A/N: Rome might not have been built in a day, but this chapter was and it wasn't easy work, my friends. Furthermore, I would like to apologize to France. I based it off Fleur Delacoeur from the Harry Potter books. It's nothing personal, I swear. You'll see what I mean.

I would also like to apologize to all of you for being late with this chapter.

Chapter 5

"I'm gonna empty your pockets and fill you with misery, yes I will

I want caviar for breakfast, champagne every night,

I want a midnight snack for every man that I invite

I'm an evil gal, don't you mess around with me"

/-*-*-*-\

"Hello, mother."

"Carol." Louisa Parker smiled in a way that almost didn't reach her eyes, and it stretched her wrinkled face like a vinyl Halloween mask. She addressed her daughter in a lukewarm tone tinged with traces of her English heritage and slightly raspy from decades of smoking. "How are you, duck?" She attempted to embrace Carol, but was stopped by the younger woman's outstretched hand.

"What are you doing here?"

Down but not out, Louisa clasped Carol's hand between her own. "I heard you just got out of the hospital."

Attempting to slip her hand out from her mother's cage of hands, Carol waited for a follow-up. When she didn't get one, she prompted, "From?"

"This is a small town, darling," she answered, releasing her daughter's hand. "I heard it from everyone."

Honestly, didn't people have something more interesting to talk about? "Wonderful," she drawled, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Well?" The older woman asked expectantly. Her daughter just stared at her. Louisa sighed. "Aren't you going to invite me in? Or am I just going to stand out here on your stoop like one of those Jehovah Witnesses?"

Carol rolled her eyes. Like a vampire. "Won't you come in?" she asked with obviously mock cheer in her voice, opening the door further to allow her mother.

"Don't mind if I do," she smiled, just as mocking. Walking past her, Louisa left the smell of expensive perfume, hairspray, and tobacco in her wake. "Not too particular about your surroundings, I see."

The younger woman shut the door and sighed. And so it begins. "Did you just come here to insult me or is there something you want?"

"Couldn't this just be a social call with my only child who's not halfway across the world?" Mrs. Parker dug a cigarette and lighter out of her purse and placed the former between her painted lips. "Who, I might add, I haven't seen in such a long time?"

"How long has it been, anyways?"

She thought for a moment, then brushed it off. "I suppose I've lost track. Anyways, it's been much too long, and I craved family." She lit her cigarette and took a long drag, breathing it out.

"I'm sure you have. That's why you visited me in the hospital all the time. Called me every day. Came to pick me up when I was released. Oh, wait," Carol laughed sharply, plucking the cigarette from her fingers. "You didn't." She snuffed out the cancerous stick of tobacco and threw it away. "Don't stink up the place, I'm expecting company."

"That's right, I forgot. 'Smoking is disgusting. You'll thank me for stopping you.' Hospitals are unbecoming of someone of my status."

"Louisa," Carol said coldly, "this is Storybrooke, Maine. What status?"

"I do have friends, believe it or not. What if they saw me there? Surely you can't expect me to go advertising that my daughter is a basket case," she laughed.

"Of course not. That would be ridiculous. Why don't we skip to the part where you tell me what you want this time?"

Louisa's smile faded, but she complied. "I met this absolutely lovely man the other day at the store."

"I don't want to hear about your sex life." Again.

"I'm not talking about my sex life. I'm talking about yours."

Carol froze and glared daggers at her mother, sitting innocently on the couch. "What did you do?"

"If I can't smoke, could I kindly have some wine?"

"Did you set me up on a date?"

"He's just perfect for you," Mrs. Parker gushed, standing. "He's handsome, charming, and he's a doctor."

"Oh, god. Please tell me you didn't set me up with Dr. Whale."

"Oh, good, so you know him?"

"Yeah, I know him. He oversaw my treatment. Did a pretty shitty job, too."

"Language," her mother reprimanded half-heartedly. "I'm sure it wasn't that bad."

"He declared me sane and then held me past my release date. If that doesn't qualify as shitty," she emphasized, "I don't know what does."

Louisa shrugged. "So he's questionable as a doctor. He seems like a very nice man."

"I'm not going out with him," Carol snapped, bristling. "It's immoral."

"When it comes to dating, morals are irrelevant." Louisa strolled over to her daughter. "I already made reservations."

"Cancel them."

"I told him you would go."

"Tell him I'm not interested."

"I told him you were thrilled," her mother smiled acidly.

"Then tell him I'm sick. Tell him I'm on my period. Tell him I'm fucking married for all I care. I'm not going and you can't make me," Carol roared. "I'm a grown-ass woman and I can make my own decisions."

Both were silent for some time, and Carol's words echoed in the tense atmosphere. Louisa shifted her weight awkwardly and crossed her arms in front of her chest, pouting."This is awfully rude of you. I thought you would at least appreciate the effort I put into trying to make you happy. But I guess I was wrong."

Carol shot her mother a look. "Don't start."

"What are you talking about?"

"You always do this. You do one insignificant thing to 'try to make me happy' and it ends up failing miserably. Then when I try to stop it from happening again, you guilt me into going through with another one of your ridiculous plans."

"So, you'll go?" Louisa smiled hopefully.

After another tense silence, Carol said, "I think you should leave now, Mom."

"You need to get back on the horse, Carol," her mother groaned. "This town is full of successful men. And you really are a beautiful young woman." Louisa placed a hand on her daughter's cheek, and she let her. "I raised you well."

The younger Parker stepped out of the semi-embrace and ignored the almost-compliment, walking to the door. "Goodbye, Louisa."

Giving up for now, Mrs. Parker followed her daughter to the door. "The reservation is tomorrow at eight at that little Italian place on Oak Street."

"Use it yourself, if you're so crazy about the guy," Carol retorted snidely, opening the door.

"Maybe I will," she winked.

Carol slammed her eyes shut, trying to banish the mental image of her mother on a date with someone she had set up her daughter with."Bye, Mom."

"Goodbye, dear. Think about it." Louisa strolled out the door triumphantly, nearly running over Ruby, who narrowly side-stepped the older woman.

"Hey, sorry I'm late! My shift ran over, but I have food," she smiled, holding up the doggy bag in her hand. Carol could only smirk meekly in response. "Who was that?"

"You don't want to know," groaned Carol, showing Ruby in and closing the door behind her.

The brunette grimaced, waving her hand in front of her nose. "Ugh, it smells like smoke," she coughed. "I thought you quit?"

Yes, she used to smoke. Like a chimney. During her Rabbit Hole days, it made her alluring and risky. But the mental ward wasn't exactly smoker-friendly, so she kinda had to kick the habit. Which really was better for her in the long run, but god was it hard. "I did," she replied tersely, opening a window. "But it's people like her that make me want to pick it back up."

"William King, will you please put that out or kindly take it outside? You know how I detest tobacco."

The young man nodded and put out his pipe. "Yes, mother."

Cecily nodded in thanks before directing her attention back to her son's wife. "So, tell me Clara, what is Lyons like this time of year?"

The young woman smiled warmly. "It eez ze most beautiful city in ze world," she answered in a thick French accent. "Especially when eet snows."

"How wonderful," the older woman smiled. Her son had been married to Clara for several months now, so she had gotten a little better at deciphering what the dear girl was saying. "We usually get snow around this time, as well. I wonder how Alice can stand to be outside now, it's so cold."

"I had a riding lesson, mother." The three people in the living room turned and saw Alice walking in through the front doors. For just having turned eighteen a few weeks ago, she looked years older. Dressed in a jacket and trousers and her blonde hair plaited down her back, she continued into the room. "It isn't that cold yet. I found it refreshing after such a long spell of sweltering heat." William stood as she approached and she embraced him. "It's nice to see you again, Will. And you as well, Clara. How is Alfred?"

"He eez at 'ome with ze nanny. And getting so big!"

"I'm glad to hear that."

"Alice," Cecily stated, "please go upstairs and change into something suitable for company."

"Who are we expecting?"

"Sir Edward Blake. He has expressed a desire to come and see you."

Alice snidely thought that wasn't all he had a desire for. "Do you mean he wishes to marry me?"

Cecily stiffened and regarded her daughter with cool eyes. "He might," she responded calmly. "You are of age, and Sir Edward is a very wealthy man and a war veteran with an excellent standing in the community."

"I am aware of that mother," said Alice, trying and failing to keep her temper under control. "I am also aware that Sir Edward is forty years old and a ferocious drunk. He's a lecher, and- "

"And," Mrs. King interrupted, "he will be here soon, so I suggest you go up and change."

"But mother-!"

"Now, Alice."

The eighteen year old took a deep breath and turned to her brother on the couch, who was looking anywhere but her, it seemed. Alice turned abruptly and ran towards the stairs, taking them two at a time. She sped down the hall and slammed her bedroom door shut behind her, not caring how childish she was being. Snatching up one of her bed pillows, she screamed into it and then began attacking one of her bedposts with it, dealing blow after useless blow to the wood. A knock on the door halted her barrage. "Alice?" said her brother. "Are you clothed?"

She threw the pillow back onto the bed and wrenched the door open. "Go away, William."

"Oh, we're back to William now, are we?" he teased. "What did I do?"

"You just sat there like a pile of dung and didn't say a thing."

"What could I have said that you didn't already say?"

"You might have mentioned that he impregnated one of his maids and had her discharged when she claimed the child was his."

Will tilted his head down at her. "That was just a rumor and you know it."

Crossing her arms, she snapped, "But would it really be so out of character for him?"

"I suppose not," he chuckled.

"She knows his reputation, real and rumored, and she is still going to allow him to pursue me. How could she do such a thing? How can she take the side of an oaf like him over her own daughter?"

"You know as well as I do that Cecily loves you," Will said seriously. "You two don't always see eye to eye, but she wants what's best for you."

"And that disgusting drunk Blake is what's best for me?" seethed Alice.

"No one is saying you have to marry him. All you have to do is meet him and be your wonderful, charming self," he said, a teasing glimmer in his eye. "After all, this is the first time he's meeting you, and you want to leave a good first impression. Do you understand?"

A wide, conspiratorial grin graced her features "Yes, I believe I do. But what of mother?"

"I'll handle mother. Just do what you must to frighten him off. Though I must warn you, you'll have to try especially hard."

"And why is that?"

"Because you're a beautiful, intelligent, witty young woman, and any man would be very lucky indeed to have you as his wife," Will smiled, making his sister playfully hit his arm.

"Will it always be this way? Intentionally frightening off forty-year old drunkards who want to bed me?"

"No," he sighed. "Not all men are pigs like Sir Edward. One of these days you'll find someone who makes you feel the way I feel about Clara, and the way Margaret feels about Christian." Their sister was indeed very happy with her husband. Christian was an arranged marriage, but Margaret had gotten lucky with him.

"How do you feel about Clara?"

Will smiled shyly, and he fiddled with his wedding ring. "She's the sun and stars to me. Every morning I wake up and see her face and feel blessed to be loved by such an extraordinary woman." He looked at Alice then, and she could see the amount of love he had for the woman written all over his face. "I love her with all of my heart, and I only wish that someday you find the same thing, aristocracy be damned."

Alice gasped mockingly. "Bite your tongue! Damn the aristocracy? What would mother say?"

"You let me worry about that," he smiled. "I'll let you get changed now." He walked off down the hall and she closed the door.

She wandered over to her window and opened it, letting the cool breeze blow through her hair, which she promptly undid from its braid. If she was going to meet Sir Edward, she might as well make herself presentable. Turning and sitting down at her vanity, she brushed her hair, allowing her mind to wander. She thought of Wonderland, which she did often, and the book she was reading, a collection of Persian poetry that would make her mother blush. Setting the brush back on the vanity, she looked at herself in the looking-glass. You're an adult, Alice. This is your life now. The feeling of utter dread in her breast only grew. She sighed and closed her eyes and when she opened them again, she was shocked at what she saw. Reflected in the mirror, she could see a flower crown on her windowsill. That in itself was odd enough, but what made her take pause was that it was in full color.

Turning from the mirror to go pick it up, she saw it was gone, with no evidence of it ever having been there. Now she was really confused. She thought that maybe it was a trick of the light, or even that the wind had blown it back out the window, even though she didn't feel any wind. As she was considering whether the wind could have come in and turned right around without her feeling it, she turned to face her mirror again. When she did, she nearly fell out of her seat in shock.

The flower crown was back, sitting on the windowsill, exactly where it was before.

She whirled around to look again, and it was gone. But when she looked at the window's reflection, it was there, undisturbed. Deeply confused, she could only stare at the spot of color in her mirror with her mouth hanging open in a very unladylike way. The only rational explanation she could think of was that there was a stain of some sort on her mirror. Anything else would just be... make-believe.

Does this place seem make-believe to you?

That in mind, Alice considered her second explanation. The color was inside the mirror.

Tentatively, she stood up and reached out to touch the looking-glass. Her reflection rippled like silvery water underneath her touch and she retracted her hand. Curiosity got the better of her, though, and she plunged her entire hand into the mirror. It felt like she was putting her hand into cold water then exposing it to the open air, leaving a chilled feeling on her skin.

As she was standing, amazed, with her hand in the mirror, she heard her mother calling from downstairs that Sir Edward had arrived. Sighing, she thought that her exploration of the looking-glass would have to wait until that evening. She mentally decided which dress she would change into, taking into account which one would take the longest to put on. As she thought, she began pulling her hand out of the mirror, shivering at the feeling.

She hadn't moved her hand more than a few centimeters when something grabbed it and pulled her through the looking-glass before she even had the chance to scream.

I hate the name Cecily. If you're reading this, and your name is Cecily, I'm sorry for two reasons:

1. I unintentionally named one of the centers of conflict after you.

2. Your name is Cecily, you poor thing.

Song is "Evil Gal Blues" by Aretha Franklin because why not?

(PS, If anyone can tell me the DC Comics reference hidden in this chapter, I'll love you forever)