Second Star To The Right

Mary Margret and David exited the pawn shop with their prize. Gold picked his phone from his pocket and dialed Orabella.

"Hello, Lovely."

"Hello, Dearie, what do I owe this pleasure?"

"What do you know about your dear sweet sister's disappearance?"

"Did Mary Margret and David just leave with her tear?" The sounds on the other side of the phone made her sound as though she had left her shop.

"Yes, they did." He listened as she began huffing into the phone. "Lovely, are you running?"

"Yes, I am. I'll see you in a second." She hung up on him. Less than a minute later she burst into the shop. "I need a gun."

Gold looked to his lover in shock. "A gun?"

"I'm gonna shoot the shit out of our son's fiancé."

"Why?"

"She's gonna try to kill him. And I'm gonna kill her," she said in explanation.

He gave a short nod of approval and rounded the counters. "Shotgun or pistol?"

"Pistol. Easier to handle at short ranges."

He pulled out a selection of revolvers and their appropriate ammunition. "Can you even use a gun?"

She picked up one of the offered pieces and began to load it. "My mother once had a boyfriend who taught me how to use them. It may have been 70-odd years ago, but it doesn't take much at point blank range."

She clicked the cylinder into place and he placed his hands over hers. "Why not use magic?"

She looked up at him, the fire dying in her eyes. "Neal doesn't like magic. I promised him I'd never use it in front of him unless I had to." She gestured to the gun. "I don't have to."

Gold nodded and picked up her other hand. "Be careful, my Lovely," he said kissing it gently.

Orabella smiled and placed her hand on his cheek. "I need to tell you, if I'm too late. He will be okay and we will see him again. I can promise this."

He smiled and pulled her hand down to kiss it again. "You are rarely late."

"But sometimes I am," she said morosely before she kissed him and left for the fish packaging plant.

She had sent a short text to Emma when she had parked and entered silently. She surprisingly hadn't put much thought into this day. She hadn't looked forward to it. She made her way through the large machines, praying to the Gods that Emma would come soon.

She heard a clatter of glass by another entrance and rushed to see who it was. She was met by Emma and David, their own guns drawn. "What the hell, guys," Emma exclaimed as they all lowered their weapons.

"Here," David said as he pulled out a walkie-talkie and handed it to his daughter. "So that doesn't happen again."

Emma clipped the radio to her belt. "You and Mary Margret take the basement. Ora, you're with me, we'll search the main floor. Regina's gotta be here somewhere."

"She is," Ora Bella confirmed. "Our unexpected guest has her tied to a table an is electrocuting her. They have a magic dampening cuff on her; she can't fight back."

"Where," Emma asked.

"I don't remember." Orabella lied easily as she gestured for Mary Margret and David to leave. "So we should get going."

Five minutes later Emma's radio crackled. "Emma, you gotta block the exits."

"Already on it," she answered her father. "You guys all right?"

"Oh, we're fine. We found Regina, with Mendell," David said as Mary Margret was removing the electrodes and restraints from Regina. "He's coming your way."

"Greg Mendell," Emma said in shock as she turned to Neal.

"So I was right. It wasn't Tamara," Neal said calmly, not noticing as his mother began moving as if to block him from the entrance of the hall they had entered.

As he moved to lead them on, Emma was knocked in the back of the head with a spare pipe. Orabella pulled her gun to level with the perpetrator as Tamara rounded the corner. "Actually..." she calmly picked up Emma's fallen gun and pointed it back at Orabella. "It was. I just had some help."

"What are you doing Tamara?!"

"I have to keep magic out of this world, Neal. It doesn't belong here. You more than anyone should understand that. It's a poison."

"You've been lying to me." Neal attempted to push past Orabella to get to his former fiancé. "How long have you been lying to me?"

"This is more important than any-"

"How long?!"

"She's been lying from the beginning," Orabella said softly.

"Since I spilled coffee on you," Tamara said mockingly.

Neal took a breath. "It wasn't an accident. You planned it all. None of it was real."

"Neal, you're a good man. I know that. So please try to understand. I had a job to do- an important one, one I think you can agree with." Tamara kept her eyes on Neal, never noticing Orabella drawing closer.

"You never loved me."

"No," Tamara admitted coldly.

Neal paused to look at the back of his mother's head, noticing how close she was to Tamara. "I cant let you leave here, Tamara." He moved closer to his mother.

"Neal, please don't make me."

Two guns went off. One into Tamara's shoulder; Neal had pulled Orabella back abruptly, throwing off her aim. The second ripped through Orabella's side, the bullet lodging into Neal as the impact from the first shot jerked Tamara's hand, spurring it into action. The three of them fell away from each other."

Tamara was the first to recover. She stood over the pair and pointed the pistol at Neal's head. "I'm sorry, Neal."

"You should be." Emma came from the side, knocking Tamara and the gun away from the father of her child.

The two women scuffled as Orabella took a look at her son. "Please let me," she begged as she put her hands over his wound to stem the tide of his blood. Neal only nodded his consent and watched as his mother worked quickly to heal him.

As Orabella finished digging out the bullet with the use of Telekinesis, Emma reached for her fallen gun and pointed it at Tamara on the floor. "It's over."

Tamara pulled something out of her pocket. "No. It's not," she gasped out as she threw the magic bean at Emma.

Emma jumped up onto a pipe to escape the growing portal as Neal and Orabella crawled to the adjacent wall. None saw Tamara make her escape. Emma's pipe broke and shifted her towards the violently swirling portal. Just as she was about to fall in, Neal and Orabella pulled her back.

Neal didn't understand why his mother had suddenly grabbed his hand as Emma remarked how they needed to go to the hospital, but held onto her hand anyway. Then the floor beneath him crumbled into the vortex. Emma grabbed his other hand as she too fell, and the two women began to pull him up.

He watched as Emma's awkward grip on the remaining floor began to fail and Orabella's blood pumped from her body, staining and slickening the wood beneath her. "You both can't hold me," he realized aloud.

"No. You don't get to do this to me again," Orabella cursed at him, shaking her finger as she did so.

"I'm not letting go of you," Emma cried as she pulled at her stretched limbs.

"You have to."

"No, you're shot!" Emma continued to pull as Orabella slipped on her own blood, losing her grip a little. "If you fall through that portal, you'll die no matter what world you land in!"

"No. But, Emma, Mama, Henry needs you. He can't lose all of us. Don't make him grow up like I did."

"Then don't let go," Orabella said as she slipped a potion into his coat sleeve, knowing her grip was failing.

"I need you," Emma blurted out. "I love you."

"I love you, too," Neal said as he let go of the women's hands and fell into the vortex. "I'll find you."

"No!"

The portal sealed behind him and the women collapsed back without his weight to hold them. Orabella used one hand to heal herself and placed the other on Emma. "Emma, look at me. Look at me, Emma." The younger woman looked at her blankly. "Neal will be okay. I know my son. He's a fighter. I slipped a healing potion into his coat, he'll be fine. But, we have to get back to town. Come on." She lifted the younger woman up and pulled her to her vehicle.