Chapter 14
A/N. My son, who thinks Regina is the queen of all Evil Queens, cast the final vote, so Evil Regals, this chapter's for you. To everyone who's posted a note: thank you! A few replies:
B, there is a Mr. Dove on the show: he's the guy repoing Moe's truck in "Skin Deep." And something special is coming for Belle.
Cat4444, when the action here finally quiets down, the theory of relativity in regards to Henry's magic will be presented.
Grace5231973, Sudoku, Anarra, and Linzerj: I have a word of hope for you: Ferragamos. Coming in chapter 16.
Storybrooke 2:59 pm
"Your husband for my mother," Regina offers a bargain, and a cobra appears, wrapped around David's legs. "What'll it be, Snow?"
"Mary Margaret," Emma clambers to her feet. "No. . . ."
"You have to," David says. "There's no choice. You have to stop her, permanently. This is the only way."
"You'll be destroying yourself," Emma argues.
Snow's hand tightens on the heart and Cora clutches her chest, moaning.
"Stop it," Regina hisses.
"If you can't do it, give the heart to me," David urges.
Cora crumples to the carpet, blood founts from her nose and mouth.
"Let her go!" Regina demands, and then she tries another tactic. "You're not a killer. You're Snow White. You believe in second chances, just like Henry does. You're honor-bound to give her a chance to reform, just as you did me."
"For all the good it did," Snow mumbles, and she puts a little more pressure on the heart in her hand, until Cora cries out.
"She's right," Emma interjects, and everyone glances at her in surprise, but she stands firm. "Regina is right. You can't kill—not even Cora. Mom, this town needs for you to be our queen, our Snow White. I need for you to be Snow White."
"She'll hurt Henry if she gets the chance." But Snow wavers and her grip on the heart loosens. "She'd kill every one of us without a second thought."
"It's not about her," Emma presses. "It's about you. Gold told me something when we were on the ship—he told me about this heart thing. He said it was the most evil kind of magic, and he said only three people in the world could handle this magic without losing their soul to it: himself and Regina—because their souls are already corrupted, I guess—and"—she pauses as realization hits her: Henry must have overheard this conversation, and that's how he knew what to look for, and where, in Gold's shop. She shakes the thought away; she can't let the enemy have this piece of information about Henry. "And Gold specifically said 'don't let Snow use this magic.'" Emma takes a step toward her mother, holding out her hand. "It's like a last request, right? You need to honor it, even if you hated the man. Give it to me, Mary Margaret. Please."
The mother-daughter face-off is interrupted by the sudden appearance of a swirl of yellow (no, Emma has to admit, it's not yellow; it's gold). When the haze clears Henry is standing there.
Both mothers exclaim at once, "Henry!"
"Stop this," Henry pleads again.
Bae comes running in, panting, "He got away from me—he just—" He stops short, staring. "Henry?!" And then as he comes to understand what his son has done, he utters, "Aw, crap, he's got it too, the magic disease."
"He's going to be okay," Emma tosses over her shoulder. "Not like them."
"If you fight for him, he will be," Snow adds, shooting a challenging look at Bae. "He'll need his father as well as his mother." She picks up the box and gently sets the heart inside, then closes the lid. "As well as his grandmother." Without hesitation she walks directly up to Regina and offers the box. "And his grandfather. Henry's right. Release David and end this war before someone dies."
"Before someone else dies," Bae corrects.
"A trade?" Regina eyes the box but doesn't reach for it.
Snow shakes her head. "A peace offering."
Regina snaps her fingers and the cobra disappears. David picks up his sword, ready for a fight—but he won't be the one to start it.
"Thank you, Mom," Henry says.
For the moment, Cora has been forgotten, and she takes full advantage. "Perfect, just perfect." She makes claws of both of her hands and bolts of magic strike Emma and Henry down, wrap them in chains, and then she snaps her fingers and the mother and son vanish.
"What are you doing?" David shouts.
"Where are they?" Bae demands.
Regina wheels, her eyes and her fingertips flashing fire. "Mother! Bring them back, now!"
"Don't tell me you couldn't taste the power in their magic," Cora points a finger at Regina. "You know it as well as I do: they're powerful. Not to the same degree as the Dark One, but that opportunity is lost forever. I won't let this one slip by me."
Regina forms a fireball and balances it for a throw. "Bring them back. If you care anything for me, bring them back."
"I can take his magic without hurting him," Cora assures her. "He's a child. He's barely aware of his power. He certainly won't miss it. And Emma—she's what stands between you and him. Let me get rid of her for you, darling. It will be my pleasure to reunite you with your son."
"That's not how," Regina snaps. "Love can't be forced. Didn't you learn that from Daddy? From me?" A catch in her voice reveals a lifetime of longing. Her emotions will undo her: the ball of fire in her hand sputters and goes out. She doesn't have it in her to fight her mother, despite the cost to Henry. She drops her voice. "Bring them back, please."
"There's so much I can do for you, if you'll only let me, Regina." Cora too makes her voice soft.
Regina can't fight her mother—but she can change her. Tucked under her arm is the box that Snow has surrendered. Regina opens the box and removes the heart and walks forward.
And Cora strikes, sending her daughter smashing against the flat-screen TV. The screen and Regina's head crack, Regina slumps to the floor in a daze, and Cora advances, preparing another lightning bolt.
"Snow!" David suddenly remembers that broken vial from Gold's shop—and its contents, which have formed a hideous stain all over Snow's pretty white cotton blouse. "The squid ink!"
Snow gasps, understanding. She runs at Cora and when she's just a few feet away she pulls the blouse away from her body, raises it to her face and blows. The ink stain lifts from the cotton in a cloud and floats through the air, and as Cora is preoccupied with Regina, that cloud settles on her skin, her hair, into her lungs. . .
And Cora is locked in a blue light, immobilized, her lightning bolt flickering in her hand.
Regina stares. Then she collects her thoughts and proceeds to do what she intended to do: her head high, the heart cradled carefully in both hands, she walks up to her mother and with a quick thrust returns the heart where it belongs, where it should have been all along. Regina steps back, watching her mother closely, but her thoughts are back in her father's mansion. Her imagination paints pictures based upon the stories she used to tell herself in her nursery days: a mommy who tucked her in at night and read storybooks to her, a mommy who kissed her scraped knees, a mommy who taught her to cook and dance and figure sums. Someday her mother would become that mommy, little 'Gina's imagination assured her. Someday when she wasn't so busy negotiating alliances and waging wars. Someday when she would have time to care.
Regina can't remember when she first learned that Cora had yanked out her own heart, but she can remember when she finally accepted the fact that her someday would never come—could never come, because Cora couldn't feel. Regina can remember that moment of acceptance vividly because immediately after it, she pushed her mother through Rumplestiltskin's mirror.
"I'm sorry, Mother," Regina whispers. "I love you." Though the blue magic that's immobilizing Cora bites with cold, Regina kisses her mother's cheek.
The spell cracks. Cora gasps, struggling for breath, but she's smiling, and there's something odd about her smile, Regina thinks, something foreign, and then she realizes what's different: this smile is pure. Not an ounce of malice or smugness in it. This smile is love.
Cora's head jerks back and she claws at her silk blouse, as though it's alive and attacking her. Her legs give out, and as she drops, Regina catches her in a sling of magic. Regina lowers her gently, and David dashes in with a couch cushion, sliding it under Cora's head and Snow calls for an ambulance. Cora shakes her head, her eyes fixed on Regina, conveying the message that her voice can't, a message just for Regina. Someday has come at last.
What they're saying with their eyes and their touch will remain private between them, as it should. A mother and her daughter should have a few secrets together, shouldn't they?
Cora lifts her face. Regina meets her halfway, accepting, for the first time, her mother's kiss. With a shudder Cora performs an act of magic, bringing back Emma and Henry, frazzled but unharmed.
Once she realizes what's happening, Emma hugs Henry, turning him away. Her heart breaks for him: he's one grandparent and seems likely to lose another in just a few minutes. Though perhaps, she thinks, the community is safer without them, no eleven-year-old should be robbed in this way.
Snow leans in, whispering to Emma, "The ambulance is out on a call."
Emma raises an eyebrow. "The ambulance? There's only one?"
"Until you broke the curse, we never needed one."
Emma sends Henry into Snow's arms.
Emma kneels beside Cora. "Regina, let me transport her to the hospital."
Regina raises a tear-stained face. She's forgotten for the moment she's talking to an enemy—to the woman who has taken her son away. "I shouldn't have done it. I think she's having a heart attack."
Cora shakes her head viciously. "Not sorry." She uses the strength she has left to squeeze Regina's hand. "I love you."
Regina bows her head into her mother's breast. The evil queen's shoulders shake, but her sobs are silent. She was taught from the cradle that tears are weakness and that no one can be trusted to see her vulnerable. She accepts Emma's offer. "Take her. I'll be right behind."
"I'll be back soon, Henry." Emma waves her hand and she disappears with Cora.
Regina rises and turns to her son. He withdraws from Snow's embrace and wraps his arms around the woman who raised him. He doesn't say anything; his actions speak eloquently enough.
"I'm sorry, Henry." Regina's voice is hoarse. She's about to explain; she wants him to understand how much she needs her mother's love as well as his. But there's a thin line between justifying and excusing, and she won't cross it; he deserves not to be manipulated. "I was wrong. I hope you'll forgive me and someday we can start over."
The boy starts to cry. It's all too much for him, and an unfamiliar feeling overtakes Regina: guilt. She ducks her face into his hair and cries.
David is moved by the scene, despite his revulsion for Regina. He comes to Snow and slips an arm around her shoulders.
"I want to go with you to the hospital," Henry says. He glances at Snow, who nods, granting permission.
"Thank you," Regina replies to both of them. She starts to summon her magic, but it's pale and shaky.
"Let me." Henry claps his hands together and he and Regina disappear.
David stoops to pick up the dagger.
Bae wanders out onto the stairwell to take some fresh air into his lungs. He watches a cumulus cloud moving slowly to the west. He's trying to focus on it so that he can tamp down the pressure that's building in his chest from the long years of anger and wall-building and loneliness, the tiny flicker of hope, squelched by shock and grief. . . and guilt. He realizes he's been a coward, running away from a man who loved him so much as to devote three hundred years to finding him. That realization leads to another: how brave his father must have been to have traversed time and space on a hope as thin as a cloud that he might someday find Bae in a world of 5 billion people, and that Bae might someday listen to him and might, just the slightest might, forgive him.
"Papa, I'm the one who needs forgiving," he tells the cloud. He will pay the price for his pride.
But there is one thing he can do now: he can break the chain of cowardice that began with the grandfather that he never met. He can become a fixture—a fixer—in his son's life. Tamara may not want to give up her business to move here, but that's all right. New York is practically just around the corner from Storybrooke.
Snow and David emerge from the demolished apartment. With a tired sigh, David sheathes his sword and closes the door behind them. He clears his throat. "Maybe we should"—he hesitates, choosing the words carefully—"go to your father."
Bae nods. After a moment of uncertainty—a quick glance with Snow confirms that this is the decent, albeit painful, thing to do—David hands him the dagger. "I'll bury it with him," Bae mutters.
They walk slowly down the stairs and into the street. They make their way back to Main Street, where David parked his truck. Before they climb in, Snow reaches for her phone. "I guess we should call Mr. Grimm." She steps aside to make the call out of Bae's earshot.
Bae raises an eyebrow at David, who fumbles with his car keys before explaining, "Mortician."