Trama

Emma realizes Maleficent's daughter is her former childhood friend Lily and leaves Storybrooke with Regina to find her, as well as to rescue Robin from Zelena.

Emma and Regina set out to find Maleficent's daughter, Lily. Emma tries to fight the darkness that is seeping into her heart, but she is in a fragile state and can explode at any moment. In a flashback from Emma's past, she is happy in a new foster home, but her happiness is short-lived when her old friend Lily shows up. When Regina shows up to rescue Robin Hood from her wicked sister, she couldn't be more thrilled to find him safe, but an unexpected fact is revealed.—g-wass30

Regina and Emma are sent to find Lily, Maleficent's daughter and Emma's old friend. When they arrive, Lily seems clueless, but as they dig deeper, Emma and Regina find that Lily wants revenge on Snow and David; in the past, after Emma has left her family and Lily, Lily is visited by a stranger who tells her that her bad decisions aren't her own doing.

The sorcerer's apprentice brings word back to the sorcerer that the author has changed the course of things and forced him to channel the darkness of Maleficent's child into the savior. The sorcerer says this can't be undone, but the author can never be allowed to tamper with the book again. Meanwhile in Storybrooke, Mr. Gold and Isaac the author are the only ones attending Cruella De Vil's funeral. Mr. Gold says they need to make sure that the darkness stays in Emma, who is watching from afar.

Emma doesn't want to believe that she has darkness in her, and Maleficent soon walks into the diner suggesting they join forces in going after Rumplestiltskin. She tells Emma she wants help finding her daughter, who Emma immediately recognizes based on Maleficent's story as Lily -- the girl she'd befriended as a teenager, who pretended to be a foster kid but was actually just running away from home for kicks.

Back in Minnesota in 1999, Lily showed up at the home of the family Emma was staying with and convinced Emma to hear her out. In Storybrooke, Regina helps Emma wrestle with the idea that fate drew her and Lily together and she didn't have much choice in the matter. Regina suggests that Emma come with her to New York so they can try to beat fate together.

As they get ready to leave, Emma is surprised again to learn that Lily lived as close as 30 miles to her just five years ago. Another flashback to Minnesota, we see that Emma got upset with Lily for lying to her new foster parents about how they met -- then we see that Lily had robbed a convenience store just before coming to see Emma.

A former neighbor of Lily's tells Emma that Lily died in a car accident a few years ago, and when he starts saying Lily was a bad person and "a real loser," Emma grabs him, pushes him up against a wall and nearly punches him before stopping herself.

Mr. Gold sneaks up on Will while he's in the pawn shop and tells him he wants Will to go and steal Belle's heart back from where it's being held by Maleficent.

As they drive, Emma doesn't want to talk about how she jumped all over Lily's old neighbor and then the car breaks down after she has to swerve at the last second to avoid hitting a wolf in the road. Emma can't help feeling like all this has happened before -- the last time she tried to leave Storybrooke. The car needs a new tire, and a gas station just happens to be a quarter-mile up the road next to a coffee shop. Regina jokes that the fate must want Emma to go to the coffee shop there and, sure enough, when Emma gets there it's Lily who is serving her. Emma notices the star birthmark on Lily's wrist, but the waitress' name tag says Starla. When Regina comes to join Emma, she tells her that Lily is the waitress.

Back in Minnesota, Lily tried to explain to Emma that her boyfriend duped her into helping with the convenience store robbery. She asked for Emma's help getting back a necklace that was at her boyfriend's house. It's the only thing she still has from her birth mother.

Emma confronts "Starla" and tells her she knows her name is Lily. Emma suggests that all the bad breaks that Lily has caught in her life might actually be because of Emma, but Lily is not interested in having Emma mess up the good life she has going on now. She says she has a daughter and is married, and walks away to get her daughter from the school bus. But we see that Lily doesn't really have a daughter on the bus. She finds a girl she knows from the diner and offers her free burgers for a week to smile and walk around the block with her.

David and Mary Margaret come to see Maleficent and try to apologize to her, but she says it's her daughter who needs to give them forgiveness. They say they will do everything they can, but she reminds them they made Lily a monster and it's unlikely she'd forgive them.

Emma gets Lily's address from her timecard in the diner and says she knows that Lily was lying about her new happy life. She wants to find her and get her back to her mom.

Flashing back to Minnesota, we see that Emma went to the house and found the necklace Lily wanted. She came back to her family's house and discovered that Lily took off after having stolen the family's vacation money from the desk in the study. They were upset when they realized that Emma knew Lily was a criminal and was a suspect in the convenience story robbery, and Emma takes off.

Back at Lily's apartment, Emma and Regina discover that Lily not only knew about Emma, but has a whole plan for getting back at Emma and her parents. Lily takes off, having stolen Emma's car (with the apprentice's scroll inside) and Emma and Regina give chase in another car that Emma breaks into.

Mr. Gold comes to Maleficent and tells him things could get complicated when Emma and Lily's world intersect, and it might not go as smoothly as Maleficent is expecting. He also tells her that while they've been talking, Will has stolen the box containing Belle's heart in it, and she watches as Will goes back out the window he snuck in through.

Regina warns Emma that she's starting to act and sound like a villain, and she's unsettled when Emma tells her that if she doesn't like the way she's acting she can find her own ride back to New York.

Back in Minnesota again, Emma sat at a bus stop and Lily appeared, trying to make it seem like she freed Emma from a life with an uptight family. Emma didn't want to trust Lily again and Lily said that when Emma was around things were brighter and they turned dark when Emma was gone. Emma said she was done helping Lily and left.

Emma and Regina catch up to Lily and stop her on the road. They have their big confrontation, and Emma winds up pulling her gun on Lily and threatening to shoot her to protect her family. But Regina talks Emma down and gets her to lower the gun.

Back in Minnesota, Lily is confronted on a bus to Pittsburgh by the sorcerer's apprentice, who tells her the truth about how the deck always seems to be stacked against her. He starts to tell her about her mother and the whole story.

Lily and Emma talk things out and Lily decides to make the trip with the pair to New York to find Robin Hood.

Will comes to the pawn shop with Belle's heart in a box. Mr. Gold walks in and Belle is surprised to see that they worked together on this. Mr. Gold takes the chance to apologize to Belle for having treated her badly. He tells Belle that he wants to give her heart back, even though Will is going to be the one who protects it.

Regina gets to Robin Hood's apartment in New York and tells him that Marian is not who she says she is, but is actually Zelina, Regina's sister. Robin doesn't believe it and Zelina, as Marian, finally comes clean and reveals herself. But Robin is stunned and still won't leave with Regina. He finally explains why: Zelina is pregnant.