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 FIFTY

A CONVERSATION BETWEEN TWO ASSHOLES

"I said I would make them pay."

"I said I would stop you," Emma directed at the brunet behind bars and offered a snack, "Half-eaten PopTart?"

"Emma," Neal cautioned and she rolled her eyes.

"What? I don't get to be bitchy to people who try to kill my parents?"

"You're the sheriff. Act like it."

"Yeah, Emma," sniggered Lily.

Emma threw a glare at Neal. He was acting kind of bitchy himself all morning, making snide comments on their way to resurrect Maleficent. She had no idea what had changed since their roadtrip, which wasn't exactly not awkward, but somewhat less tense after retrieving Lily. Surely the whole mess with her parents and Cora's internal organs causing mass murder couldn't have put him in that a foul a mood?

"Why don't you go get her some food from Granny's then, Neal," Emma shot back, done with his attitude problem today.

"You'd better not spill anything in my car, Neal!" Lily called after him.

"Your car that you stole or someone stole and either way it's not yours," Emma told her bluntly. "And you're not getting out of here, never mind seeing your mother, until you promise to leave my parents alone."

"I want a lawyer!"

"Tough," Emma retorted, crossing her arms. "The only defense attorney in this town is Neal's father who's in a magical coma."

Lily glowered. "So, you're just gonna leave me locked up here, then? After being in prison, locked up on some trumped up charges while knocked up besides, you'd do that to someone?"

"You're not pregnant and I stole some watches. I didn't violate the Geneva Convention."

"Your skank-ass hoe mother deserved it."

"Hey, no one around here but me gets to call my mother a 'skank-ass hoe'," Emma snapped. "And she was sick. She had a medical condition that screwed up her judgment. And you think I'm defending them because we're rainbows and sunshine?"

Walking up the cell, Emma continued, "I have my own reasons to be angry with both of my parents. They made a dumb choice and because of that I ended up with a laundry list of abusive foster parents. I ended up living on the street. And having to give up my kid because a jerk who was sent through that wardrobe with me to help me ditched me as a baby, called the cops on me, and stole all of Neal's money to finance a sex vacation to Thailand after spinning Neal a bullshit story to leave me is partly on them too. And that's me having twice the light magic potential. So the way I see it, being out of balance either way sucks flying monkey dick... and did I mention that I did that too? I lost my memories and I was conned by the Wizard of Oz who was a flying monkey into sleeping with him for eight months."

Lily played the world's smallest violin... and then followed up with a one finger salute.

"Don't care, bitch."

"What is your problem!?" Emma snapped. "Is this all because I wouldn't help you and your skeezy boyfriend!? I was fourteen! I was happy-"

"You weren't happy! You were delusional! Which seems to be the norm for you the way all your 'friends' talk!"

"I am not delusional! I had some issues, but I am working on them!" cried Emma, balling her hands into fists and resisting the urge to pull a Regina and lash out magically.

"Yeah, like with your baby daddy who thinks you're a back-stabbing cunt. How's that working out for you? Not so well from the looks of it."

"Leave Neal out of this!"

"You brought him into it!" Lily scoffed, walking to the front of the cell to meet her. "You're such a fraud, Emma! You always were! You were a shitty thief when I met you and a shittier friend! Maybe being unbalanced is what makes you an asshole, but you are an asshole. But, hey, you're also The Savior, right? So I'm stuck with bad karma so you can keep on coming out of every crisis you create with shit smelling like daisies."

"None of which was my choice! I came to find you as soon as I knew the truth, to try and fix things!" growled Emma. "Stop making the bad guy here!"

"Stop locking me up and offering me half-eaten breakfast food, bitch!"

"I'd have offered you bagels and a room at Granny's if you hadn't tried to kill my parents!"

"They ruined my life!"

"And they're really sorry about it!"

"Like I'm sure they're really sorry about the people they killed that you all didn't even want them to know happened!" Lily reminded. "You use magic as your excuse for everything, especially lying!"

"It wouldn't have helped anything," Emma told her angrily. "You don't know my parents."

"Do you?" countered Lily. "You just met them a few months ago and they were, apparently, brain damaged."

David walked in then, and Lily chirped, "Oh, look, it's the Tin Man. How's the ticker? Murder anyone on the way here?"

"David-" Emma warningly stepped in front of him, but her father brushed passed, his expression furious and growing furiouser.

"You nearly killed my wife," he sneered at Lily. "You want someone to blame for a bad life? I get that. But getting your happy ending with revenge? With torture and murder? I didn't want to believe Snow that your mother was such an evil and irredeemable person, but after what you did it's pretty hard to believe we didn't make the right choice."

Emma took him by the arm and dragged him away from the cell toward the hallway to the interrogation room.

"You are not helping," Emma hissed at him.

"And I am not standing idly by and letting one more person get away with this kind of crap, Emma."

"I get that," she conceded. "I want to stop dicking around and letting murderers off the hook on bullshit sob story technicalities too, but you have to think rationally here! Lily is not some megalomaniacal villain!"

"Are you trying to defend a woman who tortured your mother?"

"I'm trying to be impartial in a really difficult situation!" Emma hissed. "I'm trying not to screw this up again. Which means keeping you from going psycho on a woman whose sorceress mother was just brought back from an ashy existence and could burn this town to the ground! You're lucky Maleficent was feeling generous and didn't incinerate you and Mom on the-"

Suddenly, the ground shook and the cinderblock wall beside them exploded! This was followed by a deafening roar. But, of course, it wasn't Maleficent. In all of the craziness, Emma had somehow forgotten Lily's unexpected transformation that was now bringing the Sheriff's Station down around them.

As they ran out the emergency exit, Lily began shooting flames everywhere. Cars veered dangerously in the street to avoid them. Parked cars were instantly scorched and partially melted. Then Lily extended her wings and the rest of the Sheriff's Station collapsed.

She couldn't figure out how to fly and thus burn down the entire town. But she was bashing her wings on the adjacent buildings and piles of debris she was partially trapped by now which was just making her angrier from the pain and frustration.

There was a squeal of tires and Cruella's roadster rounded the corner and came to a halting stop where a light pole had been knocked into the street.

Maleficent jumped out of the passenger side.

"LILY! IT'S MOM! YOU STOP THIS RIGHT NOW BEFORE YOU HURT YOURSELF!"

It took a few more minutes of Maleficent's rather enviously good parenting skills to calm Lily down and regress her back into human form, after which the sorceress embraced her and the two went off to Granny's to talk.

"It's really not fair," sighed Emma, "that a murderous witch and a torturing bitch have the healthiest parent/child relationship around here... No offense, Dad."

"None taken," David replied with a grimace. "She really does seem to have a natural knack for it. I wonder if she'd consider baby-sitting Jerry?"

"Probably, but Lily would probably consider eating him."

"True. And with out luck..." David shook his head. "I'm going back to the hospital."

"Right," grumbled Emma as he left, "leave me clean up the mess. As usual."

The mess was an entire city block of broken water mains and smoldering cars... including the Bug which was also half smashed under cinderblock. Neal, clutching a soggy bag from Granny's got out of the Chevel and gave her a look.

"Shut up," Emma snapped.

"Now who's in a bad mood?" he snarked back.

Emma snatched the bag from him grumbling, "There had better be grilled cheese and onion rings in there."

AN: Lily and Maleficent are so cute together! Now someone just needs to beak the whitewashing spell! Why is Neal being bitchy with Emma? You'll have to wait a bit to find out.

Next up: Emma follows up on a previous case.