pilot; ❛ TREACHEROUS ❜
❝ You'll always have me, Charming ❞

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THE ENCHANTED FOREST

      "We need to take the Queen out before she can inflict her curse." Charming told his council in desperation. The mere idea of the curse was messing with his head and Rumplestiltskin mentioning his daughter only made his temper and nerves grow.

Anastasia looked at all of the people sitting at the table, scanning the lost look everyone was wearing. She sighed and looked at her friend, the King Consort. "David, Rumplestiltskin is a pathological liar. How can you trust him?"

"I've sent my men into the forest. The animals are abuzz with the Queen's plan." He informed her and leaned the palms of his hands on the table. He looked at Anastasia solemnly. "This is going to happen unless we do something."

"There's no point." Snow White shook her head. Her husband immediately looked at her in confusion. She looked so tired that she could not even lift her gaze off the floor as she sat in her chair. Anastasia frowned because their Queen was weak while Regina was stronger and angrier than ever. "The future is written." She added and finally met David's gaze.

He shook his head. "No. I refuse to believe that. Good can't just lose."

"Maybe it can." Snow shot back and everyone held their breath.

The royal couple rarely fought and no one wanted to be caught in the crossfire when they did.

"No." David pleaded and kneeled on the ground to make Snow look at him. "No. Not as long as we have each other. If you believe him about the curse, then you must believe him about our child. She will be the savior."

Before Snow White had the chance to respond, the doors loudly opened and the Royal Guard strutted inside while carrying a big tree. Anastasia furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. Why were they carrying a fucking tree into the castle?

"What the hell is this?" David demanded.

It was only when the Blue Fairy flew right in front of the table that Anastasia noticed her presence. The fairy kindly smiled at the King.

"Our only hope of saving that child." She told him.

"A tree?" Grumpy scoffed. "Our fate rests on a tree?" He looked at David. "Let's get back to the fighting thing."

"The tree is enchanted. If fashioned into a vessel, it can ward off any curse." Said the Blue Fairy to clear up their confusion. Anastasia looked at Snow and saw the way her eyes lit up with hope. The fairy turned to the old man who was sitting opposite Anastasia on the table. "Geppetto, can you build such a thing?"

He smiled and nodded while patting his son on the head. The boy, sitting on the floor, looked up at his father curiously. "Me and my boy, we can do it."

"This will work. We all must have faith." The Blue Fairy told Charming and Snow. The latter gripped the former's hand and smiled blissfully. The smile fell when the fairy opened her mouth once more. "There is, however, a catch. The enchantment is indeed powerful. But all power has its limits, and this tree can protect only one."

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STORYBROOKE

Henry Mills was missing.

Audrey did not expect to come into her afternoon shift and have Graham drag her to the house of the Mayor.

Regina Mills was a cold and manipulative woman. She was not likable amongst the people but she held their entire town up on her own. She was a single mother and seemed to be doing a good job raising Henry who was the sweetest kid she had ever met.

For some reason, Regina did not seem to like her at all. Audrey always guessed it had something to do with how close she was with Graham because everyone knew that he was sleeping with Regina. When she needed help, he would come running and she wanted him all to herself.

That was made clear when Audrey and Graham came into Regina's house and she gave her a dirty look.

"Oh, you brought her?"

Audrey visibly cringed at Regina's words but kept quiet. She and Graham questioned her on Henry's whereabouts and found out that his teacher told her he never even went to school that day.

Audrey immediately thought that he had run away. What bad could happen to the mayor's son in a town as small as Storybrooke? Audrey chose not to voice her thoughts because she did not want to fall into a discussion with a woman as powerful as Regina.

Before she knew it, they had spent the entire afternoon making phone calls and calming Regina down.

Audrey paced the enormous living room and looked outside the window, not expecting to see Henry and an unknown blonde-haired woman walking along the dark street.

"There he is." She announced and Regina followed her gaze.

"Henry." The mayor muttered in shock and all but ran toward the door, her heels clicking about the floor.

Graham sighed. "Thank God."

The two followed after Regina who opened her front door and exclaimed her son's name, looking extremely relieved. She ran up to him and leaned down to wrap her arms around him.

"Are you okay?" She asked him and pulled away to grip his shoulders. "Where have you been? What happened?"

Her voice was shaky and she was worried about him the entire day. She might have been a bitch but she loved her son.

"I found my real mom." Henry spat out coldly and ran into the house, brushing past the adults without looking back twice.

All eyes turned to the unknown woman who brought Henry home. It did not take a genius to guess that she was his real mother.

"You're Henry's birth mother?" Regina asked her in disbelief.

The blonde smiled awkwardly. "Hi."

"We'll just go check on the lad," Graham cleared his throat while his partner nervously shifted from one foot to another, "make sure he's alright."

He grabbed Audrey's hand and pulled her back into the house and then toward Henry's room.

Henry was pretty unwilling to talk to them. Physically, he seemed well so Audrey and Graham realized that it was best to let him sleep his anger off.

When they made their way downstairs, Regina and Henry's biological mother were having a drink and talking.

"Madam Mayor, you can relax." Graham announced as he followed Audrey down the stairs. "Other than being a tired little boy, Henry is fine."

"Thank you, Sheriff." Regina smiled, her gentle and coy eyes subconsciously flickering across his body.

"Good night, Madam Mayor." Audrey gave her a fake tight-lipped smile. She nodded at the blonde woman. Then she wrapped an arm around Graham's wrist (missing the dangerous glint in Regina's eye at the action) and pulled him toward the door.

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THE ENCHANTED FOREST

Geppetto built his wardrobe out of the enchanted tree. He worked quickly because they had no idea when the Evil Queen was going to throw the curse. Because of his quickness, Snow White and Charming grew even more restless.

Only Snow could go into the wardrobe with their little girl and David would have to get caught up in the curse for twenty-eight years.

"You two will be okay." Anastasia rubbed David's shoulder as the two of them sat underneath a tree in front of the castle. "If anyone can still love each other after being apart for twenty-eight years, it's the two of you."

David sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "I hate that I have to be the one who's left behind. I won't get to see my daughter grow up. Snow and I just got married, Annie. How am I supposed to be apart from both of them for so long? Things won't be the same once I get them back." He tried to force a small smile and had a hopeful look in his eyes as he did so. "I will still have you, right?"

Anastasia owed everything she had to him. After she lost both of the men she loved, she felt like she was dying. He saved her from herself and became her family despite how messed up his own life was.

"You'll always have me, Charming."

Always was a big word.

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"Jesus, Leroy, will you shut the fuck up?" Anastasia groaned from her desk. She barely slept and having a morning shift after a night shift was a disaster. His yapping did not help.

Graham walked into the room after hearing her complaining. He glared at Leroy and walked toward the cell with a key in his hand. "Leroy, if I'm gonna let you out, you need to behave." He unlocked his cell. "Put on a smile, and stay out of trouble."

Leroy gave him a sarcastic smile which dropped the second he brushed past him. He walked over to Audrey's desk and grabbed his jacket which had been lying on top of it since the night before. He glared at her, she smiled.

"Have a good day, Leroy."

He rolled his eyes and left, making Audrey tune back into the conversation between Graham and Henry's biological mother who got into a car accident the previous night and was laying in a cell because of drunk driving.

"Regina's drinks are a little stronger than we thought." Graham gave her an apologetic smile.

Audrey snorted. "You would know all about it."

"I wasn't drunk." The blonde defended herself. "There was a wolf standing in the middle of the road."

"A wolf?" Audrey laughed and stood up to walk toward her. "Sorry, blondie, but we don't have any wolves here."

"Graham!" Regina's whiny voice echoed from the hallway before they could continue arguing. "Henry's run away again. We have to..." She cut herself off when she entered the room and laid eyes on her son's mother. "What is she doing here?" Her eyes quickly narrowed into a glare. "Do you know where he is?"

"Lady, I haven't seen him since I dropped him at your house and I have a pretty good alibi." She gestured to the cell which she was in the entire night.

"Yeah, well he wasn't in his room this morning." Regina shot back.

The blonde tilted her head. "Did you try his friends?"

"He doesn't really have any. He's kind of a loner."

"Every kid has friends. Did you check his computer? If he's close to someone, he'd be emailing them."

Regina's anger was only growing at her words. "And you know this how?"

"Finding people is what I do." She shrugged and looked at Audrey. "Here's an idea. How about you guys let me out and I'll help you find him?"

Graham sighed and, after one nod from Regina, he opened the cell. Audrey started grabbing her things to get going when Graham placed a hand on her shoulder.

"You should stay here." He told her with an apologetic look on his face. "We can't have the station empty for another day because of this. I'll call you if I need you, okay?"

Audrey rolled her eyes and placed her bag down. "Okay."

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THE ENCHANTED FOREST

Things somehow became worse.

Snow White went into labor and the curse started coming simultaneously. Unfortunately, the wardrobe was not ready by the time little Emma was born.

That meant that Emma had to escape the curse alone and be separated from her parents for twenty-eight years.

Anastasia felt bad for ever being envious of the relationship David had with Snow White. Their entire life was getting torn apart and she felt guilty that she ever wished the two of her closest friends something as awful as she had. No one could be as strong and selfless as them in a moment like that.

The castle was getting attacked by the Evil Queen's guards and David had to get to the wardrobe with Emma before the curse hit.

Anastasia slit the throats of three guards while helping him get there and almost lost her head while guarding the door to the workshop while David sent his daughter away.

She stabbed a man in the arm but did not expect another man to stab her in the thigh. Anastasia groaned and fell onto her knees which gave the men a chance to enter the workshop. David tried to fight them off and he was managing until one more guard came into the room. Anastasia tried her hardest to stand up but the pain was just too much.

He was outnumbered four to one and he knew he had no chance but he still fought them. A heart-wrenching scream tore through the castle when a sword went through David's chest.

History was repeating itself and there was nothing that Anastasia could do to stop it.

Black dots were appearing in front of her eyes. The last vision she saw before she was sucked into the most horrible curse ever cast was James' lifeless eyes staring back at her.