Double Trouble 63
A/N: A famous author said recently that being a writer is a good type of performing because "if they don't like it at least they're very far away." I'm going to the UK in two weeks to meet someone very special on V-day. I'm not sure I'll have time to finish another full chapter before I go so there'll be a bit of a break while I'm far away. But I'll be back soon. This chapter is quite long so hopefully that makes up for it a bit. Thanks for reading. Enjoy!
Chapter 63 'Wishful thinking'
"Hey Regina?" Emma was finally dressed for the day when she came into the kitchen where Regina was sat at the bench attending her chemistry set. The sorceress was attending the usual arrangement of glassware for concocting magical potions and was carefully selecting vials from her chest of supplies. The blonde glanced around as though she were looking for something and this was the last room she had to search.
Regina replied without taking her eyes off what she was doing. "Hay is for horses. I believe I've known a fine steed to greet me more eloquently than you do. Try again."
Emma rolled her eyes before putting on a show of bowing and scraping. "Excuse me, Your Majesty Queen Regina, may I trouble you with a question?"
"That's better. I do like it when you bend over for me."
"Don't start," warned Emma. "Where are the girls? They don't seem to be in the house."
"They're not," said Regina, indicating with her head towards the phone resting on the table. "Ri sent a text from Em's phone saying that they were going to stay the night at Mary Margaret's. She must've sent it yesterday but I only saw it a little while ago. I presume they're still there. Why? What do you suspect they got up to last night?"
Emma let out an amused snort. "I don't know but I'm betting Em was at the bottom of it."
"You still can't see Ri as capable of causing trouble herself can you? You do realise she's going to become the Evil Queen soon. She's me."
"I don't care what you say, Ri is as sweet as a cupcake and I'll never believe otherwise. Em on the other hand causes trouble just by existing."
"No, she's you," countered Regina. "She likes everybody to think she's too much trouble to bother with and - like you - she's wrong. You also do Ri a disservice by insisting that she's innocent of all wrongdoing, just as you did to me in the past by blindly insisting that I was pure evil."
That hadn't occurred to Storybrooke's Sheriff who, though familiar with grey areas of right-and-wrong, tended to ignore the dissonance between the sweet young version of Regina, the older reformed one, and their alter ego the Evil Queen. The truth was that they were all one and the same person and for Regina now it remained a daily test of her strength to not give in to darker means to solve her considerable list of problems.
There was no sense in lauding a person for making a good choice if it wasn't possible for them to otherwise make an evil one. Regina was the only one who knew exactly how capable Ri was becoming of the latter. Everyone else underestimated the petite girl.
"How's the potion going?" asked Emma.
"It's finished," Regina announced without the fanfare that a rare once-in-a-lifetime magical potion ought to receive. She scanned an aged piece of parchment with a curly script scrawled over it in ink. "I was just checking over a few things to make sure it's as Mr Gold described in his instructions. Apparently the True Love potion ought to glow and 'light up the world with the brightness of our love'. Or something. With that kind of sickeningly sweet prose Gold might take up a new career as a romantic poet. I am concerned that isn't glowing but that may be because it hasn't been activated yet. It is the most unique potion I've come across and I don't suppose I'll ever see another like it."
"Ooh can I see?"
In her eagerness to see actual magic being produced, Emma went closer to examine the delicate apparatus. There were flasks of various liquids, one hovering over a burner which was connected by a long distilling tube angled downwards so that whatever was produced would drip into another flask. It was the flat bottomed collection flask that held the finished product that caught her eye. It was filled with a purple substance that swirled on its own despite being completely still. Every now and again it sparkled like glitter and in the centre were two strands of hair: a blonde one spiralling around a perfectly straight darker one.
The sight was so mesmerising, almost like a tiny galaxy, that Emma felt as though she were being drawn towards it. She reached out her hand to verify it was real.
There was a sharp clink as several pieces of glassware collided.
"Be careful!" Regina yelped, hastily grabbing the flask of precious potion out of reach. "You nearly knocked everything over with your sleeve."
"Sorry," Emma blinked to clear her focus. "Shit! You mean I nearly destroyed the True Love potion that can only be made once? The one that's on a three-day timer to activate before it expires and Henry could disappear forever if we stuff it up?"
"Yes. That's the one, dear."
"So we still have to activate it, which we should do soon before anything bad happens to the town. We have to kiss."
"Not just any kiss-"
"-the kiss of True Love," Emma intoned with a slow nod. "Right. Let's do it. I'm bored of sitting around waiting for something else to go wrong. My Mom's pissed at me for procrastinating. Let's get this over with."
Regina made a noise of offense. "Thanks very much, dear. You make it sound like ripping off a bandage."
"You know what I mean. It's not like I don't love you, it's just that there's a lot riding on this and we have to do it right the first time. How should we go about this?"
"Kiss me."
"Um… like now?"
"Yes, now," said Regina impatiently.
"Ok," exhaled Emma. "Um, can I just-"
"Emma!"
"What? I need a minute to work myself up to it. It's like having first kiss nerves all over again. Remember you weren't the one who had to-"
Regina stood in one swift movement and pulled Emma's hips flush against hers by the belt loops of her jeans. She tilted her face and whispered into a strong jawline. "If it helps, you've already seen me naked. You've kissed me in far more intimate places, and you've felt me gasp against your mouth when gliding inside me for the first time."
Emma's tongue peeked out to moisten her lips.
The former queen locked their eyes together, noting that Emma's were darkening on the midnight side of blue-green today. "But that's not why I love you. You're the mother of my son. You infuriate me and challenge me and believe in me. I'm free to be myself with you, even on my worst days, and you make me feel safe. That to me is what a soulmate is."
Often each of them thought she'd had finally reached her heart's capacity, but then there was a moment like this - a word or a look from the other - that brought with it the realisation that "Yes, somehow it's true, I actually did just fall for her all over again." Hearing Regina's description of her was one of those moments for Emma.
Their very first kiss had been disastrous, the second hardly less so. But each of the multitude of kisses that followed evoked the same passion as ever. The tension that crackled when they were physically close, the height of emotion when they argued, the attraction they felt before they'd even known how important they'd be to each other's lives.
It was Emma who halved the distance between them but Regina was the one to initiate the kiss. It was loving and simple, neither of them tried to spur things on but as always it left a desire for more. Both drew away at the same time.
Emma recognised the gleam of mischief in a certain pair of dark eyes. She'd seen it many times before, beginning when they'd first met and when the Mayor would pop into the Sheriff's station unannounced to berate the new Deputy about her deplorable handwriting or some other flimsy excuse. It used to amuse her, even though she couldn't explain why she looked forward to it.
"You're giving me that look," said Emma.
Regina was all innocence. "What look?"
"You know exactly what I'm talking about. That Mayorish power-tripping look - 'I'm up to something and then I'm going to take you bed'. I think being happy has made you even more beautiful somehow."
At first Emma thought Regina averted her gaze and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear out of uncharacteristic shyness. It took a second for the smile to disappear from her face. And when it did she was disheartened by the grim result.
"Emma, look," the former queen said in a quiet voice.
The glass flask of potion rested on the table unchanged where it had been placed. The purple substance undulated around its core ingredients - but it did not glow. Both women watched closely, waiting for any sign that it might begin to emit its own light. Usually magic never failed to make itself known, be it loud bangs or pops or bolts of lightning. Silence was a bad sign.
Several minutes passed and nothing happened.
"I don't understand," Regina murmured. "I truly love you. Why isn't it enough?"
Emma sighed and placed a comforting arm around her. "Hey, it's ok. We'll figure it out."
"But I did everything right! What's missing?"
"Maybe Gold played us," suggested Emma with a frown. "He's been going behind our backs from the start. He's been teaching our kid magic, he knew about Em and Ri turning up in Storybrooke, and he supposedly gave us instructions for this love potion thing but then you had to make up the ingredients from scratch anyway… Maybe he 'accidentally' forgot to tell us something important so we'd have to go back to him for help."
"There is another explanation."
"You think we stuffed up the kiss part?"
"No, I think..." Regina visibly drew back and didn't look like herself. "Maybe I'm not your True Love after all."
"No way. You don't believe that-"
Suddenly Regina's eyes went wide with panic and she grabbed the forearm of Emma's leather jacket. "Henry!"
Mary Margaret's apartment
David was at the kitchen bench buttering some hot toast when his wife rushed down the stairs from the loft's upper bedroom. He glanced at the wall clock to gauge how late she was running for school. She headed straight to his side to accept a kiss and a piece of toast which she immediately stuffed into her mouth.
"Is Em ok?" said David. Their teenage daughter hadn't yet surfaced this morning, other than to go to the bathroom. When he'd told his wife that Ri had left earlier, they both started to worry about what effect that news would have on Em.
"Still in bed," Mary Margaret said around a mouthful of toast. "Says she's not feeling well today. Her tummy is acting up, poor thing. I gave her some ginger beer and crackers."
Mary Margaret dashed around the room, alternately tidying things up and packing her case of school things. One of the quirks of being an elementary teacher was that almost anything could be turned into art. More than once some of the class projects had been sourced from items in her own home or purchases that were the result of spending half her pay packet on craft items supplies that she couldn't resist buying for the kids. It was worth it to see their faces light up.
If she'd only gotten to raise her own daughter!… Mary Margaret could picture in her mind a tiny girl wearing dungarees and blonde curls pulled into pigtails. The child had her chin. It was noticeable when she smiled. She looked about three, holding up her hands indicating that she wanted to be picked up by her Mommy. But every time the former Snow White went to lift her little princess into her arms the vision ended abruptly and she never got to hold her...
David sighed. "What are we going to do about the assault on Principal Gander? Whale was right, people are going to expect that Em will at least be brought in for questioning, given that she was identified by the victim."
"She's not doing anything while she's sick!" The pixie-haired school teacher started off on a rant. "If anyone disagrees they can bring it up with me. I don't care if the Blue Fairy is an old friend of Lucy Gander's or not. When she hears of Em's supposed connection to the attack she won't let go of it easily. But I don't care. Where has she been lately! She's missed every Council meeting so far. I hardly think she would have my daughter's best interests in mind."
"I'm waiting to go to the station until I hear from Emma. She'll be able to get the truth from Em. I doubt she'll want to arrest herself, but what else can she do?"
"Despite being the Sheriff Emma may not be the best person to decide that. We're the parents here. We can't let anything happen to Em, it's our job to protect our daughter. Even from herself. When the time comes you have to take our baby, David. You have to take her somewhere where she'll be safe and you can't tell anyone."
"Yes." David said after a while. He was already thinking of a place he had in mind. "I'll hide her where nobody would think she'd be. They'd never go looking for her in-"
"No, don't tell me!" Mary Margaret placed a fingertip over her husband's lips before he could reveal more about the location. " You know my record with keeping secrets. Now I have to leave for school or I'll miss the bell."
Mr Gold Pawnbroker's
The brass bell clanged noisily as the shop door swung open. The customer took no heed of the 'CLOSED' sign that dangled from the window and shut the door behind her firmly. She didn't care about barging in before opening hours or that her use of magic to pass through a locked door might be considered breaking and entering. There was every chance that the man inside might be expecting her.
Ri went straight to the counter. She had no eye for any of the shop's curiosities on this visit.
"Mr Gold!" the teen called.
The dingy curtain that hid the anteroom ruffled as the shop owner appeared. As expected, Mr Gold did not seem surprised by the identity or the hour of the visitor. Like always he was sharply dressed in a dark pinstriped suit and silk necktie. He came to stand before her, resting his palms atop his gold-handled cane.
"What can I do for you, Miss Mills?" Gold greeted her with his customary geniality.
"I need some answers," said Ri.
"I imagine you do. I heard you were involved in some mischief last night."
"I'm sorry?" said Ri, sounding anything but. "I really have no idea what you're talking about."
The corner of Gold's mouth upturned, unfazed by her bald lie. "Do you know that your young friend has been accused of the assault of Mrs Lucy Gander? The poor lady is in hospital today with a heart complaint. The doctors cannot explain what caused it."
"Why would they think it was Em?"
"It's widely known that she's a troublemaker. She's had a run-in with the Principal before at the school. Gander herself provided the description of her attacker's identity. What more proof does anyone need?"
Ri scoffed. "None, if they're credulous idiots. It wasn't her."
"Oh, I know that," said Gold, penetrating her with his stare. He began to stroll around her as if she were prey. "I can recognise the clumsy handprint of a novice. I'm especially familiar with Regina's early attempts at dark magic … Her work always did have a mark of hesitance about it, a reluctance to do harm. It took many lessons to quash those instincts in her. I knew it was you immediately."
"Have you told anyone?"
Gold paused as if he was still considering it. "Em Swan will soon be arrested and sent to jail for a crime you committed. Are you sure she loves you that much? Do you love her so little as to let her?"
Ri responded angrily. "Of course I won't let her do that! I'll confess."
"Do you think they'll believe you? The quiet girl of noble birth with an untarnished reputation versus a teenage delinquent who was arrested on her first day in town ... It will seem like you're trying to cover for her."
"No, it won't. I'll tell the truth about what happened."
"The truth? Since when does anybody believe the truth!" The pawnbroker chuckled at his own cynical cleverness. "What exactly shall you say - that you've been dabbling in dark magic already? Perhaps they'll want to kill off the Evil Queen before she's even 'born'. If you die now, who will save your son from the kind of unhappy childhood his birth mother had? Hmm?"
Ri's heart sank with guilt over what she had done. If assaulting an unarmed person with dark magic hadn't caused her to feel regret, the consequences of that action on Em's life certainly did. Why, why, had she let herself give into revenge! It seemed foolish now in the light of day, to think that she and Em were ever in the kind of real danger that warranted such violence. She should have just grabbed Em's hand and walked away from the bigoted old woman and her spiteful barbs instead of allowing anger to run the show.
Her actions could not be easily undone. Both Em's reputation and the Evil Queen's preceded them in Storybrooke. The two bad seeds. Regina had instant empathy for Em and whisked her away to commiserate on both being thought "bad" by the Charmings. At the time Ri had been happy to stay close with Emma, an adult figure offering succour, who was constantly praised for being good. Ri's own reputation for being a good girl was now detriment to her, she literally could do no wrong according to others.
Gold was probably right, prejudice would win the day again.
Either way I'll lose her, Ri realised, thinking about Em and their predicament perhaps resulting in the worst scenario. She'll never forgive me if I stay silent and betray her, but she'll never forgive me if I'm not able to give our son his best chance in this world. If I don't create Storybrooke, Henry's home will never exist. I can't choose between the two loves of my life! There must be a way to save them both.
I wish there was a way for my family to be safe.
Ri started to pace while wringing her hands together. They were tingling with magic again. The temptation was there every time she felt frustrated or scared. Darkness had licked her soul and now its appetite was whetted for more. It beckoned her and offered to "help" solve her problems. Hadn't she learned her lesson last night about resorting to magic? Why did life present such difficult choices? Why couldn't she do anything to ensure that Em and Henry would be safe and happy? All she wanted - by whatever means - was for the three of them to be reunited one day.
Ri sighed. "If only I could do something! I wish that -"
As soon as Gold moved his cane clattered to the floor. He was on her in an instant. A hand clapped over Ri's mouth to snatch her next words from her before they could be spoken aloud. The teenage girl struggled against his hold and her protests to be let go came out as muffled sounds. "Mm-mh-ghhhw!"
Ri grabbed at his forearm trying to throw him off and when that failed she tried to wriggle herself free. She wasn't strong enough to fight him off physically and her magical instincts were not yet honed, nor would they be much use against his level of power. She had no idea what was happening.
It was all over in a few seconds. When Gold released her, Ri backed away from him to a safe distance. The pawnbroker held something in his hand tightly, as if he'd plucked a moth from the air and he could feel its wings tickling his palm due to the creature fluttering wildly trying to escape. Keeping balance on his good leg he leaned over to the nearest glass cabinet to fetch a large glass storage jar.
"Wha-" Ri coughed to clear her damaged voice, she panted with the effort of her struggle. "What did you do to me, you foul beast! How dare you manhandle me."
Gold dropped his hand into the jar and released whatever he'd captured. Then he quickly shut the lid down and screwed it on tightly. Oddly, the jar still appeared to be empty. Whatever it now contained was as invisible as air. He waved his down-facing palm over it and then the jar disappeared into a puff of purple smoke, leaving his hands empty again.
His cane levitated magically from the floor and returned to his grip.
"Don't worry, dearie," said Mr Gold. "You won't miss it. Besides, Fairy magic is rather useless. If you want something done you have to work for it. Not wish it out of thin air."
"You stole my wish?!" Ri's mouth dropped open in horror.
Gold shrugged. "You won't be needing it where you're going."
"But I need it now! I could use it to change things for Em and Henry's future. I've waited my whole life for the chance to make a wish that would come true. I've made so many wishes and none of them were ever fulfilled. I never understood why I was denied my birthright in the first place."
"I suppose the Blue Fairy thought you weren't in need enough. The Fairies received your wishes and ignored them at their leader's behest."
"But Astrid said it was because our family patron died."
"Oh, it was. The Mills Family's patron fairy was murdered in a rather brutal manner. It was rumoured that she possessed a very powerful wand that Cora coveted for herself and so suspicion fell on your mother, though it was unable to be proven. The Fairies stripped everyone in the family of wishing privileges - including you - as a punishment. Crushing hearts is a kindness compared to tearing the wings off a magical creature while it screams in agony."
Ri tightened her jaw against the nausea that rose inside her at the thought of any living creature being tortured in that manner. "Did my mother kill our fairy that way?"
"Cora wasn't the only one who wanted the wand, there were many other suspects. But it was I who arranged for the investigation to be dropped. A certain high-ranking Fairy owed me a favour and she did not like repaying that debt, believe you me. I used my influence to stop the inquiry in its tracks."
"Why would you do that?" Ri narrowed her eyes in suspicion and the pieces of everything she'd heard began to fit together. "It wasn't my mother was it. It was YOU. That's why you had the investigation dropped, in case they discovered the truth. You let my mother take the blame for it. You killed our fairy to stop me from making a wish while I was growing up! That's why you've taken the one Astrid gave me in this world. It was my last chance."
"I can't let you go back to the past with a brand new wish and ruin everything," Gold explained like it was an obvious and very funny joke. "No doubt you'll ask for something foolish like love or happiness and then you will be entirely useless to me. I have big plans for you, my little monster."
"No! You don't know me. It's my life!"
"I did not spend centuries putting things in motion to have my curse ruined by the romantic desires of a silly teenage girl. It is not for you to thwart fate and change the future."
Love is not silly! Ri's heart protested with indignance.
Love is everything to me. Why do people spend their lives seeking to find banal treasures or to capture foreign lands when true happiness is nearer? Is it my dreams that are small - or theirs? All I have ever wanted was to marry for love, to make a family and a home. I could have only Henry and Em for the rest of my life and yet I'd want for nothing. That's the only happy ending I will accept.
But what if I am as destructive to my child as my mother was to me? I must make sure that never happens! I could never forgive myself if I became like her. Em is not like my father, she would not put up with anyone hurting her child - even me - and I wouldn't want her any other way.
Ri had already been tricked out of her one wish, there was no way she was leaving before getting the answers she had come here for. Whatever horrors lurked in the outskirts of her life, she would find them out and then no surprises could ever harm her again.
"Tell me my mother's secrets," said Ri, trembling with anger. "Mother may not have killed our patron but there is more to her past, I know there is."
Mr Gold spoke gently to her for once. "You don't want to know. Trust me on that."
"Stop treating me like a child! Why does she want to force my marriage and to put me on the throne? Why she doesn't love me?"
"Out of all of Cora's secrets you've chosen exactly the one that a child would ask. I'm afraid it won't do you any good but I will tell you: she is heartless. She doesn't love you because she can't."
"What?!" cried Ri.
"Cora removed her heart shortly after her marriage to your father and buried it. Doing so dulled her capacity to feel emotions, all except her ambition for power. She sought to fill the empty cavity in her chest with it and when she reached the extent of her own social position, she decided to use her daughter to gain that to which she could never ascend to herself - the throne. Her revenge upon the Royals would then be complete."
Ri's eyes filled with tears. She was more than a pawn in her mother's political game. Cora chose a life of power over her own daughter. Gold was right, she really did not want to know that. Cora was an overbearingly strict parent, but Ri had always rationalised it as the pressures of her station and consoled herself with the knowledge that at least she occupied a singular place in her mother's heart. To lose her mother's love without ever having received it was a cruel blow.
All she'd wanted as a child growing up was to please her parents. As Ri got older and the Estate grew smaller she began to wish for freedom. Now her mother was trying to slam doors shut all around her. Power might be the only way she'd ever be free now.
"Everybody wants me to become the Queen..." the young Regina said somberly. Her eyes lost focus. "Then so be it. They will get the Queen that they deserve."
"What about your love?" said Gold eagerly leaning forward.
"While ever I cannot be with my Emma I will destroy anyone else who dares touch me without love in their heart. They will all pay for my unhappiness. This vow I will never break."
"Just out of interest…" The pawnbroker lifted his shoulders, pretending not to be interested in the answer to what he was about to ask. "If you could make one wish right now, what would it be?"
"I wish that Em and I could go home!" Ri buried her face in her hands momentarily and then turned around to pace. "We don't belong here and if we stay we'll ruin our own lives. I want to go back to the time when I didn't know any of this. I miss things being simple, the way they were before. I was better off not knowing my future at all. Now I fear it. So does Em. She knows she can't be a mother yet but the guilt of having to give up her child is eating away at her. All I need to know is that Em and Henry and I will be together again one day."
"I miss home! I miss my room and my clothes and riding the Estate grounds with my beloved Rocinante. I miss my parents most of all - who they used to be, not what I know of them now. I don't want them to be dead anymore! Because I want to tell them to their faces how much they let me down, and how they should've been better for my sake. When I came here I lost my parents. It's even worse because now I know the truth about what Mother has in store for my future and my Father won't lift a hand to stop her! I need to unknow it. My heart aches that I will never be able to forget. I love them so much but they've hurt me so badly."
Mr Gold said something that might've been an insincere apology for telling her "too much" but the young brunette didn't even hear it.
"There is only one thing I need to remember," said Ri to herself. "Coming to Storybrooke has shown me that Regina and Emma and Henry have been happily reunited. I must remember to cast the curse at all costs. It will be my happy ending. Everything else I'd rather forget."
"And you!" she said, baring her teeth at her future master. "You treacherous bastard! It's because of you that I'm to be separated from them for so many years. One day I will be as powerful as you are and if you so much as breathe in their direction I will dedicate my days to making your life a misery."
"I have to go!" said Ri suddenly.
Mr Gold watched as she fled the shop with tears in her eyes. Only once the distressed teenager was gone did he allow himself to show a satisfied smirk. She was just as he remembered his young student to be - kind, beautiful, and so very powerful. Her future was about to collide with his past and it would set in motion a series of intricate events that would lead them exactly to where things stood now. Such was the cyclical nature of time.
"Goodbye, Regina," he murmured. "See you soon."