Notes: I'm so sorry it's been so long since my last update. I moved, I got a new job, started a new university, crashed on sofas, found an apartment, and tried to remember how to live in the US again. It's been wild.

I think I'm in a good place now, so fingers crossed that updates should be more regular. Thank you for your patience and support, especially those who sent messages of encouragement, that meant the world to me.

"Mom?"

Fire roared around her, nearly drowning out the small voice beside her. The fire even lapped at her feet, her arms, but it didn't matter. Even cursed fire could do nothing to her. Fire was part of her nature.

Lily didn't know that, or maybe she can't believe. Snatching her hand back from the fire, she held it to her chest, desperately checking for injuries. Mal reached for her, grabbed her wrist and then pulled her in tight to her chest.

"It can't burn you," she promised. Lily resisted, pulling back, trying to get away and Mal's heart ached. She wouldn't hold her against her will, but she needed Lily not to panic, to be still so they can work this out.

Licking at their feet, the fire surged around them, but it was a pitiful blaze and couldn't hurt them. Cursed fire couldn't hurt dragons, but Lily hadn't grown up with her. Lily had been with humans, who taught her to be afraid. Mal couldn't protect her from her fear and nothing about her can make her immune to that.

"It's all right," she whispered, over and over, to the child she never held when she was small. Lily held herself rigid, but softened in her arms.

"Is this real?" Lily asked, as if Mal too was part of the nightmare. She didn't pull away, and Mal's heart relaxed a little.

"We're cursed," Mal said, dragging her eyes from Lily's face to search the room. "Sleeping curses send the cursed souls here, this is the netherworld."

"So you know about this place?"

"I never intended to be here myself," Mal answered, studying the endless mirrors of fire. "I have sent people here."

Pulling her hands from Mal's back, Lily shuddered but didn't pull away from the fire. It lapped at her feet, hungry and impotent. She didn't believe, but she'd listened. She held one hand against her chest and fidgeted with her sleeve. "You did?"

Mal held her hand towards Lily, offering her fingers. "I am the scary dragon bitch."

"Right." Lily squeezed her hand when she took it, smiling a little at Mal's fingers. "So, we're cursed. How do we get out? Do we get out?"

Sighing with enough force that the flames fled her vicinity, Mal met Lily's dark eyes and thought of Regina. What would she do, faced with two sleeping dragons and no conceivable way of waking them? True love was ephemeral and wearily defined. Sometimes it was sacrifice, sometimes pure determination, and though Mal had no doubt that they were both loved by their little nest, she had no way of knowing how that would fit into the rules of the spell.

"True love's kiss," Mal answered, wishing she had something more concrete.

Lily furrowed her eyebrows and shook her head. "Like with Snow White and Charming in the book?"

"Yes, unfortunately." Looking past Lily's head, Mal calculated the size of the room. Even if she could shift into dragon form, her other body would barely fit inside of the burning little cube. Fantasizing about smashing the room to pieces made her smile, but it was unlikely that that would be the outcome.

"So we're here until someone kisses us?" Lily took a step, but stopped, unwilling to break the connection of their hands. She looked over the mirrored wall, suppressing a shudder. "You don't have some long lost true love out there?"

"My true love is in here, dear, and though I appreciate the company, it makes it more complicated to get out." Mal took a step towards the wall, taking Lily with her to search the limits of their prison. They followed the glass, ignoring the fire. Mal ran her hand through it, toying with it. The flaming curtains were overdone, completely tacky, and yet somehow indestructible as the fire continued to burn.

Lily walked with her, staying by her side. She looked across shyly, meeting Mal's gaze before looking away. "I'm your true love?"

"You're my daughter."

"That's how it worked for Henry, Emma and Regina," Lily said, stopping them in the corner. She stared at the curtain, losing her train of thought. "This isn't burning up."

Mal lifted the hideous curtain and nodded. "It is burning, but it will not burn up. A shame, really."

"Time doesn't pass here, does it? The curtains keep burning, and we just-" Lily dropped Mal's hand and reached for the curtain, taking it even though the fire. Her fingers hesitated only for a moment before they took the cloth alongside Mal's hand. "We just stay here?"

"Regina, Emma and Henry will work something out," Mal promised, turning the velvet in her hand so Lily could see how it continued to burn without scorching or turning to ash. "Our nest is creative."

"Can Regina kiss me, and then I could kiss you? She's my mom too, would that work?"

Mal dropped the curtain and touched Lily's shoulder. "Perhaps that is what they will try. Perhaps someone will drop in and speak to us."

Lily stopped playing with the curtain. "We get visitors in purgatory?"

"The Netherworld, and yes. Anyone who's been here before visits again in their dreams, sometimes they don't remember, or they won't be aware of it." Mal tugged the curtain aside to study at the wall, just to make sure there weren't any weakness that she had missed. It was smooth glass brick, perfect in the way it only could be through magic.

"So we're stuck here, indefinitely, where time's not passing, and we might get people who see us but don't remember we're here?" Lily looked at the curtain one more time then tugged it down. Fire and velvet crashed around them and it kept burning, and not burning, in a heap on the floor. "Sorry."

"Pull down the rest," Mal suggested, folding her arms over her chest. "It improves the decor."

"So we don't get hungry?" Lily asked, leaning back against a heap of burning curtains. With them all down in the center of the room, the walls were less ominous, only featureless glass brick that reflected the fire behind them.

"Or tired, or thirsty," Mal answered, unraveling the edge of the curtain and watching the curse put it back together again. "The Netherworld isn't a world, it's just a place between, a holding place. Years could have gone by."

Lily sat up, turning to her, surprised. "Years? But Emma and Regina, the baby-"

"I doubt years have truly passed," Mal promised her. "It's possible, but somewhat unlikely. We were cursed in the middle of a fireworks show and landed in the lake, in dragon form. That's not easy to miss."

Pondering that, Lily sat up, staring at her hands. "So they know, and they just haven't saved us yet?"

"They will save us."

"I know," Lily agreed, finding a tiny smile. "It's just-"

Sliding across the floor, Mal put an arm around her shoulder. "We will be rescued, of that I have no doubt. Emma and Regina will save us."

"Is that weird for you? My other mom and, well, I guess my step-mom coming to save us."

Mal chuckled, then patted Lily's knee. "I don't think it's wise to complain about being saved, in whatever form it comes."

Lily watched her hand, then looked up, the fire reflecting in her eyes. "But is it weird?"

"Weird in what way?"

"You loved Regina-" Lily started and Mal nodded.

Might as well pass the time letting Lily find out everything they hadn't had time for before. "I love her still."

"But, she's with Emma now."

"And they're happy," Mal promised her, and stretched. She lay back, listening to the firey curtains crackle behind her head. "I loved Regina, and we made you. I don't begrudge her happiness with Emma."

Lily leaned over her, still full of questions. "Is that a dragon thing? Because I've totally been jealous, and I-"

"It's most likely to be more jealous in nature, I just never found that useful."

Continuing to question, Lily coaxed stories of Regina in her youth, and how she'd learned magic. For all the time they'd lost, together they had time in abundance, and there was nothing else to do. Lily told Mal of her first kiss, and how she'd spent some much time tracing the lines of her face on paper because it would never leave her thoughts.

Mal confessed her own dreams of raising Lily, teaching her to fly, and how to control her magic. She'd had a whole life for them in her mind, and not having her, had never crossed her thoughts. Dragon children were sturdy, not delicate like human babies. No childhood disease could have taken Lily from her. Lily should have been hers, and they would have been happy. They could have crossed realms, flew across oceans and mountains. The world would have been theirs entirely. Perhaps, someday, she would have even met Regina and known her mother.

Yet that was not to be. That world would not have had Emma be who she was, or Henry, or helped Regina out of her darkness. Mal would not surrender any credit to faith, for those she loved were extraordinary of their own making, not because fate had drawn them so. This timeline, however cruel, had let her daughter make wonders of herself, and Mal would not regret that. Time had been taken, but they'd been given this strange half-life and they filled it with stories.

Lily kept stopping, needing to explain things of the outside world, and she had just paused to explain that everyone had to have a piece of plastic that allowed them to drive a car (which sounded terribly tedious) but that she'd struggled to get hers, and her foster mom (one of the good ones), had been trying to teach her-

Aurora appeared, shimmering in her pink pajamas, standing before them, cowering from the fire. They only saw her for an instant, half a breath, before she was gone again. Lily got to her feet, reaching for her, but she had disappeared.

"Was that-?"

"That's Aurora dreaming," Mal said, smiling up at the featureless ceiling that hid the real world. "We'll might even see her again, if she remembers that she saw us."

"But the fire, won't it hurt her?"

Conceding that Lily was right with a nod, Mal helped her drag the burning curtains to the far corner and they stood together in the middle of the room, studying the flames that came from nowhere. "We'll push them back."

"Push them back?"

"It's cursed fire, dear, it's not even real. You and I, we are fire. We can bend this to our will."

"Maybe yours," Lily muttered, staring at her feet. She lifted her hands to meet her mother's, but her shoulders remained hunched.

"Our will, Lily, is much stronger than mine alone. This fire, is nothing. It can't even burn you. It's so weak that it doesn't even deserve to exist here, with us. We can send it away, to the nothingness that brought it into being." Between their fingertips, magic crackled, far louder than the fire. "Look at me," Mal suggested, and Lily raised her eyes. "We can clear the fire."

"What will it do to the room?" Lily's magic began to surge with Mal's, growing in strength between them.

"Let's find out." After such a long time, or no time, with nothing to do, driving the fire away made warmth rise in her chest. Challenges existed to be conquered, to be driven back, and this would help protect those who came to save them.

The fire resisted for a moment, growing in strength as if it could match them, then it snapped. It turned to smoke and ash, and those damn curtains lay in a heap, wisps of smoke rising from them. The smoke stank, as if it had long been left, forgotten.

"We did it," Lily said, surprise giving way to pride. "The fire's gone."

"Instead of a burning room, we have a smoking one," Mal said, eyeing the smudged glass around them. "Should be less dangerous, at least."

Their next visitor didn't have to hide his face in his hands, and Henry remained just long enough to smile at them both before he vanished. Lily demanded to know why he'd been so quick to disappear, and Mal couldn't explain. She'd thought it would be longer, but each sleeping curse had slightly different rules, or perhaps something Regina and Emma were using to protect him kept him from staying long.

Henry came again, this time staying just long enough to hug Mal and promise that they were working on it. She held the scent of him in her memory against the smoke. Lily came to her side once he disappeared again and snuggled up. The curtains still tried to flare up occasionally, but that could easily be put out with a wave of either of their hands. The Netherworld sulked, and the bricks around them were black and soot coated. Lily constantly had soot on her face, but she allowed Mal to wipe it off with a smile.

They waited together, telling stories that they'd never meant to tell, as the mundane became all they had left to discuss. Lily even told stories of her earliest memories, of her first efforts in school and how terrible she'd been with the crayons. They always seemed to melt when she tried too hard.

"Maleficent?" The voice that broke their moment wasn't Henry, nor Aurora, but Snow White, who stood before them, insubstantial as the smoke rising from the floor. "Lily?"

"We're here," Mal replied, standing to face her. "What's happening?"

"Emma and Regina are trying to save you. True love's kiss didn't work, and-"

Mal turned, because Snow's expression had become so mournful. Lily- sweet Lily- had her lips set firm but her chin trembled.

"It's my fault-"

"No," Mal said.

"No, no," Snow echoed. "Regina thought it was her fault, that she didn't know you well enough. It took us a long time to calm her down when she couldn't save you."

Lily nodded, the weakest of bobs of her head, but she didn't believe. Mal reached for her, taking her eyes off of Snow, who fluttered- faded- flickered like dying fire.

"I-" And she was gone.

Lily didn't speak, but she let Mal hold her, and they stood, untiring, unmoving, in the room of smoke and glass.

"Just because a curse has a weird definition of love doesn't mean there's anything wrong with either of you. True love changes on the understanding of the caster, their intention. It's not your fault, never your fault. Either of you." Mal whispered into her hair, stroking Lily's head until she sighed, and the tension faded from her neck.

"Is Regina okay?"

"She's with Emma and Henry, and Snow White and her Charming care for her, she's looked after."

Looking at her for answers, Lily shook her head. "I don't get it. It worked for Emma and Henry-"

"Different caster. Regina's attempt to curse Emma was to keep her from their son. She cast it out of fear and selfishness. Parenting a child is unselfish, and requires bravery, so that broke Regina's curse. When I cursed Aurora, I was jealous and spiteful, so innocence and faith undid that curse. There's no way of knowing what was in the heart of who cursed us," she paused, and smiled, because Lily was so brave. "Sometimes love is patience, or sacrifice. We won't know until it works."

Lily shuddered, then nodded, trying to return her smile. "I always wanted to talk to you."

"Hopefully you won't be exhausted of talking to me," Mal teased, sitting down and patting the floor beside her. "Tell me about Red."

"What?" Lily's eyes grew wide. "There's nothing-"

"You know that we have nothing to do but talk in here and I can wait years for you to answer," Mal promised, tracing a finger through the ash on the floor. The fire threatened to restart again and she flicked it away. "She's kind?"

"Yeah," and then Lily's smile had a light to it. "She laughs."

"You don't laugh often," Mal mused.

Lily paced, stuffing her hands into her pockets. "It's easier to be quiet."

"But are you?"

Stopping, Lily moved her feet through the ash, drawing patterns. "I guess."

Mal let the silence fill the little room, and Lily walked a while before she settled down on the floor next to her.

"I don't know. It's easier not to be noticed, not to cause trouble."

Tapping her daughter's shoe, Mal drew her gaze. "You aren't trouble."

"I was," Lily insisted. "I had so many psychiatrists, and counselors and therapists. No one could ever fix me."

Mal bit back all of her regret and focused on Lily, now, with her. "And you wanted to be fixed?"

"I wanted to be like the other kids and know my parents were my parents, and trust that, and be happy, because they were happy. They went home happy and ran into their houses and-" Lily's long hair fell across her face and she moved it aside.

"You can run into the house all you want," Mal offered, trying to decide why that was important. "Using magic would be faster and I don't see why you wouldn't want to do that."

Lily started to giggle, then laugh, because she found some part of that funny. Later, she tried to explain, but several attempts at that pass before she gave up.

"How much time has passed?" Lily asked, tossing her feet up against the wall. She lay there, staring at the ceiling while her legs rested against the glass bricks. "Why is it so hard for them to know how long we've been here?"

"They have little control over their dreams," Mal replied, arranging lazy patterns in the stained curtains by moving the velvet with her fingertips. Their visitors were sporadic, and often couldn't come into focus, as if the connection between this part of the Netherworld was behind something that's trying to keep them away. It was almost cold without the fire, weak as it was.

"Are they okay?" Lily dropped her legs and lay on the floor, hands on her stomach. "Henry and Snow are always so worried."

"They're in the Netherworld, it's not a pleasant place. Both of them were trapped here, for what would have felt like an eternity to them. They may not have the memories, but they know."

"Sometimes you just know," Lily agreed. She lifted some of the ash into the air, spinning it over her head in a lazy spiral. She'd been nervous at first, afraid to use her magic, but now, she fidgeted with it as if it were paper. The ash responded, becoming a flower, then growing steadily more intricate and complex as Lily moved it in the air.

She held it just long enough to Snow White to notice and forget all about the message she needed to convey. "That's beautiful," Snow said, stopping before she grew too close to Lily.

Mal stood, putting herself between them while Lily's flower of ash rained to the floor as dust. "Isn't it?" she said, beaming with pride.

"I didn't know you could do magic in here." Snow moved her gaze quickly from Lily to her mother, as if she sensed it was uncomfortable for her eyes to linger. "And the fire?"

"We caused it to cease," Mal said. Waving her hand over the curtains lying in a pile, she smiled for Snow. "Amongst other improvements. Red is an accent color, not the base of an aesthetic."

That made Snow smile, but the light was slow to reach her eyes, and her flesh was etched dark beneath them. "The leogryff attacked the fairies' convent last night. Blue fought it off, but-"

"It's just going to come back," Lily finished, her tone grave. She didn't understand the ways of fairies or what they kept hidden.

"Blue used the Black Wand, she wouldn't have, not if she had another way," Snow stumbled over her words, looking from Lily to Mal.

"But she didn't," Mal assisted her. Of course, Rheul Gorm would have made it that way. Now she held the Black Fairy' wand and no one would stop her. "Let me guess, the leogryff is pale, even white, and shrugs off Emma and Regina's magic like water."

Snow blinked and nodded, giving Mal her full attention. "How did you know?"

Mal knew what had happened, she could see it, as if she'd planned it herself. It was clever, she had to give that blue star star-witch that. Her anger twisting in her stomach like ropes of molten metal. She should have seen it, realised what was happening when the creatures adapted each time they were defeated.

Looking to Mal for succor, Snow took a step towards her. "How can they stop it?"

Mal nodded, but she didn't have time to explain. "When the leogryff returns, cast protection spells on the town, but nothing at it directly. Ask Cruella to destroy it. Get her close enough to the creature and it'll do her bidding. Have her tentacled girlfriend drown it, or Cruella can throw it off a cliff. "

That made Snow smile, just a little, then she flickered and vanished, dragged back to the world above.

Emma nuzzled the back of her neck, then tightened her arms around her. "That was your phone."

Shifting Emma's hand so it rested on her belly in a more comfortable place, Regina blinked and started to reach for her phone, forcing herself awake. "Snow must have seen Mal in her dreams."

Reaching around her, Emma grabbed Regina's phone from bedside the bed. The sudden light stung Regina's eyes in the darkness. "Mal says we need Cruella to defeat the leogryff thing. Her powers will work on that?"

"They'd work-" Regina yawned, fighting to finish her sentence, "-on Mal, in dragon form, so it should work on him. Damn."

"Why didn't we think of that before?" Emma muttered, then tossed Regina's phone aside, leaving it on the table. She curled back around Regina, spooning up close.

They'd tried fireballs, blasts of magic, even lightning, because together, they were capable of incredible strength. Especially together, they were usually enough to defeat one creature. This one however, was especially resistant to their magic, and needed the sanctimonious Blue Fairy and the Black Fairy's wand to be driven back. Was she going to have to be renamed for mixing her colors? "We were distracted, Mal has nothing but time to think," Regina reminded her.

"Yeah." Emma's tone softened. "Snow says she's okay. Lily too."

Even though she knew all the reason it was not her fault that they couldn't wake Lily, she winced, because Lily was her daughter, and true love's kiss had worked with Henry. It should have worked. Her shoulders tensed, and the moment she pulled away, Emma held her tighter.

"Hey, none of that."

"What?"

"You know what," Emma said. One of her hands slipped up across Regina's belly and stopped near her chest, waiting for Regina to take it. When their fingers met, Emma squeezed hers and tugged it in close against her breasts. "They're okay, and we'll bring them back."

"We should already have been able to-"

"True love's kiss is shit, you know that right?" Emma interrupted. "It's totally unreliable, works when the stupid author decides it should work, and makes no sense. You love Lily, and she knows that. Lily and Mal are okay, they're trapped, but they're okay. We'll get them out"

Something shifted in her belly, almost uncomfortable, maybe a cramp, but she couldn't be sure. It kept happening, so maybe it was a muscle thing. She squirmed and Emma kissed her shoulder.

"We'll get them out."

Rolling onto her back, she turned her head to look at Emma in the dark. "Okay."

Emma kissed her, her lips soft and warm. Regina moved towards her, finding comfort. She relaxed into Emma, some of the tension ebbed from her back. That weird pulling sensation in her stomach stayed, and she rubbed it, wishing it away. Emma's hand followed hers and when she met Emma's gaze again, her eyes were soft with concern.

"What is it?"

"Nothing."

Emma only had to look at her before Regina amended.

"Something weird," she admitted.

Emma kissed her cheek. "Weird how? Muscles again?"

"No." She held Emma's hand against her belly and sighed, nearly yawning. "It's not tugging. It's-"

Regina's phone chirped again and Emma took her hand away to grab it. She read the message over Regina's head, then returned to her on the pillows. Her gentle smile only grew as she stared at Regina.

Emma stroked her cheek; her hand cool. "Snow wanted to apologise for waking you, and make sure you were okay."

A few weeks ago, that would have made Emma so angry, but she'd been softening. Snow was an intolerable worrier, and she fussed over Regina whenever she had the opportunity. Perhaps it was because she'd never had the chance to worry about Emma when she was pregnant, or maybe it was their strange relationship morphing again into something else.

"I'm okay," she answered. Her own voice was so small in the dark, and Emma smiled.

"That's what I told her. She likes to worry." Emma settled back into the blankets and cuddled in close. "So how long have you had this weird not-pulling thing?"

"A week, I think," Regina trailed off. She couldn't remember when it started, because it had been so faint at first. Since her knees ached, and her hips, it didn't make any sense to categorize them all. Parts of her hurt with regularity, and she got through it. This though, seemed to require her attention in some way and she was to tired to work it out.

"And it moves around, it's in different places, kind of comes and goes?" Emma continued, somehow managing to be pleased with herself.

"Yes," she answered, waiting for Emma's brilliant reveal. Even though she'd promised to read some of the pregnancy articles they'd gotten from the internet, Regina was certain she hadn't even lifted them from the pile. They had been busy, so she forgave Emma for that, but just because she'd pregnant once, fifteen years ago, didn't mean she was an expert.

"Go back to sleep," Emma suggested, pulling her in so they spooned together.

She wanted to argue, to insist that Emma tell her now, but the warmth of her body was too soothing, and she was always only moments from falling asleep.

The heavy book creaked as Belle opened it, resisting the sharing of its secrets. Regina sat back, giving Snow and Henry space to look over her shoulders.

Bell pointed to the ancient sketch of a group of winged lions, all different shades, some pitch black and some bright white. "This is what Maleficent must have been referring to. The leogryff is a proud creature and can ignore types of magic contrary to what created it. A leogryff made by dark magic can resist magic that's opposed to it. It resists light magic. Madame Mayor, you and the Sheriff are very powerful, but you're noble, you're good. A pale leogryff, like the one that attacked the convent, needs dark magic to be repelled."

"Or a dragon," Regina muttered, glancing over her shoulder at the window to the square. They'd brought the dragons close, to the yard beside city hall, where they could be watched. She'd wanted them even closer to home, but Mulan and Belle had argued successfully that they were Storybrooke's protectors, and should not be forgotten. Even Aurora had agreed, which would make Mal smile when she knew.

Snow rubbed her shoulder, because she knew. "So Blue can hold the pale leogryff back using the Black Fairy's wand. We don't know much about her, but she was as dark as they come, wasn't she?"

Henry and Belle shared a look. Belle nodded, but her expression became grim. "We don't know how long Blue will be able to use the wand. Fairy magic is usually powered by fairy dust, and until we come up with an alternate method-" Belle looked at the window behind Regina, her attention drawn to the sleeping dragons. Her lips thinned, and her eyes turned wistful. Did she miss them? How much time had she been spending with Mal?

"I think it's most prudent if we focus on waking the dragons and take Maleficent's suggestion and ask Cruella for help with the creature," Bell finished. "Perhaps she'll be interested in its coat."

Regina smirked, because that was almost funny, Cruella prancing around town in a new lion skin coat. "It's likely."

"How do we wake them?" Snow brought them back to the dragons and looked to Henry. "Did you find anything in Maleficent's spell book?"

Henry nodded, opening his notebook. "I don't read dragon, and no dictionaries exist, so some of the runes I can't make out. Luckily, I've been able to come up with a basic translation based on the images and the runes that are less obscure. Breaking a sleeping curse with true love's kiss is about the kind of love that will counteract the caster's intent when they cast the curse. Unconditional love, like a parent for their child, is usually enough-"

She tried to hold her face steady, not to react. He was going to attempt to protect her, to say something that would attempt to soften the blow. She didn't love Lily well enough, or unselfishly enough to wake her up. Everyone knew it, but no one would say it.

Snow squeezed her shoulder, trying to calm her, and Henry stopped, mid explanation.

"Mom, it's not your fault."

"Emma's love for you was enough to break the curse on the entire town," she reminded him. Emma hadn't even wanted to stay with him then. She'd been willing to leave and visit him. "I should be able to wake her. Lily is my daughter."

"I know," he replied.

Henry set down his notebook and looked at her, his eyes full of patience and faith. He believed, even if she didn't. He always did.

"I think this curse is more complicated because the caster is highly skilled in magic. Someone who knows how to alter the essence of a spell. Whoever they are, they wove it tightly enough that we'll need something that costs more than the love for a child."

"How can love have a cost?" Snow asked. Her hand stayed on Regina's shoulder and the ache in her chest eased because of that hand's warmth and weight.

"It'll be some kind of love sharper than family, maybe the love of a stranger, or an enemy. Maybe If I could spend some time in the Netherworld with Mal-" Henry looked away before he brought his gaze to bear.

"That's not going to happen." Regina had tried to keep him from that place, because it had terrified him so before. Now he wanted to go, and even though Snow said without the fire it was just a dark room. she still didn't want him to slip into that place.

Henry shrugged with the same 'I'm nearly an adult' expression he had so often. "I'll keep researching. Cora was less interested in breaking curses than casting them, but I should be able to find something by cross-referencing their books."

"What's important is that it can be broken, and we'll find a way," Belle added, smiling at Henry so that her whole face seemed lit. That kind of optimism was a luxury Regina couldn't allow herself, but she forced a smile in return, for Snow and Henry.

"We will," Henry added, seeing through her smile. "We've got this, Mom."

Pushing out of her chair, she circled the desk and hugged him, because she needed to hold him. Henry hugged her back, and allowed her to hold him without pulling back.

"I know you do, and I'm grateful, Emma and I both are-"

"They're my family too," Henry reminded her. "And I miss them."

Belle nodded, holding her book to her chest. "Me too."

Regina thanked them again, and Belle and Henry left together, returning to the corner of the library that had become their web of notes and stash of old books. Snow remained, sitting on the edge of the desk as Regina returned to her chair. That thing, the half-hearted- what was it? some kind of stomach problem she could add to nausea? It was over in a moment, and she tried to forget it, before it happened again, and again.

"Regina?"

Protesting that she was fine did nothing, even when she was fine, so she didn't make the effort.

"It's a muscle, I think," she answered, sitting back in her chair. "It happened last night too."

"It just gets stranger when your body's not yours anymore." Snow continued to look down at her, still smiling with the same gentle intensity. "Have you stopped feeling sick? Emma said your temperature was up again after you two fought the leogryff."

A litany of complaints regarding the unfairness of the two of them teaming up against her died in Regina's throat. Emma had talked to her mother, without Regina as a buffer between them, maybe even without Henry. Emma hadn't mentioned it, but the thought that their relationship might have been beginning to mend made it easier to smile.

"That wasn't anything like it was before. I don't think she should have worried at all." Picking up her pen, Regina tried to demonstrate her desire to return to the paperwork she'd set aside when Belle had arrived with her discovery. "An elevated temperature can be quite normal at this stage of pregnancy."

Snow lifted her paperweight and turned it in her hands. Fighting the urge to snatch it back and return it to its place, Regina started to read over the dwarves' report on the mines.

"Do your books say anything about what's normal for a baby conceived by the magic of two powerful women who might have been touched by dragon fire?"

Rolling her eyes, Regina set down her pen. "No book covers that."

"And I know how much that must frighten you." Snow looked up from the smooth glass in her hands. "I want you to know that I'm here, if you're trying to protect Emma, or if you just want to complain about how much your feet hurt."

Regina stared at the woman before her, remembering the child, and how she'd spoken of how much she loved her like a sister. When had her much hated little 'sister' become the woman who smiled at her now?

"Thank you."

"Of course," Snow answered, beaming. "This is my grandchild, you know."

This baby would always know her as that. She wouldn't have any cursed memories of Mary Margaret Blanchard, the teacher who loved birds, she'd only know her grandmother: Snow White, the hero. Regina tried to picture Snow holding their baby, talking to Emma about teething rings and block puzzles, and sharing this experience. Mal would argue with both of them, and Henry would find the answer online. Lily would hold her sister, and that imagine stuck in her thoughts. Lily would be so good with her sister, so kind and creative. Like Henry, this baby would be the center of many loving faces, safe and protected.

Regina held the pen so tightly than her hand ached, so she forced herself to set it down. "I know."