"Stop it!" Henry's voice was filled with terror. "She's telling the truth."
Cora's attention turned to the young boy, and Emma's head dropped from relief as the older woman's hand released the pressure being placed on her heart. The blonde's body slumped down, and it was clear the sheriff had passed out. Henry's body tightened with apprehension.
Face impassive, Cora looked Henry up and down. "You are either very foolish or very brave."
"I'm not either one," he answered. His eyes flipped between his unconscious mother and the woman whose hand was literally in her chest. "But she's my mom, and I don't want her to die. We weren't doing anything wrong."
"Foolish," Cora said mostly to herself. She pulled her hand from Emma's chest and took the few steps needed to stand in front of Henry. "What is your name, child?"
He took a quick moment to consider his options. Telling her the truth seemed like a bad idea based on everything he now knew, but lying to her could be just as dangerous. He wanted to be a distraction long enough for Emma to wake up. Maybe, if she was awake, she could get them out of this. She was the White Knight, after all. He decided to split the difference and give his middle name. "Daniel."
Cora tilted her head as if making a mental comment on this fact, but she otherwise remained impassively still. Finally reaching up with one hand, she took his face into a vice grip, forcing him to look her in the eye. "What is your entire name, child?"
Emma groaned and her mind unclouded just in time to see the last interaction. Her hear pounded, instincts screaming that it was a bad idea for Henry to answer the question and wondering what he had already said. Struggling to get free, she tried to tell him with her eyes not to say more.
"Daniel Swan," he answered and then cast his eyes down, making a wounded face as if calling himself by that name was both painful and shameful.
"Swan," Cora murmured to herself. She considered the last name. "From the North Country?" It may have been a question, but her tone said she didn't believe a word of it.
Henry's breathing was shallow from his fear, and her grip had not loosened. He could barely nod yes to her question, but he did so anyway, not really wanting to speak more.
"He's just a kid," Emma called out, trying to get the attention off of her son. "Leave him alone."
"So foolish," Cora said as she released her hold on Henry. She gave a small smirk as she asked, "How do you intend to stop me, dear?"
The blonde took in a deep breath, teeth grinding, as she tried to contain her temper. The look on Cora's face was the look she'd seen on Mayor Mills' face dozens of times when she'd first arrived in Storybrooke. It was an arrogant look that screamed the other woman knew and controlled everything while she knew nothing and had no say in how things were to be.
Emma hated that look. She'd grown to accept it coming from Regina. She had learned it was a defensive mechanism for times when the mayor felt personally threatened, and the sheriff had come to know that the smile was far less of an arrogant smirk than a mask to cover up the fear Regina held.
On Cora, however, the smirk was exactly what it claimed to be, and Emma despised seeing it on the witch's face. Her thoughts and emotions narrowed, coming together, as she thought about Regina and the many times she must have seen this look and known that something horrible was about to happen to her, powerless to do a thing to protect herself, just as Emma and Henry were now.
That thought only made her emotions more intense, and, as her mind narrowed even more on how unfair this whole situation was and how unfair life seemed to have been to a young Regina, she gasped in surprise.
Regina? The blonde shook her head. No, she was not feeling what she thought she was feeling, but, then again, it was hard to set it aside. She suddenly knew that, somewhere in her own time and in the other world, Regina was panicking about her, in sympathetic pain for her, and desperately trying to get her and Henry back.
She could feel it.
Cora stepped closer. "Finally realizing your situation, are we?" She was commenting on the gasp that had just escaped her captive. "If you tell me everything now, I may consider simply letting you and your son rot in a tower somewhere for the rest of your lives."
Emma closed her eyes and let the swirl of emotions be their own guide. What did she have to lose? Inwardly, she directed her thoughts to their current situation, and asked for help, trying to keep the desperation she felt at bay but knowing she was failing at doing so.
"Prayers?" Cora chuckled. "I doubt your gods will help you." With an eerily graceful move, she plunged her hand back into Emma's chest and began to squeeze again. "Speak."
Regina let out a strangled cry and nearly fell to the sheriff station's floor. She caught herself on a nearby desk before she went completely down. From behind the cell bars, Mary Margaret watched with curious eyes. She looked to her husband and waited for an explanation while Ruby helped Regina take a seat.
"I don't know," David began while he opened the cell's door. "Something's happening with Emma. She's hurt and in danger, and, somehow, Regina is feeling it."
"What do you mean she's feeling it? How is that even possible?" Mary Margaret stepped out of the cell but didn't make a motion toward the seated woman.
"Like I said, I don't know, but Regina knows where Emma is, and she claims she knows how to get her back." He looked to Ruby. "Can you get the car ready? We need to move fast."
Ruby nodded. "Anything else I can do?"
"Yes," Regina reached up and grabbed onto the deputy's arm, keeping her stationary. "After we've left, get Doctor Whale and bring him to my family's mausoleum."
"What are you saying?" Mary Margaret's voice was frightened. "How badly is Emma hurt?"
"It's not for Ms. Swan," Regina spat back. She looked back to Ruby, giving her a pleading look. "Also, stop by my home and fetch Henry's stuffed dragon. It's on his bedside table."
Ruby's lips fell into a tightlipped line, and she nodded before taking off to get the car ready and then take care of Regina's requests.
Mary Margaret watched her leave before starting her line of questioning again. "What's going on here? Where are Emma and Henry? How do you know what's happened to them? What have you done to Emma?"
The former mayor literally snarled back. Between the increasing pain in her chest and the metaphorical pain standing in front of her being all too demanding, she was having trouble remembering why she shouldn't burn Snow White and the entire town down to the ground and walk upon the ashes.
Emma and Henry were, of course, the answer to that.
Sighing heavily, Regina answered in clipped tones. "I've done nothing to Ms. Swan." She paused, feeling more than hearing Emma's pleas. What was this? This bizarre connection between them was giving them the ability to communicate somehow, and both Emma and Henry were in more danger than she could have dreamed possible a moment before. "Cora," she breathed out, face icy with her own personal fears.
The pixie haired brunette frowned deeper and narrowed her eyes. "What does she have to do with any of this? If you're saying your mother…"
"No, you idiot." Regina swiftly stood and opened the box in her hand to reveal Mary Margaret's heart. "Emma and Henry are in danger. They've managed to run into my mother, and she's," she shook her head, unable to fully understand but knowing it had something to do with her chest. Regina's eyes widened. "She's trying to take Emma's heart."
"You have to do something," David practically shouted.
"What do you think I've been trying to do? I didn't take your wife's heart because I wanted to kill her." Despite herself, Regina raised an eyebrow and quirked her head. "Well, that's not entirely true. I do want your wife dead, but neither Henry nor Ms. Swan would ever forgive me. It's really beside the point right now. I took your heart," she said as she pulled said organ from its resting place and held it up in front of Mary Margaret, "to keep you from doing anything else that might make this situation worse while I worked out how to get them back home. After all, it was your interference that caused this entire mess, as always."
She plunged the heart back into Mary Margaret's chest, smiling with pleasure at the look of pain that crossed the younger woman's face. "But I need you now to get them back, and, once they're home and safe again, if you ever try to pry them away from again," Regina leaned closer, voice falling into the Evil Queen that had once crashed the wedding of Prince Charming and Snow White, "I will destroy you once and for all; I'll have no reason not to."
She let go of the heart in her hand and pulled it from the smaller woman's chest, not caring if Mary Margaret quickly recovered or not. "We need to go. Ms. Swan's charms won't keep my mother occupied for long, and the ending for that is not one I wish to see... or feel."
David glanced between them. "Threatening us isn't going to get any of us anywhere, Regina."
"That wasn't a threat, dear. It was a promise. I'm tired of this game, aren't you?" She tilted her head. "Even when I'm doing the right thing, I lose. Now my son and my… your daughter are in danger, facing my mother in our past back before I had ever encountered Snow White, and it's all your fault because you wanted to protect her. From what? From my addiction? From me? If anything, Emma has been protecting all of you from me for months now." She grunted, leaning heavily against the desk behind her. "She's pleading for help. There's desperation. We need to get to the cemetery so that I can help her."
The Charmings looked to each other, some unspoken agreement fell between them, and they each took an arm to help a still staggering Regina to the Sheriff's car.
I'm trying really hard here to not just rush to the end. It would be a disservice to this story. So, with that thought, if you're wondering how much longer I've got until this is completed, the answer is I don't know. I'd think another 10 chapters. Yeah, I'm sorry it's so long.
