A New Arrival in Story Brooke
A/N: So this is the first chapter of my first Once fic! Yay! I've been on such a Once kick lately. I bought a Hook blanket and a dagger necklace and changed my phone backgrounds, and now this. I've kind of been wanting to make a Once fic for a while now, but I didn't really know what to write until now. I hope you guys like it. Please leave a review to let me know what your thoughts about this chapter are. I'm looking forward to how this story will develop and what new things I can add when the show starts again. Thank you all for reading. I love you, and I hope you enjoy the fic. I'll try to update it as often as possible, but I do have a bad habit of not updating for a while. Hopefully that won't happen with this fic, but you might want to follow this just to be safe.
Anywhore, now on to the story.
Chapter 1: Arrival
It was a normal day in Story Brooke, and Granny's diner was having it's usual lunch rush. Snow and Charming were sitting with Emma, Henry, and their baby, Neil, having a nice family lunch.
The door suddenly opened and a small girl walked in. Her eyes were a light blue that almost looked white, and her long blood red hair was pulled up into two ponytails. She wore a royal purple floor-length dress, giving her a look of royalty.
"You've got to be kidding me," Regina said once she saw the child. "That witch had a kid?" Her voice was slightly louder than she had intended.
Everyone turned to look at the girl.
"Um, Hi," the girl hesitantly spoke. "I'm looking for my mommy. Has anyone seen her?"
"Bloody hell," Killian muttered to himself.
Emma gave him a questioning look before looking at the girl. "Maybe we should discuss how to find her outside…Henry, look after her for a minute."
"Okay, Mom," Henry replied, not entirely sure of what was going on.
"Emma, we'll help," Snow said as she stood up.
"We will," Charming asked, standing up with her.
"Of course we will," she confidently said.
"Let's go outside to discuss this then…Regina, Killian, you should come too," Emma said.
Once the adults walked outside, the little girl sat down next to Henry.
"Are we really going to try to find her," Regina asked. "She'd only bring us more trouble."
"What are you talking about? She's not a bad person," Snow said in a defensive tone.
"You don't know her like I do. She can be pretty vicious when she wants to be."
"Regardless of whether she's good or not, we can't just let this kid try to find her alone," Emma interrupted.
"I'm with Regina on this one, love. If you want to find that bloody witch, go ahead, but leave me out of it," Hook said before storming off.
"What was that all about," Emma asked, looking at her parents and Regina.
"I'm guessing she dated the pirate," Regina said.
"We don't have good reason to believe that, Regina," Snow said.
"His reaction was enough for me to believe it, but fine. If you want to find her, we need to split up into groups. Snow, you and Charming can look after the kid. Emma, you can search the woods, and I'll ask Robin to help you."
"Where will you be looking," Snow asked.
"Someone has to talk to the pirate, and I doubt that he would tell any of you if he did actually date her," Regina replied.
"I'm going with you. Robin and his men can search the woods without me," Emma said.
"Fine, but no matter what happens, I need you to stay calm. Don't let her get inside your head, and don't do anything stupid. The last thing we need is to piss her off," Regina said before getting her phone out of her pocket.
"Why is everyone so afraid of her," Snow asked. "She helped me when I was running away from you in the Enchanted Forest."
"I'm not sure why she helped you, but she probably had something to gain from it. She's worse than Gold, so we need to get on her good side, which means that we need to find her before she finds her daughter," Regina replied as she sent a message to Robin.
"Worse than Gold? How can anyone be worse than the dark one," Emma asked.
"Play nice and you won't have to find out," Regina said. She put her phone back in her pocket.
"Are you guys gonna find my mommy or not," the small girl said. She was standing in the door way, listening to their conversation.
"We'll do whatever we can to help," Snow said in a gentle tone.
Henry opened the door. "Sorry, she snuck out while I was ordering food," he said.
"It's fine, Henry. We were just about to leave anyways," Emma said.
"I'm guessing that we should stay here then."
"I'll stay with you two and Niel," Snow said. "It'll be fun." She smiled.
"I'll stay too," Charming said. "Let's go back inside and finish eating."
As soon as the four went inside, Regina looked at Emma.
"Look, if we find her there, just let me do the talking. I know how to deal with her, and I don't need you to piss her off whether it's intentional or not," the former queen said.
"Fine, but you've got to give me more information so I know who we're dealing with here," Emma reluctantly agreed. "I don't even know her name," she added.
"She goes by the name of Alice, and not the Wonderland one. I don't know a lot, and I'm not even sure if that's her real name or what her title is, but I once tried to hire her to help me find Snow," Regina replied as she walked away from the diner.
"I guess I can't be surprised that you tried to get her help, since you've made so many deals with Gold," Emma commented, following her.
"She wouldn't help me though, since she had no interest in anything I had to offer. She didn't want money or anything like that, so I didn't really have anything to give her," Regina continued. "It was hard to find her back then, but maybe your pirate can help us find her now since he seems to know her better than I do."
"If you didn't make a deal with her, how do you know that she's worse than Gold," Emma asked.
"I've heard stories. Even The Dark One had warned me not to go looking for her."
"How did you find her?"
"She can only be found when she wants, so one day she just showed up and asked what I had to offer in exchange for her help," Regina said.
"But why did she show up if she knew that you had nothing that interested her," the savior asked.
"I don't know. Her motives are even more difficult to figure out than Rumplestilskin's. She turned down every offer I made then left," Regina replied.