T/W for literally everything lol
But to be specific, there will be gun-shot and character death in later chapters so please be aware of this before you start reading this...however, I can promise a happy ending for people who need a light at the end of the tunnel lol Please do let me know if you are interested in more since I'm really motivated to write this one for some reason haha
Chapter one
Emma slowly brought a spoonful of soaking cornflakes up to her mouth, but she couldn't stop herself from yawing before the food actually made it into her mouth.
It hadn't exactly been difficult lately, so most would probably wonder exactly why exactly she was so tired, but there was one thing that hadn't been perfect since the curse had broken.
Regina.
Since the curse had ended, everyone had been acting as if she didn't exist, including Henry. To the ten-year-old it appeared as though the former Evil Queen was nothing more than the mayor; which was a sentiment that the whole town seemed to agree upon.
As much as everyone had been baying for Regina's blood that day, they had apparently realised that she was the only qualified person capable (and willing) to take on the role of mayor. So, after a few months had passed, there seemed to be some kind of mutual agreement that she could continue to keep her home and job so long as she didn't bother any of the townspeople. Emma had found it very odd that she stubborn woman had gone along with it, but then she had noticed her looking at Henry in the diner and something had occurred to her. Henry always looked so happy when he's with his supposed 'real' family and Emma would understand why Regina would withdraw from him rather than fighting for his attention. It was almost as if she felt as though she had official lost and any further persistence would make Henry unhappy.
At first, Emma hadn't really been bothered by this fact, since she hadn't really been thinking about Regina after the curse had broken. Her entire focus had been on the fact that fairy-tales were real and that she now had parents and was now a full-time parent herself. Focusing on other people hadn't really been at the top of her priority list.
But then, one random day, it had occurred to the saviour that there was someone missing from her life and in that moment, she had felt like a complete moron for forgetting that Regina Mills even existed. And since that moment epiphany, she had not been able to stop herself from noticing the woman around town.
Emma couldn't stop herself from staring when she was absolutely sure that the mayor wouldn't notice, and the more she did it, the more it bothered her.
Regina always looked so sad and lonely and Emma would always feel an intense guilt at the fact that she had taken three months to realise how isolated she had been. Now it had been another three months and the Saviour had yet to actually find the courage to go and talk to Regina.
For one, it had been far too long to be considered casual, and for two, it wasn't exactly as if they had been friends before the curse had broken. In fact, they had spent their days trying to destroy each other to the point where Regina had actually tried to poison her. Somehow, though, Emma was having a hard time reconciling that same woman with the one she had been seeing around town and she certainly had a hard time actually thinking of the brunette as the Evil Queen.
It had been so long since she had spoken to the woman, that when she received a message about attending a one-on-one meeting with the mayor regarding crime statistics, she had been sure she had forgotten how to breathe.
All of their correspondence since the end of the curs had taken place via the mayor's secretary and Regina had obviously been trying to put of this moment for as long as possible. Which was probably why Emma had only received notice about this meeting yesterday.
She had considered just sending her father to their meeting but the thought just made her cringe. It was no secret that the Charmings were not her biggest fans and Emma didn't want to put either of them into that horribly awkward situation. It was for this reason that she had spent a great deal of the night trying to fall asleep whilst also failing horribly to stop her endless thoughts.
Was she supposed to just act professionally during the meeting? If she did that then it wouldn't exactly last long, which somehow worried Emma more. She felt as though the first conversation with the woman who had raised her son for ten years should be longer than ten minutes.
"Mom?" a voice asked from behind her.
Emma jumped and then flinched when she realised that the milk and cornflakes that had been sitting on her spoon had splashed down she top. She frowned down at the stain running down the black material and sighed. She had strategically chosen to go with this specific top since she knew it looked good with her red leather jacket. Not that she was ready to admit aloud, but she had spent a great deal of time trying to decide what to wear. Almost subconsciously (or so she would claim) she had tried for hours this morning to pick something that she thought/hoped Regina would like.
"What are you doing?" Henry asked with a raised eyebrow and a slight chuckle.
Emma blew out a breath and dropped the now empty spoon onto the counter. She knew she could have told him the truth but it hardly seemed right to tell her son that she was nervous about a simple crime report meeting, especially since she wasn't exactly sure why she was so nervous.
"Just tired," she lied, not turning around to look at the boy.
Henry crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his head the woman's back. He could tell that it was more than exhaustion that was bothering her. However, he didn't feel as though he should be prying. Since the previous night, he'd had a strange feeling that something bad was about to happen but he had no rational reason for believing so. Of course, seeing his mother staring blankly at the wall wasn't exactly helping with his anxiety. There was also the fact that he had no possible idea what could be going wrong, which only seemed to make his worrying worse.
Emma, however, was completely oblivious to this fact as she tried in vain to clean her shirt.
She was already cutting it pretty thin with her punctuality since she had been afraid of being too early and now she was legitimately worried that she was going to be late.
"Are you ready for school?" Snow called as she walked out of the bathroom.
Henry looked over to the cheerful brunette who was clearly unaware of the strange atmosphere in the kitchen area. But then again, the perpetually happy woman seemed incapable of allowing anything to penetrate the happy little 'family bubble' they had created.
Emma also, finally, looked over her shoulder as if she was shocked that she wasn't actually alone,
She looked between her mother and her son for a moment before they both frowned in confusion.
"Are you okay, sweetheart?" Mary Margaret asked with her brows pinched together in concern and a hint of confusion. She had been completely unaware that there was anything out of the ordinary going on and seemed completely flabbergasted by the expressions that her daughter and grandson were wearing in that moment.
Emma shrugged ad looked down at her top again, "I'm just tired and now I have to go and get changed for my meeting." With that she rose from her seat and walked off with a little wave by way of saying 'goodbye', though she didn't give any eye contact.
Snow and Henry each watched her go and shared a look that said that neither of them thought that was the whole reason for the Saviour acting strangely.
"When's the last time she had a meeting?" Henry asked as he thought back to all the times he had asked the blonde what she had been doing at work. Each time the answer seemed to consist of paperwork, chasing Pongo or trash-bin ball, which she was apparently the reigning champion of (which would always garner an eye roll from David).
His grandmother shrugged and tore her eyes away from the stair case that her daughter had just ascended. "It was bound to happen eventually," she reasoned, more to herself than to Henry.
The younger brunette nodded in agreement before they each reached for their bags for school.
Regina propped her head up on her fingers and stared at the Dalmatian who was currently tilting his head at her.
Originally, she never would have thought that she would attend the very therapy sessions she had forced her son into but they had honestly become the most interesting part of her week.
Between work and going home to eat, sleep and occasionally watching some inane TV show that she would never admit to having seen, this was pretty much all she had by way of social interaction.
Even if Archie wasn't really her first choice of a person to talk to, he was still a person, in fact, she was fairly certain that he was the only person who was actually willing to talk to her and who actually cared what she had to say.
"Are you sure about this, Regina? It's a big step to take…"
The brunette finally turned her attention to the red-headed man, which caused Pongo to jump up, begging for attention. Archie quickly placed his hand on the dog's head, silently telling him that it would be a bad idea to try and jump on the queen (again). Once the dog seemed to have settled down, he looked at Regina expectantly.
The mayor simply shrugged as if she didn't quite understand the magnitude of what she was suggesting.
"I can't see that it would change things all that much."
Archie frowned, not quite believing that he was speaking with the same person who had cast the curse, it didn't seem as though she was the type to give up. Although, the woman who sat before him was hardly the Evil Queen anymore and the fact that no one in town could see that was part of the problem.
"It would make everything official…" Archie began, but he was cut off by the sound of buzzing.
Regina frowned before she pulled her phone out her blazer.
She wasn't exactly the most popular person in Storybrooke and she wasn't really used to getting phone calls or texts.
When she read the message, though, her heart nearly stopped. Her mind didn't stop to question why Charming would message her before her body was engulfed in smoke.
Archie blinked a few times at the display of magic. Even if he had been raised in the Enchanted Forest, it had been quite some time since had had actually seen something like that in person.
Plus, there was also the fact that Regina had sworn off magic. The woman hadn't even talked about being tempted in about three months, so he could only assume that something terrible had happened that only the former Evil Queen could deal with.
Emma's boots beat heavily down upon the stairs. She had taken quite a lot longer to choose a new shirt than she had intended since she had decided the red jacket didn't look quite as good with the new top she had picked.
However, it occurred to her when she was weighing up jacket colours that she was most likely already late for her meeting, which probably also meant that Regina was already going to be pretty pissed off with her.
With a deep breath to steel her nerves, she picked up her phone from where she had left it on the counter. However, instead of something along the lines of 'where the hell are you, Miss Swan?' She had about 15 missed calls and 10 texts from her father.
With a furrowed brow, she quickly scrolled through all the messages until she got to the source of the issue. When she finally did, her mouth dropped open and the device fell back down to the counter.
Not even caring that her phone could possibly have smashed, she grabbed her keys and ran towards the door.
In what felt like an eternity, but what was in reality six minutes, the sheriff arrived at Henry's school and turned off the siren. For a second, she allowed herself to take in the scene before her.
There was a crowed of teachers and students outside of the gates, but she couldn't help but notice one teacher and class were missing from the crowd of panic. The blonde swallowed hard, took a second to make sure that she hadn't forgotten her gun in her quest for the perfect outfit, and then opened her car door.
The sheriff walked straight over to the deputy, who looked utterly helpless and lost.
"What happened?" Emma called to him once she was in earshot.
Charming looked up from his phone and a relieved smile overcame his face, before it quickly disappeared and his expression became a mixture of serious and sombre.
"Jefferson showed up in assembly this morning, pulled a gun out and let every class except Henry's leave…" he explained, almost in one breath.
Emma looked around the crowd again and this time her eyes quickly fell onto Grace. The girl was crying into a friend's shoulder but Emma could it was mostly out of shock. After all, she had probably thought about Jefferson about as often as Henry had thought about Regina since the curse had broken.
The blonde quickly shook her head and looked back over to her father.
"Did he have any demands?" she asked, her mind going over what she was supposed to do. She hadn't exactly had any formal meeting in hostage situations, but she had seen plenty of movies and TV shows and her words seemed to reassure David that she knew what she was talking about.
The deputy nodded and said, "he sent out a teacher with this note."
Emma took the piece of paper from him with a frown. At now she knew that this was premeditated and not a spur of the moment thing, that meant that she could send the bastard for jail for a hell of a lot longer than she had initially thought.
Send me the queen and I will let them leave.
The blonde's eyes ran across those words a few times as she considered how many queens were actually in Storybrooke, but it didn't take more than a few seconds for her to realise exactly who he was talking about. Henry had shown her what Regina had done to Jefferson and her eyes fell back over to Paige. He had spent just under thirty years seeing his daughter with another family and being one of the only people in town who knew exactly what was going on in this town. The isolation was enough to make the Mad Hatter actually live up to his name.
"Why wouldn't he just go to Town Hall?" she pondered aloud, though she had a feeling that she already knew the answer to that question.
David merely shook his head, not wanting to give any kind of answer, since he didn't want it actually to be true. It was for this reason that he instead said, "I texted Regina, but there's no sign of her yet."
Emma's eyes widened and she looked up from the note and to her father, "you texted Regina?" she repeated slowly.
"Yes…" he replied, just as slowly clearly not understanding her reaction. "But like I said, there's no sign of her, she's probably not coming."
The saviour shook her head and her hand went to her waist to grip her gun. Her mind went back to the day that Henry had been in hospital and she knew exactly what had happened. There was no chance that Regina would have ignored that text, which left only one other option.
"It's not that she isn't coming, she's already here," she replied, her feet already carrying her towards the entrance before David could try and stop her. The man watched her go for a moment, but quickly blinked out of his surprise and ran to catch up with her.
"Emma," he called out as she ran towards the entrance of the school, he managed to grab her by the arm and pull her back, "you can't go in there."
Emma pulled her arm back and shook her head, "you don't get it, Regina wouldn't have wasted any time. She has already poofed herself into the school so that she can protect Henry!"
David just shook his head, he was about to reply that there was no way that was something that the Evil Queen would ever do, but the blonde had already shrugged his arm off. She saw that he was about to say something to stop her, so she just allowed all of her instincts to take over. Magic ran through her veins and a white smoke engulfed her body. David blinked a couple of times at the empty space before him, before he shook his head and started running towards the school.
Meanwhile, Emma appeared just outside of the assembly hall. Just as she had expected, Regina was standing in front of Jefferson, who was holding a gun up to her as the rest of the class cowered.
Henry was behind Mary Margaret, who had her arm tightly around him so that she could act as a shield if anything happened.
Emma let out a little breath of relief when she saw that nothing had happened yet.
"You took my daughter away from me, why shouldn't I do the same to your son?" The Mad Hatter asked in a broken tone.
Regina looked over her shoulder at Henry and swallowed hard. Emma could tell that whatever she was about to say would be the hardest thing in the world; however, she was fairly certain that Henry couldn't actually see the expression on her face.
"Henry is not my son," Regina said, "he is the son of the woman who broke the curse and gave you the opportunity to reunite with your daughter. It wouldn't be right to punish the saviour and her son for my indiscretions, now would it?"
The blonde woman's mouth fell open at the words and she momentarily forgot that she should be aiming her gun at Jefferson as she looked over to Henry. The boy just had a blank expression playing across his face and Emma couldn't help but think that this moment would not help to reunite the pair when they eventually started talking about.
As Emma checked to see how hurt her son was, Jefferson was thinking over Regina's words. It was true that everyone knew that Henry hadn't spent much time with Regina since the curse had broken, but he wouldn't have imagined that the woman would have given up, but by the look on her face, he had to admit that she certainly had.
"You're right," he announced.
The sound of the bullet leaving the chamber tore Emma's attention away from Henry and it almost felt like everything had gone into slow motion as the bullet travelled across the room and embedded itself into Regina's chest.
A split second later, Emma's hands reacted by themselves as she pulled her gun out of its holster and fired off two shots in quick succession. They both hit Jefferson in his shoulder and his gun fell to the ground.
This seemed to cause the children to run as quickly as they could out of the assembly hall, with the exception of one child.
Emma couldn't bring herself to look over to Regina or Henry as she ran over to Jefferson to knock the gun out of his reach as he fell to the ground clutching his shoulder with gritted teeth.
"Emma!" Someone called from behind her as she stared at Jefferson in contempt.
She heard the sound of distinctly male footsteps behind her and she turned around to see her father walking forward with his gun pointed at Jefferson and she finally allowed to look at the scene that she had been adamantly refusing to believe could be real.
She realised that it had been her mother who had shouted her name. The schoolteacher's hands were already covered in blood as she pressed down on Regina's chest. The mayor was already unconscious as blood flowed from her wound at an astounding rate, Emma's throat constricted as she considered whether Jefferson could have hit a major artery.
Before she made to run over to the woman, her eyes flicked over to Henry. He was the only one from the class left in the room and he simply stood as he watched his grandmother trying to quell Regina's bleeding. He knew that he had said many times that he wasn't her son, but hearing the words coming out of her mouth was a completely different matter entirely.
"You have the right to remain silent…" David began to say as he daughter walked over to his mortal enemy and fell to her knees next to her.
The moment that Emma's hand touched Regina, white smoke engulfed both of them and transported the pair to the hospital.
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