Finding You Always

Poor Unfortunate Souls

Chapter 98: Poor Unfortunate Souls

When they awoke the next morning, Snow told her husband and their kids about her surprise visit from Maleficent in the middle of the night.

"Wow...I did not see that coming," Emma admitted, as they sat around the breakfast table.

"Yeah, me either," David agreed, as he held the baby in his lap.

"Well, except for the whole putting me under a sleeping spell part. That was true to form," he quipped. Snow rubbed his shoulder.

"I think she's just a little lost, but I'm hoping she feels relief now, at least a little. I mean, imagine waking up to all this and having to put your faith in Rumpelstiltskin to get your child back. We've sort of been there," Snow reminded.

"Yeah...he is the one that insisted we would lose you for twenty-eight years," David added, looking at his daughter.

"Things would be so vastly different. Leo, Eva, and Summer would have never been born," Snow said, shuddering. David squeezed her hand.

"And you would have grown up completely without us. You would have thought we abandoned you on purpose and you would have thought we didn't love you," she continued. Emma reached out for her mother's other hand.

"But that didn't happen. Love won out over evil...it always does. You and Dad have taught me that. Hell, you've taught the whole damn town that," Emma reassured her. David smiled and kissed his wife's cheek.

"She's right. Darkness never wins. It just fools you into thinking it does," he added.

"That's part of what I don't understand. I mean, Gold has true love with Belle...why would he throw all that away?" Leo wondered. Emma sighed.

"He must think whatever he has planned will allow him to have both. Love and power," Emma reasoned.

"The Crocodile always chooses power over love...he can't help himself," Hook commented.

"I've come to know him pretty well over the years though. He does love Belle and Neal...Henry too. He's always been afraid of losing them. His answer to not losing them is power, though it usually drives away those he loves anyway. I get wanting to protect you family though. We both just have a different way of doing so," David said.

"They love him. We do what we have to in order to stop him. Then hopefully their love will be enough to lead him back," Snow reasoned.

"And if Ursula mends things with her father, that just leaves Cruella," Leo added.

"Hopefully if we can keep them from releasing the Chernabog. If we can't, then we have a whole new set of problems," David said, as they got up and cleared the table, while he and Snow went to get Bobby changed and dressed for the day.

Poseidon's majestic vessel arrived abreast of the Maine coastline.

"There it is," Aphrodite stated.

"Storybrooke...seems perfectly ordinary," the God of the sea commented.

"And you should know by now that looks can be deceiving," she reminded.

"I'm still not sure how I let you talk me into this," he griped.

"Because it is long past time you fix things with your daughter. And we need to prevent the Chernabog from being released. It is a danger to all the realms. Zeus should be here too, dealing with this himself. It was his blunder to trust the hat to the Apprentice in the first place," she grumbled.

"He said he was busy...probably chasing his next conquest," he replied. She gave him a look.

"What? It's not my fault our brother can't keep it in his robes," he added and she smirked.