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mariakov81 · 2 months

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Once Upon a Time 4x06 "Family Business" Review

We learn a little more about the Snow Queen’s plans and about her past with Emma. And apparently Belle and Anna knew each other but Belle has kept it a secret from Elsa because she’s ashamed that she wanted her memories more than saving a girl she’d just met. So apparently shame is a big deterrent in not helping save Anna this time too.

Summary: The Snow Queen leads our heroes on a chase so they can see that she actually cared for Emma at one point. In the past, Belle can’t remember how her mother died in an Ogre attack, so she goes to Arendelle to visit the Rock Trolls and meets Princess Anna who is looking for information on her Aunt Ingrid.

Opening: Ice Cream Truck

New Characters:

Belle’s Mother (Colette): First off, I really thought Belle’s mother would get more air time in this episode, considering she’s played by Frances O’Connor (known for Mansfield Park, AI, The Importance of Being Earnest), but alas, she’s killed off pretty quickly. We do see where Belle gets her love of reading from, as they both try to get priceless books out of the library before the Ogre attacks them. They end up hiding under a table, and I’m confused about how he finds them. Does he hear them, because it was established that Ogres were blind back in Lady of the Lake. However he figured out where they were, Colette does not end up making it through the attack.

Character Observations:

Belle: In the past, Belle and her mother are attacked in their library by an Ogre. I get that there are priceless books in there (or in Belle’s case, the book that she remembers her mother first reading to her), but Ogres are attacking. You can come back for the books once they leave! Belle and her mother get trapped under a table and the last thing Belle remembers is the Ogre lifting the table off them and yelling in their faces. Belle awakens to find her mother is dead and she can’t remember how she died (I’m guessing an Ogre killed her). Belle is insistent in trying to recover her memories, but her father doesn’t think that’s a good idea. She tells him about magical beings who can restore memories, but he brings up the whole ‘All magic comes with a price’ line and tells her she is not to leave. Belle makes up her mind to go to Arendelle anyway, where she meets Anna at Oaken’s. Anna also happens to be going to see the Rock Trolls, so they decide to go together. They discuss the fact that they both lost their mothers, and when Anna slips trying to get up the mountain, Belle discovers the hat box (that she stole from Rumple in The Apprentice). Anna won’t give much away to Belle about the evil wizard she stole it from, just tells her she hopes she never meets him. Well, Anna, maybe if you’d given Belle a hint, she wouldn’t be married to him now! Somehow, despite the fact that they could barely make it up the first rock, they get to the top to the Rock Trolls. Grand Pabbie pulls the memory from Belle’s consciousness and puts it in a stone which he tells her to brew in tea at the place where she lost her memory (nice plot point so she can’t brew it right away), and when she drinks the tea she’ll remember what happened to her mother. On the way back down the mountain they get caught up in a storm. Anna is convinced it’s her Aunt Ingrid. When Belle asks what she’s going to do about it, Anna pulls out the hat box again and says she’s going to take her aunt’s magic. And that’s when a big gust of wind comes, knocking the memory stone out of Belle’s hand, and knocking Anna off the trail so she’s hanging off the edge of the mountain. Belle tries to go for the stone first, but it’s knocked off the edge and shatters. Then she tries to get Anna, but Anna falls. Belle witnesses the Snow Queen poof Anna away. Belle returns home and tells her father she didn’t find what she was looking for and her trip was a huge mistake. Maurice finally tells Belle what happened. That her mother stood in the path of the Ogre while the guards pulled Belle to safety, and her mother was killed before the guards could get back. Maurice tells her the war isn’t going well, and Belle suggests calling upon a powerful wizard she read about (not putting together that this might be the same wizard Anna was warning her about). Maurice knows who she is talking about and doesn’t want to call him, but Belle thinks it’s their only choice so they can win the war and so she can be a hero like her mother.

Meanwhile, in Storybrooke, Belle is keeping a secret that she knew Anna back in their realm. Elsa wants to research Arendelle in the library with Belle, which is making her very uncomfortable. Elsa starts having a crisis of faith about finding Anna, but Belle tells her she will find Anna, but she looks very guilty about the whole thing. Belle decides the best thing to do is go to the Snow Queen’s hideout, and ‘commands’ Rumple to take her to her lair using the dagger. When they get there, Rumple tells Belle that the Snow Queen isn’t there, but she’s okay with that. She’s looking for the hat to strip someone of their powers! Too bad she doesn’t know Rumple hid it away at the shop, would’ve saved her a trip. Rumple wonders why Belle is helping a stranger. She gives him the excuse that a hero always helps people. She makes Rumple keep watch while she goes inside to look for the hat box. Instead, she hears someone calling for her from behind a covered mirror. When she takes the sheet off, it’s her reflection, but it tells her things she doesn’t want to hear. Basically, all her insecurities, like that Rumple doesn’t really trust her and he didn’t give her the real dagger (listen to the mirror, Belle). Rumple comes in, warning Bell they have to leave since the Snow Queen is coming. She lashes out and cuts him with the dagger before he poofs them back to the shop. Belle starts to believe what mirror Belle said about the dagger, since she had commanded Rumple to stay outside. He gets around that by saying she said to keep watch, and since the Snow Queen was coming back, he was allowed to go in and get her. Belle breaks down when she sees she has cut him and tells him all the awful things the mirror told her. Rumple assures her none of it is true. Belle confesses that Anna is missing because of her and feels guilty for using the dagger on Rumple. She doesn’t think she’s worthy of his love. Oh, lord, if only Belle knew how it’s Rumple who isn’t worthy of her love with all of his lies, manipulation, and deceit. She then spreads on the guilt even thicker by apologizing for keeping this secret, since she knows Rumple would never keep a secret from her. UGH! Belle finally confesses to Elsa about knowing Anna and how the Snow Queen captured her. Belle tells Emma, Elsa, and Killian about the mirror. Rumple has told her that it will be used for the Spell of Shattered Sight, turning the whole town on one another.

Emma: She shows everyone the video of the Snow Queen as her foster mother. Henry suggests looking for her ice cream truck to either find her or find clues. They end up finding it out by the Merry Men’s camp. Robin wants to talk to Regina, but she rebuffs him. Emma tells her she could have been nicer, but Regina tells her to stay out of it and is upset she has to deal with her and Killian making eyes at each other. Emma protests this, but then Killian definitely makes eyes at her. Once inside the truck, neither Regina nor Killian notice the lock on the freezer (how did these two last so long as villains when they don’t even notice details?). Killian uses his hook to break the lock and they find a file on Emma inside, starting from the article on how she was found on the side of the road. Emma looks through the file and discovers she stayed with the Snow Queen for six months, the longest she’d ever stayed anywhere. Killian asks if she’s okay, but she just tells him it was a long time ago, prompting a conversation about the fact that Killian was once a child about 200 years ago. Emma realizes that the Snow Queen has kept old art projects and essays and a card Emma wrote to her, and that someone doesn’t do that unless they care about you. They also discover a scroll with Arendelle writing on it. Back at the sheriff’s station, Elsa has discovered that the Snow Queen is her aunt. She and Emma look at the family tree and discover another sister that Killian thinks looks just like Emma (I really don’t see that except for the fact that she is blonde). Elsa sees the scroll and translates it. It basically says that Emma is the Savior and will become Ingrid’s (the Snow Queen) sister. Belle comes in letting them know about the mirror and the Shattered Sight spell, and Emma and Elsa figure out that they’ll be the only two left that aren’t affected so the Snow Queen can have her family.

Ingrid/The Snow Queen: Anna is introduced to Ingrid who let’s Anna know that the reason she doesn’t know her is because she was put in an urn by people who didn’t understand her. She shows Anna that she also has the same powers as Elsa and that it runs in the family. We don’t see Ingrid again until Anna is on her way back from the Rock Trolls. Ingrid creates a storm that results in Anna falling off a mountain. Ingrid steals the hat box from Anna before poofing them back to the castle. Ingrid has Anna locked in a cell in the dungeons of the castle. She accuses Anna of wanting to strip Elsa of her powers with the hat. Anna claims she wasn’t going to use it on Elsa, but that their parents were. Anna then reveals that the Rock Trolls told her she had another sister and Ingrid gets very angry. Anna asks what Ingrid wants. Ingrid says she wanted a family that would embrace her for who she was, but she doesn’t think Anna can be part of that family since she has nothing in common with her and Elsa. She will have to find someone else to take Anna’s place.

Rumple seeks out the Snow Queen and lets her know Emma is on to her. The Snow Queen tells him that Emma didn’t discover anything she didn’t want her to discover. She goes head to head with Rumple which is pretty fantastic. He doesn’t scare her like he does most others. She tells him to stay out of her way, Later, after Belle has glimpsed the mirror, Rumple comes back to confront the Snow Queen about it. They posture and threaten each other again: Rumple telling her she better now hurt anyone he loves with her plans and the Snow Queen claiming she can’t make any guarantees. Rumple shows her that he has the hat and the Snow Queen shows fear for the first time.

Anna: She comes back from Misthaven and lies to Elsa about what she’s found out. She notices there are no flurries or any of Elsa’s normal icy behaviors happening. Elsa excitedly introduces Anna to their Aunt Ingrid and Anna immediately goes into disbelieving mode. She immediately goes to Kristoff and tells him that she doesn’t trust Ingrid. She claims to be a good judge of character, but Kristoff calls her out on that as she almost married Hans after 10 minutes. Anna doesn’t understand why there isn’t any record of Ingrid anywhere, so she wants to visit the Rock Trolls to find out about her. She also tells Kristoff that she didn’t tell Elsa what she found out on her trip. Unfortunately, Ingrid has been listening to their conversation. Anna runs into Belle at Oaken’s and since they are going to the same place, invites her to come with her to visit the Rock Trolls. Anna asks Grand Pabbie about Ingrid and he tells her that her mother actually had two sisters, and they were quite close. But then one day Ingrid and their other sister, Helga, vanished, so the royal family asked the Rock Trolls to make everyone forget them. This makes Anna think Ingrid is a liar because she didn’t tell them about this (um, wasn’t she trapped in an urn until recently), and needs to get back to the castle fast. Ingrid causes a storm and imprisons Anna, telling her she can’t be part of their family because she is the outsider.

Questions:

Why are they wondering how the Snow Queen got to our world? My first thought would be a magic bean since we’ve seen them several times at this point. I know they were supposed to be gone, but that obviously wasn’t true.

What is up with Belle’s traveling outfit? It’s a short skirt that has that caveman-like cut and knee-high stockings! And it’s white! Plus she’s in full make up.

Can someone please explain why Emma was moved around in foster care so much that six months was the longest she was anywhere? Isn’t the point of foster care to find a family to take them in so their life isn’t disrupted so much? No wonder Emma is the way she is if she was moved from family to family so much she couldn’t ever form any bonds.

Once again, what is up with Belle’s Storybrooke outfit? She’s going to infiltrate the Snow Queen’s lair in a short skirt and knee high boots (I mean, they are fur lined, but still)?

Ingrid told Anna she’d been trapped in an urn, so why would Anna think she knew anything about her family erasing everyone’s memories?

Who’s voice is coming from the mirror before Belle takes the cover off. It’s not speaking in Belle’s normal accent.

So, did Colette and Belle somehow get up when the Ogre pulled the table off of them? Maurice says her mother stood up to the Ogre, but they’d been lying under a table.

Why was Belle so worried about the Ogres reaching the road? They’d already been to the castle.

Where did this prophecy come from? Most prophecies aren’t so literal.

Observations:

The first book Belle’s mother ever read to her was called Her Handsome Hero.

Belle is wearing her blue movie dress. We saw her wear this in Rumple’s castle in Skin Deep. I had assumed that it had been something Rumple had given her since she didn’t bring anything with her, but maybe Rumple magicked her belongings to the castle at some point.

If this were real life, Anna would be so dead, or at least have multiple broken bones after falling off the mountain.

Rumple looks into the Snow Queen’s mirror and nothing happens.

The Snow Queen’s plan to use a mirror for the Spell of Shattered Sight comes directly from the Hans Christian Anderson story The Snow Queen. Although it is not her mirror that shatters, but the devil’s mirror. Read the tale here.

The false eyelashes on Belle are over the top this episode.

Timeline Issues:

Emma says she’s 13, maybe 14 in the video, but it’s supposed to be 1998, and in the fall. Emma was born in 1983, so that would make her 15, maybe 14 if it’s still the beginning of October.

If Anna met Belle before Belle met Rumple, then how old must she be now? Belle lived with Rumple, probably for at least a year (despite the short time we saw in Skin Deep and Lacey), and then she went on the adventure with Mulan to find the Yaoguai in The Outsider, and then she was captured by the Evil Queen and imprisoned for about 2 ½ years according to the hash marks in her cell in that we saw in Queen of Hearts. We know Elsa was trapped in the urn (although we don’t know how), but it had to have happened before Snow and Charming met, as it came through the time portal with Emma and Killian during There’s No Place Like Home, and as we saw, Belle was still Rumplestiltskin’s maid at this time. Assuming Arendelle wasn’t part of the curse (which, it shouldn’t be since it wasn’t part of the Enchanted Forest), at least 35 years must have passed from what we just saw.

So the Snow Queen apparently cared about Emma, but what happened for Emma to leave and the Snow Queen make her forget? How did she get to our land if not by my theory of a magic bean? The Snow Queen is planning to tear the town apart just so she can get Emma and Elsa to become her sisters, and Rumple is being a conniving ass as usual.

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mariakov81 · 2 months

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imperfect boys. perfect ploys. (this is a song about tragedy) [1/6]

“My ‘story’ is that I left a fucked-up situation and it kind of fucked me up,” he’d said. But it was the way he’d said it, like it hadn’t broken him. Like it was just a fact. But Emma’s life was a story, too. A fucked-up situation that had kind of fucked her up. She wasn’t that kid anymore. Confidence could be learned. And maybe—maybe—she wasn’t broken, either. Not if she picked up the pieces. Not if she told herself a new story. About who she was. About what she wanted. Roots, family, friends, a sense of the familiar—these did not have to be fairy tales. "You owe it to yourself," Mary Margaret said. "Happy endings always start with hope."

S3 post-neverland canon divergence. 20k of no-curse renaissance.

read it on AO3

to @wistfulcynic and @thisonesatellite who sat with me while we daydreamed on a hilltop in cornwall on the summer-iest summer day england has ever seen. it took me eight months but i got there in the end.

thank you to @shireness-says for time and feedback and kindness to the IAS @spartanguard @optomisticgirl @idoltina @initiala @thejollyroger-writer for always giving me a cheer when i needed it (including--in B's case--occasionally getting random, context-free paragraphs dumped into her DMs)

one. 'when you leave, you just miss it'

The sun was shining.

Almost a week since they’d seen real daylight—maybe more, maybe less. No one was sure. Time, like light, did not work properly in Neverland. That’s what Hook had said, and Neal had agreed, an uneasy peace between them; Regina grumbled and Gold snickered but it had been a week or a lifetime and the sun was shining and she had slept last night, for the first time in a week.

Or a lifetime.

She heard the wind rustling around her through the open portholes. Tasted the salt on the air, sweet and slightly cool. Emma sat up and the chill danced around her skin as the sheet fell. She felt good; rested, refreshed. Free.

Her clothes were were on the floor where she’d left them. She slipped from the bunk and picked them up, one by one and hanging from her fingertips. Because time might not have been real in Neverland but everything definitely smelled like she’d been wearing it for a week. When they got back to Storybrooke she wasn’t just going to wash the clothes. She was going to burn them. Just thinking about it made the power well up inside her. It wasn’t anger or darkness or the unrelenting terror of the Dark Hollow. It was something else—warm, gentle flames that tickled.

Or maybe she just really needed a shower.

God, a shower.

She dressed quickly and found her way above deck, stumbling over a dozen dozing Lost Boys and one wide-awake former fairy. Neal and Wendy leaned up against the bulkhead, their legs sprawled out in front of them. Wendy had curled herself against Neal like she wouldn’t let him go.

Emma wrapped her arms around herself and glanced up. The sail billowed, but the Shadow cast no shadow here. Tink turned and spotted her. The way her eyes lit up made Emma’s breath catch. They were going home.

“We’re nearly there,” Tink said. “I almost can’t believe it. Where’s Hook?”

Emma shrugged. “I thought he needed to be here. Steering.” Behind them, the giant wheel turned on its own.

“Magic,” Tink said. “The ship, it has magic. Not my kind—I’ve no idea how it works.”

“And I’ll never tell.” His hair was mussed by the wind but his coat hung heavy over him. Weighing him down. The words were heavy, too, weighted with meaning—something in his eyes before he cleared his throat. Then Captain Hook inclined his head and it was gone, replaced with twinkles like tiny blue gems in his eyes. “Tinker Bell.”

“Hook.” A speculative syllable as the fairy stared intently and he blushed. Emma looked from one of them to the other until Hook’s eyes caught hers and held. He raised his eyebrow, just the one.

Emma raised hers. Both of them.

“Swan,” he said.

“Hook,” she said.

“Mom!” Henry ran across the deck, leaving Regina behind in the companionway with a genuine smile on her face. Neal’s eyes opened immediately at the sound of his son’s voice and he scrambled to his feet, catching Henry in his arms but barely slowing him before he angled back toward Emma. She nearly fell over as she absorbed the fullness of his hug. Her son’s arms around her, finally.

Six days. Not even a week. But her life had changed in less time before: The time it took to steal a car, to open a locker. Sixteen hours to give birth. Ten hours on a beanstalk.

The kiss it took to break a curse.

A week was plenty of time for her world to turn itself upside down. Again.

“The sun is fully up,” Hook said. “We’ll be arriving shortly in Storybrooke.” A fairy-tale land full of fairy-tale people encased in a magic shield that they were going to pierce with a magic boat piloted by a pirate and guided by a demon’s Shadow. Hook spoke and the ship turned on a dime, the wheel spinning, the Shadow-filled sail briefly flashing white, and there it was.

The harbor. The clock tower. The neon sign of the B&B.

“Home,” Mary Margaret whispered, coming to stand next to Emma.

David rested his hand on her arm and Emma tensed. His smile gentled and he moved, stepping back to pull Mary Margaret closer. “Together. Heroes, villains—pirates.” Pride glowed briefly in his eyes. “Just like you said.”

Heroes, villains, pirates. Parents.

Storybrooke.

Home.

The rest of the fairy-tale folk rushed to the rails, hanging over the sides for a closer look at their heroes’ welcome. A faint sound carried on the breeze—laughter. Cheers.

They were in the water. They were in the harbor. The gangplank lowered. Henry was practically trembling with excitement as he hurled himself onto the dock, zooming between his father and his grandparents and Granny and—and—and—

But it was Neal Emma was watching. Hugging his father. Hugging Belle. Escorting Wendy. No longer a Lost Boy but a found one.

“Home. The place that when you leave, you just miss it.” He’d told her that the night they’d met. Her lifetime had been a series of moves from place to place to place and every time, she’d only known one thing for certain: She wasn’t home. Not yet. She’d been seventeen and Neal Cassidy had kneeled in the dirt and picked the lock and when he turned the amusement park lights on and smiled at her, knowing and full of confidence, her entire world had shifted on its axis.

“My ‘story’ is that I left a fucked-up situation and it kind of fucked me up,” he’d said. But it was the way he’d said it, like it hadn’t broken him. Like it was just a fact. Or maybe it was a secret he was sharing. With her.

Home. Neal wrapped Wendy and her brothers in a group hug with an expression Emma had never seen before. But Emma’s life was a story, too. A fucked-up situation that had kind of fucked her up. She wasn’t that kid anymore. Confidence could be learned. And maybe—maybe—she wasn’t broken, either.

Not if she picked up the pieces. Not if she told herself a new story. About who she was. About what she wanted. Roots, family, friends, a sense of the familiar—these did not have to be fairy tales. The flame warmed inside her again, as if the idea of wanting—of knowing what she wanted—was its own kind of magic. Maybe it was.

Possibilities. Hope.

In her. In the magic. In this town. It wasn’t a home—yet—but for the first time Emma felt like it could be. If she let it. If she wanted it. If she chose it.

Henry turned back to her, waiting. An impatient gesture. She took one last long look around the decks of the ship. Hook stood at the helm, tracing the scratch marks in the wood.

Home.

With a deep breath, Emma stepped onto the dock.

two. 'i quite fancy you'

The realization hit at approximately the same time Emma Swan hit the water, the waves enveloping her and dragging her down, though he didn’t think about it. Not then. Not in the midst of the magically-intensified storm and the maelstrom wrought by his own frustrations: Baelfire’s death, his son missing, the Dark One on his ship and Prince-bloody-Charming up in arms and in Killian’s face, so certain it was he who was the captain here—an uncomfortable thought all on its own, and similarly ignored.

But then she’d hit the water and it was all hands on deck.

Nothing else mattered as they retrieved her from the deep and lowered her to the deck and waited. Waited for her to breathe, to move, to cough out the water, her body wracked by the effort but alive. The storm vanished as quickly as it appeared but the weight lingered.

Killian did not like to think about the last time he had seen a woman laid out before him on his ship. About how it had ended. So he ignored it. Ignored it with the patience and practice of a man accustomed to counting time in centuries rather than minutes and it was easy enough. In Neverland the only thing real was the here and the now; their horrific, indeterminate trek across the island was more than enough to occupy his mind.

Until it wasn’t.

He set himself up a good bit away from the others as they made their camp. He refused to watch the undisturbed slumber of the Charmings. Even Regina slept, but not Killian. Never Killian, never on Neverland. Whether it was better or worse to be alone and surrounded by the haunted cries of the Lost, Killian did not know. He’d thought and hoped never to hear them again no matter how unnaturally prolonged his life might be. But he knew this—it was too easy for Pan to grab on to a person in the netherworld of Neverland at night and it was darker now than Killian remembered it being, unless it was just the effect of the rum.

He almost wished it was.

Either way, there wasn’t enough of the bloody stuff to soothe the ragged edges of his soul.

He’d said it as a joke. Or a feint. An instinctive push in their ongoing tug-of-war. “I quite fancy you sometimes,” he’d said. But here in the dark surrounded by the cries he had no choice but to admit to himself that he’d meant it.

Horrific thought.

Idly, he wondered if Tinker Bell was still here. Their tactics for sleep--and mutual exhaustion--had always proved more then satisfactory in the past. Pleasurable, even; some of the only good memories Killian had of this place. Only that felt somehow…disloyal. A betrayal to an idea that his heart was apparently already committed to. Killian took another pull from the flask and reminded himself that villains didn’t get happy endings and if Captain Hook had been anything in his life, it was that.

After all, if he had been a better man, perhaps Baelfire wouldn’t have left.

It was with that happy thought that the cacophony of cries reached its crescendo—midnight, then, or near enough on this cursed island where the night felt endless. Perhaps it was endless, now. The days seemed shorter—nonexistent—the darkness constant. The island was changing. Dying. Killian knew only too well there was nothing Pan would not do to prevent that happening. Every instinct told him that Henry was the answer Pan sought.

Killian had not been lying when he told Emma that on this island, he was not the villain. Perhaps that was why he waited. Waited to hear the whisper of movement and the moment she finally gave up. When she finally got up. He had never wondered if she might hear the cries. It had been very nearly his first thought upon meeting her. She’d had the Look and few knew it better than he. Maybe Baelfire—Neal—had recognized it, too.

He could hear the muttered imprecations under her breath and was only gratified that she had sense enough to take the cutlass with her as she began to roam the surroundings of their camp. And then he heard something else.

Not words. A voice. A voice that taunted him still, lurking on the edges of his nightmares. Even worse, he knew what it meant. To be approached by Pan was to have a quest assigned, a task given. When Emma stumbled out of the woods clutching a scrap of parchment, he stood to meet her, already on alert.

Pan always did like his games.

three. 'you owe it to yourself'

The shower felt incredible. One after Granny’s; one before bed; one when she woke up. Part of her felt like she might never not be covered in dirt and sweat again. Part of her just wanted the warmth and the solitude. Even in a loft built for one and sleeping four, the shower was a one-person-at-a-time activity.

She hoped.

Exhausted but too restless to sleep, Emma had lain in her bed and stared at the exposed beams, counting the wood scratches and feeling it every time someone in the apartment breathed. Henry’s little snores made her smile with every exhalation and though here Mary Margaret and David were only—breathing—it was hard not to think about the other things they could be doing in the bed they shared at the bottom of the ladder.

Ew.

Emma really needed to get her own place.

Henry would want to go back to spending nights at Regina’s again, anyway. As he should. She was his mother.

Emma couldn’t help but think of Regina at the Tree. Regina with ‘no regrets’. She wasn’t sure if she believed any of it, but she couldn’t argue with the result—all of them, still standing, at the end of something horrible. Even if Emma thought Regina should have a few regrets—surely some of the murders had been unwarranted—maybe it was time to follow Regina’s example. Leave the past behind and focus on what she had.

What would it be like, to live with no regrets?

A new beginning.

A steam cloud followed her as she opened the frosted glass sliding door and followed the sweet smell of coffee to the kitchen island—a little pot, in an honest-to-goodness tea cozy, left in the blessedly quiet loft. Mary Margaret hadn’t done that in—she hadn’t done that since—

Before.

The texts had accumulated on her phone while she showered. She recognized most, but not all, of the phone numbers—David, Mary Margaret, Henry, Ruby—and remembered suddenly that she didn’t know which one might be Neal’s. Being presumed dead made that easy enough to excuse.

She was glad he wasn’t dead.

Emma sighed. Maybe it would have been easier if she’d set a time, or maybe it just would have been funnier: An hour to process Felix into the cells. Another at the pawnshop to watch Pan sealed beneath the floor—a tiny box to hold so many nightmares, but both of her parents standing next to her in spite of the dreamshade. Henry flanked by his mothers, his father, three of his grandparents.

Of course Neal had approached her—exactly down to the minute on the timer she had not set—cornering her at Granny’s. The beer was flowing, the food was hot, the noise was crushing her skull. Tick, tock.

“Emma, can we make some time to talk?”

She hadn’t even gotten her coat off, and it was weird to suddenly need it again after six days and a lifetime sweating in an otherworldly jungle. She saw Hook at the bar with Tink, a glass mug of amber liquid in each of their hands as they toasted. Mary Margaret and David pushed in behind and around her to head for a table. Regina and Henry were tucked in together at a booth.

Tick, tock.

She forced her attention back to Neal. “Isn’t that what we’re doing right now?” she said. “Unless—are you trying to ask me on a date?”

Yes.

Yes, he was and yes, she would make time—because they needed to know what would happen. Emma had a few ideas and as Mary Margaret always said happy endings start with hope. It was the look on Mary Margaret’s face as Neal settled himself back into his booth that had her worried. The big eyes, the bright smile. It was a look she wasn’t totally used to seeing on her friend’s face because it was such a Snow White look.

“You owe it to yourself,” Mary Margaret had said.

Tick, tock.

A motherly look. She wasn’t used to that yet, either. Six days or a lifetime hadn’t quite given her enough time to digest the shift from best friend to parent and almost every minute since the curse had broken had been one unrelenting nightmare after another. Ogres, giants, beanstalks. Cora. Hook. Neal. It didn’t help that even while Mary Margaret was urging her to take the chance—“You owe it to yourself”—Emma kept thinking about the chances Mary Margaret and David wanted to take.

Tick, tock.

They were home now, the three of them—four—five—six—or maybe eight—one big modern fairytale family—and that mattered, even if Mary Margaret had looked her in the eyes and promised that she wouldn’t be an orphan anymore and then decided that she would stay in Neverland forever if she had to. The thin leather strap of the waterskin crossed over David’s shoulder didn’t feel like much against that, but it was everything.

The water. From Hook. And every time she’d turned Emma had seen Hook watching, his eyes tightening slightly every time David moved. Like he was waiting for something. Tick, tock.

Shaking herself, Emma finished her cup of coffee and hauled herself back up the ladder. The curling iron felt comfortable in her hand; it was a relief to look in the mirror and see someone she recognized, from Before. Her blue leather jacket because it was warmer, her favorite tank top layered underneath, and she was going to go to Granny’s and have a goddamn normal day. Whatever that meant now—now that it wasn’t Before, but After. After the curse. After the Enchanted Forest. After Neverland.

After—everything.

She wasn’t a tiny princess under a mobile of glass unicorns; none of them knew what to do with a goddamn adult with a past. A history, a trauma, that was not part of their storybook fantasy, and more than a missed opportunity that they could recreate.

She refused to just be that. She was a mother, too. A sheriff. A Savior.

An orphan.

If what they had was unique, to use Mary Margaret’s words from the Echo Cave, then they had to be able to make their own definitions. Their own rules and wants and needs and hopes. Their own story. And what Emma wanted, more than anything, was to carve out her own space in this world—parents, children, magic, exes, and evil queens—and know that it was hers. That she belonged. Emma wanted to know that when Henry came for her he wasn’t just looking for her to break a curse. He was bringing her home.

How did Snow White, of all people, not understand that?

She glanced at her phone, at the time and at the last text message. Pulled on her shitkicker black boots and closed the door behind her.

She had a date to get to.

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