Summary: Buffy, Faith and Dawn were born to Regina and King Leopold in the Enchanted Forest world. Shortly after Dawn's birth when Faith and Buffy were six, they were kidnapped by Rumpelstiltskin and sent into our world. There they were split up. Buffy going to the Summers family. Faith going to the Lehane family. And Dawn going to the Order of Dagon to become the vessel for the Key. They lived their separate lives and as they grew up they forgot about everything from before their abduction. Till one day long after they were reunited did they finally start to remember.

Pairings: No Pairings currently planned, though suggestions are welcome.

Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and Buffy are both owned by Disney.

Author's Note: This is a small rewrite of my other Once Upon A Slayer story, which has been discontinued as a result.


Prologue: Once Upon A Slayer

May 20, 2003

Sunnydale, California

The bus rolled on, just ahead of the cracking earth. Faith crouched beside Robin, staunching his wound, as Giles wrapped a tourniquet around a wounded Rona, who was fading.

Vi was in her face, yelling at her, "Stay awake! Look at me! This is nothing!"

Andrew sat by himself, bewildered. "Why didn't I die?" he murmured.

Xander tended a Slayer, lost in his fears for Anya.

Kennedy held Willow, who was still exhausted and drained.

And Dawn was worried that her sister had left her, as her mother had . . . that they were both gone . . .

And then she saw her sister running along the rooftops, jumping off a building as it collapsed, and onto another as the bus trundled down the street; windows and beams and girders smashing down beneath her feet as Buffy kept going, leaping like a freed captive. Then the bus pulled out ahead of the last building and Buffy jumped an impossible distance, directly in front of the crumbling Sun Cinema sign, and landed hard on top of the bus.

Buffy held on, looking over the back of the vehicle at the cracks chasing them.

The entire town was sinking into a smoking black crater, a tiny bus just making its way to the edge of the town ahead of the destruction.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Inside the bus, Faith looked out, and said to Robin, "Ease off. We're clear."

The bus screeched to a stop. Buffy jumped off and the occupants started piling out.

Dawn opened the back door and jumped out, ran to her sister, and they embraced. Warmth, solidity.

Xander knew, the moment he saw Andrew, he knew. Still, he asked him, "Did you see?"

Andrew was near tears. "I was scared. I'm sorry."

He pushed, harder than he had ever pushed for anything in his life." Did you see what happened?" He searched Andrew's face. "Was she...?"

Andrew gazed at him. The tears were there . . . and so was the answer. "She was incredible," he told Xander. "She died saving my life."

Xander put a hand on Andrew's shoulder. "That's my girl. Always doing the stupid thing."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Then it was just Faith and the guy who figured he was some big hot surprise; she checked out his big hot wound and lied through her teeth as she said, "It's not bad. You just sit here."

"That's the plan," he gritted.

Faith said, "I'll get someone to—"

"Did we make it?" He looked at her. "Did we make it?"

She gave him the word. "We made it. We won."

He smiled a little . . . and then he was just staring. And still.

Faith took a moment to contemplate what had been, would could have been, and moved to close his eyes. Then he coughed, spasming back to life; she drew back her hand, as startled as he was.

"Surprise," he whispered.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Sunnydale was a smoking black crater.

Buffy and Giles walked toward the edge of it, smoke rolling before them, as he said, "I don't understand. What did this?"

"Spike," Buffy replied.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

The sign that read WELCOME TO SUNNYDALE toppled backward into the crater; the fillip on the town's demise, as girls milled about, counting their losses, checking in, processing that they had not only survived, but prevailed.

Buffy and Dawn stood with Giles, Xander and Willow, a bit apart; then Faith came up to join them as they all gazed out at the end of Sunnydale.

"Looks like the Hellmouth is officially closed for business," Faith said.

"There is another one in Cleveland," Giles observed. "Not to spoil the moment . . ."

"We saved the world," Xander breathed.

"We changed the world," Willow corrected him. Her eyes were shining as she looked at her best friend. "I can feel them, Buffy. All over. There are Slayers awakening everywhere."

"We'll have to find them," Dawn said.

"We will," Willow agreed.

Giles sighed theatrically. "Yes, because the mall was actually in Sunnydale, so no hope of going there tomorrow . . ."

Dawn choked. "We destroyed the mall? I fought on the wrong side."

"All those stores gone," Xander said sadly. "The Gap, Starbucks, Toys 'R' Us . . . who will remember these landmarks unless we tell the world of them?"

"We have a lot of work ahead of us," Giles said.

Faith appealed to the group. "Can I push him in?"

"You got my vote," Willow said, grinning.

Faith yawned, stretched. "I just wanna sleep, yo. For like a week."

"I guess we all could," Dawn said. "If we wanted to."

"Yeah, The First is scrunched, so . . ." Willow looked at Buffy. "What do you think we should do, Buffy?"

Faith grinned at the Slayer. "Yeah, you're not the one and only Chosen anymore. Just gotta live like a person. How's that feel?"

Buffy looked at Faith.

"Buffy?" Dawn asked her big sister. "What are we going to do?"

Buffy Summers looked at her loved ones, then back at the crater, she considered the question. A small smile crept over her lips.

Sometime in the Past

Evil Queen's Castle, The Enchanted Forest

Buffy ran up to her mother as she stood beside her sisters. Her mother smiled as she looked between her, Faith and their half-sister.

"Do you want to meet your baby sister?" the mother asked as Buffy, Faith and their half-sister nodded.

"Yes, we do," the half-sister said with a smile on her face.

"Yes, mom." Buffy and Faith agreed.

The mother looked to her step-daughter. "Snow would you like the honors of naming her?"

Snow, the half-sister, smiled and nodded. "Dawn, I think you should name her Dawn."

The mother smiled as she looked down at the baby in her arms. "Dawn, it is then," she said as she handed the baby to Snow.

October 20, 2011

International Slayer's Council Headquarters, Kinclaven, Scotland

Buffy woke with a start and looked around the darkened room in her suite at the International Slayer's Council. After the destruction of Sunnydale; she along with the rest of the Scoobies and Giles had made their way to England. The first part of their plan was to acquire the access to funds that the Watcher's Council had and their properties. Within two months they had setup in one of the properties in Scotland.

She shook her head as she tried think about why she would have had a dream about Dawn and Faith that she was sure was fake.

Sometime in the Past

Evil Queen's Castle, The Enchanted Forest

A woman walked walking down a hall of a castle passing mirrors as she headed down the hall.

In the mirrors was a man's face. He moved from mirror to mirror as the woman walked past them. "What happened?" he asked. "Did you get your answer? What's going on? Your Majesty? Your Majesty!"

The woman entered the room at the end of the hallway and she looked at the elderly man that was there lighting candles. "Did Rumpelstiltskin tell you what you needed to know?" the elderly man asked.

"Yes."

"And?" he wondered.

"I'm not sure I should say. I'm conflicted," The woman replied with a twinge of regret in her voice.

"How bad is it? Maybe I can help."

"I have to cut out the heart of the thing I love most."

The elderly man nodded in understanding. He was the thing she loved the most. "Me?"

The woman let out a long sigh. She did not want to kill him. "Daddy, I don't know what to do."

The father sighed; he too did not want his daughter to kill him. "My dear, please. You don't have to do this."

"I have to do something."

"Then move past this. I know this may sound self-serving, but you don't need to enact the curse."

"But I can't keep living like this," the woman said as she looked at her father. "What Snow did to me, what she took from me? It's eating me alive, Daddy. Her very existence mocks me. She must be punished."

"But, if the price is a hole that will never be filled, why do it? Stop worrying about Snow White and start over. We can have a new life." Father said.

"But what kind of life? All I've worked for, all I've built, would be gone. My own children are gone. My power will disappear. They already think I'm nothing."

"Power is seductive. But so is love. You can have that again," her father said as he smiled at her.

"I just want to be happy."

"You can be. Of this I'm sure. But I believe, given the chance, we can find happiness. Together, maybe even find my granddaughters—your daughters. But the choice is yours."

"I think you're right. I can be happy," the woman said as she drew a dagger from inside the folds of her clothes. "Just not here." She thrusts the dagger into his heart, killing him. ""I'm sorry …"

October 20, 2011

International Slayer's Council Regional Facility, Cleveland, Ohio

Faith woke with a start as she sat up in bed. She looked around her room at the new ISC's Cleveland facility. She searched the dark for answers to her dream.

Sometime in the Past

Rumpelstiltskin's Castle, The Enchanted Forest

Several men escorted two children and an infant into a large room of a castle or was it a manor house?

"Ah you have brought me the Queen's children. Happy day this is," a man said who had a very pale and gray complexion.

"Our payment?" another man asked.

"It waits for you in the hall," the gray faced man said. "Leave us."

The men who brought the children nod and left them with the gray-faced man. They closed the door behind them so any escape plans the children might have disappeared with the closing of the door.

"Now to make my plan work to plant the seeds of discontent between the Queen and Snow White. You three will be sent far away and Snow White will be blamed for your disappearance," the man said as he smiled and with a little bit of magic the children vanished into thin air. "Oh, what a happy day this is."

October 20, 2011

International Slayer's Council Headquarters, Kinclaven, Scotland

After breakfast Dawn made her way to Giles office where she found Buffy waiting.

"Buffy?" Dawn asked as she saw the looked in her sister's eye and knew that something was up with her sister. "Apocalypse?"

Buffy shook her head. "No … no apocalypse. I just had a dream last night. Felt sort of like a Slayer dream. But it seemed to be of the past."

Just then Giles walked through the door. "What dream?" he asked having caught the tail end of the conversation.

"There was me and Faith, we were like six or seven. There was another girl with us, and a woman holding a baby. The woman asked the girl I didn't recognize if she wanted to name the baby. The girl in question said she wanted to name the baby Dawn. I saw never saw anyone but Faith and the baby's faces. Faith did look like a younger version of our Faith. And the baby, well she looked exactly like what Dawn does in my memory of mom bringing her home from the hospital. It seemed so real, kind of like a Slayer dream but not."

"Interesting," Giles said with a nod of his head.

"You say there were you, Faith, this other girl and a baby?" Dawn asked as she remembered her reason for being there.

Buffy nodded.

"Then I can up your weirdness. I dreamt of two little girls, one of them holding an infant. There were these men and they kidnapped them and delivered them to this gray-faced looking man. He was going to send them somewhere else and then blame it all on Snow White so that there would be a rift between her and the Queen." Dawn said. "I saw no one's faces either. And I think I was looking out of the baby's eyes for the entirety of the dream."

"Interesting. Maybe we should have everyone research this and see if there is something to these dreams." Giles said.

Suddenly Giles' secretary came over the intercom. "Mr. Giles, Ms. Lehane at the Cleveland Facility is on line one."

Giles moved to his desk and put Faith on speakerphone, "Hello, Faith. You are on speaker."

"I think I may have had a Slayer dream last night, but I'm not sure."

"Faith, Buffy and Dawn are here they were just relating to me dreams they had also. Tell me yours." Giles said.

"Hey B, little D. Well G-man…"

"I wish both you and Xander would quit calling me that." Giles said.

"No promises, but I'll try. Force of habit you know as I've been doing it for so long. Anyways in my dream there was a man and a woman. The man was the father and the woman his daughter. I didn't catch any names or see their faces. But the woman killed her father. Something about getting revenge on Snow White for something she believed this Snow White had done."

"Interesting." Giles said as he looked toward Dawn. "You and Dawn have had one thing in common in your dreams. You both mentioned a person named Snow White."

"Okay, that's weird. So even little D had a dream?" Faith asked.

"Yes, I did, Faith." Dawn said.

"So, it's more than probably just a Slayer dream then cause last I checked little D, isn't a Slayer. Right?" Faith said.

"Correct, Faith." Giles said. "Dawn isn't a Slayer, though I've always been under the assumption that she could have been a potential."

"That wouldn't make sense," Dawn said, "since I wasn't called when Willow did her spell."

"I know, Dawn," Giles sighed. He turned his attention back toward the phone. "Faith I think you should come here. Leave Kennedy in charge. And then catch the first plane here."

"Okay, G-man."

October 22, 2011

Swan Apartment, Boston, Massachusetts

Exhausted, Emma Swan walked down the hallway to her apartment, holding her red heels with the fingers of her left hand and a bag of groceries in the other hand.

Inside the apartment, Emma dumped the groceries on the counter, turned on some music, and removed the birthday cupcake she'd purchased for herself. She fished out the candles she'd bought, removed one from the package, stuck it in the cupcake, and lit it. It wasn't much of a party, no. But it was something.

She watched the candle glow for a moment. Another year, another year alone.

She closed her eyes.

Please, she thought, don't let me be alone on my birthday.

It sounded depressing there in her head, ringing around, but it was her wish, she had to admit.

Just as she blew out the candle, the doorbell rang. Emma frowned at the door. She went and looked through the peephole and thought: What in the hell?

When she opened the door, a small boy—a stranger—stood looking back at her. He had shaggy brown hair and was wearing a sagging, full backpack.

He stared up at her, eyes wide.

"Hello?" Emma said hesitantly.

"Hi," said the boy. "Are you Emma Swan?"

"I… am?" said Emma. "Can I help you?"

The kid smiled, held out his hand. "I'm Henry Mills," he said. "I'm your son."

Emma stared. She didn't take his hand. "I don't have a son," she said flatly. "Where are your parents?"

The boy seemed to ignore this. Instead of responding, he pushed past her, looking at the kitchen. She was too shocked to do anything, to stop him. "Ten years ago," he said casually, looking around. He turned back to her. "Did you give up a baby for adoption?"

Emma again said nothing. Some of the color had drained from her face, though; she noted it when she looked in the mirror.

"I'm him. The kid. Are you going to eat that cupcake?"

"I—"

It could be him. Emma didn't think he was lying, and she could see her eyes in his eyes. But if he was the son, she had spent so many years burying and forgetting, to see him here, so casually asking for a cupcake, sent her into fight-or-flight mode. She felt dizzy. She felt—

She didn't know what she felt.

She closed the door and turned, trying to think of something to say. "You can have it," she said, distracted. "Have the whole thing."

This seemed to please him. Emma put the cupcake on a plate, removed the candle, set him up on a stool, and excused herself.

In the bathroom, she stared at her face in the mirror, steadying herself, holding the edge of the sink. "Get ahold of yourself, Swan," she said out loud.

She was sure the boy had to be pulling a con. She hurried back out to the kitchen, ready to start shouting.

The boy was sitting at the table, eating the cupcake. He looked up, and his eyes disarmed her. "Hi," he said. "How was the bathroom?"

"Hi," she said, frowning again. She walked over to him, put her hand on the table, took it back. This little kid was making her unsure how to behave.

"So. I'd like to ask you a few questions," she said finally.

"Okay," he said. "Go."

"How… did you find me?"

"I'm resourceful," he said. He seemed bored by the question, more interested in studying her reaction than anything having to do with his own feelings. "This isn't going how I thought it would go."

"What's 'this'? This conversation?"

"Yes."

"How did you think it would go?"

"More like Oprah. You know? With crying and hugging."

"I'm not the crying type, kid."

"I can tell," he said, agreeing.

If she didn't know better, she would have guessed he was making fun of her. Or chiding her, at least.

"We should get going," he added.

Emma smiled skeptically, lowered her brow. "I'm sorry, I didn't know we were going anywhere," she said. "You were just leaving. I was just going to bed. We were just about to never see each other again."

"We are going somewhere," he said, nodding. "You have to come home with me. You have to give me a ride, at least."

"And where's home?"

"Storybrooke."

Emma looked at him. She looked at the book he'd taken out of his backpack. She was sure he was in the middle of some kind of psychological event. "Storybrooke?" she said finally. "Are you kidding me?"

"No. What?" he asked innocently. "That's what it's called."

"Okay, kid," she said. "This has been fun. But one, I don't have a son. And two, I'm calling the cops now. I don't have time for this and you're obviously a runaway. Do your parents not know where you are? I'm calling the cops." Emma went toward the phone, realizing she had said it twice.

"No, you're not."

She glanced up, phone in hand. "I'm not?"

"No," he said, taking another bite of the cupcake. "Because if you do, I'll tell them you kidnapped me."

Emma thought it through. The doubts trickled back. If he was really her kid, it was a good plan. The cops would suspect her of having a motive for taking her biological son, and at the very least, she'd get tangled up with red tape for hours, possibly days. Calling the cops would be a lot more trouble than it was worth, even if she was in the right.

"Listen, kid," she said. "I like to think that I have one superpower. One thing I can do. You know what it is? I can always tell when someone's lying. Always. And you, kid, are lying."

She wasn't sure if she believed it, but she let it sink in. She was good at sussing out lies, but the truth was that he seemed to be telling the truth.

He swallowed the last of his cupcake. "I'm good at telling when people are lying, too," he said.

"Are you? Spit it out."

He nodded slowly. She could see that his confidence was starting to wane; he looked upset.

And then that softhearted other Emma popped up again, and she thought: No, Emma. He's your kid.

It was the little things. His ears were the same as his father's ears. The shape of his eyes—she could see her own there, just a little bit, just a flash of

I am looking in the mirror right now. Emma could even hear something in the pitch of his voice.

"Please don't call the police," he said. "Okay? Just come home with me."

Emma took a breath.

"To Storybrooke," she said. "You need a ride home to Storybrooke? That's what you're asking. That simple request, is it?"

"Uh-huh."

Emma sighed. There was no fighting this kid. "Okay, then. Let's go to Storybrooke."