To the mailbox:

LOCISVU: I hear ya, and I'm sorry if this doesn't give clarity, but things will clear up soon...but then there will be more questions. I know where I'm going...just need to get there.

JamieOUAT: sorry that your wish was not granted. It will though...its just how.

This chapter was hard because I know what I want to do with this. Things will be sorted out. And, yes, part of this is based on a true story I heard on the radio.

The usual disclaimers. Tell me how I did...

Robin and Marian's Room, Granny's B&B

Marian's breathing was shallow. Under any other circumstances, the woman would be having a traditional, run-of-the-mill massive coronary. But this is Storybrooke, and nothing is run of the mill, not even being moments from death.

The entire reason for Marian to leave Storybrooke was because her body was still dealing with the remnants of the Snow Queen's ice curse. Before that, she, Robin, and Regina had come to an understanding of was grateful to Regina for helping to save her, plus she also understood Robin's feelings for both women. So they decided that they would be an ersatz family unit, if only for young Roland, the son of Robin and Marian.

But this morning they woke up at Granny's Inn...how they got there, the gods only know...and now she has an attack.

And in the room with her are her husband and a panicking son. And Regina. And the woman she knew as Sarah. The woman who cursed her in the first place.

Robin was not happy about this. "She is not going touch my wife, She was the one who caused my wife's pain...!" Regina responded, "I don't trust the woman either, but the way magic works is that, outside of true love's kiss the only way that a curse can be reversed is by the person who enacted it. We have no choice."

The Snow Queen added, "...and if I fail, you both can have the honor of ending me."

Robin: "Brave words..."

Sarah...or Ingrid, her real name: "Not brave. I want to die."

Those words cut through Regina like a knife. When she almost lost Henry, she had the same thoughts. And as angry as the Evil Queen was, she sympathized with Ingrid. And she also thought, if she could have ended her life at that point, she would have.

Then Marian looked at Ingrid, hand clutching her chest, voice strangled: "Can you save me?" Ingrid simply nodded.

And with a reciprocal nod, the Snow Queen went to work. It was almost anticlimactic: Ingrid knelt down and placed her hands on Marian's chest. There was no sound, just a white glow that came from Ingrid's hands the started to spread rapidly along Marian's body. It took only two minutes, but it seemed like an eternity. However, soon, the glow receded into Ingrid's hands.

"Do you feel any pain?" Marian responded the Snow Queen with a bank and forth shake of the head.

"Do you feel any cold?" Same response.

"Any discomfort at all?" Same response.

Ingrid then smiled at Marian. "The curse has been lifted. You'll be fine." Then the Snow Queen's feature softened even more. "You have no idea how sorry I am for causing you so much pain. Now idea at all." Water formed on the rims of Ingrid's eyes. Marian said nothing, but grasped the hand of the blonde woman and squeezed it, then smiled slightly herself and nodded. This caused Ingrid's smile to widen as she returned Marian's hand squeeze.

For Ingrid and Marian, at least, it was finished.

For Robin, though, it was not. As Ingrid herself said , it was she who caused his wife pain, and though Marian may not be his true love, he did love her. And he was still angry.

"I do thank you for saving Marian's life...but you did come close to killing her. We are not done..." Robin said nothing after that. As a matter of fact, for a moment, in a room filled with some of the most verbose people in any world, the was a drastic silence, an economy of words. There was not a knife sharp enough to cut through all the tensions in that inn room. But as silent as that room was, the opposite was happening with Emma at...

Granny's Diner

There were long stares as Emma and two of the Mistresses of Darkness approached the table where Elsa, Cora and Zelena sat. For the Sheriff, memories of battles fought and won flooded her mind. What an evil mother and her wicked daughter could do to Storybrooke, perhaps beyond. And Elsa. Her feelings towards a sister she never knew. Were they sisterly feelings, or much more? Were they feelings similar to the feelings she was starting to feel for the Evil Queen. Not to mention recent memories of a foster mother so desperate for love that she would destroy everything in her path.

And now adding to that, Rumplestiltskin approached with his reunited family. His wife, a beauty who, for whatever reason, still loved the beast. His son, whose initial death drove him to murder. And now, Rumplestiltskin, in his guise as Mr. Gold, stared down the woman who was the cause of his pain, the copper-haired Wicked Witch of the West.

Zelena showed no emotion. No fear. No snark. Maybe both knew that the true reason sat next to wicked witch. For there is a difference between being wicked and being evil. And Cora Mills was evil.

Emma Swan was surrounded by "evil." People she knew were calculating their next move almost constantly. The quiet, in this case, was the example. the virtual calm before the storm. The innkeeper could feel it too. Granny quietly altered people that the diner would be closed temporarily for "emergency maintenance," which translated, was "I don't want you being an innocent bystander when crap starts flying...literally."

Now the inn is empty. The term "the quiet is deafening" is a rather worn phrase but it fit the situation. For a full minute, not a word. Then...

"Hello, dearie, you've made a speedy recovery." Rumplestiltskin's syrupy sweet delivery was pointed at Zelena, but the witch did not take the bait. Maybe she was busy trying to tamp down the discoloration of skin that happens when she get emotional. Before she died, Zelena would have been frightened by the imp seeking revenge. Coming back from the dead emboldens one, somewhat.

But not totally. The redhead was silent. Maybe because Belle and Neal aka Bae were there. Neal was a tool the last time, a means to an end. But now, it seems things are different. This Belle she had little contact or interest in, but for some reason, the witch seems to want to protect this woman, she does not know why. It would be very easy to just tell the poor woman that she did not die at her own hand, that Belle's loving husband killed someone who was totally defenseless.

And now that the pendant was back in her possession, around her neck, vengeance would be easy. But then, there was that offer of her sister's. Redemption. A second chance. She was close to taking it. Then Rumple showed up. Now by some miracle she was given a second shot.

"It's over," was her eventual reply to the imp. Steely eyes met the witch's gaze as Rumplestiltskin spoke: "The hell it is, witch! You cost me my son, my freedom, my life! I should have..." The imp stopped, realizing that both his wife and his son were at his side and he did not want to jeopardize a rekindled relationship with either. Neal did not say a word. Belle, however wondered what the husband she had just reunited with was about to say. She alternated looks between Rumple and Zelena, then asked Zelena point blank, "What is going on here?"

"I can't say," was all the witch said.

Belle was about to speak when Cora had to put in her two cents. "If I wanted all this drama I would have asked that I view one of those...how did she call them...ah, telenovelas that Regina seemed to like watching in the middle of the night in that strange language...they call it "Spanish' or something...Miss Swan, nice to see you again..."

Emma was trying to remain cool...which was probably a good idea considering the leftover anger the sheriff had for the woman. But then a lot had changed since Cora initially expired in the arms of her daughter. The fact that Emma and Regina, bound together by a shared son, had grown closer together and that their feeling had become very intense in the three years since. Cora didn't know that yet.

But the older woman was still the cloying manipulator she was, and her '..and I don't think we've met..." acknowledgement of the two women behind the mayor was a sign. Not that anyone would notice...

"Ursula..."

"Cruella De Vil..."

Their response was cold as a Nor'easter. Yeah, they noticed...

Past history has dictated that unless someone sane takes the reigns things would start getting pretty ugly pretty fast, and as fangs seem to be coming out and breathing of many of the people at the table started to get labored (except for Elsa from Arendelle, who just sat confused and scared).

"Now before we start going nuts," said the Sheriff, attempting to control things before they even started to get out of hand, "You have questions, so do I. And after four years in this town, I'm still amazed I am not screaming in the night. Now we need to put our little civil wars aside and figure out why you are here and what's going on..."

Emma then was about to tell the assembled about the Author and tasks and a message about a news story she was supposed to see and how maybe why the dead and disappeared suddenly show up in Storybrooke when the restaurant door opens and in comes Snow and David responding to Emma's phone call.

All at once David's face show shock, Snow looks like she's going to faint, Zelena goes green, Elsa looks befuddled, Rumple, Belle, and Neal I are huddle together as if they know something is about to happen. And sure enough, Cora looks at Snow, then lunges past the table attacking Snow, yelling "FUCKING BITCH!" as the old woman's hands start to tighten around the neck of the Queen of Misthaven while Emma, David, Rumple, and Neal I tried to pry the two apart.

And all that time no one noticed two things: The redhead in the dark blue coat who dematerialized after standing in the corner silently taking it all in. And a news story on the regional ABC station about a young mother whose husband was about to go to prison on drug charges.

The story ran at 5:21pm. The exact time the story that Emma was supposed to watch was to air, according to the text she got.

Sylmar, CA, in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley

Based on a true story...

And in a hospital set aside for the poor, the subject sat in a chair next to a bed containing her son. A son with a rare disease that was also the lad's death sentence.

Tears streamed down the woman's face as she contemplated the next day. She knows she will lose her husband and the boys father. And soon she will lose her son as well.

But what she does not know is that the in the middle of a growing pier six brawl going on 3,100 miles away in a town that not on the map is the genesis of something that will change her life and the life of her child forever...

TBC