A/N:

Hey there, happy Sunday everyone. Today's chapter isn't as long (sorry!) as usual but I'm going to try and update again soon. This is something that we've been building up to for a while, Zelena's end, yay! I wanted to clarify something about the kiss between Regina and Robin in the previous chapter for those for you who are interested: breaking the curse was pretty unimportant in the grand scheme of things which is why I didn't want it to be Emma and Regina who broke it, I think that things between them should be much more meaningful. (And there's also some other stuff, which you'll see in this chapter). Thanks as always for the reviews and if you like have any comments then they're appreciated!

Enjoy,

Rosie

(I do not own Once, no copyright intended).

The Swan-Mills family fell unceremoniously in a heap as they were freed from Zelena's paralysing ray of magic which had held them all suspended on their travels. Henry pulled himself from on top of his blonde mother and moved to his feet, allowing the two women to do so too. He wasn't quite steady on his feet, having rarely been transported by magic before and would have ended up on the ground again had it not been for the desperate clutch of his mother's fist on his shirt sleeve, keeping him upright.

Emma glanced around her to get her bearings, thought this wasn't necessary for her to know where they were. She had been sure where they were going before she even landed but the musty, dirty, dark smell confirmed it to her.

"Is everyone in one piece?" Emma asked quietly.

"Yeah I'm fine," muttered Henry as he looked around them.

"And you?" the blonde said, looking at Regina with a look that communicated all her concern.

"Yes, I'm okay Emma, don't worry," Regina said with a wary but genuine smile.

"Good. You know after defending your honour and everything today I wouldn't have wanted it to be all for nothing," Emma quipped back cheekily.

They glanced around them, but Zelena had dumped them and disappeared. Henry walked round the huge symbol carved into the floor.

"Ma what is this?" He asked curiously.

Emma glanced at Regina quickly before replying, but without even speaking she knew it was about time they told their son what could happen. "Its called the Time Turner kid. Now we need to have a strategic meeting real quick, okay?"

"Okay!" Henry replied, excitement lighting up his eyes which somehow matched Regina's so perfectly, he loved to be involved in his mother's schemes. "Can we give our plan a name?"

"I'm not sure we have time for that Henry, but if you can think of one then don't see why not," his brunette mother replied.

"Anyway…" Emma continued, "this is important okay?", receiving a nod in reply from Henry. "Zelena is going to try and take you because in order to cast her spell she needs the thing that your Mom loves the most, which is you, obviously. And she's probably going to try to kill me and your Mom. This symbol," she pointed down, "This is what casts the spell. We have a plan, which we think will work to stop it." She looked at Regina for reassurance.

"But it involves me and Emma combining our magic together," Regina continued. "We've done it before, but not on this scale, and not with someone whose power is so strong. So this could go badly Henry, and if it does then you need to get yourself to safety, okay?" She looked at him seriously.

"Okay Mom, I understand. What if she freezes us or something again? What do we do? And I know what we're gonna call this mission," he replied with a mischievous smile.

Emma let out a small chuckle at her son's inability to fear situations which risked his life, which was probably slightly concerning when she thought about it for too long. "If she freezes us we can…communicate with our eyes? One blink is yes, two is no, three is hit her and four is run, okay? And go on then, whats our mission this time kid?" his blonde mother asked fondly.

"Operation SwanQueen," he said with a grin on his face that stretched from one side to the other. "Also, what if we can't blink when we're frozen?" He asked.

Both of his mother's looked back at him with wide eyes, not wanting to even glance at each other in case either one communicated too much with their look, casually ignoring his latter statement out of shock of the former.

"SwanQueen?" Regina uttered sheepishly.

"Yeah," Henry said, still smiling, "Because Emma's a Swan and you used to be the Queen, and together you're gonna defeat Zelena!"

"Now now now," A voice interrupted from above them, somewhere up in the rafters of the barn. "Not so quick to assume please."

Within seconds Emma and Regina were in full defensive mode. They pushed Henry behind them and both raised their hands in preparation to begin this endeavour. As they did so, all they heard from their enemy was a low chuckle, at which point she disappeared from her spot in a vortex of green smoke and reappeared several metres away, in front of the two mothers.

"Well isn't this a family affair," she said as she paced in front of them, seemingly unfazed by the two women. "My sister, my nephew and, whatever you are," she said finally to Emma, who didn't know whether to be offended or just pissed off.

"Careful, Witch," Emma growled, dropping her stance and baring her teeth like an angry predator.

"Dear, I could eat you and your son for breakfast, so maybe you should try being just slightly nicer to me? Or I'm going to make this even more painful for all those involved than it needs to be. Understand?"

Emma didn't grace this statement with a reply and instead listened to Regina's words. "There will be none of that, thank you. And dear sister I don't believe you have done much which warrants our being cordial to you in the slightest."

Zelena looked at her with narrow, venomous green eyes as she walked around them in a circle. Magically a bunch of hemlock appeared at the end of each line which branched from the three circles carved into the ground. Emma, Regina and Henry were standing in the centre of the middle circle. The plants were lit with a flick of Zelena's wrist and soon smoke started to fill the air, surrounding the little family and obscuring their view somewhat. However, no matter where Zelena moved they could still see her; the glowing green pendant around her neck giving away her location at every moment.

"Right, so break the curse? Check. Capture kiddwinkle and Saviour? Check. Hemlock? Check. What next" she pondered.

Regina interrupted her thoughts with a question she had both wanted and not wanted to ask, for different reasons. "Why him? Why use Robin to break the curse? Why break it at all when it wasn't even you who cast it?" The brunette assumed that Zelena knew how much Emma meant to her, so she has almost asked why the witch hadn't used her instead, before thinking better of it.

Zelena looked as if she contemplating not even gracing the question with an answer, but then she began to speak. "Well firstly he was very easy to recruit. Its much easier to control someone if they are both stupid and desperate. Secondly, I may or may not have been told by a little birdy, or rather, fairy, that you were under the impression that he was your True Love," she said in a sing-song voice too much like Rumple's for Regina's liking. "And I also may or may not have been told it was someone else. I had intended to allow the kiss to happen of its own accord, to make you fall in love with him then have him break your heart, but obviously I overlooked the fact that he has about as much appeal as a half-dead walrus. So I had to orchestrate the situation a little."

The former queen was confused. Someone else? Does she mean Emma? Regina thought. Because sorry sis, but I'm one step ahead of you on that one. But if Robin isn't my true love, then who was in the Tavern that night. This must be what she wants to keep from me, she reasoned.

"She hasn't been a very good friend to you, poor Regina. There have been more than a few lies told here. For some reason unknown to me - after all I don't concern myself with the morals of fairies - she has been wanting to keep the truth from you. I only wanted to do her the favour of making sure you never find out, because happiness is the last thing you deserve." Zelena spoke with hatred, spittle flicking from her mouth in anger after her last sentence.

"I spent a lot of time thinking that I didn't deserve happiness Zelena, that Villains don't get happy endings. But I'm starting to think that might be wrong about that. I do deserve happiness."

"No, you don't!" Zelena screamed in a sudden fit of anger which had Emma pushing Henry backwards several steps. "Now stop interrupting me. Not only are you pathetic but you are rude."

"Next on my list is Mummy's heart, which I gave you to thank for." What they assumed was another hand movement prompted the appearance of a chest, one which Regina knew without a doubt had come from her vault.

"Thank you for this, sis. I really appreciate you leaving your little lair unlocked for me, it really did make things so much easier."

"I did nothing of the sort," Regina said, watching the smoke rise around in front of them.

"Oh, you did. You were in such a rush to get back to your precious son and lap dog should they be in danger that you forgot to lock the vault in your wake. What a shame. You do bring these things on yourself. Regardless. Mother's heart was going to be the most difficult thing for me to come across, so thank you ever so much for making my job of destroying you easier."

Regina's hand snuck backwards and found Henry's arm, giving it a reassuring squeeze as he stayed silent, hiding behind his two mothers.

"Now, here comes the really fun part," she said, smiling wickedly as she walked through the smoke towards them. "I'm not entirely sure what your role is in this, Saviour, but you are a threat to my cause and therefore you and the boy will both have to go."

"Don't you touch them," Regina growled, eyes flaring purple with the threat of the two things she loved most in the world being taken away from her.

Zelena only graced the brunette's statement with a laugh before she appeared behind them, grabbed Henry and reappeared just slightly to their right, standing in the first circle of the time turner.

"Let him go!" Emma said, anger bubbling at the surface of her skin. No one touches Henry and gets away with it.

"I was going to make the Saviour suffer a little bit, you know," she said nonchalantly, addressing Regina, arm wrapped around Henry's neck in a tight grip. "Maybe force her to kill Henry, something fun like that, but now I think I've changed my mind. I want you," she looked at Regina, Emerald eyes swirling with malice, "to kill them both."

Neither woman took their eyes off the Regina as they waited for her response.

"You will have to kill me long before I touch even a hair on top of either of their heads," Regina growled. She could feel Emma tense next to her at her words and she had the fleeting thought that maybe it was because she had just essentially voiced how much Emma actually meant to her.

"You're a bore" Zelena whined childishly. "I could make you do it with magic. But that wouldn't quite have the same effect." She stroked Henry's hair predatorily. "I could kill him myself," she whispered in his ear, "but thats no fun either. Not enough…heartache."

Suddenly Regina and Emma were frozen in their spots by one strong blast of magic from the redheaded woman. "Kill her," Zelena looked at Regina, then at Emma, "or I kill him."

A long, sharp dagger appeared in the brunette's hand and her arm started inching slowly upwards, entirely out of her control. The knife glinted in the light which came in through the gaps in the roof of the barn. Emma was turned to face Regina; both women now looking in each other's eyes but unable to communicate via anything but that.

"Mom, no!" Henry yelled and squirmed in the woman's arms, but to no avail.

Emma pointedly glanced several times to Henry and then back to Regina, and received a wide eyed look in return, which Emma realised usually would have been accompanied by a raised eyebrow. Regina's head was at an angle so she could very slightly see Henry, and could almost meet his eyes. He blinked three times…what did that mean, the brunette asked herself. Hit her? Yes, Regina thought. She blinked back once as a signal for yes and hoped that Henry had seen her.

The blonde's gaze was fixed not on her son, but on the pendant hanging around the woman's neck behind him. It was the same pendant, she was sure of it, but glowing in the centre of the stone was a patch which was no longer green; it looked purple, but so light that it stood out starkly against the background.

Regina's hand continued to magically move towards Emma, slowly. Zelena was dragging this out and loving every minute of it. She looked on at her work with a proud gaze, one arm still tucked firmly around Henry - who was making a lot less fuss than she had expected from him - making sure he didn't move anywhere. Then everything happened at once.

Henry quickly and forcefully smashed his pointy elbow into Zelena's side. Though not enough to cause any lasting physical damage, it distracted her enough that her grip over Emma and Regina was momentarily lost. The boy tripped and fell, almost landing on top of the chest containing his grandmother's heart. The contents of his bag spilled across the floor as he fell, including his storybook, which he left in favour of shuffling backwards out of the way of his mothers' oncoming onslaught of magic.

The dagger in Regina's hand dropped to the floor and all it took was a look at Emma to know what they needed to do.

"Now!" Emma yelled, leaning forward on one leg and projecting every ounce of emotion she had inside her at that moment outwards and into the necklace. Regina did the same and suddenly the air was no longer filled with green, crackling, angry magic but the luminescent tones of white and gold and every shade of purple imaginable. Zelena's face was scrunched up in pain, her arms hanging limply at her sides as the light magic entering the pendant drained not only its dark magic, but also her own. Her body lifted into the air, slowly raised higher and higher by the power of light magic now flowing through the pendant.

"No!" Zelena screamed, terrified. Her ego had been so powerful that she had been convinced she could not lose, and now she was being drained of both her magic and her life-force.

Emma had never felt so powerful in her entire life. She had thought that opening the door with Regina when she had been trapped was the most incredible thing she had ever experienced, but this was on an entirely different level. She felt so in tune with Regina, their magic combining together so beautifully to create an immense power which took over her body and mind. It was all she could see, all she could feel. She couldn't help but give a smile and make fleeting eye contact with her partner, which only served to make their force all the more powerful.

"Emma," Regina muttered under her breath, though she knew that the woman couldn't hear her. She couldn't wrap her mind around the magical feat that they were undertaking, and winning, she might add, at that very moment in time. It should have been impossible for them to do it, but the moment her magic had touched the necklace and mingled with its power she had felt something change inside of her. The blonde was so relatively unaccustomed to her own magic that she wouldn't have noticed, but the former queen had known immediately that their power had formed, some how, into something formidable. The magic inside of Regina was no longer her own, but some new breed of magic which was her's and Emma's to share. Even though she was focused on her own power she could feel Emma's every emotion and sense her every movement.

Zelena's eyes opened wide then, flashing amethyst and the amulet around her neck began to glow; firstly dimly, then with increasing brightness. Her mouth opened in a silent scream and the light became so blinding that both women were forced to close their eyes, the intensity still almost unbearable with eyelids scrunched firmly shut.

Suddenly and with one final pulse of indescribable, overwhelming power everything went dark and Emma and Regina opened their eyes to see the witch's body shatter into thousands of tiny pieces of ash and dust. The amulet dropped to the ground and the brunette was transfixed by it for a moment; the gem in the centre was no longer black, or green as it had been when Zelena wore it but a clear white diamond.

Henry was the first to hear the screech of tyres and he jumped up, prompting Emma and Regina to turn around and see David running towards them and Snow climbing more slowly out of the car.

"What happened!" He shouted as he ran, noticing that both his daughter and former enemy were looking rather spaced out and distracted by something. Neither of them had said a word yet and they just looked at him, taking a few seconds to get their bearings. The magic was still pulsing between them and it was more than a little distracting.

"They did it!" Henry yelled at the top of his voice, whooping and doing a little dance. "Operation SwanQueen was a success!"

Emma let out a laugh and looked at Regina, the corners of her mouth twitching up in a smile. Operation SwanQueen, she thought. That kid I swear. Snow caught up with her husband and stood next to him.

"Yeah I guess we er…" Emma paused. Had they actually just done this? Or had it all been some weird dream or curse-induced hallucination?

"We did it," Regina said, finishing her sentence and returning her earlier smile with one so dazzling that Emma thought she might implode.

"Well Regina," Snow started, looking more than impressed at both of them, "I guess you really are a hero. And Emma, you are certainly the Saviour we wish we could have brought you up to be."

"We're so proud of you," David said, then, "both of you, really."

"Can we go celebrate with milkshakes at Granny's? Please?" Henry chimed in, dragging out the syllables in his last word and giving them his best puppy dog eyes.

"I suppose we can," Regina affirmed with a smile to Henry, "I think we all deserve it."

The brunette glanced at Emma and immediately got lost in the unreadable look she had on her face. This was one of those now or never moments that only came around once in a lifetime but neither of them knew how to cope with that fact, especially with Snow White, Prince Charming and their son watching.

"Hey Henry, why don't you come in the car with us and your Moms can poof back there, okay?" His grandfather asked him, sensing that there was something hanging in the air. The boy nodded and ran off towards the car, reassured by his mothers that they would meet them at the diner.

They said their goodbyes for now and the two women were left alone in the barn, watching as David's car reversed then pulled away, driving through the fields, which was likely going to ruin his car, though he hadn't exactly been thinking about that when he had sped there from the station.

Neither woman had moved from the spot they had been in when they had defeated Zelena and as a result they were still in very close proximity to each other.

Regina bent down to pick up the necklace which was still lying on the ground. She touched it gently and felt its weight, wrapping the metal chain around her hand. When she was upright again her face was inches away from Emma's. She looked deeply into forest green eyes, then down at the necklace again as she rubbed the pad of her thumb across the gemstone and felt in the palm of her hand what felt, at that moment, like all the magic in the world. Her heart began to overwhelm her and it was almost unbearable because she hadn't let herself feel this much, ever; with Emma it just felt so inevitable.

One minute Regina was looking at the blonde with glassy eyes, the next one arm was wrapped around Emma's neck, and the other came up to grasp the lapel of her jacket alongside the necklace, which came to rest in between their bodies. The former Queen buried her face in the crook of Emma's shoulder and felt the strong, safe arms of the Saviour, her Saviour, wrap around her.

Emma held Regina like nothing else mattered, because in that moment nothing did, so she closed her eyes and let herself fall. She realised that this was the first time they had ever hugged well, outside of a bed that was. At first the blonde was so absorbed in the embrace that she didn't notice the heat start to grow between them or notice the ground around them begin to shake. When they realised what was happening they broke apart, though their arms were still touching.

The necklace wrapped around Regina's fingers was glowing again and there was a rumble deep in the earth which sounded ominous and terribly powerful. Emma looked down and noticed that they were standing dead in the centre of the Time Turner and that Henry's storybook was lying several feet away in one of the circles.

"Regina, that book wasn't open before, was it?" Emma asked.

As the older woman glanced across at it there was another powerful shake in the ground and the pages of the book turned again.

"What is happening?" Regina answered Emma's question with another question.

"You think I know?" the blonde said. Her voice turned high pitched and succeeding in revealing her fear.

The amulet continued to shine brightly and soon it became too hot for Regina to hold in her hand. When she dropped it on the floor magic begun pouring out of it, flowing through the carved grooves on the ground and slowly lighting the symbol up with glowing energy. Then the same thing begin to happen with Henry's book except that instead of magic there were words and pictures flying all around them.

"We need to leave, right now," Regina yelled over the noise but it was too late. They were pulled into a tornado of magic and letters and images. They span and span and span in circles, making Emma feel nauseous. The only thing that grounded her was the firm grasp of Regina's hand in hers as they fell. She didn't know whether they had been sucked into a portal or taken away in a magical twister like Dorothy, but she knew that wherever they were going, it couldn't be good.