Present Time

Storybrooke, Maine

Getting your real memories back had already made Henry slightly disoriented; after all he now had two parallel lives in his head and even though he knew that his memories of growing up with Emma were the fake ones they still felt real. To make matters worse he had been transported by magic into the strong arms of a woman he had no memory of seeing before in Storybrooke, or anywhere else. She was a head taller than him in her green heels and wore matching, green gloves that did nothing to keep her nails from digging into his shoulder. Not so that it was unbearably painful; more like a warning, telling him that if he did something she would make things even worse. That still did not keep him from trying to get her to release him.

"Now who wants to say goodbye first?" she said behind him, grinning menacingly at his family, standing on the other side of the boathouse.

"Who are you?" Henry demanded to know as he struggled to get her to release him. She bent her head closer to him and spoke in a triumphant, accented voice.

"You can call me Auntie Zelena."

Henry's eyes immediately stuck on his mum, his real mum, Regina. Emma had no siblings; he was sure of it. Meaning this was either Regina's sister or his father's, though he found the latter much more unbelievable. Regina now stepped forward, her dark eyes burning into the woman behind him.

"Enough of this!" she growled and flung her hands forward. He expected her magic to knock his captor back, but instead Zelena released him with one hand, flung it forward and knocked Regina back several feet. She crashed to the ground with a painful grunt and lay still. Henry gaped in shock; ever since Regina had admitted who she really was he had never seen her knocked back by any of their enemies. Sure, Pan had tricked her and knocked her out that way, but by magic? No, this was definitely not something he remembered seeing.

"Let him go", Emma ordered, drawing his attention. "He had nothing to do with this."

"Don't blame me", Zelena said with a shrug. "The Captain failed me."

Henry's gaze travelled to Hook, who was glaring at Zelena and gripping his gun tight with his functioning hand.

"Damn you, Zelena", he growled.

"Hook, what's she talking about?" Emma asked, glancing in the direction of the pirate.

"He knew what the price of that failure was", Zelena responded, sounding bored. "Your son's life."

The next moment her hands came up around his throat and started squeezing. Henry's eyes widened and he struggled even more with her grip, fighting to break free. She held him still and, as he glanced back at her, he saw her wide, triumphant grin and the mad look in her sea-green eyes. Panic spread through his veins like a wildfire and he turned his gaze to Emma again, begging her to help him.

"Mum!" he croaked. A stubborn look settled on her face and she closed her eyes, holding her hands in front of her. Maybe it was the fact that he was choking, maybe not, but it looked like she was trembling.

Suddenly Henry felt warm, as if he was standing in bright sunlight. Then he heard Zelena scream in agony behind him and her grip around his throat loosened somewhat. A few seconds later she cried out again and let him go. He stumbled forward a few steps before running towards Emma, flinging his arms around her shoulders. She held him tight, not like Zelena had done but in a motherly, safe way.

"No!" he heard Zelena cry out behind him. He did not turn to look; he only inhaled the smell of his biological mother and tried to push the panic back.

"Enjoy this moment together", Zelena growled, "'cause you don' have many left!"

The sound of someone teleporting away, one he had learned to recognize through Regina, told him that the woman was gone. The second sign of this was Emma slowly releasing him.

"Henry", she said as he pulled back to face her, "are you okay?"

"Yeah", he said and nodded, swallowing a couple of times to assure himself that he was able to breathe again. "Yeah."

Then he pulled away from her and hurried over to Regina's still form, kneeling next to her.

"Mum!" he said, grabbing her shoulder and shaking her. "Mum! Mum!"

"Mum!"

That voice. She knew that voice, but it could not be. He did not see her as his mother. She was he Major.

Still, she was drawn to that voice. The voice of the one she loved above all else.

"Mum, please!"

She swam up through the darkness towards the voice, the voice she had longed to hear.

"Wake up!"

Fingers clutched her shoulder, shaking her in an attempt to pull her back to the world of the living. Too long to be a child's fingers, but not long enough to belong to an adult. Henry. He was almost a teenager now. Could it be anyone else?

"Mum!"

Regina forced her eyes open with a grunt, the interior of the boathouse slowly appearing in front of her. She was on her side, though, and seeing it like this was disorienting.

The fingers still clutched her shoulder and she slowly turned her head to look up at whoever it was. She had to blink a couple of times before she was able to focus. Once she was able to she could hardly believe what she was seeing, that it was really him. Henry. It was him. He was calling her "mum" again. He remembered. His face now split up in a relieved smile.

"Mum."

"Henry", she said, smiling as well as she turned over and reached up to touch his face.

"Mum", he repeated. It seemed like he had instinctively longed to call her that as much as she had longed to hear him say it.

He supported her as he rose and it struck her again how much he had grown in their year apart. He was so tall now, his voice so deep and his arms so long and gangly and strong. Soon he would have a beard to shave, she thought fleetingly, but that did not matter now. Now she only wanted to embrace him, to hold him and never let him leave her again.

"Henry", she managed to whisper as she did just that, feeling tears threatening to spill out from her eyes. "Henry."

She pulled back to look at him and found herself smiling amidst the tears. Tears of joy, then; she had definitely spent too much time with the classic heroes. Maybe she was becoming like them.

And maybe she did not care, because it had brought her son back to her.

Regina framed his face in her hands, taking in his new features.

"I will never let you go away again", she said. "I promise."

He smiled at her and nodded. Before this missing year he had been captured by Peter Pan and held in Neverland; they had barely had time to meet again before she had been forced to send him away. Never again, she promised. Never. Again.

"I love you, Henry", she told him, gazing into his eyes and feeling the sincerity of those words inside herself. Not in her heart, since she did not actually have that, but like Snow had said she felt with more than her heart; she felt with her own soul.

And this she felt.

Regina leaned forward and pressed her lips to his forehead, inhaling the smell of soap – most likely Granny's since he had stayed at her bed and breakfast – and then she felt it. A gush of magic moving from where her lips connected with his skin and seeping through her before continuing on its journey through the town. She immediately pulled back and watched as the magic hit Mary Margaret and David a few feet away. Both of them stared at her with their eyes wide – and she suspected that she looked equally surprised – before they turned to stare at each other. Regina's eyes wandered back to Henry, who looked confused, then to Emma.

"It wasn't me", the blonde whispered in surprise. "It was you."

Regina nodded, watching as memories from the past year passed through her mind. The Enchanted Forest; how lonely she had been back there, doing nothing but missing Henry all the time. She had been the Evil Queen again, but this time she had stood with Snow and Charming against the Wicked Witch – her sister.

"Mary Margaret, David", Emma said and turned to her parents, "did it work? Do you remember the missing year?"

"Yes", Mary Margaret responded, looking up at David again. "Everything."

The former Prince looked pale and kept his gaze focused on something in the distance while clutching his wife's hand.

"How did Zelena cast the curse?" Emma asked. Mary Margaret turned back towards her daughter and shook her head.

"She didn't, Emma. We did."

Emma frowned in confusion.

"You cursed yourselves?"

"Zelena's weakness is light magic", Mary Margaret responded, smiling at her daughter. "It's clear now, more than ever; you're the only one who can defeat her."

David snapped out of his reverie and looked up as well.

"That's why we paid the price for Rumple's curse", he explained, his lips widening in a smile. "To find you."

Emma paled and glanced at Regina before looking at her parents once again.

"The price of the Curse... is the heart of the thing you love most. If one of you cast it, how are you both still here?"

That's all for tonight, folks! More hopefully coming this weekend. Also keep an eye out for a collection of short stories/missing scenes related to this story called From Hog's Castle With Love that will be published sometime during the weekend or next week!