Regina was immensely upset the day her beloved son went missing. He never showed up at school that day, not a soul had seen him, the Mayor's boy. The sheriff's searches and questioning yielded no fruit.

The sun had begun its descent toward the horizon, and her facade of calm was beginning to slip. She was losing her temper with Graham, and paced around her estate like an agitated panther, muttering possibilities for his disappearance to herself.

It wasn't totally unlike Henry to run away. He was a boy with a great thirst for adventure. There were days when he would scamper off into the forest, vanishing for hours at a time, and then show up back at home, muddy, scratched and eyes shining with excitement.

This was different. Regina knew it; she could feel it. It alarmed her on every level, not having felt those warnings in many years. It left the hair on the back of her neck standing up on end and her skin crawling. Everything made her jump or twitch. She hated feeling this on edge.

Graham stood nearby, fidgeting uncomfortably, not knowing what to do with himself. She heard the slamming of car doors outside. Regina tensed, then pounced. She flung the door open, her son and a strange woman standing on the walkway ahead of her. She scooped up her son, relief washing over her in a warm and welcome wave.

But Henry pushed her away, claiming he had found his real mother. He shot her a glare that she had been seeing more often than usual lately before scampering off into the mansion. The Sheriff said he would go check on the boy, leaving the two women alone.

She saw someone who looked completely out of her element. Insecurity clung to her skin, as she nervously waited for some hint as to what her next move should be. Regina, ever the courteous woman, invited the woman known as Emma Swan inside for a drink. She had to know whom she was dealing with.

She couldn't decide what to make of what she gleaned from their conversation, but it was fairly apparent that Emma was a woman with strong opinions, a drifter that didn't like many attachments, somewhat flighty but confident in her endeavors. She wanted to trust that this woman would simply disappear now that Henry was returned safely to where he belongs, but the twisting in her gut told her otherwise. So, she began to put up her walls and began to guard that which was the most precious to her.

She was right to do so.

Emma stuck around like an irritating cold. She was still in Storybrooke the following morning, and in jail no less. To make matters worse, Henry was missing. Again. It was not exactly a banner morning for the mayor. To her displeasure, the blonde interloper offered to help find her boy. She had little choice, but followed the woman like a hawk, until the trail led to one Mary Margaret Blanchard.

Her patience was wearing thin much faster than she expected, and when the teacher sassed her about her parenting and the social status of her son, her normally calm veneer dissolved. She sent some venomous words toward the hapless woman and strode away, cursing her lack of self-control the whole time.

Emma did as she said she would, and brought her beloved child home, but Regina could already see a different woman from the one she met the previous night. This Emma Swan's eyes trailed after the little boy disappearing into his house. This Emma Swan had a determination that Regina knew she could only get from the Charmings, and it alarmed her deeply.

Once again, her skin was crawling, and her senses were on high alert. However, it wasn't due to a missing child, but the mere presence of the woman she already knew to be the Savior. Emma was dangerous, and she had to do everything in her power to remove the blonde as fast as she possibly could.

But Emma maintained her presence, poisoning the mind of her child and meddling in delicate affairs that Regina had carefully tended to for several decades. She tried everything in her power to get the woman to leave town. Multiple arrests didn't seem to affect her (though after reading her file, she shouldn't have been shocked to find that out), and even preventing her from having a place to stay at Granny's didn't get her to skip town.

To Regina's disbelief, Emma simply slept in her car (probably another undesirable trait she picked up from her checkered past). Of course, Mary Margaret, ever the simpering do-gooder, took in the homeless Swan. How touching, mother and daughter reunited, in a sad sort of way.

In addition to the blonde's meddlesome presence, Henry was slipping away from Regina faster than she could try to tighten her hold. He relentlessly opted to favor a woman that gave him up because she was too much of a wreck to properly care for him. This flummoxed the mayor, and she did not like to have her feathers ruffled.

The real icing on the cake in this whole scenario was that things were changing in Storybrooke. Regina had designed this town to remain static. Nothing was supposed to deviate from its intended purpose, and yet, thanks to the new Sheriff of Storybrooke, a stranger was in town, she was forced to kill Graham and Mr Gold had shown that he remembered his former existence and made no effort to hide his ability to use it against her.

The thing that perplexed Regina the most about Emma Swan was the fact that Emma never failed to rescue the mayor, no matter how undesirable the gesture was. The Savior never failed do to saving where saving was needed, and Regina despised the fact that she occasionally did need saving. It positively disgusted her.

She couldn't tell what her relationship with the sheriff was. All she wanted was for her to disappear, let Regina have her Henry, have her victory and be done with it. But that was no longer an option, especially now that Henry had tied himself so tightly to Emma. There were fleeting moments when she found that the idea of going back to Storybrooke before the Savior's intrusion was no longer appealing. The blonde brought excitement with her wherever she went, and it gave Regina deep satisfaction to win when she could. She felt alive, and more like the Queen than she had in many, many years. Those thoughts terrified the brunette.

There came a moment when Regina knew that whatever semblance of control she thought she had came crashing down around her. The floodgates had been opened, and it was more like acid was washing over her than water. However, she was the Queen, and she would be damned if she just stepped aside and watched everything burn. No. That was not an option.

She would win this round with Emma where she had failed with Snow White. Thanks to her vague promises to Jefferson, she was able to use the last bit of magic she had with her to retrieve the apple she used on Snow so long ago. Emma would fall to the curse, and, given the unstable nature of magic in the world she was stuck in, it would most likely kill her.

She knew her well-placed shot had landed its mark when Henry came flying through the door, all wild eyes and anger. How had Regina been so foolish to forget what her son suspected about her when enacting the plan? She tried, and failed spectacularly, to convince the boy that she had done this for him, and for their family. Yet, when he screamed that he never wanted to see her again, something broke in Regina's stony heart.

Magic always comes with a price.

Never did she imagine that the price to pay for Emma's demise would be that of her son. It had been a week since the Savior had fallen under the Sleeping Curse, and it had been a week since she had seen her beloved son.

Like his unfortunate mother and irritating grandparents, Henry had the uncanny ability to slip through her fingers like smoke. She knew that he spent most of his time at Mary Margaret's, but he was smart and kept moving, never lingering in one place for too long. No one in the town was willing to deal with the mayor on any level. They were all too shaken up and distraught over Emma's condition, not to mention the fact that they all secretly suspected Regina's hand in the matter.

It was supposed to be her victory. She had defeated the Savior, and all was supposed to return to her. Nothing did. The very foundations of Storybrooke had been shattered the moment Emma Swan decided to stay in town. There was no way to rebuild what she had unless she could miraculously enact a new curse. That was a desperate fantasy.

It wasn't long before she found herself in Gold's shop. Her heels clicked loudly in the close air of the dingy store. She chose to enter at night, when she was least likely to be seen by angry eyes. Gold was standing behind the counter, looking as though he had been expecting her all along.

"I was wondering when you would show, your Majesty."

"Is that so?"

"Is everything alright, dearie? You look like you haven't slept. Guilty conscience, perhaps?"

"Enough games, Imp. Why isn't she dead?" Regina was practically leaning over the counter in her attempt to get into Gold's face. She had a point to make.

"She's the Savior, haven't you heard? You can't just kill the Savior. Surely you figured that out by now." He kept his tone light and even, but never without a slight air of smugness. He loved knowing things the Queen did not.

"That much is obvious. I want to know why!" Regina slammed her palms on the counter.

"Tell me, your Majesty, who are Emma's parents?"

The mayor rolled her eyes, getting impatient with him. "Snow White and Prince Charming."

"Precisely. Our dear Miss Swan is the product of True Love." He let the last two words hang in the air. "It's the only thing that can break any curse without fail. However, as unstable as our magic is in this realm, Emma holds a shroud, if you will, of True Love around her. While the curse will keep her asleep, it can't kill her. She's protected."

"I see." Regina studied the man before her, considering her next words carefully. "What if I simply walked in there and pulled the plug on her?"

"Blunt. To the point and lacking in finesse, but I think you'll find that hard to do." She couldn't tell what the strange look on his face meant. "And Henry?"

"Ah, I'm afraid there's little to do to remedy that. All magic comes with a price, dearie."

"Why is my son that price?" Regina was growing more and more agitated. Gold's eyebrows rose, refusing to answer. He knew that she was well aware as to why it was Henry paying the curse's price. "Fine, forget I asked. You said there was little I could do, not nothing I could do. What are my options?"

"That's simple enough. Give your boy back his mother."

"I can't."

"Oh, I'm sure you can. Remember, any curse can be broken with True Love's Kiss."

"Emma has no True Love, that's one of the reasons I knew cursing her would be effective this time."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that, dearie." He smirked knowingly at her, and his gaze made her shift uncomfortably. His eyes rested on her hand.

"Wherever did the ring from your beloved Daniel disappear to?" Their eyes met, Regina's full of fear as she grasped at the bare finger. All magic comes with a price.