If anyone can guess the little hints going on in the poem at the end, kudos to you, you get a congratulatory burnt cookie! This takes place during episode 2 'The Thing You Love Most', but makes no references to it.
As usual, I own nothing you recognize. If I owned Once Upon a Time, there would be little to no plot, and no one would watch it.
Her reflection in the mirror was simple and unintimidating, but Jefferson knew that beyond it was the one place he had yet to take her. He would do the same thing, offer her a deal, usually with some form of object she wanted or needed, and he would head off to Wonderland alone. It was easier this way. He knew how the land work - to a degree, he was familiar with the beings and creatures there, and most importantly he understood first hand that this was a land without rules of any sort. No natural or even magical laws applied there, it was a land sculpted by chaos.
But she didn't know that. So Jefferson did what he always did and tugged on her arm to move towards their door of destination. "Come along, we can't stare at your appearance in the mirror all day. At least I can't."
"What's in that mirror?"
"Whatever material people use to make mirrors, what do you think?"
She shrugged. He was lucky, she wasn't too curious about it just yet. He opened the red painted door and waved his arm for her, "Ladies first."
The land was dark. It was in the middle of the day, but there was this creepy feeling that neither could shake off. It was that mist and fog which covered the grass and the courtyards around them. Stone buildings were beginning to fall to pieces if they were not already crumbling to dust. "Now, this is a very busy man who won't want us to waste his time-"
"So that means, you will shut up and let me do the talking, since I am much more direct and formal then your quirky charms." Now she was grinning at him.
Jefferson smirked, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders leading her onwards into the fields of fog. "That is correct!" He noted that their voices seemed to carry throughout the area, whether it was because both of them had fairly loud voices when speaking to each other, or simply because it was silent as night there; neither knew.
After an hours walk, they reached the doors of a stone building, still neatly in tact, yet covered in vines and leaves, with the windows blacked out. A tall, gangly man with sickly pale skin stood outside the door. He pierced their gaze with his unseemly dark eyes and opened his mouth. "My master expected you later." His voice was as unsettling as his appearance. It was frail sounding as if he could barley speak without causing himself pain.
Jefferson nodded, "Me and my companion thought to make a grand entrance as a greeting!"
The man blinked, as if it was the only other muscle he could move. "My master does not like unexpected turn of events."
Jefferson snickered, "Then this 'turn of events' is going to surprise him anyway. So I suggest you move aside and let us in, or we will just have to walk in ourselves, which I suspect you won't like. You seem the type to hate unordely conduct."
Another blink. "Very well." He turned to open the door and started to slowly make his way through the dark hallway.
Jefferson looked at said companion of his and they smirked at each other. "Very well." She mocked in an equally sick and frail voice and moved her limbs forward in a floaty manner, letting them fly about as she walked as the man just had done. Jefferson took a big step and slid right in front of her, taking her arms and putting them into place, then pointed at her.
"What did I say?"
"Be direct and formal? Oh wait, that was me."
Jefferson poked her nose and directed her to follow the man more as he walked beside her. "Follow your own advice then."
The hallway was dark and long. There were portraits all alongside the building, but nothing they could make out without the torches lit. The wooden door at the end was tall and wide. "How is he going to open that himself, oh."
She was cut off by the door flying open like a gust of wind shoved each side against the wall. The two walked in and saw the man himself standing over a pit of fire. He was dressed in all leather, dark and black with various weapons hidden amongst it's layers. A hat sat on his older head, enhancing his grey beard. He looked from the pit and stared at the two expecting.
Jefferson flipped his hat off and bowed exaggeratedly , nudging his companion to do so as well. "Van Helsing. I am Jefferson, and this is my companion. I hear tell you have a proposition of sorts for us."
"Indeed" He had a low, baritone voice. "There is a menace wreaking havoc in the corridors of the castle 5 miles from here. I require your services to go there, and deal with it."
"Sir, if I may - how exactly do you expect us to deal with your menace if we know nothing about it?"
Van Helsing stared thoughtfully at the young woman for a moment, before looking back to Jefferson. "If I were to tell you about it, you would not go. I just require it to be dealt with in any appropriate manner possible, but to bring me back the menace with a blue triangle carved into his forehead."
"Excuse me, I was the one who asked the quest- Jeffersons hands clamped over her head and mouth to keep her from shouting.
"Of course we will accept, though our services to not come without a nice payment. I may be generous, but I am not without greed. Especially when paying for you." The last sentence directed towards his very annoyed looking companion, who in return glared right back.
"Of course. Depending on the success of your work, I will prove the correct compensation. Now, go to my assistant outside the doors and he will lead you to the carriage which will take you to the castle." Without another word he turned and walked though a metal door, slamming it shut as he closed it.
Jefferson let go of her face as she gave a large gasp for breath. "What if I ran out of air?"
"You were fine you whiner."
She threw her hands up into the air, "He was ignoring me! That chauvinistic pig!"
"A pig which is going to pay us, and not to mention usually has the most interesting jobs for me to do. Once it was this large hairy monster, strong as anything but ugly as you are. That was a fun one to deal with- Ooh! Maybe it's a blood sucker coven, they really hate me, those things."
She was staring. "Oooh! A blood sucker!" She wiggled her fingers excitedly before moving back to her dead pan expression and leaving the room. Jefferson grinned, he knew she would like this job. He always enjoyed coming here. It was dangerous, more dangerous then other lands he took her, but at least this land still had rules.
As per his usual, Jefferson flounced over beside her once more, arm around her shoulder, willing her to see the bright side of things in this dark and creepy land.
Addison sat on the small ledge near the exhibit, pen in hand with her clipboard laying on her lap. She had been there for over an hour, starting inquisitively at the workings of the exhibit and jotting down whatever notes she required. With a sigh she placed the pen on the board and looked around the room. It was dark at this point, everyone else had left to go home for the night, yet here she was working herself more then she had too. As usual.
In her mind what did she have to go home to? A half decent little house all alone. Sure she had friends, but no one she really felt comfortable around. Not truly. Some days she envied that kids that came through the museum. They all were happy, had parents to go home too; family they could be around, let loose and have fun and be themselves. At work or out with friends, she always had that barrier up. Always professional and put together, Addison. Sure she would make little amusing comments or do odd things in public, but no one would really understand it. They would just laugh and go back to their knittings.
Deciding she had enough of the exhibits for one night, she gathered up her things and made her way to the office.
Addison's office was the one room only she was allowed to go in. It was her own sanctuary, her baby. The place she felt safe. Specifically, she felt safe to hide a peculiar obsession of hers. On the right hand wall, it was covered in papers. Full sized, papers, small pieces of paper or even little slips of paper. They all had drawings of them, of some geography, all colour coded for each area. Each area had multiple versions of it, and it was all disorganized and out of order.
Addison didn't know why she had these, it was just something she always had. Nobody touched her wall, no body knew about it or saw it. But tonight, when she opened that door and turned the lights on, she looked to her wall and her mouth opened wide in shock.
It was organized. Every little piece of paper was moved into the perfect position, overlapping each other to form each colour coded section of it. It looked to be a map. And right in the Centre was a dark hole. A place she had no drawings for. Instead, stabbed with a small knife was a picture. Someone had cut out pieces of the book covers to Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, and put them all together in an odd looking mash of peach book cover.
Addison looked at it, her hand trailing right above the area where the knife was stabbing it in the wall. She turned to her desk to go call her intern, see if she was in her office before she left for the night, but in the middle of the desk lay a box. A small packaged box. On the box there was a card. Addison was careful in picking it up. It only read,
'What you seek in the map
Is a special place
Both as sweet as sap
But dark with no Grace
It is a dark land
So I lent a hand
- Your Companion and Friend'
She stared at the box for a long time. Willing herself to open it, see what secret lay inside, but she didn't. Addison tossed it quickly into a drawer in her desk and locked it shut, and headed out the door without looking back.
On her walk home, she pondered what had just happened. The map, the box, her strange oddities, like the tea; something was wrong with her, but she didn't know what, and somebody held all the answers.
Perhaps though, Addison did not want answers. Not just yet. It is what she told herself the rest of the night, as she ate dinner, read a book, and now as she lay in bed thinking quietly to herself. She did not want the answers. She lied to herself and she knew it, but maybe it was really because she was no scared to know the answer.
Addison wondered this through the whole sleepless night. As the spent her time drawing something on paper to lull herself to relax and sleep. As she fell into slumber, the moonlight caught her drawing. A man with a face she could not see, wearing quite the eccentric hat.