I don't really have much to say about this one. Initially, this was the second half-ish of chapter 3. But then I realized that with 1-inch margins, that version of chapter 3 would have been 15 pages long, and that's just too long a post for tumblr.
Fox waited by the back room door until the light crept in underneath, and for some time after that. Finally, fighting the tears of relief attempting to fall from her hazel eyes, she moved away from it. But as her arm unwound from its place around her waist, and her head pulled away from the door so that her hand could cover her mouth, the fairy could not help the cries that sounded from her throat. She stumbled back a few steps and slumped into one of the chairs she had been sleeping on, just hours prior. Had it been hours? It may have been days – it felt like it had been days.
Should she call Emma? Fox imagined that both as the sheriff and as the Savior, Emma may like to know about the villains' visit to Three Gem's. Then again, calling Emma would mean having to tell her what Mr. Hyde had taken and to show her the security footage. Fox would have to explain why Hyde was so interested in the old necklace when no-one had so much as glanced at it in the months since it – and therefore she – had been in Storybrooke. And then she would have to tell Emma how she knew all of this. At least for now, that was not an option. For now, there was only one thing she could do.
The fairy took a deep breath through her open mouth, wiped the tears that had escaped her, and let all her air out. Then she stood and waved a hand before her, encircling herself in glittering pink smoke. When the smoke cleared, she was wearing a pink sweater dress – something she could open her shop for business in. Fox took her keyring from a nearby table, and resolutely pushed open her back room door.
Apart from the shattered glass of the standing far corner display, nothing in the shop had been disturbed. The Evil Queen and Mr. Hyde were many things, she supposed, but they were not thieves. At least, not for the sake of thieving. Ignoring the glass shards sparkling on the floor, Fox knelt before her cash register, pulling the skirt of her dress down around her so it rested on the floor. The register sat atop one of the displays in the back of the shop. At the base of the display, beneath the row of locks, was an inconspicuous ridge, and just underneath the seam was a miniscule hole. Fox held her keyring at eye level, turning the keys over one at a time and letting them fall to the side.
After a moment, she found the one she was looking for. It was an unassuming metal rod, thin and somewhat nonsensical. Nevertheless, she waved her hand over it and watched it glow pink as several particles of sparkling fairy dust trailed from her fingertips. Then, just as its glow was fading, she gently pushed it into the secret drawer's circular keyhole.
At first, nothing happened. Then Fox felt the key pulse in her hand and, seconds after that, she heard a click. The drawer popped open. Fox dropped the key ring to the floor beside her and carefully opened the drawer all the way. Sitting inside, in a blue velvet inlay, was a delicate fairy wand. The wand was white, and the only section untouched by a carved spiral was the very base of it, where it was to be held. Just above the mild arch of the handhold were set three stones.
At being acknowledged, a silvery glow seemed to surround the wand, but only for a moment. It faded quickly and Fox lifted it, with a care bordering on reverence, using her fingertips at both ends. She held it up to the light and inspected it. This wand had been her first priority upon her arrival in Storybrooke. Fox had hardly had time to prepare for the curse before it came, and once she was in Storybrooke, she had no memory of any of her few preparations. A newcomer in a strange place, she had resolved to stock up on power, and this wand had been the perfect solution. The second, and middle, stone in it was the same shade of pink as her magic. It represented her own wand; the wand she had started with. The other two stones – the lowest, blue and the highest, green – were the only details on it to suggest that it had ever been three separate objects.
"I was hoping I would never have to use this," Fox muttered to herself.
Just then, she heard the bell over her shop's door chime. Her breath caught in her throat, grip tightening on the handle of her wand as she drew it close to her chest and shut the drawer in which it had been residing with her knee. Fox tried to take a deep breath, but she could not seem to release her shoulders from their tensed position. Finally, she gave up and gritted her teeth. But just as she prepared herself to go on the offensive, she heard a familiar, non-threatening voice.
"Fox, are you here?" Granted, this voice was less than happy, but it was welcome nonetheless. Fox sighed and tucked her wand into her shoe, letting the cloaking spell she had placed on it months prior take effect. She could hardly feel it as she stood and straightened her dress, and she knew that if she looked down she would not be able to see it.
"Emma!" Fox acknowledged with a relieved smile. "What can I do for you?" She took up her key ring and slid it up her arm until it had reached past her elbow. Then she stepped forward to the case in front of her.
"What is he planning, and how do we stop him?" The smile slowly slipped from Fox's face. Maybe it was her own paranoia, but there was no doubt in her mind who the Savior was talking about.
"What do you mean?" she asked anyway, brow furrowed.
"Uh-uh." The Savior shook her head once and strode farther into the room. "I talked to Henry already, so cut the crap. You know something," Emma posited. This wasn't just Emma Swan, Henry's mom. This was the sheriff, the Savior. And she did not have much time.
Regina had gone to Gold to ask for help and her dad had taken to the woods to find Hyde and the Queen. She knew Killian was worried for all of them, though he had not said as much. She stopped just in front of Fox.
"What do you know about Hyde? Tell me," she insisted sharply, slamming her hands flat on the glass before the fairy. Fox jumped back a step in surprise, back straight, eyes widened. An hour earlier, Fox would have been thrilled to see Emma. Now she only felt cornered. They had met once, briefly, when she had come to pick up Henry a few months previous, but she hardly knew her. Now the blonde was staring hard at Fox, as if willing her to tell her tale and she could only stand frozen, hoping Emma would leave her in peace. She took an unsteady breath.
"What exactly did Henry tell you?"
"He said you knew Jekyll, which means you know Hyde," Emma told her impatiently. Slowly, still wide-eyed, Fox shook her head.
"That's not what I told him." The Savior shook her head once and let a short sigh out through her nose. But Fox continued before she could continue pressing her. "I haven't seen either of them in years," Fox explained softly, "and I don't know what Hyde's plan is. I do know his need to torment Jekyll is all-consuming. He and the Evil Queen broke in a couple hours ago to steal Jekyll's girlfriend's necklace." Emma's frown deepened, but the accusation in her demeanor faded.
"Why didn't you call the station?" she asked, confused. Fox replied without taking her eyes off of the blonde before her.
"Because whatever Hyde or Jekyll or whoever is planning, I wanna be as far away from it as possible."
"What do you mean, Hyde or Jekyll?" The fairy's head tilted to one side, almost of its own accord. When she spoke, it was in a tone far too collected. Her hands were pressed to the sides of her pink sweater dress and the Savior could not see them shaking.
"Emma, when you were the Dark One, the only person you ever tried to kill was Zelena. If Hyde is pure evil, that evil had to come from somewhere." Just then, Emma's phone buzzed, and when she checked it her face turned ashen as she looked away from Fox. Her eyes didn't seem to be focused on anything and her head turned slightly downward as she took a step back. The fairy frowned and moved forward. "What is it?"
"It's my dad, Regina got ahold of him. When he was out looking for Hyde and the Queen, they were already on their way to the lab. Now Gold has the serum and Jekyll is with Belle and Killian." Fox's expression froze. When she spoke, her voice betrayed her worry.
"Gold's going after Hyde and the Queen?"
"If he has any reason to think Hyde's gonna go after Belle, that'll be his first priority," Emma reasoned. Before she even finished the sentence, Fox waved a hand over herself and disappeared in a cloud of glittering pink magic. When the smoke cleared, she was wearing more practical clothing – similar to Emma's, if slightly more pink. "If he was as much help to Jekyll as he thinks he was," Emma continued, frowning, "he shouldn't have any issues with taking Hyde out."
"Hyde and the Queen made it to the lab first?" Fox asked.
"Well, yeah, but–"
"Then the serum's going to fail. They're villains, they know better than to leave things to chance," Fox stated almost flatly. Almost. There was the slightest of quivers in her voice. She knew she could not be the nervous shop owner or the kind-hearted fairy just now. Fox had her powerful wand and her black boots and the town was in danger. She was involved, whether she liked it or not. "We need to be there to stop him when it does."
"Gold or Hyde?" Fox glanced at Emma, pulling her wand out of her – now significantly taller – shoe and raising it to hold it vertically, with the tip of it at eye level.
"Indeed," she muttered, just loud enough for the blonde to hear. Then she raised her wand into the air and turned around once. Emma watched as a familiar sheen of magic surrounded the two of them, working its way around all of the interior walls of the shop. It was a protection spell, but this was different from all of the ones Emma had seen. When she used her wand, Fox's magic had a warm, almost orange, tinge to it. Were it not for the growing feeling of unease in her stomach, Emma might have felt comforted to have a fairy so close by her side. Fox turned back to face her, slipping the wand back into her boot. "Gold is a beacon of dark magic, locating him won't be hard. Are you coming?" Emma hesitated for a moment.
"Can you stop him?" There was a pause. The fairy was unsure of how to answer. She had been uninvolved in the town for so long that she had forgotten how it felt to step up and make these kinds of choices. Now at her first chance, her impulse was to say no. But then she thought about Henry, and how he had told her that she was the first person he thought of to help the refugees from the Land of Untold Stories. What did it say when the owner of the heart of the truest believer clearly believed in her?
"…yes," Fox replied.
"Good. I need to make sure my dad is okay." Fox nodded in understanding.
"You should meet me once you know he is. I'll text you, let you know where I am," she assured the blonde. "This may not end well." Emma nodded grimly, a frightened look still in her eye. Both women waved a hand in front of themselves, disappearing in clouds of magic. Upon reappearing, Fox found herself at the docks.
Ahead of her, she could see the fading remnants of Gold's scarlet magic. He must have just arrived, then. She could see the outline of the man beside him. This man was tall. He wore a suit and held the Dark One's dagger at his side. Mr. Hyde. Gold's eyes were fixed on the Jolly Roger, beside the nearest port, but Fox was not looking at him. She was not even looking at Hyde. The fairy was staring at Captain Hook's ship.
At Jekyll chasing the Dark One's ex-wife with an extremely powerful weapon.
For the second time that day, there was a weight in Fox's stomach. The color drained from her face, and though she wanted desperately to move – to help – she found herself rooted to the spot. Gold may have been saying something, but all she could hear was the pounding of her own heart. A chill crept through her jacket, under her turtleneck, that had nothing to do with the breeze coming off of the ocean.
Fox had not even considered that something like this might happen. Her story had yet to be told, and with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in town, she knew it could not remain that way. The fairy had a sinking feeling that this was her story playing out before her widened eyes, but it should have been happening to her. The last thing she had expected was for the others in the town to be anything more than side characters. And the woman aboard the ship should have had nothing to do with Jekyll or Hyde.
She knew Belle – knew what a kind, intelligent woman she was. Fox had known this from the day she was born. And when the time had come, Belle's father knew just the fairy to ask for a blessing. Now Fox stood on the docks, watching her goddaughter beg for her life, and something in her stirred. It was not fear, or sadness, or even disappointment. Fox was angry.
The fairy was angry at herself for remaining silent when Jekyll and Hyde had come to town. She was angry for lying to Emma and Henry – because that was truly what she had done. And she was angry at herself now for remaining on the docks when her goddaughter needed her. But just as she pulled out her wand once more, she saw a flash of dark leap down from the quarterdeck.
Fox hesitated as the ship's captain himself grabbed Jekyll and threw him aside. Her heart, now lodged in her throat, seemed to be attempting to pull her towards the ship. She wanted to help, but the last thing she needed was a gash from the captain's hook. As she resolved to wait it out, however, something changed. Jekyll was pushed back, but he made no move to defend himself or continue his attack. He was no longer moving at all.
Just then, she heard something much closer than the ship. Reluctantly, Fox's gaze shifted. Hyde had dropped to his knees. He was struggling for breath, Gold glanced down at him, and Fox felt all of the air exit her lungs. Steadily, her heart slowed and made its way back its home in her chest. Now she had another choice to make. One thing she remembered clearly of Hyde was how fast he held to his convictions, his desires. How strong and intelligent he was, how cruel he could be. She remembered his swagger, and the way he used it to hide the gears turning in his mind. How he calculated the most efficient way to get exactly what he wanted, regardless of the cost to others. And she remembered just how much he enjoyed watching his enemies suffer. Clearly, Jekyll was no better than his darker half.
On the other hand, Fox was a fairy. She may have separated from all of the others, even long before the first curse came. But that did not change who and what she was, or what her responsibilities were. It was her duty – regardless of which realm she was in, or with whom her loyalties lay – to protect people and to find another way when there did not seem to be one. Allowing Jekyll and Hyde to be stopped may make her a hero. But standing back and letting them die…that would make her no better than the Dark One.
Fox gritted her teeth and waved her wand before herself, shrinking down to true fairy size. Then, on rose-tinted wings, she flitted off toward the ship.