A/N: Beautiful cover art by maidenwar
Regina flinches as the swords clash together, the sound piercing right through her. Magic tingles from her palms to her fingertips tips, sparking a deep violet, and she reaches her hands forward out of instinct. But any attempt to throw off the figure under the hood could just as easily distract Emma. She tries not to think of the consequences of that mistake.
Snow shakes beside her, and David's knuckles turn white in his fists. The pirate takes a step forward, to do what, Regina doesn't know.
Emma loses her footing as her opponent brings its sword down faster than she expects. She falls to one knee in the effort to block the blow. Regina's breath catches in her throat and she feels so helpless that it is a physical ache in her chest.
Emma jumps back to her feet, blocking the next blow with more success. She swings her sword toward the figure's chest, blade slicing through the thick black robes, but still not close enough to inflict the damage she needs to gain the upperhand.
But it's enough to give Emma the confidence to take a step forward, bringing her sword down with a crash against the hooded figure's sword. She takes another step, brings her sword down again. Regina's breath comes out in a rush.
"You can do this, Emma." The words are a whisper, lost in the screech of metal on metal.
Regina hears a whimper and turns her attention away from the battle just long enough to see Henry standing behind her. Poofing him away somewhere safe, somewhere he won't run the risk of seeing his mother fatally wounded, crosses her mind.
Henry would never forgive her.
So she reaches her arm out behind her and feels Henry's fingers, clammy from fear, grip tightly with hers, and turns her attention back to Emma's fight.
Henry's presence grounds her, stops her fingers sparking with magic that is begging to be released. Instead she wills Emma to hold onto the upper hand, to wound the figure just enough that she can get away, or that Regina can finally use her magic to stop the figure from going after Emma. So Regina can ensure that Emma is, and always will be, safe from this threat.
Emma brings her sword down again, but instead of blocking her blow, the figure steps out of the way of the blade, and the momentum behind Emma's swing has her stumbling forward. She lifts her sword as quickly as she can, spining to the side. She leans back, a second too slow, and red seeps from the gash on her arm, running down to her elbow in streaks.
The pain is clear in Emma's eyes and she moves back to regain her footing before the next strike. She makes to block the next blow, but her arm shakes with the effort and it's just enough to send the weapon flying behind her.
Quiet sobs shudder from Snow, and Regina moves forward, despite Henry's grasp, and lifts her free hand, vibrant flames coming to life. She brings her arm backward, above her head, ready to release a weapon of her own. But the ball of fire is thrown off course as she watches with dread as the figure brings it's sword forward one last time, its blade slicing through the middle of Emma's torso.
Regina pulls her hand from Henry's, running forward, barely registering the figure's retreating form as it disappears from sight completely.
"No!" Snow shouts, voice breaking on the word.
Emma falls to her knees as Regina reaches her, dropping to the ground beside her. "Emma," Regina says, and gently wraps her arms around Emma's shoulders and lowers her to the ground.
Shadows, cast by the streetlight above, fall over Emma as the rest of her family rushes across the empty street and to her side. Regina's hands have already lifted to just above Emma's stomach, red blood dying her white tank top, as the others reach them.
Regina doesn't hold her magic back this time. She calls forward the lightest magic she can summon. Magic is fueled by emotion, so she lets herself be consumed, letting hope run through her veins. She pictures Emma healthy, standing tall, grin stretching easily across her face. She pictures Emma holding her baby brother, cooing softly as he laughs in her arms. She pictures Emma as she looks at her, carefree and so, so alive.
She puts everything she has into her magic, desperate for the wound to close, for the bleeding to stop. Sobs and pained voices make up the circle around her, and chip away at her concentration.
"Back off," she snaps. "I can't save her if you won't shut up."
Purple engulfs the middle of Emma's body as silence falls among the small group around them. Regina grunts with the effort, blood still leaking from the wound despite the healing magic running through her body.
"Come on, Emma. Please," she says voice breaking. Blood pools to the ground.
"Stay away from her," David snarls from behind her, but Regina barely hears it.
"Your daughter is already dying; what more damage could I do?" That voice is enough to startle Regina from the task at hand, and she lifts her eyes to see her evil half sauntering forward.
Hook moves to block her way, but with a wave of her hand he is thrown back, landing hard against the street. The Evil Queen has a smirk on her face, but as she looks down at Emma her face hardens to an unreadable mask.
"What do you want?" Regina gasps out.
"Do you want my help or not?" The Queen asks in a bored tone.
Regina studies her for a moment, can see the tension in the way she holds herself, can see something behind her eyes. She hesitates a second longer before nodding and turning back to Emma. She hears The Queen kneel across from her, and another pair of hands reach forward, fingertips bumping together. Purple light joins purple light as The Queen casts forth her magic.
"Please. Please," Regina chants over and over again. The Queen's magic spills out with renewed force, and Regina uses every last ounce of strength she has and wills it to be enough.
Regina's eyes fill with tears, slowly spilling over, the sight before her becoming nothing more than a violet blurr.
"Come on, Regina," The Queen taunts in a strained voice. "If you're so good, then save Henry's other mother. Save the Princess."
"What do you think I'm trying to do?" Regina growls, hands trembling violently. "I will save her. I have to save her." Her tears fall in earnest now.
"Then do it. Save her. You know the easiest way, Regina. Use what has always come natural to us," The Queen says.
Regina lifts her eyes to The Queen. "Not like that," Regina says. "Not with anger."
"What then? With love?"
Regina lowers her eyes back to Emma, and blinks away the tears. Beautiful, brilliant, brave Emma. She focuses on the blood stained fabric, on the fatal wound she knows lies beneath, and pictures flesh stitching itself back together, mending, healing; she can feel the heat beneath her palms, can feel her magic take purchase.
With a still glowing hand, she pushes the stained tank top up to just beneath Emma's breasts. She lets out a sob at the smooth flesh she sees; the only evidence of the stab being a thin line, two inches in length in the center of her stomach. She runs her fingers over the mark, blood coating her fingertips, and lets out another sob even as her lips turn up at the corners in a smile.
She doesn't dignify The Queen's question with an answer.
"Emma," she says. The purple fades from her fingers as she brings her other hand to brush the hair from Emma's eyes. "Emma." Her voice turns frantic as the blonde's eyes refuse to open and her breathing remains shallow.
"We have to- we have to get her to the hospital," Regina says, and begins to gather Emma in her arms.
She distantly hears the footsteps of the Charmings rushing forward in aid, now that Regina has done all that she can do. But Regina, Emma and The Queen are wrapped in a cloud of purple before anyone can reach them.
"You can't just leave Henry-" Regina blinks her eyes at the bright fluorescence of the hospital's lobby.
Their sudden entrance is met with a surprised shout as a nurse jumps out of the way.
"Henry is with those idiots he calls grandparents," The Queen says to Regina, before turning her glare to the nurse, a hand resting on the thick skirts covering her hip. "Are you going to do something about this, or not?" She gestures to where Regina and Emma lie huddled on the floor.
The nurse stares, frozen, at the sight before her. Regina holding Emma to her, an arm wrapped tightly behind Emma's shoulders, their clothes and bodies stained with blood.
"Get help now," Regina says tightly, looking down at Emma in her arms.
The nurse skitters off without a word, and The Queen sighs loudly. "I'll never understand why you've gone so soft. It accomplishes nothing," she says, glaring in the direction that the nurse disappeared.
Regina opens her mouth to respond, but the sound of a gurney clanking down the hallway draws her attention away. Whale follows closely behind, frowning at the sight before him.
The nurses reach Regina's side and bend down to lift Emma from her arms. "No," Regina snaps, and disappears. She reappears standing beside the gurney, Emma lying upon it. One of the nurses curses under her breath, but regains her footing quickly.
"What happened to her?" Whale asks, his eyes darting to The Queen, who rolls her eyes.
"She was pierced by a sword. We healed it as well as we could, but-" Regina trails off, hand resting gently on Emma's wrist.
Whale begins to push Emma away down the hall, and Regina follows him step for step. He stops and sighs. "You need to wait, Regina. Let us run some scans and I'll let you know the moment I know how she is. Plus, if you could..." He glances over her shoulder where The Queen leans against the wall, glancing down at her perfectly manicured nails with a smirk on her face.
Regina closes her eyes, lips pressed in a tight line. "The second you know anything-"
"I will come find you," Whale assures. Regina nods, casting one last look at Emma, skin so light, so delicate, traced with a spiderweb of veins and dotted with blood. She chokes on the lump in her throat, and backs into the wall.
She feels The Queen's skirt brush against the damp fabric of her slacks. Regina waves a hand, ridding her clothes and the floor of blood.
"Love is weakness, Regina," The Queen says without preamble.
Regina takes a breath and looks her other half in the eyes. "You have all of my memories, and you can still say that?"
The Queen's face contorts in pity. "Look at you. You're a wreck, and that is not a good look on either one of us, dear."
"You know as well as I do that love is strength, that I would not be where I am if it wasn't for Henry. If it wasn't for my family."
"Strength?" The Queen scoffs. "But not enough strength to deal with yourself as you were, not enough strength to love yourself when you were whole?"
Regina's face hardens, tears still silently streaming down her cheeks as she looks at The Queen.
"Strength from my family who loves me how I choose to be. I have a family now. People who I love that love me in return. When have we ever been able to say that? People, Regina. There is so much strength in that."
The Queen rolls her eyes. "And what of your little princess? If she dies?"
"Don't," Regina snarls, pushing off the wall and getting within inches of The Queen's face. Her other half simply looks amused. Regina's fists clench where they're raised in the air, and her eyes darken; The Evil Queen meets her gaze without faltering.
After a minute of neither woman moving, Regina lets out a breath and takes a step back. "Why are you here? What is your endgame?" she asks.
The Queen shakes her head. "Now where would be the fun in answering that?" she asks with a laugh. "I have my own reasons for saving the princess, but you need not worry about that, dear. Besides, shouldn't you be thanking me? I'm the only reason the princess even has a pulse."
"If that was your goal, then mission complete. What does this hospital have to offer you now?" Regina says.
The Queen's eyes dart quickly down the hall where they had taken Emma, before darkening and looking back at Regina.
"Oh," Regina whispers. "You're not done until you know she's safe."
The Queen's laughter echoes down the empty corridor, and had it not been Regina's own laugh, she wouldn't have heard the pain masked beneath.
"We aren't so different after all, are we?" Regina asks, voice still soft. The Queen opens her mouth to respond, but Regina shakes her head, silencing her.
Regina walks down the hall to a small waiting area. At the sight of The Queen following behind, the few people in the room leave, eyes averted. The Queen sneers, but otherwise passes Regina into the room, lifting her glittering skirts as she sits gracefully in one of the cheap, straight backed chairs.
Regina walks to a chair across from The Queen, before stopping, looking at the senseless patterns of grey of the hospital carpet, and turning around to sit beside The Queen. She feels her tense beside her, but relax a moment later as Regina folds her arms over her chest and settles into her chair.
The quiet tick of the clock on the far wall counts down the seconds, each one stretching on and on in a blur and neither women are sure if only minutes have passed or hours, when rising voices, nearing closer and closer jolt the women from the confines of their own mind.
"Call her cell phone again, Henry," Snow says, voice rising higher. Regina pulls her phone from her pocket, it's battery dead, and shoves it back into place.
The Queen's face grows tighter, her mask slipping into place at the sound of Snow White's voice.
"Play nice," Regina says, rising to her feet.
"I shall do no such thing," she responds, but stays where she is as she glares at the opening of the room.
"Henry," Regina calls, stepping into the hallway. David, Snow, Henry, and the pirate turn at the sound of her voice.
"Mom," Henry says and throws himself into her arms. "Is she okay?"
"Doctor Whale said he would let me know as soon as he knew anything," she tells him, holding him tightly to her chest. "We managed to close the wound and stop the bleeding, but I don't know if-" Henry looks up at her, eyes wide with fear, and she kisses his forehead. "We closed the wound so that is one less obstacle for the doctors to worry about. Now we wait."
"Now we wait," Snow echoes. Regina tears her eyes away from Henry, and finally looks at the rest of her family.
Snow is trembling as she leans into her husband's side, and David has his arm wrapped tightly around her waist, his eyes red rimmed. The pirate slinks behind them, staring down at the floor as he clenches the one hand he still has into a fist.
Regina turns, arm still tightly around her son as she leads them back into the waiting room, occupied only by her double.
"Her?" the pirate sneers as he walks into the waiting room and notices The Queen.
"Me," she replies hotly, and Regina knew her warning was pointless.
"How do we know you weren't behind this to begin with?" He steps around the Charmings until he's directly in front of The Queen.
"I suppose you don't," she says, standing, and managing to be imposing despite being the shorter of the two.
"If you don't leave-" he snarls.
Regina untangles her arms from around Henry, and grabs the pirate's hooked arm as he raises it into the space between The Queen's face and his own.
"Sit down, both of you. No one in this room did anything that would cause any harm to Emma. There is not a single person in this room that does not wish for her to come out of this alive," Regina says.
"But how do we know?" Snow asks, glancing at The Queen.
"She is not going to harm Emma or anyone else here," she says and The Queen snorts. Regina turns to look at her. "You are not helping the situation, dear."
"You can hardly blame me with the filth that is in this room," she sneers.
"You need to leave," David says from Snow's side. "My daughter almost died." His voice cracks on the word.
"But she helped save Ma," Henry says, and looks toward The Queen with all the hope of The Truest Believer etched upon his face.
"Yes," she says. "If only to have my own fun with her later." Her eyes twinkle at the outrage in the room at her implication.
Henry's face scrunches up in disgust. "Ew."
"You will do no such thing," Regina says, with all the authority of the queen she used to be and the mayor that she still is.
"Well, one of us will," The Queen says quietly enough that only Regina hears it over Hook's shout of anger. "As much fun as this has been," her voice rises above the pirate's," I am growing rather nauseous at the smell of unwashed pirate."
Hook takes another step forward, only to be met with a cloud of purple.
"How dare she insult Emma that way," he says.
"I don't know what she told you, Regina, but you and I both know what she's capable of," Snow says, and Regina nods.
"You think I don't know that?" Snow flinches at the venom in Regina's voice. Regina deflates; Snow doesn't deserve her reaction. "We're all on edge right now," she says, voice softening. She sinks back into her chair, her exhaustion at the fear of losing Emma and the strain of the magic she used, finally getting the better of her.
"We don't know what The Queen is planning, but she helped Ma," Henry says, and takes the seat next to Regina. "She helped save her."
"She did," Regina agrees placing her hand atop Henry's on the armrest of his chair.
"What does that say about her now that she helped save Emma?" Charming asks, taking the chair next to his wife, across from Regina and Henry.
"She has her motives, I'm sure. But I do know that she wanted to help Emma. What she plans to do now, any of us could only guess at," Regina says.
"I always knew there was good in her, in you," Snow says.
"But I took that good from her," Regina says. "She is who she is because of the decisions I chose to make."
"Is now really the time to be talking of The Evil Queen?" Hook interrupts. "After what just happened to Emma." He stands between the two sets of chairs, chin held up high.
"I know what has just happened to my daughter," David says.
"And if we sit here and think only of that, we are all going to lose our minds before we can find out how she is doing," Snow finishes David's thought.
Hook let's out a sigh and slumps down in the chair beside David. "I don't like it," he says.
"And you think the rest of us do?" Regina says, too tired for her voice to be as harsh as she would prefer.
"I think everyone is so focused on what the Evil Queen did that they are forgetting that there was someone else putting Emma's life in the balance," he says.
Regina nods. "The figure under the hood."
"Who could it possibly be?" Snow asks. "Who from this town would want to hurt Emma?"
"Maybe they're not from this town," Regina says, and they all fall into silence, each lost in thought.
Henry leans his head on Regina's shoulder and closes his eyes, Regina's hand moving upwards to run her fingers through his hair.
The clock continues to quietly tick off each second and each minute, the soft noise mixing only with the distant footsteps in the hall.
Henry's breath puffs against Regina's neck as he dozes, folded up in a chair too small for his growing limbs, when she hears the steady sound of footsteps invade the quiet of their room. She opens her eyes to see Whale standing in the doorway. He meets her eyes, and after a moment of silence, gives her the smallest of smiles. Her breath rushes from her lungs and she nods, once, then twice.
Emma is alive.
"Henry," Regina mumbles into her son's hair, and smooths her hand down his arm.
"Mm?" He opens his eyes and looks to his mother, before his eyes grow wide, finally noticing the newcomer in the room. "Is my mom, okay?" he asks, moving to the edge of his seat.
The doctor nods. "We had to give her a blood transfusion. Had Regina not stopped the bleeding when she did-" He shakes his head, lips falling in a grim line. "We did an MRI to check for any inside wounds, but everything has healed up as it should. I'd like to keep her for a day or two for observation.
"She's resting now, but if you would like to-" He motions to the hallway and Henry jumps to his feet and follows the doctor as he leaves the room. Snow and David follow quickly behind him, the pirate leaving the room without a glance back at Regina.
Regina moves to stand, but her legs tremble and she doesn't dare to place any weight on them just yet. She rests her elbows on her knees, head in her hands, and the tears she thought had since dried up fall easily from her eyes again.
She sucks in a breath, and tries to calm her breathing; Regina's attempts to steady her breaths fail miserably, the tears falling faster as she muffles a sob in her hands.
Emma is alive. She will be just fine.
But the thought only makes the tears fall faster, even as her stomach surges in relief.
She doesn't hear David approach and startles when a hand is placed on her shoulder. "Regina?" he says.
She wipes her eyes and looks up, giving him a watery smile. "I'm sorry," she says, wincing at how her voice cracks.
"No," David says. "You saved my daughter's life. Whale said it himself. Had you not closed the wound when you did-" He takes a deep breath. "She is alive because of you, Regina."
She squeezes her eyes shut. "It wasn't just me, David. I couldn't have done it by myself." She opens her eyes, and while they are still brimming with tears, they do not fall.
"Whatever she is planning, whatever motivation she has for helping you save Emma's life, it doesn't matter. Because whatever it is, Emma will be here to help us fight it.
"Now let's go see Emma," he says and takes her hand, pulling her to her feet. He releases her hand when the reach the hallway, instead taking her arm in his. She leans into his side as he leads her to Emma.
A/N: I'd love to hear what you thought, so leave a comment and let me know. =)