A/N: Fort Detrick and MK-ULTRA are not my inventions. Neither is the bookstore; when I saw the name and realized that there was already a connection with OUAT(IW!), I couldn't resist!
Chapter Nineteen
"Sure, Mike. Thanks. Yeah, I know; I'm just a little worried about— I know, I know, we're getting warmer. Okay. Yeah, I can give it another week. Thanks." He ended the call and sank down on the plaid bedspread on the double bed in his motel room. Damn it. Emma had no clue what she was getting into and he knew too much about it. But she'd never believe the truth if he told her.
At least, she knew he didn't do drugs, but if he started talking about fairy tales being real and telling her he'd come to this world with a magic bean, she'd wonder.
He'd known Emma long enough to realize that while she might be a Potterhead from way back, and she'd watched more than her fair share of Disney movies as a kid, she drew a firm, deep line between 'fantasy' and 'reality'. They'd wandered into a magic show once at a carnival. It hadn't been planned; they'd been driving through Essex County one Sunday, looking for a break from the city and spotted one of those pop-up fairs with rides and games of skill and decided to give it a go. They'd walked around a bit, finding themselves at a large stage graced by a guy in a black top hat and tails, in the act of turning a playing card into a dove.
They'd watched the rest of the act, smiling at his artistry and laughing at his jokes. Afterwards, Emma had mentioned that she wished she knew how he did some the tricks.
"Maybe it's real magic," Neal had deadpanned.
Emma had only laughed. "As if. Nah, in one of my group homes, there was a kid a couple years older than me who was into that stuff. He even showed me how to do some of the tricks we just saw. That one with the linked rings, for example. But it's all smoke and mirrors and getting you to look at the hand holding something out to you instead of the one taking something away."
"Still," Neal had said, "what if there was real magic out there somewhere?" He didn't know why he was bringing it up. He'd spent a lifetime trying to get away from magic. But it was also a huge part of his past and Emma had shared so much of hers with him that he wanted to reciprocate—not with some plausible lie, but with the truth.
Emma had just laughed. "I'm a little old for fairytales, Neal. This is the real world: rent and bills and paperwork and…"
"Love?"
Her eyes had widened a bit as she let him pull her in for a quick kiss. "Yeah," she'd said a little breathlessly. "Love, too."
He hadn't brought up the subject again. But how could he start now? "Uh, Emma? Henry may not be as troubled as you think he is. There really is a curse on some small town in Maine and you might be in it." Yeah, that would go over about as well as he thought it would.
The longer she stayed there, the more dangerous it was going to be, for her and for him. Because while he might not want to see his father again, he also didn't want Emma tangling with an evil queen who massacred villages and ripped out hearts. Even if she couldn't do that stuff here, she might still be capable of murder. And in a town that didn't appear on any map, a town sealed off from the outside world, what would stop her? Emma had no idea what she was getting involved with.
And Neal wasn't even sure how to warn her.
All he knew was that he wanted to get back to New England as soon as possible. Maybe he could find this Storybrooke place; maybe he couldn't. But he thought he had a better chance of getting Emma safely out of that… craziness if they were back in the same time zone.
He'd give this another week. Then, if he and local law enforcement still hadn't caught their fugitive, he was going to be on the next plane home. Even if he had to pay for it out of his own pocket.
It wasn't the first night that Emma had slept in the bug. If she was staying in this town for the next little while, it probably wouldn't be the last. Still, if Regina thought that getting her evicted from Granny's was going to send her running for the town line, the mayor had another think coming.
There was something weird about this town. Emma didn't believe Henry's story about everyone here being a fairytale character for one second, of course. Still, when she'd asked Mary Margaret Blanchard how Regina had gotten elected, the teacher had replied that Regina Mills had been mayor for as long as she could remember. But Regina couldn't be more than ten or twelve years older than Mary Margaret. There had to have been a predecessor. And yet, when Emma had tried going about town and gently probing some of the other townsfolk, older people like Granny Lucas and Marco, the answer had been the same.
Henry had said that everyone's past was a 'haze' to them and it looked like he was right. But where Henry saw it as curses and magic, Emma sought a more rational explanation. Drugs might be a possibility, but you couldn't keep a whole town drugged! Could you?
Maybe you could. Except that the people Emma had met didn't act drugged, and she'd met enough stoners to recognize the signs. Maybe this place was some sort of CIA mind control experiment, like that MK-Ultra stuff at Fort Detrick. When she'd heard about that—from Benton, a kid at one of her last group homes who'd been hugely into conspiracy theories and always spouting off about the Illuminati or the Freemasons—she'd dismissed it. But one day in Globe, when Ray had been out of the office and she'd been on her lunch break, she'd remembered Benton and his crackpot ideas and, just for the fun of it, decided to Google CIA mind control experiments. That had been when she'd discovered that, at least some of what Benton had been rattling on about had been grounded in reality. The CIA had been looking into mind control in the 50s and 60s. According to the website she'd visited, the project had been abandoned in the early 70s, but what if it hadn't been? What if they'd just gotten sneakier?
But did that mean that Regina was part of the experiment, or the one conducting it?
Emma shook her head. That was almost as crazy as believing that everyone here having been whisked away to Maine from the Enchanted Forest. Almost as crazy. No. No, there had to be a more rational explanation. And probably, after a… well, it wouldn't be a good night's sleep curled up in the bug, but it would be a sleep… she'd probably think of something more sensible in the morning.
She knew from experience that she wasn't anywhere near tired enough to curl up quite yet, though, so she pulled out the newspaper she'd picked up earlier. It was too dark to read, but she kept a flashlight in the glove box. How much were rents in this town anyway? The tourist season was over, but the temperature hadn't plunged yet. Maybe there was some vacation cottage she could get for a week; this late in the year, there might even be a discount for it. She pulled out the classified ads section and turned on the flashlight.
Presently, a soft voice called to her from her open window. "Hey. You okay?"
Regina Mills had no online presence whatsoever. Neither did Henry, for that matter, though that wasn't surprising for a ten-year-old. But when Neal had pulled up a list of current mayors in Maine municipalities, Regina's name hadn't been on it. When he'd tried to find the credentials for Dr. Archie Hopper (and yes, he'd also looked under 'Archibald' 'Archimedes' and just plain 'A', there had been nothing. No record of a Mary Margaret Blanchard, and no women surnamed Lucas in the Maine Innkeepers Association.
Neal clenched his fist in frustration. He didn't know exactly what was going on, but he knew Emma was already in it up to her waist and 'it' was rising higher every day. He could be a supportive voice on the phone now and later, when this was wrapped up, he could see if he could find this town that wasn't on any map and join her. And then what? How long could he pretend he didn't know what was going on?
If he didn't want to encounter his father, the smart play was to cut and run.
And leave the woman he loved and the son he'd never met.
Well, maybe he could go to the town, convince Emma that staying here wasn't safe and they could… They couldn't just grab Henry; that was kidnapping. On the other hand, how could someone in a town that was cut off from the rest of the world go about filing a missing persons report or notifying any authorities outside of it? Maybe they could!
Maybe they could, but Emma would never believe it unless she believed what Henry was telling her about the curse. And if she believed that, then she'd almost certainly want to break it. Especially now that she was getting to know these people. She wouldn't want to abandon them to their fate.
Neal started to get an uncomfortable feeling that maybe it wasn't just Emma that he was thinking about. It was so easy to make a decision when he could convince himself that it was only about how the curse's breaking impacted him. Only it wasn't just about him, was it? If August had been right eleven years ago, then yanking Emma out of this town would also mean tearing her away from the dream she'd had since long before he'd ever met her: finding her parents.
She'd never have to know, though.
But he would. And Henry would, too.
Even if Emma didn't believe it.
Neal didn't know these other people. But he did know his father. And he couldn't risk…
So… what? Was he going to abandon the person he loved most because he was afraid of the unknown? Now, who did that sound like?
Neal winced. Well, if he was even considering going to a town inhabited by fairytale characters, maybe he ought to brush up on his fairytales, however distorted the accounts might be! He'd heard a few at the Darling house and picked up a lot through osmosis after Neverland, but he'd never actually sat down and read the stories himself. Maybe it was time.
He called the front desk reception. "Uh, yeah. Hi, it's Neal Cassidy in room 23. Kind of a weird question, but could you tell me where the nearest bookstore is and what time they're open?" The clerk asked a question and he had to think for a moment. "I guess it doesn't matter if it's new or secondhand. I'm looking for a few old classics." He smiled. There was a secondhand store less than ten minutes away on foot, though it wouldn't open until eleven tomorrow. They closed at five-thirty. He'd find time to swing by, if not today, then tomorrow. He needed to take care of some paperwork in town anyway. If he did that in the morning, then he could probably hit Forget-Me-Not Books right when they opened, and be on the road before noon.
Henry's teacher was probably the most genuinely nice person Emma had met since her arrival here. Not that most of the other people weren't nice, of course. But it took a special person to bail a total stranger out of jail on her fifth-grade pupil's assurances. Plus, when she'd pointed Emma in the right direction, Sheriff Graham hadn't turned up at her door an hour later with a search warrant. Wryly, Emma reminded herself that in that instance, Mary Margaret had only told her where Henry was likely to be, and Emma had taken him home to Regina. There was nothing illegal there.
But there hadn't been anything illegal in Dr. Hopper loaning Emma his notes about Henry—until he'd called in to report that she'd stolen them. Probably unprofessional, yes. Maybe even unethical. But not illegal.
All the same, Emma was used to managing on her own. She'd done it for years without Neal; many of her foster placements had provided her food and shelter, but she'd been left to her own devices for everything else. In prison, she'd had nobody to rely on either. And even with Neal, this wasn't the first time that one or the other of them had taken a case that had meant days or weeks apart at a time. Sleeping in her car was nothing.
She had to admit that it was sweet of Mary Margaret to offer a total stranger her spare bedroom on the spur of the moment. Maybe it was just that 'small town hospitality' thing that sometimes cropped up in old movies. Emma had usually shaken her head at it when she'd seen it and wondered whether people had really been that gullible in the 40s and 50s, or whether the script had been penned by someone who'd spent a lot of nights sleeping in their car as some kind of wish-fulfillment. The offer was tempting. Her bug was a bit cramped. Cozy. It was cozy. All the same, Emma had known people like Mary Margaret before. They came across all sweet and friendly and most of the time, it wasn't an act; they really were that nice. But once Emma let her guard down and they really got to know her, their smiles grew more strained. The awkward silences grew more pronounced. They still made the effort… only it started becoming more and more obvious that it was an effort.
Emma just wasn't the kind of person who fit in with people this… good. She'd have to turn down the offer. And so, it was with a pang of regret that she told Mary Margaret that she just wasn't the roommate type and she did better on her own.
The teacher accepted her answer with a sad, understanding smile and bid her a good night.
It was only after she'd gone that Emma realized that Mary Margaret probably hadn't only made the offer to be nice. She'd just left a bad date. And going by the way she'd looked and acted, it must have been a disaster. She'd been looking for someone she could vent to and commiserate with. Emma had been on a few bad dates. Not many, but enough that she probably could have related.
She opened the car door and looked in the direction that Mary Margaret had gone, but the teacher had already vanished in the night. Emma resolved that if their paths crossed again and Mary Margaret repeated the offer, she'd at least think about it. It wasn't like she had very many friends in this place apart from Henry. Maybe she shouldn't be alienating someone who seemed so close to becoming another.
Neal folded down the corner of the page with a sigh and closed the book. He didn't know who the 'Rumpelstiltskin' in the story he'd just read had been, but it sure hadn't been Papa! The bargaining had been, and as for the spinning straw into gold, Papa hadn't been doing that when Neal had seen him last, but he'd always had a talent for the art of spinning. A snatch of a long-forgotten conversation surfaced in his memory.
Rumpelstiltskin? He's useless in a brawl and he can barely work a garden plot with that ankle of his, but those fingers could likely spin straw into gold if he put half a mind do it.
Neal smiled. He must have been all of eight. Now, he remembered he'd run back to their hovel to tell Papa that he just needed half his mind and they'd be rich! Papa had chuckled and explained that the man in the marketplace had been praising his talent, but that nobody could really do such a thing. Not without magic anyway.
His smile gave way to a frown. Papa had magic now. And it certainly sounded like something Papa might have done. As opposed to dancing around a fire, reciting a silly poem and gloating about his plans, while revealing the one piece of information the miller's daughter needed to hear most. Even if there hadn't been a messenger in the woods to overhear it, in a land with magic, listening spells were… kind of a thing. Plus, papa had never hidden his name in the first place. On the contrary, once he'd become the Dark One, he'd wanted everyone to know it.
A spell, Bae, he'd announced, his smile almost too wide. To point me toward those who might need my help. From now on, throughout this realm, in every kingdom, on every sea or mountain top or plain, in any meadow or forest or valley, if any soul should speak my name, even in a whisper, I'll hear and seek them out!
It had sounded like a fine thing at first. But the cost of Papa's help was always higher than it seemed. 'All magic came with a price', but Papa's prices often included hidden charges that buyers never knew about until it was too late.
Neal shook his head, still frowning as he remembered the deals that this Rumpelstiltskin had made with the miller's daughter. That last one did sound like something Papa might have made, he had to admit. As for the rest of the story, though… well, they'd got Papa's name spelled correctly, at least.
He thought for a moment. Then he took a sheet of the hotel stationery from the pad on the desk. He divided it into four columns: 'Probable', 'Possible', 'Unlikely', and 'Oh, Hell, No!'
Under 'Probable', he wrote, "Deals with Miller's daughter; Daughter not realizing she's signed away her child until it's too late; Daughter desperate for help."
Under 'Possible,' he wrote, "Spinning straw into gold; offering daughter new deal to get out of previous deal."
He only made one entry under unlikely: "Not telling Miller's daughter his name at the start."
Into the last column went the whole song-and-dance around the fire, to say nothing of that stupid ending! Stamping your foot on the ground so hard you broke in two—was that even possible? And even if it was, if that had happened, Papa wouldn't be here now.
Neal checked over the list again, shaking his head. With all of this silliness, it was a wonder that any of it sounded remotely like Papa. "I guess a stopped clock is still right twice a day," he muttered.
The book wasn't going to be much help for Emma, though. First, she probably knew its stories better than he did. But second, he realized with some consternation, if those stories were as historically inaccurate as Papa's, then he had no idea what bits of them were actually going to be helpful. And believing the distortions in this book would probably be just as foolhardy as reading J.M. Barrie and thinking Neverland was a load of fun and games! If Neal could have had his way, he'd have taken Peter Pan and put in on a shelf with books with titles like, How to Bake with Arsenic and Fifty Fun Things to Do with TNT! Those distortions were dangerous! Dreamshade-level dangerous.
Neal clenched his fist. He had to find a way to warn Emma, but what the hell could he say that she'd believe? She was already too involved to be likely to back out if he called and said something vague about 'Having a bad feeling about the place'.
He heaved a sigh. For now, he was going to be supportive from a distance. But as soon as he could get back to New England, with or without Henry, he was going to get Emma out of that town. Even if he had to drive there and drag her out himself.
Emma hadn't slept well that night, though a couple of cups of coffee the following morning and a couple more at lunch had her functioning well enough to come up with what she thought was a good idea around mid-afternoon.
Henry had run up to her as soon as school was out, bursting with excitement when he'd told Emma that he'd found her father. Kid had an imagination for sure. It didn't matter to him in the slightest that Emma wasn't buying into it. Or that if Mary Margaret was her mother, then she was either following one hell of a beauty regimen, or she was in the Guinness Book of World Records for giving birth as a preschooler! Every sensible objection Emma raised was met with, "That's because of the curse."
So, naturally, some guy in a coma who happened to have a scar similar to that of the drawing of Prince Charming in Henry's book had to be her father. Emma hadn't seen him in the flesh, of course, but she was willing to bet that he wasn't a day over thirty-five and probably younger. Plus, Emma knew that Ms Blanchard wasn't doing so well in the romance department at the moment. If Henry ran up to her with this… idea of his, it would just be cruel. Unless… Unless I can get him to see the truth.
Inspiration hit. There was a way to get Henry to recognize reality. Hopefully. And while it might be disappointing for him in the short term, he was a smart kid and he'd get over it. At least, she thought he would. At least, she didn't think she'd make things worse.
Still, she was relieved after she'd sounded out Mary Margaret and found out that the teacher thought it was a good plan. Almost foolproof, in fact. And they were going to set it in motion first thing tomorrow morning.
"C-calm down, Emma," Neal told her that evening. It was a quarter to seven in Fairbanks, which meant that it was nearly eleven in Maine. "So, the guy woke up. That's good, right?"
"No! I-I mean, sure it's good. Great. Only, the whole idea was to prove to Henry that his book was just stories and that Mary Margaret Blanchard doesn't have this whole… true love connection with John Doe. Or David Nolan; I'd better start calling him that. But she woke him up. I mean, he must have been coming out of his coma somehow already and it was just… crazy timing, but…"
"Yeah," Neal agreed. "Might be enough to start me believing in that stuff, if I'd seen it."
"I have to keep reminding myself it's all a coincidence," Emma answered, still sounding agitated. "Of course, Henry's even more convinced of the curse now."
"Of course," Neal said, nodding all the way. "But hey, good for his teacher. From the way you described her, a little love in her life can't be a bad thing for her."
"This one is," Emma said. "Turns out he's married."
"Wait… what?"
"His wife said she thought he left town years ago. She never checked the hospitals; never knew he was lying there just a few blocks away or whatever… Oh, and get this: Mayor Mills was his emergency contact."
"Not his wife…?" Neal asked.
Emma hesitated. "She found him on the side of the road with no ID and brought him to the hospital. Or so she says. But, Neal, if there's one thing I know about small towns, it's that everyone knows everyone. If she's been mayor forever, like everyone seems to think, how could she not have looked at him and gone, 'That's David Nolan. I'd better call his wife Kathryn and tell her to meet me in the emergency room.'?"
"Did she have an explanation?"
"More of an evasion," Emma said. "She asked me why I thought Kathryn would lie and," she hesitated, "she asked me if I thought she'd cast a spell on her. Regina on Kathryn, I mean," she clarified.
On the other end of the phone, Neal frowned. "She's read Henry's book? Or does she know about it? Because if she has and she knows Henry thinks she's the evil queen…"
"Right. Wait." Emma sounded confused. "Did I tell you he thought Regina was the evil queen?"
Neal swallowed. "You must have," he said quickly. "How else could I have known?"
"Yeah. Sorry, it's been a hectic couple of days; I guess I'm just a bit jumpy. I'm glad I caught you. It's good to have someone to hash things out like this."
Neal coaxed a smile into his voice. "Anytime." Meanwhile, I'm just glad that if that superpower of yours really exists, it doesn't seem to kick in on long distance phone calls. You didn't tell me about the evil queen; that was August. And if I slip up like this another time or two, I might not be able to explain it away so easily. "Actually," he said a bit more seriously, "maybe not anytime. We've pretty much finished combing Denali by now and it doesn't look like our target is going to turn up there. There've been some reports that he's been spotted at different points along AK-Highway 3, heading toward Anchorage, so we'll be heading that way tomorrow."
"How far is Anchorage from Fairbanks?" Emma wanted to know.
"About six hours straight driving, maybe a little more. It won't be straight driving, though. I'm going to have to stop at every gas station and truck stop along the way and ask questions, hoping someone recognizes the guy. And I'm not sure about cellphone coverage on the road; population's pretty thin in these parts. Once I get into Anchorage, it shouldn't be an issue, but until I do… Emma, I'm really sorry."
"Nah, don't be," Emma sighed. "Find the guy, get paid, and then, you can head out here and meet our kid. We'll have plenty of time to talk then."
"Sounds like a plan," Neal nodded, even if his main goal in finding that town was still to get Emma and Henry out of it and safely back home to Boston. "But if this town has a 'no felons' rule… If they found your juvie record, they're going to dig up mine, too. Herbie's going to be a little cramped, don't you think?"
Emma paused for a moment. "Well, Ms Blanchard did offer me a place to sleep. Maybe she's got room for two. Or she has a friend with another spare bedroom. I'll look into it."
"You're taking her up on it?" Neal asked.
"Well," Emma admitted, "I wasn't going to. But I don't know this town and she does. Plus, after the day she's had, well, I probably ought to check if she's still up and if her offer's still open. I know it's getting pretty late, but if I were her, the last thing I'd want would be to be alone right now. Something tells me she could probably use a friend…"
