The morning came too soon for Emma as she felt like she could sleep for several more hours and still not be rested enough. However, it wasn't the sun that woke her up….it was Jefferson's arm casually strewn over her. Emma rolled her eyes in disgust and shoved his arm off. Jefferson the personal space invader…and bed hogger as he was practically sprawled across it, leaving her with very little space.
She sat up and grabbed her boots; maybe she could slip out and see to her mother without him watching her.
"Good morning, sunshine."
Emma tensed when she heard his voice and he stretched on the bed and sat up as well. She gave him a scowl and pulled on her coat.
"Ready for breakfast."
Her stomach growled but she ignored it, "I'm not hungry."
She heard him sigh, "We're not going to drug you, Alice. If he wanted to do that then you'd be drugged way before now. You do need to eat….starving yourself in a passive aggressive attempt to teach us a lesson isn't going to benefit anyone. Rumpelstiltskin will have no use for your mother if something happens to you."
Emma rose at the mention of her mother and stormed towards him, "Don't you touch my mother."
"Well I have no reason to see her hurt but good luck stopping Rumpelstiltskin," he held up a bowl of grapes, "I'll prove it to you. You pick a few and I'll eat them and when you're satisfied that they're not poisoned then we'll have some breakfast."
Emma watched him...this was a trick…it had to be.
"Although I'm not sure why you think we'd poison you…we need you awake and alert for the questions he wants to know."
Emma picked five deep in the bowl and gave them to him, she suspected that there might be some sort of antidote flowing through his veins to keep him from being poisoned but she was also aware that the imp could've drugged her a hundred times before now if that was a way to get answers.
He popped them in his mouth and made a sour face, "I think they're going bad."
"Oh well."
"You know," he looked down at the grapes, "I think you have trust issues."
"Maybe it's because you work for Rumpelstiltskin."
He nodded, "Fair point."
Emma stared him down and tried to clear her mind of any distractions so that she could study his face to make sure that he wasn't lying, "If I eat…promise me that nothing that could affect me will be in there."
"Well, food in itself can affect you, Alice. It makes you feel full and good if it's the right kind."
"You know what I mean."
He nodded and stepped…uncomfortably close, "Yes, I promise that there won't be anything in it that could stop you from your quest. Believe it or not, it's not my goal to watch you come to harm…I've rather come to enjoy our short time together as it provides a nice distraction. Portal jumping gets tedious sometimes."
The door to the room flew open, causing them both to jump. Mary Margaret looked exhausted but she moved with a sort of energy that tipped Emma off that she'd been successful, "I found them."
"Good!" Jefferson said, "Then we shall go to wherever 'them' is…after breakfast."
"We're not hungry," Mary said automatically.
"Mary Margaret…," Emma said, "it's fine."
"If I lock this door do you promise not to climb out the window?"
"I thought one of us always had to be with you."
"Plans changed, Rumpelstiltskin remembered that since I'm a man and you two are ladies," he gave a bit of bow, "Some things that you have to do will require privacy. But as long as I know where you are and it's not running away from me then it should be fine. Now do you promise not to leave?"
Emma nodded, "I promise."
"Wonderful!" he said with faux glee, "Off to a good morning."
Mary Margaret waited until she heard the lock turn before she opened the parchment to show a map, "I found some reports in the library about trees that don't grow like the others and some people talked about having a strange urge to turn away as soon as they saw them and go into town as if a terrible fear took over them…"
"What?" Emma demanded.
"Sometimes when the fairies want to guard something, they'll put a barrier spell up that keeps you from getting close," Mary Margaret tapped her finger on a map of a forest, "And records state that it's usually in this area."
"So if we actually found someone who could build us a wardrobe…we could get home?"
Mary Margaret nodded, "Geppetto could help us."
"Yeah, because that really worked last time," Emma muttered.
"What are you talking about?"
Emma looked up, her mother truly didn't know? Oh wait, that was right. The only reason that Emma knew was because she'd been taken to the tree and shown, "Two could've gone into that wardrobe but Geppetto made sure his son took one of the spots."
Mary Margaret's entire face and demeanor crumbled and her eyes filled with tears, "You mean to tell me…that you grew up alone?"
"It's not like we would've been kept together in the foster homes," Emma said.
"No," Mary Margaret whispered and a tear slipped down her face, "But your father could've gone in with you and kept you safe as you grew up. Everything with him being in the coma and what we went through afterwards could've been avoided if Geppetto had some of the faith that we had that one day we could see you again. Emma, I'm so sorry."
Emma tensed when she felt her mother's hand go on her shoulder, "You didn't know."
"Know what?" Jefferson asked and moved out of the way as several servants brought in about 5 large plates of food, "Look, I even brought you some clothes to change into because you're going to draw attention dressed like that."
And suddenly Emma realized that her appetite was really gone.
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They'd find someone else to carve the tree into a wardrobe, that was all there was to it.
Mary Margaret had refused to let Jefferson see the map. She gave it to the driver instead which she recognized as one of the servants from the Inn. Apparently Jefferson never had a regular driver after the one he trusted tried to kill him.
"The journey's going to take about half a day," Mary Margaret told them.
Emma tugged at the corset and shifted uncomfortably. She'd only ever worn a corset that could be seen on the outside of her body on Halloween. Once. That, combined with the leather pants and cleavage revealing top that just fell past her hips…Emma was sure that the Hatter dressed her like this on purpose. Especially since her mother was dressed far more like her pictures depicted.
Jefferson did his best to hide the smirk as he reclined in his own seat.
An hour into the journey, Mary Margaret's head began to nod and Emma removed her cloak and draped it on her.
"Wait," Mary Margaret started to argue, "No."
"You need your rest."
"But-."
"Get some sleep," Emma told her with an authoritative tone in her voice that made her feel weird now, "I'll still be here."
"But he-."
"I can handle him," Emma said dismissively.
"Jefferson isn't who I'm talking about."
"I can handle Rumpelstiltskin too," Emma told her, "I've been dealing with him for about a year now before you woke up. Get some sleep…you've earned it."
Jefferson watched as she tended to her mother and when Mary Margaret finally dropped off to sleep, he crossed his legs, "So, what shall we talk about?"
"Nothing," Emma told him and chose instead to look out the window.
So…this was home.
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They'd seen the smoke miles off but Emma and Mary Margaret refused to believe that it could be possible until they reached the area where the trees were supposed to be and found broken splintered trunks of the seven trees that they had been setting out to search for.
Emma felt the air slowly being driven from her lungs as she realized what this meant. There was no going home…Henry was still trapped in the town with Regina and Gold and they had magic.
And Gold was Rumpelstiltskin who was the reason they were trapped here…he knew they would meet the entire time he stared at her in that eerie secretive way of his.
He had something to do with the trees being destroyed. It was the only thing that remotely made sense.
Even Mary Margaret looked just as stricken as she did, "We'll find another way."
Not any other way that would get them home faster than this would've. Emma lifted up a large rock in anger and threw it against the nearest trunk, splintering it further, "Don't."
Emma stormed over to Jefferson, "You told him this."
"Yes," he said in a 'duh' voice, "I was employed to spy on you…of course I would tell him what I overheard in the carriage yesterday."
Emma slammed him against the tree and put the dinner knife she'd stolen from Rumpelstiltskin against his throat, "You separated me from my son."
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her mother rush forward to stop her from killing him and to be honest…Emma wasn't sure that she could bring herself to do it. Especially since Jefferson was clearly alive in the future. Could she change it like that?
"That's enough." Someone said above them.
Emma looked up to see…well, the blue fairy wasn't blonde after all…and Emma had seen a picture in Henry's book where the dress looked like a jelly fish but that combined with the heels was something to be seen to be believed.
And geez, Emma thought that she was revealing cleavage.
"No more killing, please," the…blue fairy said pleadingly, "There's been enough killing today."
"What's that mean?" Emma demanded but Mary Margaret moved in front of Emma
"Rhuel Ghorim…we need your help."
The Blue Fairy studied her, "Strange…you're from here but…you're out of sync with the rest of everything."
"We're from a different time," Mary Margaret explained, "And the Dark One pursues us because of knowledge he believes we have…we need aide."
"I can cloak you," the Blue Fairy told her, "But it's beyond my power to restore you back in your time."
"What about taking us home?" Emma demanded.
"We come from a land without magic…our families are there as well…is it possible to send us home?"
The Blue Fairy was quiet; like she was putting it all together, "Rumpelstiltskin is successful in his quest then?"
"Seems like it," Emma said, "He thinks we have the answers."
"The last of the beans were used centuries ago in this world."
"None left at all?" Mary Margaret asked.
"There are beans up a giant beanstalk but…you could never reach them, the giants that dwell up there would kill you before you even touched their grounds…there is no other way to reach your land. If there were then he'd have taken his magic to your world already."
Emma exchanged looks with Mary Margaret but neither one really bothered to explain it to her that he already had.
"Here," The Blue Fairy flicked her wand and Emma felt an electrical shock but didn't feel different.
"Now he won't be able to know your location if you stray from your guard.
Emma shook her head; they just hinted that Rumpelstiltskin thought they were important and a cloaking spell was all they were getting? "Isn't there anything else you can do to help us get home?"
"There is no other way to get home in this land?" Blue said and began to drift up, "Good luck to you.
That's all they got, no wonder Rumpelstiltskin had such a large clientele. Well at least he wouldn't be breathing down their necks anymore. But Emma did question her 'ultimate power' reputation now.
Jefferson straightened, "Well, she was fun. Now what?"
Emma knew that they could ditch him now and Rumpelstiltskin wouldn't know where they were…and if Jefferson was alive in the future then it meant his punishment wasn't…too bad. After all, it was Regina that mentally broke him.
But the Blue Fairy said that there was no hope for going home…in this land. Which meant that they might find it in others.
They had to get that hat.
Jefferson moved ahead of them and crawled in his carriage, "So what now, ladies? Are you going to abandon me and leave me to my fate when Rumpelstiltskin finds out?"
Emma's eyes widened…of course, how could she be so blind? The hat wasn't in his room because he would have to leave at a moment's notice…
She knew where it was.
Emma climbed into the carriage, followed by her mother, "Tell your driver to drive us as far away from Rumpelstiltskin's castle as he can."
"Aw," he said in mock sincerity, "You like me and want me safe?"
"Of course," Emma said mockingly back, "And you're the only one we know with a carriage."