A/N Thank you again for following and reviewing. Had a couple of busy days being a mean old boss lady but think the worst is over now! I changed the name of the story to Operation Cygnets. Had been meaning to do so for a while.

Emma looked between Ana and Sofia and then to Regina as they sat at the dinner table that evening. The atmosphere had changed as soon as the girls had come back from recovering the ball. Sofia was being very obedient and Ana was awfully quiet. She was so much like Henry when she was worried about something and it killed Emma to see her girls struggling with something she knew she couldn't help with. The saviour in her wanted to jump in front of a bus for them, or a carriage in this world, but she had no idea how to help. She found herself thinking about her father and imagined how he must have felt having to stand by and watch her struggle with being the saviour.

"Is everything ok, Emma?" Regina asked.

"Yeah, I was just thinking about David." Emma stated nostalgically. Regina gave her a knowing smile and they carried on eating in relative silence. When the girls had finished, Ana excused herself from the table staying that she felt tired. Sofia followed shortly after her yawning.

"They are up to something." Regina observed.

"I agree." Emma added trying to figure out the shift. "Let's pretend we are having an early night and see what they do."

Regina's lips curled at the sides at Emma's plan. "They might be sneaky but I think they're forgetting who their mothers' are!"

Emma and Regina made a lot of noise as they want to their room, making a show of being exhausted from all the sports they'd played that afternoon. They settled under the covers fully dressed and turned out all the lights. Regina whispered, "Do you think They will fall for it?"

Emma giggled and gave her wife a peck on the nose. "If you can manage to keep quiet and stop distracting me with your gorgeousness, then yes!" They cuddled up and tried to be quiet but soon enough they were in the midst of a passionate session. Neither could resist each other as it was and soon forgot about why they were trying to stay awake in the first place. Suddenly, Emma stopped their love making as she heard something.

"That was the front door, Regina." Her wife shot up and went to the window of the room trying to stay in the shadows.

"They're going out towards the cemetery Emma. Should we follow them?" Regina said a little flustered and shivering from the cold night air. She was still naked and annoyed at being disturbed in such a heated moment. Emma stood up and draped a sheet around her wife, pulling her back into the bed.

"I have a better idea." and she poofed the magic mirror off the bedroom cabinet. "Show me the girls." The mirror fizzled into action and showed Emma and Regina what they wanted to see. Obviously the girls had thought their parents were asleep and didn't perform a cloaking spell this time. The women sat with mouthes open on the bed as they watched the goings on in the mirror.

...

"Sofia, slow down. You might break something." Ana called out concerned for her sister. Sofia scoffed.

"Ana, really. I'm not as clumsy as you! I'm not going to break anything, idiot!"

Ana had to be honest. She was concerned about her sister but mostly she was terrified of being in a cemetery at night. She could sense the death all around her and it was frightening. Sofia huffed and slowed down to wait for her sister. She herself didn't fear death or spirits. It was a cycle of life and there weren't any witches buried in this cemetery, only the White kingdom's deceased royals.

"Stop being a baby, Ana. Nothing can hurt us here. The dead are dead! You've been reading too many ghost stories." Sofia teased but held out her hand anyway.

The girls reached the tomb which had the letters XVIII inscribed above the entrance. There was a slight depression on the left where the entrance stone could be moved. Sofia slid her hand in and tried to pull it across. "It's too heavy Ana. Help me."

The girls pushed and pulled but couldn't move the stone door. They leant back against it in exhaustion, panting and sweaty. "I wish Henry had been more specific. So you think we should use magic to move it?" Ana asked cautiously. They were both thinking the same thing. It could be risky to use magic if there was something enchanted inside. Sofia thought through their options. There was no way that would open it using brute force on their own. They had no choice.

The girls harnessed their magic and gently coaxed the rock to the side, allowing them access to inside the tomb. There was a red glow coming from inside. Ana nodded to her sister and they went inside.

Immediately the girls saw a red rose glowing and floating at the back of the tomb. It was inside a jar with fallen petals collecting at the bottom. There were sparks twinkling all around it and the girls were awed at the beauty of this enchanted object. Sofia went to take it but as she did, the rock door fell shut behind them. The girls turned around and tried to use their magic to push it open again but they couldn't harness any. Something was blocking their power.

"Ana, what are we going to do? Our magic isn't working. We're trapped." Sofia suddenly panicked and lost her usual cool. Ana tried again and again to gather her power but it was in vain.

"The Enchantress must have done some sort of spell to hide the rose from magic. It feels like a cage doesn't it?" Ana said to her sister who nodded and let a few tears fall from her eyes. She grabbed the rose in the jar and held it up closer to the entrance to see if there was a way of opening it from inside. There wasn't. Whoever had built this hadn't thought about the possibility of someone wanting to get out. The girls tried their strength again to no avail.

"Mom and Ma are going to kill us." Ana said. Sofia sighed and half jokingly, half terrified said,

"We'll be dead before then."

...

Emma and Regina jumped as they watched the tomb covering slip back over the entrance. It wasn't magic as far as they could tell, just the sheer weight of the stone. Regina looked at her wife and raised an eyebrow. "Well it serves them right for sneaking off in the middle of the night, the little madams!" Emma rocked her head backwards and huffed.

"Suppose this means we have to go and rescue them. Damn! I was hoping they were just sneaking off to meet a boy or something."

Regina scowled at the thought but said, "Let's leave them to stew for a while. They aren't going anywhere and you and I have some unfinished business." She winked and leaned into Emma who dropped her jaw in astonishment.

"Aha! There it is! Don't look now Gina but I think your evil is showing."

After the pair had dressed at a leisurely pace, they walked down to the cemetery and found the tomb they had seen in the magic mirror. Emma pulled it aside with ease. She had gotten very strong from all the construction work she'd been doing over the years and Regina was impressed with her wife's muscles.

The girls heard movement outside and began panicking. Quickly, Sofia grabbed the rose in its jar and shoved it into the empty satchel she had brought along. Ana was terrified and squeaked, "please don't hurt us." as the stone rolled back to reveal two shadowy figures standing in the entrance.

"Mom! Ma!" Sofia called in relief then hung her head as she realised they had been caught.

Emma spoke. "Wanna explain what you are doing out here in the middle of the night?"

Ana and Sofia looked at each other unsure of how much of the truth they could get away with withholding.

"Ma, we are sorry. Thank you for rescuing us. We were so afraid." Ana started and hugged Emma around the waist.

"Answer the question, girls." Regina said sternly. She wasn't about to let them dodge out of this without an explanation.

Sofia reluctantly began to respond. "There is something we needed to do but we had better not talk here. Someone could be listening." The 4 of them poofed back to the palace.