Note: Aurora and Maleficent got a chapter to themselves. Belle and Rumple should be back in their own chapter soon. Just a reminder that Maleficent's background in this is different than it turned out to be in the show and there's a different story behind how she cursed Aurora.

X

"I miss the tea in Hong Kong," Maleficent said, sipping from her cup with a grimace.

"Hong Kong?" Aurora asked. She was still not sure how she had come to be sitting in a booth at Granny's with the source of all her nightmares (or all her nightmares before she'd met Cora and Hook and seen a wraith tear out Philip's soul), much less watching her sip tea while Aurora poked at a toasted cheese-and-tomato-sandwich and a glass of milk. She only knew it had seemed safer than running. Although, if Belle had come in and seen them, she'd probably run. At least, Aurora hoped she had.

"A city in this world. They have excellent tea. Good food, too. Regina has a sense of irony, you see. Or the curse did. I spent twenty-eight years under an enchanted sleep. If you wanted revenge, I thought you might like to know. My dreaming mind, however, spent the time wandering this world. I suppose yours wandered, too?"

"I . . . had strange dreams," Aurora said, her hands clenched. "Snow said she had nightmares. She was trapped in her regrets."

"Hmm, yes. Regina used a modification of my spell, one she stole from the Blind Witch." Modification. Aurora wondered if Maleficent always sounded like this or if she was still enjoying playing a professor. "It was clever, I'll give her that. The Blind Witch was a nasty piece of work." Maleficent looked at little Philip. "I'll spare you the details. But, you don't do things like she did without letting loose a great deal of pain and grief." She looked away from Philip, meeting Aurora's eyes. "Lives are about possibilities, opportunities. She caused a great many opportunities to be lost. That's the heart and soul of regret. And revenge. If she hadn't done anything, her house would have been saturated with it. So, she bound all that up in an apple, of all things, storing it as part of the sleeping curse."

Aurora had the bizarre feeling she should make some sort of well-mannered reply, as if this had been a dinner party at her father's castle and Maleficent were a guest seated next to her. This woman was a monster, the boogeyman of all Aurora's young terrors. But, old habits died hard, especially when she couldn't think of anything else to do. "Who was she planning to curse?" Aurora asked with just the right tone of polite inquiry her governess had grilled her so carefully on.

"No one, as far as I know. It was just a way to store up darkness and convince it it was going to be used some day."

"Convince it?" Again polite, again proper. Her governess would be proud.

"For lack of a better word. That kind of darkness cries out to be used the way water wants to flow downhill and lightning wants to strike ground. It wants revenge. Usually on the person who created it, though it can be persuaded to be a bit more . . . blind. Finding a way to direct it is so it doesn't come back and bite you isn't a bad idea, it's just much harder than you'd think. Letting it believe it will someday be let loose and convincing it to wait isn't a bad alternative. Thought darkness—most darkness—isn't as aware as I'm making it sound." She frowned. "Or not aware the way you think of awareness. . . . It's hard to explain.

"The Blind Witch was food obsessed. I do wonder about her. All her magic took that form. That apple wanted to be used and it found a way, one that brought her down in the process. Just as well. If she were in this world, I suppose she'd be in treatment for an eating disorder or such. Now, there's twenty-eight years of misery I don't wish on anyone—"

"You mean like the twenty-eight years you wished on me? Or the curse you put on Philip?"

Maleficent put down her tea and leaned back, studying Aurora. "He attacked me, my dear. He seemed to believe he was protecting you, but I was within my rights to retaliate. I meant to keep him as a guard dog for a while before letting him go, but he slipped his leash."

"Oh, you meant to let him go." Her governess would not have approved of that tone, but she wasn't here. "It was Philip's fault that didn't happen. That makes it all right, then."

"I didn't say that," Maleficent said mildly. "I did him harm. I can say it was more harm than I meant to do, but it doesn't change what I did."

"And me?" Aurora asked. "And my mother and father? I suppose that was more than you meant to do, as well?"

Maleficent picked up her tea again, sipping a bit. She didn't grimace this time. "Oh, I meant your mother all sorts of harm, your father, too. The reasons . . . well, they seemed good enough at the time."

"You enchanted my father," Aurora said, hands clenched again, her knuckles turning white. "My mother freed him and you cursed her for it. When my father freed her, you decided to curse me, too."

"Is that what your father told you? That I enchanted him?" Maleficent's voice was mild, but her hands tightened around her cup.

If that was a warning, Aurora ignored it. "He didn't remember what you did to him, if that's what you mean. But, it's what happened, isn't it? You turned your back on your duty and attacked the family you used to help. Or are you going to say my father attacked you and you had to 'retaliate'? What did he do? Hit you with a fire extinguisher?"

Maleficent, who was managing to calmly sip tea, despite her death grip on the cup, choked. After a moment of coughing, she gave Aurora a delighted look. "You're fitting into this world better than I expected. It's exactly what he would have done, too, if we'd had such things. Your father was always—" She stopped and bit her lip. "We weren't enemies, then," Maleficent said. "Your father and I. . . . He knew the reasons I left my sisters. He didn't disapprove of them. Not then. But, he was made to forget them. I—I won't say it was wrong, making him forget. What I wanted from him would have cost him. It did cost him. More than he realized it would when he agreed to it. More than I'd realized, too.

"Jaunice, the Yellow Fairy, thought the whole matter was fairy business and that he was better off. She may have been right. He was young and naïve when I knew him. I was older and far more experienced in getting people to do what I wanted. I . . . can't say I didn't—didn't manipulate him. I didn't think I did at the time but, given how things worked out. . . . He would never have married your mother, if things had gone my way. It's not something I was specifically trying to stop. It's just something that wouldn't have happened. And his love for her was strong enough—was true enough—to break my curse on her. That was when I knew I'd lost. . . .

"You won't believe this, I know, but I'd moved past all that by the time you had your little nap. When that happened. . . ." She gave Aurora a strange look. The princess would have called it sad and wistful from anyone else, but she had no idea what it meant when Mistress of All Evil looked at you that way. The once-fairy went on in clipped, neutral tones. "Regina was going to cast her curse. I'd tried to stop her and I'd failed—I may be evil but I had no desire to lose the life I had and all my memories just because the Evil Queen wanted to throw a snit fit. I've seen what losing your memories can do and I have no desire to go through that." Her eyes strayed to Philip. "Believe me, you have no idea what kind of foolish—what kind of terrible things you can be tricked into doing.

"Not that it mattered. I knew early on I wouldn't be able to escape it. But, I thought you might. If things had worked out, you would have passed the curse protected by a wall of thorns, dozing through all this foolishness. The curse would be broken eventually. Like water flowing downhill, it's just another part of their nature. Curses want to be broken. Then, if I hadn't managed to round up your Philip and put him on guard duty before the curse hit, he would have eventually found his way back to our world and freed you. Or that was the plan. Like most things in my life, it didn't work out exactly the way I'd hoped."

Aurora gaped at her. Of all the things Maleficent might have said, this was the most insane—the most impossible. "You were trying to protect me? You expect me to believe that?"

"Hmm, no, I don't think I would say I was protecting you. Rather, I was, oh, I don't know, asserting proprietary rights. It's one thing if I curse you or try to destroy your life. It's quite another if Regina does. Especially after the little tiff we'd had—I'd tried to explain what stupid idea the curse was, and she was not at all appreciative. You're no concern of hers, and she should have known to keep her distance." Her face softened, and she gave Aurora that strange look again. "I told myself I was protecting you," she said. She waved Aurora's protests aside before she could do more than sputter. "I know, I know. But, that's what I told myself. I was—I told myself I was over being angry with your father. I told myself this was a . . . decent restitution for the trouble I'd caused him."

"What did he ever do to you?"

Maleficent hesitated. "It's a long story. And . . . I don't think it's mine to tell you; it's his."

"He's not here," Aurora said. For a suicidal moment, she was ready to throw her milk at the other woman out of sheer frustration. But, of all the things she could hold against Maleficent, that wasn't one of them. Her father had never explained when he'd had the chance, no matter how many times she'd tried to ask. "There's no one to tell me but you." She sounded pathetic, like a little child.

"And you think you'd believe me? My dear, I tell myself I'm over it, but there were many hard feelings. I . . . didn't get what I hoped for out of our agreement. "She looked at Philip again. "Not really. But, I've come to realize. . . . There was a man I knew in Hong Kong. He was a bit more . . . aware of the dreaming mind following him around. We communicated in our way, became friends. Of a sort. You would have called him a good man, I think. Knowing him made me realize I owe Stefan. For what he did. For what he what he would have done if—if things had gone differently." She grimaced the same way she had over the taste of her tea. "For what I tried to do when he . . . was no longer able to remember our agreement.

"I won't vilify him to his daughter. And, if I tell this story . . . I know what I'm like. I'll be angry. I'll say things I'll regret." She sighed and added, "The Blue Fairy knows about it. You can ask her."

"Oh, that's a safe offer. She's trapped. The Dark One—"

Maleficent waved this aside as well. "Yes, yes, I'd heard. The Dark One's young bride is trying to get them out. She's clever enough to do it, too. Her interests and mine, amazingly enough, seem to coincide in this. I'm as surprised as you are. But, there are one or two fairies I'd really rather not see trapped for the rest of eternity, and it seems we can't get one out without getting all the others. Rather like locusts. So, there you go. Blue will no doubt tell you I was an out an out villain, but she'll be fair to your father."

"And if she won't tell me either?"

Something cruel and malicious glinted in Maleficent's eyes. For the first time that evening, she was the evil enchantress Aurora expected her to be. "If that happens, tell her you know all about Astrid."

"Astrid?"

"Sister Astrid. One of the fairies. Blue named her Nova." Maleficent rolled her eyes. "But, the curse got it right. She really is Astrid. Tell her you know all about it. She'll tell you know everything."

"But, I don't know about it!"

"True, but you should. You've a right to know. Tell her I said so when I told you about Astrid."

"You haven't told me—"

"If she won't, ask me again." She searched Aurora's face again. "The curse I put on you, it was bad, wasn't it?"

Aurora remembered waking up to Philip's kiss. For a brief moment, everything had seemed so right and perfect. Twenty-eight years of dreaming, and she had never doubted he would comer for her. Then, the wraith attacked, and she saw the world she had woken to. "The curse wasn't so bad. But, after that, I lost Philip. I saw people die and rise up again. . . ."

She didn't know why she was telling Maleficent this. It wasn't really a secret, she supposed, though she wondered if Snow and Emma remembered what had happened sometimes.

For twenty-eight years, Philip had led refugees to a small place of safety. He and a handful of other warriors had fought to keep it safe. When Mulan brought Aurora there, she had expected them to be angry, to curse the woman one of their greatest warriors had died to protect. Instead, they had welcomed her in. It wasn't the first time Philip had courted death since the curse fell. Many of the people there were only alive because of him. They told her stories of great deeds he had done and wounds he had taken.

They didn't hold it against her that he had died. He might have died for any one of them. She was just the one who had been there when his luck finally fell through.

"They died," Aurora said. "Philip had given everything to protect them, to keep them safe, and they died. A witch named Cora and a sea captain named Hook murdered them all. Cora didn't have a heart. Literally. She had torn it out and hidden it away. She didn't care about the people she killed.

"But, Hook, he was just a man. He'd come there claiming to be just another survivor. They took him in the way they took me. He lived there for two months—two months—sharing their food, their homes, learning their names. And he helped Cora kill them. When they were dead, he hid under their bodies so we could find him there—he knew them. Their faces, their names, the stories they'd shared, he knew all of that, and he killed them and pulled their bodies over him so we'd think he was telling the truth. Dead faces of people he knew—" Aurora was repeating herself, but it was the worst part of what Hook had done. Aurora had seen how little those people had. She had grasped what a great gift their trust was. They knew how close they lived to disaster. A wrong choice—a single mistake—and they and their children would die.

As, in the end, they had.

"They were lying right against him," Aurora said, trying to make Maleficent understand. She thought of the bodies they had moved, the cold, loose feel of them—the stiffness of death was already wearing off when they'd pulled Hook out. Mulan said later she should have realized he was lying. No one would have hidden under corpses that long. "Their faces would have been touching his, skin to skin, and he didn't care except that it made his story look good.

"After that, Emma got him to help us. She had to threaten him to do it. Later, there was a giant she befriended. He agreed to hold Hook till we were safely away. But, he came after us—he didn't have to. He could have stayed with the giant or—or something. Instead, he joined up with Cora again.

"She captured me. The people she'd killed, she'd torn out their hearts. She was able to—to raise them up. There's an awful show they have here, The Walking Dead. I saw some of it. They were like that. That's what she sent to capture me.

"She tried to make me betray them—Mulan and Emma and Snow. She said she could—could bring Philip back if I did. His soul, it had been sucked out by a creature called a wraith. I. . . ." Aurora stopped, not sure how to tell this part. It had been awful, what happened. She still woke up with nightmares from it.

"I understand Philip is alive," Maleficent said carefully. "If . . . if you did what you had to in order to save him. . . ."

"But, I didn't," Aurora said. Philip had understood when she'd told him. Or he said he understood. "When I refused . . . Hook came to my cell. He said Cora was going to kill me if I wouldn't help her. He—he said he didn't want that. He unchained me, opened the door, and told me to go." She closed her eyes, reliving it. She could remember everything. The damp rock, the smell of the torch lighting the cell, the sincerity in Hook's voice. "Then, he ripped out my heart. He made me go back to the others and—and lie to them. I led them into a trap. Hook locked us in a cave, in Rumplestiltskin's cell—Cora was with him, but he pulled down the lever that trapped us. He was going to leave us there to die. No food. No water. In the dark. When Emma tried to talk to him, he told it was her fault. She'd turned him down, and he wasn't going to forgive that."

Aurora looked at Maleficent. "She let him live when anyone else would have killed him. He was a murderer and a traitor. She left him some place safe, where Cora couldn't go—the only way to the Giants' land was protected by a spell she couldn't get past. Instead, he came after us and joined up with her.

"And, now, Emma trusts him. I know he helped her save Henry. But, how can she forget all he's done? I've barely spoken to her since it happened. I wouldn't know what to say. She has a magic gift that lets her know if people lie. So, how can she believe a word he says?"

"Oh, I can understand that," Maleficent said. "I've known men like that. Women, too. You should have heard Regina in the old days, going on about how everyone was so mean to her and none of it was her fault. The thing is, that's what it looked like to her. I understand she's improved now she's a mother. But, before that, she could be quite selfish. Not that I suppose that's any news to you.

"The thing is, when you only see the world in terms of how it treats you, it's very easy to be a monster, then turn around and say how innocent you are and say everyone else is being mean and unfair to you." She gave Aurora a wry smile. "That's why I'm not telling you about your father, after all. Believe me, I'd be very selfish when I told you the story. That's the other thing about being a monster. Some of us know what we are. We may not always try to be better, but that doesn't mean we have to be any worse.

"Your friend, Emma, probably believes Hook because he's never lied to her. At a guess, he doesn't think he's done anything wrong because he really doesn't think he's done anything wrong. If I—"

Her cell phone buzzed. Maleficent rolled her eyes. "Just a moment. I have to get this." She pulled it out and read a text message. Her eyes widened. Then, she looked at Aurora, smiling predatorily. For the second time that night, she looked like an evil enchantress. "My dear, I've just had the most wonderful news. It seems I have a little business with your sea captain. How would you like to come along? I may need your help."

"My help?" Aurora didn't buy that.

Maleficent rolled her eyes the way Ruby did when she thought someone was being too nitpicky about details. "Your blood, I need some of your blood."