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Chapter Text

Regina didn’t know quite when her feelings about Emma had shifted. She’d certainly found her attractive from the first moment they’d stared at each other on her front walkway. She had eyes, after all. Of course, the attraction had rapidly been overpowered by the frustration of Emma trying to take Henry away from her and generally irritating her so much that a sleeping curse had seemed a like a good idea, but it was still there. And she was fairly certain it was mutual.

But it had only ever been attraction. The little spark of desire when they got into each other’s personal space. A vaguely erotic nightmare where Emma had tied her to her apple tree and choked her. It was just her hormones getting the better of her.

Until there was a moment. Rumplestiltskin had sicced a wraith on her, and Emma had held her hand and helped her stand and declared “She’s not dying.” So here they were with Snow and Prince Charming trying to get Jefferson’s magic hat to work to get rid of the thing.  

“Regina,” Emma warned as the wraith broke into the room.

“I know,” she acknowledged. But the magic still didn’t come.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Snow and David lighting fires to keep it at bay. But the magic still didn’t come.

“Hurry!” David yelled.

“It’s not working!” she yelled back, even though it should have been obvious. She wrestled down her frustration and fear, trying to clear her thoughts. But the magic still didn’t come.

“What is the problem?” Emma asked.

“Magic- It’s different here.” She couldn’t explain it any more than that.

“Now would be the time!” David urged.

She stared at the hat, at a loss.

Then Emma knelt down, gripped her arm, and something sang through her veins. She spun the hat on reflex and this time the vortex appeared. She looked at Emma in wonder. It wasn’t just a thrill of attraction; that was familiar enough at this point. It was her magic reacting to Emma, somehow.

Standing, looking down, she stared at it, trying to figure out what had happened.

“Regina!” Emma yelled, shoving her out of the way.

As she stumbled, she saw the wraith being sucked in, but she had only a split second to feel relief before it grabbed Emma’s ankle and pulled her through after it, and Snow jumped after her, and David tried to follow, but the portal was closed and they were gone.

Emma was gone.

And Regina felt a little twinge of something as she looked at where Emma had vanished. But in the next moment David threatened her life again, and Henry was calling her evil for fighting back against that, and the little moment with Emma receded from her mind in the ache of Henry telling her he didn’t want to see her until she found a way to get Emma and Snow back. She didn’t really want to think about it anyway.

**

Regina knew what she had to do. She was trying to be a better mother to Henry, to rebuild the trust that had gotten so fractured over the past several months and led him to call her evil in the first place. She was really trying to change and be someone he could be proud of.

But there were few things in this realm or any other that scared Regina, and her mother was at the very top of the list. She was a threat to her, but more importantly she was a threat to Henry. She had to stop her from coming through that portal, even at the expense of lying to Henry that she was trying to help Emma and Snow get back instead. And really, he would never even know.

Except then he was there, looking at her with such disappointment that it physically hurt, insisting, “Emma and Mary Margaret are going to come through. I know it. You said you wanted to change – to be better. This is how. You want me to have faith in you? Have faith in me.”

And suddenly, what Regina  had to do was different. She walked to the well and threw her arms out, beginning to absorb the curse. It was hard to control. It burned through her and made her violently nauseated. But she steeled herself and took it all in, then fell back.

Nothing happened.

“No!” Henry cried.

Her heart broke for him, and she didn’t let herself think about whether he would ever sound so wounded about her. “I’m sorry, Henry,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry.”

But then a hand came out of the well and grabbed the edge. Emma pulled herself out, and Snow appeared right after. Henry rushed to hug them. They all hugged each other for a long moment. Regina, completely forgotten on the outside of the happy family scene, felt, impossibly, even worse.

Until Henry said, “She saved you. She saved both of you,” and that made it worth it.

“Thank you,” Emma said.

“You’re welcome,” she answered, and there was a little twinge as their eyes met. Not because of the magic. Not because of Henry. Just because of Emma.

**

That moment came back to Regina later, as she fought to control the magic of the trigger gemstone that was threatening to destroy all of Storybrooke. It was the same kind of burning, intense, nauseating fight with magic, to be sure. It was also the same kind of effort to prove to her son that she could be a hero.

A futile effort. “I love you, Henry. I only wish I was strong enough to stop all this. I'm just not.”

Then Emma stepped toward her. “You may not be strong enough, but maybe we are.”

And as their magic combined, Regina suddenly remembered the moment when Emma’s touch had jumpstarted her magic to get rid of the wraith. As they stared into each other’s eyes, hands almost touching, she remembered the twinge at losing her through the portal, and the other at seeing her again at the well. It was much more than a twinge now, but she couldn’t really spare the time to think about it while struggling to control the magic.

Somehow, impossibly, it was enough. The force of the magic threw them backward, but it was enough to stop the accursed thing from destroying Storybrooke.

“We did it,” Emma said.

“Yes, we did,” she agreed, smiling for what felt like the first time in an age.

“Gotta hand it to Henry,” David said, and Regina suddenly remembered the man was there. “He's right about a lot of things.”

“Yes, he is. Isn't that right, kid?” Emma turned to him, but he wasn’t behind her. “Henry?”

“Henry?” Regina called.

In the terror of finding him missing, she didn’t have time to wonder why she’d had that feeling about Emma.

**

The only thing Regina thought about for a long time after that was Henry. Her drive to get him back beat in her chest along with her heart as they used Hook’s ship to follow Henry and his kidnappers to Neverland.  It beat in her chest when they were attacked by mermaids. It beat when the ship was storm-tossed.

There was a little hiccup in its rhythm when Emma sank below the waves and even after David brought her up she was so very still for a long, terrifying moment. And another stutter when Emma stood on the beach and rallied all of them to be a team to rescue Henry.

But it beat in full force as they traipsed across what felt like every inch of the Neverland jungle, facing dead end and failure after dead end and failure, no closer to reaching Henry than when they’d started.

And still it beat as Tinker Bell appeared out of the jungle and kidnapped her. It beat so fiercely that she almost couldn’t bear it.

So when Tinker Bell threatened to kill her, it made some kind of twisted sense to call her bluff. “Okay, you wanna kill me? I can make it easier.” She ripped out her own heart and handed it to her, feeling totally out of control.

“What do you-”

“You wanna kill me? Don't let the poison do it. You should do it. Go ahead. Crush it.”

“You think I won't take it?”

“No, I'm counting on it. Show me who you are, Tinker Bell,” Regina said, knowing that this was a high-stakes game of chicken but made reckless by her frenzy to get her son back.

“Gladly,” Tinker Bell said, squeezing her heart and making her wince with pain. “Do you know what you've cost me?”

She turned and walked away from her, and Regina suddenly realized what was missing, gasping, “Your wings.”

“Why?”

“Why what? Why did I hand over my heart?”

“No, why did you lie?” Tinker Bell demanded, almost sobbing. “Because I’ve been over it a million times and that spell worked. You never went in. It's the only explanation. Why couldn't you just go through that door and meet your soulmate? Was being happy such a terrible fate?”

“Yes. Yes, it was.” Regina suddenly realized that this situation would take a different kind of bravery. “You're right. I never went in. I was afraid. I didn't-” Her eyes were wet with tears and she took a deep breath trying to get her emotions under control. “You said I could let go of the anger that was weighing me down and suddenly it felt like without it, I would just-” and her voice cracked- “float away. That anger was all I had. What would I be without it?”

“Happy.”

Regina shook her head. “Weak.” She didn’t think that now, could understand how love could be strength now, but she absolutely had believed it at the time.

“And look, what good it did you,” Tinker Bell taunted. “The strength you gained. Because I'm holding your heart in my hand and I'm not hearing one reason not to squeeze it into ash.”

“Alright, you want a reason? Here you go.” She stared her down. “You think I was afraid? You think I did the wrong thing?” Her voice softened. “Well, fairy, right now you're making the same choice. I picked revenge over hope and you're holding the result. A small, hard, dark heart.” She gripped Tinker Bell’s hand, holding it up to show her. “If you make the same choice I did, then what you're looking at is your own future. I'm not gonna tell you what to do. The choice is yours. Kill me or act like the fairy you are.”

“You said I was a terrible fairy,” Tinker Bell said, clearly still hurt by how Regina had brushed her off all those years ago.

“Well then, prove me wrong. Pick hope over anger.” The tears came again. “Choose love and help me get my son back.”

“You love your son,” she said, sounding a bit surprised.

“Very much,” Regina agreed, smiling through her tears. “With Henry, I’ve finally gotten something right. Don't you want to be able to say the same thing?”

“It's too late for me.”

Regina shook her head. “Only if you kill me.”

“I won't kill you,” Tinker Bell conceded. “But I won't help you either. Besides, it’s probably too late. He’s been with him too long.”

As Regina took her heart back and slid it back into her chest, she nodded. Without the distraction of impending death, she felt the beating all over again.

There was a sound from outside, and Tinker Bell went to investigate.

“Where’s Regina?” That could only be Emma, and the beating stuttered again, because Emma had come to her rescue, just as she had declared, “She’s not dying” when the wraith was after her. It seemed like a lifetime ago. But she’d felt cared for then, and she felt cared for now, and there was something about Emma, something she couldn’t quite make sense of around the edges of the beating.

“Who the hell are you?” Tinker Bell demanded.

“A pissed off mother. Where is she?”

Regina stepped out where Emma could see her. “I’m fine.”

**

Regina felt like she and Emma were finally starting to understand one another. They needed to send Henry a message, tell him that they were coming to rescue him, so that he wouldn’t lose hope and become a Lost Boy.

“Move aside,” Regina said, advancing on the Lost Boy they’d captured. She’d tried playing nice by giving him chocolate, but if he wouldn’t agree to help them the easy way, she’d make him do it the hard way.

Snow stepped in front of him, blocking her. “Why?”

“So I can rip his heart out!” she snapped. “Then he'll do exactly what we want.” That should be obvious.

“This is not how we do things! Emma, we can find another way.” She looked at her daughter for support.

 “Really?” Two could play at this game. Regina turned to Emma, daring her to have her own opinion. “And what do you think, Emma?”

Emma looked over at Snow, and then back at Regina. “I think we need to talk to our son.”

“We can't do this!” Snow insisted. “That is brutal—”

But Emma was moving her out of the way. “We can't, but she can. Do it Regina!”

“Emma!” Snow yelled.

Emma just kept holding her back, murmuring, “I'm sorry.”

Rolling up her sleeve, Regina did what had to be done. And her plan worked perfectly. With the boy’s heart under her control, he took the mirror right to Henry. Soon they were huddled around it, talking to him, assuring him that they loved him and were coming to rescue him. Regina felt tears spring to her eyes at the sight of him, and her heart felt full for a moment. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Emma felt right. Being a team with her felt right, like they were getting somewhere.

Regina’s goodwill lasted just long enough to see Emma kiss Hook.

**

“Focus. Concentrate,” Regina snapped. Clearly, Emma had to learn to use her magic if they had any chance to rescue Henry, but she absolutely did not have the patience to teach her. Especially after seeing her with that scruffy pirate. She didn’t let herself think about why it bothered her so much. Obviously, what was frustrating was that she was such a poor student. It was just starting a fire! A child could do it!

“It's kind of hard when you're talking in my ear,” Emma complained.

“And when the wind blows. Or it's raining. Or someone's shooting arrows at you,” Regina shot back. “Yes, concentration's hard. That's the point. Find your anger and use it to focus.” It had worked for her, after all. Her anger had protected her for many years.

“No,” Emma insisted. “There has to be a way without going dark.”

The implications of that stung more than Regina wanted to think about, and she lashed out. “You're such a pathetic waste of ability.”

“And you're a monster,” Emma snapped.

Regina was ready to punch back again when she noticed that the campfire was lit. It was just a tiny bit, but it was lit. “Smell that?

“What?” Emma demanded.

“Smoke.”

Regina had just a moment to feel satisfied by the effectiveness of her teaching before the urgency of the moment came back. Henry. Henry. Henry. And when Emma later turned around and decided to lead them all on some wild goose chase after her stupid ex-boyfriend instead of saving their son, she was damned if she was going with them. Even if he was Henry’s father. Especially because he was Henry’s father. She’d barely gotten used to Henry having two parents, let alone three.

**

But then, in the end, Regina ended up back with Emma and the stupid ex-boyfriend anyway. And they were so, so close to saving Henry, and she knew he was in mortal danger on the other side of this damned barrier that all of her magic could not get through because it kept out people with shadows, of all things.

“So what are we supposed to do now?” she asked no one in particular as she paced back and forth in front of it.

“What about the spell my father used to rip off his shadow?” Neal asked.

“D’you think that if I knew how to do that, I wouldn't have done it already?” Regina snapped. Damn Rumpelstiltskin for never teaching it to her.

“The moon,” Emma said, apropos of nothing.

“The moon?” she asked, looking up at it with her.

“The moon is what is causing our shadows, right? What if there was a way to block it out using magic?” Emma asked.

“What, you mean like an eclipse?” Neal asked. “Is that even possible?”

“Maybe,” Regina said, a bit impressed that Emma had thought of it.

“So?” Emma prompted, clearly expecting her to just do it.

“I need help,” Regina admitted.

Emma looked surprised. “With magic?”

“It requires a lot,” she explained, mastering her irritation. “I guess we're about to find out how much those lessons I gave you paid off. Follow my lead.”

Regina held up her hands, and Emma followed. She called up her magic, and Emma followed. She reached out for the moon with her magic, and Emma followed.

The feeling of magic singing through her veins was familiar enough. And she’d worked with Emma to do magic before—to escape the wraith, to stop the trigger—but this was different. Maybe it was because Emma had more training now. Maybe it was because after working together for god only knew how long on this hellhole of an island, they were more in tune now than they’d ever been. Whatever the reason, this was different, with their magic combining, weaving together, amplifying, becoming more than the sum of its parts.

And it felt like Emma, somehow. There was a hint of the erotic, of course. There always was with magic, and with Emma. But this also felt like determination and sincerity and compassion. And it felt right to be connected with her, doing the impossible, saving their son. Together.

Slowly but surely, they did it, eclipsing the moon and blocking the light that was casting shadows, letting them rush through the barrier and up the stairs just in time to see Henry rip out his own heart.

“Henry, wait!” Neal yelled. “Whatever Pan's telling you to do, don't do it.”

“Dad? You're alive?”

“I am, buddy. And I need you to listen to me. Pan is lying to you.”

“Oh, pleasure to see you, too, Baelfire,” Pan sneered. “Not to mention the Savior and the Evil Queen.”

“Henry, you need to get away from him,” Emma said. “Now. He's trying to hurt you.”

“No,” Henry insisted fervently. “The heart of the truest believer. It's what's gonna save magic. It's gonna save all of you.”

“No, it's not. This was never about magic, Henry. You have to believe us,” Regina said. Please, let him believe. He had to. “The only person Pan's interested in saving is himself.”

“That's not true!” Henry yelled.

“Of course it isn't,” Pan lied easily.

“Yes, it is!” Neal insisted. “Pan can't live without you dying. If you give him your heart, it's gonna kill you.”

“They're trying to stem your belief, Henry. But don't let them,” Pan urged. “Remember, every hero gets tested.”

“Henry,” Emma said, “I know what being a hero looks like, and this isn't it.”

“Why would they lie?” Henry asked Pan.

“Because that's what adults do, Henry. You know that better than anyone.”

Damn, Pan was good. But Regina didn’t give up. “Henry, you have to believe us.”

“Your parents don't care about Neverland, Henry,” Pan put in smoothly. “They know if you give your heart to save it, then you'll have to stay. They're being selfish because they don't want to lose you.”

“Henry, you have to trust us,” Emma put in.

“Trust?” Pan scoffed “I'm the only one who's ever been honest with you, Henry. The only one who ever believed in you. This is your choice. Not theirs. You have to choose now. We're running out of time.”

“We believe in you, Henry,” Neal said.

“Because we love you,” Emma put in.

“More than anything,” Regina added. She felt like her heart would burst with it.

“I love you, too,” Henry said. “But I have to save magic.”

“No, no, no!” Neal yelled.

“I'm sorry,” Henry said.

Regina was dimly aware of Emma and Neal yelling out “No!” along with her as Henry shoved his heart into Pan’s chest, before a pulse of magic washed over them all.

**

As soon as she could struggle to her feet, Regina was rushing to Henry’s side.

“Oh god, is he unconscious?” Emma asked, right beside her.

“Henry, can you hear us?” Regina called, knowing it was futile but unable to accept it.

“He passed out as soon as his heart went into Pan,” Neal said.

“Is he breathing?” Regina asked. She didn’t trust herself to be able to tell.

“I don't know,” Neal admitted.

Then Pan floated down, and Regina wished, not for the first time, that looks could kill and rid her of him.

“What the hell did you do to him?” Emma demanded.

“Oh, I didn't do anything, Emma. It was Henry. He offered me his heart of his own free will.”

Emma unsheathed her sword and vowed, “I'm gonna take it back from you” as she lunged toward him. Pan disappeared.

Suddenly, his voice came from behind them. “I don't think you have it in you,” he said, grabbing Pandora's Box from a rock where it had been sitting as they all whirled to face him.

“Rumpelstiltskin didn't,” Pan said, tossing the box around in his hands. “Why should you?”

Regina suddenly realized that, in all the rush to save Henry, they hadn’t noticed that Rumple wasn’t here, just as Emma demanded, “Where is he?”

“What did you do?” Neal said too.

“Oh, he's right in this box,” Pan said. “Safe and sound. And out of the way. Unfortunately for you, he can't hurt me anymore. And neither can you.”

“Really?” Emma asked, moving quickly, swinging her sword at him. She cut his arm. “How did that feel?”

“Like a tickle,” Pan said, though he immediately flew away.

Emma came over and knelt down next to where Regina was still beside Henry, asking, “How is he?”

Regina rubbed Henry's chest with one hand and clutched his hand to her with the other, saying, “You're going to be all right, Henry. We're gonna get you home,” praying that she wasn’t lying to him, to herself, to all of them. After a moment, she took a deep breath and made herself focus on solutions. “This preservation spell can keep him in this condition for a while longer,” she explained as she cast it, the beat of worry pounding in her ears so much she could barely think. “Buy us time to get to Pan.”

Emma got up and turned to Neal. “You were a Lost Boy. Any idea where he went?”

“Well, I- I know where he lived,” he sputtered. “Where his compound-”

“That's idiotic,” Regina snapped. “We all know that. Think he's stupid enough to go back? Please.” She was too worried about Henry for such foolishness, especially from his so-called father. “Useless,” she added, not quite under her breath.

“Enough!” Emma said.

“Don't tell me what's enough. My son is dying!” she snapped.

“Our son,” Emma corrected. “So, yes, I know how you feel.”

“You have no idea what I feel,” Regina insisted. “You have your parents. You have this-” she gestured vaguely at Neal and nearly spat, “person. A pirate who pines for you.” The beating was too loud in her ears to let her consider for more than a split second why those were the things that bothered her. Her voice broke as she went on. “You have everything and yet you claim to know what I feel? All I have is Henry, and I'm not about to lose him because he is everything.” She felt tears gathering in her eyes.

The last thing in the world Regina expected was for Emma to kneel down and say, “You're right. I don't know what you feel. So what do you want to do? You want to run the show? Run it. How do we save Henry?”

“I don't know,” Regina admitted. They looked at each other for several heartbeats, and she felt- she felt-

Neal spoke, breaking the moment. “Even if we can find Pan, he was powerful before. With Henry's heart, I- I don't know if we can hurt him.”

Regina noticed something then. “Yes, we can. Look.” She pointed to the blood on Emma’s sword. “You nicked him. He can bleed. We can hurt him. And if we can hurt him, we can kill him. And we will.” The thought of it gave her a little spark of happiness amidst the pain.

**

“How much time do we have?” David asked when they had all reunited shortly later.

“Maybe an hour before the preservation spell wears off,” Regina said.

Neal said, “If he’s airborne, he could be anywhere on the island.”

“An hour isn't much time,” Hook put in. “I suggest we get started looking.”

But Regina had a better idea, stalking over to confront Pan’s right-hand Lost Boy. “Where is he?!”

The boy was defiant. “Gone. There's nothing you can do. He's already won. Pan never fails.”

“You won't talk?” Regina snarled. “How about I make you talk?” She had drawn back her arm to plunge it into his chest and rip out his heart when Emma’s hand on her bicep stopped her.

“Regina, wait.”

“There's no time!” There really wasn’t, not to mention that this felt like a betrayal. She thought they’d finally been coming to understand one another.

“I don't think torture is our best move here,” Emma insisted. “Look at these kids. They've been to hell and back. We need to try something else.”

“Yeah, we tried the cute and cuddly,” Regina shot back. “They don't respond to reason. What else do you have to offer?”

Emma glanced at Mary Margaret and smiled, then met Regina’s eyes again. “What every kid wants. A mother.”

It made her heart ache for what Emma had been through. What, to be honest, she’d caused. She wished it hadn’t had to be that way, that Emma hadn’t had to suffer in her quest for revenge on Snow. She shook it off, because what she needed right now was to be Henry’s mother before all else. She could think about what it meant to have hurt Emma later.

But in the end, Emma was right. The speech she made to the Lost Boys was stirring and impressive, and it worked. Giving them a chance to come back to Storybrooke with them, to have a real home, earned their trust. One of them spoke, and then another. Pan was in the Pixie Woods.

**

As they reached the woods, Regina gasped as she saw Pandora's Box sitting on a rock beneath a tree. “Look,” she said, pointing.

Emma unsheathed her sword as they moved toward it. Snow set aside her quiver as they reached it and moved to take the box.

“Careful,” Regina warned. “Pan wouldn't have just left it behind for no reason.”

Snow actually listened, for once in her life, pausing her motion. But it didn’t last. “It's David's only way home. Without Gold, we're stuck here,” she said, reaching for the box again. Vines snaked out from the tree and grabbed her.

“Mary Margaret!” Emma yelled.

In the next moment, the vines had grabbed all of them, pulling them against the tree and tying them tightly. As they struggled to break free, Pan walked out from behind the tree.

“Are you still at it? Don't you know?” Pan picked up Emma's sword, which she’d dropped in the struggle. “Peter Pan never fails. I didn't expect you to find me. Then again, I shouldn't be surprised. You're mothers. Quite tenacious about your offspring. Believe it or not, I understand that. But if you're looking to see Henry again, I have to tell you there's only one place you'll be reunited—in death.”

Regina lunged at him, but the vines held her fast. She wished, again, that looks could kill.

“Having trouble moving?” Pan taunted. “Not surprised, given where you are. You see, what's hastening your demise is your regret.”

“What are you talking about?” Emma demanded.

“This tree is the site of a very important event for me,” Pan said, looking up at it. “I abandoned my boy here.”

“You have a son?” Regina couldn’t believe it.

“I'm older than I look.”

“If you have a child,” Emma said, “you must regret losing him, too.”

“But I don't. Quite the opposite, actually.” He picked up the box. “See, I have him all boxed up so I don't lose him again.”

Regina couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Rumpelstiltskin is your son?”

“That he is.”

“How's that possible?” Snow asked. “You're-”

“Younger than him?” Pan finished for her. “Not really. Just like you and your daughter.”

“You're a fraud,” Regina spat. “Your magic is weakened. You can't even hurt us, let alone Rumpelstiltskin.”

“You're right,” Pan conceded. “But that's why I'm here. This tree will protect me ‘til my power's restored. And then, well- then I get to have some real fun. Then I won't ever have to worry about my child again. Something we will all soon have in common.”

Emma lunged at him, and the vines tightened around all of them. “There has to be another way,” she insisted.

“You're not going to get to me. See, this tree attacks the regret inside anyone who comes here, and you, you've got plenty.”

“I regret not taking a better shot at you when I had the chance,” Emma growled.

Regina thought about regret. She definitely wasn’t proud of many of the things she’d done. She didn’t like the pain and suffering she had caused.

“That's not all, is it, savior?” Pan taunted. “No. I have your son's heart inside me. I can feel just how much you let him down time and time again.”

“Leave her alone,” Snow said.

“Perhaps I should,” Pan replied readily. “After all, what chance did she have of being a good mother? Look at the example you set. Abandoning her for twenty-eight years.”

Regina understood that regret. That was the kind of thing anybody would wish to be different. That was what regret was, after all, wanting things to be different than they were. But sometimes, as terrible as the way things played out was, you wouldn’t want to change it because of what it led to. She pulled against the vines, subtly so as to not to attract attention, and now she was sure of it. “Are you finished?” she asked.

“Last words from the Queen. Perhaps a deathbed confession from the one who has the most regrets of all,” he suggested.

“Yeah, there's one problem with that. I did cast a curse that devastated an entire population. I have tortured and murdered. I've done some terrible things. I should be overflowing with regret, but, I'm not.” She stepped forward, pulling free of the vines and freeing Emma and Snow in the process. “Because it got me my son.” She ripped Henry's heart from Pan's chest.

Pan collapsed on the ground, reaching for Pandora’s Box, but Regina picked it up before he could reach it.

“Now, let's go save Henry,” Regina said.

**

Getting back to the Jolly Roger was a blur, but time slowed to a crawl once they were there, kneeling over Henry's body.

“Hold on, Henry,” Regina said as she pushed the heart back into his chest, and it felt like a prayer to whoever or whatever might be listening.

Emma’s “Henry?” had the same prayerful tone.

They all held their breath for an interminable moment.

“Are we too late?” Emma asked, voicing the question Regina couldn’t bear to even think.

Regina ignored her. “Henry? Honey!”

Just then, Henry gasped, life coming back into his body. Regina felt relief wash over her as he sat up and hugged both of them

“I'm sorry. I wanted to save magic,” Henry said.

“It's okay. It's okay,” Emma assured him.

“I- I wanted to be a hero,” Henry said.

Regina was still looking at him, drinking him in, letting the others say foolish things. Her son was alive. After a moment, she vaguely recognized that Hook was offering Henry his cabin to sleep in, but only because she wasn’t about to let anybody take him anywhere without her. Not yet.  

“Come on,” she said. “I'll tuck you in.”

Instinctively, her eyes went to Emma, the only person who really understood what this moment meant. Their eyes met over his head, and it felt almost like an electric shock. This moment meant something more than just saving Henry. This person, her son’s other mother, her partner in this venture to save him, meant something to her. It didn’t seem possible, and she shrank away from naming it, but- but she needed to get Henry to bed.

It was almost normal, getting him into bed and sitting beside him, for all he was fully dressed and they were on a sailing ship. So normal that she was able to tease him, “Oh, I know that look. That's five hours of Space Paranoids and too much pizza.”

“Pizza's good,” he said, just a tired little boy after a big adventure.

She laughed and then summoned magic and waved her hand over his chest.

Henry winced. “It stings. What's that for?”

“A spell. So no one can ever take your heart ever again,” she explained.

“Thanks, mom,” he said, gripping her hand.

She smiled and kissed him on the temple, then said “We'll be home soon, my little prince.” Then, realizing she really couldn’t hover over him and expect him to sleep, she shut off the oil lamp and left the room.

**

Only a few minutes later, Rumpelstiltskin warned them that something was wrong, and they all rushed back in just in time to see Pan trying to pull out Henry’s shadow. Regina was ready to rip him apart with her bare hands, but Rumpelstiltskin blocked the way.

“Blood magic works both ways, Father,” Rumple said, opening Pandora’s Box to trap him. Pan still refused to let go of Henry's shadow even as the box began absorbing him away. There was a long, tense moment of equilibrium, but he was no match for it, sucked in at last.

“Henry?” Regina called, rushing in as soon as Rumple was out of the way. “Henry? Henry.” She reached his bedside.

“It's okay,” he said. “I'm okay.”

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“He's a strong boy, Regina,” Rumple assured her. “You raised him well.”

**

Something had shifted by the time they made it back to Storybrooke. Snow was actively praising Regina for what she’d done on their adventure. She was even, as Rumplestiltskin had taunted her once, invited to the celebratory dinner.

As the party was starting to break up, she heard Emma say, “Oh, let's say goodnight to Regina.”

Turning, she saw her with Henry. “Goodnight? I didn't realize it was getting so late. It's going to be hard to let you out of my sight,” she confessed, as if saying it out loud might dispel the hold it had on her.

“Maybe you don't have to,” Henry said. “Maybe I could stay with you tonight.”

Regina was floored. Henry, who had been so wary of her before Neverland, who she had sent away with David because he didn’t trust her, was asking to come home. This, more than anything, showed how different everything was now. “Oh. Of course.”

Emma seemed surprised too, but said, “Yeah, uh, just call me tomorrow and let me know what time you want me to pick you up.”

“Come on, Henry. Let's go home,” Regina said, and for the first time in a long time, all felt right with the world.

**

It was so wonderfully normal to be able to walk into Henry’s room later that evening and say, “Lights out, young man” because he had stayed up too late reading his storybook.

“Mom,” Henry said (and oh, it was so wonderful to hear it), “Your vault. Did you bring that over with you?”

That was a startling question, and it wasn’t the first strange thing he’d asked since they’d left the party. But she wasn’t going to do anything to push him away, not now. “Yes, Henry, you know that.”

“With all your magic?”

That wasn’t like him, to be so interested in magic. Regina crossed her arms. “Why are you asking all these questions?”

“Because I might need that stuff to protect myself from Pan.”

His fear made Regina ache, and his strange questioning suddenly made sense. She hastened to reassure him. “Oh, honey, he can't hurt you. He's locked up in Gold's shop.”

“But what if he gets out? What if he finds a way to come after me?”

She sat down beside him on the bed. “Magic isn't the answer,” she said, closing the story book. “My vault is sealed shut for a reason. It's dangerous. I'll protect you,” she said, smiling and booping his nose. “No matter what.” She set the book on his night stand. “Now, it's time for you to go bed.”

She reveled in tucking him in and kissing him goodnight, and as she closed the door behind her, she hoped that he’d feel better soon. He wasn’t quite being himself, but was it any wonder after all he’d been through in Neverland? Maybe she should have him talk to Archie. He was a decent therapist, even if his degree had come from the curse.

**

Henry would never be able to settle back into his life and get past what had happened in Neverland if they kept having crisis after crisis, she thought as they hurried to yet another urgent incident the next morning. She had a certain appreciation for the fact that she was now included in the Charmings’ inner circle, but she really did wish her life could just be simple for once.

“What the hell happened?” she demanded when they arrived, too frustrated by it all to even attempt to be polite.

“The Shadow. It killed her,” David said, gesturing down at the body of the Blue Fairy.

“Pan's shadow?” Regina asked, incredulous. “I trapped it on the sail.”

“Yeah, well, it got free,” Emma said.

After a brief discussion, Neal, Hook, and Tinker Bell left to go get the candle so that they could trap it again.

“Pan's behind this,” Emma insisted. “I know it.”

“He's trapped in a box under the floor of Gold's shop,” Regina pointed out.

“Who else would be doing this?”

“So, Pan can still hurt me,” Henry put in, drawing their attention to him.

“We don't know that,” Regina insisted. Her heart ached at his fear, but she couldn’t lie to him that it wasn’t possible. She wanted to do things right, this time. 

“We have to assume he's still a threat,” Snow said.

“And that he's after Henry,” Emma put in.

“Then what am I doing here?” Henry said.

“He's right,” David said. “He's not safe out in the open.”

“You'll protect me, right?” Henry asked Regina.

“Yes, of course,” she said, embracing him.

“Go,” Emma said. “We'll take care of the Shadow.” After they took a few steps, she added, “Regina, wait.”

Regina turned back. “What?” She was suddenly aware of how close Emma was standing, and remembered vividly what she’d felt when their eyes met on the ship.

“Keep a close eye on him,” Emma said in a low voice.

That was the last thing Regina expected, and it stung. “I already said I would,” she said, prickly.

“I know. He just doesn't seem quite himself.”

Emma was right, but Regina didn’t think that was what she truly meant. “Really? You mean because he asked for me?”

“No, I didn't-” Emma sputtered. “I didn't mean-”

“That's exactly what you meant. You can't face the fact that I am his mother too,” Regina snapped. The implication that she might not take good care of her son was too much to bear, especially from Emma, especially after everything they’d been through. “And maybe, just maybe, he wants me when he's frightened. You forget: I have ten years of soothing his nightmares under my belt. He's fine.”

“It's not about you, Regina,” Emma insisted, her eyes sincere. “I just have a gut feeling.”

Regina wasn’t ready to let it go yet. “Well, maybe you can use that gut feeling to find the Shadow instead of obsessing over who's going to comfort our son,” she said and turned to go.

As they left, Henry asked, “So where are you taking me?”

“The one place in Storybrooke the Shadow can never get to. The place where I keep my magic.”

**

Regina awoke, disoriented, on the floor of her vault. “What? What happened?” she asked as she saw everyone standing over her.

“It's Henry” Emma said. “Somehow Pan switched bodies with him.”

“And I fell for it.” Regina felt bitter.

“We all did,” Snow assured her.

“I wanted to believe what he was saying so badly I missed all the signs,” Regina said. “I just wanted to believe he still needed me to be his mother.”

“I still do,” a voice said.

As she turned to look at him, her adrenaline spiked because her eyes told her it was Pan. But something in the tone was familiar, even with the wrong voice. “Henry?” And when he hugged her, she knew it was him, even if he was the wrong size in her arms.

“So what exactly did Pan come down here to get?” David asked.

Rumpelstiltskin felt around with his magic, then looked at her disapprovingly. “Please tell me you didn't keep it down here.”

“Where else would I keep it?”

“What is it?” Emma asked. “What did Pan take?”

“The Dark Curse,” Rumple said.

“Why would Pan even want the curse?” Regina asked. “I already cast it.”

“And I broke it,” Emma said.

“Well, that doesn't mean you can't cast it again,” Rumple said. “And this time, without your parents' true love woven in, even you would be powerless to break it,” he said to Emma.

“I don't understand. We're already in this land,” David said.

“What exactly would casting the curse in Storybrooke do now?” Snow asked.  

“The last one was created to service the Queen's wishes,” Rumple said. “This will be done per Pan's desire. I would count on something hellish.”

“The curse was built to be unstoppable” Regina said, hopelessness creeping over her. “There's nothing that can be done.”

“Well, it is possible to stop it,” Rumple said.

“What?” Regina asked. He had never told her that.

“By using the scroll itself,” Rumple explained. “It can only be undone by the person who used the scroll. That's you, Regina.”

“What do I have to do?”

“You must destroy the scroll. Both yours and his curses shall be ended, but know this—there will be a price; a steep one.”

That gave Regina pause, but she managed to ask, “W-what do you suggest?”

“Instead of going to him, bring him to us with a spell,” Rumple said. He must have seen from her face that Regina couldn’t figure out what he was getting at, because he explained, “One that will return Pan and Henry to their own bodies.”

“If I'm back in my own body, that means I'll have the scroll,” Henry realized. “I- I can bring it to you guys.”

“Exactly right, Henry,” Rumple said approvingly.

Regina was skeptical. “Even you aren't powerful enough to cast such a spell.”

“Well, given the proper tool, I could be,” he said.

“The Black Fairy's wand,” Tinker Bell said suddenly. When they turned to her, she explained, “One of the most powerful fairies that ever existed. Well-versed in dark magic. The Blue Fairy exiled her, but before she did, she took her wand.”

That was exactly what Rumple was thinking of, and David, Hook, Neal and Tinker Bell went to get it. They brought it back in short order.

“Do we need anything else?” Emma asked Rumplestiltskin.

“Only one more item,” he said.

Opening a cabinet, he took out a black leather cuff that made Regina’s stomach churn with remembered terror and pain.

“What is that?” Snow asked.

“This is one of the only useful things that I managed to pilfer from Greg and Tamara before they left for Neverland. It renders anyone with magic utterly powerless.” He turned the cuff over in his hand.

“I haven't forgotten about all that, by the way,” Regina said tightly, with a look at Hook.

“Let me see your wrist, Henry,” Rumple said. When Henry stuck it out, he put the cuff on it. “I want to make sure when my dear old dad awakes that he is weakened. This will lock his powers.”

“So what happens now?” Henry asked.

“I enact the spell, you fall into a deep sleep, and when you awake, you're back in your own body,” Rumple explained.

“Then you hang into that scroll and come find us as fast as you can,” Regina said. She didn’t like that he was involved in the plan, but it was undeniable that their best hope to protect him was to defeat Pan.

It was hard to watch Henry wince and seize when Rumple pulled his spirit from Pan’s body. He looked like he was in so much pain. But it didn’t last long.

“It worked,” Regina said.

“Let's go find our son,” Emma replied, and despite everything Regina felt a flicker of warmth at working together with her again, at the recognition that they shared something so precious as their son.

**

Words could not describe the relief Regina felt when Henry came rushing out of the clock tower. “It's me, it's me! It worked!” he yelled.

Together, she and Emma wrapped him up in a fierce hug. “Mom, mama, I just saw you guys. You guys just saw me.”

“But we didn't see you,” Regina emphasized. It was so, so good to see him.

“He's got it,” Emma said as they pulled back. She took the scroll and handed it to Regina.

She had it in her hand for just a moment before there was a burst of purple light, and Regina saw what she had to do. To undo the curse that she’d cast to gain her happy ending, she had to lose her happy ending. And it wasn’t just Henry, it was-

“Emma,” she said as she opened her eyes. Of course her face was the first thing she saw, haloed in golden hair. Regina realized dimly that she was laying on the street, that she must have collapsed, but that was hazy and the knowledge was sharp. She knew. She really understood everything for the first time only now that it was too late. Now that she had to save them all by ending the curse. The knowledge weighed on her as she got up, and she felt unsteady with it.

“What happened?” Emma asked. “You okay?”

“Yes,” she said distractedly. “I'm fine.” It was a lie, but what else was there to say? She had to do what she had to do. “It was just-”

“What is it?” Snow asked. “What happened when you touched it?”

“I saw what needed to be done,” she said simply, and it was a wonder she could get it out past the knot in her belly and lump in her throat.

“Mom, are you going to be okay?” Henry asked.

She absolutely was not, but she put a hand under his chin and assured him, “The important thing is you will be.”

He grabbed ahold of her hand.

 They had just the briefest moment together before the scroll abruptly disappeared from Regina's hand.

“No, he won't,” Pan said, walking up from behind them.

He froze them with magic and then stood there gloating about having defeated them for long enough that Rumplestiltskin arrived. They threatened each other back and forth, but Regina wasn’t really listening as the knowledge chased itself in circles around her head. Henry- Emma- Henry and Emma-

Suddenly, there was a scream of pain, startling her out of focusing on her misery. Regina saw that Rumple was embracing Pan and had stabbed through him and into himself with the Dark One dagger. A cloud of black smoke covered Pan, and when he was visible again, he had been replaced by a much older man.

“Hello, Papa,” Rumpelstiltskin said.

“Rumple, please. You can stop this. Remove the dagger. We can start over.” He gave a pained smile. “We can have a happy ending.”

“Ah, but I'm a villain. And villains don't get happy endings.”

Regina’s heart thumped painfully at the reminder.

Rumple twisted the dagger, making his father gasp in agony, and a golden light started shining from the blade. He kissed his father on his cheek, and then the light engulfed them and they disappeared out of existence.

The scroll dropped to the street and the freezing spell was broken by Pan’s death.

In a daze, Regina went over to pick up the scroll. She felt sadness at Rumple’s death, was dimly aware of Belle sobbing nearby, but it was muted by the much sharper pain from the knowledge.

“Regina? Are you okay?” Snow asked.

“I'm fine,” she said, standing up with the scroll in hand. But she still was mostly lost in her own world, only vaguely realizing that people were talking to her.

She was shaken out of her daze when Grumpy came running up, bellowing, “It's here!! The curse, it's here! It's coming from all sides! There's no escape.”

“It's not too late. We can still stop it, right? Regina?” David asked.

“Yes,” she said, then repeated more firmly, “Yes.”

“W-what's the price?” Emma asked. “Gold said there is a price. What is our price?”

“It's not our price,” Regina said. “It's mine.”

“What are you talking about?” Emma asked.

She looked down, not quite able to meet her eyes right now. “It's what I felt when I- first held it. I have to say goodbye to the thing I love most.”

Emma turned to Henry, beckoning him forward. “Henry?”

“I can never see him again,” she explained. “I have no choice. I have to undo what I started.”

“The curse that brought us to Storybrooke?” Snow asked.

“That created Storybrooke,” Regina corrected. “It doesn't belong here, and neither do any of us.”

“Breaking the curse destroys the town,” David said.

“It will wink out of existence as though it was never here,” Regina explained. “And everyone will go back to where they are from. Prevented from ever returning.”

“We'll go back to the Enchanted Forest?” Emma asked.

“All of us,” she confirmed. “Except Henry. He will stay here, because he was born here.”

“Alone?” Emma asked, horrified.

“No, you will take him,” Regina said. And if she hadn’t been able to look her in the eye before, she couldn’t look away now, smiling at her despite everything. “Because you're the savior. And you were created to break the curse. And once again, you can escape it.”

“I- I don't want to,” Emma said. “We'll both go back with everyone.”

“That's not an option,” Regina insisted. “I can't be with him. If I don't pay the price, none of this will work.”

There was a thundering sound, a reminder of how little time they had.

“Emma, you have to go,” Snow said.

“I just found you,” Emma said to her mother.

“And now it's time for you to leave us again,” Snow said. “For your best chance. For his.”

“No. N-no,” Emma sputtered. “I'm- I'm not- done. I'm the savior, right? I'm supposed to bring back all the happy endings. That's what Henry always said.”

Snow gave her a watery smile. “Happy endings aren't always what we think they will be. Look around you. You've touched the lives of everyone here.”

“But we're a family,” Emma said, her lower lip wobbling, and Regina was surprised that her heart could ache for that loss at the same time she was experiencing her own.

“Yes, and we always will be. You gave us that,” Snow said.

“You and Henry can be a family,” David put in, and oh, Regina’s heart was not completely broken, from the way it hurt to think of Henry having a family that didn’t include her. “You can get your wish. You can be like everyone else. You can be happy.”

“It's time to believe in yourself, Emma. There's time for you to find hope,” Snow urged.

“I've known you for some time,” Regina put in. “And all I wanted was for you to get the hell out of my life so I could be with my son.” She smiled a bit, despite herself. It wasn’t really true anymore, but this wasn’t the time to get into that. “But really,” she began, taking one more long look at him. Her voice broke. “What I want is for Henry to be happy. We have no choice. You have to go.”

That seemed to get through to Emma in a way nothing else had, and she reluctantly said, “Okay.”

“This isn't fair,” Henry said. “It's all my fault.”

“What do you mean?” Regina asked.

“If I had never gone to get Emma, if I just lived under the curse with you, none of this would have ever happened,” Henry said. “I thought I was alone. I- I thought you didn't love me.” And oh, that still hurt, even after having heard it from him often enough when he was his most angry with her. When he added “But I was wrong,” it was a balm.

“Henry,” Regina said, tears forming in her eyes all over again. “I was wrong too. It wasn't your fault, it's mine. I cast a curse out of vengeance and I'm- I'm a villain. You heard Mr. Gold. Villains don't get happy endings.”

“You're not a villain,” he said. “You're my mom.” He hugged her, and the knowledge that he loved her made the ache stop for just a moment.

As Emma came back from saying goodbye to the others, Regina caught her attention. “Emma. There's something I haven't told you.”

Emma sighed. “What now?”

“When the curse washes over us, it will send us all back. Nothing will be left behind. Including your memories,” she emphasized. “It's just what the curse does. Storybrooke will no longer exist. It won't ever have existed. So these last years will be gone from both your memories. Now we'll go back to being just stories again.”

“What will happen to us?” Emma asked.

“I don't know,” Regina admitted.

“Doesn't sound like much of a happy ending,” Emma said.

Regina huffed a small, bitter laugh. “It's not. But I can give you one.”

“You can preserve our memories?” Emma asked.

“No, I can- do what I did to everyone else in this town,” she said, bitterly amused. “And give you new ones.”

“You cursed them and they were miserable,” Emma pointed out.

“They didn't have to be,” Regina said. Some instinct had her reaching to grasp Emma's hand. It felt right to be holding her hand and looking into her eyes, both of them teary, while promising her a happy ending. And if it felt like wedding vows, well today, just this once, she was not going to suppress what she was feeling about Emma.

She loved her. She knew that now. She didn’t know when it had happened, but it had. She knew it when Emma’s face flashed through her mind as she realized she was going to have to give up what she loved to save everyone from the curse. And realizing that too late, well, it was all part of what she’d have to sacrifice, wasn’t it?

But she could lessen Emma and Henry’s sacrifice. And she would. “My gift to you is good memories, good life for you and-” She turned to look at Henry and he came to her side. “Henry. You'll have never given him up. You'll have always been together.” She was barely keeping the tears from falling now. She ached for her own loss of them, for their loss of everyone they’d come to love, and for the loss of what might have been, for all of them.

“You would do that?” Emma asked, and the look on her face had Regina wondering if she might be feeling the same.

“When I stop Pan's curse and you cross that town line, you will have the life you always wanted,” Regina assured her.

“But it won't be real,” Emma pointed out.

“Well, your past won't,” Regina conceded. “But your future will. Now go. There isn't much time left till the curse will be here any minute.”

Henry gave her one last hug, and she kissed him on the forehead. Then there was no more time. The curse rapidly surged towards them as Emma and Henry got in the car. She heard the engine start, but couldn’t spare the time to watch them go. Tearing the Dark Curse scroll, crumpling it into a ball, she turned her back, losing even this last glimpse of them, because she had to focus, calling forth her magic to end the curse. To sacrifice, so that Henry and Emma could have a future.

Chapter Text

It was really a shame that Regina was so hot. Emma had felt a thrill of attraction the moment she’d seen her run out of her house the first time they met, and then she just kept feeling that way, again and again—against her better judgment.

There was one as they stared each other down after Emma sawed a branch off Regina’s apple tree. The one where Regina looked her up and down when she said “Enjoy my shirt.” The one when Regina came to sit with her in the diner was so intense she proceeded to spill hot cocoa all over herself. When Regina stepped so very close at the mines, she thought for a split second she was going to kiss her, then wondered that she could have that thought at such a time even as she couldn’t help looking at her lips. The vision of Regina perched on the desk in the sheriff’s office had definitely inspired an erotic dream she wasn’t proud of. And she was pretty sure Regina had checked her out a time or three, too, usually in those same charged moments.

But in between those moments there was the constant and growing frustration at literally everything else about Regina. Regina refusing to let her be part of Henry’s life. Regina manipulating the town and everyone in it, including Emma—and, worst of all, Henry. She was utterly infuriating. But also compelling.

And when she found herself in Regina’s foyer saying “I think that this—whatever it is between us—needs to end,” and “what we're doing is a problem,” she had to shake off the feeling that she was ending some illicit affair instead of proposing they stop battling over Henry.

Until Henry ate the apple turnover Regina had given her and immediately collapsed. And when he was lying in a hospital bed unconscious and Regina, whose fault it all was, walked in, a white-hot anger burst behind Emma’s eyes. She grabbed Regina and threw her into a nearby supply closet, not much caring that she crashed into a shelf. It felt kind of good to hurt her, especially while Henry was hurting.

Slamming Regina against a bank of lockers, Emma snarled, “You did this!”

Regina tried to shake her off. “What the hell are you doing!? Stop this, my son—"

“Is sick because of you!” she yelled, directly into her face. “That apple turnover you gave me—he ate it!”

She saw Regina’s confidence waver. “What? It was meant for you!”

“It's true, isn't it?” She didn’t need to specify what.

“What are you talking about?” Regina said.

Emma didn’t even need her superpower to know that Regina was bluffing. “It's true, isn't it?!” she demanded more forcefully. She gripped Regina’s lapel harder and pushed her against the lockers with a metallic thud. “All of it.”

Regina’s defiant expression crumbled and tears formed in her eyes. She admitted, “Yes.”

“I was leaving town! Why couldn't you just leave things alone?” Emma could hear her own voice breaking.

“Because as long as you're alive, Henry will never be mine,” Regina snapped.

The language of owning him turned Emma’s stomach. “He will never be anyone's unless you fix this. You wake him up!” she demanded.

“I can't!” Regina’s voice was as raw as her own.

Worry pierced Emma’s anger. “Don't you have magic?”

“That was the last of it. It was supposed to put you to sleep!” Regina twisted out of her grip.

“What's it gonna do to him?” Emma was disgusted that she’d ever felt attraction for this despicable woman.

“I don't know,” Regina admitted. “Magic here is unpredictable.”

“So... so he could...” Emma couldn’t bring herself to say it, and she felt tears starting.

“Yes,” Regina confirmed.

“So what do we do?”

“We need help,” Regina said. “There's one other person in town who knows about this. Knows about magic.”

“Mr. Gold,” Emma realized.

“Actually, he goes by Rumplestiltskin.”

**

And Mr. Gold, or Rumpelstiltskin, or whoever he was, did agree to help them when they visited him in his shop, though not without some taunting—of Emma, about believing in magic, and of Regina, about the consequences of magic.

“True love, Miss Swan—the only magic strong enough to transcend realms and break any curse. Luckily for you, I happen to have bottled some.”

“You did?” Regina asked.

“Oh, yes,” he replied, then turned back to Emma. “From strands of your parents' hair, I made the most powerful potion in all the realm. So powerful, that, when I created the Dark Curse, I placed a single drop on the parchment. Just a little safety valve.”

Suddenly, everything that had seemed random about the wild fairytale story clicked into place. “That's why I'm the savior. That's why I can break the curse.”

“Now you're getting it,” Mr. Gold said.

“I don't care about breaking the curse,” Emma said. “All I care about is saving Henry.”

Mr. Gold explained that he had some potion left, but was vague about the details.

Regina cut in. “Enough riddles. What do we do?”

“You do nothing,” he emphasized. “It has to be Miss Swan.”

“He's my son. It should be me,” Regina insisted.

“All due respect, but it's her son. And it has to be her. She's the product of the magic. She must be the one to find it.”

That made a certain amount of sense, if it came from her parents in the first place. “I can do it,” Emma said.

“Don't trust him,” Regina said quickly.

But they didn’t have any choice, and Emma refrained from pointing out that she didn’t particularly trust Regina either. That feeling of distrust only grew as she listened Mr. Gold and Regina having a cryptic conversation about an old friend in the basement. Then Mr. Gold opened the long case on the counter and offered her an honest to god sword, which apparently belonged to her father. What even was her life?

**

They went to the hospital to check on Henry on the way to go confront her, whoever she was.

Emma leaned close to him, willing him to hear her as she said, “Henry. You were right about the curse. I should have believed you. I'm sorry.” She set his book on the bedside table, “For when you wake up.” She took a long look at him, storing him up to take with her to do whatever it was she was about to go do, then turned to go.

Meeting Regina in the doorway and feeling magnanimous, she gave her ten minutes to talk to Henry. After she’d left the room, she paused and watched through the glass for a moment, and the expression on Regina’s face was genuinely loving—and genuinely stricken to see Henry like this. She still didn’t trust Regina, but maybe she didn’t have to. She just had to trust that Regina wanted to save Henry. And that, her superpower said, was genuine.

**

Ten minutes later, they met in the town library, of all the mundane places to be embarking on a grand quest. Except that there was a false wall, hiding an elevator.

Emma knew her “Whoa” wasn’t very dignified. But when Regina told her to get in the elevator and be lowered down, she balked. And when Regina still wouldn’t tell her what she was going to face down there, her patience ran out.

“Okay, I will go down there. But let's be clear about something, your majesty.” She put as much sarcasm on the title as she could muster. “The only reason you're not dead is because I need your help to save Henry. If he dies, so do you.”

“Well then let's get on with it,” Regina said.

**

As Emma she rode the elevator down, she unsheathed the sword, wondering, not for the first time, what the hell she had she gotten herself into. When the car arrived at the bottom, she was surprised to find herself in a mining tunnel. After a few steps, she saw what could only be Snow White's glass coffin.

Suddenly, the rock that she had leaned against started moving, and she gasped. When she turned to face it, sword at the ready, she saw a dragon. Really? Regina couldn’t have mentioned that her “old friend” was a fucking dragon? Emma looked at the sword, which felt like fighting with a toothpick. “To hell with this.” She dropped the sword and took out her gun, shooting at the dragon. But in the next moment the dragon breathed flame and she had to dive behind the nearest rock.

After some more shooting and dodging, the thing fell into a pit, and when she didn’t come back right away Emma peeked over the edge. The force of its flight upward knocked her over. Emma shot a few more times, but not only was her ammunition getting low, it didn’t seem to be having any effect. Maybe fairytale problems required fairytale solutions. She ran for the sword and threw it into the dragon. Instead of wounding the beast, the sword disappeared inside the dragon’s chest, and the dragon crumbled into ash, leaving behind a strange metal egg.

That must be the thing she’d come for.  Emma grabbed it and hurried back to the elevator, calling to Regina to bring her back up. She was almost to the top when the car stopped suddenly.

“Regina! What the hell was that?! Regina!”

But the head that peeked over the side of the elevator shaft was Mr. Gold’s. “Miss Swan? You've got it?”

He explained that Regina had sabotaged the elevator and left, and Emma felt rage surge through her. She started to climb up, ready to tear Regina apart with her bare hands, but Mr. Gold insisted that there was no time, and that she should throw the egg up to him and then climb up. She didn’t like it, but had to concede that he was right.

But the moment he caught the egg, he walked away. “Mr. Gold? Gold!”

Cursing all the way, Emma climbed up and out of the elevator shaft, only to find Regina tied to a chair with duct tape covering her mouth. “Regina?” She rushed over and peeled the tape off, then started  untying her.

The moment Regina could speak, she burst out, “He tricked you! How could you give him that?”

They had just gotten started arguing about whose fault it was and what they should do when her phone started ringing. Regina’s too. When she saw the number on the screen her heart sank. “It's the hospital.”

Emma never knew, later, how she had gotten back to the hospital. It was all a blur. Regina must have been with her, but all she could think of was getting to Henry.

But she would always remember walking into Henry’s hospital room. It was burned into her brain. The high-pitched beep of the flatline. The nurse taking the breathing mask off of him. The pounding of her pulse in her ears as she crossed the room to his bed. How small and still he looked. The feeling of tears running down her face.

“I love you, Henry.” She leaned down and kissed his forehead.

 Suddenly, a huge wave of energy rocked her back on her heels, and Henry gasped and woke up.

“I love you, too,” he said. “You saved me.”

And there was nothing in the world right now but his once again healthy face.