I just read the last chapter of Once and a Future Thing and it was amazing! I was wondering if you could maybe tell us or write about Beth's adjustment to the world and the rest of her family's reactions? Thanks so much for your awesome writing! I always love when you update Little Pirates and I always enjoy your other stories!
Notes: Okay, I owe you the biggest apology. This has literally been in my inbox for half a year? I honestly don’t remember when this entered my inbox but I know it was a long time, so long that whoever sent this probably forgot all about it. I wouldn’t be surprised. Anyway, I hope you can forgive me for how long this fucking took. I was inspired to work on the Jim and Beth reunion by @clockadile and I knew that I couldn’t work on it or post something new OAFT-related without doing this. Now, I don’t really have Beth adjusting to life in Storybrooke, so much as her family’s reactions to her return, namely Harrison’s because he is legitimately the sanest and most well-adjusted member of the Jones family, and I say that objectively. He is. So, I felt his POV might be best for this chapter or coda or whatever. Anyway, a special thanks to @shireness-says and @optomisticgirl for allowing me to spam them with this nonsense. I hope you enjoy it. There’s a bit of Arabic in it, but it’s translated at the bottom.Summary: Beth’s quest for vengeance against her boyfriend’s killer goes a bit haywire when she and her former best friend Jim Hawkins are sent into thirty years into the past. Now, they must figure out how to find a way back to the future without wrecking the first meeting between Beth’s parents, Emma Swan and Killian Jones. Rating: T+Chapters: One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Epilogue | Coda IWord Count: 4,300+
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The large clock on the wall said 6:30am and years ago that would have meant that it was way too early for him to be up, but Harrison Jones didn’t sleep anymore. Time had simply muddled together and all that mattered was that he got at least one cup of coffee on the hour or his brain was going to ooze out of his ears. He wasn’t quite what he was going to die from first – his heart exploding or exhaustion.
His fingers tap impatiently against the kitchen counter as he stared down the ancient machine gurgling to life. He never liked coffee, in fact he hated the very taste of it, but it become so integral to his daily functions that he no longer gagged at the bitter taste.
Feeling agitated, he began rummaging sluggishly through the cabinets in search of the sugar. When he found the container in the back of the spice shelf completely empty, he threw it against the wall while muttering dark curses under his breath. He knew exactly who was behind this crime against humanity. No one had a bigger sweet tooth than Wes and he had a tendency of finishing off products without replacing them.
He hoped his younger brother’s wifi wasn’t working this morning. The asshole deserved it.
Bitter and disappointed, he put as much cream into his coffee as he could. Taking a seat at the breakfast table, he picked up his kindle and began reading the last few chapters of his Ken Follet novel. The house was quiet at the moment and he was going to enjoy it while it lasted. As long as he had been alive, the Swan-Jones house had been one prone to chaos and any lull of silence was worth its weight in gold.
“Holy Christ, Harrison, you still live here? At twenty-seven? Jesus.”
The coffee mug slipped from his fingers, missing the table by a fraction of a hair and falling to the floor with a loud crash. Pieces of ceramic glass shattered as they made contact with the hard tile, scattering everywhere.
Harrison barely registered it.
He was too busy staring at a ghost.
She looked so much older and impossibly thinner than the last time he saw her, but there was no mistaking the green of those eyes and that riot mess of untamed dark hair. His sister, whom he hadn’t seen in three years, was standing in the doorway in a probably the most dramatic pirate gear that he had ever seen.
“خرة,” he breathed out in disbelief.
“What did you just swear at me?”
“In Arabic, yes,” he responded faintly.
“I’ve never been prouder of you,” she laughed merrily, tossing her hair over her shoulder. He continued to gape at her, unable to process what exactly was happening.
“I swear. Always have. I’m not a saint, despite what you all think.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his father move past his sister as if everything was normal and ordinary. Without even commenting on the broken mug at Harrison’s feet, Killian Jones made a beeline for the coffee machine and made himself a cup. He offered no comment on the fact his long-lost daughter was standing in his kitchen.
“Are you going to just gawk at me like an idiot or are you going to say something?” His sister asked somewhat impatiently, crossing her arms in front of her chest and arching her eyebrow at him mockingly.
“You’re alive?”
“Did you think I was dead?” She snorted in amusement at the question, but Harrison didn’t find anything about this to be funny.
“Well, yes.”
“Well, considering I’m standing right in front of you. I can assure you, I’m alive.”
“Considering how sleep deprived I am, I was convinced you were a hallucination.”
She scoffed at him, stepping forward. She rose up on the tips of her toes and poked him between the eyebrows like she used to do back when they were kids; back when she was trying to get his attention away from his guitar. It was annoying then and Harrison found it even more annoying now.
“I can’t believe you thought I was dead. I’m insulted.”
“Well, I haven’t heard from you in three fucking years, Beth. What the hell was I supposed to think?”
“That’s…fair…I guess,” she replied. She took a step backwards, shifting on her feet uncomfortably. The move reminded him of when they were younger. She always did that whenever she was caught doing something she shouldn’t.
Simpler times.
Her eyes shifted back towards their father who was still leaning across the cabinets, watching them both with tired eyes. She seemed to be silently pleading with him.
“Don’t look at me,” he said to her as he took a sip of his coffee. “This is your hole to dig out of, not mine.”
“Thanks Dad,” she replied sarcastically, rolling her eyes.
“No problem, minnow. I told you this wasn’t going to be easy.”
“Yeah, you got that right.”
“Well, honestly, Beth, what did you expect?” Harrison replied, raising to his height and crossing his arms in front of his chest, anger fueling him faster than caffeine could ever have. “I hate to be repetitive, but it can’t be ignored. It’s been three years. Three fucking years. No phone call. No note. No nothing. You just vanished. As if it was nothing. As if we were nothing.”
“I understand why you’re mad. Look, I get it —"
“No, Beth. You don’t get it,” he interrupted, nostrils flaring in anger.
She flinched at his words, but he having a hard time feeling sympathetic. Her disappearance had nearly torn them all apart. He still remembered the sound of their mother crying in the back room of the police station, the amount of times he had to walk their father back to the house because he had drunk himself into a stupor on the docks waiting for her to come back and how they had put Ned through counseling because he thought it was all his fault. He could see Wes in his mind’s eye running himself ragged trying to find the right locator spell and how he had torn through her room trying to find a single strand of hair to use. He could still recall the nights of he stared blankly at sheets of paper, unable to write music because his mind kept drifting back to her and the maelstrom of emotion she had left inside of him. His knuckles were still scarred for the times he had tried to beat his self-loathing and anger into a punching bag until it broke, and sand spilt onto the floor of his basement. She owed him at least seven bags.
“You don’t get it,” he repeated. “And you don’t get to say that because you weren’t here and that isn’t okay. This entire family almost crumbled when you left. Ned almost failed out his senior year and almost didn’t get into college.”
“Ned’s in college?” She whispered in disbelief.
“Yeah. He’s in his second year and if you were here, you would have known that!”
“That’s not fair, Har.”
“No. What’s not fair is that we’re still picking up the pieces that you left behind and now you think that can be just swept under the rug.”
“Harrison.” Their father straightened himself up, giving him a warning look. “Enough.”
“Are you kidding me right now? I know she’s your favorite but this is ridiculous! She broke our hearts! She broke your heart, Dad! You drank yourself into the bottom of a bottle waiting for her to come back! You’re just going to let bygones be bygones?”
“I don’t have favorites, Har.”
“Bullshit. Look me in the eye and tell me if I pulled the fucking nonsense she did that you wouldn’t punch me in the face if I dare showed my face afterwards.”
A muscle in Killian’s jaw ticked and there was a dangerous look in his eyes, but Harrison stopped being scared of his father the minute he was taller than him.
“Don’t go putting words into my mouth, lad. I never said any of that. There is a time to address things. And that time isn’t now. Right now, let’s focus on the fact that your sister is home.”
Harrison worried at his jaw, glaring at him. He took three steps forward, away from his sister and crowded into his father’s personal space. Any other man would have shrunken away from a fight with a man of Harrison’s stature, but not Killian Jones. He met his son’s gaze with his own furious blue eyes, straightening his shoulders and refusing to backdown. For a brief moment, Harrison thought his father might actually punch him.
“Good morning everyone.”
The tension in the room was immediately cut by the appearance of Nasira. She gave them all a tired smile as she walked into the kitchen, their three-month old son cradled in her arms. Harrison immediately turned his back on his father and ignored the choked noises Beth was making in the background. His focus was on the love of his life and his infant son.
“هلتتصرفبنفسك?” She asked him, raising her eyebrows at him as she rose up on her toes to kiss his chin. He was making an effort not to be insulted by her insinuations about his behavior.
“دائما.”
She gave him a look like she didn’t quite believe his reassurances but didn’t say anything to him as she adjusted her hold on their son and turning to address his sister.
“Hey Beth. It’s been awhile. When did you get in?”
All three Joneses jolted at Nas’s nonchalance. Her tone held no underlaying sarcasm or anger. It was a friendly, casual remark, as if she were talking to someone that she had seen almost every day of her life. Killian nearly spat out his coffee while Beth stared at her, clearly shaken by the question.
“She got in this morning,” Harrison answered tersely, scowling still.
“توقف,” Nas responded, striking Harrison across the abdomen in reproach. She then turned her attention back to Beth and smiled at her. “Your brother can be an ass.”
“I’m well aware,” Beth managed to croak out, still looking a bit uneasy. “You’re too good for him.”
“Absolutely not. I can be an ass too. We’re just the perfect amount of ass for each other,” Nas responded with a laugh. “But how have you been?”
“Busy. But you seem to have been busy as well…” She gestured to the child in Nas’s arms.
“Yeah, yeah, I definitely have,” Nas beamed. “Between him and his brother, I’ve been very busy.”
“B-brother?” Beth’s eyes went wide. “You have more than one?”
“Yep! I had Sam nearly three years ago. He was a bit of a surprise, but we loved him so much that we decided to have another. We’ve had Kam for three months now and he seems pretty good, so I think we’re gonna keep him.”
“You have babies.” Beth looked like she was one second away from having a panic attack.
“Yep!” Nas responded brightly, deliberately ignoring his sister’s obvious discomfort. “They’re great. I would ten out of ten recommend.”
“I don’t think that’s in the cards for me.”
“Nas, my love, my jewel,” Harrison spoke up, giving Nas a tight smile. “I’m so glad you’re happy and proud of our children, but I feel the need to point out to everyone, because clearly seems you’ve all forgotten, but Beth has been out of our lives for three years. She left us. For three years. Without a word.”
“Harrison, my love, my sweet, gentle, understanding man,” she responded, giving him the same time smile and now speaking a sugary tone that belayed a message that was more steely than sweet. “I’m so glad that you’re happy for my happiness, but I feel the need to remind you that this is Storybrooke. We deal with all sorts of things from time-traveling witches, cursed gems, megalomaniacs and not to mention brothers who try to pull political coups to try and steal your kingdom. This family drama? It’s honestly just a blimp on the radar. We’re getting married. Your sister is going to be in the wedding party. I’m not having the groom feuding with his sister.”
“You guys seriously aren’t married yet?” Beth asked in disbelief.
“No,” they answered at the same time, Harrison sounding angry while Nas was wistful.
Beth immediately turned to their father. Killian merely shrugged his shoulders at her and sipped his coffee.
“I don’t know why you keep looking at me for answers. You’re all adults. I have no control over your decisions.“
“We just haven’t found the right time,” Nas replied, giving a placating smile.
It was then that Kam started crying and Nas began making shushing noises, bouncing him up and down in hopes of calming him. Harrison envied his infant son’s ability to be so free with how he felt. He wanted to scream too.
Harrison opened his mouth to make a comment but was stopped when the front door opened loudly, and a very familiar voice called out.
“Good morning Vietnam!” Wes shouted merrily, making his way towards the kitchen. Harrison winced at the volume, afraid that his brother was going to wake his still sleeping three-year old and their mother.
Wes seemed to be in good cheer, chuckling to himself as he swaggered in. He was dressed in a black leather jacket and the tightest pair of pants that Harrison had ever seen. The smell of cigarettes immediately filled the kitchen and it was quite clear that he had come to the house straight from closing up the bar.
The smirk died the second Wes’s eyes land on their sister. For a brief moment, the entire room was silent, save for the tail end of Kam’s whimpering. No one spoke as Wes stared at Beth. Their eyes met for exactly five seconds. Harrison counted them.
“Nope,” Wes said quietly, shaking his head and turning on his heel.
“Wes!” Beth shouted, stepping forward to run after him.
He stopped at the sound of her voice. He turned again to face them, his face pinched with concern. He tilted his head and took a tentative step towards her.
“Guys,” he said slowly, still staring at their sister. “Don’t get mad at me, but I think I might be a little high from getting hotboxed all night at the Hole…because I’m legit seeing Beth right now and there’s no way that could possibly be happening right now.”
Beth scoffed, rolling her eyes at him.
“Good to see you haven’t changed a bit.”
“She’s snarking me right now. Fake Beth is snarking me, guys.”
“Fake Beth is Real Beth and she’s five seconds from punching you in the face.”
“And now, she’s threatening me!”
“We know,” Nas snorted. “She’s real and we can hear her and so help me, Westley Jones, if you’re high around my children, I will castrate you with a rusty spoon.”
“Oh,” Wes blinked dumbly before turning to look at their father. “Dad, I’m going to need your flask, because…damn.”
“Sorry, it’s empty,” Killian responded, not looking up from his coffee. It was very clear to everyone in the room that he was lying.
“Okay,” Wes responded, drawing a shaky breath before heading towards the sink. "This calls for drastic measures.”
He bent down and took out the emergency bottle of rum that they kept behind the dog treats. He uncorked it and placed it down on the counter before grabbing a clean glass from the drying rack. He contemplated it for about three seconds before placing the glass back down and deciding to drink straight from the bottle. He took a long drag from it before turning to address them.
“Okay, good,” he said, smacking his lips. “Good. Now I can deal with this.”
“Are you going to share that?” Beth asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Absolutely not. You owe me at least ten years of alcohol.”
“I was gone for only three!”
“Yeah, three years plus the seven extra years I’m going to spend talking about this in therapy. Welcome home, sis.”
“You’re an ass.”
“So are you,” he replied, taking another sip. “It runs in the family.”
“Why am I not surprised that you’re taking this so casually?” Harrison snapped, feeling irritated.
“Well, to be honest, I’m still not convinced I’m not hallucinating right now and it seems kinda silly to argue with a hallucination.”
“Trust me, I thought she was a hallucination too, but I got past that pretty quickly.”
“Yeah, well, you’re more well adjusted than me. I’m a little mad at my subconscious right. I mean, seriously? My sister? Why couldn’t my hallucinations be more hot? Kate Hudson? Sienna Miller? Giselle? Something I could actually enjoy seeing?”
Beth moved forward and hit Wes across the shoulder. He let out a yelp of pain, massaging his shoulder and glaring at her.
“See? Not a hallucination.”
“God, I forgot how vicious you are.”
“You’ve gotten soft without me.”
“Well, it’s not like I have any good sparing partners. The last time Harrison and I fought, he picked me up and tossed me over the fence like I was Benny Booth.”
“Benny Booth?” Nas asked, frowning in confusion.
“The asshole who nearly knocked up our sister. Harrison threw him over a fence, except he didn’t quite clear it and Moe French had a fence with an ass shaped cut out for like three weeks,” Wes explained with a quirk of his lips.
“He didn’t nearly knock me up,” Beth scowled.
“Henry bought you a pregnancy test. He nearly knocked you up,” Wes volleyed back at her.
At that comment, their father spat out his coffee and began to cough profusely. Harrison gave him a healthy whack on the back.
“He did not!”
“He did!”
“He. Did. Not.”
“Yes. He. Did. Your eggo was almost preggo.”
“Ugh! Stop talking! To think I actually missed you!”
“You actually missed us? Wow, maybe you’re the one whose gone soft.”
“Beth?”
Their mother was standing halfway down the stairs, staring at her daughter the same way Harrison and Wes had previously – like she was looking at a ghost. Beth returned her gaze with one of her. This time she didn’t look self-assured, however. She looked on the verge of tears.
“M-mo-mom?”
“Beth? Is that you? Is that my daughter?”
Emma didn’t wait for an answer. She raced down the stairs, nearly tripping over the final step. The stumble seemed to wake something inside of Beth because she finally regained her senses and was scrambling past Wes to meet her. Their mother grabbed onto their sister’s arms and yanked her almost violently forward. Beth fell into her arms and a loud, almost inhuman sob sounded through the entire kitchen as the two embraced each other, rocking side-to-side in a forceful but erratic sway.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Beth’s voice was muffled by Emma’s shoulder, but Harrison could still hear her words as she kept repeating them like a broken record.
“You’re home” was their mother’s mantra. He could tell by the waver in her voice that Emma was also crying.
Harrison couldn’t stand it.
It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. He couldn’t handle this any longer. If he stayed, he was going to break something. His father and Wes’s easy acceptance of Beth had been hard enough to swallow but seeing their mother tearful and happy to see the daughter that had abandoned them was just too much.
Nas seemed to sense this.
“هلانتبخير?” she asked, looking at him in concern.
“Can you give me the baby?” he asked in a barely measured tone. “I’m thinking he could use some air.”
Nas studied his face for a moment, frowning. He briefly thought she might not comply with his request, but she gave him a curt nod and handed over their son without a word. Kam was whimpered loudly, clearly unhappy with being given over to his father.
“Thank you,” he murmured, bending down to kiss her cheek before making his escape.
While everyone was focused on the reunion between mother and daughter, Harrison made his escape with his son in his arms. He went out the back door and leaned against the deck railing, staring out into the backyard at the old rusted swing set. It had been a long time since anyone had used those swings and he tried to think of the last time Lucy had used them.
It was equally surreal and frightening to think that his own children would soon be old enough to use them.
“Do me a favor, bud, and don’t grow up too fast,” he murmured to the infant.
Kam stared up at him crankily but waving his arm in displeasure and hitting him across the nose. Harrison jolted at the unexpected contact, rearing his head back away from his son. He adjusted his hold so he could massage his injured nose. He felt equal parts proud and embarrassed about getting whacked in the face by a mere infant. It was almost comical.
“You might have more Jones in you than we realized,“ he mused aloud, trying to appease his unhappy son.
“Which is a bit shocking considering he’s your kid and you’re a helluva lot more Charming than you are Jones,” a voice called out.
Beth.
She was standing in the doorway, her arms crossed in front of her chest and looking at him with pensive expression.
“Aren’t you supposed to be chatting with Mom?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow at her.
“You know when you do that, you look disturbingly like Dad. Like really disturbingly like Dad. I didn’t really see it when we were kids, but I can see what everyone was saying now. You look a lot like him.”
“So I’ve been told,” he responded, eyebrow lifting even higher on his forehead. “And you’re avoiding the question.”
“I am,” she nodded.
“You know, when people ask questions, they kinda expect a response.”
“Those people should get used to disappointment.”
“They already have.”
Beth flinched, staring down at her feet and biting her lip.
“Look, I know you hate me, but —”
“Beth, I don’t hate you,” he cut her off. “I honestly wish I did. Things would be easier then. If I hated you, I wouldn’t care. I wouldn’t have lost sleep worrying about you for the last three years. I wouldn’t have cried. I wouldn’t have let Nas stall the wedding for you.”
“Nas stalled the wedding? What!” She looked horrified.
“She accepted my proposal and refused to plan the wedding without you,” Harrison responded, trying to keep his voice even. “She said if you weren’t there, I would regret it for the rest of my life.”
“I’m sorry…”
“You can be sorry. I’m glad to hear it in fact, but that doesn’t mean I have to forgive you…”
“I know,” she sighed. “I know. And I don’t blame you.”
“I love you. You’re my sister and you’re always going to be my sister, and someday I’ll probably forgive you, but I can’t today. Not today. There’s been too much pain, Beth. I can’t just forget that. I can’t look at you without thinking about how Dad destroyed his liver over you, how Mom threatened the Dark One to find you and how they tracked to track you for years despite the fact you obviously bought protection spells against that. I can’t just forget that Ned went to actually depression and almost stopped playing baseball, which he loves more than life itself. Henry worried himself sick enough he had ulcers. And Wes? Wes was so focused on finding you, he forgot to shower and Gideon begged me to come over and literally force him away from his research. I can’t just get past that. I’m not like that them, I can’t forgive and forget like that. I know you guys like to call me perfect and if I was, I could forgive you, but I can’t.”
“Oh, Harrison, they haven’t forgiven me,” she laughed bitterly. “No one is letting me off the hook. They’re just in shock right now. Like you said, I’ve been gone for three years. Once that shock fades away, the anger will be there. Just you wait.”
“That anger is justified.”
“I know that,” she snapped, hot angry tears spilled down her cheeks. “Lord knows, I know that. I know I deserve it. I half expected to be disowned upon arrival.”
“We don’t do that.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” she replied, wiping her cheeks and turning away from him. “I’ve come to except the worst.”
“Expect the worst but hope for the best.”
“Hope is a very dangerous thing. Nothing worse than false hope.”
“Dangerous, but powerful. A little hope can go a long way, Beth. You’ve proved that, yourself.“
"You really are a Charming. You legit sound like Grandma.”
“I know you’re trying to mock me but I’m being serious,” Harrison replied, slightly frustrated. “The thing about hope is that…it can drive you, but it can’t take you all the way there. You have to put the work in too…No one is going to forgive you unless you actually try. Don’t just say you’re sorry. Show us you’re sorry. Until you put your money where your mouth is, nothing is going to get accomplished. I can’t forgive you until I see it.”
“That’s what Dad said…That the path to forgiveness…I need to put the work in.”
“He would know better than anyone else,” Harrison said gently. “And I’ve never known you to back down from a challenge.”
“Never,” she responded fiercely, eyes flashing with determined. And for the first time since he saw her, Harrison felt a flash of warmth. He had missed her fire.
“Good.”
He pushed himself away from the railing, tightening his hold on Kam as he did so. He made his way towards the doorway, his sister watching him warily. He bent forward and placed a brief kiss on her cheek.
“Nice to see you, Beth.”
“Nice to see you too, Har.”
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خرة - shitهلتتصرفبنفسك - are you behaving yourself?دائما - alwaysتوقف - stopهلانتبخير - Are you okay?
