"Can we trust him?" Emma muttered under her breath, picking her way through the fairy dust mine.

"We don't have a choice," Regina said darkly. "If Hook can't help find those beans, we're all screwed."

Emma nodded silently.

"Don't make my mistake, Emma," Regina said.

"What mistake?" Emma asked.

Regina sighed. "The thing about getting tortured … you start thinking about things."

"Yeah, what did Greg want with you anyway?" Emma asked. "He seems to hate you more than the rest of Storybrooke and he wasn't even in the Enchanted Forest."

"He was here as a child," Regina said. "He and his father were camping in the area when the town appeared."

"Let me guess," Emma said with a sigh. "You killed his father."

"That's what he wanted to know," Regina said. "It was Graham, actually. I had to get them out of town. So I got him to arrest Kurt so we could send him away."

"And keep his son here?" Emma asked.

Regina hesitated. "I won't lie and say I hadn't thought about it. But I think he would have been sent to his father in the end. But Kurt got free and started strangling me. Graham shot him. We buried him in the woods."

"So what particular mistake did torture make you hone in on?" Emma asked, deciding that it wasn't worth rehashing that any further.

Regina hesitated. "Daniel wasn't your mother's fault. She may have spilled the secret, but it wasn't her fault. She was just a child."

"And you're only just realising this?" Emma asked.

"I think I've known for a while," Regina admitted, "but … your mother's guilt was the only thing even slightly justifying everything I did. If that wasn't there … What does that make me?"

Emma snorted. "Every monarch or political leader in existence? Have you read this realm's history? Everyone believes they're justified in doing what they do - very few people act out of pure evil, Regina. But burying your head in the sand afterwards isn't going to undo what you've done."

"I know," Regina said softly. "Hook didn't take August from you, Emma. He can't have done."

"Maybe not," Emma said. "But he was working with Greg and Tamara. Neal's blood is on his hands, if not August's. Henry's lost all of his father figures in the space of less than two years, and two of them are partly his fault."

"Okay, but it was Tamara who took Neal," Regina said. "Lay the blame on her, not on Hook. And remember that vengeance will not bring either of them back. Don't make the same mistakes I did. And who was the other father figure?"

Emma cast an incredulous look over her shoulder. "Graham? Just because he didn't remember all of Henry's life, doesn't mean Henry doesn't."

Regina's face crumpled further, cast slightly into shadow by the torchlight, but she said nothing more.

A few more steps and Emma took a deep breath. "Can you feel that? Feels like the oxygen's being sucked out of the air."

"Not the oxygen," Regina said softly. "The magic."

A few more steps, and there it was; a blue diamond floating in mid-air, glowing with an ethereal light.

"There it is," Regina whispered. "Once it stops glowing, it's destruction is achieved - and then we'll see the real carnage."

Emma stopped, allowing Regina to take point, watching the other woman slowly circle the diamond, apparently contemplating her approach. She had already warned that she would be unable to stop the trigger, but that she could slow it down and buy some time.

Regina stopped directly opposite her, meeting Emma's eyes across the top of the diamond. "I'll try and contain its energy as long as I can."

"It won't be long," Emma said. "We'll have the beans soon - then we can get the hell out of here."

Regina hesitated. "Slowing the device … It's going to require all the strength I have."

Something in Emma's gut clenched, remembering the way Regina had pulled Henry to one side and apologised, telling her how much she loved him. "You're not coming with us, are you? When you said goodbye to Henry … you were saying goodbye."

Regina gave her a trembling smile. "He knows I love him, doesn't he?"

"Regina, no!" Emma protested. "There has got to be another way."

"They're all right, you know," Regina said, apparently having not heard her at all. "Everything that's happening … it's my fault. I created this device. It's only fitting that it takes my life."

Emma shook her head. "What am I supposed to tell Henry?"

"Tell him …" Regina said slowly. "Tell him that, in the end, it wasn't too late for me to do the right thing."

"Regina, please …" Emma said again.

"Everyone looks at me as the Evil Queen," Regina whispered. "Let me die as Regina."

Granny's was chaos.

The entire town, it seemed, had gathered in the diner, speaking in hushed voices, but Snow, David and Hook were all outside.

"Where are they?" Emma asked hurriedly. "I thought you'd have started sending people through."

"There's only one," Snow said. "It's going to take a long time to get everyone though it - how long do we have?"

Emma chewed on her lower lip. "About that - Regina's slowing it down, but … It's going to drain her."

"What?" Snow asked, but another voice had chimed in, and Emma closed her eyes, praying that when she opened them, Henry wouldn't be standing in the open doorway with Archie and some of the dwarfs, staring at her with horror.

But, no, there he was.

"Is Mom going to die?" Henry asked, his lower lip trembling.

"She said …" Emma reached for him, cupping his face in her hands. "She said that in the end it wasn't too late to do the right thing."

"The bean," Snow said. "We sent the wraith through a portal; why can't we do the same thing with the trigger?"

"Where are we going to send it?" Emma asked. "When we sent the wraith through, it killed a man. Or took his soul, or whatever. It's not like the Enchanted Forest is abandoned; we'd have to send it somewhere else and - and what if it doesn't work?"

"What if it does?" Snow asked. "I killed her mother, Emma. I can't just leave her to die."

"Cora had to die," Emma said, painfully aware that Henry didn't need to be hearing any of this.

"Mama," Henry said, "why don't you want to help her?"

"I do," Emma said gently. "Of course I do, Henry. But sacrificing the entire town to save one life doesn't make any sense. I just … I don't want you to be alone, like I was."

"Emma, we sacrificed you to save everyone once," Snow said softly. "You suffered for it."

"No one is going to go along with this," Emma said.

"Yes, we will," Archie said firmly. "Our king and queen have never led us wrong. We've always followed them. I'm not going to stop now."

There was a soft murmur of agreement behind them - a testament to how much they trusted Snow White, given Emma was certain that most of them would be happy to see Regina dead.

As though reading her mind, Archie softened his tone, addressing his words to Henry more than anyone else. "I have spoken to Regina more than anyone might think. And I would never break that confidentiality. But I will say that her actions were never borne from evil and the desire to be so. Fear, pain, grief, anger - certainly. But there is not a person here who has not felt any of those, nor has not succumbed to their effects."

"If we take the easy way out," Snow said, "we will be building a future on Regina's blood."

Emma sighed, but before she could speak, the ground shook once more, cries of terror coming from inside the diner. "Alright," she said hastily, "we have to try."

"Mom!"

Emma caught Henry's arm before he could sprint forward at Regina. "Give her space, kid."

"What are you doing here?" Regina asked when they reappeared, her voice strained with the effort of containing the effects of the trigger. "You're supposed to be evacuating the town."

"We've only got one bean," David said. "We're going to send the trigger through it."

Regina managed a shaky laugh. "Sacrificing the town to save my life? Whose genius idea was that?"

"Mine," Snow said. "I'm not letting you do this, Regina."

"You don't have a choice," Regina said. "It won't work."

Emma pulled the pouch from her pocket. "Yeah, well, we're going to give it a go." She tipped up the pouch, only to find … "Son of a bitch."

"Miss Swan, watch your tongue around our son please," Regina said.

"Hook intercepted the pouch after the decision was made," Emma said. "I talked him into giving it back, but … The bean's gone."

"Son of a bitch," David muttered.

"And you can watch yours as well," Regina snapped.

"Now what?" Emma asked helplessly. "If we can't get rid of the trigger, and we can't evacuate the town … what do we do? The Jolly Roger will be halfway to another realm by now."

"Well, think quickly," Regina said shakily. "I can't contain it much longer."

Emma's heart stopped, her own mortality crashing down on her. This, here and now, was on her, not Regina.

How could she have trusted Hook's newfound altruism?

How could she - an experienced pickpocket - not check that he really had given the bean back?

Her focus shifted to her parents, who were holding Henry close to them.

"Mom …" she whispered. "Dad …"

They both reached for her at once, enfolding her in their arms, David's hand cupping the back of her head the way it had when they first met - at least with full knowledge of who they were.

She could still count on one hand the number of times she had hugged her parents, and now this was likely to be the last.

Henry wiggled out from between them to approach Regina, and Emma closed her eyes, filling the space he had left to be held closer by her parents.

"I love you, Henry," Regina said, her voice choked with tears. "I only wish I that I was strong enough to stop all this. I'm just not …" Her voice faltered, or possibly Emma stopped listening, because all of a sudden, hope dawned in her mind.

She pulled away from her parents so suddenly that they looked startled, but something in her eyes apparently stopped them from asking.

"You may not be strong enough," Emma said, taking a step towards Regina and Henry. "Maybe we are."

Henry released his mother. "Will that work?"

"There's nothing to lose, right?" Emma whispered to Regina. "I mean - if we don't try, we're both going to die anyway." She gave one more look to her parents. "Henry, go with your grandparents."

There was no time for further words.

Snow and David took Henry's hands and hurried to take shelter around the corner, while Emma took her place opposite Regina.

"Follow your instincts," Regina whispered. "Your magic will lead you."

Emma nodded, raising her hands to hover them over the diamond the way Regina's were.

At first, it didn't hurt, the magnetic pull drawing against her, and then the pain began to register; if they survived, Emma was going to have to ask Regina how she wasn't screaming in pain.

Then again, with her parents and son in earshot, she was going to try her hardest not to make any noise either.

Then, all of a sudden, with a flash of light and a blast of magic, Emma was thrown backwards, colliding heavily with the wall.

Her vision went black momentarily - or maybe it was longer than a moment, she wasn't sure - but then her eyes blinked open, focusing on the roof of the cavern.

"We're alive," David muttered from nearby.

His face appeared in her field of vision and she took his hand, using it to pull herself to her feet. "We did it."

"Yes we did," Regina said, showing her the now dull diamond.

With her parents embracing her proudly, for a split second, Emma thought that everything might be alright.

Then she suddenly realised that something wasn't quite right.

"Henry?"

There was no answer, and she fought her way out of her parents' arms to return to the spot they had taken shelter. "Henry?"

"Where is he?" Regina asked. "What's happened?"

Emma's torchlight fell on something lying up ahead.

Henry's satchel.

"They've taken him."