#my darling Cora who is very much alive and well and has never once been harmed by Oda's need to write tragic backstories

[nyarlathotep-thecrawlingchaos]

Started adding a little rough shading to my Cora, but I need to get some sleep probably.

I've managed a finished fic chapter and a headcanon over the course of the day as well, so I guess I've done alright.

Can't say whether I will or won't end up typing out another dumb headcanon at five in the morning, which seems to be prime-headcanon-hour for me for some reason.

Just me trying to convince my brain to sleep and brain going "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE BLORBOS"

Brain does as brain pleases because brain is rotten.

As such, if you have brainrot, feel encouraged to leave it in the askbox. It will be both in good company and massively appreciated, and it also makes my present stressy-depressy issues a great deal easier to manage.

Love you all ♥️♥️

[sailtoafarawayland]

The Things We Don’t Say - Ch 2 (modern AU - actors)

Summary:  No one is perfect, and sometimes, two people are just so perfectly flawed that those pieces fit together and make something beautiful. When sparks fly between two leads of a new hit show, is there a happy ending in sight, or will their own mistakes overshadow any chance they had at something worth fighting for.

Rated: Explicit    

Warnings:   This is a joyfully Captain Swan story, but there are a few warnings. It does start with Emma/Neal and Killian/Milah. I don't write non-CS, so there won't be any sexual anything happening 'on screen', so to speak, between those couples, but I won't guarantee there may not be a mention. This story contains numerous episodes of cheating. If any of these things make you squick or are not your bag, carry on.

AO3 - FF

- or read below the cut -

As always, let me know if you’d like to be tagged (or removed) for further updates.

Tag list: @xarandomdreamx @jrob64 @wefoundloveunderthelight @teamhook @tiganasummertree @pirateprincessofpizza @lfh1226-linda @kmomof4​ 

Chapter Two

Killian sighed into the hard press of his fingers against his tired eyes, listening to the soft hum of the elevator as it climbed to his floor. He’d look like a drunken raccoon by the time he got into the apartment, but he couldn’t find it in him to care. An early morning shoot that had dragged late into the day left him feeling more dead than alive, and he hadn’t bothered with his normal clean up on set. The time saved getting back to his bed was the bright side—the downside was a few fans had recognized him when he jumped out of his uber, his trademark eyeliner and messily styled hair a giveaway. He’d managed a few weak smiles as they snapped pictures and hurried on his way, taking a few strange turns and slipping a spare beanie he kept in his pocket over his head. That, a popped collar, and hunched shoulders normally did the trick. Being famous certainly had its perks, but crazed fans knowing where he lived certainly wasn’t one of them.

It was usually simpler to drive to set, but lately he’d been to worn out to trust himself behind the wheel. The past two weeks had been a nightmare of last minute reshoots and publicity, and he couldn’t wait for it to all be over.

The elevator doors slid open, Killian staring at them for a moment before he realized her was staring at the familiar artwork that spanned the hall outside his condo. Desperately trying to blink away sleep, he trudged down the hall, leaning his forehead against the cool metal door for a brief second before unlocking it and heading in.  

God, he hoped Milah was content to have a quiet night in.

Everything was blessedly dark and quiet when he stepped into the entryway, shrugging his leather jacket off and hanging it on the waiting hook, his boots next as he eased them off his aching feet and lined them up neatly below the jacket. He rolled his neck and stretched, wrinkling his nose as he realized a fifteen-hour day filming had left him less than fresh.

A hot shower and bed—that was the plan. With any luck, and the darkened apartment seemed to be on his side, Milah would already be stretched beneath the covers and he could slip in behind her and fall asleep pressed to her warmth. It would be the perfect start to a weekend otherwise free of engagements and obligations.

“Milah?” he whispered, not wanting to startle her if she was relaxing in the living area.

There was always the chance she’d gone out with friends earlier and wouldn’t be home until late. It was a Friday, after all.

His back ached as he stretched his shirt over his head, balling it up and launching it toward the hamper as he walked into the bedroom. A glaring light greeted him from around the corner and he realized that Milah was indeed home, but not where he’d hoped. It looked as if a tornado had blown through the walk-in closet—every pair of heels she owned were tossed onto the floor and the chaise was covered with a haphazard pile of glittering dresses. Milah was standing in front of the mirrored wall, a sequined, black strapless number pulled over her body but left unzipped as she adjusted a pair of large earrings, her brow furrowed.

“Oh, thank god your home,” she huffed, flashing an annoyed smile over her shoulder as she slid her second earring in. “This zipper is absolutely impossible.”

He smiled and stepped into the closet, taking care to avoid the dresses that had sloughed onto the carpeting.

“I’m happy to help, darling,” he assured, catching the nearly invisibly zipper and easing it up her back. There were certainly nights he would have coaxed her into agreement that off was the far better option, but tonight he was more than happy to get her dressed and out the door if that was what she so desired. “Headed anywhere special?”

“It’s that opening of the new club—you know, the one with the glass ceiling that everyone has been going on about. I mentioned it the other night—good lord, Killian, you positively reek.”

Killian flashed a tired smile in the mirror, but her frown only deepened.

“Honestly, Killian, you can’t go out like that. You’ll need to have a quick shower.”

Killian’s brows echoed her own displeasure as he realized what she was implying.

“Did you want my company, as well?”

“Do you even listen when I speak? Sometimes I wonder. I told you two nights ago that Lara and William were expecting us. They’ve barely seen you.”

Killian couldn’t remember a Lara, but he seemed to recall a bright, friendly man with reddish-blond hair who may have been a William. No matter who they were, he had no interest in spending the evening with them, and even less in spending the evening on his feet in an obnoxious club.

“It’s been a long day, Milah—every day for the past couple weeks has, and I’m exhausted—”

“You’re absolutely right, Killian, it has been a long day, a long few weeks, and I’m sorry that I thought I might get to spend some time with you at the end of all of it. How foolish of me,” she snapped, and Killian felt the words like a slap to his face.

“No, you’re right. It’s—I’m sorry. I’ll have a quick rinse and get dressed.”

Milah beamed at him, adjusting her hair and checking that everything was just as she wanted it to be in the mirror. Killian pressed a soft kiss to her bare shoulder, the warmth of her smile washing away a bit of his exhaustion.

He wanted her to be happy, and perhaps the past few weeks had been more difficult for her than she let on.

“It will be a lovely night, I promise,” she said, shoving him gently toward the bathroom as she turned to reappraise the pile of heels.

* * * 

Despite Milah’s initial enthusiasm that he’d agreed to join her and two people he most definitely did not remember—apparently William had brown hair and was quite pretentious—it was not a lovely night. The hot shower and the warmth of Milah’s arm in his had been enough to fool him into think it might be the tiniest bit enjoyable—after all, it had been some time since he’d been to a club—but he’d been wrong, very wrong.

Everything from the moving lights to the music to the stench of hot bodies pressed against one another was giving him a pounding headache, and he slid down further into his chair, nursing a rum and casting about for Milah, wherever she’d gone. He’d wanted to give her a nice evening at his side, but he hadn’t been able to find it in him to join her on the dance floor—probably because his feet had blisters from filming in his costume boots all day—and she hadn’t been able to find it in her to forgive him.

He’d been able to keep track of her at first, but soon she was lost in the crush of bodies and he was lost in his rum—at least it helped dull the sounds a bit.

He didn’t know if it was the insane schedule he was booked to finish shooting for his latest movie, or just the lack of free time, but nothing felt quite right lately, and he was worried a change was needed. Milah was clearly unhappy with his schedule, with how much distance it put between them. He found himself wondering if perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad time to step back a bit, to get away and really dedicate some time to the two of them.

It was a question he’d come back to more than once in the past few months, and as much as he wanted to feel that doing so was the right answer, his gut kept telling him it wasn’t.

He loved her, he certainly didn’t want her to be miserable, but the thought of missing out on opportunities at the high point of his career, it did worry him. Liam had worked more than any person should have to help put him through school, and he’d only ever wanted happiness for his little brother. Liam was a big enough man to know that for Killian that meant acting, even if it was a hard path. If Killian were to step back now, would that be doing justice to his brother’s sacrifice. What if he started turning down offers and never bounced back from it?

He searched the dance floor once more, but there was no sign of his Milah. Knowing she was probably hurt enough to ignore him for the rest of the night, he whipped out his phone and started scrolling through emails, most of them simply things his manager had already spoken with him about over the phone. It wasn’t until he scrolled farther back, nearly hypnotized by the small boxes flying along the screen, that a flagged email came to his attention and he stopped. The details were familiar, and he only just remembered the conversation he’d had with Cora.

It had been an offer for the lead role in a new series, but he’d turned it down due to the filming location. He’d been worried about having to uproot Milah, but scanning through everything once more, he found himself second-guessing his first decision. Perhaps it would be the answer they needed, and the more he thought about it, the more it appealed to him personally.

Maine was certainly quiet and would allow for more quality time together—and the pay was bloody obscene, which never hurt. According to Cora, the role had been written specifically for him. He wondered how the showrunners had taken it when he declined.

His finger hovered over reply.

He should probably discuss it will Milah first, but then thoughts of Liam tugged at his tired mind and he reread the arc for the lead role, each sentence making him more inclined to see if taking it on was still a possibility.

He’d earned his name and place in Hollywood by becoming the face of playboys and scoundrels, all of his characters well-known for their rakish appeal, but to be honest, he was starting to become concerned he may not be offered anything more diverse if he didn’t branch out soon. This role—this would be something different, something Liam would be proud of. The series treaded water somewhere between a fantasy show and a piece that examined the very fabric of what is real, the main character a man who suffered great personal tragedy and loss only to have his independence and health rocked.

The more Killian looked at it, the more he knew it was for him, the words swimming with possibility...or rum. He didn't know what about his previous roles had drawn the showrunners to him of all their choices, but for the first time in a while, he really wanted something.

He really wanted this.

A feeling of certainty settled in his gut and he shot off a reply to Cora.

K: I want this, do what you need to do.

The message sent and he almost expected to look up and see Milah hovering over him, a flushed smile on her cheeks from dancing, her hair falling in tendrils around her face, but his table is still empty and the dance floor is still a writhing mass of faceless people.

Raising his glass in a lonely toast, he took another drag of rum and closed his eyes.

He wants to dream that she’ll be as happy as he is, that’s all he wants for her.

[ohmightydevviepuu]

our little life (rounded with a sleep) / chapter 6

our little life (rounded with a sleep) chapter six

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful detective. She had blonde hair, green eyes, no family, and she was good at finding people; in fact, she proclaimed this on her office door. “Swan and Humbert,” it said. “Private investigations, missing persons, and bail bonds.”

Only lately, she’s been thinking that maybe it should say “Emma Swan: Loner, Loser, Complicated wreck.”

Her partner’s been killed on a case after she made a deal with her landlord to find what had been taken from him. But when she tracks a possible perp to a bar on the outskirts of town, Emma will find out exactly how deep the rabbit hole goes.

--

@thisonesatellite had a lot of feedback on this chapter (spoiler:  it involved a lot of screaming).  also, take this leap with me, friends:  as i saw in the notes i made for @captainswanbigbang, this is officially where we leave the realm of anything previously written for this story and begin our inexorable journey toward the end.  we are halfway through!  i am very excited about this and hope that you are, too!

for @profdanglaisstuff and @katie-dub, just because.

--

cw: canonical character death rating: T/M (implied violence, language) word count:  ~4.5k AO3  chapter one | chapter two | chapter three | chapter four | chapter five

--

chapter summary:   Emma confronts Hook--Killian Jones--just, whatever the fuck his name is. Twice.   Neither of those is what Hook might call a ‘pleasant conversation’--and Henry was right:  Emma is not ready for the answers she gets.

She’s also not ready for the way her breath hitches and the world contracts when she stands in Hook’s office, his hand on her wrist and his eyes blazing as he calls her ‘princess’ like that is a curse in itself.

-- 

Emma banged on the door of The Rabbit Hole. The front door this time; no lock picks necessary, though she reconsidered this approach when it took awhile for the door to open. She was greeted by a petite blonde with a messy topknot and a pinned-on name tag (“Tink”) who looked singularly unimpressed when Emma asked to see Hook.

“He warned us you might be coming by,” Tink said. “We’re not meant to let you in.”

“Fine,” Emma sighed. “Then I’m here for, like, pixie dust or whatever.”

“I’m fresh out,” Tink deadpanned, rolling her eyes as Emma pushed through. “And I don’t think he especially wants to see you.”

In the daylight, the vintage air lent by the Edison bulbs was absent, leaving only the sense of grime. A man--by the looks of him, Hook’s companion from the alley the night of Graham’s murder--was stocking shelves and stacking glasses while shouting orders at a small, ratty-looking man in a red cap. The singer worked on some equipment on the small stage, humming to herself, and Emma tried not to listen as the feeling of subtle unease rolled through her in discordant harmony with the song.

Lacey, she of the stilettos and the t-shirt with the cascading auburn hair, was nowhere to be seen.

She’s new. The maid won’t help you kill Rumplestiltskin.

Emma shook her head and wended her way toward the office, past the restroom and the entrance to the small kitchen along the route she had taken the night before--how had it been only the night before?--following the faint sound of conversation she could hear leaking into the hallway.

“--matters grew complicated.” Hook’s voice stopped Emma in her tracks, and she paused by the door of the restroom so that she could eavesdrop. “Honestly, the details of the affair are a bit of a bore.”

“I doubt that,” a woman’s voice said. “I would imagine running off with the Swan girl--the Savior, Hook--and alerting my daughter would be anything but a bore. And while I would love to know why you thought either of those things was a good idea, you know that’s an unacceptable betrayal.”

“Come off it,” Hook snapped. “Our agreement--”

“I’ve crossed through too many worlds to be brought up short on the brink of success,” the woman cut him off. “I don’t have time for whatever game you think you’re playing.”

“You think that I don’t comprehend what the stakes are here?”

“Your actions,” the woman said, “would certainly suggest otherwise.”

“Rest assured, it won’t happen again.”

“No,” the woman agreed. “It won’t. You chose her. Now you can face the consequences of that decision.”

Emma ducked into the restroom and only just got the door shut as she heard someone, presumably Cora Hart, walk by. She counted ten and added another ten just to make sure before stepping back into the hallway and into Hook’s office.

His shirt, the same one from last night, was wrinkled and untucked, though he had discarded his waistcoat and the sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, exposing the brace on his left wrist and a flash of ink that must have been a tattoo. His hair had gone from artfully mussed to full-on mess and he needed to trim his beard back. Hook was pouring himself a drink--the rum bottle again--and drank it off quickly before pouring another.

He saw Emma as he was lifting the glass for round two; Emma watched his expression darken into something twisted and hurt. He put the glass down, turned, bent, and pulled out another glass, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge her as he poured a third shot into the clean glass and pushed it toward her.

“I generally prefer not to drink my breakfast,” Emma said, but she took the few steps forward to the desk anyway.

“Drink with me, Swan,” Hook said, his eyes flashing blue murder, “or get the hell out.” His mouth twitched upward in a harsh facsimile of his real smile. “I’m recovering from a trauma, don’t you know. In all of the times I’ve been condemned to the brig, I’ve never before been force-fed bologna.”

“You do look like shit,” Emma said, raising her glass in a toast.

“Whereas you, darling,” Hook said, “look stunning.” He drank the rum and Emma flinched, glad the glass in her hands kept her from reaching self-consciously for her flattened curls or rubbing under her eye for stray liner. The tone of his voice was deadly and Emma had never before heard an endearment sound so much like an epithet. Emma moved the glass to her lips, grateful for the burn of the liquor down her throat.

Grateful for his anger and grateful for the proof that she had been treating their acquaintance--connection--like more than it was.

She concentrated on the burn and ignored her awareness of the very fact that his anger, and his hurt, was proof that their connection was--had been--real.

“It was a mistake,” Emma said, but he didn’t let her say anything else.

“Is that what you want to call it?” He snorted, and reached for the rum bottle. Again.

“Well, I tried to call it ‘Al’,” Emma said, starting to feel her temper rise. “But it would only answer to ‘mistake’.”

Emma was trying to figure out what had happened to Graham.

Nothing else.

She was not a believer. She was not a parent. She was not interested in being part of something.

There was no future here; not a happy one, at any rate.

Consider it a reminder.

Her hand went involuntarily to the chain around her neck. “You would have done the same,” she said, and knew it was a lie.

Look out for yourself and never get hurt.

“Actually, princess,” he said, his eyes following her hand, “I believe in good form. I had no need to bring you there at all, much less hurt my own cause to do so.”

Consider it a reminder.

“Fuck you, Jones,” Emma said, and cursed herself when his eyes flickered.

“‘Killian’ will do,” he said. “I see that you had a busy night after leaving me to the tender mercies of your constabulary.”

“I came to apologize,” Emma said sharply, “and to give you this.” She started to pull at the chain around her neck, but at the stricken look that flashed across his face, put her glass on the desk and lifted it with both hands, the ring cradled in her palm.

“Well done, Swan,” Hook said. “Wouldn’t you make one hell of a pirate?” His voice was now completely emotionless, which was somehow worse than the undercurrent of malice that had been there a moment ago. “Perhaps you’re the one who should have been locked up.”

Emma dropped the ring into his outstretched hand. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“It was my brother’s,” he said, his voice still flat; he didn’t even bat an eyelash at her confession. “I’ve had it for--a very long time.” His fingers curled around the tarnished silver. “I think it might be the reason I’m still alive, this reminder that I once had a family.”

Emma felt the blood draining from her face and took another sip of the rum to cover it up.

“What else did you find, princess?” The word was practically a snarl. “My elder brother, Liam? My dead lover, Milah? The crusade for vengeance that carried me for nearly three hundred years?”

“Don’t call me that,” Emma said.

“Can’t handle it, Swan?” That verbal tic of his was back in full force as he landed hard on the ‘t’. “But it’s true, princess, all of it. For more years than you can imagine, I offered a black heart or an ugly death to everyone that I met, and I did it with a song in my heart--without conscience, and without remorse, because I had been done wrong.”

“Like Cora Mills?” Emma said. “Or is it Cora Hart? Either way, she seems to be in pretty good shape for a dead woman.”

“A busy night, indeed,” he murmured.

“You don’t exactly strike me as the musical type,” Emma said.

“Think, Swan,” he said. “You’ve obviously figured some things out. Think about every evil act attributed to me, every sin that has been laid at my door.” His voice was quietly terrifying, but Emma was not going to back down. “Recite to yourself my catalogue of cruelties and consider if you really want to provoke me right now.”

Emma walked to the desk and reached for the rum bottle.

He stopped her, his right hand wrapped around her wrist. The metal of the ring pressed into her and she shivered.

“I came here by choice, Swan. I am one of the few who did, though I was played just as surely as any of the poor sods who were brought here against their will. Only I was given a gift: To wake up, for twenty-eight years, and not dread the day before it began. To live the same day, over and over, and to welcome it, because I felt like someone alive.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. And she was not prepared for how quickly Hook--Jones--closed the gap between them.

“You’re a liar,” he said.

“Captain Hook is calling me a liar,” Emma said, feeling the color rising again in her cheeks. “What happened to ‘the mystique is part of my charm’?”

“No, princess,” he said. “Killian Jones is calling you a liar.” He took another step forward, further crowding her personal space.

And he had not let go of her wrist.

“Vengeance is a siren’s song as much as any other,” he said, and Emma could feel the warmth of his breath on her skin. “But my constant pursuit of revenge--for the death of the crocodile--left my life empty. That’s the thing about revenge, you see: it’s an end, not a beginning.”

Emma looked into his eyes and saw all of the despair of a lost little boy who had never mattered, and who believed he never would. She did not hold his gaze. She already had a mirror.

“Your arrival in our little corner of the world was enough to trigger the protection spell I had traveled under; the arrival of the Savior, come to break the curse, and suddenly I remembered all that had come before. I had been living in a dream powered by magical nonsense. I’d had a life, and friends, and lovers, and none of it was real.”

“And a brother,” Emma murmured, and the shock of him dropping her wrist was almost worse than his grip on it had been.

“Do not misunderstand me, princess,” he said. “Your arrival reminded me of my purpose, but I cared not one whit whether this curse ever broke. And then--”

He tilted his head, angling it down and toward her. “You,” he said. He was so close, Emma could almost grab his collar and make the space between them nonexistent. His eyes flashed as he said: “Why didn’t you come for me last night? Why did you turn on me?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t believe in any of this. I just need to find out what happened.”

“Liar,” he breathed, his lips just over hers. “I should thank you, Swan, for reminding me what I’m all about. And if you want to pretend that all of this isn’t happening, that’s fine. I don’t dance, anyway.”

Liar, Emma thought, watching him take one step backward and then another. He settled his weight on the desk, one leg crossed over the other, his arms folded across his chest, the chain dangling against the fabric of his shirt.

“Now,” Hook said, his expression flipping to one of complete disinterest. “If you’re going to apologize, don’t be afraid to, you know, really get into it.”

“Fuck you, Jones,” she said again.

“Alas, princess,” he said, every syllable dripping with disdain and disappointment, “the time for that is done. Just as I have done--with you.”

--

Only after she had left The Rabbit Hole did Emma realize she still had the folded parchment in her back pocket.

--

“Miss Swan,” Mr. Gold greeted her, the small but satisfied smile on his face immediately making Emma uncomfortable. “I wanted to thank you for a job well-done.”

“Mr. Gold,” Emma said, confused, “I--”

Then Emma saw it--the small object on the desk in his office: white, delicate-looking--if the chip in it was anything to judge by. A teacup.

A freaking teacup.

“I must say I was quite impressed by your efforts at tracking, Miss Swan, once you finally put your mind to it. But then again, Humbert has always been known for his ability to, shall we say, hunt down those who wish to remain hidden.”

“Happy hunting, dearie.” The Hunter. “ You kissed the Hunter, Swan.”

“How was my old friend, I wonder? Surprised to see you?”

“I was under the impression that you and he were not friends,” Emma said cautiously.

“I don’t believe he is capable of having friends,” Gold said simply, “but then again, neither am I. ‘Enemies’ might be a better term, if one were being dramatic.” He giggled, and the sound of it was heavy in the air. “Mortal enemies, one might say.”

“Thank goodness we’re not being dramatic.”

“As you can see,” Gold continued, “I have retrieved my property thanks to your efforts and so there is only the matter of payment left between us.” He smiled. “For now.”

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a roll of cash. “I trust this will be sufficient for your time.”

Hating herself, Emma took it.

Gold folded his hands on top of his desk and looked at her, still smiling.

Emma opened her mouth to speak and then changed her mind, closing it.

The man in the animal coat, the one with the skin that seemed to glitter. In his hand was something small and white and he carried it as though it were both delicate and valuable.

“Crocodile,” Emma whispered.

The smile faltered--just for a moment. “Ah,” he said, as if that was an answer to a question.

“He’s Awake, Regina. And you’d have been stupid not to realize it the instant you saw what he did to Humbert.”

“You did it,” Emma said. “It was you. You killed Graham.”

Gold tilted his head. “Miss Swan,” he said carefully. “I understand that the loss of your partner must have been difficult for you. But I was given to understand that Mr. Humbert endured some type of physical attack. And I, well--” he paused. “I prefer small weapons: the needle, the pen, the fine points of a deal.”

It sounded so reasonable.

But it was not a denial.

All of it is because of Regina Mills and Robert Gold.

“Why are you doing this?” Emma asked. “Why did you do this, when you knew--you knew Regina had your ‘precious object.’ You wanted me to go after Hook. Everything I’ve done since Graham died is exactly what you wanted me to do.”

“Oooooh,” he smirked. “Such hostility.” His hand toyed absently with the cane propped up against his desk. “And yet you saw with your own eyes the first time in this world I’d ever laid eyes on Regina Mills. Your finding James Hook was the first time I’d ever heard the name.”

“You created the curse, didn’t you? You set all of this into motion?”

“Really, Miss Swan,” Gold said. “You’re quite emotional, dearie, but this isn’t over yet.”

“Not yet, dearie. Not yet.”

“I couldn’t in my wildest dreams understand what notions have gotten into your head,” he said. “But it sounds like something out of a book of fairytales. Perhaps you would be better off discussing it with young Master Mills.”

The gold tooth glinted as he said it.

Emma shifted her weight, uncomfortable in the chair, and the piece of folded parchment fluttered to the floor. Gold, moving more quickly than she would have imagined, bent over to pick it up, smoothing it open as he did so.

“Ah,” he said again, though it was a pained sound this time. “Now where did you get this?”

“Seeing as our business is concluded,” Emma said, holding her hand out, “I don’t see how that is any of yours.”

Tucking the drawing back into her pocket, she turned and left the room.

--

Henry was sitting in the small courtyard outside the diner as Emma walked by, a quiet Liam Jones--Hook--sitting next to him and sipping on a cup of tea. Emma tried again to give him his book back, only--

The tattoo is just proof.

“Oh, yeah,” Henry said when she asked him, flipping happily through the pages until he got to an illustration of a tall blonde man brandishing a sword and shield, the sigil rendered in broad, clean strokes.

A lion rampant.

On a field of buttercups.

“Thats Prince Charming’s sign,” Henry explained. “Why do you ask?”

Emma pulled her sleeve down so that it covered her wrist and “No reason,” she lied.

Liam watched her as she did it, a mixture of curiosity and hostility on his face, until she tried to meet his eyes. Then his face was pleasantly bland in a mask that he unquestionably had learned from his brother.

Now Emma’s head rested on her crossed arms at the counter at Granny’s, her hot chocolate getting cold and her grilled cheese untouched on the plate as her fingers rubbed across the shoelaces tied around her wrist and covering the tattoo.

“It’s part of your father’s heraldry.”

With the yelling and the tension of it all she hadn’t even gotten to ask Jones--Hook--why the fuck he had a picture of her son in his lockbox.

Like something out of a book of fairytales.

And Gold--what did he know about Henry?

What if--

If Hook--If Henry--

If they were telling the truth, then she had to come up with a way to get Henry out of this place.

“You know my mom’s the Evil Queen.”

Emma sat up, nearly knocking the plate over. Just--

“Emma!” David’s tone was frantic, his voice raised to get her attention.

“So you’re talking to me now?” Emma said.

“I need to find Snow,” he said. “She’s missing, but I will find her. I will always find her.” He looked at her seriously. “Will you aid me?”

“I thought your wife’s name was Kathryn,” Emma said, “but color me not at all surprised that you had more than one side-piece.”

David looked affronted. “Kathryn?” he asked. “I know of no one named Kathryn. Snow White is my True Love. I’ve known it ever since--”

“You first saw your mother’s ring on her finger?” Emma asked.

True Love. "I’m pretty sure that Sheriff Nolan is Prince Charming.”

“Indeed,” he said. “That was when I knew I would never love another woman.”

“Very cute, Charming,” she said.

“I have a name, you know,” he said, but something about it made him smile. “You’re so much like her.”

Emma tried to get up and leave but his hand wrapped around her bicep. She grabbed his wrist and found not a hand, but the silver metal of a hook. The hook was where his left hand should have been and Emma looked up, already knowing what--who--she would see.

“I don’t mean to upset you,” Hook said, “but we make quite the team, Emma.”

“Emma!”

Someone was shaking her shoulder.

“Emma!”

She opened her eyes; it was David.

“Emma,” he said, “have you seen--”

She was still sitting at the counter at Granny’s--her hot chocolate was ice cold now and her grilled cheese congealed into something inedible. Emma shook her head and tried to orient herself.

“Mary Margaret,” Emma said slowly. “You’re looking for Mary Margaret.”

“Yes,” David said. “I haven’t seen her since--well, I think something might be wrong.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Emma said, signalling to Granny for a cup of coffee and adding, “in a to-go cup, please.” She turned back to David and said: “You broke her heart, David, what else do you need from her?”

“I can’t find her anywhere,” David said, his eyes pleading.

Granny came back over with the coffee and Emma stood up to take it.

“Listen, you need to leave her alone,” Emma said. “You fucked up, Nolan, and--”

“Can you please just--” he took a deep breath, running his hand over his hair. “Can you look for her? Please?”

Emma paused, her jacket halfway on, and looked at him. “Yeah,” she said. “Whatever.” She waved at him dismissively and went through the door, the bell above announcing her departure.

She stood on the front step, taking a sip of her coffee, wanting to shrug it off.

All of it--everything.

Emma Swan was not a believer.

She sighed. She didn’t need her lie-detecting superpower to know when she was lying to herself.

Someone bumped into her in the courtyard and Emma turned to see a figure in a long topcoat walking away. She’d seen him before, Emma was sure of it. But her thoughts were elsewhere; she needed to talk to Hook again. About--the parchment.

And the dreams. Because some things--some things she couldn’t ignore any longer.

“You know my mom’s the Evil Queen.” “We make quite the team, Emma.”

Some things, she couldn’t shrug off.

...in my wildest dreams… ...the first time in this world...

Emma stopped dead in her tracks.

Gold knew. He fucking knew.

--

It was as she was about to turn into the street that she saw him: his back to her, his dark-leather-clad back acting almost as a shield between himself and the world. Emma took a breath and steeled herself before saying, “Hey.” It was one word--one syllable--and she had to force it past her lips. “We need to talk.”

Hook flinched at the sound of her voice. “I find,” he said, “that when a woman says that, I’m rarely in for a pleasant conversation.” He hadn’t turned to face her. “And, in case I had not made myself clear--we’re done, you and me.”

Emma walked toward him anyway, using her free hand to pull the parchment out of her back pocket. The coffee went down on the table, next to his flask, which was uncorked.

“I need you to tell me about this,” she said. There was a flash of pain in his eyes before his zero-fucks-to-give-mask slipped into place, and Emma sat down opposite him. “I need you to tell me about the boy in this picture. Who is he?”

“I like the commanding voice, Swan, all, ‘who is he’. Truly--chills.” Hook took a sip from his flask, giving an exaggerated shudder.

“Why does he look like Henry Mills, Hook?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Hook said cooly.

Emma took a deep breath. “Henry likes you,” she said, trying not to let her frustration through. “He trusts you. He apparently believes your bullshit fairytale nonsense and thinks that I’m some kind of savior and you’re Captain Hook.”

She was not successful, and this did not go unnoticed by Hook; his lips turned just slightly upward in a smirk.

“I am Captain Hook, Swan,” Hook said, “just as you are the Savior. These things remain true irrespective of the boy’s beliefs. But that drawing is not of Regina Mills’ adopted son.”

Emma smacked her hand on the table, hard. The coffee cup jumped. “His book, Killian. He’s got a fucking book of all of the same stories you’ve been spewing. And,” Emma said, not noticing the color rising in Hook’s face, “He’s not Regina Mills’ son. He’s mine. My kid, and you had his picture in your desk, and I need to know why.”

Hook was completely silent and the weight of what she’d said began to sink in.

Mine. My kid.

“That’s not Henry,” Hook said again, more slowly this time. His expression was troubled, his eyebrows furrowed. He seemed to be considering his words with extreme care as he shifted in his seat and removed his leather jacket.

“Milah,” he said softly, deftly working the left cuff of his shirt unbuttoned with his right hand. He proceeded to roll the cuff up off of his wrist and past his forearm until it revealed the tattoo she’d caught a glimpse of only that morning. It was a red heart pierced with a dagger and the name MILAH was emblazoned across both. “That’s Milah, Swan. My Milah, and her son.”

Emma shook her head, pointing at the picture, her other hand clutching her to-go cup. “That’s Henry, Hook. They could be fucking twins.”

The color was slowly draining from Hook’s face. “That’s Baelfire, Swan,” he said, his voice insistent. “Bae, we called him. Milah drew that portrait herself, to remind herself that one day we would go back for him. I watched her do it, though she died before we were able to make the attempt.” He looked away from her before adding, “Bae could have been my son, if I had had the strength to let him in.”

My son.

“I don’t understand.” Or maybe she just didn’t want to.

“Baelfire is Henry’s father,” Hook said seriously. “It was obvious to me the first moment I saw him without the influence of the curse clouding my mind.”

Emma’s mind was reeling, and she took a sip of the cold coffee just to break their eye contact. It tasted sour going down, but she took another. And another, ignoring the feeling in her stomach even as he said the words.

“I know not what means he may have used to travel to this realm, nor what name he adopted once here, but there can be no mistake.” Hook paused, uncomfortable. “He stayed with me for a time in Neverland.”

She shouldn’t believe him--but she did. He was telling her the truth.

“Henry’s father’s name is Neal,” Emma whispered finally, closing her eyes. “Neal Cassidy.”

Damn it, she’d always known he was older than he’d said he was. She was feeling an irrational urge to laugh.

Or maybe cry.

Just--what even was her life?

Emma tightened her grip on the coffee cup like it was some kind of lifeline.

“Swan,” Hook’s voice was urgent, and Emma felt his fingers brush against her wrist. “Are you telling me the truth? You--you knew Bae? Henry is, truly, your son?”

He’s mine. My kid.

That was the first time she’d ever let herself say that.

The thought made her dizzy. Emma let go of the cup to put her head in her hand and leaned her weight into it, bracing herself.

“Emma,” Hook said. The fingers around her wrist pulled tighter. “Emma--Swan, are you all right?”

The cup fell over, spilling cold coffee onto the table.

“What did you do?”

Emma tried to answer, but couldn’t. She also could not seem to open her eyes.

“What did you do?” Hook repeated. “Answer me!”

The last thing she remembered as she blacked out was the feeling of Hook’s fingers threaded through hers.

--

@kmomof4 @shireness-says @stahlop @carpedzem @spartanguard @optomisticgirl @snowbellewells @captainsjedi @eirabach @scientificapricot @mariakov81 @searchingwardrobes 

[all-sortsofthings]

pic prompt - the one with Mary singing S5 christmas episode?

She tries her best to put on a front for the guests, but there’s a little reservation in her eyes, the facade of happiness not quite reaching her fidgeting fingers or the waver at the corner of her lips.

Christmas wouldn’t be the same without Matthew.

Having gone up to Edinburgh for the stag weekend of an old friend over a week ago, the onslaught of a snowstorm had prevented him from being able to get back home. The trains had all been stopped, the roads too dangerous and unpredictable for her to consent to his idea of driving back. The very mention of it had her threatening him over the telephone. She hadn’t let him drive since his accident three years ago and although he wasn’t too badly hurt, it had been so close to George’s birth that it had knocked the stuffing out of her at the time.

So now, on Christmas Eve night with no news, it seemed unlikely he’d be back in time for Christmas. It had been the first year she’d gone in alone to the nursery to hang George’s stocking — the first year since the war that Matthew hadn’t been with them on Christmas Day. But then she wonders if those years even counted — those dark, miserable days, unsure if Matthew would even come home to them alive; they had hardly counted as Christmases anyway.

She tries to sing with as much of a smile as she can muster — to make her voice as light as she can manage, her particular rendition of silent night certainly keeping her audience captivated, if not her own wandering mind. She looks for George in the crowd but her eyes can’t seem to find him. She searches again, and again, trying not to give away her distraction as she moves to the next verse, but she’s more than a little nervous now. Nanny doesn’t work over Christmas, Isobel and granny are elsewhere, Robert is too drunk to concentrate on anything but her singing and Cora, who is preoccupied by trying to keep him from singing along. Tom is with Sybbie and Marigold. Edith is accompanying her on the piano.

When she finally spots her son, her breath of relief is taken from her, and she stops singing quite abruptly. Edith’s playing tapers off and everyone in the room turns to look where she’s looking.

In the confused silence, her mind is cast back almost ten years to another time when she’d stopped singing mid performance for his arrival.

Matthew stands by the door, with George in his arms.

“Don’t stop for me!” He says, but he lets George down and strides towards her all the same. But this time he doesn’t continue the song. This time she ends up in his arms, pulling his lips to hers with her hands framing his face.

“You’re back,” she breathes, once they part. “How on earth...”

“They cleared the roads. Charlie offered to drive me back on his way home to Manchester.”

“I hope you invited him in.”

He laughs. “I did, but he says he has a wife to get home to himself and she won’t forgive him if he misses Christmas.”

“Quite right. I’d never forgive you either.”

He leans forward and rests his forehead against hers. “I know. So I really had no choice but to come home to my family for Christmas.”

She kisses him once more.

Somehow the next moments seem to go by in a blur. Matthew is swept away by Robert and then immersed into the crowd as he wishes everyone a merry Christmas. The next carols begin, speeches are given and more drinks dispersed until almost everyone is quite merry.

At some point near the end of the night, she hears the familiar small voice of her son, his words weighted by weariness of the late night.

“Mamma?” George puts his hand in hers.

He yawns widely, eyelids growing heavy. “I’m sleepy.”

Mary bends down to pick him up and George happily rests his head in the crook of Mary’s neck, small fingers drawing patterns over the back of her dress. She rocks him gently, ever so slowly bobbing from side with her baby boy in her arms. He’s asleep soon enough, lulled by his mother’s embrace. She walks with him into the library, conscious of the weight of him against her breast, the gentle slumbering breaths across her neck, his tiny splayed fingers soft against her back. She walks with him still, very lightly rocking him as though he is not yet asleep. She relishes the alone time with her son; usually so pragmatic in her approach to parenting, it feels nice to be alone with him, to be able to hold him without a nanny looming, without being under the stern gaze of her grandmother. Mary bends to kiss the top of his golden head, then rests her cheek there, singing softly under her breath.

For some reason the hand that comes to rest on the small of her back does not surprise her. Matthew’s arms come around them both, his head tips against hers but she turns to kiss him. His lips are soft and mouth warm, but his skin is still freshly chilled from the snow.

“I’ve missed you,” she breathes, voice kept low to not wake George. “We’ve missed you.” She amends. In the privacy of the library they can finally speak as they please. Their kisses linger for a long while before he replies with a sigh, “remind me never to go away again.”

“Mm,” their noses rub lightly, “I’ll hold you to that.”

“Do. I’ve missed you terribly. And the idea of not being here on Christmas Day...” he puffs out a breath, stroking George’s hair gently as he lays his cheek to Mary’s head. “Well, I couldn’t have that.”

“I’ve been thinking,” she says suddenly. He turns to her, his full attention written perfectly in those blue eyes.

“I think we should find a house.”

His eyes widen in surprise. “Darling...” his thumb brushes a section of her hair from her eye. “This is your home — I know you love it here and I don’t want to make you leave, not after all the work you’re putting into this family and this estate...”

She shushes him.

“Don’t be silly, you’re not making me - I’m not suggesting we break away completely and move to London. Just find somewhere else on the estate. You know me, darling, I won’t throw away all my traditions but I want to spend more time with you and George without Granny’s watchful eye or a nanny hovering the entire time.”

Matthew smiles, her words resonating strongly with him. “If you’re sure.”

“I am sure.”

He bends forward to kiss her again.

“Come on,” he murmurs, “let’s get this one to bed.” George doesn’t stir. “I’ve got the presents for his stocking in my dressing room.”

Mary smiles, leaning her head to Matthew’s shoulder. She walks upstairs in her husband’s arms and together they tuck George into bed and fill his stocking with brightly wrapped presents ready for him to open on Christmas Day.

—

[lilacmoon83]

A Darker Curse

This series was inspired by @findingtallahassee‘s story, Our Own Kind of Family, where Snow escapes the curse and raises Emma and August. Only in mine, unfortunately, they weren't able to find Storybrooke until Emma and August are adults.

This is also a verse where Leopold and Cora were evil. Cora used his heart to cast the curse, but was livid when she arrived to find that Snow had escaped with Emma. Instead, she decides to punish David in her place. Regina and Snow are step-sisters in this and love each other.

The Curse lasts twenty years in this verse.

Warning, there is mentions of abuse and alluding to male rape. Cora traps David in an abusive marriage to Kathryn Nolan in Storybrooke. I'm not bashing Kathryn though. Keep in mind that Cora has cursed her to be this way. When Snow, Emma, and August arrive in Storybrooke, she is horrified to discover what her husband's fate has been. And even though she is much older than he is now, she sets out to get him back.

Can she do it? And more importantly, when the curse breaks, will it return the years lost to her?

Also on Fanfiction.net and A03

Snow sobbed almost uncontrollably, as he led her to the nursery.

"I can't do this...I need you!" she cried. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her tenderly.

"I know...but you know we must. Your father and step-mother will kill our baby if you stay. You'll go through the wardrobe and be safe from the curse," Charming promised.

"But what about you? How can I leave you?" she protested.

"It won't be forever...you'll find me and save me as I did you," he promised, as he pressed his forehead against hers.

"This isn't fair...we're supposed to be a family," Snow sobbed. Tears slipped down his cheeks as well.

"I know, my love. But as long as you and Emma are safe, then there will be an end to curse and we'll be reunited," he said, as he kissed her again, this time deeply and passionately.

"I love you," she sniffed.

"And I love you. When you share an eternal love like we do...there is nothing that can keep us apart, not forever," he promised, as he lifted her into the wardrobe.

"I'll find you!" she promised. He smiled and gave her one last fleeting kiss, before closing the doors.

"I know you will, my darling," he whispered, as he heard the Black Knights storm into the nursery with Cora following.

"Where is she?" the Evil Queen demanded. He smirked smugly.

"She's gone...far away from here where you and your evil husband can't hurt her or our daughter," Charming replied. Cora smirked.

"So you think that you've won?" she questioned. His smirk widened.

"I know we have. Snow will return and she'll find me. Then our daughter will break your curse," he said confidently.

"Yes...but the question is what kind of man will you be when she does find you?" Cora cooed and he frowned.

"If you're going to kill me...then do it. It's not going to stop Snow and daughter from defeating you," he said bravely. But she only laughed at him.

"Oh, I'm not going to kill you...that's too easy. But I am going to see that when your wife does find you again...you're going to be a shell of the man you are now. I daresay...she'll barely recognize you," Cora threatened. He swallowed thickly and refused to let her words scare him.

"Do whatever you will...nothing can destroy our love," he responded. She smirked.

"We shall see…" she cooed, as the dark smoke swept over them.

Twenty Years later

They were here. They had finally found the place the curse had taken everyone, after years of coming up with nothing. Twenty long years spent without her husband. Snow

had come to this world with nothing, heart brokenly leaving Charming behind to face the curse. She had been livid to find out that Charming could have come with her when she found little Pinocchio waiting for her when she came through. She wasn't angry at the little boy, of course, but at the people that were supposed to be her friends.

She understood why Geppetto had done it, wanting to protect his child, but the years without Charming had been hard and lonely. But she took him in like her own and it wasn't long until August, the name they had decided on for him, was calling her Mom.

Upon coming to this land, they found a homeless shelter where Emma was born and she had spent a few years there, as she had no documentation. Once she got the required documents, she found a job as a waitress. It was hard and for a long time, they had almost nothing.

Eventually, she managed to get a very small apartment for her and her kids. She waitressed, often taking double shifts, while Emma and August went to school.

August was a very good boy and helped her a lot with Emma. He always felt guilty though, for he had unknowingly heard his Mom crying in her room at night after she thought they were asleep. She should have had her husband here with her instead of him. It made him very angry with his father and he questioned just how much Geppetto could really love him if he had sent him away and separated a family in doing so.

Snow was so good to him though and even when he insisted she should hate him, she instead took him in her arms and held him close.

And that made August wonder if someday he might call David dad the way Emma already did, even though she had never met him. August remembered how much he looked up to and admired the Prince when he was a little boy.

From that day on, it became August's mission to find the place where the curse had taken everyone and keep belief alive in Emma, which during her teen years wasn't always easy.

But despite the influences in this world that were there to destroy her belief, they kept it alive in her. Emma and August were both rocks for Snow or Mary, as that was the name she had taken in this strange land.

Emma was so much like Charming that it made her both elated and ache at the same time. Emma believed and though she tried to make sure her daughter didn't see her cry, Emma knew how hard it was for her mother. And though Snow had never wanted Emma to feel the burden of responsibility, her daughter was ready to fight the Queen for what she had done to them.

Her daughter would soon experience her own heartache with love though, albeit a bit differently than she did when she met Neal Cassidy. She fell hard and was ready to abandon her family to run off with him. That's when August did some digging on Neal Cassidy and discovered the truth. That he was really Baelfire...son of Rumpelstiltskin.

Three Years Ago

"So...why did you want to meet here? Has Emma's big brother come to scare me away?" Neal asked.

"Not exactly...Baelfire," August replied. The other man's face went ashen, as he heard that name for the first time in many years.

"How…" Neal started to say.

"Because we're from there too. Our Mom...she's really Snow White and there was a curse. Your father orchestrated it to bring everyone to this world so he could find you. Emma's father and Snow's husband is trapped with everyone else now," August explained.

"And what does that have to do with me?" Neal questioned.

"Emma is the product of true love...the Savior. It's her destiny to break the curse and I want my Mom to be reunited with her husband. I hate that she cries herself to sleep at night, because my own father lied to her and stole his place in the wardrobe to put me there," August continued.

"You want me to get involved in this too?" Neal asked in disbelief.

"Tell Emma the truth of who you are and then help us find them," August pleaded.

"No way...don't you get it? I don't want anything to do with my father! I have been running for centuries, trying to escape all that...crap!" Neal growled.

"You can't take Emma away from us! She's all my Mom has of her husband right now...please Emma deserves to find the rest of her family! We have to save them all from the Evil Queen," August pleaded. To anyone else, August would have sounded insane, but Neal knew it was all true. His father had ruined more lives in his quest to find him. But he wasn't about to let him win...he was far too angry with him still.

"Then she has to do it without me…" Neal muttered.

"That's going to break Emma's heart," August argued.

"I know...but I can't deal with my father. Now that I know he's here, I have to disappear," Neal said.

"Look...I get being angry with your father. I'm angry with mine! I want nothing to do with mine either, but that's no reason to make other people suffer. And you love Emma," August pleaded.

"You're right...that's why I'm letting Emma go. It's for the best," Neal said.

So despite August trying to convince Neal to join them, he left that day with only a voicemail to Emma, breaking it off with her. She was heartbroken, but there was little time for that when they found out she was pregnant. He had tried to find Neal after that and tell him, but the former was true to his word and had disappeared.

A few months later, their family grew by one when little David Henry Swan was born. Emma insisted naming him after her father, which made Snow cry, and she had suggested Henry as a middle name. Henry had been her step-sister, Regina's father. And despite her own father's evil and her step-mother Cora's cruelty, Henry had always been kind to her, before Cora killed him, in front of them, no less.

Now that they were finally here, in front of a diner named Granny's, Snow could hardly believe it.

The years touched Snow gently, much to her thankfulness and she had decided to use the available advantages in this realm, keeping her hair dyed black to hide the gray.

So when they stepped into Storybrooke on their first day and found that no one had aged in twenty-eight years, Snow was glad that time had been kind to her, especially when they stepped into Granny's Diner that morning.

"Hi...can I help you?" her best friend, who hadn't changed at all, asked. Though the attire she was wearing was nothing that Red would have ever been caught dead in.

"Three hot chocolates with cinnamon to start us, please," Emma answered for her mother, who was too stunned, as she looked around the diner, finding people she loved. But these people whom had been her friends only gave her blank stares in return.

"Mom...are you going to be okay?" Emma whispered.

"Mmm...I'll be fine, honey," she answered automatically, as her two-year-old grandson looked around curiously.

"I don't see him...but I'm sure he's around somewhere, Mom," August murmured to her. She squeezed his hand in response.

"I…" she started to say, as the bell chimed behind them.

"David...the usual?" Ruby asked flirtatiously.

"Sure...thanks Ruby," he replied in a voice she hadn't heard in twenty years. Her knees went weak and her mouth felt like a desert, as she turned around and let her eyes soak him up.

Gods...the man hadn't changed. This David seemed a unsure and less confident that her Charming. There was also a timidness and a sadness in his eyes that alarmed her, but it was him...her David, her Prince Charming.

Emma didn't miss the captivation on his face when he looked at her mother and it made her excited. This was him...her father, the man her mother had pined for her entire life. She could see her features in him and her obvious coloring that came from him.

"Hi...I'm August Swan," her son said, taking the initiative that seemed to escape Snow.

"David...nice to meet you," he said, a bit shyly. They gathered that this place just didn't get strangers.

"What a coincidence...that's my nephew's name here," August said, gesturing to the toddler in his sister's arms. He smiled and Snow felt her breath catch. She had seen that smile in her daughter so many times, but seeing it on him once again made her want to cry in joy.

"He's adorable...you're lucky," David said, with a sadness in his voice and he realized that he may have sounded awkward.

"To have a child, I mean," he clarified. They smiled, assuring that they knew what he meant.

"Are you new in town?" he asked. They nodded.

"Yes...this is my sister Emma and you met little David. And this is our Mom...Mary," August introduced, trying to snap their mother out of her daze.

"Mary…" he uttered.

"It's nice to meet you David," she finally managed, as they shook hands and they both felt the spark between them.

"Yeah…I'm sorry, but have we met before?" he asked.

"It certainly feels like it," she replied, as they remained captivated by each other. Of course, that's when their moment was shattered.

"What the hell is this?" Cora snapped, as she entered the diner with Regina behind her. Regina had the same look of fear in her eyes that everyone else did when the Mayor got angry.

"Cora…" Mary uttered. The Mayor's eyes widened slightly, as the woman she had hoped she was rid of forever was before her again...twenty years older. A smirk marred her cold features.

"Well, well, I wondered when you'd show up," Cora said coldly, as she looked at David.

"David, I think Kathryn is waiting for you," she urged. Snow watched her husband look away from the cold stare of the Mayor. Everyone cowered before her, just like she wanted. This was her happy ending, after all.

"Of course...it was nice to meet you," he said, giving her a longing look, as he left the diner. Cora laughed.

"This...this has made my day. Snow White has come to find her husband, only to find that he's twenty years her junior now," Regina joked.

"Shut the hell up," Emma growled.

"And who the hell are you?" Cora snapped.

"Oh I think you know exactly who I am, Madam Mayor," Emma growled. The slight widening of Cora's irises were the only indication of her worry, as she put on a mask of indifference.

"If you think you stand a chance against me in my own town, you're delusional. As delusional as your over the hill mother is if she thinks she has a chance with David here. He's a married man," Regina goaded and Snow felt her heart break, as Cora's coffee was delivered to her promptly.

"Have a lovely day, dear," she goaded, as she left. Emma felt her own heart crack at the broken look on her mother's face.

"I'll get some cocoas…" August suggested, as Emma led her mother out of the diner.

"Mom…" she said.

"He's married…" Mary cried.

"Yes he is, Mom. He's married to you," Emma insisted.

"Whatever farce of a marriage Cora has forced him into here means nothing compared to what he has with you," Emma implored.

"Honey…" Mary protested.

"No Mom...you've told me about him my whole life. He's not himself under the curse and I may be the Savior, but only you can get him back! Did you see the way he was looking at you? No happily married man looks at another woman like that," Emma insisted.

"It doesn't matter...he's still so young and I'm old," Mary said, as she broke down in tears. Emma pulled her into a hug.

"No...no, you listen to me, Mom. You are so beautiful...and you have been wronged in a way no one should ever be wronged. She's stole everything from you...from us. And now, we are here to take it back," Emma said passionately.

"You sound just like him," she choked back a sob.

"So you've told me and I'd really like to meet him...the real him. He's yours Mom...you need take him back," Emma insisted. Snow sniffed and wiped her tears away, drawing strength from her baby. That same strength she had once drawn from Charming.

"He won't care that you're older...hell, he doesn't even care as he is now. I could tell…" August insisted, as he came out of the diner with little David and a tray of drinks. Snow wiped her tears and Emma hugged her again.

"You're right…" Snow said finally, as Emma saw the fire return to her mother's eyes.

"I'm going to get my husband back," Snow decided. Emma smiled.

"You are...he couldn't keep his eyes off you. You're still hot, Mom," Emma said, nudging her playfully. Snow smirked. And she knew all the moves that would work on her Charming, even as he was now.

"I'm going to seduce your father," Snow announced, as she hooked her arm on her daughter's.

"Okaaay...not something we need hear," August complained.

"Cora is going down," Snow said. Emma smirked. She loved that her mother was also her best friend.

"Hell yeah she is. Oh, and I was looking in the paper. There's an empty loft for rent. Seems perfect for the four of us...eventually five, even if it's a bit small," Emma said, as she handed the paper to her mother. She nodded and then heard a voice behind them.

"Snow…" Regina called. She turned to find her step-sister there.

"Regina? You're awake?" she asked in disbelief. The other woman nodded and hugged her.

"I wasn't until just now. When you told me what you were going to name your daughter back in our land, I sort of put myself in a magical trance and imprinted her name in my head so that when I heard it...I would wake up," she explained.

"I've missed you…" Snow cried.

"I've missed you...even if I didn't know it," Regina replied.

"Is it true? Is David really married?" she asked tearfully. She nodded.

"There's something you have to know though. When my mother found out you escaped the curse, she decided to punish your husband for it. David is in an abusive marriage," Regina said, hating that she had to deliver that news.

"What do you mean?" Snow asked. The look on her face was devastating.

"He's married to Abigail...Kathryn here and my mother cursed her to be as cruel as she is. It's not really her fault either...but David is barely a shell of himself now. He's completely under her control. Most of the time, I think it's verbal and emotional abuse...but there have been a few physical incidents...and obviously he is forced to be with her in...that way," Regina said, averting her eyes. She couldn't handle the look in Snow's eyes at that moment. She had never seen her more broken and it was everything her cruel mother had ever hoped for.

"Oh Gods…" she cried.

"This is my fault…" August realized, as Emma took her son. But Snow shook her head.

"No...this is not your fault, Auggie. Please don't blame yourself...I need you as much as I need Emma now," Snow cried. He softened and hugged her tightly.

"I'm not going anywhere, Mom. I promise...and we'll save David too," he promised. Snow nodded and took comfort in her children. Saving her husband was imperative now more than ever, for there was no telling what Cora would encourage the cursed Abigail to do to him...

[imgilmoregirl]

Love and Honour

AO3 Link

Summary: Rumford had never expected to become king, but he also didn't expect to fall for the dowager of the enemy.

Notes: Disclaimer: I don’t own Once Upon A Time or any of the characters and storylines in the show. This is just a fanwork made for fun. This is based both in the Cousin's wars books and the English history itself, which both I obviously don't own.

So I've had this dream about Rumple being Richard III and Belle being Queen Anne a few days ago and I couldn't help myself but to write this slightly pointless one-shot. Have some fun! ;)

Rumford wasn’t born to be much a thing. The fourth son of a family hardly gets to be important, but he never had great expectations as he learned to relish in following his brothers in their wars, being guided by love and honour whenever he went to. He had been to many places, fought many battles, however he always did it in order to help one of his brothers, never for himself, but it all changed in the night the English crown was restored to Henry.

It had been a massacre. Gaston’s army stricken down easily, the dead bodies filling the field and painting the grass with red. He conducted his army to the sanctuary, where the women, children and servants were certainly hiding with the intention of taking them out and murdering them too, until the moment he saw her. One of his men had just throw her on the floor and she yelled harsh things at him and everybody who attempted approaching her, the blue dress she wore now ruined by the mud, her dark hair a mess of curls. Rumford had never seen her in such disarray, but also had never noticed how strong she could be.

He walked towards the girl – because even if she was now a widow, she was just eighteen and she would always be a girl in his mind, he had seen her growing up after all – offered her a hand, and for the first time she didn’t scream, only blinked a pair of cerulean eyes in his direction, seeming to be confused with the gest. The duke smiled at her, trying to get her to trust him again.

“Lady Belle, it is good to see you again. How infortune that we ended in opposite sides of this war, but I’m sure I can convince Henry of your innocence, you were only a pawn for your father and husband’s interests. He will forgive you and I will assure you stay safe.”

Swallowing hard she nodded, finally taking his hand and rising up on her feet.

“Is my husband dead?”

“Yes,” Rumford answered, analysing her face. “I need to know if you had any children with him while you were in France.”

Considering the war, they were facing at the moment, Lady Belle knew this question could come at any moment, because any heir Gaston could have had would be a threat for Henry in the future and he surely would kill them for his own family’s safety and it only made her glad to have not conceived during their miserable year of marriage. She was a pawn, Rumford was right. Her father was obsessed in making one of his daughter’s the Queen of England, but when marrying her sister to one of Rum’s brother didn’t work well, they had fled to Paris where Gaston – her cousin - the heir of one of the royal houses lived, waiting for the moment he could finally bring an army to the country and claim the throne. Belle had been forced to marry him and it was the worse thing that had ever happened to her.

“You don’t need to worry about that,” she finally said. “He has left no heir, title or money in this Earth.”

Rumford nodded, his face a mask of relief as they continued to hear the horrible sounds of people being dragged off the sanctuary, just as what would surely have happened with Belle if he hadn’t arrived in time. But he was glad he did.

“Come on then, I’ll take you home, all by myself.”

There was a moment of hesitance. She knew him ever since she was a child. Her father, earl Maurice had once worked for the royal family, had been one of Leopold’s most beloved counsellors and soldiers, but now he was dead, just like her despicable husband and Belle was alone. She remembered how happy she was the day her mother had said they would ask for the King’s blessing so she could marry Rum, but he never allowed it. He didn’t want the kingmaker to have a way to put one of his daughter’s in his throne.

In the past, she had been foolish enough to believe she could have a nice life beside a nice man, but now she wasn’t a naïve girl anymore, she was a smart woman who would played whatever games she must to stay alive. She accepted the hand Rum was stretching out for her and followed him to the horses, decided to make her own fate.

Belle was taught to hate Queen Cora. Her father had splendid plans to Henry until he fell for her, a mere peasant, and made her his queen, all in secret. Maurice and the King’s relationship was never the same after that betrayal, which was why this war started, as England couldn’t have such a vile woman in its throne and her father dreamed to have one of his daughters in her place. He married her sister Briar to Stephan, but when he couldn’t crown them, both fled back home and asked forgiveness to Henry.

As she walked inside the great hall with Rumford by her side, Belle saw the whole royal family gathered in a corner, looking down at the new prince. Cora didn’t have boys until now, only two girls, Regina and Zelena and the arrival of this child was going to make her reign unbreakable. Belle bowed for them, begged for forgiveness and was designated to become her sister’s lady in waiting. She was no one now. Daughter of a traitor. Dowager of the enemy.

Rumford had just arrived London when he heard of his brother’s intentions of locking Lady Belle in an abbey. She was becoming a problem, asking for her part of her father’s fortune and wishing to marry again so she could leave her sister’s house, but Stephan didn’t wish to allow it, because he wanted all of her money and, if they sent them to the abbey, he could get it easily, but Rum couldn’t allow this to happen.

He knew the castle very well and found the secret passage to Belle’s bedchambers, paying the guards for their silence as he broke in, startling the girl who had been reading a book by the window.

“Rum?” Belle questioned with wide eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“Taking you away from this prison…” he trailed off seeing the hesitation in her eyes and adding: “Unless you don’t want to.”

She stood up, casting her book aside and walking towards him, analysing the duke’s face in search of any clue that he was just playing with her, but he looked extremely serious and determinate, which made her heart flip with the kind of hope she didn’t get to feel ever since her family fled from England and she discovered she would soon have to become a tough woman and bury that silly girl she once had been, forever.

“Oh, yes, I do,” the lady guaranteed. “But, where should I go to? I have no money, no lands and no family.”

He shook his head and took her hand in his. The gentleness of his touch brought some kind of blush to her cheeks that she had never experienced before – not even at the times she dreamed with her father’s promise of making her Rumford’s wife.

“My darling, if you accept, I’ll take you to a church right now and become your husband,” he proposed. “You’ll be equal to your sister. A duchess, and I’ll retrieve your fortune. Now, will you marry me?”

There it was, the chance she was waiting for, to change her whole life, and do it herself. Belle allowed a soft kiss to fill her lips as she nodded to him, several times, unable to contain her excitement.

“Yes!”

Leaning forward, he kissed her lips and she realised that she had never been kissed that way, with love, passion and kindness.

Most people thought that Rum shouldn’t feel happy with what he had. When you’re Royal, you always want ascend, get a better title, earn more gold, even attempt to become the ruler of the country, but he didn’t want any of those things, because he relished in the life he acquired.

Once he and Stephan had divided the kingmaker’s daughters’ fortune between themselves, he took his new wife as far away from London as he could without offending his brother and they settled on her old home. Belle didn’t want to attend court never again if she could, of course she knew that eventually they would have to, but for now she was just going to enjoy those first blissful weeks of their marriage.

Belle had, unfortunately, never been loved. She was forced into her first marriage, her husband wasn’t gentle or kind, he barely talked to her and they never shared one good moment for her remembrance. However, things were fairly different with Rum. He adored her, he taught her what being in love was and everything he did was for her, so even when he said they needed to go back to London for the Christmas celebration, she didn’t complain, because she knew her husband would protect her from anything.

It didn’t make Cora be any nicer to her. The woman hated her father and he hated her, which obviously made her hate Belle nonetheless and the fact she had married Rum without the King’s blessing, only got her angrier. But none of them cared for it, they were happy and it was all that mattered.

Rumford’s heir, Gideon, came just after they celebrated their first wedding anniversary. He was a very loved boy with a great future ahead and neither Rum nor Belle could ever manage to stop spoiling him.

For a couple of years everything was nice and calm, until it came the day in which King Henry died and suddenly nothing was the same, because a big power Rum never thought he could have was within his grasp and he found out that sometimes people choose it over love, but that was his biggest mistake, because in the day he was crowd King of England, he didn’t know he was signing up to lose everything he had, including the woman he most loved in his whole life. However, for a while, as Belle - wearing a gorgeous golden gown -  took his hand and they walked along the great hall, with their son following them, he ruled their world and he had the illusion that he had finally reached greatness and it was enough.

At least, for a while.

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Extraction (14/16)

Summary: Intelligence Agent Belle French has been given her most challenging assignment yet – one that will provide her agency with absolutely vital information on a practically untouchable arms dealer.

In addition to all the usual dangers any assignment carries, Belle also faces the edifying task of convincing Rum Gold to return to help the agency one last time. Agent Gold left the world of international espionage years ago, after an assignment went terribly wrong and ended in his imprisonment and torture, and he vowed never to return, but the agency cannot complete their mission without him…

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Read the previous chapters here on AO3.

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Fourteen

Using Regina as a hostage and human shield, Killian corralled them all into the living room of Graham’s basement apartment, where Cora, Zelena and the heavy were waiting. There was, Belle noted grimly, no sign of Graham. Cora was sitting primly on the sofa as if she owned the place, looking around her surroundings with distaste, whilst the other two were standing looking menacing. The man was wielding a prototype pistol that Belle had seen in conjunction with Leo White’s arms deals before, officially a model still in research and development that was officially called a Sweeper but colloquially known as a Room Broom, a handgun with the same specifications as a shotgun. No wonder there had been such a commotion above them when they had been trying to get out. Zelena did not appear to be armed, but the crazed look in her eyes was more than enough to send a shiver down Belle’s spine. When Gold entered the room, leaning on Daniel since Killian had taken his cane, the redhead’s eyes widened and she licked her lips.

“Well if it isn’t the delicious Agent Gold,” she said. “Did you enjoy my company so much that you came back for round two?” She crossed the room leisurely, running a fingertip down his cheek. “I did miss you, darling. It’s been no fun without you around.”

In response, Gold backhanded her around the face. She hissed, her eyes flashing dangerously as she dabbed at her cheek, and Gold brought a hand up to block her before she could return the favour. Killian just gave a snort of laughter as he manhandled Regina into the middle of the room.

“Zelena, dear, leave him alone,” Cora said. She sounded bored. “You’ll get to play with him later, no use breaking your toys now. Charles!”

The muscular man cocked his gun, levelling it at Gold, to whom he was closest in the room. Belle knew enough about the Sweeper to know that if he fired at this close range, all that would remain of Gold above the waist would be a red mist splattered against the wall. Her stomach churned, thinking of Graham in the safehouse above them and hoping that he was all right up there.

“Not him, you fool, I want him alive!” Zelena snapped. Charles retrained his gun on Belle instead, motioning for her to put her hands on her head with jerky movements, the gun heavy and unwieldy in his hand. His obvious inexperience with the weapon gave Belle a little hope for Graham’s survival. Zelena returned her attention to Gold. “I’ve got all sorts of lovely new games to play with you, my dear. We’re going to have so much fun.” She grabbed the arm he wasn’t using to support himself and twisted sharply. Gold’s face contorted in pain but he remained silent, automatically shutting down, endurance training from years ago kicking in again. Defiant to the last in the face of his torturer, he spat in her face.

“You’re going to regret that,” Zelena snarled.

“Zelena!” Cora snapped. “We have bigger fish to fry here!” She got up and came across the room towards her daughter, smiling benevolently and touching her cheek, soothing her as she struggled against Killian’s chokehold on her. “Oh Regina, my darling. After everything I’ve given you in this life, everything that I did to ensure that you had the very best of this world, and this is how you choose to repay me? Do I mean so little to you?”

“I don’t understand how you found me,” Regina said. “My phone, my computer, I left everything at the house, Killian didn’t know where I was coming, how did you track us down?”

“You’re a sentimental one, Regina,” Cora said with a shake of her head, tutting in disapproval. “It was a trait that I always tried to discourage in you, and for good reason.” She grabbed Regina’s hand, holding it up between them, and the small costume stone in Regina’s ring caught the light. “I know diamonds, darling, and this little beauty is glass. I knew that there was only one person in the world who would buy you fake stones, and I knew that you never wore this ring before today. But I also knew that being the sentimental fool that you are, you wouldn’t be able to leave with your pathetic lover without taking with you this little piece of your tomfoolery, just in case something went tragically wrong, you’d always have a piece of him with you. It’s really quite nauseating when you think about it.” She yanked the ring off Regina’s finger and prised the stone off it, showing her the neat little tracking device beneath it. “It was really as simple as that. You should listen to your mother’s advice, darling. It might save your skin.”

“I hate you,” Regina snarled.

“All girls hate their mothers at some point in their lives, my dear,” Cora said. “Your rebellious phase has come a little late, but like all things, it’s something that can be stamped out of you. You’re an adult, Regina, and it’s time to start thinking about these things like a grown up instead of a spoiled child.”

Regina scoffed. “If I’m a spoiled child, it’s only because you made me that way. You were the one who drove me to this! I am not you, Mother, I don’t want to be like you! All I ever wanted was my own life but you treat me like a piece of meat! A bargaining chip for your high-flying deals! You want to whore me out to Leo White to distract him long enough for you to get his head on a platter and then what? Which of your rivals will it be next, because I’m young and pretty and fertile enough to get a few more husbands under my belt before I’m thirty-five!”

“Regina, stop this,” Cora said coolly. “You’re being hysterical.”

“I’m being held at gunpoint on your orders!”

“Regina! It’s really very simple. You can watch Zelena work her particular brand of magic on the other three miscreants in this room, or you can come back with me quietly and do as you’re told.”

“It’s too late anyway!” Regina yelled. “They’ve already got all the information they need to take you out, it’s all safe elsewhere, it doesn’t matter what happens to me, or them, or anyone!”

“Regina, dear, we find our information leaks and we plug them. We always do. Wherever the intelligence you stole has gone, it has gone somewhere, and we have the resources at our disposal-“ here she nodded to Zelena “-to find it.”

Regina was panting, the wind taken out of her sails with the force of her tirade against her mother and the constant pressure of Killian’s arm around her neck. With a final yell of frustration, she slammed her foot down on Killian’s and elbowed him in the groin. The double agent swore and let go of her momentarily before lashing out with his gun and catching the side of her head. Regina staggered into Cora’s waiting arms.

“Fool!” Cora yelled to Killian. “You don’t damage the merchandise! I can’t hand her over to White with her face scratched up! I told you to be careful!”

Belle’s hackles raised. Had she really just called her own daughter merchandise?

“Besides, there’s a much simpler way to get Regina to behave herself, isn’t there sweetheart?” Cora cooed, reaching into her handbag and pulling out a delicate, pearl-handled revolver, a weapon so quaintly old fashioned in the midst of all their top range firepower. Barely sparing a second glance, she pulled the trigger, shooting Daniel squarely in the chest.

“Daniel no!”

Regina threw off her mother’s hold on her, ignorant of the blood pouring down her face from the gash over her right temple, and she raced across the room as Daniel fell to the ground, sending Gold sprawling as well, his bad ankle giving out completely and toppling him. Belle took half a step towards them on instinct, but then Charles and the Sweeper were in front of her, the barrel of the gun pressed into her own chest.

“Daniel!”

Belle had been in all sorts of deadly situations before. She had been in simulations of many more. She had never yet faced a stand-off like this one. There was no way to win, she realised. Their opponents had got the drop on them; Cora had bested them like she always did, and there was to be no coming back from this one. Once again, they had walked straight into a trap of her preparing, just as Gold had done on his own all those years ago, but this time, it was worse. The stakes were so much higher.

“I told you,” Cora said plainly. “Oh, do man up, Killian, your crown jewels will heal but your head won’t if I put a bullet through your skull for your sheer stupidity. Now Regina, dear, might you reconsider your proposal now that there’s really no point in running away any more?”

Regina was not paying her mother any attention; she was focussed solely on Daniel, talking to him, keeping him conscious as she tried to stem the blood flow from his wound, scarlet seeping steadily over her fingers as she ripped off her shirt and bunched it up as a compress. It was clear that her entire world had been reduced to just her and Daniel, and the life-threatening situation that she had ended up in the middle of was just periphery in her mind. Cora rolled her eyes. “Well, it looks like we’ll have to wait for him to die before we get any kind of answer out of her. Still, there are other things to be getting on with.” She crossed the room to Gold, who was staggering unsteadily to his feet. Zelena held out a hand to help him with a look of faux concern, but he refused her.

“I really am intrigued as to why you dragged yourself over here after all these years,” Cora said, watching him struggle with an amused expression. “I mean, it’s hardly the best holiday destination in the world and you know that you’re still technically a wanted man here. My late husband and father-in-law were popular and influential people and I know that there are still several people out there screaming for justice for their killer.” She smiled sweetly. “Knowing all this, I can’t fathom why the service would send you. Unless…”

She looked from Gold to Regina on the floor and back again, giving a squawk of laughter. “Unless you thought she was yours. Oh my word, Gold, you really thought she was yours and you came all the way back out here to rescue your baby girl from her big bad Mommy.” She burst off into peals of laughter again. “Oh Zelena, he’s all yours. The look on his face is worth it all.”

Zelena grabbed Gold’s chin, turning his face towards her, and for the first time, Belle saw genuine terror in his eyes, and she knew she had to act fast. In that moment, time slowed down. She focussed on her heartbeat pounding in her ears, and forced herself to focus. Emma was pinned down in the garden by an unknown number of assailants, her condition unknown. Graham was upstairs in the safehouse, definitely injured and possibly dead. Daniel was bleeding out on the floor, Regina was tending to him and on the verge of hysteria. Gold was quite possibly about to pop his cyanide. She only had seconds to act.

It was quite possibly the rashest, most stupid decision that she had ever made in her life, and she knew that the only way she would get away with it would be because it was something that her attacker would not anticipate her doing.

With a roar, she launched herself forward against the barrel in her chest and shoved Charles away from her, making him stagger, and she kicked out, knocking the gun from his hands and rushing him again. She was never going to be able to take him in hand to hand combat, he was twice her size in all directions, but she could certainly antagonise him and cause a distraction. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Killian let go of his privates and aim his gun at her.

The shot was very loud in the small room, and the silence that followed it was positively deafening.

For what seemed like an age, although it could only have been less than a minute, Belle was convinced that she was dead. She couldn’t hear anything, and she couldn’t feel any pain. It was only once she took in the rest of the room that she realised that the bullet had missed her.

In fact, the bullet hadn’t gone anywhere near her, because Killian had not been the one to fire. Instead, all eyes in the room turned to the centre as Cora fell to the ground, dark mulberry rapidly staining the floor beneath her. Regina was holding Daniel’s sidearm in shaking hands, silent tears streaming down her face as she stared, unseeing, at where her mother had been standing the moment before. All eyes in the room were on her, and Charles and Killian, completely wrong-footed by the death of their paymaster, looked at each other in total confusion. Then movement returned, as Gold took advantage of the distraction to loose himself from Zelena’s grasp, grabbing the woman by a handful of hair and slamming her head against the wall. She slumped down with a groan, losing consciousness immediately, and Belle ran to grab the Sweeper from where it had fallen from Charles’s hand during their scuffle, and she trained the weapon on the larger man, backing him up against the wall beside Zelena’s crumpled form.

“Don’t move.”

Killian also took advantage of the distraction caused by Cora’s fall to shove his weapon in his belt and make a break for the door. Belle turned to fire after him but he was already gone, and she did not want to leave the room. She returned to covering Charles and Zelena, watching Gold out of the corner of her eye. He limped heavily across the room and bent to take Cora’s pulse, giving her Belle a curt nod of confirmation. Cora Mills, the Queen of Diamonds, was dead. He left the body, moving over to Regina, who was still holding the gun, frozen in place.

“Regina,” he said softly, kneeling beside her. “Regina, sweetheart, give me the gun.”

He closed his hand over hers on the pistol and she relinquished her hold on it, pressing her hands over her face and dissolving into a flood of tears. Gold flicked the safety on and put the gun beside him on the ground before turning his attention to Daniel. The younger man had lost consciousness and his skin had a horrible deathly pallor, but he was still breathing, and he looked over at Belle.

“We need an ambulance stat; I’ll cover those two, you get upstairs to send a flash to Mal.” He picked up the gun that he’d taken from Regina and trained it on Charles and Zelena, his other hand doing what he could to try and help Daniel. Belle needed no further encouragement, racing out of the room and up into the safehouse. On her way past the room where they’d been monitoring the CCTV, she saw Graham crouched in the corner, wedged down behind an easy chair.

“Graham, are you..”

“I’m hit in the leg but I’ll be ok!” he called from his position. “I sent a flash to Mal, the residency should be sending in backup any moment now. Just… an ambulance sounds like a great idea at the moment.”

Belle wasted no time, grabbing her phone and placing an emergency call, calmly stating that two people had suffered gunshot wounds in a domestic dispute and answering all the dispatcher’s questions before hanging up; naturally given the state of Daniel and Graham, they needed medical attention as soon as possible, but there was going to be a hell of a lot of explaining to do considering their current situation. She looked out of the bust open front door to see a familiar white van careening down the road and pulling up outside the safehouse, the plates were different to the ones they’d used the previous day, but Mal, Rory and Leroy all jumped out.

“I reckon we’ve got eight minutes before the ambulances arrive,” Belle said as they rushed into the house, Leroy shouldering the ruined door closed after them. “I’ve got Cora dead, Graham and Daniel bleeding all over the place, Gold holding down Charles and Zelena in Graham’s apartment, Killian’s done a bunk and Emma’s held down outside.”

“Fear not, Killian’s not done a bunk and Emma’s not held down outside.” Emma came through the house with Killian at gunpoint, his hands cable-tied together. “Sorry I couldn’t get in touch, one of his mates jumped me and knocked my earpiece offline. The guy in question split but I thought it would be better to get this one rather than go after the muscle. I believe this is yours,” she said, nudging him forwards towards Mal, who raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

“I’m sure you’re aware, Killian, that I’m not known for leniency. Leroy, take care of our lovely traitor. As for the rest of it all, we’re going to need a cover story, and fast, and you, Gold and Regina have to get out of here as quickly as possible. I don’t want you still here when the authorities arrive, that will open up a whole other can of worms. Who killed Cora?”

“Regina,” Belle said. Mal let out a low whistle of approval as she pulled on a pair of latex gloves, moving through the house towards the room in which the massacre had taken place.

“That girl is going to need so much therapy,” she muttered under her breath. When they arrived back in Graham’s living room, Mal and Rory immediately started faking the scene. Regina had calmed down and was back taking care of Daniel whilst Gold provided cover. Belle noticed that Charles had also lost consciousness and she was pretty sure that had been achieved by means of the butt of a gun.

“Emma, can you go down into the cellars and check our exit route is clear?” Belle asked. The blonde woman smacked her earpiece against her palm a couple of times, listened to it and gave a nod before reinserting it into her ear.

“On it.”

She sped out of the room, Mal and Rory were working out the cover story between them.

“Cora’s known to use safehouse locations like this to do deals in,” she said. “She came to a deal that went south; Daniel took a bullet to protect her but couldn’t prevent a second shot…”

“Belle this is Emma, you’re clear.”

“Copy.”

Belle went over to Regina and Gold.

“We have to leave, now.”

“No!” Regina exclaimed. “I can’t leave him!”

“Regina, you have to. If we’re still here when the police and ambulance crews arrive then you’re not going to get out of the country, period. The plane leaves at six and we have to be on it.” There was no time for pussyfooting; Belle could hear the sirens blazing down the street. Mal went to greet them and Rory came across to take over first aid on Daniel.

“Go!” she said. “If you’re still here they’ll start asking what the hell happened!”

“We’re leaving,” Gold said, taking Regina’s shoulders in a firm grip and pulling her off the floor. He grabbed his cane from where Killian had discarded it, keeping his free arm around Regina as he bundled her out of the room and towards the kitchen and the their way out. Belle brought up the rear with their gear, gun still at the ready, and Emma met them at the cellar door, running point as they made their way under the terrace of houses through the darkness, just the light from Emma’s pocket flashlight illuminating the debris strewn path ahead of them and the small square of light at the far end that showed freedom. The four of them scrambled through the hole, out into the overgrown garden at the end of the terrace and into the narrow alley that led down between the streets. They were out. All they had to do now was leave the country.

Emma made them wait at the end of the alleyway, pulling off her jacket and handing it to Regina, whose shirt was still bandaging Daniel, and she stepped out into the street, looking around before motioning for them to follow her. They wound around a few streets into a quiet area before she stopped, pulling a screwdriver from the pocket of her jeans and jacking open a small car.

“All right, everyone in. One ride to the airport coming up.”

“We’re stealing a car?” Regina asked.

Emma shrugged. “Desperate times call for desperate measures and I think someone might notice us if we get in a taxi like this.” She jumped into the driver’s seat and got the engine turning over; Regina and Gold got into the back with the gear and Belle took shotgun, still looking out for anyone that might be following them. “Regina, Gold, you’re going to want to maybe get rid of the bloodstains.” She rummaged through the glovebox and tossed a pack of wetwipes into the back. “If there’s one thing every woman should know, it’s how to change in a moving vehicle. If you can change whilst you’re driving the vehicle, that’s even better.”

Regina gave a weak snort of laughter as she cleaned her hands and face and rummaged in her backpack for another top; Gold doing likewise. Emma was taking them through the back roads, and it shouldn’t take them long to reach the airport hopefully undetected.

With Gold and Regina cleaned up, the car fell into a tense silence, Belle keeping watch and Emma concentrating on the road. Regina was shaking violently, her hands pressed over her face again as she tried to keep it together. Without any prompting, Gold put his arms around her and she leaned in against him.

“It’s all right,” he soothed. “It’s all over now. It’s all going to be ok. You’re going to be safe, I promise. I’ve got you.”

The airport came into sight, and Emma pulled into a side street so that they could abandon the car. Belle looked up at the skies and the plane just taking off, thinking about everything that had happened since they had arrived only a few short days ago. In spite of it all, their assignment had been, so far, a grim kind of success.

They had Regina, and they were almost home.