Emma blinked at the brunette's sudden appearance.
"You really just appear places, don't you?" Emma breathed, exasperated. Despite the dire situation in which she currently found herself, she could not help but think about how ridiculous this whole thing would have seemed only a year ago. "Like, poof."
"Poofing is just one of many remarkable things I am able to do, Ms. Swan," Regina sneered, squeezing the heart in her hand. Snow sucked in a crude breathe and lost her footing for the dizziness, buckling and leaning on Emma for support. "The list includes forcing your own mother to kill you right here, right now, as I was forced to kill mine."
"Good luck getting Henry to forgive you for that," Emma scoffed, hoping her confidence would work in her favor and not egg her enemy on.
"I lost any chance of Henry forgiving me when I teamed up with my mother," Regina said bitterly.
"Can you blame him?" Emma exclaimed. "The woman was pure evil, she literally had no heart."
"She had a heart!" Regina roared. "A heart that would be beating in her chest right now if it hadn't been cursed by her."
Regina squeezed Snow's heart still harder so that she gasped for breath.
"She regrets it!" Emma hurled at her, leaning to support more of Snow's weight as she sagged. "She regretted it enough to come to you and offer her life in return as payment. That's more remorse than you've ever shown for the many lives you've taken."
Regina loosened her hold on the heart in her hand and Snow gulped air back into her lungs, regaining her own posture. For a moment, Emma thought her frank reasoning had had some kind of hopeful effect, but one look at Regina's dark, raging face told her she was wrong. Regardless she did not have any time to react.
Involuntarily, Snow felt herself whirl around and pluck a sword leaning on the wall beside her. She gasped at the movement she could not stop as she felt her body betray her and point it at Emma. The entire room froze, Snow struggling to lower her weapon, but something outside her control kept her arm raised and taught. The two women looked at each other, eyes wide.
"Emma, run!" Snow begged, wishing with everything she had that Emma would leave her and flee the vault and not look back. Instead, Emma braced herself, a determined resolve setting into her expression as Regina cackled a malicious laugh.
"What do you say, ladies," she hissed, holding Snow's heart in front of her. "Shall we dance?"
Out of her control, Snow lunged forward with the blade of her sword, and Emma only dodged it just in time. She ducked and swung around, grabbing a sword of her own from the shelf and raising it protectively to catch Snow's blade as it came down again. There was the loud cry of metal on metal as Snow's sword came within inches of her daughter's face.
While Snow's face displayed nothing but fear and shame and disgust as she battled with the control Regina held over her, her body continued to slash expertly. Emma, a novice swordsman at best, was barely able to keep the advances at bay. She struggled to defend herself while simultaneously not putting Snow in danger, and as Regina forced Snow's viciousness to increase, it became a struggle she began to lose. She backed her way around the room, attempting to get some distance and a moment to breathe and devise some kind of strategy, but Snow's forced attack left little time for thought. Emma felt herself draining, her concussion pulsing in her head as her defenses began to slip. She felt Snow's blade nick her skin a few times and she hissed as she spun away, bringing her sword up to block the next swipe and trying to keep the pain out of her voice for the sake of her mother's desperate, guilty expression.
Emma's knowledge of swordplay may have been inferior, but her instincts were honed and sharp from years of self-protection in the system. As Snow lunged forward, nearly slicing the side of Emma's neck open, Emma's self-protective instincts kicked in. She dodged the blow and simultaneously grabbed a firm hold of her mother's wrist. In one swift movement, she had her pinned against the wall of hearts, red lights beating all around her, her sword at Snow's throat. Snow took in a sharp breath and Emma froze, terrified what she had almost done.
"That's one way this could end," Regina mused from behind them. "If you don't kill her, I will make her kill you. The choice is yours, Ms. Swan."
Snow's eyes were glossy and pleading. Do it, she mouthed, unable to add voice to the words, begging her daughter with every fiber of her being. But Emma released her grip on the hilt and the sword dropped to the ground with a clatter.
"Like I said," Regina sighed, "the choice is yours."
The queen flicked the heart in her hand, and Snow instantly stabbed her sword into Emma's gut. A pained, devastated cry escaped her lips as she did so, tears bubbling into her eyes as the blade slid through her daughter's flesh. Emma choked from the impact, her breath catching from the sudden pain and her eyes wide. Regina forced Snow to keep the blade inside for a long moment, during which Snow could do nothing save look into her daughter's eyes as she watched some of the light drift out of them.
Emma began to stumble, and Regina forced Snow to whip her daughter around so that her back was now to the wall. Emma slid slowly to the ground, her breathing shallow and unsteady as she clutched the wound at her side. Snow's blade came to her throat, its wielder crying in earnest at what she'd been forced to do. Again, Regina forced her to freeze. For a moment, the room hung in silence.
"Look at her, Snow," Regina purred as she paced closer to her stepdaughter. "Look at what you've done to your own flesh and blood."
Snow's body was visibly shaking, wracked with sobs, but she was forced to stand firm, her blade against her daughter's throat by Regina's control on her heart.
"She's dying," Regina sneered. "She bleeding out right in front of you. Oh, look at the pain she's in." A soft bubble of blood burst from Emma's lips as she gasped what breath she had left. "Should we let her lie there and die slowly and painfully?" Regina's grasp tautened and Snow's sword pressed further up against Emma's neck, forcing her to suck in her breath and raised her chin. "Or should we end her suffering?"
"Stop!" a small voice cried out and the three women in the vault turned their attention to its source. Emma's heart skipped a beat. Henry stood at the bottom of the staircase that led to the tomb above. His face was pale but determined as he looked from Emma to Snow to Regina. The entire room froze.
"Henry?" Emma whimpered. She sat up, the pain in her side dulled in the presence of her son in danger, but she felt the knife blade at her throat prick the skin as she spoke. "What are you doing here?"
"Henry, look away," Regina bid him, trying to keep the ferocity in her voice when really it was in danger of cracking. This was not what she wanted. She had not meant for him to see. Truth be told, she had been banishing him from her mind throughout the entirety of the events, keeping his sad, moral face at bay as she sought her vengeance in spite of how it would rip his life apart.
"Henry, get out of here, now!" Emma said in a panicked voice, making to rise, but Snow was forced to place a foot on her injured daughter to keep her down. Emma grunted in pain and another spurt of blood pierced from her lips.
"Mom, make her stop!" Henry said, darting forward until a flash of his adoptive mother's magic, swept him back so that he stumbled.
"I said look away, Henry," Regina hissed.
"You do NOT use magic on him!" Emma roared, rage surging through her and giving her a strength to stand, needing to protect her son. She barely made it to a standing position before Snow's blade bore down on her still closer, silent tears cascading down her face as she unsuccessfully attempted to fight the unbeatable force the propelled her actions.
"How much?" Henry's high-pitched voice asked desperately as he righted himself.
"How much what?" Regina asked, confused.
"Everything has a price, right?" Henry said. Emma swallowed hard. "That's what you always taught me. What's the price? How much for their lives to be spared? What do you want for them?"
"There's nothing left in this world that I want," Regina spat bitterly. "Nothing but revenge."
"That's not true," came Henry's voice, cracked and trembling, but strong as he pulled together every ounce of courage he could muster, preparing to make his bargain. "There's still something in this world you want."
"And what's that?" Regina challenged.
"Me."
The room hovered in a shocked silence in the wake of the bargain. Emma and Regina both regarded Henry, and even Snow's mouth parted slightly from where she stood with her sword at Emma's throat, unable to move.
"I'll make a deal with you," Henry offered.
"Henry," Emma whispered desperately, "no."
"You give Snow back her heart and let her and Emma live," Henry continued, "and I'll go with you. Anywhere. You can take me to any world you like, and I live there with you."
Regina stepped towards her son, and a flash of fear ripped through Emma.
"You stay away from him!" she threatened. In a burst of maternal instinct, she shoved her mother back from her and briefly averted the blade at her throat. With one flick of the heart in Regina's hand, Snow threw Emma backwards and pressed her up against the wall, wrapping the fingers of one hand around her neck and pressing the blade against it with the other.
"Stop!" Snow pleaded through her tears of disgust and guilt.
"What do you say?" Henry asked loudly over the commotion.
"I let them live, and you'll come with me," Regina said slowly, a dangerous desire in her voice. "Anywhere?"
Henry's eyes flickered to meet Emma's, and in them Emma saw his terrified resolve. It nearly broke her heart. Then he returned his gaze to his mother.
"Anywhere," he agreed. He stuck out his small hand and took a deep breath. "Do we have a deal?"
Regina took one final step, and she was next to her son. Emma saw her marveling at him, and a strong protective surge shot through her, but Snow caught her as she made to struggle her way free, her face distorted by devastation as her body betrayed her own blood. Regina glanced up at the pair of them, a genuine smile on her face. Then she looked back at her son, eyes swimming in happy tears.
"Deal," she confirmed.
Regina allowed Snow's heart to tumble from her palm to the ground as she took Henry's outstretched hand and shook. Emma felt her mother fall away from her, her self-control restored. Emma's first maternal instinct was to lunge for her son, to physically put herself between him and the woman about to take him away, but already a violet haze had begun to rise around the pair, still joined by their handshake. Instead she crumbled to the ground, and was blearily grateful that her loss of blood took her consciousness from her, for she could not have felt a pain any greater than as she watched the sad, apologetic but determined face of her son, who pierced her with a final, parting glance, evaporate from before her eyes in a puff of purple smoke.
Damn. That was really sad. I planned it in my head, but I didn't realize how sad it was until I wrote it. The only solace I can offer is that this definitely isn't the end of the story. You and I both know Emma would do anything to protect her son. Stay tuned!