*warning, major time skip/explanation of events I didn't write in this chapter
Storybrooke
The lights of the Rabbit Hole bar are dimmed. The thin, yellow lights don't put enough light out to show who anyone is. Almost like a safe space for the people who come for their privacy.
Callie Rivers is there to drown. Drown her thoughts and her feelings. Try to let go of everything that has happened in the past few weeks. Try to grieve when she has no one to grieve with. Oh gods, she has so much to grieve.
And so she tips back her glass, tapping the bar for a refill. She had tried Dr. Hopper's office for the first time in her life. But he didn't have any openings, the Rabbit Hole did.
Her head isn't thinking straight. Her vision is blurring and she no longer cares if it's from drunkenness or tears.
But here she is - alive, and not really okay. Not many people can say that though. At least not many of the people she considered friends.
Callie looks down into her glass, swirling the amber colored liquor before draining the glass and slamming it onto the bar. She reaches for the bottle, that was so graciously left in front of her, and refills her glass herself.
She's all alone now, and she doesn't quite remember how it happened.
The town John Deer waking up. Everyone in town had been to see him, and no one had known him. But the day after he woke up, there was his wife, magically there to take him home.
Ashley had assaulted Gold. Everyone later found out she did it in an attempt to steal the document that traded her unborn child into childcare services. In the end, Ashley ended up home free with her baby and it's father.
Henry and Dr. Hopper had almost died in the now collapsed mines of Storybrooke. That had been a real challenge, trying not to lose her mind as the kid she raised faced death. But Henry had been desperate to get any proof, anything to make his "real" mom believe in the curse.
Callie downs her glass, again.
She had decided to believe Henry. Except she wasn't going to help him try to fix the curse. She couldn't, wouldn't, put herself or anyone else in town through that.
That was before everything went to shit though.
Graham had finally split things off with Regina. Callie had been trying to coach him through it for some time now. She could tell that their relationship was toxic, and neither of them truly deserved that. Especially Graham. Yet she soon found out that he did it for himself... and because of Emma Swan.
And then he was dead.
Simply gone. No known reason.
Just dead.
The tears welling in Callie's eyes begin to fall. She hurriedly wipes her cheeks before pouring herself another drink.
He was truly the only friend that she had left. Her best friend even before she left Regina. Now she resorts to visiting the animal shelter more often, just to be close to him again. That had always been the thing that brought them a little closer.
The funeral had been hard.
They asked her to say something, she wasn't able to find the words. There was something so raw about her loss and so tender about their relationship that she wanted to keep it all to herself. She didn't want anyone else to have the pieces of Graham that were hers.
But the town drama didn't stop there. David, the once comatose man, and Mary Margaret had had an affair. Which then led to the disappearance and supposed death of Kathryn (David's wife).
David had been arrested. That was until more evidence led to the arrest of Mary Margaret.
In the end, the "true" culprit was found. Sidney Glass. Only Callie is smart enough to know that Regina has a firm enough grip on Sidney to make him say or do whatever she says. It's obvious to many that she did it. But the lack of proof is the only thing keeping her out of jail. That, and Sidney's confession and his DNA at every scene of the crime.
Callie's brows furrow in frustration as her bottle appears empty, none of the liquor coming out even as she tips it upside down. She's lost her best friend. She's lost Regina, and another friend because of her.
Yet the worst pain that Regina has put Callie through, is her separating her from Henry. No more weekends with her kid. No more time with the only person who kept her sane, and the only person who offered her a little more sanity with his theories of the curse.
Callie laughs, setting the bottle down and asking for the check. Rum. A perfect drink for a bloody pirate. That's what Henry thinks she was anyways. She's not sure if she could go back to a life that she doesn't remember.
Her phones buzzes against the counter. An unknown number flashes across the screen and an invitation to Blanchard's "welcome back" party appears. But Callie is still mourning. Although she's unsure of who or what she's really mourning at this point.
Maybe she's mourning her sanity? She's been remembering every night for weeks. Dreams of blood covered monsters and dirty, ragged hands chasing after her make her want to stay awake. Sometimes shouting echos in her ears. Her mother's voice. A little boy who sounds too much like Henry. A deep voice that she can only guess is Killian's. And a scream that sounds eerily like her own.
She almost wants to sleep just to see him. Killian Jones. To dive headfirst into her nightmares for her pirate captain. Yet she hesitates to fall asleep, not just because of the nightmares. He reminds her how lonely she's become. How forgotten she feels in her mansion on the coast. That she's so alone that a ghost is her only comfort.
Callie has been trying to relax into her old routine again. Workout. Work. Try to sleep. Volunteer. Work. Try to sleep. Bake. Volunteer. Try to sleep. But the pieces of how her life worked are still there. Henry's bedroom sits empty, untouched for over a month now. Callie finds herself aching for the weekends with Henry. For the drunk nights with Regina and Graham. For the hangover mornings playing with the animals at the shelter with Graham.
Gods she didn't know that she would miss her boys this much. She didn't know that he would ever be gone.
She spends an entire hour looking at her phone one night. Staring at the contact lists. Tears trickling down her cheeks, falling into the crevices that her scars have left even after all this time. It's about time for her to delete it. The messages. The name that she wishes would appear. And Callie despises the fact that things have to change, that things are changing.
And Henry, Henry breaks her heart. Leaving her messages constantly from Swan's phone, so much so that she's saved the contact. The child that she raised from the time he was a baby to the preteen he is now. The kid that showed her how to live with a new kind of love in her heart. The kid that gave her something she hadn't felt in a long time. Or at least couldn't remember feeling.
Callie starts reading his story book again. He had left it with her, the stories ingrained in his head and he didn't need it anymore. That's what he had told her when she tried to return it.
"You need it more than I do."
And now that she's putting this space between him and her, this line that Regina between her and her kid, she finds it truer than it was then. Callie almost can't bare it. Stepping out of his life. He doesn't need her anymore. He has two mothers already and she's terrified by the thought that if she sticks to him he'll be the one to push her away.
She's not sure how she would live if that happened.
Now when she closes the story book to come back to the real world, Callie finds that it isn't so real after all. She's started to spot the holes in Storybrooke, the ripples that the curse forgot to cover up.
Callie cannot find any papers from when she bought her house or any of her vehicles. No one can remember when they first met her, everyone just knew one another one day. And no one remembers how old they are supposed to be.
And one of the most terrifying discoveries that Callie has made, is the kids. In every single one of Henry's yearbooks, he's the only kid aging. Every single grade is the same, except for Henry. She has become so confused that she almost wishes the curse would break, even for a moment, just so that she could think straight again.
One afternoon that Callie would define as boring, well, everything changed in an instant. She had just pulled out the fourth loaf of bread that she was making that night when her phone rang. She sighs as it rings again, wiping off her hands before flipping the phone open. She's tired, thriving on sugar, rum, and pure exhaustion at this point. Callie's head pounds a little, and she answers it just to make the ringing stop. Not even bothering to check caller ID.
"Hello?"
Her heart stops. Callie freezes in place as Regina rushes out a sentence. And then she's already out of her house, speeding through traffic and winding between cars. She takes as many shortcuts as she possibly can to get the hospital quickly. She barely even thought about grabbing the story book before she was jumping onto her motorcycle and kicking it into gear.
Callie shoves her way through hallways and past nurses as she entered the intensive care unit of the hospital.
She freezes outside the doors. Her face grows pale, and her heart threatens to beat out of her chest and stop all at once. Nerves eat her entire soul alive as she seems to walk in slow motion to his side.
He's barely hanging onto life, clinging to so many different machines that she can hardly see her kid under all the technology keeping him alive. She can barely see Mary Margaret's figure at his side.
Callie wordlessly passes her the story book, she can't bring herself to say a word. She's terrified that if she opens her lips all that will tumble out are sobs.
She reaches onto the bed and takes Henry's hand. Mary Margaret opens the book to where Callie had left a bookmark and starts reading one of Callie's fairytale-life stories. Blanchard's free hand rubs Callie's back gently, even though the woman flinches at the contact, she appreciates it nonetheless.
But tears threaten to pour. Sobs threaten to wreck her to pieces in the too clean hallways of the hospital. The bubble in her stomach threatens to release an awful scream if this all goes south.
She can't lose this kid too.
She can't lose her foothold on her sanity.
She can't lose her kid, not now...
OLD NOTES [ ➤𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐞 𝐠𝐨 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐤𝐬, 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐟𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐇𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐲'𝐬 𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐯𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐬! 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞/𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭 𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐥 𝐓𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲.➤ ➤𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐲'𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐚 𝐰𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐧, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐛𝐲 𝐯𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞!➤ ➤𝟗-𝟐𝟗-𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟎➤
➤𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝟏-𝟗 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐞-𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐧 𝟏𝟏-𝟏𝟖-𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟎➤ ]
NEW NOTES / ahhhHhhhh — this chapter and the way that it kills me. if you can't tell, I am choosing, once again, to be lazy and not write most of season one because none of it really pertains to Callie and her character that I can't make a flashback for later arcs and such.
no one is going to be prepared for when I whip out Graham and Callie's platonic!relationships because they are precious.
I just want everyone know that if you aren't already, following me would really help this book get updated more often!! I often do polls on my msg board or on my insta for what book I should update and not a lot of my current followers care much for this fic.
to be honest any kind of feedback would really help me update more!! even if it's just your silly thoughts or random screaming. knowing that something made you sad or was funny really encourages me because I know that at least one person out there likes it AND appreciates it.
anyways — next chapter is one that my oldest readers will remember as the one where I really tear apart Cali and Killian...
Papa?
love you all so much💕 katie
08.23.2022