Chapter 34: The miller's daughter/Welcome to Storybrooke
The Jolly Roger arrived at Storybrooke, and Gold told them to bring him to his shop. They had to act fast if they wanted to be prepared for when Cora and Regina decided to use the dagger.
Henry assumed that he was going to be left out, and Emma confirmed it. He wasn't too happy about it, but then he thought of something and turned to Ruby.
"Can we go see Aunt Rose?"
"Sure." Said Ruby giving a side glance to the others. "Maybe you will distract her enough, for her to stop threatening the doctors and nurses."
Henry was confused by that, but Emma chuckled and shook her head.
"Let me guess, she keeps asking people to break her out and gets snappier with the doctors?" She said with a grin.
"Yeah." Said Ruby with a mix of a sigh and a smile. "Pretty much. It's got to the point where Doctor Whale doesn't come to see her for anything else than the mandatory daily checkup. Henry, why don't you go to the car and get strapped in?"
Henry sighed but did as he was told. Ruby turned to the others and frowned.
"Doctor Whale said that there is no medical reason for her to not have her memories, so the fairies are working on a potion to restore the memories from before the curse."
"That's good news." Said Emma, but frowned seeing Ruby's face. "But you don't seem too happy about it."
"Blue thinks that something erased her memories before the curse affected her. There's a chance that this potion will only restore the year you two spent here, not her life in the Enchanted Forest." Said Ruby sadly.
"We'll have time to discuss this later." Said Mary-Margaret, not allowing herself to think about her amnesic sister. "We need to get Gold to his shop, so he can get better and plan how to end Cora."
At the shop, Gold told Emma to draw a line with invisible chalk on the front door and the rest to prepare for battle. At the last moment, once the others had left, he asked Mary-Margaret to fetch him another blanket.
In the cabinet she saw something she hopped to never see again. At that moment she realized why Gold asked her to stay behind. Gold explained how to use the candle correctly with Cora, but Mary-Margaret still had doubts. After all, there was no coming back from murder.
Regina and Cora had reached the shop and all were ready to fight. Mary-Margaret was still fighting with herself about what to do. She could hear her mother's words telling her to be kind and not to fall to the evil path. Then she heard Rose's voice telling her that killing someone, not in self-defense, was something that would take a toll on you, something that would change you forever.
But above all, she could see the faces of everyone she lost because of Cora's machinations. Then she made up her mind. She knew her entire family would be disappointed, but it was time to grow up. Nothing could stay pure forever. She took advantage of everyone's attention being on Cora and Regina, and left.
Rumpelstiltskin watched Cora look at herself in her wedding dress. He had to admit that she looked beautiful. He hadn't been interested in anyone since Mila, and since the Ogre War, their relationship had been dead.
Cora told him of her ambition to be Queen and how she would need what he could give her to achieve it. He looked at her.
"I can give you nothing but darkness and isolation." He said clearly.
"And love." She said looking at him intensely.
"Yes." He said softly getting lost in his thoughts. "And love."
The seer's words came back to him from all those years ago. Could Cora be the one to give him another child, the one that would be powerful? The seer said that the child would be powerful, and Cora could provide that. She had great potential for magic, he could see that even without his clairvoyance, and her ambition and desire for power made her even more attractive to him. Yes, maybe she was the one to mother his second child.
"What if I, what if I amended our contract?" He asked her walking around her. "Instead of you owing me some random firstborn child, you owe me my child?"
They made the new deal, and Rumpelstiltskin would start his lessons right away. Cora wanted the king dead, and that was something he was glad to help with.
Cora was working on breaking the barrier, and Gold was on the verge of dying. He asked Emma for his phone, so he could speak to Rose one last time. Neal asked about Rose and Emma said she was Gold's girlfriend with a huff. She still wasn't totally on board with the relationship.
"Hello, Emma. Are you finally going to get me out of here?" Gold heard Rose say with a hint of annoyance in her voice and a laugh in the background, probably Henry's.
"Sorry, Rose. This is Mr. Gold. I just wanted to talk with you."
"Um, sure, but I have to tell you, I still don't remember you."
"I know, but, darling, I'm dying." He heard Rose let out a small gasp, and he smiled slightly. "I know that you're confused about who you are. So, I'm going to tell you. You are a hero, who helped your people. You're a beautiful woman, who loved a man that didn't deserve it. Really, really loved me. You find goodness in everyone and everything. And when it's not there, you accept it. You make me want to go back. Back, to the best version of me, the real me. And that never happened before. So, when you look in the mirror, and you don't know who you are, that's who you are. Thank you, Rose. I love you."
He hanged up before she could answer. He couldn't bear not to hear her say it back. He just wanted her to know, one last time. Neal looked at him with tears in his eyes. They talked and even if things weren't perfect between the two of them, they at least got on the path to fixing things.
Cora had finally broken the barrier and sent Emma and Neal away. Gold had to win some time, so he asked her the question he had always wanted to. He remembered that night clearly. The night that she decided to choose power over love. The night she ripped out her own heart and broke his.
"Did you ever love me?" He asked her.
For a very long time, that question had haunted him, but since he met his little firebird, he had started to forget about it. Not completely, but enough that it didn't occupy a great part of his mind. At the end, the rare time he thought about it, he just reminded himself that he hadn't truly loved Cora, and she hadn't loved him either. He had felt true love, and it was nothing like that.
It worked, and enough time had passed for Regina to arrive and put Cora's heart back in her body. For a moment Cora felt all the love she had refused herself to feel, at that moment, she knew what true love was, and that was her love for Regina. But all too soon, she felt it, she was dying.
Cora died in Regina's arms, Gold was in good health again, and Regina's hatred for Snow White had increased to levels never heard of before.
Regina was in the mausoleum mourning her mother, when Gold entered. She wasn't too happy about his presence. After all, he was behind her mother's death. He left a dark purple rose on top of Cora's casket. He couldn't use a red rose. To him those were reserved for one person alone.
"Getting Mary Margaret to trick me into killing my own mother? You may be able to hide behind your dagger, but she can't. She's going to die for what she did." She said with hatred in her voice.
"Oh, come on. We both know killing her will cost you the thing you want most, Henry." He told her getting closer to her. Then he sighed. "Why don't you just give up this obsession with vengeance? You know it can never make you happy."
He tried to make her see that vengeance wasn't the answer, that she would never have everything, just like her mother. But Regina was having none of it, and vowed to have everything in the end.
Back at the apartment, things weren't looking too good either. Mary-Margaret hadn't got off the bed or spoken since the incident. Henry asked about it and at first Emma tried to lie, but in the end she decided to tell Henry the truth and try to win his trust back.
Shortly after, there was a knock on the door and when David opened the door he saw Mr. Gold, and he only wanted to slam the door on his face, but he warned them. He had to.
"Regina. She's planning to strike back." He said looking at Emma. "Against your mother."
He was going to leave it at that. Warn them and leave them to deal with it. He didn't want to get more involved in this. He had more pressing matters to worry about. But David made a good point.
"Because aside from us being family now. More than I would like." He said the last part under his breath. "Mary-Margaret saved your life. Now you owe her a debt. And you always pay your debts, don't you?" He glared at Gold. "Rose always said you were a man of your word. So you're gonna help us stop Regina."
At Granny's, Emma and Neal had agreed that it would be better for Henry to go to New York with his father, but Henry wasn't going to go along with that plan. He had one of his own. When he made his escape through the bathroom window, Emma asked Ruby for help finding him.
"Of course, but I was actually going to the hospital. Dr. Whale said that Rose could benefit from some fresh air. If I don't go pick her up she will kill me." Said Ruby with a frown.
"Yeah, not a very good idea to have a pissed Rose in our hands right now." Said Emma trying to figure out what to do. "Okay, call Belle and tell her to pick Rose up from the hospital and to bring her to the apartment. She might actually get Mary-Margaret to say something. Gold is there, so he will be able to keep them safe and Rose can kick ass with or without her memories. I'll call David and let him know what happened."
After a while, Rose and Belle arrived at the apartment. Once the door opened, David, Neal, Emma and Ruby run out to find Henry. Rose looked after them with a raised eyebrow and turned to look at Belle who gave her a sheepish smile and shrugged her shoulder nervously. No one really knew if they should tell Rose what was going on. She knew that Henry was Emma's long-lost son, but all the mess with Regina and Cora was unknown to her.
They saw that Mary-Margaret was lying on the bed, she didn't even look up when they arrived and the others left. Gold looked at Rose with a smile. She might not have her memories back, but seeing her out of the hospital was nice. She turned to look at him and raised an eyebrow.
"Weren't you dying just yesterday?"
"Yeah." He chuckled. "It seemed like that, but I made a full recovery."
"Okay…" She said not truly believing him. "And what's wrong with you?"
Rose turned to Mary-Margaret who ignored her. Rose looked at Mr. Gold and Belle, but Belle just shook her head. Gold on the other hand decided to tell her the truth, or at least a simplified version. He told her that past night, the teacher had killed someone. They didn't know what her reaction would be, but they didn't expect what happened next. She just shrugged her shoulders and sat down on the bed with her legs crossed.
"So, you killed someone. What's the big deal? Did this person not deserve it?" She said without a care in the world.
The other two were shocked. And so was Mary-Margaret who turned to look at her with surprise. She silently shook her head.
"Okay, so this person deserved to die in some level." She said and raised a hand to silence Gold and Belle. Mary-Margaret nodded again. "Okay. Did you do it to protect yourself or someone you cared about?"
The answer this time took longer. Mary-Margaret was really thinking about it. She did kill Cora to protect her family. Her first target may have been Mr. Gold, but she knew afterwards it would be her and her loved ones. So, finally she nodded.
"Okay. So then, I ask again, what's the big deal?"
"The big deal is I killed someone!" Said Mary-Margaret enraged.
"Oh, good. You are talking now." Said Rose with a grin.
The others looked at her with raised eyebrows. Was this her plan all along? Get Mary-Margaret so mad that's he would talk?
"So, now that you admitted it, what are you gonna do about it?" She asked her. Mary-Margaret was confused by that question. "Are you just going to waste away on this bed wallowing in your own misery, or are you going to accept that life is not fair and that sometimes we have to make difficult choices that we have to learn to live with."
"I'm not allowed to feel bad for what I did?" Said Mary-Margaret frowning.
"Of course you are. I would be worried if you wouldn't. But being silent and not talking to anyone is not going to help you. Believe me, I did the same." Rose saw the question in the other's eyes and sighed. "The first time I killed someone, I did it entirely for self-defense and threw up afterwards, but after that I did it for survival and to protect my friends. At the moment I didn't have time to really think about what I was doing, but once everything passed, and we were back in the States in a hospital, then everything came back to me. I stayed quiet too. I asked myself if what I did was okay. After all, I did a lot of bad things, for justified reasons, but I still killed people. I didn't decide to talk, until Emma arrived, and she didn't pry. That gave me time to ask myself what I asked you. And at the end I decided to do something about it."
Belle, Gold and Mary-Margaret were listening to Rose with shock and sadness. This life hadn't been too kind on her either. She might not have been a magical outcast, but it seemed that tragedy followed her around too.
"So, how are you going to channel that anger?" Rose asked Mary-Margaret.
"Anger?" She said confused.
"Yes. I'm sure that you will figure out soon that you are angry at yourself for what you did. For not finding another way. For doing what you had to do." Rose gave Mary-Margaret a look. "Dealing with that will be the first step forward. So, what are you going to do?"
Gold took Belle aside and told her to get Rose back to the hospital. He could feel Regina approaching, and he didn't want to risk her safety. Belle nodded and told Rose it was time to go back. Rose moaned in frustration and started complaining about having to go back to the hospital when she was perfectly fine. When they opened the door to leave, Mary-Margaret stopped them.
"How do you get over it?" She asked in a small voice.
"You don't." Said Rose with a sad smile. "You just learn to live with it."
When David called Gold to inform him that they had Henry and everything was okay, he informed Mary-Margaret. She was still mulling over everything Rose had said to her, but she wanted to have another opinion, so she asked.
"How do you do it?" She asked Mr. Gold. "Live with yourself. Knowing all the bad things you've done."
"Well, you tell yourself you did the right thing. And if you say it often enough, one day you might actually believe it." He said without looking at her. "I agree with Rose in one thing. You have to learn to live with it."
After he left, Mary-Margaret decided to go see Regina and put an end to it. She didn't know if she could live with what she had done. Regina accepted to kill her, but when she ripped out her heart she saw a black spot. Then she realized that she could have Henry back and see Snow White suffer.
"I don't need to destroy you. You're doing it to yourself. And along the way, you'll bring down that perfect little family you fought so hard to reunite. And then Henry will be mine." Mary-Margaret tried to beg Regina to kill her. But she shook her head and put her heart back. "You see, I can have everything. Thanks to you. Now get off my porch."
What neither of them saw was Greg Mendel filming the whole thing. Something big was coming, and no one was prepared for it.
AN: I'm back! I know I suck! I'm the worst! I've had little free time and to be honest until we reach the third season, nothing too interesting will be happening to Rose, so I've been a little lazy about writing. But we are approaching the moment that Rose will get her memories back, all of them. So stayed tuned.
As always, thanks for taking the time to read my story! :)