The men stood, eyes wide and breathing shallow, as the Evil Queen stared between them. "What do you think you're doing?" Her voice cut through the air causing it to practically sizzle with her irritation and frustration at their apparent audacity.
"What do you think?" Leroy took a step toward her. "We're looking for Mary Margaret's heart. Hand it over, and we promise to go easy on you."
David cringed. "Leroy…"
"You promise to go easy on me?" Regina laughed, her face a mask of mocking and amusement. "What do you think you'll do, dwarf? Whistle me to death?"
The smaller man motioned as if he would take another step forward only to find himself suddenly pinned to the ceiling dangerously close to the moving fan located there. Raising an eyebrow, Regina turned to the other man. "What about you, Charming?"
He slowly removed his hand from where it rested in the drawer and held both up. "Can we talk about this?"
Regina only chuckled as she gracefully made her way to him. "You two took a very big risk breaking into my home," she purred as she reached a hand out and laid it on his chest.
David tried to pull away but found he couldn't move. Trying to hide his rising panic, he attempted to talk his way out of their predicament. "We were only trying to do what we thought was right so that we could find Emma and Henry. Who knows what kind of danger they might be in?"
"You trying to do 'what was right' is exactly why Emma and Henry are lost," she countered in that same even, sickeningly smooth tone. "If not for you and your wife, the most any of us would be concerned about right now is whether or not my title is Mayor."
"She was just trying to protect our family," he offered and then winced at his own words as he quickly realized it was likely the wrong thing to say.
"Someone had to," Leroy called from his spot on the ceiling. "Emma wasn't protecting herself or Henry from you and your crazy sel..."
"Enough!" A burst of energy left Regina and hit the dwarf squarely in the chest, knocking him unconscious. "Emma," she growled as she turned to David, who was looking at the hand still resting on his chest, "was never in any danger with me. In fact, she was likely safer living with me than she ever was living with you. She is protected with me, just as Henry is."
David's eyes narrowed. Despite the imminent danger he was in, his need to protect his daughter was stronger than his need to protect himself, just as it always had been. "Why?"
Regina's eyebrows rose as if to say the answer should be obvious. "Why? Because she's the mother of my child." David's jaw dropped, and Regina's hand recoiled from his chest at her own answer. She tried to maintain an air of apathy, "Not that it's something that matters to me directly, but it matters to Henry, and so it matters to me as a reasonable course to keep my son happy."
Charming's eyes narrowed. Had he been able to move, he would have stepped back into her personal space, but whatever spell she was using to hold him remained steadfast. "Do you really think taking Mary Margaret's heart is something that isn't going to cause Henry to hate you more?"
"Probably not," she answered with a shrug, "but desperate times call for desperate measures."
"And what about Emma?" He grunted as he tried to move. "What do you think she'll think if she finds out what you've done?"
Regina's face faltered, and her mask slipped as she honestly considered her answer. Emma Swan, the person outside of Doctor Hopper who had, thus far, been there to help her work through her addiction, was the last person she would want to know how hard she'd fallen off the wagon.
The disappointed but understanding look in the blonde's eyes was a perfect match to the one her son often gave her, and the thought that both of them could look at her in the same way for the same thing at the same time made her chest clinch.
She found she didn't like the idea of disappointing the sheriff any more than she liked the idea of disappointing Henry, but she also knew that she needed to keep the Charmings in check because they could easily make the situation even worse. The only way she knew to do that was to keep Mary Margaret's heart as collateral.
As she considered her options, she lowered the still unconscious Leroy to the ground but kept David stationary. Regina paced her room, walking around the dwarf on the floor and past the other man as she gauged the best course of action and tried to understand her emotional reaction to this situation.
What about Emma? What did it really matter what the younger woman thought? Why had she become an influencing factor on what Regina did?
With a loud gasp, Regina grabbed at her chest and hit the ground, her knees striking the carpet with force. Trying to pull in air, her face contorted in pain and her body went rigid while she held herself up on all fours. The violence that struck her was strong enough to force her to let go of David, who looked down at her, unable to figure out what to do or what was going on.
"Emma," she managed to push back enough to sit with her legs out in front of her and her hands behind her to hold her up. Her eyes looked up to David, pleading with him to help, "is hurt badly."
Panic rising in him, he rushed to kneel down beside her to look her in the eye. "How do you know? You know where she is, don't you? What's going on? How do you that she's hurt?"
She took in calming breaths to try and alleviate some of the constriction in her chest. Closing her eyes to concentrate on her answers, she spoke slowly and deliberately, "I don't know how I know. But I can feel it." She opened her eyes and looked directly at him. "She's hurt, and we must do something quickly."
Pulling back slightly, David's face grew grim. His frown deepened, and he asked a question that he would never have dreamed he would ever ask Regina Mills about his daughter. "Have you ever told Emma that she could always find you?"
"Oh crap," Emma muttered while she pulled Henry into the shrubbery beside the road. "I recognize her. Be quiet, kid. Seriously, don't make a sound."
"Who is it?" The boy winced as a branch from a shrub hit a particularly sensitive portion of his anatomy. "Why are we hiding?"
"That's Cora, Regina's mother. You think your mom is bad? She doesn't hold a candle to her mom. Now be quiet," she hissed, putting a hand over his mouth and praying the shrubs were enough to hide them.
Cora's entourage slowly moved by with Cora seated in a carriage in the middle of the escort. The horses' hoof silently pushed through the dirt, and the carriage's wheels occasionally clicked as they came across a rock or branch in the road.
For her part, Cora stared out of the window and allowed her eyes to wander over the forest while she pushed out with her magic to feel the surrounding area. You could never be too careful of things that might want to attack you, and you could never miss a chance to find something that you might be able to use to your advantage at some later point in time.
It was her magic that found them first. She could feel them hiding in the shrubbery. At first, she thought they might be bandits who foolishly believed they could rob her, but, upon closer inspection, she realized they didn't feel like that type of threat.
However, they had magic, and it was powerful. That much was without question. She needed to know who and what they were and determine how much of a threat they were to her and her plans.
"Stop the carriage," she called out, and the procession immediately came to a halt.
"Crap," Emma muttered under her breath.
Stepping down, Cora walked the short distance to stand directly in front of them. "Did you really think you could hide?" With a wave of her hand, the greenery disappeared, leaving Emma and Henry exposed and still crouched down in what was now a ridiculous position.
Slowly standing, the blonde maintained eye contact with the older woman while keeping her hand firmly on her son's shoulder. "We didn't want to be in the way," she offered as an answer.
"And who are you?" Cora looked the two up and down.
"Nobody important," the young woman shrugged. "Just travelers making their way home."
"You're not in any traveling clothes I've ever seen." Cora leaned forward slightly and narrowed her eyes. "Where is 'home'?"
Emma glanced around, finding the sun setting to her left and noting the direction they had been headed before they tried to hide, she quickly surmised it was safe to answer, "The North Country."
"Really?" The older woman stood up to her full height again. Her voice held the coldness that the two younger people had often heard intoned in Mayor Mills' voice back before the curse had been broken. "I didn't realize the North Country had magical users that were so powerful."
"Magic users?" The blonde couldn't hide the panicked confusion in her voice. "We're not magic users."
"Oh, my dear, do you really think you can pull that sort of thing with me? You can't hide the level of power you have from someone as skilled as I am. It practically radiates off of you." Cora's eyes fell to the pin on Emma's shirt. "Did the Queen send you here? Are you spies?"
The young woman sputtered. Things were spiraling quickly. "N-n-no," she shook her head in the negative. "We were just traveling by on our way back. We're not spies."
Tiling her head to the side, Cora added. "Just as you're not magical users?"
Henry stiffened. There was something in the intonation being used by Cora that hit a raw nerve for him, and he was reminded that it was the same tone Regina took with him when she knew he was lying and she was about to punish him for it. This time, however, Emma was not lying, but Henry's innate fear told him that it wasn't going to matter. Something bad was about to happen. He knew it.
"I think, perhaps, you need to be persuaded to tell me why you're really here," Cora said in an even, inflectionless voice. Waving her hand in the air, both mother and son found themselves held aloft by thick, snaking tree branches. "Eva cannot possible think it would this easy," she commented as she stepped back to get a better view of the pair. "Now, dear, tell me what you know."
She motioned with her hand for the branches holding Emma to move forward, and, once the younger woman was close enough, Cora plunged her hand into the blonde's chest.
Emma gasped and then grunted. "I know," she said in a pained voice, "that you can't just take my heart."
Cora attempted to pull the heart out, but it remained where it was. "No matter," she said as her hand began to squeeze the organ. "This works just as well. Now speak before you die, and I promise I won't kill your son as well."
For a brief moment, Emma had the presence of mind to wonder if Cora finding out now that her heart could not be removed would affect the encounter she and Mary Margaret would have later, but the thought didn't last long. The pain being inflicted on her as her heart was being crushed within her own chest was too great for her to concentrate on much for very long at a time.
"What?" Regina glared at David from where she sat on the floor. The pain in her chest was not subsiding, and she was finding it increasingly difficult to think clearly. "What are you talking about?"
David Nolan, the gentle sheepherder who would rather thatch a roof than create kingdom politics, who would rather protect his family than worry about an entire kingdom, who gave up what he'd rather do so that he could do what needed to be done, fought his base instincts to reject the reality he was beginning to see forming before him.
In a tight voice, he asked again, "Have you ever told my daughter that she would always be able to find you?"
Regina rolled her eyes as she grabbed at her chest with one hand. "Why in the world would I ever tell your daughter something as ridiculous as," she stopped herself. Her jaw snapped shut, and her eyes widened as the last memory of Emma from her younger self flashed through her mind.
"Now that we know each other, you and your mother are always welcome here as my guests. You can always find me."
Once, as a young girl, she had told Emma Swan just that. This was not happening. Whatever was going on here, it wasn't what Charming was implying with this question. It was something else. It had to be something else. Gritting her teeth, she answered in a strained tone, "Once, but it was a very long time ago."
David dropped his head down, eyes closing. "When?"
"When I was about 15," she answered. Her breath caught in her throat as another wave of pain ran through her. "I realize this brings up a very long list of questions, but she's going to die if we don't do something quickly."
He stood, helping her to her feet. "What do we need to do?"
"Grab the items on the chaise while I get your wife's heart, and the three of us need to go to my family's mausoleum." She staggered toward her closet. "Leave the dwarf. He'll be out for another hour at the least."
Yeah, I'm going to explain away why Cora tries to take Emma's heart later in time. It's going to take some explaining though. I mean like Ricky Ricardo 'Lucy you got some 'splain' to do' explaining, but I promise I'll get there.
