Storybrooke

Beeep.

Callie is jolted out of her head at Mary Margaret's panicked yelling for Dr. Whale. Her head shoots up and her eyes catch onto the monitors dropping and going blank. A shrill beep fills the air as the doctor and nurses fill the room. Mary Margaret is pulled away from the bed and shown outside of the room. Callie has the storybook shoved into her arms, still open to the page of Calypso waking up to false memories.

But this isn't a fairytale. And Callie's heart plummets as she watches the kid she's raised begin to die.

Callie looks over at Mary Margaret in shock as the monitors go silent. A tear slips down the dark-haired woman's cheek, and Callie chokes on a sob she didn't realize that she had been holding.

Mary Margaret tries to call Emma, her phone not reaching the blonde's. Callie pulls out her phone, trying to reach Regina's cell and her heartbeat quickens as it stalls.

Callie's voice breaks as she tries to speak, "luv, it's—" but Regina hangs up before she can even say what's happened.

And the line goes dead.

Mary Margaret is asked to leave. No ties to the boy that's died other than having been his teacher for the past year. Callie is left alone, in a room that smells too clean and in a seat that feels too stiff. She's balanced on the edge, head in her hands as she lets go of the sob aching in her chest.

She can see Dr. Whale's feet in front of her. Muffled voices reach her ears. The soft hand of Mother Superior touches her shoulder gently, but the contact causes her to jump. But all Callie can do is sink into the loss of Henry.

Regina and Swan enter the lobby at a running pace, but both seem to freeze as Dr. Whale and Mother Superior turn to them with apologies on their lips. Both cry softly, eyes turning red at the sight of their son dead.

Emma seems to approach him in slow motion. Callie looks up, meeting Regina's eyes just as another sob hiccups off of her lips. Her eyes tear up and she shakily stands, intending to hug her old friend.

Her eyes catch on to Swan slowly leaning over Henry. A nurse works on the wires and other medical equipment that is carefully being removed from his corpse.

She watches as Swan bends over his head, whispering something no one else can hear as her whole body quakes. A tear falls from Emma's cheek to Henry's as she cries.

Emma's lips slowly meet the soft skin of Henry's forehead.

Callie's eyes widen as light begins to seep out from Henry's chest. A pulsing ray of light goes out in all directions. Colorful arches and rainbows travel with the light beams, changing the whole world.

It grows brighter until the light takes all of Callie's vision — until all she sees are memories.

The hovel.

Her parents and all that they did to her.

Baelfire.

Killian.

Accepting his proposal.

All those years pirating.

What her father did to her.

And with that, Calypso's memories are fixed. Two lives come together in her head, and three different versions of herself mix into one as she remembers what Rumplestiltskin did that day.

Becoming her father's daughter.

Meeting Regina.

Meeting Graham.

And then, the curse.

Calypso gasps, tears falling fast down her cheeks as all of her lives mend together. She almost stumbles as everyone looks around, realizing that the curse has been broken.

"The curse, it's broken?"

Cali runs from the room, she has to find Killian. Or her father. Or both. And she'll use the excuse that she's searching for someone because she knows what could happen if everyone remembers the truth. If anyone recognizes her for who she was under her father's mind games — she might as well hang beside Regina.

Realization hits Cali the second she straddles her bike. There's only one place the Dark One would go in a world without magic, without power.

The wishing well that everyone considers abandoned.

Cali kicks her bike forward. Taking off with a jolt as she rushes to get to the Dark One.

Reunited, Snow White and Prince Charming kiss in the middle of Main Street.

Regina sits on Henry's bed, crying alone in her mansion.

Red Riding Hood hugs Granny outside of the diner, and the seven dwarves wait happily to assist their rulers.

Cali rides past them all and directly into the purple fog filling the town. But she knows that this is, and she embraces the feeling of magic and power.

Regina sits more comfortably in her house as she feels magic fill the air. Emma reunites with her parents, and for the first time, David and Mary Margaret recognize their daughter. And Henry meets his grandparents for the first time as their grandchild.

Cali's fingertips tickle and her palms itch as her power returns. A grin spreads across her lips as she parks her bike haphazardly before the trail that leads to the wishing well. Looking around to make sure that no one is there, Cali flourishes her hand and a navy blue mist covers her swiftly.

If only Cali's father wasn't immortal — she'd kill him here and now.

She appears near the well preparing to hit the Dark One so hard he's sent back to the Enchanted Forest. Yet instead, Cali freezes at the sight of her old, assumed-dead friend. Belle gasps happily and rushes into Cali's arms.

In the decade or so that Belle lived in the castle, the two captors got close. Cali considered her a friend, at least until her father told her that she had been killed.

Gasping, Cali looks down at the woman questioning her, "Belle! I thought you were dead?"

"I've heard," she laughs but avoids Cali's question nonetheless.

Yet Cali has to confront her father. She releases Belle from her arms and turns toward the Dark One, placing herself between him and Belle.

Rumplestiltskin smiles, oblivious to the new clarity in his daughter's head, and opens his arms wide for a hug.

But instead, he is met with a slap so hard it sends him stumbling a step back. Belle moves to stop her, only to stop as Cali starts screaming at him. Rumple's eyes widen, too late to have realized that all that he did to her was broken - and she was never going to let him close enough to fool her again.

"How dare you! You had no right to do that to me, for centuries!"

She pokes a finger into his chest as she confronts him like she did all those years ago. This time is different. This time she has a power of her own and no one to lose.

"Princess-"

"No! You tried to kill me! And, and you changed my memories! You separated me, you made me hate and fear the love of my life!"

"Calypso, please."

Her tone is sharp enough to put a knife through his heart. A hand in front of Belle to keep her out of his reach. They truly shouldn't forget that despite who he seems to be, his mind will always be the Dark One.

"Is Killian here."

"No. But Prince-"

"No. You, you will stay away from me, Dark One."

Cali turns away from her father, looking Belle in the eyes.

"Calypso, I-"

"Belle, if you ever need anything, ever. I'll be there for you."

And before Rumple can stop her, before he can say anything else, before he can change anything. She disappears into a navy fog just as quickly as she had appeared.

Cali teleports beside her bike at the end of the trail. Stumbling to her knees, she gasps as her legs give out on her. A sob slips from her lips and she almost screams as she grips the leather seat. Everything hurts, aches. And for a moment she has no idea what to do.

Then it hits her — the Charmings, Swan. They'll be fighting to return to the Enchanted Forest if they can, and that's how she'll get back. By playing on their side until she gets exactly what she wants.

She rides back to Granny's, parking her bike around the corner and walking quickly to see the large group reuniting.

Cali swallows hard, anxiety building in her stomach but she tries to shove it down as she approaches the group.

She feels awkward walking toward the group of reuniting lovers and families. Especially when her lover is probably dead and she's just spent her first curse-free moments screaming at her only living relative. But these goody-two-shoes are her best bet of getting back to the Enchanted Forest and finding out what happened to Killian.

"Aunt Cali!"

Cali smiles as her godson tackles her middle in a fierce hug, and she fights back tears because she finally knows that he's always reminded her of Bae.

"Hey lad. You doing better?"

"Yeah! Do you remember?"

Henry tries to whisper up to her, but it's no so discreet. Cali still nods to her kid, but wants to curse her entire existence as David turns his attention to them.

"Remember what?"

David asks warily, looking at Cali as though he's trying to place her somewhere. Something feels off about her to both himself and Snow. For some reason she looked oh so familiar.

"Henry thought he had my fairytale-self figured out. I'm only a background character though, not important enough for my own stories," she grins sheepishly, biting the inside of her cheek to play it off as sincere. "I just can't seem to figure out how old I am..."

"What we need to figure out, is what that purple fog was?"

Cali's eyes roll, she's can't believe that Mary Margaret is genuinely asking what it was. It was obviously magic.

Cali feels a spark of excitement spark in her chest. Excitement for the powers  in her hands. And excitement to using them again after all these years.

Mentally Cali begins working out her most pressing matter — finding Killian. And that means she needs to know at least how old she might be. Rumplestiltskin turned back the clock for her so often to keep her young, that Killian could've been dead for years now. But she trusts her pirate, and maybe, just maybe, he found a way to survive until they could find each other again. Her age clicks as she figures out Killian's, or at least their rough ages. She could be two hundred fifty-three, making Killian two hundred fifty-six.

"That was magic."

"Dammit."

Cali curses under her breath at the sight of the blue fairy. Definitely older than herself, Mother Superior has a better chance of recognizing her. Only Henry, overjoyed to being so close to a fairy easily distracts her from even looking at Cali as he begs to see some magic.

David growls, thinking that he's figured it out.

"Regina."

"No, wait."

Cali interrupts and the whole group turns to look at her. Some of the dwarves give her small glares, and she can tell that David is fighting his one muscles because they believe that maybe her cursed half is still willing to defend Regina.

"Regina wouldn't have had the time to do that, she just left the hospital? Wouldn't it have to be Rumplestiltskin's fault?"

At that moment, a large mob runs alongside Main Street screaming and banging pots and pitchforks. Cali's eyes widen as she watches Dr. Whale leading the group, shaking her head at the imbeciles.

The goody-two-shoes group rushing to Gold's pawn shop stop instead of getting running over, Cali groans. Already off track, and another stupid side-quest interrupting them. Cali doesn't dare speak up about him not being there. She's already suspicious, she can't magically know where the Dark One is too.

Dr. Hopper runs up to David and Snow, panting as he explains.

"They're, they're going to try to kill Regina. We have to stop them."

"Why?" Grumpy argues, grumpily, how cliche. "I mean she did curse us all."

"Because if magic's here they'll be walking into a massacre," Snow says, eyes widening and looking around the group.

They change directions toward the mayor's mansion. Cali wanting to complain the entire time.

When they reach the house, they find Whale and Regina at each other's throats. And Cali, she instantly knew why Regina was trying to kill him with her bare hands.

Magic feels different in this land. She knows that her friend hasn't quite figured it out. But that could get her killed these days.

The goody-two-shows parade puts a stop to any kind of killing or execution. They claim that they won't stoop to Regina's level. It almost makes Cali laugh. They put the "Evil Queen" in a jail cell, saying that she can rot there.

But Cali, oh she knows from experience. People can go back on their word. Just like how she knows, most people will gleefully hang a pirate...

Or the Dark One's daughter.

Later in the evening, the Dark One finds Regina in her jail cell with a charm enclosed carefully in his gloved hand. One that almost looks like the one that Cali touched a couple hundred years ago.

Rumple growls as he grabs her wrist and jerks her flush against the bars of the cell.

"Belle found me today. Telling me all about how you locked her away after faking her death."

He presses the talisman into her palm, and she groans as it burns into her skin.

"And my own darling daughter came to see me just after the curse broke, all of her memories restored along with her hatred for me. So because you have failed, and caused all of my loved ones pain — I'm returning the favor."

Regina looks at him, fear evident in her eyes as he yanks the charm back and disappears with the wind.

OLD NOTES // Hi! Wanted to explain Calypso's powers. Cali is not magical. She has zero magic skills, she learned what she knows about magic though books and watching her father. How she gained her powers will be explained later on, but if you're familiar with Wanda Maximoff in the Marvel Universe their powers look similar. Cali has the ability to control water (hydrokinesis) and teleportation. they're simple "curses" but she's still very powerful and dangerous. Her abilities are a navy blue/black color.
➤𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧! 𝐍𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐞'𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲.➤𝐈 𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐠𝐮𝐲𝐬 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐭! 𝐈 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐲'𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐨 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡, 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐯𝐨𝐭𝐞!➤ 𝟏𝟎-𝟏-𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟎➤ //

NEW NOTES //

I actually cried awhile writing this chapter. most of my emotions stemmed from the fact that it is my time of the month, but I was also watching the show as this all happened which I haven't done in a few years (and I have definitely missed watching this show).

this chapter really layers out Cali's thought process as she experiences two lives at the same time but also three different versions of herself. Cali is going to go through some really mental things in the present chapters coming up and the past chapters are going to open new windows into why and how she came to be like this.

thank you all so much for all of the feedback and votes and just love that y'all have been giving this fic recently!!

all of the message really are impacting how I feel about this fic, and I am updating a lot more than I have in the last few years because of y'all support!! i am so excited to have so many new readers and to see how everyone reacts as we get into parts of this story that none of you have gotten to read before <3

love you all to the moon and back,
09.06.2022 💕