Chapter Text
The fire in front of her crackled gently in the near silence of the room. The lights and shadows it cast upon the walls made for an entertaining light show that kept Maleficent entertained as she and Cruella watched over Regina.
The other woman had fallen asleep about twenty minutes ago, her head resting on her hand as her chest rose and fell with every deep breath.
Maleficent wasn’t entirely sure if she trusted Regina at the moment. The other woman had never been an excellent liar, and, at the moment, she seemed to be thick as thieves with the heroes.
But Maleficent was giving her the benefit of the doubt, even though Cruella had stated quite clearly that she ‘didn’t trust Regina as far as she could throw her’. Maleficent reasoned that being the only villain in a town full of heroes for the past thirty years, one would do what they had to, to survive.
“We could just get rid of her now,” Cruella mumbled. “No one would know.”
Maleficent tutted, drawing her eyes away from the dancing shadows to meet the woman’s eyes. Cruella’s bloodlust rivalled her own sometimes.
“Now, now, Cruella, we still need her,” she said placatingly.
“I don’t trust her,” Cruella replied. “She’s working with the heroes, I know it.”
”Regina has proven herself to us,” Maleficent stated, albeit she, herself, was still a little unsure.
“One night out on the town with her and you’re already falling for her again,” Cruella scoffed quietly.
Maleficent rose a brow.
“Regina and I broke things off back in the Enchanted Forest,” she said, “right before she stole the curse from me and locked me underneath Storybrooke.”
Cruella gave her a mirthless chuckle.
“That doesn’t mean you don’t still feel things for the Queen.”
To that, Maleficent didn’t reply. She merely rolled her eyes and looked at Regina, effectively ending the conversation.
If she was being completely honest, she didn’t know quite what she was feeling for the other woman right now. Since she’d first seen Regina after being brought back from the dead, she had, admittedly, felt a confusing amalgamation of feelings. Rage, confusion, desire, relief, pining. But with the current mission to find the author and her child, she had quickly pushed all that aside to focus on only the task at hand.
However, if even Cruella had said something, perhaps she wasn’t so subtle about it.
Oh well, she supposed. Whatever she was feeling, it wasn’t going to get in the way of her finding her child.
She tapped lightly on the arm of her chair, shifting her eyes to the fireplace and the crackling, orange fire.
She and Cruella sat in mutual silence for what was probably another five minutes when, all of a sudden, there was a strangled gasp from Regina.
Maleficent raised a brow and looked back at the woman who was now breathing quickly and heavily, staring off into space.
“If you’re having bad dreams, I have something that can help,” Maleficent offered.
It was half out of compassion, half just to see if she would accept.
But Regina didn’t respond, simply kept staring off at the other end of the room. Her shoulders rose and fell rapidly, seemingly the remnants of her dream still clinging to her.
“Regina?” Maleficent prompted.
Again, no reply.
Suddenly, something in Maleficent’s mind clicked. An old, distant memory — something she hadn’t given thought for thirty years.
She let her eyes quickly roam over Regina’s body, taking in every minor detail. The way her hands clung to the edges of her seat, like claws digging into flesh, the way her jaw trembled ever so slightly — almost invisible to those who weren’t paying attention — the way her eyes brows were pinched with what seemed to be confusion.
From her observation, Maleficent was able to deduce one thing.
“Beastie?” She asked.
And that did it. The woman in front of her startled slightly and whipped her head around to look at her.
Maleficent saw visible confusion and fear in her eyes.
“Mal?” She replied, voice so quiet it was almost a whisper. “Wha- where are we? What’s happening?”
Maleficent knowingly gave a look to Cruella who had opened her mouth to say something. At her look, the woman closed her mouth again.
Slowly, Maleficent rose to her feet and crossed the room to the woman on the other side.
Beastie followed her every move.
“What’s the last thing you remember, dear?” Maleficent asked.
She saw the woman visibly thinking back, trying to recall her last memories, but after a moment she shook her head.
“I think… I think I was at the castle,” she said, but her tone was doubtful. She wasn’t entirely sure.
“Was it my castle or yours?”
The woman opened her mouth to answer then stopped herself. She shook her head.
“That’s okay, Beastie,” Maleficent said, taking the woman’s hands in her own. “You’re safe here. We’re working on getting our happy endings. How do you feel about that?”
Beastie gave a bitter laugh.
“I don’t think I’m due a happy ending, Mal,” she said quietly.
Maleficent tutted.
“Nonsense,” she retorted, “we all are. Even you. Trust me.”
She and Beastie locked eyes for several seconds before, finally, the younger woman nodded. Maleficent allowed herself a small, kind smile.
Perhaps this — Beastie’s reappearance — was for the best, she decided.
“Hello? Is anyone going to let me in on what’s happening?” Cruella demanded.
Beastie jumped a little, having clearly forgotten the other woman was there, whilst Maleficent rolled her eyes.
She rose again to her feet and turned to face Cruella. In the time Maleficent had been talking to Beastie, the woman had lit up a cigarette and was gently puffing on it.
“Cruella, things have changed. Regina is no longer with us — this is Beastie,” Maleficent explained.
Cruella frowned, looking between Maleficent and Beastie as if the two of them had grown second heads.
“Have you finally lost your marbles, darling?” She eventually asked.
Maleficent huffed and crossed the room back to Cruella. She sat down across from the woman and leaned forward. Cruella did the same, meeting her in the middle of the table.
“I know it sounds strange, but Regina has other people living inside her head. This has always been the case — ever since the Enchanted Forest days. Beastie is one of those people. With her here, Regina is gone. We no longer have to worry about her double crossing us because… she’s not here,” Maleficent elaborated on the situation.
For a moment, Cruella merely puffed on her cigarette as she stared at Maleficent. Then she spoke.
“Regina has DID?” She asked.
Maleficent frowned with confusion.
“Did?” She repeated.
“No, darling, DID. Dissociative Identity Disorder,” Cruella explained. “I suppose it was bound to happen — the life she’s had — but it is a bloody surprise.”
“What’s DID?” Maleficent asked.
“Exactly what you just said,” Cruella replied. “Dear queenie has people living inside her head. I think they’re called — oh what was it? Oh yes. They’re called alters, if I remember correctly. Beastie over there is an alter.”
“Alters?” Maleficent hummed with contemplation.
“Is her name really Beastie?” Cruella asked.
“She didn’t know her name when I… met her,” Maleficent said, and she recalled the day with absolute clarity. Both she and Beastie had been endlessly confused. “So I just took to calling her Beastie because she has a foul temper. One to rival even the Evil Queen. I guess it stuck.”
Cruella hmphed and looked over at Beastie who was staring once more into the depths of the fire.
“Are you not worried it’s a trick?” She asked Maleficent.
Maleficent shook her head.
“No. There’s a difference between Regina and her… alters. I can tell. Besides, she’s tried to trick me before but it never works.”
“Alters, as in plural?”
Maleficent smiled then she rose from her feet and returned to Beastie.
Crouching down, she put a hand on Beastie’s arm to gain her attention again. The woman looked at her and met her eyes.
“How about you and I go on a little trip?” Maleficent asked.
“Where?” Beastie retorted.
“Don’t worry about that. Are you in?”
For a moment, Beastie was silent. Maleficent wondered if she was going to decline, but then she nodded.
“I’m in,” she agreed.
Maleficent smiled and rose to her feet.
As had been agreed earlier with Gold, Maleficent and Regina (or rather, it would now have to be Beastie) were to head to Marco’s and kidnap August. They need to know what he knew about the author and where to find him, but he was suffering from a bout of amnesia at the moment due to no longer being an adult.
So they were gonna have to get creative when they brought him back to the cabin.
Having Beastie around was going to make this easier than Regina. Maleficent knew the other woman had gone soft since adopting Henry, and kidnapping another child would probably be difficult for her.
“Come along then, dear.”
Maleficent made her way to the door to the cabin and held it open for Beastie who left her seat and walked out of the cabin.
Turning to Cruella, Maleficent addressed her.
“We’re off to get August. I’m borrowing the car,” she said.
Cruella’s eyes widened, but before she could protest, Maleficent followed Beastie out of the cabin and shut the door behind her.
Beastie was standing on the gravel path, looking around with bewilderment, when Maleficent joined her.
“Where are we?” She asked for the second time.
This time, Maleficent answered her.
“Storybrooke,” she told her.
“I’ve never heard of Storybrooke before,” Beastie said. “Is it far from the castle?”
Maleficent internally winced. Perhaps this would be a little more complicated than anticipated.
“We’re… not in the Enchanted Forest anymore,” she explained. “We’re in a different land.”
“What? Why? How?”
“Regina cast a curse thirty years ago,” Maleficent said, “to get her happy ending and send us all to this… peculiar land.”
At that, Beastie frowned and looked around. She looked put out.
Maleficent was used to Regina and her alters having bouts of amnesia whenever they switched, but it had never been this bad. They had never forgotten this much. It was almost like Beastie had never existed up until now.
“Right…” the woman said with contemplation. Her eyes landed on Cruella’s car. “And what is that?”
Maleficent smirked and strode forward to the car. She opened up the passenger side and gestured Beastie in which the woman did, albeit tentatively.
“This… is a car. Sort of like a horseless carriage. It’s gonna get us to where we need to go. I take it you can’t drive?”
“Perhaps if we had a horse,” Beastie grumbled.
“Well, neither can I. So I’ll have to enchant it to get us where we need to go,” Maleficent said.
With a wave of her hand, she enchanted the car to get her and Beastie to Marco’s house. It was the middle of the night so everyone should be asleep, including Marco and August. And if they weren’t… well, they would deal with that when they got there.
She got into the driver’s seat when the enchantment had taken place, and dragged the red seatbelt over her chest to click it in on her left. She then instructed Beastie to do the same.
“We never had these in our carriages back home,” Beastie huffed.
“True. But Cruella insists. It’s apparently a safety feature,” Maleficent shrugged.
Truth be told, she was glad of the seatbelts. She still didn’t entirely trust the metal boxes called cars in this realm.
“Are you finally going to tell me where we’re going?” Beastie asked once the seatbelt was on and the car had started to drive off.
“You’ll see when we get there.”
After twenty minutes, they finally pulled up outside Marco’s humble home. From outside in the car, Maleficent could see the lights on inside so she knew the man and his son were awake.
It was no matter to her, however.
Beastie frowned when the car stopped and looked outside, seemingly trying to figure out where they were.
When she could see nothing or no one, however, she turned to Maleficent.
“Are we here?” She asked.
“This is Marco’s house,” she told the woman. “He’s a handyman, and Pinnochio’s father.”
“Right…” Beastie said, but it was obvious she was confused. She didn’t know of Marco or Pinnochio, so it was expected that she didn’t follow.
“There’s an author, you see. Someone who writes all of our stories. He wrote mine, and he wrote yours. This author is responsible for our miserable lives. He’s the reason we can’t get our happy endings.”
“What does that have to do with a handyman and his son?” Beastie asked.
“The son, August as he’s now called, knows the location of the author and his identity.”
“Oh, okay,” Beastie hummed. “So we have to go and talk to him.”
She unbuckled her belt in preparation to leave the car, but Maleficent stopped her.
“Not quite,” she corrected her, “see, Regina already questioned August, but he doesn’t remember anything and, unfortunately, his father isn’t willing to let anyone bother him anymore.”
“I don’t understand…” Beastie mumbled, but Maleficent could see the realisation dawning on her face.
“We need to steal the boy,” Maleficent elaborated.
Beastie stared at her for a long time, lips parted with surprise. Maleficent looked back, wondering if she was going to see that famous temper she remembered.
But, surprisingly, that wasn’t what she was met with.
“You want me to kidnap a boy?” Beastie stammered.
Maleficent raised a brow.
“It’s a necessary step in our plan to gain our happy endings,” she told the other woman.
“But this can’t be the only way, Mally. We’ll just question him again. We don’t need to kidnap him.”
At the sound of her old nickname — one only Beastie had ever called her — Maleficent’s heart fluttered. It felt good to hear it again after so long.
How long had it been since she last spoke to Beastie anyway? Thirty something years.
“I know it’s an extreme, but it is the only way, Beastie. This is how we get our happy endings. Now, are you in or out?”
Beastie looked away and drummed her fingers on her knees as she considered Maleficent’s words. It almost looked to Maleficent like she was going to decline, but at the last moment, she nodded.
She met Maleficent’s eyes once more.
“Okay…” she muttered. “But we’re not going to hurt him, are we?”
“Of course not,” Maleficent replied smoothly.
It was a white lie. She and Beastie probably wouldn’t hurt August. But she couldn’t speak for the others, especially Gold and Cruella.
“Alright…” Beastie sighed. She looked out of the window. “I suppose I should go… and kidnap the boy.”
“If you need any help, I’m right here, Beastie,” Maleficent told her.
She felt a pang of guilt as she watched the woman shake her head before getting out for the car.
From the driver’s seat, she watched Beastie round the car and make her way to the door of Marco’s workshop. Maleficent heard her knock lightly on the door before walking inside.
With a sigh, Maleficent got out of the car and shut the door. She crossed her arms to ward off the cold weather and waited for Beastie to come out with the boy.
If Maleficent had, had her way, they wouldn’t be out here kidnapping children to find the author. She was a mother herself — or she had been. She felt a spark of anger at that thought, her mind flooded with images of the Charming's.
She just wanted her child back. She didn’t even know if it was… Maleficent shook her head and swallowed back the lump in her throat.
At least August wasn’t always a boy. Not long ago, he had been an adult man. Rumple seemed to think he could turn him back into an adult and interrogate the adult version of him. The one who remembered things.
And once they had the identity and location of the author, they could make him give them all a happy ending. Maleficent would have her child back and the Charming's would pay for what they did.
As these thoughts swirled through her mind, Maleficent noticed something moving on her left. A shadow creeping towards Marco’s house, and slipping in through a side door just out of view.
A confused, and worried, frown adorned Maleficent’s face as she pushed away from the car and slowly made her way to the house.
She stopped just in front of the door Beastie had entered through and leaned close to listen. Thanks to being a dragon, Maleficent had excellent hearing so it was with ease that she was able to hear a conversation taking place inside.
“— not what it looks like,” that was Beastie.
Maleficent subtly rolled her eyes and tried to figure out who the other speaker was.
“I told you these things never end well, Regina.”
That was definitely Emma Swan, the Charmings’ daughter who also happened to be the sheriff of Storybrooke.
Damn it, Maleficent thought. Why the hell was Emma here? Unless…
Regina.
Of course. Cruella was right. Regina had gone soft and she was working with the Charming’s. Perhaps sneaking them information about everything that was going on.
The sheriff had clearly followed them to Marco’s house to intervene.
“We’ll have to do this quick. Let’s just sneak him out the back and then we’ll find a safe place,” Emma hurriedly whispered.
Maleficent clenched her jaw.
“What?” Beastie retorted.
And that was all Maleficent wanted to listen to.
Before the two could talk anymore, Maleficent slipped inside and, as Emma whipped around to meet her gaze, the dragon waved a hand and sent the Saviour to sleep alongside Marco and August.
The blonde hit the floor with a thud, limbs splayed out.
A sigh left Maleficent’s lips as she met Beastie’s eyes. The woman’s eyes were wide, lips opening and closing as if trying to form a sentence but failing repeatedly.
Finally, she managed to get her words out.
“I’m sorry — I don’t know who — she just —“
Maleficent held up a hand to stop her.
“It’s okay,” she said, “it’s not your fault. However, it does seem as if we have a mole.”
“What?” Beastie asked.
Maleficent approached her and dug a hand in the woman’s pocket. She quickly found what she was looking for and withdrew a mobile phone from Beastie’s jacket.
As expected, she saw missed calls from both Emma and Snow.
The Charming’s were trying to get hold of Regina.
“What is that?” Beastie asked.
“Cruella calls it a phone,” Maleficent told her. “And it seems that Regina was in cahoots with the Charming’s. They’ve been trying to contact her.”
Maleficent lit up the phone in her hand and watched it melt, then she tossed it on the floor next to the Saviour.
“But don’t worry. We don’t have to worry about that anymore,” Maleficent smirked.
Not for a while, anyway.
“Now, let’s get out of here before the rest of the Charming’s arrive.”
Though she still looked confused, Beastie nodded and reached down to pick up Pinnochio. With the boy in her arms, she followed Maleficent out of the woodwork shed and to the car.