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thejollyroger-writer · 4 years

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To Serve and Protect - Chapter 3

It’s Monday again -- the last Monday of the semester, actually. I questioned whether I would get you guys this chapter today, because I still have papers to write, but I was able to piece it together, because I love you all (and rely on your feedback to raise my self esteem), plus now I have to focus on Toni Morrison instead of Killian Jones.

Anyway, here’s chapter three.

SUMMARY: Detective Killian Jones has been investigating a stalker-turned-murderer for months by the time he goes home from the bar with Emma Swan. But when he thinks he sees the very man in question outside her apartment, can he separate his feelings for her and his need to keep her safe?

TRIGGERS: well, this is a fic about a serial killer. mentions of violence and death, with some physical violence/whump coming a bit later. as always, if you need me to discuss this further for you to be comfortable, message me. – rated teen for later chapters

Prologue // Ch. 1 // Ch. 2 // Ch. 3 on AO3

A wave of nervousness rolls through him, chilling him to the bone. Six months, six girls, and though he’s never felt closer to the bastard than he feels now, there’s a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach whenever he thinks of catching him, one that he’s almost too afraid to think too much about.

Because he knows it’s connected to her. He wants to catch him — of course he does, that’s his damn job — but now, with her safety on the line, he’s more afraid than ever. He has never allowed his next victim to have a face in his mind, has never had it connected to a name — has never been connected to him (he grimaces as the thought passes through his mind, focusing on the change of his face in his reflection in the window for a moment instead of worrying about what may lie behind it for just a moment.)

It’s the first rule of detective work, really: don’t get involved. They tell you that on the first day. Hell, they tell you that before you even have a first day. If he would have known…

The thought disappears on his own, really, even as he hears the creaking of his bed under her as she shifts in the next room. He’s never realized just how loudly it does that, how much louder it must be under his own body weight, but, living alone, it’s never bothered him. What would he have done if he would have known? Would he have not bought her that drink? Not gone over and sat with her in her corner booth? Not followed her out of the bar? Because, sure, he knew when he went home with her, but he had no idea, no reason to suspect, before that. By the time he followed her up to her apartment, he knew that she might be connected somehow, and that didn’t stop him, but it wasn’t just because he wanted to sleep with her. Hell, he told her that she may be in danger, and still slept with her — was that the right thing to do? The move of a gentleman?

Suddenly, he hears Liam’s voice in his head: Good form, little brother. Are you showing good form?

God, how he wishes Liam were here to answer the question instead of just living as a ghost inside his head. He would like to believe that he’s living out his brother’s wishes, being the best man he can be, a man of honor — but it would be a hell of a lot easier with Liam still here to guide him.

Shaking the ghost of his brother out of his head, he sets his eyes on the street below him once more, arms crossed over his chest. He barely knows what he’s looking for, in the shadows of the streetlights. How he even recognized him that first night is still a mystery to him, because he can make out nothing from his own apartment window. The flash of a lit cigarette across the street from him could mean anything; everywhere he has been has had people smoking on their fire escapes: London, Dublin, New York. Why should Storybrooke, Maine be any different? (It’s not, he knows for sure, remembering the brief conversation he had with his elderly upstairs neighbor as he sat out on his own one night, nursing a glass of rum and obsessing over copies of case files he’s not even supposed to have, pages that he sees before his eyes when he closes them.)

Every movement, every flash of light, is a threat. He was trained to see them that way, and though the loss of his brother and the injuries he sustained from Milah kept him from action, his training never disappeared.

They would be more potent threats if he could keep his attention on them, though. He would spend more time memorizing the faces of the men walking in front of his building if the image of Emma’s curves in that dress the night they met wasn’t at the forefront of his mind, the memory of the way it fell to the floor with a whisper before he lifted her onto the bed. He would better notice the worn-down old station wagon parked at the end of the next block, the very same one that he parked next to down the street from the bar, if he could get the image of just how small and helpless she looked all alone in the sea of blue blankets and pillows out of his mind, if he wasn’t so focused on the memory of her soft golden waves of hair laying across his pillows when she laid down in his bed, if he couldn’t feel the way that her unkempt hair ticked his nose as she slept on his chest.

He wants to remember every moment he’s spent with her, from the soft feel of her tongue swiping against his to how she held herself above him, one hand tangled in his hair, the way her arms bucked and her eyes squeezed shut as she rode out her orgasm on top of him.

(And if he wasn’t wrestling against his own slowly hardening erection within his sweatpants, trying to rub the pictures of her from his eyes, maybe he would have seen him, standing on the street below his apartment window, looking up at him in the very moments that Killian is no longer searching the street for clues, his colorless eyes lit up by the cigarette in his mouth.)

He sucks in a breath, trying to shake the memory of her from his mind as he scrubs his hand over his face, realizing that he really should shave before work in the morning. He tries to see anything but her, tries to make out a single bloody detail of what’s going on outside his own window, but all he can see in the glass is the startling reflection of her bright green eyes where he knows his should be.

“God damn it, Killian,” he says to himself, resting his forehead against the cool glass for just a moment before closing the curtains and heading to the bathroom to take a shower.

And shave his damn face, he guesses.

“God, you look exhausted,” Ruby says to him in place of a greeting, sliding a cup of coffee across the table towards him.

Next to him, Detective Mills lets out a small laugh, though he tries to cover it with the back of his hand when Killian glares at him.

“Believe it or not, you’re not the first person to tell me that today,” he mutters, almost not wanting the words to be heard in the first place. But the diner is slow right now, somewhat normal for his early lunch time, so Ruby hears it anyway.

She looks around the restaurant, though it’s just Leroy and Mr. Clarke sitting at the bar and Jacinda leaning against the refrigerator scrolling on something on her phone, so she slides into the empty seat across from the detectives. “It’s Emma, right?” she asks, her face full of excitement, and for a moment, he’s terrified. How does she know? What has Emma told her? Does she know about the— “She’s keeping you up all night with her crazy sex antics? Not letting you sleep because she’s so insatiable?”

This is somehow… worse?, he realizes, needing to take a sip of his coffee to try and keep his emotions off his face, especially after young Mills chuckles beside him again. Because, gods above, he wishes that were the truth. It would be one thing if he were able to continue to sleep next to her, even just to be able to feel her beside him instead of only in his nightmares, but the truth is that he’s barely even touched her since that first night, only daring so much as to kiss her goodnight before taking his place on his couch.

He has no idea how to even respond to her. The half-terrified laugh that gets stuck in his throat is certainly not the right answer, but it’s the only one he can conjure.

But instead of requiring an answer from him, the bell over the door rings, and Ruby’s attention turns from him to that.

To her. Because of course it’s Emma walking through the door, wearing the same exhaustion on her face that he has on his, though hers is covered with a fine layer of powder and a flick of mascara (he would know, he watched her apply it in the rearview mirror of his car that morning), making her look much nicer and put-together than he is even capable of hoping to be.

“Swan,” he breathes, smiling across the diner at her, and he pushes down the urge to jump from his seat at her arrival — especially because of the young Mills sitting beside him, keeping from leaving the vinyl booth.

“Hey, Em,” Ruby calls, her arm around the back of the booth. “I was just talking to your boyfriend here—”

“He’s not my—” she starts, crossing the small diner, but something between the fear on Killian’s face and the smirk of Ruby’s stops the words. So she shrugs, dropping into the booth next to Ruby.

“He was just telling us about how you’ve been keeping him up all night with your sexual antics,” Ruby jokes, nudging her with her shoulder.

She does her best to paint a smile on her face, though when her eyes meet Killian’s he notices that her smile doesn’t make it that far.

Thankfully, Granny saves them all, popping her head out from the kitchen. “Ruby,” she calls, looking first to her normal seat at the bar before scanning the restaurant. “Come help me.” It’s not a question, and when Emma recognizes the look on her face, she silently steps out of the booth to let Ruby out.

Startled by Granny, Jacinda sticks her cell phone into the pocket of her apron and crosses the restaurant, pulling out an order pad as she reaches the table. “Can I take your order?”

Killian shakes his head, not looking up from his cup of coffee. “This is good, thanks,” he mumbles. Emma orders a grilled cheese and a water. But when all that comes from Henry’s spot is silence, all three sets of eyes turn slowly towards him.

He still says nothing, his mouth practically hanging open as he looks up at their waitress.

“Mills,” Killian says, gently elbowing the man next to him, but a plan begins to formulate in his head.

“How opposed would you be to being set up for a date?” Killian asks when they’re back in the cruiser, though he ignores meeting Henry’s eyes as he pulls out of the parking lot for the law office Emma works for.

“What?”

“Come on, Mills,” he says, managing a smile. “I saw the way you looked at Miss Vidrio during lunch. She’s friends with Emma. You’re obviously interested in the girl. Plus, she lives in the apartment above the Nolan brothers’ bar, which aids in our need for rationalization.”

Henry stays quiet until the end of the block. “Sheriff Humbert isn’t going to like this.”

Shaking his head, Killian breathes out a laugh. “Believe it or not, Mills, I don’t need to run everything I do past Graham. This is my investigation.”

When Killian glances towards the passenger seat, he watches as Henry runs his hand across his face. “But — I don’t — um, wouldn’t — wouldn’t we be using her? You know, not telling her the whole story?”

“That doesn’t make going on a date with her any less real, lad.”

Again, silence.

“Listen, if it’s alright with you, I’ll run the plan by Emma and she can see if Jacinda is even interested.”

This time when he glances over at Henry, he’s nodding. “Yeah, alright.”

With a sigh, he runs his hand over his face and turns to where he has his phone propped on the coffee table. 12:42. It’s been over two hours since Emma tried to stifle a yawn and Killian insisted she go to bed. In those two hours, even though every inch of his body argued, his brain focused on every movement of the building, every shift in the foundation and movement out on the street, his hand glued to the pistol resting on his chest. Every time he closed his eyes, his exhaustion taking over, he heard another noise, adrenaline snapping his eyes open.

His mind wanders back to Liam, as it tends to do in times of trouble. What would Liam do?, the constant mantra of the last twelve years, since the last time he was able to ask the question to his face. Sometimes — usually, if he’s being honest with himself, which is hard not to do at 12:42 in the morning — it proves useless, angry first with himself for not being able to think of anything, and then at his brother simply for being gone, and being angry at his brother for being gone then just makes him angrier with himself.

Tonight, however, that’s not the case. Tonight, something calls him to stand, to cross the living room, and to pull down one of the books from the shelf, the one with the worn blue fabric cover, the words fading from the front both because of its age and because of the sheer amount of times someone has run their hand over the embossing, whether it be Killian, Liam, or their mother, who liked to feel the words under her fingers every night before she opened the book to read them another chapter.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. He feels the words under his fingers, knows how the cover looks even in the low lights of the apartment. Back on the couch, though now with the lamp behind him on its lowest setting, he props the book up on his pistol, resting on his chest, and quickly loses himself in the words.

He does not know at what late hour his eyes finally give out on him, the words he knows practically by heart running together, but judging from how exhausted he feels pouring himself a cup of coffee, it couldn't have been before 2 a.m., and he feels every hour of sleep he's been deprived of with every movement of his muscles.

tags: @shireness-says @kmomof4 @thisonesatellite @let-it-raines @wellhellotragic @darkcolinodonorgasm @profdanglaisstuff @stahlop @teamhook @snowbellewells @carpedzem @pepperspotts@imlaxdris71 @gingerchangeling @lfh1226-linda @kday426 @scientificapricot @resident-of-storybrooke @ultraluckycatnd @itsfabianadocarmo @galadriel26 @jennjenn615 @therealstartraveller776 @nightskylover @xarandomdreamx @kristi555 @nikkiemms @vvbooklady1256 @withheartfulloflove - if you’d like to be added or removed, please let me know

#my writing #wordsbymeganmichael #to serve and protect #the detective fic #yes I added Jacinda #and s7 henry #come fight me

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thenighttrain · 3 years

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can you share more about new zealand or if you have articles/ other readings you recommend to get more informed. because moving to nz is my dream and i had no idea that not everyone was a fan of jacinda

sure hmm i don't really have many articles at hand, i just know about the situation because i lived there, my mum and brother still live there and i have friends there. jacinda was definitely very popular when she won last year, but this year things have changed - auckland has been under a very strict lockdown since mid august (even takeaways were banned until a few weeks ago) and the government's strategy is not lift lockdown until 90% of the population is fully vaccinated. while this is obviously good for keeping down deaths, it's having a really really bad impact on people's livelihoods - auckland is the central business hub so it's taken a bad economic hit, my dad does some business in nz and he says a lot of businesses don't feel supported by the government. few (if any?) countries have gotten to 90% fully vax so it's a very high target that may take a while to reach - possibly until december, which is a LONG time to lock down the biggest city for

adding to the frustration is the fact that nz literally had at least half a year to vaccinate its people, but the vaccine rollout didn't really take off until the auckland outbreak. so a lot of maori/pacific islander communities are (rightfully) frustrated because they're the most vulnerable and yet their vaccine rates are lagging, and it feels like the government should have done a lot more to protect them before this current outbreak. the government relied too heavily on its elimination strategy and was too slow to concede and so it grew complacent and wasn't ready for the inevitable outbreak

it's also.. basically locked out its own citizens and residents? i am a new zealand permanent resident but i can't go back to nz unless i get a hotel quarantine spot which is incredibly difficult to get. it's also very expensive. annnd the government hasn't set a date on when hotel quarantine will be lifted. so i can't see any of my family!

covid aside - new zealand has the least affordable housing market among OECD countries. it's particularly bad in auckland - even run-down, dilapidated houses sell for at least $1m. like, idk how i can ever move out of my parents' place if i go back and live there after graduation. governments, including jacinda, keep promising to do something about it but then don't — jacinda even backed away from a promise to build 100k affordable new homes. so unless you're super rich, housing is a BIG problem

anyway, nz isn't a bad place at all - it's beautiful, the people are generally really nice, and you get a great work-life balance. but it's definitely FAR from utopia and i wish people would realise that! yes, jacinda's government is pretty socialist and progressive — but right now people's livelihoods are being severely damaged because of her mismanagement of covid, and at the end of the day i strongly think that that's what she should be judged on. i also found a lot of nz to be very slow and inefficient in terms of getting things done, like services, the pace of life, and that frustrates some people!

#new zealand #ask #anonymous #sorry this was looong

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emospritelet · 4 years

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Homecoming - chapter 22

In which Belle asks some questions, and gets some answers...

At eleven-thirty in the morning, Lady Tremaine’s bedroom was light and pleasant despite the heavy velvet curtains framing the bed and the dark oak panelling. Belle watched Alice walk around the room, lips pursed and a thoughtful look on her face.

“Anything?” asked Ogilvy, his tone suggesting that he was already anticipating her answer, and Alice wrinkled her nose.

“Not really,” she said. “No more than I’ve felt the whole time we’ve been here. It’s an old house, so you’d expect it to have some sort of atmosphere, but there’s nothing more than that. Can’t see or feel anything, anyway. Just - a sort of sadness. Bit like I felt up at the castle, but more so.”

Belle watched Ogilvy and the Professor exchange a look.

“Can you tell us anything more about that?” asked the Professor, and Alice pulled a face.

“It feels - kind of like loneliness,” she said finally. “Like the sort of grief that comes from losing someone you love, I imagine. Like it’s seeped into the walls.”

Belle flicked her eyes towards Ogilvy. He had hung his head, his fingers turning the moonstone ring on his finger.

“It’s different here at the house,” Alice added. “Sort of stronger. Newer. Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” said both men in unison, and Belle was surprised to see that they both had the same grim look on their faces.

“But no spirits,” said Alice. “Nothing at all. Whatever’s causing Lady Tremaine’s sleepless nights, it isn’t a ghost.”

“As we thought,” said Ogilvy, glancing at Belle. “Miss Marchland, you mentioned something earlier this morning. An idea you’d had.”

“Yes.” Belle stepped towards the fireplace. “It was just a thought, really. Much of the house has panelling, and I’ve read more than one story in which an old house has a secret compartment in the walls. I thought perhaps someone might be hiding behind the panelling and waiting to scare Her Ladyship.”

She rapped on the oak panels with a knuckle, producing a hollow sound, and Ogilvy frowned thoughtfully.

“Sometimes the most likely explanation is the most mundane,” he agreed. “Do you have a culprit in mind?”

Belle hesitated.

“There’s something else that occurred to me,” she admitted. “The timing of Lady Tremaine’s visitations matches up with the return of the Mills family. And there was an incident a few days ago, when Alice and I were in the nursery…”

“We couldn’t find the children!” exclaimed Alice. “I remember, we couldn’t work out how they had slipped past us! We could hear them giggling and couldn’t find them.”

“The panelling in the nursery is hollow, too,” said Belle. “I checked this morning before the sun was up. I thought we might go back there now there’s enough light to see by. It might give us a clue to what happened in this room.”

“You think it’s Lucy Mills?” asked Ogilvy, his eyes twinkling. “Little minx!”

“I think she might be a little tired of being seen and not heard by her step-grandmother,” agreed Belle. “Whether that makes her the culprit is yet to be seen.”

“To the nursery, then,” announced the Professor, clapping his hands together.

The nursery was bright and cheerful, winter sun shining through the tall windows, and the twins were playing on the rug with Lucy Mills, a game that seemed to involve the stuffed animals waiting in line for something. They looked up as the adults entered, and exchanged anxious looks as they scrambled to their feet.

“Good morning, children,” said Belle. “We wondered if you would like to be part of our investigations.”

Ava and Nicholas looked excited, but Ogilvy noticed that Lucy seemed wary. Doc stepped towards the walls, tapping on the panelling, and Lucy’s eyes widened.

“This sounds hollow,” said Doc cheerfully. “Almost like there might be a secret passage behind it. How exciting!”

“There is!” exclaimed Nicholas. “It’s dusty and there are spiders!”

Lucy frowned at him, and Belle bit her lip, clearly amused.

“May I see the passageway?” she asked.

Lucy sighed resignedly, stomping around the corner and moving one of the toy boxes. Ogilvy watched as she plucked at the edge of one of the panels, hearing a tiny click before it swung outwards to reveal a dark, narrow passageway that looked to be just high enough to walk in, if one crouched down a little.

“Goodness me!” said Doc, rubbing his hands together. “What an excellent addition to a grand old house! I’ve seen many secret passages in my time, but this is a particularly fine example.”

“Where does it lead, Lucy?” asked Belle, and Lucy shrugged uncomfortably. “Does this have anything to do with Lady Tremaine’s ghosts, perhaps?”

Lucy looked alarmed at that, dark eyes widening, but she remained silent.

“We’re not angry with you,” said Ogilvy gently. “But if there is something you know, please tell us.”

Lucy winced, digging the toe of her foot into the rug and twisting awkwardly.

“Did you explore the secret passage?” asked Belle, and she nodded. “Did you use it to frighten Lady Tremaine?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose!” said Lucy suddenly. “I just - I was exploring, and I started knocking on the walls, seeing if someone would answer. I didn’t know it was Her Ladyship’s room until I heard her scream. And - and then she was mean to my mother, and - and I thought someone should be mean to her, so I - I was…”

Her voice trailed off, and she hung her head, chewing her lip.

“Oh dear,” said Doc kindly. “Well, I’m sure it can all be cleared up. Little bit of mischief, what? No real harm done.”

Ogilvy privately thought that Lady Tremaine might take a different view of things.

“So you made noises behind the walls to scare her?” said Belle. “But I thought she said she was hearing noises during the night.”

Lucy looked puzzled, but shrugged.

“Does anyone else know about the passage?” asked Belle, and Lucy nodded.

“Just Tyson, the hall boy,” she said, and looked alarmed. “Oh, but I don’t want him getting in trouble! It’s my fault, not his! Please don’t tell Her Ladyship!”

Belle glanced at Ogilvy, and he shrugged.

“Perhaps Mrs Mills,” he suggested, in an undertone, and she nodded, turning back to Lucy.

“Lady Tremaine has been very scared these past few months,” she said gently. “So much that she invited the Professor and Mr Ogilvy all the way from London to investigate.”

Lucy looked guilty, hunching her shoulders.

“Well, we don’t mind that!” said Doc hastily. “Fresh air and pleasant company. It’s been an enjoyable few days, I must say.”

“Be that as it may,” said Belle. “I think she deserves to know the truth. What do you think, Lucy?”

“I suppose,” said Lucy dolefully.

“When we do something that upsets someone, the brave thing to do is admit to it, and apologise,” said Belle. “I’m sure you’re extremely brave, aren’t you?”

“Like a warrior princess!” blurted Nicholas.

“That kills nasty old trolls!” put in Ava eagerly, and Lucy giggled before looking serious once more. She took a deep breath, stretching up on her toes and lifting her chin.

“Alright,” she said. “I’ll do the brave thing, Miss Belle.”

Belle smiled.

“Then I’m very proud of you,” she said. “Though perhaps it would be better if your mother was the one to explain things to her first.”

Lucy’s face brightened at that.

“Really?” she said eagerly. “Momma won’t be angry with me, I’m sure!”

“Then will you come with me to tell her?” asked Belle, holding out her hand, and Lucy nodded, taking it and marching from the room with her head held high.

Dinner was a jovial affair, the gentlemen returned from a successful hunt, the ladies having rested in their absence. Lady Tremaine was not present, reportedly lying down in her room with a bad headache. Ogilvy thought it was most likely due to the revelation that Lucy Mills had been the one haunting her for months, rather than an evil spirit. Mr Mills mentioned somewhat delicately that his wife had had to intervene on behalf of their daughter before Lucy made her own apologies, and that Lady Tremaine had been less than gracious with her acceptance.

“She wanted Lucy sent away to school,” he said, cutting a piece of beef. “Jacinda managed to soothe her ruffled feathers, but we’re going to take Lucy to Edinburgh for a couple of weeks, let this all blow over.”

“She was sent to bed early, too,” said Mrs Mills. “And she has to stay in her room tomorrow. Her Ladyship says it will give her time to think about what she’s done.”

“Poor thing,” said Belle. “I don’t think she meant to be malicious.”

“I’m just impressed that she was crawling through passageways in the middle of the night,” remarked Mr Mills. “Shows grit and determination, if you ask me.”

“Henry, really!” said Mrs Mills reprovingly. “It’s supposed to be a punishment. She won’t learn if you’re praising her bad behaviour.”

“I don’t think the midnight visitor was her, anyway,” said Belle. “She said it wasn’t. Perhaps one of the servants.”

“Hmm.” Mrs Mills looked amused. “She did say that the hall boy knew about the passageway. I decided not to mention that fact to Her Ladyship.”

“Good thing too,” said Mr Mills. “The poor boy would be thrown out into the snow.”

“So Victoria’s dream of having her home invaded by restless spirits is over?” Lady Ella smirked, raising a glass. “I can’t say I’m surprised. It won’t stop her consulting mystics and finding new ways to scare herself, you know.”

“Well, I’m more than happy to leave her to it,” said Ogilvy. “It’s been an interesting visit, but I’m looking forward to getting home.”

“Yes, you never did like having society forced on you, did you?” she said, with a sniff. “Do you think you can bear an entire train journey in my company tomorrow, or are you determined to be disagreeable?”

Ogilvy grinned at that.

“I promise to be as entertaining as I can.”

“That’s a low bar, I must say.”

He chuckled, spearing a piece of meat with his fork, and shared a smile with Belle. She had settled back into comfortable conversation with him following the awkwardness of their early morning encounter. He had noticed her gazing at him now and then with a thoughtful look in her eyes, and he found himself willing her to make the connections needed, to ask the right questions. He wondered how long it would take.

“What time will we leave tomorrow, Papa?” asked Alice.

“Around nine, I should think,” said Ogilvy, ignoring Ella’s dramatic shudder. “It’ll take a while to get to the station, given the snow that’s fallen.”

“An early night, then,” said Doc, reaching for his wine. “I have to confess I’m looking forward to getting back home and into our usual routine. Interesting though this visit has been.”

“I’ve enjoyed exploring the house,” said Belle. “So many beautiful things to examine.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” said Alice, gesturing with a fork. “We never went to see your painting, Belle. The one you mentioned at the castle? We meant to look, remember?”

“Oh.” Belle glanced down at her plate, pushing a piece of meat around listlessly. “Well. Actually, I - I did take a look.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” asked Alice eagerly. “What is it like?”

“What painting is this?” asked Ella, craning her neck to look at Belle.

“Oh, just a portrait in the West Wing,” she said, blushing a little. “A former resident of this house. Lady Tremaine thought I resembled her.”

“You must take me to see it after dinner,” said Ella. “Is it a good likeness?”

“As though Miss Marchland had sat for the artist herself,” said Ogilvy.

Belle’s blush deepened, and Ella turned her gaze to him.

“So, you’ve seen it too,” she said. “How intriguing.”

She glanced back at Belle, and Ogilvy could see her mind working. He decided to push her off course a little.

“You know how I have trouble sleeping,” he said, with a shrug. “When it’s too dark outside to walk, I like to wander the halls. One sees all manner of things in the dark of night.”

“Indeed one does.” Ella smirked at him. “Though I hadn’t thought you a connoisseur of portraits. Perhaps it depends on the subject matter.”

“Well, go and see it yourself, and form your own opinion,” he said. “I’m sure Miss Marchland will direct you.”

“May I go, too?” asked Alice eagerly.

“Very well,” said Belle. “I think there are certainly some similarities between the painting and what I see in the mirror each morning, but perhaps you’ll tell me that I’m imagining things.”

“I doubt that,” said Ella, glancing at Ogilvy again. “I’m inclined to believe those who have made the closest study of your person, Miss Marchland.”

Alice was eager to see the portrait, and so Belle found herself walking the corridor to the West Wing as soon they had finished dinner, this time with Alice’s arm through hers and Lady Ella behind them with Miss Waters.

“Wretchedly cold up here,” remarked Lady Ella. “I hope it’s not much further.”

“The gallery is just around the corner,” said Belle. “The portrait is at the end.”

She turned into the gallery, walking steadily towards the opposite end. The eyes of the woman in the painting seemed to follow her as she moved, and she heard a gasp from Alice as they drew close.

“Well,” said Lady Ella. “Remarkable. Ogilvy’s right, it’s as though you sat for the artist only yesterday, Miss Marchland.”

“Your Ladyship flatters me,” said Belle, with a smile. “I’m sure this lady was ten years younger than I when this was painted.”

“Well, be that as it may, the likeness is incredible.”

“As though they’re the same person,” agreed Miss Waters.

“It really does make one wonder if all that nonsense about past lives is true, doesn’t it?” mused Lady Ella. “Though if so I’d like to apologise to my future self for being such a hedonist.”

Belle chuckled, sharing a smile with Miss Waters. Alice was frowning up at the painting, one hand raised, as though she would touch it.

“She looks so sad,” said Alice, biting her lip. “I wonder why.”

“I’ve no idea,” said Belle. “I don’t even know who she was.”

“I bet Thwaites would know,” said Alice. “Ivy said he talks about the history of the house a lot down in the servants’ hall. You should ask him.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Belle. “I shall go in search of him when we go back down.”

“And on that note,” said Lady Ella. “I think I’ll head for the drawing room. There’s a draught in here, and it makes me yearn for a decent brandy. I’m sure the men will be finishing up their drinks soon. Shall we, ladies?”

She offered her arm to Miss Waters again, and Belle fell into step behind them, glancing over her shoulder at the portrait as they walked away. The woman in the golden gown stared back at her, blue eyes heavy with an unknown grief, and Belle looked away, her shoulders slumping a little, as though she carried some of the sadness with her.

Isabelle let out a contented sigh, settling back in the blankets and stretching her legs, pointing her toes. Rum was lying on top of her, a comforting weight pressing down, their bodies slick with perspiration where they joined. He kissed along her jaw, breathing heavily as he softened inside her, and she murmured happily, twining her arms around his neck as his kisses trailed across to her ear.

“Can you stay a little longer?” he murmured, and she smiled, stroking her fingers through his hair.

“I can stay until sundown,” she said. “Father went to London today, and Mother has one of her headaches. She won’t notice I’ve been gone all day.”

“Then we’ll make the most of it,” he said, and his tongue stroked the soft skin of her throat, making her shiver.

He shifted his hips, slipping out of her, slick wetness against her thigh as his hands slid up to cup her breasts, and Isabelle sighed happily.

“I’ve missed this,” she whispered. “I wish I could spend each night in your bed, and wake up beside you every morning. We never had to sneak around so much before.”

Rum pushed up on his elbows, hair hanging messily in his face and a slanting grin twisting his mouth.

“You never had a father quite so determined to marry you off against your will before,” he said, and she made a noise of grumbling agreement.

“Remember that time at Bamburgh when my father offered you lands and you insisted on taking me instead?” she asked, with a giggle. “I thought he’d skewer you before he let you within ten feet of me, and never mind the truce he wanted.”

“Came around in the end, though.” He brushed a curl of hair back from her cheek, grinning. “I think the gold I brought helped.”

“Certainly didn’t harm your cause,” she agreed, and he chuckled, his eyes glinting.

“Although you were determined to have me anyway.”

“True. Headstrong girl that I was.” She kissed his nose. “I always get what I want.”

“That you do,” he growled.

He bent to kiss her again, and Isabelle moaned, pushing up into him as her mouth opened. His hand slid down between them, brushing over the tender skin between her legs, and she moaned again as his fingers pushed deep inside her.

Belle woke with a gasp, heart thumping in her chest and a heavy, throbbing ache low in her belly. She ran her hands over her face in the darkness, trying to dispel the last shreds of the dream that still clung to her. It was as though she could still taste him in her mouth, still feel his touch on her skin. It had been so vivid, so real. Almost like a memory.

A maid had been in to light the fire, but it was only just starting to burn, and the room was still cold. She rose quickly, before she could dwell on the events in her dream too much. It was distracting enough being in Ogilvy’s presence without imagining a higher level of intimacy. She felt herself blush as she remembered how it had felt to kiss him, her memory of being in his arms in the portrait gallery shifting seamlessly into the dream of being in his bed. Not his bed. His name was Rum. He had a different name, as did I, and it was a different time. All this talk of past lives has me inventing them in my dreams!

She had gone to her own bed not long after returning to the drawing room the previous evening, having had a conversation with Thwaites about the portrait, and she felt well rested. Despite the vivid nature of her dreams. Splashing water on her face was enough of a shock to clear her mind of those images, and she stripped off her nightgown, skin pebbling in the cold morning air as she dressed.

Most of her things were packed, and she had laid out a comfortable outfit for travelling, but there were some hours until they had to leave, and she felt that a walk would wake her fully. She drew on a tweed skirt and jacket over her blouse, laced her boots, and pinned her hair into place. Hat, scarf and gloves went on, and she draped her heavy coat over an arm as she made her way silently from the room.

She headed for the main staircase, drawing on her coat. The first fingers of dawn were starting to show, and the servants were scurrying here and there. Thwaites opened the front door for her with a bow of his head and a warning about the cold, and Belle thanked him as she hurried out. The air was bitter, and she tucked her scarf around her neck a little more, shivering as she walked along the driveway and turned around the side of the house to head for the gardens. The moon was still up, the sky starting to lighten at the horizon, and she found her way easily, her pace brisk.

Her conversation with Thwaites the previous evening had left her with more questions than answers. Despite him telling her what he knew of the Willoughby family, she had felt strangely frustrated, almost as if she ought to have known more than he did on the subject. It was as though the knowledge had been sealed in a box inside her mind, and she needed to find the key to release it.

New snow had fallen, her boots scattering the powder, and her breath misted the air as she walked along the garden paths, heading between flower beds and past the orangery towards the path that led to the lake. New snow covered the ice on its surface, clumping around the reeds that grew at the edges. There was a faint mist hanging over the lake, which seemed to grow thicker towards the foot of the nearby fells, and she quickened her pace to keep warm. Rounding a bend in the path, she stopped abruptly. Ogilvy was standing near the edge of the lake, staring out across it, a heavy woollen scarf wrapped around his neck. He seemed to be turning a pebble over and over in his hands, and glanced around with a smile as she approached. Belle felt her heart thump hard, and tried to push away the images that leapt into her mind at the glint in his eyes. For a moment, she saw the man in her dreams. Younger, thinner and more sure of himself. There had been an arrogance to him that Ogilvy didn’t have. She wondered where her mind had pulled it from.

“Miss Marchland,” he said. “You’re up early.”

“I - I had a restless night,” she said, hoping fervently that she wouldn’t blush. “Troublesome dreams.”

“I can sympathise,” he said. “I find I never properly rest in the houses of others. Despite my many years of travelling. It’s difficult to fully relax.”

“True enough,” she agreed. “And we have a long journey ahead of us today. At least we get to break it in Derbyshire this evening.”

“It will be pleasant to return to Furton Grange,” he said. “However briefly.”

“Perhaps we might get to walk in the gardens there before we leave,” she suggested.

Ogilvy smiled broadly, and bowed his head a little.

“I should be delighted.” He gestured to the path that led around the lake. “Would you like to take a turn with me now?”

Belle nodded, and took his arm, her mind still working furiously as they set off. She was chewing her lip, a nervous habit that she thought she had conquered years ago, and pressed her lips together to stop herself. Ogilvy glanced at her as they strolled along, but he said nothing, and she was content to walk in silence as she thought. It was as though she could feel pieces slotting together in her brain, but the picture she was creating was too fantastical to be real. It began to swell in her mind, taking shape, its colours growing brighter, and Belle suddenly let go of his arm and whirled on her toes to face him, taking a step back as she did so.

“I consider myself a rational creature, Mr Ogilvy,” she said firmly. “I believe in science and logic, in facts and evidence.”

“A wise choice.”

“I’ve been trying to construct a rational explanation for the experiences I have had since joining your household,” she added, and his eyebrows flicked upwards.

“And what does your logic tell you?” he asked.

“Precious little, truth be known,” she said wryly. “Thus far logic is eluding me.”

Ogilvy was silent, watching her closely, and she took a breath.

“I’ve been piecing together the scraps of evidence, for want of a better word,” she said. “It all makes perfect sense when I step back and look at the picture I’ve created from it, but the explanation my mind has created can’t be real, it just - it can’t be.”

“Why not?” he asked quietly, and she threw up her hands.

“Because it’s ridiculous!”

Ogilvy smiled slightly.

“Why don’t you talk me through how you reached this explanation in the first place?” he suggested. “I’m used to making sense of strange things, after all.”

“This may be too strange even for you,” she remarked, and his smile widened.

“We won’t know until you tell me,” he said. “If it’s ridiculous, as you say, what harm can it do?”

Belle sighed, slumping a little.

“I’m not certain where to begin,” she said slowly.

There was a moment of silence. She expected him to speak, perhaps even to coax some answers from her that she was uncertain she would be able to give. Instead he waited calmly, and she realised he would not push her to speak before she was ready. It made her feel a little easier, and she wanted to fill the silence.

“You were up even earlier than I,” she said. “Before the sun rose, I imagine.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” he said, and glanced away, across the lake. “Perhaps it’s because we’re leaving today. I wanted to get a final glimpse of the place.”

“It’s very beautiful,” she agreed. “I shall miss the mountain air when we return to the city.”

“Yes.” He hesitated, a nervous look in his eyes. “Perhaps we might come back here some time. When the weather is warm.”

“If Her Ladyship extends an invitation.” She felt herself grin. “Something tells me she won’t be asking us to remove any restless spirits for some time.”

Ogilvy chuckled.

“I imagine you’re right about that,” he said. “It’s been an interesting trip, though.”

“Despite the lack of ghosts?” she teased, and the corners of his mouth flicked upwards.

“Oh, there were ghosts enough,” he said quietly.

“I suppose so,” she acknowledged. “Such old houses have their own histories, don’t they? Their own tragedies. That portrait, for example. The one that—” she hesitated, unwilling to mention that she had found him crying in front of it.

“The one that Lady Tremaine directed you to?” he supplied, and she nodded.

“I asked Thwaites about it,” she said. “He said it was the family before His Lordship’s. Their name was Willoughby, and the woman in the painting was Elizabeth, their only daughter.”

He bowed his head a little, and seemed to hesitate, glancing up again.

“What did you make of the portrait?”

“I suppose I can see why Lady Tremaine mentioned it to me,” she said. “Strange to think that someone from a century ago looked so much like myself. I almost felt a sense of kinship with her.”

He smiled faintly.

“What do you know about her?” he asked.

“She was sent to an institution,” said Belle. “Apparently she was heartbroken. There was a man she loved, and whom she could not marry. Thwaites said that perhaps her parents wouldn’t allow it, and so she chose no one. Poor thing.”

“Yes,” he whispered.

“I wonder what became of her true love,” she mused. “Who was he? Someone of lower birth, perhaps, if her parents disapproved. Or perhaps he had no money.”

Ogilvy pulled a face, and turned back towards the lake, bending to throw the pebble in his hand. It skipped across the surface three times, skittering on the ice before disappearing in a clump of reeds, and he straightened up.

“No, he had plenty of money,” he said dryly. “Though likely not enough to overcome her parents’ disapproval, had they known of him.”

“You know who he was?”

She should have felt surprise, she knew that. Instead it felt like satisfaction, his words confirming something she had hardly dared admit to herself. Ogilvy heaved a sigh, his shoulders slumping a little, as though he regretted mentioning it.

“His name was Alistair McGregor,” he said, his tone heavy. “And when he wasn’t searching every benighted social gathering in London for her, he was in Boston, burying himself in work in a pointless attempt to take his mind off the pain of being parted from her.”

Belle stared at him, mouth open.

“Thwaites couldn’t tell me anything about the man she loved,” she said. “No one knew his name, she kept it secret.”

Ogilvy was eyeing her steadily, but then shrugged.

“I used to live in the area,” he said.

“Oh.” Belle felt her brow crinkle as she tried to remember their previous conversations. “Why did you not mention it before?”

Another deep sigh, and he glanced away, across the lake.

“It was a very long time ago,” he said. “Another life, another time.”

It wasn’t the first time he had mentioned other lives. A figure of speech. Perhaps he was here in his youth. It must be that. Any other explanation would be ridiculous!

“What else can you tell me about Elizabeth?” he asked, and Belle shook her head.

“Very little,” she said. “You seem to know more about that part of her life than I. Thwaites said that her father lost his fortune not long after she was institutionalised.”

“And so the whole family suffered,” he said quietly. “So much suffering caused by the loss of true love. So much - waste - from one ancient tragedy.”

His fingers stroked his right hand, toying with the moonstone ring through his glove, his gaze far off. Belle swallowed hard, and was surprised to find that her eyes were stinging a little, as though she wanted to cry. She blinked rapidly, remembering how she had felt when she looked at the painting, as though she shared Elizabeth’s grief.

“I suppose a woman in her position would have little freedom to choose for herself,” she said. “It’s sad to think that so many had to do their duty and choose money and power over finding love.”

“Indeed.” Ogilvy’s voice was barely above a whisper, his gaze still fixed on a point across the lake.

“Sadder still that she could not be with the one she loved, and therefore chose to be alone,” she added. “After all, my own mother grew to love my father. Perhaps Elizabeth might have grown to love the man her parents chose.”

“Wouldn’t work,” said Ogilvy abruptly, and she felt herself frown curiously.

“How can you be so sure?” she asked. “One has to make the best of things, after all.”

His smile was wry as he turned on his heels to face her.

“And how does one make the best of losing one’s true love?” he asked, and she bit her lip, blushing a little.

“I - I don’t know,” she admitted. “Having never been in love, I can’t profess to understand it.”

“There is no greater sorrow,” said Ogilvy, his voice oddly hoarse. “Than knowing who you are meant to be with, and being parted from them.”

His eyes were shadowed, his shoulders a little slumped, as though the sorrow was his own. Belle shook her head.

“You sound as though you speak from experience,” she said.

“Yes,” he whispered.

��Would you tell me about it?” she asked gently, and his mouth flattened, his jaw working a little.

“It feels as though your soul has been torn in two,” he said, his accent thickening. “Consumed by grief, buried in darkness.”

He was gazing at her steadily again, and her eyes stung, a pain growing deep in her chest as what felt like an ocean of tears rose up inside her.

“I’m - I’m sorry to reopen old wounds,” she said. “It seems to be something I keep doing with you, and I don’t understand why.”

“Don’t you?”

Belle turned away, blinking to dispel the tears that wanted to form. She inhaled deeply, drawing frigid air into her lungs, gazing off towards the snow-capped fells, the rising sun tinting them rose-pink above the early morning mist.

“I - I suppose I can see why poor Elizabeth Willoughby ended up in an institution,” she said. “Grief is a terrible burden to bear.”

“Yes,” he said softly.

“I’d like to think that treatment of such things has improved in the past century,” she added, “but all too often women’s suffering is dismissed as trivial. Perhaps if she had received prompt attention and understanding, there might have been a different outcome.”

“Perhaps.”

His voice was a whisper, and Belle turned on her toes to face him.

“But I still don’t understand why you were so upset at the sight of her portrait,” she said, and her voice softened. “You were - you were crying. Why?”

Ordinarily she would not have mentioned someone exhibiting such a display of emotion, but she had been trying to reason out what had upset him, and as the only explanations her mind could imagine were fanciful, she had decided to ask. Ask the right questions, Belle. Even if they seem completely ridiculous.

Ogilvy, for his part, did not seem discomfited by her observation.

“Being here has reminded me of past pain,” he said. “And past failings. I’m afraid you came across me at a time when these memories were - particularly upsetting.”

“When you happened to be looking at that portrait?” she said flatly.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He hesitated.

“I’m not sure how to explain that.”

“Please try.”

He glanced away, his face twisting a little, as though it hurt to think of it.

“The woman in the painting reminds me very much of someone,” he said. “Someone I lost. Someone I failed.”

“Oh.” Belle took an involuntary step towards him, reaching out as though she would touch him before letting her hand drop to her side. “I - I’m so sorry.”

“My life has been filled with sorrow, with regret,” he said. “Until very recently, I wondered if I would ever feel happy again.”

He was staring at her earnestly, the rising sun catching the rim of his glasses, making him squint a little.

“Until - very recently,” she said slowly.

“Yes.”

Belle nodded. Impossible. It has to be impossible. It can’t be real.

“You asked me about Elizabeth Willoughby,” she said. “But what can you tell me of her?”

Her words were rapid, hurried, as though her thoughts would seem less ridiculous if she spoke them quickly. Ogilvy smiled briefly.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing,” she echoed, and almost felt herself deflate.

“I can tell you nothing of the life Elizabeth had,” he said. “I can only tell you of the man she loved. I can tell you that he loved her too, and that he searched for her. All his long, desperate life, he was looking for her.”

“How can you know that?” she whispered.

Another tiny, humourless smile.

“I think you know.”

A tear tracked down one cheek, icy in the chill wind, and Belle dashed it away with her glove. You know. On some level, deep within, you know. Ask him.

“When we first met, you looked as though you’d seen a ghost,” she said. “You - you said I reminded you of someone.”

“Yes.”

“Who was she?”

Ogilvy licked his lips, glancing away briefly before looking back.

“The last time we met, she was called Isabelle.”

Isabelle Beauchamp. No, that’s ridiculous! That was a dream, nothing more!

“Isabelle,” she repeated. Belle. He called you Belle, that first day in his library.

“Yes.”

“And - and you loved her,” she said softly.

“Yes,” he whispered. “I will love no other. Not ever.”

Belle felt as though an icy hand had reached into her chest, squeezing her heart, freezing her from within.

“But…” She swallowed hard. “But you kissed me.”

“Yes.”

His gaze was steady, his eyes pleading, and she shook her head.

“I - I don’t understand,” she said. “You said that you loved this woman, that you will love no other, and - and yet you kissed me. You kissed me as though - as though you loved me.”

Her voice was a whisper at the end, a breath into the freezing air, and he stepped forward, his own breath ragged, white mist in the pinkish dawn. His eyes were fixed on hers, the glint of tears behind his glasses.

“I have loved you from the first moment I saw you,” he said sincerely. “And I will love you until the world ends. Until the end of time itself. I will step into the abyss still loving you.”

Belle sucked in a breath, her pulse pounding high in her throat and the frozen air sitting in her lungs like a ball of ice around her heart. She wanted to reach for him, to kiss him, to fall into his arms. It was as though her feet had been frozen in place, and all she could do was stare at him like a fool.

“You have no idea how hard it’s been to act appropriately around you,” he said, his accent thick with emotion. “I have wanted to take you in my arms and kiss you since the day you came back to me, and having to pretend this - polite indifference is killing me!”

“Please!” She closed her eyes briefly. “We agreed to move past what happened.”

“We did,” he agreed. “And I would not have mentioned it had you not asked, but now that you have…”

He took off his hat, running a hand through his hair with a frustrated sigh before cramming the hat back on his head.

“You said you dreamed of me,” he said urgently. “On New Year’s Eve, you told me you had dreamed of me.”

Belle wanted to groan.

“Please don’t remind me of what I said that night,” she said. “I’d drunk rather too much champagne.”

“Was it true?”

“I—” She cut off, glancing away in agitation before turning back. “In some respects, perhaps. I dreamt of a man who looked like you, but - but he was not Tristan Ogilvy.”

“Ah,” he said. “One of the others, then.”

“What others?” she demanded. “Who are you?”

“It’s not who I am,” he said. “It’s who I was. Who we were.”

“Tell me.” Her voice was urgent, ragged, and he moved closer.

“I’ve had a hundred names,” he said gently. “A hundred lives. I think you’ve dreamed of some of them.”

Belle shook her head, but fragments of her dreams were creeping in, flashes in her mind like memories.

“I was Cerin, and you were Elena,” he said, “and we lived in caves and tents made of skins, and hunted demons from the frozen north to the shores of the southernmost sea.”

His voice was trembling, and she could see tears spill over and roll down his cheeks, shining in the early morning sun. Cerin. Our bed was made of furs, warm and soft, and he told me his heart and soul were mine in all the lives to come.

“I was Cameron, and you were Lira, and I first kissed you on Midsummer’s Eve when your father was too drunk to notice,” he said.

He kissed me in the wet grass, our heads full of mead and the taste of honey on his tongue.

“I was Rum, and you were Isabelle, and - and I couldn’t save you.” His face was twisted in anguish. “Please, sweetheart, tell me you remember!”

“I don’t!” she blurted. “I - I can’t! It’s not possible!”

He reached for her, a desperate look in his eyes, and she pulled back, stepping away from him, her breath coming hard in her chest. Ogilvy raised his hands, palms facing her in a gesture of appeasement.

“I - I know it seems strange,” he said hastily. “Impossible, almost. I know that. But - but a part of you knows it’s true, I can feel it. You feel the connection between us, just as I do. The bond is still there, just - just weaker, that’s all. The Seer was right. It may have been broken enough to keep us apart all these years, all these lives, but - but it’s not gone completely!”

“Seer?” She shook her head. “Our - our bond? What are you talking about?

“We made a promise to each other,” he said desperately. “We promised forever, and I tried, Belle, I did! I tried to find you! All those empty years! All that - all that pain. Lifetimes of heartbreak and loneliness. All that time, I’ve been looking for you, and - and now that I’ve found you—”

“There was no finding involved,” she said, her tone short. “Merely a word from Lady Ella and a letter of recommendation. There’s nothing supernatural in that.”

“I’m convinced Fate has an uncommon sense of humour,” he admitted, “but—”

“I was at Furton Grange for five years,” she interrupted. “No doubt our paths could have crossed before now, If Fate had wanted to concern herself.”

“Belle...”

“No!” she said sharply. “It’s ridiculous! Past lives don’t exist, and - and even if they did, we wouldn’t know it! We wouldn’t remember each other! It’s madness! No better than Lady Tremaine and her non-existent spirits!”

He opened his mouth, seemed to think better of it, and shut it. There was a look in his eyes, a mixture of frustration and desperate longing. His body seemed to be humming with energy, and he was almost bouncing on his toes. Belle shook her head.

“I don’t know how to respond to you,” she said. “One minute you kiss me and the next you talk of impossible things. It’s highly unsettling.”

Ogilvy settled back on his heels with a defeated sigh, hands falling to his sides with a soft thump against the thick wool of his overcoat.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I suppose it is.”

There was silence for a moment. She could see his thumb worrying one of his fingers through the glove, and she knew it was the ring he wore. She remembered the time she had touched it, the strange flash of sensation that had gone through her. Ogilvy glanced up, his gaze steady once more.

“Tell me,” he said. “When we first started this conversation, you said the only explanation for your experiences that you could come up with was ridiculous. What was it?”

Belle opened and closed her mouth, glancing around as though she would find answers in the snow-covered trail, in the frozen trees. You thought about past lives, her mind said snidely. You came up with the idea before he poured his heart out to you. Are you so sure of this world that you can reject your own theories out of hand?

Ogilvy smiled slightly, breath making steam in the air around him, snatched away in the light breeze.

“You feel it,” he said quietly. “You feel it, and you’re fighting it. That’s alright. The mind likes to try to make sense of things, and the gods know there’s little enough sense in what happened to us.”

“I don’t understand you,” she said, frustration making her tone sharp. “In fact - in fact I almost feel as though I don’t know you.”

To her surprise, his smile widened, his eyes softening.

“No,” he said. “But you will.”

#fic: homecoming #ogilvelle fic #ogilvelle #rumbelle fic #rumbelle #my fic

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newstfionline · 4 years

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Monday, October 19, 2020

As the Coronavirus Surges, a New Culprit Emerges: Pandemic Fatigue (NYT) When the coronavirus began sweeping around the globe this spring, people from Seattle to Rome to London canceled weddings and vacations, cut off visits with grandparents and hunkered down in their homes for what they thought would be a brief but essential period of isolation. But summer did not extinguish the virus. And with fall has come another dangerous, uncontrolled surge of infections that in parts of the world is the worst of the pandemic so far. The virus has taken different paths as leaders have tried to tamp down the spread with a range of restrictions. Shared, though, is a public weariness and a growing tendency to risk the dangers of the coronavirus, out of desire or necessity: With no end in sight, many people are flocking to bars, family parties, bowling alleys and sporting events much as they did before the virus hit, and others must return to school or work as communities seek to resuscitate economies. And in sharp contrast to the spring, the rituals of hope and unity that helped people endure the first surge of the virus have given way to exhaustion and frustration. Researchers from the World Health Organization estimate that about half of the population is experiencing “pandemic fatigue.” One New Yorker summed it up: “I am so tired of everything. Is it going to be over? I want it to be over.”

Biden and Trump Say They’re Fighting for America’s ‘Soul.’ (NYT) It is a phrase that has been constantly invoked by Democratic and Republican leaders. It has become the clearest symbol of the mood of the country, and what people feel is at stake in November. Everyone, it seems, is fighting for it. “This campaign isn’t just about winning votes. It’s about winning the heart and, yes, the soul of America,” Joseph R. Biden Jr. said in August at the Democratic National Convention, not long after the phrase “battle for the soul of America” appeared at the top of his campaign website, right next to his name. Picking up on this, a recent Trump campaign ad spliced videos of Democrats invoking “the soul” of America, followed by images of clashes between protesters and the police and the words “Save America’s Soul,” with a request to text “SOUL” to make a campaign contribution. That the election has become a referendum on the soul of the nation, suggests that in an increasingly secular country, voting has become a reflection of one’s individual morality—and that the outcome hinges in part on spiritual and philosophical questions that transcend politics: What, exactly, is the soul of the nation? What is the state of it? And what would it mean to save it?

Spanish demonstrators call for prosecution of former king (Reuters) Waving red, purple and yellow republican flags, demonstrators in 24 Spanish cities on Sunday called for the prosecution of the former king Juan Carlos who left Spain embroiled in controversy. The 82-year-old former monarch has been living in the United Arab Emirates since leaving Spain in August to avoid further embarrassing his son, King Felipe VI. While not formally under investigation, Juan Carlos could become a target in two inquiries in Spain and Switzerland into alleged corruption associated with a 6.7-billion-euro (£6.1 billion), high-speed Saudi train contract won by Spanish firms.

Covid-19’s first wave largely missed southern Italy. The second wave is hitting it hard. (Washington Post) When northern Italy became the epicenter of the pandemic in the spring, one urgent concern was that the country’s coronavirus outbreak would quickly spread to the less-prosperous south and overwhelm under-resourced regional health systems. That fear wasn’t realized. A strict nationwide lockdown largely contained the virus in the north and brought the outbreak under control. But now the virus is raging again, through Europe and through Italy, with a spike that is again hitting the north but this time also the south. In Campania, which includes Naples, the daily number of detected new cases is five times larger than March’s peak. Compared with six months ago, there is more space to accommodate critical patients in southern Italy. There are more ventilators. Still, many hospitals in the south remain understaffed and have fewer beds per capita than those in the north. They could reach a breaking point if the number of critical patients soars.

Tens of thousands march in Belarus despite firearms threat (Reuters) Tens of thousands of people marched through the streets of the Belarusian capital Minsk on Sunday to demand the resignation of veteran president Alexander Lukashenko, despite a threat by officials to use firearms against protesters. Belarus, a former Soviet republic closely allied with Russia, has been rocked by strikes and weekly street protests since authorities announced that Lukashenko, who has ruled in authoritarian fashion since 1994, had secured re-election on Aug. 9 with 80% of votes. The Interfax news agency put the number of protesters at over 30,000. It said about 50 had been detained by the police, and that the mobile broadband signal had been disrupted in parts of the city. It also said loud noises that sounded like stun grenades had been heard close to the march. A senior police official said last week that officers would reserve the right to use firearms against demonstrators.

Russia shuns tough restrictions even as infections soar (AP) It’s Friday night in Moscow, and popular bars and restaurants in the city center are packed. No one except the staff is wearing a mask or bothers to keep their distance. There is little indication at all that Russia is being swept by a resurgence of coronavirus infections. “I believe that everyone will have the disease eventually,” says Dr. Alexandra Yerofeyeva, an internal medicine specialist at an insurance company, while sipping a cocktail at The Bix bar in Moscow. She adds cheerfully: “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” The outbreak in Russia this month is breaking the records set in the spring, when a lockdown to slow the spread of the virus was put in place. But, as governments across Europe move to reimpose restrictions to counter rising cases, authorities in Russia are resisting shutting down businesses again. The spring lockdown hurt the country’s already weakened economy and compounded Russians’ frustration with plummeting incomes and worsening living conditions, driving Putin’s approval rating to a historic low of 59% in April, according to the Levada Center, Russia’s top independent pollster. Analysts say his government doesn’t want to return to those darks days. “They know that people have just come to the end of their tolerance of the lockdown measures that would be hugely unpopular if they got imposed again,” said Judy Twigg, a professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University, specializing in global health.

China Warns U.S. It May Detain Americans in Response to Prosecutions of Chinese Scholars (WSJ) Chinese government officials are warning their American counterparts they may detain U.S. nationals in China in response to the Justice Department’s prosecution of Chinese military-affiliated scholars, according to people familiar with the matter. The Chinese officials have issued the warnings to U.S. government representatives repeatedly and through multiple channels, the people said, including through the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. The Chinese message, the people said, has been blunt: The U.S. should drop prosecutions of the Chinese scholars in American courts, or Americans in China might find themselves in violation of Chinese law. China started issuing the warning this summer after the U.S. began arresting a series of Chinese scientists, who were visiting American universities to conduct research, and charged them with concealing from U.S. immigration authorities their active duty statuses with the People’s Liberation Army, the people said. Chinese authorities have on occasion detained foreign nationals in moves seen by their governments as baseless, or in some instances as diplomatic retaliation, a tactic that many in Washington policy circles have referred to as “hostage diplomacy.”

Thailand’s king faces trouble on two continents (Los Angeles Times) The scion of one of the world’s most privileged families, he wrapped himself in the trappings of royalty, wealth and a comfortable hideaway thousands of miles from his subjects. For Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn, the cocoon has come undone with remarkable speed. Last week in Berlin, the German government faced questions in Parliament over the king’s legal status in Bavaria, where he resides. Then, visiting Thailand this week to mark the fourth anniversary of his father’s death, the king’s family came face-to-face with pro-democracy protesters agitating for limits on his power. The reverence long demanded of Thailand’s monarchy is breaking down in ways big and small. Thais are refusing to stand for the royal anthem in movie theaters, lampooning the king in Facebook groups and openly questioning his immense wealth and spending. The scrutiny he is now facing in Germany is an added nuisance for a 68-year-old king who has long treated his adopted home as a playground. As the only son of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who reigned for 70 years, Vajiralongkorn was destined to inherit the throne. But since about 2007 he has spent most of his time in Germany, where the tabloid press has followed his exploits with relish. He was pictured wearing a tight-fitting crop top over an otherwise bare torso while getting on a ski lift, and covered in temporary tattoos during an excursion to a Munich mall.

New Zealand’s Ardern credits virus response for election win (AP) A day after winning a second term in a landside victory, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Sunday she sees the election result as an endorsement of her government’s efforts to stamp out the coronavirus and reboot the economy. In the election, Ardern’s liberal Labour Party got 49% of the vote, crushing the conservative National Party, which got 27%. Ardern said the margin of the victory exceeded their expectations. Asked what she would say to those Americans who may draw inspiration from her win ahead of the U.S. elections, Ardern said she hoped people globally could move past the partisan divisions that elections often accentuate. “That can be damaging for democracy, regardless of the side of the House that you sit on,” she said.

As lockdown eases, Israelis again gather against Netanyahu (AP) Thousands of Israelis demonstrated outside the official residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday night, resuming the weekly protest against the Israeli leader after emergency restrictions imposed as part of a coronavirus lockdown were lifted. The protesters gathered in central Jerusalem and marched to Netanyahu’s official residence, holding banners calling on him to go and shouting “Revolution!” Many blew horns and pounded on drums, while others hoisted Israeli flags. Scores of smaller demonstrations were held across the country, and organizers claimed some 260,000 people participated nationwide. The protesters say Netanyahu must resign, calling him unfit to lead the country while he is on trial for corruption charges. They also say he has mishandled the virus crisis, which has sent unemployment soaring. Netanyahu is on trial for fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes for his role in a series of scandals. He has denied the charges and said he is the victim of a conspiracy by overzealous police and prosecutors and a liberal media.

Uganda’s ‘taxi divas’ rise from COVID-19’s economic gloom (AP) Uganda’s new all-female ride-hailing service is called Diva Taxi. The taxi service, dreamed up by a local woman who lost her logistics job at the start of the coronavirus outbreak, was launched in June and has recruited over 70 drivers. They range from college students to mothers hoping to make good use of their secondhand Toyotas. “It started off as a joke, supported by close friends and family, but eventually the idea picked up,” said company spokeswoman Rebecca Makyeli. “They said, ‘Why not? As ladies, you know we can no longer slay on Instagram on the outside, so why don’t we slay as divas with a cause.’ So we called it Diva Taxi.” It’s uncommon to find women taxi drivers in Uganda, a socially conservative East African country where most women labor on farms or pursue work in the informal sector. Diva Taxi believes countless women are looking for job opportunities at a time of severe economic distress. The Diva Taxi app has been downloaded at least 500 times, and each of the company’s 72 drivers makes an average of 30 rides each week. The company expects to have 2,000 active users by the end of this year, a modest target in a city of over 3 million people where taxis and passenger motorcycles are the main means of transport for the working class. “We love what we are doing and it’s really fun,” said founder Kobusingye, an occasional driver herself. “I can’t wait to partner with every woman out there that’s willing to be part of Diva Taxi.”

Nigerian army plans nationwide exercise as protests rock country (Reuters) The Nigerian army will begin a two-month national exercise, it said on Saturday, while denying the move was part of any security response to recent widespread demonstrations against alleged police brutality. Operation Crocodile Smile would run across the country from Oct. 20 to Dec. 31, the first time the annual exercise, typically concentrated in the Delta region, will be nationwide, army spokesman Sagir Musa said. The move comes just days after the army said it was ready to step in and restore order, but Musa said in a statement that the exercise “has no relationship with any lawful protest under any guise whatsoever”. Nigerians demanding an end to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) police unit and pressing for reforms and accountability have been rallying across the country. The army had on Wednesday issued a statement warning what it termed “subversive elements and trouble makers” that it was “ready to fully support the civil authority in whatever capacity to maintain law and order and deal with any situation decisively”.

#headlines #news

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the-romantic-lady · 5 years

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Power Prince

Every-so-often we are reminded of the powerful influence our Royal Family has. From charity work, global events, patronages, to the influential fashion choices. But they also, in times of deep pain and suffering, highlight how an ancient institution can heal wounds.

And once again we saw this process in action after the devastating terror attack in New Zealand. Attending on behalf of the Queen, Prince William highlighted how the Royals can be a force of good, unity and poignant respect. Something the Duke of Cambridge exemplified as he visited the Christchurch community.

It is worth noting that this isn’t the first time William has been entrusted with such a public and important visit as this one. Last year the Prince took on the historic trip to Israel, becoming the first Royal to do so within an official capacity. It was a monumental success, for both the Royals and Prince William.

So, it wasn’t surprising to royal watchers when Kensington Palace announced that William would be representing the Queen in commemorating, both Anzac Day and the horrific terror attacks in Christchurch.

With these trips now a common occurrence in the Duke’s role as ambassador for the Royal Family, what does it tell us about the future of the British Monarchy and their vision for the indelible institution on both the national and international stage?

In recent years many have noted a change in the Duke of Cambridge. Behind-the-scenes courtiers have observed that he has finally accepted the reality of his future. That future, which leads to the “top job”, is looking more and more like a perfect fit for William, as visits like New Zealand become more commonplace.

But whilst the royal side of the Duke of Cambridge is pivotal in visits like this, as we saw in his solemnity at the service to commemorate Anzac Day, it is the other side of the Duke which sets him apart.

Images and video footage quickly emerged across media outlets, as well as Kensington Palace’s Instagram and Twitter accounts. Each one showed a Prince perfectly balancing the art of compassion and stoicism with the utmost ease. Whether it be meeting the First Responders to the attack, the Prime Minister of New Zealand – Jacinda Ardern, or Alen Alsati, a 5-year-old girl injured in the attack, who had only woken from a coma a week before, William’s reaction was befitting of each circumstance.

The video footage of the Duke meeting the aforementioned Alen melted hearts across the globe. Reminiscent of his late-mother, Princess Diana, William sat at the end of her bed. There he chatted animatedly when questioned about his daughter Princess Charlotte. It is these moments which highlight the unique quality the Royal Family possess, yet with William there always seems to be an added magic.

In recent months we have seen criticism of other members of the Royals and how they conduct themselves when partaking in their own engagements. Sometimes the balance between personality and professionalism can become blurred, resulting in a tainting of the royal mystique. This unfortunate behaviour most frequently results in the numerous articles and public attention focusing on the royal individual and not on the subject of their visit.

This is never the case with the Duke of Cambridge. Each and every time he steps out, his attention is consistently focused on the job-in-hand, not himself. Christchurch’s visit has been the embodiment of this. Yes, the Prince hugged numerous worshippers who had been affected by the attack. Yes, he jokingly stated to royal fans that jetlag no longer affects him after having three children. But when the moment arrived for William to step back, and the Duke of Cambridge and future king to take centre stage, it was done with remarkable ease.

What is a credit to William, is that out of all the media coverage that emitted to news outlets across the globe, one moment took the spotlight. It wasn’t that sweet moment with Alen Alsati, or his reference to the long-awaited arrival of his younger brother’s first child. As the Duke stood at the podium, in the same room where fifty innocent Muslim worshippers were brutally murdered, he delivered a speech which many now regard as his best.

Opening with the traditional Maori dialect and the custom Islamic greeting, the Prince went on to passionately deliver an emotional, stoic and stunning speech.

“A terrorist attempted to sow division and hatred in a place that stands for togetherness and selflessness. He thought he could redefine what this space was. I am here to help you show the world that he failed,” William began.

Thanking the emergency services, the Prime Minister and the Al Noor Mosque’s Muslim community, what William did next in this wonderful speech, was to demonstrate that here was a Duke doing it differently. This difference wasn’t for headlines, popularity or praise from social media users. It was for something much more important, unity.

As he continued, there was a genuine tone to his words.: “I have had reasons myself to reflect on grief and sudden pain and loss in my own life. And in my role, I have often seen up close the sorrow of others in moments of tragedy, as I have today.”

“What I have realised is that of course grief can change your outlook. You don’t ever forget the shock, the sadness, and the pain. But I do not believe that grief changes who you are. Grief – if you let it – will reveal who you are.” He added.

Many have speculated whether the Prince was referring to the death of his mother Diana with these words, and it would certainly seem so. But, in credit to William, he doesn’t mention her name. Not out of coldness, but instead to keep the focus on his encouraging and uplifting message. This isn’t about him, Diana, or even the Royal Family. It is about all of us, and how each and every single person at some point faces pain.

This speech reminds you that whilst the Duke of Cambridge is destined for the Throne, his heart is very much with the people. There is an authenticity with William that lacks with many public figures both inside and outside the royal institution. And perhaps, he may not make as many headlines as his brother and sister-in-law. The Press may not pick apart his appearance like they do with his wife Catherine. But William’s global influence runs much deeper. Its impact is a growing flame, not a dowsing inferno.

What we all must remember is that the Duke of Cambridge is reserved a place in history. Hundreds of years from now, every word spoken, every appearance on Buckingham Palace’s balcony, the birth of his children, and every visit to places touched by unimaginable horror, will be recorded for all time. This is a man whose star-power will never fade. It may not be constantly on view, but when it is, it shines brighter than them all.

When William departed New Zealand, no-one was left discussing salacious stories or fictional rumours. No-one cared about speculative feuds or how many followers Kensington Palace’s social media pages had that day.

No. What the people of Christchurch was left with, was the relief that within the most famous family in the land, was a man who would one day become their King, but more importantly, a champion of the people. A Duke who focused on substance and not solely style. A Prince who understood the enduring power of the pubic, and not publicise his power. A future King who accepts the media’s interest and not sycophantically pursue it.

As the future of the Monarchy edges closer, and we see the dynamics of the institution shift focus, the Duke of Cambridge will see his position continue to change. And unlike others within the Royal Family, William’s future has been cemented since birth. His path is already paved, from Kensington Palace to the steps of Buckingham Palace. The media may be focused elsewhere, and perhaps not for the most flattering of reasons.

But with William and his successful visit to New Zealand, he demonstrated why the headlines aren’t always needed to create impactful change. In doing this, our future King is constantly proving that an institution dating back a thousand years, still emits that powerful act of unity. And whilst the prominence of media headlines may inject short-term attention, the love and respect of the people, William will one day reign over, endures for much longer. It is here where William’s royal and public power far outrivals any other.

#prince william #please give the link a click and support the article

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searchingwardrobes · 5 years

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I Get to Be the One

Happy Birthday, @pocket-anon ! Talented author, sweet mother, and a physician to boot! Darling, I don’t know how you do it! I know how much your family means to you, and since your birthday is so close to Mother's Day, I thought some CS family fluff would make the perfect gift. I also threw in a few Easter eggs just for you. Have a great day!

Summary: A slice of Emma and Killian’s white picket fence life – on Mother’s Day. Based on the song by JJ Heller.

Words: Around 1,500

Triggers: Sugary sweet fluff may cause cavities :)

Also on Ao3 and part of my Fandom Birthday Playlist.

Tagging @snowbellewells @kmomof4 @whimsicallyenchantedrose @winterbaby89 @jennjenn615 @teamhook @bethacaciakay @thislassishooked @kday426 @snidgetsafan @delirious-latenight-laughs @shireness-says @xhookswenchx @optomisticgirl @welllpthisishappening @let-it-raines @distant-rose @wellhellotragic

I get to be the one to hold your hand. I get to be the one. Through birthdays and broken bones, I’ll be there to watch you grow. I get to be the one.

Normally, if Emma Swan was abruptly jarred awake, she would lash out in anger. But the crew bursting through her bedroom door on this Sunday morning was the exception. Killian was carrying a tray of food, complete with a little vase of buttercups, and the girls were marching in with smiles on their faces. All four were singing the tune “Happy Birthday to You,” but swapping the words with “Happy Mother’s Day to You.” The only one missing was Henry, but he was likely doing the same thing across town with Lucy for Jacinda. She still could hardly believe her little boy was all grown up and she was a grandma. Curses and wonky timelines aside.

She sat up, suddenly wide awake with a bright smile on her face. That wasn’t her normal morning state, either, but how could she not smile? Killian had that goofy grin on his face, the one that made him look more like a nerd than a fearsome pirate captain. The one she was pretty sure he only gave to her and their three little girls. He settled the tray across her lap just as they finished their song.

“Pancakes?” Emma asked him teasingly, and he winked.

“We can have . . . the other kind later,” he whispered in her ear.

He reached inside the drawer of his nightstand and pulled out three pieces of construction paper with crayon scribbled across them. The girls grabbed them eagerly, bouncing around the room. Elizabeth tried to make a flying leap onto the bed, but Killian caught her before she could knock over her mother’s breakfast. Hope handed her homemade card to her mother first with a hesitant smile on her face.

“Thank you,” Emma told her taking the simple piece of paper from her seven-year-old's hand. Hope wasn’t very good at drawing, so the picture was just two crude stick figures labeled “Mommy and Me.” Hope had no need to be shy, however, because it was the words she had written across the top that stole Emma’s heart.

Mommy you’re the best mom I could ask for. No one could ever replace you in my heart. I love you.

Emma pressed her hand to her mouth as tears threatened.

“She wrote every word of that by herself,” Killian told her with pride in his voice.

A tear did slip out then, which Emma wiped away with her palm. She pulled Hope close, pressing a kiss to her temple. “My little writer,” she whispered. When Hope pulled away, her blue eyes shone with pleasure at her mother’s praise. Emma brushed her fingers through her daughter’s blonde curls and gave her a watery smile.

“Here’s mine, Mommy!” Amy piped up in her high-pitched five-year-old voice.

Amy was their little artist, so Emma wasn’t surprised to see an elaborate rose made out of bits of paper on the front of the pink card. Inside was a drawing of Amy hugging her Mommy which, while still done with sticks and circles, was much more elaborate than her older sister’s.

“This is beautiful, sweetheart,” Emma told her, drawing her close. She glanced up at Killian over the top of her daughter’s dark head.

“Don’t worry,” he told her with a wink, “I vacuumed up all the bits of paper.”

Elizabeth crawled carefully across the bed to give Emma her card. Though she had the same dark curly hair and green eyes as her twin Amy, Elizabeth was more rambunctious and less likely to sit long enough to carefully make a card. Sure enough, the green piece of construction paper contained merely a scribble labeled “Mommy” with a heart around it.

“Oh look, you wrote your name,” Emma commented, pointing to the top corner.

Elizabeth snuggled against Emma’s side. She was also the cuddler of the three girls. “Actually, Hope wrote that for me.”

“Oh,” Emma said as she bit her lip. Her mind struggled to find something else to praise Elizabeth for about her card, but came up empty. The child didn’t seem to care, though.

“I love you, Mommy,” she said, snuggling into Emma more and putting her little arms around her.

Emma embraced her in return, breathing in the slightly sweaty smell of five-year-old.

“And now for your present,” Killian declared, pulling a gift bag out from somewhere and plopping it down on the bed.

“There’s more?”

“Hope helped me shop, so you should like it,” he said, scratching behind his ear.

Emma looked tenderly at her husband. “Of course I’ll like it.” He should know by now that just getting a gift at all was enough for her, especially considering the first 28 years of her life.

Emma yanked out the tissue paper, and inside was a large, charcoal gray bag. It was simple and classic in its design, the perfect style for her personality. She grinned as she pulled it out.

“Hope said you were looking at bags for weekend trips on the Jolly. Ones that were smaller than a duffel but nicer than a backpack.”

Her smile softened at the hesitancy in his voice. She clutched the bag to her chest as she looked up at him. “I love it.”

She loved the bright grin Killian gave her more than the bag, to be honest.

“Well,” he told her, scooping Elizabeth up and tossing her over his shoulder as she giggled, “enjoy your breakfast and take your time. Watch TV, read, whatever you want to do. I’ll check on you in a little while and draw you a bath.”

“Daddy says today is all about you,” Hope explained.

“He says we’re going to paper you,” Amy added.

“Pamper,” Kilian corrected, leaning down to brush a kiss across Emma’s lips, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she told him, brushing her nose against his.

They tramped downstairs, closing the door behind them, and Emma enjoyed her breakfast in the peace and coziness of her bed. Then she settled back under the covers to binge watch some episodes of Sherlock. She followed that with a few chapters from her well-worn copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

It was nice having time to herself, but when the clock read eleven, she was a little bored. She slipped out of bed and made her way downstairs. She paused before reaching the bottom, her heart flipping at the sight that greeted her from the living room.

The girls had made a tent out of blankets, pillows, and the kitchen chairs. Killian must have helped, however, because the top was suspended from the ceiling fan with fishing wire and fairy lights lined the edges. The entire thing looked like an enchanted teepee. The opening faced the stairs, so Emma could see Killian inside with the girls, propped up on pillows, reading to them.

“They were cozy and comfortable in their little house made of logs, with the snow drifted around it and the wind crying because it could not get in by the fire.” Killian’s voice was warm and lilting, and even Emma sighed hearing it.

Her sigh must have been louder than she thought, for Killian looked up at her with surprise on his face. “What are doing down here, love?” he asked, tossing aside the copy of Little House in the Big Woods. “I was just about to come up and draw you a bath.”

Emma shrugged and smiled as she made her way down the rest of the stairs. “It’s Mother’s Day. I wanted to be with my girls.” She got down on her knees and wriggled her way into the tent. All three girls jostled to get to her, and soon she was sprawled against the piles of pillows with little girls draped across her like a pile of puppies. Killian smiled down at her.

“Keep reading, Daddy!” Amy begged.

“Yes, Pa,” Emma teased, “keep reading about the little log cabin in the woods.”

The book series was Amy’s favorite, but Emma delighted in how much Killian seemed to enjoy them too. They weren’t stories from the Enchanted Forest, and he said it helped him understand the history of his new home a little better. He took her current teasing in stride, clearing his throat to continue. It wasn’t long before the three girls were softly snoring.

“I got them up early,” Killian explained, laying the book aside. He laid out on his back, his feet sticking out of the front of the blanket tent. Silence descended around them, filled with contentment.

Emma reached to trace his jaw. “Killian?”

“Hmmm?”

“I love that I get to be the one . . . “ she trailed off, her brow furrowing as she struggled to find the right words, “that I get to be the one to live this life with you.”

Killian turned his head to kiss her palm. “I feel the same, love.”

I get to be the one to hold your hand. I get to be the one. Through birthdays and broken bones, I’ll be there to watch you grow. I get to be the one.

#cs ff #cs family fluff #fluff #domestic fluff #for pocket-anon #on her birthday #fandom birthday playlist #i get to be the one

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timelordthirteen · 5 years

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One Hour

Detective Weaver/Lacey, Mature

Summary: Lacey talks Weaver into going to a holiday party.

Notes: This is such nonsense, but the image in my head of these two was too hilarious not to write. I hope you all agree. For the 31 Days of Fandomas prompt #15 - Christmas jumpers.

[AO3]

“I am not wearing this.”

Lacey pulled her sweater over her head, causing her hair to fuzz from the static. She frowned and smoothed it down before straightening the itchy wool over the t-shirt she had on underneath.

“Yes, you are,” she said, smiling and looking down at the snowman that was now stretched over her chest.

Weaver held up the mass of green cable knit. “No, I’m not. It’s bloody ridiculous!”

She gave him a look and sighed. “It’s for charity.”

He remained unswayed and she snatched it from his hand, opening it and holding it up to reveal an obnoxious pattern of reindeer hoof prints across the bottom, and Santa Claus, presenting himself as some kind of law enforcement officer, with a sheriff’s badge pinned to his red suit, and dark sunglasses. She grinned and wiggled the sweater back and forth, causing the lights on Santa’s sleigh to flash red and blue, just like on a real police vehicle.

Weaver rolled his eyes. “Of course it fucking lights up.”

“We promised Jacinda and Tiana,” she said. Then she started to smirk. “And Lucy.”

And the invocation of the young girl’s name, he frowned. “Don’t you dare…”

“You wouldn’t want to disappoint young Miss Vidrio, would you, Detective Weaver?” Lacey whined, adding a very exaggerated pout and a bat of her heavily mascara’d eyelashes.

He sighed and let his head roll back as his eyes closed. He adored Lucy, and no, he did not want to disappoint her, but he also did not want to humiliate himself wearing the single ugliest sweater he’d ever seen in his fifty year long life.

“Why can’t I just write a check to the community center?” he whined. “Why the fuck do we have to put on offensive knitwear and drink watered down punch with a hundred other people?”

She shrugged. “Don we now our gay apparel?”

That got a begrudging snort and a short laugh out of him. He stared in consternation at the brazen kitschy awfulness of it, not noticing when she stepped closer.

“I’ll make you a deal,” she said, her voice dropping low.

Weaver met her eyes, and his eyebrows lifted as her tongue wet her bottom lip. “What kind of deal?”

“Well...” Lacey said, tossing the sweater on the sofa. Then she took his hands in hers and brought them to her hips. “If you wear the sweater for one hour at the party, and if you can figure out what might be missing with my outfit…”

He let his hands slide down over her backside to lift the hem of her pleated skirt. His eyes closed and a rumbling groan escaped his lips when his palms found nothing under her skirt but soft, smooth skin.

“Fuck, Lace,” he breathed, letting his head drop to rest his forehead against hers. “Let’s just stay home, sweetheart. I swear I’ll make it worth your while.”

She pulled back and grinned as he squeezed her arse. “I know you will, baby, but if you wear that sweater for one hour, and behave at the party, Iwill make worth your while.”

He licked his lips, imagining all the different ways she could do that. “One hour?” he asked, holding up one finger in front of her face. “Then I can take it off?”

She nodded.

He brought one hand around to her front and let his fingers slip between her legs. Her eyes darkened and she made a small noise as her hands tightened against his chest, pressing her nails into his shirt.

“And then I can bring you home and get you off?”

Lacey moaned and pitched her hips towards his hand just as he pulled it away. “And then you can bring me home, cuff me to the bed, and have your way with me.”

Weaver’s eyes went dark. She didn’t like to do that sort of thing very often, but when she did…

Christ, he loved this woman.

He all put pounced on the sofa to grab the sweater where it lay discarded, and tugged it over his head while trying to shove his arms into the sleeves at the same time. After a minute of struggling with the unforgiving wool, he pulled it down and made the lights flash as he straightened it.

She giggled as he ran his fingers through his hair, trying to get it back into place, and he gave her a wide, toothy grin. “Does the time start when we leave the apartment, or when we get there?”

Her eyes rolled and she took him by the arm, pulling him bodily towards the door. His arms already itched from the cheap wool, and he was being forced into attending the First Annual Portland Street Community Center Ugly Christmas Sweater and Holiday Party, but he couldn’t complain. He had Lacey French on his arm, and that made him the luckiest bastard in Hyperion Heights.

#rumbelle #rumbelle fic #woven lace #woven lace fic #christmas fic #31 days of fandomas #fandomas 2018 #fic

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lilacmoon83 · 5 years

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Finding You Always

Also on Fanfiction.net and A03

Chapter 180: Lightning Before the Thunder

Night had fallen in Seattle, but that didn't hinder the Taste of the Heights food fair. In fact the area was lit up with street lamps and twinkling lights decorated the area, creating a fun, exciting atmosphere.

Rogers smiled and paid Tilly the money, as she helped run Sabine's food truck. A Taste of the Heights food fair was a rousing success so far, especially for Sabine. But it almost hadn't happened. Earlier in the day, Sabine's permit came into question and she couldn't help but suspect that her old classmate from cooking school, Drew, might be behind it. However, Rogers had shown up to vouch for her to the other officer and promised to fix the snafu when he went to the station later, so the other officer had let is slide.

Sabine had been so grateful that she begged Rogers for a way to thank him and he responded by asking her to hire Tilly, which she gladly did so. Drew's food truck, also serving Cajun style food, was in direct competition with hers. But so far, they were both seeing sales.

"Your beignets are selling like hot cakes," Rogers mentioned. Sabine smiled.

"And it wouldn't be happening without you," she replied.

"I'm just glad I could help and thank you for giving Tilly a chance. Not many will with her issues," he said. She smiled.

"She's a good kid...you care about her," Sabine said. He nodded.

"I...do. I guess it's because I was on my own at a young age too. I hated that she was homeless, but my partner and his wife took her in, which I've been so grateful for," he mentioned.

"David and Margaret are wonderful people. I hear you two have a third partner these days, though," Sabine said. He nodded.

"Emma Swan...she is family to them, though she is vague in telling me exactly what kind of relation. I was a bit miffed at first when she came in like she was taking over...but she's a good detective," he replied Sabine smiled.

"Heard she's a real looker too," she mentioned. He gave her a sideways glance.

"Please...we just met and I get the distinct feeling that David sees her as a daughter, despite their close age. He's protective, that one, though he has reason to be, I suppose," he mentioned.

"Yeah...I can't believe all they've been through and then reporters and a trial on top of all that?" she said, shaking her head.

"I know...but I have an inkling that things are about to go south for Clayton Stavros in the morning," he replied.

"Oh...do tell," she said. He chuckled.

"All I can say is that I hope he'll be cozy in Federal prison," Rogers replied, as Henry, Jacinda, and Lucy approached.

"Hey guys…" Sabine greeted.

"Aunt Sabine...this is amazing!" Lucy said, as she hugged her.

"Yeah...everyone is raving about your beignets. I'd say financial independence might become a reality," Henry mentioned, as he looked at Jacinda fondly.

"Thanks...but I could have never done it without my best friend," Sabine said, as she and Jacinda shared a hug, just as Drew came over. She rolled her eyes.

"What do you want?" Sabine questioned shortly.

"I wanted to congratulate you...sincerely on your success tonight. I'd say the Rollin' Bayou is going to be here to stay," he replied.

"No thanks to you…" she commented. He sighed.

"I didn't want to do it…" he pleaded.

"Then why did you? Why did you try to get me ousted from the food fair tonight?" she demanded to know.

"It wasn't me...it was Baron Samdi. I...I owe him a debt and he said that if I ruined your business that he would forgive the debt," Drew explained.

"Why would Baron Samdi want to ruin my business?" she wondered. He shrugged.

"I honestly don't know...he wasn't very forthcoming. But what I did was wrong and I'm sorry again," he continued. She sighed.

"I suppose I can forgive you, but only because I beat your ass," she replied, making him chuckle.

"You definitely did and thank you. I promise I'll be telling Samdi he can go to hell," he promised. She smiled.

"Sounds like a good idea. Don't let anyone hold things over you, Drew. You have the talent and brains to be successful without playing dirty," Sabine said. He smiled.

"I know...and it took you to remind me of that," he replied, wishing she would remember their life together. He was lucky she was so forgiving, for betraying her was the last thing he ever wanted to do. But Samdi had preyed on his weakness...and that weakness was her. He had threatened her and he had done Samdi's dirty deeds to protect her. He was hoping when Tiana did remember that she realized that too.

Before he could say anymore, their attention was drawn to the sky. Just moments ago, the sky was clear and now ominous storm clouds were now brewing in the sky.

"Wow...that came on fast," Sabine commented.

"I don't remember them saying there was going to be storms in the forecast," Jacinda mentioned. Tilly stared at the clouds and then heard a voice in her head.

"You're the Guardian...it's time," she heard in her head.

"Tilly…" Rogers said, noticing her glazed expression.

"Find them...protect their star seeds…" she heard again.

"Tilly…" Rogers repeated.

"I have to find them," she said automatically, as she started to run off, just as Margot arrived.

"Tilly?" she questioned.

"I have to find them...I have to stop her!" Tilly cried, as she kept running. Rogers shook her head, but kept following and Margot joined him.

"What do you think that was all about?" Jacinda wondered, as Henry looked a little lost too.

"We have to go too! I think it's Great Grandma Snow and Great Grandpa Charming!" Lucy cried.

"Lucy...not this again," Jacinda admonished, as lightning flashed and the wind picked up almost violently. It made the hair on the back on Henry's neck stand up.

"I think we need to go. This storm doesn't seem natural," he mentioned.

"Not you too," Jacinda chided.

"No...he's right. The weather on my phone says the sky is clear right now," Drew offered. In reality, he had his memories as Prince Naveen and knew for sure that this storm wasn't real and he knew it meant very bad things.

"I know what it sounds like...but we all need to listen your daughter and Tilly," he added. And with that, they hurried after Rogers and Margot, who was already hurrying after Tilly.

~*~

Gothel strolled into the cavern, just beneath the community garden.

She had gathered her other witches, only five had survived, but she was ready to replace the other three spots with three new ones.

"We're here," Drizella stated, as she arrived with a confused Anastasia.

"Drizella...what are we doing down here?" the girl asked cautiously.

"We're bringing magic to this world and we're going to change everything," Drizella answered. Gothel smirked. Drizella had made the perfect pawn and now she had almost everything she needed to bring about destruction to this land. And when Drizella realized her real objective, it would be too late to stop her.

"I...I don't understand," Anastasia stammered, as she was placed on one of the eight places upon the circle.

"We do not have the star seeds yet...but we soon will. But that will not stop us from beginning the reckoning on this world. The ritual will now begin," Gothel said.

"Ritual?" Drizella asked.

"Yes...the power of eight witches is needed to begin the resurrection of the flower children," she announced.

"It is time to become one with the earth as was intended...and time to take humanity with us," she added, as a bad feeling suddenly settled in Drizella.

"I thought we were using the amulet to resurrect magic into this world," she interjected, as that had always been what Gothel told her their goal was. Drizella had gone along with that, because it involved turning her mother's precious Anastasia away from her. With the added benefit of returning magic to this world. But now she was realizing the resurrection amulet had a price for returning magic and that was their lives. The other witches began to glow and she watched in horror, as the resurrection amulet glowed as well. It seemed to suck the life force from its first victim, the woman who had owned a bakery in this world. And Drizella saw the shock on the other witches faces, except Seraphina. It seemed only she was privy to the real purpose of this plot. Drizella pulled Ana back and bumped into someone behind her.

"I warned you, Drizella…" Victoria scolded, as she took them both the arms and started backing their way out of the cavern. Anastasia gasped, as another witch tried to run, but vines wrapped around her. She had been known as the reporter Phoebe Cooper in this land and Drizella instinctively covered Ana's eyes, as Phoebe was transformed into a tree and live vines sprouted from what had once been her limbs. Even Madam Leota, who had been posing a Judge in this land, seemed surprised.

"This is not what I signed up for!" she protested.

"Yes it is. Everything that I told you is going to happen will...but only with the right sacrifices to bring about the resurrections. Eight witches and the final two star seeds will bring about a new era. Hmm...perhaps I left out the part about your energy being needed in order to seize the star seeds from Snow and Charming," Gothel said, smirking evilly.

"Oops…" she admonished, as Madam Leota and the rest of the witches turned into trees with live branches, which were ready to rip through humanity.

"Get her out of here!" Victoria cried, as she ushered her daughters out of the cavern. The ground beneath them shuddered violently and they watched in horror, as the trees and vines burst up through the cavern and decimated the garden above. Magical storm clouds settled over Seattle and soon, once she had the star seeds, those clouds would rain death upon humanity. She spied Drizella and Anastasia escaping, but it would be fruitless.

Go Ana!" Victoria pleaded, as she hurried her daughter to the surface. The cavern they were in was quickly collapsing. As she pushed Ana through the exit, she heard Drizella cry out, as she faltered and a vine was wrapped around her ankle. The magical vine began to drain the life from her daughter and Victoria was paralyzed by that. It hit her like a ton of bricks, as she looked at the fear in her child's eyes. She finally realized what her favoritism toward Ana and criticism of Drizella had done. She saw hopelessness in her daughter's eyes. She saw the damage she had done to her in her eyes at that very moment. She had seen it before, but now it was finally hitting her. Without thinking, Victoria pulled a knife from her shoulder bag and sliced the vine. She was paralyzed by the dark magic released by the severed vine, but then she knew she would be.

"Go...get your sister out of here. Please…" she pleaded. Drizella gasped, as she saw the magic eating away at her mother.

"Mother…" she pleaded, as a tear fell down Victoria's cheek.

"I'm sorry Drizella...I love you both. Go…" she urged. Ana cried out, as they watched the dark magic evaporate their mother, but Drizella knew her mother had just sacrificed herself so they both could live. She grabbed Ana and they made their way to the surface in tears. Drizella saw the storm clouds overhead and saw the spectacle that the trees bursting through the garden had created. People were starting to gather and knew now that there was only one family that could stop any of this. And she didn't see them anywhere.

~*~

The fire trucks arrived at the Museum, as was standard when the fire alarms were pulled, but Nick and Angela were blocking the way.

"FBI...this is an active crime scene. No one is allowed in or out," Angela called.

"We need to check the building," one fireman argued.

"There is no fire and this is an FBI crime scene and highly classified matters going on here. I cannot permit anyone in the building," Nick called.

"It is not going to be easy to keep them out for long," Angela muttered to her partner.

"Yeah...if they call our boss, we'll have no choice but to let them in. Which won't be good, because we know these people and we've seen the magic. I'll be surprised if this place is still standing in an hour," Nick responded and Angela found that she couldn't disagree with that.

David crept into the museum, firearm drawn, as he searched the seemingly empty building. Emma was behind him, also with her weapon drawn, while Regina was following them. He had made Leo stay with Eva and Bobby near the entrance for their safety, for he really had no idea what they were walking into. All he knew was that Clayton had his wife and their youngest daughter. And he knew Facilier was somehow involved as well, as the tarot card left behind had been a dead giveaway. He wasn't sure why these two men were even teaming up though. It was an inevitable power struggle, because he knew they both wanted the chalice's power for their own purposes. Which meant there would most likely be some kind of betrayal and he feared that his family would be caught in the crossfire. David knew that this was it. They were in the beginning of the end game now. And he knew that also meant that the time that Endymion had told him would come was near. He had to find Snow and Summer, but then he knew they also must cure Emma's heart, before the curse was broken. And he was still a bit confused on how to do that.

~*~

A few nights ago

"You know how to cure my daughter's heart?" David asked. Endymion smiled.

"So do you," he answered, but David felt a bit lost at that.

"Except that I don't...Snow and I would have done so if we knew how," he argued.

"Gothel cursed her heart with poison from dark magic. But Emma was born of the most powerful magic ever to exist. Yours and Snow's true love. You and Snow gave her life through your love and it is within both of you to cure the poison from her heart with that love," Endymion advised.

"You know, I don't know whether you or Aphrodite, or Rumpelstiltskin are the worst with the riddles! Why can't someone for once just tell us...do this exactly and it will work," he complained in frustration. Endymion chuckled.

"I know...this being a spirit guide thing or whatever I am comes with a host of expectations and strings attached. You're a direct guy with no tact and if I could, I'd give you that direct answer," he offered. David sighed.

"I know…" he admonished.

"But I can lead you in the right direction," Endymion stated.

"I know that all you have ever wanted was to protect the woman you love and your children," he added, as David looked down.

"It's everything to me...but I feel like I've failed to do that a thousand times over," Charming confessed, as tears gathered in his eyes.

"I couldn't keep the first curse from separating us and Emma grew up without us for ten years," he stated.

"I know it could have been worse and that it could have been twenty-eight years, but it was still hell for Emma," he continued.

"And you're still blaming yourself for that and all the other things that have happened," Endymion surmised.

"Wouldn't you?" David questioned.

"If you kept failing to protect your family from evil?" he asked.

"Of course...but you haven't failed your family," Endymion admonished.

"I did! The first curse was just the beginning! Then I failed to protect us from the Collector...we almost lost Bobby to Zelena's time travel scheme...and then Isaac threw us into his warped narrative," David listed.

"But true love overcame all of that," Endymion reminded. David shook his head.

"Not before Isaac made sure to torture my wife by sending her to Facilier's mental institution in the Bayou. And if all of that wasn't enough, even after Camelot and the Underworld, I almost lost her to a madman. I couldn't even protect her from a psychotic doctor that was obsessed with her! And now...another curse where she spent two years where pills were forced down her and she was abused, while I was clueless!" he lamented, as the tears finally fell.

"David...you have not failed your family. You have not failed Snow and you never will," Endymion replied.

"I feel like I have. I live in constant fear that I will keep failing them. I keep wondering when it will finally happen. When will I finally lose them for good. What if being Prince Charming isn't enough? What if I finally lose Snow for good?! What if we lost one of our children?!" David cried.

"Do you really believe love, especially a love like you have with Snow, could really ever fail?" Endymion questioned in returned. David sniffed and swiped the tears away.

"We trusted in love...and we thought we had lost Emma. We could still lose her...and I'm desperate to have faith that our love will be enough. But I'm scared that it won't and it will fail us and we'll lose Emma," he confessed. Endymion put a hand on David's shoulder.

"You tell Snow and your children to have faith in love...but you need to take your own advice. There has never been a more powerful love than what you share with Snow...you must trust that it will fix everything," he consoled.

"And if your Snow is anything like my Serenity is...then she would probably say you are putting too much pressure on yourself and that you need to face this together. It's the only way," he continued.

"Your love...it's going to fix everything. It's going to save this world and countless others," Endymion added.

"We want to save Emma," David responded.

"And you will. The answer will come. I would tell you if I could, but the answer isn't words. The answer is something you and Snow will feel. And only in that moment will you know exactly what must be done to save everyone...including Emma," Endymion offered.

"I hope you're right…" David said, swallowing thickly.

"Have faith in your love and hope will never die," Endymion replied. David smiled thinly.

"Hope…" he murmured, as things faded away.

~*~

He had woken up at that point, with no real answers, except the one he and Snow had always put all their cards on. Hope and faith in their love. In reality, hope and love was something that had come very easily to them. Despite the chaos that almost seemed to constantly surround them, the love between them had always been so effortless. Despite all their years of marriage, the passion and excitement had neither dulled or diminished between them. As he frantically searched for the woman he loved and their youngest daughter, he felt himself drawing inward to take strength from that effortless love, for he knew, according to what Endymion had said, it was the only way to save everyone he loved. He closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment, listening to his half heart, which was naturally calling for its other half. Then he saw her in his mind, scared, gagged and blindfolded, and in pain.

"Snow…" he uttered, as he turned down the hall to the right. Emma and Regina didn't question whether he knew if they were going the right way. The lights in the whole place began to flicker ominously and Regina watched them.

"You think that's on purpose?" Emma wondered.

"It's a mere parlor trick for someone like Facilier and likely meant to intimidate us," Regina said, as they continued on through the corridor.

"Daddy!" they heard a scream that was made to echo and fear seized David's heart.

"Summer…" he cried.

"Dad...wait! That sounded like a recording. They're trying to get you to rush right into some trap," Emma reasoned. He tried to calm his breathing and then suddenly doubled over in pain.

"Dad!" Emma cried, as she knelt beside him. He saw Snow in his mind and then Clayton's evil smirk, as he shoved a plasma rod, the same kind he had once instructed Sa'luk to use on him, into the small of his beloved's back. Snow screamed through the gag and flailed in pain, as she dangled from shackles by her arms.

"STOP! JUST STOP!" David screamed to the ceiling, knowing they were being watched on cameras, as he saw her in his mind and watched Clayton briefly remove the gag that was stuffed between Snow's teeth.

"Charming...don't give into him…" she pleaded. A tear slipped down his cheek. Seeing her in pain crippled him, but then Clayton knew that. He knew exactly how to bend him to his will.

"Shall I string your little girl up beside her mother or are you ready to surrender?" he heard Clayton ask, as he gagged Snow again and lit the plasma rod up with a higher charge.

"Time to fry your Princess again and then maybe I'll let the boys have some fun with her. You should see the way they've been eyeing her and your little girl," Clayton said.

"Stop! Just stop, you bastard!" David cried, as he holstered his gun and put his hands up.

"You win," he growled. Neither Regina or Emma knew exactly what was happening, except that Snow had to be in pain or imminent danger. Emma holstered her gun too, as Clayton's men arrived to escort them to wherever it was that Clayton wanted them. Regina glared at Facilier, as came with them and then took her arm, dismissing one of the guards.

"I'll take this one," he said.

"You put a hand on me and you'll lose function in several body parts," Regina warned.

"Not if you want your precious little Summer to survive this night," he warned. Regina let him lead her by the arm, as the other brutes led Emma and David further through the corridor, until they finally reached the loading docks. The large, heavy doors were pushed open and they were prodded inside, as his eyes darted around, until he finally saw her.

"SNOW!" he cried.

~*~

The tires on the car screeched to a halt outside the museum, as Rumple and Belle arrived. She felt the wind whip around them and looked to the sky, her mouth falling ajar.

"Rumple…" she uttered, as he followed her line of vision.

"Dammit…" he cursed, as he watched the storm cloud brew ominously.

"She's done it," he stated.

"But...she doesn't have the last two star seeds yet," Belle protested.

"Nevertheless, she has started the process. The process to end this world," he responded.

"How do we stop this?" Belle questioned, as he took the dagger out of his jacket pocket.

"There is only one family that can stop any of this now, which means we have to stop whatever the Collector and that witch doctor are cooking up," he said, as he took her hand and they hurried up the stairs, brushing past Nick and Angela.

"Keep them out," he snapped.

"So far so good...but that might not hold if our boss gives the order to the fire chief to let them in," Angela argued. He sighed.

"Then you'll need to prepare to explain everything this city is about to see," he replied, as he led Belle inside.

"What the hell do you think he meant by that?" Nick wondered, as thunder boomed above them and the ground rumbled beneath them.

"I don't know...but I think he's right. We're about to find out," Angela uttered.

~*~

"Rumple…" Belle whispered, as he drew his firearm.

"If Clayton manages to get the chalice…" she started to say. She hated even going there, for she knew him getting control of it meant bad things for her friends.

"This won't go the way they think it will. If the worst happens and he recharges his Dragon staff, he will not have the power to defeat Gothel like he thinks he will," Rumple replied.

"Then how can Snow and Charming?" she asked. He smirked.

"You're the one that's always telling me to trust in true love...that it's more powerful than the darkness," he reminded. Her eyes widened.

"Are you saying that even if got its power…" she started to say.

"Yes...it will be what the Dragon experienced all over again. He'll have magic, but he won't be able to stop Gothel...not even close," he replied.

"Rumple...what's coming. I know that you've seen it. Not here...but the first time you encountered her...your foresight would have shown you," Belle pleaded. He sighed and turned to her.

"It's hard to describe the horror that awaits if that storm is fueled by the full power of the amulet. Her vines will sprout and squeeze the life out of everything in their path. Her plants will eat whatever the vines don't kill and turn all life to ash. Buildings and infrastructure will crumble. She'll reduce this world back to her warped vision of Eden in a matter of days," he foretold.

"Do we win?" she squeaked. He sighed and pulled her into his arms.

"I don't know...how it ends wasn't clear. But we must stop the Collector and Facilier if we're going to even have a sliver a chance against Gothel," he replied.

"So we have to save Snow and David...so they can save us and the world," she realized. He nodded and they began hurrying along again. As usual, time was not on their side and the fate of this world and many others hung in the balance...

#Snowing #SnowxCharming #Charming family #OC Charmings #Roni #Rogers #Weaver #Season 7 AU #Snowing & Charming family centric season 7 #Gothel #romance #family #adventure #finding you always #the epic continues

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royalpain16 · 5 years

Text

Prince William has said that every celebrity he asked to back his Heads Together mental health initiative three years ago refused.

The Duke of Cambridge told the Davos World Economic Forum that "a lot" of stars were approached, but none wanted to be associated with mental illness.

He also said the wartime generation may have helped create some of the stigma.

People preferred not talk about such "horrendous" events, a stoic attitude passed on to their children.

The prince created Heads Together, launched to help combat the stigma of mental health, in 2017 with the Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry.

He said if he hadn't opened up to colleagues about the situation, he would have "gone down a slippery slope" mentally.

The duke told his audience of business leaders about his own struggles with mental health, saying there was one traumatic incident that he didn't think he would "ever get over".

Looking visibly emotional, he said he still found the incident "very difficult to talk about" because it was "related very closely to my children", George, Charlotte and Louis.

The prince has spoken previously about "very traumatic" callouts involving children while working for the air ambulance .

But he said such feelings were "only human", adding: "Yes, you put a suit of armour on… but one day something comes along closely related to your own personal life and it really takes you over a line."

Wartime generation

The issue of mental health is a big theme at this year's Davos, with several sessions on the topic.

Studies show one in four people will suffer from mental illness at some point in their life , but many people are still too afraid of the consequences of speaking out or seeking help.

Despite a greater willingness to discuss the issue, the prince said that a lot of stigma remains, meaning "so many people are suffering in silence".

He added: "For some reason, people are embarrassed about their emotions - British people particularly," he told a packed audience at Davos.

He feels the British stiff upper lip that was common in previous generations has a lot to do with it.

The attitude was passed onto children, especially after the First and Second world wars when it became difficult to talk about "such horrendous circumstances".

"A whole generation inherited [this way of coping]. This was the way you deal with your problems: you don't talk about it."

But he said "a new generation knows that's not normal" and is becoming aware that it's better to be open about how they are feeling.

The prince urged companies to do more. "It should be so much easier to go to HR and talk about it. It has to come from the top."

Spotting the signs

During the debate, the audience was asked whether they or anyone they knew had suffered from a mental illness. Nearly everyone in the room raised a hand.

The Duke of Cambridge was at the forum with New Zealand's prime minister Jacinda Ardern, who has made tackling mental health problems a priority for her government.

She said it was a sad fact that everyone in New Zealand, a small country of less than 5 million people, knows of "someone who has taken their own life".

HSBC bank boss John Flint, also on the panel, said that in the "notoriously competitive" banking industry mental health problems were common.

He said it was imperative that people at the top spoke about it to allow those lower down in the organisation to open up.

"We all sit on the spectrum [of mental health]. I know there's a profound difference between when I'm feeling my best and when I'm not," he added.

Mr Flint said the bank was training managers to spot signs of mental health problems so they could help staff deal with them.

He said it made business sense given the impact problems had on workers' performance.

#prince william #heads together #mental illness #stigma #king william v #mental health charity #celebritie's shunned

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enixamyram · 6 years

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Alice and Robin making their mission to find a girlfriend for Mulan.

“The first thing we need to do is make a list.” Robin said, pulling the back cap off the marker and leaning over the sheet of paper spread out in front of them. It took up almost the whole table but they girls were optimistic they could fill it up before they were done. “Every girl we can think of.”

“Okay then, let’s see...” Alice mumbled thoughtfully from where she was sitting closely squished to her love’s side. “Anastasia from the music shop definitely.”

“Goldilocks, too.” Robin nodded, scribbling down the two names one above the other in a formal row.

“I’m not sure if Goldie is her type though,” Alice noted. “She’s pretty vain about her looks, especially her hair, and Mulan’s really down to earth.”

Robin waved her off. “We’re just thinking of everyone for now. We can start narrowing it down and cancelling out the people who aren’t fit once we have everyone we can possibly think of.”

“Okay... So, Anastasia, Goldilocks... Oh! Odette!” Alice said quickly.

Robin frowned and pursed her lips to the side but otherwise said nothing more about the girl who had been Tilly’s ex from before the curse. It was dumb being jealous considering they never had any real time spent together. It was all fake memories put into their heads and Robin wasn’t even sure if the girls had seen each other since waking but just hearing the name still made Robin want to throw something. However, knowing what they were trying to do, somehow made it easier for Robin to jot the name down. And she only drew devil horns on one ‘e’.

“Who else...” Alice mused, not noticing Robin’s obvious frustration, too busy staring into space and running through all the women she knew.

“Hey. What you guys up to?”

The girls glanced up and saw Henry smiling down at them. Jacinda and Lucy weren’t around, but that was probably due to the fact that he was meeting them here at Granny’s like he normally did when he was finished with work. Since returning, Granny’s had become an official meeting spot for the Mills family, especially on days when Lucy had her ballet or other activities.

Without waiting for an invitation, Henry pulled out a chair and took a seat opposite the two girls, frowning down at the page taking up all the space between them. It really was large but at the moment it only held three names on its clear sheet in the top corner. He briefly wondered why one of the e’s in Odette had two extra ears sticking along the top while the rest of it was exceptionally neat.

“We’re just thinking up all the names of the local lesbian and bisexual girls in town.” Robin said casually, shrugging like it was something she and Alice did every morning during breakfast.

“Oh! Ivy!” Alice said suddenly, clapping her hands excitedly.

“Yes!” Robin said with equal enthusiasm, adding Drizella’s name to their list.

“Uh, Ivy’s not gay.” Henry said, vividly remembering the kiss she had given him back during the curse when she had wanted comfort after her mothers death.

“Lesbian and bisexual girls, Henry.” Robin repeated, raising an eyebrow at him like he was being purposely stupid.

“Ivy’s bi?” Henry blinked.

“Well, we don’t know for sure but I always got a pretty serious vibe off her.” Alice noted. “Especially when she tricked me by offering to help give papa a cure back in Wonderland. She was a little too friendly with me and very touchy feely, if you get what I’m saying.”

Robin looked at her sharply before scowling and adding a slight triangle point to the end of Ivy’s ‘Y’. She ignored the slight smirk on Henry’s lips and instead patiently nodded her head to a spot over his shoulder.

When he turned around he saw Mulan sitting in the corner booth of the diner with Philip, Aurora and Junior. Junior was on her lap and she was bouncing and tickling him until her little godson laughed up at her. Then Aurora said something and Mulan looked up, replying before laughing and looking back down at Junior, tickling him again.

“We went out for drinks with Red and Dorothy last night.” Robin explained. “Red told us all about Mulan’s story. It’s so tragic...”

“So now!” Alice said cheerfully. “We’re going to set her up!”

“You’re setting Mulan up?” Henry said, dumbfounded by the idea for some reason.

“Yeah. Why not? I mean, everyone deserves a happy ending.” Alice said firmly. “And it’s about time Mulan got hers.” She paused, raising an eyebrow at him. “Hey, do you know if Ashley’s other evil step sister is interested in girls?”

Henry opened his mouth but found himself speechless. In the end, he blinked and shrugged his shoulders. “Um. No idea.”

Alice nudged Robin. “Include her, but put a question mark by her name.”

Nodding in agreement, Robin quickly wrote ‘Tisbe’ with the others, adding a delicate question mark on the right by her name before looking back up and glancing around the diner like she might see someone she forgot sitting just two tables over. Alice, meanwhile, continued to stare off into space, resting her chin in her hand and her eyes glazing over slightly as she ran through the memories of the people she had met since coming to Storybrooke. There were a lot of them, and Alice had a very keen gay-dar that helped her spot all the lesbian and gay people in town. (Magic... may be heavily involved in that little skill).

“You two...” Henry began, shaking his head.

“Henry!” Jacinda appeared, greeting her husband with a soft kiss and sweet smile before forcing herself to look towards the others. “Hi, Alice, Robin. What were you guys all talking about?”

“They’re trying to find a girl to set Mulan up with.” Henry said, a little smile on his lips that Robin wasn’t sure came from the amusement at the girls antics of the kiss he had just received from his beautiful wife.

“What?” Jacinda said, doing a double take between the girls and Henry.

“Everyone deserves a happy ending.” Alice said again with the same firm confidence like she was an expert on the matter. “And we decided to take it upon ourselves to-”

“Uh, you girls do know Mulan is already seeing someone. Right?” Jacinda asked.

Robin nearly dropped her pen. “She is?!”

“Yeah.” Jacinda looked up and nodded her head. “Rapunzel.”

The girls did their own double take. But rather than seeing a Victoria Belfrey back from the dead, they saw a beautiful young woman instead. She was around the same age as Mulan with dark brown skin and midnight black hair that fell all the way behind her in a single long braid along her spine. She smiled as she walked from the backroom where she had been staying over towards the groups table. She paused long enough to lean down and kiss Mulan softly before taking her seat opposite her. Immediately Rapunzel moved to rest her leg closely against Mulan’s and smiled at her playfully when Mulan reached over to take her hand.

“Rapunzel?” Alice frowned. “I don’t understand...”

“She’s this realms Rapunzel.” Jacinda grinned. “I met her the other day. She’s such a sweet girl. Perfect for Mulan, don’t you think?”

“Oh yeah, my grandpa met her once before she came to Storybrooke.” Henry looked back at the girls. “Well what do you know. She got her happy ending after all.” He paused, watching their expressions. “Are you guys pouting?”

“No,” Robin pouted.

“A little.” Alice admitted, looking truly let down. “I wanted a go to play match maker.”

“Well, you’ll have to play it with someone else, I’m afraid. Come on, Henry. Lucy’s waiting for us outside.” Jacinda grinned, taking his hand and pulling him onto his feet. They waved at them as they left the girls to watch Mulan and her girlfriend in disappointed silence. Well, not disappointed. After all, they were happy for her.

They just wished they could have been the reason for that happiness.

“Well... Guess we could always set up Goldie and Odette.” Alice noted, resting her head back into her hand again.

“I think Goldie would be better paired with Anastasia.” Robin said immediately, not liking the idea of Alice being anywhere near her to play matchmaker.

Alice nodded slowly, still not noticing the way Robin was gritting her teeth. “Maybe. But then poor Odette’s still single, waiting for her happy ending.”

“On second though, Goldie would make a great girlfriend for Odette.” Robin said quickly. “That girl deserves to be paired up already.”

#Curious Archer Short #Or Rather not so short #Alice Jones #Robin Mills #Mulan #OUAT Mulan #Curious Archer #Rapunzel #Goldilocks #Anastasia #Ivy Belfrey #Henry Mills #Jacinda Mills #Drizella Tremaine #Odette #The Swan Princess #OUAT Fanfiction #Anonymous

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aplaceforthesoul · 4 years

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Anonymous submitted:

im looking for work in my profession and i had also recently moved countries. in the previous country pre-covid i’ve had interviews but didn’t land a position..then covid hit so i had to come back to my home country and live with my dad. Thing is that he is REALLY controlling about how i do my job search here..saying i should do this and that and i get it. he worked professionally for decades and has done hiring himself. Thing is we’re not remotely in the same industry, and i’ve been in my home country 3 weeks since my return and havent heard back from potential employers, now he’s making assumptions about me being lazy, not changing things when things don’t work out, not doing enough, why am i not sending out 10 applications a day etc when he don’t know ANYTHING about the homework and preparation, and i need to do before applying to certain companies which is a headache in itself.

and if i remember correctly, it wasn’t too long ago when he was unemployed and looking for work and it took him many months to land a job, and that was pre covid! it’s adding to the stress that I dont yet have the job i want, and none of us are receiving income, and he thinks that because i havent had results yet = me being lazy and stupid.

that’s incredibly unfair and unreasonable of your dad to be saying things like that ): the entire world is suffering from the effects of covid-19, even the countries who handled the health crisis well! my sister’s based in new zealand at the moment and even though Jacinda Arden has done a fantastic job in leading the country and listening to science instead of politics, the country is still in a pretty bad way economically. look towards the northern hemisphere and many countries are experiencing a second wave of infections and a lot of rules being put into place regarding curfews and lockdowns...unless you’re jeff bezos then most people (both businesses and the general public) have suffered huge losses and are struggling a lot at the moment.

if your dad doesn’t already know all the things you’ve just told us, then tell him exactly that -- that you are looking for work, that you are trying your best, that covid-19 is making it extremely difficult to find any work at all, that you really do want a job and that it’s not about being lazy, that he himself was without work for many months and it’s not fair for him to say this now. say it 5, 6, 7 times if you have to?! sometimes repeating something a number of times is the only way for it to sink in and to get your dad to realise that you are serious about it all.

if you do try talking to him and telling him all of this, and he just does not listen? let it go, it’s all you can do. you can’t force someone to see the truth, you know you’re trying your best and that you’re not being lazy, that’s what matters. next time your dad brings it up? just say “yes ok dad thanks for the advice” or something along those lines, and then change the conversation topic as soon as you can. good luck friend, I hope you’re able to find work soon xxx

- tash

#advice #submission #dad #father #jobs #covid 19 #stress #argument

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clove-teasdale · 6 years

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tick tock newlyweds

*:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧

A/N: not a challenge! NEW YEARS PART 1. FINALLY THE 30th OF DECEMBER ON FIC TIME. End of the year. this is it y’all. get ready for the first part of this three-part fic (or it might be two idk, we shall see tomorrow). Thanks @brooks-schreave for the rp. OKAY, THERE MIGHT BE ERRORS OR TYPOS ON THIS IDK. SORRY. have some fun with awkward crooks conspiring in 3,334 words <3

*:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧

Columbia had always been a pretty sight at night, but it was very different from Angeles and it’s lively lights.

The only downside to such an active city was that the light pollution from it made the sky slightly less admirable, making the natural light a little duller. Standing next to Nate’s black Jeep, I watched the city and the sky to compare. This will be the set of stars when the New Year comes. I smiled at the thought but then my mind wondered if Nate’s car would be able to blend in for our purposes. My “date” arrived a few minutes after I’d started to consider how the night would go in general, carrying a bag in his hand and offering a small wave with the other.

“Ready?” I watched as Brooks shoved his things into the trunk. My dress was already on a hook inside the backseat alongside my other stuff.

“Yeah,” I ran a hand through my hair--the feel of it different, but not new. “I straightened it.” It hadn't taken too long with Eloise's help. She'd agreed to cover for us. Mostly me since I'd told Jacinda and the rest of my maids I'd be having a sleepover with her that night.

If anything went wrong, she'd have to handle it and she said she would as long as I explained later what the whole mystery outing was. I loved how she always agreed with my crazy plans without question. She deserved some baby carrots.

Brooks lifted both eyebrows at my new look as if impressed before walking over to open my door. “I like it.”

I smiled, getting in. “I brought a hairbrush for yours.” I would never repeat the hand incident.

Once he'd walked over to his side of the car and sat in the driver's seat, he took a cap from his back pocket and put it on. Some glasses and a grin were added as he said, “No need. I'll be covered.”

I smirked at the absurdity of his disguise, but honestly, there was only so much we could do to hide. “I hope you take it off when we arrive.”

“You don't like it?” His jaw dropped, eyes turning to the mirror as he mumbled, “I think it's cool.”

Laughing was inevitable on my part. “You don't use that for a party.”

“I’ll replace it with a party hat when we get there, promise.”

Silence settled for a while as the drive began. With it, the awkward feeling I’d been having around Brooks the day before returned. Ever since the Christmas Ball incident and our talk about it, my head had been unable to forget. We’d agreed on it being a mistake, and after yesterday at the roof it seemed like we could try going back to normal...but part of me became more and more aware of my wish for the 'mistake' part to be, well, a mistake in itself. I’d even started to ask myself how much I really liked him. Was it one of those simple crushes I got back in high school? Because I had always managed those before.

Brooks, I’d realized, had grown to become more awkward in the years I was gone. It was hard to notice on the first day of my arrival, as arguing was still the first language between us, but it became more and more obvious with time and since the kiss, it showed in volumes.

His hands tapped the steering wheel before he asked, “Music?”

I continued to fidget with the ring on my finger even as I spared him a glance. I hoped spinning the old golden band with a garnet would help release some of the anxiety I felt, but wasn’t too sure it was working. By this point, it was a sort of a personal tradition to wear that ring around this time a year. My dad had passed it down to me as a New Year's gift when I was twelve.

Apparently, it had belonged to my grandmother--her red birthstone encrusted on the old metal as a gift from my grandpa for their 50th wedding anniversary. Their official wedding had been big, a 27th of January once upon a time. It was everything you could dream of, as Twos loved to show off, but my grandparents always took it a step further. They also had a smaller ceremony beforehand. Just family.

According to what they had always retold, they kissed as the clock stroke midnight, commemorating a new year. That was the date they considered their anniversary. My grandparents had loved making things romantic but in the most dramatic of ways...meaning they loved one-upping people that much. The story had been crazy enough that it made me want to wear the ring at midnight every year after that.

Focusing back on the present, I tried offering Brooks a small smile. “Uh, yeah, sure.”

He didn't focus on it much, immediately averted his gaze and reaching to turn on the radio. I looked away as well, but as the first lyrics came out, I couldn’t help and drift my sight back to him to gauge his reaction.

...walls stood tall painted blue But I'll take 'em down, take 'em down and open up the door for you.

Flailing to reach for the button as our duet song rang out, he changed stations quickly.

--we've lost our minds I don't care, I don't care if they call us crazy Runaway to a world that we design.

I wished my seat would swallow me, focusing ahead and pressing my lips together as he changed it again with an “Ugh.” Then screamo music blasted and he just gave up. I did so too, closing my eyes with a sigh and leaning forward to turn it off. “Silence never hurt anyone.”

“Debatable.”

I let Brooks handle the brunette receptionist that welcomed us at the counter of the hotel. “Hello, how may I help you?”

“We need a room, please.”

“Aw, a romantic getaway?” Oh, for the love of...

My “romantic partner” did his best to get over the embarrassment as fast as possible. “Uh, yeah, sure.”

Nothing went past this one though and as she spotted the ring I couldn’t help but fidget with, she asked, “Newlyweds?”

“Yes?” was what Brooks decided to go with, but I could see the alarm written on his face. He was definitely screaming inside as I was.

“Adorable. Last name, please.”

We hadn’t considered what to say. A mistake on our part. Our plan had many flaws, but then again it was planned in one day. My mouth opened to say something, anything, but it became one of those moments when they ask you to say something and you suddenly blank out on the list of those you know. The conversation I’d had with Eloise as she straightened my hair was the only inspiration I could think of.

“Crooks,” I blurted out at the expectant lady. Brooks only gave me a confused look.

“Right. Mr. and Mrs. Crooks.”

This is embarrassing.

"You two are just the cutest. Here's your key.” She handed it over and, thankfully, Brooks took it without any weird looks in my direction. “Breakfast is at 7 to 9. Happy New Year!”

We wouldn't make it to breakfast, but Brooks quickly pushed me towards the elevator. After pressing the floor our card mentioned, he asked, “Crooks?”

I cleared my throat, focusing on the walls around me. “What? We needed a name.”

“Where did that even come from?” The elevator opened and I took my chance to flee.

“Um…” I lowered my voice. “Eloise..”

“Were you discussing criminals with her or something? I thought that was our thing.” His joking was as strained as my laugh when he followed.

“Yeah, obviously." He really didn’t need to worry about me replacing him.

Arriving at the room, he inserted the key and held the door open for me. I turned on the lights and froze at the sight “Shoot..”

He stepped in right after. “Wha-? Oh. Oh.”

We both blinked at the single bed in the room. Newlyweds. “Guess next time we should go with cousins.”

He gave me an alarmed look. It was back to internal screaming it seemed. With a sigh of resignation, he said he would take the floor. “It’s not carpeted,” I mumbled back.

“I'll deal with it.” He ran over to the closet and placed our bags away, taking a look at his watch. “We should change.”

5 hours until midnight.

“Ready?” Brooks called out, knocking on the bathroom door.

I stared at my reflexion in the mirror, the golden embroidery of my dress laughing at me--metaphorically speaking, of course. “Just a sec...”

The zipper was still on my lower back. Another one of the things I hadn’t considered in my hurry was that no matter how much of a pretzel my arms tried to be, I couldn’t reach up high enough to close this dress.

The silence was too long for Brooks. “Clove? I'm sure you look very nice, can you come out now? We've gotta go.”

“Um…” Come on, come on... I let my hands fall to my sides with a sigh. “I should’ve gone for the purple strapless.” He didn’t say anything as I leaned on the door. “I... kind of need some help.”

“Did you fall?”

“What? No.. I need someone to zip up the rest of the dress.”

His pause made me want to stay in the bathroom the rest of the night. “I can help.”

“Okay…” I took a moment as well before reaching for the doorknob and opening the door. “It’s a nice dress, just not the easiest to zip alone.”

He made a spinning motion with his hand, saying, “Turn.”

I did as he asked and felt his hand take on the zipper as he set his other one on my back to pull it up. His voice was quieter as he added, “You're good.”

“Thanks.” I turned around with a quick nod, trying to smile as a sign of gratitude, but I could feel my nerves skyrocketing. “I guess we’re ready then.”

He avoided my gaze and checked his watch again. “Yeah, it's almost time.”

I gave him a once over. Now that his cap was off, I could see his hair was down, sweeping over his forehead. Kind of all over the place, so little messy if you will, yet being a guy that meant... “You look nice.” With the well-fitted maroon suit that had black lapels to match his tie, he was bound to catch some eyes tonight.

An awkward smile was all he offered as he opened the door for me. “Ditto.”

It was pretty early for the party to be that pumped, being only 8 pm, but the more people were excited for the New Year, the less they would care about a prince and a selected strolling next to them.

“Four hours until midnight. Remember, we're looking for Harrison Levi.”

I stepped out of the car with his help. “Excited?”

“No.”

How cheerful, I thought but pressed my lips together to stop myself from saying it out loud. “What do you mean “no”? It’ll be a New Year. Something to look forward to.”

“I don't know if you've noticed, but I've never been more stressed in my life.” He offered his arm and I took it with a nod when he asked, “Shall we?”

As we walked inside, hundreds of people surrounding us, I pointed out, “You seemed excited before.”

He didn’t look in my direction. “Keep walking Clove.”

“Fine.”

Three hours until midnight.

Our game plan ended up being to search for Levi first. Even though we had no idea of how he would be towards us, we hoped we could convince him of helping out in some way. We’d accept anything at this point.

Brooks had gotten a considerably recent picture of him as a reference point, and as we talked he agreed with me that the man was probably pushed to resign when his career was barely starting. That meant his annotations hadn’t been for safekeeping, but for research like ours; not something that would’ve been welcomed on the King’s cabinet.

It had taken us an hour of pacing around the party, pretending to be a couple talking about whatever, before I spotted Levi from afar and nudged Brooks. “Is that him?”

Brooks stopped looking around the room to focus on where I had pointed at, checking his picture for confirmation. “I think so. How do we approach him?”

I considering how the talk could go. “If he never agreed with the fixed raffle and all of that, maybe we’ll be able to ask him about it directly...or is that too risky?”

“How about we just try to make normal, honest conversation with him and then show him the journal to see how he reacts.”

“Fair enough. Do we wait until he’s a bit more caught up with the party or now?”

“No time like the present. Which one of us should go?”

“Shouldn’t we both go?”

“Right. Dynamic Duo.” He reached for my hand and walked us off to the white-haired man standing near the bar, calling out for him over the crowd, “Great party.”

The man took a swig of his beer. “It's alright.”

“Think you’ve done better before?” I grinned.

He shrugged. “It's too happy.”

Brooks spared the lively place a glance. “That's bad?”

“It's fake, son. Parties should be sad.”

What a jolly old man. He’d make a great Santa.

Brooks asked why he thought that only to get an even gloomier response after Levi finished his drink. “Then it would be reality. It's interesting to see people hide behind a holiday.”

I raised eyebrows at his view and exchanged glances with Brooks when he gave me a questioning look. “What a misfortune…” clearing my throat, I shifted, “Though I do agree what brings joy shouldn’t be a holiday, why bother hosting a party for something you consider unsatisfactory?”

“I don't consider it unsatisfactory, per se.”

“What do you consider it?” Brooks asked.

Levi stared at him before grabbing another drink from a tray. “None of your business.”

I tilted my head. “What would make it our business? It is merely the inquiry of an opinion.”

“You speak far too formally, young lady. Lighten up, will you.”

When Brooks laughed, I jabbed my elbow into his side, half-glaring as I muttered, “Sorry, it’s an old habit that comes and goes when I’m around people involved in politics.” It was a stupid habit I’d gotten when younger actually. Being around people that worked with my dad always put me on edge and I made dramatic word choices.

“I'm not in politics,” Levi argued.

Brooks raised an eyebrow. “Weren't you?”

Levi faced him. “Aren't you?”

What? “You think we’re politicians?”

“Not you, dear, but him,” he pointed his glass to Brooks, “Get a better disguise, princeling.”

We watched him walk away without another word.

“Well, I guess that was our mistake. I told you we should’ve waited until later tonight.”

He turned in my direction. “What difference would that have made?”

Ticking off fingers, I listed, “It might've been darker, he could've been more tired, more distracted and maybe even a little drunk.”

“He seemed pretty drunk already. We'll find him again, don't worry.”

I worried anyway. The best way to start the year would be by having another lead. Thankfully, he liked my suggestion of finding his office. We would need to take a look around to find it though.

“Hopefully, it won't be too crowded--” I began to say, eyes skimming over the space as I spoke. His office would be around a closed off area, a hallway further down the house that wouldn’t be too crowded during a party. As I scanned around, I made eye contact with a confused politician watching us with narrowed eyes. Sort of recognizing his face myself, I realized he could recognize us too if he got closer and kept staring, so I changed my sentence midway and pulled Brooks into the group of dancing people, “--on the dance floor!”

“Nice save, darling.”

Turns out you can cringe at yourself. “This was a horrible idea.”

I was not entirely unaware of Brooks’ hand playing with the back of my dress as we danced. Still, I told myself it must be a habit of his. Something he did whenever he danced with someone and didn’t notice. Part of me hoped that wasn’t true, however. “We'll be fine. But only if you let it.”

“I don’t have the best track record with parties…” Punched a guy once. Pushed someone into a plant when I noticed they were about to puke in another. There was also the time I threw a drink at Cooper when he was annoying. Brooks hadn’t been too wrong when he said I was kind of aggressive.

He held me relatively close as we danced, his head next to mine. “It's the afterparties for me.”

I laughed a bit at that, wondering if my breath brushed his ear as his own did mine. “You last all the way to the afterparties, do you?”

“I'm pretty successful at parties. No one bothers me and I can keep to myself. It's after then that things go wrong for me.”

“Hmm, why is that?”

“Don't mess with me.”

I frowned but clenched my jaw when I realized what he was talking about. The kiss had been after a party. “I see you were on a different page than me.” Not meeting his gaze, I found myself feeling upset. “You have no right to be mad at me.”

“I'm not mad at you, Clove.”

“Then?”

He hesitated. “We've already talked about this.”

“We did.” A mistake. I focused on his shoes. “But you're the one who brought it up right now. I thought you were joking.”

“I-I am,” he looked down too, “I always am.”

My voice turned small. “I hope not always.”

The look in his eyes was hard to read. I couldn't place what it was before he replaced the expression with a smile and joked, “Not always. I'm a pretty boring guy.”

I managed to smile back for a brief moment, but everything felt off. We were trying so hard to go back to normal. Time after time, we weren't succeeding... I didn’t plan on giving up if he didn’t either though, so I smiled again. “Hey, you're part of the British Scooby gang. That's worth something.”

“Right. Which part of the Scooby gang are you?”

I only thought about it for a moment, trying to remember the show. “Velma.”

“I'm shocked.”

“I want to be the one who figures out the mystery.” Maybe I will. “That was usually her.”

“No way, it was totally Fred.”

Cocking my head to the side, I considered it. “Well, actually, out of all the group, the two of them were the ones that usually put the clues together.”

“How fitting.”

My head unnecessarily pointed out Fred and Velma were only friends on the show. “Yeah...do you consider yourself to be Fred?”

“I think I'm more a Scrappy Doo,” he admitted with a laugh. “Shouldn't have been there in the first place.”

“How dare you say the talking dog wasn’t essential?” I laughed, rolling my eyes. “Just don’t forget we already established you were needed for this to work, unlike the talking dog. There can’t be a Mrs. Crooks without a Mr…” I trailed off, regretting the sentence with a blush. “Anyway, how long till midnight?”

He checked his watch. “It's almost 10. Wanna try our luck with Levi?”

“Almost two hours away.” I nodded in approval. “Alright. Maybe we should start with showing the journal first this time.”

He nodded back. “Have you seen him?”

I searched the faces in the room. “I bet he’ll be wherever the dark cloud of pessimism is going.”

Brooks made a pretty good guess. “Where's the bar?”

#//fics #//not a challenge #//crooks #//new year's #brooks tag #eloise tag

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newstfionline · 3 years

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Thursday, August 19, 2021

Fueled by winds, largest wildfire moves near California city (AP) A wildfire raged through a small Northern California forest town Tuesday, burning dozens of homes as dangerously dry and windy weather also continued to fuel other massive blazes and prompted the nation’s largest utility to begin shutting off power to 51,000 customers. The Caldor fire in the northern Sierra Nevada had burned an estimated 50 homes in and around Grizzly Flats, a town of about 1,200 people, fire officials said at a community meeting. To the north the Dixie Fire—the largest of some 100 active wildfires in more than a dozen Western states—was advancing toward Susanville, population about 18,000. Meanwhile, Pacific Gas & Electric announced it had begun shutting off power to some 51,000 customers in small portions of 18 northern counties to prevent winds from knocking down or fouling power lines and sparking new blazes.

Wet and unwelcome, Fred spawns twisters and flooding in US (AP) Tropical Storm Fred weakened to a depression and spawned several apparent tornadoes in Georgia and North Carolina on Tuesday as it dumped heavy rains into the Appalachian mountains along a path that could cause flash floods as far north as upstate New York. Fewer than 30,000 customers were without power in Florida and Georgia after the storm crashed ashore late Monday afternoon near Cape San Blas in the Florida Panhandle. Emergency crews were repairing downed power lines and clearing toppled trees in Fred’s aftermath. Some schools and colleges in Florida, Alabama and Georgia canceled Tuesday’s in-person classes due to the storm.

Injured in Haiti’s quake continue to show up at hospitals (AP) The problems in Haiti may be summed up by the public hospital in L’Asile, deep in a remote stretch of countryside in the nation’s southwest area. Here, a full four days after a powerful earthquake hit this region the hardest, people are still showing up from isolated villages with broken arms and legs. Hospital director Sonel Fevry said five such patients showed up Tuesday, the same day officials raised the disaster’s death toll by more than 500. Grinding poverty, poor roads and faith in natural medicine all conspire to make the problems worse. “We do what we can, remove the necrotized tissue and give them antibiotics and try to get them a splint,” Fevry said, adding that road access to the facility in the department of Nippes is difficult and not everyone can make it. On Tuesday night, Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency put the number of deaths from Saturday’s earthquake at 1,941. It also said 9,900 were injured. Officials said the magnitude 7.2 earthquake destroyed more than 7,000 homes and damaged nearly 5,000, leaving about 30,000 families homeless. Hospitals, schools, offices and churches also were demolished or badly damaged.

Wildfire raging near French Riviera kills 2, injures 27 (AP) A wildfire near the French Riviera killed two people and was burning out of control Wednesday in the forests of the popular region, fueled by wind and drought. Over 1,100 firefighters were battling the flames and thousands of tourists and locals were evacuated to safer areas. The fire started Monday evening 40 kilometers (24 miles) inland from the coastal resort of Saint-Tropez. Whipped up by powerful seasonal winds coming off the Mediterranean Sea, the fire had burned 7,000 hectares (17,300 acres) of forest by Wednesday morning, local officials said.

China’s drills (Foreign Policy) China conducted assault drills with warships, fighter jets, and anti-submarine aircraft close to Taiwan on Tuesday in response to what Beijing has called “provocations” threatening China’s sovereignty. Taiwan’s Defense Ministry has responded coolly, saying it “has a full grasp and has made a full assessment of the situation in the Taiwan Strait region, as well as related developments at sea and in the air, and is prepared for various responses.” The drills came after Washington approved a weapons sale to Taiwan in a deal valued at up to $750 million two weeks ago, and as Beijing has ramped up military activity around the island in recent months. In June, China’s air force flew 28 fighter jets into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, the largest daily incursion on record.

New Zealand’s first coronavirus case in six months sends country into lockdown (Washington Post) One coronavirus case. That’s all it took to send New Zealand into a three-day, nationwide lockdown late Tuesday as the country’s six-month streak without local transmission came to an end. Auckland, the largest city, where the new case was detected, is likely to be shut down for seven days. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she was ordering the country’s harshest shutdown in more than a year given the strong likelihood that the case was the more infectious delta variant, with genomic test results expected overnight. She appealed to New Zealanders not to go out unnecessarily.

Why Afghan Forces So Quickly Laid Down Their Arms (Politico) In the winter of 1989, as a journalist for the Times of London, I accompanied a group of mujahedeen fighters in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province. At one point, a fortified military post became visible on the other side of a valley. As we got closer, the flag flying above it also became visible—the flag of the Afghan Communist state, which the mujahedeen were fighting to overthrow. “Isn’t that a government post?” I asked my interpreter. “Yes,” he replied. “Can’t they see us?” I asked. “Yes,” he replied. “Shouldn’t we hide?” I squeaked. “No, no, don’t worry,” he replied reassuringly. “We have an arrangement.” I remembered this episode three years later, when the Communist state eventually fell to the mujahedeen; six years later, as the Taliban swept across much of Afghanistan; and again this week, as the country collapses in the face of another Taliban assault. Such “arrangements”—in which opposing factions agree not to fight, or even to trade soldiers in exchange for safe passage—are critical to understanding why the Afghan army today has collapsed so quickly (and, for the most part, without violence). The same was true when the Communist state collapsed in 1992, and the practice persisted in many places as the Taliban advanced later in the 1990s. Over the past 20 years, U.S. military and intelligence services have generally either not understood or chosen to ignore this dynamic. That the U.S. government could not foresee—or, perhaps, refused to admit—that beleaguered Afghan forces would continue a long-standing practice of cutting deals with the Taliban illustrates precisely the same naivete with which America has prosecuted the Afghanistan war for years.

Russia says Afghan president fled with cars and helicopter full of cash (Reuters) Russia’s embassy in Kabul said on Monday that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had fled the country with four cars and a helicopter full of cash and had to leave some money behind as it would not all fit in, the RIA news agency reported. Ghani, whose current whereabouts are unknown, said he left Afghanistan on Sunday as the Taliban entered Kabul virtually unopposed. He said he wanted to avoid bloodshed. “As for the collapse of the (outgoing) regime, it is most eloquently characterised by the way Ghani fled Afghanistan,” Nikita Ishchenko, a spokesman for the Russian embassy in Kabul, was quoted as saying by RIA. “Four cars were full of money, they tried to stuff another part of the money into a helicopter, but not all of it fit. And some of the money was left lying on the tarmac,” he was quoted as saying.

Gorbachev, leader who pulled Soviets from Afghanistan, says U.S. campaign was doomed from start (Reuters) Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader who oversaw the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989 after Moscow’s failed decade-long campaign there, said on Tuesday that NATO’s own deployment to the country had been doomed from the start. Gorbachev was cited by Russia’s RIA news agency as saying that NATO and the Americans had no chance of success and had badly mishandled their own Afghan campaign. “They (NATO and the United States) should have admitted failure earlier. The important thing now is to draw the lessons from what happened and make sure that similar mistakes are not repeated,” Gorbachev told RIA. “Like many other similar projects at its heart lay the exaggeration of a threat and poorly defined geopolitical ideas. To that were added unrealistic attempts to democratize a society made up of many tribes.”

Regional Powers Assess a New Afghanistan (Foreign Policy) As the United States continues to mount an evacuation effort from Afghanistan, not all foreigners are headed for the exits, as regional powers begin to assess their positions as the country comes under a new regime. No immediate bonanza awaits Afghanistan’s prospective partners. It remains one of the poorest countries in the world. A country that relies on international aid for 80 percent of its budget is unlikely to have much to trade with, and dreams of unlocking Afghanistan’s rare-earth deposits will depend heavily on stabilizing the war-torn nation. China, Iran, and Russia, who have been engaged in public diplomacy with Taliban leaders for years, are staying put. With most of China’s investments elsewhere in Central and South Asia, concerns about security will likely remain front and center for Beijing. “Chinese investment there is likely to be short-term and easily pulled out in the likely event of further instability,” Azeem Ibrahim writes in Foreign Policy. Russia shares China’s concerns about instability. Just as China will not want the Taliban harboring ethnic Uyghur groups, any support for Islamist movements in its backyard would be unacceptable for Moscow. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi welcomed the Taliban victory as an “opportunity to restore life, security and durable peace in Afghanistan.” Iran has promised to temporarily accommodate those fleeing Afghanistan, although with an estimated 2.8 million Afghans already there and with a crippled economy, it’s not clear how many more refugees Iran could support, or would want to support. Pakistan’s leaders have not disguised their glee at the Afghan government’s dissolution as Prime Minister Imran Khan praised the Afghan people for breaking “the shackles of slavery.” Still, like in Iran, one immediate effect of the Taliban’s ascent will likely be a refugee exodus, with Pakistan expected to remain the number one destination.

Withdrawal from Afghanistan forces allies and adversaries to reconsider America’s global role (Washington Post) President Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan has triggered a globe-spanning rethink of America’s role in the world, as European allies discuss their need to play a bigger part in security matters and Russia and China consider how to promote their interests in a Taliban-led Afghanistan. Biden’s defiant address to the nation on Monday, when he stood “squarely” behind his decision to pull out U.S. troops, also renewed one of the most hotly contested debates of the post-9/11 era: Would a withdrawal from Afghanistan convey weakness, provoke aggression and shatter America’s ability to lead on the international stage, or would it reflect a sound realignment of the national interest, put the country on better footing to deal with the new challenges of the 21st century, and clarify to allies and adversaries what the United States is and is not willing to expend resources on? In the European Union, which held an emergency session of foreign ministers on Afghanistan on Tuesday, officials offered rare criticism of Washington for risking a flood of refugees to their borders and the return of a platform for terrorism in Central Asia. In China, where the U.S. withdrawal is seen as creating both risks and opportunity, Foreign Minister Wang Yi told U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a phone call that the rapid departure of U.S. troops caused a ”severely adverse impact.” Russia, which has long-established ties to the Taliban but does not officially recognize it, praised the group on Monday. “The situation is peaceful and good and everything has calmed down in the city. The situation in Kabul now under the Taliban is better than it was under [President] Ashraf Ghani,” said Dmitry Zhirnov, the Russian ambassador to Afghanistan.

#headlines #news

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black-wolf066 · 7 years

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Well, You Do Have My Chin

Update: OMG!!! MY TIRED 36 HOUR LACK OF SLEEP BRAIN ACCIDENTLY DELETED THE STORY I POSTED THIS MORNING!!! I meant to hit edit, and apparently I hit delete and when it gave me the prompt to hit yes or no, my tired brain that it said “would you like to edit: yes or no”.... so here goes round two... so sorry guys. I wanted to add that i have this on Fanfiction.net now too (under my account Wolf-shadow666) but I just curfunkled everything... ANYWAY underneath is pretty much the post that got deleted... thankfully i save everything on document...

First off, let me just say. I’M ALIVE!!! It is now 8am in the morning, I’ve been working on the better part of this little shit that wouldn’t leave me alone i mean piece since 9pm last night…. i have TO GO TO WORK IN AN HOUR!!! HELP ME!!!!! *flails all over the place* I swear i can adult right sometimes… just not today apparently…. keep this in mind as you’re reading cause even though I’ve proof read this thrice, I’m sure some (or many) things have escaped my brain’s notice.

anyway….

Here is the comment that inspired me to write this one-shot:

@timetravelingpotatoast said:

All I really want from this season is for Killian and Henry to become good friends and talk about Lucy’s “conspiracy” only for Killian to ask who she thinks he is. However, somewhere in the translation it’s lost that Killian is his step-dad, so Henry just says his dad, leading to a “well you do have my chin,” commentary from Killian.

When the curse breaks they just squint at each other for a really long time.

Now, for the sake of the prompt, this is gonna be very heavily AU from season 7. This is by no means a “fix-it fic” because I really am enjoying season 7; I’m only writing this because I really wanted to see something like this be a thing after reading the comment. I absolutely love father/son bonding fics between Killian and Henry and I need more of it in my life… (Seriously there aren’t enough Captain Cobra centered fics to satisfy my craving for it). And I know that I said “I wish I was creative enough to contribute to the fandom of Once Upon a Time”, but after posting my last little snippet; I figured “what the hell I’m gonna do it anyway” because that’s what fandom is (I still feel like I suck terribly but *shrug* if you’re having fun doing it than screw being good at it, right?). (((Also something that should have been maybe 2000 words or less, ended up running away from me toward 4000 (my brain projecting my need for more Captain Cobra moments I guess)… I realize a lot of it is probably considered filler and I could have done away with it, but I kinda wanted to build that relationship between cursed Killian and Henry much like the relationship between Snow White and Emma in season 1)))).

Anyway, here’s a bit of backstory that I came up with for the AU universe of this fic…. If you don’t care and simply just want to read the story, than you can simply scroll down to the Continue reading link:

So in this AU, I’ve pretty much figured that Rumple, Killian, Regina and Emma came to save the day for Henry (Henry may have asked for Killian, Regina and Emma, but the three probably went to Rumple for help or something and Belle urged him to go). I’m thinking the timeline in the realm Henry is in moves faster than the timeline that is Storybrooke, so Henry might be 25 and not 18, but to the rest of his family only 1 year has passed since Henry left in search of his own story((((wondering if this is actually canon considering how shocked they were at seeing him so grown and I don’t believe for a single second that it took Emma and Killian that long to have a baby)))). Emma wasn’t pregnant at the time but eventually as they all stay and help the resistance against Tremaine and Drizella (after finding a way to send word back home that everything and everyone is alright and that they’re staying to help… maybe Rumple being pushed by Belle to stay and help them too), she and Killian end up having twins, and barely a year later Henry has his own kid with Ella. When the curse comes and separates them all, the curse spans the whole state of Washington (Tremaine or Drizella wanting to separate as many of them as they could and not keep them all in the same place… especially the true love couples. But they didn’t bank on Lucy remembering or Rumple finding a loop hole so he didn’t get cursed along with everyone else), so HH is the main hive so to speak but the fairy-tale characters are scattered across other cities and towns. Emma is off in one city (maybe Walla Walla), their twin daughters are in a group home in another city, Henry lived somewhere in Olympia (which is close enough to Seattle and HH), Robin (because I need Regina to be happy damn it! And I figure maybe they found that his soul wasn’t destroyed but simply stuck in the crystal, even across all alternate versions of said crystal in any realm, so he ends up getting freed) is also scattered somewhere, and Rumple, Killian, Regina, Ella and Lucy remained in HH where Tremaine and/or Drizella could keep an eye on them and make their lives a living hell. When Lucy finds Henry, and Jacinda steals his car (much like in the show and what not), he decides to stay at a motel for a week, finding the place interesting (and spurring a bit of creativity that he hadn’t felt since his failed first book) and eventually that week turns into him finding an actual place to stay once he gets to know the people in the neighborhood (made hard by the outrageous prices being asked). When Detective Rogers hears about his search, he offers to turn his den/office into a spare room (the only reason Regina/Roni didn’t offer is because she lives in a small studio apartment above the bar with the only closed room being a bathroom)…. Eventually Rumple as Weaver manages to get everyone back into the neighborhood (((he was the one to give Lucy the book. He was the one to find and bring back the cursed versions of Robin—Kevin Adams, who is a struggling lawyer that ends up helping Jacinda, by Rumple/Weaver’s prompting, get custody of Lucy back—and Emma—Danielle “Dani” Stevens, who was a sketch artist for Walla Walla police department. He was also the one to find which group home the twins were staying in and try to adopt them, since he wasn’t sure how long it would take to break the curse, and he didn’t want them staying there… Rumple and Killian might be civil borderline grey area friends, but he likes the twins and it’ll get them back to their family that much quicker once the curse is broken if he does it like this…)))) and the curse gets broken the same as in season 1 with Henry and Lucy (cause I’m unoriginal and my brain can’t think of anything else right now) ((((That should be enough of a background right? I don’t know… I’m terrible at this… don’t question the plot holes too much okay? You might get sucked into its black hole…))))

(((I looked at apartment averages in Seattle as a guideline (got rid of link since it wasn’t working)… and even though almost 3000 is very high for a one-bedroom apartment that Henry was looking for; I figured that Tremaine and Drizella were trying to weed out the people in the neighborhood slowly so they could bulldoze and improve and bring forth a ‘richer’ environment and a “richer” culture of people to surround themselves with, therefore causing more suffering and separation for those cursed and gaining something else for themselves….))))

((also when it comes to ages, I’m probably way off from canon, but these are my head canon ages for them here so… Emma was 28 at the start of season 1; Killian was 29, Regina 32. Adding 9 years considering Henry left at 18 and only a year passed in Storybrooke whereas 7 years passed where Henry was, that would make them 37, 38, and 41. With another 11ish to 12ish years they are now 48, 49, and 52 with Henry being 37ish.

tagging @superchocovian since she kindly asked me to (hope you enjoy it!!!)

Anyway, without farther ado, i give you this Captain Cobra one-shot in all it’s (step)father/son bonding glory!

Well, You do have my chin

Word count: 4203

Rating: pg-13 for my potty mouth

The din of Roni’s bar was oddly relaxing to Henry as he searched on his laptop for available apartments to move into, but after another site herald the same results, he sighed, closed the screen, and dropped his head into the crook of his arm. Was it too much to ask for a place within his price range? Hell, he was sure he could find something cheaper in the heart of Seattle than he could here.

But no, he stubbornly wanted to stay in this part of the neighborhood. There was something about Hyperion Heights, something that spoke to him, and not just Lucy’s crazy theory that his book was real and they were all fairytale characters scattered across the state (never mind the even crazier theory that he was her father—there was no way he could ever forget meeting a beautiful girl like Jacinda or be stupid enough not to fight for more than a one night stand with said woman).

The scraping of a chair across from him brought Henry’s attention up to that of the arrival of Detective Logan Rogers. The cop’s eyebrow was raised at him in silent question and concern as he sat down and nabbed the untouched bear claw from his plate.

“Bad day?” he asked finally with a tilt of his head as Roni approached with his usual beer.

When Henry still didn’t move to answer, simply groaning and hiding his face back in the crook of his arm, Roni supplied. “He’s looking for places to stay… and failing by the looks of it.”

“The asking prices are outrageous! How do you guys survive here?” he griped into his arm.

Roni snorted and Henry peeked up at her with a perturbed eyebrow raised. “You’ve seen the state of the neighborhood and the state of my bar before I decided to fight back. Isn’t that answer enough for you?”

“What’s your budget?” Logan cut in with his query before Henry could snark back and start an argument with the ornery bartender.

“Well,” Henry’s eyes shifted to him just as the older man took a bite out of the pilfered pastry. “With Seattle, I kind of figured I’d be lucky to find something for twenty-two hundred, but there is no way I’m paying almost three thousand for a place that’s barely in the city’s limits.”

“Welcome to the land of Belfrey greed.” chimed Roni as she walked back to tend the bar and the new arrival of customers.

Henry scowled un-amusedly at her back as she went.

“I have space,”

Startled, Henry gazed, wide eyed, back at the Detective. “What?”

“Well, it’s not really a ‘room’, but the den can easily be turned into one.” Logan continued, his good hand going up to scratch nervously behind his ear.

“Wha—Why?” Tilting his head and narrowing his eyes, Henry pressed on. “I know the three of us are ‘kinda’ working together, but we barely know each other. Hell, for all you know I could be a serial killer.” at Logan’s snort and raised brow, Henry rolled his eyes and said defensively. “Shut up, you know what I mean.”

“I trust you.” Logan relented simply with a shrug of his shoulders. “Besides, I have a gun I’m not afraid to use, and you look to be out of options, mate.”

Still eyeing the older man with suspicion, not used to blatantly kind gestures from others, he asked. “Can I swing by to look at your place before I decide?”

“Of course.” taking a swig of his beer, Logan gestured with his head to the closed laptop. “Now, what was it you wanted to show me?”

(***)

Walking into the apartment after Logan, Henry took in the sparsely decorated living space with a familiar pang beating against his chest. It was neat and orderly, everything he considered the detective to be, even after a week of working covertly with him and Roni. But seeing it so bare, devoid of… well, devoid of life and personality; it all just resonated with him. There wasn’t even a single picture or photo on the walls or table tops (Henry knows there are photos of Logan out there. He’s seen the pictures Roni hangs proudly on the walls of her establishment, knows that the picture of Logan and Roni—two best friends, he’s come to learn, that grew up together in the neighborhood—has a special place right behind the bar where she works). There was nothing, other than the books neatly tucked into a shelf, to give Henry a glimpse into what made this man Logan Rogers.

Walking through the 900 square foot space, he knew it wasn’t just the home of a bachelor; it was the home of someone who was just as lost as Henry himself felt. A space made entirely out of necessity rather than be made to feel like an actual home. It reminded him of his years after the foster system, before he had met his late wife, where he had had nothing of that old life worth keeping. Anything he had gained afterwards had been destroyed by the fire that took his wife and daughter three years ago, and after that he had just never bothered to start over (it wouldn’t bring them back and honestly they were all Henry wanted, not materialistic things).

As Logan led him through the kitchen toward the open den, Henry wondered what kind of past the man must have had, wondered if he too was an orphan looking for a place to belong.

“Here it is.” Logan stated with a flourish of his hand and ultimately cutting Henry out of his thoughts.

His eyes roved over the small space, at the neat and tidy desk underneath the window and the wall lined with more bookshelves and books and a single three-drawer filing cabinet.

“Sorry, I know it’s not much… doesn’t even have a door.”

Henry’s eyes cut to the older man just as he saw his good hand go to scratch behind his ear (a nervous tick he’d come to realize early on in the week). “No, it’s perfect,” He reassured as he walked around the opened room; envisioning where his stuff would fit. “I don’t really need that much space anyway.” he moved back to the opened archway and gave the man a small smile. “And privacy can be fixed with a curtain,”

“Does that mean you accept my offer?”

“If you don’t mind me for a roommate, than yeah, I’ll take it.”

(***)

A little over one month since his move into the neighborhood, and not once did Henry regret his decision (well, maybe a little; after all, Victoria Belfrey and her daughter are a force to be reckoned with… and good god did those two give him a headache sometimes). He genuinely liked it here; he liked most of the quirky people and he could clearly see why the neighborhood was worth trying to save. He also found rooming with Logan to be better than he originally expected. Sure they had their moments (like the kitchen incident that nearly gave the detective an aneurysm, or how scarily grumpy Logan could get when he’s had a bad day at the station), but their camaraderie was easy going between them, and for once after three years, Henry felt like he had a true friend again.

It was because of this easy camaraderie that Henry and Logan, one Saturday morning, found themselves planning a Star Wars marathon and arguing over the order in which to watch it (“They’re my movies, Rogers!” “And it’s my TV, Mills.”).

Somehow Henry won the argument, which found Logan sitting on the couch with the large popcorn bowl settled on the middle cushion and a beer in his hand, while Henry squatted down in front of their combined movie collection to find the first disk.

As he skimmed the neatly ordered DVDs for the one he wanted, his finger froze on a particular title and could barely contain the Cheshire cat grin as he pulled it out and pivoted to face the detective.

“The Princess Bride: Special Edition.”

Logan scowled and pointed his finger at him as he defended. “Shove off, mate, it’s a good book and a good movie; leave it alone.”

The grin on Henry’s face turned impish as he pivoted back and added as he went, “As you wish.”

The couch pillow thrown at his back did nothing to curb his mirth.

(***)

It was almost three months after his move to Hyperion Heights, that Henry managed to work the nerve enough (more like getting the quadrant that was Roni, Logan, Sabine and Lucy to shut up, and to stop hounding him to try and move on and be happy) to ask Jacinda on a date.

Glancing at himself in the hallway mirror, and trying to ignore the grinning idiot leaning against the wall a few paces behind him; he felt the bubbling of nerves roiling in his stomach as he finally turned to face his roommate.

“You’ll be fine,” Logan soothed with the utmost confidence. “You didn’t have any problems when you were flirting with her, one date isn’t going to kill you, mate. Just be yourself.”

“Yeah, be myself.” Henry snorted and rubbed his sweating palms against his jean clad thighs. “Cause any girl would swoon at a failed writer, a widowed husband, and a nerd for all things 80’s, Star Wars, Harry Potter, or Tolkien related.”

“Henry,” Logan stepped forward than, placing his hand and prosthetic firmly on his shoulders as he earnestly stated. “You’ve told Jacinda all of this already and yet she still accepted to go to this concert with you. So cut yourself a little slack, give her a little more credit than that, and go out tonight and have fun.”

(***)

It was almost six months after his move, and during one of their covert meet ups at the bar, when Henry felt a little friendly revenge against Roni and Logan was in order (because dear god, if they didn’t stop and take their own damn advice, he was going to go crazy… or take Roni’s bat and beat himself or them with it… really, he wasn’t picky).

It hadn’t been long after his and Jacinda’s first—or even their second— date that Jacinda decided enough was enough and it was time to try and win custody of her daughter back from her step mother. Detective Weaver had recommended a Lawyer from Spokane, and ever since Kevin Adams stepped foot into Roni’s bar, the two had done nothing but snark at each other.

Within the same month, a missing person’s case had popped up that apparently Weaver thought required the work of a sketch artist from Walla Walla… or so Logan kept griping to him to no freaking end. Honestly, Henry thought Danielle (or Dani as she asked to be called) a rather nice woman, maybe a little too bubbly and Chatty Cathy at times, but if Logan was to be believed than she was the worst woman he had ever had the displeasure to work with.

Yeah… right…

Denial, she is a river, and both of them are currently drowning at the bottom of it.

“So,” He began innocently around a mouthful of pizza. “When are you both going to stop pussy-footing around and ask Dani and Kevin out?”

The soda Logan was drinking and the pizza Roni was currently chewing, both ended up spat out on the table and floor, and the word vomit that followed as they tried to deny it had Henry rolling his eyes so hard he was surprised that they didn’t just roll right out of his head.

“Uh-huh,” putting his slice back down on his plate, he folded his arms across his chest and stared them both down, feeling for all the world like the no nonsense father he should have been to the daughter that would have been thirteen now. “Guys, I’m not stupid… and the last I checked my vision was perfect, so not blind either.” He cut them off before they could rush to deny it any farther. “If I have to sit here and watch you two continue with this charade a moment longer, I will either be checking myself in somewhere or Detective Weaver will have not one but three missing person’s cases to contend with.”

They didn’t try to feed him any more bullshit after that, which he was grateful for, because seriously there was only so much a person can take.

And if he caught his roommate dressed (rather nicely) in a blue button up shirt, black iron pressed slacks, and trying to rush past him and out the door before Henry could say a word with a bouquet of pink and yellow roses in hand.

Well… he could only thank whatever deity listening for small miracles.

(***)

It’s at elven months since his move, that Henry felt for all the world a content man. Jacinda had won her battle against her step-mother, and Lucy had become a constant presence in the apartment, especially since he had offered to watch her after school while Jacinda worked. He loved Lucy and her precocious nature, found her imagination beyond incredible for an elven year old and even began to look forward to hearing her crazy theories about them being cursed.

Sometimes they would be alone, with him helping her with her homework and other times Logan would be there, smiling and humoring her and her theories like they all had agreed to do.

It was during one of these nights, after Jacinda and Lucy had eaten dinner with them and left, that Logan’s curiosity had gotten the better of him. They were in the kitchen, Henry washing the dishes while his roommate dried them, that Logan broke the comfortable silence.

“Who does she think I am?”

“Huh?” Henry glanced over with a brow raised.

“Lucy,” he elaborated. “With her theories, who does she think I am? She never tells me when I ask.”

Henry snorted out a chuckle as he handed over the plate and proceeded washing the next one while answering. “Captain Hook.”

“You’re kidding.” The dry look Henry gave him caused him to roll his eyes. “It’s the hand isn’t it?”

“Probably,” Henry shrugged. “Or it could be the fact that she thinks you’re my dad.”

“What?” Logan froze mid swipe with the towel and Henry could practically feel the man’s eyes burning his profile.

“Yeah, crazy, I know.”

“Mate, if she is to be believed and you are my son; I would have had you when I was 11…”

They both chuckled at that.

“Again, crazy, I know.”

They went back to the comfortable silence as they worked, but the occasional contemplative side eye he would catch Logan giving him in his peripheral as they cleaned up the rest of the kitchen, eventually had Henry turning to stare blatantly at the man’s profile with an eyebrow raised in question.

“Do I have barbeque sauce on my face or something?”

Startled, Logan shifted his attention away from the stove top he was wiping down, and met his eyes with that contemplative expression still in place.

“No, you’re fine.” He distractedly answered.

“Than what’s on your mind? And don’t tell me nothing; you’ve been staring at me off and on for the past five minutes?”

“I was just thinking.”

The other brow rose to meet its twin as he deadpanned. “Clearly,”

Logan rolled his eyes and elaborated. “I was thinking about what you said, about who Lucy thinks I am.”

“Logan, none of that is real.”

“No, I know that… but—now that it’s been said, I can’t help but see it. Hell, Henry you can’t tell me that you can’t see it, not even a little bit.”

Henry tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at him; his eyebrows practically at his hairline now.

“We do look a little alike, mate; long lost cousins or brothers or something. I mean you do kinda have my chin, our noses are almost similar and the brow structure too…” he trailed off.

With a snort, Henry joked. “You’ve been hanging out with Dani too much, you’re even starting to sound like a sketch artist.”

“Shut up,”

He dodged and caught the wet rag thrown at him, before tossing it back; both chuckling at the ridiculousness of it all as they finished up and moved to the couch to see what was on TV.

Expect, as the days and weeks progressed (and Weaver shockingly adopted two pre-teen girls from Aberdeen that looked eerily like Dani and Logan), Henry found that he couldn’t stop thinking about it too (no matter how hard he tried to shake the insane notion from his head each and every time it sprung back into the forefront of his thoughts).

He’d often catch himself staring at Logan when the older man was distracted and—illogically enough as it was—could practically see what the other man was talking about.

It was crazy.

It wasn’t conceivable.

But damn it all if Logan wasn’t right.

They did share the same freaking chin, and though his nose was a bit larger than Logan’s, it was the same freaking shape.

Maybe he needed to check himself in somewhere after all…

(***)

Sixteen months after moving to Hyperion Heights, the curse was broken.

It had been an emotionally exhausting week beforehand, with Lucy suddenly falling into a coma that the doctors couldn’t medically explain. Jacinda had rightfully been beside herself with worry, and all Henry could feel was the crushing feeling of losing another loved one… another child. It had been the very reason why he didn’t like opening up, didn’t like taking these leaps of faith when it came to his heart and feelings. Yet he had stupidly allowed himself to get close to all these people, and stupidly thought he could have a second chance at a family, but those dreams had gone up in flames the first time and now plummeted back down from the stars a second time with the flat lining of the heart monitor as Jacinda brokenly wailed her heartache.

He didn’t feel the hand of his roommate trying to console him as he numbly watched Jacinda break down in the waiting room they had been forcibly moved too when the doctors came swarming into the room. Didn’t hear the words being spoken as Jacinda fought and then bonelessly collapsed in Sabine and Roni’s arms; her wails gut wrenching and shredding his already scarred heart to pieces. The flood of his emotions and his own tears didn’t come until after the doctor told them that their precious, precocious little Lucy was truly and utterly gone, that the defibrillator failed to restart her heart.

It was Logan who caught him when his legs refused to hold his weight any longer, when the world suddenly came crushing down around him and nothing felt right anymore. And it was Logan who helped him into the chair; the warm presence of his roommates hand at the back of his neck guiding his head to lean on his broad shoulder. And he took the comfort and sobbed for all he was worth. Sobbed for the loss of the wife and daughter he had had to bare losing and moving on from all on his own, sobbed for Jacinda and how much she didn’t deserve to know the gut wrenching pain that losing a child brought, sobbed for Lucy who had been robbed of her own dreams, who had been robbed the chance to live and grow.

His heart hurt as he followed Jacinda into the room to say goodbye, the tears blurring his vision at seeing the white sheet lying over Lucy’s little body; so final in its position that it made him want to collapse all over again. But he couldn’t, he had to be strong for Jacinda as he was the one to hold her upright as they moved toward the bed.

Her sobs as she pulled back the sheet to view her daughters pale face tore at him even more, her words a broken, jumbled mess as she climbed onto the bed and wept onto her daughters unmoving chest.

Running on autopilot, Henry’s feet moved of their own accord; one hand going to Jacinda’s shaking back and the other to card the bangs off of Lucy’s forehead.

“I’m sorry Lucy, I’m so, so sorry.” He whispered as he leaned down and pressed his lips to her crown.

The whoosh of wind startled him and before he could right himself to wonder where it came from, the overwhelming flood of memories came next; slamming everything back into place and causing the air to deflate right out of his lungs. The watery, startled gasp from Ella (his wife, his true love) told him she remembered too, but it was the choked rush of life from his daughter, his daughter (his beautiful and very much alive little girl, his other true love), that was bloody music to his ears and heart.

“Papa? Mama?” she wheezed out as her eyes foggily and confusedly took them and her surroundings in.

“Baby!”

Everything was alright.

Everything in the world was right again.

(***)

The moment Lucy was cleared to leave; the overdue reunion of their family came afterwards. The battle was far from over; not with Tremaine and Drizella currently in hiding and no one knowing where they had run off too, but they were together again, and at the moment that was enough for them all as they celebrated at the bar that had been his adoptive mother’s home for the last eighteen months.

Henry had his wife and daughter back, his half-sisters, both his mothers, both his step-fathers and his grandfather. To say he was over the moon would have been an understatement as the din of fairytale characters and his family filled the industrial styled establishment.

It was all so overwhelming still that he had to take a seat at one of the tables; simply content to watch as he sipped at his beer. Killian soon joined him with his own glass, rum he was sure now that the man remembered who he was, and the thought of step-fathers in general had his mind venturing to their conversation once again.

It must have been on Killian’s mind as well because before either knew what they were truly doing, they were starting at one another, eyes narrowed and the rim of their drinks to their lips as they tried to see what apparently their cursed selves had been able to see.

“Man, I hope this is the last curse we ever have to face. I’ve lost count at how many cursed memories we’ve had forced into our heads at this point.” Emma groaned, yet her arrival didn’t completely break their staring contest as she dropped into the chair next to Killian; her eyes not yet looking at either of them but at her daughters who were laughing along with Lucy near the corner of the bar. She blindly but efficiently snatched her husband’s glass out of his hand and downed the last shot of the dark amber that was left as she continued. “Seriously though, can you imagine the identity crisis we’ll have in our old age if we get Alzheimer’s?” Finally glancing over at them, and realizing she had neither her son nor her husband’s attention, she raised an eyebrow and asked with trepidation. “What’s up with you two? Is everything alright?”

“Yeah love,” Killian briefly met Emma’s eyes, before he was squinting back at Henry as he continued. “Apparently while cursed, and thanks to our lovely granddaughter, the two of us got it into our heads that we were blood related; something about seeing similarities in our features and what have you.”

Blinking once than twice, Emma’s eyes bounced from one to the other, before she was tilting her head and squinting at them as well. Satisfied with what she saw, she nodded to herself, shrugged, and stated. “I can see it, especially when you wear your hair like this and stop shaving.” She grinned and chuckled and leaned forward to ruffle her son’s gel slicked hair, which Henry swatted away with a scowl as he tried to fix it back into place.

However her statement only proceeded to have them squint even harder at each other, and Emma could do nothing more than laugh at her first two goofy true loves.

As the celebrations began to die down and people started heading home, Henry and Killian simply shrugged and let it go as they hugged each other goodbye for the night (each having every intention of spending this night with their loved ones).

“Well,” Killian began softly. “Blood related or not, you’re still my son Henry; always have been, my boy.”

The smile that stretched Henry’s face, nearly threatened to split his skin from ear to ear as he replied just as softly but no less sincerely. “Thanks, dad.”

And if they hugged each other just a little tighter and their eyes shone just a little brighter with emotion, no one that witnessed the moment commented on it.

#captain cobra #captain swan #henry x cinderella #glass believer #hooked queen friendship #outlaw queen #once upon a time #ouat s7 AU #ouat ff #once upon a time fanfiction #my fanfiction

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theonceoverthinker · 6 years

Text

One Call Away, But Realms Apart (Regal Believer)

Summary: Regina’s been none too happy ever since she was awoken from her personal curse, but as she hears her cursed son talk about his dying daughter, it’s enough to nearly tip Regina over the edge of despair. Deleted scene from 7X10 when Regina calls Henry to check in on him just before she and Zelena go back to HH. Not really angsty per se, but hopefully pretty feelsy.

A/N: This was really freakin’ fun to work on, and got me out of my writer’s rut! Hope you all enjoy it too!

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Zelena had told Regina to wait until after dinner to call Henry. She argued, quite validly, that Henry’s flight would take a few hours and he’d need time with Jacinda and Lucy.

Because of that, Regina waited, and the two of them had dinner together in Zelena’s apartment. Their meal, had it not been overshadowed by the weight of their situation, might have been much sweeter than it had been allowed to be. Zelena had insisted on eating pizza, moaning about her desire for a reunion with carbs and grease, and that couple with further details about her sister’s cursed lifestyle were enough to make Regina produce at least a couple of genuine smiles. They spent the time while finishing off the pie talking about their time under the curse. Regina almost got covered in tomato sauce when she told her sister that Hook had become an Eagle Scout of a detective who was now gallivanting around town with Rumpelstiltskin.

However, as nice as it was to reconnect with Zelena after all this time, the hours passed as slowly as a snail’s trip up a windy hill. Regina had made a habit of looking at her watch whenever there was any kind of silence between them, and sometimes, even if there wasn’t one. She was sure that Zelena had picked up on what she was doing, but she didn’t say anything. If Regina had the heart for it, she would’ve laughed. Time had ingrained her sister with sentiment and empathy the likes of which she would have scoffed at when they first met.

Following dinner, Zelena asked to take a look at Regina’s car, wanting to know how much space she’d have for her things before she started packing. Regina obliged, and a few minutes later, they were outside her building. Zelena had a quick look around the car, nodded, and then turned to Regina.

“I’m going to go ready my stuff,” she said. “Have a feeling I’m going to be gone for quite a while.” Zelena then pat Regina on her shoulder and gave her a sad smile. “Go talk to Henry.”

Regina, despite her longing to do just that, stayed put and bit her lip in hesitation.

“Do you think enough time has passed?” She asked.

Zelena nodded. “I do. And in the highly unlikely chance I’m wrong,” she added, grinning, “he’ll let you know. Now go and call him. I’ve a lot to pack.” With that, Zelena headed back into her apartment. Regina, deciding not to wait another moment longer, plugged in Henry’s name into her smartphone and clicked the call button.

One ring passed, then two, then three. Regina’s heart started to sink, dreading the familiar sound of her son’s voicemail, when suddenly, he picked up.

“Henry?” Regina said, her voice a touch hitched despite her best efforts.

“Hey, Roni.” It was odd to Regina just how odd her cursed name had sounded to her ears after a only a few hours of answering to her real name. She made a mental note to have Zelena practice saying her cursed name in the car until it was natural. For now though, Regina brushed aside her awkwardness and went straight to the point.

“How’s Lucy?”

“She the same,” Henry answered, so quietly that Regina almost didn’t hear him. Regina had asked that question knowing how Henry would likely respond, but nothing could prepare her for how miserable the words sounded as they came out his mouth. Regina felt her heart plumett down her chest in a way it hadn’t in so long.

“Henry, I,” Regina started, but stopped just as quickly. She chided herself for nearly telling him that she understood what he was going through. She knew that that choice of words would at best come off as an empty platitude and at worst result in icy words getting thrown back in her direction, for how could she explain that less than twenty years ago, she was in a similar situation?

Regina sighed, and worked out another phrasing of her sentiments.

“Henry, I’m so sorry,” she rectified, her voice low.

“Jacinda and I haven’t left the room in hours. Right now, she’s passed out on a chair by Lucy’s bed. She’s exhausted. Probably has been up for a whole day by now.”

There was a pause, as if both of them were trying to figure out what next to say.

“I read to her,” Henry eventually continued. “Jacinda thought it would be a good idea.” Regina smiled. It was such a Henry thing to do to read to someone in distress, even if Jacinda had ultimately motivated him to do it. She could even picture it. Henry always had the perfect reading voice.

“That-that’s good. Did she respond to it at all?” For a moment, Regina had something that she had sorely lacked from the moment she had awoken from this most recent curse: hope.

“No,” Henry sighed. Over the line, Regina could hear Henry’s breath quicken up. Every inhale and exhale was audible and rapid, only grower moreso as the seconds passed. Regina leaned against the outer wall of her sister’s apartment building. She once again knew that the answer to the question she was about to ask would only lead to pain, and right now, with Henry’s knowledge of their true relationship gone and without any way of giving him the comfort she knew he desperately needed, Regina felt herself needing some semblance of support.

“Henry, are you okay?”

“Roni, I tried bringing her back, just like in my book.” Regina stifled a sob as she heard a crack in his voice, one that only grew as he spoke. “You remember the part where Emma broke the curse, right? I kissed her on the forehead, just like in that scene. But it didn’t work. I-I don’t know why I tried it, but as I leaned in - I don’t know - I just thought it would wake her up! I actually believed that I was her father, and I could stop all of this. I don’t even know what to think! Am I going insane?” At this point, Regina was biting her tongue, a last resort to stay the tears that were pouring down her face like a ruptured pipe so that they wouldn’t become outright sobs. On the other end of the line, while she couldn’t see them, she swore Henry was shedding tears of his own.

Regina took a deep and shaky breath, knowing she’d need to speak.

“Henry,” she said, as soberly as she could. “You’re not crazy, do you hear me?” She could hear Henry chuckle, not bitterly, but sadly.

“I’m starting to think I just might be,” Henry countered.

“Well, I’m here to tell you that you’re not.” Regina attributed her emphasis on that point to come down to a few things, not the least of which being guilt for cardinal sin of claiming the opposite all those years ago. “You care about this girl and you had hope, and there is nothing wrong with that.” Her voice was loud and firm now, far more than Regina probably should have allowed it to be. “So you took a chance.”

“And a fat lotta good it did,” Henry commented.

“It’s a start,” Regina encouraged, her voice now firm and unshaken. “Henry, I promise you: Lucy’s going to be okay, and the two of you are going to be happy. Now, Kelly and I are heading back to the city tonight, and we’ll be at the hospital the first thing tomorrow, but until that happens, I’m going to need you to promise me two things.”

“Two?” Henry scoffed.

“Yes, two,” Regina insisted. “First, you’re to take care of yourself. Get some coffee and food in your system. You’ll be no good to anyone if you can barely fight off your stomach. Don’t forget: I know how you are with those donuts you bring in and the pretzels I leave out at the bar.”

“Okay,” Henry answered, clearly convinced. “What’s the second promise?”

Regina took another deep breath. This promise she confessed that she hadn’t thought out fully, but concluded that it was harmless enough. It was mostly for her peace of mind, because as it stood, her son’s state scared her just a bit.

“You’re to stay with Jacinda. Henry, she needs you now, and Lucy does too. So however sorry for yourself you’re feeling, you’re going to have to hold out just a little longer.”

Another chuckle could be heard through the speaker of Regina’s phone.

“You don’t even need to ask me to do that, Roni.”

Despite everything that would happen and everything that was sure to come, Regina smiled.

“You’re a good man, Henry Mills, and I’m so proud of you.” She knew what she had said may have come off a touch too motherly, and might even hold the risk of confusing Henry, but of all the things that she really wanted to say, this was the closest to the motivating words of a friend that she could come up with.

Thankfully, nothing that she said had seemed off putting in the slightest.

“Thanks, Roni. I’m glad I have you around. I’m pretty sure I’d actually go insane if I didn’t. Well, you and Kelly have a long drive, so I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Good night, Henry.” Honestly, had she not had the pressing need to drive through hours of traffic and darkness with her eccentric sister, she would have gladly stayed on with him all night if he wanted to. That said, she knew what they both needed to do, and an evening on the phone, no matter how comforting it would be to just talk to him and make him feel better as best as she cold, would do more harm than good for their purposes. So, with a heavy heart, Regina pressed the red button on her phone’s touch screen, and brought their phone call to an end.

Regina despite every bit of somberness she wanted to sulk in, refused to let herself succumb to the darkness. Just as she’d said to Henry, she’d find a way to for he and Lucy to get their happy ending, no matter the cost.

As Regina approached her sister, ready to talk once more of strategies and information, she gritted her teeth with determination.

It was show time.

#ouat #regal believer #regina #henry mils #ouat spoilers #roni #zelena #my fanfiction

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