. The rocks are still falling and the ground is still shaking violently, but it's her brother's expression that frightens her the most.
For the first time in her life, he looks defeated.
And yes, she is afraid.
And yes, she is brave.
Both are true and both will save them; she has to have that hope.
"I'm scared," she whispers, but her voice does not shake. She can move past her fear.
Nicko's empty eyes darken as he darts his gaze to the ceiling above them; the small stones are already beginning to fall.
"There's nowhere to go," he says brokenly, and even though she could feel it, the news shatters her again.
The stone cracks and shatters-
But the rocks never hit her.
Nicko, crouched over her on the ground, is radiating magic that is deflecting anything that could cause them harm, holding all the debris up above them, a protective sphere on which the stone is hammering and pounding, but never breaking through. Her eyes widen- they'll be alright- but then Nicko gasps and stumbles.
"I can't do this!" he shouts, panicked, sweat pouring down his face with the strain of holding the tunnel up. He is standing tall now, and she can see the effort it's costing him, can see the magic pouring out of him with each passing second, can feel him becoming weaker and weaker.
She knows what he's going to say next.
And she knows that she'll never leave.
"I'm staying here."
He breaks. He shouts at her, begs her to run, tells her that he can use what's left of his magic to protect one of them, but she stays where she is.
She is not leaving her family.
Nicko staggers as the tunnel continues to collapse, still pleading with her, but all she does is close her eyes.
Now, in the panic, she can find calm.
She senses Emma and heals her, wipes her wound away as gently as a soft cloth. The act leaves her drained, but she smiles. Em will be fine.
She made sure of that.
Her eyes open, and Nicko is staring at her, terrified, cracks appearing in the protective shell. She sees him swallow down his fear, bury his anger, accept their fate.
They will both die here, alone, pounded by the weight of a thousand rocks.
There is no one coming to save them.
There is no hope.
"Close your eyes," he tells her, his voice broken.
She does.
She wishes she could see her parents one last time. She wishes she could run through the meadow near their house again and laugh at the blue, blue sky.
The sphere breaks.
She wishes-
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