TW: Miscarriage

August was just the beginning.

Within six weeks, Storybrooke seemed to be falling to pieces: Hook had mysteriously escaped from the mental health ward below the hospital, someone had set fire to the whole field of magic beans, and Regina had gone missing.

Emma took herself down to the beach to search on foot, while her parents bartered with Gold for some kind of tracking spell.

"Emma?"

Emma glanced over her shoulder, trudging along the sand. "Hi Neal."

"Everything alright?" Neal asked, falling into step beside her.

"Regina's missing," Emma answered. "Last I heard from her, she was down this way, so I figured I'd see if I can follow my nose. Snow and David are talking to your father."

Neal pulled a face. "Hopefully they call Belle first; she might actually be able to talk him into it."

"Where's Tamara?" Emma asked.

"She went for a run," Neal said. "You're not still convinced she had something to do with it?"

Emma sighed. "I'm still convinced she's not telling you something; sorry."

"Are you feeling better?" Neal asked, apparently deciding to ignore that.

"Much," Emma lied as her phone rang. "Find her?"

"She's being hidden by magic," David answered. "Gold used some kind of old trinket - said it was one of Regina's tears - Snow thinks she's in an old warehouse type of building, strong smells of fish … Emma, she's in pain. Someone's hurting her."

"Old warehouse … smells of fish …" Emma frowned. "The old canning factory on the docks maybe? It's abandoned; not sure it was ever actually occupied."

"Good a place as any to start," David said. "Don't go in alone; we'll meet you there."

"I'm not alone," Emma said. "Neal's with me."

"Just be careful, Emma."

"I will." Emma hung up and tucked her phone away again. "Are you coming?"

Neal sighed. "Yeah, of course. Anything to convince you that we're not about to live through Evil Stepmother Round Two."

Greg Mendel.

Okay, so that hadn't quite been what Emma had been expecting.

"What did he say?" Neal whispered.

"They've found her," Emma said flatly. "In the basement. Greg Mendel was torturing her."

"Christ," Neal muttered. "Still, does this mean you're going to admit you were wrong about Tamara."

"Actually," Tamara's voice said, "she wasn't."

Emma turned, freezing in place as her eyes fell on the gun in Tamara's hand. "I knew you weren't telling me the truth."

Tamara gave her a cold smile. "Well done. Would you like a medal, Your Highness?"

"Tamara …" Neal began.

"Don't come any closer, honey," Tamara said. "Magic is a parasite, Neal. You know that as well as I do. We're going to destroy it."

"Look, I don't like magic," Neal said, "but I also know that you can't just … destroy it. Not without killing a lot of people."

"And how many people has magic killed?" Tamara asked sharply. "This is a war, Neal."

Neal frowned. "Was any of this real?"

Tamara shrugged. "No. We knew who you were. We knew you'd come home at some point."

"Who's we?" Emma asked, trying to ignore her instinctive urge to cover her stomach, unwilling to draw the woman's attention to that part of her body.

"The Home Office," Tamara said. "We're working to eradicate magic from this world."

"There is no magic in this world," Neal said, "only in Storybrooke, and that was completely separate until you came here."

"There's magic everywhere," Tamara whispered. "Don't believe everything you hear."

"Tamara," Neal said again, taking a step towards her.

A gunshot echoed off the walls and Neal cried out, falling to the ground, blood seeping from the wound on his leg.

"Neal!" Emma dropped to her knees beside him, trying to stem the bleeding.

"I warned you," Tamara said.

"You let Hook out of jail, didn't you?" Emma asked. "Why?"

"The good captain is rather desperate to get his revenge on my father-in-law-to-be," Tamara said.

Neal snorted. "Yeah, I think we can both agree that wedding's off."

Tamara smirked. "He's also rather good at finding magic."

"The beans," Emma said. "You burned them."

"Not all of them," Tamara said, "and something tells me you're going to get in the way." With a flick of her wrist, a small object landed at their feet, the floor dissolving into into a violent swirling portal.

Emma stumbled backwards, dragging Neal with her, completely ignoring Tamara's hasty retreat, but it was to no avail; he fell, would have plummeted completely had she not grabbed his hand with one hand, and one of the metal pipes with her other.

It creaked ominously, but held tight.

"If you say I told you so," Neal gasped out, "I will never forgive you."

"Just hold on," Emma said. "I really didn't want to be right." His hand slipped a little in her grip and she tightened her hold. "We need help!" She screamed, desperately hoping that floors below, her parents could hear her. "Quickly!"

"Emma, let go," Neal gasped out. "You need to let me go."

"Whatever realm you land in, that wound isn't going to go away," Emma snapped. "You'll bleed to death before you get help."

"And if you don't let go, we're both going to fall," Neal said. "Henry can't lose us both, Em. Make sure he knows …"

"He does," Emma whispered. "But you're not going anywhere, Neal. We just need to hang on until …"

"This portal is staying open until someone goes through it," Neal said, managing a weak smile. "I love you."

"I love you too," Emma said immediately, the words resonating in a part of her heart no longer romantically inclined, but no less invested. "Just … please … I can't lose you too."

Neal squeezed her hand. "I'm sorry."

When Snow and David arrived, breathless and afraid, Neal - and the portal - were long gone. Emma was curled up against the wall, her arms wrapped around her stomach, her body shaking with the force of her tears.

"Emma …" Snow rushed to her side. "Emma, what happened?"

"Tamara was working with him," Emma gasped out. "Had a bean … Neal fell … couldn't … It hurts, Mom; it really hurts!"

Her daughter's sudden use of the words almost completely passed Snow by, more focused on her other words. "Where does it hurt, sweetheart?"

Emma shook her head. "It hurts."

"You take Regina," David said, bending to scoop Emma into his arms. "I'll get her to the hospital."

Snow hesitated, but she knew that Regina was going to take assistance from her better than from David.

Better by a minuscule amount admittedly, but better all the same.

So, once again, she watched her husband hurry away with their daughter in their arms, and returned to her stepmother's side.

Ruby was still there, watching over Regina's prone form. She had joined them for the search - and thank goodness she had, or they would never have heard Emma's screams for help.

"Did you find her?"

"David's taken her to the hospital," Snow said in a low voice. "She's in pain, but couldn't really tell us why. I think Neal fell through a portal; Tamara had a bean."

Ruby scowled. "So Emma was right."

"I don't think that's giving her much comfort at the moment," Snow said. "There was blood on the ground. Can you give me a hand with her?"

Ruby nodded, moving to Regina's other side to help Snow lift her. "You know, she tried to kill us so many times, and God knows she's not my favourite person, but … What he was doing … I wouldn't wish that on anybody."

"No need to worry," Dr Whale said. "She's just suffering from shock. Unsurprising really, given everything that's happened." He shut the hospital room door kindly but firmly in David's face.

"Thank you," Emma said quietly from the hospital bed.

"We take our confidentiality seriously," Whale said with a sad smile. "I'm sorry for your loss, Sheriff. Both of them."

Emma nodded, her hand pressing to her stomach. "Do I need to take anything?"

"Some red meat wouldn't go amiss," Whale said. "Far more effective than supplements, but you've lost a lot of blood."

"Need to increase my iron levels," Emma murmured.

"Exactly." Whale pulled the curtains around the bed closed to allow her to change out of her hospital gown. "I realise it's none of my business, but I would advise you to speak to someone."

"No one knew," Emma said flatly. "Who am I going to talk to?"

"Dr Hopper?" Whale suggested.

"That was a rhetorical question," Emma said, yanking her boots back on. "I need to get to my son."

David met her in the corridor, and she brushed off his concern with a painted-on smile.

"Sorry I worried you," she said once they were on their way back to the loft.

"I'm just glad you're okay," David said, glancing over at her. "You were a bit unclear back there - Neal and Tamara fell through a portal?"

"No, Neal did," Emma said flatly. "Tamara opened it."

Henry met them at the door, white-faced and wide-eyed. "Mama!"

Emma swept him into a hug, her eyes darting past him to where Regina was apparently still unconscious, tucked up in her parents' bed (and wasn't she going to be happy about that when she woke).

"Mama, what happened?" Henry asked, his voice muffled in her shoulder. "Where's Papa?"

"I'd like to know the answer to that myself."

The tense voice drew Emma's attention away from Henry and Regina, to where Gold was hovering near the kitchen counter, Belle's hand in his apparently grounding him.

Everything in her screamed at her to sugarcoat, if not lie to him, but she knew two things - firstly, that Henry was mature enough to handle the truth; secondly, if she lied, he would inevitably find out the truth eventually.

So she took a deep breath and told him - and Gold - what had happened at the cannery, unsurprised when Gold and Belle almost immediately vanished in a puff of smoke.

"I should …" David began, but Snow stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"Leave it," she said softly. "Give the man the dignity of his grief."

"Mama," Henry said, his voice trembling, "is he dead?"

Emma swallowed hard. "He was alive when he fell, Henry. And I've got no reason to think that the fall would kill him. But he was bleeding heavily and he needs medical attention, and if he landed somewhere like the Enchanted Forest …"

"He's not going to get it," Henry finished quietly.

"Henry, I'm so sorry," Emma whispered.

Henry pulled away from her, running up the stairs to their room.

Emma hesitated, unsure whether going after him was the best thing to do, but then there was a knock at the door.

"I called Grace," Snow said, opening the door. "I wasn't sure what had happened, but I thought she might be able to help."

"What happened?" Grace asked in greeting, bobbing a small curtsey to Snow. "Is Henry okay?"

"His papa's gone," Emma whispered.

"And you don't need to curtsey Grace," Snow said with a sad smile.

Grace's eyes had widened. "Where is he?"

"Upstairs," Emma said, watching her hurry off.

"So this Home Office," David said, catching her attention again, "what do they want?"

"To destroy us."

"Regina," Snow said, with barely-veiled relief, moving towards her, "how do you feel?"

"Like I've been trampled by a dragon," Regina said wearily. "When I created this town, I also created a … fail-safe, if you will. Something that could allow me to destroy it if I needed to. Obviously once I adopted Henry … that became unnecessary."

"So we have to stop Greg and Tamara from getting their hands on it," Emma said, feeling marginally better now that she had something to focus on.

"Too late," Regina said grimly. "They've already got it."

AN: Given the response to the last chapter, I feel the need to apologise. Sometimes things need to get worse before they can get better.