A/N - And I thought my unplanned two month hiatus last time was bad. An unplanned half-year hiatus is much worse! :S (I always hated when authors did that...) But I've never given up on this story. And I'm never going to. I've actually made it a resolution to post a chapter every month this year, which should hopefully get me through to the end! Please, dust off your memory of this story, travel back to season 1, and please let me know what you think! Your reviews are the best possible motivation for me. More than anything, please enjoy! :)

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"We both want our children back, and we both can get them – if we work together."

"Why should I trust you now?"

"You shouldn't. But it's the only offer you've got. After we're through I'll wake up your dear Grace so she remembers who you are."

"No. Remembering is the worst curse. Two lives in her head, like me. . . . I want to forget. I want you to write us a new story. Here."

"Well, my dear Jefferson, then that's exactly what you'll get. Oh. After we take care of Miss Swan."

Glinting dark eyes traveled shamelessly over him, seeing through every fragile defense he tried to hide behind. Dark red lips curved upward, already confident of victory. Perfectly manicured nails rested on the dark, shiny surface of the table over the reflection of the worn hatbox.

The last, faint hope. His only offer.

He bit down on his tongue until he tasted blood. His pulse pounded in his temples. His hands clenched into fists. His mind whispered, a thousand maddening voices at once.

But the black eyes and the red lips already knew his answer. His tongue and pulse and fists knew the answer. The voices were already lessening until all they whispered was the answer. When he spoke, his voice was perfectly calm.

"We'd better get started then."

Regina's smile widened. "I knew you'd come around, Jefferson. You always do."

"Stop flattering yourself. It's never about you."

"Maybe not in your strange little mind, but I still seem to always get what I want."

"And I never do. If you cross me again, I swear-"

Regina reached out and laid her hand flat against his cheek. The touch was warm, but her eyes glinted like steel.

"Stop trying to threaten me, Jefferson. Someday you'll learn it doesn't work. But as long as you do the job you're so good at, you'll get what you want."

Shrugging away from her, he crossed his arms. "The sooner the better. So where is this magic of yours?"

"In a safe place, where people won't be meddling."

Jefferson smirked. "Most people. People who are still wrapped up in your powerful but fragile curse. People who think magic is for children. People who see a library as a place for books and a cemetery as a place for bodies. But there's more to them, isn't there?"

The glint of triumph in the dark eyes flickered with uncertainty. He laid the back of his fingers against her cheek.

"Stop trying to surprise me, Regina. Someday you'll learn it doesn't work."

"How much do you know?" she asked flatly.

He shook his head as he moved back to the table and stood over his hatbox. "Not as much as I would like to, or we wouldn't be having this little chat. But I knew there was something about those two places. Ever since Emma came I've been looking around, searching for clues or options. When I stood outside the library, and when I found your family tomb in the cemetery-" He felt a slight tremble run through him as he passed his hand over his hatbox, barely hovering over the surface. "This is a land without magic. Magic – the kind we know – it doesn't belong here. It doesn't fit. So when we bring it with us, when we force it into this world, there are ripples that never really fade. Most people would never notice, of course, but for those of us who are intimately familiar with magic, who have dealt with it all our lives, we know it when we feel it."

He turned back to her, surprised to see a look of understanding on her face, one of those rare moments where all the malice faded away and you saw a glimpse of the soul underneath it. It reminded him of long ago, when they had shared something that almost looked like friendship. The pit of his stomach twisted painfully.

"I never did find anything, though," he continued, trying to ignore the feeling he didn't fully understand. "You have the library locked up well enough, and I didn't want to cause a scene. I went into the tomb and paid my respects to your father-" he couldn't keep the bitterness from creeping back into his voice – "but couldn't find whatever it is you have in there."

Regina grabbed her coat from off the coatrack. "Well, I suppose you'll be able to see now. That's where we're going."

Jefferson gently closed the lid of his hat box and redid the buckles holding it shut. He took the handle carefully and lifted it off the table, letting it down to rest by his side. It felt so familiar, even after so long. Without another word they left Regina's office and began the walk to the Storybrooke Cemetery, taking back routes and alleys to avoid being seen.

"So, you've been eagerly waiting for Miss Swan to break the curse, haven't you?" Regina asked as they walked. Her eyes were full of gloating once more.

"I guess you could say that, although I haven't exactly just been twiddling my thumbs."

"Apparently not. But none of your poking around helped, did it?" She looked at him, but was obviously satisfied when he didn't reply. "No, Emma was everyone's best bet. So tragic, that she won't be around to bring back the happy endings after all."

The knot twisted in his stomach again. It was true, even when he had been trying every means available to break the curse, Emma was always still there. She had made the clock tick. She had brought that first glimmer of hope. And as long as she was there, that hope wasn't entirely gone. Despite the strangeness – and, admittedly, the hostility – of his only real interaction with her, he had never wished harm to her. Now that was exactly what he was helping to bring about. He tried to keep his voice level, but he didn't look over to meet Regina's eyes.

"Are you going to kill her?"

A bitter smile tugged at the corner of Regina's mouth. "No. Not exactly. I tend not to deal in absolutes. But I will take care of her, finally." She looked at him sideways, though he refused to return the glance. "Why? Not getting sentimental, are you? You should know by now, Jefferson, that sentiment doesn't work well for people like us."

"I'm not like you," he muttered.

"No? Please. You've dirtied your hands plenty in the past. And you do it again, whenever it suits you."

"This isn't for me."

"No? It's for Grace?"

"It always has been."

"Just like I'm fighting for Henry."

Jefferson stopped. He wanted to protest, to say that his love for Grace was nothing like her love for Henry. The little he had seen of Regina's relationship with her adopted son had always seemed overbearing and self-serving. Love was about putting someone else first. Wasn't that what he was doing with Grace? He was trying to protect her, to take her out of the cursed existence she had now and bring her back to where she was supposed to be, with him. Whatever Regina did was always to get what she wanted. If she loved Henry, she would be considering his wants, how he would want her to act. Wouldn't she? All he ever considered was Grace.

Grace, who didn't want him to go to the queen or trust her. Grace, who would never intentionally hurt someone, even if it got her what she wanted.

He shook his head and tightened his grip on the handle of his hatbox.

"Something wrong?" Regina looked back to where he had stopped.

"No. Just keep going."

Regina smiled slightly as they continued toward the cemetery. "You're awfully quick with your answers today, Jefferson. I must admit, I wasn't expecting you to answer quite so forcefully when I suggested lifting the curse on your daughter's memory. And I certainly wasn't expecting you to decline that offer. I thought you would want your sweet girl to remember you."

"I want to be with her. That's what matters."

"To be with her, here, where all memory of the past is gone."

Jefferson grabbed Regina's arm and turned her to face him.

"What does it matter to you? You're getting what you want. We're here to do business. I don't need to hear your opinion on anything, and I don't need to answer your questions. I get you what you want, and you get me what I want. That's it."

"So defensive," she returned. "Fine. You can keep your motives, and you can go on justifying them to yourself all you like. Now if you'd kindly get off me, we're almost there."

Releasing his hold of her arm, Jefferson once again followed, but he could hardly focus on the steps he was taking. The voices were back, not whispering but screaming. One anguished voice that sounded so eerily familiar asked him why, why he had answered 'no' when she had suggested giving Grace's memory back. He hadn't known that he would say 'no' until it came out of his mouth. He hadn't realized just how terrified he was of her remembering until it had truly become a possibility. And then he thought of what her memory being restored would mean – of all that she would remember, from both worlds, of all that she would hold against him. It was too painful. But the voices kept screaming.

Finally they slipped silently through the gates to the cemetery and wound their way past rows of dark, cracked tombstones. As they got closer and closer to Regina's family vault, he began to feel a chill run both over and under his skin and tug strangely at his heart. Magic.

The vault looked out of place in the otherwise quaint cemetery. Dim twilight, filtered through a canopy of leaves, faintly illuminated dark green moss clinging to the thick grey stone. Deep shadows hung around the tall pillars and heavy wooden doors. Above them, framed in the peak of the roof, was the circular royal symbol that Jefferson knew all too well from his nightmares.

Regina stepped up the doors, unlocked them, and swung them open. Jefferson followed her up the short steps, his movements feeling heavy and sluggish. He stepped in to the cool air of the vault, watching as Regina shoved back her father's stone coffin, revealing a steep staircase underneath. She looked at him and his eyebrows rose instinctively.

"Always more than meets the eye, isn't there?"

Regina simply smiled. Jefferson walked over to the stairs, but didn't go down. Slowly he lifted his hat box and set it down on top of the stone coffin. He looked at the name and couldn't stop a grim smirk. Henry. The king. The one whose life Regina had traded for his, leaving him trapped and alone. But this wasn't about Henry anymore, or even about Regina. This was about making up for the mistake of having made that deal in the first place. And the only way he knew how to do that was to make the same deal again.

He rested his hand gently on the lid of his hatbox and sucked in a sharp breath as he ran his palm over the handle, the buckles, the cracked leather. It had seen so many strange lands. He used to swear that a little of the dust from each of them had clung to it. This box belonged to all worlds. But the hat was his – only his.

His hands went through the motions by instinct, popping the buckles and throwing the lid back. But they paused on both sides of the hat as he reached in. Hovering inches away from the dark fabric, his palms tingled. It was faint, but he could still feel the hat's life.

This might work.

Both hands closed on the hat and he lifted it out. Slowly he brought it down on his head and closed his eyes. A thousand worlds, a thousand magic objects, a thousand faces never seen again, a thousand deals, a thousand adventures – they flooded his mind and filled his chest. That old corner of his heart stopped aching.

But then another pain came, stronger, stabbing, from the other corner of his heart. He saw his wife's beautiful face, gone forever, and then his daughter's. He remembered the years when the hat remained locked away. He'd never gotten rid of it, which was partially for fear that it could fall into the wrong hands. But more than that, he had never been able to let it go. It was part of him. He despised it for what it had cost him, but it had taken hold, and he could only partially rip it out. And so he chose the pain of locking it away to protect his girl, his Grace.

He had unlocked it, taken it out again, just that once, to take care of her. And Regina had taken it. He'd lost the hat forever. He'd lost Grace forever. But here he was again, with the hat on his head, Regina beside him, and Grace in the balance. He couldn't lose her again.

He wouldn't. He would make one last jump. He would get his daughter back.

And then it would all be gone. All the pain and memories. The magic. The voices. The guilt. All that he ever was. That was the price, and he would pay it.

He opened his eyes and found Regina watching him. The slow, confident smile spread over her face again.

"That's the Hatter I knew."

Sweeping the hat off his head and bending in an elaborate bow, he gestured toward the staircase.

"After you."