Chapter 61: De Vil in Disguise
The son of Cruella De Vil hurries back through town, trying to remember exactly where Rumpelstiltskin's weird shop was. For some odd reason, despite how cruelly his real mother treated him, he wants to speak to his own guardian again. One reason could be that he was jealous that all the other kids had met their prospective parents or families, leaving him a little bit left out. At first, she acted the same way his own mother would, but her demeanour changed… almost too quickly. Did she have multiple personalities? Bad mood swings? Was she just playing him? All these questions swirled around in his head as he tried to navigate the strange streets of Storybrooke. A few townspeople, who were not at the park with everyone else eyes, almost suspiciously like he was some punk who is up to no good. This really shouldn't surprise him because, for the longest time, he, Jay, Mal, and Evie really were up to no good all the time, causing trouble for everyone they could on the Isle. However, despite the initial weary glances, most of them don't pay any more attention to him and go about their daily lives. Carlos can't imagine why people would want to live such a boring existence with nothing exciting ever happening; no electronics stores, no arcades, not even a movie theatre. When Regina said that she had cast the curse, he assumes that it sucked out anything fun for people to do, which could quite possibly be the point of the curse.
Finally, he sees the sign overhead again, not knowing that he was one of many people who crossed under the sign reading:
Gold & Family Pawnbrokers & Antiquities
He tries the door, only to discover that it's locked. Frustrated, realizing that two times will not be the charm, he begins thinking of ways to get in. He obviously can't kick the door down without his presence being discovered, and there are no open windows. He knows he's going to have to pick the lock, which will be hard without a thin piece of metal. He begins looking up and down the street, looking for some kind of discarded trash that could be useful. He goes around the corner of the shop and continues looking. Eventually, he comes to a back alleyway between two buildings, which has a few metal garbage cans laying around. Even the garbage cans seemed outdated in this town.
Despite the age of things, Carlos realizes that the handle on the garbage can be perfect. His mind begins to work as he looks at the math and physics of this problem. Once he applied himself in the classes at Auradon, he turned out to be in gifted math and physics student, likely from his technical know-how. He begins to twist and work at the thin piece of metal attached to the can, which did not give off a pleasant smell. He twists it at various angles, seeing how it would come loose with the least amount of resistance. He eventually knocks the can over to let the weight finally having the thin piece of metal come loose. Smiling to himself in victory, he hurries back out of the alley and to the shop. He sharpens one end of the handle to a point on the concrete to help him pick the lock.
While it had been a while since he'd done this, the VK realized that it was almost like riding a bike, remembering to twist in the opposite direction of the door handle. Eventually, the door swings open with an almost ominous creak.
Relieved, the son of Cruella puts his new lockpick in his pocket and then hurries back over to the mirror. He removes the sheet again to be faced with the blurry and foggy glass. Knowing the pain is worth it, he pricks his finger on one of the thorns. Like before the smooth glass of the mirror warps and changes. The thing shakes and the frame becomes an almost golden-copper colour.
The image clears up to see the familiar red colouring that he'd seen before, except he doesn't see his mother. He is not immediately worried; if this Cruella was like the one on the Isle, she wouldn't stay away from her reflection for very long. However, he doesn't know how long he'll have to talk to her before Mr. Gold comes back or that his friends start wondering where he is. Knowing it's risky, he begins calling her name.
"Mom?" he says loudly to the mirror. It almost feels kind of stupid. "Mom, are you there?"
Remembering how she reacted to that name the last time he decides something different.
"Miss De Vil? Miss De Vil, are you there? It's me, Carlos."
He continues this for a few minutes until eventually, a familiar face appears on the other side of the glass and it wasn't his reflection.
Cruella's dark red lips are scrunched into a frown, that is until she sees Carlos again and those lips pull out into a wicked-looking smile. Shivers go up the teenager's spine, the resemblance to his real mother is quite scary. She still wears a long silver earring and heavy silver-looking necklace but instead of her heavy fur coat, she's only wearing her black, low-cut top. It appears as though she is relaxing and had removed the coat to cool down a bit.
"Yes, yes I'm here, I wish you could have waited until I had finished my 'fake' martini before you called me. I'm glad you didn't catch me at Granny's that would have been most dreadful to explain to everyone."
"Wait, there's a Granny's where you are?"
"Why of course there is darling, where else would I get my fake alcohol?"
"Fake alcohol?"
"Down in the Underworld, there is no such thing, so we drink imitations, hardly passable as the real thing. It's simply dreadful."
"So you are in the Underworld? Does that mean you are…"?
"Dead, yes darling I'm dead."
A heavy lump forms in his throat and the VK can't help but tear up a bit. Most kids from Auradon and even some from the Isle get to meet their parents, but he is dead.
"I'm… I'm sorry."
"Why should you be sorry child? It's not your fault. It was the most terrible thing and I'm still not over it. As you can tell, I didn't deserve it."
That remains to be seen, Carlos thinks, still unsure about if this woman who is his mother is genuine or not. Very self-centred like his own parent.
Something clicks in Cruella's mind. "You said Granny's as if you already knew the name. Tell me, Carlos, are you in Storybrooke?"
"I am, have you been here before?"
"I have, tell me why didn't you come a meet me before when I was still alive?" She forces herself to show care to the boy, hoping that this new connection could help her in the future. "I would have loved to meet…" She swallows hard at the words. "My son."
"I'm not from this town or even this world. I'm from a place called Auradon."
"Auradon? Never heard of it."
"As far as Crystal and Mal have told us, it's a different version of our world. It's a great place, except for the Isle, which is where my real mom is from."
"Your real mother?" the fashionista says in confusion, trying to comprehend this new information.
"Yes, sorry if I called you that. Technically you are my mother, just my alternate mother."
"Well that's a relief," Cruella says, pleased with this news. However, when she sees the boy's face fall, she quickly tries to change the meaning of what she said. "Because I couldn't possibly imagine leaving my son in the world of the living without a mother. Trust me, darling, I've been through that and it's awful." Leaving out the fact that she technically killed her own mother by setting the woman's two Dalmatian dogs on her.
"Why are you dead?" Carlos asks. He's unsure at whether she is going to take offence to it or not, but he would like to know.
Cruella pauses for a moment before she smiles rather wickedly. "I assume that if you're in Storybrooke you've met the eponymous Saviour with her pirate puppy dog and all the other people there."
"You mean Emma and her family? Yes, I have, did you know them?"
The wicked woman chuckles again at this realization. "I suppose the beloved Saviour didn't tell you, did she? Typical that her family would also cover for her."
"Tell me what?"
"That the heroic Saviour is the reason that I'm in the Underworld."
"Emma killed you?" Carlos gasps in horror. He cannot believe these words. Emma was such a nice person, protective, brave, strong, and a person you could trust. There's no way she could kill someone. Then the conversation at the hospital comes back about Crystal admitting that both she, Killian, and Emma have killed people before. Suddenly, it all made sense as to why she always looked at him funny, because she was wracked with guilt. His hands close into fists as he fights back tears in his eyes.
In the Underworld, Cruella is grinning, her insides are doing somersaults with excitement. She realizes that she's won sympathy with the boy, he obviously needs a mother figure, why else would he contact her again and this could work out perfectly for her? This could be her chance to escape the dreadful existence she had, come back to the land of the living, exact her revenge on the Saviour, unleash chaos on the precious town of Storybrooke, and drink all the alcohol she wanted. She feels euphoric that she wants to start jumping up and down, but of course, she can't do this in front of the mirror. She needs to fool the boy, manipulate him, and make him think that she wants to be his mother and that she *ugh* "cares" about him so he'll try and help her. While the boy is skeptical at first, she was beginning to gain his trust and now she had to play the victim card.
"She couldn't have… why would she kill you?" he finally manages to say.
"I assume that she had her reasons, perhaps she was jealous of my looks." She chuckles at her own joke but when she sees the boy so close to tears, she decides to play it more seriously. "I'm joking child, it's what I do to cope with this terrible existence, but it was not a merciful death. She had to toy with me first, take away all that was special to me, turn my friends against me, and then threw me to my death over a cliff."
"But why… why?"
"I don't know dear, perhaps you should ask her, although I assume that they've all covered it up by now, still heralding her as a hero, but she isn't. As you should know dear Carlos, as a hero, there is always another way, but of course, Saviour Emma took the darkest possible route. She is most definitely not a hero."
It's still hard for Carlos to wrap his mind around this fact. Everything made sense, but at the same time, it didn't. Emma didn't seem like the type of person who would torment and then outright murder someone, she was going to be a mother after all, but then again Regina had done some terrible things and so did Captain Hook, and they regard them as heroes.
"When… when did this happen?"
"Not long ago, perhaps a few years now and I've been stuck here ever since, which definitely hurts my heart. I am unable to move on due to unfinished business."
"What is your unfinished business?"
My revenge, the woman thinks, but instead says. "Never having a family."
The look on the boy's face confirms that Cruella now has the boy at her mercy. She just needs to continue twisting the boy's feelings until he'll do anything that she wants.
"But it doesn't have to be this way, Carlos… my son. I know you will find a way to bring me back and then maybe we can be a real family…" She decides to shed some crocodile tears to convince him more. She wipes her eyes with her wrist to thoroughly persuade him to feel bad for her and that she truly was suffering more than she actually was.
Carlos swallows a big lump in his throat, he feels sorry for this version of his mother. His insides feel like a whirlwind of emotions. She sounds genuine about wanting a family, and that's all he really wants too. He's still unsure about whether he can trust her, she didn't seem thrilled at the idea of being a mother, in fact, she yelled at him and denied it… but at the same time, she could have been shocked and reacted badly, it wouldn't be the first time his mother had done it. She's so different than the Mom who treated him like a slave, made him into such a wimp and basically ruined his life until he was given the chance to go to Auradon. The kingdom was his second chance at a better life, and maybe this Cruella is a second chance at a better family.
"What can I do Mom?"
A/N: Here's a new chapter for everyone. Thank you for all the wonderful support and reviews. Sorry to toot my own horn, but I really like the clever wordplay of the chapter title.