A/N: This story has been going around Tumblr for a few weeks under the name of REGINA TORTURE THINGEE. This prologue has been written so as to finish the conversion of the story from a drabble into a full fic. Word of warning, it's extremely dark and will deal with some very ugly topics such as torture and the horrifying things that much fall under that umbrella. Up to chapter 7 is already available on Tumblr, and will be edited and posted here. There will be changes along the way to ensure consistency and theme. Once we are up to date, chapter 8 will be added.

Warnings for each specific chapter will be included in each chapter.

WARNINGS: Torture, violence, language, alcoholism, a major character death, and grief.

-PROLOGUE-

STORYBROOKE, MAINE – MAY, 2013

There are muddy tire tracks leading away from the Cannery, and that's their first sign that whatever they discover inside of it probably isn't going to be what they want to find. She lifts her phone up, and speaks softly into it, her eyes on Neal the whole time. "How's Mary-Margaret?" she asks.

"She hurts and she wants to throw up," David replies. "But she's holding up. We're on the opposite side of the building so whenever you're ready."

"Right," Emma replies, her eyes on the tracks. They look to her like a bigger vehicle made them. Perhaps a van. Considering that none of the rescue party had seen it come or go, it's likely it's long gone now.

"What's wrong?" David asks after several long moments of silence.

"There was a car here already. A truck or a van or something."

"So she might not be inside, anyway," David sighs. "Hang on." There's a shuffling sound as he drops the phone down and away from his mouth.

"What's going on?" Neal queries, frowning as he stares at the door that leads inside the Cannery. He's still trying to process the idea that his fiancée might be somehow tied into this mess, and though he's vehemently denied the suggestion every time that it's been brought up, there's something about Emma's certainty that sways him.

"He's asking my mother if she still feels the connection to Regina."

He nods. Then, "Mind if I ask why we care what happens to Regina? She tried to kill everyone - us - just a few weeks ago."

"It's more complicated than that, Neal. I won't defend what Regina did and what she's done. She is a lot of things, some of them very bad, but in the end, the most important one - the only one that actually matters to be right now - is that she's Henry's mother, and he loves her. She was there when we weren't," Emma shrugs. "I gave him up and you gave us up."

"It wasn't like that," he protests. "I didn't know."

"You shouldn't have needed to."

He swallows hard. "I know." He gazes back at the door, and then sighs.

"What?"

"I don't know what I'll do if you're right." He shakes his head in dismay.

"Whatever happens, we'll figure it out, okay?" she assures him.

"Together?"

"There's no us together," she tells him. "But I don't want you hurt so for your sake, I really hope I'm wrong about this. For Regina's sake, too."

"What's your relationship with her? Are you guys friends?"

"No, definitely not," Emma chuckles. She pauses for a moment to listen to the muffled voices coming from the other side of the phone, and then follows up with, "Most of the time we're at war with each other, but I think we get each other, and in the end, what we're always fighting over is the fact that both love the same kid more than anything."

Neal opens his mouth to answer that, but gets halted by Emma holding up her finger to pause him. She indicates towards the phone as if to suggest that David is speaking to her again. He nods, and just waits.

"She said she's only feeling slight sensations from Regina now," David says suddenly, his voice breaking up. "Whatever Gold gave her, it's starting to wear off. She can tell that Regina is in pain, but not a lot more."

"Well then I think it's time we stop focusing on feelings and get down to the action," Emma tells him. "You took the back, we have the front."

"Right. Be careful, Emma. Please."

"You, too." She hangs up the cell, jams it into her pocket and then nods at Neal. She sees him take a breath. "Hey," she says. "It's going to be okay."

"Okay," he agrees, and then pushes the door open. He lets her step in front of him – not like she asks for permission, and besides, she has the gun – and then he follows behind her as they move through the dark damp building which smells horribly of dead fish. He thinks that it might be a long while before he has the urge for any kind of seafood after this.

"Neal," Emma whispers. "I think there's some kind of foreman's office or something like that up there," she says, gesturing with her empty hand.

"You know, horror movies start like this," he grumbles.

"Have a lot of time for those did you?" she shoots back.

"When you're an idiot who lets the woman they love go, actually yes."

She shoots him a look meant to tell him that this is neither the time nor place for this conversation, and thankfully, he nods his acceptance of this.

"I don't see anyone in there," he says instead.

"We should still check it out just in case," she insists as she starts moving towards the little office before he has a chance to argue. She hears him grunt in protest but then he's right behind her, his fingers wrapped around a metal length of pipe that he'd found on the ground.

It's when they reach the office and look inside the window that she feels an icy cold chill go through her blood. Inside of the little room is an empty metal gurney with thick brown restraining straps drooping down from it, an old looking machine with massive dials and levels on it that reminds Emma of something out of – yes – a bad horror movie and several wires with tiny little suction cups on the end of them.

"What is this?" Emma queries as they move to stand behind the gurney.

"Electrocution," Neal explains, his voice grim. "Jesus."

"Are you sure?" She asks as she lifts one of the restraining straps. It's slightly bent as if to suggest that someone had been surging against it.

"Yeah. I…well, it doesn't really matter why or how, but I got pretty well acquainted with some of the terrible ways that this world fucks over people once I returned here from Neverland. Thankfully, I never had the pleasure of having to experience this stuff myself, but yeah, that machine there is meant to electrocute someone. To torture them, basically."

Emma lets his words and their awful implications wash over her like ice-cold water. Finally, her voice low and trembling, "Okay fine, this explains what Mary Margaret felt, but where the hell is Regina now?"

"Dead," a man's voice replies from the doorway. "I killed her."

"Greg?" Emma snaps as she and Neal turn to face the mysterious outsider who'd swept into all of their lives week earlier.

"She should have let me die when I crashed on my way into town," he chuckles as he aims a gun at the two of them. "But you didn't, and she did and now you will. It's nothing personal. Well, I mean it was with her, but you two, it's about the mission, you understand, right?"

"I understand that you're completely insane," Emma growls. Her eyes flicker around the room as she tries to find a way to escape; there's an open door behind them, but getting to it will cause both she and Neal to have to completely expose themselves to Greg and Tamara. Then again, right now the only thing separating them from the two lunatics is the metal gurney. If shots start getting fired, someone is going to get hit.

"I'm not insane," he assures her. "I'm just a heartbroken son who wanted vengeance and found a way to get it. I had that right, and I took it."

"Do you feel better now?" Emma demands.

"Actually, I do," he grins. "Knowing how much suffering she will go…" he cuts off, shakes his head and then corrects with, "How much suffering she did go through before she died, well yeah, I feel pretty much like my father was finally avenged. I feel...I feel good."

"Where's Tamara," Neal blurts out, his frustration bleeding through; he has to know if she is part of this. Has to know if he really was so wrong.

"I'm here," she says softly, stepping out from behind Greg, a small pistol settled in her own hand. "I'm sorry that you had to find out this way."

"You lied to me," he yells, his eyes wide. He looks at Emma who is still wearing a look of shock and then back over to Tamara, "I trusted you."

"You'd think by now you'd know better that to do that," Tamara replies gently. "But for what it's worth, Neal, I never…I don't want to hurt you."

"It's worth nothing because now you're planning to kill me, right?"

"I have to. It's the mission."

"This is absurd," Emma states. "What mission?"

"To get rid of magic," Greg replies, seeming giddy. "And today, we did exactly that by killing the Evil Queen. She'll never hurt anyone ever again; you should be thanking me for ridding this world of her evil."

"She had a child, you stupid bastard," Emma tells him, her anger mounting into something explosive. Her finger clenches around the trigger and it takes everything she has not to start firing away.

"And I had a father," he snarls. "One that she took from me."

"Do you really think that killing her makes you better than her?"

"I know that it does," he announces, lifting his chin and staring at her, his blue eyes insane. "I stopped her, and I'm going to stop everyone in this town. Including you. I'm going to put you in the ground next to her."

"You can try," Emma snaps back.

"Enough," Tamara says, her voice calm. "You don't have to explain yourself, Greg. They can't possibly understand." She lifts her gun up, and points it right at Neal. "I am sorry for this; I hope you know that."

"You don't have to do this," he pleads. "Tamara, come on, think about this, please. You loved me at least a little bit, right?"

"As much as you ever loved me," she answers, smiling at Emma. "And I think if I had loved you, that would have bothered me."

And then she fires her gun at the same time that two other shots go off.

It's chaos after that; on the opposite side of the door that Emma had been looking to make her escape through, David is crouched down with Mary Margaret, using the wall as cover as he fires back at Greg and Tamara.

"Emma!" David calls out as he pulls back, just barely missing getting hit by a final bullet being fired from Tamara's gun before Greg grabs her arm, and the two of them turn and flee like the cowards that they are.

"David!" she calls back as she sags to the floor. She can feel Neal's dead weight rested against her body, and there's something wet inside of her clothing, something that smells a lot like blood. "Neal's been hit," she whispers.

"So have you," David notes, seeing blood on the sleeve of her jacket. She can feel Mary Margaret's arms around her, and they're warm and soft, but everything inside of is suddenly so very cold and painful.

"It doesn't matter," Emma whispers as she leans down and presses her mouth to Neal's forehead, her lips warm against his rapidly cooling flesh. She doesn't even need to search for a pulse to know that he's already gone; when Tamara had fired the first shot – directly at Emma's heart – Neal had jumped in the way and taken a bullet to the chest.

Perhaps the stupid fool had seen as it as a form of a redemption or penance or something equally idiotic and unnecessary like that.

All she sees it as is losing another person.

BANGOR, MAINE – MAY, 2013

"You're late," she says coolly, her eyebrow arched as she regards the driver as he steps out of the van, his hands jammed in his pockets and his head appropriately lowered to show the expected amount of reverance. "You were due here two hours ago. What happened?" Before he can even think to answer, she glances towards the van and then continues with, "Is the Queen all right? Were there problems in transit?"

"There were," the driver says. "Her heart stopped about twenty minutes outside of Storybrooke. Don't worry; the doc got it going again."

"Very good." She looks behind her. "Get her moved to the medical bay. She's to be treated with the utmost care. She is royalty, after all." She chuckles when she says this. Then, in a more serious, "Be mindful not to adjust the cuff she has on; in this building, her magic will be available to her again, and we certainly don't' wish to allow the Queen access to it."

"Got it," one of the guards who's been standing by the doorway answers. He and his partner slide around to the door of the van, and then yank it open to reveal Regina's unconscious form. She's on an ambulance gurney now instead of the metal one that she'd been on before, but it's doubtful she cares much about the so-called comfort being offered. She's pale and sweaty, and there are signs of burst blood vessels around her eyes.

"Careful," the doctor who is sitting next to Regina says. "The Queen is quite fragile right now, and it wouldn't take much to inspire another cardiac episode that she might not survive." He moves a stethoscope around, and then stands up. "My dear," he greets as he steps in front of the woman who runs the Home Office. "It's been an entirely too long." He offers her a cocky smile, but she simply stares back at him.

As unimpressed as ever.

He's reminded again that this is a business deal; he'd being handsomely paid to ensure that the Queen had made it here alive, and now he'll be further compensated to help everyone back home believe that she's dead.

Something inside of him feels just the slightest pang of guilt at this; while she certainly deserves to be punished and perhaps even lose her life for all that she has done, and all that she has taken away, he wonders if she deserves the sheer amount of pain that she's about to be forced to endure.

Does anyone?

His head cocks to the side and he watches as the gurney is lifted out of the van. He sees Regina's pain glazed dark eyes open for just the briefest of moments and he wonders if she actually sees him, wonders if she recognizes him as she seems to stare right back at him. But then her head is lolling to the side and she's letting out these unnerving troubled gasps of air as she desperately tries to breathe, and though life and death and all such things have always fascinated him far more than they probably should, he finds himself looking away from her clear agony.

"Does her pain bother you?" his employer asks with a knowing smirk.

He forces a sneer across his lips and then waves his hand dismissively. "Of course not. All I care about is that you keep your promises to me."

"Worry not about that, darling; all of the deals that we've struck will be honored. Now, if we're done speaking of such trivial things, you should be getting back to Storybrooke promptly. Your absence is sure to be noticed if my operatives do as they're supposed to do."

The doctor reacts with surprise. "What are they doing?"

"Killing as many people as they can," she answers with a smile that causes his blood to run cold; even Regina hadn't treated life so carelessly.

"Wait, that wasn't part of –"

"Now you're deciding to be morale, are you, Doctor?" she chides.

"The Queen deserves her fate," he answers, ignoring the part of his mind that is continuing to scream at him that no one deserves the kind of hurt that Regina is about to undergo. "Others in Storybrooke don't."

"Then I'd say you best be getting back there so that you can play hero."

He studies her for a moment, thinking about how he's turning over one monster to another, and wondering if the Queen's way hadn't been better. But what's done is done, and the revenge that he'd sworn he'd have, he now has; whatever else happens here, Regina will never be the same.

"When will I hear from you again?"

"When I need something from you. All of your promised supplies and equipment has been delivered to your lab in Storybrooke, and thus, there should be no further need for communication. At least for now."

"Fine by me," he says. "How do I get back? We're a couple hours away."

She nods to the driver. "Take him to the line of Storybrooke." She smiles at him as she then as her eyes slip over the medal attached to his shirt. "Do be careful, darling," she urges. "We wouldn't that to fall off. I'd hate for you to lose your memory and become your cursed self again."

"That sounds like a threat," the doctor notes, his jaw clenching.

"Hardly. Be well, Doctor." And with that, she turns and walks away.

"Relax, lad," the driver chuckles. "If the Boss had wanted you to be Dr. Whale again, she would have done it herself. She's just playing with you, because she enjoys watching people squirm and shiver. Even allies."

"Right," Victor growls. "Get me back to Storybrooke."

STORYBROOKE, MAINE - JUNE 2013

She's standing in the cemetery, glancing down at the gray tombstone when she hears the squish squish of footsteps coming up behind her. They're uncoordinated and heavy, and it sounds to her like the person fast approaching is at the very least slightly if not completely inebriated.

"Hello, love," she hears and then Hook is standing next to her. He smells terribly, and looks even worse, his hair uncombed and his beard unkempt.

"Hook," she notes. "Where have you been for the last month?"

"Laying low," he says before he lifts a flask up to his lips.

"I buy the low part," Emma states, her tone dry. She reaches for Hook's flask, and then stops immediately, her sore arm sending a shot of pain through her. The bullet wound that she'd suffered in the initial fight with Greg and Tamara is mostly healed now, but her movement is still fairly limited and according to Doctor Whale, likely will be for awhile to come.

She'll heal eventually; Whale had assured her in the most unusually sympathetic tone she'd ever heard from him, but only with time

A perfect analogy for Storybrooke.

"Just rum," he sighs, his eyes following hers.

"Right. Were you looking for me in particular or…"

"No, happened to be wandering by on the way back to my ship, and I saw you here. Over him." He looks down and then, quietly, "I'm sorry."

She snorts derisively. "What are you sorry for? For drinking yourself into a stupor thanks to some pity party while the rest of us were fighting for our lives against the lunatics you teamed up with or you're sorry for…"

"I'm sorry for letting this happen, for letting him die," Hook answers, his voice trembling softly. "I didn't…I didn't even know who he was until after…until I heard he was the first one to get killed. You know, all I wanted was my revenge and I didn't care how that happened, and now it's all lead to the death of Milah's boy and…it wasn't worth it."

"Seems like that's the story of this town. Regina wanted revenge on my mother for not being able to keep her mouth shut, you wanted revenge on Rumple for killing your lover, Greg wanted it on Regina for murdering his father, and no one cared who got caught in between all this hatred. It wasn't worth it for anyone. Greg is dead and Regina…"

She stops when she sees Hook bring the flask to his mouth and take a long drag, his haunted blue eyes admitting entirely too many things.

"Hook, do you know what happened to her?" she asks gently.

"They tortured her," he says.

"We know."

"No, you don't. You think they pumped a little electricity into her and let her die, but that's not how it went down. They took her to the edge of death over and over, and each time she came close to falling over, they pulled her back and then started it all over again. And the scary part, love, is that I'm quite certain that they were capable of some much worse than even that. Whoever their employers were, they are sociopaths."

" I think we figured that out for ourselves over the last several weeks," Emma replies grimly. " Do you know if they killed Regina?"

"They must have," Hook replies, his expression somber and haunted as he considers his own part in her certain death. Yes, she had betrayed him, but horrific lines had been crossed that even had repulsed even a man who had doled out many a terrible punishment during his days on the high seas. "Because no one – not even the Queen – could survive that kind of nightmare," he continues. "That Mendell boy, he was as angry as I've ever been, and he wanted her to hurt as much as he did. And she did."

"We never found a body."

"There's a thousand horrible ways to humiliate someone after they're dead," Hook reminds her, his expression vaguely sickly as he likely considers his own ugly past. "I imagine Mendell found a few of them."

"Right. And that just made this all a little bit worse."

"I'm sorry," Hook tells her. "I tried to walk away when they started doing what they were doing to Regina because that's not what this ever supposed to be about and…I just wanted to avenge Milah. And I failed."

"And now? Do you go after Gold? Do we just keep going on this path until everyone has failed at getting at vengeance but everyone else has paid the price for it?" She gestures around the cemetery and then down towards the tombstone. "Neal died protecting me. Please, no more."

"It's over," Hook assures her. "I don't want…I just want her back."

"You have to let her go and you have to live. Someone should."

"I don't know how."

"You're asking the wrong person," Emma replies with a self-depreciating snort. "I'm trying to figure how to help my son through losing the person he loved more than anything else in the world – even if he didn't know it or show it like he should have – and the father he wanted to get to know. I don't know how to do right by him, but I have to try. I'm not cut out to be his only mom, but that's what vengeance has left me with. You?"

"I have a bean," he says.

"You have a bean? As in like –"

"A portal creating one, yes. I think that maybe it's time for me to head back to where I belong. Time to return to the Enchanted Forest. There's nothing for me here. Maybe there never was."

"I think that's a good idea," Emma tells him after a moment. "And maybe help some of the people who actually want to go back. Offer up your ship for the journey. Be a good guy, Hook, and lead these people home."

"You have a lot of faith in me," he muses, his hand slipping into his pocket. She sees him something dark out, but it's hard to make out what it is thanks to how shadowed the cemetary is right now.

"Maybe, but mostly I just think that none of us were meant to be standing in a cemetery drinking away our pain. I have my family, and that's…well that's something. It's time to find something for yourself, too, Hook. It's time to move on and let go and find your happiness." She wrinkles her nose. "And maybe take a shower and get yourself a change of clothes."

He chuckles and then offers her what's probably meant to be a charismatic smile intended to charm her her pants off of her. Because of his intoxication, though, it comes off as mostly rather sleepy and slightly lecherous. "And what if you're my happiness, Swan?"

She snorts. "Probably not going to work out for you, Hook."

"No, probably not," he agrees. "How's the arm? You're favoring it."

"It's better."

"Good." He shuffles his feet and then takes one last hit from his flask before pocketing it and turning to her again. "Do me a favor?"

"Depends?"

He smiles at her wariness. "This favor one isn't for me, Swan; it's for Regina. It's something that I think you need to know, and maybe eventually, your boy does, too."

"Okay," Emma says softly. "Tell me."

He holds up his hook and she sees now that there's a black diamond settled into the loop of it. "The Queen was desperate at the end. She believed that she was going to be abandoned by your parents and that she would lose her son, and she was willing to do something terrible. After they took her, I had a few minutes alone with her, and she told me exactly what her plan had been. And then she told me how to stop them by taking this away from them. This is a trigger that would have destroyed all of Storybrooke and killed everyone inside of it except for Henry."

"Jesus," Emma mutters, unable to hide to disgust.

"She stopped it. She saved everyone."

"I don't understand."

"Greg and Tamara had taken the diamond from her. She asked me to steal it back, and told me how to deactivate it permanently before it could be activated. She believed that she was going to die, and she could have taken everyone - all of her enemies - down with her; your boy would lived, and that's all she cared about, but him not being alone, she cared about that more. Regina did horrible things, and so have I, but when it mattered the most, she loved her son and that what was strongest in her."

"Thank you," Emma says, accepting the black diamond as he drops it into her hands.

Hook nods, and then steps away from her. His eyes drop down to Neal's tombstone one last time and he holds them there for a long moment – his face full of grief and sadness - and then she hears the retreating squish-squish of his boots as he walks across the wet grass of the cemetery.

She stays for a few more minutes, talking to Neal and hoping that somehow, he can hear her. Hoping that he knows that she forgives him.

As she turns to leave, her eyes settle on the Mills Crypt. Regina isn't there – and part of Emma doesn't believe she's dead – but just seeing the building makes her think of how much Henry has lost recently.

Far too much.

"You and I were never friends and I think that most of the time we pretty much hated each other, "Emma says, her eyes on the word MILLS. "But I think we also respected each other underneath of that so I'm going to need your help now. I need you to help me be strong enough for Henry. If you were strong enough to not break with Greg and Tamara after what they did, then I know you can be strong enough for our son. I don't even care if you do it in your typically asshole way, Regina, but he needs you and so do I. So do me a favor, all right? Make sure that you're watching out for us somehow or another." She chews on her bottom lip for a moment, then adds, "And if you are still alive somewhere out there, then hold on because I'll find a way to get you home to your son. I will."

She waits for a response that she knows isn't coming, and then, with a loud sigh of irritation and a resigned chuckle, she turns and heads home.

BANGOR, MAINE – NOVEMBER, 2016

His name is Connor Matthews, and he's already having a pretty damned weird day thanks to spilled coffee on a keyboard, his three year old son biting the dog, and some of the neediest customers on the face of the planet, but absolutely nothing compares to what he sees when he looks up from his cell (hey, he's stopped at a red light) just in time to see a naked woman stumble right into oncoming traffic like she's drunk.

She's small, maybe about five-four or so, and she's almost abnormally thin. She has dark hair, he thinks, but it's cut so strangely close to her scalp that it's hard to be sure. What he call tell, though, is that her eyes (they look brown or black) appear to be glazed over and unfocused.

He doesn't hesitate; he puts his car in park, and jumps out and then races towards the woman just as a truck comes to a hard screeching stop just inches away from slamming into her. The driver is yelling at her, but she seems completely oblivious to him and yeah, she's got to be drunk.

Or high.

Or crazy as hell.

Either way, she's going to get herself killed.

"Hey," he calls out as he approaches her. "Are you all right?" He's already pulling off his jacket, but he does it even faster when he starts to actually see her; this isn't a matter of seeing a naked woman and thinking maybe it's his lucky day because there's little attractive about this lady.

No, the truth is that the closer he get to her, the more he sees the heavy lines of fresh cuts, old scars and dark bruises that wrap every part of her body like someone has been using her skin as a canvas for their paints.

Someone has hurt this woman terribly, and it makes absolutely ill. He thinks of the sweet girl that he loves, and then his mind goes no further than that because if someone ever tried to do what's been done here to her, he would…he doesn't know, but he thinks it'd be awful.

His eyes narrow as he sees purple and blue marks circling around her wrists and ankles that look like they were made with thick ropes. There are deep and shallow cuts across her face, and temple, and yeah, she's definitely dark haired. And though he tries not to look, he can't stop himself from seeing a long red scar that stretches from her left shoulder to the swell of her exposed breast. "Hey," he says again.

She looks up at him and she seems surprised, perhaps even alarmed by his sudden proximity. "Don't," she says. She looks around, then, and it's like something switches on in her brain because she seems to abruptly realize that she's somewhere that she shouldn't be.

Around him, he can feel others gathering, their irritation with her having faded and turned to curiosity as they, too, take in the disturbing damage that has been done to entirely too small body. Someone moves to his side, and whispers that he's called for assistance, and Connor just nods his thanks, and keeps slowly moving towards her, hands out in front of him.

"I'm going to put this over you," Connor tells her as he holds up his jacket so that she can see it. "It's pretty cold out here, and you look like you're freezing," he adds, and that's absolutely the truth – Maine in mid November is absolutely grigid – but this is more about keeping others from staring at her (he doesn't know why he cares, he just does and that's enough) because she's clearly suffered enough already.

He moves closer to her, and he can see the way she tenses in anticipation, her broken body tilted and oddly angled, but still somehow standing up.

It occurs to him that she's expecting him to attack her.

"My name is Connor," he says softly as he gets right up next to her. "And you're going to be okay." When she doesn't protest his closeness more than by continuing to be tense, he slides the jacket over her; he's over six feet tall, and it's a thick winter coat so it falls over her body completely.

"Thank you," she whispers.

He allows a small smile of relief. "Yeah, of course."

Somewhere behind him, he hears the sound of an ambulance. Judging by the way she flinches at the loud noise, it clearly hurts her ears. Or maybe it triggers something in her because she seems to retreat from it like she's afraid. He's vaguely reminded of video he's seen of dogs trained to fight.

"It's okay," he starts to say again as he pulls the sides of the jacket closed around her. He'd like to zip it but he figures the medics will want access to her in case there's some significant damage they need to address,

But then suddenly she's falling to the dirty asphalt of the ground, her unsteady legs having finally given out from beneath her, and it takes everything he has to catch her before she hurts herself even more.

Many years later, when he allows himself to think back on a woman that he knew for all of thirty minutes – and not even knew so much as encountered in the strangest possible way of all – he'll remember the strange burst of relief that had shot through her red-rimmed dark eyes.

"I can see the sky," she says as she lies in his arms staring upwards. "It's so blue." She laughs, and it sounds strangely hysterical, oddly completely out of character for this woman, and he hasn't the foggiest clue as to why that is considering he doesn't know her at all.

"Yeah," he agrees, looking over at the EMTs as they approach. "It's a beautiful day." He stands up and moves out of the way as the paramedics take over, each of them saying ugly sounding medical words.

He hears one of the medics ask her for her name, and the haunted look she responds with chills his blood. "I don't have one," she responds dully before her eyes roll backwards and she collapses into unconsciousness.

He doesn't ask for his jacket back.

NOVEMBER, 2016 – STORYBROOKE, MAINE

He's just a hair over fifteen years old, and he's entirely too tall, lean and gawky these days, but as Henry Mills stands in front of the full-length mirror in his bedroom (one of his mother's favorite ones), smiling just slightly at his reflection, he can't help but be appreciative of what he sees looking back at him. He's in a charcoal colored suit and a green tie, and he thinks to himself that right now, he looks pretty damned good indeed.

"So do we have the talk now?" Emma teases as she steps into the room.

"Please, no," Henry laughs as she approaches and gazes at his tie. He can tell that she's wondering if she should call Snow or David for help so he rests a hand on her forearm. "Don't worry," he tells her gently. "I got this. I think I was three when mom showed me how to tie one of these.

"I'm getting better with them," she tells him.

"You are," he agrees. "Last time you only choked me for ten seconds."

"You really are a little shit," she tells him. "But you're a handsome one."

"Yes, I am," he grins. It falls away for a moment, though, and his eyes track back to the mirror. "My first date at my first high school dance," he says with a wistful sigh. "I keep expecting her to come into the room and start brushing lint off my jacket and fussing like crazy. Stupid, right? I mean it's been over three years now. I know she's not coming back."

"It's not stupid to miss your mom, kid."

"But it is stupid to keep hoping she's alive when we know she's not."

Emma pauses for a moment. Everyone has been telling her that she needs to start moving Henry down the path of letting go and accepting Regina's death, but it seems strange to her that in a town that has rebuilt itself numerous times on the very idea of having hope, that should be asked to tear the last bit of it away from Henry. Maybe it's the right thing to do as an adult, but as his mother, she can't do that to him and won't.

"You'll know when it's time to stop believing, Henry. Until then, follow your heart and I believe in whatever it believes," Emma replies. "And what I believe right now is that Regina would think what I think, which is that you are the most handsome man in Storybrooke, and Anna is going to be blown away." She wrinkles her nose. "Not too much, though."

"Was that a sex joke?" he asks.

She groans. "No. Yes. I'm just saying, I know how things can get."

"And I'm just saying chill. I'm a good boy who knows better, and I'm going to be a gentleman tonight," Henry assures her. "Don't worry."

"I'm not. I don't. Not about you. Not about her. I just…"

"Want to make sure I'm prepared for everything. Be calm, Ma, I am."

"Yeah, all right, fine. You sure you don't want me to do your tie."

"I'm sure."

"Okay. Curfew at eleven. I'm working late, but if you need anything…"

"I won't, but if I do, I'll call."

She nods, smiles at him once more, and then starts from the room before coming to a stop. "Kid, I don't know if your mom is alive out there somewhere or not, but what I do know is that she loved you more than anything in this world or any other, and she'd be so damned proud of the man you're becoming. She's be over the moon at seeing you like this."

"Then take a picture."

"What?"

"For her." He shrugs his shoulders like it doesn't mean as much as it clearly does to him. "In case she is out there. Because if she is, then we both know that someone is keeping her from coming back, but I know my mom, and she'll find her way to me whatever it takes. However long it takes. So yeah, when she comes home, I want her to see today."

"Okay," Emma nods. She pulls her cell from her pocket. "Smile." She laughs when he gives her his best player grin, something that looks like he's trying to seduce her. "Like she's your mother, jerk." And that does the trick; his smile softens into something wistful and lovely.

She looks at the picture and nods.

"Good?" he asks.

"Perfect," she confirms. "And for what it's worth, kid, I love you more than anything in this world or any other, too. And I'm just as proud."

"I know," he tells, a bright smile on his face. "Now get out of here, I got to finish getting ready to make a grand entrance. Because you know that I have to." He wiggles his eyebrows. "I am the Queen's son, after all."

"I know," she drawls. She shakes her head in amusement, and then turns and leaves his bedroom, shutting the door quietly behind her.

BANGOR, MAINE (ST. JOHN'S HOSPITAL) – MARCH, 2017

She's in the middle of a particularly frustrating therapy session (the movement in her leg remains poor and the pain severe enough to require a nearly constant stream of narcotics in addition to the use of that awful cane) when a blinding headache suddenly overtakes her – thanks to an explosive fit of rage that had seemed to come from somewhere deep within her chest - and when it finally eases back and she can see again, she finds herself able to remember her own name for the first time since she'd woken up in a hospital room a few days before Christmas.

Since then, everyone has been calling her Jane; it's a name she doesn't much care for, but until now, she's never quite understood why.

The answer is simple, of course; Jane is a commoner's name. It's so very

And you are a Queen, Regina.

Mother, she realizes, and then quickly retreats from the other memories. Though she doesn't know exactly - or even vaguely - why yet, she knows that these are ones that she doesn't actually want back.

She feels the doctor's hand settle on her shoulder, and she can hear him asking her if she's okay. He keeps saying the name Jane over and over.

"Regina," she whispers, looking up at him with tears in her eyes.

"What?"

"My name is Regina. Regina Mills."

"You remember?"

"My name," she says again. "I remember my name."

"Okay, Regina, that's...that's great," he replies, and he's smiling so widely because he thinks that this is a major step for her on the road to recovery for her. He thinks this is the way back home, and that this is progress.

She knows the truth, though; some things are better left forgotten.

And being Regina Mills once again – and remembering who she was (right now, it's more vague sensations and emotions than actual distinct memories, but she can feel the dread as though it's tangible) isn't hope.

It's a nightmare.

Hers.

And now, she's returned to it.

TBC…

For anyone interested, I can be found on Tumblr at sgtmac7