Once Upon a Time in Storybrooke - OUAT DR

Chapter 14 - Everyone's Related and I Hate It

I hadn't seen Killian since the previous day at Granny's. 

Regina was still MIA, which hopefully meant she had found her mother and our plan for her to play Cora was underway. 

Snow and David called me over, telling me Emma had called and there was "big news." I was surprised she hadn't called me, but noticed a few text messages from her that I'd missed, somehow already marked as read. Weird. I put the phone in my boot and headed over to the loft where my parents were waiting. 

Once I got there they told me Henry's dad, Neal, was actually Rumplestiltskin's son, Baelfire. "Great, so we're all related, fantastic." I had said with a huge eye roll that neither parent appreciated. We sat down and puzzled out our ever-expanding and complicated family tree together and David and I were, for once, on the same page about how bizarre it all was.

I sent Emma a supportive sister text, as well as a freak out about the fact that she just so happened to have met, fallen in love with, and become pregnant by Rumplestiltskin's fucking son in a whole different realm lifetimes later. l asked if she was planning on telling Henry but she said no, she wanted to protect him and to save her any lectures because Mary Margaret had already beaten me to it. I hoped for Henry's sake, she wouldn't hide it from him.

I decided to run home real fast, claiming to have forgotten something, but just needing to get some fresh air. My once slow, lonely life was now starting to overfill with relatives and very spicy unexpected drama and it was just a lot to take in. 

I heard a commotion inside the library and ducked out of sight. Out of the doors stepped Regina and Cora, talking about how easy it had been to use the pirate to get what they needed to find the way to control the Dark One when he returned. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.

I ran in once they were gone and saw Killian, passed out on the ground amidst a pile of books. I ran over to him and shook him awake. I asked what happened as I checked him over and made sure he was okay when he exclaimed "That vile woman betrayed me, again!" I quipped that he kept choosing to put his faith in the wrong woman, maybe he should try something new, like choosing the right woman to put his faith into. He asked if I had anyone in mind and I shrugged, ignoring the heat in my cheeks - I refused to lie, but I also refused to answer. 

I asked what he was going to do next and he said "Probably something stupid." 

Our faces were close, and I was very sure he was going to try and kiss me but he stopped and turned away, leaving me with my heart racing. 

Emma called and I answered, shaking off the feelings the pirate had left with me at his words. She was talking faster than I'd ever heard her talk before but I managed to keep up. Neal was being not awful - which she couldn't decide was better or worse than the alternative. She hated him, but seeing him with Henry and how badly he wanted to be there for their son, she couldn't help but feel, well, she wasn't sure what she was feeling, but it was a lot of different things. She told me Neal had been contacted by Pinocchio and convinced him to get Emma arrested and the bastard had listened to him. Somehow he hadn't known who she was until August had found him. She was pissed, and rightfully so, but also relieved that it hadn't been his idea, as much as that shouldn't matter.

We talked until she felt calmed down and agreed to catch me up on things tomorrow, thoughts of what happened at the library completely out of my mind and replaced with all of the things Emma was going through and all that she had said. 

I felt buzzy through the twin bond at all the emotions she was feeling and all her unspent energy was just getting redirected to me. At least, that's how it felt. I decided to go out to the alcove on the beach and practice magic for half an hour and tried to shake the energy off. By the end of it, I did actually feel a bit better, less amped up. 

When I got back to the loft David had a posterboard on the table and was attempting to make our family tree with Snow. When I walked in and saw them both, markers around the table and crooked lines on the posterboard, I couldn't help but laugh. I asked if they wanted any help and we actually had a pretty fun evening together. Snow talked to me about her parents - King Leopold and Queen Eva - while David told me of his mother and the tale of how he became Prince James in place of his twin brother - the one that had helped massacre the giants.

I told them we should find some way to make reparations for what James and Jack had done if there was ever a time when we could. David and Snow looked at one another as some unspoken thought went between them before looking back at me and saying we absolutely should, and would, the first chance we got.

"It was important to rule justly and with kindness in your heart, after all," Snow had said.  I caught them up on what Emma and Henry were up to - that she had told Henry who his dad really was. 

Snow made us tea and as we sat and looked at our disastrous posterboard family tree once it was completed. Sitting there, the three of us at the table admiring our work, I could picture us all as a true family then, sitting around this apartment for an overcrowded and quite awkward holiday dinner, laughing and telling jokes. 

Maybe this wasn't as bad as I had thought, after all. 

I wasn't sure why I didn't tell them about Regina, Cora, and Hook's little showdown at the library. Maybe I just didn't have the heart to ruin such a great evening. Besides, Regina was going to check in with us and tell us everything herself. Nobody but Killian even knew I had been there, and even he didn't know when I had gotten there since he'd been unconscious. Maybe I just didn't want to explain why the pirate had been in the library with Cora and Regina in the first place - he hadn't exactly given me much of an explanation himself. But, if it involved the Dark One, that meant it was somehow related to his revenge and vengeance, and until he had let that go, as much as I may not like it, he was going to be lost to me.

Not that he had ever been mine to lose. 

If Regina didn't check in with us by the next day, I would tell them. They were my family, after all, and they came first. 

They would always come first.