Familial Ties
AN: lots of blood and gore and inference of rape during the Enchanted Forest scene – skip this scene please if needed.
Chapter 5
*Storybrooke* - Present Day
Emma looked over at the tired visage of the mayor when she plopped down on the couch. "We've had worse trials Regina and we always figured it out. We will solve this problem too." There was silence for a few minutes and Emma hoped that Regina was taking her words to heart and trying to come up with a plan, so she was not expecting the next words she heard.
In a quiet and shaky voice, Regina admitted, "Maybe it shouldn't be solved? Maybe the answers are too awful, which is why my memories are gone too." She just stared at her clasped hands on her lap.
Emma moved over to sit by the mayor, and placed her right hand over Regina's, "You don't mean that Regina. I know you. You will do anything in your power to get everyone's memories back, especially for both of your children….so Henry will remember and you will be able to give your kid a dad."
Regina yanked her hands away, and nervously pushed herself off the couch. She paced like a trapped and scared animal. "You don't understand, Miss Swan. There is no way I can be pregnant. I made sure of that long ago." She remembered drinking the foul tasting potion in order to deny her mother a chance at the throne through an heir. She remembered the cramping and trying to grin in triumph at her mother as she realized the truth of what she had just done.
Emma just chuckled and pointed toward the mayor's stomach. "Well the tests say otherwise, Your Majesty."
Regina twirled around quickly to face Emma and barked out, "Do Not Call Me That."
Emma jumped up and steadied Regina as she saw her start to pale and sway a little on her feet. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it, Regina." She pulled the trembling woman back to the couch and they both settled on it. "So explain it to me. What are you afraid of?"
She looked into Emma's forest green eyes and felt the tears gathered in the corners of her own and whispered out, "Me."
Not knowing what to say to help ease the pain of the woman in front of her, Emma just stayed quiet and hoped that the silence might get Regina to open up a little bit.
"I took a potion long ago so that I could never have a child," she glanced out the window, and the dark lonely night paralleled her mood.
"So maybe you made a cure during the year you can't remember, like we are trying to do to fix everyone's memories?" Emma thought out ideas hoping that something would spark a memory in the brunette.
"I hope not. If I did that means I picked an even darker path than the one I used to be on when the Evil Queen was at her strongest." She looked toward Emma, but her fear and shame caused her to look away quickly. She stood back up slower this time, wandered over to her desk, and picked up one of the shiny red apples that she always had around. She stared at the bright red fruit and remembered a day long past when she saw too much red.
*Enchanted Forest* - During the reign of the Evil Queen
(WARNING: lots of blood and gore and assumption of rape – skip this scene please if needed.)
Regina could see the dark billowing smoke over the nearest ridge as she rode in her luxurious carriage. Her curiosity on what was happening in her realm had her knocking on the wall of the black box and, when the small window that separated her from the driver was pulled open, she barked out the order, "Change direction. I want to see what the cause is of all that smoke in my kingdom." She sneered and said as the people seemed to expect of her, "We wouldn't want the Forest to burn down now, would we?" A gleeful grin came to her face as she thought of her 'dear step-daughter' getting caught in the blaze, as well as all the traitors who helped her to survive in the wilderness so far.
As the entourage got closer to the source of the smoke, Regina could make out the screams of women and wailing children, the clash of metal on metal that slowly dwindled to a halt, and even the crackle of the blazing fire and the wood that it was destroying. She smiled wickedly as she pictured all the women and children crying over their lost fathers or grandfathers. This was entirely their fault. They knew the punishment for treason - and lodging or helping Snow White was at the top of that list.
The carriage came to a halt and a footman came to open the door. He placed the step to help her down. Regina took his hand in one hand and the skirt of her jet black corseted dress in the other and gracefully descended from the carriage. Scathing words on the tip of her tongue about how lucky the survivors were for the mercy shown to them, but there was no one around other than the soldiers that had traveled with her and the bloody and cheering men that had destroyed and were now plundering. She swallowed back the words and the bile that threatened to come up as she started walking around the now ghost town; the only noise was the revelry and the cracking of fire that had swallowed up some of the smaller huts. Her head was held high and her back ramrod straight as she heard her mother's words in her head "A Queen can show no weakness, dear." She saw gutted men with pitchforks and axes lying next to them. The pitiful excuse for weapons and the lack of any training were no match for her Black Guard. She continued on and saw a girl, possibly 15 if that, staring at the now smoky sky with glassy unseeing eyes. It was clear what happened to her from the skirt that was hiked up around her waist and the blood coating her thighs and the ground around her.
Briefly her thoughts strayed to another time and place. She could smell the alcohol on the man, King ….husband, who had only partially moved off of her before he collapsed on to the bed. She shifted slowly in order not to wake the beast and to keep her pain to a minimum; she pulled the white nightshift back down to cover her body. Tears beaded at the corner of her eyes and she grieved for the last part of her happy ending that this man had literally ripped from her. She had always pictured herself making love to Daniel on their wedding night; instead she learned what it was to be the King's property.
The tears beaded in the corners of her eyes, and she blinked to remove them. She tried to guard her heart a bit more and turned away from the fallen girl as she told herself that it was just the smoke and ash making her eyes watery. With a flick of her wrist and the will of magic toward the body, she moved on to keep taking stock of the atrocities commented here. A few more minutes of walking and she turned to face a more gruesome sight. A pregnant woman and a young boy lay beside each other in their final embrace. The Queen could almost have imaged the small family taking a brief rest together if it wasn't for the scythe that had nearly cut them in two. The blade had cut through the top of the child's head and into the swollen belly of the mother. The once pale golden hair of the child was either sheared off or coated with the dark red of recently drawn blood. She walked forward slowly, and with her gloved hand she reached forward and closed the boy's eyes as she could not bear to see the terrified gaze any longer. As she started to pull her hand away, her eyes were drawn toward the mother's stomach. It wasn't the spilled guts that were her undoing but the almost fully formed yet lifeless child that had spilled out as well. She reached down and gently cradled the too still and quiet child in her hands - an innocent, like the boy, who had never even got a chance to breathe in the forest air or to see a loving gaze from his mother. The anger blazed in her eyes as she positioned the mother's arms in order to at least hold her child in death; she placed the infant in that cold embrace and then let her anger and sorrow out. Twin fireballs erupted from her hands as she stepped back, and at her bidding, they rushed forward and quickly but thoroughly blazed around the family until they were little more than ash. All she could do for them now was give them a funeral pyre to honor the lives that they should have lived.
She watched until all that remained of the family was a charred patch of ground, and her memories of the devastation that her men had wrought. She quickly turned around and stormed toward the nearest 'soldier' she could find. He was almost passed out, and from the pungent smell of alcohol around him, it was easy to figure out why. In a few seconds, she had him awake as she channeled her magic and her rage. She raised her left hand to yank him up into the air like a marionette, and, at the same time, she used her right hand in a quick swipe to hurl a nearby bucket of wash water to splash in his face. The fact that the bucket followed the water and smashed into his nose probably also had something to do with the look of pained fear in his gaze. Now that she had his attention, she slowly spoke to him, "Go and find the two men in charge of your regiment, and then all of you report to me." She let her arms drop and the magic extinguish so the man fell painfully onto the hard ground. He just stared there at her dumbly until she bellowed out, "NOW!"
The man jumped up from the heap on the ground as if his pants were on fire,\ and hurriedly ran away to not only do as ordered, but to get as far away from the angry Queen as he could for the moment. All he left behind in his wake was the tipped over bottom of rum and a puddle where he had been dropped.
Regina watched with a blank stare as two men came toward her with the drunken soldier trailing a bit behind them. The man on the right had more of a swagger to his gait and a proud air about him. The other man walked a bit more respectfully toward his Queen. They all bowed when they reached her, and when the proud man came back to full height, he preened, "You wanted to see us, your Majesty. We followed your orders to destroy anyone who had been found to have helped the traitor, Snow White."
"Yes I wanted to see you." She purred out the words and watched as a smile came to the proud man's face. "I wanted to congratulate you…."
Before hearing the rest he beamed an even brighter smile, "Thank you, your…" He stopped in his tracked as the rest of her soft spoken words registered.
"…for your inept leadership." The gasping fish-like face as he opened and closed his mouth repeatedly came just as much from being shocked into silence as from the black gloved hand quickly reaching forward and tearing his still beating heart from his chest. She gave it a small squeeze and reveled in the pained gasps. "And tell me, Commander, how does an unborn child help out the rouge Princess, hmm?" She hummed the end of the question as she glanced toward the direction of where the family had been. Looking back toward the teen who now had her skirt pulled down in place, and her eyes closed, the Evil Queen went on, "What did that …that…child do to deserve your men treating her as a rutting whore?" She stepped closer to him and gave an evil sneer, and not wanting to hear what excuses he would spew, she raised his heart in front of his face and gleefully squeezed as the fear took over his face as his heart was crushed to dust and dropped to the dirt.
The drunken soldier mumbled a whispered, "We were just havin' some fun….lettin' off some steam," at the last question from the Evil Queen. When he saw his leader fall down dead at his feet, and realized from the dark stare that now was focused on him that he had stupidly voiced his thought.
Regina stalked up to him and leaned in to whisper in his ear, "Just a little fun, hmm?" She placed her right hand flat on his chest and circled around to his back, her warm breath still close to his ear. She stepped even closer to the inebriated man, her chest pushed up against his back as the hand on his chest starts to move lower until she reached his pants. She slid her hand inside the clothes, and started to slowly fondle him, her magic tingling on her fingertips to work him into a fast frenzy. "Like this?" she asked in a soft seductive murmur.
The intoxicated man felt the queen's chest pushing against his back and the hand that seemed to ignite his skin. Within moments he was hard and he closed his eyes and tilted his head back. His breath coming out in heavy pants and right when he thought he was going to explode, he instead felt a shearing twisting pain.
She felt the soldier tensing up, and his hips trying to grind forward into her hand and her seductive gaze turned deadly as her month curled up into a smirk. She twisted his flesh in her hand with all her might and called up her magic to ignite a localized fireball. She watched in glee as he grabbed at his crotch and let out an animalistic scream as he fell to the ground writhing to try and get away from the pain and to put out the flames. She didn't kill him, but she bet that he would have preferred that currently. She glazed down without any sympathy and spit out, "I was just having a little fun." She watched as he tried to roll and pat the front of his pants to make sure all the fire was out; she enjoyed the screams as with each touch his swollen flesh was again battered. When the fire was out, she could still see the smoke rising from him, "Letting off some steam."
Her men had been getting complacent and blood thirsty. She remembered the village she had found when she traveled with Snow in disguise, she heard about a couple more incidents, and now this. She would put a stop to it and put them back in their place…under her tight control.
Regina turned her gaze to the third man wondering what punishment he would require, or if his actions would let him off lightly. She gracefully stepped over the moaning man and walked toward the only man still standing in her presence. She respected that he still stood at attention even if his eyes did stray for a moment to his fallen leader and the crying soldier. "Congratulations on your promotion, Commander." She glared as he said the necessary thanks, and then her eyes turned darker as she ordered, "Get your men under control. Or you will not have as easy a death. There was a reason I ordered that only traitorous adults be killed." She paused to make sure he was still listening and went on, "One as an example to get the rest to talk." She gestured to the town and the devastation all around her, "Can I get any information from the villagers now?"
"No, your Majesty."
"No," she stepped up to him and smiled as she alluringly trails a finger down his cheek and gazes into his dark eyes. "Make sure your men behave Commander, or you will have me to answer to." She leaned in and kissed him lightly on the lips. Her lips only millimeters from his as she pulls back, "And we wouldn't want that now, would we?"
He takes in a deep breath to answer without his voice quivering, "No, your Majesty."
She pulls back from him and pats him on the check. "I knew I could count on you." She regally turns back toward her carriage with her posture as straight as always, but the smile dropped from her face as she thought about all the mothers and children who had been killed in her name by out of control leaders. Not that she was nice or anything to women and children, but she did try to avoid killing them if at all possible. Her thought briefly went to Hansel and Gretel and Snow White; she rationalized that she did warn the siblings NOT to eat the food, and she waited to go after her step-daughter until Snow was the same age that she herself had been when forced to marry. That had to count for something …not that she cared. She shook her head and brought her thoughts back to the present. The Queen had a lot of restructuring to do in the ranks, and at least a slight smile came back to her face as she thought about all of the hearts she would have after the week was out as that thought was easier to stomach than what she had seen moments before.
*Storybrooke* - Present Day
Regina placed the apple back on the table, not wanting to see the vibrant red anymore. She lowered her hands to her still flat stomach and started to talk with her back still facing Emma as she was too ashamed and too scared to see the look of disgust on her face. "I ordered my men to kill those who helped Snow White, but after a while they started doing more… whole villages were slaughtered - men, women, and children - and then the town torched. Once I realized, I knew I had to get them back under my control…either with the fear of death, or because I held their hearts so they could only follow my commands. At the time I reasoned that if anyone disobeyed orders, they might start to want more power and no one should be allowed to try and take anything unless I ordered it. I would not allow anyone to usurp my power. Looking back now I know it wasn't just that. My heart might be filled with darkness, but at least not totally. There is still a shred of humanity in there…even if no one in this town believes it." She tried to smile at the heart-felt 'I believe you,' but Regina wasn't even sure if she really believed what she wanted other to see. She sighed wearily as she dropped her hands to her side and walked around the desk to collapse in her chair. She felt like she needed this barrier between her and the Savior, even as she lowered one in order to tell this tale. "I never meant for all those innocent lives to be lost. There was enough blood of those children to make my heart blacken, but making the cure for the dark potion I had taken would have been worse." She looked up with pained filled eyes hoping that she would not see what she usually saw when people learned about all her evil deeds.
Emma walked to the desk and sat down on one of the uncomfortable chairs opposite Regina. She briefly thought that they must be made to torture those who dared to bother the mayor, before she pulled her thoughts back to the crazy day so far. She reached out a hand to clasp Regina's, to not only give her hand a squeeze for comfort, but also to get her to stop fidgeting and rearranging the objects on her desk. Emma asked quietly, not sure she really wanted to know the answer, but knowing that Regina really needed someone to talk to who wouldn't cry 'Off with her head!' at a moments' notice. "What would the cure have needed?"
"The potion was dark magic, designed to painfully strip a women of the joy of having a child and creating life. It was usually used involuntarily to destroy a person's chance at a future family, and happiness." She closed her eyes for a moment and lowered her voice as she didn't really want to give words to what she must have done in the missing year. "To cure the potion, someone else would need to pay the requirements of the potion."
Emma was trying to understand but between catching up with a lifetime of memories in the last week, she was a little slower on putting all the pieces together. "So you had to give the potion to someone else?"
"No," Regina sighed and pulled her hands away from Emma. She couldn't handle the disgust that was bound to occur and the rejection as Emma pulled away. She learned long ago to be the one to put the wall up first to not get hurt so much. "I would have to literally strip the woman of the chance to have a child…by taking the mother's heart and pulling the tiny beating heart out of the child still inside the womb. Ordering the mother to crush her own child's heart…" She took a deep breath and swallowed down some bile. She unconsciously knew she needed a break from the telling and so she started explaining the logistics like she would have during her lessons. "While only someone with magic can crush a heart usually, it's known that creating life and sustaining it is a type of magic, and while that connection is still there it can be corrupted like all magic can. It can be used to create life, but it can be twisted to destroy it. Since the mother's heart would be in my hands, she would have no ability or even desire to fight and save her child as would be natural. And as the person who drank the potion would have to live with the knowledge of her future, so would the woman being used for the cure. The mother's heart would then be put back so that she would feel the agony of what she had done. She would then not only have to grieve the loss of her child, but deliver the stillborn baby. The entire trauma making her now barren instead of the one poisoned"
Emma watched as Regina pulled her hand away, and then pulled on all she could to place the wall around her emotions as she told about the cure. Emma grabbed the hand in front of her and gave it a friendly squeeze. She waited until the pained gaze of the mayor was finally locked on her sympathetic one and stated with all her belief, "You wouldn't do that Regina."
The mayor threw on her regal mask and quickly pulled away from Emma and stood up. "We know NOTHING Emma. For all we know, I did backside after losing Henry, wanting another child so badly that I cured myself." She gestured in the direction of the cemetery and her vault, "and after that I probably ripped out someone's heart in order to command him into my bed." She turned back toward Emma and sneered, "Maybe I decided to piss Snow off and borrowed your father for a bed warmer. You could be having two siblings for all you know."
Emma jumped up angrily, "Enough, Regina. God, why would you even say such a thing?"
"Because I'm evil, Dear, haven't you figured that out yet."
Emma saw the smirk and knew she had fallen for Regina's ploy. She took a few deep breaths and counted to 10, and then counted to 10 again before finally talking in a calmer voice. "Regina, don't do this. You are better than this. Yes, you were probably hurting a lot after you lost Henry." At the 'duh' look from the brunette Emma threw up her hands, "fine, okay, you were heart-broken. But knowing that hurt Regina, I don't think even you are so evil as to take a child from someone else unwillingly and make them feel that same grief."
Regina sat back down looking defeated from the truth as she could see it without knowing what happened in the missing year, "That is the ONLY cure, Emma."
Emma just shook her head and smiled, "that is the only cure that you KNOW of now….maybe you learned something new. We will figure this out Regina along with figuring out about the missing year and getting Henry's memories back."
Regina just rolled her eyes but was so thankful for the trust from the woman in front of her, "Save us from Charming optimism."
Emma's smile got wider when she heard Regina drop her self-loathing for the moment. She stood up and gestured toward the door. "Let's go get some dinner, grab the kid, and head to your place …you are getting house guests."
"Lovely," Regina said sarcastically, even though she wanted to see Henry so much, even if only as a guest in her house and not as his mom. Emma grabbed her hand to help her up, and while still connected Regina set the trap for the witch. She knew that soon they would at least have the answer of who cast the curse this time, even though so many questions would still remain.
AN: Thanks for all the reviews, favorites, and follows...it really helps me to know that there is a reason to keep posting :)