Chapter 24
Once all of the smoke had cleared, Hanna opened her eyes and looked all around. She took in the world surrounding her. Everywhere she looked all she could see were trees…very tall trees. There were thousands of them. Thick forests surrounded her on every side. She looked over to her mom and dad. They were dressed in clothes that were very different from the ones they wore in Storybrooke. Her mom's hair was even long again. She glanced around at everybody, and they all looked different. Especially Regina, her appearance was a little frightening. She definitely looked like an evil queen. Hanna was almost afraid to look down at her own wardrobe. She was wearing a pink dress that went all the way down to the ground, covering her feet. Hanna was not one to really wear dresses…she was never very comfortable in them. This one was especially uncomfortable.
"Snow, what happened?" Hanna heard a woman ask.
"We're back," her mother said in a very sad and defeated tone.
Snow and Charming walked over to their friends and introduced them to Hanna. They were Prince Phillip and Princess Aurora. Hanna remembered that Aurora was the woman Henry had met in the burning room. That made Hanna sad because now she was thinking about Emma and Henry and the fact that she would never see them again. She leaned into her dad and Charming wrapped his arms around her as he continued to talk with Aurora and Phillip. They informed them that the ogres had been defeated and were no longer a threat. Phillip also offered a place for them to stay at their castle for as long as they needed. David was grateful for the offer, but turned him down. He told them that all they needed were some horses and that they had their own kingdom to get back to. Since Snow and Charming's castle was destroyed by the curse, they all agreed to go back to Regina's. Even Regina eventually agreed to that arrangement. Snow told her that returning reunited would give everybody in the kingdom, who were scared and confused, the hope that they needed.
Hanna stayed with her mom while her dad went off to prepare the horses for their journey.
"How are you doing?" Snow asked her daughter. She knew Hanna was upset about everything that happened. Being in this new realm was going to be hard for Hanna, but Snow was determined to help her love this place as her new home.
"I'm fine," Hanna said with a small smile "This dress is really annoying though," she said as she tugged at it.
"We'll find something more comfortable for you when we get home," Snow said with a little laugh.
Hanna just nodded her head and looked down. Home, it was weird to hear her mom refer to this castle they were going to as home. Hanna knew this was her home now, but it just didn't seem real. It felt like a bad dream and that she would be back at Granny's, seeing Henry and Emma, really soon. That wasn't going to happen though.
Snow noticed the sad look on her daughter's face. She was trying to be brave and not show how much all of this was affecting her, but Snow could see right through it. She gently lifted Hanna's chin.
"Things will get better, I promise," Snow told her daughter with a warm smile.
"I know," was all Hanna managed to say as she leaned in for a hug. Her mom wrapped her arms around her, and that comfort made Hanna feel a little better.
After awhile, Snow suggested that they go find her father and see if he was ready to go. They walked over to him just as Hook rode off on a horse, loaded down with a lot supplies.
"Where's he going?" Hanna asked her dad.
"He is going to find his ship…going back to his pirate ways I guess," David told her with a sigh.
Hanna just rolled her eyes and watched Hook ride off into the distance. Hanna thought maybe, just maybe, he had changed a little bit after everything that happened in Neverland. She was obviously wrong though. Once a pirate, always a pirate…they can't be trusted.
"You ready to head out kiddo? You can ride on the horse if you want," David asked her with a smile. He was trying to make things a little fun for her.
"That's okay. I'll just walk with you guys," Hanna said and they all made their way into the forest, towards Regina's castle.
Hanna didn't know how long they had been walking. It had to of been hours. Her legs were starting to hurt a little. She was also getting tired and very hungry. They had stopped for a quick break and had a little snack, but it still wasn't enough. If they had a car, they probably would have been there by now. Hanna thought that with all of the magic in this place, someone would have at least come up with a better form of transportation by now. As Hanna continued to walk along, she couldn't help it when her mind wandered to her sister and her best friend. She was trying hard not to think about them, it only made her miss them more, but she couldn't help it. And she couldn't help but wonder where they were, what they were doing, or if they were okay. Missing them so much and knowing that she would never see them again was only making this journey even harder. She didn't know if she could take it anymore.
After a while, Hanna had drifted towards the back of the crowd. Her parents decided to let her have her space. They tried talking to her, but she wasn't responding much, they thought she just needed some time to think. Hanna looked up and noticed that Regina had veered off the path and went into the woods. Hanna was curious as to what she was up to. She wanted to follow her. She looked up at her parents, who had been looking back every few seconds, it seemed like, to make sure she was still there. They looked back once more and Hanna knew this was her chance. As soon as they shifted their eyes forward again, she made a dash for the forest and followed Regina.
Hanna spotted Regina kneeling down onto the ground. Hanna stood up onto her tiptoes and noticed that Regina was digging. Is she burying something? Hanna thought. She walked closer, trying to get a better look.
"What are you doing?" Hanna just finally decided to ask.
Regina jumped when she heard the voice come from behind her. She rolled her eyes and continued with what she was doing.
"Is that a heart?" Hanna asked with shock when she noticed the shape and bright glow of the object. Why would Regina be burying a heart?
"Go away!" Regina yelled at the young girl.
"That's your heart isn't it?" Hanna asked, finally putting the pieces together. "You're doing that so you won't miss Henry as much, aren't you?"
"You're just as nosey as your mother, you know that," Regina said as she stood up and faced Hanna.
"Will you rip mine out too?" Hanna asked as she looked up at Regina. She missed Henry and Emma so much. If taking out her heart, made that pain go away, Hanna wanted to do it too. She couldn't bear this feeling anymore.
"What?" Regina asked, taken a back by the girl's question.
"Please, I don't want to feel the pain either."
"Are you serious?" Regina asked her.
"Yes, I miss them too much. If that will make it go away, then I want you to do it," Hanna told her.
"You know it hurts a lot, right? It's not like plucking a hair from your head. This is ripping your heart from your chest."
"I don't care," Hanna said, trying to sound brave.
"Are you sure?" Regina asked as she walked closer to Hanna.
"Yes," Hana said as she looked Regina right in the eyes, ready for her to do it. She watched Regina walk closer and closer and stop right in front of her.
"I'm not going to rip your heart out," Regina told her told her with a roll of her eyes. She couldn't believe that Hanna would even ask such a thing. She did find it ironic that the daughter of Snow White, a woman she would have given anything to hurt the last time they were all in the Enchanted Forest, was asking this of her. Regina sighed and bent down to retrieve her heart from the ground. She didn't want to be a bad influence on the girl. She didn't want Hanna to think it's okay to just go around ripping your heart out when you feel sad. Hanna was Henry's best friend and Regina wouldn't let anything bad happen to Hanna for him. Regina just decided to find another way to deal with the pain of losing Henry.
"What are you doing?" said a voice from behind them.
Hanna jumped at the sound of her mother's voice. She looked pleadingly towards Regina, not wanting her to tell her mom what she had just done. Regina gave her a look that made Hanna think she wouldn't say anything.
"Is that a heart?" Snow asked in shock. "That's your heart. Regina, I know you're feeling lot of pain, but that's no way…"
"Save your speech. I'm putting it back in," Regina told her as she pushed her heart back inside her chest.
"Good," Snow said with a sigh of relief.
"You should know though that you're daughter just asked me to rip her heart out as well," Regina told Snow as she walked away.
Hanna, feeling betrayed, watched Regina as she walked past. Regina just raised her eyebrows at her and continued on. Regina knew it was for Hanna's own good. Snow needed to know just how deep the pain was that her daughter was feeling, so she could help her through it. Hanna was obviously really hurting, she barely even batted an eye when she told her how bad it would hurt. Regina knew Hanna would probably be in a world of trouble, but she also knew she would never do something like this again.
"Hanna! Is this true?" Snow asked, shocked that she would do such a thing.
Hanna gulped and turned towards her mother. "I'm sorry," Hanna said as she looked down at the ground.
"Why would you do something like that?" Snow asked.
Hanna could tell by the sound of her voice that she was really mad. She just shrugged her shoulders in response, not knowing what to say.
"Answer me," Snow told Hanna, her voice even more stern than before.
"I..I…just can't take it," Hanna started to tell her mom. "Regina ripped her heart out because she missed Henry. I thought it would work for me too. I miss them so much."
Snow watched as Hanna looked up at her, tears falling down her face. Snow knew her daughter would be in pain after losing Henry and Emma, but she never thought she would go this far. Snow realized that she and her husband had a lot more work ahead of them than she realized.
"I miss them too," Snow told her as she held her little girl's face in her hands. "But things will get better. I know this is really hard, but your Dad and I are here for you. Let us help you. We will get through this together. Just promise me you will never do anything like this again."
"Okay, I promise," Hanna told her. She knew she needed to learn to turn to them when she was feeling upset. She had done a lot better since they first met, but she still had to work on letting them in more. Hanna knew she needed to remember that she can talk to them about anything and they'll be there for her.
"Thank you," Snow said as she wiped Hanna's tears away and kissed her forehead.
Mother and daughter were on their way back to the rest of the group. They had caught up with Regina and were walking with her when Snow heard a noise coming from the bushes.
"There's nothing there, unless it flew away," Regina said after she checked where Snow claimed to have heard a noise.
"It did," Hanna said as she pointed towards the sky. Something had definitely been in those bushes, and it was flying towards them right now.
"We need to find cover," Snow said as she pulled Hanna along, trying to shield her from whatever that thing was.
"No," Regina insisted. "I don't run from monsters. They run from me."
Regina made a fireball in her hand and threw it at what Hanna thought looked kind of like a flying monkey. The monkey continued to come after them though, and they all ducked onto the ground. Before they could even really take cover, the monkey grabbed onto Regina and began pulling her into the air. Snow quickly held onto her and pulled her back towards the ground, but not before the monkey managed to scratch Regina's arm. The girls heard a man tell them to get down. Hanna peeked up at the monkey to see it get shot with an arrow. She sat up wondering where it had come from.
"Milady," the man said as she reached out a hand to Regina. "You're injured," he said when he noticed the scratch on her arm.
"It's your majesty and I'm fine," Regina told him and she got up off of the ground.
"A simple 'thank you' would suffice," he told her.
Once he made sure Snow and Hanna were not harmed by the flying monkey. He went on to tell them that he was Robin and introduced them to his Merry Men. Hanna couldn't believe she had just been saved by the actual Robin Hood. She had read stories about him and even saw the movie Disney made about him once in school. Sadly, this made her think of Henry again and how much he would have loved meeting the real Robin Hood.
The girls, along with Robin and his Merry Men, made their way back to the rest of the group. Charming was relieved to see his girls had safely made it back. He knew Snow and gone to find where Hanna had wandered off to.
"Where did you go?" David asked his daughter as he pulled her in for a hug. After a few seconds, he let her go and looked down at her, expecting an answer.
"Well…I…I" Hanna didn't know what to say. She was afraid to tell him what she had done. She knew he would be mad. She looked down at the ground and tried to figure out what to say. She knew she couldn't lie because her mom was standing right there and knew exactly what she had done. Before thinking of anything though, her mom spoke up.
"She just wandered into the woods a little bit. Nothing to worry about," Snow assured her husband. Charming gave her a questioning look, the look on his wife's face told him that there was more to the story. Her face also told him that they would talk about it later.
"Okay, well no more wandering off. You stay right here with us," David told her with a smile as he held onto her hand. He didn't plan on letting it go until they arrived safely at the castle.
Hanna nodded her head at her dad, then looked up at her mom. She gave her a smile, thanking her for not telling him. Snow gave her a quick wink, and they continued on their journey.
When they finally arrived at the castle, they found that it was surrounded by a protection spell. A spell that wasn't put their by Regina. Someone was in Regina's castle and she wan't happy about it. Regina wanted to storm right in there and find out just who this person was, but the others convinced her that they needed a plan first. Robin offered them a safe place to stay in Sherwood forest. Everyone agreed and took Robin up on his offer.
Hanna was lying in the tent with her mom. Her dad was out talking with some of the others, trying to devise a plan to get into the castle.
"Hanna close your eyes, sweetie. You need sleep," Snow told her as she gently ran her fingers through her hair.
"No, I'm okay," Hanna said as she shook her head, insisting that she didn't need to close her eyes. She knew what would happen if she did. She would have nightmares…about losing Emma and Henry, about Pan and Neverland, or about this new world she was in. She knew nothing good was going to come from closing her eyes and letting herself sleep.
"You know, if you have a bad dream, your dad and I will be right here to wake you up from it," Snow told Hanna with a smile.
"Okay," Hanna sighed as she reluctantly closed her eyes.
When Hanna opened her eyes again, she wasn't sure how much time had passed. The sky was definitely darker though. She looked around the tent, her parents nowhere to be found. Before she could even start to panic, she heard their hushed voices right outside of the tent. Hanna crawled close to the opening to listen.
"Snow, what happened?" Hanna heard her dad ask. Hanna became nervous because she was pretty sure he was asking about what really happened earlier when Hanna followed Regina into the woods.
"Charming, she's even more distraught over this than I thought," Snow said in a worried voice.
"What did she do?" he asked, the concern in his voice very apparent.
"She…she asked Regina to rip out her heart, so she wouldn't have to feel the pain of losing Emma and Henry," Snow told her husband.
"She what?" Charming said a little louder than he intended. Hanna jumped at the sound of her father's voice.
"Shhh…keep your voice down. You'll wake her," Snow said as she tried to calm him down.
"Snow, our daughter asked the Evil Queen to rip her heart out and you expect me to be calm about it?"
"She's not evil anymore," Snow said with a roll of here eyes. "And Regina refused to do it."
"We have to talk to Hanna about this. She can't go around asking people to rip her heart out."
"I already talked to her. I think she feels pretty bad about it. I miss Emma and Henry so much too, who knows what I would have done if I didn't have you and Hanna here with me. I may have asked someone to rip my heart out too. We have to be careful with this, Charming. She's hurting just as much as we are, and we have to help her through this. We have to show her that we are here for her."
"We will, Snow, everything is going to be okay. We all miss them and we will get through this together."
Hanna peeked through the opening of the tent to get a look at her parents. She watched as her dad gently wiped the tears from her mom's face. She watched him pull her close. She also saw the few tears that escaped his sad eyes as well.
Hanna let her head drop as she crawled back to her spot and laid down. She didn't think about how they would be feeling. She didn't think about how her asking that of Regina would have affected them. How worried they would be about her. They missed Emma and Henry just as much as she did, yet they remained strong for each other and for her. Hanna knew she wasn't making things any easier for them. Seeing the tears falling from their faces and the sadness in their eyes made Hanna feel guilty. She would do better. This new life wasn't going to be easy, but she had her parents here with her. She could lean on them for support and give them the support they needed as well. They would get through this together, just like they do everything.
