I have been ordered to warn for tornadoes, so here's your trigger warning. Tiny little tornado in this chapter. Maybe two. Oh! Also some cutting/bloodletting. Also, some other stuff y'all might have been waiting for. :)
I won't be around at all next weekend so the next chapter might be a bit late, but I'll try to keep as close to schedule as I can!
"This way. Stand still," Zelena orders them. "Put your weapons down." They don't budge. Zelena waves her free hand and Emma's crossbow and Regina's gun both come flying out of their grips and land behind Zelena.
They've been marched out of the house, Henry still in Zelena's grasp, and Regina has been staring at her with horrified recognition and dangerous fury. "Zelena," she breathes again.
"You know her?" Emma murmurs, eyeing the witch as she inspects the ground around them. It's a flat area of the field, cleared out of dead grass and with a circle carved into the dirt between them.
Regina glares at Zelena with renewed force. "I do. She's supposed to be dead."
"You're supposed to be dead," Zelena says, shaking her head. "You have no idea what I thought…and then I realized. I always knew that Emma would be a part of this, but until today, I had no third ingredient." She drops her grasp on Henry and gives him a shove to them.
They catch him together, Emma wrapped around Henry and Regina wrapped around them both, and he trembles against them. "Mom. Ma. She grabbed me on the road. The horse just stopped moving and–"
"Shh," Regina murmurs, stroking his hair. "Shh, it's okay, honey."
"We got you," Emma whispers, and turns back to Zelena. "Ingredient," she repeats. "If you hurt our son, I'll–"
"Oh, calm down," Zelena says, rolling her eyes. There's a manic energy to her now that Emma had never seen when they'd been at the Dark Castle. Anticipation and desperation mingled with a touch of madness, and it's so familiar that Emma shivers with recognition. Regina. It's the Evil Queen presiding over an execution while Emma watches from the shadows. It's the Evil Queen sticking a knife into Snow's belly and grinning all the way through it. "I'm not going to kill any of you," she says. "I just need a little blood."
"You're not going anywhere near–" Regina's cut off mid-snarl as vines spring from the earth, winding around them and forcibly shoving them apart. Emma struggles as they constrict around her arms and legs, suspending her in midair, and Henry reaches for her but can't get close enough. Regina screams, wild and impotent, and she angles her head forward as much as she can to her chained wrist and bites and bites at the cuff until her wrist is bruising purple.
Henry looks frightened. "Mom, no. It's okay. She isn't going to hurt us, she said. Mom, please."
"Regina," Emma says sharply, and Regina falls silent, still wild-eyed.
Zelena says, "The sort of spell I need to summon that girl is a bit of a trick." She circles them, unsheathing a knife and twitching her fingers to maneuver the vines. "She has Mother's shoes."
"Mother," Regina repeats in a low tone. "She isn't your–"
"Oh, but she is." Zelena smiles pleasantly at her. "You were more fun with your memories." Regina glowers. Zelena crouches down to inspect her circle in the dirt. "She has Mother's shoes, which means that she could pop in and pop out. What I needed is to develop a spell with enough power over her that she would have no choice but to stay for my vengeance."
She gestures at the circle. Regina says with recognition, "Hallowed ground. It'll keep a spell for as long as–"
"As long as the blood remains in the earth," Zelena finishes, smiling coolly. "And I've made some adjustments to the town line so earth in this case will only hold all of Storybrooke. Dorothy has nowhere to run."
She beckons and Emma is tugged forward, suspended over the dirt circle. "The Cowardly Lion," Zelena murmurs, parting her fingers to slice a cut into her palm. Emma grits her teeth at the pain, refusing to scream as the blood drips into the circle. "All that time, that insipid second-guessing. 'Regina doesn't love me,'" she says in a sing-song voice. "'Regina cast the curse.'" She leans forward, fingers biting into Emma's bloody hand. "We took your courage to believe long ago."
"Took my…" Regina had said it and Emma had wanted to believe it, believe that it had been something artificial and wrong with her, and only now does she finally have that confirmation.
"And all those baby steps forward for dear Regina." Zelena looks both irritated and oddly pleased at that. "Courage isn't like the other traits. It can be reclaimed when it's taken, though it's quite rare. I was beginning to worry that we'd run out of time."
"What the hell does that mean," Emma grits out.
Zelena blows her a kiss and the vines tug Emma back into the brambles again. When Henry is the next to be pulled out, Emma fights and fights until she's gasping for breath and lightheaded from blood loss and terror, and Regina is shouting again. "I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL–"
"The Scarecrow," Zelena intones. "The boy without his mind."
"You keep saying that," Henry says dumbly. "Why do you keep saying that?"
Zelena cuts his hand with care, and Emma screams too, flailing until she's half-strangled by the vines and wrapped so tightly that she can't move at all. When she finally stops struggling, it's to see a green glow around Henry's hand as Zelena heals him.
"Thank you," he says carefully. Zelena's eyes flicker to a still-struggling Regina again and for a moment she almost looks regretful and guilty in the face of Regina's fury. She jerks her finger and yanks Regina forward at last, Henry retreating until he's suspended only a few feet from Emma. "The Tin Man," he says. "That's who's left."
Regina glares at Zelena. "You screwed this up," she snaps. "I'm not the one who has…whatever you tried to do to me. My heart is still intact."
"I crushed your heart with my bare hands and sent us to another land," Zelena corrects her sleekly. "Your heart is gone. You weren't supposed to be alive." She plunges a hand through the vines and into Regina's chest, seizing her heart as Regina chokes. Emma feels a corresponding pain deep in her chest, and she gasps out Regina's name as Zelena raises the heart.
"You see?" she says, and she's looking at Emma. She moves so quickly that Emma can't even think to resist when her own heart is taken out, and all four of them gasp at once.
Hearts are magic, Emma knows that. But Emma's seen hearts– seen her own heart– and she knows how they're meant to look. And the two hearts in Zelena's hands are very clearly halves.
"You split your heart before I could cast the curse," Zelena says wonderingly, eyeing the two pieces with something akin to envy. "You gave Regina half of your heart to keep her alive. What a foolish, altruistic thing to do." She slams both halves back into their respective owners.
Regina is trembling, still furious about Henry but calming at last, and she turns to meet Emma's eyes. Emma nods slowly. She doesn't know how, doesn't know what they must have done to– She'd given Regina her heart. That's why it hasn't stopped feeling wrong. That's why it's quiet around Regina. All this time, she'd thought that Regina had–
"I'm sorry," she whispers, and reaches for her in a futile stretch.
Zelena cuts Regina's palm, too, and the blood that dots the circle begins to glow with green energy. She steps away, watching as the energy builds and builds until it's whirling in circles, around and around like a tiny tornado that seems to grow as it builds toward the heavens. It hurls Regina back toward Emma and Henry, fraying the vines the hold her with its sheer force, and Emma's eyes flicker to them only briefly as the storm builds.
"There's no place like home, Dorothy!" Zelena shouts gleefully, raising her hands to the sky in anticipation. The sky is turning grey above them, bits of dust and grass trapped in the twisting wind, and green meets grey and spreads out to cover them all.
Dirt is raining down on top of them, debris being sucked into the tornado and falling to hit them, and Emma squirms in a futile attempt to shield Regina and Henry from it. Regina twists her hands and twists and twists, the vines fraying more, but she doesn't move yet.
The storm grows louder and louder until it's at a deafening roar and even Zelena's laughter can only be seen, not heard. She's gazing into the storm as though it contains all her hopes and dreams, and even Emma is watching the tornado as it clears up with breathless curiosity at what it is that Zelena is so drawn to.
And then–
The sky clears up first, and then the wind follows. The tornado begins to shrink, smaller and smaller and tighter and tighter, and they're all leaning forward in their vined prison, craning their necks as they stare at the circle in front of them.
It's empty.
Zelena howls in frustration and storms to them. "You three! You did something!" She grabs Emma by the chin, yanking her forward. Regina's hands move almost imperceptibly. "Your courage! No, it can't be. She said–"
"Glinda?" Regina says, frowning fiercely. "Glinda said?" She shakes her head, disappointment in her stance. "You're taking your cues from Glinda now, aren't you."
Zelena sneers at her. "You have no idea what you're talking about."
"I know that Dorothy's dead," Regina says quietly. Zelena scoffs. Regina murmurs, "I met her once. She still has Mother's shoes. And Rumple tore out her heart in Neverland."
"No." Zelena looks furious. "No, you're lying. You're lying!" she snarls, louder and more desperate than she's been yet. She spins around, letting Emma go as her eyes fall onto Henry. "You," she snaps. "Your memories weren't enough of a loss."
Henry lets out a noise in protest but he's already spinning forward, the vines jerking him closer as Zelena backs up, flipping the knife into her hands. "I'll cut out your brain," she says, voice dangerous and melodious.
Regina moves.
Emma expects it to be at Zelena, a whirl of unstoppable maternal power, and she's taken aback when Regina instead yanks herself free of the vines and takes five defiant steps until she's standing in front of Emma. "Regina?" Emma says, glancing over to where Zelena is frozen in startled response, Henry still held captive above her.
"I love you," Regina says, and darts forward to kiss her.
The magic starts low in Emma's stomach like nothing before. She's always been wary of magic but she's never experienced it, not as anything so tangible as heat and warmth and love, and it rolls through her whole body now like a song. The energy of it is enough that it should have thrown Regina away from her, should have made Emma stumble backward as though she'd been slapped, but instead it seems to envelop them both in comfort and reject anything that would stop the kiss.
And Regina, of course, tastes like all the things that make up the magic flooding through her. Regina is hope and love and faith, is magic and is right, and kissing Regina is coming home after a very long day.
It takes nearly the duration of the kiss for Emma to remember what they're doing here and why, what temporary power the magic– the true love's kiss, she thinks, and sets that revelation aside for now– has given her. She reaches out with a hand no longer chained by vines and, very swiftly, removes the cuff from Regina's wrist.
Regina pulls away from her and stares at her for a moment, and Emma breathes out and remembers at last. Nine months. Nine months of fighting, of searching, of struggling to come to terms with each other. Nine months of desperately longing for Henry and of unpacking all their baggage to learn how to love each other again. Nine months of Zelena being…Zelena, of loyal friends and new allies and the mystery of Henry's theft revealed. Nine months and a curse and a shared heart and–
"Oh, happy days," Zelena says distractedly, and when they twist around, it's to see the circle glowing again, the tornado forming anew as though it had been recharged by their kiss. Henry is prone on the ground, looking dazed and barely conscious.
Regina starts forward toward Zelena and Emma yanks her back by the shoulder. "Wait!"
"She tried to–"
"Wait," Emma repeats forcefully. The storm is growing once more, and this time, someone is flickering in and out of sight within it. "Not yet. It'll blow off your limbs." She fumbles for the knife she's sure she has concealed in her pant leg and Regina conjures a fireball with a happy sigh.
"I missed you," she says almost dreamily to the fireball, her rage forgotten for the moment. It's definitely more romantic than their true-fucking-love's kiss had been, and Emma opens her mouth to object as the tornado blinks out of existence and leaves a woman behind.
For all the fuss over Dorothy, Emma had expected her to be…taller, maybe. More dangerous-looking. Not a woman about her age in a grey jacket and odd black heels, squinting out at them as she shades her eyes from the sun. She's holding a contraption in her hand and glaring at it as a red light blinks back at her. "Fucking unreliable magic blocker," she mutters, blinking around at them. "How much energy did you take to summon–" She pauses as she takes in Zelena. "Zelena."
"Dorothy." For all the mania that had preceded the summons, Zelena is remarkably calm now that Dorothy is finally there. "My sister said Rumple killed you," Zelena says, her eyes narrowing.
"He thought he did. He also thought he was communing with his girlfriend in the middle of the jungle. Not the most reliable of sources. Sister?" Dorothy repeats. "Who's your sister, that pirate chick?"
"Hardly," Zelena sniffs. "My sister is a queen."
"Oh. That queen. Yikes." Dorothy moves forward in a blur of brown and grey, kicking the air with the kind of grace that had before now been reserved only for Mulan.
Zelena is thrown backward, glaring up at Dorothy with a bloody lip. "You betrayed me! I was your friend and you–"
"You were a tyrant," Dorothy informs her, removing something from her pocket. It looks a bit like the tv remote that Emma had used the night before, but when Dorothy fiddles with it, it begins to spark at the ends. "I rescued Winkie Country from you and your unholy magic." A ripple of disgust runs through her. "All I did was return Oz to the balance it needed."
"You betrayed me," Zelena snarls, a blast of magic hurling Dorothy away from her.
"Yeah, because every kid wants to hang with the Wicked Witch of the West and barely manage to escape intact! How dare I," Dorothy says mockingly, and there's a quiver to her lip that looks only like fear. "How dare a kid fight for herself in your fucking power struggles. I was traumatized for months after. If the Home Office hadn't found me, I don't think I would have survived Oz at all." She clenches her fists. "And I can defend myself now."
She moves swiftly, and this time, Zelena isn't fast enough to stop the remote when Dorothy thrusts it at her. It catches her in the chest and reverberates, sending wave of wave of energy into Zelena until Zelena is shaking as though she's having a seizure. "You're never going to touch me again," Dorothy snaps, and there are angry tears in her eyes. "The Wizard was right. You were never my friend."
She clicks a button on the remote again and the shaking intensifies until there's a blast of fire and the whole thing goes up in flames. Zelena hits the ground and vanishes into a cloud of green smoke, her eyes unfocused and wild, and Dorothy twists around to follow the path of the fireball to Regina.
Regina says, "You," and it's with muted loathing, resentment contained with disbelief.
"Well, this is awkward," Dorothy says, eyeing Regina as though she's another threat to be eliminated, and she clicks her heels together thrice and disappears.
Emma exhales for what feels like the first time in hours. "Where did she go?"
"Still hunting Zelena," Regina says tersely. "That's my guess. She didn't seem willing to give up this time. I don't know if Zelena was all that prepared for…well, Tamara."
"Tamara?"
"That's how I knew her. I don't know which was her real name." Regina steps around the circle, heading toward Henry. "She was Neal's fiancé."
"The one who shot him?"
"Tortured me. Kidnapped Henry." Regina crouches down. "I hadn't thought I'd ever see her again, let alone that she had history with my sister." She says my sister still with that regretful cadence, Regina with her memories of the year before still drawn to Zelena. "I don't know which of them is the villain or victim here."
"Both?" Emma suggests.
"Perhaps." Henry is beginning to stir in her arms, and Regina kisses him gently on the forehead. "Wake up, sweetheart. We have to get you home."
For a breathless moment, Henry blinks up at Regina in confusion, and Emma can't tell if he's recovered his memories. And then his face splits into a beaming smile and he says, "Mom!" and throws his arms around her. It's different than before, more weight and love behind it, and Regina holds him tight and kisses him again and again until he's batting her away from his cheeks and laughing. "Mom," he says again. "I remember…"
His voice trails off.
Regina loosens her grip on him, gently turning him around as he raises his gaze to find Emma, and his eyes are wide, his voice laden with wonder. "Ma?" he whispers.
And it couldn't compare, when they'd been two strangers getting to know each other. It can't compare now that they're a different kind of stranger, now that this is Henry who's spent his whole life mourning her and wondering about her and with memories of her as indistinct as the last bits of magic still coursing through her. It can't compare to the way she's crying now with relief at this boy who knows her, who's wanted her all along even when she'd only been a picture in a very inaccurate book.
This is Henry who knows magic and love and all the stories of his missing mother, and there's no more tension when he's running to her and launching himself into her arms as though he's been made for them. She spins in place, her fingers digging into his skin, and she laughs and laughs and laughs until there are helpless tears everywhere and her son is tight in her arms, crying with her.
Regina watches them with nothing but bare affection in her eyes, and Emma catches her gaze and beckons her forward. Henry melts into them both, Mom! Ma! and for the first time in over a decade, Emma thinks, We're going to be okay.
Mulan catches them before they leave the farmhouse, hugging Emma tight when she sees her and then embracing a very startled Regina, who looks rather gratified by the affection. "We were worried when we saw the storm, but then our memories broke and we thought you had it under control," she teases, nudging Emma. "True love's kiss, huh? Now I remember all those days perched at Regina's bedside."
Emma smirks at her, unfazed. "Oh, and do you also remember Lancelot kissing you?"
Mulan flushes, darting a glance to where Henry and Lancelot are talking animatedly by the horses. "Not now, Emma." She peers around. "What happened to Zelena?"
"She started up with the wrong friend," Emma offers. She glances over at Regina. "Shouldn't we…don't we have to go bail her out?" Zelena has a limitless amount of free passes from Regina, it seems sometimes, and Emma's grown accustomed to it.
Regina shrugs wearily. "Eventually she'll come to me. I know she's still…" She waves vaguely into the setting sun. "I can sense her moving around. She can take care of herself for now." She reaches for Emma's hand and grasps it firmly. "I have other family to be with tonight."
And she does, once they make their hurried phone calls to Snow and some of the others who are demanding answers. Regina does the bare minimum and then refuses to speak to anyone else who isn't in the house with them.
Henry sits between them, alternating between breathless descriptions of New York and demanding the same of the Enchanted Forest from them both. They order something called pizza and Regina makes what seems like a rare exception to let them eat it on the couch, all three of them reluctant to be separated even by chairs at a table.
Henry's hand is tight on Emma's and Emma can't breathe at how simple it is, her son who looks at her as though she's a revelation as she looks at him the same. And Regina watches both of them with so much love in her eyes that Emma's heart skips a beat for the first time since they'd kissed. "Tell me about what you were doing in the other world," Henry begs.
"Slaying ogres, mostly," Emma says, and Henry's eyes round. "Breaking into the Dark Castle. Not getting turned into a flying monkey. Hanging out with your buddy Aziz."
"You made me go to junior high," Henry whines in disbelief at Regina. Regina lays her head against the back of the couch and her arm around his shoulder, and Emma slides her own arm over so she can stroke Regina's hair. "I was doing math and Aziz was fighting ogres!"
"I didn't want you to have the brainpower of an ogre," Regina says fondly. "Last slice of pizza?" She points at the open box on the coffee table and Henry and Emma both make a mad dash for it, their hands bumping against each other as they seize opposite ends of it.
"You had three pieces already!" Henry accuses.
"I spent the day fighting off Zelena's horde of flying monkeys and some killer vines! I'm hungry!"
"Ma," Henry implores. "I spent ten years waiting to meet you." His eyes are sincere, almost wet with tears, and Emma blinks away some of her own in response until he finishes his argument. "Why are you gonna sour that up tonight by stealing the last piece of pizza?"
"I was going to suggest we put it in the fridge," Regina says. Two outraged glares are turned on her. "Or…you could battle over it like a pair of hyenas. I suppose Emma can't be helped, but Henry…" She shakes her head in mock regret. "One year with Prince Charming over there and you've turned into a caveman. I can't say I'm surprised."
Henry gets the pizza after reproachful scowls at both of them, and it isn't long before he's curled up between them again, this time quiet as they murmur back and forth.
"I'm sorry," Emma blurts out again. "I know that I didn't remember but…I'm sorry for making you doubt yourself." She'd been doubting everyone, herself included, but Regina had suffered most for it. She bites back revulsion at how sorely she'd failed them all, how much they'd hurt when they hadn't needed to anymore. Never again. She trusts Regina now, and that's never going to change again.
Regina musses up Henry's hair as his head lands on her shoulder, his eyes half-closed. "You didn't know," she says. "It made sense at the time. And apparently, someone strained all the courage to believe out of you." Emma strains to remember how once again. And this time, she comes up with one memory.
She's standing in the woods and fairy-kindness is sluggish in her veins, altering her perceptions as the Blue Fairy hacks away at them. And after that confrontation, she'd stopped believing that she and Regina could ever have a future together.
She doesn't mention it now, not when they're all so happy and they don't need to think about any of it. Not Zelena, not Tamara-Dorothy, not the Blue Fairy making plans that might include them all. Tomorrow. Tomorrow they can worry about the fate of the world.
"And you still gave me your heart," Regina is saying, awestruck. "You still…with someone actively taking that faith from you, you still…"
"I love you," Emma says simply. Hadn't it been as easy as that?
Henry mumbles, "You're both such dorks. Love you too," he adds before Emma can demand to know what a dork is, and his eyes are finally drifting closed. Emma leans over to press a tentative kiss to his temple, and Regina nudges him until he climbs up the stairs with her to his bedroom.
Emma sits alone on the couch and…she doesn't know quite how to describe it, this bubble of peace rising within her, but what's more unexpected is the way the tears slide out of her eyes again, againagainagain, she's spent too much time crying today. She balls her hands into fists and scrubs at her eyes with her knuckles, and she's smiling so hard she thinks she might burst at the exhilaration and the utter devastation warring within her.
She's lost so much.
She's found so much.
A lifetime of scraping away at their happy endings, and Emma's never found ecstasy until tonight, surrounded by her family and so much love that she can still hardly believe that it's real. This is what she's been fighting for. This is victory, even if there are still more battles to come.
She stops trying to stop the tears and lets them run over her fists instead. She's always guarded her smile until now, wary of letting it free when there's still so much hurt to come, but today she surrenders and beams, so bright that it has her even more teary-eyed than before.
And then, a hand on her shoulder, and a glass extended to her. "Cider?" Regina suggests, her own eyes a little wet as she regards Emma.
"No," Emma says, and Regina's brow furrows until Emma rises in a rush of euphoria and hauls Regina into her arms like she's weightless, Regina laughing helplessly as Emma staggers forward.
She sets the glass down and strokes Emma's biceps, slow and tantalizing. "Even these arms can't manage me up the stairs," she warns her. Her hands go to Emma's cheeks and this kiss is like a rush of blood to Emma's head, dizzying, intoxicating, loving.
Emma makes a good go of it but they both give up halfway up the stairs and it's so…fun, god. They're kissing their way up the stairs and they're stumbling and tripping into each other and Emma can't stop laughing, not even once they finally make it into the master bedroom and Regina is tugging at the skin of her stomach with tiny bites. Not even once she's peaking and once Regina's tumbling over her own edges and they're locked together with boundless energy, wanting nothing more than to give each other all they have.
And they're both laughing and they're crying and it's so different, looking into Regina's eyes and seeing only wonder, hearing the stilted sentences they can't quite get out of is this–? are we–? and the unspoken can this really last? that shines and glows between them as strong as the multicolored magic that had broken the curse. And Emma kisses Regina and tastes salt and sweetness and forever, all wrapped together in a package she'd never dreamed could be theirs.
She wakes up an hour later to the sound of clicking heels and a low, "Emma Swan?"
She covers herself in a rush and sits up, a hand reaching to Regina's shoulder to rouse her.
Tamara presses a finger to her lips and Emma hesitates mid-touch. "Emma Swan," she says again. "We need to talk."