Emma Swan sat on the edge of the hospital bed and held the hand of her son. "Henry, don't ever take a risk like that again."
The young boy gave her a weak smile. "It made you break the curse. Storybrooke is free."
She tossled his short brown hair. "Yeah, it's free, and yes you were right all along." Free, but where was Gold and what was in that potion he stole? And for that matter, where did Regina rush off to, now that Henry was safe? "Next time, try to find a less deadly way to make a beliver out of me, okay?"
Henry nodded. His eyes drooped shut, and Emma shifted to a side chair to let him sleep. He'd been through so much lately, too much for a kid. She leaned back in her chair to watch him sleep. "It gets better from here, buddy, I promise."
Regina felt the return of magic to Storybrooke from the tips of her knee-high boots to the top of her raven black hair. The first strand of her deeply woven spell was broken by Emma Swan, their savior. A spell broken and an evil queen destroyed, just as she'd planned. Too bad for Storybrooke that the evil queen was Maleficient. Regina had one less opponent to worry about now.
Memories were returning to feable minds all through the isolated Main town, memories that wouldn't even begin to help them prepare for the next level of her spell. She knew what Gold was up to as well. She depended on it as the one thing she couldn't do on her own. A vial of the essence of true love had eluded her for years. Now he had it, and she only had to wait.
A smile escaped Regina's tight control as she felt the tingle of power in her fingertips for the first time in 28 years. "Welcome back, old friend. Shall we go introduce you to the neighbors?" She opened the front door of the palatial Mayor's manor and stepped outside to the cloudy Autumn afternoon. She raised her arms toward the sky. Dark clouds roiled overhead and as she dropped her arms in a quick motion, bolts of lightening crackled down to strike the old clock tower, the one Ms. Swan set into motion when she first invaded Storybrooke.
The clock face shattered and the tower burst into flame. Regina looked up into the sky, her sky, and laughed.