"So..." JJ started with a mischievous smirk, "How long before we can start expecting grandkids from you two?" She said it conversationally, even as she raised an inquiring brow.
Clara nearly choked on her sip of water, coughing and sputtering at the sudden prying.
"Mom!" Henry hissed, cheeks going bright red with embarrassment.
"What?" she asked, seeming genuinely mystified by his mortification. She held up her hands in self-defence.
"We've barely been married a week, you can't ask about grandkids already!" he insisted. He chanced a side-long glance at Clara as if to check whether she'd run off in alarm (she hadn't, though she did appear to be very seriously considering it...).
JJ shrugged as if the matter were out of her hands, ignoring Will's sidelong glance, silently encouraging her to stop pressing the matter. "In the Enchanted Forest, you would be expecting already..."
Henry heaved a sigh, perhaps a tad irritated. "Yes, well, we're not in the Enchanted Forest, are we?"
"Well, not for long," Will chimed in, "But I'm sure it's only a matter of time before we're all transported back now that the Curse has been broken..."
Henry and Clara shared a look of what might've been disbelief, but said nothing.
Emily, seeming to sense their hesitation, attempted to change the subject. "I suppose the two of you will want to start apartment hunting now? I don't imagine the Inn is all that comfortable... You're welcome to stay with Derek and I for now; his – I mean, our – place is big enough that it won't be crowded."
"Oh... Umm..." Clara stammered, suddenly picking her nails under the table, just like her mother. "We hadn't really talked about it. I mean, we were just supposed to stay overnight and now..." She gave a small hysterical laugh. "Things kind of fucked our plans sideways."
The four adults didn't seem to know what to make of that statement, but fortunately were saved the matter of navigating that conversational minefield by hollers from the street outside the diner. Instantly, everyone was on their feet so they could peer out the wide bay window.
People were running down the street, screaming in fear. It looked like the scene in every superhero movie as the villain paraded down Main Street, wantonly destroying anyone who so much as looked at him.
"What the fuck is going on?" Clara asked, more to herself than to anyone else. No one seemed to have the answer anyway.
There was a thunder-like crackle across the sky, though there was no lightening accompanying it. A deep purple cloud billowed into view then, spilling out from the boundary of the nearby forest. It engulfed everything in its path, obscuring it from view.
"Is that...?" Derek asked, the scene all too familiar...
Emily's face was grim as she nodded. "Magic," she finished his sentence. A tremor raced down her spine, flashing back to the night Clara had been taken from her as a very similar cloud of magic swallowed up the world as she knew it.
"But how?" Will asked.
Emily shook her head. She had no idea how, but was fairly certain of the who: her mother...