CHAPTER TWELVE: The Real Curse

Emma eyed Jefferson as they drove to his house. He was familiar enough that she knew she had seen him in the book, but unimportant enough that she couldn't place his story.

Regardless, she was wary of him but felt deep guilt for running him off the damn road, so Emma decided not to pursue his cursed persona and instead did her best to be pleasant.

He was not, however, a fan of small talk.

They eventually pulled into a long, curving drive that stopped at the bottom of a large staircase. "Wow! This is your house? It looks more like a hotel. You must have a huge family." At the look on his face Emma realized her mistake. Lonely souls tend to identify each other.

Jefferson gave a curt, "Nope. Just me," as he struggled to lift himself out of the car and up the stairs.

Feeling bad for not only almost killing the man, but now for assuming family relations Emma knew all to well only dug into the wound, she followed him out of the car. "Here. Wait." She took his arm and draped it over her shoulder. Carrying his weight for him, something she wasn't unaccustomed to, they made it inside the mansion.

"You're awfully nice, sheriff Swan. Your partner must be worried about you. Do you need to call him? Sheriff Jones?" There was something in that question, here in his living room, something that tried to alarm Emma. Warn her that he was fishing.

She ignored it.

"No, he's out doing the exact same thing I am on a different part of town. I'll call him later."

"In that case, would you like some tea?"

Emma smiled, "I almost kill you and you offer me tea? I'm not the nice one here."

He limped out of the room and came back a few minutes later carrying a tea tray and a large rolled up piece of paper. "Here we go. I thought you might want to warm up for your search. It's cold out there."

"That is kind of you, but I really should get back to it." Emma mouthed around the tea as she took a long drink.

"I know, that's why I brought this." He waved around the rolled up paper, "I'm a bit of an amateur cartographer– mapping the area is a hobby. Maybe this will help you find your man."

"Wow." Emma said around the rim of her teacup as Jefferson laid out the map. It was well done, with landmarks and trails marked. She should text Graham, ask him he's seen anything in the woods. "Well, Route Six runs the boundary of the forest, so…" Emma's mind was becoming muddled, the lines on the map blurring, "So, if I just follow that, I should… Be able to…"

"Is something wrong?" Jefferson asked. But he didn't look concerned, Emma thought vaguely, he appeared pleased.

"I'm just, uh… Feeling a little…" Her body slumped over and Jefferson caught her.

"Oh. Let me help you." He said as he dragged her body over to the couch.

"Dizzy."

"Let's just lie you down here. There you go. Let me get you some air." He began to walk away and Emma was conscious enough to see that his limp was gone.

Trying and failing to hold up her arm to point at him she said, "Your limp." Her mouth was dry.

She need water.

He stopped to look down at himself before throwing his arms up in an 'oops' motion and saying, "Oh. That. I guess you caught me."

The last thing Emma asked before falling unconscious was to ask him who he was.

She didn't get the answer.

The room was empty when Emma finally awoke, and slowly she took in her surroundings. She could hear no persons, only the slight buzzing of the lights. She was still on the couch, still in her clothes, and still with her cup of tea. Her mouth was gagged and when she tried to move her body she found that she was bound by ties.

But her mind was clear.

Formulating a plan, Emma quietly maneuvered the teacup onto the floor, knocking the cup onto the carpet. She pinched a throw pillow between her feet, placed it on top of the teacup, and smashed it with the pillow. The noise it made was minimum and when she didn't hear anyone moving to check on her, Emma quickly made to cut herself out of the binds with a broken shard of the cup. In her haste she cut her hand with it, leaving bright red blood stains on the pristine white couch and carpet.

[Deployment, 2002]

Shit, shit, shit. Shit! She had to get to Killian. Emma had to fucking get to him. If she didn't– if she didn't– she refused to think about it. She refused to think about what it would mean if she wasn't able to break out of these god damned cuffs and reach him.

If she reached him too late.

Emma pulled against her chains until a small spot of blood appeared on her wrist. The bright red in stark contrast to the dark of the metal that restrained her.

It gave her an idea.

The bars she was behind were not professionally made, they were full of jagged edges. If she could just reach one sharp angle…

The chains were mercifully long enough for her to put her wrists through the bars.

It took a few tries, but eventually Emma's wrists were coated in enough blood to pull her hands through the cuffs.

She's pretty sure she cracked a tooth trying to keep herself quiet.

But her hands were free.

Emma didn't have her cell phone nor her car keys. She knew she should leave, should walk to town. Should call James.

Emma knew it.

But she didn't do it.

Emma needed to know why she was kidnapped, and if it had anything to do with the curse.

If she left, she might never have this opportunity again.

Across the hallway in another room she found a telescope pointed at the sheriff's station. Looking through it she saw James booking Mr. Gold, meaning he would be ready to start their date. She watched James pull out his cell phone and make a call, looking frustrated and worried with his eyebrows pinched together.

Emma wondered if he was calling her.

She felt guilty for it but next, she moved up the stairs and slowly proceeded down the hallway where she heard two voices.

The man, Jefferson.

And a voice of woman which nudged at Emma's mind like a distant memory. A memory that made her hair stand on end. Slowly, she approached the door from which the voices floated out and through the crack that poured out light into the hall she saw the horrifyingly familiar face of her last foster parent.

Ingrid who tried to have her hit by a car.

Ingrid who had told her they were family.

Ingrid who only loved her if it meant hurting her.

Forget the curse, Emma's instincts forced her to run.

They must have heard though, when she reached the stairs a body flew into hers causing them to crash down the stairs. A sharp pain erupted in her left shoulder and her left knee gave out on her. When she looked up, Ingrid was pointing a gun at her from the top of the stairs. She didn't fight Jefferson when he manhandled her back up the stairs, too caught up in the horrifying face that she had been running from for thirteen years.

They sat her down at a sewing desk in a room where every wall was lined with top hats. She realized where she recognized Jefferson from: The Mad Hatter.

Emma refused to look at Ingrid. She addressed Jefferson instead, "You've been watching us why?"

"We've been watching you. We need you to do something."

"Tell me why you've been spying on me."

Jefferson gave her a mad look, "Because, for the last twenty-eight years, I've been stuck in this house. Day after day, always the same. Until one night, you, in your little yellow bug, roll into town, and the clock ticks, and things start to change."

Ingrid stepped in, "It's just like I told you years ago Emma, you're special. You brought something precious to Storybrooke– magic."

"You're insane." Emma spat at Ingrid.

"Because I speak the truth?"

"Because you thought it was a good idea to hit a fifteen year old with a car." Turning away from Ingrid, Emma asked Jefferson who had his eyebrows raised staring at Ingrid, "What do you want?"

He waved at the materials sitting before Emma, "I want you to get it to work."

"You want me to get what to work?"

"The hat. You're the only one who can do this. You're going to get it to work." Taking a hat off of the shelf behind him and setting it beside her he said, "Make me one like that."

"You want me to make a hat? You don't have enough?" Wrong response. He smacked the table in front of her. Emma wondered how long it would be before he smacked her.

Ingrid would let him do it.

"Well, none of them work, do they? Or you wouldn't be here." Emma suspected that with or without the hat she'd still be here. She could feel the manic energy pulsing off of Jefferson, but he wasn't the only person in the room who had an obsessive agenda.

Ingrid had told her that they would be sisters that day when the car came baring down on her. She had been frantic, insistent, obsessive. That same energy radiated off of her now, and the inner child that no one can ever really get rid off was banging on the doors of her soul for Emma to run.

Emma had been running away from Ingrid for thirteen years only to end up heading straight for her.

"You're the Mad Hatter."

He sneered at her, "My name's Jefferson."

"Okay. Jefferson. What if I make your hat and it still doesn't work?"

"It has to work. You're the only one with magic." Magic? Who the fuck does he think she is?

[Deployment, 2002]

Rafiki sat across the fire from her, eyeing her with an indiscernible look on his face as he watched her mend the unconscious Killian's wounds. She wanted to snap at him, to tell him to put himself to use, to get the fuck over here and help her.

But there was something about Rafiki that seemed as though he was always working, even when he was sitting perfectly still. Maybe it was his age, maybe it was his beard, or perhaps it was the deep knowledge he carried in his eyes. Either way, she felt like to snap at him would be to disturb him.

So Emma worked in silence.

Partially because she was afraid if she spoke he'd bring up the test.

And she did not want to think about the test.

Nope. Not fucking thinking about true love and all the damn implications.

So she worked over Killian, until the only thing left to do was to unnecessarily fiddle with the bandages and comb a hand through his hair.

"Come, Emma, you have done all you can for him at the moment. Sit next to me and I will bandage your wrists."

Emma listened, it would be easier than doing it herself after all.

Her wrists had stopped bleeding, but bled they did. Quite a bit, if she was honest, and the skin around them had been rubbed raw by the cuffs. Rafiki tenderly attended to them for several minutes, lulling Emma into a quiet comfort.

Until, that is, he grasped her wrists, pulling her forward until they were nose to nose, his eyes boring into hers.

"How did you know?" At her silence he shook her, "How did you know where he was? How did you know to navigate the castle, child?"

Oh. "I didn't know." Emma told him, "It was instinct."

"Instinct?" He pulled back and continued his work on her wrists, "'Instinct' she says." His forehead crinkled, his lips pursed, then after a few tense minutes he asked, "Tell me. Has it always been instinct for you to find people? Instinct for you to always find your way?"

Emma couldn't remember a time when it wasn't. "Yeah, I guess."

He considered her for a few moments, "Like magic."

"Or just dumb luck."

"Aren't they the same thing?" Rafiki's question hummed in the air between, but neither pursued it further.

Emma went back to carding Killian's hair, and eventually falling asleep at his side.

[

Storybrooke]

"No. Listen. There is no magic here. I'm not saying that magic doesn't exist, but if there is no magic here then no magic hats can be created. You have to wait for the curse to break if you want your hat." Frankly, Ingrid looming over her was enough for Emma to reconsider ever breaking the curse if it kept her at bay.

Jefferson didn't like that answer. His hand made a rope of her hair, tugging her head towards him. "Make. The. Hat."

Hours passed as Jefferson and Ingrid forced Emma to make failed hat after failed hat. "I can't make it work. What you are asking of me is impossible right now."

"No! It has to be you. If it's not, I'm never going home. I'll be cursed to live in this house forever."

"The curse is breaking Jefferson, you just have to be patient."

"Patient! Patient, she tells me! Now you're the mad one! I've been stuck here for twenty-eight years, trapped in my own mind. I didn't even have the pleasure of having a different identity. It's just been me, myself, and I for twenty-eight years. Until she showed up." He threw his hand out at Ingrid, "Ingrid told me about you. About how if we just woke up your magic then this would all be over. I had hoped that by now it would have already happened, but I guess not. You are still the same narrow minded girl you were when you lived with Ingrid."

Ingrid laid a hand on Jefferson's elbow, "Jefferson, I think it's time for my plan."

Emma didn't like the sound of any plan that Ingrid came up with and tried to intercept her, "Jefferson, why is it so important to you that you leave as soon as possible?"

He gestured for her to look through another telescope that he had set up in the room. Through it, Emma saw into a dark and empty room, but other windows of the house began to glow.

It was almost five in the morning.

"Her name is Gracie. Here, it's Paige. But it's Grace. My Grace. Do you have any idea what it's like to watch her day in and day out, happy, with a new family? With a new father?"

"She's your daughter?"

"She has no idea who I am. Our life together, where we came from. I do. That's my curse."

"To remember." Emma could sympathize. Being the only one to remember is painful.

"What good is this house, these things, if I can't share them with her?"

"Why don't you reach out to her?"

"How is that working for you? Reaching out to your family? Do you feel like you're together with them? Or is just a personal Hell?" From her silence he took her answer, "Exactly."

"That's why you want me to make the hat work, isn't it? You just want to take Grace home– to your world." That was Jefferson's side of it, but what was Ingrid's? Thirteen years ago she wanted Emma to have magic, and she must have seen Jefferson as a way to go about it.

"It's the one where we can be together… where she'll remember who I am."

"I know what it's like to be separated from your kid."

"Yeah, you do, don't you?"

"It can make you feel like you're losing your mind."

"I'm not losing my mind. I'm not crazy. This is real."

"I know. I know that what you're saying is real." She had to make him comfortable, make him complacent. Anything to keep him from going along with Ingrid's plan.

"You believe?" God his eyes in that moment were so wide, so vulnerable. He was just a desperate man who missed his daughter.

"There's a man in Storybrooke who I met a long time ago. I watched him go through a portal myself. But now, I'm here with him, and he has no idea. Being with someone, but not really being with them, is a horrible curse." Out of the corner of her eye she could see Ingrid peering at her, wondering who her new competition was.

She always hated the other foster kids in the house.

Hated having to share Emma with anyone else.

"So, you're… You're going to help me? You can get it to work?"

Emma bit her lip, it wasn't possible right now for the hat to work. The only magic that would work, she theorized, was the magic that would break the curse. But she had to buy time, James would look for her. She knew he would. "I can try."

Emma made hats for hours. The Sun rose, it reached high noon, and began its descent. Still, every hat that Emma made was a failure.

"They'll never love you, Emma." Ingrid told her in the middle of one of her various failures. "This man you speak of. Your son. They can never love you because they can never understand you. You and I are two of a kind. We're sisters. Only I can love you."

Emma tried her best to ignore her. To not let her get into her head. She filled her thoughts with Henry, of James, and her mother and father. She was so close to having her family and Ingrid was a direct threat to that.

She couldn't lose what she was so close to finally having.

Jefferson became increasingly impatient and aggravated as the day wore on. As dusk fell Emma overheard him tell Ingrid to get her plan ready.

She walked over to the window when Ingrid left the room. When Jefferson had his back turned to inspect her last failed attempt she took the telescope sat by the window, hitting him in the face with it when Jefferson turned around.

When he fell to the floor unconscious she took his gun and made a run for it.

He caught her in the hall, knocking the gun out of her hand. He tangled his hand in her hair and pulled her to a wall which he shoved her against repeatedly until Emma was able to deflect his attack and start one of her own.

The fight was going her way until Ingrid was aiming a gun at her head.

Come closer, you bitch. If Ingrid would just get close enough, Emma could get the gun out of Ingrid's hands and into her own.

But she kept her distance.

They marched Emma out the backdoor of the house, down a vehicle beaten down path.

Emma tried to keep her calm when she saw the car parked at the end of it.

She refused to listen to Ingrid when she spoke.

She couldn't hear Jefferson condemning her for her failure.

She didn't move when Jefferson aimed the gun at her head as Ingrid bound her wrists and ankles. Emma could have tried running, but they would have just shot her and brought her back.

Instead, she stared stone cold ahead of her and prepared for impact. If she could get more height by jumping at just the right moment her injuries would not be so severe. The vehicle wasn't tall, but it didn't ride low like a mustang either. There was chance that if she stood still she'd just go over the hood anyway.

Or she'd go under.

Better height was her best chance.

Jones, where are you? An insidious thought whispered to her that maybe he wasn't coming, maybe he wasn't even looking.

Maybe he was glad to get rid of the crazy lady.

Ingrid got inside the car and started the engine.

Emma watched it, refusing to look anywhere else but the front fender of that car.

That is, until James' voice was calling her name. He was running towards her, fear on his face. Repeatedly he frantically called her name, uncontrollable emotion on his face and taking over his movements.

Killian always did act on his emotional instinct more than she did.

Mary Margaret and David were right behind him, her mother and father more in control of themselves than James. Jefferson swung his arm around, aiming for a shot at James. Emma hopped forward and shoved her shoulder into him, making him miss. He turned around and shoved her to the ground and the next thing she saw was the underside of the car as it continued to charge towards her.

She scrambled to her feet.

Emma could only move in short bursts and James was still so far away. The car was barreling towards her, Jefferson was running way.

All she saw was James frantically sprinting towards her. Saw the fear on his face.

Saw the love mixed in with it.

She heard gunshots, but didn't know from where. There was yelling, but she wasn't sure from who. The world slowed.

Emma kept her eyes trained on James.

If she was going to die today, Emma wanted the last thing she'd see be his eyes.

She just wished that they weren't so terrified.

But a car is faster than a man.