a/n: Hello! Quick before I get into a few important details I just want to take a minute to thank everyone who's followed and favorited LCDMP as well as the people who liked it enough to leave a review. This story is currently featured on three different community archives, and I'm so appreciative. You've all been extremely supportive and praising in your feedback, and I don't know how to express all the gratitude I feel except by saying thank you for sticking with me through my first and now second draft of Le Conte de Madame Peugeot.

Okay, onto the most important tidbit. This story is kind of AU in the fact that I manipulated season two so it fit with what I wanted to do with my OC. So I've written a prequel, and it's pretty important that you read it if you want to understand what's going on~not just in the first chapter but in later chapters as well. Check it out; it's called Cora, The First.

Next, I'm a sort of a stickler about grammar and neither my keyboard nor this website lets me insert an em dash (something I'm quite fond of and use often). So, as a miniature act of rebellion I'm creating my own substitute em dash (~) because whenever I conjoin two hyphens one of them gets deleted, and I don't like it.

Sorry for the novella of an author's note. I just had to get you guys (and any new readers) up to speed!

Part One

1: The Wolf

It was nights like these that made her question her devotion to medicine. With a jaw clenching, white knuckled grip on the steering wheel, she drove anxiously in between rows of trees. Had she not been so damn late she might have been a little more cautious on the slick, midnight roads. But she'd chosen speed over safety which meant that she had to listen to the deafening pounding of the rain and the frantic back and forth of her rental car's windshield wipers.

The thing was, she'd left the grinding traffic of the highway for some peace and quiet not nail biting anxiety. But it was sort of funny~mostly ironic~because she liked storms. She liked listening to the padder of the rain and watching the flashes of lightning illuminate the sky. It was the closest nature could get to an orchestra, she figured. Just not when she was driving, thank you very much. The wipers were on the highest setting, and it still looked like a bucket of water was being poured over her eyes. She squinted. Except for the little yellow lines in the middle of the road, she was driving blind. And that, no matter how good of a driver she thought she was, terrified her.

Forty miles an hour was all she could manage. Even so, she felt like the forest was whizzing past her. There was a medical conference in Portland that had started~she glanced at her watch~four hours ago now. Her flight from New York had been cancelled last minute because of the storm so she had to fly into York instead. An hour and a frantic half later, she was driving through the backwoods of Maine in a black Lexus. Which, she supposed, wasn't all that bad. She could have gotten the PT Cruiser. Hey, as long as she had to cart herself to Portland, Maine in the middle of a damn tsunami, she might as well make her way there in style.

But at least she was getting there. As a third year resident at one of the admittedly smaller hospitals in New York, she was eager to soak up as much information as she could~and start working up a resumé~before she had to begin thinking about applying for fellowships. It was still four years away, but there was no harm in starting early. She had a friend in pediatrics, Mitch, who thought she was absolutely crazy for doing so, but nobody in peds was quite as competitive as trauma surgery.

Mitch said that trauma was the marines of the medical world. A wicked grin crept onto her lips at the thought of it. Fast. High pressure. No time to think. No time to breathe. You have to be cool and calm and always in control.

She didn't profess to know everything, though. She was a third year resident, not a practicing physician. Sure she had a doctorate, but she still had a lot to learn. She still froze sometimes. There were still surgeries she just didn't know how to do yet. She was learning. Even so, there was a tugging sense of urgency to finish her residency. Because, god, she'd been dreaming of being a surgeon since she was twelve years old. She felt a buzz of excitement run through her veins. She shifted in her seat, licking her lips, a grin bursting from the corner of her mouth. Four more years, Jennifer, just four more years.

Then something caught her eye on the road, snapping her out of her daydream. Her headlights pierced the dark and raindrops fell like white bullets. But in the distance, there, way up ahead, there was a figure in the road. A wolf. Lonely and waiting. Strong and quiet. In the middle of the rain, staring at her. Her headlights reflected in its glassy eyes, and her breath caught in her throat. For a flickering moment time seemed to stand completely still. Sharp and piercing, she could have sworn that those empty eyes could see straight through her. Then the breath she'd been holding came out in a gasping lurch as instinct kicked in, and she slammed on the brakes. Swerving and skidding, eyes wide and terrified, her heart pounding so much it hurt, and the wolf just stood there.

She couldn't quite recall all the details after that. The world blurred, and she let go of the steering wheel as her body jerked forward. There was a deafening crunch, the slamming of an airbag, and then everything was still. As she drifted into unconsciousness, she could hear her ears ringing painfully, the pounding of the rain on her car, and the howling of a wolf in the distance.

. . .

She woke up in a daze. Everything was blurry and spinning. She couldn't think straight, her thoughts trickling together into an incoherent jumble. Something warm and wet was trickling over her eyebrow. With a groan, she lifted a hand. Her fingers were a deep red when she pulled them away. Blood. Blood. Her heart thumped hotly in her ears. Her head was burning and pounding and throbbing as she unbuckled her seat belt and pushed aside the deflated airbag and fumbled over the door handle. She gasped for air when she finally stumbled out of the car.

Hands on her knees, head hanging low, the asphalt spinning like a top. Breathe. In and out. Shit. She threw a hand to her neck. Pulse was rapid. She stood up but up was down and down was up and then she was falling. Her back hit the car. A strangled grunt escaped her lips. She closed her eyes, breathing thickly through her nose, pressing her lips together angrily. Concussion. She had a concussion.

After it stopped feeling like she was on a fishing boat in a storm she opened her eyes and took a deep, cooling breath. The sky was gray, the air earthy and wet. Early morning. She blinked, trying to clear her vision. There was a sign up ahead. She squinted. Storybrooke. Welcome to Storybrooke. A town. Fantastic.

She was walking; she didn't know for how long. A bell tolled in the distance, the sun peaked out through the clouds, and she winced. Her ears rang, and she stumbled over a sidewalk. "Oh, my goodness!" She heard someone say, a woman: black hair, scarf, worried eyes. There were black spots in her vision. Shit. "We need to get you to a hospital."

"Hospital." She echoed with a soft nod before the sky started spinning and the sun faded out and gravity took hold of her.

. . .

When she came to the second time she could hear the steady beep of a heart monitor and smell the lingering poignancy of antiseptic. Her head was throbbing in time with the monitor. She whimpered, her eyes fluttering open. "You're awake! I'll get Dr. Whale." A woman announced suddenly, her voice distorted by the deafening ringing in her ears. Presumably the same woman who'd taken her to the hospital. Her vision steadied; the ringing continued. In the solitude, she raked her concussion distorted memory to piece together the last few hours. She'd been in a car crash. She was bleeding. She was in a hospital. There was an IV in her hand. She had a concussion. She was missing the goddamn medical conference.

The woman came back with who she assumed was Whale. He was a tall, blonde doctor who looked more like he belonged on a soap opera than in an OR. And she knew enough doctors to know the difference. The woman, now that she got a good look at her, was short. She had a round face, a black pixie cut, and a pale pink sweater. She seemed like a nice person. "Glad to see you're awake! I'm Dr. Whale. How are you feeling?" She swallowed, watching him stuff his hands into the pockets of his lab coat.

"Shitty." She answered, her voice hoarse and slow. Her ribs were on fire and so was her head. She remembered her head bleeding...

"Understandable. I'll ask the nurse to give you another dose of morphine. It's a good thing Miss Blanchard got you to the hospital when she did! The only open wound you sustained was the laceration to your forehead, but it was bleeding pretty badly when you arrived. Based on the blood loss, my best guess is that the bleeding had stopped at some point but you reopened the wound while walking through town. We were able to stitch up the gash without complication, though you did require a minor transfusion." He paused, taking a breath and searching her with curious eyes. "There's bruising across your chest consistent with a seat belt. Were you in a car crash?"

"Last night. There was a wolf in the road. Slid and crashed just before your town sign." She told him, her words slow but concise. Suddenly the two of them got very strange looks on their faces. The color drained from Miss Blanchard's. Dr. Whale rolled his jaw and exhaled forcefully. They shared a look.

"You're not from Storybrooke." He tried to clarify. She furrowed her brow, looking between the two of them.

Her voice was hesitant, curious. "Is that a problem?" Quickly, almost too quickly, Miss Blanchard shook her head.

"No, of course not." She paused.

There was a thick silence.

"We never did get your name." Whale spoke up. She looked between the two of them. Something wasn't right here, and she couldn't think well enough to figure out what it was.

"Jennifer Alexander. Um, I was supposed to be at a...um…" She closed her eyes then opened them slowly. "Conference in Portland. I need to call my boss. Do you have a phone?"

"Of course." Whale said, motioning to the table next to her bed. She thanked him and watched as they filed out before taking the phone off the hook. Strange.

. . .

Emma got the call right in the middle of breakfast. Right in the middle of a bear claw. She was so hungry too, but the panicked sound of Mary Margaret's voice got her attention. Reluctantly relinquishing the pastry, she leaned forward on her elbows, fiddled with a scratch on her desk, and listened carefully. When Mary Margaret explained what exactly had happened, Emma frowned in concern. She didn't know that people could get through the protection spell at all. Wasn't it supposed to be airtight or something?

"I'll have Leroy pick up her car. What's her name?" She asked, grabbing a pen and a pad of paper. She was gonna do some research on this lady, whoever she was. As sheriff, she wouldn't be letting any old stranger into her town.

"Jennifer Alexander." Mary Margaret answered. Emma's pen paused over the paper, a pang shooting through her chest. No. No, it's ridiculous. "Emma?" She licked her lips, standing up abruptly.

"Yeah, got it. Be there in a few minutes." She hung up without saying goodbye, and she left her office without the pen ever touching the paper.

. . .

Gold stared unpleasantly at the door to his shop. Dust floated lazily in the sun beams, his artifacts sat untouched, and Belle was in the library. Nothing was visibly out of order, but something was off. He smacked his lips together and wrinkled his nose, tasting the air. With a dissatisfied grunt, he made his way to the front of the shop. His leg was causing him an unusual amount of pain so he leaned heavily on his cane. Ripping open the front door, he stalked outside. The air smelled of pine and sun and wet pavement and nothing particularly extraordinary. Then again…

There it was! In the breeze just now. He almost missed it: the smell of Emma Swan's world. The tangy hint of citrus and smoke and electricity. And it was blowing into Storybrooke slow and steady on the back of the westward winds. He hated the smell, all muddy and strange. He caught whiffs of it before storms or in the air on a blustery day. It happened. The winds carried the smell from Boston or New York or Seattle. It was normal. However, even though the sky was starting to clear from last night's storm, it was still here~lingering. And, with it, the smell of the Enchanted Forest had faded. Gone was the pine and the earth and the sweet, flowery scent of magic. And that troubled him.

He conjured a fireball, just to make sure, and almost sighed in relief when he felt the heat of the flames on his face. But something was still wrong~wrong with the magic. It didn't flow from his palms like it should. It was weaker than usual: a stream instead of a flood. He didn't know what was happening, but he was going to get to the bottom of it.