A/N: Hey everyone, I am so sorry for the wait. I have many excuses but I'm sure none of them are good enough for leaving you hanging for nearly three months. This chapter would have been up earlier but I had to re-write it and that is one of my least favourite things to do, I find it kills motivation. However I felt terrible for leaving you for so long so I decided to cut this chapter into two so I could post something sooner. I hope you forgive me.

If you forget what happened in the last two chapters I suggest re-reading those first. Happy New Year everyone! Please review after reading, it really does help me write. Thank you for sticking with this story xx.

Storybrooke Town Hall

Emma was standing at the front of the town gathering hall, and for the second time since coming to Storybrooke she found herself expected to speak in front of half the town. She was running out of options, and in an act of pure desperation she had called this last-minute town meeting, one of which she had been surprised by the turnout. She knew most of the people present were merely there out of curiosity, but perhaps something would come of it after all.

One of the main reasons she and the others had decided to do this was to see if Ruby would be able to pick up Regina's scent on anyone. They had already tried and failed at using Ruby's wolf skills to find the Mayor by having her follow the scent on Regina's sweater, but unfortunately just like every other attempt, nothing had come of it. They had yet to come across Gold, but Emma was planning on checking the shop once more after the meeting should Ruby not be able to find anything.

As Emma stared at the hundreds of expectant faces in front of her, she suddenly grew quite nauseous. This was Regina's position. She was usually the one to hold town meeting's, she was usually the one up here discussing new plans for Storybrooke and informing everyone of any new changes.

A quick glance at Henry proved disastrous as she laid eyes on the sweater he was holding. It had almost been like a security blanket for Emma all day, and whenever she wasn't holding it she felt empty. She knew it would have seemed strange if she had brought it up in front of the town with her, and so had given it to Henry for safekeeping.

Emma knew she should hate that sweater by now since it had failed twice at tracking its owner, once via locator potion and once via Ruby, but Emma still wanted it back.

Just then David cleared his throat loudly, and Emma was immediately reminded that hundreds of eyes were currently on her.

"Uh... sorry. Right... so... thank you all for coming here." She said to the crowd. "I know you're all busy and have other plans for the day, so I'm going to keep this brief." Emma shuffled her feet tiredly, glancing sideways at her parents and Henry who were standing off to the side of the stage, and then looking to the back of the room where Ruby, Granny and Kathryn stood by the door.

"I'm sure many of you know what happened down at the mayor's house last night..."

"The Evil Queen's you mean." Someone corrected her bitterly from the audience.

"Umm, yeah."

"What happened?" Archie shouted. "Was it an accident?"

"Is she dead?" Came Leroy's voice.

"No, she's not dead. Snow White and... David–"

Emma stopped, realizing that she wasn't sure what her father's name was any more. It couldn't very well be Charming.

"–were able to get her out on time."

Emma finished. She glanced at her parents again and received a reassuring smile from her mother.

"The reason we gathered you all here this afternoon is because Regina has gone missing. At some point during the fire she was abducted from just outside of her house. We understand that she did not leave on her own because we know she would never have left while her son was still in danger."

"How do you know? You don't know what she's like!" A townsperson shouted, clearly still bitter. "Maybe she saw it as her chance to escape town!"

"Actually all due respect but I think right now I know her a lot better than any of you do." Emma said a little more forcefully than she had intended.

"Sure, maybe I didn't see for myself what she was like in your old world, but I've seen the person she's become here in Storybrooke. It took a tragedy to make it happen, but she's changed a lot from the woman I met when I first came to this town. I promise all of you, you're safe from her. She doesn't want to hurt any of you. Despite what you all think she doesn't want you to be trapped here in Storybrooke, she wants to lift the curse on the town line she just doesn't know how yet. And as many of you witnessed a few days ago, her powers have not been returned."

Emma glanced around as the crowd muttered amongst themselves, she still hoped this gathering was a good idea.

"I'm sure you've all noticed that she's kept to her house a lot lately, even before the curse was broken?" Emma gave them a chance to think about it.

"And I know that not many of you know the real reason why. You all believe that it's just because she was recovering from her suicide attempt right? Wrong. Yeah she was recovering, at first anyways. But then as her health started to decline rather than improve, we began to realize that something more was happening. She's been really sick lately. In fact..."

Emma's voice caught in her throat as she glanced at Henry.

"In fact she's dying. Because of what she went through she has a lot of internal damage. She has liver damage, her kidneys are failing and she's been getting worse every day. These days half the time she barely has enough energy to even get out of bed. She may seem like a monster to many of you, but she's human just like everyone else. All she wants is to live out her life in peace with her family. I know that can be hard to believe, but the truth is... she's really scared."

Emma swallowed a lump in her throat, she wanted to just run from the stage already, she hated this, but she was almost finished and she needed to see it through.

"The reason I'm telling you this is because... not only would she have been too afraid to leave on her own last night, but she also would not have had enough strength to do it on her own. Someone took her, and now it's my job to find out who."

Emma waited for the group-wide muttering to die down once more before continuing.

"She regrets what she did to all of you and if she were here I know she would tell you how sorry she was for casting the curse. She can survive for a little while longer without medical attention, but it's absolutely vital that Regina receives hospital treatment right away or she will die."

"Good!" Someone shouted.

"She deserves it."

Emma suppressed a sigh, perhaps bringing Henry here wasn't the best idea after all.

"No," Emma countered strongly. "She doesn't. If we let Regina die this way, we're no better than her or anyone who's been labelled as a villain. Someone who wants so badly to change... someone who wants to make up for their mistakes, they deserve a second chance. Regina deserves a second chance."

Emma studied the faces in the crowd, some still showed signs of disbelief, but many looked sympathetic, some Emma even noticed, had tears in their eyes.

"I don't know who took her, but I think we all have a pretty good idea why." Emma's gaze dropped as she tried to keep it together.

"She's been fighting so hard, please don't take this chance away from her. If you have her, please don't hurt her. I know that a lot of you would be thrilled to never have her in your lives again but she's suffered more than I think any person should have to in one lifetime. Even if she was the Evil Queen, no one deserves to die this way. If you know who's taken her, or you know anything that could help us find her, please don't hesitate to step forward. You don't have to tell us in front of everyone here tonight. If you would prefer you can call the Sheriff's Station and you'll be put through to either myself or David." She gestured to her father.

"Please, don't hold back if you can help us. Regina's son Henry is worried sick about her." Emma continued. "He's already had to go through nearly losing his mother once, don't make him go through it again; don't make him grow up without her. He needs his mom. He loves her, and one of his biggest fears right now is that he's never going to have the chance to say goodbye to her. If you can, please help us to bring her home to him. If not for Regina herself, please do it for Henry. Imagine your children in his position, or even yourselves as children. I want to believe that you wouldn't wish this on any child. Please don't prove me wrong."

Emma glanced around the audience once more, searching their faces. She could see that her words at least had some affect. She didn't know if her speech would motivate anyone in the audience to help, but hopefully by bringing everyone here tonight they would at least be able to find someone else who had a hand in whatever had happened to Regina.

Once she had finished her speech and everyone had got up to leave, Emma lingered at the side of the stage with Henry as the hall cleared out. Some took longer to leave than others, gossiping, asking questions, some even showed their support for Henry, but eventually the hall emptied, and that was when Emma went to talk to Ruby.

However even before Emma could ask the question Ruby shook her head. "I'm sorry, I didn't pick up anything."

Emma rubbed Henry's shoulder as she looked down at him. "I'm sorry kid." She looked up at Ruby and Kathryn again. "How did everyone seem when they were leaving?"

"I think most people felt sympathy for Regina." Kathryn responded. "Many seemed really shaken, but of course there were still many people who were talking about how great it would be if Regina was dead."

"Damn..." Emma muttered.

"To be honest I think if anyone here today does know anything about where Regina might be, they would never tell us. I think even if we find her, we'll still have quite a few people to worry about when we try to get her out of Storybrooke."

"So what's next?" Ruby asked.

"You wanted to check Gold's again?" Mary Margaret asked as she arrived at her daughter's shoulder.

"Yeah." Emma replied. "Why don't we split up, we don't all have to go to Gold's, someone should keep looking for, well, anything at this point."

Across Town

Regina was on the floor again, bleeding, battered, and broken. She wrapped her arms around herself and lay there shivering, taking in heavy, shaky breaths as she prayed for the peacefulness of sleep to finally take over. She could hear their voices getting more distant, and she couldn't make out what they were saying. Her eyelids felt heavy but that was nothing new, she knew Whale wasn't going to let her fall asleep. However neither he nor Sidney seemed to be making any moves to stop her.

Sidney took a step forward as he watched the brunette. One second she had been shaking and quietly sobbing and the next she was completely still, he couldn't hear her, he couldn't even see her breathing. She had become more still than she had been since early that morning when Whale had allowed to her to sleep most of the night.

"Whale..." Sidney said uncertainly as he eyed her. "I think something's wrong."

"What is it?"

"She's unconscious." Sidney went to her side to touch her arm. "I think she's stopped breathing."

Whale slowly took a few steps forward, examining the woman cautiously.

"Is she dead?" Sidney asked stepping back to give the doctor room.

After a few moments of checking her over, Whale gave a heavy sigh.

"She's just passed out from exhaustion," he announced. "Don't worry, this was bound to happen eventually. We couldn't very well keep her awake all day, she doesn't have the strength for that."

"So what do we do now? Just wait?"

Whale studied the queen's unmoving form.

"Take her upstairs."