Chapter Text
Excerpt from Chapter 6 of Through Time and Space Fic
“No!” Antonio screeched. His hand shook as he raised the gun. “I won’t lose everything. I can’t. This is my life!”
“No,” Andy ground out. “This is my life you are trying to control, and I will not allow you to decide for me.”
“Even if it means I’m never born?” Antonio seethed.
Andy pursed her lips. “I won’t live my life and die one day only to know that my purpose was to give birth to someone so that you could eventually be born.”
They were alone in an old warehouse. They had travelled to some old ghost town in 1967, and Andy could guess why. Judging by his age, Andy surmised that Antonio would have been born around this time.
Andy heard the fight going on outside, and she just hoped that Kate and their friends were safe as they warded off the contingent of Corvus agents. As she slowly inched away from her deranged great-grandson, she felt around for a weapon. She probably should have grabbed a proper weapon when she rushed past the mobile command center Corvus had set up once they landed, but she had the propensity of grabbing what was nearest to her, and fashioning it into a weapon. This time, it was a pair of bolt cutters that she was holding like a bat.
“Do you really think you can get away?” Antonio asked with a wry chuckle. “Or that you can beat me with that?”
Andy shrugged. “Between a pair of bolt cutters that I can hit you upside the head, and a handgun that you can’t fire, I’ll choose my weapon, thanks.”
Antonio sounded like a petulant child as he yelled, “I can fire it!”
To prove his point he fired one shot upwards, and was rewarded with a shower of glass from the skylight above. Antonio began to yelp and swat the glass away.
Taking advantage of the chaos, Andy dropped the bolt cutters and rushed out the door, yelling back, “You can’t shoot your gun at me if you still want to exist!”
Running out of the warehouse, she found that her friends had all but managed to defeat the agents, and were now standing in the middle of the clearing, nursing each other’s wounds and reloading, clearly intending on storming the warehouse.
Making a beeline towards them, Andy yelled out, “Kate!”
Kate whipped around, and was nearly tackled by Andy’s body colliding with hers, but she caught her and held fast, hugging the other woman tightly, as if afraid of what would happen if she let go.
“I thought I would never see you again,” Kate murmured softly into the crook of Andy’s neck.
“I’d have found a way back to you,” Andy responded just as softly, because to her, Kate was her home and her heart. She couldn’t imagine herself without Kate in her life. To punctuate that, she backed her head and torso from the hug ever so slightly, looked Kate in the eye for a moment, before going to kiss her on the lips.
It wasn’t like their first kiss, which had been more of a messy distraction concocted by Andy. No, this one was tender and slow.
“NOOOO!” Antonio’s cry rang through the air.
The group of five all looked back towards the warehouse, and the dishevelled man standing there. Andy took a protective stance with her arms spread out, herding her friends to stand behind her.
But Antonio just grit his teeth and cocked the gun. Between the cuts all over his face and the crazed look in his eyes, Andy wasn’t sure her great grandson was all there. “If I can’t shoot you, you can be damned sure I will kill every single one of your friends!”
Not losing a second of time, Laila aimed and shot at Antonio, hitting him in his left thigh.
His howl of pain echoed around the abandoned area as he crumbled to the ground, dropping his gun in favour of clutching at his thigh.
“What do you say we head home?” Laila breathed. “I need a bath and I am so done with these all-out brawls.”
Kate and Andy grinned at one another. They simultaneously went to grab each other’s hands as Andy said, “Couldn’t agree more.”
Ella cleared her throat. “I’m gonna be the voice of reason for a second here. What do we do with all of this?”
She gestured to the pile of Corvus agents that were either knocked out or incapacitated, as well as the maniacal Antonio who was yelling some unintelligible gibberish.
“Easy,” Kate said. “We take their SUV back with us. They can’t travel back to the present, and will be forced to stay here. Sounds fitting enough, don’t you think?”
Andy nodded. “It’s what he deserves.”
No one could have prepared Leo Blanchard for the wrath of Regina Mills.
Announcement: I will no longer be a client of @BlanchardPublishing. Leo Blanchard, CEO, is a homophobic mysogynist. He had the audacity of trying to change and control how I would write my novel. But I refuse to let that happen.
I also refuse to belittle or denounce the fandom, as I had been told to do. I love the #TimeChasers fandom, and seeing how everyone comes together to create beautiful works of art makes me exceptionally happy and moves me more than you can imagine. More than that, hearing the stories about how people met through this book is what motivates me to keep writing and to keep creating.
If getting publicly shamed on Twitter hadn’t been enough, she had stormed his office that same day with the force of a woman scorned.
“I will not allow your simplistic attempts to control what I write. So, if you haven’t had the chance to check Twitter yet, consider our contract terminated.”
Mary Margaret, who had been eavesdropping, and very much knew of the Twitter storm that Regina had created, walked inside. She might have also reached out to Regina after the tweet to see if she could help her get out of the contract, but her father didn’t know that.
Her father was seething. “You will regret this.”
“No,” Mary Margaret said, getting both of them to turn to her. But she just kept glaring at her father. “ You will regret this. What you did is disrespectful. I am taking Regina, and other clients somewhere where their stories will be appreciated.”
Leopold let out a condescending guffaw. “Oh please, and where will that be? The losers at Scholastic?”
“No.” Mary Margaret puffed her chest out as she said, “I’m starting my own company.”
“What? You can’t do that! It’s a breach of...well, everything!”
Mary Margaret shook her head. “No, I checked. My good friend Mal and her pals are very good with contracts. We will find a way to get every last client of yours. Just watch us.”
Regina had seriously underestimated Mary Margaret, and was grinning widely when Mary Margaret turned to her, held out her hand, and asked, “So, Regina, want to be Happily Ever After Publishing’s first client?”
“Of course,” Regina said, shaking the offered hand.
The next year ended up being a whirlwind.
Mary Margaret’s new publishing company took off. With Regina as a main client, and the scathing Twitter post she had made, old clients from Blanchard Publishing quickly made the move and terminated their contracts with Leopold.
And Regina’s new contract allowed her to publish on her own time - Book Four was a resounding success, and Regina was gearing up to start Book Five.
But the best part were the featurettes.
It turned out that Mary Margaret was a fierce fan of the books, and all that she had said in the past was just part of a speech her father had concocted, ‘part of the image we want to present,’ he had insisted. So apart from the scheduling freedom she now had, she also could write featurettes.
“And what are ‘featurettes?” Regina asked.
“The in-between moments. From what I could tell, the fans love to read about the little moments - the team playing games, or going for a movie night, maybe even teaching Andy about the 21st century.”
Regina could hardly believe what she was hearing. “And you’d be okay with me writing that?”
Mary Margaret nodded, the tiniest of sly smiles on her face. “Of course! As long as you still write the big novels, and they remain canonical within the world, then, by all means, write to your heart’s content! I’m sure you’ll find the time.”
Regina’s relationship with Emma also blossomed. Of course, when it became public, Emma’s image was scrutinized by anyone and everyone with thumbs and a social media account. But Emma was a long-time denizen of social media, so she didn’t let opinions and critics get her down. She was proud and crazy enamoured with Regina.
The only awkward thing was the people who wondered if Emma being in a relationship with Regina was making TLC jealous.
“I mean, I think TLC might be a bit jealous,” Emma snickered. She was cuddling with Regina on the couch in the latter’s home, checking her notifications.
Regina scoffed. “I think TLC is a very level-headed person. Can’t have the mystery and allure by being so emotional. Especially considering they’re writing a new fic from what I hear.”
“Right,” Emma drawled. “Super level-headed.”
“I am! And besides, TLC has nothing on me.”
Emma rolled her eyes. And then she smirked as she countered, “Except that she ships Kandy.”
“I never said I don’t ship them! And besides, I thought it wasn’t important to you whether or not Kandy was canon.”
“It’s not! But it’d be nice if the author of a pretty cool series with a potential gay ship would tell her awesome girlfriend if they were going to be canon or not.”
“And ruin my reputation as the Queen of Secrecy? I’m not telling you a thing!” Regina said in mock exasperation, grabbing a pillow and lightly smacking her with it. “You will have to read and find out.”
“Oh fine! At least tell me if it happens in the next book?”
“Perhaps, and maybe I’ll even let you read a manuscript,” Regina coyly said, depositing a soft kiss on Emma’s lips.
Excerpt from the manuscript of Book Five of the Time Chasers - FOR EMMA SWAN’S EYES ONLY
“You wanted to talk to me?” Andy asked, going out onto their apartment balcony, relishing in breathing in the refreshing summer air.
It had been over a week since they rescued Andy from Antonio. Since they got back, they had fallen back into the old rhythm, for there were still dormant Corvus agents wreaking havoc, but they hadn’t really talked about what would happen now that the threat was truly over.
As Antonio had been left stranded in Bavaria, in 1753, there was no way he could come back to do anything to them. Thanks to his paranoidical tendencies, no one knew the truth about Andy, so Corvus wouldn’t be able to hurt her again.
Kate had no idea she’d be this nervous, but she was, and could only manage a weak nod. She was weary of hoping for too much, of having her heart crushed. They had only skirted the dangerous side of flirtatious friends, and she wasn’t sure what she would do if Andy’s answer was no. “Yeah.”
“What is this about?”
“Nuestro futuro,” Kate said, with her budding Spanish that made Andy smile, even though the accent was… still not excellent. But she was learning, and that was enough for Andy.
“¿Y?”
Kate switched back to English. She could barely manage her thoughts in one language, let alone try to translate it. “I was wondering, after all Antonio said, what you were going to do?”
Andy frowned. She felt no remorse for her great grandson. He tried to control her life, to determine her fate. And she wouldn’t stand for that. She wanted to live her own life. After seeing the modern world, to think about having to settle for being some man’s homemaker, without a future, it made her nauseous. “He is a sick man. I would never, and have never let fate determine how I live my life. I will live when and where I want to. I have no pity for him. He can rot in Bavaria for all I care. I still can’t believe we conned him into staying in the past.”
They shared a small chuckle over that. It had been the perfect plan. Busting Andy out, and then being ‘caught’ by Antonio, who proceeded to get them all
“Right...so, does that mean you’ll be staying in this time? The present I mean.” Kate asked, barely wanting to raise her hopes.
“Yes,” Andy responded with a wide grin. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be, or who I’d rather be with.”
Kate could barely contain her excitement, rushing forward to scoop Andy up in a hug and twirling her around.
They were laughing by the time Kate put her back down, and Andy bit her lip, before surging forward and kissing Kate on the lips with vigour.
Emma’s notes: 🍬🍬🍬 #KANDY LIVES BITCHES!