Flu Love's Kiss 10
Warning: I'm increasing the rating because of some content in this chapter, for mature themes/suggestions and some strong language, but please note descriptions are very minimal.
Chapter 10 - I saved you
When Henry got home his mothers were sitting in the lounge room together but he could tell something was wrong. His Mom looked really upset like she'd been crying. Emma looked sad as well and she was covered by a blue shiny bubble that Henry supposed was something magical created by a spell.
"What's wrong?" said Henry. "What's that blue thing?"
Regina looked up when she noticed him come in. "Henry, I... Emma and I had a fight that's all. It's just a spell but she can't hear or talk in there."
Emma waved from inside the bubble and tried to smile at her son.
"Oh." Henry waved back and then sat on the lounge next to Regina. "How long has she been in there?"
"A few hours," admitted Regina. It'd been that long since Archie had left them after that stupid survey had almost brought everything out in the open.
"Are you okay?" asked Henry, tilting his head to look at her with concern.
Regina was surprised but managed to respond. "I'm fine."
Henry wasn't satisfied with that answer but he didn't push it. Tim Montague's parents had fallen out of love and now they were cured of Love Flu. Henry wondered if that would happen to his Moms too.
"When are you going to let Emma out?"
"She asked to stay silent. I'm not keeping her in there," said Regina quietly.
They both watched Emma sitting in the bubble, a troubled look of intense concentration on her face. She played absentmindedly with the keychain around her neck, twisting it and pulling at it with her left hand, staring off into space as she slouched on the far side of the lounge to Regina's left stretching their arms apart.
"She doesn't love you, does she," said Henry sadly.
Startled by the question Regina's eyes snapped up to search his face, wondering how he could possibly know that.
"I wish you were together. Then we could all be a family," said Henry.
Tears filled her eyes at her son's heartbreaking words and Regina pulled him into a tight one-armed hug. The boy wrapped his arms tightly around his mother and laid his head in the crook of her neck. Regina had been in two-sided love only once in her life and losing that had been painful enough. She now knew the bitter sting of losing the love you never even had.
After Henry had left them at the station, David and Mary Margaret continued to try to work out the puzzle. The phone had been ringing off the hook ever since with new reports of Infecteds coming in, not to mention complaints about other related havoc like looting and minor assaults.
"What's the total now?" said Mary Margaret, flipping through the patient files.
David sighed. "Forty new cases."
Mary Margaret's mouth fell open. "Since yesterday?"
"Kathryn just called. She and her boyfriend Frederick are stuck together. Do you know him? Apparently he works at your school."
"Yes, he teaches sports, wait a minute... the school?" A lightbulb of realisation lit up for Mary Margaret and she rifled through the files looking for the original couples' patient records as well the surveys they completed for Dr Whale. She scanned through their details again to check whether all five couples had reason to be at the school the day Love Flu first appeared.
"The Montagues - I know Ethel Montague drops Timothy off at school every day... The other married couple - Cathy and Heath Earnshaw - he drives the school bus... The unmarried couple, Gwen and Lance - they weren't together romantically before the Flu but they're both triathletes, apparently they jog past there every morning..."
Mary Margaret looked up with wide eyes at who she suspecting was the common person between the others. "David, what if Emma came into contact with the others when she dropped Henry off at school that day?"
"What about the fourth couple though? The teenagers who robbed the adult store?" David's expression said he thought it was unlikely they had been at the primary school.
Mary Margaret held out the sheet of paper. "The hospital admission sheet says 15-year-old Tristan got caught shoplifting that day but was let off with a warning by Sheriff Swan."
David felt the protective instinct rose in him. "Emma is Patient Zero."
"David, we need to get to her before Whale does..." Mary Margaret trailed off worriedly.
Ruby ran into the station dressed in her jogging gear, frantically searching the place and holding her phone in her hand. She spied them in Emma's office getting ready to leave.
"Guys! Guys! Where's Emma? Why isn't she answering her phone?" said Ruby hastily.
David was instantly alarmed. "Ruby, what is it?"
"It's Dr Whale. He's sent his vigilantes crawling all over town. They're looking for Emma."
Within the Cone of Silence Emma couldn't hear the racket but Regina and Henry sure could and it was obvious from their faces that something had alarmed them. Regina immediately released the spell and the sounds of the world assaulted Emma's ears in a roaring rush. It sounded like there was an army approaching them with shouting and clanking weapons.
Emma frowned in deep confusion. "What is that?"
"It's an angry mob, dear, what does it sound like," said Regina dryly. Even if she felt any fear she didn't show it.
Henry ran to the window and peeked through the curtains to see fiery lights and unclear shapes of the many forms that were moving towards the house. The angry mob spilled into the front yard and marched towards the front door.
"Are you serious?" said Emma incredulously. "They've actually got torches and pitchforks! What do they need torches for? It's daytime."
"Henry! Get away from the window," ordered Regina. "Come here."
"What do we do," Emma locked her eyes onto Regina's and gripped her hand tightly.
"I think Dr Whale's hunting party has finally caught up with us," said Regina, but she didn't voice her suspicion that it wasn't her they were after.
Regina moved Henry between herself and Emma and the three of them stood huddling together in the middle of the lounge room. Regina joined hers and Emma's free hands as well so that they were circling the boy. Purple smoke swirled around their feet and spiraled up and around the trio. Emma and Henry gaped at the unfamiliar sight of magic.
"Hold tight," was all Regina said. Then just as the banging on the door reached its maximum the three of them disappeared into smoke.
Regina, Emma, and Henry appeared in Main street out the front of the entrance to Mary Margaret's apartment building. Regina stuffed her hand into Emma's jeans pocket to retrieve her keys and ordered Henry to go upstairs and stay there, which he did after as much protesting as possible.
"What does Whale want with us, really?" asked Emma.
"He wants a heart," said Regina. "To bring his dead brother back to life. But it isn't possible. Only the living were brought here with the curse."
Emma dreaded asking. "Whose heart does he want..."
"Hello ladies," they heard a voice from behind them and whirled around.
"Dr Whale." Regina glared at him malevolently but didn't seem too surprised to see him there.
Whale appraised them both, running his eyes over them and settling on their joined hands. "Regina Mills and Emma Swan. Infected with Love Flu. How sweet."
"How did you find us?" said Emma, wondering how they'd managed to land right in front of the person searching for them.
Whale raised an eyebrow and pointed upstairs. "Mary Margaret's apartment building? I've been there, done that."
"Ugh. What the hell do you want?" Emma ground out.
"I want you," said Whale. "Patient Zero. The first one to succumb to Love Flu started it all."
"Emma isn't in love. Neither of us is," said Regina, hoping that would be enough to convince him.
The doctor gave them a patronising look. "It isn't called Love Flu for nothing... why are you so sure it isn't you, Emma?"
Emma grabbed at her keychain necklace that she wore as a reminder. "I have only been in love once before and it broke my heart. I promised myself back then that I would always be strong and never fall in love again. I have feelings for Regina, yes, but that's it. It's not love. And she definitely feels nothing for me."
"Really." Whale laughed. "Didn't Regina tell you? There's no such thing as one-sided Love Flu. The attraction has to be mutual."
"What! Is that true?" Emma faced Regina angrily, wondering why no-one had bothered to tell her that piece of information. "Have you been lying the whole fucking time?"
Regina closed her eyes and her silence was her answer.
Emma became increasingly upset as she went on and she squeezed their joined hands in anger. "You made me think it was just me! That I was stupid for having feelings for you when you'd never return them. That even the thought of it was disgusting to you. You told me that it was all in my head and it wasn't real."
"Like you, I was in love once before and I vowed I would never let it happen again," said Regina, with a grave smile, not bothering to deny it any longer. "I suppose I'm not as strong as you."
"So all this time it was you who was in love with me?"
"We could never be together," said Regina, dismissing the idea.
"Why?!" cried Emma. "Why didn't you just tell me the truth? What else have you been lying about."
Emma's eyes narrowed dangerously at her. "What happened with Mary Margaret."
"You really want to talk about that now?" Regina warned, indicating Whale standing right there listening.
"Oh, don't mind me. I'll just wait," shrugged Whale. "This sounds like it's going to be good."
"I can't tell you. It's not my secret," insisted Regina, trying to persuade Emma to drop it.
"Tell me!"
Silence fell around them as a blue shiny bubble as Regina cast the spell that encased both women. "You will regret hearing this. There was a Love Flu epidemic shortly after I was married and an unprecedented number of marriages that year. Snow was barely more than a child when she became infected..."
"It was her father," finished Regina in a low voice.
"No." The breath left Emma's lungs in a rush at the horror of it, not wanting to believe it.
Regina went on grimly. "Snow was young and confused. I don't think she understood what was going on or why her father avoided her. She looked so much like her mother."
The last part was said so bitterly that Emma's stomach turned sick with dread and she had to ask. "Did he-?"
"No," Regina sighed and revealed the rest of sordid tale. "They were stuck by the hands but it was only for a few minutes. When I happened upon them Leopold's face was white with fear. He knew what it meant and what would happen to them - and the Kingdom - when it became known. I would've killed him right then - Snow had no other family to act on her behalf - but she begged me not to. I screamed at him to let her go and she became so afraid at my reaction that her hand was immediately freed..."
"I sent her away to the Summer Palace and put his death sentence on hold until she was grown. The secret would've ruined her life if it'd come out. The Kingdom would've fallen."
Wet tears trailed Emma's cheeks and she fought to keep her chin from wobbling.
Regina shook her head ruefully, trying not cry herself in sympathy. "Does it help to know the truth, Emma? To know the canker that rots at the root of your family tree? You don't know what I had to do to save her?"
Emma let out a gasp and then bit her lip so hard she'd thought she'd draw blood.
Whale reached forward and grabbed their joined hands, jerking them out of the Cone of Silence. The bubble disappeared with an audible pop, jarring them out of their intense emotional exchange as the sound went rushing back into their ears.
Whale shook his head in wonder at Emma. "You ARE what I've been looking for."
"Why me." Emma wiped her face on her sleeve.
"Only someone with a really strong heart could love Regina."
A/N: The names of the four couples originally infected are those of famous star-crossed lovers, all of whom had tragic ends.