Author's Note: Lines have been taken from various episodes of OUAT, including, but not limited to 2x01 Broken. Thank you to the transcript site Foreverdreaming.

Also, I am not a doctor, and I do not play one on TV. For the scenes that involve medical treatment, I did the best I could and I'm sorry if I got something wrong.

Chapter Nineteen: The Loss of Innocence

Belle couldn't quite believe it. She had known, of course, that fairy tales were real, and the book was true. That was what they had all been told and she had seen proof of it as Aria. However, it was one thing to know it, and another to remember.

She was not Aria; she was Belle. She was everything Rumple had told her she was and what was more, Rumple was here! She had hoped to see him again for such a long time, but she hadn't really believed it until this moment. After all this time, all these years, the man she had danced with and fallen for was in the same time and the same realm as she was. She needed to go to him.

Seeing no cause to disturb the tender family moment between Emma and her parents, Belle carefully and quietly backed out of the hospital room. She was happy for them of course, but she had no place there, and besides, she had somewhere else she wanted to be.

"Where are you going?" a small voice asked her.

Henry. Of course he'd follow her out.

"I don't think I belong in there," she said. "But you should go back – "

"Of course you belong," he said. "You're my friend. Unless … unless you're not anymore, now that the curse is broken, and you know who you are?"

The look on his little face broke Belle's heart, and she stooped down, so she was at his level, "Henry, of course you're still my friend. You were kind to me at a time when nobody else was. You are brave and smart, and you share my love of books. I'm proud to call you friend."

Henry smiled. "Then why are you leaving? My family is back together, and I want us all to be together."

"Well, I don't know if you noticed, but not everyone is in that room," she said.

Henry's eyes lit up in comprehension, "You're going after Grandpa! Of course, you are; that makes so much sense. You two are true loves."

"Well, I wouldn't go that far," Belle said. "That is, we've never actually been … and much time has passed since we had any kind of relationship, let alone a romantic one, but … but I have to see him."

"Well, he's still at the asylum, right?" Henry asked. "He went with my mom to speak with Dorothy, and then they stayed behind because …"

Henry trailed off, but Belle flashed back to less than an hour ago, when the boy had been on the phone with Emma and Neal. She hadn't heard the other side of the conversation, and she hadn't thought at the time to ask why Rumple and Jack hadn't come back with them, but now her heartbeat sped up in fear.

"Why?" she asked. "Henry, why did he stay back?"

"They … they didn't go into detail. They just said he had to stay behind to keep The Evil Queen occupied." He must have read the terror on her face, because he quickly said, "I wouldn't worry. She doesn't have magic here, so she can't –"

"What's that?" one of the nurses cried, pointing out the hospital window, and everyone clamored to see what she was talking about. The town was being engulfed in a purple cloud of … of magic. That was what it had to be. Belle was sure of it.

"But this doesn't make any sense," she heard Henry say as if from far away. "How did it get here?"

"Go back to your parents, Henry," Belle said, rushing to get out of the hospital. She had to get to the asylum. Rumple was with there with that woman. True, before the curse, she hadn't crossed paths with the Evil Queen and knew her only by reputation, but now, after 28 years, she knew her as the woman who had compelled one of Belle's oldest and dearest friends to beat her regularly. Selena Mills (or whatever her real name was) was cruel and sadistic, and Belle wouldn't leave Rumple alone with her for a minute longer.

"You think he's in trouble?" Henry asked.

He was still following her, apparently, but she didn't have the time to stop and talk. What was more, she didn't want to lead him into danger.

"Dr. Plum! Or, er, Purple?" she called, spotting the woman who had been her family's patron fairy long ago.

"Belle," the woman said warmly, "It's so good to –"

"I don't have time," she said. "But please take Henry back to his parents."

"But I want to help," Henry said.

"You can't," Belle said. "Henry, it's not safe."

"Which is all the more reason that I should come," he said. "Strength in numbers."

"You're a child!" Belle snapped, and Henry looked stricken. "Henry, your grandfather would never forgive me if anything happened to you."

It hurt her heart to leave the boy behind. She knew she had hurt him; she could see it on his face and she wanted to soothe him, to make him understand, but she knew that if she did, she would never get to Rumple. The hospital was chaos, and getting through it would take all of her concentration and time. Then she'd need to get to her car, locate the asylum, and pray that she wasn't too late.

Rumple could feel it the second that the curse broke. It hadn't unsettled him. He had known it was coming, known that Emma was more than capable.

He had seen the moment the children's loyalty had shifted, seen the hate that filled their eyes. The boy ran to tackle the mayor, and a shot went off as the witch went down.

Rumple searched for the bullet and was relieved to find it lodged in a wall, as opposed to in someone's leg or gut. However, when he focused again on the children, he saw that the girl had gotten ahold of the gun and was training it on the Evil Queen.

"You are the wickedest of witches," the girl spat. "You deserve to feel every terror that you have inflicted on us and our father."

"You think you can kill me, you little brat?" the Evil Queen blustered. "Do you know how many people have underestimated me? Do you know how many have tried to kick me down? You are a child. You are nothing." The girl cocked the gun, and Rumple saw a flash of fear in The Evil Queen's eyes. "If you kill me," she said, "then you'll never see your father again. Only I know where he is."

"You separated us from our father," the boy said. "You took our family from us. You convinced us that we were your family, but you were a terrible mother. You don't deserve to have any family at all."

He nodded at his sister, and she fired the gun directly at The Evil Queen's stomach. Rumple was horrified. Yes, this woman was horrendous and did not deserve mercy, but the child she was carrying was another matter. But it was too late. There was nothing he could do. Time seemed to slow down, and Rumple stood helplessly as the bullet made its way toward the witch … and then froze in midair before falling to the ground.

He saw a triumphant smile forming on the witch's lips, but he missed what she said before she teleported away. He was too preoccupied with the change happening inside himself.

Power. Such power as he hadn't felt in a long time. He breathed it in like air, felt it in his bones, felt it in his blood, felt it warm his stomach and fill him to the brim. It was enough power to get drunk and high on; enough power to drown and choke on. He stood up straighter than he had in over a decade, felt his limp evaporate, felt all pain and fear fall away. He was invincible. Nobody could touch him. Nobody could harm him, and gods help any who were foolish enough to try.

But who was trying? a voice in his head asked, sounding just like his son. It wasn't his son as he was now, but as a young boy who just wanted his Papa back. And then the truth sank in. He was the Dark One once more. He was tainted with something that had once sought to drive his son from him, a fate he had only circumvented by a miracle (named Belle).

It had bought him time. He had seen his son grown, and he had a grandson now.

He would not lose them! He would not let anyone take them from him!

He could lose his son if he let this take him over. He could lose everything that meant anything to him. And yet … it was already too late, wasn't it? He had never really been free of the Dark One. This had always been going to happen.

Except that Maleficent had said that it wouldn't. She had assured him that there would be no magic, and his curse would remain dormant.

Liar, a voice snarled in his head. It was his voice, and yet it wasn't. She has manipulated you. She has used you. She has brought you low and put at risk all you hold dear. Find her! Find her and crush her to dust for what she has done to you.

And it was really that simple, wasn't it? Magic made everything simple. All that had been hard was now easy. He could track the dragon-turned-sorceress with one thought and kill her with another. In the blink of an eye, he was at the outskirts of town, at a well, of all places.

There she stood, her smile triumphant. How dared she?

"You lied to me, Dearie," he trilled, embracing a voice long forgotten, a voice from another life. "That was rather stupid of you."

She was completely composed as she turned to face him. She didn't see him as a threat. In truth, he hadn't been until she made him one. The Rumpelstiltskin of an hour ago wouldn't have harmed a fly, let alone a dragon. He was no longer that man.

Before she could speak, he sent a blast of magic at her, knocking her off her feet.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you not to piss off a Dark One?" he asked, not giving her a moment to respond before he hit her with another blast.

It had been two years since dragons had invaded the borders of King Konrad's kingdom. Good men had died in the fighting, and he had seen women weep when their husbands had not come home.

Konrad had never thought of himself as a violent man. He knew how to fight, as any prince was trained to do, but since he had married Queen Leah, his attentions had been on starting a family with her. Unfortunately, after many years, these attentions failed to bear fruit.

It was for this reason that the queen had sought the council of the Green Fairy, his family's patron. She had consulted her betters and told them that if he wanted a family, he first had to bring peace to his kingdom. That was when the guilt had set in. His people were dying trying to protect the kingdom from those beasts and their flames, and he was safe at home with his wife.

He was raised to believe that it wasn't proper for kings to fight. Oh, they could plan the battles out and lead the war council, but putting themselves in danger? What would become of the kingdom if their king was slain, and especially if he was slain with no heir? There would be chaos in the kingdom, a desperate grab for the throne from every power-hungry noble with even the slightest claim.

However, with the green fairy's council in his head, King Konrad was beginning to think they were going about this war all wrong. If his men were willing to put their lives on the line, shouldn't he? Perhaps if he did, the gods would bless him and his wife with a child.

It was with this in mind that he rode out with his men. By a stroke of luck, one of his best lieutenants had discovered a nest of dragons and had returned to tell the King and his men about it. If they could attack the dragons while they slumbered, perhaps they could end this once and for all!

After all, it wasn't as though there were very many dragons, no more than five, according to his reports. It was simply that five dragons were an awful lot for an army to deal with, or rather, that they were an awful lot for an army to deal with if the dragons were awake.

King Konrad reached the entrance to a cave and watched as his lieutenant dismounted.

"Explain yourself, soldier," he said.

"The dragons are in the cave," his lieutenant replied. "We can't very well ride in. The horses would spook before we made it very far."

Konrad nodded. "Right you are. What do you suggest?" It was humbling to have to ask his lieutenant what to do, but Konrad was not so proud as to shy away from someone with greater experience.

"We must sneak in quietly. I've brought our best weapons, but we must all strike at once, for they will wake when the first blow is delivered."

"I've heard that the underbelly is vulnerable," another knight said.

"Very good," King Konrad said. "We'll order the men to attack the underbelly."

They crept into the damp cave as quietly as was humanly possible when the human in question was wearing armor.

Of course, the dragons awoke. How could they not? It had been foolish to think that the men could get away with killing the dragons in their sleep.

Kondrad watched in terror as the dragons burned and devoured his men before his eyes, while the cave grew hotter and hotter.

"Take cover, Your Majesty," one of his knights said, steering him behind a boulder, and to his great shame, King Konrad hid. Then, he heard a cry, and as he looked down, he saw the tiniest and most beautiful baby he had ever seen among the rubble.

"I say," he exclaimed. "And just what are you doing here?"

He picked the baby up, and she grabbed his finger. A smile broke out on his face. Then, all the dragons turned to him. Strangely, they did not attack. Instead, they watched him, and while they were distracted, his remaining knights attacked from behind.

Then, it was over. They had won. The dragons were dead, and the men cheered.

"We'll return as heroes!" one of the knights exclaimed.

King Konrad smiled. He was a hero, but not because he had defeated dragons. He was a hero because he could bring his wife what they had both been wanting for so long.

The baby smiled up at him, giggling and gurgling.

"You are more precious than any treasure these dragons could have possibly been hording," he said. "I don't know what happened to your parents, or how you came to be here, but from this day forth, you, precious one, will be my daughter."

It was a convenient coincidence that Prince Philip (or Colt, as he was known under the curse), had been at his fiancée's bedside when the curse broke.

In this land, she was Gia, and she was in a coma with little chance of waking up. In the Enchanted Forest, she had been Princess Aurora, and she had been put under a sleeping curse by Maleficent.

Unlike her coma, which had no obvious cure, a sleeping curse simply needed true love's kiss. Maleficent may have prevented him from kissing his bride-to-be in Misthaven, but when the curse broke in Storybrooke, he was once again human, and Maleficent was nowhere to be seen.

Her stooped to kiss her, then stopped. It might not be a genuine coma, but she was still hooked up to a bunch of wires, and he didn't understand what the purpose of most of them. He might have Colt's memories of this new land, but Colt had no medical training to speak of.

He went out into the hallway, hoping to find a nurse or doctor to help. The first one he happened upon blew right past him, and the next one didn't seem to notice him either. Everyone was preoccupied, likely because the curse was broken, and they were trying to make sense of everything that had happened to them.

Finally, he spotted a familiar face. "Green!" he called, doing his best to catch the attention of Aurora's family's patron fairy.

Green, now in hospital scrubs, turned to him and her mouth dropped open in shock, "Prince Philip?" she asked. "Nobody has heard from you since …" The woman trailed off.

"Yes, I was a Yaoguai," Philip said, trying to hide his impatience. "But that was another lifetime."

"I've seen you come to the hospital to visit her—the princess—but I didn't recognize …" Her eyes widened. "The princess! Is she …?"

"She's still asleep," Philip said. "But I know I can wake her. I will need your help."

Displaying the same no-nonsense attitude that Philip remembered from the other world, the green fairy followed him to Aurora's room and began typing something on one of the computers before she carefully removed the taped-on wires from her head and chest. She removed a needle attached to an I.V. from Aurora as well; there was some blood, but it didn't seem to be too bad. Green didn't seem concerned. Then, she removed some sort of plug from Aurora's nostrils.

Philip noted concern in her eyes. "Is something wrong?" he asked.

Green shook her head. "My medical expertise tells me that she should have a gag reflex, but my memories of magic tell me that in a sleep like death, it would make sense for her body not to react naturally. I suppose we shall see once the curse is broken."

She continued her ministrations and then stepped back, motioning for Philip to come forward. "I suppose it's time to see if curses break the same here as they do at home."

To his shame, Philip doubted. He knew that he loved her, both in this world and in the old one, but this land was new and strange. What if true love's kiss no longer worked? What if she was just gone?

He steeled himself and let his heart fill with love. He bent to kiss Aurora just as the purple cloud enveloped the town.

With a gasp, her eyes popped open. There was fear in her eyes, but it gave way to a smile when she saw who was leaning over her.

"Philip," she said breathlessly. It was the most beautiful sound in the world.

"Yes, Aurora," he said.

"I told you not to come after me," she said cheekily, but he just laughed.

Of course, he would come after her. Of course he would. That had never been a question. He was just sorry that it had taken him so long.

His kiss to wake her had been barely a graze of lips on lips, but now he bent down and kissed her properly, jumping back as she gagged and coughed, bringing her hand to her mouth.

"There's the gag reflex," Green said. "I'll go get her some water."

After Green left, Aurora grabbed Philip's hand. "How long have I been asleep?" she asked. He noticed that her voice was a tad raspy, and she seemed to notice it too this time, bringing her hands to her throat. She looked at them and saw the bandage where the I.V. had been.

Pushing back her blanket, Aurora looked down at her hospital gown, before sitting up and looking all about her. "What is this place?" she asked, her eyes darting about. "It doesn't look at all like home at all. And these clothes are … Where are we? How did we get here?

"Do you have … Gia's memories?" Philip asked.

"You mean Gianna?" Aurora asked, her brows wrinkling in confusion. "What I had you call me before you knew who I was?"

"No, I …" Philip shook his head, as realization dawned on him.

When they had been transported to this land, they had been given false memories. The same was clearly not true for Aurora. Their lives had changed and Philip needed to break it to her gently.

"This will be difficult to explain," he began, trying to think where to start. He settled on the most basic information. "It's a long story, you see, but, well … we're no longer in Misthaven."

"I can see that," Aurora said, with a roll of her eyes. She was being cheeky; she had always been a bit cheeky.

He could see the terror on her face, though, for all that she was clearly trying to be brave. "We must return home at once," she said standing quickly, and then stumbling a bit. He grabbed her to steady her.

"I-I must find my parents," she said, once again bringing her hand to her mouth. After a second, she removed it and said, "They must be terribly worried, and they'll be so happy that I'm awake."

"I'm not sure where your parents are," Philip said, realizing that he had never seen the King and Queen in Storybrooke.

"But-but surely, they'll be back home. We simply need to find them, and then all will be well again."

She didn't seem steady on her feet, much as she was trying to be. "Sit," he said. "My love, you need rest."

"I've had my fill of rest," she said, resisting his attempt to lead her back toward the bed. "I want to go home, Philip. We'll get Samson, and then we'll – "

"I'm not sure that it's possible," Philip said.

"But of course it is," she said.

"Aurora –"

"I won't just sit and wait," she said, stepping around him and into the hallway. Then he heard her scream.

Snow White wasn't sure how long they had all been hugging. It could have been ten minutes or ten hours. All she knew was that it would never be long enough. For the first time in what felt an eternity, she had her husband and daughter in her arms, and she was never going to let either of them go again.

Emma apparently, did not feel the same, because after what felt like all too a time, she disentangled herself from her parents.

"So, what happens now?" Emma asked.

"Well, we have to stop the Evil Queen," Snow said. "We need to bring her to justice for her crimes."

"How though?" Emma asked. "I mean, do we lock her up?"

Snow White shook her head. "We've tried locking her up, exiling her, even taking away her powers. She always came back. I hate to say it, but I think there's only one option left to us."

David stared at his wife in shock. "You don't mean … execution?"

Snow squared her shoulders. "She can't be allowed to hurt anyone else. This is the only way."

Emma cleared her throat. "I hate to be the voice of reason here, but you can't just murder someone. There are laws."

"It wouldn't be a murder," Snow said. "It would be an execution. We would hold a trial and, assuming that the sentence it's what we expect it to be –"

"Capital punishment hasn't been legal in Maine since … since I don't know how long," Emma said. "You aren't in Fairy Tale Land anymore. This is the real world, and you have to follow the rules and laws of the state government."

"Emma," David said gently, "Storybrooke isn't like other towns in Maine. The rules are different here."

"You're right," Emma said. "The rules have been different here, and because of that, the mayor has had absolute power to do whatever she wants with no consequences. Now, you want to treat her like she treated me and Neal? You want to get rid of her just because you're some sort of royalty and you say so? No! I'm not okay with that."

"Emma, please understand," Snow said. "The laws of this land, the people in power, they aren't equipped to deal with someone like Zelena. They'll never understand what she's done or what she's capable of doing."

"What is she capable of doing?" Emma asked. "The bit of magic she brought over is gone. There's none left. She can't cast any more curses. She should pay for her crimes like a normal person."

"And what charge would be brought against her, Emma?" David asked. "What charge would the outside world believe? That she cursed us? That she put us under what is essentially mind control?"

"How about that she pulled a gun on multiple people in the last 24 hours?" Emma countered, before turning to her mother. "How about that she poisoned you?"

"With magic. She poisoned me with magic, and the outside world will never believe that," Snow said.

"And even if they do," David added, "they won't take kindly to any of us. We'll all become science experiments, curiosities, monkeys in the proverbial circus."

"I can't just forget everything I've ever known," Emma said. "I can't just kill a woman because you say so. A woman who is pregnant with your kid," she spat at David, who flinched.

"We don't know that," he said. "Modern medicine may have said she's pregnant, but it could be a lie. It has to be."

"And if it isn't?"

David didn't say anything. Snow noticed that he would not meet her eyes, nor his daughter's.

"Look, we can find out one way or another," Emma said. "It's over. There's no more magic, no more curse. We can just all be normal and live normal lives as a family."

Tears came to Snow's eyes when Emma called them a family. "Oh, Emma –" she said, reaching out again for her daughter.

Then, Neal came rushing into the hospital room. Emma stepped away from Snow and ran into her husband's arms.

Husband, Snow thought. It was so strange. Her daughter had a husband. Her daughter was a fully grown married woman with a child (who seemed to have wandered off somewhere), and she had missed it all.

"You're okay," Emma said.

"I told you I would be," Neal said, holding her close and kissing her forehead. "Once everyone remembered who they were, they kind of stopped caring about me. It's chaos out there."

"Well, it's not exactly normal in here."

"Yeah," Neal said, "Somehow, I think normal is a thing of the past." He motioned with his head to the hospital window.

Snow, her daughter, her son-in-law, and her husband all went to the window, where a cloud of purple smoke was making its way through town.

"What is that?" Emma asked.

Snow could tell by the tone of Emma's voice that she already knew. They all knew, but Neal was the one to finally confirm it with the one word that none of them wanted to hear.

"Magic," he spat out with so much vitriol, it made Snow flinch. "It's magic."

Maleficent should have located her staff. That would have been the smart thing to do. She was the only one who had known magic would return, so she should have been prepared to wield it. It was rather stupid of her not to have it on hand when the Dark One found her.

Because this was surely the Dark One. He had said as much, but there had been no need to tell her. It was plain as day. Gone was the meek mortal who thought things through carefully before acting. The man batting her about was raw power and rage.

She could do magic without her staff, but she had come to rely on it over the years, and especially now, her power dusty after years of disuse, she knew she needed it to fight him.

Killing him was out the question. She needed Emma's help to find her daughter, and if she killed the girl's father-in-law, she imagined that the Savior would be less inclined to do her any favors. Still, she couldn't exactly let him kill her either.

Even had she had her staff; she wasn't sure her magic would be a match for his. She had never felt its like. However, she was more than just a sorceress. He had asked her if she knew better than to piss off the Dark One? Well, he should know better than to piss off a dragon.

Unlike the sluggishness of her magic, changing to her other true form was as easy as breathing fire. She shed her human skin like a costume and transformed into the magnificent beast that was her other self. Once, she had been ashamed of her dragon form, but now she reveled in it. Let him come at her with his silly spells. He was no match for her like this. She would soar to the skies and rain fire down on the Dark One.

"Why is mommy sad?" Precious asked the palace gardener.

She saw no reason to be sad herself. A neighboring kingdom had just had a great celebration with delicious food of all sorts. Precious could be a bit of a picky eater, but she also had a great appetite, so she was really excited to have gone to a party that had had more than enough of the food she liked. Father and Mother had even let her stay up late!

But despite her own joy, she could see the yearning and grief in her mother's eyes as she watched the newly-born prince passed around like some great trophy for all to see. Mother often got sad at these parties, Precious had noticed. Whenever a king and queen invited them to a festival celebrating a new arrival, mother would grow quiet, and remain so for the rest of the week.

Precious had asked her father about this many times, but he would reassure her that she needn't worry. Mother was fine, of course. All was well. She was more than enough to make them both unbelievably happy.

It was a load of hogwash, and Precious knew it. She also knew that the servants knew all. They might be reluctant to speak out of turn to royalty, but she was particularly close with the gardener.

When it became plain that she had no appetite for what the cooks generally made, she had determined to make her own food. She had started in the garden, trying to get a sense of what foods were grown, how they tasted, and what complemented them.

The gardener had been impressed to see the five-year-old princess interested in tending her own garden, and had told her she showed both initiative and aptitude. She had offered to teach Precious, if she liked. That had been some months ago, and Precious felt confident that her mentor would answer her honestly.

It took the woman a minute, and Precious almost asked again, but then the gardener said, "The Queen suffers from an ailment known as infertility."

Ailment? Was mother sick? "What is infertility? Is there a cure?"

"It means she is wanting a child," The gardener said.

"But she has a child," Precious said.

"Yes, she does, and bright one at that," The gardener said, "but she wants a natural one, made in the natural way."

Precious nodded, although she still didn't understand. There was something she was missing.

"Look here," The gardener said, pointing out a plant. "This came straight from a seed in the ground. That's the natural way to do it. But sometimes, the cooking staff gets plants from the market. They're ours; that is, they belong to the castle cooks and we're grateful to have them in our food, but we didn't grow them ourselves, now did we?"

"So, mother wants to grow a baby?" Precious pictured a squalling infant popping up from the ground. "Did she not grow me?"

The gardener gave her a sad smile. "You were grown in a different garden, my dear, but fear not. Your parents love you all the same."

Well, of course her parents loved her. It had never occurred to her that they didn't. But if mother wanted to grow a child, then Precious would just have to help.

"What sort of fertilizer does mother need?" she asked.

The woman chortled. "Oh, not the sort found in this garden. There are plants that are rumored to help with fertility, of course, but only a witch would know which ones."

"Do you know any witches?"

The woman's eyes widened in fear. "Witchcraft has been outlawed in these parts," she said. "You'd best not talk about it. Run off now; I have work to do."

Precious had spent enough time helping the woman with her work to know that she had upset her greatly. She didn't like it, but she also felt that the woman knew more about witches than she was saying.

Precious waited a day or two for the gardener to forget, and then snuck into her shed while she was out. It didn't take long to find what she was looking for. The book was hidden beneath a potted plant, but Precious could read the title plainly. It was a book of witchcraft.

As she flipped through the pages, she found the word that the gardener had said – fertility – next to pictures of various plants. Well, she could find those easily in the garden. She was fairly certain that she had planted a few of them already.

Once she had collected the plants that she needed, she steeped them in water, experimenting with the taste. Just because it was medicine didn't mean it shouldn't taste appealing. Unfortunately, the tea that the plants made was rather bitter. It needed something. After a minute or two of thought, Precious remembered the sweet briar roses she had picked earlier. Yes, that would provide the perfect flavor. She was sure of it.

Once the tea was ready, she brought it up to Mother.

"It's Briar Rose tea," she said. "It will cure you. I don't want you to be sad anymore."

Mother smiled. "Thank you, angel. That is very kind of you."

She kissed Precious' forehead and took a sip. "Why, it's delicious!" Mother said, draining the cup.

"I'll get you more," Precious said, heading off to bring more of her brewed remedy. She was glad that the tea had made mother smile, and she was certain that soon, there would be more to smile about.

Sure enough, almost nine months to the day from when the tea was served, Mother and father threw a large banquet. The food was delicious, but nothing was quite as sweet as the smile on mother's face when she presented baby Briar Rose to the kingdom.

Aurora did not like this new world, wherever it was. She had thought that when she awoke, her troubles would be over, but life, it seemed, was not so kind.

When she had left that strange room with the white walls and beeping white boxes, she saw more white walls and beeping boxes and … needles!

Aurora's family fairy might have been Green, but she had known others, and she recognized some of them now. These fairies were sticking people in revealing gowns with needles, and the people were letting them.

Aurora heard herself scream and felt a burning sensation in her throat. She broke into a fit of coughs and began crying. She wanted to sink to the ground in despair, but some of the fairies were staring at her now, and she was afraid. She would not be stuck with a needle again.

Looking at her surroundings, she saw a pair of scissors sitting in some sort of greyish bin, and she grabbed them. It wasn't the best weapon, but it was what was available to her. She hadn't a clue how to fight, but perhaps she could scare the fairies enough that they would keep their distance.

Looking frantically for an escape, she saw a magical sign that lit up with the words exit, and she made for it, never slowing until she reached the outside. Still, even outside was different in this world. The ground itself was paved with … she wasn't sure what, but she could feel it through her thin slippers. It was certainly did not look like any type of stone that she was familiar with.

There were flashing lights and loud noises everywhere. Large monsters whizzed past her, screeching loudly. She put up her arms as one came right for her, and then it stopped.

It opened a mouth of some sort on its side, and a woman with brown her and blue eyes stepped out. "Are you all right?" the woman asked. "I nearly ran you over."

Aurora shook her head. "What is that?" she asked, pointing at the monster that the woman had come from, "Are you of this land or Misthaven?"

"I … I'm from Avonlea," the woman said, eyeing Aurora up and down.

Aurora grabbed the edges of the strange dress, doing her best to cover herself with it, "I've heard of Avonlea. It was destroyed by ogres?"

The woman nodded. "Yes, it was."

"What of Misthaven? Have the ogres succeeded in destroying it as well? Is that why we've taken refuge in this strange land?"

"I wouldn't call it refuge," the woman said. "It was the curse that brought us here."

"My sleeping curse did this?" she asked. "This was Maleficent's plan all along?"

The woman cocked her head in confusion before blinking a couple times at Aurora, and then her eyes widened. "You're Aurora, aren't you?"

"How do you know my name?" Aurora asked.

"I read your story. Have you been asleep this whole time, then? You don't know any of what's happened?" When Aurora shook her head, the woman said, "Poor dear, you must be so confused. I can't imagine –"

"Aurora!" Philip called, as he came up from behind her. "Please don't wander off like that. I heard you scream, but by the time I got there, you were gone. I was worried."

Aurora smiled at Philip. Even in this world that made no sense, his first thoughts were still for her. "I didn't mean to worry you," she said, "but I needed to get out of there and find help. The fairies have gone mad, sticking needles into defenseless people, and there must be someone we can turn to for help or at least an explanation."

"I can help with an explanation," the woman said, producing a beautiful book with embossed gold letters. "This is the story of … well, all of us, and how we came to be here. You're in here and so am I. Hopefully, it will help you."

She gave Aurora a smile and then headed back towards the monster she had come from.

"Wait," Aurora called. "Who are you?"

"My name is Belle," the woman said, "And I'm sorry that I can't stay long, but I have to find my … I have to find someone."

"Who?" Aurora asked. "Is it someone that could help us?"

After a moment, Belle said, "He might be able to. He's a sorcerer."

A sorcerer! Like Maleficent? "Is he evil?" Aurora asked.

Belle shook her head. "No, he's … well, he's in the book too. He's a good man."

"Can we come with you?" Aurora asked. "Please? I don't know where to go and …" She felt more sobs forming and tried to suppress them. Her throat didn't thank her.

"I don't know if –"

"We may need a way to fight her, and to protect ourselves," Philip spoke up. "If you know of a good sorcerer, we would be forever in your debt if you can take us to him."

"Well, all right, then," said Belle. "But you'll have to explain cars to her."

"Cars?" Aurora looked toward Philip.

"Think of them as horseless carriages," Philip said, offering her his hand. "You trusted me to keep you safe on a carriage-less horse once. This is just the opposite."

Smiling despite herself, she took his hand. "Very well. I will follow you."

To her horror, he led her to the monster that Belle had come out of, the one that had been ready to attack her moments ago

"It's safe," Philip said. "I promise."

Steeling herself, she nodded and let him help her inside.

It had all happened so fast. First had been the pulse that could only be true love's kiss. Even though the curse had not altered her, she could still feel it breaking. There was no other reason for a pulse of light magic such as that. Then she felt her magic returned to her.

The Savior's father-in-law teleported away, apparently also having had his magic restored. She hadn't been aware that he had magic.

Meanwhile, Lydia was fussing over the man called Jack, who seemed to have lost consciousness, either from pain or from the sight of his own blood.

Freeing herself from her cage with her magic, Dorothy came over to him, shooing Lydia out of the way. She held her hands over his injury until the bullet came out in her palm. Then the wound began to close.

"Incredible," Alice said. "Are you a genie, then?"

"Be better to ask her if she was a good witch or a bad witch," Jack said, as he regained consciousness.

Lydia flung herself at him, embracing him while he awkwardly patted her back. "It's been some time, Knave," she said.

"It has at that," he replied.

"Lydia," Dorothy called to one of the few who had visited her in the past 28 years. Lydia turned to her.

"Alice," she said. "My name is Alice. Lydia was … I never want to be Lydia again," she said with a shudder.

Dorothy nodded. "Alice. I am glad for you that you have been restored to your true self. Tell me, what did you do to incur Zelena's wrath? It must have been something truly threatening to her power for her to lock you up in here."

Alice, now clear-eyed in a way Lydia never had been, tilted her head in thought. "I stole a heart from her and returned it to the person she took it from."

"You were also a right nuisance to her in Wonderland, from how I heard it," Jack said. Dorothy supposed his real name must be Knave, as that was what Alice continued to call him.

"And you lost your heart again," Alice teased him. "After all the trouble I went to. I hope it's safe now?"

"Safe? Yeah, I suppose so. I couldn't put it back in yet, but … I trust the person looking after it."

"You liberated a heart? In this land, not the old one?" Dorothy asked.

"You know where they are? Where she keeps them?" the man who had been following Zelena before the curse broke said. From the hope shining in his eyes, it wasn't hard to put together what had happened to him.

"The hearts are here, in this building," Alice said. "I've had the run of this … place, for ages. It's not that hard to get out and look about. Of course, I didn't truly know what they were when I wasn't … myself."

"I never did work out how you were able to come and go as you pleased in this place," Dorothy said.

"Well, we weren't all behind bars in our rooms," Alice said.

"Even so," Dorothy said. "You must be very clever."

Alice blushed.

"The hearts," the man who had been one of Zelena's puppets said. "Where are they? Can you … do you know how to put them back?"

"I do," Dorothy said. "If Alice will show us the way, I can get yours back Mr. – "

"Graham," the man said, grinning. "My name is Graham, and I'm happier to meet you than you can imagine."

"But wasn't that your name under the curse?" Knave asked. "Who were you before?"

Graham shook his head. "I didn't have a proper name before, and I like the name Graham."

"I would think you wouldn't want the reminder," Knave said, looking down. "The people we were, the stuff we did … I'd rather forget."

"Be careful what you wish for," Alice said, "I wanted to forget once. The pain of all that I've lost was unbearable. It still is. But at least I know who I am."

"I hate to rush you," Graham said. "But I'd really like my heart back in my chest, if it's all the same to you."

"Oh, of course," Alice said. "I can show you, and then we just have to find yours."

"Not just his," Dorothy said. "She had countless slaves back in our land, and likely still does here. Nobody should be controlled like that. We need to free them all, give them all their hearts back."

"How will we find who the hearts belong to?" Alice asked. "How do we put them back once we have them?"

"Magic," Dorothy said. "If you can find the hearts, I will find their owners, and I will return the hearts to their chests."

"It's not just the hearts, you know?" Alice said. "There are other patients in this asylum, and I don't know what they did to piss her off, but I feel like you and I got a special sort of punishment. She didn't just make us miserable; she took us off the board completely, locking us up with no one to visit us. If they're in here, they're a threat to her for sure."

"I knew you were clever," Dorothy said. "No wonder she locked you away. All right, then. You get the hearts, I'll get the prisoners, and then we'll regroup."

"I thought you had visitors?" Knave said. "Family and the like."

"There was a nice girl who came and said she was my sister, but I never felt it, poor thing. And then Cyrus … but it wasn't really him. It couldn't have been. He was killed right in front of me in the worst moment of my life and I," Alice squeezed her eyes shut, but tears dripped down her cheeks all the same. "And she made me see him, gave me memories of him alive and visiting me as a bartender named Ben. It was especially cruel."

"Sorry, did you say Ben the bartender?" Knave asked. "I've met him."

"You can't have," Alice said. "He's dead. I saw Cyrus pushed into a pit of burning lava."

"Well, I don't know who Cyrus is, but I've been to the Rabbit Hole enough to know Ben. He's nice enough. Has a bit of a gambling problem."

"Knave, are you certain? You must be certain before you give me too much hope! What does this Ben look like?"

"Well, he's tallish, up to here maybe," Knave put his hand up a few feet above his own head. "Wavy brown hair, British accent. I mean, I guess that describes lots of folks, but, I don't know, he looks a bit Middle-Eastern."

Alice's eyes were wide and full of tears by this point. "That's him! It has to be. I have to find him. I have to go to –"

"You can't," Dorothy said. "Not yet. We still need to find Graham's heart, and the others'. We need to free the prisoners."

"But surely you could – "

"You know where they are. You know the run of this place, whereas I've never left this room in the past 28 years. And you're the only one who has ever stolen a heart back from Zelena. It has to be you."

"I can't just leave him," Alice said. "Someone tried to kill him! Don't you understand? I thought he was dead; someone made me think he was dead. That person could be here, in this land, and if they get to him or his bottle before I do –"

"Bottle?" Dorothy asked.

"He's a genie," Alice said. "And he's the love of my life. I thought he was dead. I saw him thrown to his death, and now –"

"I can try and find him," Knave said. "I don't see what I can add here, to this fight. I'm bloody useless most of the time. But if it's a thief you need to track down a genie bottle, that I can do."

"But … but what of your love?" Alice asked. "The girl you had to return to back in Wonderland? Don't you want to reunite with her?"

Knave looked away. "I can't face her," he quietly. "Not after … I'd rather be of use. Let me find Cyrus for you, and you go and be a hero. The two of you seem more suited to that sort of thing than me at any rate, and Graham here needs to get his heart back."

"What about - ?" Graham looked behind him, and then all around the room. Dorothy assumed he was looking for the woman and children that he had brought with him, but it seemed that they had left at some point during the discussion.

Meanwhile, Alice looked from Graham to Knave before saying, "You're right. He needs me more right now. Very well, Knave. I'll describe the bottle to you, and you can look for it while I seek out the hearts and those they belong to."

"And I will free the prisoners," Dorothy said. "They shouldn't be locked up a moment longer."

After they had parted ways, Dorothy used her magic to unlock the door to the room across from hers. She could unlock all the rooms at once, but the people inside would likely be confused. It would better if she was there to explain to each inmate individually.

She came into the room, and a voice came from the shadows. "Have you come to mock me, witch?" it asked. "You've returned my memory to me, but not my children."

Cautiously, Dorothy approached him. He backed away from her, "Zelena didn't return your memories," she said. "The curse has been broken. You are safe now."

"And my children?" he asked. "My Hansel and Gretel? What of them? Are they alive? Are they safe?"

That voice. Dorothy knew that voice. It had been so long since she had heard it, and she was surprised to hear it coming from the very human man before her. Still, she would know it anywhere. "Scarecrow?" she asked.

It had been Snow's idea to go to the theater. She had spent so long living there and then working there, and in that time, she had seen so many magical objects without realizing what they were. If there was magic, their best bet was to go there.

Emma, Neal and Henry walked ahead of her and David, huddled together and speaking in whispers. They were a family. Emma had a family all her own. She didn't need her mother and father anymore. She had called them a family back at the hospital, but was it what she truly wanted?

"I think we need to talk," David said from beside her. "I'm worried about you."

"It's been hard on all of us," Snow said. "We've all lost … we've lost so much time."

"That's not what I mean. You want to kill Zelena, and that … That makes me worried."

Snow turned to him. "I thought you agreed with me?"

He nodded. "I will always take your side. You know that. And Zelena has proven that she can't be allowed to roam free. Still … I just want to make sure that this comes from a place of justice and not one of revenge."

"David, look at our daughter," she motioned in from of her with her head. "She is beautiful, and wonderful, but she's also fully grown. We missed it. We missed all of it. Her childhood, her first words, her first steps. And I'm … I'm glad that she is okay, that she found people to love her. But those people weren't us. We didn't get to raise her or form any kind of relationship. And now, Zelena is carrying your child."

"You can't be mad at me for –"

"Of course not. I don't blame you, just like I hope you don't blame me for Hank, or, that is, Hercules. We were cursed."

"It's not the same," David said, clenching his fists slightly. "You and Hank were both cursed. Zelena was awake, and someone that knew I hated her, and she controlled me. She forced me to do things that I never would have … it was violating in every possible way, and I will never stop feeling …"

Snow took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "I'm so sorry." David blinked several times quickly, and Snow could tell that he was trying to be strong, trying not to show weakness. She touched his cheek. "You didn't deserve that. You didn't deserve for her to do that to you for any reason, least of all to punish me."

David shook his head. "You never did anything to earn her wrath. This isn't on either of us."

"Do you really think she was faking the pregnancy?"

David sighed, "I don't know. We'll have to find out. I … I don't want to have a child with her, but I can't kill my child. I have to take responsibility for it."

"Maybe it is a bit of revenge," Snow said, looking away from him. "After everything she's done to us, she gets to have your child. Even after she's gone, you'll be raising the baby you had with her. A reminder of … of all we lost."

"I'll love any child that I have, no matter who I have it with," David said, though it sounded like he was trying to convince himself. "But you and I, we'll have more children and we'll raise them together. However many you want."

He went to kiss her cheek, but Snow turned away. She knew he was trying to be comforting, and he looked so hurt and confused when she retreated.

"David," she said, her voice shaking, "there's something I have to tell you. Something I did during the curse that … that I don't know if I can undo." She took a deep breath to steady herself. "I had a procedure –"

She was cut off by a bestial cry coming from above. All five of them stopped walking and looked up to see a dragon circling.

"I need a sword," David said. "I need something."

"We haven't reached the theater, yet," Snow said.

"We should have driven," Emma's husband said.

The dragon landed in front of them, putting a dent in Main Street.

"Get behind me," David said. Snow didn't listen. He didn't have a sword. He couldn't protect them alone.

Then, the dragon began to shrink and its form began to change until it was just a woman standing before them.

"Maleficent," Emma said. "What -?"

"I come seeking sanctuary," she said. "The Dark One. He's trying to kill me."

"Tell me the story of how you picked my name again?" Briar Rose asked.

She and Precious had been out in the garden. Briar Rose wasn't particularly good at gardening, but she liked to spend time with her older sister, and Precious didn't mind the company.

"I've told you. It was the flower scenting the tea that I gave mother before you were born."

"People whisper about it," Briar Rose said. "I've heard the maids in the castle whisper that it was some kind of magic tea; that you gave mother a magic blessing when I was born."

Precious went pale. She was old enough now to understand that doing magic wasn't well thought of, and could, in fact, be very dangerous. She knew that Briar Rose didn't understand this. She was too young to understand it, which was why Precious had not told her about the magic she did possess. But, if people were talking …

"Why would they say such a thing?" Precious asked, trying to sound unbothered and dismissive. "It was just tea. I'm not a witch."

"Of course not, silly," Briar Rose said with a laugh. "Witches don't give blessings. Fairies do, like Tinker Bell!"

"The green fairy," Precious corrected.

"That's not a name, though," Briar Rose said. "That's why I came up with Tinker Bell! But, shh, it's a secret," she said, putting her pudgy little finger to her lips.

"Then why did you tell me?"

"Because you don't count, silly. We don't have secrets."

There were secrets. There were things that Briar Rose could never know, even when she was older and able to understand more. By then, she would understand all too well, which would be just as much of a problem.

"Anyway, Tinker Bell gave me a blessing when I was born too, remember? That I would be pretty and sing pretty?"

"Well, then, we know it isn't real, because you can hardly hold a note," Precious said teasingly.

"I'll learn," Briar Rose said. "We'll take singing lessons together."

"I'm not sure that I'm all that interested in music," Precious said. "I prefer the garden."

"But we're best friends!" Briar Rose said. "We have to do everything together. That's what best friends do."

"We're sisters," Precious corrected. "Not best friends."

"Why can't we be both?" Briar Rose asked. "You're my favorite person and I'm yours, right?"

Precious saw that Briar Rose's eyes were beginning to tear up, and she felt bad.

She loved her little sister. Of course she did. But there was a nearly six-year age difference between them. It was hard to see her as a friend when she was only six, and Precious was eleven.

Yes, Briar Rose followed her around often, and she hardly minded. She enjoyed her sister's company. Briar Rose was adorable and sweet and precocious. It was just that Precious needed friends her own age. Briar Rose would understand this someday. She would want her own friends too.

Precious also harbored a secret wish to find others like herself, others with magic, who could understand her in a way she knew her sister never could. At the very least, she wanted someone whom she could trust with her secret, and Briar Rose would tell her "secret" of giving their family's patron fairy a name to anyone who would listen.

Briar Rose was too young to understand the need for one's own friends, and the difference between friend and sister for now, though, and Precious didn't want to see her sister sad, so she said, "Yes, of course we can be both."

"Yay!" Briar Rose cheered. "We're sisters and best friends, and we'll be together always! Promise?"

Precious nodded. "Always, just as you like. Now, hand me that bag of seeds, please," She said, changing the topic. She wasn't going to make such a promise, but for now, her sister was happy, and by the time they were both old enough to have their own lives, Briar Rose would understand why.

"You said that he wouldn't have magic!" Neal said, growling at Maleficent.

It was odd to see Neal growl. He wasn't the growling type. In fact, Emma had rarely seen him angry, though tensions had been running high with everything that had happened recently.

"I said that the breaking of the curse wouldn't bring back magic," Maleficent said calmly. "That was something separate."

"But who brought it here?" Mary Margaret asked. Mom, Emma internally scolded herself. She's your mom. You should call her 'Mom' in your head.

Emma had no clue how to have a mom. She had no frame of reference for it. She was a mom, but she had never really had a mom.

Mary Margaret had sacrificed herself for Emma before the curse broke, and True Love had woken her up. That meant she loved Emma, and she had hugged her and cried, and it felt right.

But then they'd remembered that Zelena needed to be dealt with, and Mary Margaret wanted to kill her. She was acting as though she had the right to reign as a monarch in this realm, and to order an execution, and Emma wondered just who this woman was.

She had liked Mary Margaret. She had felt an instant kinship. In her, Emma saw who she could have been in another life, one where she hadn't met the Stiltskins and learned what hope and love were.

But this woman wasn't Mary Margaret. This woman was Snow White, and Emma had no clue what that meant. She had a mother now, and that mother loved her, but was that enough?

Nobody had answered Mary Marg—Snow—her mom's question, and after a minute or so of silence, Neal said, "It was you, wasn't it? If it wasn't, you would have said you didn't know, or told us who it was, but it was you. It was you all along. You were planning this!" There was such anguish in his voice, and Emma grabbed his hand. "We trusted you! How could you do this?"

"Because I need magic," Maleficent said. "I need it to find my daughter, which is the only thing that matters to me. And besides, I'm not the only one who needs it."

Maleficent shot Mary Margaret a loaded gaze.

"Is this about Zelena?" Mary Margaret asked, "Or …"

"It's about what she convinced you to have done," Maleficent said. "I am sorry."

"So, it was real then?" Mary Margaret said, and in that moment, she sounded more like the friend that Emma had made, lost, desperate and without hope. "The … I really can't —? And Zelena? Is she really carrying David's child?"

"She is," Maleficent said gently. "And I'm afraid there is nothing I can do about that, unless you want to kill the child."

"Of course not!" David said.

"But" she said, locking eyes with Mary Margaret, "there is something I can do for you."

"So … so it's reversible?" Mary Margaret asked.

"What is?" David asked, but Mary Margaret didn't look at him.

And then Emma remembered what Mary Margaret had come to her about and giving her the pamphlets for getting her tubes tied.

"Oh, Mary Margaret," she said, reaching out to the woman and patting her back.

"It can't be reversed by natural, medical means, but with magic … I happen to have a talent for such spells."

"And you would help me?" Mary Margaret asked.

"If you help me," Maleficent said. "Protect me from the Dark One. You're the only ones who can. Help me find my daughter. Once we are reunited, I will help you."

"This was intentional," Emma said. "Wasn't it? You were the one who performed the procedure, right? And you were the one who brought magic? You did this so that we would need you and have no choice but to help you!"

"Would you have helped me otherwise?" Maleficent asked. "The procedure was not my idea, so you cannot lay that on my doorstep, but yes, I knew that it could not be reversed without magic. Am I not supposed to take advantage of such an opportunity?"

"It's manipulative," Emma said. "It's wrong."

"Someday, Savior, if the world turns on you, you may come to understand that getting the help of certain types of people requires leverage. Heroes and monarchs have no reason to help me unless I give them one."

"I'm not like that," Emma said. "I would have helped you if you'd just asked."

"Would you have?" Maleficent asked. "With the curse broken, and Zelena to deal with, would you have found the time to help a woman you barely knew, one whom the stories of this world told you was a villain?"

She looked from Emma to Mary Margaret and David, her eyes once again locking with Mary Margaret's. "And your parents can confirm it. They know me, or at least of me. I'm a villain, and their type is so self-righteous."

"Whoever you were in that land doesn't have to be who you are here," Neal said. "It's different here. Without magic … you didn't have to be a villain."

"And yet you are so quick to use the word," Maleficent said to Neal. "You are so quick to fall back into the mentality of the old world, where magic makes villains.

"I am a villain. I always have been, both because I have magic, and because I have used it in ways that people don't approve of." Again, she turned to Mary Margaret and David. "Tell me, would you have helped me if you learned I had put a woman under a sleeping curse, and that she slept still? Incidentally, had I not brought magic, Aurora would still be in a coma, but as there is magic, I imagine her prince has already awakened her with True Love's Kiss."

"You didn't need magic for that," Emma said. "I did that before you brought it!"

"You did that because you are magic, Savior. Philip and Aurora are not. They are just two weak, pathetic royals caught up in a battle much bigger than they are.

All the same, without magic, Philip would have come looking for me, demanding that I wake her. When I told him that I could not without magic, your parents would have withheld their aid, and you would have followed suit. Who would help such a woman find her child?"

"You could have given us a chance," Neal said. "You could have given us a chance to help you, instead of manipulating us like this."

"Perhaps I could have," Maleficent said, "but I don't like to leave things to chance, especially not with royals who fancy themselves heroes."

"I'm not a royal," Neal spat, "and Emma isn't either. We're just people, regular people."

"I can see how badly you want to believe that," said Maleficent, giving Neal a condescending smile. Emma wanted to smack it off her face. "The Savior may not have been raised as a royal, but it is in her blood. And as she gets to know her parents and embraces her magic, she will embrace their black-and-white way of thinking. In the land we come from, there are heroes and villains, and never the twain shall meet. No, a hero doesn't help a villain without the proper motivation."

Before Neal or Emma could say anything else, Emma's father-in-law appeared in the middle of the street. He looked … different. She couldn't pinpoint how exactly. He wasn't using his cane, but it was more than that. He stood proud and tall in a way she had never known him to, and he had a wild, unstable look in his eyes and a sneer of disgust and contempt on his face. And something crackled around him, almost like lightning, but not quite.

"Did you think I wouldn't find you?" he asked. "You came after my family. My son! My daughter!" He put his hands out, and before Emma could laugh or comment on the ridiculousness of the motion, a blast of lights and colors came from his hands and hit Maleficent in the side of the face, knocking her down.

"Get up witch," he said. "Fight back!"

"I don't want to fight you," she said. "I just want to find my daughter."

"You want to hurt my family," he said, his voice shaking with anger. There was a manic note to his voice. "You want to take them from me."

He lifted one hand this time, and did something that Emma could only describe as force-choking to Maleficent. She gasped for breath as she floated in the air. A dissociated part of Emma who remembered what her life used to be and could find humor in this very dangerous and somehow real situation wondered if Star Wars was real too. Was her father-in-law also Darth Vader? Was Neal Luke? And what did that make her? She couldn't be Princess Leia if Neal was Luke, so …

She felt Neal squeeze her hand, bringing her back to earth. He squeezed it so hard that she felt like her fingers might fall off. Then, he let go and inched toward his father as though trying not to spook a deer.

"Papa, please," he said, his voice breaking, and Emma had never heard him sound so broken, or seen him look as sad and scared as he did in that moment. "Please."

"Bae –" her father-in-law said, looking at Neal, but not letting go of the telekinetic grip he had on Maleficent.

"You aren't like this. Not anymore," Neal said, using the calming voice Emma had heard him use with patients. Had he used it with his father before? Was that where he had learned how to calm someone down? "You don't have to be like this," he said, a twinge of whining anguish entering his calming tone. He took a breath, and Emma knew he was trying to distance himself as he approached his father. But how could he? It was his father. It was the only father either of them had ever known.

"Please just … just let her go," Neal said, his desperation still shining through his calming nurse's voice. "We don't need her. We have each other. That's enough. She can't take that from us. We can be a family, like we always have been; you, me, Emma, Henry. We have everything we need. We can just leave her here, and go back out into the world, away from all of this. Magic is probably just in Storybrooke. We can leave Storybrooke and go out into the world without magic. You can do that. You've done that, and I know you have the strength to do it again. I believe in you, Papa."

"It's not the same, Bae," her father-in-law said. "It's not the same as jumping into a portal. People can follow us, people who want to hurt us. They can and will follow us. Don't you see? She's been planning this from the beginning. She won't just let us go."

"So, we help her," Neal said. "She just wants to be with her family. You can understand that. We'll find her daughter, and then she'll leave us alone. Things can go back to how they were."

"And Zelena? She was after your heads before there was magic! And I heard what her husband said: as long as there is a baby in her belly, they won't truly stop her for good. It's too many enemies Bae, too many people who could hurt those I love. How can I –?"

"Because I'm asking you to. Because I need you too. I need my father. Henry needs his grandfather. We don't need the Dark One. We just need you."

"I am the Dark One, Bae," he said. "There's no changing that now, and she's the reason. She's trying to tear our family apart."

"Then we'll be stronger," Neal said. "We can be. I know we can. Just please … please don't kill her. Be the better man that I know you are, and don't kill. I know you're just trying to protect me, but I've never wanted you to kill for me. There is always another way. We can find another way." Neal reached out his hand to his father. "Please. Just don't kill anyone."

Her father-in-law put his hand down, and Maleficent crumpled to the ground. Mary Margaret ran to her side and checked for a pulse.

"Very well, Bae," he said, looking down. "I won't kill anyone. You have my word."

"Let's … let's shake on it," Neal said, stepping forward. "I know you never break a deal," he added, attempting an impish grin.

Still not making eye-contact with him, her father-in-law gave his hand to his son, and they shook.

"The deal is struck," Neal said, pulling his father into a hug. Emma heard her father-in-law sob and looked away.

"We'll find your parents," Jamie said, as she herded the kids into the car.

"It's just our dad," Nicholas said. "Our mom died."

"Not that our dad just anyone," Ava said. "He was wonderful. We haven't seen him since … since that witch burned him and Hansel. He never woke up, and then his body disappeared in a puff of green smoke. But … but he has to be alive. He just has to!"

"I'm sure he's fine," Jamie said, though she wasn't. Nothing was fine, and nothing was right. Everything was a jumble.

She was Jamie and she was Alice and she was Captain Hook and she was Jamie and Graham was the Huntsman, and he had tried to kill her and the children.

She had taken them away while he was distracted, by promising to help them find their father, even though she had no clue how to go about doing that.

Not to mention that the children were completely changed, and hell bent on murdering the Evil Queen. She deserved it, of course. She deserved that and more.

An hour ago, Jamie never would have dared think such a thing about the mayor of Storybrooke, who was amazing and had everyone's best interests at heart. But Captain Hook knew who the Evil Queen was, and all of the horrible things that she had done.

Those poor children. She now knew where those scars had come from. Those children had been so enthralled, worshiping and serving this woman who had harmed them so much.

She didn't know who she was anymore, but every version of who she was cared about children. She protected them. She helped them. And once, long ago in a land far away, she had helped reunite lost children with their parents.

She could again. She could be Captain Hook. She didn't need to be Jamie anymore. Except, did she want to stop being Jamie? Jamie had friends. Jamie hadn't lost all that Captain Hook had lost. Jamie had a brother.

She had a brother. Her brother was Neal, and he had been headed to the hospital when she last she'd heard.

The children had said their father was burned when last they saw him. It was a longshot, but maybe he was in a burn unit at the hospital. The curse seemed to translate such things, giving her a prosthetic in place of her missing hand, for example, instead of just growing it back.

The hospital was the best place for them all to go. She would find Neal and say …

She would find the children's father, she promised herself. She would find their father, and deal with the new-old reality later.

At first, Henry hadn't understood why his father was so upset about the magic. Wasn't it kind of awesome? Magic was real, and his mom could do it, and his grandpa could too! It seemed like such a good thing.

But then his grandpa had shown up and gone after Maleficent, and suddenly, Henry had gotten it.

Maleficent might be evil, and maybe they needed to stop her, but not like this. Henry's grandpa was the gentlest, kindest man Henry had ever known, and the man batting Maleficent about in the middle of Main Street was like a different person entirely.

In Henry's book, he had seemed funny when he'd talked to Belle, but Henry saw how scared his father was now. Dad didn't want to lose his father, just like Henry didn't want to lose his grandpa. He loved him, and he knew that grandpa couldn't be happy like this.

It was the Dark One curse. The book didn't say a lot about it, beyond what Rumple had told Belle, but maybe it was like other curses. Maybe it could be broken with the most powerful magic of all.

Grandpa needed Belle, and luckily, Henry knew just where she was going. While everyone was distracted, he ran off in the direction of the asylum.

"Are you spying on your sister?" Tinker Bell asked, causing Briar Rose to jump. Tinker Bell giggled. "Caught you."

Briar Rose's face reddened and she closed the window curtain, stepping back from it. She had been spying. Her sister was out in the garden with her new friends from the neighboring town, teaching them about different plants and their uses. She'd used to do that with Briar Rose, and she still did sometimes.

They were still close, still best friends. However, ever since Precious had met these new friends of hers, Briar Rose had been seeing less of her, and when she tried to insert herself, Precious always seemed to brush her off.

"They're hiding something," she said to Tinker Bell. "I think her supposed friends are using her."

"What would they be using her for?" Tinker Bell asked.

"I don't know!" Briar Rose said. "But I don't like them. The lot of them are always going off in secret together. We used to share everything, and now …"

"Perhaps you just miss her," Tinker Bell said. "It's natural for her to want friends her own age. Soon she'll be interested in boys, and she'll want someone to talk about that with, too."

"But boys are disgusting!" Briar Rose said. "We've always agreed on that. We've always agreed on everything."

"She's six years older than you," Tinker Bell said gently.

"But that's never mattered before," Briar Rose said. "Why should it now? Because she's getting older? Because I'm being left behind?"

"All children grow up," Tinker Bell said. "It's the natural order of things."

"Well, I don't want to," Briar Rose said, plopping herself down on her bed and crossing her arms defiantly. She knew she was being a bit of a brat, but she didn't care. Apparently, she would have to grow up someday, and then she would never be able to be a brat again, so she might as well be a brat while she still could.

"Why does anything have to change? Why can't we just stay together as kids forever and ever?"

"Because that's not how it works," Tinker Bell said. "There's almost nowhere where children can just stay that way."

Briar Rose jumped up. "Almost nowhere?" she asked, excitedly. "So, there is somewhere then? Somewhere we could go and just stay kids together without her stupid friends or boys?" Tinker Bell avoided Briar Rose's gaze. "Come on, Tink. If you know, you have to tell me."

Tinker Bell sighed. "There are stories among the fairies of a place where … where children can stay children. I don't know much about it. A fairy who left the order went there once and … and some say it's, maybe, some sort of safe haven for kids and fairies. But it could be very dangerous. I've never been there. I don't really know what it's like."

"But if another fairy went there, it must be safe, right?"

"I suppose," Tinker Bell said.

"Oh, let's go, Tink?" Briar Rose said. "Let's get Precious and just go off to this place, away from everyone else. Please, take us there."

"I'll need to do some research on how to get there," Tinker Bell said. "It might take a bit of time."

"Just don't let it be too long," Briar Rose said. "I don't want her to grow up and move on without me before we get a chance to go."

"Rosie," Tinker Bell started to say, and it sounded like maybe she was going to give another vague warning, but Briar Rose didn't want to hear it.

"Oh, thank you, Tink!" she said. "This'll fix everything. I know it will. We'll be sisters and best friends forever!"

"Are you feeling better?" Belle asked Aurora. They had stopped again, because Aurora had needed to throw up.

Belle felt for the girl, truly she did. She'd woken up with no memories of how everything had changed, and whatever she had been through, it clearly didn't agree with her. This was the third time that they had stopped so Aurora could empty the contents of her stomach. There had also been a bit of a fight over a pair of scissors that Aurora had not wanted to relinquish, no matter how many times Philip told her she could hurt herself.

As much as she sympathized with Aurora, she was getting a bit impatient. They would never reach the asylum at this rate. For all she knew, Rumple was long gone. That or … no, she couldn't think like that. She'd finally found him, and she wasn't going to let the Evil Queen ruin it all.

"She killed them," Aurora said. "My parents. Maleficent killed them."

"Are you sure?" Philip asked from beside her. "Maybe they –"

"It's all here!" Aurora said, holding up the book. "What she did. Why she hates us so much. All the people she hurt. And she and my mother were sisters once. How could she …? She must be stopped. Belle, do you truly think your sorcerer can help?"

Belle wasn't sure what to say. So much time had passed. She couldn't say for certain what Rumpelstiltskin would or wouldn't do. She didn't want to make promises she couldn't keep.

Still, the girl was scared and grieving. Belle remembered what that felt like. Right now, she needed hope.

"We will protect you from her, I promise," Belle said, deciding it was the best she could do.

"I don't want protection," Aurora said. "I want justice."

Before Belle could respond, Henry came running up to he. "Finally," he said. "I wasn't sure I would be able to find you."

"Henry, I told you to stay behind," Belle said.

"Right, because I'm a child," Henry spat, and Belle stepped back. Then Henry shook his head. "But it doesn't matter. I had to find you. It's Grandpa. He needs you."

"I've been looking for him," Belle said. "I was going to the asylum to –"

"He's not there anymore. He's in the middle of Main Street fighting Maleficent. Belle, he'll kill her if you don't do something!"

"Why is that something we should stop?" Aurora asked

Henry turned to look at her. "What?"

"Killing Maleficent, that sounds like a good thing, doesn't it?"

Henry shook his head. "You don't understand. My grandfather, he's good. He has magic now, but, but he's good. He's not a murderer."

"Killing an evil villain doesn't sound like murder to me," Aurora said.

"We don't have time for this," Henry said. "Belle, you need to give him True Love's Kiss and cure him. You can make him human again. I know you can!"

"Henry," Belle said, skeptically. She cared for Rumple, of course she did, but True Love's Kiss? "He and I … we haven't been a part of each other's lives for a long time. I don't even know if he –"

"This is Rumpelstiltskin?" Aurora asked. "Your sorcerer that we've been looking for? The sorcerer from your story in the book?"

Belle nodded. "Yes, Rumple. He's … he and I are … I don't know what we are. But I agree that we should get to him as soon as possible. Get in, Henry. You can give me directions to exactly where they are."

"Sure," Henry said, getting into the shotgun seat and buckling up. "I'll guide you. Not that it should be hard. You know where Main Street is, right?"

Belle nodded. "Yes, that I can find easily."

"And he still does, you know," Henry said. "What you started to say? He still does feel that way about you. He always did."

"Last I saw you, you were a child," Scarecrow said, mystified. "Now, you sound fully grown. I'm glad to know that the witch never put out the light in you."

"Last I saw you," Dorothy said, "you were made of straw. How …?"

"Oh, a little magic. And a little love," he said.

"Love?" Dorothy asked, a smile coming to her face. "You fell in love. Oh, that's marvelous."

"I can almost picture you clapping your hands," he said. "Even with your grown-up voice, you are still a child in my head."

"You're blind!" Dorothy exclaimed, only now noticing the way his eyes stared off without seeing. Then, she realized how her shock must have sounded to him. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for that to sound …"

"It wasn't what you would have expected," he said, "It's all right. People are often shocked. Oz wasn't kind to the blind."

"I'm so sorry," Dorothy said, patting his back with her hand. "How did it happen?"

"Well, that's getting ahead of myself in the story, isn't it?" Scarecrow said, smiling. "First, let's start with love. As you know, the wizard gave me a brain, and I became a great scholar in Oz. And then, I met her.

Oh, you would have loved Scraps. She was so full of joy and silliness all of the time. It never occurred to her that she was anything other than just exactly how she was meant to be, and if she had been with us on that first journey, she wouldn't have asked for anything at all."

"She was a scarecrow too?" Dorothy asked. It wouldn't surprise her. Oz was full of such strangeness.

"Oh, no, she was made up of quilt patches, the most beautiful patches in all different colors. She was full of cotton, and it suited her better than anything. And she loved it! She loved her colors and her cotton; she loved her purple forehead and her blue chin. She loved it all. And so did I! For the first time, being made by a creature of flesh, but not being flesh myself, didn't make me feel lesser."

"You were never lesser, Scarecrow," Dorothy said.

"It's Ivo now," he said. "It's been so long since anyone called me Scarecrow. And you're interrupting," he said with a smile. "Now, where was I? Ah, yes, Scraps.

"She and I fell in love, and she helped me to see the beauty in what we were. It's luck that I already had a brain, because if I'd met her before that, I wouldn't have wanted one. She made me happy with who I was. Until …"

He cocked his head to the side, seemingly struggling for words, but Dorothy was happy to be patient. She was quite enjoying his story, though she feared its inevitably unhappy ending.

After a moment, he continued, "Well, at a certain point, I wanted more than just the two of us. We had been married for a time and I would see other couples with their families, pushing babies in prams, or walking with their toddlers and I … I wanted a child. She did too.

"We sought help from one of the good witches, though not many were left in Oz, as you know, and she said that Scraps and I lacked the proper … parts to conceive. She asked if we would like to be human, and I said yes without hesitation. Scraps … she hesitated. She'd always liked who she was. The world was so beautiful to her. But I told her that it would be worth it, and she listened."

Scarecrow, or Ivo, paused, apparently choked up. "She listened," he continued, "And we became human. We had two beautiful children—twins—and we named them Hansel and Gretel. I was so happy, but Scraps … she was never quite the same. She missed how she had been before. She tried to be cheery, but … in any case, neither of us were quite prepared for what being human was like. Things we could do before were dangerous to us now. She would stick herself and yelp, forgetting that she could bleed. Then, she would try to sew herself up and pass out from the pain."

His tone was calm, and there was no sign of tears on his face, but there was something unnaturally clipped about his tone, something rushed about his speech.

"You needn't put on a brave face for my sake, Scarecrow," she said, "I'm not a child anymore that you need to look after."

"Please," he said, "Just … just let me get through it."

She motioned for him to continue.

"It caught up with us both. Her first. She died in a stupid accident and … and I blamed myself, and so help me, I blamed my children, because if we hadn't become human to have them … I buried myself in work. I learned to work with wood, because it wasn't straw or patches, and it was something that I could make with my own two very human hands. I chopped trees, and I sold wood, and when I wasn't chopping and selling, I whittled desks and chairs and sold those. I was the human now, and I could make things, just as I had been made. We needed money, and it made sense. I enjoyed it before Scraps passed, but after … it was the only peace I had. I needed a new name too, of course. We had known that the children would be teased if people knew that their father used to be a scarecrow, even if I had been a great scholar. You know how cruel Ozians can be. I had dragged my feet about it before Patches passed but … but I wanted to … forget what came before. It made me too sad."

Every time his voice got horse, every time she saw tears in the corners of his eyes, he would make his tone clipped again. She didn't interrupt him, knowing he needed to get through the whole sad tale, but she did take one of his hands in hers and tried to offer comfort with a friendly squeeze. He gave her a sad smile.

"So, in search of a name, I thought of the green vines that climbed the trees that I chopped. I chose Ivo.

"I sent my children to school and worked with wood and tried not to think or feel. Ironic, I know. But then there was a logging accident, and I lost my sight, but I didn't die. It felt like a sign that I was living my life wrong, but that there was still a chance to do it right.

"I reconnected with my children, saw them as I never had before, and for a time, we were happy, but then they went missing. I went out to look for them every morning, to no avail …

"I came across an injured woman after a time, and I nursed her back to health. She seemed … I thought I felt … but then my children returned and told me that they had been held captive by a blind witch who had tried to cook and eat them," for the first time during his story, she saw anger in his eyes, "The Wicked Witch of the West had come calling to yell at that witch for being in her territory, but she had left my children to be eaten. Then they told me the Wicked Witch's name, and it was the name of the woman who I had helped.

"When I confronted her, she grew enraged, and made the fire in our hearth erupt burning Hansel … burning me. I nearly died, and the next thing I knew, I was in this room. I had no memory of who I was. All I remembered was the flames. All I felt was fear.

"So, now you know my tale. Tell me, Dorothy, what became of you?"

"Oh Scarecrow, there is so very much to tell, but so little time to tell it. Zelena's curse is broken, but she isn't beaten yet. And there are others in this asylum who are scared and confused as you were. We must free them before she returns. I will tell you everything, once we are all safe, I promise. And I want you to know that it is so very wonderful to see you. Of all of the friends that I made in Oz as a child, I missed you most of all."

"I'm sorry that you can't go to him" Graham said, walking beside Alice. "It must be hard to have to help a stranger, after all this time."

"I appreciate that," she said, "but Dorothy was right. Much as I love Cyrus, much as I worry for him, much as it destroyed me when I thought he was dead," Alice shook herself, because she knew she was ranting, and she had missed the point, "my love and concern for him doesn't excuse not trying to help others in need."

Graham nodded but didn't say anything. He hadn't spoken much, and Alice was full of questions, as she always was. "You've been without a heart and under the Queen's control for how long?"

Graham shuddered. "Longer than I care to remember."

"Remembering is the thing, though, isn't it? We need to, now that we can. We can never forget who we are, the lives we've lived, even the pain we've suffered. We need to feel all of it." She had wanted to stop feeling it once. She remembered that. She remembered agreeing to forget because the pain had been too great.

Oh, what a fool she had been.

"Isn't that why you want your heart back?" Alice asked, unable to curb the curiosity that had plagued her since she heard what the Queen of Hearts did to people. "I mean, obviously, you don't want to be controlled, but … doesn't it also feel different, not having it in your chest?"

Graham nodded. "There's an emptiness… or maybe a mutedness. I can't explain it."

It wasn't as informative an answer as she had hoped for, but while she had wondered what it was like, she wasn't stupid enough to try it for herself. "Well, hopefully you won't feel it for much longer," she said, hoping that it was comforting.

What did you say to someone who had lost their heart? The knave hadn't been quite as distraught as this when she had met him, though he had also been trying to kill her, so it might have been that he was distracted.

Still, there was a haunted look to Graham's eyes that the knave had not had all those years ago. The knave, for his part, had seemed quite changed, and perhaps a bit broken. What had these two poor souls endured at the Queen of Hearts' hand?

They walked in silence for a bit, Graham clearly lost in his own thoughts, and Alice trying not to bother him. There was a part of her that wanted to run to Cyrus. It was a part that had cried for longer than she cared to admit for the only man who had ever truly and unconditionally loved her. It was a part that feared for him, and feared for what would happen to her if she were to lose him again. Cyrus did need her, but it would be selfish to run to him now, she knew. This poor man and all the others without their hearts needed her. She trusted the knave. He would make sure that Cyrus was all right.

Besides which, after what the Queen of Hearts had done to her, she wanted the witch to face comeuppance sooner rather than later. It would be far easier to fight her if her slaves were free of her control.

Finally, they arrived at the vault. She opened the door with ease, but when they entered, she wondered for a moment if she had made a wrong turn. She had been quite precise in her steps. She knew it was the right room. But where were the boxes of hearts?

In fact, where was everything? The walls had been stripped bare. It was just a room.

"There's nothing here," Alice said. "She's cleared it out. Every last heart …"

"That-that can't be," Graham said, "There must be something. There must be."

Alice watched as Graham ran desperately from one end of the room to the other, feeling the walls, likely looking for a hidden door or even a hidden compartment, but there was nothing.

"I'm so sorry," Alice said.

"How?" he asked. "How is this possible?"

"It's my fault," Alice said. "If I hadn't dallied so –"

"No, it's not your fault," Graham said. "It's her fault. It was always her fault." His eyes darkened then and his voice dropped, as he said, "And she will pay for it."

The horseless carriage came to an abrupt stop, and Aurora feared she might be sick again. Thankfully, the feeling passed after a moment or two.

Philip helped her out of the monstrosity, keeping a tight grip on her until he was certain she was steady. She was still getting her bearings when she saw the unmistakable form of Maleficent chatting somewhat amicably with a group of strangers. Remembering the pair of scissors that she had, she wondered if there was a way to lodge them in Maleficent's neck.

"Rumple," she heard Belle say. She was standing awkwardly by an elderly-looking gentleman, who looked up at her voice.

"Belle," he said, offering her a watery smile.

He didn't seem like much, but the boy had seemed convinced that he could kill Maleficent if not stopped. It did, of course, raise the question of why he wasn't attacking her as the boy Henry had told them he would be.

In fact, nobody was fighting her. They were all just standing there. They didn't seem afraid of her, but they weren't taking her to task either.

Aurora didn't know who any of them were, but she was reluctant to trust anyone who would be so chummy with the woman who had ruined her life, and the lives of so many others.

Rumpelstiltskin, at least, she knew of. He was in the book Belle had given her, and supposedly, he was a sorcerer of great power. Henry had also been adamant that he was good. Then again, Henry hadn't thought killing Maleficent was good. How was Aurora to know whether any of these people were good?

Squaring her shoulders, she approached the one person who might have the power to help, even though he seemed to lack the inclination. "You are Rumpelstiltskin, the powerful sorcerer?" she asked, keeping her back straight and her tone direct.

"Yes," he said, looking at her with unreadable eyes. "Though I'm surprised someone of your generation has heard of me."

"I read about you in Belle's book," she said. "And she speaks highly of you. She seems to think you have the makings of a hero. So does your grandson."

"That's kind of you to say, Dearie," he said, "but since you have me at a disadvantage, perhaps you could tell me your name?"

"My name is Aurora," she said. "I'm a princess of Misthaven … or, well, I suppose I'm a queen now, seeing as my parents … In any case, we are not in Misthaven anymore."

"An astute observation," Rumpelstiltskin said, and she had the distinct feeling that he was mocking her.

"I've been asleep this whole time. I don't have the memories that I've been told this Dark curse provided for people. What I do remember is Maleficent putting me under a sleeping curse, and when I woke up, I discovered that she had orchestrated a worse, Dark curse to take us all to a land with no happy endings. Before that, she killed my parents."

"I'm so sorry," a brunette woman said, stepping forward. "I lost my parents too. The Evil Queen killed them a long time ago. I know what you're going through."

"Who are you?" Aurora asked, turning to the woman.

"My name is Snow White," she said. "I was also a princess of Misthaven, and then a queen far too young."

"I had heard of you before I went to sleep," Aurora said. "And this book filled in the rest of the story. You stripped the Evil Queen of her magic, and she retaliated by bringing us here."

"That's right," Snow White said.

"And now? Is she still a threat?"

"Well, it's complicated. She … she's carrying a child, so we can't kill her, because it would kill the baby. Afterward, we'll do what we have to do to keep everyone safe. She will face justice."

"Will I?" a pitched voice asked, and Aurora turned to see a tall woman with red hair and a sneer on her lips. "You sound quite confident of that, don't you?"

"Zelena," Snow White said, and the man beside her stepped forward as well.

"Sister. Lover," the Evil Queen said in greeting. "Look at you, standing so brave, when you haven't any idea how to fight me."

"We defeated you before," Prince Charming said.

"Did you?" the Evil Queen asked in a mocking tone. "I suppose that was someone else who was under my curse for nearly three decades, then. I suppose it was someone else whose child I forced them to abandon, whose child I now carry, and who will never have children of their own."

"You are an evil witch," Snow White said, and the hatred in her eyes resonated deep within Aurora. "Everything you did, everything you made us do … you will pay greatly for it. You will not win, because you are evil, and good always wins."

"So dull," The Evil Queen said. "And so untrue. You won't hurt me until I have your husband's child, and once the baby arrives, you won't kill its mother. Not that you could, of course, now that my magic has been restored to me."

"I have magic," a blonde woman said. "I fought you before."

The Evil Queen cackled. "An amateur like you? Please. You have no training, no control of your powers. You don't even truly know what they are. Yes, you got the upper hand earlier, but that was because I didn't have my own powers. Now, on the other hand …"

With a flick of the Evil Queen's hand, Snow White rose into the air. She appeared to be choking and struggling for breath.

"That's enough, Zelena," Maleficent, of all people, said. "The girl has bested you at every turn. Is it not time to give the game up?"

"This coming from you?" The Evil Queen asked. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. You were a pathetic thing when I first met you."

Maleficent held out her hand, and a staff flew to it. She held it up in the air, until it crackled with thunder and lightning. "Not so pathetic now, am I?"

"Parlor tricks," the Evil Queen said. "Why are you trying to stop me, anyway? Wasn't this whole curse your idea?"

"Because you're no longer on the winning side," Maleficent said. "And I have other goals. I need the Princess alive."

"Well, if it's a fight you want –"

"Actually, no," Maleficent said. "I don't have time for a fight. I do, however, have time for this."

She waved her staff, and it began to rain down on the Evil Queen, while the land around her remained dry.

Again, the Evil Queen cackled. "You've been paying too much attention to this realm's version of events. Water doesn't melt me!"

Barely a moment after saying this, the Evil Queen began to sway, and her eyes widened as her magic faltered and Snow White tumbled ground.

"I don't want to melt you," Maleficent said calmly. "I just want you to take a little nap."

The Evil Queen collapsed in a heap on the ground.

Prince Charming ran to the Evil Queen's side, "Is she -?" he asked, apparently unable to finish his sentence as he shot a desperate look to Maleficent.

"She'll live," Maleficent said, "And so will your child, which I know is your true concern. She's just sleeping."

"Relying on old tricks?" Aurora asked the woman who haunted her nightmares.

"No, dear," Maleficent said, "It's a sleeping spell, not a sleeping curse. It will wear off in time, which is why we must be quick in deciding what to do with her. She won't slumber long."

"What do you suggest?" Snow White asked, turning to Maleficent as though she were someone to come to for help.

"She'll need to be locked up, somewhere where she can't access her magic. Perhaps –"

"Why are you asking for her help?" Aurora asked, "She's evil! She was in league with the Evil Queen all along. She brought her the curse and bade her to cast it!"

"That is the past," Maleficent said. "Don't speak of things you don't understand, child."

"I am not a child," Aurora said, though she felt very childish at the moment. "I am queen, because you killed my mother and father. You haven't even shown a hint of remorse. Do you feel nothing?"

"Perhaps we can discuss this later?" Prince Charming suggested. "If she wakes up before we can –"

"You are willing to ally yourself with a villain?" Aurora asked. "Why?"

"Because I need her," Snow White said, and Aurora heard a note of desperation in her voice. "I mean we … we need her. We need her to fight Zelena."

"The boy's grandfather has magic," Aurora said. "Rumpelstiltskin is a powerful sorcerer, and unlike Maleficent, he is good. Should he not be responsible for doling out justice?"

"Yeah, it's kind of more complicated than that," a man Aurora hadn't noticed before said, stepping forward. He had been standing close to the blonde one before, but now, she was helping Snow White to her feet, and he was standing protectively in front of Rumpelstiltskin, "My father and magic … they don't mix well. He promised me he wouldn't use it."

"Your father?" Aurora asked, and Rumpelstiltskin nodded. "But why? Why would you not use magic to ensure the safety of those you love?"

"I'm sorry," he said, not meeting the gaze of his son or Aurora. "I won't break a promise to my son."

"This makes very little sense to me," Aurora said, "All I've heard, all this book told me … You are supposed to be good. You are supposed to be heroes. You claim that once her child comes, you will dole out justice to the Evil Queen, but you won't raise a hand against Maleficent?"

"It's different," Snow White began, "Zelena -"

"Killed your parents? Funny, Maleficent killed mine. Put you under a sleeping curse? Maleficent did that as well, to both my mother and me. Cast a curse that brought us all here? Maleficent gave it to her and told her to cast it for her own selfish ends. Tell me, how? How is it different?"

"Because Zelena still wants to hurt us," Snow White said. "Maleficent only wants to find her daughter."

"And she's proven that she will harm anyone in order to find her, regardless of who they are. She will turn on her allies and leave them to die if she can get what she wants. You cannot trust her."

"We don't have a choice," Snow White said. "We need her help."

"You need her help to defeat the witch who wronged you, but you care not about the witch who harmed me?"

"You're awake now," Snow White said, "Your curse is broken. You have your true love –"

"And she would rip it all away in a second if it suited her! How can you call yourself a hero, and yet work with a villain? You are selfish and shortsighted. Maleficent will turn on you, mark my words, and you'll wish you had listened to me."

She wanted to storm off, but her legs wouldn't carry her. Then, she felt the nausea returning, and all too soon, she was on her knees, emptying the contents of her stomach.

"Am I the only wondering why she's wearing a hospital gown?" she heard someone ask.

"The curse translated her sleeping curse into a coma. She's only just woken up, and she was determined to leave," she heard Philip say, as he patted her back.

"I don't know about sleeping curses," the same person said, "but I know enough about modern medicine to know that if she just woke up from a coma, she shouldn't be out here on her own. Any chance you can talk her into going back to the hospital?"

"Aurora," Philip said, his voice soft and soothing, "I know … I know that where you woke up scared you, but … but in this world, it is where people who are sick go to get better. Please trust me, and let me take you back there?"

She didn't have the energy to fight him, so she just gave a little nod.

"You can take my car," she heard Belle say.

"Why don't I go with you?" the stranger, the sorcerer's son? said. "I'm an RN, and I might be able to help. At the very least, you can sit with her while someone else drives."

"Thank you," Philip said, leading Aurora back to the monstrous horseless carriage. Feeling utterly defeated, she let him lift her into it.

"Rest, my love," Philip said, as he bent to kiss her forehead, and she closed her eyes. She had no intention of sleeping, but it would make him feel better to think that she was trying. One of them should feel better. Aurora didn't think she would ever feel good again. The world had gone mad while she slept, and Maleficent had won.

Briar Rose was in the meadow when Tinker Bell came to her with news.

"I've found a way." she said, "There's a way to get you to Neverland. It isn't easy. I'll need to fly the both of you there, but -"

Briar Rose didn't need to hear anymore. She wanted to hug the small fairy. It had been a few years since she'd made the request, and she was worried that it might already be too late. Precious was sixteen, and she spent quite a bit of time with prince Childe Wynd these days.

"Are you certain that you still want to do this?" Tinker Bell asked. "What if she doesn't want to go?"

"I have asked her about it, you know," Briar Rose said.

It was true. She had often talked to Precious about the two of them running off to an island with no troubles and just each other, and Precious always told her what a splendid idea it was, and how she would love to go to such a place.

"Is she still young enough?" Briar Rose asked.

"I think so," Tinker Bell said. "She's only sixteen, so she's on the edge of adulthood, but I think it's still young enough for her to go."

"We must go tell her!" Briar Rose said, running to find her sister, Tinker Bell close behind.

Predictably, Precious was in the garden with Child Wynd and his sister Margaret.

"- sure it will work?" Precious asked. "I mean, will it –?"

"It will help you to find yourself, find your true potential," Margaret said. "I brewed it myself."

Briar Rose noticed that Precious was holding a little blue bottle. She saw her sister remove the stopper and down some sort of a potion, a potion that might well be poisonous for all any of them knew!

"What are you doing?" Briar Rose asked.

All three teens turned to her with wide eyes, and Briar Rose saw Precious trying to hide the bottle. "Are you spying on me?"

"No," Briar Rose said, "but I don't think you should drink a magic potion when you don't know what's in it. You could get hurt. I can get someone to come look at you and make sure –"

"That's quite all right," Precious said. "It was just a drought to settle my nerves a little. No harm done."

Briar Rose was going to press the issue, because she didn't believe that it was harmless, but Precious changed the subject. "You look full of exciting news. Is it something you would like to share?"

"Yes!" Briar Rose said, "Tinker Bell is going to take us off to an island where we never have to grow up."

"I don't feel like playing pretend today, Briar Rose," Precious said. "I'm tired."

"I'm not playing pretend," Briar Rose said, "There's an island far away where children don't need to grow up, and if we go off with Tinker Bell right now –"

"Why wouldn't I want to grow up?" Precious asked.

"Because you said so," Briar Rose said. "You said that you wanted to stay together and stay best friends always! That can't happen if we grow up. We'll have to get married and move off to different kingdoms and never see each other."

Precious gave her a sad sort of look. "Briar Rose, I'm already grown."

"No, you're not. You're just sixteen. I'm sure you're still young enough. We can explain, and whoever runs the island will let you –"

"I don't want to go," Precious said. "I want to keep growing."

Briar Rose felt tears forming in her eyes, and her lip started to quiver a bit. "Even if it means we can't stay best friends and be together always?" Briar Rose asked.

Precious reached out and touched Briar Rose's cheek gently. "My sweet little sister. I love you so. But we are not best friends. You are a child, and I am not."

She couldn't keep the tears at bay anymore. "You lied to me!" Briar Rose said, with a stamp of her foot. "You said …"

She trailed off, unsure of what to say. How could Precious? How could her sister have pretended they were best friends all of this time, if she had never meant it?

Margaret and Childe were watching and Briar Rose was sure that they were just loving this. Was Margaret Precious' real best friend? Was Childe?

But they didn't deserve her. They didn't love her as Briar Rose did. Hadn't she just seen Margaret hand Precious a suspicious potion? They could be poisoning her right now, and Precious had trustingly drunk it. Who knew what it would do to her? Friends who did that weren't friends at all.

What if there had been other potions, used to inspire loyalty, and turn Precious away from her family? Precious couldn't mean what she was saying. It had to be the potion. The potion was changing her.

"What did you do?" she asked, turning on Margaret. "What was in that potion you gave her that made her change?"

"She didn't do anything, Briar Rose," Precious said.

"Oh, hogwash," Briar Rose said with a roll of her eyes. "Don't you see? They're witches and they're trying to corrupt you, but you're my sweet sister and I won't let them. Tinker Bell!"

The fairy, who had been hovering nearby, made herself large. "Are you ready to go?"

"Not just yet," Briar Rose said. "Margaret gave Precious some terrible potion, and we need to find out what it did to her so we can reverse it. The bottle is over there."

Tinker Bell went to get the bottle, and Precious barred her way, but fairies could make themselves very small, and Tinker Bell did just that. She shrank down and grabbed the bottle from the ground, flying with it up into the air.

"Bring that back this instant!" Precious said.

"She's just going to figure out what's in it," Briar Rose said. "If it's harmless, then that's that, but I'm certain it wasn't. I'm certain it was witchcraft, and that a hex has been put on you. You'll thank me when you're back to normal."

Precious kept trying to grab Tinker Bell, but the fairy kept flying out of range. As Tinker Bell flew higher and higher with the bottle, Briar Rose could see her sister getting more and more angry. Her breathing was ragged, and her eyes …

Her eyes were turning a strange yellow color! It was poison! She knew there was something terrible in that bottle, and now it might kill her sister. She should have spoken up about Precious' friends earlier. They were trouble. She had always known it.

"She'll find a cure for you," Briar Rose said. "She'll –"

But Precious wasn't writhing in pain from the poison. Instead, it was changing her. Her features became reptilian as she grew in size, her arms spreading out around her to form massive wings.

Precious, now a purple beast, flew into the air and roared, fire coming from her mouth.

"Dragon!" a voice rang out from the palace, and Briar Rose heard the toll of the bell that signaled and emergency.

"Change her back!" she said to Margaret as Precious flew higher and higher in dragon form, spewing fire all the way. "Change her back this instant. I command you as your future queen."

"I can't," Margaret said, her mouth hanging open as she stared up at the Briar Rose's dragon-sister.

"You won't," Briar Rose said. "Fine then, what about you?" she asked Childe. "You're a boy, and you two care about each other? Maybe you can give her true love's kiss."

She didn't want to think that Precious was so grown up that she could already have a true love, but if it turned her back, it would be worth it. She would rather have Precious as she was, human, and growing up, than as a dragon that the knights would ride off to slaughter.

"I don't know if that would work," Childe said.

"Well, you have to try something! Tinker Bell won't be back with a cure before they kill her."

Why weren't her friends moving? They had caused this! They should try and fix it.

In no time at all, Briar Rose's father was riding out, leading the knights to fight what they believed to be a dangerous beast.

"Father, you can't!" Briar Rose called. How could she explain this to them? All they saw was a dragon, but she knew her sister was in there.

"Precious!" she heard Childe call. "Please! Let's talk!"

He was shouting to be heard, but Briar Rose wasn't sure what Precious could hear. How in control of herself was she?

In a moment, it didn't matter, because the skies opened and rain began to pour down on everyone. Briar Rose felt herself growing weary. Her eyelids began to flutter. She swayed on her feet, and her world went dark.

They were all just standing there, staring after Aria's (Belle's?) car as it drove away. Emma half-wished she were in it. Going with Neal to the hospital seemed far less complicated than staying with her parents, Maleficent, and the evil queen.

"Not to rush you," Maleficent said, "but I really should find something to do with her before she awakens. The spell does not last long."

"What do you suggest?" Mary Margaret asked.

"I can place her under what I believe this world would refer to as house arrest," Maleficent said. "I'll take her back to my home and cast an enchantment. She will be unable to leave."

"Will it -?" David began, but Maleficent cut him off.

"The baby will be fine. The enchantment will be on the place, not on her. Only one of my blood shall be able to come and go freely."

"Then we won't be able to see her?" Mary Margaret asked. "Only you will?"

Maleficent shrugged. "I can grant you entry as I see fit, but my blood would be needed to pass through the warding."

"What if she, I don't know, cuts you and gets a bit of your blood?" Emma asked. She was pretty sure that had happened in some fantasy book she had read.

"Magic is not so simple as the stories of this world would have you believe. I can take measures to prevent her escape. Now, I suggest that she and I take our leave, before she rouses, and it is too late." Maleficent raised her staff, but Mary Margaret ran up to her and grabbed her arm.

"Wait!" she said. "Where … how can we find you?"

"Worry not dear," Maleficent said. "When the time comes, I will find you." Then, in a puff of smoke, she and the unconscious mayor were gone.

"Well, that was … something that happened," Emma said, not sure what else to say. "I guess we should figure out what we're going to do now?"

"They need to kiss," Henry said, motioning to his grandfather and Aria.

"What?" Emma couldn't stop herself from asking. She saw the awkward looks on the two adults' faces, and she felt for them.

Henry, seemingly unbothered, explained, "Grandpa is the Dark One again, but that could be like a curse. If he gets true love's kiss, things can go back to normal."

"Henry," her father-in-law said, bending down to be on his grandson's level, "Belle and I … we knew each other long ago and once upon a dream. That land … Much has changed. It is a little early to talk of love."

"But what about your curse?" Henry asked, his eyes wide in despair. "Dad said –"

"I made a promise to your father," her father-in-law said, "and I will keep it. You needn't worry."

"But don't you want true love?" Henry asked.

"Perhaps in time." Her father-in-law looked longingly at Ar-Belle, and she gave him a small, awkward smile.

"Things … things need to calm down," she said. "A lot has changed very quickly. But perhaps once we've all had time to process, the two of us could … could share a meal? Get to know each other again?"

Emma's father-in-law smiled. "I'd like that very much."

Dorothy had been at once thrilled and horrified to discover Glinda the Good in one of the other cells. After briefly catching up, as she had with Ivo, she had searched the other rooms. Many of them were empty, however. It turned out that this rather large asylum held only a handful. Perhaps they were the only people that Zelena truly feared.

The only other person she found was a man who claimed to have no history with Zelena but had been locked up by someone named Jafar before the curse was cast. She couldn't imagine what he was doing in the asylum. He had just been about to explain when she saw Alice and the man named Graham approaching their small group.

"Alice!" Dorothy exclaimed, "Were you able to find –"

"No," Graham said curtly, "That evil … she must have moved them when magic returned. There is no telling where she's keeping them."

"We will find them," Alice said.

"We'd best find her," Graham said, "We need to get her to tell us where they are." He turned to Dorothy. "You can use your magic to make her talk, can't you? You can take her heart and –"

"That's dark magic," Dorothy said, horrified.

"Sometimes, you have to fight fire with fire," Graham said, and Dorothy felt Ivo shudder behind her at the mention of fire.

"Vengeance –" Dorothy began.

"We're not talking about vengeance," Alice said. "Oh, she needs to answer for what she's done. There's no question of that, and I'm hardly the forgiving sort, but this is about doing what needs to be done to free her slaves."

Dorothy shook her head. "Even if I wanted to use Dark magic, I couldn't. My magic is connected to the fairy magic of Oz. I can't use it to kill or torture. It won't work."

"What about Emma?" Graham asked. "She has magic, doesn't she? She used it on Zelena, and Zelena is scared of her. She's been working to destroy her for ages now."

"She's untrained," Dorothy said. "She'll need to learn to control her magic before she can truly do battle with Zelena."

"Can you help her?" Alice asked.

"Of course," Dorothy said, smiling about one of the few things she could feel confident in right now. "Yes, I will teach her happily. Her parents were my friends, and she has saved us all."

"She's David and Snow's daughter?" Graham asked. "The Savior?"

Dorothy nodded. "Yes, she is, and she's fulfilled her destiny. I will teach her, if she'll let me, but it will take time. Until then … we need a different plan to find your heart and all of the others."

"Long ago, Zelena enslaved the Wizard of Oz," Glinda said. "She made him her puppet. She had many monkeys, but he was, well … her highest-ranking assistant, I suppose. It was against his will, of course, but he was the one she tasked with the truly difficult. And he wasn't in the asylum with us. I'd wager that if we can find him, we can find the hearts."

"But-but we haven't a clue how to find him either," Dorothy said.

"I might," Glinda said. "He and I knew each other quite well once. Leave it to me." Without another word, Glinda disappeared in a cloud of pink smoke.

"Well, she doesn't play well with others, does she?" Alice asked.

"I still think we should find Emma," Graham said. "That seems like the safest thing."

"Well, she was going to wake Snow up in the hospital," Dorothy said. "I would start looking there."

Graham nodded. "I suppose I'll have to find a car of some sort. Something tells me mine is no longer in the parking lot."

"You have a car?" Dorothy asked, surprised. Only the richest people had been able to afford such things back in the Kansas she'd once known.

"Perhaps you could give us all a lift?" Alice asked. "Just to town? We've all been locked up. None of us have cars, or know how to drive, I'd wager, and while I'm sure I can find my way around once we reach civilization, I do really need to find Cyrus."

"Cyrus?" the final prisoner said. He had been silent up until now, so Dorothy had nearly forgotten he was there, "You know Cyrus?"

"Yes," Alice said, "Quite well. Why? Do you know him as well?"

The man nodded, "We were Jafar's prisoners together. We had many long talks to while away the hours in confinement."

"Jafar?!" Alice asked, her eyes widening in alarm, "Is he the one who had Cyrus all this time?"

"You know him as well?" the man asked.

"Of him," Alice said. "Cyrus told me about him. If he had Cyrus … I must find him before Jafar can get his hands on Cyrus' bottle."

"I'll drop you off at the bar," Graham said. "He should be there."

"I'd be much obliged," Alice replied.

Dorothy understood how Alice felt. She wanted to run to Red more than anything, but Graham was right. Finding Emma and Snow and David, forming a plan, finding the hearts, it was all too important.

"And you?" Graham asked, turning to the man. "Where would you like to be brought?"

"I do not know this land," the man said. "All I know is that Jafar must not find me. He will never let me go if he captures me again."

"You can stay with us then," Dorothy said. "I will protect you from this Jafar."

"He possesses powerful magic," the man said.

"So do I," Dorothy countered. "I may not be able to use it to kill, but I can use it to protect. You have my word that you will be safe with us."

The man nodded, seeming to agree.

"And I suppose I'll stay with you," Ivo said. "Perhaps your friends will know where I can find my children."

Once they got to the hospital, Neal and Philip were able to get Aurora checked in. The hospital was still chaotic, but it had calmed down some, and Philip seemed to know one of the doctors. He called her Green, and Neal remembered something his dad had said about the doctors being fairies. It wasn't hard to put two and two together.

When his dad had said that, he had been human, more or less. He hadn't had magic. He had been Baelfire's Papa. Now … now the magic was back. Now the curse was back.

He had promised to fight, to not kill, and Neal knew that his father didn't break promises or deals. Still, he couldn't help the feeling of ice in his veins, and the sense of foreboding. It was all going to go wrong, wasn't it? It was going to be like it had been before.

He couldn't let it. He had to find a way to stop it. He couldn't lose his father. Not again.

They would leave. That was the solution. They would help Maleficent find her daughter, and then they would leave Storybrooke behind.

But there were people they couldn't leave behind. There were Emma's parents, for two, and Belle for another. And there was Jamie.

Suddenly, there really was Jamie, standing over in a corner, talking to one of the doctors. Had he summoned her just by thinking of her? Given the reintroduction of magic into his life, he didn't like the implication of that thought.

"Jamie!" he called, and he saw her turn to him. There was terror in her eyes, and he quickly jogged over. "What's wrong? Why are you here?"

They were in a hospital. Something could have happened to her.

"I …" she began to speak, then paused and took a visible swallow. She looked him up and down as though seeing him for the first time. "I'm all right. I was just looking for someone. The children –" she turned and motioned to … Were those the mayor's kids? "They want to find their father, and I thought, perhaps, he might be a patient here. Apparently, he had some bad burns when last they saw him."

"That makes sense," Neal said, looking at the kids.

Last, he'd seen them, they'd been carrying guns and working for the mayor, but it made sense that that wasn't who they really were. She had made them forget their real family. That must have been horrible for them when they remembered. This curse breaking thing was way more complicated than he had realized.

"I mean, looking for people. I guess we'll have to find a way to get organized, help people find the families that they've been separated from by the curse." Now it was Neal's turn to swallow loudly. "Speaking of family, um, this will probably sound crazy, but now that the curse is broken, I –"

"Are you Baelfire?" she asked, hope and fear shining through her eyes. Oh. That was the fear. She was afraid of him, or of what his being here meant. That kind of stung, but at the same time, he kind of got it. Wasn't he scared too?

"Yeah. Or I was, a long time ago. I haven't gone by that name since …I guess I should ask how you know the name. I mean, I have a guess, but …"

"My mother told me," she said. "Or our mother, I suppose. Long ago she … she told me of how, before she had met father, she had had another husband and … and another child."

"So, I was right," Neal said. "You're my, that is, my mom, our mom –"

"Her name was Milah," Jamie said. "And yes, I believe she was your mother as well as mine, which means … I'm your sister."

"I never knew," Neal said. "I mean, all I knew was that she'd left. When I was little, I thought she had been kidnapped and killed, and so did my dad, but later, he found out that she chose to leave and I … I hated her, for that. I never really thought about whether she would have had more children. I'm surprised by it, honestly."

"You are?"

"I just … from what I remember, and from what I learned later about her leaving … I guess she didn't exactly seem the maternal type. I mean, she left me without looking back. If she didn't love Papa anymore, that was one thing, but I was her kid, and I was only four. And she left. So, I thought … I thought that she didn't want kids, or to be a mom. But I guess she just didn't want to be my mom."

Jamie put her good hand on his arm, "No, Baelfire, that's not … it wasn't about you. She was unhappy, and so she ran, but it wasn't you she was running from."

Neal didn't want to hear her defend the woman who'd left him. "Did she run from you too?" he asked. "Or did she stick around?"

Jamie looked away. After a minute, she said, "She stayed, but I don't think it was because she loved us anymore than she did you."

"Us?" Neal asked, letting out a puff of air. "You have siblings?"

"I did," Jamie said. "Many moons ago. I'm all that's left now."

"So … so she's dead then?" Neal asked, swallowing a lump in his throat. He hadn't seen her in Storybrooke, but a part of him had hoped …

He hadn't wanted to hope for it. This was the woman who had left him who, apparently, was fine having kids, as long as those kids weren't him. But maybe a small part of him thought that if he could just talk to her, just look her in the eye, he could understand. He wanted to understand why he hadn't been good enough.

"Neal, I don't know how you came to live in this land, or how you're still so young, but my parents, my siblings, they were born centuries ago, as was I. They died centuries ago. I'm only alive because, well, because I spent a great deal of time in a land where time didn't move."

"Yeah?" Neal asked. "How did that happen?"

"It was a choice I made. I thought I could do some good. I thought I could help reunite parents with their children." Neal almost laughed at the irony of that, but then Jamie leveled her eyes at him. "And I thought for a time that perhaps … perhaps I could find you."

"Right. Because she told you about me. What did she say, exactly?"

Jamie hesitated. Then, "She didn't speak of you much. I think she was ashamed."

Neal just scoffed at that.

"She told us of how she left and, at first, I was furious with her for doing such a thing. I had just lost … It was a bad time for me, and I couldn't understand. I loved my mother, and I miss her dearly, but what she did to you was not right.

They did look for you, my parents. They said you and your father had disappeared from the Frontlands and nobody knew what became of you. I thought she had given up to easily, but then … Then I looked.

I looked, and I found nothing. And the demon child who … I thought he knew something, but he would never tell. And then the decades passed, and the centuries, and I assumed you were long dead."

"Yeah, not dead," Neal said. "When we left the Enchanted Forest, when we landed here … it wasn't even twenty years ago."

"I never thought I'd find you. I never thought I'd have family again, and … and I don't know that I even know how to have family after all of this time."

Neal nodded. "I get it," he said, turning to leave.

She reached out and grabbed his arm. "But I'd like to try, if that would be all right?"

There was a pleading look in her eyes, and damn it all if she didn't look so much like how he remembered his … their mother.

He wanted to be angry with her, because he was angry, and hurt, and she was here, and she looked so much like the woman whom he hadn't been good enough for. Screw her feeling ashamed. Screw her looking for him years later. It meant nothing. He wanted to yell at her.

But that was his mother, not Jamie. Jamie hadn't done anything wrong, except open old wounds that he thought had long ago healed. She hadn't thrown him aside. She'd simply reminded him that someone else had.

And she'd looked for him. Even though she had never met him, and his mother had barely mentioned him, she had looked for him.

"Yeah," he said, his voice sounding coarse as he swallowed through the sandpaper taste in his mouth. He cleared his throat and said, "Yeah, I'd like that."

"– disoriented, and who can blame her poor dear," Tinker Bell heard the other Green Fairy say. "She's been under a sleeping curse all this time, no memories of this world, and now she wakes up to find out that Briar Rose and King Stefan are long dead – "

"Briar Rose is dead?" Tinker Bell asked, unable to stay hidden or keep her mouth shut as she knew she should have.

"Novice Green," the fairy said, "Why are you listening in? This doesn't concern you."

"Briar Rose concerns me," she said, stubbornly. "I was her fairy –"

"Until you weren't," the fairy said. "Until you failed and I had to take over."

"Well, apparently you didn't do a very good job, if she's dead and her daughter was cursed. I assume that's what you're saying? Not that anyone told me what happened to her."

"Because after you were demoted and replaced, you weren't meant to know what happened to your former charge," the fairy retorted, continuing to talk down to her.

How Tinker Bell loathed her. "And now the girl is here? In the hospital? She's been asleep all this time?" There was only one person whom that could be. In her capacity as nurse, Tink had tended to Gia often, and now, looking back, she could see the girl's resemblance to her poor mother.

"You stay away from the girl," the fairy said. "She's confused enough, wanting revenge on Maleficent, and you've done enough damage."

With that, the fairy and her co-worker walked off, no doubt to tend to Briar Rose's daughter.

How was it possible that Briar Rose had a grown daughter? How was it possible that Briar Rose was dead? In Tinker Bell's mind's eye, she could still see the happy child who had been her friend and treated her like a real person instead of just a fairy.

But that had been a long time ago, before it had all gone so horribly wrong. And now, history was repeating itself, with Briar Rose's daughter looking to reignite the feud of vengeance.

No. It wouldn't happen again. It was time for the cycle of violence to end. Perhaps now, after all the time that had passed, there was something Tink could do to make it right.

First, there had been fear, then rage. Then, there had been fire and power beyond her control. She hadn't clue what had happened, or why everything looked and felt different. She was up in the sky, and it felt both wonderful and terrible. Precious was terrified.

It was over quickly, however. Not long after she had felt the rain on her scaly skin, she had felt herself drift off to sleep.

It didn't last, and as she groggily sat up, she noticed that everyone around her was doing the same. The clearing was filled with knights, as well as her sister and her father. Apparently, whatever had made her lose consciousness had affected everyone else in the clearing.

The clearing had been emptier earlier, with just her, Childe, and Margaret. Then Briar Rose had come up, bringing her fairy friends, and then …

"Where is the beast?" her father, King Konrad asked. "What became of the dragon?"

And she knew. It had been so confusing, but she knew in that moment that the dragon had been her. It had always been her.

"They did it!" Briar Rose said, pointing an accusing finger at Margaret and Childe. "They gave Precious a potion and turned her into that terrible beast. They're witches, Papa, and they nearly killed her!"

Father looked from Precious to her friends, anger flaring in his eyes. "The dragon was you?" he asked. "You were bewitched?"

Precious didn't know what to say. It was the truth, and she didn't want to lie, but to admit to such a thing …

Her father seemed to take her silence as a confirmation and turned to her friends. "You are old enough to know the law and obey it," he said, using his menacing king-voice as he stared them down. "Practicing dark magic is punishable by death."

"No!" Precious called. "Father, please. It wasn't their fault!"

"They endangered you! They turned you into a hideous beast!"

"That's not what happened!"

"The girl is right," a voice said. "It is, most definitely, not what happened."

A fairy descended then. It wasn't Tinker Bell, but the Blue Fairy, leader of all fairies. She was beautiful, as all fairies were, but she also looked very cross.

"The Green Fairy brought me the vial that the girl drank. She told me of the struggle and the resulting transformation, and I examined the potion carefully. It is not a potion to change someone into what they are not, but a potion to bring out what is."

"I don't understand," Briar Rose said. "Precious isn't a dragon. She's always been human. This was their fault. It happened because they did something to her!"

A part of Precious wanted it to be true, but another part wanted to slap her sister. Margaret and Childe were no more guilty than she, and she would not see them punished on her behalf.

"It could not turn someone into a dragon unless they already were one," the Blue Fairy said. "Many dragons have a human form. It's common for those varieties that hatch out from eggs, but this was always who she was going to grow up to be."

"We didn't know," Margaret said, her eyes just a bit too wide, her face pale, and Precious could hear the anguish her guilt was causing her. It touched Precious that her friend felt guilty for endangering her, despite the very real danger she herself was now in, having been exposed as a magical practitioner. "I thought it would -"

"This is not your fault, Margaret," Precious said. "None of us could have known what would happen."

The plan had simply been to help Precious in her efforts to learn to control her magic. All of them practiced. It had taken an eternity for her to find friends who understood, and who she could not only trust with her secret, but who had the same secret themselves. She had felt so blessed.

None of them was properly trained, and they could hardly seek tutelage, but they read all the books on magic they could find, and they worked together on potions and spells.

Margaret had been so proud when she had brought her the potion today. She had been so happy to help Precious, to do her this favor. They would all drink of it at some point and see what clarity it brought them about their powers and their destinies. It had been meant to be harmless. How had it gone so wrong?

"The effects might have been milder if there hadn't been a squabble," The Blue Fairy said evenly. "Extreme negative emotions such as anger and despair can trigger a change in someone so inclined."

So inclined? Well, that was dancing around the truth, wasn't it?

Still, the meaning was there, and it did not take long for realization to dawn in Father's eyes. It was swiftly followed by shock, horror, and then rage. "We found a baby among dragons, and thought it an innocent victim of their needless slaughter. But you," and then he turned to Precious and looked at her as though she were not his daughter and never had been. His face was red, and there was such hatred in his eyes as he pointed a finger in her face. "You were not a victim. You were a dragon in the form of a baby. They left you for us to find, to grow up as one of us, always waiting. You were meant to bring us ruin!" His face became more and more distorted, and spit was flying out of his mouth as he screamed. "Answer me?!" he demanded, though he hadn't asked a question.

Still, his meaning was plain. He thought that she had been lying, all this time. He thought that she'd known what she was and had hidden it. And she had known. At least, she'd known she had magic, but she hadn't had a clue that she was a dragon.

She'd heard the story of how she had been saved from a dragon nest, and how her father had thought the dragons must have killed her parents. She was their miracle, their precious daughter, who brought them unspeakable joy.

Her father did not look at her with joy now.

"I'm sorry. I-I didn't know," she said, stammering in her desperation for him to stop looking at her with such hatred, and such fear. "I was a baby."

"You were never just a baby," he said. Then he nodded to the Blue Fairy. "You heard what she said. You were always a dragon, and you were planted among us to destroy our kingdom. Have you not been planning this all along, from the very beginning?!"

"How could I have?" Precious asked, tears coming to her eyes. How could he think such a thing? This man who had taught her to walk and read her stories and held her close in a storm because she was frightened? How could he think that she didn't adore him and her mother? How could he think that she would want to hurt them?

Aside from that, it made no sense. She had been a baby. Couldn't he see that his accusations made no sense? "All my life, I've lived here. It's all I've known." He knew this to be true. He must. He would see reason, "I didn't know who my birth parents were," she reminded him. "I didn't know that I was a dragon."

Father didn't look convinced.

"Father," Briar Rose said, "She couldn't have known. You know that she couldn't have."

"Then why the potion?" he asked. "Why drink a potion meant to bring out your magic if you didn't know you had any?"

"That was me," Childe spoke up, "You were right. This was my fault. Just mine. I knew what she was, and I tricked her into –"

"No, it was me," said Margaret."I gave her the potion. Neither of them had anything to do with it. Briar Rose saw. She can tell you. It was me!"

"Am I to believe that she didn't know what she was drinking? That she didn't know it was magic?" he asked, before turning his eyes back on Precious. There was desperation in his voice and a tiny glint of hope in his eyes. He didn't want to believe that she knew. He didn't want to condemn her. Perhaps he still loved her? Perhaps all was not lost.

"Are you trying to tell me that these … these friends of yours coerced you?"

It would be easy to let them take the blame. They had selflessly offered themselves up to save her, after all. But they were her friends!

"Will they be punished?" she asked, her voice sounding small to her own ears. She knew what the answer must be, but oh, she hoped it wouldn't.

"For performing witchcraft, or for unleashing a dragon?" Father asked, as though it was a ridiculous question. "Yes, they will be punished. Of course they will be punished."

Precious swallowed and steeled herself. No. She wouldn't let them burn because of her, and because of what she was.

"I knew what it was," she said at last. "That is, I knew it would bring out my magic. I didn't know about the dragon bit but … but I knew I had magic. I have since I was a little girl."

That glint of hope went out of her father's eyes. They hardened, and there was no warmth in them now.

Precious flew at him, begging him to remember the family that they had been to each other, begging him to see who she was, and not what she was. "Father," she pleaded, "you know me. I would never use my magic to hurt anyone. I've only ever used it to help, like when mother needed help getting pregnant –"

"The tea," he said, his eyes lighting up in understanding. "It was magic. You used magic on my wife?" he bellowed. "You poisoned her? What curse did you place? What will happen to Briar Rose?"

"Nothing! I would never hurt any of you. You are my family, the only one I have ever known."

"You are no daughter of mine," he said, turning his back on her.

"Father!" Briar Rose said. "You can't mean that. Precious has always –"

"Can't you see this for what it is, girl?" her father demanded. "For what she is? A fox in a henhouse, lying in wait to strike." He looked at Precious, Margaret, and Childe with contempt and disgust, refusing to meet their eyes. He wasn't seeing them. He was simply seeing monsters.

"By royal decree, these three sorcerers will be put to death. Knights, restrain them and take them to the dungeon."

Childe, Margaret, and Precious herself were put in chains, and led back toward the castle, where a dungeon awaited them, and then, an execution.

The future looked bleak. She wanted to believe that father couldn't hate her, but then, he had never truly been her father, had he? She had simply been a changeling that had filled a hole until his true daughter came along. That daughter only existed because of her, and that daughter was now chasing her down.

"I will find a way to fix this," Briar Rose, running to keep up with her. "Father will see sense. He must."

"Fix this?" Precious asked, outraged.

She wanted to be touched by her sister's concern, except …

The Blue Fairy had said that it was the argument with Briar Rose and the Green Fairy which had caused such a strong reaction. She had been paralyzed in fear because deep down she had known, if her magic had become known, this would be the outcome.

Briar Rose had sent the bottle to the Blue Fairy, who had told father what was in it, and what that meant. And while Briar Rose might still care for her, might even have tried to save her, she was also willing to sacrifice Childe and Margaret to do it. To her, they were simply witches. And now, thanks to her, the three of them would burn.

"You caused this! You and that fairy of yours, butting in where you didn't belong. You've ruined everything."

"But- but it was your friends who gave you the potion. I had nothing to do with –"

"You heard the Blue Fairy. I was riled up!" and again, she found her anger growing. Oh, how she wished she could sprout wings and fly away with her friends on her back! But without the potion, it wasn't enough. She didn't know how to do it.

And here was this girl who claimed to love her, and yet had caused so much trouble. And she wouldn't even admit it. She wouldn't apologize. She tried to put the blame on Margaret and Childe. It had never been about loving Precious. Briar Rose didn't even know Precious, not who she really was. All she knew was the doting sister who made her feel loved, and she was willing to burn down everything that meant anything to Precious so that she wouldn't be left behind.

Briar Rose had the love of her parents, and the kingdom. She was heir to the throne. She would marry well someday, find love and friends. Yet she couldn't let Precious have the same. Precious, who was never understood, who always had to hide. She could have learned to control her magic, and had friends, love even. But no, the spoiled princess couldn't share. And now …

"It wouldn't have been so bad if you had just left us be instead of trying to force me to be your friend. Why couldn't you have left it alone, and let me live my life? Why did you have to involve fairies, sending the potion off to be examined? Didn't you know we would all be condemned for it?"

"But – but they were corrupting you, making you do magic –"

Precious laughed through her tears. "Were you not listening? I have always had magic, and I used it before you were born. You exist because of it, and I wish I had never done it. You should never have been born."

"She threatened the princess," one of the knights said, and then the three were being poked at with spears, herded faster into the castle, as Father scooped up his youngest daughter, the only daughter he had ever truly cared about.

"Come, child," Precious heard him say with a soothing affection she knew would never be directed at her again, "We must get you away from her and her influence before she places a curse on you."

Aurora let the Green Fairy poke and prod her and give her medicines. She would not let them put her to sleep, but beyond that … it hardly mattered, did it?

Her parents were dead, she was in a strange land, and nobody seemed to care about the wrongs Maleficent had done or the threat she still posed.

When the Green Fairy left her and Philip alone, she turned to him. He was the only person she could trust now. He must understand!

"What shall we do?" she asked. "How will we defeat Maleficent?"

Philip shook his head. "You heard Snow White. They want us to leave her be."

"And I'm meant to just accept that and move on?" Aurora asked. "I am just as much a royal as she is. I needn't listen to her in such matters. I can order Maleficent's execution just as well as she can."

"That's not how things are done in this land. You can't just go around executing people," Philip said. "We don't have that kind of power anymore."

People kept doing this. They kept talking to her like she was a child, simply because she lacked these cursed memories that they all had. Did even Philip think her an idiot now?

"But surely we can do something?" Aurora asked. "If execution isn't what's done in this land, what is?"

Before Philip could answer, another one of this realm's healers (Aurora could tell by her outfit) came through the door. She was petite with short blonde hair.

"You must be Aurora," she said. "I'm Tinker Bell. I don't know if your mother ever mentioned me?"

"She didn't," Aurora said, and she saw the fairy's face fall. "But I read about you. There's a book that tells our stories, and it says what happened with you and her, and Maleficent. I wish she had told me when she was alive. It would have explained so much."

"I'm so sorry for what became of your mother," Tinker Bell said, sitting on the side of the bed. "After … what happened, I was demoted back to novice status, and a new green fairy took my place. Blue was somewhat generous with me, saying I could have one more chance, and I suppose I didn't muck it up, but I always wanted to go back and check on Briar Rose. The new green fairy placed her in hiding for a time, but of course, Maleficent found her."

"I didn't think fairies had names that weren't colors," Philip said.

"We don't," Tinker Bell said. "Not usually. Briar Rose used to call me Tinker Bell because she said that I always made the noise of tinkling bells when I appeared. After I was … replaced, I saw that the fairy order considered green fairies interchangeable. I was a green fairy, but not the only one. A new one had been assigned. It was rather insulting. Yes, I had made a mistake, but I wasn't given the opportunity to fix it. So, I kept the name. It was mine, just mine, nobody else's, and it had been given to me by someone I loved. I am so, so sorry to hear what happened to your mother. I only just found out."

"I only just found out," Aurora said. "I woke up thinking things would be like they were, but they never will again, and nobody seems to care." She felt tears coming to her eyes.

Philip grabbed her hand and squeezed it, before bringing it to his lips. "We do care. I care. I care about you more than life itself, and I want you to be happy. I know that's hard to picture right now, but we have each other. We will be happy again."

"I don't believe she'll let us," Aurora said. "She spent decades trying to punish my family for something that happened when my mother was a child. It wasn't even her fault! And I hadn't even been born. What if we have a child, Philip, and she goes after them? There's only one way to end a cycle of violence like that."

"Not with more violence," Tinker Bell said. "Maleficent may have wanted a revenge that wasn't quite warranted, but she was wronged, and if she'd had the strength to walk away … You need to be strong, Aurora. You need to walk away. If you don't, this will never end."

Aurora looked to Philip, the man she had fallen in love with, and her voice took on a pleading note. "After all she has taken from us, after all she could take, how can we just stand back and let her live?"

"Aurora, when I found out I was a prince by birth, I hoped that it would be enough for your parents to allow me to marry you. I trained as a knight to be worthy to be your king, and I swore to uphold a code of chivalry. The code demanded that I protect the weak and innocent. It also demanded that I show mercy.

"If Maleficent comes after us, and after any children that we might someday have, I will slay her, laws of this land be damned. But right now, she isn't threatening us. She says she'll leave us be if we show her the same courtesy. I am angry, but we have each other, and I must show mercy."

"I understand," Aurora said in a dull monotone, and she did.

She understood that Philip was a good man, and she understood that, regardless of what she wanted, what she knew to be right, he would not move. He was the one person she trusted, the one person who was supposed to love her no matter what. Yet even he wanted to spare Maleficent.

If Philip refused to help her seek justice, that left her with no allies. She had lost everything. Philip was all she had left, and she would not lose him too. That left her with little choice but to buck up her chin and hope that someday she wouldn't feel so utterly alone.

Because the unfortunate bit, the cruel twist of fate, was that with Philip taking this stance, she already was alone. He loved her, but he could not see what seemed so clear to her. He would not take her side. She would be alone forevermore.

"I suppose I should move out," David said. "I mean, I shared that house with her, and I … I don't want to remember that."

Emma expected Mar-Sno-her mom to step forward and offer to find a place with him, but she appeared to be avoiding his gaze.

"We should find a place," he said to her, as though reading Emma's mind. "Or maybe, we could stay with you?" he asked, now turning to Emma. "I mean, you're our daughter and … and we should get to know you."

Emma didn't know what to say to that. Of course she wanted to get to know them, both of them, but it was all so much. And they clearly had issues to work out, and so much of her just wanted to go home to Neal.

With a nod, she said, "Yeah, that's … it would be good to get to know each other. But, like Aria said, it'll take a few days for things to calm down. Maybe living together is too big a step to start with."

"Okay," David said, but Emma could tell he was disappointed.

"Plus, people are waking up, finding each other," Emma said, changing the subject to something more practical and easier to deal with. "Your kids … or not your kids, maybe, but Ava and Nicholas, will they have somewhere to go?"

"I hadn't thought …" David said, trailing off. "It's funny. For so long, they were my children, and I loved them, but they never really were. And now, it seems like everything is as it once was. I didn't know them in the other land. I don't know whose children they are. Maybe they really are Zelena's. I … we should figure out what happened to them and find a way to help bring people back together with the people who they've lost. Maybe we can use the theater?" He turned again to Mary Margaret, but again, she was avoiding his gaze. "Snow - ?"

"The theater is a good idea," she said quickly, her smile just a bit too bright, "And as for somewhere to stay, maybe you can stay at Granny's? Those rooms were more or less empty during the curse, because nobody ever came through here."

"You mean we'll stay at Granny's," David said, looking uncertain. "Right?"

"I … is that what you want, David?" Mary Margaret asked, and when she looked up at him, she looked so lost and alone that it broke Emma's heart.

"Of course," he said. "Of course it's what I want. We have to … we need to start over. It needs to be like the curse never happened. We had a life planned and … and we can just pick up where we left off, can't we? We can make up for lost time?"

Mary Margaret nodded, and she was smiling, but it looked a little forced to Emma, and her eyes appeared slightly glassy. "If that's what you want. If you're sure … then yes, of course. You're right. Of course, you're right. Everything can be like it was before. Nothing that's happened … nothing that's happened has to break us."

"It never could," David said. "How could it?"

"Well, I've been staying with Ashley and … That is, I've been staying with Ella and Thomas, and I need to gather my things. I'm sure you need to gather your own things. We can meet at Granny's in a few hours."

"You're not calling Hank to help you, are you?" David asked, his tone teasing but just a bit too light to be believable.

Mary Margaret's eyes hardened. "Let's not joke about that, David. Let's just … It's like you said. We need to find a way to move forward; put this all behind us. I just have a few things to take care of, and I'll see you at the inn."

Without another word, Mary Margaret began heading in the direction of the apartment she shared with Ashley and Sean.

Emma ran after her. "Hey. Are you okay?"

"You don't have to ask me that anymore," Mary Margaret said. "I'm your mother, not the other way around. It's my job to take care of you." There was a wistfulness to her voice as she said, "Though I suppose you don't really need that anymore, do you? You're all grown up. I'm so, so sorry that I wasn't there Emma. I hope you know that."

Emma swallowed around the lump in her throat, and she knew that now she was the one putting on a forced smile. "I turned out okay."

Mary Margaret just gave her a sad smile. "Yes. I suppose you did. That doesn't change the fact that I would have loved to have been there, to have played a part in the woman you became."

Emma didn't want to talk about this. At the same time, she desperately wanted to talk about this. She didn't know what she wanted.

There were more pressing matters, anyhow, like how Mary Margaret and David had been acting with each other. There had been an awkwardness about their last exchange, and it wasn't lost on Emma that when Zelena had had Mary Margaret in a magical chokehold and had then fallen unconscious, when they'd both collapsed, it had been Zelena's side that David had run to. Emma knew it hadn't escaped Mary Margaret's notice either; she had seen the hurt and broken look on her mother's face in that moment.

The two of them had said they wanted to pretend it had never happened, but somehow, Emma doubted it would be so easy for them.

"So, um, what about David?" Emma asked. "I mean, you seemed kind of short with him."

"I don't want you to worry about that," Mary Margaret said. "Your father and I … we'll be fine." And she forced another smile.

"I just … I think I get it. Why you're upset with him. I saw what happened, and I know why that would have hit you so hard right now."

"Do you?" Mary Margaret asked the question a little more curtly than Emma would have liked, but she tried to dismiss it.

She was just upset. How could she not be? She had sterilized herself when she wasn't herself, and now her husband was expecting another woman's child.

"If you need to talk, or –"

"David and I are True Love, Emma. Nothing can break us apart. I know you don't know what that means, because you grew up … not with us, but if we had raised you back home like we were meant to, you would understand … you would see that we …" Mary Margaret shook her head as if to clear it. "I … I don't want you to worry about any of it. We'll be fine."

"It might not be that simple," Emma said.

"You heard Maleficent," Mary Margaret said. "She can fix it, and David never has to know. You won't … you wouldn't tell him, right?"

Emma put her hands up defensively, "Of course not. I would never betray your confidence like that." Frankly, she was a little offended that Mary Margaret thought she would. Except this wasn't Mary Margaret. This was her mother, and they were essentially strangers.

"I can get it reversed. It will be like it never happened. The curse, everything we lost … we can start over; have a baby, raise a family, all of the things we planned."

Have a baby. It hit Emma harder than she had thought it would.

Of course, Mary Margaret wanted a baby. Emma knew that; she knew what her friend was mourning.

Except she wasn't just her friend anymore. She was her mother, and like so many potential mothers Emma had had over the years, she wanted a baby. She wanted to start over.

"Emma, you don't have to worry about me anymore," Mary Margaret said. "I'm going to be okay. I'm not Mary Margaret anymore."

"I liked Mary Margaret," Emma said quietly, but Mar-Snow White didn't seem to hear her.

Emma watched her mother walk away. They didn't know each other at all. Was it too late to start over?

"We should head home," her father-in-law said, coming up behind her, "It's been a long day, and we could all do with a bit of rest. I'm sure that Neal will be along soon as well, and we don't want to keep him waiting."

"Thank you," David said, coming up behind them and addressing her father-in-law. "For taking care of her all these years. It means so much to know there was someone who was there, since we couldn't be."

"She's family," her father-in-law said. "There is nothing in the world more important to me. I would never let any harm come to her."

And Emma knew that he spoke the truth. As much as she wanted to connect with David and Mary Margaret, as much as she wanted to have them be the parents she had always hoped would find her, she didn't really know them. David was trying, and her mother loved her, but both seemed to want to put the past behind them and start over with a new baby. It was okay, though. She already had a family.

Nodding her head, Emma said, "Let's go home," and then they did.

After dropping Alice off at the bar, Dorothy, Graham, Ivo, and the unnamed prisoner made their way to the hospital.

It wasn't like any hospital Dorothy had ever seen. There were so many marvels of technology, the like of which she'd never seen, and the people didn't look quite so miserable or scared. Still, it was quite crowded, and she hadn't a clue as to how to track down Snow and Charming, let alone their daughter.

"Father!" a young voice called, and two children came running right into Ivo's arms.

"Hansel," he said, tears filling his eyes, "Gretel. You're alive."

"And you're alive," the girl, Gretel apparently, said.

"I never doubted it," Hansel said, and Gretel slapped him playfully.

"I prayed for this day, even when I didn't remember what I was praying for," Ivo said, holding his children tight. Dorothy was glad for him.

"That-that witch made us think we were her children," Gretel spat. "She had us dancing to her tune like some of her monkeys."

"Someone ought to burn her," Hansel said, "or pull a gun on her and see how she likes it!"

"Hey now," the Savior's husband said, stepping forward. "You don't want someone's blood on your hands, no matter how wicked they are. There is always another way."

"You think she deserves to live?" Ivo asked. "After all she has done?"

"It's not about that," he said. "It's about what you deserve. I'm guessing you were separated for a long time, but you're together now. Will picking a fight with an evil witch really be the best way to stay that way? They say the best revenge is a life well lived. She didn't want you to be together and happy, and now you are. Don't let her ruin it for you."

"You speak sense, Savior's husband," Dorothy said, and she meant it. She was quite impressed with him.

"I'm pretty sure I told you that my name is Neal," he said.

"Neal then. Where is your wife? Where are your in-laws? We were told they would be here, and I need to speak with them."

"About what, exactly?" Neal asked, crossing his arms.

"I agree with you about the wicked witch. Vengeance is never the answer. Still, she needs to be stopped, and I've worked with Queen Snow and King Charming before. As for your wife, well, she needs to learn magic, and I think I'm the best to teach her."

"Does Emma really need … I mean, we've got someone who's willing to deal with the magical bits. I don't quite trust them, so it would be good if you helped, but … I mean, does Emma really need to learn magic? Isn't her part over? She broke the curse. Can't that be it? Can't she just be … done?" Neal asked.

"I'm afraid it's not as simple as all that. Even if she weren't needed for the upcoming fight, magic is a part of her, and now that she has it, she needs to learn to control it safely," Dorothy said, trying to sound reassuring. She wasn't sure why this man was so averse to the idea of his wife learning magic, but she knew that many feared what they didn't understand.

"No putting the genie back in the bottle then, huh?" he asked.

The stranger from the asylum made a hrmph sound, but said nothing. She really needed to learn more about him.

"Neal," Graham said, stepping forward, "I'd like to apologize. I was unfairly suspicious of you, and I treated you terribly."

Neal shrugged. "It's good man. I know you weren't under your own control. Just, don't hit on my wife anymore, okay?"

Graham turned bright red. "I … that was …" he searched helplessly for something to say before shaking his head as if to clear it. "Putting past differences aside, I was hoping that we could find out where the Evil Queen put my heart. We need to find her, neutralize her, and then question her."

"Well, I'll leave the questioning to someone else, but she's already been found and neutralized."

"By Emma?" Graham asked.

"Not quite. Um, it's a long story." Just then, something in Neal's pocket made a loud noise, and he pulled out a peculiar rectangular device with rounded corners, glancing down at it, before looking back up and saying, "I have to take this."

He walked away, holding the strange device to the side of his face.

"What was that?" Dorothy asked, and Ivo just shrugged.

Graham deflated a bit at Neal's departure, but then his eyes lit up and he smiled. "Jamie!" he said. "Or, um, Captain? I'm sorry. It's a bit confusing."

He was looking at a figure cloaked in shadow, hovering in a corner. She stepped forward, and it was the woman he had turned his gun on back at the asylum. Apparently, with the curse broken, their relationship was much more amicable, if not intimate. Judging by the look on his face, Dorothy would guess it was intimate, thought she didn't want to assume.

"I prefer Jamie," she said. "And you?"

"Graham," he said. "I think it suits me."

"That it does," she said, giving him a weak sort of awkward smile. "I suppose I never did know your name anyway."

"Well, you didn't stay around long enough to ask."

Jamie didn't say anything; she just avoided his gaze.

"It's good to see you," he said. "I know we have seen each other for years now, but I … I wanted to see you again, Hook. The true you. I …I waited a long time."

"I'm not quite sure who the true me is, quite honestly," she said. "As you said, it's confusing."

"Sorry about that," Neal said as he came back over to them. "That was Emma. She told me that her Maleficent took an unconscious Evil Queen to her home, and that they're all going to go and talk to her in the morning."

"Did you … did you mention my heart?"

Neal nodded. "I did. But Emma's kind of new to magic, so she doesn't really know what to tell you, other than that she'll help anyway she can."

"And Snow and David? Are they with her? Did they have anything to add?"

"You know them, I take it?" Neal asked, but he didn't wait for Graham to answer. "She said that they're staying at Granny's. Do you … I could give you a ride?"

"You don't sound so certain of that," Graham said.

"It's been a long day," Neal said. "A lot has happened."

"It's been a long 28 years," Graham said, "and it was a long time under Zelena's control before that." He shuddered. "I never want to be controlled again."

"Right," Neal said, "I can only imagine. But Zelena's unconscious and locked up. She can't control you right now, and she can't give you answers until she wakes up."

"I don't want to just sit and wait," Graham said.

"Then I'll give you a lift," Neal said. "I still have Ar- that is, Belle's car. I hope you don't mind if I drop you off and split, though? I don't think I can be of much help and, like I said, it's been a long day. I kind of just want to go home to my family."

Graham nodded. "And you?" he asked, turning to Jamie. "Would you like to come?"

She shook her head, "I have … other things I should be doing as well. And as Neal said, it's been a long day."

"I would like to talk," Graham said. "When I'm fully … myself again. I hope that you won't leave town?"

Jamie smirked. "I'm not sure I can, sheriff. Besides, where would I go?"

"Then I'll be seeing you," he said, tipping an imaginary hat before heading off with Neal, who was shooting glances between Graham and Jamie.

"I hope he'll be all right," Ivo said.

"Snow and Charming are good people. They'll take good care of him, even if it has been a long day for us all," Dorothy said. Then, she let out a yawn. Long day indeed; she hadn't realized how spent she was. "Perhaps, it would be a good idea for us all to rest and regroup. Though, come to think of it, I don't quite have a home to go back to."

"Me neither," Ivo said conciliatorily.

Of course he didn't; they'd both been locked up this whole time, and she certainly wasn't going to go back to the asylum. Perhaps she could find someone to stay with?

"We do," Hansel said to his father. "The wicked witch is locked up, and our cursed father is apparently staying at Granny's. And despite how miserable it all was, it really is a lovely house. Come home with us, Father. We'll be a family again."

Ivo smiled and ruffled his son's hair. "Of course. And can Dorothy come too? She's an old friend."

The kids nodded.

"Thank you, children," Dorothy said, smiling. "That's very kind."

"And me?" the nameless prisoner said, turning to Dorothy. "Where will I go? You said you would protect me."

Dorothy looked at Ivo, who looked at his children. "You said it's a lovely house, but is it large?"

"It's huge," Hansel said, stretching out his arms.

Dorothy laughed, "Then I suppose it will be the five of us."

"One big happy family," Ivo said. "Whole again, and then some." He grabbed his children close to him once more, and they burrowed their heads in his chest. "I will never let anything happen to you," he said. "I will never let anyone separate us again."

Then Gretel took her father's left hand and grabbed Dorothy's right. Hansel grabbed his father's left hand and the stranger's right.

"Let's go home," Gretel said.

The children were sweet when not conspiring to kill the wicked witch, and Dorothy looked forward to learning about this new realm from them. It seemed that teaching her about wondrous places she was unfamiliar with ran in the family.

There was still so much to do, but that was tomorrow's problem. The wicked witch was locked up by someone named Maleficent. She didn't know who that was, but if the Savior and Snow and Charming trusted her, Dorothy did too. They could breathe easy for the night knowing that the Wicked Witch, while not dead, was incapacitated, and could not do anything to harm them. The witch was locked up, and Dorothy was finally free.

Nearly two weeks had passed since Precious, Childe, and Margaret had been locked up. They had been put into separate cells, of course, unable to even speak with one another. Still, she had heard both of their voices, or rather, their screams.

The king's knights had tortured them, whether for information or pleasure she neither knew nor cared. It was cruel, and it made her ache.

Precious herself had not been tortured, and initially, she had held out hope that that meant her father still cared for her; perhaps he was having regrets. Then she had heard the guards talking, and it had become clear that she was only being spared of torture because the knights feared stress would cause her to transform again.

If only she could transform. She should have prepared for this. She should have learned control. If she had, everything might have been different.

The king had not been to see her, and nor had Briar Rose. She imagined the king was keeping his daughter from the monster that he no longer claimed as kin. It was just as well. She didn't want to see Briar Rose; she couldn't help but blame the girl for all that had happened.

At one point, she heard that Briar Rose was being moved for her own protection. Apparently, the king now believed that the potion which had caused the Queen to conceive had also cursed the baby in question. Well, let him believe it. He wouldn't believe her if she tried to correct him, but frankly, it served him right. If he refused to be grateful and to see ill intent in what Precious had done, let the fear haunt and consume him, as the flames would soon consume her.

It was just as she was thinking of flames that her cell began to grow warm. In fact, the whole of the dungeon had grown warm, and the knights were running about in a panic, shouting, "Dragons!"

Had she done it? Had she changed?

She looked down, but she only saw human arms at her side. It wasn't she that they were running from.

She saw fire fill the cavern, and out of the fire stepped a woman, brandishing a key. The woman came up to Precious' cell and unlocked it.

"Come with me," she said.

"My friends – "

"Are already dead," the woman said. "I'm sorry. We would have come sooner, but we only just got word, and it's a long flight from the mountain."

"Mountain?"

"Mount Pilatus," the woman said. "Where our kind dwell. We heard tell of a dragon imprisoned and sentenced to death."

"Are you saying … Are you a dragon?" Precious asked, knowing the answer already.

The woman nodded, grabbing Precious' hand and dragging her along. "There is much to tell you, but we must run now."

Precious let herself be led out of the dungeon, but her mind was reeling. Other dragons? Dragons like her, who had come to save her? Were her birth parents among them? Could this woman be her kin?

The others are waiting for us above, and we can fly back –"

"I can't fly," Precious said. "That is, I only transformed once, and it was an accident. I don't know how."

"We will teach you, in time. For now, you will ride with me."

"Are you … are you my mother?" Precious asked.

"No. I'm sorry. I believe your family is dead."

It was just as well. Precious had known a family that she believed loved her, and they had betrayed her. She would hardly trust another simply because they shared blood.

Misinterpreting her silence, the woman said, "I am truly sorry that you never got to know them, but we can be your family. We will teach you the ways of your people."

The two broke the surface, and a league of dragons was circling the air above.

"Can you teach me to fly? And to breath fire?" The woman nodded, and Precious smiled.

"Tell me your name, child?" the woman asked.

"I … I have no name. That is, the man I called father gave me one long ago, but he has renounced me. I am no longer a precious thing he loves, but a malevolent and malicious beast who he thinks will bring his ruin." As she spoke, she felt a fire spark within her. She looked back at the home she had once known and pictured it burning to the ground.

"He is wrong," the woman said, clearly thinking this would comfort her.

"No, he is right," the girl who was no longer Precious said. "I will be exactly what he believes me to be. I will return and burn down all that he and his true daughter hold dear. I will be the evil beast they think I am; malevolent, malicious, Maleficent."

The woman stepped back. "I'm afraid that cannot be," she said. "We can offer you a family, a life, school you in our ways, but we don't condone vengeance. We will not become the beasts they believe us to be."

"And the dragons whom King Konrad fought some sixteen years prior? Were they not seeking vengeance?"

"That is a battle that his kingdom began. Even still, you have seen the result. All of those dragons were slain. If you insist on going down this path, we cannot help you."

Shaking her head, the newly dubbed Maleficent tried to look contrite. "I apologize. I will not seek vengeance. I want to go to the mountain, and to have a family who can teach me more about what I am."

The woman smiled. "Then you shall have it," she said, before transforming into a beautiful dragon herself. She gently placed Maleficent on her back and flew into the air.

The procession of dragons flew into the night, and for many days afterward, until finally, they reached the mountain. When they did, Maleficent was welcomed, and she played the role of the docile pupil, mourning her friends and former life, but prepared to move forward. It was surprisingly easy, but then, hadn't she spent her life pretending to be something that she wasn't?

They promised her family if she followed their rules, but hadn't others promised her the same? She could be the king and queen's daughter if she didn't do magic and wasn't a dragon. She could be the princess's sister if she didn't grow up and have other friends.

So, Maleficent would bide her time, learn what she could, and when King Konrad's truly precious daughter Briar Rose turned the age that she was now, she would have her vengeance. She would never trust family again. She would never trust anyone again.

Once, long ago Snow White had dreamed of what it would be like when the curse broke. Back then, she had been heavily pregnant and had expected to go through the portal with her unborn daughter. She had known she would miss David desperately, but she would get to raise their daughter and, when the time came, she and David would be reunited. Twenty-eight years would have passed, but what was 28 years when you had true love? She and David would kiss and make love and marvel at their beautiful daughter.

What a fool she had been. She hadn't gotten to raise her daughter. Someone else had done that. By the time she met her daughter, Emma was already married with a child, and Snow hadn't even recognized her.

She and David hadn't kissed. They had held each other and cried, but they hadn't kissed. Now, they lay on opposite sides of the bed. She had tried to reach out for him, but he had flinched, and she had retracted her hand.

She understood, of course. For a long time, he'd had a different wife whom he'd believed he loved, and then he had woken up to find out it was all a trick. He felt violated. It hadn't been something so openly acknowledged in the old world, but she knew enough from her memories of this one to understand why being intimate would make him flinch. He probably felt ashamed, even though he shouldn't. He probably also felt like he couldn't trust his own feelings. After all, hadn't he been sure that he'd loved Zelena when they had made love? And hadn't he been wrong?

She could hardly blame him for what had transpired between him and Zelena. She had done the same with Hercules under the curse, and at least that had been somewhat consensual. As David had pointed out, neither of them had known better.

Her heart went out to David, but a small traitorous part of her couldn't help but be jealous. Zelena got to carry his child, and she wouldn't have to put it in a wardrobe the second after it was born. And then David would get to raise his child, and Snow would never get to raise her own. She couldn't give David a child. And she knew, she knew it wasn't his fault, but it was so hard not to feel angry and hurt that he got to have this with someone else and not with her.

She had to speak with Maleficent. The sorceress had said she could cure Snow of her infidelity, the infidelity that Zelena had tricked her into inflicting on herself. She wanted to scream at the injustice of it all, and she put her pillow over her face to muffle it so that it wouldn't wake up David. Assuming he was asleep. Assuming he could sleep after everything. She certainly couldn't.

The phone by the bed rang, and David's hand shot out. Clearly, he hadn't been asleep either.

"Hello?" he said. "Yes. Okay, yeah, I'll be right there."

David hung up the phone and stood up, starting to put his clothes back on.

"Who was that?" Snow asked.

"Granny," he said. "She said that Graham is at the front desk asking for me. He was … I mean, I don't know if you remember –"

"The huntsman," Snow said. "Yes, I remember."

"Right. So, we should go down and –"

"You go," Snow said. "He was more your friend than mine and … and I'm tired." The last bit was a lie. Well, not quite a lie. She was tired. It was just that she knew she wouldn't be sleeping.

But David nodded. Either he couldn't tell she was lying, or he just didn't want to acknowledge it. "I'll try not to wake you when I come back up," he said.

He leaned down to kiss her, but it was only her cheek. She gave him a forced smile and then collapsed back into her bed when he left, covering herself over with a blanket to muffle her screams once again.

"I suppose true love is more chaste than I imagined," she heard Maleficent say.

She threw off the blanket and sat up. Sure enough, there was Maleficent, standing in her room.

"What are you doing here?" Snow asked.

"I said I would find you later, didn't I?" the sorceress said, walking around the room imperiously.

"Zelena-?"

"Is detained," Maleficent said. "She can't hurt anyone where she is. But that's not what you wanted to ask about, was it?"

Sighing, Snow White shook her head. "Will you reverse it?" Snow asked, trying to sound less desperate than she felt. "Can you make me fertile again?"

Maleficent nodded. "I can. And I will. But you must be a true ally to me. Defend me against those who question or attack me, pardon me for my crimes, help me find my daughter, and when we are reunited, let us live our lives. I will help you with your happily ever after, if you help me with mine."

"Yes, of course," Snow said. "After you've helped me – "

"Before," Maleficent said. "You will help me before I help you."

"But-but why?"

"Because I need you incentivized to hold up your end of the bargain. Once I can offer you nothing, you have no reason to help."

Snow shook her head. "Good isn't like that. I wouldn't … I wouldn't promise to help and then not help."

"You would, if you thought it would make you a hero. If you thought that I needed to be defeated, or punished, or simply not aided."

"Defeated?" Snow asked. "Does that mean you plan on doing something … evil?"

"I do not plan on it," Maleficent said, "But Briar Rose's daughter may dig her heels in, as it were. She wants vengeance, and there are others who may want to punish me for things I've done. But you will not aid them. You will aid me. Regardless of what happens, you will take my side, because without my help, you will remain sterile, and you will have to watch your husband raise the child of the woman you despise."

Snow didn't know what to say. She was supposed to be a hero. She was supposed to do things that were good and right, as her parents had taught her to do.

She knew that Aurora deserved justice. She knew that Maleficent was a villain and might not always be in the right. She might do despicable things. Was Snow just supposed to let her, and to defend her to those who questioned her?

But what if she said no? There was nobody else who could undo what had been done. Nobody but Maleficent. And Maleficent didn't seem to want to hurt anybody. She just wanted to be pardoned for past wrongs, and to have a future with the daughter whom she hadn't gotten to raise. Snow could relate.

"All right," Snow said, steeling herself. "You will have an ally in me. I won't oppose you, and my daughter will help you find yours."

"I would like you to swear an oath," Maleficent said. "On bound by magic."

"You don't trust me?"

"You are lying to your husband," Maleficent said. "And without a magical bond, it's just words. Without that, there is no deal. Besides, this will also assure you that I will uphold my end of the bargain. Surely that's something you would like, as I doubt you trust me any more than I trust you."

Well, that was true enough. "How do I swear an oath?" Snow asked.

"Give me your hand, child," Maleficent said, and Snow did.

Magic swirled around their clasped hands and Maleficent told Snow what words to say. Snow repeated them, and Maleficent swore to her side of the deal. Then, the magic whooshed outward, knocking Snow back.

"It is done," Maleficent said. "And you will have to abide by it."

"So will you," Snow said, though it was a small consolation.

"Indeed," Maleficent said, nodding.

She had just made a deal with a villain. She couldn't undo it. But this was the right thing, wasn't it? This is what she needed to do.

She wouldn't tell David … any of it. He wouldn't understand. But it was okay. He didn't need to know. It was better that he never knew.

"My intentions are good," Snow said, "They aren't evil. I'm not evil. I'm just doing what I have to do."

"Quite so," Maleficent said, "but then, you know what they say about good intentions."

With that last biting comment, Maleficent disappeared in a cloud of smoke, and Snow once again collapsed onto the bed. Not long afterward, she heard David at the door, and not wanting to have to lie to him, she pretended to be asleep.

After dropping off Graham at Granny's Neal drove home. He felt a little bad. The guy had been missing his heart since Neal didn't know when, and he wished he could help more but … he needed to get home. He needed Emma.

She smiled at him when he came through the door, and it looked like maybe she wanted to run to him, but she didn't. She just continued to sit on the couch.

"Hey," he said, and then noticing she was waiting up for him alone, he asked, "Where's Pop and Henry?"

"Your father was exhausted. He headed to bed the second we got home."

That surprised him. He would have expected Papa to wait up for him too. Then again, becoming the Dark One again and nearly going on a killing spree probably took a lot out of someone, especially if they hadn't been magical for almost a decade. Neal tried not to wince thinking about it.

"And Henry?" he asked, while shrugging out of his coat. "I figured he's been bouncing off the walls."

"Oh, he was," Emma said. "I kept trying to get him to go to sleep, and eventually he tired himself out enough. That or he was faking, but honestly, so long as he doesn't sneak out or anything, it's okay if he stays up a bit. There's been a lot of … excitement."

"Yeah, about that," he said, taking a seat next to her. "How are you doing with all of that?"

"Oh, I'm all right," Emma said shrugging. "We have a lot to figure out, what with evil queens and everything, but it's going to be okay."

"Yeah, but, you met your parents," Neal said. "And you found out magic is real. Your head must be exploding."

"I don't want my head to explode," Emma said. "I don't have the time or the energy for it. Tomorrow, I have to figure out how to find Maleficent's daughter, and how to help all of the people who were cursed, and my … and I need to help the woman who I thought was my friend, but is actually my mother, to fix her relationship with her husband."

She wasn't answering his question, but he should have expected that. Sometimes it was easier to deal with the problems in front of you than to think about how the last 24 hours made you feel. Still, Neal knew she couldn't be okay. She had waited her whole life to meet her parents. There had to be feelings there. And while she was certainly more optimistic than when they'd first met, wrapping her head around magic being real and what it meant for both of them …

"I could tell you that you don't have to do any of those things, that it doesn't have to be your job to figure it all out, but I know you wouldn't listen," he said, trying to catch her eye. She avoided his gaze at first, so he waited patiently, staring her down until she looked at him.

She was putting up a strong front, jutting out her chin, pretending everything was all right, with the too-wide smile, but he saw it. He saw the tears that she was refusing to cry.

"It needs to be done, Neal," she said stubbornly. "It's why I'm here, isn't it? Isn't that the whole point of everything—that I'm supposed to save everybody? Isn't that what I was made for?"

Her voice rose a bit, and he could tell she'd noticed. She tried to look away from him again, but he reached out and turned her face so that she couldn't before gently brushing a stray hair behind her ear.

"I know you want to help people," he said. "And you're great at it. But that's tomorrow. It's been a long day, and you've been hit with a lot of trucks all at once. You haven't had any time to process, or to cry, or scream, or feel whatever the hell it is you need to feel. So, all I'm going to say is what Tara said to Willow at the beginning of season six." He grabbed her hand and brought it to his heart. "This is me. It doesn't all have to be "good" and "fine." This is the room where you don't have to be brave. I still love you."

For a long time, Emma didn't say anything, and then he felt her start to tremble. Gently, he pulled her into him, and she buried her face in his chest, sobbing and gasping for breath, getting his shirt wet with snot and tears. Her rubbed her back and stroked her head and held her as close as he could without fusing the two of them together. He let her shake and tremble because she was crying so hard. He didn't say anything. He knew he didn't need to. He just needed to be here.

"Why now?" she said through her sobs and the occasional hiccup. "So many years I waited. For so long, I just wanted them to come find me. And I know," she said, trying to sit up and for a minute before falling back into him. "I know that they were cursed. I know they never wanted to give me away. I know it wasn't their choice. But …"

"But that doesn't make the hurt go away," Neal finished for her. "It's okay. You don't have to be okay with it just because they didn't mean for it to happen. It still happened."

"They want to pretend it didn't," Emma said. "They want to go on like none of this ever happened. They want a baby, someone they can raise to be a princess who wears dresses and goes to balls and … Or maybe not. I don't know what kind of baby they want. But it's not me. They don't want me anymore."

"Did they say that? I mean, your dad seemed pretty –"

"Oh, no, they didn't say that. I mean, they did say that they want a baby, another chance, but they didn't say they don't want me. But they don't know me, not really, and they like the idea of me, but I'm not the baby they wanted.

"I don't even know who they are, really. I don't know what kind of people they are. I just know that they sent me away so that I could rescue them. Why did I have to rescue them? Why couldn't they rescue me? Why couldn't they have come for me when I was still little and cute, and someone they would want?"

"I can't imagine anyone not wanting to - to know you, to love you, to have you in their life. There is nothing about you that anyone could ever not want. And as for why they didn't come for you, why you had to save them instead of the other way around, there is no good reason," Neal said, still rubbing her back. "There's no reason or logic that could ever make up for all that you lost. Nothing will ever make it fair or right. No destiny or prophecy or curse makes it okay that they sent you away to grow up on your own."

"Well, not completely on my own," Emma said, looking up at him. He saw that she was smiling through her tears. It was a small smile, barely there, but it was something.

"If there were a reason," Neal said, "if there would be something to justify all of this, then selfishly, I would say that if that mess of crap hadn't happened, we never would have met, and I can't imagine my life without you in it. Or Henry. You guy are everything I could ever have wished for. And you weren't a baby when I met you, or a princess, or anything like that. You were just a surly teenager who needed to be loved. And I'm so grateful that I got to be the one to love you."

Emma was sitting up a little straighter now. Her face was still streaked with tears, but she appeared to have stopped crying for the time being. In fact, she snorted and said, "Well, if I were a baby when we met and you had loved me the way you ended up loving me, you really would have been a pervert."

"Better than a murderer," he said, glad that she was feeling better.

"Or an outlaw," she finished, keeping the bit going.

"Or Robin Hood," Neal said, kissing her forehead. "Huh. You know, I think I saw him in Henry's book. I wonder if we'll get to meet him."

"So bizarre," Emma said. "And I can't believe you quoted Buffy the Vampire Slayer to make your point. How did you even remember that?"

"Well, you made me watch it enough," Neal said.

"And you hated it, and I never understood why. I guess I kind of do now, though. All the magic stuff?"

Neal nodded. "All that season six stuff with the magic addiction hit a little too close to home."

Emma started to smooth down his shirt where it had gotten wrinkled from her tears. "So," she said, "we've talked about me, and how I'm feeling, but what about you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, we could never talk about your past before, and I get why now, except now I know, so we can. And I saw you with your dad. I can only imagine … Please tell me what you're feeling?"

"Scared," Neal said. He was so happy that he could finally be honest with her about everything, even if the truth wasn't so great right now, "Before, with the magic, my dad got … It was bad. Like, really bad. He was a totally different person. What you saw of him today? It doesn't even crack the surface of what he was like. I can't … I can't let him go back to that."

"Hey," Emma said, grabbing his face and turning it so his eyes met hers again. "It is not your job to make sure he doesn't. I mean, I can hardly imagine him being anything other than the loving, gentle man he's always been but if that changes … It's not your fault. I've seen enough unhealthy relationships with the kids I work with and their parents to know that the behavior of the parent is not the responsibility of the child. It is not your fault if he does something bad. You can't be the thing that keeps him good. That is not on you."

"You say that but … you weren't there. He did it for me, Em, to protect me. He killed to protect me. People think they want that, but trust me, you don't. Having someone end another person's life and say that they're doing it for you …"

She grabbed his hand. "He made choices. Hopefully, he won't make them again."

"The magic does something to him," Neal said. "It changes him, makes him … I don't like what it does to him. I don't want that to be who he is again. I liked things the way they were."

Emma was quiet for a moment, but Neal could tell she wanted to say something. "What is it?" he asked.

"Is this going to be a problem?" she asked.

"What, my father?"

"No, me. I mean, me and magic? The fact that I have magic? Are you scared it's going to … Will it change me?"

"I don't know," Neal said, because it was the truth, and he was done lying to her.

"What if it does? Will you … Will you still love me?"

His heart broke at her question. He wanted to say it wouldn't change her, couldn't change her, because he knew her that well.

Except he had known his father well once too. Magic changed people. It just did.

"I still loved my father," Neal said. "I jumped through a portal with him to another land that I knew nothing about. I jumped with him because I loved him. I never left him behind. I wouldn't know how to. And Em, I wouldn't know how to leave you behind either. No matter what happens, I could never stop loving you."

"And if I stop being me?" she asked. "What if there's no portal to jump through? What if this is just who I am now?"

"Then we'll figure it out," Neal said. "I won't lie. It scares the shit out of me. But I won't … I can't lose you. I refuse to. I'll defy fate and the gods and whoever else I have to, but I won't lose you. So, whatever happens, we'll figure it out."

"Okay," Emma said, "Okay."

"Once more and I'll think you mean it," he said, trying to make light. "It doesn't have to be okay, Emma. Not if you don't want it to."

"I need it to be okay right now. I need us to be okay. Everything else is changing and spiraling, and you're my port in the storm." Her shoulders dropped. "And I'm tired. Today was … so much happened. I just want to go to bed. Can we just go to bed now, please? Can we just lie together in a tangle of sheets and drift off to sleep and forget everything for a while?"

Neal nodded. "Yeah. We can do that."

They could go to bed. They needed rest, and everything else could wait until tomorrow.

Rumpelstiltskin waited until he heard his children go to bed. Bae thought he hadn't waited up, but he had. He had waited, and he had heard them talking, but he had stayed quiet. He had his reasons, of course.

The way Bae spoke of magic … oh, the pain and hatred. All of it stemmed from fear. He hated that he had caused his son to be so afraid. But Bae only remembered the bad things that magic had done. He didn't remember his Papa keeping him from war or saving the children and stopping the ogres. He didn't remember them being brought out of poverty.

They had come to this land because of magic. A magic bean had brought them. An ordinary bean could not have done that.

And Emma, well, she was magic. She had it, and it was likely what had drawn her to their family in the first place. Without magic, she would not be in their lives. He and Bae would be alone. There would no Henry. The family that they had built wouldn't exist.

The high from the rush of magic had calmed some, and he was thinking more clearly. Was magic evil? Bae seemed to think so, and Emma would follow suit. She had grown up in this realm and didn't know any better, so she would take Bae at his word.

Rumple knew better. He knew that it was not so black-and-white. Magic was a tool. It could be used for evil, or for good. In the Enchanted Forest, he had let the magic control and consume him, but it could different here. He could keep himself in check. He could learn from his mistakes. That didn't mean he had to give up the means to protect his family. As long as they were in this town, as long as there were evil sorcerers and witches and dragons, he needed magic. He just needed to be careful in how he used it.

Belle had not shied away from him. She had told Aurora that he was a hero, as had Henry, which warmed his heart. Oh, he loved her still. He always had. He wasn't sure if she could love him back, because who could, now that he was the Dark One once again? Even his son's affection was conditional. But if anyone could see past all of that, it would be Belle. So, perhaps she did love him.

That was why he couldn't kiss her. Not yet. Not until he was ready to give the power up. He would give it up when it was safe, when he didn't need it anymore. When that day came, he would give it up and go back out into the world with his family and never look back.

Belle would understand. She had tried to find him back in their land, according to Henry's book. If she had been able to, her family and friends would still be alive, as would the rest of her duchy. She would understand the need for magic. And, after all, so much time had passed since there had been a Dark One that most of the people from the Enchanted Forest had no frame of reference. Aurora had believed him good without question.

Aurora, the princess who wanted vengeance, now lay awake in her hospital bed. He could sense it. He knew where she was. He knew that she was awake, and he knew that she was alone. And once his children had gone to bed, he teleported to the no-longer sleeping beauty's bedside.

"Having trouble sleeping?" he asked. "I hear there's a spell that helps with that."

"I have no desire to sleep," she said, sitting up a bit straighter.

"Then why are you in bed?" he asked, more to make conversation than anything else.

"It eases Philip's mind to think I'm resting, but I doubt I will ever have a good night's rest again."

"Well, Philip isn't here, is he?" Rumple asked.

He assumed the boy had been rushed out when visiting hours ended, which worked to Rumple's advantage. Aurora needed to be alone when he approached her.

"No. I am alone," she said, and Rumple heard the double-meaning behind the words. "What are you doing here, sorcerer?"

"Call me Rumpelstiltskin," he said, and it felt good to be able to use his given name again. "After all, we're going to be great friends, aren't we?"

"I don't understand," the girl said.

"You want help to defeat Maleficent, don't you? Magical help? I can offer that, for a price, of course."

She shook her head. "You said that you promised your son you wouldn't use magic."

"I said I wouldn't break a promise to my son, and I won't, but the promise wasn't that I wouldn't use magic. The promise was that I wouldn't kill, and I won't. You, however, will."

"I will?" Aurora gasped. "I-I don't know how -?"

"I'll teach you, Dearie. With a little training, and a little magic, you will be able to slay your dragon."

"You will help me kill her?" Aurora asked. "You will help me kill Maleficent?"

"Again, for a price," Rumpelstiltskin said.

Aurora nodded, as though it made sense to her that he would want something. There was no fear or suspicion in her expression. How lucky it was that he was dealing with someone who only knew him as a sorcerer who had earned the love of a beautiful woman.

"I'm not sure what sort of currency there is in this land, but I can try to ask –"

"I don't want you asking anyone anything, Dearie," he said. The last thing he wanted was for this to get back to his family. "I don't want anyone to know that we're working together."

"Then how will I–?"

"It's not money that I want," he said. "It's what I want you to do, and that is to kill."

"Yes, I'll kill Maleficent," Aurora said.

"Not just Maleficent," Rumple said, "I will give you the power you need to execute someone, and you will execute who I tell you to. That's the deal."

Aurora was quiet for a minute. "I don't want to kill someone innocent," she said. "I'm not a murderer. I simply want justice."

"As do I," Rumple said. Then, he conjured up a sword.

"That's Philip's!" Aurora said, excitement lighting up her eyes.

Well, that was appropriate. It seemed his magic knew things that he didn't. Rumple put his hand over the blade and worked his magic on it until it burned hot and he needed to drop it.

"It'll cool down in a moment," he said. Once the blade stopped glowing, he picked it up and handed it to the princess.

"What did you do to it?" Aurora asked, mesmerized by the blade.

"I enchanted it," he said. "It is now the Sword of Truth. It will detect the truth of a person, discover who they are, and if it is turned on an opponent free of darkness, it will be harmless. However, if it detects any darkness in their heart, it will be able to kill them, be they dragon, witch, or what have you. So, you see, you have nothing to worry about."

Aurora nodded. What the girl had yet to learn was that there wasn't a soul alive who didn't have darkness in their hearts. Oh, there were those with very little. Usually, they had led good lives and been lucky and happy. They had been taught to do good, and they had no reason to do anything else. Aurora herself had likely once fallen into such a category, and she probably believed that she still did. In her mind, she was a victim seeking justice for a wrong. It had not occurred to her that there was darkness in her heart and that, if she wasn't careful, it could consume it.

Well, let the darkness have her heart. She would be his darkness, the tool for his dark magic and other dark deeds. He would not kill. He would not darken his heart more than it already had been darkened. Let Aurora pay the price that he refused to pay. The girl had already lost everything, whereas he had everything to lose.

And it wasn't as though he were forcing her to do something that she didn't want to do. He had not put the darkness there. It had always been there, and her trauma had sparked in to life. Over time, with the proper guidance, it would only continue to fester now.

She wanted to kill Maleficent. She had said as much many times, and it had fallen on deaf ears. She wasn't above doing the deed; she simply lacked the means with which to do it. All he had done was give her the tools, and in exchange, she would be the tool he used to protect his family.

It was a fair trade. After all, in any trade, both parties need to sacrifice something. Aurora had chosen to sacrifice her pure heart.

It was her choice to make, and she had made it freely because, at the end of the day, nobody was without darkness. Nobody was truly innocent.

Author's Note: The line Neal quotes is from Buffy the Vampire Slayer S6E3 "After Life." Thanks to tvtranscripts.

Also, I'd like to point out that unlike a lot of backstories in this fic, there is no reason this one couldn't have happened in the original timeline, because Rumple was not involved in it. Had it been Maleficent's canon backstory, it would have transpired long before Regina met Tinker Bell. In S3E3, "Quite a Common Fairy," after Tinker Bell has helped Regina and Blue takes her wings, she asks Blue for a second chance and Blue responds, "But, Tinker Bell, this was your second chance." That always made me wonder, what was her first chance? So, do with that what you will.