Sorry for the delay. My weekends have been annoying busy and I'm usually brain-fried by the time I get home during the week. Heavy EC feels coming your way. I promise more OQ to come. Thank you for reading.
The sight would have been comical if the four of them hadn't been frantic. David, Emma, Henry, and Killian all stood in a circle, woken from various stages of sleep, stunned for a moment with the harsh awakening and then all spurred into action at the same time. David reached the top of the stairs first, taking them three at a time with Emma on his heels. Father and daughter ran to opposite sides of the bed Regina was writhing on. She was being held down by glowing tendrils that snaked around her limbs, over her chest, coiling tighter and tighter as they made their way towards her throat. David's hands flew to her, grasping for the ropes but his fingers passed right through. Emma did the same except that when her fingers grasped on she recoiled from the instant flash of burning pain, fingertips already blistering from the brief contact.
Through it all, Regina kept screaming. She was wild-eyed, arching and straining as the light held her securely to the mattress. "I can't stop it!" David yelled over her cries as he ran his hands over her face, up and down her arms. Although he could clearly see the bindings, he felt nothing but the warm blood beginning to seep from the wounds they were inflicting on the queen.
"Neither could I," Killian said from the foot of the bed. He had his hand secured to the back of Henry's sweater, holding the boy back the best he could. "The same thing happened in the caves you rescued me from, love. They surrounded her completely then she was gone."
"We have to stop it!" Henry scrambled far enough away from the pirate to latch on to his mother's calf. He also trying and failing to loosen their deadly grip.
"Let go, kid," Emma ordered, raising her hands over her friends thrashing body. "I don't know what this is going to do. Henry and David let go simultaneously as white light exploded from Emma's palms. Regina went rigid, then silent; her body arched off the bed, fists buried in the blood spattered quilts beneath her. The bonds glowed brighter and brighter around her until all were forced to cover their eyes or look away. All but Emma, who kept her eyes locked on Regina's. She didn't know if she was helping or making things worse; it seemed her magic was always one or the other.
She was about to pull away, to try something else when Regina eyes finally found her own, finally focused. "Don't stop," she choked out, causing the Savior to redouble her efforts. Regina began screaming again as the ropes glowed hotter, she was squirming against the hold once more, this time managing to free her hand and began pulling at the bonds around her neck. More hands joined hers, David's she realized once he had freed her enough for her to turn her face towards him. Henry and Killian freed her legs as David pulled the last remaining hold from around her waist.
Everyone was breathing heavily; it was the only sound in the room for several long minutes as the group all stared at Regina and each other. Eventually Regina tried to pull herself onto her side. The creaking bedspring quickly followed by the pained moan the movement had caused seemed to snap everyone out of their haze. "Don't move," Emma told her as she gently pushed Regina's shoulder back into the mattress, trying and failing not to flinch from pain of her burned hands.
"Fix your hands," Regina said with far too much authority for someone in her current position. "And theirs." Regina stared at the ceiling. She was unwilling to close her eyes (may never again if what she just experienced could be a consequence,) but she also couldn't bear to look at them. They stood over her, she could feel their concern, their pity. She could feel Emma's magic making quick work of their burns, hear their quiet thank you's as the pain became memory, but that did nothing to change the fact that they were hurt because of her. Her son was hurt because of her. Regina couldn't stop the tears.
"Mom?" Henry's voice was small, scared as he latched on to Regina's ankle again, not sure what other comfort to offer her. He was frozen to the spot; stuck in that limbo between boy and man. He wanted to be strong for her, to find whatever had done this and destroy it, but he also wanted to crawl into her lap and have her reassure him that everything would be fine.
"Why don't we give your moms a minute?" Killian wrapped an arm around Henry's shoulder, but didn't pull. It was his mother, burned and bloody before him after all. The choice to leave her side needed to be his. Of course that didn't me the pirate couldn't persuade the boy into making the proper decision. "Let Emma get her fixed up, then we'll figure out what the bloody hell is doing this."
"The book." Three sets of eyes darted from Regina to David. "Henry, those lines we saw on your mom in the book."
"Right!" Henry headed for the stairs, confident they had at least one piece of the puzzle to work with.
"We'll be looking at a book then," Killian looked quickly from David to Regina to Emma, staying on the last just a bit longer than necessary before following Henry down to the kitchen.
Once they were both settled, Emma turned her attention back to Regina. At some point during her and Killian's silent exchange, David had sat beside her on the bed and had his knuckles slowly tracing over her cheeks, wiping away silent tears. "I think you're going to need to hold her." Emma tried to keep her voice steady for her own sake as well as Regina's. David only nodded, sliding his arm under Regina's shoulders and slowly lifting her to lie against his chest. He hadn't really felt the burns on his hands as they were happening, had been too focused on the task at hand. Albeit brief, the healing had been painful: both too hot and cold at the same time, a thousand needles stitching him back together. And it had only been his hands.
Regina swallowed down the scream, only letting the slightest whimper pass from her lips. The room spun as the nausea and pain took over every one of her senses. She let her head fall back against David's shoulder, pressed her forehead firmly into the side of his neck and tried to focus.
"Are you ready?" Emma asked, hands hovering just above her midsection and arms where the burns were the worst. Regina nodded and set her jaw, pushing her back tighter against David. The prince wrapped an across her shoulders, holding her in place.
"Don't let me hurt you," she breathed against him as the first tingling's of Emma's magic caused her to jerk against him.
"Don't worry, Your Majesty. You don't scare me." He smiled against her, taking the hand Emma had just healed and holding tight.
"Liar," Regina started to say but it turned into a cry she couldn't hold back as the gashes across her stomach and chest were fused back together.
Henry jumped at his mother's sharp cry, but kept his eyes fixed on the book pages. "These weren't here before," he told Hook as he ran his fingers over the image of his mother slumped on the ground as flying monkeys swarmed around her carrying Robin and Snow away. Regina's features were barely visible in the drawing, more of the iridescent blue than anything else, but her eye was clear. As was the pain it reflected. "What's happening to her? What's doing this?"
Killian's hand tightened on Henry's shoulder. He had yet to release him. "I'm not sure, Henry. It's not good, whatever it is and it seems to have it out for your mum." Hook had never been one to sugar coat anything. He saw no point in lying, least of all to the youngest (and probably wisest) among them. "But she's tough, right?" Henry sniffed and nodded, leaning imperceptibly closer to Killian when another shuddered cry from upstairs hit his ears. "We'll sort this out like we always do and we'll get her home, get us all home."
"You sound like my grandma." Henry wiped at his eyes, no longer caring to keep up a brave face.
"Yes, well, Snow White's hope speeches are quite infectious. But only because they're so often true. You lot don't give up, especially not on each other. We're going to figure out what this beast is and then we're going to fight it." He pulled Henry to him, holding him for just as long as a teenaged boy would let himself be held by his mother's boyfriend, before releasing him as if the much needed contact had never happened. "Show me the pages before, the ones you said were other people's dreams." Henry looked at him questioningly for a moment. He had already explained to the older man that they were private, that no one should see that part of people. Killian could see the hesitation in Henry's eyes. "I promise not to look too closely and not to ever speak of anything I do see, but I'd like to test a theory," he explained. Henry held his ground another moment before turning the book toward the pirate. As promised, Killian flipped through the pages quickly, not lingering on any moment that wasn't meant for his eyes until he suddenly stopped.
"Is that?" Henry asked, leaning in to inspect the page that had caused the other man to stop.
"Emma," Killian finished for him. "Frozen solid and me," his finger tapped his illustrated self, "powerless to do anything to save her."
"You had that nightmare? When Elsa came and she and Mom got trapped behind that ice wall… You dreamt that?"
"I dreamt that in that chair, with your Mom shivering in her sleep beside me." His hook gestured toward the weathered recliner by the door.
"That's why this place is here! We've all had nightmares here!" Henry was suddenly hopeful, at least they had figured something out.
"That's my theory. It doesn't really solve anything, but it explains why your grandparent's loft appeared out of nowhere."
"There's other stuff in here though," Henry quickly turned back pages revealing Regina's earlier nightmares that he tried not to look at too closely. Even now, Killian noticed the boy was looking at the counter rather that the pages. "She wouldn't have had all of these here. She's only stayed here a couple times and a lot of these look like they might be from the Enchanted Forest."
"Maybe because this being is connected to her somehow. Maybe it can access her dreams?" Killian mused.
"But why just her? Why not me and Grandpa and Emma?"
"I would fancy Regina has a few more skeletons in her closet than most." Killian watched as Henry looked down at the book, slowly turning through page after page his mother's past nightmares. He was close to tears again, something the pirate could not abide. "She loves you, Henry. I've known you're mother longer than either of us would like to admit. Trust me when I say you've made her better than she thought she could be."
"What's with this book now?" Neither man had heard Emma come down the stairs. She leaned into Killian's other side, sliding the book towards her for closer inspection. Her hands were trembling when she reached out for the pages and she quickly tucked them into his side hoping her boys wouldn't notice. Henry was thankfully watching the top of the stairs, but Killian hadn't missed motion. "She'll be down in a minute Henry," Emma assured her son. "David's taking care of her. What did I miss down here?" She let Hook hold onto her while Henry went over the connection the pair had just figured out, ever grateful for the pirate's silent comfort. Her son was already worried sick over one mother, Emma didn't need him to see her hurting as well.
"What can I do?" Killian whispered into Emma's ear while Henry was bent over the book with the magnifying glass.
"Just shaken up," Emma leaned back into his hold, let him support her and walk her back putting a few more feet between her and her son. "I'm fine. I promise."
"Still, what can I do?" He rests his chin on her shoulder.
"You're doing it."
The second the magic stopped glowing from Emma's hands, Regina collapsed against David's chest. She was boneless, breathing hard, her whole body was soaked with sweat and she was trembling as her the last remnants of magic worked its way through her limbs. "Thank you," she slowly reached for Emma's hand, squeezing her fingers as hard as she was able, "again."
Emma's heart was racing, her limbs felt like jelly as she sat heavily on the edge of the bed to catch her breath. "Don't mention it," she panted out. "But if we could not make a habit of you getting that hurt by magic, I wouldn't be opposed to it."
"What else happened?" Regina startled at David's voice next to her ear. Had she really forgotten the man who'd been holding her through all this was there? No. She was just jittery, too keyed up and exhausted at the same time. And she hated it, hated this feeling of not being able to control her mind or her body.
"We fell in one of the tunnels, out of it I guess," Emma explained absently as it had been years ago, not a few hours. "Lots of gravel and a few boulders."
"Is that all?" David asked raising an eyebrow to Emma's nonchalant answer.
"Compared to all this," she squeezed Regina's hand back, bouncing it nervously between them. "It was nothing. I'm going to go check on Henry," she said hurriedly, pulling her hand free and heading down the stairs without looking back.
"What else happened?" David asked again once his daughter was down the stairs. His arms absently ran up and down Regina's arms as she continued to lean against him.
"I'm not sure. The closer we got to Hook the sicker I started to feel. I don't know what's caused, but I think she blames herself for whatever it is." Regina sat up with David's hand supporting her back. For a moment she just traced the patterns of the blanket. "I don't. You know that, right?"
"I do." He pulled at her arm until she was sitting by his side. "You should really try to get some sleep. I'll stay with you if you want."
Regina laughed. "I appreciate the chivalry, Charming, but I'm going to be sleeping anytime soon." She turned to the prince; he was staring down at her, jaw clenched and brow creased. "Stop it," she said firmly. "Stop looking at me like this was your fault."
"I fell asleep," he confessed quietly.
"We all did," she countered.
"I saw the pictures of you in that book. I knew something was going on. I should have—"
"You should have what? Stood over me? You'd have been at my side 3 seconds sooner, David. And you know I would not have let you coddle me." She bumped her shoulder into his until he chuckled in agreement. "Show me this book I apparently star in?" She scooted off the bed and held her hand out for him to join her.
"Star might be a bit of an overstatement, but you're definitely a featured player." He followed her down the stairs with a hand on her shoulder, kept it there until Henry pulled her into the hug he'd been anxiously waiting to give her. "Do we have a plan?" David asked anyone who would answer.
"We need to go back to where we found Killian." Emma said, looking between the pirate and the queen, both nodding their silent agreement. Regina tightened her grip around her son. He shouldn't be here. He most certainly shouldn't be there, but she was not leaving him anywhere again.
"Where?" Regina asked. "The landscape kept changing. I'm not sure how close we can get."
"Where we came out of the tunnels. Second arch to the right?" Emma suggested, holding out her hand to Killian.
"Straight on 'til morning," Regina tried to smile, but her apprehension bled through. Still, there was no other way she could see to solve this than going back to the source. She took Henry's hand, reached behind her and grabbed David's and the five disappeared into clouds of white and purple smoke.
