Ch.61: White Out
Elsa left the shop and looked around at everything.
“No one leaves this town until we are reunited.” Then a wall of snow and ice began to appear all around the borders of the town, trapping everyone inside the town. She gave a smile and then said, “Anna, I will find out what happened to you.”
The next day, Snow was putting Neal to bed in his crib.
“There you go, sweetheart. I’ll see you in three hours for your midnight shrieking. Yes, I will. Sweet dreams.”
Henry went to stand by the crib, as Snow set him in his crib.
“What do you suppose babies dream about?” Henry questioned.
“Bullfighting,” Charming said, as he passed by.
“Laser tag,” Katherine commented, passing Charming.
“That’s not true,” Snow said.
“I think they’re joking,” Henry told her.
“Right,” Snow replied, and walked away from the crib. “I’ll recognize funny again when he’s three and I’ve had some sleep.”
“Three? I see the optimism returning,” Charming said.
Snow sat down in a chair.
Katherine walked over to Henry whom was by the sink.
“Okay, chocolate, DVDs, ice cream, red wine. That’s one heck of a late-night snack.”
“It’s for my mom,” he said, as Katherine looked at the basket of goodies.
“That’s really sweet,” she commented, and then was interrupted when a black crow began pecking at the window.
Charming and Snow immediately went over to the window and Charming opened the window.
Snow coaxed the bird onto her finger and saw a paper which she took from its leg.
“It’s a message.” She coaxed the bird back outside onto the sill and it flew back outside. Then she looked at the paper and opened it. “It’s for Henry.” She looked at Henry. “It’s from your mother.”
After he read it, he said, “She doesn’t wanna see me.” Then he left the apartment.
Katherine, after a few, decided to go talk to him, so she went to the diner, assuming where he’d be.
“You know, that is not exactly what she said. I read the note. She said for right now, while she’s dealing with things.”
“She doesn’t wanna see me,” he replied.
“She’s just dealing with things. She’s dealing the best she can. Things have been tough on her, and you. She’s trying to fix them so that you two can be together. Because she cares about you.”
“So why’d she tell me to stay away?” he asked, looking at her.
“Because she thinks she’s making things better,” she replied.
“She’s not.”
A moment later, when a street light pole collapsed on the street and went out, all the power went out at the diner and other places.
Katherine got up.
“What the hell?”
A moment later, David was heard from the walkie talkie she had with her.
“Katherine, I’m getting calls from all over. It’s a town-wide blackout.”
Katherine pressed a button on the walkie talkie.
“Yeah, copy that. I’m looking at it.”
“I’ll swing by to get you. We can check this out,” he replied.
She took a second to think about it and then looked at Henry, thinking maybe this would cheer him up.
“Hey, you wanna come along on this one? We can call it Operation Nightshade. Or, uh, Blackthorn. Or…”
“That’s okay,” he told her.
When Charming picked her up, she told him about what happened between her and Henry.
“He wouldn’t even let me hug him.”
“Sounds familiar,” Charming commented.
“Because I do that,” she admitted. “Great. I passed it along.”
“Not just you. Henry has Regina too. You both put up walls. Sounds like he’s taking after the both of you.”
“It’s not like him to pass up an Operation anything. I’m worried.”
“Kids have extreme reactions. They get over it fast. Just stay strong and roll with it,” he assured her. “There’s always people in this world who want you to give up. Don’t make their jobs any easier.” He looked over at Katherine and then when he looked ahead again, he saw a wall of snow and ice, he said, “What the hell?”
“Well, there you go,” Katherine commented, not too surprised.
Charming stopped the car.
“Whatever happened to these power lines happened after the snow monster. Let’s go find whoever did this,” Katherine said.
She and Charming got out of the car.
Elsa watched, hidden behind a part of the wall.
Snow opened the door when there was a knock and Granny, Happy, and LeRoy walked in.
“Why…Just come on in, I guess,” Snow said.
“Oh, look at the baby,” LeRoy said.
“Thanks,” Snow said.
“Is what I’d say if I could look at the baby. But I can’t. Why? ‘Cause it’s dark.”
“Know what else we can’t look at?” Happy said. “The internet. TV. My clock.”
“Happy’s right,” LeRoy agreed. “Power’s out. So whatcha gonna do about it, sister?”
“Me? No, I think you mean Regina, the mayor?”
“She doesn’t want the job anymore,” Granny informed her. “This is your curse. You are the mayor now.”
“I am?” Snow asked.
“We helped you take your kingdom back, remember?” LeRoy reminded her. “So you could rule. Well, this is your kingdom now. So rule it.”
Hook came out from where some bushes were, a lantern in hand.
“In case you’re wondering, it goes the whole way around.”
Charming shone his light on Hook.
“Hook. I didn’t know you were joining us,” Charming said.
“Well, I get a distress call from a fair maiden, and I’m on the spot,” Hook replied.
“I was not distressed,” Katherine said, when Charming looked at her. She then spoke to Hook. “And you’re saying this wall goes around, what, the whole town?”
“And that it does,” Hook informed her.
“So once again, we can’t leave Storybrooke,” Charming commented.
“Doing more than keeping us inside, by the looks of that,” Hook said, seeing the fallen streetlight and pole that had a power box on it. “Guess that’s what caused the loss of power?” he inquired, looking at them.
“Look at you, becoming a twenty-first century man,” Katherine commented, impressed at how quick of a learner he was in a world that he wasn’t even from. “Yeah,” she added, letting him know that he was right. “It looks to me like whoever was putting up the wall wasn’t trying to take out the lights. They were just putting up the wall.”
“Yeah, keep us in? Why?” Charming replied.
“Kill us all one by one. It’s what I’d do,” Hook replied.
Charming heard the radio that was in the car, so he walked off to answer it.
Looking at the sky, Hook said, “I should’ve brought the champagne.”
“What?” Katherine said.
“To celebrate our second date. And because we’ve got the world’s largest ice bucket.”
“Second date? Did I miss the first?”
“Aye. Snow monster’s the first, ice wall’s the second. After all, if I only count the quiet dinners, we wouldn’t even get one.”
She was speechless for once and looked to the wall.
“I think I see something by the wall. You wait here with the ice bucket while I check that out.”
She left to go check it out.
Charming came back to stand by him.
“I think it’s time you and I have a little talk about your intentions.”
“That’s a little old-fashioned even by my standards, and I still pay with doubloons,” Hook commented.
“Well, remember, I know your reputation. Katherine is not some conquest.”
“I wouldn’t risk my life for someone I see as loot,” Hook told him. “Whatever we’ve become, it’s up to her as much as me.”
Charming gave a nod in understanding.
Katherine walked through the ice that were made into points on the wall until she saw a girl.
Elsa turned around and looked at her.
“Hey. Who are you?” Katherine greeted, being cautious but was also kind of amazed at her magical ability to create a cave for herself within the wall of snow and ice.
“My name is Elsa.”
Katherine slowly stepped towards her.
“Okay, Elsa. It’s okay. I’m Katherine. Wanna tell me what you’re doing out here? Do you have something to do with this wall?”
“I’m looking for someone, my sister. I can’t find her.” Elsa held the star necklace in her hand. “This was hers. I found it in the store filled with things. Where is she?”
“I have no idea. But if you want me to help you, you have to help me. What’s her name?”
“Anna.”
Hook and Charming went to go see what was taking her so long and approached the wall. They then saw Katherine whom was with a girl.
“Katherine,” Hook called.
“Stay back,” Katherine warned them both.
Elsa pointed hands towards them, unsure what their intentions were.
“Hey, hey,” Charming said, and was about to go towards where they were.
“No, no, no, stay back. It’s okay. She’s just trying to find her…,” Katherine began.
Elsa lost control and more of the pointed icicles appeared.
“Katherine,” Hook called.
Kat fell when an icicle rose up from the part of the ice she was on.
Elsa looked at Charming and Hook and then she and Katherine were sealed inside the cave that was inside the wall of ice. When that happened, Hook and Charming fell.
Charming and Hook got up.
“The device. Call her,” Hook told him.
“Katherine. Are you in there?” Charming called.
When there wasn’t a reply for a moment, Hook said, “I’m getting her out.” Then he went to the wall and began using his hooked hand to try and break through the ice.
Charming followed and once he was by Hook, said, “What if we lift?”
When they tried and it wouldn’t budge, Hook continued trying to break the ice.
Charming tried to stop him.
“Don’t. We’re not giving up,” Hook said.
“We won’t. But this is not getting us anywhere,” Charming reasoned.
“Well, I’m open to suggestions.”
“Magic made this thing. I think we’re gonna need magic to unmake it. And I’m not gonna stop fighting until we do.”
Katherine woke up and got to her feet.
She put a hand to her temple.
“Ow,” she said, her head hurting. “I gotta give it to you, you put on quite a show. You wanna tell me what this is about?”
“No. Just that I’m very powerful,” Elsa replied. “And you and your people, you need to be more careful, keep your distance.”
“I think I can guarantee that. So if you wanna, you know, hit undo on that, then we’ll get right on it.”
“I…Not right away,” Elsa said, no sure whether she should tell her that she can’t control it. “Bring me what I want, and then I’ll consider freeing you.”
“Your sister, right?”
“I can’t really look for her from in here.”
“Katherine? Can you hear me?” Charming called, trying again.
Katherine took the walkie talkie out of her jacket.
“What is that?” Elsa asked.
“It’s uh…” She tried to think on how to explain it to her.
“Katherine, are you okay? Say something,” Charming tried again.
“It allows me to talk to Prince Charming and Captain Hook, who are on the other side of that wall. But if you wanna melt that, we can all talk.”
“Tell him to go get Anna,” Elsa said.
“Charming, can you hear me?” Katherine questioned him.
Hook grabbed it from Charming.
“Emma. Say again.”
“I’m in here with this woman, she is looking for her sister, Anna. She thinks Anna is in town because she found a necklace of hers in Gold’s shop. She wants us to try to find her before…”
Elsa went closer and talked through it.
“Before I freeze this town and everyone in it.”
Snow was trying to figure out the power box that was at the power plant, while LeRoy, Granny, and Happy were behind her, Happy and LeRoy talking. When she got frustrated enough, she turned around and looked at Happy.
“Stop saying letters. Look. I am not magic. I have had eight hours of sleep in the last week, I am breastfeeding, and I am exhausted. I don’t need this. I may have cast a little curse, but I did not ask to maintain a metropolitan electrical grid. And get this, I’m starting to get why Regina was evil. It wasn’t her. It was you. You have survived your entire lives without light bulbs. Buy a flashlight.”
After Snow yelled at them, they left the place in silence, realizing how she was feeling and that they were making it worst.
Katherine was walking around in the cave of ice, arms crossed, trying to get warm, feeling the cold now.
She approached Elsa.
“Aren’t you cold? I’m freezing.”
“It’s never bothered me,” Elsa admitted.
“The other day, there was something here. We called it a snow monster. I assume that’s something you made?”
“I’ll do whatever it takes to get my sister back.”
“I can tell you care about her a lot. I’m sorry about her necklace.”
Elsa began looking for it.
“Where is it?”
“It fell. Under the ice, here. You can melt it down and get it back here,” she said, as Elsa looked through the crack to see the necklace. “Keep going, and we can take this whole conversation somewhere warmer.”
Elsa looked away, but something in her face made Katherine realize something.
“You can’t control it, can you?”
Elsa looked at her.
“What you said to David on the walkie, it wasn’t a threat, it was a warning, because you can’t control what you’re doing.”
“What makes you think you know me?”
“Because I know myself. And I have powers too, and I am not great at controlling them or knowing what the hell I’m even doing. Even before I had magic, I had different powers all together and I had to learn on my own what to do with them. And it looks to me like you’re the same way.”
“You? You have magic?”
“Yeah.”
Elsa decided to finally tell her.
“Anna helps. She helps me control it. So if I can find her, she can help me undo this. We can get rid of all this, the whole wall, when she’s here.”
Katherine walked a distance away and told her, “Well, I’m afraid she’s not.”
“Maybe your magic could help get us out of here.”
Katherine turned around and looked at her.
“I’ve been trying. Even just trying to warm myself up, I can’t really feel my hands or my feet.”
She tried concentrating and showing her magic, but it didn’t work.
She looked at her.
“See? I don’t have control over mine either. I’m just tired. If I just lay down for minute, maybe.”
She sat on the icy floor and was going to lay down.
“Oh, no,” Elsa said, knowing how bad it was getting for her, and knelt by her, stopping her from laying down. “Tell me more. Were you born with magic or cursed?”
“Those are my two options? It’s kind of a long story. I never knew that I had magic. I’m from the world outside of this town. My magic is quite different, though. I’m descended from Travelers, but I never knew until my long lost daughter found me and once I knew who she was, she told me. Travelers usually don’t have the magic I have. The magic I have, well, I just combine the Traveler magic and the spells I’ve learned over the centuries and from someone named Regina when I have to do magic.”
“Well, I ended up queen of a large land, unprepared.”
“I hear you with unprepared. I’m apparently a savior, but I’m still not exactly sure what the hell that means.”
“Sometimes it all feels like too much, doesn’t it? And even trying to just shut it out, that ends up hurting people, too. And part of it is, I’m the only one I’ve ever heard of with powers like mine.”
“That has to be very lonely.”
Katherine layed down.
“I’m very sorry I trapped us here. I didn’t mean it,” Elsa said.
“I know.”
“Katherine? Katherine.”
Charming and Hook entered Gold’s shop, when Gold and Belle were at the front counter.
Gold saw them.
“It appears our honeymoon is over.”
“Yeah, there’s an emergency,” Charming said. “Katherine’s trapped under ice by a woman with some kind of ice magic.”
“And this involves me because?”
“You’re the bloody Dark One. Do something,” Hook said.
“Well, I could melt the ice and destroy it with a thought. But that would also destroy your girlfriend. Is that what you want?”
Hook looked angry at that, so Charming put a hand in front of him just in case, as Charming said, “No one’s destroying anyone. Now, the woman who has Katherine trapped is in there with her and she’s looking for her sister. Name of Anna. She thinks she’s in town because of something of hers she found in your shop.”
“A necklace,” Hook added.
Belle picked up a card from the stack of cards she and Rumple had been going through.
“Is that it?”
Hook looked at it.
Charming took it.
“Wait. I know this. I know exactly who Anna is,” Charming said, remembering when he’d met her back in the Enchanted Forest and she’d taught him how to sword fight. She’d even helped him with Bo Peep. He’d known her as Joan though, instead of Anna.
Elsa was still knelt by Katherine.
“Katherine, don’t sleep.”
“I’m here.”
“Tell me more about your daughter.”
“You only wanna know more because you know if I sleep, I’ll die,” Katherine told her.
“Katherine. Katherine, stay with me.”
Charming entered the butcher shop, knowing exactly in this town who Bo Peep was.
Bo Peep saw him.
“Sorry, lambkins. We’re closed.”
“I need your help.”
“You and me, we ain’t friends. Not interested. Get out.”
“You don’t have your helpers here with you anymore, Peep.”
“Right. I just have one. Say hello,” she said, and raised the butcher knife towards him, but Hook came up behind her and grabbed her wrist, stopping her.
“Don’t do it,” Hook warned her.
Charming took the knife out of her hand and set it down and then pinned her against a shelf.
“Now, Katherine’s in trouble and I need to find the person that can help her. Someone you branded.”
“I’ve branded a lot of people.”
“Her name is Anna. She went by Joan back then.”
“Do I look like I keep a record book? ‘Cause I don’t.”
“Then you know what I need,” he said and then, knowing Peep so well, told the captain, “Hook, back room. She won’t keep it far from her. You’re looking for a shepherd’s crook.”
Hook found it and came back into the room.
“Hey, hey. That’s my personal property. Give it up.”
Charming let her go and said, “Sorry.”
“Ah, so in this world, you’re a hero?”
“In this world, I don’t have to answer to you.” He walked away from Peep. “Let’s go find Anna. Hook?”
“It’s that woman, Elsa,” Hook told him, the walkie talkie in his hand. “She said Katherine’s passed out. She’s freezing to death.”
After hearing that, he and Hook got in the car and drove back to the wall.
Charming got out of the car and set Peep’s crook against part of the wall.
“Elsa, how’s Katherine?” he asked, once he was outside of the wall.
“She’s freezing, turning blue,” Elsa replied.
“No. Katherine,” Hook said, and began hacking away at the ice yet again.
Charming stopped him.
“It’s not gonna help.” He talked into the walkie again. “Elsa, listen to me. I need you to find a way out.”
“I need Anna.”
“Well, we don’t have her right now, but we have a way to find her. And we will. But right now, you’re gonna have to do this on your own.”
“I can’t control this.”
“I know how you feel, you’re trapped. It’s a battle you can’t win. But it’s exactly the kind of battle you have to fight. Or you’ll die.”
“No, I won’t, I’ll survive. But Katherine…”
“Survival isn’t enough. You have to live.”
“Where did you hear that?” Elsa asked, knowing that’s exactly what her sister would say.
“You know where.”
“Anna? You knew her?”
“Yeah, I did. She helped me once, a long time ago, become who I am. She saved my life. And yours. And now, I need you to save Katherine’s. I didn’t know much about Anna, but she wouldn’t want you to live alone in an ice cave. Which is where you’ll be if you don’t melt that ice. Now do it.”
Elsa concentrated and was able to get the wall down.
“I see her. Katherine,” Hook said.
Katherine hadn’t woken up.
Hook went in and got Katherine out of the cave.
While Hook left with Katherine, once Elsa came out of the cave, she and Charming had a chat.
“You did it. You saved her,” Charming congratulated.
“Yes. I did,” Elsa replied. “But I also endangered her. You owe me nothing.”
“I owe your sister everything. What I said was true. She helped me. And now I’m gonna help you. This isn’t over. We’re gonna find Anna.”
Snow was still trying to figure out how to turn the power back on, this time looking at the manual.
“Still can’t read Japanese. But I can do this.” She tried yet again. “It should start,” she said, frustrated.
Neal began to cry.
Snow went over to where he was in his stroller.
“I know, honey, I know you’re hungry. I’m sorry.” She picked him up. “I will feed you in just a second.” Snow suddenly had an idea. “Hungry. It’s hungry, too. Fuel. Fuel.” She found the fuel supply box and turned it on. Neal made a sound, so Snow said, “That’s right. It’s feeding time.” Then the power was back on. “Yes. Baby high-five. Who wants some milk from Mama Mayor?”
Once Hook entered the apartment, he layed her down on the couch and got some blankets.
When Charming got home with Elsa, the light came back on so Hook brought out the heater and turned it on for her, hoping she was going to be okay.
While Hook watched over her, Elsa and Charming used the Crook to try and find Anna and they heard a heartbeat, signaling that Anna was still alive somewhere.
When Snow came home, she met Elsa.
After Charming informed Elsa that they’re a family that doesn’t like to give up and that they always find people, Henry went to see Regina whom finally opened her door to him.
After a while, Katherine finally woke up to see that she was at the apartment and no longer dying from the cold and that the power was on. She also saw that Hook was seated by her.
She gave a smile and sat up.
“You okay?” he asked her.
“I am now,” she replied.
Later, when Katherine and Elsa went back to where the ice and snow wall was, Elsa tried to take it down, but it wouldn’t go, which was strange, because Elsa thought she was the only person with power like hers.
LeRoy got some ice cream from the ice cream lady and when he mentioned that the blackout must’ve been a nightmare for her, she said that she didn’t lose anything.
When he left, she leaned against the freezer and it turned to ice behind her as well as did some of the wall by the freezer.
ns 15.158.61.51da2
