"Mom, you're alive."
Every story, every video Henry played for her during nights she couldn't sleep for dreaming about their mother, every photograph she'd ever seen of the woman too beautiful to be real came to life before Beth's eyes.
"Yeah, kid." She spoke with a tremulous tone as her hand reached up to touch the glass—what seemed only a thin barrier between them but was much more magically complicated. "You're all grown up."
"How is this even possible?" Asked Regina. "Did you take a wrong turn at Purgatory?"
Emma went to respond when her gaze settled on Beth, and the unshed tears brimming behind her lashes spilled over the edge. "Is that…?" She whispered reverently.
Her dad had waited until she was old enough to tell her how her mom had died, and in the years since, Beth had imagined a thousand things she'd say to the woman who'd borne her, if, by some miracle, she was given the chance.
What's your favorite color, song, smell—your favorite place to visit when you're sad?
"Red, Unchained Melody, rum, vanilla, or cinnamon, dependent upon her mood—and the sea. Nothing soothed her weary soul quite like the sound of crashing waves against the shore."
These were the answers her dad had given her. But it wasn't the same. Just once, she wanted to have a conversation about her mom with her mom—answers that weren't tainted by another person's sentimentality.
Most of all, she wanted to say, "I'm sorry."
None of these phrases made themselves readily available at the moment in which the miraculous occurred. She stood face to—well, sort of face with the woman she'd spent seven years wondering about, and nothing. No words, nor sound, unless one counted her unsteady breaths.
Henry moved to her side, placing his hands on either shoulder. "Mom, this is Beth."
Emma smiled amidst her freely flowing tears. "Hi, honey."
When Beth answered, her voice was softer than a whisper. "Hi, Mom."
"I hate to break up a happy reunion," said Regina, "but how is it you're alive?"
"The short version?" Emma wiped her cheeks with the tips of her fingers.
"That would be preferable."
Before Emma answered, before the lot of them got lost in what was sure to be a horrible tale, Beth said, "Henry, go get Dad."
Regina nodded when Henry looked to her for approval, and with a final glance at the looking glass, he was gone.
Emma smiled at Beth, even as her lips trembled. Clearing her throat, she shook her head and refocused her attention on Regina. "The last thing I remember before waking up here is being at the hospital. Killian—" her voice cracked and she ran her thumb under her eye before continuing. "He was worried something would go wrong. And then something did." Her eyes flitted briefly to Beth. "When I woke up, I was here." She held her hands out at her sides, gesturing to her surroundings, which the mirror did little to accentuate—if Beth squinted hard enough, she could make out a wall or two made of wood.
"Where exactly is 'here'?" Asked Regina.
A ripple spread across the mirror's surface, obscuring Emma's voice.
"er—een held—eress—ed to watch my family from afar."
"Emma, you're breaking up."
"This whole time you could see us?" Asked Beth.
"Yeah, honey." Emma smiled sadly. "I'm so—I—uldn't—"
The looking glass shook in its frame, the once transparent plane turned opaque, reflective, and in a flash of light, Emma was gone.
"Mom?" Beth bounded forward, pounding on the glass. "Mom!"
Voices, harried but familiar, followed frantic steps down the mausoleum steps and into the vault. By the time Henry reached them, standing crestfallen in front of an antique heirloom, he was breathless, his hair in disarray at having run to the apartment and back.
Seeing her father at his heels, Beth hurried to his side and hugged him, burying her face in his cotton clad stomach.
Pulling her back, he kneeled to face her. "What's happened, Love?"
Beth shook her head, bit her bottom lip to stymie her emotion.
He turned his gaze to Henry and then Regina, both about as eager to speak as his daughter.
Regina stepped forward, clearing her throat and clasping her hands before her in that professional manner she'd perfected over the ages of her life. "We used magic to communicate with Emma."
Beth's stomach lurched at the sudden shift in her dad's eyes, his hands, on reflex, clenching around her arms.
"You did what?"
"It isn't what you think." Said Henry.
"I would've thought you learned your lesson about summoning the dead." Her dad said to Regina in the coldest tone Beth had ever heard—from anyone.
"She isn't dead." Said Beth. "Mom's alive—we talked to her."
—
She was forbidden from returning to Regina's. Indefinitely. No magic lessons, no nothing.
"Do you understand me, Elizabeth?"
The look on his face upon leaving the vault had her finally understanding what she'd once deemed impossible. How could her father ever have been known by such terms as dreaded and fearsome and lethal? It was the first time in her young life she'd witnessed Captain Hook firsthand. And seeing him sent a shiver down her spine.
"It's true." Henry insisted as he crossed into the apartment. "I saw her, too."
Her dad returned the keys to the table by the front door. "In some bloody magic mirror belonging to the evil queen."
"That isn't fair, Killian—you know she isn't that way anymore."
"Can't say the same for the haunted relics she keeps locked in that vault. There's a reason not even she goes down there anymore."
"Is someone going to tell us what happened?" Grandpa David called from the couch. "You two ran out of here faster than we could ask where the fire was."
With a sigh, her dad removed his jacket, side-eyeing Beth as she locked the door behind her. "It's a long story."
"I happen to like long stories." Said Grandma Snow, seated at Grandpa's side.
"Emma's alive and Killian refuses to accept it." Said Henry. "So Beth's grounded, and if I don't stop encouraging her, Killian's going to stop sending money to my school, and I'll be stuck here in the place where happy endings go to die."
"Oh." Grandma Snow cut her glance between the three of them, then looked to her husband. "Is that all?"
When Grandpa David got to his feet, Beth sensed an impending inspirational speech about the emotional benefits of letting go, so she walked past her dad, en route to her room.
"This isn't finished, Elizabeth."
Turning on him, she yelled, "My name is Emma! Emma Elizabeth Jones—why can't you say it? You gave it to me!"
Her dad closed his eyes, taking a deep breath to calm his frustration. Once opened, the storm clouds no longer raged. "Beth, sweetheart, I know you want to believe your mother's out there, somewhere. I want to believe it, too—you have no idea how much."
"Then why don't you?"
He sighed, kneeling to face her, and brushing away the tear she hadn't permitted to fall. "One of the things your mother abhorred most was false hope, and I can't give that to you."
She realized that any argument was futile. Whatever hope her dad once had died seven years ago. She'd need definitive proof if she was ever going to get it back.
Nodding, she said, "Okay."
With a kiss on the cheek and a reminder that he loved her, he let her walk away.
—
She waited until well past midnight, when the house fell silent. She'd heard her family discussing her vivid imagination for a solid two hours before each of them shuffled off to bed.
"She's young—she'll grow out of it." Grandpa David had said.
Her dad's response was barely audible. "I shouldn't want her to grow out of it."
"Henry was the same way at her age." This from Grandma Snow.
"So best case scenario, my daughter runs away because none of us believes her. Worst case, she sacrifices herself to prove she's right. Bloody brilliant."
"She isn't Henry and you're not Emma." Said Grandpa David. "I'm sure it won't come to either of those extremes."
Following a long silence filled with heavy sighs, her father spoke again. "How do I tell my daughter to abandon hope? How do I live with myself after doing so?" The way his words were muffled, Beth imagined him burying his face in his hands. "Gods, I wish she were right."
She was right and she was going to prove it—without falling under a sleeping curse if she could help it.
Having tied the bed sheets the way Neal had taught her, she tossed the makeshift rope out the window and waited for any startled sounds. When none came, she climbed outside and down the western front of the apartment building, and set off into the night.
—
"Remember what I told you about magic?"
"It senses other magic."
"Correct." Said Regina. "Light and Dark magic have distinctly different characteristics, not simply in execution, but in the way they exude energy."
Standing in the middle of the forest, stock still, eyes closed as though meditating, Beth focused on all the points of power, like thumbtacks in a mental map of Storybrooke. The brightest spots were usually Regina's and Mr. Gold's Pawn Shop—she'd rather not remark on the quality of light radiating from the latter point. The fewer things that triggered her dad's temper, the better. But tonight, there was a third point, strongest and most vivid of all, and it resided at the edge of the woods, where the town's border abutted the Land Without Magic.
It was much larger than a spot in person. Larger, in fact, than any house she'd ever seen—not that Storybrooke was the best example of premier real estate. It reminded her of the castle on Beauty and the Beast, with a looming low fog for no apparent reason beyond atmosphere.
As she followed the cobblestone walk to the front entrance, she felt sparks of both anticipation and dread—she had no desire to see her father's alter ego reborn, and she had a feeling she would if her endeavor yielded negative results. But it couldn't—she'd seen her mother, had spoken with her. She was alive, and Beth would prove it.
And her dad would be happy again.
Sure, he put on a good show, and he no doubt believed his own performance. But Beth heard his screams late at night, heard him calling her mother's name in his sleep. She watched sorrow creep into his eyes whenever he let them linger too long on one of her photos. He'd blink it away and continue on as though nothing had happened, pasting on a bright smile for his daughter's benefit. But for all his efforts to appear recovered, he was far from it.
The door was unlocked. A bad sign.
The hinges groaned, their reluctance echoing across the cavernous foyer. Dust blanketed every discernible surface, and the only source of light was the moon, shining in scant patches through barred windows. The air was ghastly cold, as though winter originated inside its walls. And the magic emanating from it was most assuredly not Light.
Beth shivered.
Dreadful, horrible place. If she weren't on a very specific mission, she'd avoid the entire estate, outright. It was then that a sickening thought came upon her. Poor Mom.
She followed the grand staircase, which her dad would've labeled grotesquely ornate, and came upon a long hallway, lined on either side with paintings that bore unnerving similarity to the pictures in her storybook. At its end was the mirror from her vision. Seeing it, she ran headlong toward her own reflection, but the faster her movements, the farther her target. The walls closed in around her, encasing her in a chamber of mirrors—her vision come to life.
Stopping in her tracks, she closed her eyes, focused all her attention, every sense, every emotion on the person she'd come here to find.
"She was the strongest person I've ever known."
Vanilla, rum, cinnamon, the sea.
"She would've loved you."
Unchained Melody, red leather jackets, strawberry pop-tarts.
"She couldn't wait to meet you."
Savior, sheriff, princess, daughter, friend.
"Mom."
The mirror became a window, just as in Regina's vault, and on the other side stood a smiling Emma.
"You found me."
Then came that voice, deep and sinister, like Ursula in The Little Mermaid.
"The real Ursula is no one to trifle with." Her dad once said.
How he'd come by that knowledge, Beth didn't want to know.
Her only concern at present was her own foolishness. Running off alone, as if she were a hero like the rest of her family. Now she just wanted to get her mom and go home. She wanted her dad. She'd happily let him kill her, if only he'd save her first.
"Didn't Daddy tell you?" It surrounded her on every side, an invisible force constricting like a snake, confining her to that glass enclosure. "Wandering alone in the woods is how innocent little princesses lose their way." The cackle was like a quake reshaping the earth, and it was everywhere at once.
Beth closed her eyes, covered her ears, and screamed.