Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.
PART II
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
BUTTERFLY EFFECT
Storybrooke General was a busy place. Sadly, Henry found August was still alive and mostly intact, though his arm was in a sling and he had a black eye. When the puppet man smiled at Emma, Henry made a nose-cutting gesture and Neal leaned in close.
"You get Emma that twenty grand, or I'll rent the woodchipper myself."
Archie, meanwhile, was trying to comfort Geppetto and apologizing for enabling his puppet fetish instead of helping him form human bonds.
"We're not going to talk about our... feelings concerning all we said earlier, are we?" shuddered Regina.
"God no!" exclaimed Belle. "When do we ever do that? Anna talking about her emotional problems was more than enough for tonight. And if we did that, we'd have to take accountability for our actions and not blame each other for our selfish and stupid choices. Speaking of which, I really have to find an excuse to get out of marriage counseling with Rumple! I love Archie, but he blabs everyone's business all over town!"
"Well, he got his gift from the Blue Bitch and a Dark Curse created by Satan, so what do you expect?" huffed Tinkerbell. "But he is helping me with my kleptomania."
"Yeah, I remember that was a thing," recalled Neal. "You were always stealing from the dead bodies Pan left scattered around."
"Right! That's why I blew up the house," said Tinkerbell. "Archie said whenever I feel the urge to steal from the dead, I should create a distraction and channel that urge into something more productive!"
"Like almost killing us all?"
"Well, no, but I only just started therapy! I'm trying to transition to stealing from live people, but I'm just not used to being around them, so my skills are a bit rusty."
David came over from talking to a nurse and looked grim.
"Not good news?" asked Emma who'd been stuck burping Jermajesty after they remembered he'd been left behind at the Loft. Her brother had already barfed on her twice and let out a wet fart after which everyone shouted "NOT IT!" so she'd had to change his stupid poopy diaper. She seriously disliked her baby brother, even if he was like freakishly well-behaved and she did feel bad for him having parents like theirs raise him, which probably meant he'd turn out with serious psychological problems.
"Nothing definitive yet. Dr. Whale is taking her upstairs for some scans," he replied, taking a seat. "I did run into Elsa. She said they put Ingrid on anti-psychotics and she seems better. Archie's going to evaluate her later. She's on a 51/50."
"I guess we'll never know how much she hallucinated and how much that old fart bullshited," mused Ruby. "But how are we going to get those ice people home if the wardrobe is blown up and not apparently destroy the universe?"
"Well, we'd still have that one bean if someone hadn't wasted it," Tinkerbell pointed out.
"Hey, I was just doing what Snow said!"
"We all need to stop doing that," groaned Belle.
"And that's assuming your pot-smoking didn't kill the plant!" pointed out Emma.
"You were smoking pot!?" exclaimed Regina.
"Why do you think I'm binging on Funyuns and ice cream? Duh!"
"It was Neal's idea!" Emma fingered him.
"It kept Henry from sneaking off and tasing his classmates and teachers," Neal argued. "And a bean would still threaten to break the universe!"
"True about my classmates. I hate most of them," conceded Henry. "I was totally going to burn down the school."
"We really need to have a talk about your school issues, Henry," sighed Regina. "You sounded so committed during your time in New York!"
"When I didn't have to worry about me and all you all possibly dying every week and all your stupid romance shit!" he snapped and slouched back in his chair eating Funyuns, then noticed something in Tinkerbell's pocket.
"Hey, isn't that the Apprentice's dick wand?"
The fairy tried to hide it, but with everyone now looking at her pulled it out. "Okay, fine, I nicked the old closed gay wizard's dildo wand, okay? So what?"
"It can create portals that are potentially less likely to destroy the universe," said Emma.
"Really? Then what the hell did he need a magical universe-cracking wardrobe for?"
"He probably stole it from Narnia... or whatever world is connected to Narnia via wardrobes," considered Belle. "Who cares? We have a way to get Anna and Elsa home without destroying Fairy Tale Land."
"Why do you assume this world wouldn't be destroyed?" asked Regina. "And since when do we call our world 'Fairy Tale Land'."
"You remember what 'our world' was like, right?" scoffed Emma. "A cesspool of misogynist and racist cliches reinforced by magical stereotypes that's literally the basis for all classical fairy tales."
"She has a point," agreed Belle. "The Enchanted Forest was nearly destroyed by the Dark Curse. All of the magical blowback would go in that direction."
"Hey," suggested Henry, "we could send them using the dick wand aboard the Jolly Roger with him," he fingered Hook, "and the dirty pirate can stay in the Enchanted Forest, so if the universes did try to merge, he'd be obliterated with it."
"Stop calling me dirty, brat!"
"Stop calling me a brat, slut!"
"I am not a slut!"
"You're a slut," Regina told Hook, "and nobody likes you."
"Yeah, well, the only one here who likes you is the kid who's brainwashed to like you - and that forest hobo."
"Where is Robin of Fucksley anyway?" asked Tinkerbell.
"Who cares about that idiot! My wife may be in a coma!" snapped David.
Dr. Whale approached then and everyone grew quite. "Well," he said, "your wife is in a coma. But apart from that, if she wakes up, she is going to suffer from a horrible degenerative process.
"Oooo, is that ice cream?"
"Get your own, you hack!" hissed Hook, holding close his gallon of rum raisin wrapped in gauze for insulation.
David punched him. "Stop being an insensitive asshole! Both of you!"
"Just an hour ago you were telling your wife what a stupid whore she was!" Hook reminded.
"Which doesn't mean I don't love her!"
"You of all people should know that calling someone a pathetic failure is romantic," scoffed Emma.
"Stop referencing stuff I don't remember, Swan!"
"So... back to Snow's tragic medical condition?" asked Belle with not-so-subtle roll of her eyes.
"I believe it's a combination of diseases," said Whale. "The first is syphilis."
"Syphilis!?" David exclaimed, horrified. "Where would Snow have gotten syphilis?" He looked angrily at Whale who held up his hands.
"I did not give your wife syphilis! The first outbreak I ever had was just weeks after sleeping with her. Apparently, she got it from her mother in-utero who got it from her mother who got it from-"
"YOU SONOFABITCH!" David shouted and pounced on Hook. "YOU GAVE MY WIFE SYPHILIS!"
Two orderlies had to pull the men apart.
"It's not my fault!" cried Hook. "I got it from Baelfire's mother! Milah shagged every solider in The Duke's army before I got to her!"
Neal shrugged and conceded, "Yeah, I can see that."
"Well, regardless of the origin," said Whale, "you, Mr. Nolan, should be tested. And your children. And all of Emma's sexual partners as even if the usual test results are currently negative, the disease can go dormant and require testing of spinal fluid for an accurate diagnosis..."
"Seriously!?" groaned Neal. "I might have gotten spyphilis from my own mother three hundred years and four generations removed?"
"Well, it would explain why you trusted Tamara! No account for August, though, unless it was seriously fast acting super syphilis!" snorted Emma.
"That's not a thing," said Whale. "But also, Mr. Nolan, you should make sure your fake wife and her husband are tested. And considering the rumors, Regina, that you tried to seduce Mr. Nolan, just in case he had any open soars that might have transmitted the disease, you should also be tested."
"I'm not Mayor. And goddamn it, Snow!" Regina growled.
"On the bright side, you might have given syphilis to Robin Hood!" chirped Tinkerbell.
"How is that good news? He's stupid enough without STD brain damage!"
"But I thought syphilis was curable with penicillin?" asked David. "How is Snow's condition degenerative and incurable?"
"Oh," nodded Whale, "well the syphilis is the least of her problems - assuming the cardiovascular damage isn't irreversible. It's rather hard to get a good read when half of her heart's magical electrical impulses - or however that shit works - is in you and thus gives a wonky reading. But on the neurological side, she also has CTE."
"CTE?" uttered Regina, befuddled. "What's that?"
"Chronic traumatic encephalopathy," piped up Belle and she shrugged at everyone's surprised and befuddled looks. "What? I spent a lot of my Sunday nights watching football because none of you assholes ever invited me to family dinners!"
"Wait, that concussion disease?" asked Emma.
"That's right," said Whale. "It's a a form of tauopathy, a progressive degenerative disease found in people who have suffered repetitive brain trauma. I suspect that the entirety of this town has some mild form of it due to the repeated magical memory loss which must have similar detrimental effects as physical injury, something I actually discussed with Mr. Gold who seems to agree that certain failsafes were likely not taken with the second and third castings of the Dark Curse, resulting in either permanent or magically sustained neurological damage.
"But in your wife's case," continued Whale, "magic or not, her symptoms are particularly bad due to her suffering repeated concussions over the course of her lifetime due to trusting villains who always bash her on the head, or running into dangerous situations where she gets thrown head-first into walls and boulders and such. And, of course, the neurosyphilis which also compromises brain tissues, and from my discussion with Doc and Dr. Hopper probably manifested around the time she drank that amnesia potion, which altered her brain chemistry and caused the spirochetes to come out of dormancy and began feasting away, which further compromised the connective tissue, making concessive injuries more severe. Either one would be bad, but both have left her comatose and, quite honestly, on the verge of brain death."
"Snow's going to die!?" David gasped.
"Well, her brain is on the way out," said Whale. "Even if she pulls through, she's past the stage of disorientation, dizziness, and headaches and on to progressive deterioration that includes memory loss, social instability, erratic behavior, and poor judgment. It's inevitable that she will progress to dementia, slowing of muscular movements, hypomimia, impeded speech, tremors, vertigo, deafness, and suicidality. Additional symptoms include dysarthria, dysphagia, ocular abnormalities, such as ptosis... which all big words for 'not good'. In short her brain is going to die."
"But... how can this be happening!?" David cried and looked at Emma. "Snow didn't die of this in that other timeline... right?"
Emma sighed. "The laws of physics and magic didn't always apply what with the universes coming undone. Plus, I changed things. How you met, which means other things might have changed, small enough, even just a head injury or something. Or maybe she got some magical treatment there, even unknowingly, that she didn't get if history wasn't changed. I know there she was turned into a magical bug with that fairy dust instead of the trolls..."
"That could be it," mused Dr. Whale. "Dr. Hopper should be much much older than he is, but being in bug form retarded his cellular degeneration and has caused minor changes in his DNA which I synthesized for a serum that slows decay after death to preserve organs for transplant as well as, possibly, allow patients suffering usually fatal accidents to survive with an injection in the field long enough to be put on by-pass and the organ damage repaired. It's quite genius, if I do say so!"
He cleared his throat. "Anyway, that brings me to Mary Margaret... er... Snow White. The only treatment, after a dose of penicillin to the spinal cord to flush those spirochetes completely out of her system is a brain transplant. And, well, possibly heart surgery depending on how replacing the other half of her heart goes."
"Seriously!?" Emma sputtered.
"Yes, seriously. Her brain is turning into a sponge. It will die. She'll either go in that coma or wake up and turn into a vegetable over the next ten years... assuming she doesn't suffer a massive and fatal heart attack from any lesions caused by the syphilis. But that, at least, may be curable with magic. Which is why I highly suggest re-fusing the two halves of her heart."
"But... then I won't have a heart!" said David. "I'll die. I mean... I would die for Snow again, but-"
"Technically," groaned Whale, "you do have a heart. Pulling out a heart with magic only pulls out the heart's 'life force' as Regina calls it, but really it's a crystallization of the cardiovascular nerve network that receives electrical impulses from the brain to function. Without that, a heart is just a piece of dead meat and no amount of shocking it will work. So, you have a heart, it's just as though you suffered a massive coronary which left half of your heart paralyzed and unable to function, which outside of this town or another world with magic would cause you to drop dead immediately without some kind of magical pacemaker, and the same for your wife, since her half a heart can only supply enough electricity to beat with the magical amplification. And there's no guarantee that even with magic in this world that you wouldn't also die if she does."
"So... he needs a heart transplant?" Emma deduced.
"Yes, exactly. It's easier than trying to put someone else's particular electrical frequency into his heart, and frankly, the muscle damage may be too great even if that were possible, and magical meddling with the heart is a tricky business."
Whale amended, "Lucky for you and your wife, I have a supply of preserved hearts with my preserved brains thanks to the many peasants you all have completely ignored who died in your many magical catastrophes. So, if this experimental procedure works, you can live happily ever after knowing that some nameless peasant is looking down from somewhere telling you to fuck the hell off and die!"
"Still bitter much?" Emma asked the doctor.
"If you had to pay my malpractice insurance premiums, you would be too. So... are we good for the organ transplants? I can get everything ready by tonight. And in the meantime I'll give you a group rate on MRI's, spinal taps, and free donut pillows. And sign you up for a Pixie Dust Detox."
"A Pixie Dust Detox?"
"Well, it worked for the Lost Boys and Hook's former crew. Granted, in the former they're brains were probably partially stunted due to biochemical damage from the freakish growth-hormone-like rapid onset of puberty and in the later there was a lot of syphilis and alcohol damage, but inhaling that stuff is worse than snorting coke cut with rat poison, so cleaning out the fragments at least prevents further damage... and you all can use whatever help you can get to stave off brain damage, quite frankly."
Frowning, Emma demanded, "Why did you never tell me this in the other timeline, that my son's health was being compromised by pixie dust exposure!?"
Whale gave her an annoyed look and responded, "Well, since I was not part of that 'other timeline' I can only speculate that you were unconcerned by that your son had been infected... by enough puberty to make him age five years in a year and a half long story... due to extreme parental neglect in favor of sexytime with your pirate kin-"
"Wait, you know we're related!?" Emma exclaimed.
Now Whale rolled his eyes. "Of course, I have done full genetic testing on everyone I can get to attend a blood drive. Why do you think I do blood drives? That way, I can blackmail all of you sexually incestuous assholes. Speaking of which, because you were most likely also assholes there, that's probably why I didn't tell you that you were banging your great grand pappy and your son was turning into a hormone-boosted psycho like his Neverland pals. Well, that and I'm sure I got some interesting genetic information from all of the incest kids you lot are popping out."
"How many people in this town are having kids with blood relatives!?" Regina asked, horrified.
"Did you curse memory learn in school about the kingdoms of Europe during the later days of the Habsburg dynasty? It's a wonder half this town isn't chinless!"
Emma gave Henry a worried look and remarked, "That settles it. You're not even kissing a girl until I have a list of everyone in town you could possibly be related to. For all I know, it might have been for the best that the kid you raised was actually fathered by Hook. The girl might have been your first cousin!"
"Wait... Hook knocked up my future wife!?" Henry exclaimed and then turned around and socked Hook in the chest.
"Ahhhhhhhh! Mate, I didn't do anything!"
"To be fair," mused Neal, "Violet was a massive skank. Of course, she might have had some brain damage from Emma taking her heart and forcing her to do stuff. Not sure if that would be just straight brain damage from the mind control or secondary brain damage from blood flow or arythimia problems due to the whole magical heart/real heart incompatibility issues in this world of fucked up magic."
"Sounds probable," said Whale.
"You brain damaged my wife!?" Henry glared at Emma.
Surprisingly, Regina jumped to Emma's defense - sort of - with a scathing, "You brain damaged yourself and the rest of us with pixie dust trying to be a hero, never mind taking out your heart and putting it in Pan and who knows what that did to you! So don't you blame anyone but yourself - and possibly your idiot grandparents - for that massively arrogant ego, Henry Daniel Mills!"
"Damn right, Kid," Emma agreed, amending, "And she was already messed up from all that Avalon dust, so, you know..."
"Oh, and the evil chive-roses that grow unnaturally in winter," piped up Hook, "and are supposed to have even crazier effects than the pixie dust flowers that Emma says we all inhaled lots of in Camelot in that other timeline because King Farther put them everywhere to reinforce the magic of his fancy sand."
"Yes, probably that too," agreed Whale. "Your world is just full of brain-damaging magic. It's a wonder you all can walk and chew gum at the same time."
"Also," amended Emma, "you only liked her because her mom was dead and she wanted to rebel against her father who thought heroes had to be dragon slayers. You had nothing in common."
"Like you and Pirate Slut? Maybe I was emulating you," Henry argued and nodded at Regina, "and, you know, Mom and her pine-scented boy toy."
David let out a sigh and interrupted the argument to tell Whale, "Whatever it takes, Doctor. Just save my wife."
"Awesome!" Whale beamed and skipped away.
Once he was around the corner by the vending machines he did a victory dance. "Best. Day. Ever!"
"You're a freak, you know that," said Tinkerbell from where she was eating gummie bears away from the crazy family arguing about stuff that hadn't happened.
"You're a freak with a Pixie Dust addiction," Whale shot back.
"Who clued you into that shit in the first place and hasn't had any P-Dust in a year!"
"A year?"
"Okay, so I lied about why the Blue Fairy kicked me out," said Tink, rolling her eyes. "She found out I was using the stash in the Enchanted Forest and brought back as much as I could and was hiding it in one of the confessionals. But no one ever goes in those!"
Whale rolled his eyes. "How much have you sold?"
"Half of it to the Merry Men. I mean, you gotta feel for them. They came to this world with no knowledge, money, or prospects. They're worse off than most hobos. And now that Robin might be cut off from the ex-Mayoral welfare train to spread around the wealth..."
Scowling, Tink concluded, "Scarlet stole the other half and gave it Anton who used it as fucking fertilizer for his hash!"
"Hmm, no wonder it's such good shit," said Whale.
"Yeah, well, do you needed help procuring bodies or organs for your creepy mad scientist experience? Because I could totally get into that now that my Dust run is over."
Whale narrowed his eyes. "Is that Emma's necklace?"
"What!?" Tinkerbell sputtered and grabbed the pendant. "No! It's a butterfly!"
"Pretty sure you put some glamour spell on it just now with that wooden dildo."
The ex-fairy glared. "Fine, I lifted Emma's stupid swan necklace using a closeted gay wizard's phallic-shaped magic device, okay?" she griped, yanking it off and handing it to the doctor. "Do you want help with your necromancy shit or what?"
Whale considered a moment, then asked, "That depends. Can you use that wooden cock for surgery?"
AN: iZombie feels! The line about Henry's freak puberty is from Honest Trailers: The Walking Dead about Carl. CTE was first diagnosed as a disease in NFL players due to repeated violent head trauma, but exists in other sports that have frequent high impact head injuries... something Snow White seems to have suffered a lot of in her lifetime. Congenital neurosyphilis is real. I've taken liberties with both, but what the hell? Who knows how the introduction of magic would affected real medical problems? (Also, dude, why the fuck did that wand look like a wooden penis with shriveled balls?)
Next up: Off with Snow White's head!