Author's note: I am so sorry it has taken forever to update. However, the school year is now completed, and I foresee being able to do something about my languishing writing. - LZ
I Just Need A Moment 10
Regina awoke to pain in her shoulders and the sight of the concrete sidewalk sliding by under her legs. Her feet caught every few steps on the surface, causing her captors to stumble and pull further on her arms. She bit her lip to prevent any sounds of pain. She would not give them the satisfaction. She tried to flex her hands and call forth some magic into them. A fizzle, a spark, but nothing of substance arose.
Lifting her head, she tried to identify her surroundings. They were on Storybrooke's Main Street. A pile of store shipping pallets loomed in the middle, being thrown together by Leroy and several other dwarves. A look to her left arm found Whale manhandling her from that side, a determined grimace on his face. On her right was Thomas, Cinderella's prince. She tried to pull free. The motion wrenched her shoulder and this time her yelp of pain couldn't be stopped.
Squeezing away the tears and opening her eyes, Regina saw Henry. Standing outside of the mob, his gaze met hers. Abruptly he turned away and ran.
The sight ripped through her chest as though her heart was being ripped from behind her ribs. "Henry!" Regina hung her head. Tears too heavy to hold back any longer splattered to the pavement, like rain. Then, she realized, it was raining. She lifted her head, letting the cold winter rain pelt her face like tiny stones.
Whale slapped her. "Stop that! This is your own doing!"
She looked at him askance. "You... you think I.. I'm doing this?" She was rather proud of the acid she had managed to bring to her tone until Whale slapped her again. Her head snapped up and to the side.
"Aren't you? You are responsible for everything in this town. Isn't that what you said for the last 28 years, Madame Mayor!" His tone was mocking.
Whether she was making the rain or not (she was sure she wasn't, at least consciously; she'd never cared for weather spells), the wood pyre on which they had intended to burn her (how predictable, Regina thought) was soon soaked and wouldn't ignite. Someone in the mob suggested gasoline. Someone else ran off to get some. Rough hands continued to tie her to the wood against her struggles.
"Stop!"
Regina's gaze snapped to the speaker. Outside the gathered mob stood David. No, Regina amended, it was Charming, she realized upon seeing the determined glint in his eyes and the square of his shoulders. Beside him, looking back and forth between the prince and the crowd, biting his lip in worry, was Henry.
"She deserves to be punished! She deserves the pain!" many in the crowd shouted.
"I need her alive," Charming said. He walked forward, the mob parting in the face of their old respect for his elevated station. A few dipped their heads in slight bows. More looked on with curiosity. What would their prince do? Then there was only Whale and Thomas between Charming and Henry and Regina.
She had eyes only for Henry. Her son. She smiled weakly at him; he continued to look between Charming and Whale as the men faced off. Regina didn't care. Her heart was as light as it had felt in years. Henry had gone to find Charming. He hadn't been leaving her to the mob. He'd been looking for someone to intervene, to save her. Her head spun with the realization and the humbled feeling washed through her, weakening her knees. Sagging against the rope restraints, she couldn't feel the strain in her arms, nor the rain, or the rough slivers piercing her knees. She felt none of it. She was too overcome.
Charming shouldered past Whale. Regina looked up when she felt a heavy push against her shoulder. Charming was holding her up with one arm while pulling her one arm free of ropes with the other. Manhandling her just as his daughter had all those months ago taking her out of the city hall fire. Unable to stand on her own, she clung to him.
"James," Thomas said.
"No," Charming replied.
Regina felt a hand move against the small of her back. Turning her head slightly, she met Henry's searching gaze. He said nothing; she could find no words. Charming lifted Regina into a fireman's carry and strode through the throng. Regina kept her eyes just above his shoulder and watched Henry following close behind.
Looks like we've fallen down the rabbit hole now, Emma thought. Hauling on her arms, and dragging Mary Margaret just ahead of her were things - men who could only be from a drug-induced dream - a company of soldiering playing cards. She was being held by a five and eight of clubs. Pulling on her mother's arms were a nine and ten, also clubs. Two through four and the six and seven marched around them, prodding at them with spears tipped with spades. Yep, Lewis Carroll had definitely been on drugs, Emma decided. This sentiment was reinforced when they were met by a company of heart soldiers at the entrance to a vine-covered castle courtyard.
"The Queen has ordered the prisoners be taken to the garden party," the ten of hearts said to the ten of clubs. "She wishes them to be her... entertainment," he added with a smile that told Emma they wouldn't like being the entertainment.
Mary Margaret spoke up at the sound of this. "The Queen? Good. Tell her the Queen of the Enchanted Forest seeks a meeting."
The card soldiers exchanged looks at this request.
"That may not have been a good idea," Emma muttered out of the side of her mouth as she stood shoulder to shoulder with her mother.
"Nonsense," her mother replied. "We're equals."
"We're prisoners," Emma said.
One of the cards who had run off when Mary Margaret spoke came running back out of breath. "Her Majesty," he barely got out before he was engulfed in a cloud of purple smoke.
Emma's eyes narrowed as she studied the figure stepping forward out of the dissipating cloud. Dark hair, dark eyes, slender as a reed, clad in a red and white gown, holding a mask before her face. Her name - uttered by soldiers dropping to their knees in obeisance as they shoved Emma and Mary Margaret to the ground as well - couldn't have been more of a surprise.
"The Queen of Hearts."
Damn, Emma thought, another detail the fairytales of her youth failed to get right. This was not the fat, indulged monarch of Disney's rendition. Beside Emma, Mary Margaret's look up was aborted, her face dropping immediately. That made Emma take a second look, noting real fear on her mother's face.
The flashing angry eyes of the Wonderland queen swept over both Emma and Mary Margaret before turning to her soldier. "You said one of these women claimed to be the Queen of the Enchanted Forest!"
"The brunette, Majesty," he replied with a low bow. With a scream, the Queen of Hearts flung her hand toward him. She never touched him, but he bowled backward, heels kicking up over his head, rolling to a stop in a heap against a hedge that came to life and swallowed him as he screamed. Emma winced and averted her eyes.
"The Enchanted Forest was destroyed by the Dark Curse. Everyone knows this." The Queen of Hearts turned to Emma. "Now, who are you?"
Some part of Emma blared a warning that the truth was not useful. "Name's Alice," she said easily. "Fell down a rabbit hole."
The queen studied her for a long moment in silence. Mary Margaret said nothing and Emma prayed it would stay that way until she could verbalize her suspicions in private. But there was something else in Mary Margaret's eyes that suggested Emma's lie was safe with her, and that Mary Margaret knew more that she wasn't saying either.
"Which world did you come from, dear?" It was the 'dear' - exactly as Regina Mills had said it to Emma countless times - that widened Emma's eyes in understanding.
"Boston," Emma replied as evenly as possible. "We have tea parties."
The brunette's brown eyes narrowed and, out of the corner of her eye, Emma watched the fingers of her right hand twitch. Whatever thought passed through the woman's mind, however, left again quietly. The Queen of Hearts instead turned to Mary Margaret.
"Mary," Snow said. The woman gave an upward quirk of her brow, and Emma knew that the Queen of Hearts didn't buy that for a second.
"We've told you our names," Emma preemptively struck. "Why not tell us yours?" She gauged the woman's reaction to her presumption as amused - yeah, this was Regina's mother.
"Darling Snow..." She paused for effect then continued, "knows my name, don't you dear?" The woman lifted her hand to Snow's cheek. Emma steeled her spine to prevent jumping forward and ripping off the offending appendage. She watched closely, alert, as the woman cupped Snow White's cheek and then the back of gloved fingers caressed a prominent cheekbone. Emma expected a bone-crushing backhand smash to erupt any second.
However, Snow didn't move away from the touch, and she didn't flinch. Her mother's green eyes literally shook in their sockets though, bouncing back and forth between the older woman's eyes boring into hers. "Cora," she breathed.
"I knew you'd remember me." she added when Mary Margaret looked up at her in surprise. "I've been biding my time since Regina cast the Dark Curse taking all of you to a land without magic." She paused then asked with a narrowing of her brows, "How is Regina? How is my daughter?"
The woman's voice was filled with saccharine, utterly fake sweetness. Instead Emma sensed disdain, distaste, even hatred, and she sensed not all of it was directed at Snow White, maybe not even most of it. To Emma's ear, the woman was barely concealing venomous thoughts. Great, someone else who wants Regina Mills dead.
Emma and Snow suddenly found themselves flung to the ground, though not within reach of the hungry hedge. Emma lay there shocked and shook her head to clear it. She hadn't even seen Cora's hand move.
But now the witch did move, stepping forward so she loomed regally over Emma and Snow sprawled on the garden walk. Emma was caught in a dark brown glare as Cora, the Queen of Hearts, crouched and reached out. Emma resisted flinching as a gloved finger lifted her chin. "You will now tell me... Alice... How we shall get to this Boston of yours."
Regina was surprised where Charming carried her. Not back to Granny's, no. He finally set her down at the foot of the stairs to the mayor's office in city hall. She leaned against the wall; her legs weren't quite up to the task of holding her upright just yet. He had obviously touched her as long as he was willing, not able, since he wasn't even breathing hard. Movement out of the corner of her eye drew her gaze to Henry, shuffling back and forth on his sneakered feet, uncertainty and eagerness to do something both clear in his face.
"Henry," she began quietly. "Thank you." Turning to Charming fully, she acknowledged her debt to him with a dip of her head. "Why are we here?"
"I want my wife and daughter back," he said simply, firmly. His blue eyes were set hard and his jaw twitched as he tried to keep it firm as well.
"Were you able to get the hat?" she asked. Exhaling she finally found enough strength to stand without leaning against the wall, but she was not about to attempt the stairs.
"The hat?" Henry interjected. "What hat?"
Regina sighed. "Jefferson's hat. We think he took Emma and Snow through the hat."
"Where can they go through a hat?" he asked. "Wait, wait," he interrupted his own question. "Jefferson? He's in my book."
"Yes, Henry, he is."
"But he's the Mad Hatter."
Charming nodded. "Yes, a Hatter. He jumps between worlds."
"Then he's sent them to Wonderland!" Henry surmised with the conviction of youth. "But why would he do that?" He frowned, the puzzle continuing to remain unclear despite his few pieces.
Regina wasn't sure. She hadn't trusted Jefferson since meeting him in her years as a young distraught queen, hoping to revive her lost love. "I know he has worked with Rumple before."
"Rumplestiltskin brought magic to Storybrooke," Henry said.
Now Charming could see a thread. "Is it possible," he asked Regina, "that he ordered Jefferson to do something because they had gone to see him?"
"It's as good a theory as anything else. But we won't get Rumple to tell us anything."
"We still don't have any idea why Rumple wanted magic here, do we?" Charming asked.
"He made the curse. It was designed to send us all to a land without magic," Regina said. "But I don't know his ultimate reason."
"So he wanted to be here, but when the curse broke, he wanted to go back? Why else have a portal-jumping Hatter, and magic to make the hat work?" Charming asked.
"The hat doesn't jump to or from worlds without magic. That's why he had to devise the Dark Curse. Such a feat required something stronger. But he hasn't gained anything here. Other than being wealthy, a stipulation he had me add into things, Rumple doesn't have anything... in this world, or our old one."
"Well, he now has Belle," Charming pointed out.
"But he thought she was dead. So it's not like he came to search for her."
"Maybe he needs the magic to find something else."
"But none of us knew anything about this world," Regina replied. "It was just the land without magic."
"The only one?" Henry asked. He seemed to be getting excited again.
"Yes."
"Then I know what Rumplestiltskin is looking for," Henry shouted. He started running back out of the building. The adults followed quickly, Regina shaky, but on her own, and Charming pushing hard with both hands at the exit door.
Henry had run to the truck and thrown open the door, reaching for something in the seat. "It's right here," he said triumphantly, pulling out his storybook as both adults stared at him from the entrance to city hall. "He's looking for his son."
.