Hook's Daughter

Everyone Deserves a Happy Ending

Hook comes down from the stairs and hugs Emma tightly before also hugging me.
"I'm glad you're okay," I say to him.
"Me too," he says.

We go back to Granny's, where Emma safely puts Hook's heart back where it belongs. At the bar, Regina looks sad.
Five minutes of quiet is too much to ask for as Henry runs into Granny's.
"Guys! Guys!" He grabs my hand and yanks me over to the bar where Emma and Regina are. "I found something big! You're gonna want to see this." Henry is smiling as he runs out of Granny's. We get in Emma's car and ride to the same mansion where Elsa, Anna, and Kristoff had recently departed back to Arendelle through the portal.
"After you guys left, I stayed behind to look around and I found something," Henry says as he leads us up a set of stairs in the mansion. He goes to a wall, a seemingly dead end to the hallway. Henry reaches up, grabs the bottom of one of the light fixtures, and pulls it down. When he does so, the sound of machinery whirring fills the room until the wall turns completely sideways and Henry walks first into the secret room.
Regina gasps as she looks around.
"A library," she says.
"Not just any library!" Henry says excitedly. He pulls out one of the books from the wall compartments. "Look."
"It looks like your storybook," I say.
Henry nods and says,
"Only it's blank! They all are! And if this place is full of potential storybooks..."
"Then maybe this is the author's house," Regina smiles. "Henry, you did it!"
"Did what?" Emma asks. "What's going on?"
"Well, uh, we were looking for the author," Regina fills us in. "I was hoping he could write me a happier story."
"We call it 'Operation Mongoose,'" Henry says happily.
"I like it. It's got style," Emma tells him, putting her arm around him. "I'm in."
"You are?" Regina sounds surprised.
"I made you a promise I intend to keep," Emma tells her. Everyone looks at me.
"Oh, yeah, I'm in. Everyone deserves their happy ending."
Regina smiles.

Everything goes back to normal so quickly in Storybrooke after conflict. Maybe everyone has realized by now that we do not get quiet time, so they have to enjoy it while they can.
Six weeks passed, and it was weird to see Henry going back to school again and riding the bus. To see Mary Margaret teaching at Henry's school, with a bird in her hand. Regina was back in the mayor's office, and any traces of Mary Margaret's stay there was quite literally burned off the wall. David patrolled town. Emma went back to paperwork at the sheriff's station when she was not with Hook. Gold's pawn shop frequently had the closed sign on the door. Belle continued working on getting the library in prime condition. And, actually, Hook started working there as well. He had come clean about everything he had done while under Gold's influence, including trapping the fairies that had gone missing inside the sorcerer's hat. He had been working at the library day and night to try and come up with a way to get them out. Belle had been working to translate some books that had a way to open the hat she thought. She had reached out to some of the finest minds in the world to help her decipher their meanings in hopes one of them would reply. Everyone had found a way to get back to a somewhat normal life. Then there was me. I had officially quit as a deputy a while back actually. It did not seem like Storybrooke needed  me doing that. We did not exactly have normal problems like jaywalkers and occupants running stoplights. I guess really I didn't know what to do with my time. I was so used to being running around trying to stop curses and villains. One thing that was nice is that I had more than five seconds to think about something. But maybe that was a bad thing too. I realized I had completely stopped my search for Charli, even Devin. Devin maybe was a lost cause, but I had given up on Charli. It was clear to me that she was not in Storybrooke, but the truth is, I didn't know anything about her. We never talked about where we had been before here. I had no idea what realm she would be in. How was I supposed to find her?

I was interrupted by Hook calling to tell me they had a way to free the fairies. So, in the middle of the woods on a stone with a golden box on top of it, Mary Margaret, Belle, Emma, Hook, and I gathered to watch Regina use the Dark One's dagger to free them from their cage. Regina moved the dagger over the cage and as she did, a deep humming noise came from the dagger. Regina touched the box once with it, and the box erupted into golden light. When the golden light was gone, the fairies were all on the floor of the woods around it, and the box sat on the rock. Emma ran over and helped Mother Superior, the Blue Fairy, up.
"Are you alright?" Emma asks.
"No, but I'll live," she replies. "But being in there with...Thank you."
"Actually, you should thank the mayor," says Emma.
"Welcome back," Regina manages a small smile.
"Thank you," whispers Blue.
The fairies hug each other in a circle, most of them crying from relief. What could scare them all so much?

At Granny's, everyone gathered to celebrate the return of the fairies, and Regina got the next answer for her problem. She took one of the empty storybooks to Blue.
"Where did you get this?" asks Blue.
"The sorcerer's mansion," Emma tells her. "There were dozens of them."
"The sorcerer is here?" Blue asks.
"Well, his house is, but we haven't found him yet," answers Henry.
"You're looking for him?"
"Well, I was hoping he could...write me a happy ending," Regina says slowly.
Blue exhales sharply.
"But that books seems to have great power," Regina continues.
"Oh, it does," says Blue.
"So I thought if he rewrote it..." Regina chuckles. "I know it sounds crazy."
"It's not crazy at all," Blue says. "But you're looking for the wrong person. Although the sorcerer is a very powerful person, you should be looking for the Author."
"Aren't they the same person?" I ask.
"Why would the sorcerer have the Author's books?" asks Regina.
"That is a quite perplexing question," Blue sighs. "And I'm afraid I do not know. But I do know that they are two very different people."
"So," Regina sits down across from Blue, "you know who the author is?"
"No," whispers Blue sharply. "But I do know he exists. I mean, if he is a "he." I've never actually seen him. In fact, no one has. Not for many years."
Regina sits back and sighs disappointingly. "So this is where hope has gotten me?" She looks at Emma.
"We'll find him, Regina," Emma says. "It's not like he just vanished. Blue, do you have any idea why he might've disappeared?"
"Sadly, no," she replies. "But there are whispers that he left hidden clues in some of his works."
"You mean, works like Henry's book?" I ask.
"Maybe," Blue says. Suddenly, the ground rumbles and there is a loud roar as the lights flicker inside of Granny's.
"What the hell was that?" Emma says.
"I suppose we should go out and see what's killing property values this time," Regina says sarcastically.