A Curse Upon Thee 2-39

Green-brown-green.

Bark smeared past her shoulders, pine striping at the corner of her vision, the world tunneling and the ground rushing under her boots with all the speed she could muster on just two human legs. Every twenty steps, though, her hands wanted the dirt.

To feel the ground under her pads; all four of them.

No. Despite that, Ruby Lucas kept going on two feet, red flannel clinging tight to her with each pump of her arms. Too much skin meant too much air, and that freedom made her want more and more and more; an urge to strip free and move the way her blood boiled at her to.

The wolf clawed from the inside out, tearing at her chest with a pressure that almost screamed at her to pitch forward. And she wanted to, just to let her spine crack and skin shift until she could howl loud against the setting sun. Running felt uglier without a tail now, denim scraping raw against her thighs with each stride. Everything bit harder when she knew how real the shift felt and the way things were supposed to be. 

‘You don’t shift because you can’t resist it, Rose. That’s for animals.’ His voice fell on her shoulders from barely an hour ago, the man she had to call grandfather now in charge of her ‘training’. ‘You take a shape. It doesn’t take you.

On the other side of Storybrooke, she’d been halfway through another stupid set of ‘Grampa Big’ pacing circles around her while he made her stand still — stand still, that was the whole point of it — all in another attempt to get her instincts under control.

Then her phone rang with a call from Chad to rush down here.

She barely even looked at the shirtless man who didn’t understand footwear before she was gone and tearing across town on two legs.

The treeline broke in front of her, and green gave way to blue.

The light in front of her was clear and bright and came as cold as a Maine winter; a walk-in freezer with the door held open spitting violent freezing wind into the world, enough to flatten the grass all around. What…  The well sat at the top of the hill like it had like she remembered it two weeks ago, mossy and squat and unaware of the fact a hole in the world was sitting on top of it with light pouring out of a mouth in the world.

Apart from that, it was all the same dirt around the same crumbling ring of stone where Gold had let Finn fall and fade.

“Ruby!”

Her head snapped to the side, six people she recognized standing not too far from the well in a loose ring. One particular bright blond head stood nearest her in a bright blue peacoat she knew probably cost more than her whole closet.

“Chad!” She almost had to shout over the wind, the cold air whipping her way. “What’s going on?”

The Boston boy shot her a salute, two fingers to his forehead as his hair — for once — didn’t do what he wanted it to. “Don’t ask me. I just rushed over here with Mr. Mayor.”

“Regina called me.” David stood on his side, one hand on that sword of his as he angled his body to shield his grandson from the worst of the wind. “Said she felt a massive surge of magic coming from here. I was with Henry and Chad, so we drove straight here.”

“A tear in the world.” A sharp scoff came from the former mayor at his side, her arms folded as she kept her eyes on the well. “Which I felt from my kitchen, thank you.” One step took her closer to the portal, heels sinking an inch into the dirt. “I merely called David to keep my son away from it, and the dolt made his way here instead, with him and this hanger-on.”

Dark eyes slid across to the other end of the well, a thin figure standing there with a familiar smile on his face. “We arrived to find the imp already loitering.”

“Loitering.” The imp in question stood isolated as he leaned forward onto his cane, silver handle gripped tight in one hand as he waved with the other. “You wound me, truly. I’ve just been waiting, dearie. Call it a… morbid curiosity.”

“...are you purposely trying to act like you’re the Devil?” Chad raised an eyebrow. “Or is it like a tic?”

“I assure you, young man.” Gold’s voice came out a trill, cane pointing up for a moment. “None of this is an act.”

“...that’s worrying.”

The town’s old-new sheriff shrugged his shoulders from where he stood across Chad. “I just saw the mayor speeding and followed to give him a ticket.”

“Is it—” Ruby jogged up to the sherrif, chest going heavy as she caught her breath. “You think it’s gonna be—?”

“I hope so.” David’s jaw was tight, eyes forward on the swirling portal. “I really hope so.”

“I can’t—” Ruby stared the same direction he did, breathing into the wind as her eyes caught the light. “I can’t believe it.” She hadn’t given up on seeing Finn, but Ruby also couldn’t deny that she had let herself get used to the idea that she wouldn’t see him for a while. “I really can’t.”

Regina’s eyes narrowed, wind tearing at her blazer. “Neither can I.”

“I certainly can’t.” Gold leaned forward a little more. “I rather assumed it was something of a one-way trip.”

“First of all, fuck you.” Chad’s hands went up, two fingers pointing at the ‘imp’. “Second, are you all talking about what I think you’re talking about?”

"They're coming back!" Henry was already bouncing on his heels, the kid’s fists up and over his head. "It's Emma! Emma and Mary Margaret!"

Ruby took another step closer. "...and Finn."

Chad turned her way, a hitch in his breath as he looked between David and Ruby. "...you're sure?"

“I…” Her nails were in her palms, too-sharp all of a sudden. Say it. She unfolded her fingers slow and carefully and kept them open. Say it out loud. “I’m sure.”

The light flared the second the words left her lips, from a column to a wall; blue washing the clearing and wind kicking up a ring of dead leaves and dust hard enough that Ruby had to raise her hands over her eyes.

A small little blur lunged forward.

“Henry!” The back of the boy’s jacket was clenched tight in Regina’s fist before the boy cleared a full two feet, the ten year old twisting and kicking in an attempt to go free. Before the boy could fight any harder, Regina hauled him in with the iron grip that could only belong to a mother until she was hugging the boy tight from behind. “We don’t know what’s coming through.”

"Bu—"

"Henry."

A hand slapped down on the stone edge of the well; wet, filthy, and white-knuckled fingers hooked themselves over before a second hand joined it. A blonde head poked up from inside the well, hair plastered flat with mud all the way down to her shoulders and even past that.

Emma Swan was quick to move, as weak as she sounded. Coughs flew from her mouth, each one raw and ragged like the woman hadn’t had air in minutes, as Emma Swan hauled herself over the stone and hung over the edge of the well. She rested there a moment, sucking in a raw breath, before rolling over the rest of the way to hit the grass on all fours.

A sword fell free from her waist, sheath and all, to land right next to her.

Mary Margaret came up immediately after her sucking in desperate lungfuls, the short-haired brunette clutching a bow and what looked like a compass tight to her chest as if both were life preservers.

“MOM!”

Henry forced his way free as soon as Emma raised her head, the boy slipping through Regina’s loosened grasp and hitting the blonde at a dead run. She caught him, arms all the way around Henry’s small body, before he could knock her down; holding on tight like she never wanted to let go. “I got you, kid. I’m here.”

Ruby was already past David, past Chad’s open-mouthed stare, and right up to the portal already starting to stutter. No… The blue was beginning to fade as quickly as water going down a drain and no one else seemed to be making their way out.

"Emma." The woman clearly didn’t hear her, her face buried in Henry’s shoulder with her fists full of his jacket. "Emma." 

That got her attention, Emma’s head snapping up at the growl; too many teeth behind her name and Ruby not bothering to fix it. "Where is he? Where's Finn?"

Emma pulled back from Henry, another cough bursting out of her. A hand went to her mouth to wipe the spit off her lip, more dirt than hand doing the work as she only made the mess worse to look at.

The woman looked over her shoulder at the dimming well, then back up at her mother. Both women met each other, eyes wide and uncertain as the blue died completely and the mouth closed behhind them. Natural shadows from the setting sun filled the clearing before they finally looked back to Ruby, both of them wearing the same look.

Emma was the first to open her mouth. “Ruby…”

“No…” The wolf howled long and low inside her, Ruby’s stomach dropping straight through the earth along with all her hopes. “Emma, no… don’t, no. You don’t…”

Mary Margaret shook her head too, that sad look she could pull off so well all over her face and the exact opposite of what Ruby wanted to see. “Ruby…”

“No!”

“He…” Emma swallowed her words, turning back to the nonexistent portal as she gripped Henry tighter. “Finn was with us, okay? He was right here with us. He came through first even. F-fell through first. Like, right… right before us. Seconds, I mean….”

“Emma, where is Finn?”

“We don’t…” Her jaw worked in silence for a second, the answer obvious even as she chewed on it for no reason. “We don’t know.”

The wind died all at once, the clearing just a clearing again with all the magic gone and only moss and dirt left behind.

“The hell do you mean, you don't know?” All attention went to a hard voice as Chad shouldered up past David, eyes narrowed on Emma like she’d just spat on his boat shoes. “You said he went in ahead of you, right? We’ve been here a quarter of an hour. Nobody else came through.”

Emma’s green eyes blinked slow at the tall blond stranger who’d swaggered up to her and her son, every bit of softness that Henry put on her face already packing itself away. “And who the hell are you?”

“Me?” Chad pointed at his own chest. "I'm—"