Chapter 10
It was, I think now, the appropriate response to the life I was leading, the life I was being led through, the madness. Insanity. It felt good. Like shooting stars in the sky. A step above the dreariness, the slowness of life until it slugged in my veins, neither better nor worse than death. All was loneliness. The indifference of the court, Leopold's, Snow's… that was worse than hate. I was the unwanted, the unlovable. It tasted like death, like ash in my mouth.
The viper of Agrabah was the moment the survival instinct kicked in, that possibility that I might just survive Leopold, losing my baby, losing… her. It was like a shooting star in the sky and I made a wish and reached for it. Around me, all were shooting stars which I followed and followed, always just a little too clumsily, just a little too slow.
Ah, but the thrill of the chase. It made me bigger myself. The shy Regina that had loved Daniel was lost over time, first the definition, then the body until all that was left was a Cheshire cat smile hanging in the air.
I was mad and didn't know it. Not all the time, I didn't. There was only what I saw in the mirror- the bold colors, the bold make up, the attitude, the strength. Sometimes I knew it was not real. There were ruptures in the fabric, but they too (the fraying and ruptures) became reality. But with that madness, came power, power, power. Shooting stars. When you don't worry about fairness, all you have is power.
That Regina chasing shooting stars, I don't know what of her. She is as a foreign to me now as is the Regina in riding attire, no saddle on her horse, unbridled heart. Maybe they are both dead under the rubble of my life, under the debris of the curse.
Sitting here with Emma's hair in my hands, all softness and split ends, it's hard to mourn either woman. If I make an effort, a face grows around the Cheshire smile, becomes limbs and body and weight. Someone new I don't recognize, who abhors the shooting star chaser, fears her.
There are no shooting stars in Maine. Only Emma's hair.
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It was impossible to know whether it was light or dark outside. In the cave it was always dark, a pitch darkness relived only by torches that never ran out (she supposed them magic) hanging from the uneven walls carved out of the stone. So when Regina awoke, Emma's head still in her lap, though she had managed to move her into the cot, she simply stroked the blond curls lightly, waiting the time away, pen running through the grainy paper. The torch light played with gold reflections on that hair, reminding her of shooting stars in the sky where she came from.
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Jefferson had learnt to be invisible. Like the Cheshire cat, there was only a smile. It was the smile of purpose that hung in the air. He was going to avenge his loss. He was going to avenge 28 years he had pined for his daughter, seeing her through the lens, so close but unreachable. That strength of his purpose was formidable. When he heard that Rumplestilskin was not jumping into the accusation witness bandwagon, he knew that he had to do something.
He walked into Storybrooke General Hospital and, as if he'd truly been invisible- people do not really want to see you, do they- he got himself a set of scrubs and made his way to the loony bin, laced tea in hand.
He used the commotion, some sick little boy dying upstairs (Storybrooke had better become reacquainted with death as a fact of life because now people actually got sick and died) and passed the tea on to the bored nurse slash warden at the entrance in the basement. As she collapsed onto her desk, already asleep (because Jefferson lacked the courage of his convictions) he took her key and opened the door to one of Regina's dirty little secrets: Belle French.
He bundled her into a coat, never mind her confused state and pushed her out of the door, with only the most basic of instructions: "Get to Mr. Gold and tell him that Regina kept you". It was simple, it was brilliant and he could not be anywhere close to Storybrooke until the fall out. Jefferson and his invisibility moved out of the hospital, a sigh of thanks for dying little boys that provide cover for Cheshire cats to enter mental facilities.
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Granny opened the doors to the diner when it was still dark outside, nothing but the pale moon still in the sky. She went about the business of pulling chairs from the top of the tables and setting them in their business position. Then she filled the ketchup jars and sugar pots and set out the pastries delivered by the baker. When she raised the blinds, the unrelieved darkness of the night was begging to lighten in the east. She saw the Hatter moving in his quick stride towards his mansion in the outskirts of Storybrooke. He was not quite right in the head, that one, no sir, but what bothered her about seeing him at that time of the day was the fact that she was seeing him at all. She would have pegged him for the type that would not leave his child alone, not after what had happened to the poor unfortunate soul. And yet, there he was, trying to look inconspicuous. And failing miserably. Whatever he had been doing, he was smiling broad and wide. And it was a smile that made her teeth hitch.
As it was none of her business, she moved back and gave one final wipe to each the counters and tables. She fired up the coffee machine and waited for the system to heat up so that she could get her own guilty pleasure and part of the reason she got up at that time of the day: a cup of hot, strong coffee that Dr Whale had long forbidden because of her flailing heart.
"Excuse me."
She would not lie: she almost peed herself at that moment. Her heart beat erratically for a few seconds. She turned once she had it under control, her hand reaching for a weapon she had taken to keeping under the counter since she had sniffed magic lose in Storybrooke. At the door was a new face. A girl that looked like she had just escaped the mental asylum, her hair mussed and clothes that, if her vision had not declined in the last few days, looked a lot like a hospital Johnny.
"Came right in, dear, and close that door."
The girl moved with uncertain steps as if she had not walked more than two steps in the last few years.
"I am looking for Mr. Gold."
"And I'm looking for Baby Jesus." Granny mumbled not so much under her breath. The girl looked terrified in the fluorescent light, blinking desperately. "What would you want from him?" And now she was prying. She hated prying. She hated gossip. But this was not a common situation. This was new face in Storybrooke. She had not tested the limits of the town herself, but if strangers were coming to Storybrooke, they certainly should not be asking for anyone by name. This was trouble in two legs and doe eyes.
"I was told to find him." The girl was silent again. Seemed like she was as unused to talking as she was to walking. Granny took one more cup from the warmer and poured a second cup and passed it to her.
"Drink this. It will push away at the cold of the night."
"Thank you… That is very kind."
"Granny. You can call me Granny. Everybody does around here. What's your name, dear?"
"Belle." She took the cup in her hands and looked suspiciously at the black liquid. Granny held her cup and took one languorous sip. She let the liquid fire her up from the inside and do its little miracle. Then she concentrated on Belle again who copied Granny. "It's bitter. What is it?"
That gave Granny pause. "Coffee. Have you never had any?" Belle took one more sip.
"No."
Quick on the uptake, Granny once again sipped her coffee. This was interesting. A new face that came from the past and not from outside. She would have to get to Snow and the council.
"Well, drink up. There is plenty more where that came from. Then I'll take you to Mr. Gold."
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Emma looked pretty in her pink princess dress. She looked like a doll. She approached him and she was smiling a really wide smile. "Hi Henry. Got something for you."
He hoped vaguely for a comic book. Or that new game for his console. Instead, she reached behind her back and pulled out a doll. "Emma." He felt exasperation. His mom always knew what he liked. She had never offered him dolls. He was a boy, for chrissakes.
"Look closely, Henry." Why would he even look at a doll? A doll was a doll. Even if it was dressed in the same pink princess dress as Emma. But he looked closer because Emma asked. And then he noticed that the doll was a breathing child, a miniature of Emma from the pink princess dress to the blond hair. He wondered briefly if this was perhaps a toy from the Enchanted Forest, their version of an action figure or a Barbie, until he looked at the doll child, startled to realize that the only thing that did not seem photshoped from Emma's face were the pair of deep brown eyes he had only ever seen in one other face: his mom's.
He screamed until his throat gave out on him and Snow came barreling into his room to hold him to her. He might have said at some point "I want my mom" though he could not quite be sure of that.
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Regina awoke from her semi slumber by what she could swear was Henry screaming. Her back hurt from the sitting position through the night. Emma was still in her lap, her face still turned to her stomach and Regina's hands were still on the blond curls. She traced the contours of Emma's face, slowly so as not to wake her up. Emma had the lightest of slumbers. She supposed it was because she had not yet lost the need to vigil at all times. Not that she was giving her any respite in that sense. She was a burden on Emma and it still amazed her the graciousness with each Emma carried it. Her.
When she raised her eyes, it surprised her to see Kathryn seating in a fold out chair someone had brought over.
"So it is true?" Kathryn said. There was nothing in the tone but the simplest of questions. When she pointed with her chin at Emma, Regina felt the need to protect the sleeping woman in her arms from whatever unknown threat this might be. Kathryn should have no love lost for her, though at a point she had been as foolish to think of Mrs. Nolan as an unlikely friend. "You two…"
Regina had no idea how to reply to that, having never had a conversation about affairs of the heart. Kathryn looked at the former Mayor and saw fear with an underlying current of determination. "Just tell me why you kept us apart." Kathryn's hands were in her lap, tightly secured by her own will. She did not want to appear nervous. She just wanted an explanation. And she would not leave without one. But Regina looked like she could not put and two together. "Frederick and I. Why did you keep us apart? We have never done anything you. I had never met you back there."
Regina went through a catalogue of names. Frederick. Her mind evoked a tall blond man. Athletic. Kind features. She was going to keep quiet. There was nothing she could say that would obliterate those 28, almost 29 years of separation as Jefferson had demonstrated. But Kathryn was the closest thing she'd had to a friend and Emma was still in her arms and for one horrible moment she wondered how it would feel like, living 28 years without her. "I didn't… know, Kathryn. I didn't know him or you."
"How did you work things out? I'm just curious…" Kathryn shrugged. "Like how did you decide that I was going to be a housewife without another function in life but waiting for a comatose husband to come home? Or how did you decide that some should be nurses and others shoemakers… I think it's a valid question."
It was. Regina herself had questions that she had never gotten answers to. The question was if anyone would believe her or not.
"I didn't. I didn't think much beyond how I wanted to hurt Snow and everybody who'd had any sort of happy ending."
"So you didn't know what you were doing?"
Regina really hadn't known. She was embarrassed to a painful point. She had always tried to persuade herself that things in Storybrooke were the way they were because she had designed them so. "I had never cursed a whole world before. I wanted a few things specifically but… mostly, I just wanted it to stop hurting."
"Oh man… this is not what I wanted to hear. You cast a curse just like I have an aspirin…" Kathryn stood and paced. Then she took her chair and brought it closer to the bars, closer to Regina and Emma's sleeping form. "Did it work? Did it make the pain go away?"
Regina was not aware she was crying until tears started to plop unceremoniously on the back of her hands still on Emma's hair. She shook her head because she did not trust her voice. No, the curse had not worked to make the pain go away. But it had numbed it for a while. "No. It didn't. I'm sorry."
"Aspirin never works… Who decided, Regina? Who decided who was going to be what and be with whom?"
"I don't know." Kathryn rose from her chair and reached into her handbag. She took a tissue that she handed over to Regina, surprising both of them.
"We were friends here…"
"I'd like to think so…"
"And yet, you had me kidnapped to get back at Mary Margaret… Snow, I guess." She had not thought of that. Not in those terms. Kathryn had been a means to an end. "In the end, I suppose you could really have had me killed. That is something to be grateful for."
"That you escaped with your life?"
"Sure. Aren't you ever thankful for the small blessings when the shit storm hits?"
Regina looked down at the mass of curls in her lap, shooting stars in her hands. "I'm learning to be."
"Well, then… Frederick and I are getting married." It was unusual for Regina to be happy for someone if that someone was not Henry. But genuinely, she felt happy for Kathryn. Or, she supposed, Princess Abigail. She smiled because she lacked the words to congratulate someone. All the words she knew were always laced with cynicism and derision. She wanted to say something real. Kathryn sat closer to the bars. "Are you happy for us?"
"Yes, I am." She just wished she could stop with the waterworks. She really was happy.
Kathryn stretched her hand across the bars and touched her shoulder. "Would you tell me, sometime?"
"Tell you what, dear?"
"Who hurt you so much that you had to curse us all just to feel better? Because it seems to me that if it had been just Snow, you could have sorted your problem just by cursing her and be done with it."
Regina thought that that was a promise she could safely make because there would not be an occasion to make good on it. She was scheduled for death and nothing was going to change it. "One of these days."
Kathryn smiled a kind smile and handed the contents of a basket to Regina and a thermos of coffee. "I brought you guys breakfast."
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"I'm proud of you." Emma said with not nearly as much sleep in her voice as she should've had if she had just woken up. Her hand was rubbing circles in Regina's back as it seemed to be her default lately. She turned as much as the cot would allow to stare at Regina still fighting to keep tears under control. Those words brought a fresh wave of them. She wished she knew what was wrong with her these days, always on the verge of tears or any other form of a nervous breakdown.
"You were awake!"
"Only a little" Emma gave a sheepish smile Regina was growing accustomed to.
"She was my friend and still I…"
"Yeah, you're a right bitch, sometimes." Emma had this way of saying the truth but making it less about the punishment and more about the… what? Learning? No, more like an acceptance. "Let's get some breakfast. And then we can get this show on the road." But she didn't quite move.
"Emma?" Her fingers were still running rivers through Emma's hair.
"Yeah?"
"Getting dressed?"
"In a minute or so." And she burrowed once more into Regina's stomach. Emma could get used to this… tenderness of which she'd never had much. Or any.
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He kept the shop open out habit, but everyone was queuing at the town hall for a sit. Bread and circus. Which suited him just fine because while Storybrooke concentrated on the Queen, he pursued other interests. He had no need to attend. It would bore him. He knew the outcome. A dead queen. The victory was his. The bell over the door jingled and for once, he was not expecting visitors.
"Mr. Gold" A voice that existed only in his nightmares called. It was the voice of his guilt. He turned, because how could he not. "I'm looking for Mr. Gold." But the words died in the air around her. "Rumplestilskin!" He was not the sentimental type and his mind played dirty tricks on him all the time. But when Belle touched his arm and it was solid even through the suit of this time and world, he knew it was true. And in his shriveled old heart, he knew why Belle was coming to him now: because that rotten, no good queen had kept her from him. His anger crackled in the dank air of the shop, for a moment animating objects that bound Storybrooke to him.
"I was told to find Mr. Gold. Are you Mr. Gold?" Rumplestilskin nodded and his vision narrowed to include only Belle. "I was told to tell you that Regina kept me."
That broke the dam. He pulled her to him, carefully avoiding every one of her kisses, and concentrated on feeling the warmth that came out of her. The whirling in the air around him settled.
He was quite proud of himself at that moment: first he settled Belle. Showed her to a room, fed her and found her fresh clothes. And then he went about the business of making Regina pay.
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The bile rose in her stomach the minute Emma unscrewed the thermos of coffee. She made a beeline for the toilet bowl, sinking to her knees when the shivers raked her body. Emma was right there, pulling her hair back and offering comfort when the heaving subsided. And then it started again when Emma breathed coffee in her direction.
"What's wrong?"
"Probably food poisoning."
"You know, I won't tell if you just admit that you're nervous like hell and are finding it difficult to cope. It's only human." Yes, she supposed. Having a sword hanging over your head will do crazy things to your nerves. Like tie them around your stomach. She had spent the night before her wedding heaving into a waste basket just because she'd been so terrified and angry. She stood and rinsed her mouth.
"Just please lay off the coffee."
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The conversation in the diner swirled the drain which was to say that, it always came back to the same point: why weren't they back in the Enchanted Forest. Red was sitting in the customer side of the counter in her shiny new deputy's uniform, making sure that Leroy, also in green finery of the sheriff's office did not season his coffee with anything other than sugar. With her cloak still missing and the full moon fast approaching, she was holding on to the hope that this being a new land, there would be no effects of her curse. She was in no hurry to return to the Enchanted Forest and she made it known. Mostly because she was not the kind that keeps secrets. What surprised her was when Michael, the mechanic, simply admitted that he was in no hurry to return to the Enchanted Forest either. His children were safer here; it was easier to provide for the family. "And", he said, "the amenities were far superior" and then winked at his third pastry of the morning.
They were not alone in the thought that here was not so bad.
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There were fewer insults and fewer catcalls when Regina and Emma walked in. Snow looked tired but less withdrawn. And James had a goofy little smile that Emma decided it was not a good idea to speculate on. Everything else remained the same: The prosecution was still determined to hang or decapitate or burn Regina and Henry was still absent (though Emma could feel him perching in the oak tree outside the window).
When Snow hit the gavel on her desk the silence came easier in the audience. The Prosecutor walked to centre stage. He was almost swaggering. As if he knew something she didn't. "The Prosecution calls Geppetto."
Of all her time in Storybrooke, the old man had mostly flown under her radar. He caused no trouble and she knew little of him except that in his life as Marco he was Dr Hopper's unlikely best friend. She hadn't spared him any further thought until the Prosecutor called him by his old name. Then she put two and two together. Her own coffee made a bid for freedom at that point. She looked around the room for August (how on god's green earth was she ever going to call him Pinocchio) but he was nowhere to be found.
Just by the set of Marco's shoulders she could tell this was going to be a bad one. She needed no confirmation from the smirk on the Prosecutor's face or the angry set of Marco's expression.
"Good morning, my good man. Thank you for coming." The Prosecutor started and Emma could see and smell the bullshit immediately.
"I wouldn't miss it for the world." Marco spat and it felt like he was aiming it at Regina and herself. "This world or the previous one."
"I understand the sentiment. I understand the anger that would make you leave your son's bedside to be here today." Bedside? Emma panicked a little. With all that had been happening, she had forgotten all about August. All his delusions about turning into wood… Oh God. Except they were not delusions, were they? She turned to Regina for confirmation and even if she hadn't so much as formulated the thought, Regina nodded in understanding.
"My boy… my beautiful boy…" He took a handkerchief from his pocket and cleaned copious tears. "I am not ashamed to cry." He faced the prosecutor as if challenging condemnation of his weakness. "My boy. He was a real boy. He was a real boy! And because of her" he stood and pointed at Regina unerringly, "he turned back into wood. Her curse. Her curse and I lost my boy."
"What do you feel would be an appropriate punishment?"
"Kill her."
There were times having a heart was the worst burden. This was one of those times. Regina knew full well the sentiment that animated Geppetto, that made him jump from his seat and point at her with such hatred that spit flew from his mouth. She knew because if she had lost Henry she would be out for blood and she would not sit in a court room waiting for permission to draw it.
"Kill her. Kill her." Marco screamed. Snow's hand looked out for his and held it, old hand in young, the same hurt binding them together. "Kill her" he whispered when his voice had given out and screaming was no longer an option. "Kill her. Please. Give me back my boy."
George was tickled pink and in no further need for platitudes. "Your witness!" He addressed Emma, barely containing the triumph in his voice.
Emma stood, unsure. She looked at Snow for guidance. She seemed to be friendly with Geppetto even if not with Marco.
"Geppetto." Snow called out to him softly. "Would you like a minute?"
He cleaned his face with the handkerchief and looked back at Snow. "No, Your Majesty. Sooner is better."
"Geppetto…" Emma struggled to find calm and kindness in her for an old man speaking out of grief. She drew a blank on how to proceed but then the room erupted in a barely contained thunder of whispers, Snow's threat ever present. When she turned, she was lost for words.
Pinocchio. Oh, she would call him Pinocchio alright- was standing in front of her. The same wooden toy from the animation but in his grown up version, looking remarkably like the August who had taken her to that roadside cafe and told her about the curse.
He moved slowly and with a clank here and there of wood touching wood, of wood touching the stone floor.
"Emma" He greeted her. There was nothing animating his features of solid wood, but the voice seemed to have a hint of mockery in it. "If it pleases Your Majesty," He turned to Snow, "And if the defense does not oppose, maybe I could talk to my father for a few minutes."
The room was deathly silent. Emma turned to Snow again and when met with the same expression she knew she must have in her own face, she turned to Regina. What do I do?
"It's his son, Emma. It's OK." When Emma nodded at Snow, it was like the suspended animation the room had been in broke and it all went back to real time.
Pinocchio approached his father and took his hand. "Father… do you really think that killing the Queen will revert… this?"
"I am sure of it."
"How can you be certain, Father?"
"Because" Geppetto's voice failed him then. "It's the only option we have left. I have lost too much already."
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Snow had a bad feeling about this, but Geppetto had built the wardrobe that had saved Emma and that carried with it a debt of gratitude. And he was one of her oldest advisors. She kept his gnarly hand in hers. She understood losing a child. She did.
But Pinocchio was August and August had not lived in Storybrooke, of that she was sure and the feeling in the pit of her stomach was one of sinking, sinking, sinking.
"You know in your heart, Father, that that is not true. You know why I stopped being a real boy." And he placed his childhood trademark hat on Geppetto's free hand.
"No! That is not why."
And still Snow's stomach seemed to sink.
"She cursed us all to lose what we loved the most. She cursed me to lose you."
"You sent me away, Father. Away from the curse. If that were true, would I not have been safe?" Geppetto's hands in hers contracted painfully around her bones. From the corner of her eye, she saw James moving, not even aware of what he was doing, coming to her side. "The sins of the father shall be visited upon the son. You know it's true."
"It was no sin. I only wanted to keep you safe. I had already lost so much." Pinocchio's wooden hand stayed on his father's. But for Snow, it was like being stung by a snake. She pulled her hand, unable to stop herself.
"Geppetto?"
"My Father put me in that wardrobe, Your Highness."
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Oh, the fools! They were going to ruin everything. No, not everything. Events were in motion and there was no stopping any of it. But they were going to ruin things. This was not the way it was supposed to go.
"There was magic enough in that wardrobe for two, and my Father made a deal. He made a deal and he secured a place for me. The place that should have been yours."
"You were such a good boy!"
Oh, for all that was holy and powerful, could they both not just die or something?
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"I traveled with Emma. To this world. I escaped the curse. For a few years, in any case. But he point is… the Queen has many sins. But I am not one of them."
"You were a good boy" Geppetto cried from his sit. And her mother seemed beyond anything now, hurt and betrayal in her face, tears flowing freely.
"How could you?"
"I didn't know the baby was coming… I thought you could take care of them both. I'm sorry. I am so sorry. But I'd do anything for my boy. I would do it again if I had to. Surely you must understand that."
She'd heard the story before, but because she had been unwilling to believe the curse, none of it had actually sunk in. But now, here she was looking at one more reason she had been alone all her life. Except that even now, if she was to be fair, the same way she exonerated Regina, she would have to exonerate Marco. And it was very, very difficult.
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It was James that called for a break. He wanted Geppetto out of his sight. He could forgive a lot but this sort of betrayal had a special weight. He had trusted a friend and his daughter had suffered for that foolishness. He gathered Snow in his arms and together they retired to their apartment.
The worst part was the shift of blame. It was as unsettling as trying to stand atop a galloping horse, to have to shift the entirety of the blame from one single person. He could have learnt to live with Regina's guilt for Emma's sake, but this? It made him wonder how many other times had he been betrayed. How many other times the ones that were supposed to be good and the counterpoint to Regina's evil had been instrumental to the destruction of everything they held dear. Geppetto sitting there, unrepentant put a whole new perspective on all their losses. His stomach turned on him and simply leaned against the closest wall and lost all its contents.
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The Prosecutor was in a bad mood. The day had not started half as bad. The demented Hatter had woke him up before dawn to let him know that he had sorted the gold problem. In his sleep addled state, he had not given it a second thought. A Hatter without magic was as useful as an umbrella in the sunshine. He dismissed the crazy fool and went back to sleep in the certainty that the other old fool Geppetto would be a great witness with the sympathy card so evident it might has well have been tattooed on his wrinkly forehead.
He had started the first deposition with flair and a tone to pull at heart strings that he had practiced suitably. And then the wooden puppet clomps his way in and ruins everything. For a moment he had actually patted his pockets for matches, such was his rage.
He reviewed his notes. He still had a couple of aces in up his sleeve and he was not afraid to play dirty. Shame about the imp not wanting to play ball. But he was not without his own power and he would break that court room to his will, starting with Snow and ending in the Queen and her whore.
And then his phone rang. We could hear the rumble of hate in Rumplestilskin's voice.
"I hope you can fit me in this afternoon, deary."
Oh, did he ever.