Lithium (Once Upon a Time)

Chapter Four: Ophelia

Emma: "Wait, what?!" I was speechless, numb would be the best term to describe it. "You're Ophelia from Hamlet? Seriously they're real too?" I asked, looking at Regina with wide eyes.

"Ugh, says the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming." Regina sighed, with a judging look.

I nodded, realizing she kind of had a point.

"You two look strange...Anyways, I have to run from my insane boyfriend, goodbye!" Ophelia ran past us but me and Regina tried to stop her.

"No wait! We can help you, we have magic. You'll be better off with us!"

"Yes, sure. Come with us! I heard tales of your prince...He is quite the monster, you'll need our magic to protect us." Regina said. I looked at her, in surprise, it looked as if she knew Hamlet. But how? I didn't know how, or if it was even real or just fruit of my imagination. All I knew was that I couldn't shake that feeling away, the feeling that told me Regina and Hamlet knew each other, somehow.

"Very well, so let's get out of here." Ophelia asked, looking at every tree, every dark corner of the forest, fearful of Hamlet's return.

"I couldn't agree more!" Regina stated, as she lifted her fingers up and a cloud of purple smoke engulfed us and the yellow bug, taking us far away from the forest.

We all ended up outside a tavern, Ophelia was about to faint after the violent teleportation ride.

"It's okay, you'll get used to it." I said, placing my hand on her back, as she leaned over, in front of the yellow bug.

Regina put up a cloaking spell on my car and then started walking towards the tavern, as she sighed, intensely.

"Hey, Regina!" I screamed for her. She didn't pay attention and kept walking.

"Miss Swan let's take our dear princess for a drink, then we can talk." She was tired and bored, I could tell. The last adventure was quite exhausting, and although I knew she liked traveling though out the realms with me, I knew she also missed our son and was in desperate need to get back to Storybrooke.

"Hey, is everything okay?" I asked her, trying to talk to her, but she didn't reply with words, only a numb look that pierced through my eyes. "I get it, you're tired. We'll be home soon, okay? But first, we have to help Ophelia. She is in great trouble."

"Okay, Swan. As you wish."

She was acting so strange, stranger after she met Ophelia. I could tell she was lying to me, somehow, I always knew when she was. But it was all more than that, lie comes in many different ways but the one I hated the most was when people hid things from me.

I could tell Regina was hiding something, something that probably involved Hamlet and Ophelia. I couldn't shake the feeling that they had some story tying them together.

We entered the tavern and sat on one of the dusty benches. I asked for three beers and as we waited for the drinks, Ophelia was always looking around, checking up on us, probably trying to decide if she could trust us or not.

"So...If we're going to help you, why don't you tell us more about Hamlet?" I suggested, once the drinks came and we could relax the tension of that conversation. "You said he wanted to kill you to get his revenge, but what I really don't understand is how killing you with help him with that."

"Oh...He wants to kill me because it's the price to enact his revenge tool. A curse...A dark curse, one that will take everyone in this realm to another land, wipe all of our memories. It's Hamlet's perfect revenge!"

Regina and I looked at one another, we were so tired of all the messy curse situation that we almost screamed of boredom and tiredness, every time we heard that word.

"Seriously?" I whispered to Regina, as she rolled her eyes.

"I know it sounds terrible...Well the truth is that Hamlet is obsessed with avenging his father. He will do anything to hurt his uncle, for it, including kill his girlfriend and threaten the entire realm."

"Don't worry, this is not our first rodeo with curses. Will find a way to stop Hamlet and protect everyone, I promise." I said, placing my hand above hers.

"You do?"

"Yes, I'm the savior. If I can't protect you no one else can." I explained to her, although saying I was the savior never seemed natural to me, not even after all these years.

"Really? Is that like a real thing? Being a savior?" She asked, a little bit confused.

"Yes." I chuckled. "This is not the first story I save. I brought back the happy endings of everyone in my land, Snow White, Prince Charming, everyone! And I can do the same for you."

"I appreciate the sentiment but...Thething is...In this land things are different! There are no happy endings, onlytragic ones. And for what I've seen you could only rescue fairytale characters.Our stories were written in blood and tears, even if Hamlet doesn't get to me,my story will end tragically, in a different way, all of our stories will! Youshouldn't be here, you and your wife should leave now, before you both getswallowed by the darkness that paints our lives with sorrow."