Disclaimer: I do not own OUAT in any way, shape or form.


For the third time in a minute, Regina's phone rang insistently from her pocket, and she had no doubt as to the identity of the caller. The first call had made the woman jump, not lending anything good to her attitude when she checked the caller id and saw none other than the blonde whose help she had refused. It had been barely three hours, and Regina was honestly a bit surprised that the woman had not called earlier to check on progress, despite having been sent away. The Sheriff could be brilliantly thick-headed. As such, Regina had decided not to pick up the call, only to regret the decision at the two following calls.

The call, which might have been endearing had Emma merely left a message inquiring as to whether she found anything, became an annoyance quickly.

"What is it, Miss Swan?" Regina answered with a cool, but vaguely irritated, tone, using the blonde's last name in hopes that she would understand that her relentless calling was unappreciated. However, Emma did not understand the brunette's tone in the slightest, her voice coming through the phone harried and hurried.

"Regina! Finally! Please, you need to get down to the hospital, now!" Put on alert by the blonde's obvious fear and standing from the table, Regina tried to question only to be cut off. "—just hurry!"

The magic was surrounding her before she needed to consciously will it, pulling her through that special slipping dimension to her desired location in a heartbeat. The front of the hospital was calm, but Regina was through the doors and following a flurry of shouts before she could admire the irony of the building's calm exterior.

She found Emma in less than a minute following the noise, finding the blonde wide-eyed with panic just outside of a set of double doors. Spotting her, the blonde rushed to Regina and gripped her wrist to tug her along as quickly as she could manage, slamming through the double doors in a manner that Regina doubted she was supposed to.

"Emma! What's going on!?" The blonde seemed as if she was too far gone to make words at all, much less sentences, but Regina tugged her to a standstill in the hallway and took hold of her shoulders. With the voice she generally reserved for speaking over a particularly loud town meeting, Regina demanded she calm herself enough to speak.

"It's..-it's.." Emma panted, eyes traveling in helpless panic up the hall. "-my mom, she's hurt.. baby's gone.. David found her.. the baby's gone!" She was working herself up into a frenzy again, but Regina could at least understand the reasoning. Her own heart picked up speed at the thought of the missing child, though she had significantly less fear. Who in town would really want to hurt the child of their supposed 'superheroes'?

"Emma! Calm down, where's Snow?" The question prompted Emma to grab at Regina's wrist again to drag her along, this time however Regina stayed by her side rather than be pulled like a rag doll. They approached a window that looked into a room buzzing with purposeful activity, figures swarming around a table on which a very still Snow White lay. Machines beeped and Emma pressed close to the window, nose nearly touching it, eyes fixed on her downed mother. David hovered around the edge of the flurry, the occasional nurse reminding him to keep back with all the authority that she could summon in the face of the frantic man.

Regina's gaze was as filled with purpose as the movements of the medical professionals, locating quickly the focus of their activity. At Snow's head, a surgeon worked to close a gash that was far too bright in contrast to the woman's pale skin and dark hair. Having freed her arm from Emma's tight grip, Regina rounded the corner to find the door to the room, pulling David through the portal despite his protests.

"Tell me what happened." It was a clear demand, brows drawn low over clouded eyes, voice deep and evidence of just how hard Regina was trying to be the controlled one in the situation.

"I walked in and she was bleeding and the baby was gone. She wouldn't wake up! I kissed her and called the doctor and she just wouldn't wake up!"

Regina resisted the urge to remind the terrified, panicking man that a head wound could not be cured like a curse. It was clear from his manner that he was not prepared to deal with this, and was made more clear as he drifted back towards the door to the room. His attention returned to Regina again as he snapped the words, repeating, "The baby is gone." The tone was accusing and Regina might have been offended were it not already the middle of a dire situation.

Lifting her hands to stop the man, Regina asked, "Wait! Who would want to hurt your wife, or take your child? Who would want to do that to you two of all people, hm?" She questioned him, as well as Emma, trying to turn the panic into something productive and something that might actually come up with some answers. Regina herself could think of at least eleven different enchantments that could make a person both invisible and unhearable, and it was her hope that somehow a stray piece of magic had merely hidden the child from discovery. And there was a distinct possibility, in Regina's mind at least, that the child might possess magic just like his big sister.

Thinking of Emma brought Regina to another possible conclusion. "Were you practicing any sort of magic today? Anything at all?" Immediately growing more fearful before shifting into the defensive mode that Regina was so familiar with concerning Emma, the blonde retorted, "Are you saying I could have done this to her and stolen the baby away?" Regina lifted her hands again in automatic defense only to be drowned out by David.

"Hey! This isn't the time to argue!" Emma shot Regina resentful expression before nodding at her father and taking a breath to say, "No, you're right. And no," she aimed the word like a weapon at Regina, "I wasn't practicing anything."

Regina opened her mouth to speak again when a loud beep and several much louder shouts from the people surrounding Snow drew three grazes upward and towards a machine that displayed a flat line.

"No!" David shouted, jumping into the room and bullying his way to Snow's side. Taking her hand in a tight grip, he shouted for her to hold on. Regina watched with wide eyes as what she had desired for so long became a waking nightmare before her; Emma lunged forward much like her father and clung to Snow with angry tears.

The flatline jumped once, then again, before suddenly evening out as if nothing had happened at all. A silence covered the room like a shroud, only the steady, merrily beeping machine going on as if Snow had never been hurt. Emma looked up from Snow to where Regina stood with one firm hand on her arm and one on Snow's leg, catching the vague smile the woman wore as she successfully jumpstarted the woman's heart with the power of their combined magic.

In a second the medical professionals were a-flurry with activity again, though this time significantly bouncier in their movements around the still unmoving woman, as if her steady heartbeat was a happy metronome. Hands dropping to her sides as if they weighed something like a ton, Regina stepped away from the woman's body and slipped into the hall to sit heavily on a chair outside of the door.

It was another minute or two, or perhaps an hour or two for all Regina could tell, before Emma and David joined her in the hall. Cracking an eye open to glance at the two Charming's, Regina asked with exhaustion evident in her voice, "How is she?"

David was the first to answer, "She's stable."

"Thanks to you", added Emma with a twist to her voice that Regina might almost have classified as shy were she awake enough to do so. Regina responded only with a short sigh and a nod, "Good." Though she would have given her left hand to stay in the chair, and mused idly that maybe Emma would like her better that way, Regina forced herself to her feet and spoke to Emma, "I need to get back to my research."

Emma's face was unreadable for a moment, a long moment, before she nodded herself. "Alright." Glancing Regina up and down, she continued, "Do you need a ride?"

Too tired to contemplate more magic, or heaven forbid walking, Regina assented, "Sure."


Regina awoke on her couch, not the one in her office but the one in her living room, large and comfortable and covered with the blanket she kept folded and laid over the back of said couch. Confused as to her location, and the fact that she was waking but did not remember laying down to sleep, Regina sat up slowly. Her body complained, aching from the inside out, and she was reminded of Snow. And the missing child. A slow panic built up and threatened to consume her before she spotted the blonde slumped in an armchair not two feet from the couch.

Much as she had been on the beach, Emma was hunched a bit forward, head resting on one hand and mouth hanging half open. Again, Regina almost found it endearing. Almost. Her mind was tugged towards the scar on the woman's leg and the still undiscovered strength of the bond that Regina was not foolish enough to deny.

"Mom!" Henry's voice nearly startled Regina out of her skin, and Emma was similarly jolted awake at the boy's shout. Rushing towards her, Henry wrapped her in a tight hug that banished for another short amount of time that little hole in Regina's heart.

"Hey, kid", Emma greeted Henry as he captured her in a firm hug as well, sitting up and embarrassed that she had been caught sleeping so deeply. In the short drive between the hospital and Regina's home (Emma refused to take her back to vault, even if she argued, as it was only too clear that Regina was having a hard time with the simple task of keeping her eyes open), Regina had fallen asleep. In fact, she had been so deeply asleep that Emma had ended up carrying her into the house like a child. She had considered attempting the stairs, but the blonde's arms had started to burn and the last thing she wanted was to give Regina rude wakeup by dropping her down the stairs.

Emma had done what she could, bringing Regina to the couch that looked far more comfortable than the one in her office and covering her with a blanket conveniently laying over the back of the cushions. She hadn't intended to fall asleep, but after sitting for a minute to get back the wind she had lost carrying Regina around, her closed eyes had been the last straw. Sleep had taken her quickly and done so thoroughly.

With Henry busy chatting with Emma, Regina enjoyed a moment of calm. The problems of the outside were just that, on the outside. Just as quickly as it had come, the moment was gone, and Regina became swiftly occupied with thoughts of the missing child and if he had been found. It appeared that Emma was coming back to reality as well, by the look on her face as she made eye contact with Regina. Nodding in agreement to an unspoken request, Emma followed Regina into her office to begin planning their first move.