Chapter Five | Firebird


|The Vault, Three Days Later|

Regina had several things laid out on the table in front of her and she couldn't remember any of them. The first was what looked to be a page out of Henry's storybook - page twenty-three to be exact - but next to it lay the storybook itself, which was opened to a page twenty-three that depicted an entirely different story. Regina couldn't remember either of them.

The next was a framed picture of Regina and a man she assumed must be Robin. Looking at the picture made Regina feel a sharp ache in her heart, so she looked at the other things instead.

There was a picture on her phone of her and Robin that had been taken sometime within the past few months. Both she and Robin were looking at each other and smiling - or maybe even laughing, Regina wasn't sure. The picture had been taken by Emma, who had sent it to Regina after she took it, teasing the former Queen about spending too much time with her fiancé instead of her friends.

The final item was the ring on Regina's finger. She would have taken it off and set it on the table with the other objects, but it felt wrong to take it off. All of these things, along with the child growing inside of her, were solid proof that Robin existed and Regina was in love with him. And that just made her want to remember him even more, despite knowing that she was in for a major heartbreak once the memories were back. Regina was about ready to pack the items away when a woman came running into the room. "Emma Swan, I need Emma Swan. Is she here?"

"She's at her house," Regina replied. "I can take you there."

"I need Emma Swan," the woman repeated.

"Why?"

"I need Emma Swan. Where is she?"

Regina crossed the room so she was standing in front of the woman. She had a frantic look in her eyes and they were constantly flitting around like she was afraid someone was watching her.

"Tell me why I should take you to Emma."

"I know," the woman said. "I know about you and I know about her and I know about a lot of things that I shouldn't, but I know about them anyways," he voice was panicky now and Regina figured that there was no way this woman would be able to put up a fight.

"Follow me," Regina gave in.


|Boston, Ten Years Earlier|

Emma pushed her glasses up her nose before wrapping her arms back around herself, trying to stay warm. She should have known better than to wear nothing but a thin windbreaker in late November, but it was too late for that now. She was on the final street before home when she saw a shadow moved. Emma froze and looked in the direction of the shadow, but she couldn't see anything. She kept walking only to see the shadow again.

"Hello?" Emma called out. She felt like the idiot in a horror movie that would lure the monster towards her because she had spoke, but the shadow was gone again.

"Emma Swan?" Emma turned to see a woman standing next to her. She yelped and jumped backwards.

"Who are you?!"

"My name is Cleo Fox. Are you Emma Swan?"

"Why--?"

The woman whimpered and grabbed at her stomach. Emma noticed that she was bleeding. "What happened?!" She exclaimed. She trying to get closer to Cleo, but the woman turned and took off down a dark alley. Emma almost didn't go after her, but some voice in her head told her to go, so Emma sprinted after the woman, her breath steaming in the cold air.

She followed Cleo down several back alleys before the woman finally stumbled and fell. Emma dropped down on her knees next to the woman. Her glasses had fallen off sometime during the chase, but she didn't need them at the moment.

"What happened to you?" Emma asked.

"There was a man," Cleo said, her eyes nervously looking around the street. "He...he wanted to hurt me."

"What did he look like?"

"I don't know. It was all dark and my stomach hurt and...and I don't remember."

"Do you know why he would want to hurt you?" Emma tried.

Cleo shook her head. "No. Yes. Maybe. Lots of people want to hurt both of us, Emma. Why? Why do people want to hurt the things they don't understand?"

Emma blinked a few times. "Who wants to hurt me?"

"People. Non-people. Lots of both. There's a man who doesn't. A woman who won't someday. And there's a boy. Yes, I see him quite clearly. A boy who will lead you to your fate."

"I-I don't understand."

"No," Chloe smiled sadly, "but you will someday."

"We need to get you to the hospital." Emma pulled her cell phone out of her pocket.

"No!" Chloe exclaimed desperately. "No, please no. They won't understand me. You need to help me, Emma. You can understand."

"I don't know how to heal a stomach wound!"

"You don't need to. You need to believe."

"Believe in what? Magic?"

"Someday," Chloe answered wistfully. "But for now, you must believe in yourself. You are stronger than you know, Emma Swan. Don't forget that."

"Who are you?"

"I told you. Cleo Fox. Thank you, Emma."

Another shadow moved, and Emma's head snapped to look at it.

"Run," Cleo said. "This is a non-person you don't need to meet yet."

"But you're hurt."

Cleo shook her head. "I will be fine. Run, Emma Swan, you are needed. Never forget that."

Emma stood up on shaky legs and took off in the opposite direction of the shadow that was steadily growing larger. When she reached her apartment, Emma quickly shut the door and locked it, her entire body still trembling from fear rather than cold now.

Emma kicked her shoes off and opened the fridge, hoping food could take her mind off of what had just happened. What had Cleo been rambling on about? A man? A woman? A boy? Non-people? Emma shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts, and poured herself a glass of orange juice.


|Emma's House, Present Day|

Henry opened the door when the doorbell rang and was surprised to see Regina and another woman Henry had never seen before.

"Who--?" But the mystery woman cut him off.

"Henry. Henry Mills. I remember you."

"What...?" Henry looked at his mother.

Regina shook her head. "I don't know. She said she needed to see Emma."

"Yes," the woman confirmed. "I need to see Emma Swan. Where is she?"

"Do you guys need me?" Emma called from whatever room she was in.

"Yes," the woman answered quietly.

"Yeah," Regina called back as she made the woman step inside the house and shut the door behind them. Emma rounded the corner, but stopped when she saw the woman.

"Emma Swan."

"You." Emma replied. "Cleo Fox. They told me you didn't exist."

"I don't," Cleo confirmed. "Well, I don't to most people. But I do to those who also don't exist to most people. Like you, Emma. We don't exist. None of us do. It's fascinating, really. I love asking people about Neal Cassidy; he gets the best reaction."

"What are you doing here?" Emma demanded.

"Warning you."

"About what?"

"Me."


|Boston|

Emma picked up her broken glasses off of the street. The were snapped in half and the right lense was shattered. "Oh well," Emma muttered as she stuck them in her pocket, "I was wanting to get contacts anyways." She continued on her way to the station where they were awaiting her report from last night that she had tightly sealed up in a manila envelope. She opened the door and a guy in a grey hoodie bumped into her as she was walking in. The hood was pulled up over his face, so Emma couldn't see who it was.

"Watch where you're going," Emma called at him. She might have heard him mutter something under his breath, but she didn't hear what it was. She quickly shook the weird feeling she had after bumping into him and entered the building. "I'm Emma Swan," she told the man behind the desk. "I'm here to file a missing report on someone named Cleo Fox."

"Ah, yes. Emma Swan. May I see the papers?" Emma handed the envelope to him across the counter. She tried to look for the man she had bumped into through the glass doors, but everything was too blurry. She really needed to get some contacts soon.

"Cleo Fox?" The man asked. Emma looked back at him and nodded.

"There's no records of a Cleo Fox here. Are you sure you heard her name right?"

"Yes. She has to be somewhere."

"I can send out a message to the other stations around, but there's no records of a Cleo Fox ever existing. However, your report seems legitimate, so I will look."

"Thank you."

The man nodded. "I'll let you know if we figure out anything else."

The man in a hoodie was too focused on keeping his face covered to see the woman he bumped into. His head shot up, not thinking about why he had been covering his face and desperately hoping he hadn't somehow managed to bump into Emma because she had gone after him. "Sorry!" The woman standing across from him was not Emma and the man let out a sigh of relief. "Are you okay?"

The woman's eyes widened. "Neal Cassidy. No. Yes! No, no, it's Baelfire, isn't it?"

Neal instantly went into defense mode. Somebody knowing his Enchanted Forest identity could not be a good thing, no matter the circumstances. "How do you know who I am?"

"I come from your realm," the woman answered. "I came here in search of Emma Swan but he found me and I was too early."

"Who's 'he'?"

"Hades. Greek god of the Underworld. He wants me as his own, as a fury or a servant or something. My stomach was bleeding out yesterday thanks to him and I think I scared Emma. You know Emma Swan, don't you?"

Neal sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, I know her. But what's she doing here? I came here to get away from her because I'm pretty sure she wants my head on a silver platter after what August made me do."

The woman had many things she could have said to that, but the first one that left her mouth was, "She's hiding something from you."

"What's she hiding?"

The woman forced herself not to answer. "I don't know. But you need to leave this city, Baelfire. Your fates aren't entwined yet. You will see Emma again, when the Fates allow."

"Right. Let me guess, after her twenty-eighth birthday when she's destined to save everyone?" Neal asked bitterly. "Couldn't have fallen for someone normal, could I? No, I had to fall for the freaking savior!"

"Speaking of which..."

Neal turned around to see Emma walking towards him and the woman. He pulled his hood over his face. "I need to know who you are."

"My name is Cleo Fox," the woman whispered quickly. "But most in our realm call me the Firebird." With that, Cleo disappeared leaving only a few bright red feathers behind that the breeze blew away. Neal hurried on his way, hoping Emma hadn't noticed him. She was better off without him anyways. She would head to Storybrooke on her twenty-eighth birthday, break the curse, and end up running into him at some point. Most likely in that order.


|Storybrooke, Present Day|

"You?" Emma asked.

Cleo nodded. "I'm dangerous. Hades will be mad when he finds out I'm gone, but I needed to warn you because the time is right now. I was too early last time. And you helped me, Emma Swan."

"How did I help you?"

"You believed."

"...In myself?"

"In magic," Cleo corrected. "You believed in magic and broke the curse. If you hadn't broken the curse, there wouldn't have been a portal to the Underworld and I couldn't have escaped. But Hades, he'll want me back. You have to stop him!"

"We won't let him hurt you," Regina promised. Cleo turned around as if she was noticing who Regina was for the first time.

"Evil Queen?"

Regina sighed. "That's me."

"Why are you here?"

"...You came to me."

"No I didn't. I went to the person with the strongest need for something. Because Emma helped me, I will help her, and she needed something which is what brought me here."

"The memories!" Henry exclaimed. "Your need for your memories of Robin back was stronger than Mom's need to help you!"

Emma nodded. "That would make sense. So, Cleo, will you help us figure out how to get Regina's memories back if we protect you from Hades?"

Cleo nodded. "Yes. You helped me, now I will help you."

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