June 13, 2018
"Where are we going?" Grace asked as soon as she sat down in Emma's car.
"I can't say," Emma responded through gritted teeth.
"Does it have something to do with Ella?"
"I-I can't say."
Grace bit her lips and buckled her seat belt. She and Henry shared a nervous glance as Emma began driving.
~
Regina was still trying to figure out the best way to break the news about Ella to Henry and Grace when they followed Emma into the hospital, both teenagers trying to get Emma to tell them why they were there. Despite their pleas, Emma remained silent.
"Here they are," Emma said as she approached Regina. "I'm gonna go grab some food. Or maybe just some chocolate milk. I hope they have that in the cafeteria." Emma walked off before Regina could even respond.
"What's going on?" Henry and Grace asked in unison. They both had concerned expressions on their faces. "Is something wrong with Ella?"
"About a week ago, the Black Fairy and the Dark Fairy kidnapped Ella and Violet and took them to the Other Enchanted Forest. I was able to rescue them without much trouble, but, um... I wasn't quite fast enough. Violet's fine, she wasn't who they really wanted. But Ella..."
"Is she hurt? Is she going to be okay? She's not going to die, is she?"
"No. Physically, she's fine, but..." Regina took a deep breath. "The Black Fairy erased all of her memories from the Land of Untold Stories."
"What?" Grace's voice cracked. "No..."
"Grace--"
"That's not fair!" She shouted before she turned and ran off.
~
"Hey," Henry said softly as he sat down next to Grace. Grace just turned her head away from him.
"Go away," she mumbled.
Henry sighed. "It's not over, you know."
"Just leave," Grace said. "I don't want to talk to you right now."
Henry pursed his lips and closed his eyes. Slowly, he stood up and walked back to Regina. When he arrived, Emma had returned and she was holding a carton of chocolate milk. "Where's Ella's room?" he asked.
"I'll take you there," Emma replied. She placed a hand on Henry's shoulder and led him to the room where Ella was.
~
"Do you have it?"
The Dark Lady nodded and opened the box so the Black Fairy could look inside. Lying in the box was the Dark One dagger which currently had the name Ruby Lucas engraved on it.
"You were right. The dagger didn't register my touch since I'm already the Dark One of another realm. Now... where did you say you wanted me to deliver this?"
"The Jolly Roger."
"To... Captain Hook? Not to doubt your plan, but that sounds like a risk. We can't count on getting the dagger back once he becomes the Dark One."
"We won't need to. And he won't be the Dark One. He won't need to be. With the Darkness this untameable, the dagger just needs to be on the ship with him and he will act as if he is the Dark One. The actual Dark One will be Milah. It's time those two paid for what they did. When their friends see how Hook acts without even being the Dark One, Milah will surely side with him and they will become outcasts. Also, with the Jolly Roger out of the picture, secret cross-realm travel becomes much harder for the so-called 'heroes' of the Land of Untold Stories."
The Dark Lady smiled. "Smart. I assume I'm not allowed to ask what Hook and Milah did that they need to 'pay for'?"
"All in due time. For now, you must deliver the dagger to the Jolly Roger."
~
Grace heard the click of heels against the hospital floor and she knew that meant Regina had come after her. Or been sent to find her. It didn't really matter which. Grace refused to look up at her and instead kept her head down.
"I'm sorry," was the first thing Regina said.
"It's not your fault."
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner," Regina explained. "I was hoping it wouldn't take this long to figure out how to restore her memories, and then you could just find out after the fact, but," Regina took a deep breath. "Life doesn't work out the way we want it to."
"It's okay." Grace used her sleeve to wipe away the tears that were sliding down her cheeks. "I just..." Grace shrugged. "It's not fair. Our story was so short."
A thousand thoughts and responses ran through Regina's mind in the few seconds that followed Grace's words. Our story was so short...
"But it's not over yet," was the reply Regina finally settled on. "I'm not going to stop looking for a way to restore Ella's memories, I promise. Your story isn't over."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because even if we can't reverse this, you and Ella changed the entire path our universe was supposed to take. That's... really powerful, and I don't think a little dark fairy magic can end something like that."
~
The Jolly Roger had just docked in the Land of Untold Stories for the night and Milah was doing some cleaning when she noticed a package had shown up. She looked at the tag and noticed it was addressed to her and there was no sender listed. That made her nervous.
"Killian, did you order something?!" Milah called to her boyfriend, who was currently below deck.
"No!" He called back. Within a few moments, he was on the deck so he could talk to Milah better. "You know I'm not good with online shopping. Why?"
"'Cause there's a package here addressed to me, but I know I didn't order anything. And it doesn't say who it's from."
"You sure we should open it?"
"That's what I'm trying to decide."
Hook walked over to Milah and the package and looked at it. "What if..." Hook shook his head. "Never mind. Forget it."
"What?"
Hook spent a few moments trying to decide whether he should tell Milah what thought had occurred to him or not and finally gave in. "What if it has something to do with Alice 2.0? Like, maybe a request to save her from her horrible mother or something."
Milah nodded. "Okay, we should open it." She carefully took the lid off. As soon as it was off, an invisible wave of magic seemed to wash over Hook. Milah dropped the lid on the ground on looked in the box. It was the dagger.
Milah had a strange feeling that the Darkness was probably already fighting with Hook's mind, telling him to grab the dagger, so Milah took it out and the name on the blade changed to hers.
"We... we need to take this somewhere else," she said, but even as she said that, she could feel herself forgetting why that was so important.
"Yeah," Hook agreed. "Or..."
"Or...?" Milah looked down at the dagger. "I mean... we could keep it."
"It could help us," Hook agreed.
"You're right." Somewhere in the back of Milah's mind, logic was screaming at her that this was a horrible idea and she should take the dagger back to Ruby right now, but the Dark One mind won out. "We should keep it."
~
It was late when Ella's door cracked open slowly. It was past visiting hours, so Ella was fairly certain it was probably a nurse doing a mandatory check in or it was Regina who had convinced the doctors to let her disregard visiting hours.
Instead, a blonde girl who looked to be about Ella's age stepped into the room. "Hi," she greeted. "My name's Grace."
Ella smiled at the girl. "That's a pretty name. I'm... Ella." It felt weird for Ella to introduce herself as anything other than Jacinda, but she was getting more used to it.
"I know you don't remember me, but we used to be... friends. Before you had your memory erased. And I know Regina and the others are working to find a way to reverse whatever curse the Black Fairy put on you, but I figured maybe while she's working on that, we could talk?"
"That sounds nice. I'd like to just talk to someone my age."
