Chapter 49: Inner Light
Rumple and Ingrid were villains, so whatever spell or curse that made people feel the opposite of their true emotions...it was reversed for them. She had worked it out so long ago, but she couldn't let them go. She loved them...so, so much...and Regina, she only cared about Henry and Artz had simply been useful. The Queen would toss her aside eventually.
Snow and David, they had each other and a daughter and a grandson...a whole new life to live. Emma had Graham now so she was going to have the happy beginning she always wanted but just a whole lot sooner. Everyone had someone, new lives to live, everyone would move on, and she would disappear...Killian.
She clutched the small metal flute tightly, holding it against her chest as she cried silent tears. She was so selfish...by saving Graham, she had destroyed Killian's future. He and Emma would not fall in love or get married or have a child...Hope. That child would never be born now because she had ripped the threads of fate apart, trying to shove herself in there, to weave herself into this world.
She knew the truth...a truth she had been running from since she had woken up in Storybrooke. She didn't want to face it, to accept it, because it would break her. It would break her so badly and so much that she wouldn't be Artz anymore. One simple truth that was constantly slammed into her face.
Artz Gallifreya Lanaria was not supposed to exist in this reality.
Damn it...she just couldn't believe it. Even now, she was still holding on to the promise of her name. Artz Lanaria literally translated was Doctor Moon, but when defined as an abstraction, it meant Reflection of The Doctor. Gallifreya was Gallifrey's largest and brightest moon, a celestial body reflecting the light of the twin suns that shone on the homeworld of the Time Lords.
That was all she was...a reflection. She held no substance, no depth. She was shallow, an impression, a mere copy of the original...she couldn't even call herself a duplicate or a clone...she really was nothing.
An empty shell compelled to rise again and again by a stolen promise and a name that she dared to call her own.
'Artz.'
Her head snapped up, looking around for the origin of the mysterious voice. That hadn't been Kyubei. The contractor had a high pitch voice, very much like a young boy's voice, but whoever had spoken was definitely female, had sounded older somewhere in the twenties range, had a slight southern lilt to her tone, and she had sounded so familiar...so much so that her heart felt like it was being crushed inside her chest.
'My Doctor.'
"Who are you?" Artz whispered her voice cracking from crying so much.
The only answer she received was silence. Was she finally losing her mind? Was she finally cracking after all this time? What did she expect? After everything she's been through...she has lost so much...what was left? What reason could she possibly have to keep going? She had nothing to live for or die for or fight for...no reason or purpose...betrayed and abandoned by every friend she has ever made. Why did she exist at all?
She was pulled from her thoughts when the water from the stream rose up into the air and floated in front of her. Her eyes were wide in surprise as it formed into the general shape of a man. He stood on the surface of the stream and was looking straight at her.
"Stop moping about, wench." The water man spoke and she recognized the voice.
He had called her wench. It was The Fourth Captain, James Hook...the only man in the whole of creation that she was willing to obey.
"Is that an order, Captain?" She asked internally cringing at how hollow she sounded.
"I would say yes, but my godson would blast me into a wall. He's getting quite good at controlling his sound waves." Hook answered nonchalantly.
"Why are you here?" She asked genuinely curiously.
Instead of answering verbally, the water from his body flowed into her, being absorbed by her body and she shivered from the drop in her core body temperature...but she didn't feel alone anymore.
"To give back what you entrusted to me… your inner light." He finally answered as his voice drifted away.
She had tried to get him to come back, but he was gone. Whatever it was that she had absorbed into her body had filled her up, when before she had felt so empty. She smiled as she wiped away her tears. She was grateful...simply knowing that the Blood Guard existed and that they were trying to help all the different versions of her across an infinite number of realities, it meant more than she could ever say or express.