______
"It's A Really Scary Thing, Having Your Dreams Come True
And Seeing Everything You Ever Wanted Happen
Getting The Attention For It
And Then Not Knowing How To Handle It Properly."
______
Mary Margaret entered Granny's at the same time that Angie had taken a hefty bite of a baklava. Emma had the newspaper open, but placed it on the table when she noticed Mary Margaret. "Excuse me." Mary Margaret cleared her throat. "Can I have everyone's attention please?" Everyone glanced up at her, most with disdain. Mary Margaret continued. "I'm sorry to interrupt your morning but I just wanted to remind everyone that a very special occasion is upon us. Miner's Day. As always the nuns of Storybrooke are hoping that everyone will get involved and will help sell their exquisite candles. All we need are a few energetic volunteers. So who wants to join me?"
There was no response. Everyone went back to what they were doing. Mary Margaret sighed in sadness. Ever since the town found out about David's affair with Mary Margaret, no one had looked at her the same way they used to. Angie watched as Leroy headed up to Mary Margaret. Mary Margaret perked up a little. "Leroy, you want to volunteer?"
"I wanna leave, sister. You're blocking the door."
They exchanged a few more words before Leroy left. Mary Margaret exited after him. Emma looked at Angie and nodded at the door, before she got up to go after Mary Margaret. Angie stuffed the rest of the baklava in her mouth before grabbing her purse and following.
Emma reached Mary Margaret first and slowed down to walk with her. "So, what the hell is Miner's Day and why are you beating yourself up over it?"
"It's an annual holiday celebrating an old tradition. The nuns used to make candles and trade them with the miners for coal."
"Coal? In Maine? If they were mining lobster I'd understand," Emma remarked as Angie finally caught up. She swallowed her baklava before answering Emma's question.
"They use it as a fundraiser now. It's an amazing party. Everyone loves it."
"It doesn't seem like everyone loves it," Emma remarked.
Mary Margaret sighed. "It's not Miners Day-it's me. Last week I had 10 volunteers. This week they all dropped out."
Angie furrowed her brows. "You think this is because of David?"
"Oh, I know it is. A few of them told me as much. I've never...been a homewrecker before."
Angie clasped her hand around the coin in her pocket. "Listen May, don't waste tears on David. He's not a real man. A real man would binge watch Jeopardy with you, read your favorite book series, not make you pay for dinner, not hesitate to play the scratch cards game with you, and would sing a duet of Shallow from A Star Is Born with you. He only checked one of those boxes."
Mary Margaret raised her eyebrows. "For someone who is content with being alone, you have very high standards."
"What's the scratch cards game?" Emma wondered.
Before Angie could answer, Emma's phone rang. "Sheriff Swan. Yeah, I'll be right down." She hung up the call and turned to Angie. "Duty calls."
Angie leaned over to Mary Margaret and gave her a bear hug. "Love you, May."
"Glad to know someone does," Mary Margaret said as she returned the hug. "Love you too."
Emma started to walk towards the car and Angie moved to follow. However, pink glitter fell from the sky and covered her. Angie coughed. She was pretty sure that she'd swallowed some of the sparkles.
"Sorry!" a worker called from the lamppost he was decorating.
Angie didn't care too much about the glitter. What she cared about was the strange thing that happened after the glitter fell. Angie felt a short rush of images grace her mind. A golden crown. Pink dust. A green flash. Vines. The images were gone as soon as they had arrived. Angie felt heat creep up her spine as she tried to process what just happened
"Angie?" Emma called, having doubled back to check on her. "You okay?"
Angie blinked a few times and brushed the glitter off of herself. It seemed as if she had some type of flashback. "Yeah. Can you take this for now? I need to go somewhere."
–
53 days. That's how long the curse was in effect until Lilith started to feel strange about the whole situation. When she woke up, everything was too quiet. She had to make her food herself, as there were no people to sell ingredients to her. It also got a little lonely in the castle. Lilith normally wouldn't mind being alone, but she had gotten used to Rumplestiltskin's company. Even though she had poisoned him, slashed him with a fireplace poker, tied him up, and stuck him in a deal that benefitted her only, she cared about him.
Lilith had thought that getting her revenge would make her feel better. But now, she didn't know how to feel. She had done it. She should be happy. Yet here she was, questioning if she should take her curse back.
Lilith sat down at the table and gently tapped her scepter on the ground, summoning some fruit. However, the second the fruit hit her plate, it began to rot. Lilith sighed and pushed the fruit away, placing her head on the table.
"Seems like you've got a bad apple," a voice called from the door.
Lilith jumped up and fired a blast towards the door. The Evil Queen instantly caught it and turned it black. She closed her fist and the blast vanished. Lilith was shook. "How did you break my spell?"
The Evil Queen chuckled as she sat in the chair opposite Lilith. "I've been awake this whole time, dear. Turns out being able to hold your breath underwater for two minutes comes in handy for something."
Lilith sighed. Of course she survived. The Evil Queen had her ways. "Go away."
"I thought you wanted company, dear."
"I'll pass."
The Evil Queen tapped the table. "I have something to talk to you about."
"If it'll make you go away, sure."
The Evil Queen retrieved a small teacup and began to stir it with her finger. "I want to help you break the curse."
"It can't be broken."
"Oh, but it can," the Evil Queen said with a smile. "You see, your little spell isn't powerful enough for there to be only one cure. There's your little emergency bottle. Though we can't use that on the whole kingdom, as it is formatted for your DNA. The ideal cure would be true love, but as there is no true love essence in that curse and no way to get it, we can't do that either. What we can do is replicate your antidote and put it in the rain, therefore restoring everyone."
"How are we going to put it in the rain?"
"Leave that part to me."
Lilith considered. The curse hadn't gone the way she had wanted and it would be just easier to wake everyone up. But she didn't trust Regina. "What do you get out of this?"
"Well," the Evil Queen smirked. "I'm just hoping that when you perfect your curse, you will give me a bottle of your special little potion. There's a certain princess I need to get rid of."
Lilith sighed. She didn't have a choice. "Fine."
The Evil Queen moved to leave but paused. "Can I offer some advice?"
"If it'll make you go away, sure," Lilith repeated a second time.
"I don't think what you felt for David was love. You had never been cared for by a person before and you mistook that care for love. I don't think you know what love feels like."
Lilith sighed. "It pains me to say this, but I think you are right. I'm a demon. It's a well known fact that demons are incapable of love."
–
Angie sat down in the sheriff's station with Henry while she was waiting for Emma to come back. Henry was flipping through his storybook as Angie explained what had happened.
"So, how many flashbacks did you get?"
"Just the one, but it was four images."
Henry continued to search through his book. "I still can't find you in here. Do you think you are starting to believe?"
"I don't know," Angie admitted. "I know that Graham talked to you when he was in a funny mood. But I don't know if he and I just have the same condition."
Henry placed the book down. "Well, Graham had flashbacks too. He was seeing a wolf, which triggered more images of the wolf. He saw himself and Mary Margaret, which led me to suspect that he was the Huntsman. He died before I could test my theory. Angie, do you know what this means?"
"Please tell me," Angie said, twirling a strand of her hair.
"Operation Cobra is right!"
Angie sighed. "We don't know that for certain, Henry. What did you tell Graham to help his hallucinations?"
"I just tried to help him understand them. But without knowing who your fairytale counterpart is, I can't do anything."
Angie leaned back in her chair. Originally, she had thought that Henry's whole Operation Cobra thing was a load of crap. But weird things had started to happen in town since Emma arrived, just like Henry had said. Her strange feelings of seeing people before. The hot flashes she had been feeling. The painting problem. Plus she was getting flashbacks. Maybe Henry wasn't as crazy as they all had originally thought.
The office phone rang and Angie picked it up. It was Emma. "Hey, Ange."
"Hey."
"Sidney was going to fax Kathryn's phone records to the office. Do you see them?"
Just as Emma asked, the printer turned on. Henry headed over to the printer to retrieve the papers for her. Angie was confused. "Why do you need Kathryn's phone records?"
"She's missing. Left a couple days ago to go to Boston. Found her car at the edge of town. No trace of her. I wanted to see if she was on call with anyone that could've done something."
Henry handed Angie the papers and Angie started to read through them. She paused at one call. She tapped Henry and pointed at a blue highlighter, which he retrieved for her. "Did you talk to David?"
"Yeah. He had no idea. She just left with no notice. He hadn't spoken to her since the morning."
Angie highlighted the line of text she had spotted. "Well, either he's lying or the phone record is."
"Why?"
"Because I'm looking at the record now and she spoke to David on the phone the night she was last seen. Eight minute call. So either David lied to you or the phone records are wrong. Or both."
–
Lilith watched from the castle window as rain poured over the kingdom. She didn't know how the Evil Queen had managed to get the antidote in the rain, but she had. Lilith had propped Rumplestiltskin up in a chair outside with the sword out in front of him. It didn't seem fair to keep teasing him with it.
About five minutes later, Rumplestiltskin entered the room holding the sword. Lilith looked over and tightened her grip on her scepter. "You're up."
"I am. How many favors do I owe you?"
"53."
Rumplestiltskin sighed. "I suppose I deserve it."
"No," Lilith tore herself away from the window. "You don't but now you are bound to it. I was blinded by revenge. I took it out on everyone. And for that, I'm sorry."
Rumplestiltskin was quiet for a minute before giving her a thin smile. "It's alright. All that matters is that you broke your curse."
Lilith started to remove her crown. "I guess you want these back."
Rumplestiltskin stopped her. "No, you keep them. You stole them fair and square."
Lilith smiled softly. "Can I still be your apprentice?"
"Of course. If you want, I can help you bottle true love to perfect your potion."
"That would be great."
Rumplestiltskin then remembered that he was being nice. "Alright, enough with the sappy stuff. You and I are still two of the most powerful people."
Lilith's smile switched into a smirk. "Of course. Our power must be exploited in the worst way possible."
Rumplestiltskin clapped her on the shoulder and the two headed into the other room to create their evil schemes.