Some Soul of Goodness

Epilogue

All's Well that Ends Well

Since I've ended this story at the point that The Curse breaks, I can tell you what I would envision happening to these characters.

The town of Storybrooke (now that the boundary is down) is discovered by summer tourists and becomes a most desirable spot for family vacations. During the remainder of the year it acquires a reputation for being an artist and writer haven (thanks to some nice, low rent apartments handled by a certain landlord). Shakespeare and Company, Rumple's bookstore/coffee/wine bar, gets greatly expanded to handle the increased business as does Granny's Dinner.

Astrid and Leroy (we all root for them, don't we?), marry and Astrid opens a daycare that competes successfully with the one operated by the nuns.

Maggie and the Colonel live on in wedded bliss, perhaps with Maggie eventually selling her shop to Rumple (who retains his interests and skills in spinning) and she and the Colonel go off to explore the USA in a Winnebago (lovely adventuresome couple that they are).

Mary Margaret is elected Mayor but after a term, decides she wants to stay home with her growing family and David then takes a term as Mayor.

As for Regina and Robert, they get married and perhaps after a while, I could see Regina opening some type of chic, tasteful shop for women's fashions – clothes and jewelry. No Marion returning from the dead in this story or Momma or Zelena coming along to muck things up for this couple.

I'd like to think that Jefferson finds someone special but don't have anyone in mind at the moment. He would certainly continue on as Rumple's best friend and all the young'uns' favorite uncle.

Emma and Bae continue dating. Bae, who's never had problems with military service, decides to enlist in the army, pursuing and fulfilling his dream of becoming an Army Ranger (my daddy was career Army, so I went with this branch of our armed services). With financial support from her parents (and Belle) Emma goes on to college to get a degree in law enforcement and serves as deputy in the town (I might envision an alternate scenario for Emma with her getting a call from Quantico and going on to become a special agent, working for a couple of years for the feds). The two get married (of course) and eventually settle in Storybrooke. Perhaps Bae opens a school for self-defense and teaches survival skills on the weekends (he's a pretty tough guy, right?). Henry comes along soon enough and I would think at least one other baby, probably a little brother.

As for Rumbelle, they thrive as we would want them to. At least three, maybe four babies for them. Rumple is approached by a citizen's committee after David has finished his term as Mayor and, to his surprise, becomes the town's longest serving, most beloved Mayor (we so want others to appreciate him as we do). He brings a variety of businesses and cultural events to the town doing much to create the Storybrooke described in my first paragraph.

Then all the babies grow up and we have some consanguination between our happy families – Roland would almost certainly hook up with one of the Charmings or Rumbelle offspring and probably some of the Charmings and Rumbelle offspring would get together.

I don't think Belle would ever use the Return to Magic potion. She was never driven by a need for power as our canon Rumple is. She would be afraid that magic would bring back the onus of the Dark One and she prefers being mostly Belle.

The potion would gather dust on a back shelf of the bookstore - and when one of the grandchildren (or great-grandchildren) find it, we might, only then, have an open can of worms and a story about what happens When Magic Comes Back (but that is not a story I have conceptualized at this point).

I had this idea for a while (as I do most of my ideas). I was about ready to start publishing but did not have a title that truly expressed the core of the story but trusted that the universe would provide one in time. And it did.

Watching an old Perry Mason, I heardone of the characters quote a line "There is some soul of goodness . . ." and another character completed the line "in things evil." Well, there it was. I added more Shakespeare references to the story, including each chapter title being a small snippet from one of Shakespeare's many, many lines. Also, I named Rumple's bookstore Shakespeare and Company, enjoying both the Shakespeare reference and, of course, the hat tip to the most famous bookstore ever, anywhere - Sylvia Beach's Parisian store by the same name (where ex-patriated Americans, such as Hemingway, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Thornton Wilder, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, well it does go on, would gather and share their literary efforts).

Thanking everyone who read, reviewed, followed and/or favorited this story – as ever – twyla

I am working on a longer story (with more angst and shadows) but it's not quite ready to get pushed out of the nest; so, I'm setting one of my movie re-mixes free. It's a (mostly) fluffy movie re-mix. It's called The Other Brother and should be up today.