More diary, just for Leroy... :) Thanks, Temo.

***
Emma paled when she saw James shackled to the tree outside the library, with dark magic, rather than chains. Snow was at his feet, tense and worried. Cora shooed them all out into the early afternoon sunlight. Regina approached from the pawnshop and Emma thought she saw Belle looking through the blinds in the nearest shop window.
Rumpelstiltskin soon followed Regina into the town square. The motley crew stood gathered around the tree, uneasy.
Cora smiled and greeted everyone. "So much work to get an audience, but I like the challenge."

Cora turned to Emma. "So you have seen Maggie."
Emma nodded. She was frightened, but she wasn't about to show it. And if what Granny suspected was true, then well, she might have some sort of secret fodder. "Yeah, I saw the painting. The resemblance is uncanny." She remarked more calmly then she felt.
Cora didn't respond to this, which made Emma think that maybe she had hit a nerve.
So she continued. "We found her diary too." She smiled almost Cheshire cat like, if she thought about it.
Cora frowned. "Maggie would never have written in a diary. Her mother was too nosy for that to be a good idea."

Emma closed her eyes briefly. She had just admitted that they knew each other well, but obviously not well enough. She opened her eyes, and gestured for Grumpy to hand her the book. Grumpy did, but gave her a warning look.
Emma opened the book to a new page. Emma internally frowned, even the handwriting looked similar to Emma's cursive. Not the same, but similar.
The word, Regina, caught her eye on the page and she began to read quickly. She paled slightly.
"Well aren't you going to share?" Regina grumbled. Cora seemed restless beside her. "Since we are apparently in a stoking the fire mood."
Emma met her gaze briefly and Regina wished she could take back her words. Emma was all act, but it was clear now, that she was afraid. What she had just read, she knew was not to be read out loud.

Emma shook her head no. "Why would I share? If this isn't her diary, then what would be the point?" She was stalling and now Cora seemed to believe her, now that a bit of fear was showing.
Cora stepped in. "Henry can read it then. If you won't be obliging. Henry, read that particular bit, please."
Emma glared and tried to close the book, but Henry who was standing beside her already had taken it. Emma gave him a shocked look. Henry tried not to meet her eyes. He scanned the page and his eyes widened. He looked up at Regina and then Cora and then over at Snow.

He began to read, but his voice was shaking. "Cora came over today to discuss how we might proceed with her proposal. I have reservations about this magnitude of magic, but Cora seemed self-assured and keeps telling me that it isn't as hard as it sounds. Not that the complexity is what worries me. Anything involving Cora is complex. I am wondering if I should leave the future of my kingdom and my family in the hands of someone who is so bitter. Cora seems very different from when I last saw her. I had hoped that this new marriage with someone so devoted as Henry would give her some peace even if she couldn't manage to love him back the same way."

Henry paused briefly, looking as though he was struggling with himself against continuing. He looked up at Regina instead of Cora. Regina however was studying her mother's reaction to this passage and didn't appear to notice. Cora looked stone faced and cold, as though she was holding back any sort of expression by sheer force. "Continue, Henry."
Henry frowned. Emma grabbed his shoulders. "You don't have to do this." She peered into his eyes. "She is being a bully, but we don't have to bend to her."
Henry shook his head. "I have to." Fear was in his eyes.
Emma frowned. Her son was so much more afraid, more then she had ever seen him.
She turned to Cora. Cora smiled wickedly. "Come now, tell them why you must do as I say."
Emma glanced back at Henry who couldn't meet anyone's eyes. He muttered something.
"So they can hear you. You must really learn to speak up." Cora used a patronizing tone of voice.

Henry raised his head, pale and gaunt looking again. "She bought me. She sold a heart in a box for my allegiance. I have to obey her every command or die slowly from resisting."
Everyone turned their heads towards Rumpelstiltskin.
"Why would you agree to this, you bastard?" Emma growled.
He shrugged seemingly unaffected by her insult. But his voice seemed a forced cheerful. "You all know me and my ways. No surprises here. Do go on Henry, I love a good story. I'm sure you can't hold out must longer before you pass out and then it would be over, since you certainly couldn't obey her then, could you?"

Henry did look like he was going to faint. He gave a deep sigh and picked up the book again. The moment he began to read out loud again, color began to come back into his cheeks.
"My darling sister Marie,
I haven't addressed anything to you in years, since it seemed silly as an adult to write to someone can not write back. But at least you will not judge me.

I should have made that deal. The first one that Rumpelstiltskin proposed. But the thought of taking the last bit of comfort that Cora had been allotted, her first child to live, was too much for me to swallow. But I should have made that deal. The little girl that I saw yesterday was not the smiling girl in the picture from 3 years ago. Poor Regina, a queen only in name."

Henry's voice broke for a second. Emma gazed up at Regina. She had her eyes closed, so as not to give away her thoughts. But her face was drawn and tense. Tears began to flow down Henry's cheeks, but he continued.

"She looked over cautious and timid. She accidentally knocked something over in the entrance hall in a moment of excitement and broke it. She cowered in fear as though she was to be kicked like a dog. Her mother was not in the room, but Regina cried and begged me not to use magic, that she would be more careful in the future. Use magic on the child for punishment! My maidservant who was with me, recovered first and assured her that we didn't use magic on little girls. I should have taken that damn deal, Marie. Maybe then at least someone would have cared for..."

Regina cut Henry off. "Enough. Stop reading."
Henry sagged, but looked relieved.
Regina's jaw was tense. "I have heard enough crap, to know that this must be Margaret's diary. Always thinking that things would have been better with her. That she and her family were some sort of chosen people. She and all of her fuc..."

Cora now cut her off. "Shut up!" Her calm had disappeared. Regina had made motions to insult Maggie's memory and she had lost all restraint. She looked positively frightening for the first time and Regina backed down.

Snow stood, giving a pained glance at James before doing so. "What do you want, Cora?" She squared her shoulders and raised her chin, looking the picture of regality. "Why are we here? The past is past. What do you want from the future?"

Cora seemed stunned that Snow had stood up to her and took charge. But then she smiled. "You really are like all the best parts of her, your mother. I really was sorry to have to break you." Cora gave what looked like a kind smile, but her words made it frightening.
Snow frowned. "And why is that? Why did you feel the need to 'break' me?"
Cora stared directly into her eyes, "I could never be what you needed, Maggie. Something you could love. If I couldn't be good enough for you, then I figured the beast would make you bad enough to be with me. So I decided to ensure that the beast would leave us nothing, but each other. I can never own you, but the beast can, just as it has taken me as its own. Soon there will be nothing left, but you and I. The beast takes everything else."

There was a stunned silence.

Snow was the first to respond. Her demeanor was still regal, but her voice was wavering. "All this suffering, your daughter's, mine, my husband's, my children's, a whole mess of innocent people's, this was all over my mother's heart?"
Cora met her gaze, her eyes dark and frightening, like the beast instead of Cora. "I will have what I was promised. Even if I have to take it by force or crush it with desperation."
Cora looked at Rumplestilskin with a stony glare.

Snow held her gaze for a moment before glancing at Rumpelstiltskin as well. Snow gave a quick look at James, which Emma couldn't see, but James paled. "Don't."
Snow however, seemed to be running on her own steam now, like a train derailing, because the fire was already too stoked.

Before anyone could even guess what was about to happen, dark magic was felt among the members present. Snow grabbed her chest and in one direct motion she ripped a heart out of her chest. It was glowing and pulsing on its own and Red screamed.
Emma felt her own heart beat furiously in her chest. It was like watching a nightmare, just like the one she had dreamt days ago, and realizing that it was real, that you couldn't wake up.
"Take it, take it now and leave me and my family in peace." Snow growled holding out the hand with the heart. "I hope you find what you were looking for. Because you won't find it here with me."
Cora seemed stunned too and she took a minute to accept the heart. She tenderly took it into her hands. The moment that it left Snow's hand and sat in Cora's, Snow dropped to her knees and hands, shaking and breathing rapidly. But calm soon settled in and Snow stood again. At first, her face was blank, cold and unfeeling, but then a wicked smile graced her face. "Congratulations, I win."
Cora blinked. "You always do." But she didn't seem pleased. Cora summoned a box with magic and carefully placed the heart inside it. Cora and the box then disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Regina now stood before the group and Snow and looked like she was spiraling out of control as well, but internally, her thoughts racing. There was a deathly silence.
"Well, what can I offer you? I have taken much from you over the years." The creature that was not Snow asked, rather snakelike and oily, directing its question at Regina.
There was a long pause as Regina slowly emerged from her tangled thoughts. "Piss off, beast." Her voice and her eyes were hard.
Snow Dark shook her head in amusement. "I see your challenge is still on then. Give up. You can't rescue her. Snow is dead."
Regina grabbed Snow's necklace and pulled her closer. Her eyes were fiery and she looked frightening. "You only wish that were true, beast. But don't worry; this is not a rescue mission. I mean to kill you, beast. And if Snow White has to die too, to do so, do not think that I will hesitate." Regina released her and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Snow Dark rubbed her neck and turned to Rumpelstiltskin. "Don't forget what I had Regina tell you. If you are to defy me and work against me, so be it. I like challenges and this will be the hardest for you. Because I do own you." The beast gave a sinister smile. "You have one more open deal, if I recall, and would hate for that to...cause any harm because you sat on it and did not act."

Rumpelstiltskin blinked, but said nothing. He picked up the discard diary on the ground. He turned to the page they were on before now dusty and crinkled. He read the rest of the page out loud.
"Now I am to lose everything. My own daughter will be born, but I shall die. She will never know love and affection from me, her mother. But it is the price I must pay for my foolishness. I hope that she turns out better then me. Or at least better then Cora. If not, then may the two of us be thrown into the depths of the mines burning in the fires that fuel the earth. For that will be all that we can offer the world."
He stopped and closed the book. "The two of us. Funny, I never saw it that way before. I saw mother and daughter combined. But then with the little ordeal with the forgetting potion, then I had my proof. Two hearts in the same chest." Rumpelstiltskin smiled. "You'll have your deal, don't worry. But if Snow White, dark as she was created, can grow her own heart, a heart capable of great love, a small heart that still beats inside your chest, then anyone can be saved. Anyone can be the fairest of them all. The Whitest shade of pale. Even me." His eyes flashed and the two of them, Snow and the beast, held his gaze for a few minutes.

For a moment, it seemed like Snow was going to cry, but this quickly disappeared. Snow Dark shook her head furiously.
"Once I destroy Snow White, I will have the body to myself. Don't think I will not use it to destroy you. I know someone, that knows where your knife is." The beast growled softly. When Rumpelstiltskin paled slightly, the beast smiled. Then a black cat slinked off leaving the remaining crowd in abject terror.