The Swan and the Witch

Story Summary: Once upon a time, there was a castle with a curse upon it that belonged to a fearsome beast-sorceress. A young woman ends up trapped at the castle with its inhabitants. What will she discover about this strange place, it's odd residents, and it's even more mysterious mistress? Can she break the curse? Beauty and the Beast re-tell, Swan Queen

A/N: It's been forever. I'm so sorry for the delay. No good excuses I'm afraid (well, some stuff is going on now but I should have had this done in November so...) besides writing this chapter was like pulling teeth for some reason. Not sure why. Anyway, enjoy.

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Chapter Fifteen

"Ruby! What? How are you here?!" Emma said as she gaped at her friend.

Ruby gave a sheepish smile, "That's complicated." She surged forward and pulled Emma into a strong hug which Emma returned after a second of surprise. "I'm so glad to see you."

David had tensed at the sudden movement, but relaxed when he saw the strange girl-wolf wasn't attacking. Mary Margaret nudged him from her seat at the table, "Ruby? Isn't that the name of one of her friends from the castle?" Comprehension dawned on the man's face. Emma had even said she was wolf-like. He thought back to that first confusing night in the castle and realized he'd actually seen the girl then, but the firelight and his own shock had made her seem far more intimidating.

"Come in," Emma said hurriedly, "What's going on?"

Ruby pulled back and looked cautiously at the couple, obviously unsure of herself, but Mary Margaret just smiled widely at her. "Please, sit down. Any friend of Emma's is always welcome in our home."

"How's the baby?" Ruby asked. Mary Margaret turned to show the bundle in her arms, which Ruby dutifully cooed over. "I'm glad you're both alright. It was kinda vague what actually happened from our end—you know how the queen can be," she added to Emma.

Emma began explaining what she had seen in the mirror and how Regina had helped as David took his daughter so Mary Margaret had her hands free to fix Ruby a mug of tea.

"... and everything worked out," Emma concluded. "I just can't believe you're here. How did you get past the wolves?"

Ruby gave a shrug, "I'm part wolf now. I discovered a while ago that those wolves don't, I don't know, don't recognize me as having come from the castle and so they don't try to stop me. I ran away one night, frustrated and tired about, about everything and I just kept running until I collapsed and fell asleep.

When I woke up, I was near the edge of the forest and I looked human again. I was so excited and I kept going, managing to make it to a town until night fell. At night, I turn back into this form, the half-wolf, half-woman I am in the castle," Ruby explained. "But during the day, I was normal again."

"That's great!" Emma interrupted, happy her friend had found a way around the curse.

Ruby smiled briefly, before grimacing, "That's what I thought at first. I went back to castle—Granny had been beside herself when I didn't come home the previous nights—but when I told her what happened, she said I should go. That if I could be free, I should be."

"I tried to bring her with me," Ruby explained, not wanting Emma to think she would abandon her grandmother so easily, "but the further we got from the castle, well, it got painful for her and then she could hardly talk and so I ran back. She knew she had to stay, but she insisted I go and live my life. We didn't tell anyone else because we were sure the same thing that happened to Granny would happen to them and I wanted to leave soon. I was so worried that my ability to leave would, I don't know, stop working or the wolves would figure it out."

We didn't tell the Queen, but… I think she knew. I didn't think so before because I didn't think she would have let me leave when she couldn't but… All of my clothes were freshly washed, this new cloak in my wardrobe. When I got to town, I discovered coins in the pockets and an old ring to pawn. I was able to set up a cabin on the edge of town—not this town, one on the other side of the forest. Simple life, but good. New. Normal."

Then I found out that on the full moon I become a full-wolf—worse than that really. I become like the ones who guard the castle, dangerous and uncontrolled—with a taste for human flesh. I didn't even remember, or realize that it was me who was attacking people. Until the last time, I woke up and there was Pete—." Ruby swallowed and refused to meet anyone's eyes. "A friend. He was dead—I killed him. I ran, left everything and just ran the whole way home, back to Granny and the castle."

"Oh, Ruby…" Emma reached out to put a hand on friends arm and squeeze it reassuringly.

"It's alright," Ruby linked rapidly, "I used to go out every once in a while, never around the full moon and never for long, but just when it all got to be too much. And I tried to help Graham when he was here with the wolves, but it wasn't any use at all and I think that clued them in. I've only left a few more times after that and they seemed to notice, get closer each time. I haven't had the courage to test them in the last couple of years," she shrugged.

Everyone took a few minutes to digest Ruby's story. Then baby needed to be put to sleep while David and Emma cleared the table, giving Ruby time to collect herself.

When they all reconvened at the table, no one was sure how to start the conversation again, because all were remembering Ruby's plea for help that they had started with and no one really wanted to face what that might mean.

Emma took a deep breath, "That is all really interesting and I'm glad you came to visit but…" Ruby had implied that she hadn't wanted to risking trying to leave the castle in a while and yet she had. It was causing an inkling fear to grow in the back of Emma's mind, one she didn't want to acknowledge but knew she needed to. "Why are you here? You said something about help?"

"It's the Queen," Ruby admitted.

"Regina?" Emma asked, fear flooding her. "What happened? Is something wrong with her?"

"She's dying," Ruby said gravely.

"She's what?!"

"Something happened with her magic that caused her to start dying and then she tied the curse to her, to make it so that when she dies, the curse will break."

Emma stared at her uncomprehendingly, "But, but she told me that's not how the curse works. That she couldn't do that."

Ruby shrugged helplessly, "I don't really understand what she told us. She did something to it. With her magic."

"Why now though?"

"Well, she says that sending you away left some sort of hole in the fabric of the curse." Emma felt a pang of guilt at the implication that she had been in any way responsible for whatever was happening to Regina. Ruby didn't notice the flash of anguish that crossed her friends face and continued, "That it came with a price but that it mixed everything up enough that she was able to mess with it and change the rules in her favor. When you left she said that in two weeks' time, she would die and the curse would break for everyone else."

"But it's already been more than a week!" Emma exclaimed, jumping to her feet.

"I know, I should have come sooner, but everything was so confusing and I don't think we, well, some of us at least, wanted to admit how serious it all was. It's been so long since anything happened, we've forgotten how fast time goes when it matters."

"Some of you?"

"Yeah, most, most people think the whole curse is her fault anyway. They think her death ending it is…poetic? Fitting, I guess."

"What! The curse is that stupid fairy's fault! God."

"I know and I wouldn't think she deserved to die regardless," Ruby tried to reassure the incensed blonde. "And I thought she could find a loophole so she could get out of it too, but…"

"She's not even trying is she," Emma finished dully.

"I don't think so," Ruby replied with a sigh. "I thought she would, I thought she would fight tooth and nail to try and figure a way, but she just seems…resigned. She stopped having dinners in the main hall two nights ago, and now she's refusing to leave the West Wing or let anyone else in."

"That doesn't sound good," David said.

"God, of course she's isolating herself," Emma said as she began to pace. "This is so like her. She always has to suffer alone or whatever it is she thinks it is."

Ruby didn't know enough about the queen to really add to that, but she knew what she needed to do, "That's why you need to come back and help her!"

"What do you expect me to do though?" Emma asked, frustrated at having been told about this before it happened but feeling just as helpless as she had when she saw Mary Margaret struggling to give birth. Only this time Regina couldn't help her, this time it was Regina who needed help. "I don't have magic. I can't do anything to help!"

"Yes, you can," Ruby said firmly giving Emma a look.

"No!" Emma protested, knowing immediately what Ruby was referring too, angry at her friend for bringing this up again. Angry at these expectations she knew the castle inhabitants placed on her so easily. "I'm not some savior, no matter how much Henry believes it!" She went pale as her mind continued on that route, "Oh god, Henry. Does he know? How can she leave him like this?"

"She says that he's not really living now. That by dying and removing the curse, she's giving him back a real life."

Emma groaned, she could practically hear Regina thinking about that, it hadn't taken more than a few talks in the library, after who Henry was had been revealed, to realize Regina regretted Henry being sent to live with her because she felt like she'd gotten him trapped forever, especially since she believed the curse was unbreakable. "And how'd Henry take that?"

"He's heartbroken," Ruby said sadly. "He's confused, everything is changing so fast and with you gone and now the Queen. He's the only one she's still talking to, but she's distancing herself from him too. He goes back and forth from being sad and angry and then acting like everything's normal to acting like everything will get fixed out. Because he thinks you're going to come back and save everyone."

"But I can't do anything!"

"You know what you can do!" Ruby hissed. "You're just too stubborn to admit it."

"You're the one who doesn't know what they're talking about," Emma argued through gritted teeth. Why did Ruby have to keep acting like she was choosing not to help?

"I don't understand," Mary Margaret said, interrupting the staring contest. "What is it that Ruby wants you to do? That you think you can't do? Break the curse how?"

Emma refused to meet anyone's eyes, choosing to glare at the wall instead.

Ruby glared at the stubborn blonde before turning back to Mary Margaret. "True love's kiss. It's supposed to be how you really break the curse, not just…cheat…to get around the rules the way the queen is doing right now."

Emma turned furious eyes on Ruby, "Don't make it sound that simple and don't call Regina sacrificing herself for all of you 'cheating'!"

"I'm sorry," Ruby said, hanging her head at her own phrasing before she looked up again, "but I'm right. You need to get over yourself and admit that you love her. You can make sure we all make it."

"Stop presuming to know how I feel. Stop acting like I'm in denial or being selfish or whatever it is you think I'm doing. Don't you think that if I really thought I could save her I would do it in a heartbeat?"

Ruby looked away again.

"Why exactly is it you think you can't break the curse?" David asked. He knew his sister better than anyone in the room and he could clearly tell she was talking around something, her words were off, and that meant she was hiding something.

Emma looked at him incredulously, "Not you too! What makes you think I can break it? I don't even know that I believe in true love, let alone that I'm Regina's true love," she added with an absurd, sarcastic laugh, like that was the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard.

"So you don't love her?" David asked, bluntly.

"Or," Mary Margaret suggested, "You don't think she loves you back?"

Emma blinked, not having expected them to ask outright. "I… She… It doesn't matter."

"Emma's right," Ruby said.

"I am?"

"Yup, because they're in love with each other however you slice it and while I don't know what exactly Emma is afraid of, it doesn't matter because if she just got over herself, everyone would be saved."

"Regina does not love me," Emma answered, pissed at having to say it aloud. "How would you even know if she did? You don't know her! Regina already had a true love, his name was Daniel and he's dead!"

"But you do love her, don't you?" Mary Margaret asked, while Ruby stared at the table, because she hadn't known that about the queen.

"I… I don't know… Maybe," she admitted for the first time to anyone, including herself. "But like I said, she doesn't love me, not like that."

"Emma," Ruby said, putting a hand on the blonde's arm, "You're right. I don't know the queen the way you do, but I did know her before you came, and she was different. You've changed her. You've made her happier than I've ever seen her."

"She's just never had a friend before," Emma said, knowing it was true and once more angry at the world on Regina's behalf because she should have all the friends in the world. She crossed her arms stubbornly, "It doesn't mean she has feelings for me."

"So you're saying that you are so completely sure that she doesn't return your feelings that you're not even going to try to save her? Or even just go back to say goodbye?" Mary Margaret asked, her voice cajoling.

David narrowed his eyes, looking at the blonde critically, "Maybe you're right. Maybe it wouldn't work. Clearly, you don't feel that strongly about her if you've already given up."

"Stop it." Emma scowled, knowing what he was trying to do.

David walked over to her, putting his hands on her shoulders. When she met his eyes, he said, "Look, I don't know how you feel. None of us do. But I do know that if it were Mary Margaret in this position, I would go and try because it certainly can't make anything worse, but it could save everything. Don't you think she's worth it?"

"She is," Emma admitted. "I…" Emma was never chosen, never picked—for homes, for friends—David was the only person who'd ever stuck by her, who she really believed wanted her around. Even with sweet Mary Margaret, it seemed more likely that she only liked her because of David. With Ruby and everyone at the castle, it was easy to explain their interest in her as the one new thing there in so long. The idea that Regina wanted to be her friend seemed miracle enough, but the idea of her being her true love? That seemed beyond impossible, because Regina deserved the best—and that wasn't Emma.

However, Ruby was saying that Regina had sent her away, to save someone important to Emma, and it was costing her her life. That had to mean something, right? And if Emma wasn't even willing to risk exposing herself, revealing her own feelings for the woman, and risk them not being returned, how selfish and cowardly did that make her? If she didn't try to save Regina then David was right, she definitely didn't deserve the brunette.

She remembered Regina's smile when Henry came to have dinner with them, only a few days after the ball. The way she couldn't stop smiling through the whole meal, as if Emma and Henry eating with her because they wanted to be with her, was all she ever wanted in the world. As if she couldn't believe she'd been lucky enough to get this even once. Regina deserved that every day, she deserved to be that happy all the time. Regina deserved someone who fought for her.

"Alright," Emma said quietly. She turned to look at Ruby, "We'll leave tomorrow."

-x-x-x-

Little did Emma know, someone else, just outside the cottage was vowing the same thing. Neal stalked off purposely, having heard enough to convince himself what he needed to do. Some of it was confusing, but his father told the stories of the western wood, about the castle deep in the forest one could only find by getting lost in its trees, of the cursed castle with its vile mistress. More importantly, he understand that not only was there someone else Emma wanted over him. On top of that, the person was also the most legendary game he'd heard of. If he could hunt and kill this a magically cursed beast, not only would he have a fitting trophy to mount on his wall and bragging rights for the rest of his life for having rid the forest of this evil, he could also have Emma.

-/-

A/N: Like I said up top, my sincerest apologies for the giant space of time between chapters 14 and 15. I promise that the next chapter will not be after so long a break. In fact, I've already started working on it and I hope that because the action is picking up it will be faster to write. According to my plan, there is only one more chapter and then an epilogue left for this story. Thank you for being patient with me (not that you really had a choice I guess) and thank you for any follows, favorites, and reviews!