Hey readers : ) So, here's the next chapter, we're really getting though them at the moment, aren't we? I hope I can keep this up : )
I just wanted to say thank you for the response the question in the last chapter got.
I've got some ideas now about the potential Graham pairing, but I haven't decided who I think will work best with him yet, but thank you so much to those of you who made suggestions, they were all really helpful : ) Other than that, thank you to those of you who reviewed the last chapter. Your support means a lot : )
Please remember that Once Upon A Time is not mine, and I hope you enjoy this chapter : )
Zelena's Second Chance
Zelena sat despondently in her cell, staring at the bars with suspiciously moist eyes, furiously fighting back unshed tears. She had failed. The heroes had defeated her.
All her hard work had been for nothing.
And to make matters worse; no matter how hard she tried, Zelena couldn't get Regina's damned words out of her mind. They just kept going round and round, taunting Zelena and making the Wicked Witch sick to her stomach.
'Because I know why you did what you did'.
Zelena clenched her teeth, outraged that Regina even dared to believe she understood her and what she'd suffered through.
'We're much alike'.
Zelena felt bile rising up her throat at the notion.
No matter how many similarities Regina thought she could draw, the two sisters would never be alike. One of them had all the toys, whilst the other was left with nothing.
That alone was enough to set them apart for life.
'Our mother ruined you too'.
That... that Zelena could actually agree with.
Regina may have been made the queen, but Zelena had been spying on her all the time, and from what she'd seen, Regina's rein had hardly been a happy one.
Zelena's own life had been far from happy too.
And the responsibility of that fell squarely on their not-so-dearly departed mother's shoulders.
'I know what it's like to not have the life you wanted. The life you feel you deserve'.
Zelena resisted the urge to spit on the floor in disgust.
So Regina didn't get to run off with the lowly stable boy? Boo-hoo. She still got to be royalty, due to the hard work and efforts of somebody else, and she never even once said thank you to their mother for giving her everything.
'Not long ago, I was a lot like you. I wanted to kill someone who wronged me. And I failed'.
That was a similarity that Zelena could also see. Yes, her little sister had failed in her somewhat childish quest to destroy Snow White, and she had failed in destroying her little sister. Both sisters had been wronged, and both those damned people escaped unscathed.
Again, it made Zelena's stomach twist in revolution.
'I'm gonna give you what I got. I'm gonna give you a second chance'.
The very idea of that caused a mirthless, hollow laugh to escape the Wicked Witch's lips. As if she wanted Regina of all people to give her a 'second chance'.
There were no second chances in life.
You couldn't just stop and start again, choosing to be different. Glinda had tried that with her and had failed epically.
But that was what it had all been for. What she'd dedicated years of her life too.
Her magnificent Time Portal.
So that she, the only person in the history of magic to come all too close to succeeding, could go back in time and change the past. So that someone, namely her, could finally have a second chance that actually had a cat in hell's chance of actually working.
But like always, Regina had ruined everything.
Now... Zelena had nothing.
No Magic. No future. No hope.
Regina had finally taken everything from her, and the worst part was, her little sister was all too willing to rub it in her face, mockingly giving her a second chance.
Too bad it would do her no bloody good!
With great difficulty, Zelena managed to stiffle a small sob.
It was just in time to save her ego too, for at that moment, Zelena jumped slightly as she heard footsteps approaching. Hastily turning her back to the bars, Zelena wiped her face, trying to muster some composure.
She heard the footsteps drawing closer, and Zelena let out a long suffering sigh.
"Regina?" she said without turning around, face set in a scowl, "I didn't expect you back so soon".
There was a silent pause... before...
"I don't imagine you expected me at all, dearie" a voice that was most certainly not Regina's said darkly.
Zelena whipped around, shocked to see Rumplestiltskin standing outside her cell, hands behind his back, as calm as you like.
"What are you doing here?" Zelena asked once she recovered from the shock.
"What do you think?" Rumple sneered condescendingly.
"You can't kill me Rumple" Zelena said, trying to sound confident, "I saw Regina take your dagger".
"She gave it to Belle" Rumple informed her.
Zelena couldn't help but roll her eyes.
'Dear God, being under the control of that pious little bookworm is a far worse punishment than anything I could ever dish out' Zelena thought to herself scathingly.
"And she wants me dead?" Zelena asked, knowing all too well that that goodie-two-shoes Belle wouldn't condemn her.
"No, of course not" Rumple gave a twisted mockery of a smile.
"Well then, you'll have to do what she wishes" Zelena said flippantly, "If she has the dagger, you have no choice".
"Yes. If she has the dagger" Rumple agreed... before..."But she doesn't".
And from behind his back, Rumple revealed the Dark One's dagger, its curvy blade glinting under the lights in the sheriff station.
Zelena, eyes bulging in horror at the sight of Rumple holding his cursed dagger, leapt to her feet and pinned herself against the back wall of her cell.
"She only thinks she does" Rumple leered at the powerless witch in the cell, "You see, um... my father taught me something, the only useful thing he passed on. A bit of sleight of hand called 'follow the lady'".
Rumple smirked, enjoying watching the reality of the situation sink in with Zelena.
After everything she had done to him, everything she had cost him; it was high-time she got a taste of her own medicine.
"Belle has a fake" he continued, whilst Zelena turned pale, "This, however, is quite real".
He waved the dagger through the air, and in the time it took Zelena to blink, Rumple had disappeared and rematerialised in her cell, towering over her, dagger in hand.
"Wait... wait" Zelena pleaded desperately.
Despite what she'd said to Regina about being killed to be put out of her misery, Zelena didn't want to die. Not without ripping everything Regina ever had away from her first.
"I'm powerless now..." Zelena tried to reason with him, "R-Regina's got my pendant... My magic's gone... I CAN'T HURT ANYONE!"
Rumple took a few threatening steps closer, and Zelena had no where to run too.
"Why?" she eventually asked in a trembling, broken voice.
"Because I promised my son his death would be avenged" Rumple replied honestly, his tone cruel and merciless, "And Rumplestiltskin... never breaks a deal".
He plunged the dagger into Zelena's body.
A split second later, Zelena's eyes snapped open, and she gasped as she struggled to breathe.
That, Zelena decided, might have been one of the strangest dreams she'd ever had.
Snow White had finally gone into labour, which meant that the final stage of Zelena's plan could finally be put into action. She managed to kidnap the royal infant, and with all the ingredients in place, her Time Portal had began to open.
That was when the dream soured into an awful nightmare.
The heroes had arrived with Regina in tow. A powerless Emma and Hook, along with Prince Charming and Robin Hood, had all fallen.
None of them were a match for her.
She was about to defeat Regina too, but then, somehow, Regina managed to change and her magic went from dark to light.
Zelena's defeat didn't take long after that.
The nightmare only got worse the longer it continued.
The heroes had thrown Zelena in a cell and Regina had paid her a visit. She taunted her with a second chance, as if that wasn't the exact thing that she'd just robbed her of. Zelena hadn't been able to get her little sister's words out of her mind.
For a dream, it was unnervingly realistic.
Then Regina was gone and Rumplestiltskin was in her place.
He gleefully informed her that the dagger Regina had apparently given to Belle was a fake, and that he had the real one. Then he was in her cell, and Zelena was powerless to flee or even defend herself.
And then... Rumple stabbed her with the dagger.
Next thing she knew, she was lying on her back, wincing as her eyes opened to see an unpleasantly bright light glaring down at her.
Zelena quickly shielded her eyes with her hand, before looking around herself.
The first thing she noticed was that she was in the sheriff station.
To be more precise, she was lying on the floor of the sheriff station. It was only when she was back on her feet did Zelena realise that she had no recollection of how she'd ended up there.
She noticed movement out of the corner of her eye and turned so that she was facing the cells. She was more than a little surprised to see Rumple standing in one.
He had his back to her, but Zelena could see a silver glint in his hand.
With a jolt of horror, she realised that it was the dagger.
How the hell had he stolen it back from her?!
It was then that Zelena realised that Rumple wasn't alone in the cell.
Standing before him was a figure that - Zelena stared in bewilderment - seemed to be a porcelain statue. In fact, Rumple was stabbing the statue with his dagger.
'Okay... this is just plain weird, no matter what realm I'm in...' Zelena thought to herself, 'Seriously, am I still dreaming?'
Zelena knew that if Rumple caught her, he'd likely kill her for controlling him with his dagger, but she really wanted to get a better look at that odd statue.
She inwardly debated it for a moment, but her curiosity soon won out, and so as quietly as she could, Zelena shuffled sideways to peer around Rumple.
Her mouth fell open in shock.
It wasn't a statue of just anyone.
It was a statue of her.
Phantom pains suddenly flared in her stomach and Zelena couldn't help crying out, her hands flying to it, as everything clicked into place.
Her dream wasn't a dream.
It had all really happened. A fraction of a second ago in fact.
That flash of pain was an after effect of being stabbed by the Dark One's dagger, Zelena was sure of it.
But if she'd been brutally stabbed... didn't that mean...
Was she dead?
Zelena shook her head vehemently.
No! She couldn't be dead! She was there, she could see, and hear, and feel the cool air from the air conditioning unit and... Zelena froze.
No... she couldn't.
She couldn't feel the air blowing around the room, though she could see some papers on the desk fluttering due to it. She was breathing but no scent accompanied it. She experimentally moved her arms but her clothes didn't crease and her hair was fixed in place.
Zelena raised her hand to her chest, trying to feel her heartbeat, but did not feel the familiar drumming against her chest.
Genuinely frightened, Zelena looked down at herself.
She was wearing the same outfit as her porcelain duplicate, though there was a large hole in the exact same place where Rumple had stabbed her, and was still stabbing the statue.
Then it dawned on her.
They weren't two separate entities. Rumple hadn't killed her and then created a copy of her for the pleasure of killing her again. No, no. Rumple hadn't even moved a muscle in all the time - or lack of time - since Zelena had regained awareness.
This was all the exact same second.
It was like it had been... extended... or looped somehow.
But what felt like several minutes to Zelena was less than a nanosecond to the rest of reality.
Zelena glanced back at the statue of her.
She tried to take a step forwards but gasped when instead of her foot connection with the floor like she'd expected, she flew forwards towards the cell door. Literally, flew. Looking down, she saw that her feet weren't even touching the ground.
'Oh god, oh god, oh god!' Zelena was on the verge of having a mental break-down, 'I'm dead... I'm really dead!'
She raised her hand to strike the bars to release some of her building anger, but her hand harmlessly passed through them like they weren't even there.
She stopped and stared at her hand, before snarling and lunging fowards.
She sailed straight through the cell door and found herself hovering next to Rumple, looking at the porcelain version of her own face.
Zelena gently tried to brush her fingers against the statue's cheek but again failed to make contact.
She let out a sob but there were no tears.
You couldn't have tears when you had no body.
Clutching at her hair - it seemed like the only thing she could touch in this... ghost?... form, whatever the hell it was, was herself - Zelena let out a shriek of rage, frustration, and fear.
Why didn't she have a body?!
Why was she still here and hadn't 'gone on' like you were supposed to when you died?!
Zelena paused.
That was actually quite a good question.
From the vague studies she knew regarding death for magical beings - which weren't numerous considering magic couldn't raise the dead - being a ghost wasn't supposed to be like this.
Ghosts still had a form, not completely physical, but enough to be able to touch, to alter, to leave a mark on the world.
From the materials she'd read, it was nothing like this.
And that made Zelena doubt if she was really dead and truly gone.
'Okay... let's think this through' Zelena thought, calming down enough to start thinking rationally, 'Rumple murdered me... no... he's still murdering me, that second is still happening... so the dagger turned my physical body into that statue... so what does that make me? My... consciousness? My... life-force?'
And that thought seemed to be the key, for no sooner had Zelena reached that conclusion, did time resume around her.
Zelena was startled when, with a grunt of exhilaration, Rumple began moving again. He twisted the dagger in the statue's - her body's - wound, before ripping it out.
'Shit' Zelena's eyes widened.
The statue began shaking and trembling, and then before Zelena's eyes, thick cracks began to erode into existence, originating outwards from the wound.
"No..." Zelena breathed anxiously.
The cracks widened, and the entire statue fractured. Then with a tremendous crashing noise, it shattered into a hundred million pieces.
"NOOOO!" Zelena screamed in horror.
Just like he couldn't see her, Rumple also couldn't hear her. He was totally unaware that her spirit lived on in a more literal sense than the usual meaning of the phrase.
Zelena, eyes wide with shock, disbelief, and fear, stared at the pieces of china that had once been her body. Then they evaporated into nothingness.
It was like Zelena had never existed at all.
Again, she let out a sob but no tears could form on her face.
Sneering, his work complete, Rumple turned and exited the cell, walking straight through Zelena as he left.
"You bastard!" she screamed after him, "You fucking, insane bastard! I'm not finished Rumple! Enjoy this victory whilst it lasts, Dark One, FOR IT WILL BE SHORT-LIVED!"
Naturally, her words didn't reach Rumple's ears.
Once Rumple was gone, Zelena furiously tried to kick the bars of the cell. It didn't help with her building rage when her foot sailed clean through them.
Zelena sobbed, desperately shaking her head, as she tried to sit on the bed in the cell. When she fell straight through it, she huffed, and stood up, allowing herself to float over it instead.
'No, no, no, no... please, no. I don't want to be dead. I don't want to be dead' Zelena's mental state was quickly deteriorating, if that was possible, 'I still have so much I want to do... so much misery to cause... and Regina still has everything she doesn't deserve! My life's purpose is to rip it all away from her! I can't die without ruining her life first! It's not fair! I don't want to be dead yet! I shouldn't be dead yet! I can't just... lose! Wicked always wins!'
"No..." Zelena growled, suddenly growing determined, her rage becoming the fuel she would use to overcome this, "I'm not beaten yet... I'm the Wicked Witch of the West for crying out loud! Wicked always wins!"
And then Zelena suddenly knew what she had to do.
There was no point in her staying in Storybrooke in this sorry state.
She'd never be able to unravel Regina's entire life and destroy every little piece of it if she couldn't even touch the physical plane of existence.
She needed a form, and Zelena was resolute that only her original was good enough for her.
Getting her body back was her first priority right now.
The only problem was her body no longer existed, and with no magic, Zelena had no way of bringing it back from wherever the shards of it had disappeared too.
But that didn't matter, Zelena suddenly smirked.
Her body didn't exist now... but it did somewhere else.
Or should that be... it did in another time.
Again, her thoughts seemed to be the key to making events occur, for no sooner had the threads of an idea began to pull together in her mind, did the sheriff station around Zelena dissolve into a shapeless blur of colour, and reform an instant later into the cold grey stones of Regina's vault.
"Okay..." Zelena slowly said to herself, "... That's new".
She looked around the vault in bewilderment.
She didn't have magic anymore so she certainly hadn't teleported herself into the vault. And Regina would be a fool to leave it unprotected.
Perhaps that didn't matter.
Perhaps because Zelena didn't have a body anymore, but was a creature of consciousness alone, she had managed to bypass any protective spell or charm Regina might have cast.
It was hard to be sure.
Zelena had never heard an account of a person still existing without their body. She could only go on guess work.
But she still wasn't sure exactly how she'd got there.
She thought back to the moment she'd dematerialised in the sheriff station.
She had just come to the conclusion that she'd need to steal her magic back somehow, and that thought had led her onto thinking about where Regina might have stored her pendant.
Then she was just... there.
Zelena paused.
Could it be that her mere thoughts had been powerful enough to bring her there?
Maybe that was it.
Zelena didn't have a physical form anymore, just a mental projection of one. Maybe the shock of her life-force being severed from her body had had the side effect of making her thoughts strong enough to actually affect reality, because she couldn't do it physically.
'Okay...' Zelena frowned thoughtfully, 'If the power of thought brought me here, it must be to reunite me with my magic. So where would Regina put my pendant?'
Glancing around the vault, Zelena arched an eyebrow when the pattern of a cross on one of a series of small wooden draws lit up a ghostly green colour.
It was obvious it was there to guide her.
'My mind's more brilliant then even I thought' Zelena thought smugly, floating over towards the draw in question.
She couldn't open the draw without her body, but it quickly transpired that it wasn't even necessary.
A smog of ghoulish green smoke began seeping out from the draw, and Zelena watched as it snaked across the ground towards her.
Her gleeful smile only fell when instead of being absorbed into her... not her body, but whatever form she had taken on... the coil of magic swerved to avoid her and rose off the floor, rearing up like a cobra.
'It's not returning to me...' Zelena realised, thunderstruck, 'It's not returning to me! Why isn't it returning to its wielder?!'
As if to answer her, the cloudy ribbon of magic quickly shot off, leaving a lingering trail of smog in its wake, presumably for Zelena to follow.
The Wicked Witch wasted no time in floating off after it.
Zelena really shouldn't have been surprised about where her magic led her too.
She had followed the ribbon of magical smoke all over Storybrooke, before finally realising that it was leading her in the direction of the barn where she'd enacted her time travel spell just a few hours ago.
When Zelena and her magic were in the barn, she watched as the ribbon of magic engulfed the pattern she'd forced Rumple to carve out whilst he'd been under her control.
She felt a spark of magic different to her own in the air, and in complete amazement, Zelena watched as four pulses of light burst into existence.
The Wicked Witch knew what those four bursts of light were immediately.
They were the residual traces of the four totems she'd used to enact her spell.
Courage. Wisdom. Love. Innocence.
Four elements in perfect balance, now radiating extremely powerful magic.
The minuscule magical traces of her totems, mixed with the raw, unrestrained force of all of Zelena's own magic; exploded together and formed a vortex of blinding light, that expanded upwards from the ground, burst through the roof of the barn, and extended high into the sky.
Zelena couldn't hold in her joyous laughter.
It had worked!
All her research, all her scheming and plotting, all the time she'd waited, it had all worked!
It hadn't all been for nothing!
Again, Zelena wished she had a real body so that she could have tears. It was about time she got to cry tears of joy for a change.
Nothing could stop her.
Now, she could finally rip Regina's entire life out from under her.
She'd finally get the life she deserved and Regina would get exactly what she'd had coming to her since her first breath.
Zelena slowly approached the edge of the time portal.
She was moving slowly because she really wanted to savour this moment.
The moment that wicked won once and for all.
As she drifted forwards, images and memories raced through her mind as she thought about everything she'd ever done, all of it leading to this moment.
Her destiny.
Her time in Storybrooke, gathering her totems whilst keeping her enemies running around in circles. They thought they had defeated her. They were fools for believing that she could lose.
Getting her revenge on Rumplestiltskin for picking Regina to cast the curse instead of her. It was so ironic that Rumple had done so much to be reunited with Baelfire, only for Zelena to effortlessly kill him. Revenge had never tasted so sweet.
The satisfication that came from choosing to be wicked instead of believing she was doomed that way. Tricking Dorothy and banishing Glinda for offering her false hope had also felt rather satisfying.
Learning that she had a sister who got everything Zelena had ever desired and didn't even appreciate or deserve it. The white-hot, primal anger that had consumed her from that moment onwards.
The man she had called Father telling her that she wasn't his blood child and the sting that went with it. That feeling of being lost and abandoned. She'd never quite shaken that off. She'd just... learned to conceal it.
A dream of being an infant, left all alone in a little basket, before being swept away in a swirl of green light, a cyclone carrying her to the path that led to her destiny...
The barn's doors burst open, startling Zelena and causing her to fly back from the edge of the portal.
Spinning around, Zelena swelled with disbelieving fury as Emma Swan and Captain Hook were sucked across the floor towards the portal.
"Oh it would be you two, for fuck's sake!" Zelena yelled at them angrily.
Naturally, they couldn't hear her.
She watched as Hook grabbed Emma's hand, before slamming his hook into the ground, halting their fall.
Emma was dangerously close to the portal. Her legs were already inside the light field.
"Well you're too late this time, dears" Zelena taunted, despite knowing they weren't even aware of her presence, "My portal is open once again, and this time you don't have Regina with you. Now nothing can stop me from changing my past".
"Hold on!" Hook yelled over the tremendous noise.
Zelena watched as Emma grunted and strained and screamed with the effort it took just to hold onto the pirate.
"I can't!" Emma screamed back.
Zelena giggled. This was actually quite amusing.
Watching Emma Swan in a dangerous situation was certainly doing wonders for the foul mood Zelena had spent most of her abnormal evening in.
"Oh hold on dear" Zelena clutched at her chest, performing a mocking show nobody would ever witness, "Don't let go Emma... you can't leave the one-handed wonder all alone!"
She cackled as Emma's grip slipped, and she vanished into the portal.
Her delight only grew at the devastated look of horror on Hook's face.
"Well go on then" she taunted, despite the world being deaf to her, "Follow her like the love sick puppy dog we all know you are".
She saw his eyes flick towards his hook, and heard him sigh.
Zelena immediately knew what the pirate was going to do next.
"One of these days, I'm gonna stop chasing this woman" Hook sighed, ripping his hook out of the ground.
The portal quickly consumed him.
"Well, well" Zelena chuckled, eyes on the spinning orange funnel of light, "Guess I won't be the only one taking a little trip. Not that it matters. By the time I'm done, this game will already be won. By me".
With that, Zelena stepped into the light.
And there we go ; )
I wanted to stop this one before we actually saw Zelena in the past, because... well, she's gonna change some stuff : )
Honestly, I am SUPER excited to see how you guys are going to react to something Zelena does in the past which means quite a change in the present, but I won't say anything more... I don't want to spoil the surprise.
Now, here's something I'm curious about. Do you guys like it when I post questions to you readers to get your thoughts and opinions?
I mean, they're always welcome, and I do try to take every review on-board whilst writing, but I always seem to get a massive response whenever I ask a specific question about a specific subject, and those reviews tend to spark new ideas and thought processes.
Is that something you'd like to see more of, because I'll start putting specific topics/questions up if you guys want me to. Let me know what you think about that because I'm genuinely curious.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and please leave a review.
Until the next time, keep on reading : )