To everyone asking if this is going to end up Swan Queen romantic or not: the answer is…. I don't know. I mean, Emma's five right now, I'm not currently thinking like that. Ask me again when Emma's a teenager, and maybe then I'll know :)

And, because it might not always be obvious, every chapter so far (except the Emma POV and the beginning with Henry) had been from Regina's POV. Those are her thoughts on the Charmings in the previous chapter. Yes, she's probably biased… no not probably, very much so! Yes, they mirror my opinions of the Charmings in a lot of ways, but also exaggerated. I believe that Regina would have to do a lot of rationalizing to be able to deal with the things she has done, and that's what she does a lot of in this story, as well.

Oh, and one final thing: if you are finding you can't review the chapters, it's probably because when I condensed them , so if, for example, you left a review on the old chapter 10, I don't think it will let you leave a review on the new chapter 10. I have received some inbox messages to this effect, and that's the only reason I can think of. I didn't know that would happen when I condensed the chapters. But, you can always inbox me any time as well :) Seriously, I like it lol

Chapter Eleven

Emma giggled as she snuck into Henry's room. He was flopped on his bed already, with his homework out.

"Hi, Henry," she said, with an impish grin.

"Oh, hi, Emma," Henry said, shaking his head, "back for more pranks?"

"No! I wanna help you get Gina!" Emma nearly squealed in excitement.

"Oh, you do?" Henry asked, raising an eyebrow and sitting up motioning for Emma to join him. She jumped up next to him, and waited, expectantly, for him to unveil his fiendish plan. "Okay, well, I don't have an idea yet, so you'll have to help me tonight."

Emma stuck her lip out in a pout. "I have to go home tonight," she said.

"Oh," Henry nodded. "I didn't know.

Emma looked down. "I don't wanna go. I wanna stay here and play with you and Gina."

"Don't be sad, Emma," Henry sighed. "Your Mommy and Daddy will play with you, too. You'll have fun there."

Emma wasn't so sure when the Charming's arrived to pick up their daughter. She looked sadly back at the doorstep where Regina stood with her arm around Henry, waving. Emma waved back sadly, as she dragged her backpack of toys she was bringing home with her.

She climbed into the car and sat next to Neal, who looked up at her from his car seat. "He smells!" Emma exclaimed, plugging her nose for emphasis.

"I know," Snow acknowledged. "I have to change him when we get home. Maybe you can help?"

"Maybe I can't help," Emma said, shaking her head. She had been around enough babies in foster care to know nothing good came from smells like that. She wanted to be as far away as possible when that diaper came off.

When they reached the loft, Emma ran up the stairs to her room and flung her backpack on the bed, while Snow set about changing her brother's diaper. Emma sat at the top of the stairs and watched, waiting for the moment she knew it would be safe for her nose to come back down.

She didn't like her room at the loft. It was boring, and she was glad Regina had suggested to bring home some toys with her. To her surprise, there were a few new toys waiting for her on the coffee table downstairs, when she finally re-entered the room.

"These are for you, Little One," Snow said, gesturing to the toys.

Emma scrunched up her nose. "You can't call me that."

"Why not?"

"It's special. It's Gina's name. You have to call me something else," Emma shrugged, as if the answer should be obvious. She wandered over to the toys, completely oblivious to the hurt look on her mother's face.

"Can Neal play with me?" Emma asked, as she pulled a princess Barbie from its package.

"No, Sweetheart, he's too little," Snow explained, as she crossed the room to sit near her daughter. David walked over with Neal and his bottle, and sat down on the couch.

Emma pouted. "Who am I supposed to play with then?" she whined.

"Well, Sweetheart, who do you play with at Regina's?" Snow asked.

"Kitty Soft Paws," Emma answered. "Can I get a cat for here?"

Snow sighed. "Maybe. Not tonight."

Emma was about to protest when there was a knock at the door. Emma craned her neck, trying to see who her mother was speaking to, but the other person was just out of Emma's view, so she gave up and turned her attention back to her toys.

Whomever it was didn't stay long, and Emma didn't miss a small nod between her mother and her father, but she still had no clue what was actually happening.

"Emma, come have some juice before bed," Snow called from the kitchen, and Emma jumped up.

"Apple juice?" she asked, excitedly.

"Yes, honey, here," Snow smiled, handing her daughter the cup. Emma examined it closely, and decided it looked fine, before taking a big drink.

"Did you sign me up for school?" Emma asked, bouncing a little as she asked.

"Yes, honey," Snow nodded, running her fingers through Emma's hair. "You start on Monday, bright and early. Kindergarten. I hope you're excited."

"I am! And dance class?"

Snow frowned slightly. "I think Regina's going to take care of that. Honey, drink your juice, okay?"

Emma nodded, and took another big gulp. "This juice tastes funny," Emma said, looking into the cup again, suspiciously this time.

"It's probably just a different brand than Regina buys," Snow insisted, "it's fine, Emma."

"I like the kind Regina has. She doesn't buy it, she makes it with her own apples," Emma pouted.

"Well, then I will ask her to make some to have here, alright?" Snow asked.

"Can you ask her to send it right now?" Emma asked. "I could use my magic to bring it here."

"No, honey, I'll ask her tomorrow. Remember, we don't use magic here unless it's an accident, right? Because Mommy and Daddy don't have magic and we can't help you if something goes wrong," Snow reminded her.

"Nothing goes wrong," Emma insisted. "Gina says I'm good at magic."

"I'm sure you are, Emma," David said, as he joined them in the kitchen. "But the rule still stands. No magic when you're not with Regina."

Emma pouted as she finished her juice. She considered the possibility that she could use magic anyway, and her parents couldn't stop her, and even if they got mad, she could just poof away, but then she considered that Regina might be mad, too, and she would have no place else to go. Juice wasn't worth it, she supposed.

"Alright, honey, time for bed," Snow said, picking Emma up and carrying her up the stairs to her room. They had filled her dresser with clothes her size, despite Regina's offer to send some of the clothes she bought home with Emma. Snow helped Emma into a pair of mint green feetie pajamas, and tucked her into bed, laying down beside her.

"How about I read you a story?" Snow offered. Emma nodded as she rested her head on her mother's shoulder and listened to Green Eggs and Ham until she fell asleep.

Emma woke with a start. Her bed was empty now, and the room was dark and she'd just had a terrible dream-memory. She blinked a couple times, about to scream for Regina, until she remembered where she was. She couldn't call for her, so she would poof to her.

She concentrated hard on Regina, mustering up all the energy inside her to bring herself to her target and….

Nothing.

She was still in her room. It wasn't working.

Emma sighed and tried to refocus the best that her five-year-old mind would let her. She pictured Regina perfectly in her mind and her little body trembled with the amount of effort she was putting forth and….

Still nothing.

Emma was starting to panic. She was sure she was trying to poof correctly, but something was blocking her. She wondered for a moment if Regina was doing something to stop her from poofing to her. Maybe if she poofed to Kitty Soft Paws instead? Emma hoped that the cat was inside and not in the backyard with the door locked as she focused all her energy on the image of her cat.

Nothing.

Still in her room. Still in her bed. Something was very, very wrong.

She looked at her hands, trying to bring forth any magic, but she didn't seem able to conjure any at all. She wanted to cry but she willed herself to stay strong. The Mommy in her dream had told her only babies cry.

Suck it up, Emma. We're sick of hearing from you. If you're going to cry, go to your room, so the rest of us can hear the TV.

No. She wouldn't cry. She wasn't a baby. She would find Regina another way and Regina would fix her magic.

She slipped silently out of her bed and scooped Spiderman up in her hand, before tiptoeing across the floor. The feetie pajamas combined with experience sneaking through a house at night knowing better than to wake anyone up on a midnight bathroom trip helped Emma as she descending the stairs in complete silence.

She peeked into her parents' room, where they slept soundly. She considered waking them up, but she remembered what her mother had said: if something went wrong with her magic, they couldn't help. She couldn't really tell them she had tried to use magic anyway, because she wasn't allowed to use it there. Regina said the same thing, but she never seemed to really be mad when Emma did it anyway.

Emma spotted her mother's phone on the counter and picked it up, before tiptoeing back up the stairs. She thought she might call Regina, not that she knew what her phone number was, or even how to spell Regina.

She turned on the phone and clicked buttons until she found a list of names. They all looked foreign, since Emma couldn't really read much, but one stuck out: Henry. She'd seen his name several times, as he seemed to write it on all his books. She would call Henry.

She scanned the phone and made a lucky guess that the green button with the picture of a phone receiver was the one she wanted. She'd never used a cell phone, but it wasn't all that hard to figure out. She held the phone to her ear and heard ringing, and then a groggy "hello?"

"Henry?" Emma whispered.

"Emma? What's wrong?" Henry asked, sounding fully alert and awake now. "Did something happen?"

"I need to talk to Gina!" Emma whined, in a still hushed voice.

"Ok, I'm going to get her. Emma, are you okay? Is everyone okay?"

"Yeah I just want to talk to Gina!" Emma insisted. She could hear Henry waking her up through the phone, and breathed a small sigh of relief. It was mere seconds before Regina's voice came through the phone. "Emma? What's wrong?"

"My magic is broken!" Emma cried, forgetting to keep her voice down this time.

"What? What do you mean?" Regina asked, confused.

"I tried to poof and it doesn't work! It broke!"

"Emma?" Emma heard Snow's voice from downstairs, and she realized she had been far too loud. Volume control wasn't really her strong point. She flinched as Snow ran up the stairs, remembering a time when she woke a Daddy up in the night and he spanked her and but her back to bed. She didn't want a spank tonight.

Snow picked Emma up the second she made it to the top of the stairs. "Emma, baby, what's wrong? Who are you talking to?"

Emma didn't answer, confused as to what she was supposed to do right now. She couldn't tell her mother she tried her magic.

"Emma, is that Mommy? Can you put her on the phone?" Regina's voice came through the other end.

"Uh huh," Emma said, quietly, before handing the phone to her mother. "It's Gina."

"Regina?" Snow asked, as she sat down on the bed with Emma in her lap, still quite clearly confused. "What's going on?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Regina said. "Henry just brought me the phone saying Emma called. She says her magic is broken. Snow… what did you do?"

There was a long pause. Long enough that Regina knew Snow was hiding something when she spoke again. "Nothing, Regina. Can we talk about this tomorrow? It's late."

The cloud of purple smoke in the room told Snow that the answer was no, they definitely couldn't talk about it tomorrow. They were going to talk about it right now.

Emma jumped off her mother's lap and ran to Regina, grabbing her legs and squeezing hard the second she materialized and the smoke dissipated. Regina had managed to show up in black slacks and a burgundy blouse, having no intention of showing up at the Charming loft in her sleepwear. She could sense right away that something was wrong with Emma's magic.

"Little One," Regina said, crouching down in front of her. She could see David standing at the bottom of the stairs, no doubt wondering what all the commotion was. "Can you go downstairs with Daddy for a few minutes while I talk to Mommy?"

"No!" Emma wailed, grabbing on to Regina again. "I want to stay with you."

"Sweetheart, I need to talk to Mommy about grown-up things. You need to go downstairs," Regina insisted. "I will see you when we're done. It won't take long."

Emma pouted as she made her way slowly down the stairs to her father, who took her to the kitchen to make her a snack, to distract her from whatever was going on upstairs.

Regina sighed and turned back to Snow, who looked guilty as sin sitting there on the edge of Emma's bed. Regina took up the spot next to her, and couldn't help but think how this felt oddly familiar to old times in the castle when it had been her job to speak to Snow when she had gotten herself into trouble.

"Talk," Regina said, simply, just as she had done when Snow was a child.

Snow let out an exasperated sigh. "It was a potion, from the Blue Fairy. It blocks her magic."

Regina could feel the anger rising up in her chest, threatening to boil over. She tried to remind herself that her former step-daughter was clueless when it came to how magic worked, but it was hard not to want to smack her.

"The Blue Fairy gave you something to supress Emma's magic, and you didn't think it would be wise to ask me, first?" Regina asked, through gritted teeth.

"I'm her mother," Snow said, defensively.

"That you are," Regina scoffed. "And you know nothing about magic."

"But Blue does. And I trust her," Snow replied.

"You trust her? Need I remind you that it is also partially her fault that you were not able to travel with your daughter to this world? Or did you forget that she deceived you then, when it mattered most?"

Snow gaped for a moment, before replying. "She wouldn't give me something that would hurt Emma."

"Snow," Regina sighed, closing her eyes and silently counting to ten before continuing. "Emma's magic is a part of her. You don't just get to block it out because you can't deal with it."

"It's not about that," Snow said, shaking her head. "As long as she has magic, she has to be with you. She belongs here, with us."

"So you're going to risk her mental health to achieve that?"

"Don't you think that's a little extreme, Regina?"

"No. I don't. It's part of her and you can't just block it out. And what do you honestly think will happen when she grows up and learns what you did? She didn't react all that well the last time she learned about how you screwed with her magic, if you recall?"

"This is different, Regina," Snow insisted.

"Is it?"

Regina sighed as she saw Emma staring up expectantly from the bottom of the stairs. "Come here, Little One," Regina called down. Emma grinned and ran up the stairs, hopping onto Regina's lap. Regina lifted her hand and a wave of purple magic trickled over Emma, causing her to giggle.

"What did you just do?" Snow gasped.

"I fixed her magic," Regina replied, rolling her eyes.

"Regina!" Snow cried, but Regina shot her a warning glare telling her this was not the time or place.

"Can you give me a few minutes to talk to Emma, please?" Regina asked, "and then I will go home and you can go back to bed."

Snow sighed and got up, heading back down the stairs to her husband, explaining to him what had just transpired.

"Why are you mad, Gina?" Emma asked, poking Regina in the forehead.

"I'm not," Regina insisted, "and why are you poking me?"

"Henry said your forehead gets all veiny when you're mad. It's stickin' out right now," Emma said, poking the protruding vein again.

"Okay, Emma, enough," Regina said, though she really couldn't help but laugh at this point. "We need to talk."

"Am I in trouble?" Emma asked, softly.

"No Little One, you're not. I want to talk to you about why you wanted to poof to me tonight. What happened?"

Emma sighed and leaned back against Regina, filling her in on all that had happened in her dream-memory. Regina cringed as she listened to yet another terrible situation the child had been in. She supposed it was wishful thinking on her part to think the girl would have gone to a good home after the brief time with the nice lady with the big dog.

She realized she really shouldn't expect many good homes at all, because, realistically, if Emma had ended up in a good home, she wouldn't have bounced around quite so much.

When Emma fell silent, Regina looked down and realized the child was asleep. She tucked her back into her bed, and headed downstairs to speak to the two idiots.

"We need to work out a game plan," Regina said, simply.

"No," David corrected, "you need to go home."

"Like it or not, your daughter likes to spend time with me," Regina sighed. "And there's no way in hell I am letting you screw with her magic. This is your only warning. You want your daughter, I understand that, but Henry needs her too, and she needs me, whether you choose to see that at all."

"Regina's right," Snow sighed. "We need to figure something out and present a united front. It's the only way to make this work, because Emma's just going to poof herself back to Regina ever moment she gets. We're taking her to the park tomorrow afternoon, Regina. Why not meet us there and we can talk."

"Sounds lovely," Regina smirked, before poofing back to her own bedroom.

Henry was still awake and sitting on Regina's bed. "Everything okay?" he asked.

"Yes, fine. Your grandparents are just idiots," Regina sighed.

"Mom!" Henry gasped.

"Sorry. I know you look up to them. It really was the fairy's fault, anyway. I just wish they didn't have to be so stubborn about this whole thing."

"You miss Emma," Henry smiled, and Regina climbed into bed.

"Go to bed, Henry," Regina said, deciding to evade the question.

Regina caught Henry's grin as he left the room.

He had a point. She did miss Emma. But how could she not? The kid had grown on her.

AN: I know a lot of you want Emma to be with Regina full time, and that was what I originally wanted to, but I decided against it because A) the story would be way too long and B) IF it ends up being SwanQueen romantic, I can't have Regina being Emma's mom because that's too weird. She can take care of her but it has to be clear roles that Snow is her mother.

So, moving forward, the story will still be about Emma and Regina's time together, but she's not going to move in with Regina full time at this point. Plus, having two homes helps set up some ideas I have for the future, particularly Emma's teen years (I know that's still way off, but I'm still thinking about it!)