AN: Thanks again to LMPsisterhood for beta-ing this chapter. I made some changes since then, so any errors left are my own.
2038
"Ally, what is it?" Henry asked when he saw the distressed tears on the little girl's face.
Ally was not able to answer. She only sobbed her response.
Regina picked up the little girl and sat her on her lap. "Please, sweetheart, tell us what's wrong," she said.
"I want to plays with Sam, but Sam won't wake."
Puzzled and slightly worried, Regina and Henry looked at each other for a moment before returning their attention to Ally.
"What do you mean Sam won't wake?" Regina asked for clarification.
The distressed little girl hugged her mother tightly. "I tried to shake Sam awake, but she just sleeps. She won't wake."
Now worried, Henry took Ally from Regina's lap and followed her up the stairs, Ally clinging to his body like a lifeline.
They found Sam on her bed, looking to be asleep. Henry gently sat Ally down on her own bed before moving across the room to where Regina was gently shaking Sam and trying to wake her. Neither the movement nor their increasingly louder — and worried — voices had any affect.
Regina held her hand on Sam's forehead and allowed her magic to flow from her body to Sam's, checking for anything that might be wrong with the little girl. She felt the magic of her diagnostic spell flow easily through the body, but when it reached the area around Sam's heart, there was a momentary push against the flow of magic before it continued down the rest of the girl's body.
"Magic of some kind," Regina told Henry. Henry, feeling helpless at being unable to do anything for the girl, sat down on the side of the bed beside Regina and watched as she worked her magic.
With the diagnostic spell complete, Regina set her hand over Sam's heart and once more allowed her magic to enter the girl's body. She closed her eyes, allowing the feeling of the unknown magic to enter her as well.
The magic resisted hers at first, a brick wall keeping her at bay. She pushed more heavily upon it. Her daughter was in trouble and no force would be powerful enough to stop her. The brick wall buckled under Regina's onslaught, and she felt a wave of dark magic rush through her body before dissipating as if it had never been there.
"Dark magic. It felt . . . cold," Regina explained to Henry, because that was all she could tell.
"What do you need me to do?" Henry asked, because Regina always knew what to do when it came to magic. She was a powerful sorceress, and she knew a lot of magic besides. There was rarely a problem that Regina could not fix.
"Have Emma come over, and I need the black purse I keep in my vault."
"Of course," Henry easily took her directions, calling Emma even as he ran to the vault, his heart thumping wildly in his chest. Some strange magic was possessing Sam, and while Regina appeared outwardly calm, he knew her well enough to sense that it was just her acting. She was nervous too, and that did not bode well for Sam.
"Hello, Henry?" Emma answered on the third ring, surprised that Henry would call her on date night. He only ever did so in emergencies.
"I need you to come over to the house. There's something wrong with Sam. Some kind of magic. Regina needs your help identifying it."
Henry waited during the brief pause over the line, and then he heard his mom saying, "I'll be right there." Then he heard a click as the phone hung up.
Henry returned to the house around the same time Emma got there. He let them both in and then led his blonde mother up to the room Sam and Ally shared. When they entered, Regina was on her fifth diagnostic spell of the evening, though other than determining that there was some kind of dark magic in Sam, she had no idea what was going on.
"Emma," Regina gratefully greeted the other woman, and then she got right down to business. "I need you to use your magic on Sam and see if you can find anything wrong."
While Regina did not often like to admit as much, Emma's magic was every bit as powerful as her own, but in vastly different ways. The savior's magic was light, born of True Love, while Regina's magic was hereditary. It could be shaped more easily for good or evil. Perhaps Emma's light would be needed to confront the darkness in Sam.
Emma let her white magic spill out of her and directed it at the child. As Regina did before her, she encountered the barrier, the dark magic. It pushed her back.
"I felt something," Emma said, "but I can't identify it."
Regina nodded in understanding, and as Henry handed her the bag she requested, she rifled through it, seeking out an emerald green potion.
She uncorked the vial and held Sam's mouth open as she poured a few drops down the girl's throat. Massaging her throat to get her to swallow, Regina waited for the potion to take effect. Once she saw the telltale amber glow surrounding the girl, she held her hand a few inches above the girl's heart. Summoning the light magic she could, as the occasion demanded, possess, Regina searched once more for the darkness.
Cold. Dark. Alone. Colder and colder still. She latched onto the feeling, as the dark magic brought to the front of her mind her insecurities. Her concerns. Her demons.
How could he ever love you? The dark voice in her head whispered. He says he forgives you but he doesn't really mean it.
No, Regina thought, trying to push the words out of her head, but she could not. Not while she still held onto the darkness inside her daughter.
You're a monster, Regina. In image blossomed in her mind, her face pale with her lips dark red. Blood-stained. She held a heart in her hands, stabbed it with a knife, and then the blood spilled down from her hold on the heart, soaking onto her richly colored, satin gown. The red blood left stains on the navy and silver material. Look at what you are capable of the darkness whispered. She was consumed, surrounded, by the darkness she struggled hard to purge all those years ago. It was like a comforting embrace, welcoming her back into its fold.
Then the image shifted, and she saw Henry, only in her darkness-enshrouded mind he was different. Younger. More like the child he remembered. He looked to be no more than twelve or thirteen years old, and as she towered over her young child, they became locked in a passionate embrace. Kissing. He was still a child and she was . . . old. Look at him, Regina. Look and see what you have done to him. Your child. You are a monster. He is but a child. The image shifted, and then she saw a caricature of herself standing over Henry's body, only now, instead of a healthy looking child, he was bruised and bleeding, laying down on the floor unable to stand as she stood over him, whip in hand.
Look at how you have abused your son. You are a monster. No. Henry was safe. He was not broken. He was in the room with her, healthy as ever, and the image in her mind was just an illusion.
If this is just an illusion then why do you feel like a monster? The darkness questioned her. She was not a monster. She wasn't. She loved Henry and she would do anything for him. She would never hurt him. Not intentionally.
Monster. Monster. Monster. The darkness whispered in her mind, its voice low and chilling. Eerie. Possessive and authoritative, for it was able to seek out her darkest secrets even as she tethered herself to the darkness and allowed it to enter her. She had to, or else it would destroy Sam, her innocent daughter. The image shifted as the darkness repeated the word monster again and again, this time showing her standing over a broken Henry, only they were both nude.
The young boy was panicked. Mommy! The darkness mimicked younger Henry's shrill, startled scream. Don't do this to me. Please, Mommy. MOMMY! The boy cried out, but Regina watched distantly as her own form kept nearing Henry, and silver chains curled around his wrists and ankles and pulled them away. The scene shifted. Little Henry was still nude, but now he was tied spread eagle to the bed, and her own clothes vanished. And she was standing over him; moving nearer him; now straddling him. The boy looked terrified. Don't mommy! The boy screamed as Regina watched in horror as she lowered herself down onto him.
"This isn't real!" she screamed out loud.
Oh, but it is real. It has been real ever since you decided you could love your son. Is that what a good mother does? You're a monster, Regina. And she was a monster, because she decided that she would try a relationship with Henry.
Only that was not right, because the Henry she was with was not a little boy. He was an adult, a man, in control of his own wants and desires. He desired her.
"I'm not a monster," she told the darkness, only her voice lacked conviction and darkness surged to encompass more of her insecurities.
"My Henry isn't a child," she protested weakly, wanting to look away from the illusion but unable to do so. The darkness held her in its thrall.
Is that so? The darkness asked and then the image shifted. The child Henry grew older until he resembled a middle aged man. You're sick, the older Henry told her, and I'm your son. You shouldn't have those feelings about me. What kind of monster wants to fuck her son?
Regina needed to break the connection. The darkness had a hold over her, and it would not be long before she gave in and believed its lies. Her hands shook as illusions consumed her mind. They were only illusions, nothing more, and she could overcome them. She could break the connection to the darkness. Her hands trembled.
Unsure what was going on but distressed by Regina's struggle, Henry moved towards her. He knew she would probably be mad at him for interfering with magic stuff, but he could not watch her pain. Not as she struggled with the darkness in their daughter. "Regina," he said softly and laid a hand on her arm. "You need to break the connection." He tried to calm and encourage her, offering his staunch support, for what little it was worth. Magic was a battle he could not fight.
Real Henry's voice was enough to break through the illusions. There were two Henry's, one real and one not, but the not real Henry seemed much more real than the real one. Her hands shook wildly as she pulled them away. The darkness stretched and followed her, growing a thinner and thinner threat as she pulled away.
You raped me the fake Henry accused, and that was the motivation she needed to force the darkness out of her mind and break the connection.
"I'm sorry!" Regina sobbed, throwing herself in Henry's arms as the connection broke and the darkness receded back into Sam. "I didn't mean to," she apologized profusely.
Emma watched as Henry stroked his hands down Regina's back, holding her close to him, unable to let go. "You've done nothing wrong, Regina," Henry reassured her.
Regina inhaled his masculine scent as she hung onto him and let his words caress her, soothing her troubled mind.
She pulled back, ashamed that the darkness's torment had brought tears to her face. She looked at the real Henry's face, and she knew she was safe.
She drew back abruptly and wiped the wetness from her face, turning her steely gaze back to the lifeless girl lying on the bed.
"I can't get it out of her," she said sadly, and Emma did not need any more encouragement. It was her granddaughter at stake there.
Regina and Henry watched a bit fearfully as Emma replaced Regina standing over Sam's prone form, hands outstretched and ready to take the darkness away.
Emma summoned the dark magic into herself, using the light as a magnet. Tendrils of smoky black wisps swirled and rose in the air between Emma's outstretched hands and Sam's body.
Regina rifled through the bag to find something to contain the darkness, pulling out an empty blue box and spelling it with a containment spell, something even darkness could not penetrate.
Emma pulled the darkness from Sam's body as Regina was not able to, and Regina waited by the blonde woman, box waiting and held open to receive the darkness the moment it was freed.
Emma struggled with the magic, but unlike Regina, she was able to pull it towards her. The darkness, like elastic, stretched as the last tendril remained in Sam, a mere ghost of what had once been there, and it stretched, further and further. Not breaking.
And then with a crack it was freed from Sam. Regina held the box up as Emma thrust the darkness inside, and Regina snapped the lid shut.
Emma panted heavily as she recovered from the aftermath of her encounter of the darkness, and once she was able to speak again, she asked, "Is it gone?"
Regina set the body aside and cast another diagnostic spell over Sam, this time feeling it run through the girl's body unhindered. Regina felt her body tremble in relief. "It's gone," she said, and then she sat on the edge of the bed next to her daughter. "Sam," she called out gently as she shook the girl's shoulder lightly. "It's time to wake up now," she called.
There was no response. Sam remained as lifeless as before.
