His grandparents didn't knock when they arrived. Henry doesn't know how they knew the door would be open, and they came right in. Grandma went right past him, heading for the stairs.
"Are they all right?"
"Mom and Emma had nightmares like mine, and Emma thinks Mom's fever is back, but her magic's gone weird. I don't know how to help them." He crossed his arms over his chest. He'd gotten so used to having Mal to ask about magic, but she was gone, really gone this time, and his mother's don't know what to do, because something's wrong. Really wrong, and was written on Mom's face and in Emma's eyes.
Grandpa patted his shoulder, then shut the door, holding Neal asleep in his carseat. He set him down in the living room, leaving him to sleep. "So they're both pretty upset, huh?"
"They've been arguing since I woke up." He tried to keep his expression level, but Grandpa read through him.
"Snow woke up screaming too."
Henry kept his eyes up, wanting to keep looking at his face. He was calm, and that helped, because his moms were both so upset. "I saw the dragon, Mal's dragon, but it wasn't hers. Something else had her, and she's-"
"We'll get her back," Grandpa promised, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. Once he's close to him, Henry noticed that beneath his coat, Grandpa's in his pajamas. He leaned closer, because the hot dragon's breath (blue, why was it blue?) still burnt his cheek. He should be past this, too old, strong like his mother, but he woke up to Mom screaming and that rang in his ears.
"We'll get them both back," Grandpa whispered, and he remembered waiting for Emma and Snow by the well, wondering if they'd really come back or if Cora would climb from there and kill them all.
He wasn't the kid he'd been then, but he hadn't heard Mom scream like that, and Emma wasn't herself. She wasn't her; her eyes were so wrong.
The hug helped, making him safe against the cool leather of his grandfather's jacket. His grandparents are heroes, after all, and maybe they can help, even if They're not really the ones who would They took Lily, maybe they have to be the ones to bring her back, because Mom needed her, and Mal. They were family. They're all family, and perhaps this was drawing them in, bringing them together for the final fight.
Grandpa patted his back. "Let's make hot chocolate, and maybe something to eat. It seems like everyone's going to be up for awhile."
"Let's make it better?" He followed him into the kitchen, yawning and covering his mouth with his hand.
"As much as we can," Grandpa agreed. "We will find Maleficent, because that's what we do. All of us, especially your mothers. You know that, right?"
"Yeah," Henry said, finally managing to smile. "Kind of the family thing."
Emma paced, and Regina almost expected her feet to click on the floor, the way Mal's always did. Her boots still had dew from the grass where Mal was supposed to be, and Emma walked back and forth, her lips tracing words that she wasn't saying aloud.
Mal was missing. The desperate, gasping, nightmare that they'd shared, of ice-blue flames and crumbling pavement and grass, echoed in her memory. She couldn't remember all of it, neither can Emma, but it resonated, cold and ominous, and it's nearly as bad as the way Emma can't hold still. There was so much tension and rage, like Mal when she was in one of her moods, that Regina wanted to grab Emma and soothe her, but Emma's past that.
Emma began and didn't finish a hundred questions that Regina couldn't answer. The door creaked downstairs and Regina got to her feet,but Emma caught her, guiding her down.
"Henry's got it."
"They might be able to help us, Snow-"
"Was with Mal," Emma finished for her. She nodded, filing that away. She touched Regina cheek again and frowned. "You're worse."
"It's not me," Regina protested, even though that made no sense. This fever was different, somehow alien, misplaced, and she couldn't explain that.
"It's not?" Emma replied, dropping to a crouch in front of her. "I can smell it on you, like a stain."
This wasn't Emma either, at least, not the heart of her. "Since when are you so fond of your sense of smell?"
"It's-"
"Dragonfire," Regina reminded her, leaning close. "Whatever's happening to Mal, it's stirring everything up, destabilizing all kinds of magic. If Lily were awake-" she stopped, because that hurt. Lily should be here, safe and warm and helping them find her mother.
Emma nuzzled her, and it wasn't a kiss, not a human one. The burning was hers, Regina decided, kissing her cheek. Emma vibrated with the strength of the dragon and they need it, desperately, because Mal shouldn't be missing.
Yet she was, and Lily slept on, which meant her mind was still trapped down below. And she was alone, again. That rattled into her chest and remained there, aching each time she breathed. Lilu had been safe, in a way with, Mal. Snow and Henry said they weren't going mad, that they'd put out the fire in the underworld. At least they'd been together, and now-
Her stomach twisted, maybe it was that pain that wasn't, or perhaps a recursion of her nausea. She didn't have time to think about it, even when Emma turned, attracted the presence at the door as if it was a threat before Snow was even there.
"I saw her disappear," Snow said, announcing her arrival. She took in Emma, reading the fire and wincing, just a little before she crossed to Regina.
"She couldn't have just vanished," Emma said, resuming her path from one side of the room to the other.
"Unless she's awake," Snow reminded them.
Her stomach twisted , rocking as if she were trapped at sea. She swallowed but it wasn't not nausea, not entirely. Snow's hand hovered then touched her forehead. She snatched it away, concern bright on her face before she brought back her touch.
"Regina-" her concern made her voice low and soft. Snow sat on the bed beside her, taking her hand and wrapping it in hers. "Does anything hurt? Do you have any cramping?"
She hadn't even- it hadn't- she couldn't-
"Emma-" her name was a plea because she needed her, she couldn't talk to Snow about that, think about that without Emma. Not now that everything should have been fine. They'd performed that spell, given up their autonomy, surrendered. That should have been enough.
"The baby's all right," Emma promised, kissing her forehead. The heat of her lips was greater than Regina skin, and she made the words so sure, so certain. "I'd sense it," she continued, patting their hands.
The icy grip of panic softened, only a little, and Emma sat beside her, holding her, but she wasn't- Emma wasn't- The scent of brimstone clung to her, and the otherness remained in her voice because this was her Emma, and not.
"The baby was touched by fire, dragon fire," Emma paused, and Regina heard Mal. not her, but almost, in Emma's words. "Dragon magic is burning,, so she can't help it."
"Is there a book, something we should read, a potion?" Snow scrambled for ways to help, and Regina continued to stare because Emma wasn't Emma, not wholly, because that calculating, protective dragon side had roared back after their nightmares.
"Trust me," she promised, and that was Emma, and Mal, and the other, the dagon who'd made the scar on Regina's neck. Her hand dropped to Regina's belly and the heat in her raced for that heat, revelling in it.
"Emma?" Snow asked, her eyes becoming white and wide. "Regina, what's happened to her?"
Regina clung to Emma's hand, holding it tight against her belly because she needed the baby, needed them both, to be okay. This fever was different than the last, the crippling exhaustion was still absent, so she could carry this. "Dragons are very protective of their own kind. Someone's hurt Maleficent, maybe even-" she stopped because she would not face that, not now, not ever, Mal would outlive them all by centuries.
"I won't let them," Emma finished, her voice a growl. She retreated from them, resuming her pacing, and now Regina recognized the words on her lips as dragon-speak. She probably didn't even know what she was saying.
Snow watched, silently trying to take that in. She touched Regina's shoulder, then put her arm around her, providing her support. "And Emma?"
Regina listened to Emma's feet but kept her gaze on Snow because she was calmer. "She took on much of the dragon to save Maleficent, months ago, and it stayed with her, it must have happened now because Mal's truly in danger, not just sleeping."
"So what can we do?"
Do? Regina repeated in her head. The darkness hung thick outside the windows, and she had been asleep less than half an hour ago and part of her ached to return to that, to put all of this aside, because she was tired. Snow held her closer, stable and secure, and she didn't intend to put her head down, it was just so heavy, and then Snow rubbed her arm, soothing her. "What do you need? What does Emma need?"
"There was blood on the grass," Emma said, turning back to them. Her eyes flashed green-gold and Snow saw it, she had to, because she stiffened, startled. "I might be able to follow the blood, I can feel it."
"Blood?"
"Dragon blood is powerful," Regina said. That sensation shifted, moving with her like bubbles and she couldn't think.
"How powerful?" Snow asked, turning her face back to Regina, because she made more sense.
"Depends on the dragon, someone like Mal, her age-" Regina sighed, breaking off. She shook her head. "I don't know how much you'd be able to get out of the grass, and it'll have started to dry."
"This hasn't," Snow said, digging in her pocket. She pulled something out, wrapped in her hand. "In the netherworld, last night, Mal was writing something on the wall. She said the cursed wall could be damaged with a dragon's tooth."
"A tooth?" Regina raised her eyebrows. "You have Mal's tooth?"
Snow nodded, cupping it in one of David's handkerchiefs, stained in blood. It hadn't dried. "She took it out to write with. She had to show Lily something about her family. Seemed kind of strange, but-"
"Give it to me," Emma said, pouncing on the handkerchief in her mother's hands.
Regina stared at the tooth in Emma's hands. It was a dragon's tooth, much larger than that of a human. Mal must have let it revert to dragon form after it was out of her mouth. That was a powerful piece of magic for one trapped in the netherworld. "She took it out, in the netherworld, just like that?"
"Maybe she thought it was important," Snow said. She wiped her hands on her pajamas, and slowly returned one arm around Regina's back. "Was she trying to help us?'
"I don't see how she could have known that someone was going to take her," Regina answered, relaxing a little into Snow's arm. Had Mal suspected who the summoner was? Had she known who put her and Lily under the sleeping curse? She could have told Snow, or Henry, but she hadn't. She'd kept it to herself.
"She was trying so hard, for Lily, trying to keep her calm; make the waiting all right," Snow spoke almost more for herself, than for Emma. Emma had no time for them as she stared at the tooth, reaching into her magic. Tendrils of fire started to curl around it, reaching out and up to Emma's hands, caressing her wrists. Regina watched, silent and almost afraid because Emma's eyes became steadily more dragon, more other.
Snow kept talking about all the times she'd watched Lily and Mal in her dreams, and how gentle Mal was, how careful with her daughter and so protective. "I thought once that she was evil, a monster, and that if anyone had to lose her child, it should be her."
"But I was wrong," Snow finished, squeezing Regina a little and shaking tears out of her eyes. "Maleficent is a good mother, and she loves her daughter. She would have protected her the best she could, but now she's gone and Lily's all alone in there, her mother just vanished, ripped out of-" she stopped. "I have to go back."
"What?" Regina said, torn between forgiveness and pain. Lily shouldn't be alone, not again, not trapped like that.
"Lily's alone."
"Yes," Emma said, wrapping her hand around the tooth. The fire in her palm surged, glowing in the darkness until it was part of Emma, adding to her light. "Someone should be with Lily. You, or maybe Henry-"
Snow nodded, ready to pay her penance and take the place of the mother Lily had just lost, for a little while. "I can go under if you make the curse, David can wake me."
Regina shook her head, touched but appalled. "Your little prince needs you, remember? You can't leave him with David."
"I could," Snow argued, full of righteous desire for repentance. "Lily's all alone and you can't ask Henry, even if he is so mature."
"I'm her mother," Regina insisted, putting an end to Snow's arguments.
Stirred from her magical reverie, Emma fidgeted with the tooth in her hands, suddenly herself again, even though her eyes continued to glow green-gold. "She might be tougher than you think."
"Her mother was ripped away. She's been left again and I can't- I can't let that happen to her," Regina looked down, then up at Emma, who was hers again, though even the dragon-Emma was hers, this one was softer. "I'll be, Henry can wake me."
"I know," Emma said, kissing her forehead, then her cheek. "I'll miss you."
"Then save us," Regina said, half-teasing, but her voice caught in her throat. "Find Maleficent, free her, stop the summoner, find what we need to break Lily's curse."
"You're leaving me all the easy stuff," Emma said, pretending to sulk. Snow reached for her and their hands met and Emma didn't pull back. "I'll have mom and dad, and Henry, I guess I won't need you."
Regina found a smile, though even that made her eyes smart as if she was in the midst of a sandstorm. "Of course, you won't need me."
Emma kissed her lips this time and shutting her eyes almost made it all okay. They'd beat this, whoever, whatever this was, even if they had a dragon. "I always need you."
"Will the baby be all right?" Snow asked, looking between them when they broke apart. "Will the curse affect her?"
She'd never read anything about the effect of sleeping curses on an unborn child, but she was so young that she was already sleeping, surely. Regina held her belly with her hand, wishing she could be more confident. She wouldn't risk the baby for Lily, it wasn't that black and white, but Lily needed her. She'd been absent all of Lily's life and this time, in this moment, she could be with her.
"I'll be sleeping," Regina said, drawing on what optimism she could dredge up. "I do that a quite often already."
"Time won't pass while you're cursed," Snow reminded her. She knew little about magic, but sleeping curses she'd experienced first hand. "If it takes some time for Emma to free you-"
"Then I'll be pregnant longer than I hoped," Regina answered, taking both of their hands. "I have to do this. I can't risk Lily going mad in there by herself. She's been through enough. I trust you, I- I love you." And she said it to both, because even Emma couldn't save them alone.
"I'll give you a minute," Snow said, getting up to leave. "Then I'll come back and help Regina cast the curse." She left them alone.
Emma traced Regina's cheek. "Lily's lucky to have you."
"She just got me," Regina reminded her, shifting on the edge of the bed. Would this strange nudging follow her into the netherworld? Would she go mad herself not knowing what it was?
"Any time with you as her mother is good," Emma said, kneeling on the floor before her. "All of your children are pretty damn lucky."
She squirmed. She didn't mean to because Emma's eyes were on hers and this was the kind of moment where her heart was too near in her throat, but-
"You don't know what that is, do you?"
"What what is?"
Emma kissed both of her hands, then looked up, her face bright with wonder. "The baby's moving."
"Of course she moves, she can't just sit in there and knit."
Emma chuckled, or sighed, or perhaps both, because she dropped her head to Regina knees. "You can feel it, it's that weird pulling, pinching thing that's been driving you crazy."
"It's a muscle-"
"It's her muscles," Emma insisted. "I remember being so weirded out when Henry started to do that. I had nightmares about an alien thing in my stomach."
"But, Emma, she…"
"Is safe, and will be safe in the netherworld with you, I just wanted you to know, so you didn't worry."
"I always worry."
Emma's warm mouth covered hers, softening her concern. "I know."
When Emma held it in front of her, the tooth floated above her palm, wreathed in tendrils of flame. "Find Mal," she whispered in the speech that wasn't hers. They needed her, not just for Regina and Lily, but for the town.
David watched, silent and patient. They'd left Henry with Snow and Regina, telling him that Snow might need help with Neal, or Regina with the curse, and he should be there to say goodbye to his mother, if only for awhile. Emma didn't want to think about how long it would be. She never thought she'd have to face this summoner without Regina, but she might. She hadn't needed to be the lone savior, not with her family, her nest, so close.
But now she felt like the old days. Facing the unknown, in the dark. The first time she held a sword, she'd had to face Maleficent in that cave. This time, her sword is to save the very dragon she once killed. The tooth turned, more accurate than a compass, pulling, almost begging her to follow it through nothing, through the space between places, to Maleficent.
"Stay close," she said to her father, then took them through.
They stepped from the mist of teleporting and Mal sat there on the wet grass hill before them, looming like a statue. Her dragon form rose high over them, completely still.
"Mal?" Emma asked.
Nothing.
"Maleficent," she pressed, using the dragon-speech that burned in her throat.
Nothing.
Taking a step forward, then another, she ran her hand over Mal's foreleg. Her scales were warm and familiar, but she didn't move, didn't even blink. Her eyes stare straight ahead, empty.
"She's not in there," David said for them both. "Something has her heart."
"That should be impossible," Emma replied. "Dragon hearts are the most powerful magic thing I've ever read about. You can't just pull one out like you can from a human."
Only then, they looked around and took in where they are. The fairy's cloister was just behind Mal and she sat before it like a guard dog.
"The fairies?" David asked. "Why would they? Why would she be here?"
"Most of them have been living near the hospital," Emma said. "Only a few were still up here, maybe the summoner took over the cloister? Perhaps he needed something they had."
They mounted the steps, heading in behind Mal's unmoving form. Emma kept turning to look, praying Mal would move, that her tail would twitch, but she sat like death had already taken her.
The door hung smashed on its hinges, splinted scattered across the entryway. A thick coating of something grey covered the floor, and their footsteps stir it up like ash, or murk on the bottom of a lake. Maybe it's the dragon-senses that brought Emma the smell of lilies-of-the-valley, because the copper of blood and the sweet tang of rot were so strong that she couldn't have smelt it otherwise.
The fairies still living here were dead, scattered like dead wood and crushed petals. Their blue capes and dresses lie still beneath the ash. It swirls around their feet, carrying the remnants of magic.
David touched one of their necks, then another and he shook his head. "They're gone."
Emma bent over one of the bodies. The ash lay thickest over her chest, as if it had erupted there, along with the dried blood. The next she checked was the same. There are thirteen in all, each adding to the thick layer of ash. Their eyes have started to cloud over, and rigor mortis held their limbs taunt. Emma never thought she'd need to know what that meant.
"They'be been dead for a few hours, not long." None of it made sense. Why kill thirteen fairies when you had a dragon outside that could do it for you? Why have your dragon sit in front of a group of corpses when you had a whole town to destroy?
"Blue, she's here too!" David called, snapping her out of her thoughts.
Blue lay like the rest, her eyes staring straight at the ceiling. Her hands rested on her chest, covered in the same grey ash. Her eyes, however, were clear, and her fingers gave when Emma touched them.
"I don't think she's-"
And she sat up. Her hands fell away and no blood stained her clothes. Her fingers sank deep into the dust and her eyes land on Emma's,
"No, I'm not dead. Seemed that way for a moment though, didn't it?" She offered her hand to David, so he can help her up, and he did, because he's a prince.
The dragon part of Emma that had been so demanding since she woke, screamed in her head that this was wrong, that she should bite, claw, and burn Blue now before-
Blue took a breath, then shook the ash from her clothes. "Fairy dust, gets everywhere."
"I thought it was sparkly," Emma said. She dropped her hand to her sword but Blue's eyes caught her.
"It was," Blue answered. She threw back her shoulders, then centred herself. "It was sparkly and full of hope and utterly useless, just like them."
Magic rushed to Emma's palms, demanding to be free, to have its chance to save her before this went too far. Mal's tooth burned her palm, trying to pull her away, because this was not safe.
"Just like them?" David repeated. "What do you mean?"
"How useless is an entire species who can't even do magic without diamonds and belief? We have a whole race of workers bred just to keep us in dust, but here, well, the dwarves aren't even good for that." She tugged her coat, and the blue sweater beneath and they tore, revealing a simple black dress that pulled in the light like an oil slick. "Can't get good help anymore."
"You're not useless," David said, sounding so much like Snow. "You give people hope when they have none. You grant wishes."
Blue clucked her tongue. "Perhaps if you'd grown up a prince, you'd know that wishes are a curse. Wishing takes you away from the moment, makes you think that you can change your sorry, squalid existence, when really, all you have to look forward to is death in your thirties of a disease this world has a cure for." She left her other outfit behind and led them towards the altar. "Did you ever heard about the Black Fairy?"
Every cell, every atom of Emma screamed that she should get back, get away, but when she tried to teleport, David didn't move. She tried again, and her feet disappeared, but David didn't even fade.
"I think you'll find he's stuck here until I release him, savior," Blue said. She took a heavy candlestick and cracked the glass case on the wall with a smash. "You are harder to control but he doesn't have a magical bone in his body. He's staying." Tossing shards of glass, she lifted the black fairy's wand and gave it a little flick through the air. Blue fire followed the tip. "Should I take your silence to mean that you know nothing of the Black Fairy?"
"What do you mean stuck?" David asked. Emma took a step forward, putting herself in between.
"The black fairy dabbled in dark magic, but went too far in, couldn't control herself."
"I should have joined her when I had the chance," Blue said, waving the wand again. "Of course, then I'd have to share this power, and I don't think I'm cut out for that. She used to spend entire nights talking about how fairies were such pushovers, granting wishes and feeding on the belief of humans like it was scraps they threw a favorite dog. Dragons and sorcerers cast magic on their own, from within them, but fairies depend on a constant supply of belief and fairy dust."
Holding the wand in front of her, Blue sighed and closed her eyes. "Until now, of course."
"All magic has a price," Emma reminded her. "Even that of dragons."
"That may be true, in the crudest sense, and besides, dear savior, I'm tired of the price being my dignity. Fairy dust confines us, when we could be free, like humans, or-"
"Dragons," Emma interrupted. It made sense, in the most perverse, twisted sort of way. Blue knew them, and their weaknesses. She must have found a spell, a way to remove Maleficent's heart. She couldn't have done it awake, so she'd put them to sleep, biding her time. Looking towards the window, Emma tried to catch sight of the moon. Was it dark tonight? Did a new moon hang over them?
"You did this, didn't you?" Emma asked, looking over the corpses surrounding them and the dust coating everything. "You took their what, energy? Souls?"
"I freed them," Blue said, looking over the bodies. "I can free you too. Save you from yourself and all the chaos and fear. You don't have to suffer through your magic, and the way it controls you."
"My magic doesn't control me," Emma protested, even though she knew no part of this conversation made any logical sense.
"Doesn't it? The dragon fire led you here, to me and Maleficent's empty shell because some part of the great dragon thinks you can save her."
"And she will," David answered, fearless at Emma's side. He should know to be afraid, but Emma couldn't say that.
Blue waved the black wand and light appeared before her, floating level with her chest. It spun like a star, rich and full of life. There was a shape too it, beneath all the light, but it was so bright that Emma couldn't even look at it.
"You're right to fear it," Blue said. "It's the heart of a mature dragon, potentially the most powerful relic in the all the realms."
"It's not yours," Emma protested and her magic cracked out, stirring the dust.
"It wasn't mine," Blue corrected. "I think you'll see that it's mine now." She waved the wand once more and they were gone, away, between, and then standing in City Hall, surrounded by the rest of Storybrooke. It was still the middle of the night and most of the town stood yawning, utterly confused. They'd been summoned to many midnight meetings, but this had dragged them all there with immediate effect.
"Citizens of Storybrooke, there are going to be some changes in town, and it's important you sit quietly while I explain them."
When the townsfolk dawdled, shuffling their feet or talking to their neighbors, Blue flicked her wand and fire snapped out like a whip.
"Now then," she said, once she had their attention. "Mayor Mills has resigned-"
Not even a whip of fire could contain that uproar, and Blue made the entire hall shake that time, just to get their attention. Snow and Regina appeared next, on the stage with Blue. Snow in her pajamas cradled Regina's unconscious form, stroking her hair. Snow startled at the abrupt change of scenery, and stared even more open-mouthed at Blue, who stood above them like a general claiming victory over a rival.
"She hasn't officially resigned, of course, but she's fallen victim to a sleeping curse, so she won't be doing any leading from below, since the way she held power was magic, and the dragon, I hereby submit myself for candidacy because I have the dragon. Any questions?"
Emma should have fought, or tried to calm everyone down. She could have taken Blue's wand, or teleported at least Henry away. Yet she sat in that room, staring at Regina, because she knew, in the darkest place of her heart, that this she cannot beat alone. She moved to Henry, taking advantage of the bedlam as Blue declared herself mayor. Henry too can't take his eyes off of her. She's all right and they know that, but Emma's never seen Regina lie like that and be unable to be woken.
Blue used Mal to shake the building again and the townsfolk cowered in their seats. No display of power could be more terrifying than Regina's body, still in Snow's lap.
Notes: Blue's the big bad, and this has kind of an abrupt transition, but hopefully I'll be able to illustrate out more of her plan in later chapters, she's just been dying to take over for so long now...I couldn't resist. Thanks for reading!