"I said explain," Regina said after Hannah remained silent.
"I will as soon as you take a seat and stop looking at me like I'm the enemy."
"How should I be looking at you?" she asked. "Because right now, I'm not sure I even know who you are. You know what happened to me when …"
"I know," Hannah said, getting up and approaching Regina, who took a step back. "I know, which is why I didn't tell you this sooner because I didn't want you looking at me like you are looking at me right now. But I realize now that you need to hear the full story so you can understand that going back to Storybrooke is your only real choice here."
"And you think your little tale will convince me?"
"I don't know, but I can hope. Do you even remember what that is like, to have hope?"
"Get on with it."
Hannah knew that her only hope now was that Regina would listen.
"I guess it starts back in my home world," Hannah said. "I led a simple life until my brother, Tup, decided to steal the sun."
She had told Regina the story before about how Tup had told stolen the sun and plunged their world into darkness. He had done so by cutting off her hair one night while she slept and weaving a net that held onto the light.
Once she knew what Tup had done she had begun on a journey to reverse it. When she succeeded, the Sun decided to give her a gift, but like many unasked for gifts, this one had an unintended consequence – one that the storybooks knew nothing about.
The Sun gave her the light – a blessing for her and all women of her kind that their eyes would always shine brightly. And as she felt the light enter her it did so with a sense of peace she had never before experienced.
The first change in herself that she had noticed wasn't until about a month later. Her hair – it hadn't grown from where Tup had cut it.
The other change – well it took a little while for it to become obvious. Tup was her younger brother and while they were both still children when it happened, as a year went by and then another, it appeared that while Tup had aged she had not.
The year her mother died, she prayed to the Gods to lift this curse from her. Every day she prayed and every day there was nothing but silence.
Then one day she was given a message in a dream that told her there was a way out of this nightmare, but it didn't lie in her home world. No, the Gods told her that she must travel to another world – one where magic existed only in small amounts because without magic to fuel the light inside of her, she would again start to age.
Getting to this new world would require her to take a great journey across the lands – into places she had never been. It took her years to complete and she found the biggest obstacle of them all was her bitterness over being stuck as a child when all she had done was protect the Sun.
The day she succeeded in finding the portal that would take her to this new place she wept tears of joy.
This was the story she had told Regina. What she hadn't been truthful about was what happened next.
She ended up in this world, but it was so unlike her own. Even though she had been a child for years, her mind was that of an adult. Still, the learning curve would prove to be steep. She hadn't even lasted a day before she was picked up by the authorities and since she couldn't explain who she was or where she had come from, they had put her in an orphanage.
"That is why this project is so important to you," Regina said, not asking a question, but for the first time since she had begun to speak of this Regina wasn't looking at her like she hated her.
She nodded. "It was a difficult time in my life. I was an adult in a child's body so I didn't want to do the things that children do but here I was surrounded by children. I was the strange one, the one that barely spoke and who spent all her time trying to learn than play. Needless to say, I wasn't a good candidate for adoption.
"But that didn't matter to me because it was finally happening – I was aging," she continued. "I was in the orphanage for three years before someone expressed an interest in adopting me. It was a couple that was older than what many of the people looking to adopt were. The way the process worked was that they would spend time with me first there at the orphanage and then later small trips outside. They were very nice, but something about it bothered me, although I couldn't say why that was.
"Perhaps it was because I had parents before, parents that I loved, a family and at the time despite knowing there was something off about these people, I made no fuss when it came to the actual adoption."
"I take it you found out what was bothering you about them?" Regina commented.
"I did," Hannah said. "I learned when they took me 'home' which was not the home I had visited on our trips. No, where they took me was a place you and I have both been."
"The Home Office," Regina said. "How old were you, I mean how old did you appear to be at this time?"
Hannah paused as she had to give that one some thought. "I would say 13 or 14 maybe," Hannah said.
"So, you were a child when all of this started?"
"Yes," Hannah said. "I'm willing to bet of the two of us, I'm older than you."
"How did they know you weren't from this world?"
"They didn't know it was me specifically at first, which is why it took them years to track me down," Hannah said. "They send their agents out to areas where magic is possible as you know. They want to capture any and all magic but portals, well, they don't know what to do about them as they know no way to close them."
"Portals? Are there many in this world?"
"Last I knew, the Home World had identified five, the one I came out of – which was in California - is one of two here in the United States. The other one is in Boston. Anyway, when they find one they use their stolen magic to place a tracer of sorts on it. It will tell them when a portal opens but nothing else," Hannah said. "They simply assumed whoever had come through the portal was an adult.
"I think even when they met me and brought me back that they expected me to behave like a child. They expected me to be fearful, but I wasn't, I was curious as to who these people were," she continued. "So, at first, I played the part that was expected of me, not being afraid but trying my best to be a child. It was almost laughable.
"They started by sitting me down and explaining that they knew I was not from this world. They assumed me coming here was a mistake and they promised they would help me return to where I belonged but first they needed more information about where my home was and what it was like, specifically about the magic there."
"Would you stop aging if you had returned?" Regina asked.
"I didn't know, but it's not something I was willing to risk either," Hannah said. "I feigned ignorance at first, saying I didn't know anything about magic, which wasn't entirely untrue. See, in my world, there is no one like you – someone with inborn magic ability. All those who have the ability to do magic have had their powers conferred to them by the Gods."
"Do you really believe that?" Regina asked, her skepticism on display.
"Yes, I do. That is why I prayed for them to help me and they did." She could tell Regina didn't believe in the Gods' power but maybe that would be a debate for another day – assuming she and Regina ever spoke again after tonight. "So, when they asked me about magic they were probably just as miffed as you are when I said only the Gods had the power to confer magic."
"Why tell them anything?"
"Because the Home Office headquarters was in a place of magic. It had to be in one of the pockets of magic this world contains in order for them to track magic," Hannah said. "The moment they brought me there I knew I had stopped aging again."
"But you are in a pocket of magic now, the new orphanage it's being built in …"
"Yes, I know," Hannah said. "Like I said, I'm older than you."
"You should have said something. I could have had that built anywhere else."
Hannah was touched by Regina's concern and once again she thought what it would have been like if she had met Regina in another time and place. In all the years she had been alive, she had met only one other person who intrigued her as much as Regina did.
"It's ok," Hannah said. "I have planned for this, knowing that I would have to leave here at some point in the future before anyone notices I'm not aging. It's what I do, I stay in a place for a while, and then I make plans to leave and start a new identity. I have probably stayed here too long as it is, but I was not expecting you to show up here. You, you changed things for me."
"But if you hate not aging so much why come to a place like this at all?"
"Fear," Hannah said. "I look around and I see this 60, 70, 80-year-old women and I fear becoming that. It doesn't make sense, I know, but I feel like I'm not ready yet for that."
There was a silence between them for a few heartbeats.
"I think we're getting a little off-topic," Regina said. "When did the Home Office find out you weren't what you were pretending to be?"
"I started to ask questions of my own, and maybe that was my mistake because I didn't ask questions like what a child or teenager would. Of course, they knew I didn't interact with the children at the orphanage much, and even when I took day trips with the make-believe couple they sent after me it was always to a place like a museum – someplace that perhaps a child wouldn't care for, but I did. Still, I think at first they just found me to be odd. But not Wendy."
"Wendy Darling?"
"The one and the same," Hannah said. "I don't think I had her fooled for a second. She was brilliant. And when she got tired of my deceit, she pulled me aside to confront me. I saw in her someone I could confide in, a possible friend – something I hadn't had in quite a while. So, I told her the truth.
"She sat and listened to my whole story, not asking a single question until the end. And then she only asked me one," Hannah said, pausing as she thought back to that moment. "She asked me if I wanted to keep magic from ever harming anyone else as it had done to harm to me, and to my regret I said yes."
"But did you know, did you know what they were when you answered that?"
"No," she responded. "But does that matter? I was the one who made the decision to help them – and yes, I helped them track down magic in this world, magic that shouldn't be here. I believed for years that it was for the best – that magic did not belong here and so it must be eradicated. I believed that no one should ever have to suffer as I suffered because of magic."
She went on to tell Regina how she spent seven years at the Home Office headquarters just in training, learning how to detect magic, learning the different types of magic that they knew about, learning everything possible. In those years she was rarely able to leave which meant she wasn't aging.
When she had finally learned all she could and they trusted her, she was sent out to the field to begin working on their mission. She became an accomplished tracker, who was invaluable to the Home Office.
She tracked down sources of magic and others like her who had come from other worlds. And once she did, she let the other teams do their thing. She wasn't interested in what the outcomes were as she believed that those who didn't belong in this world were simply forced to return their own. When the magic was in the form of an object, she turned it over to Wendy or another member of the high council and never asked once what was done with these things. She assumed they were put somewhere that no one could access so they never could do harm.
Regina stood up, "How could you be so stupid? You say you were an adult in a teen's body, but yet you act like a foolish child."
"You are going to stand there and lecture me," Hannah said, also getting to her feet. "I know what I did was wrong. I know that as good as I try to be now, it doesn't feel like I will ever make up for it, but I was hurt by what had done to me, hurt and yes bitter about a life taken from me – a normal life, does any of this sound familiar to you?
This time it was Regina who didn't say anything immediately. She didn't apologize or anything, just sat down and Hannah joined her.
"And when did you come to your senses?" Regina asked.
"Between my back and forth trips from the headquarters over the years, I had aged to 20. I was tracking someone in California. They had come out of the same portal I had. Still, it never occurred to me that I would be tracking someone from my world. I found him in a homeless camp in Los Angeles and it was weird, I hadn't been home in so many years yet when I saw him, I just knew, I knew he was from there.
"I took him from there, bought him some clothes and brought him back to the hotel I was staying at and ordered some food, which he ate like a starving man. His story came out in between him horking down the food," Hannah continued. "He too had sought to escape our world. His son was dying and he prayed to the Gods to heal him. When one of the gods responded to him, he was sent on a quest that if he completed would give him the power to heal his boy. He was told to set out with only a waterskin – no food – and walk to the east. He was to let no meat pass his lips, nor do any harm to any animal, but instead each day he would always come across berries, fruits, or plants that would sustain him. For 30 days he walked, each one tougher than the last as he worried about his son back home.
"On the 30th day, he encountered a fox who asked what he was doing as he had observed him walking over the past five days. He tells the fox about his journey and the fox says he believes he can help because nearby there is a pond with healing waters. Surely, the man thought, this is what he had been sent to find and he asks the fox to lead him there. The fox says he will but under one condition – in the pond are fish and the fox would like one to eat and requests the man catch one for him.
"Now, he had been instructed not to let meat cross his lips or harm an animal and he tells the fox this and the fox tells him that he can't take him then. He begs the fox to change his mind. The fox says maybe they could compromise. All the man has to do is get a fish near the shore and the fox will take it from there and so the man isn't the one bringing harm to it.
"He feels like he has no choice so he does it," Hannah said. "He gets the water and returns to his son and gives him the water but it doesn't work. And he knows why. He knows it's because of the harm he did to the fish. His son dies and he curses the Gods and he brings their anger down upon him so they curse him. From that day forward he will never get satisfaction from food or water. There will always be a hole in him that can never be filled. It was why he was now devouring all the food I bought him. Here in this world, he could be free of the curse."
"He asks me then what is going to happen to him," Hannah continued. "But I didn't know the answer to that. Surely, I thought the others would see we couldn't send this man back to where he belonged. Our mission was to help people harmed by magic, not make things worse for them, so I told him not to worry that he would be fine."
Hannah fell silent a moment and Regina could tell that whatever she was about to be told next, the man was not fine.
"I took him back to the Home Office, but instead of just handing him off, I went and spoke with Wendy and a few of the elders. I guess I just needed their reassurance that nothing was going to happen to him, that they wouldn't send him back," she said. "They hadn't sent me back because of my condition and I saw myself in this man. I was assured that they would find a place for him, let him learn about this world, and once they were sure he could assimilate they would set him up somewhere. And that is all needed to hear. I thanked them and I went back to work."
"They didn't do as they said," Regina said.
"They didn't. I was out on another mission pretty quickly after that but when I returned I asked about him and was given reassurances that he was fine. I was told I couldn't see him though because they needed him to concentrate on learning what he needed to in order to live here in this world. This continued for a while, where I would ask about him, be given some sort of vague answer of him being fine, and then sent on my way. But I started to get a bad feeling because it seemed like every time I would ask, I would immediately be sent on another mission. My layover times got less and less. Finally, I went to Wendy. I trusted her and knew she would be able to give me a more satisfying answer.
"I had asked to speak to her and she put me off at first when I explained what I wanted but told me to return later and she would explain all. When I did return there was a clean-up team waiting for me. They took me into custody and threw me into one of the cells they keep under the structure. Who knows, it may have even been the one they kept you in."
Regina didn't react but Hannah could see a slight shiver go through her body.
"Wendy finally came to see me a few days into my incarceration. She pulled up a chair outside the cell and sat in it, studying me much like she had when I first arrived there. It was then that she told me that the man from my world had been sent back there and it was made clear to him what should happen if he should ever cross that portal again," Hannah said. "Then she told me about the Home Office and what it really does – how it's not about protecting people from magic, but instead collecting it and using it as they see fit. I asked her why, why had she lied to me, and why I hadn't been sent back home.
"She um … she looked sad for a moment and I almost thought she was going to apologize to me or something, but instead she explained that my ability not to age was too important to go to waste. They had trained me to be a weapon for them and I was damn good at it, but I started to ask questions and that is the one thing they could not allow. Still, she said that I had proved my worth and if I agreed to continue to work for them under tighter supervision of course, that she would release me from that cell. If not, I would stay there until I did agree."
Again, Hannah fell silent.
"How long?" Regina asked. "How long did they keep you in that cell?"
"Almost seventeen years," Hannah said. "It took me that long to succumb and when I did, I worked another three years for them before I made my escape. I've been hiding from them ever since."
"Seventeen years," Regina repeated, the expression on her face told Hannah that Regina was thinking about her own time there and multiplying her experience by seventeen. And maybe it was just now hitting her that Hannah was indeed older than she was.
"I don't understand," Regina said. "If you know all about the Home Office, know what they are capable of, and are hiding from them, why would you even suggest I get involved?"
"Because they have to be stopped once and for all and you Gina, you are the only one who can do it," Hannah said. "Why do you think Emma and Lily are here? They would be back there helping if they thought it would be enough, but it's not enough. Storybrooke needs you. You created it, your magic, and that barrier that keeps all the residents safe, the Home Office will get through it unless you return."
Hannah had said all she could to convince Regina that she needed to get back to Storybrooke and she could tell Regina was considering her words, but would she make the right decision?