Note: I do not own OUAT or its characters

NOTE 2: A little bitch-slapping of Emma in this chapter. Sorry it had to be done

Emma found Robin and Henry. "Marian is in Dr. Whale's office, you should go see her."

"Is everything ok?"

"Marian is fine. Just go."

Robin left and Emma took Henry by the shoulder and started leading him out of the hospital. "Wait," Henry said. "I want to see mom."

"You can't," Emma said.

"But …"

Emma stopped him. "I know you want to see your mom, but this disease, it affects kids and you were born here, not there so Dr. Whale says you could be more susceptible to getting it, so my priority has to be in keeping you safe." She got him moving again.

"What about this fever? Which of you brought it back?"

"Marian did," she said almost choking on the words.

Henry stopped, and Emma could only imagine what he was thinking. "Will Dr. Whale be able to find a cure now that he knows it was in Marian?"

"I hope so," she said getting him moving.

"Is Mom ok? Did Dr. Whale say who is she doing?"

"No."

"You didn't ask did you?"

Emma looked away, "no. I didn't. I can go back and check."

"Don't bother," he said walking faster ahead of her. They got to the car, and Emma endured his silence all the way home where he went directly to his room.

Regina opened her eyes. Hospital, she thought, as her eyes started to close. Why am I in a hospital? Why is it so hot? She fought to keep her eyes open. She needed to find out why she was here. Where was Henry? She was supposed to see him. "Henry," she mumbled before her eyes closed.

"This is my fault," Emma said as she paced the floor.

"Emma, you can't blame yourself," Snow said.

"Who else is there to blame? Regina was right, I didn't think of the consequences when I saved Marian. I didn't even once consider that I wasn't doing the right thing. Now, now all these kids are sick and Regina, she … Dr. Whale is concerned. I can tell. He doesn't know what this disease is exactly because he isn't from the Enchanted Forest, and he doesn't understand why Regina is the only adult affected by it."

"It doesn't make any sense. It's a childhood disease."

"Have you ever seen it?"

"No," Snow said. "I've heard of it. Most people in our world probably have, but no, I have never known anyone who got it."

"If anything happens to Regina, how can I ever face Henry again?"

Snow stood and stopped her daughter from pacing. "There is no reason to jump to the idea that anything is going to happen to her or anyone else. This world, it's light years ahead of the Enchanted Forest when it comes to understanding and combating diseases. Have a little faith in Dr. Whale and his people."

"You didn't see the look on Henry's face. He … I didn't even ask Dr. Whale how Regina was doing. He called Tink and asked her to go over to the hospital to check on her. He told her that someone that cared about her should go over and check on her since I wouldn't let him stay there and I didn't have any answers."

"This isn't a reflection of you. He's worried about her."

Emma sat down, "You know when we found out that Marian was Robin's wife, Regina, she said I had better hope I didn't bring anything else back from the past and the first thing I thought was she was making some sort of veiled threat about being the Evil Queen again. I jumped to that first, and I don't know why. She was never the Evil Queen to me because all I have ever known her as was Regina. I know, I know you all had this past with her but it didn't mean much to me because I didn't live through it. The Regina I know has changed. She really has changed from that woman who tried to run me out of town and keep me from Henry. Then I became the one keeping her from Henry. I was going to take him to New York and it didn't matter to me that she was his mom because I was his mom. I thought I had spent all these years with him as his mom and I wasn't going to share that anybody. I've messed up, and now I don't know what to do."

Tink was nervous going into the hospital. She didn't like the idea of disease and having seen what Skiver Fever did do a child, she had no desire to be anywhere near it. But she couldn't say no to Henry, although she did wonder why he sounded a little antagonistic toward Emma. She supposed the real reason she was there was because of Regina.

Despite their past, she liked Regina. When she found out that Robin was the man with the lion tattoo she was practically giddy with the idea that it had finally happened. It had taken years but there he was – Regina's second chance.

Then this mess with Marian had taken it away. She had gone to see Regina, as it turns out it was not long after Robin had gone to see her. She was somewhat surprised that Regina was taking it so well. She had made it clear to Tink that she wasn't going to interfere with Robin and Marian. She seemed reasonable, calm and accepting of the situation, which naturally set off alarm bells in Tink's head. Either Regina had truly changed more than Tink had ever imagined or in losing her second chance Regina had lost something else.

She hadn't seemed like her normal fiery self when speaking with Tink. Maybe it was because she had already contracted the fever but hadn't fallen sick yet. Or maybe, after all of that had happened in her life, Regina was done. That thought scared her now more than ever. Skiver Fever was nearly 100 percent fatal. There were rare cases of children making it through, but they were never the same afterward. Tink had known such a child – a Lost Boy. Some of the other boys were asking him one day what was the worst part of it – and she was surprised he had said the hallucinations. He said, "you want to die, but I kept telling myself I wasn't ready." She wondered now how ready Regina was.

She walked to the nurses' station seeing the looks on the faces of the parents. They knew what their children had. They knew the chances of survival were minimal. They were scared, they were crying and the raw emotion of it almost made Tink turn around and leave.

She got to the station. "I am here to see Regina Mills, can you tell me what room she is in?"

The nurse checked the computer. "I am sorry, doctor's orders, no visitors for Miss Mills."

"Can I speak to the doctor then? I am here to check on her condition for her son since he isn't allowed in."

"The doctor is busy as you can see."

"Then I will wait. I am not leaving here until I either get to see her or someone explains to me how she is doing."

Tink knocked on Emma's door. It was nearing 10 p.m. but she had promised Henry she would let him know once she found out how Regina was doing. She had been at the hospital for hours and now it all weighed heavy on her.

"Tink," Emma said answering the door. "Come in."

She entered just as Henry came out of his bedroom to see who was there. He had been holed up in his room all day avoiding his mother. Emma could only hope that Tink had good news, but from the way she looked she wasn't counting on it.

"How is mom?" Henry asked.

"She's um … she's not good," Tink said unsure of what to say about what she had learned – what she had seen. "They have cordoned off one of the floors of the hospital for the kids with the fever cases and they have Regina quarantined from them and everyone else."

Her mind flashed to the room, to Regina in that bed her whole body shaking from the chills. The sound of her voice begging someone to turn up the heat, despite a room temperature that was well above 60 degrees. She kept curled up in blankets, shivering from cold only her body or mind seemed to detect. The fever continued to hover in the 100 to 101 range. If she had any realization of where she was or why she was there, she hadn't shown it in the brief time that Tink was able to see her through a glass partition.

"The disease had progressed to the next stage in her. The chills started a couple of hours ago. Dr. Whale said the disease is moving along faster than her than with the kids, but he doesn't know yet if that means she contracted it first."

"Has he gotten anywhere on a cure?" Emma asked.

"Still working on it, but he seemed confident that he could isolate the um antibodies I think he said from Marian's blood."

"Did you get to see mom?" Henry asked. "Did she say anything?"

"One of the nurses said she said your name earlier in the day. But no, nothing while I was there."

"Does she look sick?"

"Yeah Henry," Tink said. "She's still losing fluids, but they are monitoring her around the clock. Dr. Whale said I could come back tomorrow, and I will. I will go see her every day and let you know how she is doing."

"Thank you," he said. "Can you tell her I love her and I want her to get better soon?"

"Of course I will."

He went back to his room, not even looking at Emma.

"Anything else that you couldn't say in front of him?" she asked.

"About Regina? No. But there are a lot of frightened parents in that hospital. A piece of advice, don't go anywhere near there," Tink said. "It's a small town, and it's already spread around that Marian was the one who had this. For your sake, it's probably best if you didn't show up there. I am not saying anyone would do or say anything, but they are frightened for their kids and it doesn't make for a good situation right now."

"Yeah," Emma said. "I am already getting the taste of the cold shoulder as you can see."

"That's not about you, he is worried about Regina."

"You are the second person to tell me that today."

"My point is that you should worry less about how badly the kid is making you feel and think about he feels," she said. "His mom is most likely going to die. I have seen this disease more often than I care to think about. You see when you are a fairy, people are always sending up pleas for help of different types. The worst are when it's a parent who had no choice but to plea for a magical cure for a child that is suffering. That is what this disease does – it makes the child suffer. And there is no magical cure."