Author's note: Dang, it's been forever. Anyone still reading this? I hope everyone's ok out there! I've been working on "Unreal History" as my form of escapism. :-) I finally got to the end of the story, so now I'll edit and post the rest of it, with updates out twice a week.


Ivy hid in her room, sitting on the floor with the bed between herself and the window, clutching a pillow in her lap. She knew it was irrational, but she felt too weak and shaky to move. Her thoughts ran around in frightened circles.

There had been a shooting right outside her house.

She had held it together long enough to answer the police when they questioned her. No, she hadn't seen anything. She didn't know anything. Didn't know the wild-eyed girl suspected of holding the gun when it went off. An accident? A deliberate attack? Ivy didn't know.

And that was true enough. She didn't know. She pulled out the broken Rubik's cube from under the pillow and stared blankly at it, ignoring her phone as it bleeped again. She had answered as much as she could bear of her mother's texts.

Her mother was still at her office, working late. Once assured of Ivy's continued survival, the rest of her messages concerned Stacy (don't let her stay up too late, don't let her smuggle any contraband into the house — you can't trust those school friends of hers) and paperwork that she wanted Ivy to take care of (a title search in preparation for her latest conquest).

Ivy tossed the phone aside. She couldn't concentrate; her mind was floating, and she was plagued by a nagging sense of unreality.

A shooting.

It was as if the gunshot (yes, she had heard it, a sharp bang) had cracked the world open and a nightmare was leaking in. A nightmare not shared by her little sister, and the strangeness of that made Ivy feel that she was losing her mind. Stacy had gone through the same questions with the police, but she hadn't heard anything, not with her earbuds in. Minutes after they shut the door to settle back into their regular lives, nothing lingered of the incident. At first Ivy thought Stacy was just faking tranquility, but no, the fear and shock were gone, tiny ripples smoothed away into nothing.

"Everyone's fine," Stacy said when Ivy pressed the issue. "Nothing happened. What are you so worried about?"

That was when Ivy had to either barricade herself inside her bedroom or scream, and she didn't want to scream. But everything was still falling to pieces around her.

She was going crazy.

As crazy as that Tilly... Mad as a mismatched Rubik's cube. Ivy twisted the blocks this way and that. She had vague memories of solving them as a middle school student. Match the corners to the middle, fix the edges. She muddled through the transformations as well as she could with so many colors missing.

It took her over an hour to realize that in fact no solution was possible to Tilly's cube. The pieces would never align correctly. The world — her world — was intrinsically disordered. Nothing fit. Here was nonsense, there was sense, and there was no continuous route from here to there. Not within the rules.

She had to take the cube apart. And once she had done that, once she had fitted the pieces back together again, each face united in a single color — she remembered. She remembered who it was that had given her the puzzle.

"Alice." Whispering the name aloud made it real — they had been unreal, but the world had been taken apart and reshuffled. "Alice, what have you done?"


In the end, Hansel went back to the house Nick thought of as home. He didn't want to face his false father, but he didn't want to starve on the streets, either. He slipped inside as quietly as he could, and to his relief, Facilier seemed to be asleep.

It took much longer for Hansel to achieve the same state. His head was too full of witches cursing him and caging him and bleeding on the ground. He couldn't shake off the smell of smoke, kept remembering the sickening collision of brick with human bone.

He woke up without any memory of having fallen asleep, sunlight blazing on his face. He crept downstairs, hoping to sneak a bite to eat before heading out again. To his dismay, Facilier was in the living room already. With no chance of going unnoticed, Hansel glanced at the sprawling mess on the coffee table and adjacent chairs. Were those... voodoo dolls? Nick couldn't help but ask, "What are you doing?"

Facilier's mouth twitched in an enigmatic smile that Hansel didn't trust at all. "Better that you don't know. Just as it's better that I don't know what you've been up to, my boy."

Nick shuddered. Did his father suspect? Did he know?

Admit nothing! Hansel insisted to himself. Aloud, he mumbled, "Fine..." and fled to the kitchen.

Later, having found a semblance of calm, Hansel caught up with Henry at Roni's bar.

Henry grinned at him, cheerful despite the mop in his hand. "Hey, Nick."

Hansel squinted at his friend. "Hey. I thought you were off duty today."

Henry shrugged. "I'm filling in for Miguel. But listen, they released my father! Dropped all the charges."

"Wow. That's awesome," said Nick. "I told you he was innocent."

Henry scoffed. "You totally thought he was guilty. You were staring at him like he was America's most wanted."

"Was not. Ok, maybe a little. Come on, I was worried for you, man," Nick conceded after Henry rolled his eyes at him. "Fine. So, did you guys find proof or something?"

Roni, who always had at least half an ear tuned to all the conversations in the bar, snorted at Nick. "More like the cops have bigger fish to fry than Cassidy. They don't have the leisure for petty harassment anymore."

Nick tensed. "What do you mean?"

Roni shook her head, scowling. "Hyperion Heights is going to hell in a hand basket." She bustled away to serve her customers without further elaboration.

Henry nudged Nick with an elbow, muttering, "Tell you later. I'm almost done here."

Nick's stomach sank, but he braced himself and feigned ignorance when "later" arrived. "What did your mom mean, 'bigger fish to fry'?"

"That bakery, you know, that one she likes. It burned down with the owner inside."

"Shit." What else could he say? Nick tried to look horrified. "What happened?"

"They're saying it might be arson."

"Arson? Do... do they have any suspects yet?" Nick managed to get the question out before he stopped breathing.

Henry shook his head. "Not that anyone knows about."

Nick nodded, relief loosening his chest. "Oh."

"I wonder..."

"What?"

"My dad said he was helping the police with an investigation — he went to meet Detective Weaver again today. He said he wasn't allowed to talk about it, but what if it's about this bakery case?" Henry bubbled with suppressed excitement, obviously imagining his new-found father as some kind of secret agent or criminal mastermind.

Nick forced a smile. "Huh. Seems a long shot. I thought he was arrested because his aunt went missing or something."

"And they cleared him of that. But what if it's a serial killer? What if the same person got my dad's aunt?"

"Well... there wasn't another fire, was there? I thought serial killers used the same method every time." Hansel couldn't meet Henry's eyes. Gods, he wished he could tell him. The old Henry would have understood, but not this Henry, who believed in serial killers and corrupt cops, but not witches or fairy tales.

"Actually, not always." Henry went on to tell Nick about other cases he had heard about.

"You read too many true crime books," grumbled Nick, trying to cover his unease. What if Henry found out? No. Hansel couldn't let that happen — but he couldn't let the witches get away, either. He had to act quickly. Then, even if he was caught, at least he would have achieved some measure of justice first. Maybe Henry would forgive him, someday, when he remembered the truth.


It seemed unreal, to be walking (or at least slowly hobbling) alongside his son in the light of day — not a dream, not an illusion, not a memory, but a reality stranger than anything Weaver had ever imagined. Stranger than anything Rumplestiltskin had imagined, either. The streets of Seattle were like nothing in the Enchanted Forest or even Wonderland.

He glanced over at his son and began hesitantly, "All the shades you spoke to in the Underworld..."

Neal gave him a questioning look.

Weaver didn't know how to ask, but gathered his courage enough to force out the words, "Did you see your mother there?"

Neal turned away, his shoulders hunching as he stuck his fists into his pockets. "Not at first. And not like the others. It was... not in a good place. She knew I knew the truth, how she abandoned me."

Rumplestiltskin had tried to protect his son from that truth — from the inevitable rumors that he tried to deny — but it had been useless in the end. Not only had he not saved Bae from pain, he had added to it. "I did the same."

"At least you tried to find me. She could have sailed back any time she wanted. But she never..." Neal trailed off into inaudibility, and Weaver saw him swallow thickly.

"Some people just aren't cut out to be parents." It was the only comfort he could dredge up for his son.

"Yeah. But she didn't have to sneak off like that and make us think she was kidnapped by pirates. Or try to make you fight a duel for her." Neal's voice turned bitter. "Now there's cowardice for you... she tried to get someone else to kill you instead of doing it herself."

"I'm sorry." For so much. A thousand apologies weren't enough.

"Yeah, well." Neal shrugged with forced casualness. "It was what it was. No divorce, no marriage counseling, no money, a horde of ogres on the horizon, and then all the dark magic messing with your head... everyone got a little crazy back then. She... she said she regretted leaving us that way. That she was sorry. Probably meant it, too."

Weaver nodded. Easy to imagine Milah being ashamed to face her son. She could despise and hate her cowardly husband, but not her child, whose only crime was being born into an unhappy, broken marriage. "I suppose she still hates me."

"Did you expect her to forgive you?"

"Not really. But I hoped she could let it go."

"She has, in a way. She figures you can burn in hell right next to her when the time comes!"

Weaver snorted. "That's Milah." But he had traces of memory from his other self, and shuddered, as if it had already happened.

"Yeah, well, they say time heals all wounds. Let's hope that's true, and that no hell lasts forever."

They reached the disused studio that served as Weaver's unofficial office. Weaver sat down carefully on one of the folding chairs that were all the furniture he had, trying not to wince in pain. Neal remained on his feet, checking out the place with a curious eye.

"So, you found these in Blue's coffin?" Weaver had taken the book and wand out of the evidence locker. He now set them down on a chair beside him.

"Yeah. I thought, I dunno, you could use them to break the curse, or..." Neal rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "But I guess that was stupid. This is a land without magic, and you couldn't have changed that if you didn't have your memories."

"Mmm. Despite my bout of amnesia, magic is in fact here."

Neal crossed his arms and frowned at Weaver. "What did you do, Papa?"

"When I first planned to come here, I made a potion to bring magic with me," Weaver confessed. "There's billions of people in this realm. I didn't know how else to find you."

Neal sighed, sounding resigned. "I wish you could have trusted yourself more, that you could live without magic."

"As what? I... I was nothing without magic." The detective was a mask, an illusion. The man behind it was still— "A pathetic coward. Too weak to protect you. I didn't want to fail you again."

"Papa..." Neal shook his head. "I suppose I understand that a little better now."

"Well, that was the original plan." Weaver frowned, piecing together what must have happened. "I didn't use the potion this time around, but someone else did."

"Who?"

"I'm not sure. Gothel is here, and she would want magic, but she was bound by the curse... she shouldn't have been able to do anything." Could she have told someone? Someone who violently extracted the potion from where Rumplestiltskin had hidden it — inside the body of the homeless woman who had been a dragon in the other realm.

Maleficent wasn't as lucky as Rumplestiltskin to reunite with her lost child in the Enchanted Forest, which meant her only hope now was to connect with the daughter from the "real" reality. The dragon in the wish-made realm had fallen into despair after a few years of failed searching, vanishing from common awareness in a cloud of magical depression. Rumplestiltskin had seen through the effect to weave her soul into the curse along with all the others.

Detective Weaver could question her, assuming she recovered enough to speak, and assuming she remembered anything about her attacker. "I'll investigate it more closely now that I know what to look for."

"Ok. So there's magic here." Neal gestured at Weaver. "Then... then how come you haven't healed yet?"

"Magic may be here, but I don't have it anymore. The curse took a lot out of me, you could say."

Neal's brows knit in a worried frown. "I thought the Dark One was supposed to be immortal."

"Was, yes. But when I used the curse to turn a wish into reality, I had to bind that immortality into the threads to make the transformation permanent. I'm mortal, now, all my power drained away." Weaver shot his son an ironic half-smile. "So we get to see just how useless your old man is."

Neal scoffed. "Fine." He gestured at the wand. "But since there is magic, can't you use that to heal yourself?"

Weaver touched the wand, feeling the power bound within the wood. "It's light magic."

"Isn't that good?"

"It would restore me to who I was before I was shot." Weaver shook his head. "Before I remembered you." He let go of the wand and gestured at his chest. "The wound is the price of my memories." He smiled slightly. "Worth it, I'd say."

"Speaking of memories, how do we return everyone else's? You can hardly go around shooting everyone."

"As exciting as that would be, no, I can't — even if it would work. I was something of a special case."

"So how do we break this curse? All those people stuck in time, not knowing who they are — we have to free them."

It was meant to be the savior born of true love who broke the Dark Curse, but they had no saviors now. Whatever Bae had said about Rumplestiltskin's original destiny, even if true, it was long gone by now. And as for Rumplestiltskin's original plans, those were just as lost. Princess Emma hadn't done much saving, hadn't even existed, not truly. Weaver remembered what Neal had said about being there for his family. "She's not here. Emma." The name soured in his mouth. "She was meant to break the curse, but she... she was never..." Real, he didn't want to say.

Neal stared down at his hands. "I know. It... it wouldn't have been fair to trap her in a reality created out of spite. Emma made her choice, and... it's not me."

"Bae..."

Neal shook his head. "It's all right."

It wasn't. Rumplestiltskin could see how much it hurt his son to say it, but some things were beyond even magic. Magic can't make someone love you. "I'm sorry."

"She's found herself, found her family." Neal smiled bravely. "We should be happy for her."

In the wish-made reality, Emma's parents had been brutally murdered as she watched in abject surrender, unable to save them. No wonder she rejected that version of herself, no wonder she buried a lifetime of memories — including her memories of Baelfire. But no, those had been taken away long ago with the Blue Fairy's potion. Bae was no more than a name and a face in a painting to his wife. Rumplestiltskin clenched his teeth, biting back his anger at the cruelty of fate. His son deserved better.

"And I'm happy that I'm here. I have a chance now with you, with my son." Neal chuckled, a strained but genuine laugh. "No, make that two of you, and two of him..."

Weaver snorted. "Well, you came here, so let's concentrate on fixing things in Hyperion Heights before you worry about our twins elsewhere."

"Agreed." Neal nodded at the book. "I remember the other Henry had one of those. Maybe if I give this to the Henry here, it'll wake him from the curse."

"Certainly worth a try." Weaver passed the book to his son. The book had its own magic, but it was tied to the Author and the fates, inaccessible to Rumplestiltskin.

"Thanks. You're not gonna get in trouble for 'losing' this?" Neal asked jokingly, cracking the book open to skim through it.

"Technically, that hole in the ground wasn't a crime scene, and we don't even know if..."

"Shit!" Neal jumped back, slamming the book closed. He stared wildly at Weaver.

"Bae!" Weaver stood up in alarm, but Neal backed away, clutching the book to his chest. "What's wrong?"

"You didn't read the book?"

"No, I've been in hospital, as you may recall." Weaver frowned. "What did you see? If you show me, maybe—"

"No!"

At Neal's vehement reaction, Weaver sat back down carefully, without taking his eyes off his son. "Bae, please, trust me."

"It's a trap," Neal said flatly. "A trap for you." He swallowed, glancing down guiltily. "I was meant to give it to you."

"Ah. And the nature of this trap?"

"There's a page with the story of the Wish Realm, about how and why it was created. But it's more than that. When I saw it... I don't know how I know, maybe another memory Blue planted in my head." Neal finally looked up at Weaver. "It's a kind of portal. It would pull you back into the story, and everyone else with you. You would be turned into fiction."

"The fates at work," Weaver muttered. "Taking a more active hand than usual. If Tilly hadn't shot me..."

"She could have killed you!"

"At least our reality would be irreversible, if I was safely dead. A portal like that is opened by a living eye." Weaver's fingers twitched with curiosity. He had held the book in his hands and not felt the portal. He didn't dare examine it now, but— "What's on the page? Are there fairy runes? Elvish?"

"Wait, let me look." Neal turned his back to his father, moving halfway across the room. After a moment, he held it up, angling it this way and that as he peered at the page. "No runes, but something like a watermark: some kind of star? Cross? Like eight tridents in a wheel..."

"The wheel of fate," Weaver realized. "It represents control over each of the eight directions: north and south, east and west, up and down, past and future."

"Control? Like hell!" Neal furiously tore the page in question from the book.

"Wait!"

Neal turned his head to scowl at his father. "It's promising to guide me to Storybrooke — to Henry — if I comply. But I'm done being fate's puppet..."

"Bae?"

"I abandoned Emma. I lost out on being Henry's father."

"You were a hero, Bae! The ogres..."

"No, in the 'true' timeline. I let myself be convinced it was Emma's destiny to be her family's savior, and I was in the way of her best future." Neal crushed the torn-out page in his fist.

"You acted out of love."

"But it doesn't seem to matter. So to hell with fate." Bae made to rip the page to shreds.

"Stop!" Weaver shouted, sharply enough that Bae hesitated. "You might make it worse."

"Worse how?"

"Right now the power is contained. Who knows what it will do if you set it free?"

"At least it wouldn't be a portal dragging you into a damn story," Neal argued.

"But now that there's magic in Hyperion Heights, someone could collect that power and use it."

"Fine, you collect it and use it."

Weaver stared in shock at his son. The thought had occurred to him, of course, but he knew how much Baelfire hated his father's dependence on magic. "Bae..."

"I used to think magic ruined everything," Neal answered the unspoken question. "But after living in the land without magic — after living two lives — I don't believe that anymore. It's different here, but people are happy or unhappy just the same."

"What are you saying, son?"

"Look, I don't think you need magic. But you don't need a car, either — doesn't mean the version of you in Maine didn't have a ball driving that damn Cadillac around Storybrooke." Neal shrugged. "You're good at magic. Without it, no one here would exist. So I'm saying, you do you, Papa."

Weaver was astonished into speechlessness.

"Just don't go all mad sorcerer on us, ok?"

Weaver's mouth opened and closed.

"Because yeah, that happened before, and it sucked. But I know you, Papa. If it gets hard... I promise I'll help." Neal's mouth quirked in a crooked smile. "Just don't try to hide things from me, all right?"

Weaver nodded dumbly.

"So, how does this work?"

Weaver picked up the fairy wand, considering the problem. "Fate magic is slippery, but since the fairies technically serve the fates, I may be able to use Blue's wand as a buffer..."

As Weaver mused aloud, Neal broke in, "Um, when I said 'don't hide things', I didn't mean you had to recite a spellbook at me... you can just give me the gist."

"Sorry, Bae." Weaver took a breath, trying to calm his jittery nerves. He was here, and his son was with him. Alive. Willing to work with his father. In comparison to the joy of that fact, curses and traps counted for nothing.


Author's notes: The afterlife and the underworld: OUAT is supposed to be "a show about hope", and what hope is there if souls are obliterated or lost forever? Is there no hope for poor Auntie Em? Or Milah? How is she more evil than Cora, who somehow managed to get into a better place!? In my version, it isn't forever. Hell isn't an eternal punishment. It allows for souls to transform themselves eventually and escape. As for Hades, he was just being a vindictive asshole because he was exiled and stuck with a job he hated, so he wanted everyone else to be miserable, too. That plot in s5b about "weakening" Hades by helping souls move on was just nonsense. His power had nothing to do with how many souls were in his bit of the underworld. The number was just a meaningless statistic that he got obsessed with.

Milah being behind Killian's challenge to Rumple: my head-canon is based on the flashback in 5.14 ("Devil's Due"). Milah has past form in a) getting someone else to do the dirty work b) possibly trying to get Rumple killed c) apparently enjoying the ego-boost of men fighting over her. I also don't believe she ever had any real intention to go back for Bae. If anything, it would be Killian who vaguely wanted to. Either way, they didn't care enough to try to save Bae from being drafted for the Ogres War. As seen in the show, Milah made no attempt to contact Neal after he died (nor did he try to contact her as far as we know), and showed no reaction to finding out she had a grandson nor expressed any interest in him. I don't think she had the idea that her "unfinished business" was with her son until Emma mentioned him, at which point Milah allowed herself to feel (consciously) guilty.