AN: Thanks to LMPsisterhood for betaing. It's better because of her. Promise. Aside from the edits I've made since then. As for finishing the story, I really did intend to have it done by now, and I do have the completed and edited story on my computer but I haven't had time to post it. As my excuse, I've been working on a campaign for the EU referendum vote that's tomorrow, and it's been absolutely amazing, crazy, stressful, and everything in between. I should have the rest of the story posted by this weekend, assuming I'm not too hungover from the afterparties. Cheers!


2038

To say the doctors were confused was an understatement: the CT scan, MRI, and blood work revealed nothing, nor did Sam have any physical clues, and her lack of change in condition gave the doctors no indication of what could possibly be wrong. As a young, previously healthy child, there was simply no explanation. All signs indicated she should be perfectly healthy, except she was lying comatose in the hospital. Unresponsive.

After a full day when Sam still did not wake up, Regina cast a stasis spell over her daughter.

"What are we going to do?" Henry asked helplessly. He had barely slept or eaten at all, but he was not really tired or hungry.

"I don't know." As she said that, her mind was a whirl of possibilities. Maybe magic was no longer the cause of Sam's state, but that did not mean magic would fail to wake her up.

"But you have an idea," Henry observed.

Reluctantly: "Yes."

"Well," Henry prodded.

"It might be a bit unusual, but I think I can come up with a potion that might revive her."

"Then what are you waiting for?" Henry's stare was intense.

"The ingredients . . . are difficult to obtain," Regina admitted reluctantly. She'd tried to think of alternatives, but without knowing the cause of Sam's illness, there was very little they could do. She was trying to find a cure to the symptoms, not the mysterious cause, and failing; and she knew it. According the doctors, the only treatment was to wait, but even if they waited, there was no guarantee she would ever wake, and the longer she remained unconscious, the less chance there was that she would ever recover.

"What ingredients?" Henry hesitated to ask, but if there was any chance of saving Sam, he would do whatever was necessary.

"Eye of newt and toe of frog," Regina snarked, because it was easier than being serious. Because it was easier than acknowledging that something was terribly wrong with her daughter and there was nothing she — even with all her magic — could do about it.

Henry looked at her wide-eyed for a few seconds before the slight twitch of her lip gave the joke away.

"Very funny." Given the circumstances, it was not funny at all. "Now what are the actual ingredients."

"The eye of a black cat harvested at midnight on the equinox."

Not about to fall for her teasing a second time, Henry crossed his arms. "Could you just be serious?" This time, impatiently.

Regina frowned back at him. "I was being serious. Such an eye would have magical properties."

Henry felt something in his gut, a feeling of foreboding. Something was wrong. "You want to use dark magic?" he asked incredulously. She had not used dark magic for years, not since she assumed the role of the savior. Regina's failure to answer was all the confirmation he needed. Surprised, he said, "You are," and then angrily, "No! Absolutely not, there has to be another way."

"There isn't," Regina hissed.

"Then find one," Henry fumed.

Regina tensed. "Do you think I haven't tried?" she asked sadly, because Henry's question meant he did not believe in her despite everything she had done, all she had tried.

"Then try harder." It was Henry's fears and insecurities talking, the pain over the thought of losing Sam coupled with his unwillingness to even consider using dark magic, but Regina had no way to know that.

"Then find the answer yourself," she spat. She summoned the magic in her and let the purple smoke engulf her body and take her away from him. Away from his accusations.

Regina reappeared in her vault, but she was startled to see it was already occupied.

"Isabel?" she asked the girl, wondering what the child was doing there.

The blond girl turned to face her, dropping one of Regina's spell books in surprise at being caught red handed.

"What are you doing here?" Regina demanded.

Isabel briefly looked guilty before words fell readily from her lips. "I'm looking for a way to help Sam."

As hard as she'd taken Sam's condition, Regina had to admit it was probably harder on the children. They were young and innocent, and they had little experience coping with overwhelming emotions.

"Me too," Regina agreed sadly, and then she held her hand out to the blond. "Help me?" she asked.

Isabel eyed the proffered hand warily. She knew the woman did not really know her, yet despite all that, she was so much like the mother Isabel knew she just wanted to trust her and to rely on her.

"Promise you'll save Sam."

Regina worried her lip as she considered the question. "I promise," she said at last, although she knew she should never have made a promise she was not certain she could keep, but it was the reassurance Isabel needed to take her hand.

Henry, upon being abruptly left alone, knew he needed to seek her out. She would likely be pissed, but now of all times they needed to be working together. He suspected he knew where she went, and he set out in the direction of her vault.

His suspicions proved to be correct.

"I'm sorry," was the first thing he said when he saw Regina and Isabel reading through spell books.

Regina met his gaze. "I'm sorry too," she said as well, because as much as she hated to admit it, he was right. They could not resort to dark magic. She, of all people, should know that every intention of using dark magic for good would lead to corruption and capitulation to the dark. The road to hell was paved with good intentions, and she was one of the few who managed to return from that dark path. She should know better than to be susceptible to the bait.

Henry sat beside her on the small couch, and Isabel shifted sideways to give them more room.

"You were right," Regina admitted quietly. "We can't use dark magic."

Henry took her hands in his, relieved she saw reason. He hated fighting with her, but he could not let her convince herself that dark magic was the answer; it never would be. The thought of her using dark magic was unpleasant to dwell on, for he held a deep-seated fear of the price of dark magic; he did not want to witness her pay the price because he loved her, and because he could not see her harmed. He did not want his daughter to die, but he could not handle the thought of losing the woman he loved either. Without her . . . beyond that line of thought laid a road he preferred not to travel.

"Could it be a sleeping curse?" Isabel asked.

"Unlikely," Regina said, "but it is possible, and it could explain the lack of symptoms, but sleeping curses leave a residual trace of magic in the body. I would have detected it."

"Oh." Isabel sounded disappointed.

Henry became lost in thought. Maybe there was a way to confirm whether or not it was a sleeping curse.

"Could you get me back to the burning room?" he asked Regina. Just after Emma saved him from a sleeping curse, he ended up in the burning room on a nightly basis, but as he grew older, the visits became less and less frequent until they stopped altogether, but if he was able to meet her there in the land between life and death, the place suspended between time and space full of eternal regrets and what ifs, and he found Sam there, at least they would know what was wrong. Many sleeping curses had been broken before. If it was a sleeping curse, they would be able to break this one as well.

"Yes," Regina answered, though she was hesitant about it. She wanted to lie. To say no. She did not want Henry going back to the burning room. When he'd done it briefly, shortly after the sleeping curse she'd inadvertently inflicted upon him, she was worried out of her mind for him, but to purposefully send him there?

Having temporarily forgotten about the third person in the room, Henry and Regina were both surprised to hear a quiet though surprisingly firm, "No," followed not long after by a louder and much more adamant repetition of the same sentiment. "No. It's too risky." Isabel did not consider the Henry before her to be her father exactly, for he did not remember the entirety of her life, but he was the closest thing she had to a father, and she could not lose him. Not like her father was lost to her.

"Isabel," Henry tried to appease her, "this is to see if Sam is alright. I promise you I'll be fine."

But he would not be fine. It was a lie and they all knew it. Isabel might not have personal experience with sleeping curses, but she'd read enough of her father's stories and recorded histories to know that even though the burning room was incorporeal, it still left burns on the victims. And if they stayed dreaming long enough, she suspected that the burns might become fatal.

"And even if she is under a sleeping curse, you can't even know that you'll find her," Isabel argued. She could not lose her father. She could not let her siblings lose their father either; it would be devastating.

"Grandpa found grandma." Henry cited the example to prove his point, but if he was trying to gain Isabel's support, he would be largely disappointed as his words were very ill received.

"That was different," Isabel protested vehemently. "When great-grandpa went under a sleeping curse to talk to great-grandma, he knew she was going to be there. And he didn't have children who relied on him. My siblings need you." Her tirade began firmly, but by the end it was quiet. For all of Isabel's strength and determination, she was still only a child, and while she often seemed older than her years, the stress of Sam's illness and her fear over losing her father yet again was too much for her to bear. Tears beginning to stain her eyes, she said weakly, "I need you."

It was true. She might not consider him to be her real dad, but ever since he'd appeared in place of her real father, he'd acted like it. He'd watched out for her, taking care of her siblings, been so much like the man she knew to be her father that she trusted him.

"I won't leave you," Henry promised Isabel and hugged the crying girl. He looked helplessly at Regina, who, upon seeing his distress, came to his aid. Extracting Isabel from Henry's arms, Regina continued hugging the young girl.

"You're right, Isabel," she said soothingly. "I think that it's too risky to send him there, especially since Sam is most likely not under a sleeping curse anyways."

Isabel wiped the tears from her eyes and looked up at the woman she resented for taking her mother's place, only to be confronted by the same altruistic concern and pained eyes she was used to seeing in mother. Isabel strained her neck until she could see Henry just barely out of the corner of her eye. "Promise you won't go to the burning room."

Henry looked between the distressed child and Regina's reproving look. It was an argument he was not going to win. "I promise," he said reluctantly.

Regina then felt her phone vibrate. She pulled it from her purse and answered.

"Mrs. Mills," the voice over the phone said.

"Yes. This is her," she answered. The voice sounded official.

"This is Storybrooke Regional Hos. . ."

Regina heard nothing else, for her phone clattered to the ground and a stricken look crossed her face. With a wave of her hand, she and Henry vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving Isabel alone.


To the guest reviewers who I can't reply to:

NMUgirl: You'll see what happens to Hank and Gina and the Little Match Girl does make a reappearance. Patience. You'll know the end by the weekend.

Anon reviewer: No intimate scenes in this story beyond what you've already gotten. That wasn't the point of this story when I outlined it two years ago, and it won't change now. The intimate scenes between Henry and Regina happen in a timeframe that is not a part of this story. With enough interest, though, I might muster the enthusiasm to write a prequel of sorts in that timeframe.