David and Henry try to talk some sense into Regina. Meanwhile, the demons send a hoard of Hellbeasts after the heroes.
"Why are you sitting on opposite sides of the diner?"
"We're soulmates, mom, not conjoined twins. We're allowed to talk to different people."
"Except that she's been avoiding looking at you ever since you got back. I know her, Emma. Something's not right. What happened out there?"
"Just leave it alone, okay?"
"Emma."
Emma hesitated, her mouth hanging open as she was about to take a bite out of her sandwich. Mary Margaret was pinning her with a firm stare and David mimicked her. Under her parents' scrutinizing gazes, Emma sighed and put her lunch down, casting a quick glance across the diner to where Regina was sitting at the bar talking to Tinkerbell.
"We ended up fighting a demon. We caught it, but… We kind of had a… misunderstanding?" Emma shook her head. "Regina's still upset over it, even though I told her I didn't blame her for what happened."
David's brow furrowed. "What happened?"
Emma immediately held up a hand. "You don't want to know, dad."
Mary Margaret was frowning at Emma's hand, noticing a smudge of black against the blonde's fair skin alongside a few tiny cuts.
"When you said you two fought the demon…"
Emma rubbed away the soot from the side of her palm. "We may have blown up the kitchen."
"Emma!"
"It's not a big deal. We're both fine."
Unhappily, Emma grabbed her sandwich and tucked in, hoping that would dissuade her parents from asking her any further questions. To her relief, Mary Margaret fell quiet and went back to sipping her tea. David drained his coffee and slipped out of the booth to pour himself a refill.
Sliding onto the stool next to Regina, David grabbed the coffee pot, slowly pouring it into his mug. Regina's head had tilted in his direction, an unreadable look on her face as she sighed and gave Tinkerbell a halfhearted smile.
"A moment, please," she said. The blonde fairy nodded and left them alone at the bar. "Charming."
"Regina." David dumped a spoonful of sugar into his coffee. "How are you doing?"
Regina finally turned in her seat to give him a skeptical look. "Why don't you ask me what you really want to know?"
He quirked a brow. "I do want to know how you're doing, believe it or not."
"Not," came her stubborn reply. David sighed.
"Fine. My next question; what happened at the farmhouse?"
Red lips parted to snap out her answer, but stopped when she glared around the diner and reminded herself that her voice would carry. David gestured with a jerk of his thumb and moved off down the back hallway until they were around the far corner and out of earshot.
"If you hurt Emma-" he began, but Regina bristled and pierced him with another glare.
"I would never purposely hurt Emma."
David had his hands up in a placating gesture. "Everyone hurts the people they love eventually. What's important is that you acknowledge it and don't make the same mistakes again. I'm just saying that if you did hurt Emma - by accident - I'm here if you need to talk."
There was a long moment in which Regina just gave him a look as if the man had sprouted a second head. When she finally found her voice, it was thick with disbelief.
"You're offering me advice in my relationship with your daughter?"
"When you say it like that, it's weird," he mumbled, rubbing at the back of his neck. "It's just - Snow and I have been through a lot together, we've overcome every enemy and every curse that's ever been thrown at us. If you and Emma hit a bump in your relationship that you're struggling to get over, I think we could help. At the very least, it doesn't hurt to get some advice, right? We do know something about True Love."
He had this dopey smile of hopefulness on his face and Regina was only mildly tempted to smack it off of him. She was clearly going soft.
"As… charming... as that is, I don't think you want to hear about what happened today."
"Try me."
For a moment, the brunette was caught in indecision. She didn't want to say it, didn't want to admit it out loud, didn't want to see the judgement on his face. But here was Prince Charming giving her his soft smile, so naive and sure that she was no longer the Evil Queen he'd once hated, and she loathed the fact that he so easily accepted her now because she was Emma's confirmed soulmate. As if that erased all of her wrongdoings in the past, as if it suddenly made her a good person with a pure heart. Regina's lips twisted into a cold sneered.
"Fine. The demon of Lust got us. I molested Emma, almost forced myself on her before True Love's Kiss broke the spell on me. What's your advice for that, Charming? Surely a year ago you would have run me through with your sword by now for almost raping your daughter."
Regina just about spat out those last words, her voice turning bitter and hard, more out of shame and hatred of herself than anger at him. David had winced back from her aggressive tone but the betrayal she was expecting never came. He didn't draw his sword, didn't even look angry or furious with her. He lifted a hand and she automatically squeezed her eyes shut, anticipating a strike to the face.
His hand came down on her shoulder with a firm grip, causing her to jump and look at him.
"Did you want to - to force yourself on Emma?"
Weary, she met his steady gaze. "No."
"Did you intend on hurting her?"
Her answer was immediate. "No!"
"And did she forgive you for what happened today?"
"I… yes. But-"
"Regina," he said, giving her shoulder a squeeze. "Seems to me like the only one still upset about what happened is you, while Emma's sitting out there moping about how you won't talk to her. To feel guilty for it is a good sign, it means you care, but when everyone else has forgiven you, it's time to forgive yourself."
Suddenly uncomfortable, Regina shrugged off his hand. "You don't understand."
"Then help me understand."
"I liked it. The power. Having control over Emma even when she said no. Pinning her down when she struggled. I don't want to like it, but I do." Her dark eyes were nearly black. "What kind of person does that make me, Charming? Only monsters are like that. No matter how hard I try to change, to be better, I'm still the same person on the inside. I'm still the Evil Queen. Some things can't change."
Her voice had gone raspy, already resigning herself to her fate. She was, and always will be, the Evil Queen. David was looking at her with a strange sort of sympathy and she idly thought to herself that, were this the past, she would have snapped his neck by now. She'd never tolerated sympathy or pity - especially not pity.
But pity was the last thing David had on his mind.
Some people had a tendency to write him off as a thick-headed idiot (Regina had called him as such on many occasions) but he understood where she was coming from. It wasn't the violence or coercion that she enjoyed- it was the control. The power. The impulse to dominate a situation before someone else could dominate her, even if the threat wasn't there. He didn't know the ugly details of her life but he knew enough that he didn't blame her for having that fear, that knee-jerk reaction to even the possibility of someone else having an upper hand against her. She'd fought so hard to get to where she was now in life, and the mere thought of regressing had her lashing out. Anger was easier to channel than fear, after all.
Emma had been similar when the first curse broke and they all regained their memories. He and Snow made the mistake of trying to establish them all as a family right off the bat - not to mention dropping the 'Savior' title on her like an impossibly heavy mantle - and she'd pushed them away and put up her walls because those were the habits ingrained in her. That had been her knee-jerk reaction to people imposing themselves on her life and trying to change who she was after an entire childhood of the same such suffering. She'd been afraid, and she reacted the only way she knew how to survive.
Knowing that one's self defense mechanisms weren't necessary was very different from feeling safe enough not to trigger it.
"You know what that makes you?" David finally said, calm and quiet. Brown eyes stared at him, wordlessly awaiting his answer. "Human."
Regina barked out a soft, sad laugh. "If that's considered human, I'd hate to know what kind of dark thoughts go on in other people's minds."
"We all have our darknesses, no matter how well we hide them or try to convince ourselves that they're not there." He gave a little shrug of his shoulder, his eyes gazing out at the empty alley next to the diner. The flowers planted outside under the windows were infested with weeds that crept up against the glass panes. "It's how we move forward with them that matters."
"Very insightful, Charming." Regina's voice didn't have quite the same bite to it. In fact, she sounded very, very tired. "I hate to be the one to tell you, but you're a terrible father if you're actually encouraging someone like me to be with your daughter."
"Or maybe you're just not as terrible as you seem to think you are. You're certainly not evil. Pixie dust wouldn't pair my daughter with someone who wasn't good for her." And she's good for you, too, he thought, but he didn't say that aloud. He smiled and touched her shoulder as he slipped past her. "Just think about it."
Then he was gone. Regina sighed heavily, lifting a hand to rub at her temple where a headache was slowly creeping through her skull. Craving comfort, she pulled out her phone and called the most precious person in her world. He picked up after the first ring.
"Hey Mom." Henry's voice was like a balm on her wounds. Regina gave an audible sigh of relief, clutching the phone against her ear as she leaned on the wall next to the window.
"Henry." The amount of love and happiness in that one name could be heard even over the soft crackle of the phone. "How are you holding up?"
"We're okay. I just fed Neal one of his bottles and he's sleeping now. It's quiet here so I put on a movie and made a sandwich. How are you guys doing?"
"We're fine. We caught one more demon." She trailed off, chewing on her lower lip. "I just wanted to hear your voice."
Henry took the admission in stride. "It's good to hear your voice too, Mom. How's Ma?"
"She's fine." Another pause. She wondered if it would be inappropriate of her to confide in her son, their son, about her and Emma's issues. Probably. She really needed more friends her own age. She thought vaguely of Katherine but wasn't actually sure of the blonde's whereabouts since the demons showed up a few days ago. Hopefully she was okay. "We're all fine."
He wasn't buying it. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing, sweetheart."
"You don't sound okay."
"I'm just… tired, that's all."
"Did you and Ma fight again?"
"I see you inherited my bluntness." Another sigh. Regina pressed her thumb against her aching temple. "I did something bad."
When Henry didn't reply right away, Regina felt her heart jumping up into her throat with anxiousness. She squeezed the phone in her hand, listening to the faint sound of his breathing.
"What did you do?" No accusation in his tone. Not yet. Just concern.
Her heart hammered louder, pounding heavily in her chest and threatening to drop her if she didn't stick to the wall for support. "I hurt her." Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat. "It was an accident."
She could almost hear Henry tilting his head to one side with confusion, a trait he'd inherited from Emma since birth. "But she's okay, right?"
"She's fine."
"Did you apologize?"
"Of course I did."
"And she forgave you." It wasn't even a question. It never ceased to amaze her how cut-and-dried children could be.
"Yes, but…"
"Mom, it was an accident. If Ma says she's okay then she's okay." When Regina didn't respond right away, he said, "You're blaming yourself."
When did her little boy become so observant?
"It's complicated, Henry." She didn't say any more, wasn't even sure what else she could say. Henry, bless his heart, didn't push her.
"You two will figure it out," he said instead. Regina could hear the smile in his voice. "You'll always figure it out. That's what soulmates do."
"You sound suspiciously like your grandparents."
"What can I say? I have the Charming gene."
Regina smiled wryly, shaking her head to herself and checking her watch. "I should go. I love you, Henry."
"Love you too, Mom."
By the time she returned to the diner's main area, everyone had finished up their meals and were getting ready to go, weapons strapped on and looking much more upbeat now that they were fed. Tinkerbell and Nova were reinforcing their protective spells on Ruby and Grayson, intent on making sure their two werewolf teammates didn't turn on them.
David caught her eye and sent her a warm smile. Regina just nodded curtly in response, his words and Henry's rolling around in her head like a tumbleweed bouncing back and forth with no destination in sight. Granny was just closing up the kitchen so she stood by the door to wait, glancing out the window with unfocused eyes, staring at nothing at all.
"Hey." Emma sidled up behind her, hovering close but not quite touching, a silent offer of personal space in case Regina wanted it. Regina turned around and hesitantly held out a hand, relaxing when Emma put her hand in hers and gave her a squeeze. "Did you have something to eat?"
She'd noticed Regina's absence - of course she had; her full name could have been "Emma always sensing Regina's presence Swan" - but she knew better than to ask her about it. Regina smiled a little at her concern.
"Yes. Tinkerbell wouldn't even let me talk until I'd eaten."
Said fairy heard her name and glanced over with a quirk of her brow. "Well someone has to make sure you remember to eat. Quit slacking, Emma."
It was said in jest and Emma just grinned and stuck her tongue out at Tinkerbell, but when Regina wasn't looking she mouthed a silent 'thank you.' Tink smiled and nodded.
"Alright, everyone out," said Granny, herding them through the door so she could lock up. Emma did a doubletake, thinking she saw Ruby and Grayson's hands slip apart as they rejoined the group on the sidewalk, and tucked that thought away for later.
"Okay, what's the plan?" asked David, flashing his charming little smile and glancing between Emma and Regina. Unlike three years ago, Emma no longer shied from leadership. She had Regina's hand clasped within hers and her brows were furrowed as she pondered their next move.
"Uh, guys?" August's voice cut through the soft murmur of conversation, pulling everyone's attention to where the man was pointing down the street. The good news was that there weren't any citizens wandering about town. The bad news was that a pack of shadowy black hellbeasts were prowling towards them.
The creatures stood nearly four feet tall each, like mastiffs on steroids, hulking with muscle and with jaws large enough to crush limbs. Their bodies looked to be made of the same misty black substance as the demons, shadows trailing at their paws as they stalked closer.
"What the hell are those?" blurted Emma, feeling a shiver run up her spine. Regina stiffened next to her, clasping her hand a little tighter as the group shifted uneasily, unsure if they should stick close together or spread out.
"Behind us," said Mary Margaret, already drawing back an arrow as David unsheathed his sword. From the other end of the street, more hellbeasts approached like a shadowy tidal wave, lips pulled back over yellowed fangs and red eyes glowing in their black sockets.
"Is this all from one demon?" Emma summoned her magic until it buzzed through her body, and she felt Regina doing the same, their magic emanating outwards and brushing up against each other like familiar companions.
"I'm not sure," Regina admitted, frowning. Their group shifted until they were standing in two rows, back to back, half the group facing one pack and half facing the other, all weapons drawn. Regina found herself with Emma on her one side and Mary Margaret at her back. The pixie-haired brunette's elbow brushed Regina's spine as she drew back an arrow and let it fly.
Arrowhead met skull with a sickening crunch, sending a hellbeast staggering backwards with a loud grunt. It didn't kill it like Mary Margaret had hoped; in fact, it looked to be perfectly fine, if not annoyed by the stick protruding from its forehead. This spurred the rest of the pack into action. The beasts began loping down the street towards them from both sides, descending upon them like death. Grayson was the first to react, dropping to the ground with a hiss of discomfort that quickly gurgled into an animalistic snarl. Ruby followed suit immediately and the two werewolves burst from the line to meet the enemy head on.
"Ruby!" Granny swore under her breath, her crossbow clutched tightly in her hands and her eyes narrowed in concentration. Ruby and Grayson were a blur in the streets, a welcome distraction to keep the hellbeasts from overwhelming them but also making it much more dangerous to fire projectiles.
Mary Margaret had grabbed Leroy's spare short sword and now guarded Regina and Emma's back while David danced around a hellbeast, trading blows and deflecting every swipe of its massive paws with his blade.
A blast of wind whipped the immediate area as Regina unleashed Pandora's box, aiming the vortex at the nearest hellbeast. When its magical pull clearly had no effect on the very solid and very heavy creature, she closed the box with a grunt and shook off Emma's hand so that she could throw fireballs. Emma did the same, hurling orbs of silvery energy that knocked the beasts back but not much more. She was putting as much force into them as she could, imagining them punching through the creatures, but it didn't make her attacks any more effective or lethal.
"Emma!" She turned in time to have her father stumble into her after deflecting a hellbeast's claws that had clearly been meant for her back. Mary Margaret was doing the same for Regina, swinging fiercely at a creature that had come at them from the side.
Steadying her father with one arm, Emma threw an energy ball with her free hand, knocking the creature off its feet and onto its back. From the corner of her eye she saw Belle throwing something at it, and in a puff of smoke the creature was transformed into a cockroach. David hurried forward and crushed it beneath his boot.
"Thanks," David breathed out to both his daughter and Belle. Belle held up a vial in her hands.
"Thank Regina. She gave me fairy dust."
"Dark fairy dust," Regina corrected between grunts of exertion, hurling fireball after fireball to keep the agile creatures at bay.
"Where did you get dark fairy dust?" Tinkerbell hollered from down the line.
"Why don't we save storytime for later?" Regina snarked back, giving an exasperated flip of her hair when her lengthy bangs got into her face. She coiled back her arm with another fireball at the ready when one of their werewolves tumbled in front of her, tangled up with a hellbeast and leaving smears of blood across the pavement. It took her a moment to recognize it as Grayson; he was all solid grey, while Ruby was a mixture of grey and white.
Grayson and the hellbeast went at each other like rabid dogs, a cacophony of snarling and yelping. As the demon creatures seemed incapable of feeling pain, she had to assume the yelps were from Grayson, and the constant smattering of fresh blood on the pavement didn't bode well for the man.
"Emma," she warned, motioning towards him before redirecting the fire in her hands at another nearby hellbeast. Emma readied a ball of energy in her hand but hesitated, furrowing her brows as the two beasts rolled around in a flurry of teeth and claws. She couldn't exactly aim while they tussled and she didn't want to blast them both, either.
Mary Margaret shoved her aside at that moment to get her out of the way as another hellbeast lunged, catching the brunette's sword between its jaws instead of the blonde it had been aiming for. "Concentrate on everything around you," she grunted, almost patronizing. Emma blurted an apology before redirecting the energy ball in her hand at the beast and sending it flying. Her jaw dropped a little as her mother charged after it, sword at the ready, looking like a damn warrior.
Holy crap, Snow White.
Sure, she'd seen Snow White in action when she and Hook went back in time, but this was Mary Margaret. This was her shy, timid, wouldn't-hurt-a-fly roommate-turned-mother. Emma pushed the thought aside for later as she turned back to find Grayson with his teeth in the hellbeast's throat, swinging his head wildly in an attempt to behead the thing. He might have been successful, too, if another hellbeast hadn't jumped on him from behind, piercing its talon-like claws into his sides and clamping its jaws down around the back of his neck with a savage shake.
Grayson yelped, lost his hold on the beast below, and was immediately thrown sideways, landing in a heap beneath two attackers now. Emma shouted and flung an energy ball, hitting one square in the side and sending it tumbling away. The other was tackled away by a blur of grey and white fur. Ruby.
Emma hurried to Grayson's side as the male lay sprawled out on the pavement, a low whine escaping his maw, his sides heaving as blood oozed from more puncture wounds than she could count. His neck had been torn open along the side where he'd been grabbed too. She swore under her breath, dropping to her knees next to him as he struggled to right himself. "Hey, don't try to move."
"Emma!" Ruby, in her human form, stumbled to the ground on Grayson's other side, out of breath and bloodied but otherwise alive and kicking. "I've got him. Keep the demons off us!"
Emma nodded grimly and stood, summoning up more of her inner magic and moving to defend her friends. Grayson was still writhing, his golden eyes wild and panicked and furious all at once. Ruby gripped the grey wolf's muzzle and tilted his head up to face her.
"Turn back, Grayson. You need to turn back."
His eyes locked onto hers, finding purchase there like a pocket of calm in a storm, and then his entire body was shuddering with his less than graceful transformation back into human form, bones popping and cracking, paired with a gasping cry of pain as his internal organs rearranged themselves within his injured body. Ruby held him down as he tried to curl in on himself.
"Breathe," she insisted, forcing him to lay back. Grayson gripped her wrist where it lay against his chest, his teeth clenched together as another half moan, half grunt escaped his lips.
"Damn, I forgot how much it hurts to get stabbed," he hissed, sweat already beading his forehead. Ruby gave a shaky laugh and wiped the sweat and blood from his temple.
"You look like an abused pincushion right now, you know that?"
He reopened his stormy grey eyes and held her gaze, a wry smile twisting his pale lips despite the pain he was in. "How bad is it?"
"Stop talking, will ya?"
"That bad, huh?" He laid a palm down on his side and winced. The deep punctures hurt, but it was the thick warm wetness soaking his shirt that concerned him. That was a lot of blood. "Go help your friends, Red. I think I'll just lay here a minute, catch my breath."
"Don't be stupid," she muttered, wringing her hands together as she looked him over and tried to think of what she could do. She didn't have anything to wrap him with. How could she stop the bleeding if there were so many wounds all over him?
"Red." He gripped her wrist to halt her fretting. "Go help your friends. You know how weak humans are, they need your help more than I do."
She tried to glare, but her eyes were wet. "You're an asshole, you know that?"
Grayson smiled and managed to lift a shoulder in a shrug. "You know me."
Ruby stared at him a moment longer, indecision in her eyes, then she morphed into wolf form and rejoined the fight. They had managed to kill a few hellbeasts, but more than half still remained, and now their people were being separated.
August was sprawled out on the pavement a few yards down the street, just barely keeping a hellbeast's teeth away from his face by jamming a nightstick across its jaws. Emma charged over, brought forth her magic and threw the creature aside with a vengeance, sending it sailing through the air.
"You alright?" She gripped his forearm and pulled him to his feet. August sucked in a few long breaths and retrieved his handgun from the ground.
"These are not easy to kill," he said instead, bracing his feet apart and taking aim at the creature as it came back towards them. Emma winced and stepped back as he emptied his clip into its head. It seemed to slow it down, but still it lived.
At least until Leroy's axe came down and took its head clean off.
The body collapsed to the ground as the head bounced off the pavement and rolled. In another few seconds, its corpse melted into a puddle of shadows and then faded away completely. Emma gaped.
"Off with their heads!" Leroy shouted helpfully, and most of the others gave an appreciative grunt of acknowledgement. Regina scowled and shot him a filthy look for using one of her mother's infamous lines. Emma glanced over at the brunette to smile, but instead her eyes locked on the hellbeast charging up behind her.
"Regina!" She and Mary Margaret shouted at the same time. Mary Margaret was closer and flung herself in the way with the flat of her sword braced against her other hand, saving her from the beast's jaws. Instead it collided against her and Regina, sending all of them tumbling to the ground in a heap. Pandora's box clattered across the pavement as Regina knocked her head on the pavement with a grunt of pain.
A blast of light from Tinkerbell's wand sent the beast flying. David swooped in to lift Mary Margaret to her feet and then they were both checking Regina for injuries despite the brunette's agitated protests. Tink had gone after the creature with another blasting spell, so Emma moved to retrieve the fallen Pandora's box. Before she could, another hellbeast dashed in, snatched it up, and bolted.
Panic punched Emma in the gut and the next thing she knew she was sprinting after it, wildly flinging energy balls and watching the damned creature weave and dodge every one of them. She could hear her parents shouting after her but their words didn't register in her mind. All she knew was that they couldn't lose the box.
Something slammed into her from the side and knocked her clear off her feet. Emma cried out in alarm before she hit the ground, tucking her head under her arms and slamming painfully onto the pavement. The hellbeast landed atop her and then it was gone, dashing after the one with the box in its jaws. Disoriented, Emma rolled onto her back with a wince, hissing through her teeth. Her knees and elbows felt like they were on fire and her palms were already scraped and bleeding.
There were more shouts, then pounding footsteps. She opened her eyes to find August and Nova crouched over her, the former coaxing her into a sitting position while the latter grabbed her hands and immediately began a simple healing spell to her scrapes.
"I'm sorry, this is all I know how to do," Nova confessed nervously, brushing her fingers over the newly repaired skin on Emma's palms. Emma forced a smile despite feeling like absolute shit. The scrapes had been the least painful of all her accumulated injuries today, but there was no use making the fairy feel bad.
"Thanks, Nova. August, help me up."
He hauled her to her feet, grimacing in apology as she hissed again. Every joint ached, and her body was already protesting the ridiculous amount of magic she'd used just throwing energy balls around. Clearly she needed to expand her magical repertoire.
"Regina," she called out breathlessly, hurrying back to where Regina was now on her feet surrounded on both sides by her parents. "They took Pandora's box."
"I know. I dropped the damn thing." She swore under her breath, swatting away David's hand as the man tried to give her a comforting pat on the shoulder. "Damn it!"
"Hey, it's okay." Emma stepped forward, motioning for her parents to give them some space as she grabbed Regina's hands within hers. "We'll figure it out. At least they're gone for now."
"Well yeah, they only came here for the box," Leroy snarked. "Now they've got the box and we're screwed."
"Leroy," David chided, at the same time Mary Margaret said, "Grumpy!"
The dwarf grunted and shrugged his shoulders. Then, "I think you should all be more worried about wolf boy over there."
They turned all at once to find Ruby crouched over a motionless Grayson once more, tear tracks streaking her blood-smeared face. For a moment Emma feared the worst, but then she saw Grayson's chest rise ever so slightly with breath. It wasn't much, but it was something.
"Regina," she breathed, fingers tightening around the brunette's. Regina gave her one look and then strode towards the werewolves, lowering to her knees next to them and casting her gaze over Grayson's battered body. A puddle of dark blood had already accumulated under the man's body, and had he been human, he would have certainly died by now. From the flutter of his closed eyelids, he was barely hanging on as is.
Regina grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it up, uncovering the extent of his injuries. Deep punctures lined his sides and gashes ran across his stomach, the flesh torn and oozing thick blood. The sides of his neck were scratched open too, though they were thankfully shallow and hadn't ripped an artery.
From behind, a few voices gasped as they saw the damage, and Nova had already succumbed to tears, but Regina ignored them. She glanced up to find Ruby leaning back with a soft sob, silently pleading with her eyes, Gods, please, don't take him from me, and Regina recognized that look far too well.
She hovered her glowing hands over Grayson's wounds and did what she could.