The Enchanted Forest

She wasn't dead. She couldn't be dead. Why was she dead? He was only gone for a weekend. She...She couldn't be...it was only three days. How could...how could...

He couldn't get his thoughts straight. He had promised Morgan he would only be gone a few days for a trip in another village. They needed more money, and he needed more work. It'd been a trying few months, after their parents had cut them off. Neither of their families liked the marriage. His family hated her's, vice versa.

Morgan didn't care about any of it. She married him anyway, knowing her parents would toss her out if she did. That was enough to convince his parents that she was trustworthy, although it wasn't enough for their support.

They were able to scrounge up enough money for their little shack. Morgan found work with the seamstresses, as she had a sort of talent for the trade. He found work in various places, basically any place that would pay.

It had been a year, but things were looking up now. He was coming home with good news. He'd been drafted for the War. Well...not good when said like that. It would mean some money for his family, and honor when he died. That was something they were in short supply of these days.

With his summons scroll in hand, he had walked home. There was hair standing up on his neck, as if sensing the dark magic in the air. He didn't want to think she could be dead. She was young, they both were. She was safe where she was, he was in more danger walking between villages.

Yet he opened the door of his shack to those amber eyes he'd fallen in love with, except they lacked the fire she'd always possessed. There was no mischievous smile, like she'd just made a cunning trick he'd never see until it was done. There had been blood around her, enough of a pool to reach into her black hair.

His Morgan was dead...

...but their son lived.

==BOL==

Storybrooke

Mary Beth Spencer was a happy medical examiner.

There were some problems, like she was an only child with dead parents. They left her everything. She was left their big house, which required a maid to clean. The maid cleaned during the hours Mary Beth was at work, so the two rarely crossed paths outside of pay or requests for days off.

It'd been unnerving for a while. Their death had been a surprise, yet Mary Beth had adjusted. Her relationship with her family had always been somewhat cold. Not as cold as the dead she surrounded herself with, but enough to unsettle people.

Mary Beth was proud to get this job. She'd interned with the hospital for a long time, nearly her whole life as she could recall. She signed on for this job after the previous mortician retired, and no one could see a problem. Mary Beth had the experience, she just didn't look it.

She'd been told she was much too beautiful for this job, too full of life. Mary Beth didn't agree. Yes, she was youthful but still a woman at nineteen. She stood tall, at just above 5'10, with naturally tawny shaded skin covered with little freckles sprinkled on like confetti. She had a thin nose, complimenting her diamond shaped face. Her golden eyes contrasted her raven wing locks, the darkness of black paired with the light of a sun.

Those golden orbs seemed impossibly cheery. Her closest friend said she seemed the type to burst into song if she could. To be honest, Mary Beth liked singing Christmas Carols when days were just too slow. She admitted this to her friend, only making them both laugh.

Mary Beth's days fell into a routine, she noticed somewhere after their death. She woke up, had a simple breakfast, got herself cleaned for the day, dressed in her work clothes, drove to work, worked, have lunch, work more, drove home, have dinner, watch some of her programs, and go to bed. It was a bit monotonous, but she hadn't cared much for it.

It had been like that for as long as she could remember. Mary Beth thought it was odd how often she found herself saying that, but those were just the mad musings of an underused ME.

When you only have the dead to talk to, your mind goes away for a bit.

There weren't a lot of dead in Storybrooke. With such a lack of work, she tended to spend her work hours reading. She liked the quiet, not so much the solitude. She could name how many people she interacted with regularly on one hand.

There was her (sort of) coworker, Detective Graham. He was a nice man, polite if anything. Mary Beth knew he talked with her mostly to keep her from feeling so cut off from the world.

Then there was his (sort of) girlfriend, the Mayor, Regina. It was odd, as Mary Beth noticed once that Regina always seemed to come around the same time whenever she did. The Mayor had these cold eyes that stared at Mary Beth liked she was a rat in one of those mazes. Like a science experiment that was giving results the Mayor liked.

Mary Beth hated being someone's idea of a game. She hated being thought of as a tool for some else's gain. She couldn't recall where this disdain started, it was just always there.

Oh! Mary Beth almost forgot Mr. Gold. She was probably one of the only people in town that didn't pay rent to him. It was odd enough, as their meeting was the only one she could clearly recall. She'd met him at the store (cause even landlords needed food, people!). Mary Beth made a joke about only hearing him as Mr. Gold and that she'd never heard his first name. She had said it made him sound like that funny sounding troll guy, the one with the really long name and that tried taking kids in place of golden straw.

She had blushed, thinking it was incredibly rude. Mary Beth tripped over herself apologizing. Mr. Gold only grinned, apparently liking the analogy. He even joked that if Mary Beth could guess his name, he'd pay for her groceries. Mary Beth couldn't guess it, even tried using the troll's name, which made the two of them laugh.

They met sometimes for a lunch, musing about some of the idiotic people of Storybrooke. Mary Beth didn't know most of the people he spoke about, but she still liked the company. Mr. Gold was unknowingly her only real connection to the outside world. At the same time, Mary Beth was unknowingly the only person unafraid of the pawnshop owner.

They had an odd friendship, but Mary Beth was nothing if not odd.

That was three people. Three people that Mary Beth had regular talks with. Her maid half counted, but Mary Beth didn't feel it right to classify her as a friend.

Today was going to be one of those days they had lunch. It broke her out of her routine, somewhat. She looked forward to it.

The door to her office opened. The mortician's head snapped up when someone walked into her sanctuary. She lowered the book she had been reading. It had been a good book, darn it, and she was getting to a good part!

Graham walked in. Mary Beth was perplexed. Had someone died? It would annoy her if it was just another old person from the hospital. If she had to autopsy one more man who died of old age...she might create another body to make things interesting!

"Hey Dr. Spencer." Graham greeted politely.

"I told you to call me Mary Beth, or even just Beth!" She argued, not getting up from her desk. She liked the title, cause it made strangers stop treating her like a college dropout. She didn't like her friends using it, though. "You know I hate being called Doctor."

It made the sheriff grin. "Sorry Beth. You just looked a little stressed. Thought you'd like a little life in you."

"Your jokes are horrible, Graham, and that's coming from me." Mary Beth tried to make it sound like she was annoyed, but the statement came with a smile.

The sheriff chuckled. "Ouch. Now that's just low." He teased. "Not even my dad would've used your jokes."

Mary Beth held back an urge to roll her eyes playfully. Yeah, she had a horrible sense of humor of jokes not even dads or uncles would use. "Did you need anything, or is there a reason you're interrupting my incredibly heavy workload." She asked, trying to pretend that she hadn't been nose deep in a book.

From the look in Graham's brown eyes, he was pretending as well. "You're going to hate me."

"No." She started to groan.

"Mister Rickman passed-"

"Don't tell me that." She actually groaned. She lifted her hands to her forehead, pressing down to keep from exploding.

"-I know you hate it, but we still need-"

"To check, in case of things." She didn't go into the specifics of what she would be looking for, she'd said it enough times. Mary Beth hated saying it, but she wished there were a few murders she could solve, like the ones on her programs.

Graham nodded awkwardly. He would swear that the young woman, barely nineteen yet with an adulthood thrust upon her, was insane for actually wanting it.

Mary Beth wanted to hit herself with the book, then hit Graham with it. A small part of her mind, a deep corner buried behind a curse she didn't know about, reminded her that this would be the twenty-eighth time she'd autopsied Mister Rickman. It was a miracle the woman had kept her head on straight.

==BOL==

Mary Beth was as punctual as she was odd. She always seemed to show up fifteen minutes early to their lunches. She'd tried to be late once, only she was so overcome with nerves she'd ended up twenty minutes early!

Yet today, Mr. Gold had to cancel at the last minute. Something about a client being behind on rent. Mary Beth had understood, lying and saying that her work was gonna go on for a stretch longer.

She still needed to have lunch. After Mister Rickman's predictive autopsy, she'd ended up being at their usual place at one. Unfortunately, the building was closed. Apparently they had to do some renovations after a pipe burst early that day.

This meant having to go to Granny's. The place that, at this time, would be full of people that Mary Beth had only seen.

It was true. Even after one o'clock, the place was a little more full that Mary Beth liked. The town drunk (she only knew this because Mr. Gold wondered how he hadn't shown up on a slab yet) was there having hangover coffee. Could you even get that this late in the day? He probably could. There were another nine people inside; a woman with her two children, a couple on a date,

She pulled her hair out of a ponytail, letting the hair spread out across her shoulders like raven's wings. After a calming breath, she pulled into back into place.

Mary Beth awkwardly greeted Ruby, while hesitantly asking for a small plate of a cheeseburger and fries for lunch, and some tea. Tea always made Mary Beth feel better, she couldn't explain it properly.

The mortician spent all day in a room filled with the dead of Storybrooke, with cold metal walls, and pilot lights (one of which alway seemed to be on the fritz), yet in the diner she felt like she couldn't breathe. She didn't like all these people. She didn't like the world. They all seemed to recognize her as the Spencer's daughter, always giving her sad eyes, always asking if she was okay after her parents died. Mary Beth hated it when they treated her like glass, cause then she started feeling like it.

Even now, without any of the three people she knew, she felt exposed. Yes, she would feel a bit more secure if Regina was here! That was how uncomfortable she was with all of this. Why had she even gone to Granny's? She should've just bought something to microwave at a store and had that!

When Ruby gave Mary Beth her order, the black haired mortician accepted it politely. The half dresses waitress walked off, a bit off put by the mortician's seemingly cold behavior. Mary Beth would've loved some conversation, but she'd been shut off from the world since her parents died so long ago...how long ago was it again?

She didn't get much more of a chance to think on that. The Curse always seemed a few steps ahead.

A boy walked into Granny's. It took Mary Beth a moment to recognize him as Mayor Regina's son. She'd heard about him at times from Graham, about a little boy with nicely cut hair and bright brown eyes. Just by looking at him, Mary Beth felt like she was forgetting something important.

It had been ten years, how had she not met the boy?

Granny had met him, if her smile told Mary Beth anything. She smiled at the boy, a warm motherly smile that made everyone feel like they were welcome. "I heard today was a half day. The usual?"

The boy nodded, grinning at the older woman. "Yes. Thank you, Granny." Though he staring at the older woman with much wider brown eyes than Mary Beth thought necessary. She had been giving him the same look, though only because she'd never met the boy. If the boy had a usual, then he had to have been here often.

"I'll get right on it, Henry. You just take a seat and Ruby'll bring it over."

The simple name of the boy, and it was like a lightbulb went off behind Mary Beth's eyes. Images played in her mind, of a full lifetime before her arrival. Not to the diner, to this world. Not even to the Enchanted Forest! A whole other person came to life in that diner seat.

==BOL==

AN: Hello! Welcome to Book of Life! I saw the movie back in '14, and I knew that La Muerte was the fairy tale character I wanted for this fic. The whole Hades saga just pisses me off, so I'm gonna do this instead.

The next chapter is gonna talk about what happens when she wakes up from the Curse. It'll also go into more detail on how Mary Beth/Morgan came into our world. I would've added in this chapter, but I have a love of cliffhangers!

And in case there was any confusion, this is not a Rumple/OC fic! I'm not even sure if I'm gonna ship MaryBeth/Morgan with anyone. I just wanted them to meet in a funny way, that hints that Mary Beth isn't completely controlled by the Curse.