Henry carefully cracked out of his window and climb down into the backyard. His mother was busy attending one of her always important town Council meetings and had left him alone. As time passed and he kept up the facade of obeying her, Regina had begun to loosen her restrictions on him. When her back was turned, he would go in search of Emma, Mary, or his friends. Today was Emma's day off, and she was spending the morning with him at his castle.

"Hey kid!" Emma greeted. They had to be careful to not let Regina catch them, but Henry treasured the time he got to spend with Emma. She was like the mom he had always wanted, even she wasn't really his mom.

"Hi Emma!" Henry hugged her tightly around the middle, and she ruffled his hair.

"So, have Ava and Nicky told you the news?"

"Yeah, at school."

"Are you okay with that?" Emma looked nervous. She knew Henry had been jealous of the fact that the twins lived with her, and it might hurt him to know that she was officially going to be their mom.

"I'm happy for them," Henry replied genuinely. "And you. I just..." Wish it were me.

Emma kissed his forehead. "I know. But you're mom seems to coming around."

Henry shook his head, "She's not upset, but that only because she thinks I've given up on the fairy tale stuff."

"You haven't?"

"No way. It can't all mean nothing."

She would never admit it, but Emma was starting believe that Henry was right. It was absurd and made no sense, but on an emotional level Emma felt that what he was saying was actually true. She couldn't tell him, because it would only encourage him. "Whatever you say, kid. So, what do you want to do today?"

Henry opened his book, and turned to a large illustration of Snow White on horseback. She was dressed for battle and carrying to bow with a quiver of arrows that had white and gold feathers. "I want to look at this story again."


Alexander poured over the notes and scrolls in the library, hoping to drown his anger in his studies. Ever since he had learned the truth about his origins, Alexander had done everything he could you afford his blood mother, Regina. In that moment, has anger had been white hot, but after several days it cooled into a complex kind of guilt. She said she loved him and that she had not chosen to give him up, nonetheless she has not raised him. She saw him as her son but he did not see her as his mother. Part of stem cells deep sympathy for what she has gone through, but another part belt revulsion for the things she had done.

He wondered about the old king, the man people still thought was his father. Alexander had never heard any stories about King Leopold II being cruel or vicious, but the genuine hatred and fear and Regina's voice when she spoke of him was unmistakable. The man truly be so charming and likeable to outsiders, but monstrous to those closest to him?

Alexander couldn't stop thinking about his half sisters either. What little he knew about them came from Regina, and she did not like to talk about them. What kind of relationship did they have with her? Or with their father? Or each other? If they had known about him, what did they think of him? Did they see him as a brother, or just a stranger who had come from the same womb? If the three of them have grown up together, how would they have gotten the wrong?

"Good evening, Alexander," a kind voice said behind him. "May I join you?"

He turned to see Regina's father walking up to him. "Good evening, Lord Henry. Of course."

Henry took a seat on one of the plush chairs at the table. His hair had long ago turned gray and his face was lined with deep wrinkles, but he still had some spring in his step. Alexander like Henry. He was one of the few people in the castle who still had some amount of common sense and decency. It took him a moment to remember that Henry was his grandfather by blood, and that knowledge shattered be easy atmosphere.

"Do you need something, Lord Henry?"

"I just spoke to Regina. She told me what happened between you two."

Alexander looked down, unable to look Henry in the eye. He stared down at the pendent had worn around his neck, one that his mother, his foster mother, had given to him before she had died. She said it would always bring him luck. He hoped she was right."So you know the truth."

"I guessed it from the moment you arrived," Henry confessed. "You look so much like Cora, my wife that is, and Regina was so fond of you right away. It didn't take long for me to work out who you really were."

"Then why didn't you say anything?"

"I figured you and Regina needed space to come to terms with that yourselves before I intervened."

"Well, we have."

"In a manner of speaking, you have," Henry nodded, "but it hasn't done much good for either of you, has it? She told me you were very angry at her."

"Of course I was angry! She gave me away and lied about it! She wants to act like she's my real mother that I should accept being her son when she was never there for me growing up. I already have a mother that I love, I don't want Regina in her place."

His words seemed to hurt Henry, but they were true. He was always still getting to know Regina and so far he had no reason to trust her. If anything, he had plenty of reason to resent her.

"Regina did not give you away," Henry explained in a pained voice. "She loved your father, but her mother did not approve of the match. I didn't learn of it until years later, but Cora killed your father and sent Regina away. She told me that Regina had fallen ill and needed to recover in the countryside. Cora arranged your adoption, which was done against Regina's will."

Alexander sat there, stiff and silent, as Henry's words washed over him. "That doesn't change the fact that she didn't raise me. I'm...sad for her, for what she went through, but that still doesn't make her my mother."

"I'm not saying it does," Henry replied cautiously. "I just want you look at things from her perspective for a moment. She had a child she wanted by man she loved, and both were ripped away from her in a horrible way. Now she's found her child, and he rejects her. All that pain and suffering and longing for nothing. You don't have to agree with the way she handled the situation, but she's as much a victim in all this as you. Just think about it, Alexander."

"I'll think about it," Alexander promised reluctantly.


Regina watched with fury in her eyes as Emma and Henry walked away. She sat in her car, gripping the steering wheel and tell her knuckles turned white, wondering how long they had been meeting behind her back. She couldn't understand it. She had done her best all of these months to remind Henry who his real mother was, to keep him away from Emma, to remind him just how much she loved him. All her efforts have been for nothing.

She thought of Alexander again, and her heart clenched. She had already lost one son and she wasn't about to lose another. Something had to be done about Emma Swan, or else she was going to take Henry away from her.

Regina drove home silently, wallowing in her own anger and fear, trying to think to get rid of Emma. Since coming to town, Emma had found a way to embed herself into it. She got a job, an apartment, a roommate, friends, even two foster kids. She had put down roots in this town and they ran deeper than Regina had ever imagine she should. It's my own fault for not getting rid of her soon, Regina scolded herself. It would take much more than intimidation or blackmail to get rid of her. Emma Swan had a life here that she loved and she would not give it up so easily.

Regina had been almost entirely cut off from magic since coming to this new realm, but she had one thing that might help her. She kept an apple from her old Realm, the same apple that she had used to put Snow White under a sleeping curse. It was a trophy, something she treasured. A symbol of her near victory against her horrible daughter. If she had to give it up to keep her son, her only remaining child, so be it.

She just needed to think of an excuse under which she could give the apple to Emma. She could make it into a turnover or something and give it to Emma. The only problem was that Emma did not like or trust her, so how could she be sure Emma would take it? Though Regina hated to admit, Emma did have a genuine fondness for Henry. She probably did not enjoy sneaking around you spend time with him.

The plan began to form in her mind. She could offer an apple turnover to Emma as a peace offering, letting her believe that she had her blessing to be in Henry's life and that Regina wanted to put their past feud behind them. She just had to be civil to Emma for five minutes, then she would eat the poisoned turn over and fall into an endless sleep.

Yes, she could manage that.


Alexander raced across the field on the horse he had borrowed from the royal stables. Regina had tried to keep him a locked up during the fighting, partly out of fear for his safety and partly to keep him from interfering, but he had managed to slip past his guards and out of the castle. He had to get to Snow White before she found him.

Snow White and Rose Red, along with their allies, we're going to war against Regina over the throne. A throne he only sat on because she had lied to everyone about his true parentage. If you could just reach Snow White and tell her the truth, he could end of the war. Regina would be furious, but he was sick of living under her lies. He did not want to be king if it meant stealing the crown from someone else, even if he had never met her before, and he certainly did not want the people of the kingdom to go to war over it.

He smelled the battlefield long before he saw it. Human order, horses, blood, filth. The sense of destitution and desperation. Alexander urged his horse faster, hoping to reach Snow White's camp before the battle started. As he neared the field, shouts rang up and steel clashed against steel.

He was too late.

Alexander wasn't sure what else he could do now, but he certainly was not going to give up. The battle had to begun but it could be finished. If you could just find Snow White, if he could just convince her that her throne was not in trouble, and he would gladly give up his claim for peace.

The sun began to rise over the horizon as Alexander finally saw the battlefield from a top of a large hill. The first pale strips of sunlight reached out the land like long fingers, shining off the armor of the soldiers until they glittered like some giant piece of jewelry; but alive, moving, writhing.

Alexander scan the battlefields trying to figure out which side we belong to whom. The soldiers were waving banners, but from his distance he could barely see the the heraldry displayed. If only he had some magic, something to show him where Snow White was.

In the midst of the fighting, a hail of arrows flew from one side to the other. That was just clue! Regina did not as many archers left after her previous defeat in battle, so the arrows must have come from Snow White. With his destination now clear, Alexander rode into the fray.

He planed to circumvent the fighting and go straight to the camp on Snow White's side. Most generals did not join the fighting themselves - Regina certainly didn't - and he doubted that Snow White would be directly on the battlefield. He would find her and her tent, or whatever she was leading the battle, and convinced her to end the fighting.

The battle turned when he last expected it. Something must have happened, something he had not seen, that caused the armies to start changing positions. Alexander had been riding west, and Regina's army suddenly began moving east, directly toward him. Snow White's army chased after them. Instead of going around the fighting, Alexander ended up in the thick of it. And he was going in the wrong direction.


The field medics found the young man among the dying and the dead after the battle is over. He didn't wear the standard armor of either side and his clothes were too finely made to belong to just any common man. They brought him to the field hospital, she became one of the many injured people being looked after by the overburdened staff. They were curious, they had to know who he was.

The nurse primarily responsible for his care alerted her superior, Ye Xian, out his presence and his injury. Apart from some minor cuts and bruises, an arrow had lodged into his side. The nurses were able to remove it, but the wound was becoming infected. When Ye Xian at last got the time to see to this mysterious patient herself, he told her the last thing she had ever expected to her.

He was the false king, the so-called lost heir Regina had tried to seat upon Snow White's rightful throne, come to surrender his claim to his half-sister.

He was too weak to be moved, so Snow White and Rose Red came to him. Snow was apprehensive and suspicious, but Red was more curious. Snow asked him his name, and he gave it. Ye Xian gave him a parchment to sigh, officially declaring his claim to the throne null and void in front of witnesses.

"Are you truly my half-brother?" She asked.

"Yes," Alexander replied weakly. "But I'm not your father's son. I'm your mother's."

The room fell silent as everyone consider the implications of what he just said. Snow White shook her head, tears beginning to run down her cheeks. "I don't understand. Why does she lie? She closed all the suffering and death, and for what?"

"I don't claim to know our mother better than you, after all she raised you and not me, but she can be reasoned with. If you can see things from her perspective, it might all make sense." Alexander told her sincerely.

Snow looks down at his wound. Under his bandages, the flesh had begun to fester and smell. Healing that kind of wound with magic would be difficult and tricky, likely not even worth the effort. Magic to do a lot, but only if the user understood what they were doing. And not that many people understood the human body.

"Do you mind telling me what happened to you?"

"An arrow. Very well-made one. Chestnut shaft, white and gold feathers."

Snow's face turned white with horror and guilt, and she didn't need to say anything for everyone to understand her reaction.

"Yours?" Alexander guessed. "I at least have the honor of being struck down by a fine weapon."

"Alexander, I'm so sorry. I...I..."

He nodded, giving her a watery smile, "I know. You were in the heat of battle, you didn't know me. I don't blame you. Can you do something for me?"


Regina walked into Snow White's tent with red and swollen eyes. "Where is he?" her voice quivered with grief.

Snow looked at her mother sadly. Apart from their guards, it was only the two of them. "His body is still here. I thought you'd want to say goodbye."

Regina looked at her eldest, for the first time, with pure hatred. "When you were born, I knew you would cause me so much trouble, but I never imagined you would do something like this."

"Mother," Snow began to pleaded.

"Don't you ever call me that again!" Regina screamed. "You lost that right when you killed my son!"

Snow accepted the harsh words. Holding back a fresh wave of tears to her face, she walked over to Regina and placed Alexander's pendent in her hand. "He wanted you to have it."

Regina looked down at the pendent distastefully. "That peasant woman give it to him. I don't need another remind of what I lost." She took the pendent and placed it around Snow's neck. "But you need a reminder of what you took from me."

"We don't have to keep fighting...Regina. He wanted peace in the realm."

"Don't talk to me about my son. You never knew him. I took him in, I educated him, I loved him. His blood is on your hands and nothing you do will ever wipe it clean. I'm going home now. I need time for mourn for him. But when I'm done, I will make you pay for what you did."

Snow White stood as cold and still as a statue as Regina turned and left the tent. Her brother's pendent hung like a gallows around her neck.