Bursting into the Mayor's office with gun's drawn, the Sheriff's of Storybrooke entered the black and white office to search for the person responsible for burning the crop of magic beans and putting a stop tot their plans on returning to the Enchanted Forest to start again as a family.
Nothing.
She was gone.
"It's okay. She's not here" Emma called back to her mother and son, lowering her gun as the ten-year-old and his grandmother entered the room, seeing his grandfather holstering his gun.
"When you find her, you're not gonna hurt her, right?" Henry asked his family in concern.
"No" The blonde tells him "We just want the beans she stole from us" Emma reassured him as she turned to the alarm system on the wall next to the door.
"I don't get it" Mary Margaret voiced to the room from the doorway as Henry and David found the tank where the beans had been kept "Why would Regina leave her office unlocked?".
"Especially when she's keeping the beans here" David added looking at the small plant inside the tank where the beans should have been growing on.
"Was keeping them here" Mary Margaret corrected her husband joining the others "They're gone!".
"Something's not right" Emma interjected into the conversation "Regina would never leave evidence like this behind".
"Maybe she already used them to portal out of Storybrooke" her father suggested.
"Without Henry? Or Elijah? I don't think so" she tells them. Despite how much the siblings had been at logger heads, she wouldn't leave her brother behind. Seeing how much she was supposed to have hated him, he would've been long dead if she truly hated him. And not vampire dead.
Maybe there was a chance for her to forgive him for what ever he had done to put her on the path of the Evil Queen. She couldn't do that if he was dead.
"What if something bad happened to her?" Henry spoke up once again concerned for his mother's safety.
"Security system says the last time someone was in the office was around 6:00 this morning" the blonde sheriff informs the others, seeing that the system had been overridden "They used an override code to get in".
"Why would Regina need an override code on her own alarm?" David asked the question.
"She wouldn't" she answers as her mind wonder to the other people who would have access to her office "Neither would Elijah" she finds herself saying outload.
"You think someone else broke in and took the beans?" her mother asked her.
"Well, we haven't found Regina anywhere and haven't heard from her".
"So something bad did happen to her" Henry spoke up once again.
"We're gonna find her, Henry. I promise" the blonde promises him.
"What about Elijah? What if he's involved in all this?" David theorized to the vampires involvement.
"He isn't" Emma quickly muted her father's theory as the image of him and Ruby in the back of the diner flashed in her head. She had no idea what irked her so much about seeing the vampire kissing the woman. He was his own man, made his own choices, and the pair seemed to have some kind of connection.
"Emma, we don't' know that" he told her "What if he found out what we were doing?".
"He's not" the blonde insisted "I was careful".
"What do you mean 'careful'?" her mother queried with her daughter "Emma, did you tell Elijah what we were doing?".
"No, of course not" Emma pressed raising a red flag with her father as her parents gave each other a look of silent concern hearing that she went to Elijah "I just needed to talk to someone okay. It isn't important".
"Emma it is important, if he found out what we were doing. after everything that's happened".
"What you're mother's trying to say" David intervened "Is that if you think Regina is bad, Elijah's worse. If he feel's betrayed he'll do whatever it takes to find some payback , hurt whoever it takes He loses control. He isn't called the Ripper for no reason".
At the mention of Elijah's supposed nickname, Emma saw the way her son winced. He knew more than she even did.
"Stop it" she firmly tells her parents "You're scaring Henry".
At the mention of their grandson, the pair were silenced as Mary Margaret moved the conversation forward "There's only one person who could overpower Regina" the former Princess went on.
"Gold" her husband answered.
"He's too busy with his new/old girlfriend. No, this wasn't Gold. This was Tamara" she insisted.
"Haven't you already gone down that road?" her mother reminded her.
"Maybe not far enough" the blonde retorted.
"Or, maybe it's time for you to let it go".
"August was attacked the day Tamara came to town. I don't think that was a coincidence".
"What if you're wrong?" David spoke up as the voice of reason "If Regina's in trouble, we can't just drop everything else because of a hunch".
"Which is why we're not gonna drop everything else. Go to Gold. I'm sure he has some kind of magic that can help locate Regina" she instructs to her parents.
"Where are you going?".
"To the one person who find Regina and then. Back to Tamara's room".
He didn't know what to make of the portrait in front of him as he stared at the ugly, aged version of Elijah Mill's on the canvas, but it all but confirmed the Home Office's theory on the vampire. Which meant their other theory was right, glancing over to the bullet shaped pieces of white oak that sat next to the piece of canvas' that he had made out of the pieces he picked up from the vampire's shed floor.
Six pieces.
Six bullets.
Six chances of killing the man that dragged his father out of their truck all those years ago. However, he would have to wait for the vampire to arrive looking for his older sister. Which gave him enough time with the Evil Queen to get as much information as he could out of her about his father.
The man was taken away from the portrait and bullets when his girlfriend/ accomplice entered the office that was next to the room where the Queen had been strapped down to a table with Hook.
"Did you get into her office?" he asked the woman as she peered into the other room through the paned window.
"Have I ever let you down?" she retorts turning her back on the "Look what I found" she says taking out pod of magic beans that had been growing in the Mayor's office.
"Are these what I think they are?" he asks as she picks out one the bean's, holding it between her thumb and finger.
"Magic beans" she confirms "Neal told me all about them. They open portals".
"I bet he told you a lot, huh?" he replies hearing the jealously in his voice at that mention of Neal.
"Don't be jealous. As soon as we're done, this" she say's pointing to her engagement ring "—is coming off".
"Yeah, well, you can have this one instead" he says handing her the small pouch containing the trigger the Queen had retrieved before going back to the equipment he had brought for Regina's interrogation.
"What the hell is that?".
"I don't know. Regina had it on her" he tells her.
"We'll send it back with the rest of the data. I think the Home Office is gonna have a field day with everything we've collected so far".
"I still have one thing that I have to do" he reminds her.
"Make it quick. We'll be getting our instructions soon. Are your ready for when her brother eventually to show up?".
"Oh, this isn't gonna take long" he tells her "And don't worry about Elijah. I'm ready to face him. I have a trick up my sleeve" he tells her pulling up the sleeve of his jacket to show his partner the metal bracer attached to his forearm, with a wooden stake firmly attached to it.
"Like it?" he smiled at the woman like kid with a new toy "Compressed air. Saw it on a TV show. Cool right?" he asked the woman only for a blank stare, making the smile on his face drop.
"Just make it quick" she repeats herself before he wheel's the equipment into the next room where Captain Hook had the defenceless Queen under his hook.
"Whatever they're offering you, it's not worth it" she tells the pirate from the table.
"Well, considering they're offering to have me kill Rumplestiltskin, I'd say it is" he replies.
"And you actually trust them?" she questions him, chuckling to herself at his lack of answer "You don't even know who you're working for".
"Morning, Regina" Owen Flynn interjects as he wheeled in the equipment.
"This part of your "mission"?" she dryly asks her captor.
"No. This, this is personal" he tells her harshly pulling up the sleeve to connect the woman to the machine "See, this is about my father".
"I already told you, he left town" she tells him again.
"Yet he never came to find his only son?" he asks her before looking to the one handed pirate "Look, would you mind lending me a hand?" he asks making himself laugh "And, preferably your good one?".
"Sorry, mate. Gonna have to say no. When you're interested in killing Rumplestiltskin and not torturing the Queen, find me".
"Well, I guess it's just me and you" he says turning the machine on, switch by switch making the machine hum to life.
"Is that supposed to frighten me?".
"Well, it should. You see, this is how we deal with your kind. And yes, it's going to be unpleasant" he states placing the last few connections to the woman, to her head and hand "Now, exactly how unpleasant—well, that depends on you. Now, where is my father?".
Flipping a switch the Queen's interrogation began.
He'd never thought he'd feel this contented after gorging on animal blood. But somehow after spend the better part of a few hours in the forest, his dive into his more monstrous side had been followed by a wave of calmness he never he would feel after allowing himself indulging himself.
As he slowly made his way up to the front steps of his house the vampire forgave himself for not clearing himself up after the hearty meal of woodland creatures he had hunted down and drained one after the after until he no longer felt the burning desire in the pit of his stomach to feed.
Slumping down heavily onto the wooden front steps, his neatly parted hair laid dishevelled from the hunt as he plucked the white handkerchief from his top pocket to clean up the remaining blood from his lips and chin that had dripped from his prey to satisfy his never ending hunger.
But as he saw the familiar yellow bug pull up to the curb of the house, the man couldn't help but to feel like his day was about to get better as he watched the blonde Sheriff climb out of her car and head straight to his front gate.
"Sheriff" he greets the woman with a grin as he remained seated on the front steps of his home "What brings you here?".
The grin on his face failed to be mirrored by the blonde as she kept a serious look on that told the vampire this wasn't a friendly meeting.
"Have you heard from Regina recently?" she asked the man straight off the cuff.
"She came to visit the house the other morning" he tells her, recalling the fleeting and surprising visit she had made to his new home "Why do you ask?".
"She...stole something" the blonde responded bracing herself for having to tell the man what she and her family had been keeping from him.
"What exactly did my sister steal?" he asked his gaze narrowing at her.
"Magic beans" she told him.
"Magic beans" he scoffed a chuckle at the notion "No, no" he went on "That's impossible. That-" he stopped himself as the woman nervously shuffled her feet, he didn't need to hear her heart to know how nervous she had grown as it dawned on the man "The giant" he realised.
The giant that they had confronted back home had come back with his mother and Hook. He must've had the means to grow more somehow and they had been growing them with the intention on leaving Storybrooke without him or his sister.
The look of betrayal on his face almost mirrored the look when she tricked him into ingesting vervain in order for her to get a head start with the compass back home.
"Elijah..I'm sorry" she tried to mediate the situation.
"For what?" he snaps at "Getting caught or for managing to deceive me once again".
"Elijah-" she tried again.
"Miss Swan" the use of her name this way made it feel like they were back to how first knew each other. He was putting a wall between them, and she couldn't blame him for doing so "Where is my sister now?".
"We don't know" she tells him "She burnt the field where the beans were being grown and hasn't been seen since. The bean's she took are gone too. Do you have any idea who might've taken her?".
With her suspicions set firmly on Tamara, she hoped he would be able to add to growing list in her mind of strange occurrences in town since she arrived in town.
Owen Flynn came to the vampire's mind. But if he had somehow taken her, he sorely underestimated the man and the lengths he would've gone to be able to subdue his elder sister.
Whatever the case, taking his sister was going to be the last thing he would do.
"Give me a month. I'll get you a list" he calmly retorts standing up, towering over the woman at the bottom, buttoning his suit jacket ready to search the entire town for the Queen as the blonde saw the cog's turning in his mind. He knew something she didn't.
"Elijah, if you know anything" she pled to the man as he stepped down to the ground heading leave only to stop at the sound of her pleading's.
"And what exactly do you plan on doing once you get the beans back?" he snapped at the woman "Go on your merry way back to the Enchanted Forest, leave behind and forget about the two people who had raised your son for the first ten years of his life, while you spent it searching for the lowest forms of civilizations".
"Elijah-" she couldn't believe what he was saying.
"You so called hero's" he went on his gaze meeting hers "Do you ever get tired of being on your moral high ground for so long, or is the air just too thin to know the difference?".
"Where you ever going to tell me the truth, Miss Swan?" the flatness in his voice made the woman think he was compelling her for a second before she knew she had a choice in what to say next. He was giving her a chance to gain his trust back, or at least some of it.
"No" she automatically told the vampire.
"I'm finding sister today" he states to the blonde before making his way down the pathway "Even if I have to burn this town to the ground" she heard him say to himself as he sped away leaving the blonde sheriff in his front yard.
With a map of Storybrooke safety tucked inside his suit jacket, the vampire saw David and Mary Margaret leave the Pawn Shop from across the street before the vampire sped across the street to let himself into the pawn shop.
Hearing voices coming from the back of the building, the vampire's long strides took him to the open doorway to find the older man, only to stop short of entering the back as he was met by an invisible barrier like the one he would meet going into a human home. His darted around the archway, his silent question's were answered by the sorcerer.
"You'll need an invite I'm afraid dearie" Gold's voice reached his ear's to see him and Lacey stood in the room looking towards the uninvited vampire.
"Invite me in" Elijah demanded out of the man "Now" he almost growled.
"And why would I do that?" the older man questioned the younger only for the latter to only smirk to himself before blinking away and returning with a sword in his hand and threw it into the room, missing both Lacey and Gold as flew into the bottle of amber drink on the table making the glass bottle explode. Lacey's scream of terror filled the small room as she flinched away from the small shards that flew outwards as she sorcerer stood completely still unperturbed by the silent threat made by the vampire.
"Won't you come in Master Elijah" he invites the vampire into the back of the shop as the woman's shrieks of terror quietened down to a small whimper as cut's appeared on her arms and hands.
Stepping into the room, Lacey looked towards the older man to do something to the man that had hurt her, like he done to the other men he beat on the street, only to get nothing from him.
"Lacey, if you could excuse us. We have some business to attend to. There's a first aid kit under the counter. Tend to those cut's".
With a huff the young woman stomped around the man that had stepping into the back room leaving the men alone.
"That was rather overdramatic even for you" the older man stated.
"You know why I'm here".
"I do. You're not the first person to come into my shop today asking help to find your sister".
"I require a locator spell" Elijah tells the man throwing the folded up map of Storybrooke on the nearby table in the mess of broken glass and spilled alcohol "Now".
"And what makes you think I would just perform such a spell for you, after your little demonstration".
"I do believe you owe my one favour for trying to force Belle's memoires to return to her".
"Which failed" he reminded the young vampire through gritted teeth.
"The terms of our deal defined that I was successful in compelling her, with the intention to retrieve her true memories. And I was successful. I compelled her. I attempted to break down the barriers of the Dark Curse to pull her memories to the surface, only for you to stop me. The favour stands".
The Dark One couldn't help but to stare at the younger man in front him as the corner of his lips quirked up in amusement as he saw a flicker of Cora in her only son. The strength he held as his unwavering gaze as he demanded the spell from the Dark One and the attention to detail was his mother.
"What?"
"Nothing" Gold blinked "For a second there, I thought I saw your mother" the mention of his mother made the vampire stiffen as the older man turned to fetch a knife from the cabinet behind him "You're like your mother than you realize Master Mills. Perhaps there is still hope for you after-all".
Turning back to the vampire, he hand the young vampire a sharp dagger that is gratefully taken by the latter.
"You know what it need" he states the the vampire who simple nods his head in understanding as the sorcerer cleans up the mess the vampire had made with a wave of his hand, leaving the unfolded map of Storybrooke laid out on the table.
"You know it's limitation's. A general location. That is all" he states to the vampire as the pair stand over the map with the vampire holding the sharp edge of the blade against his palm.
"It's all I need" he tells the man, as he grasps the blade with his hand before dragging into across to make a deep gash in the palm of his hand. Gritting his teeth from the pain he felt, the vampire placed the bloody dagger on the table to clench his hand into a tight fist, squeezing as much blood as he could before it healed, letting the thick drops of blood drip onto the paper map, creating a small puddle in the centre of the map before taking his hand back to clean up the rest of the blood.
Elijah watched as the Dark One hovered his hand over the puddle of blood as it was encased with a hue of magic before it started to move on it's own towards the location where his sister was being held leaving a trail of blood behind as it inched towards the dock before coming to a dead stop.
The Docks.
That's where Regina was.
With no time to waste, the vampire sped out of the pawn shop in blur, to save his sister from the enemy she had made in the Land of No Magic.
With Emma's suspicion's about her whereabouts' taken care of for the the time being, retuning to the Cannery to catch up with Owen's progress with the Queen, giving the older woman a moment of peace as Owen's accomplice entered the room.
"Everything's taken care of" she tells her partner.
"They bought it?" he asks her.
"As far as Emma and Neal are concerned, I'm just running along the beach" she assures him before changing the subject "How are things going with the Queen?" she asks looking down at the woman on the table.
"You know, she's not exactly cooperative" he answers adjusting a dial on the machine connected to the older woman "But that's all about to change. Right, Regina?" he asks the Queen only to get silence.
Turning the dial harshly the man inflicts more powerful and painful shocks on the woman making her groan out between gritted teeth as she shook before he eventually turns it back off.
"You have no... idea who you're dealing with" Regina weakly croaks out.
"Actually, no, you have no idea who you are dealing with" he retorted.
"I wasn't talking about me" she tells them with a wicked grin on her lips. She knew she an ace up her sleeve they hadn't thought of, that would come for her once he realized something was wrong.
"Oh, you mean your brother, right?" Regina stiffened hearing this "You see, I'm kinda counting on him coming to rescue you" he informs her "Got a few toy's to try out on him" he says picked up something from a duffle bag next tot he machine before making his way over to the woman to show her a glass ball, filled with clear water.
"Like it? Modified grenade, filled with vervain water. One pull of the pin, it'll burn any vampire it come's into contact with it. Or should I just go for a classic stake to the heart. Or better yet, we can burn that magical portrait of his" he threatened.
The grin on her face faltered at this. How did they know so much about him? She needed to change the subject, quickly.
"A couple of fools in over their heads who go around stealing magic" the Queen tells the pair.
"Stealing magic" Tamara chuckled out, clearly amused at the notion "That's what you think we're here to do?".
"We're not here to steal magic" Owen corrects her "We're here to destroy it".
"Magic does not belong in this world" his accomplice went on "It's unholy. We're here to cleanse this land of it".
Regina laughs at them this time despite how weak she felt "You think you can destroy magic? Just the two of you?".
"Well, who said there's only two of us?. Oh, we're everywhere, Regina" Owen tells her, as he leaned over her "See, after I left Storybrooke, as a boy, I was babbling about magic, about what I had seen, and what had happened to my father. Most folks, they wrote me off. But some didn't. And they found me".
"They?" Regina queried.
"Believers" he tells her "People that know that magic is real".
"And that it doesn't belongs in this world, and are willing to do something about it" Tamara adds.
"This little quest of yours, to cleanse the world of magic, it's not gonna work" Regina tells them.
"No, of course it will" Owen retorts "We've done it before, and we'll do it again. Do you think that Storybrooke was the first time that magic has crossed over?".
"Magic has been doing its damage for a long time" Tamara spoke up once again.
"And people like us—we're here to stop it" Greg says before turning the machine back on only to stop when they heard a voice filter through the Cannery making him and Tamara freeze.
"Excuse me!".
The vampire's voice came through to the room as clear as day making Owen look towards where the voice was coming through as Tamara scurried into the other room to find the live feed of the security camara's that had been set up throughout the building to see Elijah Mill's himself saunter through the Cannery in his tailor suit.
Being careful not to make a sound, Tamara caught Owen's attention by waving her hand in the window to give him the nod, confirming it was really the vampire here to save his sister.
"To whom it may concern" the vampire went on, peering into each room he came across "You're making a grave mistake, if your think you beat me. You can't. You hear that?".
Elijah was here.
They were dead.
He was here to save her, and all he needed was a sound to tell him where she was.
Opening her mouth to scream out for her brother, she was quickly stopped as a rag was stuffed into her mouth, muffling her call out for help, to see Tamara stood over her.
"Stay quiet" she hissed down to the Queen before looking towards her partner "Show time".
With a smirk, the man grabbed the duffle bag full of weapons to fight a vampire and headed out of the room to face the man who knew where his father was.
Stepping into the dark Storybrooke Cannery Co. building, the vampire listened closely to the set of three heartbeats that echoed within it's dark hallways as the smell of seafood flooded his nostrils.
Steam hissed from the tanks he he stalked deeper into the building, between the machinery, where his sister had been taken to as faint heartbeats grew louder with each step towards freeing his sister.
It was time to make his presence known to Owen Flynn and whoever else he was conspiring with. It would be the last voice they would ever hear before he ripped their hearts from their chests.
"Excuse me!" he exclaimed into the building "To whom it may concern" he went on making sure his sister's captors would be able to hear him "You're making a grave mistake, if you think you can beat me. You can't. You hear that?".
He knew he had their attention as soon as one heartbeat became louder as he wondered down the narrow corridors "So, I want my sister on the count of three. Or heads will roll. Do we understand each other?" turning on his heel, he was met by the sight of the man the boy he once knew had grown into, a tight smirk pulling on the edges of his lips as he looked upon his sister's captor "Owen" he states in greeting.
"So you do remember me" Owen replied with a smirk of his own playing on his lip, as the vampire see's the man holding something in his hand.
"I do" he states to the man "If you think holding my sister against her will get you closer to the truth and your father. You are sorely mistaken. Now, give me my sister before your world become significantly less wonderful. I won't ask again".
"I just want to know what happened. I'm sure you can understand that can't you Elijah?".
The vampire could only narrow his gaze at the man before him. "What game are you playing here?".
He was answered as the human threw an object into the air, towards the vampire before exploding mid-air sending shards of glass and vervain to land on the vampire's exposed skin on his face and hands as a groan of pain emits from Elijah's throat as he left his skin burn and sizzle from the poison only for Elijah to use the push through the pain as sped towards the human, grabbing his by the throat and pinning him against a wall.
"You human's" he sneer's in Owen's face "No respect" he adds before the sound of compressed air filled the space before Elijah felt the piercing pain coming from his chest.
He knew what it was before he look down as he felt his skin crawl and desiccate.
Letting go of the human's throat, Elijah stumbled back to see the wooden stake protruding deep from his own chest that had pierced his heart as he tried to reach up to pull it out only for his back to hit a solid wall behind him making him lose his footing and slide out down to the floor as he felt his life quickly draining away from him, as darkness took over for the last time.
Owen watched as the once threatening vampire crumble before him as dark veins crawled up his face and his skin turned a sickly ashen grey as the vampire's immortal life came to a end to a wooden stake to the heart.
So much for immortality.
Rushing back to the Queen and Tamara in the basement, Owen Flynn felt the rush of killing the immortal vampire coursing through his veins.
"What happened!?" Tamara called after the man as he dived into the other room to snatch the portrait from the table to see how it had changed. The grin on his face confirmed what he thought. Elijah was dead.
Striding back into the room with Tamara and the Queen, the man leaved over they lying Queen to show her, her brother's portrait in it original form. Back as the young son of a Duke, full of life and a promising future, not the ugly figure she had grown used to seeing whenever she saw the piece of art.
She might have hated the portrait with every fibre of her being, but she never wanted to see this version of her baby brother in the picture ever again, knowing it confirmed what she dreaded.
He was dead.
"You see that Regina!" he exclaimed at the woman holding the painting in her face as he watched her eye's shimmer with tears of the anguish she felt at the murder of her little brother welled in her eyes. "There's no one to save you now" he laughed in her face as she stared at the younger version of her baby brother. "NO-ONE!" he yelled in her face, making her look over at the man that had killed him.
Throwing the piece art across the room, like a piece of trash, the man returned to his equipment and flipped a witch to continue the Queen's physical torture to go along with her emotional one.
Leading her ex through the dark cannery with her gun in her hand after being clued into where Regina was currently being held through a spell given by Gold, the sheriff of Storybrooke made her way into the steam filled building with Neal behind her.
"Sure you wanna be here?" Emma asked her ex as they slowly walked through the building with only a flashlight to guide them.
"I'm not gonna leave you alone in this place" he tells her.
"If something does go down with Tamara, I need to know you've got my back".
"Emma, if Tamara is hiding Regina here in her evil lair by the docks, yeah, I got your back" he affirms as walk further into the building, the blonde see's a figure on the ground, slumped against the wall, in the same tailored suit she had seen him in earlier.
"What the- Elijah!" she called after the man as she lowered her gun to rush forward to help the vampire, only to see the wooden stake protruding from his chest, more importantly, right through where his heart was as dark veins covered his grey ashen skin on his face.
"No" she whispered as she fell onto her knee's in front of her friend as Neal saw the stake in his chest.
"Elijah!" she shook the man's unmoving chest, pulling the stake out of his chest, throwing it across the room, hoping it would somehow make everything okay. He couldn't die this way, not with the way they left things outside his house.
Regret and guilt filled the saviour as she figure out a way to help him. She needed him to wake up and call her 'Miss Swan'. Do anything. But nothing, he just stayed slumped against the wall with his eye's closed and
Blood. It's how he healed from being impaled by Mulan, it will help him again. Blood. Blood will heal him.
"Emma-" Neal tried to call out to the woman.
"He just need's blood. He'll be fine" she reasoned with herself as she looked for something to cut herself with only for Neal to stop her. She had to save him. She was the Saviour. She had to save him.
"Emma. Emma" Neal called out to his ex once again as he took hold of her shoulders to pull her away from the dead vampire "He's gone!" he tried to tell her as his words fell on deaf ears before he finally managed to drag her away from her friends dead body "It's a stake to the heart" he asserts to the woman, telling her that there was nothing they could do to help him "He's gone. I'm sorry" he breaths out as he feel's the woman relax in his arms "I'm sorry" he repeats himself as the blonde pulls herself together to continue their mission to uncover whatever Tamara was up to.
With renewed determination the Saviour pulled herself out of her ex's hands to stand from the ground, pulling up the wall that nearly cane tumbling down at the sight of Elijah's dead body. Whoever did this was going to pay. "Come on. My parent's can't be far" she prompts Neal behind her.
Raising her gun up again the blonde didn't look back as she continuing their way through the cannery leaving Neal to look back at the dead vampire before following his ex-girlfriend to find the Evil Queen.
Hearing a clatter ahead of them, the saviour ducked behind a piece of machinery, before quickly rounding the corner to be met with David holding a gun up at her with Mary Margaret beside him making the pixie haired teacher squeak in surprise holing her hand against her pounding heart to see her daughter and Neal.
"What the hell guy's!" she exclaimed letting a shaky exhale, the blonde lowered her armed hand.
"Here" David says handing his daughter a walkie "Here, so that doesn't happen again".
"You and Mary Margaret take the basement. We'll search the main floor. Regina's gotta be somewhere. Elijah must've been on the right trail before-" the saviour trails off in thought, stopping herself from completing that sentence. The wall's around her wouldn't allow her to say he was gone.
"Elijah's here? Where is he?" her mother inquired as she and David tried to listen out for the distinct sound of screams knowing that he wouldn't pull any punches back to get his sister back.
"He's gone" Emma stiffly answered her parents questions.
"Gone?" Mary Margaret questions her with furrowed brows. He wouldn't leave his sister.
"Dead" she swallows the word like sand as her parent's hears the pain in her voice she thought she was hiding "Someone staked him in the heart. Which means someone was trying to stop him from getting to Regina. I'd say he got close".
Neither one of her parent got a chance to speak further as she moved around them to continue the search for the people who had Regina and had murdered her friend, leaving David and Mary Margaret to carry on with their current mission.
"Time to go" Tamara states outload seeing Emma and Neal split off with her parents on the main floor, near the vampire's desiccated body. Quickly gathering the gun loaded with the white oak bullets taken from the vampire's portrait along with the diamond she had taken from the Queen, she tapped the glass separating the 'office' from the adjoining room to gain Greg's attention away from his work with the Queen, turning to see the look of concern on her face the woman nodded towards the door to speak.
"They've found us" she tells him.
"Who? Emma and Neal?" he questioned her, as the the Queen overheard the quiet conversation "I thought that you took care of them".
"Yeah, so did I" she argued "They found the vampire. We need to go" she pressed.
"No. No, no, no, no" he protested "I... I need more time with her".
"Greg, if you get caught, this whole thing is blown" Tamara tries to warn him.
"We wouldn't even know about this town if it wasn't for my Dad" he retorted "I'm not leaving until I find out where he is".
"Fine. Meet me at the rendezvous point when you're done" she tells him before leaving.
Rushing back to the machine, he hurriedly turns the switches on the console to hurry up his interrogation "I'm moving up the timeline" he informs the woman "Now I'm gonna give you one last chance. Tell me where my father is" he asks her once again only for the Queen to remain silent in defiance "Okay, time's up" turning back to the machine he goes to switch it one once again only for Regina to stop him.
"Wait" the Queen speaks up.
"Where is he?" he asked her again.
Regina weakly smiled at the man before answering. He killed her brother and gloated to her face that she would never see him again. It was only fair to return the favour "Dead" she tells him "We killed him. The minute you ran away...".
It may the half-truth but she wanted to make him squirm, even if it was the last thing his did in her life.
"No, you're... you're lying to me" he accuses her.
"Don't believe me? Go see for yourself" she tells him "Elijah buried his body at your campsite. I doubt he gets many visitors there. Now go ahead and kill me. I just wanted to see the look on your face when I.." she was interrupted as Greg switch the machine on again, making her convulse yet again.
She wasn't afraid to die. She was going to see her baby brother again. That's all that mattered now.
"You feel that? Huh?" Greg tormented her as electricity coursed through her body "That's the end of you!" he yells at her slamming his hand onto a button again making Regina groan and convulse on the table "That's scary ain't it!" he turns the machine off as she finally collapses "Now you're never gonna hurt anyone. Ever Again" he turns to start the machine again only to be stopped as a couple of bullets were fired into the machine.
"Don't move!" David order's the man holding Regina, aiming the gun at him as Greg hold his hand up, slowly inching away from the second Sheriff with the gun, only to knock the broken machine over and bolt for the door, making David run after him as he pulled down pallets to slow the lawman down in his pursuit for him.
"David!" Mary Margaret calls after her husband, making him stop and look back "We can't leave her" she tells him frantically pulling at the older woman's restraints to free her "She'll die if we don't get her help".
"We got to get her to Mother Superior" he says doubling back to the gurney to help his wife only to step on something on the floor as he take out his walkie to speak to his daughter "Emma? You gotta block the exits".
"Already on it. You guys all right?" she replies through the walkie.
"Oh, we're fine. We found Regina, with Mendel. He's coming your way". David informs her as he looks down at the object underneath his foot to see piece of old canvas with a picture of a young man on the canvas.
"What the hell?" he trails off, crouching down to pick it up to show his wife that had heard him to recognise the young man in the portrait straight away as Elijah, from when she first met him.
"Oh my god" Mary Margaret gasps at object, pausing her work on Regina's restraints to see the portrait in her husband's hand "I know what that is".
Once safely back in the loft, the royal couple laid out the unconscious former Queen in the downstairs bedroom as they watched Mother Superior tend to the sickly looking woman, waving her wand over the older woman's sleeping form, removing the leather cuff from her wrist to allow the woman's magic to flow through her veins once again allowing her to recover from the torture she had endured under Greg Mendel's supervision.
"Now that the cuff is off, she gonna be okay, given time and rest" Blue informs the pair
"And Elijah? Is there anyway you can help him" the former Princess asks the fairy. There had to be something to bring him back.
With the portrait safely in the loft with them, on the counter, the fairy had looked at the piece of canvas to discover the curse that had lived within the picture for the last forty years or so.
Mary Margaret had recognised it straight away from all the times she had snuck into his room and noticed each time it's expression had changed from time to time. It was why Emma was asking about it when they discovered him. It was connected to him somehow.
"From what you've told me about it and what I've discovered from the magic that's imbedded in the portrait, and given his nature. I'm afraid, there's nothing I can do. I'm sorry" she informs them as the front door open and closes behind them making the pair look behind them to see Emma enter the loft, with a blank look on her face.
"What happened?" David was the first to ask her jumping forward to find out what happened after Greg had fled the basement, only to get no answer from her "What is it?".
"Where's Neal?" her mother asks her, dreading the answer.
"He's gone. She killed him".
Alone in the dark cannery, Elijah's body remained slumped against a piece of machinery while his sister was found and taken back into town and Neal and Emma were confronted by Tamara, armed with a gun and a magic bean.
No noise was heard but the low rumbling of the machinery around him and the steam hissing around him, before a deep pain filled gasp echoed within the Cannery's walls as brown eyes flew open to find himself where he fallen after having a stake pushed into his chest.
The stake. Panic struck the vampire as he found the offending item as he felt the dark veins on his face reside and disappear, slowly but surely feeling whatever strength he had left to try and pull himself up, only to falter as he saw the bloodied wooden stake across from him and bloodied hole in his dress shirt where it ripped through the material.
With his hand slayed above his undead heart, he felt no hole that told him it was all a cruel dream.
"I'm alive" he huffed out, feeling the air expand his lungs "I'm alive" he breathed out.
He didn't understand how. It didn't matter.
He was alive.
She didn't know how long she had been staring blankly at nothing as her father tried his best to comfort her as they sat on the metal staircase.
How could she lose both Elijah and Neal on the same day?.
She had one lost the first man she had ever loved and the man she thought there might've been a chance with if she had only been a little more honest with. As she sat numbly beside her father, her mind pulled her back to the moment before she believed anything in Henry's storybook could possibly be true, to when he was simply just a school principle and Henry's Uncle, and she was trying to leave before a war started between her and his sister.
Even when he was trying to get her to believe in the curse, he was willing to show the ugliest part of himself for the sake of the curse being broken.
That moment in his office. The way she let him touch her, her wall were down and she was letting him in only for the moment to come crashing down. But he had moved on, it was clear by the way his was kissing Ruby, she had blown her chance and he had died without forgiving her for lying to him.
"Emma. I'm so sorry" David tells her.
"How... am I gonna tell Henry?" she asks her father not sure how she would be able to tell her son that the two men in his life had suddenly left it so suddenly, and how she wasn't able to stop it.
Not knowing what else to say David simply kissed the side of her head as she leant into the comfort before a hard knock came from the front door, making the second sheriff look over at the door, before a second, more impatient knock emitted from the door.
Reluctantly leaving his daughter's side, the blonde's eye's remained closed in aguish as her father opened the door to whoever was demanding entry from the other side.
"Elijah" the former Prince gasped in surprise making the blonde's eye's snap open and turn her head see the vampire on his feet, alive and well, with the only clue to his 'death', the small rip in his shirt "We thought-".
"Where is my sister?" his voice croaked out to the man as the blonde jumped from the staircase making the vampire look over at the woman, his hardened gaze meeting her's.
"She's here" Emma answered the man's question "Come on in".
With the clear invite into the apartment, the vampire's hardened gaze softened as the vampire took a step into the apartment as the woman had to stop herself from reaching out to touch him, just to make sure she wasn't dreaming, that he was there.
Instead she did the next best thing.
"I'm sorry" Emma blurted out to the man taking the vampire aback "I'm sorry we lied to you about the beans. We should have told you everything".
Only as Elijah listened to the genuine apology, something else was deeply wrong with the strong woman. Something he couldn't put his finger on as he read the blonde saviour's behaviour.
"Emma" he slowly replied taking slow steps towards her "What else happened?".
"Neal...he-" she didn't need to finish that sentence, he knew what heartbreak sounded like after all. He was gone.
With a gentle nod the vampire moved around the blonde to find his sister lying on the bed with Mary Margaret sat with her, the pixie haired teacher looked back to see her old friend stood in the doorway to the bedroom, looking down at his older sister's vulnerable state.
"Will she live?" he asks his former fiancée as he steps into the room almost like he was too loud he would wake her up too soon.
"She will" she tells him as he took a seat on the bed by his sister's side taking her hand into his, gently clasping it between his as he listened to the comforting sound of her heartbeat being strong by the second to ease his mind until she opened her eyes to see her baby brother sat beside her.
"Elijah you're-" she breathed out seeing him alive and well after seeing his portrait revert back to his younger self.
"Hello" he greeted his older sister with a gentle smile as he felt her squeeze his hand.
"I thought-".
"A little stake to the heart won't keep me down for too long I'm afraid" he tells her "I'm sorry I couldn't get there" he added letting his head fall in shame for allowing Owen to fool him
"I know. I heard you. You came for me".
"Always and Forever" he replies as the royal couple approached the finally awake and speaking, making the pair of siblings look up at the pair stood over the recovering former Queen.
"You…you saved me" she told the couple in disbelief.
"Yes" Mary Margaret confirmed.
"You really think we'd let you die?" David asked the Queen folding his arms across his chest "Despite our difference we're family".
"Where are they?" she asked the three around her. they looked at her in confusion at her sudden question "Where are Greg and Tamara?".
Tamara. This was news to the vampire. She was involved in all this as well. It made sense, the sudden events that had transpired since she had arrived. And then he remembered his incident at the diner.
She had been stood at the counter when he suddenly smelt blood across the room. It was her. She knew what he was and set a trap for him, not only to expose him, but to endanger everyone in that diner. If it wasn't for Ruby's intervention he could have slaughtered the entire restaurant. All this time the pair had been working together under their noses.
"They got away" David informs her.
"So they still have it" she says to herself.
"Still have what?" her brother asked.
Trudging through the forest Tamara found the spot where Regina had buried Greg's father, the same spot where he and his late father had camped the night before discovering Storybrooke and the secrets hidden within, replacing the disturbed soil to re-bury his father's remains.
Her dishevelled appearance from the confrontation with Neal and Emma, the woman held the dark diamond that they found on the Queen in her hand.
"I'm sorry about your father" she tells her partner.
"Me too" he replied before she hands him the diamond "Do the folks back at the home office know anything about it?".
"Yeah. They did. And you're never gonna believe what it does".
"A trigger?" David questioned the Queen.
"That will destroy Storybrooke" she confirmed from the bed as her brother gripped his knee's hearing what she had been hiding from him once again.
"No" Mary Margaret fretted beside her husband.
"I had a fail-safe built into the curse" Regina continued.
"Why exactly were you carrying it around?" the former Princess exasperated.
"She was going to destroy us, Mary Margaret" David answered for the Queen.
"I was going to use the beans to take Henry back to the Enchanted Forest" Regina admitted to the others.
At the admission the vampire shoot up off the bed to pace the small bedroom as he felt his blood boil at his sister's plan to abandon him and everyone else.
"And in the process, kill all of us!" Mary Margaret anger slipped.
"You wanna discuss justification? You were going to abandon me" she accuses them before looking towards her younger brother "Abandon us!" the older woman added only to be met with a hardened glare "Or shall we discuss the issue, which is that I no longer control the trigger?".
AN: Hello there!
Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Season 2 finale coming up! Eeek!
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