Emma seethed even after they found him in his crib, crying helplessly for someone to come and rescue him, to hold him, to feed and change him, but most importantly to let him know once more that he was not alone.

It was Regina that first held the child, rushing to his cries with the instinct of a mother that had done so for so many long nights before, soothing noises issuing from her lips that left Emma in a bit of a hovering state of silence beside the brunette. The idea that such soft sounds, something that was nothing more than gentle and nurturing, could be coming from the woman that had once sworn to destroy her was a paradox of the sort that the Savior did not often find herself facing. But there it was, right in front of her, Regina's eyes finding hers moments before she was aware of it.

The smile Regina wore spoke more than words could have, the way her arms curled around the baby protectively, like a mother should do. Inadequacy was an ugly monster and it reared its head mightily as Emma imagined all those things that Regina had done for Henry that the blonde would more than likely have been completely incapable of.

Regina was truly a mother, a nurturer, a caretaker of the kind that Emma couldn't dream of being. Jealousy cut through with anger at even now being kept in the dark over the who and what of the strange phone call Regina received down in the vault kept Emma from hearing as the royal holding her baby brother spoke the first time, and the second, only allowing her to hear as Regina said her name again, "Emma?" with that same tone of worry that had been applied to the missing child.

"Neal!" David's cry broke the moment that had formed as Emma met Regina's eyes, tearing the tentative connection that might have been building. Rushing through the door to take his son, Charming shocked both women by shedding real tears of relief that he had not failed another child. Gaze moving between Emma and Regina in turn, he used one arm to hold baby Neal and the other to gather his daughter into a hug.

Feeling more out of place that she believed was possible, Regina shifted where she stood, surveying the little family with something approaching envy. That call.. The caller was far from being a stranger, and the information that Regina had been given as to the whereabouts of the child was certainly correct. The woman hadn't gotten anywhere in life by blindly trusting however, and she was hardly about to start. The 'how' of the call was definitely a mystery worth solving, no matter the warnings against seeking answers before she was meant to have them.

Denying the invitation that Emma extended quickly, Regina returned to her home rather than accompany the other three to the hospital to see if Snow had awoken and to prove to her that her son was certainly alright. There didn't appear to be any real danger as of yet as far as Regina was concerned, though caution was never a bad idea, bringing the woman to the decision to partake of a healthy night's sleep before retiring to her vault for the foreseeable future on a quest for answers. As Regina busied herself with the dishes that she assumed Henry must have left in the sink, she kept her mind stalwartly blank, refusing to think any longer on anything that didn't involve a sponge and a dirty plate. A quick shout up to Henry received a short answer bidding her good night. After seeing a father reunited with his lost child, Regina had the urge to run upstairs and hug her son tightly and never let go. The hour was late though and as she reached the landing after making sure that the kitchen was to her satisfaction, she could see no light creeping under Henry's door, a signal that he was likely asleep. Shoving aside her paranoid desire to reassure herself that Henry was truly alright, preferably through the means of a bone breaking hug, the woman prepared to allow sleep to take her as well.

Denial was the theme of the night as the former Queen washed her makeup away, swearing to her reflection that she was very happy that everything had worked out for the better and that it most certainly did not matter that the connection she shared with the Savior existed at all and that there was most definitely nothing to come of it but a friendship with an unusually strong bond. She could handle friends.

Regina faced a mirror once more, though not quite the same that she had the night before. This mirror was less object and more living thing, sliding between reflecting Regina's own face back at her and a face that she might have said was Emma's were it not for the darkness swirling within eyes that most certainly were not the correct colour. Her breath came with difficulty as not-Emma's face lingered before her in the reflective surface, gaze boring back into her hungrily.

"It's only a matter of time now, Regina. It's coming."


Emma's spine jerked in an involuntary shiver, she blamed it on the chilled hospital air. Did the building really have to be so cold? The temperature was not her priority at the moment however, her attention fixed on Snow's still form. Sitting alone beside the brunette's bed, Emma's thoughts wandered to David and baby Neal back in their home, safe. For now. After spending several hours in the hospital with his two children, David had left to return to his own home for bed. That was likely more due to Emma's insistences and Neal's fussing but, regardless of the reason, he had assented to leave his wife's side. It probably helped that Emma swore up and down that she had no intention of leaving anytime soon, even with the nurses' comments about how visiting hours were long over.

She was the Sheriff, so damn the visiting hours.

Emma ached to know just who it was that had told Regina the location of her brother. The only thing the woman had given away when she called her to bring her to the loft was that she had been given some anonymous information. Now, Emma was no fool. It wasn't difficult to deduce that the stranger on the phone had informed the royal of the baby's whereabouts. What concerned Emma most greatly was the fact that someone had known. Did that not point at the fact that the caller was, in fact, a kidnapper? Or perhaps something even more awful? Regina's tight lipped refusal to reveal what she knew pushed Emma to the edge and was threatening to throw her right over it.

Snow was unmoving, despite her vitals remaining steady, and the doctor couldn't explain the reason behind her lack of consciousness. Thinking of Whale brought a scowl to Emma's face, the man had never been very high on her friends' list, and though she could hardly blame him, the fact that he couldn't find a logical reason that Snow hadn't woken up was certainly not helping with her opinion of the man.

Another shiver caused her to writhe involuntarily in her chair, her leg bursting with pain for a split second. The momentary pain forced her upright, jumping from the chair as if she had been burned. "What the hell?" she half shouted, earning her a glare from the nurse on duty at the desk just outside Snow's room. Emma gave the side of her thigh a quick rub, fingers able to trace over the thicker end of the scar with ease under the tight jeans. The action brought to mind what Regina had said about the possibility of a bond between the two of them and her own wondering questions.

When she had asked for details, there had been a flash of something, the hint of a lie in Regina's eyes as she denied further knowledge, just enough to make think that maybe there was something more to this than just a bond. Fingering the ring on the necklace she never removed, Emma fidgeted idly as her wondering thoughts took on a life of their own. Obviously if Regina knew more and wasn't sharing, the woman had to have not enjoyed the answers she found. Again Emma had to question, though this time only to herself, what could this mean?

The rustling noise of sheets moving against each other coincided with the buzz of Emma's cellphone, vying for her attention. As Snow was more of an immediate concern, the blonde ignored the alert and stood to take the step to her mother's bed. Clasping one of Snow's hands in both of hers in an uncharacteristic display of physical affection, Emma watched the woman's eyes flutter as if to open. Long seconds passed as Emma waited for her to regain consciousness, her anxiety building with every one that ended with Snow not yet awake.

"Emma..." The blonde whirled as her name was spoken from the doorway behind her. Regina. Clad in nothing but a nightgown that hardly qualified as such as it hung just barely to the woman's mid-thigh, Regina had her eyes fixed on Emma. Small steps drew her closer to the blonde, bare feet making no sound on the tiled floor.

"Regina? What-" Emma couldn't complete the astonished question before Regina's steps brought her within an inch of the Savior. Up close, her eyes were clearly fogged over, compounding Emma's worry and confusion tenfold. Regina's head tilted, her glazed eyes dragging over the blonde's face, studying her. Hands lifted and grasped Emma's cheeks and before she was one hundred percent certain of what Regina's intentions were, the shorter woman tugged her close and set her ablaze with a searing kiss that might have lasted one second or one hundred thousand years as far as Emma was concerned.

As quickly as she had appeared, she was gone, vanished with a wisp of smoke the only evidence that she had even been there in the first place.

With wide eyes and frozen to the spot, Emma might as well have become a statue, her mind the only thing capable of any movement. Even so, her brain was struggling through what had just happened. Had Regina just-..? That was impossible. And what was worse, the tingle that had been born the moment Regina appeared had blossomed into a full-fledged forest at her touch. Emma's stomach flipped repeatedly, unable to find a comfortable position as her every cell buzzed.

"Emma?" Sometime in her stunned moments, Emma had not seen Snow awaken. The sound of her name thrust her back into a reality. A reality where Regina had just kissed her and.. Emma's world turned as she looked down at Snow who wore a bewildered expression. In a flash the bewilderment morphed into terror, high pitched screams emitting from Snow's lungs with a strength and power that the blonde did not think she should possess with her recent injury, despite the fact that it was healing abnormally quickly. Shrieking like a banshee, Snow clawed at the bed, struggling to writhe away from Emma with nothing but pure fear in her eyes.

The nurse manning the desk dashed into the room in a second, reaching for Snow as the brunette continued to scream and throw out her hands defensively. Streams of threats followed demands to get away from her and were trailed by yet more threats. Emma jumped back from the bed as Snow landed a hard kick aimed at her stomach, grunting with the impact. She wasn't able to make out a word Snow was screaming, but the intention of the words was clear. Get the hell away from me. The nurse gestured for Emma to go briskly as she tried her best to keep the woman in the bed, an unspoken command with Emma obeyed.

The sole thought in Emma's mind was that the town must be going mad, first Regina and now Snow. Even thinking the royal's name left the blonde feeling a bit lost in the blooming forest of emotion in her belly, but there was no other place to start with finding out just what was going on.


Her fist bounced on the door she hit it so hard, rapping her knuckles against the wood surface for a firm 60 seconds before Regina flung open the door. Sleep mussed hair and the bleary but pissed off expression made a clear statement that she had been sleeping, but Emma wasn't buying it. Immediately brushing past Regina into the house, Emma shouted, "What the hell is going on!?"

"Miss Swan! Will you kindly lower your voice? It's late and Henry is sleeping", Regina hissed, crossing her arms with a scowl. Emma was thrown by the response, lowering her volume almost a fraction before shouting again, "First of all, you get a call from someone that tells you just where my missing brother is and somehow magically knows that he'd be just fine, then you refuse to tell me just who this person is or how they knew this. And now you come to me and fucking kiss me in the middle of the night next to my comatose mother and you're worried about waking Henry up? Not to mention 'Miss Swan'-ing me! Have you completely lost your mind!?" Regina's eyes nearly bugged from her skull at the implication, jaw dropping.

"What on Earth are you talking about?" Arms tightening as if they could conceal the fact that her bed attire was really just modest negligee, Regina was on the defense.

"Are you kidding me?" Invading Regina's space without a second thought, Emma spoke inches from her face, brows drawn low as she looked for any sign that Regina was ill. Regina backed up instinctually, her back hitting the wall of the entryway and leaving her feeling very uncomfortably cornered. Fingers gripped the brunette's chin to keep her face still as Emma searched for oddities, lasting not long as Regina ripped her face away.

"Don't touch me!" Regina exclaimed. Emma was wild as she stepped in, closing off any escape Regina might have hoped for. "What are you talking about?! I was asleep!" Silence was her answer as Emma paused, mind racing as she looked at Regina's eyes like she might find an answer there.

"You're not kidding." Voice slightly lower, calmer, Emma was nonetheless intense in her examination. "You just came to the hospital and.. You don't remember?" A sickening thought settled in Emma's throat. "That had to have been you. No one else-" She cut herself off this time, refraining from stating that no one else had that same smell. Magic, Emma always assumed. Regina was far less panicked as Emma slowed, but she remained on the defense, hands before her, palms out and ready to summon up her magic.

"I came directly home and went to sleep after leaving you and your father", Regina asserted solidly, maintaining eye contact with the mad eyed blonde. "Whomever you saw, whomever…kissed you… That wasn't me." Disappointment crushed Emma in an instant, fear a close second in the emotional race. Shooing away the first, Emma made to deal with the second.

"Are you sure?" She meant to deal with the second in any case, but the words fell out before she could stop them. Her hands lay flat on either side of Regina's head on the wall, face close to the other woman's, a position that now felt entirely too intimate. Backing away a couple steps, Emma breathed heavily, glancing about as if the answer might be floating in the air just around her head.

"Yes, Emma. I'm very sure." Regina spoke as if to soothe a wild beast, concerned to say the least, but also dealing with an immense measure of attraction that had reared its ugly head the moment the idea of her lips against Emma's was presented. In this case it seemed that fear served as an adequate aphrodisiac, an inconvenient feeling to say the absolute least.

Unable to meet Regina's eye, Emma turned on her heel, paced a few steps away and then lifted her head to look in the approximate direction of Regina. "I..-" Regina raised a hand to keep her from talking, something unsettling her more than having a doppelganger running around kissing people.

Henry had not yet made an appearance, and this was highly unusual. The boy was a light sleeper on the best days, save for the time he had been put under anesthesia to have two molars removed, and he would no doubt have come running out of his room at the sound of a shouting match. "Henry?" Regina called up the stairs, ignoring for the moment Emma's furrowed brows. Receiving no answer, Regina's heart rate doubled. Taking the stairs two at a time with Emma just behind her, Regina threw open the door to her son's room only to find it empty.

"No no no.." she mumbled as she rushed to the bed and threw the blankets aside. The empty bed mocked her as she searched beneath it, in the closet, anywhere a growing boy might fit. The fear coursing through her was far greater than that she had experienced in the entryway, washing away all else that was not related to finding Henry. "Emma! Henry's missing!"

Emma pulled out her phone immediately to dial her son's number; it rang one time before it was answered. On the other side of the line came low laughter, unmistakably female and familiar in a way that Emma couldn't put her finger on until the stranger spoke.

"Don't worry about our son. I put him somewhere….safe." The voice coming through was her own, Emma gripped the mobile so tight she feared it might break under the pressure.

"Who is this? What have you done with Henry!?" Emma's voice cracked, prompting Regina to snatch the phone from her hands and shout into it herself, spewing threats laced with profanity. Emma stole the phone back and pushed it to her ear. "Tell me!" the blonde demanded, and was met with a 'tsk'.

"You should really work on your manners.", not-Emma responded simply, a smug twist to the voice betraying the smirk she wore. Emptiness filled the line, a clear indicator that the other end had terminated the call. Emma's hand shook as she continued to yell into the phone, dropping to her knees as it became more apparent that no reply would be forthcoming. Regina dropped beside her, taking the phone back and finding the same emptiness. She reached tentatively to wrap an arm around Emma's shoulders, rebuffed instantly as the blonde shoved her away hard enough to land her on her rear.

"Emma.." Regina began in a weak attempt to comfort and/or placate the woman, finding no words coming to mind to do so adequately. She had no need for words as Emma rounded on her, eyes blazing, "No! You tell me who in the hell called you, right now! This is no coincidence, and if you had told me earlier then we might have been able to keep Henry from getting taken!"

Flinching at Emma's tone and awful, infuriated expression, Regina made to tell Emma, stopping only at the not-at-all concealed accusation.

"Excuse me?" she retorted, standing to face the other woman. "No. You don't get to accuse me. And if I had told you before, you may not have taken my word for it that I knew where the baby was. Now, our son has been stolen, and I do plan on making his kidnappers pay. But for the moment, we can't afford to fight, understand? Our son's life might be on the line and I won't risk losing him just so that we can stand here and shout at each other!" Regina huffed, pushing past Emma and storming from the room. Halfway down the stairs she called back when she heard no steps behind her, "Are you coming or what!?"

Stomping steps pounded past her, Emma rounded on her at the bottom of the stairs, blocking Regina's way. Eyes dark with purpose and intent, Emma growled, "Tell me. Now."

"It was me!" Emma frowned but nodded with an immediate, "Okay." Regina cycled through surprise and then confusion, stopping at caution, "You believe me?"

"Yes", Emma nodded. "I don't think you heard, but on my phone, that was me." Regina blinked in surprise, having not heard the woman's voice, merely a laugh when she drew the mobile to her ear.

"It seems we have an epidemic on our hands. The only question now is: Is there one person shapeshifting into us, or more? Or maybe, just maybe, something far worse." Regina was all business, taking Emma's hand and bringing them both to her vault in the blink of an eye.

Emma stumbled as they landed, unaccustomed to the smoke travel and not wholly comfortable with it. "I hate it when you do that." Regina snorted without smiling, amused without humour. Her thoughts responded with a recalling of those unmeasurably short instances when their bodies were nothing but vague hints of magic twisting through the spaces between realities, mingling together as one for a blissful heartbeat.

Damn.

"Where do we even start?" Emma glanced around, books were scattered across every available surface. "How do we figure out what to search for?" Nothing. Emma shifted to look at Regina, seeing only more vault. Regina had vanished into thin air without so much as a sound. "Don't you dare do this to me again!" Nothing sounded when Regina returned a second later, appearing disheveled and distraught.

"Emma!" exclaimed Regina as her eyes landed on the blonde. "Oh god, it's so good to see you! How long was I gone?"

"What are you talking about?" Emma asked, taken aback entirely as the woman rushed to her and enclosed her in a hug. Willingly. What the hell. Regina's relief hesitated as she pulled away to see if Emma was pulling her leg.

"I was gone.. for so long."

"It was barely a second, Regina. Where did you go?" Body suddenly too heavy to hold up, Regina stumbled where she stood and grasped at Emma's arms before she stammered, "It was.. it was days." Uncertainty trickled into her expression as she questioned herself. "They said.."

"Who?" Emma asked when Regina trailed off, impatience increasing despite the woman's state. "Who said what?"

Regina shook her head, eyes squeezing shut. "God damn it. We're in big trouble Emma."