Uff!

A crackling cough stressed her lungs and throat. Her upper body heaved up and down from the strain. The not so graceful landing had knocked the breath out of her.

Rolling on the ground, Robin shook her head and blinked her eyes open.

Irritated she frowned.

There was a somber, grayish sky hanging above her. Unlike the sunny, blue one, she and Alice had spend their afternoon under as they had strolled through Storybrooke while looking for a bigger apartment with three to four bedrooms – at least if Alice got her way.

Anxiety buzzed to life at the memory.

Jolting upwards, Robin searched for her wife.

She didn't have to search long. A few feet away Alice groaned and held a hand to her head, fingers buried into her blonde mop. She appeared to be unharmed.

Robin released a sigh of relief and rose to her feet before helping Alice onto her own.

"Where the hell are we?" she commented, while pushing strands of her brunette hair out of her sight, which the vast wind blew relentlessly into her face.

The revealed surroundings did not help her answer the question, though.

They had landed within a hollow of a uneven heath. A grassy hill upfront, a few deciduous tress in the back, the darkening sky above and damp, cold earth beneath their boots but nothing else was in sight.

There was absolutely no clue about their whereabouts.

"I don't know. It looks like a moorland," Alice replied with her British accent thick, stressing out the vowels with its charming caress.

"It doesn't look like Maine. So I guess we aren't in the United Realms anymore." Eyebrows knitted Robin looked at Alice who pursed her lips.

"Apparently not," she murmured while flicking off blades of grass sticking to her blue shirt. "All I can see are hills. No dragons, no flying monkeys, no trolls or talking cats."

"It's hella silent, too," Robin could only hear the blow of the wind and the rustle of the leaves; sounds of nature which reminded her of her time in the Enchanted forest but were now rather unsettling. "It's never silent in the UR."

"We should not have used the key." Pressing her lips together, Alice turned her worried gaze on Robin. Eyes blue and big. The harsh wind swiping her blond tresses out of her face.

Robin forgot her discomfort for a moment and countered with a crooked smile, "Says the one who plopped it into the keyhole and turned it without thinking twice." She just had to have to fall in love with the most impulsive woman in all the realms.

A grin stretched on the blonde's face in response. "You should have stopped me from using the key then." Her eyes sparkled like sapphires, in their enchanting nature, which never fail to make Robin's heart soar in pleasure and giddiness.

Clearing her throat – hard – Robin reminded herself of their current situation. "Anyway, we need to find another door to use the key so we can return home."

"Then we should grab it and start searching," Alice announced cheerily.

Robin's jaw dropped in disbelief. "Don't you have the key?" she gasped out.

Leaning her head to the side, Alice blinked at her. "Of course not, why should I?"

The look of curiosity, pursed lips and knitted eyebrows, usually pooled warmth inside Robin. Now, as she just wanted to get home, the prospect of which looked very slim, it irritated her. "Because you opened the door and brought us to this hellhole, likely named Tristmania," she complained.

Alice made a long face and Robin felt her own stomach drop.

They were so screwed.

***

An icy north wind and half frozen mud – that was everything they came across while walked across the seemingly endless heath as freezing gusts of wind gnawed on their clothes and chilled them down to the bones.

Small flakes of snow spun in the wind, gathering to an army with each rotation.

Robin and Alice had given up on searching for the black large key which had brought them here. When Alice had not been able to make it appear with magic, they had figured to at least search for any sign, anything that would show them, where they were.

Robin knew from stories that the only realm accessible with a key had been the Land of Untold Stories. But how was it possible if the Land of Untold Stories was part of the United Realms nowadays?

"Do you see that?" Alice spluttered next to her and startled Robin out of her persistent shivering and pondering.

Robin had to squint against the harsh wind and the increasing snowfall to make out what Alice pointed at.

Up on a bleak hill stood a building, a sooty, dark house built out of stone. Even from afar Robin could see out the warm light of a candle shining in one of the rooms on the second story. The light however seemed to be swallowed by the gloomy facade like an insuperable border. Robin felt a sense of déjà vu but could not pinpoint where she had seen a building like this. Somewhere in the Enchanted Forest maybe? She nodded absentmindedly and looked at Alice again.

"Perhaps the residents can help us out," her love cheered with a toothy smile, always being the optimistic one of them.

Robin had her doubts as her eyes fleeted over the gray, blackish bricks of stone once more.

They walked down a long path leading through a moor, around another hill and arrived in front of a garden gate, squeaking gruesomely as the wind tore and ripped at it.

Both of them failed when they tried opening it as the gate refused to be unchained.

When they jumped over it and Robin's feet reconnected with the paved path leading towards the house, she was struck by a flash of inspiration.

She might never have seen this building before; but she had envisioned it.

It had been an imagination created while reading, fleshed out with each descriptive paragraph and every illustrative word.

She remembered the walk from Thrushcross Grange and through the heathland as if it had been her feet and not her mind carrying her.

"I have an idea where we are," she mumbled. "This is just like a book I had to read during high school."

"What was it called?" Alice asked unfazed. Like Robin she knew that in the Land Without Magic books mirrored the worlds they and their families had lived in; portraying realms as settings, displaying people as characters and telling stories about them as if they weren't real, just like Alice and herself.

"Wuthering Heights," Robin breathed and quickly added, "Let me do the talking." Alice, having been in Wonderland and other places, had come around and was used to meet people from these so-called stories. But Robin knew that Wuthering Heights was no fairy tale. Far from it. It was bleak and dark, even explosive at some points. Actually, everything that colorful and cheery Alice wasn't.

Alice leaned closer in, seeking warmth, as they continued to walk the rest if the way. "Why?"

"Do you know anything about Victorian England?" Robin asked.

"No, but I remember you saying I speak like somebody from England." Sporting a broad grin Alice wiggled her eyebrows at Robin.

She was right. She had a British accent.

But she hadn't been born nor raised in England.

No. She lived most of her life in the Enchanted Forest, where everything was different, even to an unhistorical but very realistic version of Victorian England. "I don't think your British accent will be much of a help," Robin huffed, releasing a warm puff of air which floated away into the uprising snowfall. "The family situation is very tensed up and those people are extremely conservative, more than the people in the Enchanted Forest."

"Do you remember a lot of this book?" Her wife asked with a stutter and rubbed a hand over her arm.

"Yeah, I kinda liked it," Robin replied with a modest shrug, feeling the strain of coldness in her muscles. "Very juicy, very twisted. Plus, it was written by one of the first famous female authors which was inspiring, if you were a revolting teenager who hated being forced to wear skirts simply because you are a girl."

Alice hummed next to her, face contorted due to the cold but her eyes, nevertheless, gleamed with amusement as they marched towards the grim building.

The closer they got, the gloomier the house looked.

Like a loveless child it stood up on the hill, neglected and grim yet steadfast within the stormy weather. The narrow windows looked like dark circles around dull eyes, the large stones at the corners resembled knuckles grated to the bones by the harsh winds.

Yep, this was definitely Wuthering Heights.

Not long after they reached the courtyard, a man without coat, showing off his broad shoulders and slightly suntanned skin, met them halfway. He carried clothes worse for wear and a pitchfork, flung over his shoulder like a rifle.

Next to her Alice froze, looking like a deer caught in the headlight.

"Is Mr. Heathcliff home?" Robin asked calmly.

After mustering them from head to toe with a snooty glance, the man addressed them in a rather brusque manner.

Robin gulped her uneasiness down. She did not need to notice his brown curls or the dark brown eyes which were supposed to be exactly like his aunt's, Catherine Linton, to know that this was Hareton.

'Poor Hareton,' Robin thought as she remembered how Heathcliff took him in and raised him poorly as a revenge against Catherine's brother Hindley.

Vengeance was like a rotten fruit, born out of a sweet thing which ended up bad, spreading decay over the rest of the stock. Robin knew this. She had not needed books like Wuthering Heights to learn. Her family's history was one formed by revenge. If her mother had not been adamant about taking away everything from her own sister, Robin would have never been born in the first place.

Hareton led them inside without further ado. They went through the wash house and into a parlor warmed by greedy flames crackling in the fireplace.

Robin felt the heat pricking against her skin, making her digits ache as they absorbed the warmth. The sweet smell of wood burning lingered in the air. Green chairs stood around a dark oak table on a cold white stone floor.

Near the table sat a young woman, younger than either Robin or Alice but old in the eyes.

Fair skin and golden ringlets were very similar to Alice. But her eyes – they were different. Dark brown eyes staring cold and distant. Cathy Heathcliff, Robin recognized; a widow, a prisoner and the daughter of the deceased Catherine Linton.

"Sit down," ordered Hareton gruffly. "He'll be in soon."

Cathy still stared at them and Robin tried to dig up some piece of dialogue in her memory but couldn't. The only sentence she remembered from the book was, 'I am Heathcliff', but that was not helpful. Not at all.

As they took their seats at the large table, Robin could still feel the cold stare of Cathy's gaze. Clearing her throat, Robin said, "We are sorry for the interruption, Mrs. Heathcliff."

"Who are you?" Cathy snarled, after she was done staring – apparently.

Next to Robin her wife started fidgeting in her seat and chirped, "We come from another r –" 

Robin stopped her by placing a hand on Alice's arm and skipping her a glance. "We are travelers and got lost on our way," she explained before Alice could blurt out anything about realm jumping.

Brown eyes stared now at her and Robin felt untypically sensitive under its weight.

"You should not have come here," Cathy replied curtly and rose to her feet.

'As if we planned to,' Robin thought sarcastically.

The English woman walked over to the fireplace above which old looking pistols hung. "Were you asked to tea?" She asked.

"I would love to have a cup of tea!" Alice cheered and turned her head to look at the other blonde, whom she probably assumed to be their hostess.

"Were you asked?" Cathy repeated and Robin had to bite down a groan at her bitchy behavior. She understood why Cathy was like this. But it did not excuse her for being repelling to everyone, especially somebody as pure and wonderful as Alice.

The later one now pouted. "No, we were not," she mumbled lowly.

Hareton took a seat at the other end of the table but did not say a thing. He stared grimly at Robin and Alice. Only breaking off his stare to shyly glance at Cathy from time to time.

Silence spread like a thick blanket over the room, suffocating and oppressive.

"Could you tell us where we are?" Robin asked after a while, hoping to find some answers to the mystery why they were sitting in a dark room in Wuthering Heights instead of planning their future while munching on her Aunt Regina's praised Lasagna.

"Is a traveler not ought to know where they want to travel to?"

"Where is the fun in that?" Alice jumped in again. "It is much more fun, if you don't know where you'll end up."

"If there is no destination, there is no purpose. It is like walking against the wall of your captivity simply because you can."

Licking her dry lips, Robin chose to intervene before Alice would address Cathy's imprisonment – which having been imprisoned the first 17 years of her life inside a tower, Alice definitely would. "Forgive me interrupting but do you have a black, long key which fits into every keyhole?"

"Another strange question," Cathy observed scornfully.

"You have not?" Alice asked, head tilted to the side in unconcealed confusion.

Stifling a grin, Robin wondered why she had told Alice to leave the talking to her in the first place. She knew her Alice being curious and feisty in nature and definitely unable to contain her nosiness.

"Of course, I have not," Cathy scoffed. "Certainly, I would not be here, if I had access to every door."

Robin smacked her lips together. By now she was seriously hoping, Heathcliff would come along so somebody would actually answer their questions. They needed to find the key to get back home.

The sound of silence filled the room once again, joining the smokey sweet scent of the fire in its clear presence. The soft click of the clock hanging on the opposite wall of the fireplace was as loud as a hammer fall. Alice started waggling a leg beneath the table and looked from one face to another.

Fortunately, they did not need to wait long until a fifth person arrived.

The mood in the room shifted as the man entered the parlor. The dry and awkward atmosphere chilled down.

Haughty posture and sharply curved eyebrows were the first traits Robin noticed.

He stopped and stared at them. Skin like bronze, eyes dark, almost entirely black like coal. Black hair perfectly matted to the side, sideburns neatly trimmed.

"Mr. Heathcliff?" Robin greeted him and rose to her feet. When the dark-minded man nodded courtly, she continued, "Robin Mills and Alice Jones. We are sorry for the intrusion. We got lost on our way through the heathland, when the snow set in."

His gaze shifted between them.

Brushing off snow flakes from his coat Heathcliff uttered, "People familiar with these moors often miss their road on such evenings."

"Sorry for the inconvenience. We leave as soon as we can."

"And when would that be?"

"Well, actually we lost something on our journey; a key, black, this long," Robin replied rising her fingers to show the rough length, causing Heathcliff's frown to deepen.

"You did not happen to see it on your way, perchance?" Alice chirped in.

"Perchance, I did not," he mumbled.

And that was it again. The conversation lay bare. Like the snowflakes on his coats Heathcliff had shaken them off.

"Are you going to make the tea?" he addressed Cathy now, sending her a harsh glare.

"Are they to have any?" the brown eyed woman inquired.

"Get it ready, will you?" Heathcliff growled at her with so much venom Robin felt the hairs on her arms rise.

This seriously was one of the most conflicted families, she'd ever seen and based on how her wife's blue eyes darted around the room in question, Alice was feeling the same way about their hosts.

Surprisingly, Heathcliff invited them to take part of the dinner. However, it was consumed in a heavy silence nevertheless. The three residents at the table wore each a version of their own scowl and ate grimly. Maybe it was the most unsociable lot one could ever meet.

If Robin had felt uncomfortable while reading about this family in the book, it was nothing compared to the real deal.

Every question asked by either Alice or her was repelled with a short reply, a scornful gaze or a rough counterquestion, leaving no space for further conversation.

Hell, they were so busy upholding the somber mood, they did not even question where Robin and Alice came from or why they were dressed like they were. Nothing could truly penetrate the massive block of scorn they had pilled up around themselves.

Even after dinner none of them were helpful nor did really concern themselves what to do with Robin and Alice. Hareton was the only one to at least offer to lead them outside but was commanded not to by Heathcliff.

'Wonderful,' Robin thought sarcastically. They would certainly die outside in the snow and their families would never learn what happened to them.

She and Alice were trapped inside the Wuthering Heights story. A snow storm outside and a impregnable, icy palace inside were the only options right now. Both did not seem desirable.

Robin asked herself if their situation could not turn any worse.

***

It could.

Definitely, it could.

"So Cathy is the daughter of Catherine Linton and Edgar Linton, the brother of Isabella. Isabella married Heathcliff and had a son with him, Linton Heathcliff, who married Cathy so Cathy Linton became Cathy Heathcliff? And Hareton is the son of Hindley Earnshaw, Catherine Linton's brother?" Alice inquired while tapping a handkerchief drenched with alcohol against the side of Robin's nose.

"Yeah," Robin grumbled nosily, trying to play it cool as the liquid burned against the wound. Her gaze blurred with tears at the sting, though.

The stupid dog had bitten her on the court – or rather it had attacked Alice and Robin, having the Robin Hood genes and a hopeless amount of love of the blonde, had not thought twice about jumping in front of her surprised yelping love.

Fortunately, Zillah, the housekeeper, had pitied bleeding Robin enough to pull her away from the ruckus to give her bleeding nose a medical treatment. She had led Robin and Alice upstairs as Heathcliff begrudgingly allowed them to stay after his dog wounded one of them. Despite the throbbing pain of Robin's nose she knew where they landed the moment Zillah had ushered them inside: The forbidden chamber of Wuthering Heights.

"And I thought your family tree was difficult to follow," Alice commented and pressed once too hard on Robin's nose making her wince.

"That's because of the names," Robin pressed out through gritted teeth and shifted too get a more comfortable position on the couch inside the large oak case, she and Alice would have to share. "That's what you get using the surnames as first names and the same first names in the following generation."

Her gaze drifted to the the ledge of the window and traced the names carved into the paint: 

Catherine Earnshaw, 

Catherine Heathcliff, 

Catherine Linton.

She had tried to ignore them, remembering all too well the ghost dream scene. But Alice had been curious and had asked why there were so many Catherines to which Robin had needed to explain that it was the same Catherine which had led to a brief summary of the novel.

A chill ran over her spine and her body quivered, to which Alice replied with blue eyes dropping in worry, darkened in the light of the candle. "Are you alright, my love?"

"I'm okay. Just tired. We should try to get some sleep."

Alice blew out the candle. "Come here," she whispered and let her back drop to the cushions and opened her arms.

Smirking Robin shifted closer. They were forced to huddle up to fit somehow into the constricted space of the oak case but it was not that big of a predicament for them.

Robin began to dream, almost before she ceased to be sensible of her locality. She thought it was morning; she and Alice found the key and went through the portal without saying goodbye.

They walked into a large room.

Numerous, empty chairs were lined up, facing the stage upfront on which a podium rested.

This was not the room in the bright painted apartment they had come from.

It wasn't the musty smelling room in Wuthering Heights either.

With every step towards the stage, Robin felt the temperature drop. Cold air traced her cheek like the lick of claws burning against skin.

Irritated she turned around and gasped.

Cloaked figures surrounded her. Their faces were lost in the darkness of their hoods.

Heart shaking, throat enclosing, Robin backed away. Her eyes fleeted over the figures.

Where was Alice?

What the hell had they done to Alice?!

All at once their hands lifted. The circle of cloaks pointed at her and a chime raised among them, a dark murmur passed off in tune.

"Guilty," they said.

"Guilty," they repeated.

"Guilty," they droned as they approached.

Robin gulped.

Stomps on the floor became taps in her ear.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Her back bumped into the podium.

Wooden marks pressed hard into her skin.

The taps got louder.

The figures drew nearer.

As they reached out, their icy fingers branding scratches of fear, they –

Gasping harshly, Robin sucked in burning breaths. Her lungs felt like they were going to implode. She looked around, without taking notice of anything at first.

Finally she saw the cloaks were gone. The darkness of the room reappeared.

It must have been a branch rattling against the window that woke her.

Something was odd, though. It was then that she noticed Alice's warmth to be gone.

Frowning Robin sat up and blinked against the darkness of the night.

She turned around and saw Alice up and awake looking through the window.

– Staring right at a child's face.

"Shi –," Robin yelped and jumped back.

A most melancholy voice sobbed, "Let me in – let me in."

"Alice, don't get too close," Robin uttered, feeling terror take possession of her, crawling at her heart.

Alarmed by the tone of her voice Alice whipped her head around. "You can see her, too?"

Tears flooded Robin's eyes. Swallowing down her shock, she gasped out, "I do."

"Who are you?" Alice wanted to know from the ghostly thing.

"Catherine Linton," it replied shakily.

Scared of her wife's well-being Robin pulled Alice back at her arm. She remembered the ghost not being ill-natured in the book. But how much can you trust a book when you knew the reality of those fairy tales and stories was different to what was written in them?

Again the ghost wailed, "Let me in!"

Alice turned around. The moonlight reflected in her blue, innocent eyes. "Should we – ?"

"Sure," Robin interrupted, "invite the child ghost inside because that is not creepy at all."

"Are you scared, Nobin?" Alice chirped, using the nickname she had given Robin all this time ago when they had met in the Enchanted Forest. At times Robin forgot about the teasing name but obviously Alice would never forget about it.

Sighing Robin felt herself calm down due to her wife's playfulness. "Let's just say too many horror movies with undead, little children make you kinda wary of them."

"So I guess this ghost is a part of the book, too. What happened in the story?"

"The narrator screamed like a girl, Heathcliff came running in and threw him out of the room," Robin explained. "Before you ask, no, I won't scream but I have another idea."

She took a stack of books from the end of the ledge and piled them up in front of the glass, trying to keep her hands on her side of the house to avoid, cold and little fingers grabbing onto them through the window.

Not long after a feeble scratching resounded from outside, and the pile of books moved being thrust forward.

Leaning back, Robin observed the pile of books carefully. The pile shook as if trapped in an earthquake. 

One book flew out of its middle, darting past the oak case, they sat in, and onto the floor.

Alice scrambled to her feet and climbed out of their bed for the night to pick up the book, while Robin kept an eye on the supernatural creature.

"'Catherine Earnshaw,'" Alice read out loud holding the leather cased object in her hands, "'her book.'"

The shaking and scratching stopped.

Carefully Robin approached the pile of books again and pushed them aside. The ghost of Catherine Linton seemed to have disappeared. She looked back at Alice and nodded.

The blonde opened the book and upon the first turn of pages, something dropped out of the book and fell to the wooden floor with a clatter. It slid over the floor planks, between a cupboard and the bed into a shaded corner.

'You've got to be kidding me,' Robin thought and knelt down.

She looked into the corner from afar with great caution.

No more girl ghosts were hiding in the darkness of the room. That did not stop her from speeding up the process of retrieving the key and getting back on her feet, though.

In her palm now rested a black key, a long blade and two symetrical tooths.

Alice's gasp formulated her own surprise quite well. It was again a key from the Land of Untold Stories, able to open a portal from there to any other realm.

"Robin, Heathcliff had a key all these years! Why is he not leaving this place?" Alice started rambling. "And if this is a key to the Land of Untold Stories and we came here with the help of a key to the Land of Untold Stories, is this another version of the one that's in the United Realms? If so why is he staying instead of leaving so his story can finally play out?"

There where too many questions Robin could not answer. She shrugged and told Alice her idea of what might have transpired. "My guess would be that he punishes himself. That's what I remember mostly about the character. He is vindictive. He punishes Cathy and Hareton, too and is only relieved when he dies, though it's not sure if his soul truly gets salvation."

"What a tragedy," Alice uttered and returned once again to the case.

Reaching out a helping hand, Robin replied, "It is. Hell, this is probably the most depressing love story you can read. Heathcliff and Catherine are soulmates but miss each other all the time. They love each other with so much passion that it destroys them."

Sporting a deep frown Alice returned the book to the pile. "What do we do now? We can't just leave, can we?"

Following Alice onto the couch, Robin licked her lips. "I don't think there is anything we can do. Heathcliff will always mourn his Cathy, trapped at the edge of the end of their story."

"What happened at the end?" Alice asked crossing her legs despite the limited space.

"Hareton and Cathy eventually fall in love, Heathcliff starts seeing Catherine's ghost and starves himself to death."

"Oh..."

"Still want to bring their story to a closure?" Robin smiled in sympathy.

"In a way it is the same as it was with Rumple when he wanted to be reunited with Belle. He was trapped in immortality and tried to find a way out so he could be with Belle in the afterlife."

"So a 'Yes' it is," Robin concluded with a grin spreading over her face.

"Absolutely," her blonde wife nodded.

"Okay, Operation Wuthering Heights 2.0 is at a go."

They smiled at each other and lied down in a similar position then before. Only this time Robin had her arms circled around Alice.

"Robin, how was the narrator of the book named?" Alice asked when Robin felt herself dozing off.

"Lockwood, why?"

"Then that shall be the name of the key for it is the entrance and exit of this story."

"Great thinking," Robin mumbled into Alice's shoulder.

They could stay a little longer to find the key to trigger Heathcliff's happy ending. After all that was what Robin's family motto was about and she had already found her happiness in Alice.

As if reading her thoughts Alice mumbled, "I am glad, our love unified us despite all tragedy."

True, not only had Alice been trapped for a long time in her very own secret chamber but after being together shortly she and Robin had been separated for years before finding to each other again. 

They weren't perfect. 

No couple was. 

But at least they had somehow worked out their tragedies together. 

Tenderly Robin murmured, "Me, too, Tower girl. Me, too."