Once Upon a Time in Storybrooke - OUAT DR

Chapter 9 - Say Don't Go

Ironically we ended up back where we had started, the place of Emma and I's birth, the palace. Snow and Charming had a cell that could hold even the powerful Rumpelstiltskin in one of the underground caves nearby. Snow led us to it and then through the tunnels until we reached the prison cell. 

Snow told Emma and I that she had come down here before Regina's curse, where Rumplestiltskin had told them that Emma was going to be the Savior - that it was prophesized. She looked at me then, and smiled, saying he hadn't known I was coming though, which proved that while he may know much, he didn't know everything.

We searched the cell for the squid ink - which we would use against Cora to stun her, steal the wardrobe ashes, and get back to Storybrooke - but found nothing. Aurora, however, found a piece of rolled-up parchment hidden in one of the crevices of the cave walls. She handed it to Emma and on the parchment was nothing but her name - Emma - written over and over again. 

Another reminder that she was destined to be the Savior, not me, the only one supposed to be in this story, and felt that familiar clenching in my stomach and chest. 

We decided to keep searching while Emma sat analyzing the parchment that had her name written all over it. She seemed unnerved by the fact that Gold knew she was the Savior before she was born. Snow's explanation was simple - he had been obsessed with her since she was the key to breaking the curse. 

Mulan finally found the squid ink, but the bottle was completely empty now. That was when Aurora threw a rock against a lever just outside the cell, trapping the five of us in the cell Rumplestiltskin couldn't escape from. That was when we noticed two figures in the gloom of the tunnels beyond the cell. There stood Cora and Hook, leaning against the wall as if he'd been there for hours, looking thick as thieves as Cora revealed that Aurora was helping her. 

I clutched the compass, still hanging around my neck, determined not to give it up - I had worked too hard, given up too much, to get it - but with a wave of her hand, Cora had the compass and my neck was bare. Fucking magic. I felt the tinglies again thrumming through my body and wondered if what I had been feeling since Gold had released magic on Storybrooke was just that, magic. I glared at the woman through the bars, casting glances to both Emma and Mary Margaret - Snow - that I hoped conveyed just how sorry I was I had lost our only way home to this terrible woman, putting everyone we loved in danger. 

Emma became desperate, trying to break the bars and get the compass back, but Cora reminded her that not even Rumplestiltskin had been able to escape, she stood no chance. Cora thanked Aurora for her help and revealed that her heart had been taken and she had been controlling her the entire time. We had assumed it had been the zombified villagers that had taken Aurora, but it was in fact Hook who had captured her in the woods and brought her back to Cora. Cora had ripped out her heart and allowed Hook to free her so she would find her way back to us and she could use her to send us a false message from Hook and betray us once the time was right.

I called out to Hook and asked if the giant hadn't passed along my apology, the explanation I hadn't gotten the chance to give to him. He stopped and turned around, walking toward the bars as I told him I was sorry, I had to put my family first, we'd only had 10 hours and I couldn't risk waiting for him to wake up and not being able to make it back down in time. I pleaded for him to understand and believe I had wanted to trust him, I just couldn't, and claimed if roles had been reversed he'd have done the same.

He had reached the bars then and just said no, he wouldn't have, actually. Emma pleaded with him then to not do this, for her son, who needed her, but he turned to her and told her if she wanted anyone to blame she could turn to her left, where I was standing. He turned back to me, saying I should have thought of that before I had abandoned him on that beanstalk. He then held up the mummified bean that had been on Anton's belt and asked if I recognized it. I told him yes, it was the bean the giant kept when Emma lunged her arm through the bars for the necklace. Hook pulled it away and out of her reach as if taunting us with it.