The next day, Regina was outside Emma's Bed and Breakfast room, kissing Robin after they had entered a relationship together. She listened to Mary Margaret's advice, taking a chance on happiness. And, it seemed, joy was with Robin.
She looked at Robin. "What do you see in me?" she asked.
"Hopefully, the same thing you see in me. A second chance," Robin answered. "And you're quite a good kisser."
Regina chuckled lightly. "Just wait till I have my heart back."
"What is that like? I mean, can you …"
"Feel?" Regina nodded. "Yes, I can. Just not fully. It's difficult to explain."
"Then don't," Robin told her. He placed her hand over his heart. "Use mine for the both of us."
Regina chuckled lightly before leaning in and kissing him again before being interrupted by Henry as he entered the corridor. Regina stopped kissing and turned around suddenly. "Henry," she said. "Good morning."
"Morning," Henry said, then looked past them down the corridor. "Uh … Excuse me, Madam Mayor." He nodded and walked past them.
"Are you all right?" Robin asked. He knew how much it hurt Regina to see Henry when he didn't remember her.
"No. I'm not all right," Regina whispered. "But they're waiting for me. I should go." She turned to leave, but Robin stopped her.
"Wait." He leaned in and kissed her again. "Good luck," He said, smiling as he stroked her cheek.
Regina smiled as she opened the door to Emma's room and entered. She was still smiling, and Emma and her parents noticed.
"Regina," Mary Margaret said. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you look smitten."
Regina scoffed. "Well, if I didn't know any better, I'd say Häagen-Dazs is smitten with your stomach." She stood near where the group was sitting and folded her arms. "Can we get started?"
"We were waiting for Hook," Emma said.
"I don't have time to wait for the handless wonder." Regina took a breath. "We have to figure out how to destroy my sister."
David nodded. "For once, I agree with Regina. Stopping her plan is the priority."
"There's one thing about this plan that doesn't fit," Emma said. "Regina."
"I'm the point of it. So she can take my life for herself."
"Yes. But why bring you back to Storybrooke? Why bring any of us?"
"Well, no one's succeeded at a time-travelling spell. Perhaps something from this world makes it possible. But what's almost as troubling is that she was able to cast the curse to bring us all here in the first place."
"Why is that?" Emma asked.
"To do it, you have to give up the thing you love most. But, unfortunately, from what I gather, Zelena doesn't love much."
"Neither did you. You managed."
"Zelena's smart," David told them. "Strategic. Perhaps we discovered something in the missing year to stop her."
"And then the only way to stop us from interfering was to bring us back here and wipe our memories," Mary Margaret suggested. "So if we get our memories back, we might already know how to defeat her."
"We just need to break this curse," David said. "Well, thank goodness we have a saviour."
"I would love to," Emma began, "but there's one problem. Last time, all it took was me believing in magic and kissing Henry. Since I've been back, I've done both and nothing."
Regina gasped. "It's the belief," she stated. "Henry. He needs to believe. In this new life, he doesn't. So we have to get him to believe again."
"So, what, we put on a magic show?" "How did you believe?"
"The book," Emma answered. "The storybook."
"That's what started Henry on his original path," Regina began. "And what got you to believe. It's the key. In him believing. In him remembering. Remembering everything." Including her – his adoptive mother.
"That's not necessarily a gift. He's been through much tough stuff."
"And some good stuff," Regina corrected. "Either way, it's our best bet." "She's right," Mary Margaret muttered.
"I know," Emma acknowledged. "Let's find it."
David called the pawnshop, and after a few minutes, he ended it and placed his cellphone back in his pocket. "Gold's was a dead end," he said, joining his family again. "No book in the shop."
"Regina, you said the last place you saw it was Henry's room?" Mary Margaret asked.
"Yes," Regina answered. "But it's not there. Swept away by the last curse."
"A book can't just disappear," David stated.
"But it can just appear," Mary Margaret told them. "The first curse. It just showed up in my closet
when I needed it. Or, more accurately, when Henry needed it."
"What do you mean?" Emma asked.
"He was going through a rough time. He realised he had been given up. He didn't feel like he had a real family."
Regina scoffed. "He did."
"That may be," Mary Margaret began. "But, Regina, he wasn't feeling that way with you. Or with anyone. He needed to believe in happy endings again. That's what the book gave him."
"Well, he needs to believe again. I think we all do. So what do we say we go check your closet?"
Regina, David, Mary Margaret and Emma walked into the diner to see Henry at the counter. Emma walked over to Henry and told him that she needed to check out a lead and if he'd be okay staying there a little longer. But he did have Leroy there. She knew Leroy would look after him.
As they left the diner, Henry followed after Emma, "Where are you going?" Henry asked her. It made the others stop.
Emma turned to him. "I told you. I'm following a lead," She told him again.
"What lead?" Henry asked.
"It's my job. But, look… It's complicated," Emma said.
"Is this about the person who killed my dad?"
Emma was silent for a moment. Then, "Yes," she reluctantly said.
"Then, tell me," Henry begged. He wanted to know more about his father. Why he gave him up, and who killed him.
"It would just be easier once it's all solved, Henry," Emma told him. Easier when you get your memories back.
Henry was now getting more annoyed. "You've been lying to me ever since we got here. I deserve to know everything."
"No, you don't!" Emma yelled. "I'm your mother, and I know best. So, you just going to have to deal with this for now, okay? Understand?"
"Yeah, I think I do," Henry said, not making much eye contact with Emma, clearly shocked she had snapped. Emma began to walk away, "Wait, I need your keys. I left mine in the room, and if I'm going to be a prisoner, I'd like to have my Game Boy," Henry said to her, and Emma walked back to him and handed over her keys to him before walking off.
Henry walked into the diner and headed towards the guest rooms, but he walked out of the back entrance. He walked to Emma's car and began unlocking the door; unaware Hook was behind him.
"Where are you off to there, mate?" Hook asked, leaning against the door of a red car parked beside Emma's. He had just been with Zelena, and their conversation still roamed through his head. He had to take away Emma's magic, or else Zelena would kill Henry. And he didn't want
either to happen. He wanted to make sure Henry was safe. Henry turned around, "Uh, nowhere."
"You are in quite a rush to go nowhere."
"Fine. I'm going home to New York," Henry admitted.
"Hmm. You were running away," Hook said, approaching the young boy. Henry sighed. "Whatever."
"So, you're planning on driving back to New York? One lesson, and you think you're ready for that?"
"No, just to the nearest bus station."
"I'm afraid I can't let you do that. It's too dangerous."
"I don't care what you think," Henry said and moved closer to the car again. He opened the driver's seat door, but Hook shut it.
"Well, you should. Because I've got a better way."
Back at the Blanchard Loft, they had made their way to Mary Margaret and David's room and started looking through the closet and drawers. Their goal was to find the storybook. The book was in Mary Margaret's room in the first curse, so they hoped it was there in this curse, too.
David sighed as he opened a straw box and found more shoeboxes stacked inside. "Why do women keep their shoeboxes?" David asked.
"Because, after true love, there is no more powerful magic than footwear," Mary Margaret answered, poking her head from inside the closet. "It has to be protected."
"Any sign of the book?" Emma asked.
"No. I don't think it's here," David answered.
"You don't know that!" Mary Margaret called back.
"Maybe it's in this thing," Emma said as she placed a huge wooden box on the bed. She opened it up and dug through Mary Margaret's clothing. She groaned. "Some winter coats, some scarfs." She reached the bottom. "But the book is not in here." Sighing, she sat on the bed. She thought this was a mammoth task and one she couldn't accomplish.
Mary Margaret looked at her, then moved over to the bed. "Hang on," she said. "Let me check. She rummaged through the clothes until she felt something - the storybook. She pulled it out. Everyone looked at her, amazed.
"I don't understand," Emma said.
"Can I see that?" Regina asked as she took the book from Mary Margaret. "I know there are chapters on Oz in here. I want to know whose heart Zelena crushed to enact this curse. Because if there's something she loved, that's her weakness." She carried the book back into the kitchen and dining area, and David followed – leaving mother and daughter alone in the bedroom.
Mary Margaret sat on the bed, on the other side of the box of Emma. "Did you not see it there?" she asked her daughter.
"You think I'm lying?" Emma asked.
"No. Of course not. It just …" Mary Margaret turned to look at Emma. Something had been going on with her for the past few weeks. Ever since she got back to Storybrooke, it had seemed to be eating more of Emma ever since this morning. "Emma, what is going on? You've been anxious since we left Granny's."
"Nothing," Emma replied, not looking her mother in the eyes.
"No. It's not nothing. You yelled at Henry. That's not like you."
"None of this is like me. Or at least, it never used to be."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about wicked witches and time travelling holy wars. I'd forgotten what's it like here. I don't want that for Henry."
Mary Margaret nodded slowly as she began to understand what Emma was saying. "So, you're taking him back to New York after this is all over, aren't you? Your father said you were thinking about it."
"Yeah. I am."
"And that is why you looked relieved when we couldn't find the book. You don't want his memories back."
"If getting his memories back is the only way to break the curse, then that's what we're going to do. But I don't want it to be any harder on him than it has to be. Our life in New York was perfect."
"I'm sure it was, but it wasn't home."
"It was for us."
"Well, that's because you forgot about us."
Emma was silent and sighed before resting her forehead on her hand. She could hear how hurt Mary Margaret felt. She didn't want her to feel like that.
Mary Margaret got up from her seat. "Let's go get Henry."
