A word of wisdom: You're going to hate me after this chapter.

And I'm not really sorry :)

I hope you enjoy it, though, and that it keeps you on your toes!

G.

..

...

"Mother?"

A woman turns around, dark hair and beautiful brown eyes. She's dressed in an elegant red gown – one strap over the shoulder to hold it up – readying herself for a gala supported by the Republican's Club. "What do you want?" She asks, no love and care in her voice as normal.

A young Regina steps forward, her head kept down like she always does (her mother had told her it was a sign of respect – you either look people in the eyes or you be "humble" and keep your head down. She always chose to keep her head down when it came to her mother...harder to slap her so quickly). Her hands are latched together, her thumbs nervously twiddling on the backs of them. "My friend, Daniel...he asked me if I could go to the park to fly kites with him before sunset." She explains, continuing with how she'll get there and how she'll get home. "I-is that okay if I go?"

During the explanation of her request, the young girl's mother had turned around to put earrings in, facing the mirror. But now, she's turning back around – with more angry and fury in her eyes this time. She speaks low and sternly, "I told you I don't want you hanging around with boys all of the time, Regina. It's not ladylike of you!"

It's a snap, one that the eleven year old is used to. But this time she feels the need to beg, to plead with her by asking again, "Mother, please...it's his birthday and-"

"I don't care! When you get older people will label you and that's not the label you want!" Another snap, but this one hurt more. Regina's only eleven, but she knows what label her mother is talking about and she can't believe her mother would even think that of her. But she doesn't stop there, "Go in your room before I lock you up and keep you away from any boy."

"Mother, I-"

This time, the arguing and back-talking was too much. A swift back of the hand to Regina's pale cheek made the area burn and feel like fire had just danced across her face. She looks down with her lip bitten, holding in her cries that she so badly would love to let out.

Instead of arguing, instead of screaming like she wanted to, she put her head back down and turned slowly, heading back to her upstairs room.

"Have a nice little rest, dear?" A familiar voice asks, that woman's voice again...that...Zelena. That's her name.

She looks up slowly, bloodied, battered, and bruised. Her neck is stiff again from rolling down the chute, "Quite accommodating, really. You even gave me concrete to sleep on." She mutters, being a usual smartass to her. "How do you think my rest was?"

Hearing heels step in, she sits up and tries to steady herself with her hands. At least they aren't zip tied anymore, she thinks as Zelena walks up to her and starts speaking lowly, "You really don't know the deal that your Cora made with Francis Gold, do you?" She asks, being oddly close to Regina. "You really are completely and utterly...confused."

Regina resists nodding for about five seconds, but she thinks that this may be a way to find out an answer or two. So she nods, replying, "No, I don't know what she's done now. She was a despicable woman...most people hated her as well as me." She feels uncomfortable being this close to Zelena, so she scoots back a little bit and leans tiredly on her arms behind her. She continues after clearing her throat, "She stepped on many people's toes. But I want to know why Francis is taking it out on me to punish my mother."

"You have it all wrong." Zelena answers, pulling out a chair from the corner of the room. She sits and crosses her legs, and Regina can't hardly hold back the urge to roll her eyes at her utter "ladylikeness". Cora would've much rathered her as a daughter. She begins speaking again, "Cora made a deal with Gold. Which you know, now. But it wasn't just a normal deal. He promised her, see, that he would give her a child. You."

"Me?! He is not my-"

"No, he isn't your father." Zelena interrupts, rolling her eyes from the miniature tantrum Regina just threw. (Or at least that's Regina's guess as to why the action). "He's a scientist. Your father and your mother were having trouble conceiving a child. She'd gone to all of the doctors, all of the specialists...nothing. She wanted a child so badly, though, that she was finally willing to make a deal with the infamous Dr. Gold, the maddest man in recent days' history of science." She explains, switching legs to cross.

Regina listens intently the whole time, soaking in every little detail that was possible. Once Zelena pauses, she furrows her brows and speaks, "Cora hated me."

"But she wanted you, nonetheless." She answers, shaking her head. "So he somehow found a way to help your parents conceive a child, and when he did, he never would tell your mother when he would need his deal finished."

She's shaking her head throughout the whole part, "But what was the deal, Zelena?" She asks, growing a little bit impatient.

Zelena puts both heals on the ground (Very un-ladylike of you, Regina, is all that can play in her head, thanks to her mother) and leans over. "She-"

And she stops. Regina's eyes grow wider with every second that she's stopped speaking, and finally shouts, "What? She what?!"

A shadow, though, appears in the door and she soon realizes why Zelena had stopped speaking. "Here to terrorize our guest, are you?" Gold asks, walking in.

Step, cane, step. Regina shakes her head, trying to get the confusion and blurriness out of there. Step, cane, step. He's getting closer, now is the time to try and ask. Step, cane, step.

"Regina...it's time." He says, not offering her a hand or anything to help her up. Not like she really was expecting one from him, and she wouldn't have taken it even if he offered.

Maybe that's what she was hoping for, him to offer his hand just so she can turn it down. A sign of disrespect, something her mother would've hated.

She stands to her feet with no ease whatsoever, almost falling from the dizziness that was included. Closing her eyes, she steadies herself and slowly straightens up from being hunched over. Her eyes open and immediately fix on Gold. "What are you having me do?" She asks, and at this point her voice sounds like she has gravel in her throat.

But of course, she receives nothing but a grin. A grin and a turn with his cane before James came in and tied her hands behind her back, pushing her harshly out of the room.

..

She's crouched down behind the couch, listening to every word that her mother and father speak. Her mother has just gotten home from the gala, still in the red dress. She's saying that she has what's needed, but her father is telling her no – she shouldn't do this. Not with him.

Regina is confused out of her mind – what is so important about her mother? She's never heard her mother's voice falter, but in this conversation it's happened twice. It's the first time she's ever seen her parents really talk, not just fight and snip at each other until they part ways elsewhere in their house.

Somewhere in the conversation, she's started to dip out, her young mind wandering off to other things. She's missed bits and pieces, but she's still not entirely sure what they're talking about anyway. But what brings her back in is hearing her name being used by her mother, "Regina is the same...she has the same blood type as I do. She can-"

"No." Her father interrupts sternly, and it makes chills go up the small child's spine. She wonders, now, what her mother is going to make her do that's so wrong even her father doesn't want her mother to do it.

..

Her legs, she realizes, are trembling as they let go of her (finally) and start hooking her up to cords and contraptions.

She takes in her surroundings, but soon finds there really is nothing to take in. It's a room that's all white, except the front wall – the wall she's facing – and that's covered with mirrors. She sees herself again, bruised and beaten. Her lip still dripping the last remainder of blood it has to give. She wishes she had died. She's not ready to put up a fight.

One last cord and it hooks into her back like a needle, she feels the hook part bend underneath her skin – thanks to the technology of it all. She winces in pain, but doesn't have enough energy to show how much pain she's really and truly in. There's four other cords, one in each bicep, one in each calf muscle. In all, five cords are lifting her up like magic into the air, all as she's in so much pain she's hardly breathing.

She's slowly realizing that behind the mirror, it's transparent. She can somewhat see shadows of men moving around – no doubt one of them is Francis Gold. Crazy old man, she thinks.

"I heard that." He warns over a speaker, coming into her room.

The sudden voice out of nowhere made her jerk, the hooks digging further into her skin. She realizes, though, that there's no one in here. But she also realizes that he can hear her every thought somehow.

She's being tilted backward, going into a position where she's lying down. A door opens from across the room, and Spike is coming back in, walking toward her with a large tool...one that almost looks like a taser. Surely he won't taser me to death...not right now.

He doesn't, but it sure hurts like hell when he shoots her with a dart from it, straight into her shoulder.

Everything is becoming hazy; slowly, she's fading out and fading into a whole new world...one with people.

..

Her eyes open and the first thing she sees is Francis. She's lying on the ground, but he's not standing over her in a powerful way. She's watching him, and sees a young boy come running up to him with open arms, shouting, Daddy!

Francis smiles, welcomes the boy with his open arms, and she realizes he has no cane. He has no limp. He's dressed nicely and his hair is much neater.

He sent her to an alternate universe.

Play along, Regina.

She stands up with a little bit of a struggle (though not as much struggle as it would've been in reality), dusts herself off, and looks around. She has no idea where she is, maybe some sort of amusement park? She hears children screaming and the roaring of rides in the background, and that's what determines her thoughts are correct – it's an amusement park.

She looks around slowly, wondering why she's here and why Francis is making only her do this. She's turned one-hundred and eighty degrees before someone smashes into her, tackling her to the ground again.

Groaning in pain, becoming angry with whoever just decided to be a complete idiot, she opens her eyes to see bright blue ones staring back at her. He's getting up and offering her a calloused hand, "I was looking for my son. I apologize." He says, his accent heavy.

She takes it, knowing that it's Robin. She looks into his eyes once she stands up, wondering if he actually knows her or not in this world. "Regina." She says, offering her hand and taking a bold leap of faith.

When he looks down at it with confusion, her stomach flips. He doesn't remember her...he – the real Robin – is not in this world with her. But he shakes it with some awkwardness in his stance, "Nice to meet you." He says out of politeness, then continues quickly, "Sorry about tackling you." And he's off again in a run, yelling out, Roland! and searching everywhere for his son.

She watches him until he's out of seeing distance, wishing she at least had him to decipher some of the confusion going on around her. Her head is pounding and so is her arm, and she wonders how badly she just hurt it when he fell on top of her.

But in reality, in the world where she's currently out of, a gunshot wound is making it pound and sting. It's barely nicked her, but it's enough to make it hurt in this universe.

She walks along the rides, still confused as to why Francis would've brought her here out of all places. That is, until she heard the sweetest, most angelic voice. Henry. "Mom! Mom! Let's go on the Cobra...pleeeeease!" He's saying, but he's looking up at Emma...not at Regina. It breaks her heart, shatters her soul into little tiny pieces. She's broken in this world and it's all because of Francis.

Back in reality, her heart rate is slowing thanks to the loss of blood from her arm. It's her left arm, closer to her heart. So she's slowly fading out, again, of this alternate universe, and back into her normal one. The one where Francis is insane again and the one where Henry is dead.

Dead.

She wakes up with a jolt of pain, yelling out an ah! and immediately looking down at her bloodied arm. She's ripping the cords from her muscles, starting with her legs so she can stand on her two feet and then with her arms, then the most painful one – her back.

An alarm is going off in the distance and the mirror in front of her is shattered, and the root of the shatter being a bullet hole straight from the other side. Who tried shooting her?

She runs to the mirror, the hole not big enough for her to get through. Shaking her head, she looks around for something to bust it with, but nothing is in here except for her and those cords...and she highly doubts the cords will smash a mirror.

So she backs up about five strides, readies herself, and sprints with a harsh force straight for the mirror. She's busting through it without knowing a bit of what awaits her on the other side.

When she lands, the gunshot wound is hurting her even worse, but no one is in here to hurt her. No one's in here at all, except for her.

She stands to her feet again, shaky and tired, her heart still slow. She rips off the bottom piece of a curtain inside the room (not entirely sure how she did, she's too weak to do much of anything. Adrenaline, though, is running through her veins like never before) and ties it around her arm to stop the bleeding. It hurts worse than that dart Spike put into her shoulder, but at least it'll make it feel better in a short while. Hopefully.

The alarms aren't only sirens blaring, there's a woman's calming voice saying, sector five, and it would help a lot if Regina knew where sector five is. But there's computers everywhere in this room, surely one of them have some sort of map she can use to make her way to that sector.

She chooses the computer closest to the door (in case she needs to get out quickly. It's a subconscious decision, really, she didn't take time to think about it. It's her natural survival skills), sits down and mumbles thank you because the computer was unlocked.

After about five minutes of searching, she finds a building map. Sector five was the sector she was in. She's on the very top floor, and that's all that sector five holds. She searches further, finding that sector four and sector three are on the ground level, and sector two and one are actually the basement. She writes it all down, draws herself a small scale map, and stuffs it into her bra to take off running.

She finds the elevator, taking that instead of the stairs. She fears her legs wouldn't hold her if she took the stairs, and she needs all the energy she can get if she's going to fight off Gold and his two minions.

Once she's out, she hears men fighting. It's James and Robin...she's sure of it. She can tell by the way Robin is grunting that whoever it is is a larger man, and she's pretty sure that he would be able to take Spike (if that's even his name) without too much struggle. She takes her map out of her bra, still hiding around the corner, and searches over it. She's written down what each room holds:

S5: Testing Room

S4: Tech Room

S3: Armory

S2: Holding Cells

S1: Holding Cells

She folds it back up, looking around the corner quickly to see that there are computers on computers. She makes the decision and says that this is the tech room, only sector four. She needs to be in sector three.

She goes down the other way in the hall, away from the elevator and sector four. Away from Robin fighting.

A part of her is niggling at her conscience, telling her that she should go back and help Robin fight now, because he has nothing to do with this, it seems. He just got tied up in it. But still...it doesn't explain why he was left on the earth with her. Francis doesn't seem caring enough to leave someone else out of compassion.

As she finally reaches new double-doors, her eyes are already searching for an alarm or a key or something. Surely the armory won't be unmanned and unlocked. When she gets closer, she sees that there's a pin-pad, one that'll probably go off and set a new alarm off if she gets the code wrong.

She thinks long and hard, racking her brain and trying to decide on a certain set of numbers. Maybe it's the sectors...it could be his birthday...something hard. Before she can think too long about it, she feels a hand on her shoulder and jerks around. It's Spike.

She gasps and he shushes her, "January 5th, 1975." is all he says before rushing off again. She watches him until he turns the corner, but then shakes her head in confusion.

What the hell was he saying? With Robin grunting after each punch he takes from James, she knows that she needs to try something.

It finally hits her. One, five, seven, five. She punches it in as quickly as she can, hoping the alarm doesn't go off if it's wrong. But it works, miraculously. She steps into the doors and heads to the armory, wondering why Spike helped. She doesn't dwell on those thoughts too long, though, because she needs to think of which weapons will do her the most good.

Scanning each one of them quickly but carefully, she goes for the fully automatic rifle, grabbing five magazines of ammunition and sticking them everywhere she can. Her back pockets, her front pockets, and the last one was stuck in her bra. Safely. And then she's off again, sprinting toward the doors with an automatic under her arm and a pistol in the hem of her pants. She's fully loaded and extremely dangerous, being in this state of mind.

Once the doors open again to sector four, and her eyes widen with the sight in front of her. She gasps, grabs her rifle, and starts shooting desperately.

..

...

Do you hate me yet? :) Chapter 9 will be awfully interesting as the story is coming to a close soon...

Thanks for reading, and drop a review for me, please! They're very appreciated.