Welcome to a Nightmare

Chapter 36: Old Friends Meet Again

"I'm just going to warn you now," Henry says as the two of them walk through the quieter streets on their way to the asylum. "My mom... she's completely different because of the curse."

"How different are we talking? Are we talking Dark Swan different? Or Wish Realm different?" Having read about these personas in his book and heard from Regina what happened when the Evil Queen forced Aladdin to grant Emma's wish.

He pauses for a moment. "Combine them, add more hopelessness and despair, sprinkle in what she was like when she first came here, and you'll have the cursed Emma Swan."

"Yeesh, that bad huh?"

"She's depressed, angry, and distant like when she was the Dark One; she claims that she's delusional and still living in a fairytale world like Princess Emma was... And she doesn't see light at the end of the tunnel. She thinks she needs help and lets herself be manipulated and controlled by the Black Fairy. That's not the Mom I know. She doesn't trust me anymore, thinking that I'll undo her progress she thinks she's made... She pushes me away. Guess I had that coming after I pushed her away when she was the Dark One... It's like talking to a stranger, who hasn't gone to Neverland and sacrificed so much to save you..."

The daughter of Rumpelstiltskin notices the pain in Henry's face and the tears welling up in his eyes. She pauses in the street, stopping and turning Henry to face her. She then wraps her arms around him very tightly.

"It will be okay," she says. "Once the curse is broken, the real Emma will come back."

"I-I know, it's just so hard."

"It's always hard to see your loved ones suffer, especially when they don't deserve it."

The two remain embraced for a long time, just reassuring one another that they will break this curse, no matter what.

When they start walking again, Henry brings up something else.

"Also, with the curse and everything, she probably won't know who you are, so be prepared for that too."

"Please, I'm used to it by now. After both Ashley and Aurora didn't recognize me... the woman who would babysit for them and help organize Baby Time, I knew that my entire existence had been wiped from this town. You have no idea how happy I was when you used my name and knew who I was."

"Do you think your dad will remember you?"

"With him, it's hard to tell; he can always find a loophole of some kind. But I don't want to confront him right now because I will no doubt throw him through a wall for letting his mother do this to us."

"Get in line," the teenager agrees. He'd been so confused and overwhelmed by everything that he had forgotten that this was all technically his grandfather's fault for not facing his destiny and doing what needed to be done. He could partially understand why anyone would be hesitant to kill their own mother, but the woman was called The Black Fairy; she'd abandoned Rumpel as a baby, she'd stolen his Uncle Gideon as a baby, forced him to do evil things including trying to kill Henry's birth mother, and she was the embodiment of all things evil and dark. Much like Cora or Cruella, there was very little chance for this entity to redeem themselves and needed to be eliminated. Now, they were all reaping the consequences of his grandfather's decision. Henry hopes that he remembers because he deserved to know about the suffering that he'd brought on everyone, including his wife, son, and daughter... if they can even find Belle.

The teenager then looks up and swallows a large lump in his throat.

"We're...here."

The two of them come to a great big, green building, that reached up into the gray Maine sky. The building had gardens surrounding it that looked like they were dying, there were fences on all sides of the place to keep people in. Crystal looks up at the big black letters of the sign of the asylum: