Author's note: Thank you to Marieyotz for her beta services.

Also, I'm so very sorry for the long wait for this chapter.

Much love

Jane

Previously

Regina was terrified of Sidney's presence in "court". There were, after all, things worse than death. And one of them was Sidney revealing things she had confided in him back then, things about her life with Leopold. She wanted him out of that seat. Desperately.

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"Is that what happened?"

"Yes."

"But you did escape."

"No. She trapped me in a mirror."

Emma went through an inventive string of expletives in her mind. That was a lie and it did not take her super power to see through it. Sidney, unable to lower his voice any further without muting it completely seemed to have developed a stutter and a cough all in one second. Choke on it, you bastard. And then Regina's hand slid into hers, their fingers entwined and there was warmth in the gesture. Emma's throat constricted painfully.

"It's not true." She spoke softly, barely a sound, but her head was high and she was facing Sidney and staring him down. "He wished his one wish."

"Objection!" Emma shouted from her place.

Every single pair of eyes in the room turned to her. Those of the Prosecutor focused more intently. "Oh? On what grounds?"

Snow bristled. Yes, she would have to ask that question also, but George was messing with her daughter and she wanted to gouge his eyes out. Again. For Emma and for herself.

"On the grounds that it is a lie."

"Your Honor, I believe that this objection should be formulated in a more legal manner to even be considered."

This time Snow did not even have time to glare at him. Emma leaned back on her seat, balancing the old chair on its back legs, all defiance and challenge. "Screw that. If we're going to play courtroom, let the other kids play nicely, George."

"Your Majesty!" He dared scold her mother and that earned him a death glare from Snow that meant nothing good for him.

"Don't bother anyway. Go ahead." Emma conceded, her heart thrumming in her chest, violently and not because of the confrontation but because Regina had her hand in hers again, warm, soothing.

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When the din in the room died down, Sidney's back sagged and he looked at the Prosecutor for guidance. "Is it a lie, Mr Glass?" Sidney was unable to answer. His gaze fell to his hands nervously twisting in his lap. George swiftly moved in front of him, shielding the shying Mr Glass from the crowd. As if that could actually stop them from drawing their own conclusions.

"Mr Glass?"

"It is not. I was tricked. She could not have me free. She could not. Not with the things I know. Knew. She didn't want those known."

"Oh?" George had heard all of this before but he was a good actor and he could fake interest and respect as well as needed. They had sat, Sidney and him, hours and hours exploring this very avenue. It was a good one, George felt. It was one that exposed, with minor tweaking, the Queen for what she was, a dog that bit the hand that fed it. It had taken nearly his entire supply of good hard liquor, who would have guessed that Mr Glass could have drank so much, but he had gotten it all out of him. "Did she have reason to want the old King dead?" It was Sidney's cue. Like a well rehearsed dance, the mirror should ask him then a guileless What, besides ascending to the throne while his one child was not of age? but it seemed that the clean nose lecture had not been sufficient. So he stepped in, stepped up his game. And voiced his question for the spectators in the room. "And I mean besides the fact that she'd ascend to the throne ahead of his underage child, which she then pursued to almost death, eventually leading us all here. Cursed." Pause for effect. "Isn't that right, Your Majesty?"

Sidney was confused for a minute. He knew he was supposed to have asked that question himself. It was his line. He mentally ran through the play, trying to get a bid on the text of it. For the life of him, he could not remember what came next. He stuttered and then uttered a feeble Yes that came through a gruff throat and nearly not enough voice. He dug his manicured nails into in his palms. Get a grip, Genie, get a grip. "Yes, she had cause for it. Or so she said."

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In Emma's hand, Regina's tightened painfully. Next to Emma's, Regina's whole body tensed. Emma studied her for a second. Regina was bracing herself for something. Something nasty. For a minute, Emma considered that she should probably be bracing herself too. God only knew what Sidney had to say that Regina was so scared of. More dark secrets, more skeletons in the closet. More hearts ripped off of chests, more bodies crawling out from under lost boulders.

But she tightened Regina's hand in hers. Whatever it was, it was the past and she could deal. It was in the past. That was the key. She could rationalize and get past it. She had known all along that she'd hear some twisted shit during this poor excuse for a trial. She knew because she had been on the receiving end of Regina's attentions for the better part of a year and she knew how dogged the woman was.

But that was the point, right? You take the good with the bad and you hope for the bad not to make an appearance again, for the bad not to show up and make itself present again. What's in the past you can deal with. You can. She had her own past. She had it and there was no use denying it.

What could be so bad?

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"She hated him."

"I think the court will want you to clarify, Mr Glass." George prodded, eyes still on the crowd, measuring, calculating. "I think we all want to know what caused a great and merciful king to be slain in his own bedchamber, torn from the arms of his loving daughter, of his adoring subjects."

"She was forced to marry him."

"Oh?"

"Arranged marriage. You see, it was… well… it was…"

George wanted to rip his head off, the blubbering fool. The case was set up for him and the spineless simpering little toad was just dragging this on and on. Straight to the point he had told him. Straight to the point, Mr Glass, but Sidney had lost his orientation towards the point. Taking a long deep breath, George once again took control of the dialogue, guiding Sidney firmly back to the rehearsed path.

"I wonder if you mean that her mother managed to concoct a marriage well above their station."

"Yes… Sure, yes." Sidney was sweating up a storm in his pressed suit and new silk tie.

"I wonder if you mean that her mother managed to do the best for her ungrateful child and marry her off into not only royalty but to reigning monarchy at that, giving that ungrateful child her best chance."
"Indeed…" Sidney felt himself regain control inch by miserable inch and the subject went back to the well trodden path he had been over with the Prosecutor. It helped that the Prosecutor shielded him from his Queen's eyes.

"From millers to Queen in two generations."

George did a little grunt of approval, hands behind his back, balancing on the balls of his feet. They were back on the right path, both George and Sidney felt. "Only I could have granted better wishes myself."

"And she was unhappy with this union because…"

"Because well… he was old. She was young…"

"What of that? She married above her station, was he not kind to her? Did he not perform his husbandly duties? Did he not offer all he had promised with his wedding vows?"

"I'm sure he did. She was even with child at some point."

"So why would she turn on him? What reason could she possibly have to have the Good King Leopold murdered in his slumber?"

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The air in Regina's lungs became a heavy syrupy thing, her crippled old heart beat erratically. It was all coming back. All she had so carefully forgotten about, all she had so painstakingly eliminated from her waking memories was being put into words, brought back to torment and humiliate her once again. Having lived it once was not, it seemed, sufficient. Her past was the gift that kept on giving. She withdrew her hand from Emma's safe hold and folded it into her lap. Henry was in the room. Henry was in the room and he would hear all of the sordid story. Henry and Emma would hear the whole sordid affair. And she would prefer to be the villain than to be pitied.

Forcing the air in and out of her lungs, she turned to Emma, all urgency in that one request. "Tell them I give up. Tell them they can do whatever." Her hand went to her erratic heart trying to calm down its beat. "Tell them… They were right about it all. Just make it stop now. Make it stop. Get Henry out of here. He must not be here for this. Make it stop."

"Stop." Regina stood and addressed Snow. "Just stop. Snow White… Your Majesty. Just stop."

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Emma was frozen in her place, unable to process what on earth Sidney Glass could have on Regina that she'd rather forfeit than let it come to light. For some reason, she could not bring herself to believe it was an act so heinous, so horrifying that she'd prefer to have it cost her her life.

No. This was something Reina would pay- and with her life- to keep a secret. From Henry and from Emma herself.

"Your Honor!" Emma stood, uncertain. It was like waking up naked in high school without homework. She loved Regina. She loved her and she had no clue what terrified her so much, what she could say, how to sooth her. She had no clue how to do anything right. "I need a break. Intermission. How do they say it on TV? Recess? I need a minute."

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Snow was paralyzed herself. She had not seen that particular brand of terror in Regina's face since she caught her with Daniel all those years ago. It was look of abject fear and there was a tingling in her spine that told that she should accept Regina's plea. She should stop and just let the dice fall where they may. It was that very same tingling in her spine that had been telling her all along that she was not going to like what was going to be said here. She was not going to be able to live with it.

She had a sense of preservation. She was so very tempted to just acquiesce and be done with this and go on with the rest of her happy ending.

"Granted. 30 minutes?"

"Your Majesty, really, this is highly inappropriate! A court does not go into recess at every hissy fit of the defendant. This is out of order."

Snow took her gavel and hit it with a satisfying thump on her desk. "Nothing about this whole thing in very much in order, and yet here we are. Sir." She dropped the last word with clear defiance in her voice. She was a glutton for punishment, it would appear.

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Emma pulled Regina to her trying to silence the pleas for it to stop. Sidney looked at his hands and tried to make himself small, invisible when she managed to drag Regina into a small room next door, flanked by guards and under the scrutiny of the Storybrooke.

When she locked the door behind her, Regina simply collapsed onto the chair.

"Enough. Enough now, Emma." She rubbed at her chest as if it hurt and Emma simply dropped to her knees by Regina.

"I don't understand. Why now? I thought… This morning, with Henry… I thought that if not for me, than at least for him… you'd try. I thought you'd try."

"There is nothing to try, Emma. We both know that the outcome is a foregone conclusion."

"No, it isn't. How could you think that? Look where we are. Look around you. You just need a little faith."
"I'm all out of faith, Emma."

"I'm not. And you owe me this. You owe me a chance to try."

"Because we slept together?" Oh this used to be easier, to hide her hurt under the pain she caused others. "Grow up, Miss Swan. Despite what you might have heard, there are no fairy tales to be had in this land. Everything will end exactly as it is supposed to end. You can only buyme time."

Emma felt like she was being hit with something like a bus or a mountain, perhaps. She slid onto her heels, sitting on them, trying to regain her balance. She looked at Regina just trying to get her bearings, a reference point, anything that would make her head stop spinning. And then she saw it, the lie in Regina. So, so clear, that lie. And it did not take a super power. It took only the grimace on that face Emma knew so well, a grimace of pain and desolation, of discomfort and despair.

"What do you want to keep from Henry? What does Sidney-Sack-of-Shit have on you that you do not want him to hear?"

"Miss Swan…"

"Damn it, Regina, I'm a big girl. I can send Henry home and fuck me if he won't clear the room, but I want to know what the hell it is that Sydney knows about you. What are you so terrified of that you'd rather die than have me know about it?" Her hand gripped Regina's arms and she could feel her own and Regina's pulse points through her fingers grasping tightly. She was towering over Regina, her stance overpowering and aggressive.

She took note of it, of that look on Regina's face that was a mix of the things she wanted to hide and something new, a fear she could not disguise.

There were so many ways you could bully someone. And Emma knew her posturing was just one of them. She was ashamed of it but she could not stop herself. Not until Henry placed his hand on her arm and called her name as softly as he came into that room.

That hand allowed her to take a step back, to see what she was a doing from an out of body perspective. It was like being back at that point when she pressed Regina into a wall and told her that she had no heart.

It was like that. With Regina disheveled and fragile taking her hand and placing it against her chest and saying No, I don't confessed, whispered to her great shame.

The iron grasp became soft touch. The standing became kneeling. And yet, she was still a bully.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Regina. I'm so sorry." Still a bully.

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Regina had no idea how to reply. She was scared yes. No matter how hell bent on giving up, she was afraid. At that moment, she had feared Emma. And then there was a blond head on her knees and sobbing and apologies. No had ever apologized to her. She didn't know how to reply to an apology. She supposed it took some practice to do it gracefully. She had no practice.

It was not okay. She could not say it was okay. But she could hug back. She could sooth the wild mass of curls in her lap. She liked being a person that could hug, the person that could sooth away a sorrow.

"What I did, I can't take back, Emma. I wish I hadn't because it hurts… here." She placed her hand over her heart and rubbed insistently there, trying to relieve the pressure. "But let them think what they will. They always have, anyway. Let me have this."

"Your secrets?"

"My pride, Emma."

"Mom?"

Henry took a crumpled tissue from his pocket and took Regina's face in his hands. He cleaned tears she didn't know she had.

"I don't have any friends at school."
"Oh Henry!"

"Mom, listen. It's important, okay?" Regina nodded and Emma sat again on her heels. "Kids, they don't really like me, because I'm the son of the Mayor, you know? Like I'm there to spy on them or something. They don't like me because they say I'm crazy and that's why I go to Archie. And I'm a geek. Kids in school are not really nice when they don't like someone." Henry stuffed his hands in his pockets and fidgeted.

"Henry, why didn't you tell me?"
"Were you bullied, Henry?" Emma leaned to him and had her hands running over him. She didn't know anything about parenting. She had nothing to draw from, she had never been parented, she had never had to parent Henry. Regina was the one that did all of that. She could only love in this way, this very physical, tactile way of touching and holding and protecting. She wanted to get up and go and hurt someone. But Henry had something else on his mind and it was slow coming but it was coming.

"Yes." He admitted through gritted teeth. "I didn't tell you because I was embarrassed. It's not because I didn't think you couldn't help me. You totally could. But I was ashamed."
"Of what, Henry? You're perfect."

"Of being weak. You're so strong and I was ashamed of being weak."

"Henry, there is nothing to be ashamed of… I wish you'd told me. Even if there had been nothing I could have done, at least I could have been there for you." It gave her pause for a second because it had been so long that he had wanted her to be there for him. "If you wanted to."

"I did. I still do. But that goes both ways, mom."

"Henry, I'm not sure I understand."

"Okay, let me try smaller words: Pot. Kettle."

Emma wanted to hug Henry. Regina was not processing anything beyond the thought that her child was bullied in school but Emma was quicker on the uptake. Or maybe it was because Henry was so much like her in this too. She wanted to hug him fiercely, but this moment was Regina's and when it sank in, she was sure Henry's words would be that much more powerful than hers could ever be. She wanted to hug the kid and not let go.

Instead, she leaned into Regina's knees again and waited.

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His palms were sweaty and his heart was thumping wildly in his chest. He would never have guessed how much this would hurt, how much confessing to his own shame, to his own pain would hurt. But it hurt so much more seeing that look he recognized from the mirror when mom had asked Grandma to make it stop.

Regina Mills was his mother in every sense. She had fed him and clothed him. Sat with him through sickness, put up with tantrums, cleaned up his room complaining of his messy ways. But she had never been so much his family as today when he saw that terrified look in her eyes. When he chose to be hers again.

And he could not quite explain how he knew she was not afraid that her sins were being exposed- that ship had sailed- but that there was something she had carefully hidden and that she did not want others to see. A weakness, an indignity. The very same that reflected back at him when he prepared for school every morning.

Desperate souls recognize each other. It just hurt that he never seen it before.

He took his mother's hand in his. "Don't you think it's time for us to be brave together?"

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The lump in her throat was going nowhere fast. Henry knew what she was trying to hide. Not the nitty-gritty of it, but the general principal. He knew that. And though she felt it as a personal failure that she had not seen her child go through that, she wanted to cry that she had raised a boy compassionate enough to recognize it in someone else. Recognize it in her of all people.

"I can go home if you want. I can go. But I'd like to be here. I'd like for you to go outside so we can do this together."

All in all, it was small price to pay. It was the beginning of her penance, perhaps, to have all her hurts and slights paraded around. Maybe that would go some way to appease the anger and the hatred. All in all, it was no price at all to have this, her son in the same room wanting her to save herself, to have this woman holding on to her like something precious. Even if she had strange ways to let it show. Ways that she knew well. Had she not done the same to Henry?

Very small price indeed.

She steeled herself, cleaned her nose and rubbed her face into a semblance of the mayor of what? two weeks ago? and prepared to face the beginning of her punishment.

"Alright. Let's do this."

Simultaneously, two pairs of arms encircled her and squeezed and she was not comfortable with this type of physical affection but it felt good. And it wasn't even strange.

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So the fallen queen was regaining her retinue. No matter. The mirror's testimony should go well enough to appease the boiling anger in her. The fabric of her plan was starting to fray dangerously and it was not pretty. She liked that status quo. She liked the stench of hurt and misery. Worn like an expensive, exclusive perfume. It fed her appetite and her power.

No, the serenity in the queen's face was not good at all. The fiery determination in the Savior's eyes meant nothing she cared to heed and now the whelp joined the attendants. Her stomach churned something acid and painful.

It didn't really matter. Hers was the victory. Even if she had to wait a little longer. Put in a little more effort.

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Sidney swallowed his nerves, raw and dry. It had not helped that he had stayed in that very exposed position with all the room looking at him. Judging him for lack of a better defendant in the room. The 10 minutes the queen and the sheriff were out of the room seemed to him like hours of torture. He pulled and picked at his tie until he undid the lining and the seams. He picked at the skin of his fingers until it felt raw like his throat. He wished he could disappear into a hole in the ground. Or drink. He was so thirsty. He wanted to drink until it felt like this was the proper thing to do again. Until he felt the fire of the rage and all the decades of this scorned love were justified again.

When she walked into the room, his heart sank again and had it not been for the Prosecutor standing between him and the closest door, he probably would have run.

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When Emma pulled Regina's face into a soundly defying wet kiss in front of the whole of Storybrooke gathered in that courtroom, Snow had a brief flash of that dream that kept on plaguing her sleep, of Regina's rounded belly and Emma's caring hand over it. Again she studied for the signs and found none. None that she could recognize.

From his place against the wall, Leroy threw a cat call "Have at it, sister!" It was so inappropriate that it had to be funny. Some people smiled, others openly giggled. Where did that leave the seriousness of the trial?

She hit the gavel onto the table and the silence was instant, though some faces remained with smiles on them. "The Prosecution may continue. Unless there is an objection from the Defense?"

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"No, Your Honor. There isn't."

"Well, then, Mr Glass." The Prosecutor cleared his throat. "I think we were interrupted when you were about to explain to this court room why the Queen could possibly want her husband dead. Was there a lover? Maybe more?"

"There were lovers. Alive and dead."

"Mr Glass, really, I believe will need an explanation." The Prosecutor's face was a smirk of victory.
"She kept her stable boy in a glass coffin. Much like the one Her Majesty_" And he gave Snow a pointed look. "_was kept in by the dwarves. She wanted to restore him."

"Ah, I see. So she had young lovers to satisfy her carnal desires and a dead lover she wanted to revive to replace the king."

Sidney stuttered. "Yes… yes, that was it."

"So where do you come in on this, Mr Glass. You're a djinn. What could you possibly offer her that she had a need for?"

"My magic. Djinn magic is powerful magic. He who controls the djinn controls his magic."

"I see." George paused for effect, to let the information sink in and settle in the public. "Forgive me, but A Djinn such as yourself… you had lived thousands of years before you came to the White Kingdom. You don't strike me as a vulnerable person that has not seen the ways of women, their wiles and their manipulations…"

"Have you ever been in love?"

George actually put his hand on Sidney's shoulder and offered something that to the casual onlooker would seem like understanding and empathy. "I have, yes."
"Then you will understand. She told me stories. I believed them. I wanted to believe them. I was in love and I wanted to be her savior. I saw myself as her knight in shining armor. It turns out I was wrong."

"What kind of stories?"
"What does it matter? They were lies."

"Can you be sure?"

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He was a dog. He was a dog that was biting the hand that had fed him. A traitorous dog.

"Yes." Though he knew different.

He sneaked a look at her. She sat there serene, nothing in her eyes to judge how deeply she hated him right there and then. How much she wanted his head on a pole or his skin for a drum. Nothing at all. If he had to guess, just sadness. And shame. He looked at the wall behind her not letting himself falter.

"I'm sure they were heartbreaking stories. To fool a man such as yourself."

"They were indeed. They made me believe that she needed me. That helping her was warranted."

"Do you remember those lies, Djinn?"

"How could I ever forget them…"

"Would you perhaps give the court an example or two. I think that should suffice to show the merciless, heartless liar that sits among us, the heartless, viciously cruel villainess that seeks our forgiveness and our mercy."

Sidney hesitated. It was a short but distinct opportunity to backpedal. To not sink even further. But the Prosecutor's hand squeezing his shoulder in what to others looked like a friendly gesture was enough to get him going.

"That he raped her. That he forced himself on her. That he never mourned the loss of the child she would have borne him had her mother not ensured the child did not see the light of day. Heartbreaking. How could I leave such a flower to him?"

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There were things Snow did not want to hear. And they all started now. She shrunk into her seat with a gasp of horror. Her father was perfect. He'd been perfect then, he was perfect still. He was kind and good and honest and worthy. All she had ever wanted to find for herself.

She knew that her subjects, the ones that had lived under her father, the ones that had sang and danced as the legends went would not believe it. Her father's memory was untouchable to them. Those were lies that the Genie was exposing. Lies alone.

But when she looked at Regina, when she saw that jaw set in a grim, painful line, the eyes dead, she could not help but remember the Regina that had been brought to the palace, alive, young, with light in her eyes. Even if in what she knew now was mourning.

That Regina had started to fade away, to vanish, the night of her nuptials.

The blindest is always the one that refuses to see.

She had been a girl then. But she was a woman know.

"Your witness" The Prosecutor announced, all arrogance and confidence.

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Emma had not let go of Regina's hand during Sidney's testimony. She had felt each hitch, each shudder, each shiver, each tremble in her body, a telegraphy of her emotions, of her reactions. Of each of her sorrows.

And she knew Regina enough now to know. She had heard enough to know without questioning.

"I have one question to begin with: how do you know they were lies, Sidney?"

"You're not the only one with the superpower, Sheriff… Princess…"

"I think I prefer Sheriff, Sidney. Let's stick with that for now, okay? But you know what, I usually base my superpower on more than a gut feeling. I mean, there are tells, you know. For example, the person will… fidget. Like you're doing now, Sidney." Sidney studied his hands minutely. "And they'll refuse to meet my eyes. Also like you're doing now. It's not rocket science. It's sense. So tell me, Sidney. Which one of those tells made you suspect that she was lying?"

"All of them… I mean…"

"Don't worry Sidney, I get your meaning… But I'm confused: if you knew she was lying…. Why did you do it? Did you fall in love with her because she was lying her face off to you? Was it the capacity for lying that you admired?"

"No… I don't… I don't think I knew it back then… it took a while. I understood after a while. When she imprisoned me in that mirror… When she condemned me to look upon her face forever."

"Ah… I get it. After the fact, you mean. Sure. But see, you are fidgeting now. You are not looking me in the eye, so that has my lie detector all buzzing and wailing and screaming LIAR. Do you want to know why, Sidney?"

"Why?" Sidney looked at Emma, moth to a flame.

"Because you are a liar. "
"Your Honor! This is intimidation! She is intimidating my witness."

"I think you mean the court's witness… Counselor."

The Prosecutor merely grunted is assent.

"Emma. I must ask to tread carefully. We must not forget who we are and what we're doing here."

"Sure. But he's still a liar."

The Prosecutor was turning an interesting shade of puce when he slapped his hand on his desk, demanding attention. "YOUR HONOR!"

"Okay, okay. I withdraw the question. Is that what they do on TV?" She turned to the crowd for confirmation. "Right, where was I? Ah, yes. I was about to debunk your 'testimony'. And I know exactly where I want to start: with the mirror entrapment."

"I'm sorry?"
"Not just yet, Sid, wait for it. Now, let me get this straight because I wasn't there so you need to run this by me again… King Leopold gave you a wish…"
"Your grandfather, Your Highness…"

"I told you I prefer Sheriff, but sure, I'll bite. So my Grandfather gave you a wish."

"He was a truly great man. He gave his first wish to his people. He wished his people to be happy."

"That was nice of him."

"Indeed. Then he wished for my freedom."

"Wow. Did he know you from someplace?"

"No, Your Highness. We had just met."

"Huh. Good guy all around…"

"Very much so. He certainly did not deserve what became of him… Your Highness. And then he wished that I would have his third and final wish."

"So a good man, on all counts…"

"Yes. He took me to the palace and he offered me a place in his court. A truly gentle soul."

"I see. So you saw it only fitting to covet his young wife. How old was she back then? Wait! Wait, wait I'm getting ahead of myself, right, Sid?"

"I…"

"Cat got your tongue, Sid?"

"Your Honor, this is harassment…" The Prosecutor stood from his sit and marched to Snow, standing right in front of her nose."
"Actually, I don't see it, Counselor and please do sit down. I find that I am interested in the Djiin's reply." Snow sat back and regarded George in defiance. "21."

"Your honor?" The Prosecutor felt himself losing ground without knowing how or why.

"My stepmother was 21 at that time. Just setting the record straight." She directed her gaze at Regina.

"Thank you, Your Honor." Emma followed the direction of Snow's gaze. It seemed to be locked with Regina's. "So you thought it appropriate repayment for his kindness to covet his 21 year old wife."
"He was so much older than her. She was unhappy."

"Hold it, hold it. Is this one of the lies she told you or was this true?"

"I… It's…"

"Don't worry, Sid, I told you that I understand. The King was too old for her, being what? 60? 70?"

"65" Snow supplied from her seat.

"Your Honor. These are grounds for a mistrial. If the court cannot be objective, then we must find another one. Or another way?"

"Counselor" Snow was angry. Furious. "You forget yourself. You also seem to forget how peculiar Storybrooke is. Unless you're intending on shipping us all out for a trial. As you were willing to send me out of Storybrooke before. So. Have. A. Care. Besides, supplying facts can hardly be deemed facetious."

Emma was not used to someone having her back. This felt good. "65. That's old. But how old were you Sid. Djinn. Genie. How old were you when you coveted her too?"

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Henry took Emma's chair while she was up. He leaned into Regina and let her sooth his hair.

"65 is really old." Regina was beyond words. It took all of her energy just to sit there, knowing how this interrogation was going to end. Leopold would still be dead, her child would still be dead and all her secrets would be exposed. She would be pitied if she was lucky. She did not want pity. From anyone. And without pity, it was just motive for murder. Which was true. "How old were you… when you married him?"

Age was different back there. Back then. It was. "17. I was 17."

"You were five years older than me?" The whisper was not as soft as Henry intended it to be. "But what about school? And playing?"

"It was different Henry."

"Doesn't feel like it."

~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ

"Well, Sid? How old? 'Cause I seem to remember the Prosecution mentioning thousand years old."

"Old enough for some sense, if you ask me." Granny quipped from the gallery. It made Emma bite the inside of her cheek trying not to laugh out loud and a vein bulge threateningly in the Prosecutor's forehead.

"Thanks, Granny. I'm not sure about you, but I am interested to know what you've done with the wish the king gave you. Because, you know, I would have wished for freedom if she had entrapped me. Wouldn't you, Granny?"

"Sure I would."

"See, Sid, we all would like to know why you didn't use that wish."

"Because I didn't have it."

"Ah, the truth. Okay. Why did you not have it?

"She took it from me." Emma had a quick vision of all the crying, blubbering bullies in all the playgrounds she'd ever been transferred to, crying their pretty eyelashes out when she fought back.

"Aaaaaaaaaaand we were so close to the truth only to lose it again."

"It's not. It's not a lie." Sidney's hands twisted nervously in his lap, wringing and unwriging the skin into white spots over the bony knuckles. "It's not."
"Your Honor! My witness needs a few minutes recess. He has been bullied and badgered and intimidated and_"

"The witness will answer the question, Counselor. Djiin? Why did you not have that wish?"

~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ

Sidney considered his options briefly: he could stay and face the room full of people. He could face Emma Swan and her. He could face Snow White and even the Prosecutor. The whole town. But he was used to impunity. The whole of his existence was lived in impunity. People made wishes that were all wrong and he still granted them. He had served the queen – and in serving her, himself, and still it was her sitting trial all by herself. Even in this he remained blameless. It was the only way he knew. He did not know accountability.

But the window was so far away. And freedom was not something he knew what to do with. He wanted nothing but the inside of his lamp. Or the other side of the mirror. He wanted it so badly he wished he still had that third wish. He closed down like a defeated animal.

~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ

Emma waited for the reply and had a gut feeling that it would not come. Sidney looked pretty much catatonic and she had a flash of guilt at having pushed perhaps too hard.

She placed her hand on his shoulder and rubbed softly. "You used that wish, didn't you, Sidney? You used it. And I'm going to hazard a guess here: you used it to stay close to her. But you made the same foolish mistake all those who had wished upon your lamp before you did." She rubbed his arm in comfort.

If there was one thing she knew were to wish for things that in the end screwed with your life. "You wished your freedom away…"

"Yes. I used my wish to gaze upon her face forever. I would use it again. I would use it still."

~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ

This was the moment. She knew Regina dreaded this the most. She had spent what? A week? A year with Regina now. And it was her eyes. As she looked at them now, with make-up, heavy and expertly applied, they were still haunted, sad. Most of all, what was in them was familiar as an old song in her ears. She too had secrets she did not want revealed. She too had suffered things she was embarrassed of. Not those where she had fought with equal strength, but those she had been overpowered because she was smaller, weaker. Those were the ones that she was too ashamed to show the scars. Those were the scars she did not brag about. And here they were in front of hundreds of strangers at best, enemies at worst and she was about to parade all those shames and embarrassments. She had spent a year with Regina. A week in her arms. Those eyes were the same since the beginning. Scared, lost and confused at times, still staring back at her. She should have known a lost soul anywhere. And it had taken her a whole year to get here.

"Sidney, I think we're ready for the truth now."

"Okay."

"Those lies you accused her of earlier…"

"Yes…"

"They were not lies, were they Sidney?"

Sidney lowered his head into his hands and cried quietly. "No. They were not."

"How did you know the Queen was unhappy? Was it something she said or something you saw?"

"Both. It was both."

~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ

Regina just wanted to sleep. A coma would be better. Amnesia. Anything to stop the memories, the thoughts in her head, the whispers in her mind.

When Sidney began to speak, she wanted to unlearn all her English. She would have preferred to be deaf. Or to be one of those innocent that hear but noises the world makes and understand them in their own way.

His words were echoes. Of Leopold's gruff voice in her ears when he came to her bed, of his hands, rough and cold on her skin, of his body weighing on top of hers, forceful, unyielding. Of her child dead inside her.

She wanted to use her magic to spirit herself away. But there was a collar that burnt the skin around her neck and kept her there. So she did next best thing: she pretended it was not her, that it had happened to somebody else, someone on the evening news or a novel. Someone far removed from her.

~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ

"I have one question left, Sidney. Just one." Emma fought the bile, the bitterness, the nausea. It was not worse that what she had already heard. About Cora, about Daniel. And still, this was a whole new level of hurt. The Genie nodded, defeated. Emma pitied him. "The curse. When the Evil Queen cast the curse, what happened to you?"

"I have gazed upon her face. Every day."

"From inside the lamp? The mirror, perhaps…"

"No. From outside."

"Free?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"So she released you from your wish. Even now that the curse broke, you remain free." Sidney nodded only.

"I'm sorry to say this Sidney, but you have the strangest ways to show appreciation for those that release you."

~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ

Emma dismissed Sidney and sat next to Regina and Henry, enveloping her in arms that could no more shield her from the past that had been unleashed on her again than they could protect her from the future.

As the court broke for a recess, Granny approached in unusually uncertain steps and stopping behind their desk cleared her throat. Emma was not ready to let go of Regina, not then, not yet, but she did loosen her hold.

"I don't know how to address you… Mayor Mills? Your Majesty?"

"I call her mom. Maybe you can call her Regina." Henry quipped.

"It's a good name, Henry, you're right." She winked at the boy. "Regina. I will not apologize for that day we marched_ that I marched into your house and we did those things. Everything was different then."

"I don't need your pity, Widow Lucas."
"That's good because I'm not offering you any. You've done more than enough that I am not in any danger of that, don't you worry. But I could see your shoulders and I can see your face now. The shame is not yours. This shame is not yours. Let go of it. Empty your heart of it."

"Shame isn't a strong enough word for what I feel."

"There's no hurt so awful, that you can't add some shame to it and make it even worse. Trust me, Regina Mills, I know." And she laid her hand gently on Regina's shoulder, tapped once and took her leave, leaving behind her air that was easier to breathe.