Chapter 31: Friends and Family
"Evie, I'm so glad you're okay," Mal sighs in great relief, hugging her friend tightly.
"Mal, where are we? What happened? Where is everyone? Is Ben okay?" She then turns to see Uma, who is still slightly stunned from Mal practically attacking her a few moments ago. "Uma, what did you do?"
"We're in The Land Without Magic…"
"You mean that realm you talked about with Ben and Ariel,"
"Yeah… Wait, how did you know that?"
"Excuse me, Miss?" Dr. Whale says, coming up to the girls. "Now that you're awake, we have to give you a full medical examination."
"But…" Evie then looks at her best friend. However, the stylist does not miss a beat. "Who is the guy with the dye job? That does not suit your colour pallet at all."
"He's Dr. Whale," Mal explains.
"What's wrong with my hair?" Whale asks in confusion, running his hand through the spikey tips. While Regina did not particularly like his new style either, he was not used to random strangers completely shooting him down because of his appearance.
"It's a bleached dye job, with punk rock tips… it's…" Evie frowns and wrinkles her nose. "Not ideal for a man in your profession."
"What? So suddenly Lady Blue Hair is the fashion expert?" the doctor protests with a similar attitude.
"I happen to run the most successful fashion studio at Auradon Preparatory School and I have my own brand of clothing."
"Well great, congratulations, Lady Blue but in this hospital, I'm the head doctor of the successful Storybrooke General Hospital and I need you to come with me."
"I have a name you know, it's Evie," the daughter of the Evil Queen snaps.
"Well Evie, if you want to ever leave this hospital, I will have to give you a medical examination. Now would you please go back to your hospital room?"
Mal sighs, knowing that there was no way of avoiding this. "Come on E, I'll come with you, it won't take too long. I promise"
The blue-haired teen looks at her friend and then sighs knowing it was better to get this over with as soon as possible so she could get some answers to the questions buzzing around in her head. As Evie follows the doctor, Mal turns to finish confronting Uma, only to see that Shrimpy has slunk away; typical she was obviously not willing to face-off against two VKs instead of one… or it's possible that Mal's reaction had scared her away, which was unlikely.
The girls follow Dr. Whale back down the hall, past the Storybrooke group and into one of the hospital rooms. Evie's purse lay on the nightstand next to the bed and the covers had been clumped together indicating that the daughter of the Evil Queen had pushed them away to go and find her friends.
The bleach-haired doctor directs the fairest princess of them all to sit on the bed. He puts on rubber gloves and does the same examination he'd done before with Mal; checking all her vitals and searching for any other injuries. He does find a few scratches and a bump on the back of Evie's head, likely caused by coming out of the portal. He treats the scratches with antiseptic or whatever it was he called it, causing the wounds to sting just a little and for the teen to bite her lip in pain. Dr. Whale then had a nurse bring some ice for the back of the girl's head. Evie holds onto Mal's hand as the doctor takes a sample of her blood too, cringing the entire time. Once she's all finished, he leaves the two girls in peace.
Mal and Evie tightly embrace again, tears starting to come to their eyes.
"Evie," Mal weeps. "I-I'm so sorry about what happened…"
"Mal, it's not your fault," her best friend says comfortingly.
"No, it is my fault, I shouldn't have let Uma get to me like that; making me so angry that I couldn't protect my friends. I should have been there to help you and Ben but instead, you were thrown into the portal…"
"That was Harry's doing, not yours… whatever that stuff was that made the portal, it didn't hurt us. At least we're safe… Oh Gods, where's Carlos and Jay?"
"I don't know," she says. The two friends get up and begin to search the other hospital rooms for their friends, not noticing that Storybrooke's sheriff, deputy, mayor, and the resident young adult were about to go into the room to ask them questions.
It only takes a few minutes for the girls to find their male friends. The first two rooms only had War Frat pirates in them, but the third had the son of Jafar and the son of Cruella De Vil laying there asleep. A woman dressed in a nurse's uniform was checking both boys' vitals when she sees the two girls. The two boys lay in beds adjacent to one another, with a curtain that could separate the two if required.
"Are these two your friends?" the nurse asks when she notices the girls.
"Our best friends," Evie nods.
"Well, they seem to just be resting; a couple of scrapes and bruises, but nothing too serious."
"Thank you," Mal says politely, but she is also relieved that the two boys she saw as her brothers were unharmed by what had transpired.
"It's best to let them wake up on their own," the nurse advises them before leaving the room.
Suddenly, Dude comes trotting into the room, the bone Crystal had given him still in his mouth. He places the bone on the ground and then leaps up onto Carlos' hospital bed. He then begins licking his master's face. A smile begins to form on the teen's face as he slowly comes back to consciousness and he gently brushes the dog's tongue away.
"Cut it out Dude," he says. "It's the weekend, we can sleep in."
He then opens his brown eyes with a smile, Dude now sitting contently on his chest.
"Hey buddy," he says, scratching the dog behind the ears. It suddenly dawns on him that he's in a strange place and he sits up; a shocked look begins to form on his face. He looks around in confusion and starts to pant loudly. Dude is forced to jump from his master's chest to avoid being thrown to the floor from panic.
"What… what…"
"Hey Carlos, chill dude, everything is okay," the dog says calmly.
"Okay?! Dude, where the heck are we?! None of this is okay!"
"Carlos," Evie says in an equally calming voice. She goes over and sits on the edge of his hospital bed. The son of Cruella doesn't think twice before embracing her.
"Oh, thank gods Evie!" he breathes in relief. Mal slowly gets closer to her friend and he gets up and attacks her with a strong hug too. "Mal… Thank goodness you're both okay."
"They're fine Carl," Dude says, sitting and enjoying the show. He then drops to the floor and goes to work on chewing his bone again. "We're all fine."
"The battle on the beach, what happened? Where's Harry? Where's Ben? Where's Uma? Where's Jay?"
"Jay is right here," a voice says from behind them. The three friends turn to see Jay's dark brown eyes and his trademark smirk grinning over at them. Both Evie and Mal rush over and engulf their friend in a hug. The son of Jafar is a little shocked by their sudden contact but enjoys it.
"You're okay!" Evie says in relief.
"Evie, I'm fine, I'm Jay."
Mal rolls her eyes as they break apart. Carlos joins the group and gives his best friend a bro hug. The two of them ask the most obvious question.
"Where are we?"
The two male friends look at the female ones, knowing that the girls were the only ones who would be able to answer their question.
"We're in The Land Without Magic," Evie says.
"You mean that place that the… alternate Ariel talked about," Carlos asks.
"How do you guys know this?!" Mal demands.
The three friends look at each other in guilt and all their faces turn red. None of them really want to talk about the eavesdropping they did on Mal's night with Ben on the beach.
"We spied on you and Ben when you met the mermaid," Dude blurts out, having taken a break from his bone to speak the truth.
All three VKs glare at the dog, darn that truth gummy for making the loveable mutt so talkative!
"How can you love someone and hate them at the same time?" Carlos mutters to himself.
"You did what?!" Mal squeaks, trying to fight the urge to get angry at her friends.
"We… uh… kind of were watching you and Ben make up at the beach," Carlos winces, not happy from having to admit this.
"It was totally by accident," Jay lies.
Mal shoots him a look of disbelief and crosses her arms over her chest.
"Mal, we just wanted to make sure that you and Ben were happy again," Evie says honestly. She looks down at her shoes in guilt and begins picking at the blue leather on her gloves. "We're sorry we eavesdropped on your conversation. We really just wanted to check and then we'd leave you guys in privacy… it's just that… Ariel showed up and we wanted to know what was happening."
The daughter of Maleficent bites her lips for a long moment, trying to keep any anger she might have in check. She takes a deep breath, grinds her teeth several times before looking at her friends in disappointment. While she was pretty upset that they'd been spying on her… she knew deep down they had meant well and just wanted what's best for her. It seemed rather pointless as she and Ben ended up breaking up anyway.
"We're really sorry Mal," Carlos says.
"I'm not," Dude states.
"Dude! For the love of all that is good and pure, please stop talking…" Mal hisses. The dog then goes back to chewing on his bone. She then turns back to her friends.
"While I'm not happy about it…" After a long pause and a few more deep breathes, she forces a smile on her face. "I still forgive you guys."
"We were just watching out for you and Ben," Jay says.
"It's fine, let's just put this behind us," the daughter of Maleficent says. "We've got much bigger problems to deal with."
Every one of the VKs nod in agreement.
"So where in The Land Without Magic are we?" Carlos asks. The three friends turn to Mal, knowing that it was likely that only she would know the answer.
"A town called Storybrooke," she says, brushing a lock of purple hair from her face.
"Wait, didn't Ariel mention that place as the home of Ben's… other mom?" Evie asks.
"Yeah, we're in the place where our alternate parents live…" she says.
"Not all of them," a voice answers from the doorway. The four friends look up to see a group of strangers standing in the hospital room... at least strangers to Jay, Evie, and Carlos. The one who had spoken wears a jean jacket and had her brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. There was a blonde woman with hazel eyes and wore a white sweater under a red leather jacket, and next to her there was a man with vivid blue eyes and wears a dark leather outfit; his arm is wrapped firmly around the blonde woman's torso, almost protectively. A woman with brown eyes and dark black hair that now fell in loose curls around her shoulders begins staring almost hypnotically at one of the girls of the group. There was something about her that seemed familiar, the two even had matching eyes and wavy looking hair.
The entire group were just starting to may connections and theories to whom these kids from Auradon might belong to in this world. They already knew Mal was the daughter of Maleficent; the boy with the white and black hair could possibly be Cruella's son; this made Emma slightly nervous, thinking about what she'd done to protect her son and darken her heart. The boy with darker skin… he could be Aladdin and Jasmine's son for all they knew, but it Regina had been watching the group the closest. As the teenagers reunited, the group from Storybrooke were watching from the door and Regina was noticing the way the girl with blue hair had smiled, it almost seemed too familiar to her. The mayor of Storybrooke also noticed that the girl carried an apple-themed purse and wore other apple-themed accessories. She has a hunch in the back of her mind of whose daughter the girl might be and while it made her nervous, she had to have it confirmed.
"What do you mean?" Jay asks.
"What I mean is, not all of your… alternate parents, as Mal put it, are here in town. Only a few are…"
"Who are these guys?" Carlos asks, wanting introductions first and then more information about the alternative parents.
"I'm Crystal Miller," the girl in the ponytail says softly. Dude goes over and sits at the girl's feet; she leans down and scratches him behind the ears. "The daughter of Rumpelstiltskin."
"Rumple-who and what now?" Jay says in disbelief. "Who's he?"
"I think it's better than we keep you at a need to know basis about my dad right now," she says, biting her lip in embarrassment.
"I'm Emma Swan," the Saviour introduces herself. "I'm the sheriff of Storybrooke and the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming."
"But I thought Whitney and Simon were the White children," Jay states.
"In this world, they did have two kids, just many years apart," Mal explains. "Emma and baby Neal."
"Neal is a cute kid," Dude chimes in. "He likes dogs a lot. He stinks a little bit though."
"I'm sure if he could talk, he'd say the same thing about you," Crystal says to the mutt.
"Who's the guy in the eyeliner?" Evie asks, noticing the man's makeup addition, which made his very blue eyes stand out even more.
Regina snickers as Killian flushes bright red again. "Is this all you people seem to notice about me?" he hisses to his wife. "I'm Killian Jones lass, also known as Captain Hook." He then presents the group with his shiny metal tool.
The colour drains from Evie's face as she realizes which villain she'd just insulted. "I'm so sorry about the eyeliner comment," she says quickly.
Killian gives the girl a reassuring smile. "Don't worry Love, you're not the first one to point it out." He shoots a look at Regina.
"And I'm Regina Mills… I am… was known as The Evil Queen."
Again, the colour drains from Evie's face and her heart seems to stop completely. She lets out a strangled gasp of surprise. Jay and Carlos' mouths hang open in utter shock; they look at Regina and then at Evie. If they looked, they could definitely see a resemblance between the two royals… it was almost uncanny at some point. Evie feels her eyes fill with tears as she bites her lip, trying to breathe through the shock her body was going through. Her hands shake so much that Mal gently puts her hands over her friend's to try and calm her. The two women lock eyes for a moment and even before the girl opens her mouth to speak, Regina already knew:
"Hello… Mother."
A/N: Please review, no one seems to like pirates with eyelin