Ch.10.2

Snow White sat perched on her thrown next to her husband who sat beside her. Both looking rather pleased with themselves as Emma and Regina were dragged in front of them, their hands bound behind their backs. The room was filled with people, some of whom Emma recognized as older versions of the towns folk in her own world, others were strangers. They all looked like they wanted nothing more than to see her dead.

The guards forced the two women to kneel in front of the King and Queen. Emma looked up at her parents, a pleading look in her eyes. Regina had told her not to speak, and to let her do all the talking as she had the most experience in dealing with royal judgment. Emma had begrudgingly agreed.

Snow clapped her hands to silence the crowd and rose from her chair. She smiled at them. "You have been brought before this kingdom for the following crimes: Murder, treason, kidnapping, plotting to kill the King and Queen, and attempt to take over the kingdom. How do you plead?" Snow asked.

Regina took a deep breath. "Not Guilty." The crowd murmured and laughed, clearly not believing them.

Snow raised her hand and they fell silent. "What claims to innocence do you have? Those of us here in this room have witnessed you commit these crimes first hand."

"Like we tried to explain yesterday. We are not the Emma and Regina from this world. We are from a different universe. In our world Emma became The Dark One, but we were able to save her and bring her back from the darkness." Regina explained. "Your Emma, the Dark Emma, came to our world and tricked us. Using our goodness, she appealed to our emotions and asked us for help. We had no idea her true intentions. She is still in our world, with our family and friends. Please, we need to get back to them and protect them! Even if you don't believe us, send us back to our world. That way even if we are lying we will no longer be your problem."

"And if you are lying, we would be inflicting your evil onto innocent lives." Snow said, her voice strong and steady.

"But if you are wrong, and we are innocent then you are taking a daughter away from her parents and two mothers away from a their son. Our Henry is still a young boy." Regina retorted, still afraid to let them know Christian was their son as well.

"I'm sorry, but we cannot take any risks. There is no way to know if this is a trick or not. We must take the safest option which is to sentence you to death." Snow said quietly. The crowd cheered loudly around them.

"Henry, it is time." Snow commanded.

"NO!" Emma shouted, she stood up only to be shoved back down to the ground hard, this time her head was being held down so her cheek was pressed to the cold, stone floor.

Regina looked at Emma desperately, they were out of options.

"I'm sorry." Regina whispered to Emma as the blonde struggled with the guard holding her down.

"Nothing to be sorry for Your Majesty." Emma said through gritted teeth as she attempted to smile while her face was being forced down.

Henry emerged from the crowd with a large dagger in his hand

"No, Henry!" Emma said as she struggled more.

Regina dropped her head when she saw the man who still looks so much like the baby she adopted hold the blade he intended to kill her with.

"Today will become an official day of celebration. Now end it all. End our pain. End their pain!" Snow called down to her grandson.

"Lets start with you." Henry said as he pointed the dagger at Regina.

"NO! HENRY DANIEL MILLS! DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH HER!" Emma yelled, practically roaring like a lion. Regina's eyes widened in surprise of Emma's anger.

"Come and stop me Dark One." Henry taunted as he walked around Regina, dragging the dagger around the ends of her hair.

Emma had to think quickly, this Henry was convinced she was The Dark One so in order to get his attention she was going to have to pretend to be just that.

"Wait, please! I know you still love your mother. I know you are just angry at me and you're doing this to hurt me because I left you when I chose the Darkness over you. I let you down the most because you saw me as the hero. I'm sorry Henry. But please don't take this out on Regina. She just didn't want me to be alone. She knew you had your grandparents and the rest of the town. She is a good woman. I am The Dark One. Kill me. Just me. It will save her. You can have your vengeance and your mother back. Just kill me. Only me. I am who you hate. I am the villain that seduced Regina back to the dark side. Kill me!" Emma yelled.

"Emma no!" Regina cried out.

"Shut up!" Emma hissed.

Henry looked unsure, and he wasn't the only one. He looked up at his grandparents who mirrored his expression.

"I will let you decide." Snow said. "As long as The Dark One is stopped I don't care if you keep your other mother alive. But she will be your responsibility. If she kills again it will be on you."

Slowly he looked back to Emma, his face turning to anger. He walked away from Regina and over to the blonde on the floor and picked her up roughly by the neck and began to choke her.

"Fine." He said. "Just you then."

Emma felt her feet leave the ground as her son lifted her up by the neck. He then slammed her down causing her legs to fly up on impact. He then smashed her head into the stone floor over and over. Her eyes blurred as she drifted in and out of consciousness. Henry continued to choke her as blood poured from her mouth and back of her head. The last thing she saw before her eyes closed for the final time was Regina trying to pull away from the guard, yelling something she couldn't hear.

The crowd cheered.

Emma Swan lay dead on the cold, stone floor.

Regina pulled and pulled but the guard wouldn't let her go. She cried out for Emma to wake up, but nothing happened. Her body was limp, and a puddle of blood was growing around her head. Her throat was purple, black, and blue from where the life was choked out of her.

"Let her go. She has no power now." Henry said to the guard. "Her puppet master is dead."

Once Regina was free she lunged at Emma's body and sat with the blonde half in her lap. She held Emma's face in her hands and looked at her, soaking in every detail for the last time. She looked at her eye brows and then her nose and finally her lips. Those lips she would never kiss again…

Kiss! Christian exists because of their true love. It is why Dark Emma needed him. Why had they never admitted they were True Love? They have True Love and it can beat anything. Regina's heart began to thump hard in her chest until it felt like it was in her throat as she lowered her head down and pressed her lips to Emma's. She waited a moment, holding her lips firmly against Emma's, thinking of how much she cared for her. But nothing happened. She tried again and again, kissing every inch of Emma's face, but nothing changed.

"Wake up damn it! Wake UP!" She shouted in between kissing her, but still nothing happened. Emma laid there as dead as before. "Please Miss. Swan. Wake up! You have to wake up!" Regina began to cry. Tears fell from her eyes as she cradled Emma's body. "Emma. Please. Em-ma. Please. Please. Please." With a final kiss on her forehead, Regina laid Emma carefully back down on the ground so she could stand. She looked down at the body, Emma's face covered in her tears.

"Do you feel better now? Now that you got your revenge?" Regina asked stiffly.

"No, I think I feel worse." Henry admitted.

"That's because killing never solves anything. It only causes more pain." Regina said as she walked past him so she could stand before Snow and David. Regina knew what she had to do. Emma had sacrificed herself so she could live, and that's what she would do. She would find a way to get her back. Even if it meant tearing every universe apart, and destroying time itself.

"Am I free to go?" Regina asked the Queen and King through gritted teeth and tears.

They looked at each other, unsure of letting Regina out of their clutches so soon. They knew she had not been the mastermind behind the Dark One's deeds, but she was still an accomplice.

"Take my cuff off so I can finally prove to you all that we were telling the truth. I'm alone now. I can't hurt you without help, your magical fairies could easily stop me. I am greatly outnumbered." Regina said nodding to the group of fairies in the crowd. "I will show you my heart. It's healed, from saving people and helping others. I'm a hero."

Snow nodded and the Blue Fairy walked over and waved her wand over Regina's cuff.

Regina plunged her hand into her own chest and pulled out her heart. It was bright red. Bright and beautiful. It had begun healing soon after she had started helping Emma and the Charmings save Storybrooke from the failsafe explosion. This was the proof of all the years of good she had done. When it was first beginning to heal Regina would take it out each night before bed and marvel at its progress. As it glowed brighter and brighter, so would her smile.

"There, see? This is not a heart that has done the crimes you said it did. I can show you Emma's heart too. It will be even brighter than mine. You made a mistake."

The blue fairy examined the heart and then nodded her confirmation. "They were telling the truth. There is no way this heart belongs to the Regina we know."

Snow, David, and Henry looked shocked and unable to say a word.

"Luckily for you I am a hero now…" Regina said as she returned her own heart to her chest, tears still running down her face.

Snow and David looked to Emma's body.

"What have we done?" Snow whispered to her husband.

David shook his head sadly.

Henry knelt down next to Emma, and smoothed her hair so it was out of her eyes.

Regina turned away, she couldn't bear to look at Emma's lifeless body.

"I am so sorry, we had to do it. The risk was too great. If you only knew the horrible things The Dark One has done to us over the last twenty years." Snow explained.

"If there is anything we can do to help you return home we will gladly do it." David said.

"I understand. And thank you. Please burry her properly." Regina said.

"We will make arrangements." Snow said. "Astrid, come here please." Snow called to one of the fairies. Regina recognized the fairy as the young girl who usually was seen hanging around Leroy. However, she looked the same, as did all the fairies. They must not age Regina thought, and then remembered that Blue must have been far older than her as well.

"Yes your grace?" The pretty fairy asked.

"Could you please bring Regina to the castle and give her one of our rooms to stay in?" Snow asked the bubbly girl.

"Sure, that's no problem! I would be happy to! Follow me Regina!" The girl said with a giggle.

"Um, thanks." Regina said, clearly thrown off by her chipper attitude in this somber time. "Wait, the baby we came here with. Where is he?"

"Oh, I think Ruby has him." Astrid said.

"You think?" Regina said raising her eyebrow at her.

"Um, I can find out and have him brought to your room if you like?" Astrid said looking scared.

"Yes. Do you know where they are going to put her for now?" Regina asked as she watched two guards gently pick up Emma's body.

"She will be laid out in the main hall, for people to pay their last respects to her. Then tomorrow she will be placed in her family's crypt. It is how they have always handled deaths for royals and Emma was a princess."

Regina nodded. "That sounds nice. But make sure they don't put her in a dress. She hated dresses." Regina added as she followed Astrid up the palace steps to her room.

Astrid nodded and confirmed that she would make sure Emma was dressed appropriately.

When Regina got to her room she only had a few minutes alone before Ruby was knocking at her door with Christian in her arms. "Here he is. Sorry I took him. I can't believe you guys were telling the truth. Our Emma and Regina are real tricksters, they fooled us many times. Playing to our desire to see them turn good. It's actually how I got this scar." Ruby said as she pushed her hair back away from her neck so Regina could see a long scar that went from her earlobe all the way to her back. Ruby smiled when she saw Regina cringe. "Yeah, our Emma did this to me, she pretended to be injured and was begging for help. I caved and ran to help her. That is when she tried to cut my cape off, she wanted to use its magic. But she ended up slicing me with her dagger."

"Listen, I understand. Given your history with them it was the safe thing to do. However, I am wondering why they didn't believe Emma when she offered to die in exchange for me. It doesn't seem like a Dark One thing to do. I would have thought that would prove her innocence." Regina said.

"Oh, our Emma loved her Regina a lot. When we killed her she went crazy with rage. That is why when we found both of you we weren't very surprised. We worried she was going to figure out a magical way to bring you back so we just figured she had." Ruby said. "What did surprise us was him." Ruby said pointing to Christian who was sleeping in Regina's arms. "He's yours isn't he? Both of yours."

"Yes. But not yet. It's complicated." Regina said when she saw Ruby's confused look.

"Well whatever the situation, you two clearly have some powerful True Love if it could create a baby."

"I thought so too. But it couldn't save her." Regina said sadly.

"I am so sorry for your loss." Ruby said as she placed a comforting hand on Regina's shoulder. "At least you still have a part of her, in him."

Regina's eyes widened. "Your right! I still have him! Thank you!" Regina said as she grabbed the brunettes hand and squeezed it.

"No problem, but what did I do?" Ruby asked.

"You gave me an idea. To save Emma. Well, I should say you gave me hope."

"How?"

"The fact that our son is still here means that there must still be a path that leads to Emma being alive. If she had died for good then Christian would have disappeared from existence."

Ruby looked confused again.

"He's from our future too. Same world, just two years ahead of our timeline. I know, it's confusing. Your Emma really messed with everything." Regina explained. "But if he is still here then we must still have a future together." Regina said, now beaming with optimism. She smiled at her sleeping son and kissed him on the forehead.

"Do you want me to call a council meeting to get everyone brainstorming on how to get you home?" Ruby asked.

"No, I just need my spell books. Any idea where they might be?" Regina asked.

"Well our Regina and Emma lived on the other side of the town, but they have it protected by magic."

"That won't be a problem. I'm guessing they used my own blood magic as Emma is related to all of the royal family. But if your Regina was killed then her spell will be down now anyway. Have any of you checked it since she was killed?" Regina asked. It was odd asking about her own death.

"No, we had no idea our Emma left. And we generally stay out of their area. Anytime someone has gone over there they would send horrific things our way. Once one of the dwarves accidentally got lost and ended up too close to their magic force field and Emma made it rain acid near our boarder. Luckily most people were inside the force field at the time but those that were not were terribly burned." Ruby said with a grimace.

Regina scrunched her face in disgust. "That is truly awful. God everything is so backwards. Your Emma is alive and well, and mine is…" A tear fell down her cheek.

"Oh Regina, I'm so sorry. Are you sure you don't want help figuring out how to get home? At least let me watch your son for you while you search for the books." Ruby offered.

"Thanks, but I am not letting this little guy out of my sights again." Regina said with a smile to Ruby. Rby nodded and began to leave the room.

"Good luck with everything Regina!" Ruby said as she closed the door behind her.

Once Regina could no longer hear Ruby's footsteps outside her room she looked down at Christian, painful tears in her eyes, finally able to drop her 'good girl' routine. "I will make them all pay for killing her." Regina said with venom in her voice.

She kissed the top of his head as she poofed them away. They first landed outside the grand Hall. Regina held her breath as she walked through the doors towards Emma's body. She was laying on a large stone block with her arms crossed. They kept her clothes she was wearing but they most have magically removed all the dirt and blood from them.

"Goodbye Miss Swan. I won't give up. There has to be a way for me to go back in time and save you. Just like Dark Emma wanted to do for my dead counterpart." Then suddenly a light went off in Regina's head. The amulet. Dark Emma has the amulet that can bring people back from the dead. All she needed to do was get her hands on it.

Regina poofed herself and Christian to the outskirts of the Dark One's territory. Luckily Regina was right and the boundary spell was down. Without any spell blocking her magic Regina was able to summon all her books and took them to her house. She was surprised by the condition of the area on this side of the town. Barely anything had been touched by the war. When she got Christian settled down for a nap she began her work.

After a few hours Regina jumped up and stared at the book she was just reading in amazement. "That's it! This is how I can get us all home to the right time, Christian!" Regina said to the sleeping baby.

"But first, I will kill every person here."