strange and beautiful (I'll put a spell on you)

Chapter Seven

STORYBROOKE, Maine

10:47 PM

Jefferson was late. Technically he had arrived at her building only fifteen minutes late – but now? Jefferson sighed, looking down at the old antique watch on his wrist to see that time was ticking away now. He could hear Rebekah moving around in her apartment, even heard her soft humming whenever she'd walk by the door.

But he couldn't move. He was frozen.

He stood in front of the door for so long it started to feel like his feet were glued to the ground. Jefferson stood completely still, replaying what had just happened. He had tried to stay calm all day but the thought of Regina trying to kill Rebekah here, when she wasn't even a threat! It was enough to make him go a little mad. Jefferson had gone to Regina's house, he had choked Regina and then threatened to finish the job if she ever tried to hurt Rebekah again.

Jefferson had found out that Regina and Rumpelstiltskin had worked together while her and Rebekah were in Agrabah – testing a theory Rumple had. A theory that proved to be right in both worlds. It was the reason she was able to pull out of the state she was earlier, her fever completely breaking and the coloring coming back to her skin after her lips had briefly brushed his. It was almost as if there was still a part of his Rebekah in there, his wife, the one who knew that everything could be cured with a magic kiss. That's what she would always tell their daughter.

He knew it wasn't possible, that Rebekah still did not know who he was or what they once were; but why else would she have kissed him in her fever dazed mind? Why did she ask him to stay? Why did she ask him to come back tonight...which he was still working up the courage to just knock on her door. Maybe there was a part, some part of her conscious perhaps, that was trying to get Rebekah to remember. And that's why Regina had told him to stay away for the last twenty-eight years. Maybe it had to do with Emma – he didn't know, what he did know was that if he didn't know on the damn door soon, she'd assume he was not going to show up.

Jefferson wasn't going to show up. His plan was to confront Regina and then go home. Today had been too hard seeing Rebekah and Grace together, neither knowing just how important the other truly meant to them. It made him feel sick, angry, devastated. He wanted nothing more than to have his family back but seeing them together was just too hard.

But he couldn't exactly tell Rebekah that – she'd probably kick him out of her house so fast that there would be a Jefferson size whole in her apartment door. Jefferson had started to walk in the direction of the woods that would lead him to his mansion but stopped when he saw the clock tower. The hands had started moving when Emma Swan decided to stay in Storybrooke, a sign that the curse was not as strong as it once was.

No one else understood the meaning aside from him, Regina, and Rumpelstiltskin – but the hands on the clock tower were moving and time was moving forward for the first time in twenty-eight years. A young woman who had been pregnant the entirety of those twenty-eight years gave birth, Prince Charming, who went by David Nolan in this town, woke up from a coma he had been in since the curse was created. Things were changing. He had looked at the clock tower and decided that he couldn't stand Rebekah up. So, he went to her apartment. And now he couldn't find the courage to knock.

That was until the lights in the apartment turned off and his hand went flying out of his pant pocket and knocked. The light turned back on and the door slowly opened.

Rebekah looked surprised to see him. She had clearly given up hope (if she even had any) that he would end up showing up. She was already dressed for bed in a pair of shorts and a tank top that he could see as she wrapped her purple robe around herself.