Disclaimer: I do not own Once Upon a Time. Never will. Except for Ally and Rose.
A/N: Remember to vote in the poll about who Rose should be in Fairy Tale Land!
11- Heart of Darkness
The news is all over the town when Ally wakes up the next morning. Mary Margaret Blanchard the fifth grade teacher has been arrested for the murder of Katherine Nolan.
If it wasn't so absurd and scary it would have been funny to even think of. It was all that the small town could seem to talk about. Ally was sitting on her normal stool at the counter listening to everyone voice their opinions about what happened and went down. The bell over the door clangs loudly, and Henry comes racing to a stop next to Ally.
"Did you hear?" He asks breathless and desperate. Ally bites down on her lip and nods her head.
"Miss Blanchard would never do that." Ally says solemnly. Henry nods his head in violent agreement to that and climbs up on the stool next to her.
"We're going to have to prove that she didn't. I mean its ridiculous she's Snow White. She wouldn't kill anyone." Henry says stopping abruptly when Gigi puts down a plate of pancakes in front of the young boy. "Thanks Granny!"
"No problem Henry. Good to see you back around here." She says walking off to attend to another customer. Henry shovels some food into his mouth while Ally watches him with an eyebrow quirked.
"Is she taking to starving you now?" Ally asks her friend. Henry rolls his eyes at her and bumps her shoulder.
"Its time to be serious Ally we need to help Miss Blanchard prove her innocence. I just know that the Evil Queen is behind this." Henry says lowering his voice as Granny passes in front of the pair again.
"I know Henry but this is getting serious. She had our teacher arrested. Don't you think this is a little out of our league even for Operation Cobra?" Ally whispers back. Henry shrugs his shoulders, and downs the last of his milk with the rest of his pancakes.
"Come on Ally. If she's resorting to something this big then that means she's running scared. We must be getting close!" Henry hisses excitedly. "Come on. We have to go find Emma."
Henry slips off his stool and Ally follows after him, shoving the last slice of toast into her mouth as she does so. The pair exit the diner and start walking through downtown.
"Where are we going to go?" Ally asks finishing off her toast and falling into place besides her best friend.
"Well I don't think she's going to be at the Sheriff's office. I highly doubt that Emma believes that Miss Blanchard can kill someone in cold blood. It is her mother after all." Henry says.
"Okay… so then do we go to their apartment? There might be something there, and I'm sure we'll run into Emma at some point." Ally suggests. Henry grins at her and she returns it.
"I knew you'd get back into the game Wolfpup!" He exclaims. Ally narrows her eyes at him.
"You better watch it Nightwing." Ally grumbles as the pair make it to the apartment that Emma and Mary Margaret share.
Henry climbs the stairs first with Ally following behind him. When the pair finally make it to the top, Henry shoves open the door of the apartment without knocking, seeing that the door is already open. Ally follows behind him a little more cautiously.
Emma spins around from her close position near the window. "Henry, Ally? What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be in school?" Emma demands crossing her arms over her chest.
"Our teacher was arrested." Ally says smartly. Emma narrows her eyes at the girl.
"Don't mind Ally, she's just worried. We have to help Miss Blanchard!" Henry says looking around the small living room wildly like a clue will just pop right out at him.
"I am helping her. That's why I'm searching the apartment. You two need to go home." Emma tells them as sternly as she can, but she can see the worry in both of their faces clearly.
"Not going to happen." Henry says stubbornly. Emma sighs and flicks her gaze to the girl.
"If he's staying then I definitely am. Besides this looks like Operation Cobra stuff to me." Ally says with a shrug. Emma groans.
"Just… stay out of the way." She says finally giving in. Emma has more important things to do like clearing Mary Margaret's name than arguing with ten-year-olds.
"So what are we looking for?" Henry asks excitedly moving over to Emma.
"I'm trying to see if maybe, someone broke in. Looking for busted door jambs, broken glass, muddy boot prints. That kind of thing." Emma says absently.
"So you do think someone's setting her up." Ally pipes up from her analysis of another window.
"It's the only thing that makes sense. The problem is, nobody's got a motive." Emma states. Henry and Ally quickly share a knowing look.
"You do know someone." Ally reminds her.
"My mom does." Henry agrees.
"Regina?" Emma says dubiously.
"Speaking of mom, she is so going to kill you when she finds out that you snuck out again." A voice from the doorway says, causing all three of the occupants to jump. They turn around to see a very annoyed, teenage girl with dark brown hair streaked with bright pink.
"Hi Rose." Ally says with a smile trying to distract the annoyed girl.
"What are you doing here kid?" Emma demands starting to get strained with the amount of kids she has to deal with in this job.
"Miss Blanchard got arrested. There's no way these two will rest until she is out." Rose says with an eye roll as if that's the most obvious thing in the world.
"So you came to help us?" Henry asks happily of his sister. With a sigh the older girl nods her head.
"Someone has to keep you two out of trouble." She says resignedly.
"Okay now that we have that settled what's this about Regina?" Emma says her head still reeling.
"She hates Snow White. Hey, you wanted a motive." Henry says with a shrug of his shoulders, as Emma sighs.
"Henry this storybook thing is getting really old. You and Ally are going to get into something soon that you won't be able to get out of." Rose says warningly.
"Just help us." Ally butts in with a pleading look at the older girl.
"Well, I don't think 'she hates Snow White' will hold up in a court, Henry." Emma says. With that the four of them move into Mary Margaret's room. After searching every nook and cranny Emma flops down onto the bed with a disappointed sigh.
"I don't know whether to be disappointed that we didn't find something or glad that we didn't." Emma says rubbing her eyes.
"I still can't picture Miss Blanchard doing something like that. She was my favorite teacher. She was always so nice everyone." Rose says placing down the picture frame she was looking at which was the old class picture of her class.
Suddenly there's a loud rumbling sound in the room, and hey all look at each other confusedly. Emma gets up form the bed and goes over to the air vent. "It's the heating system." She explains. She pops the grate and reaches her hand inside. Ally watches as a grown falls onto Emma's face as she pulls out a cloth-covered object.
"What is it?" Henry asks trying to see what's in it. Emma doesn't respond. She quickly covers it up with her jacket, but not before they catch the gleam of silver.
"Nothing. Come on kids. I'm going to drop you back off and Granny's." Emma tells them.
"Well if the adventure part of the day is over, then I think I'm going to go and meet up with my friends…" Rose trails off giving the two kids a warning look.
"Don't make me regret letting you two on your own." She says. Henry and Ally both flash her innocent looks batting their eyelashes at her.
Rose makes a face and gives Emma a worried look. "That doesn't reassure me at all." With that the fourteen-year-old disappears out of the apartment again. Emma rolls her eyes at the grinning kids and claps her hands.
"Okay move it…"
After Emma had dropped Ally and Henry off at Granny's again the pair sit in their normal seats sipping on hot chocolate whispering theories about how the Evil Queen had managed to set up Snow White so easily in this world where she is limited. The bell over the door rings, and the kids are shocked when the leather wearing author motorcyclist sits down next to Henry.
Ally eyes him warily while Henry looks a little more curious.
"I don't think that hot chocolate's going to drink itself. You're upset about your teacher, aren't ya?" He says conversationally looking at the two barely touched cups.
"She didn't do it? Why can't anyone see that?" Henry asks him miserably.
"She literally wouldn't hurt a fly." Ally adds with a pout.
"Because most people just see what's right in front of them. And I don't think you're going to find the answers you want at the bottom of that mug." August says with a knowing look.
"Then where?" Ally questions.
"That a book in your bag? You know I'm a writer. So, I'm partial to finding my answers in the literary form." He says gesturing to Henry's backpack.
"It's just a book." Henry denies quickly flashing a panicked look at Ally.
"Is it?"
"Yeah." Ally cuts in with a hard look.
"I think the three of us know that's not the case. Can I get a water please?" August says to us then to Gigi as she passes in front of us.
"What do you know about it?" Henry asks him suspiciously, starting to grow wary.
"I know it's a book of stories." August says.
"Aren't all books?" Ally challenges.
"Stories… that really happened." August says lowering his voice to the kids. Ally and Henry share a quick look.
"You think my book is real?" Henry questions.
"Yeah you sound a little crazy there mister." Ally says widening her eyes. August chuckles at her.
"As real as I am." He responds.
"How do you know?" Henry demands.
"Well, let's just say that, uh, I'm a believer. And I want to help others see the light. That, my friend, is why I'm here." He says.
"But we already believe." Henry says confusedly. August chuckles at that.
"I'm not here for you two buddy. I'm here for Emma."
"So, you want to get her to believe? Why don't you just tell her?" Ally asks.
"Well, there are some people – like us three – we can go on faith. But others – like Emma – they need proof." August explains.
Henry and Ally nod their heads slowly.
"Last time I tried to find proof, we got trapped in a sinkhole, and Ally got hurt." Henry says.
"I said it wasn't you fault didn't I?" Ally tells him somewhat exasperated.
"There are less dangerous places to look." August says tapping the cover of the book. Henry and Ally exchange a look and open up the pages of the book again to pour over the fairytales that are linked to their past.
"This is a bad idea Henry." Ally hisses. She and Henry are sneaking past the secretary typing away furiously on the computer in front of her.
"You thought that it was a good plan when I first brought it up." Henry whispers furiously back at her.
"Well that's when I thought that we weren't going to be sneaking into your mom's office in broad daylight." She returns.
"Come on Wolfpup this is our official mission." Henry says closing the door behind them quietly.
"You're just lucky that she's in a meeting right not Nightwing or this would be a really bad day." Ally grumbles.
Henry pads quickly over to her desk, as Ally stands near the door so that she can be lookout in case someone is going to come into the office. Henry jerks open drawer after drawer starting to panic when he doesn't find the keys right away.
"Hurry up! The book never said that it was a good idea to take forever looking for them." Ally urges him.
"There's just one drawer left." Henry says. The drawer sticks for a moment, and he gives it a sharp tug finally managing to pry it open with a loud groan. Both kids freeze, their hearts in their throats. Somebody must have heard that. Ally presses her ear against the door as the sound of typing on the other side stops for a second, before starting right back up again.
"We're good." Ally says with a thumbs up. Henry ducks back behind the desk again, and roots around in the drawer before pumping his fist in the air. Ally watches as her produces a giant ring of keys. She grins at him, as he closes the drawer, and makes his way back over to her, trying not to rattle the keys.
"How are we going to get out?" Henry asks worriedly. Ally groans softly.
"You didn't think of an escape plan?" She demands. Henry smiles sheepishly at her and she sighs. Ally quickly hurries back over the mayor's desk, and punches in a number. Henry quirks up his eyebrow wondering what exactly she is doing.
Suddenly the secretary's phone rings on the other side of the door. Henry watches in awe as she picks up. "Yes hello, is this Matilda White?" Ally asks evening out her voice and deepening it a little to make herself sound older.
"It is." The secretary says on the other side of the door.
"It's Janice from accounting. I was just on my lunch break when I walked by your car, white sedan correct?" Ally questions.
"Yes…" The secretary responds.
"Well I'm sorry to say that your car has a huge scratch on it. I don't know who did it, but it looks bad." Ally emphasizes, and Henry stifles a giggle when he hears the woman's horrified gasp.
"Oh my god! Not my baby!" She cries. Ally looks down at the phone and hangs up, and Henry finally lets his laugh go as he hears the secretary run away frightened for her car.
"That was epic Ally! We're going to have to do that more often." Henry says slapping her hand as they slip out of the office unnoticed.
"Yeah well lets focus on escaping before we congratulate me too much." Ally murmurs, and the pair skip out onto the sidewalk in front of town hall unscathed.
"What did I say full proof!" Henry exclaims, but shudders when Ally glares at him.
"I saved our butts in there! We would have been in so much trouble, and Miss Blanchard would have suffered for it." She growls. Henry sighs and nods his head.
"Okay I should have planned better, but we got the keys. Now all we have to do is wait for Emma. Come on." He says and the two set off back to the apartment.
It takes a while but eventually Emma appears on the stairs in front of Miss Blanchard's apartment where Henry and Ally are sitting.
"We have proof." Henry says holding up the giant key ring that as keys for every door in Storybrooke.
"This is how my mom got into your apartment. This is how she framed Miss Blanchard." Henry says confidently, while Ally nods along.
"Did you two steal these from her office?" Emma asks her eyes widening. She's not sure which to address first the fact that Henry and Ally stole the keys or that Regina had a giant ring of keys to who knows where.
"Yeah. The book said that they could open any door." Ally defends their actions. Emma sighs.
"There's no way they'll even fit in the lock." Emma says trying to keep what's left of her sanity in tack.
"We have to try." Henry says trying the first key in the lock. Ally holds her breath, but is disappointed when it doesn't turn.
"See? What did I tell you? Come on, Henry, Ally. I know you want to think the answer to everything is in Operation Cobra…" Emma says with a tired look on her face.
"It is!" Henry cries.
"But, sometimes the real world needs to come first." Emma says stubbornly.
"Just try one more. Please." Ally butts in trying to distract the two from their potential fight. Emma looks down at the pleading face, and groans when her will to resist is taken down by cute puppy dog eyes.
"Okay, one more. But then we're done." She says seriously. Henry and Ally break out into big smiles.
"You do it… this one." Henry says picking a key and handing it to Emma. She sighs and approached the door fitting the key into the lock.
They all watch as the door clicks and swings open. Emma looks absolutely floored.
"Now do you believe us?" Henry asks with a smug grin. He and Ally high five, and Emma is speechless about what she just witnessed.
"Come on kids. I'll take you home. I think you've done enough for one night…" Emma says nudging the kids down the stairs in front of her. Henry and Ally share conspiratorial grins. They did good today.
