Regina's dark brown eyes trailed across the sight of Henry hugging Emma, is birth mother. She knew she should have been happy for them, for both of them but she could only work up bitterness towards the woman who took her son from her.
Regina had sacrificed everything in order to save her son from Neverland, she had sacrificed more than any of the others knew, more than any of the others would ever know, and for what? Once more watching on as her son hugged his other mother first and then gave her one that wasn't as warm as they used to be. He pulled away from her grasp sooner, and his eyes didn't sparkle with love for her, like they used to. She had taken it away from her. Emma Swan took everything away from her, yet she was powerless against her. She couldn't help but hope that one day if she was kind enough to the intolerable woman, that someday Henry might forgive her that much more.
She felt a pang of worry echo throughout her. What if her son forgot all about her? She didn't think she could live with that. No, she knew that she couldn't live with that. The very fact that her son might forget about the fact that she was his mother worried her to no ends. She didn't just want his love, she needed it. Though she knew it was selfish, she couldn't help it. Even the slightest chance that Henry would consider someone else to be more of a mother to him that she was made her feel so enraged that she had to restrain herself from doing something horrible to Emma then and there. She needed her son to love, it was more than a desire, it was a physical need for her at this point.
With a small sigh she turned away from her son reuniting with Emma, her hopes for a hug herself now gone. Of course it wouldn't matter. Ever since that woman had come into their lives everything had changed for them. Even now there were always little things that she noticed, even with his hugs. They were never as tight as before, he always pulled away from her quicker, like he didn't want to touch her for to long. When he said I love you it was never as meaningful. Everything about him was different when it came to dealing with her, and it would never be the same.
She descended the staircase to below deck, where her bed currently lay, as she was unable to get back to Storybrooke at the the present moment, and from the sounds of it, they wouldn't be getting back there anytime soon. Magical star maps may work, but they were slow from what she could gather, and it could take a few months for them to get back. Hopefully it wouldn't take that long, as she didn't think she could survive Snow and her idiot prince much longer before she did something about it, if only temporarily. She didn't think that Snow would be to keen on kissing the prince if he was a rabbit. A frog would be much to cliche in her mind, and she didn't want to risk them trying to do a reenactment of the princess and the frog, even though this world got the details all wrong, though the land without magic always did, sometimes disregarding the story completely when it didn't fit their definition of a fairytale.
Second's passed, and then so did minutes, during which she could only think back to before, when she had went to stall Peter Pan and the lost boy's in an attempt to let Henry get out safely. She had thought for sure that she would be killed instantly, and yet, she had thought it might be enough, she had hoped that it would be enough. Though to her surprise, they didn't kill her. No, they had let her make the choice of her fate herself.
Regina looked on as Peter Pan and his band of lost boys were about to move in on her son, preventing them from getting to him. She had to do something do stop them and save him, but what could she do? She wouldn't, couldn't let them keep her son as their captive, but she had no clue how to save him. Her magic was nearly depleted and she didn't have enough to fight off all the lost boy's along with Pan. The other's may have had weapon's but they were useless against a group of lost boys with hundreds of years more training than they had. Without magic they didn't stand a chance.
Finally, after a moment of standstill between the two parties, Regina knew what she would have to do. With a wave of her hand she used her magic to send Henry back to the Jolly Roger, where at the very least he would be able to escape unscathed, as they had left their method of escape back at the ship for safekeeping. He was a smart boy and she knew that he would be able to figure it out. After she was sure that her son was going to be okay she focused her magic on rescuing the other's. Henry would never forgive her if she didn't try to help everyone else before her own escape.
First she did Emma, so at least he would still have one mother, even if it wasn't her. In a puff of purple smoke she disappeared back to the Jolly Roger, along with the Pirate, her grip being on his arm, as she appeared to be bleeding from something. Regina could only hope that it wasn't to serious, though knowing Neverland Emma could be dying within the next ten minutes. Next she transported Snow and the idiot prince back to the ship, though she did it begrudgingly. It seemed her life would be in a constant rotation between attempting to murder Snow, and saving her life.
Then, after she was sure that she had saved everyone else that was there at least, Tinkerbell and Rumplestiltskin being nowhere around and her not having enough time to search for them after the lost boys had turned their sights on her, she was about ready to transport herself back to the ship with her magic, before the realization hit her: she had used to much. She didn't have anymore magical energy. Still she would be damned if she didn't try to do something. She tried to transport herself back to the ship, and even saw the first tendrils of the purple magic she had grown used to, when it stopped, and she found herself growing dizzy before everything went black.
She knew she shouldn't be thinking of that moment, especially knowing what came next, but she couldn't help herself, it was to much to handle otherwise. The very thought of being treated like less of Henry's mother than Emma made her blood boil since the very beginning of the whole ordeal. But now with what she had sacrificed it was even worse. It made her feel the kind of rage she had long since forgotten about, though she had felt it every day for years. The kind of anger that swallowed you whole until nothing else mattered. It made sense though when she considered the events after her unconsciousness.
When she woke up Regina tried to stretch her arms, but to her surprise she couldn't. She felt her wrists struggling against what felt like rope. That's when she remembered what had happened before she became unconscious. She was fighting Pan and had helped the other's escape when she had overexerted her magic. Now she was Pan's captive and could only wonder about why she wasn't dead yet. Unless of course he was going to use her in one of his sadistic and twisted games, something which would not surprise Regina in the least.
She decided against making noise and alerting Pan and the lost boys to the fact that she was now awake, though she found it was in vain when she heard his voice behind her saying "you won't be using your magic for a while" in a casual tone, almost as if he could care less about her. But she knew that wasn't true. If he didn't care about her at all she would be dead by now. There had to be something that he wanted from her, she just didn't know what it was, but she did know that she would find out.
"And is that your doing, or my own" Regina asked, her voice more a snarl than anything. She was not about to let a child control her, his real age be damned. He still had a mentality that was just as immature as Henry's was, not that she was complaining about her son being naive and innocent still, but Peter Pan irked her. He would have enraged her even without the fact that he had kidnapped her son, but because he had, she was beyond enraged. She was going to enjoy killing him, the opinion of the other's be damned.
"Your's of course. You could leave right now for all I care" he said with a smirk, knowing full well that she wouldn't, couldn't escape. Regina only wished that she could know what was going on inside of his little head, though she was sure she would go insane from the overwhelming amounts of anger she would feel for the boy if she did.
"Skip to the point. Why am I here? What do you have planned for me" she asked him, her patience already growing thin with him and his mind tricks. She had never quite mastered the art of patience and this boy only pushed the limits with more speed and reason than anybody else had before, even Snow White, and with the infuriating optimism and martyr complex the girl had, that was saying something. Regina didn't know if she should congratulate the boy, or think up extremely unpleasant death's for him.
"Henry's alive you know. Your trick succeeded. And yet I haven't killed you " he said mocking her and every thought about him that she had thought, and proving them wrong immediately. Yes, she was really going to enjoy his death, whenever it happened.
"So, why don't you tell me why you haven't killed me yet, instead of playing your mind games on me" she said, resisting the urge to attempt to escape and kill him with her bare hands. At least her death at the hands of the lost boy's would hold some levels of satisfaction for her then.
"Because there would be no fun in that. No, instead I'm going to give you a choice about your fate. I assure you, both are unpleasant, but it would be that so much more fun to watch you make that decision yourself" he said, his smirk turning into a large grin.
"And if I refuse to choose" Regina asked hoping to find a way to stall, though she knew that he would have had the foresight to have an even more horrifying fate for her should she fail to make the choice.
"Then" he said, his grin growing even wider " I'll kill Henry right in front of you."
Regina's skin paled. She couldn't allow her son to die because of her. It would be more horrific than any other fate's Pan could conjure. Something he must have known.
"And what are the options" she asked him, hoping that neither of them would be to painful or unpleasant, because while she would gladly go through hell to assure her son's happiness, that didn't mean that she had to enjoy it.
"Well" he said, clapping his hands together "the first one is fairly straightforward. You die after your magic is fully recharged, and it becomes a sacrifice to keep Neverland running. However, the second one is much more complicated... and fun" he said, before he held up a vial of a dark, shimmering red liquid that though Regina was sure she had seen somewhere, she didn't quite remember where. "This is Raven's blood" he said, his voice becoming a whisper in her ear. "And it's effects are quite amusing to watch. Every emotion you feel, whether it be love, hate, anger, or even despair, you feel tenfold. And that's not even the best part."
Regina already knew that whatever his plans for her were, they wouldn't be good. If having every emotion she felt intensified wasn't a bad enough fate, then she shuddered to think what the worst was, though she already knew that Pan was going to tell her anyways.
"Raven's blood target's the weak parts of your heart. Every time you let your protection down, it eats at some other part of your being. And the first part of it is love. And the only cure is true love's kiss. To bad you don't have a true love anymore" he said with a smirk.
"And why would I choose that fate" Regina asked quietly, horrified at even the thought of living like that. She would never be able to bear the pain that it would cause inside of her, she already knew that much.
"Because if you do, you'll be returned to your son, and he won't ever know you were gone. None of them would."
In a way, Regina knew that it was her own fault for choosing the raven's blood, but she had to be able to see Henry again. Though it seemed that it was all in vain. He wasn't grateful to her for what she had sacrificed, because of course he didn't know about it. No one did. She was stuck with the pain that appeared every time she let her guard down. And though it had only happened once, she couldn't allow it to happen again.
She had long since lost track of time when the pirate walked down the stairs, catching Regina by surprise. Her room was the only one without another bed, or anything else in it, so that only left one reason for him being there. He had come to talk to her, of his own accord no less. Why, she wasn't sure but it couldn't be for any good reason. Not when the pirate was involved. She could only hope that it wasn't such a bad one that she would need to yell at him to get out. She was still weary from the adventure she had undertaken alone.
"What are ye doing in ere love" he asked her, with to Regina's surprise, not a hint of gloating, though she suspected that would soon change. The pirate could never go more than ten minutes without stroking his own ego, one of the many things about his personality that Regina had always loathed, though she thought that he might be exaggerating just a bit in an attempt to please someone. Nothing would surprise her when it came to the pirate.
"I just wanted to be alone" she said, trying to find some way, any way to make him leave. Though she did suppose that she was a bit touched by the fact that the pirate had come down to check on her, she would have thought that he would be busy with something else. Anything but talking to her, not after the multiple times they had backstabbed and attempted to murder each other. Yet he still came to check on her. It maddened her, he was an unsolved equation and she couldn't seem to get the right answer.
"Well you certainly look troubled love" he said, without a hint of victory in the words that left his lips. It almost sounded like he cared about her well-being.
"Leave me alone, or rest assured, you'll be the troubled one" Regina said, readying her magic in case the pirate seemed to be acting more stubborn than usual. She wasn't afraid of burning off his other hand. Though perhaps a prosthetic would be better than a second hook for the pirate once they got back to Storybrooke. One weapon that was actually a part of his body was more than enough for the pirate in her opinion.