So...the ending was unplanned lol! Not sure yet if I'm going to save her or not so please let me know what you want! To die or not to die lol! Please leave a review! I'm always happy to hear from you :)
"Henry," Emma called and then sniffed back her tears as she lifted the back of her wrist to her lips, her hands shaky and sticky with Gold's blood.
Henry was sitting on the stairs crying silently as he stared at the wall and away from Emma and Rumple on the floor in the dining room. His mind was a mess and he felt sick to his stomach as he rocked forward and backward ever so slightly.
"Henry," she called a little stronger as she breathed out a cry through her teeth and looked down at Gold laying on his back still heavily unconscious.
"Yeah?"
Her heart broke at his sob filled voice and she closed her eyes and cried out quietly, "please call Snow," she sniffed and a moment later she heard Henry walk to do as he was asked.
...
Snow sat in her home alone and rather bitter about the whole situation. First her husband and now her daughter. Taken by Regina. She knew David and Regina were happy and she was happy that Regina was finally happy but it killed her every time she ran in to her and David. Or just David in general. Emma, however...Snow hadn't a clue as to what relationship she and Regina had with one another. She had yet to see the pair of them together despite Emma spending nearly all her time with Regina outside of work. She rarely saw Emma at all anymore. She spent the majority of her time here in the flat unless she was being dragged out in to the world by Red. Or Ruby. She switched between the two.
She jumped when the phone rang and then scowled at it from across the room. Who the hell would be calling her at this hour? With a long huffed breath she stood from the couch and placed her mug of hot cocoa on the coffee table as she moved toward the phone. With another long breath she shook her head and brought the phone to her ear, "hello?"
"Can you come over?"
Her irritation had never been calmed so fast, "Henry?"
"Please can you just come over?"
"Henry what's wrong?" She questioned tenderly as her worry started to burrow deep at the sound of his shaky and teary voice as he sniffed.
"Everything is wrong. Rumplestiltskin's shot, Emma's trying to fix him, there's blood everywhere, my mom was taken by Greg, David and Cora went out to go find her, just can you please come over? Emma wants you to come over."
She couldn't breathe.
...
Regina woke to an achy head and when she tried to lift her hand to touch her temple she found her wrist to be bound to something unmoving. Frowning she leaned her head back and let out a long breath at the tightness in her neck. And that's when she remembered. She swallowed down a light and tortured sob as she pulled at her other wrist just in case but found it to be tied down as well. Slowly she blinked her eyes open and was grateful for the dim lighting.
She was in a room. There was nothing special about it. It was just a square room with two doors on opposite ends of it. Four walls, no windows, two doors, and an odd looking machine in the corner in front of her to her left. And she sat in the middle of it on a wooden chair with her ankles bound together and her wrists tied too tightly to the arms of it. She tried using her magic to simply untie the ropes but she quickly learned that her magic would do her no good at all. At all. It was there, she could feel it in her, she could manipulate it in whatever way she desired, it was just as powerful and as enraged as ever but it could not leave her. It was blocked by something and it was so incredibly infuriating. To feel her strength there entirely ready and capable but unable to be used.
With a clenching of her jaw and a flexing of her fingers she took a long steady breath and a slow blink. And then redirected her magic from her surroundings to her own self. To her belly. To the tiny baby growing inside her. The protection spell she had put around the baby earlier protected it from many things aside from just alcohol and now she was strengthening that spell and adding on to it so that nothing, nothing, could harm her little infant. It was working just fine and it gave her so much relief to know that the baby would be fine. She could handle pain, she could handle torture, she could handle anything, but her baby could not. Not until now. Now that it was floating inside her and would feel nothing that she went through.
The door on her right opened just as she finished and her eyes fell on Greg. He walked in with a scowl and she held his eye with no issue at all. She dug a little deeper for more strength and allowed for a little bit of the evil queen in her to leak through as she relaxed in to the chair and kept her bound ankles tucked to the side. "Why am I here?" Her voice was plain and he leaned back against the wall in front of her, facing her as he folded his arms over his chest.
"I need answers."
"Really?" She dipped her head and then tilted it as she shook it a little and straightened her neck, "and you couldn't have simply asked me in my office? You had to steal me away and sedate me and tie me to a chair in this horribly boring room? Really, dear, what makes you think anyone would be more willing to answer your questions here than in the comfort of their own space?"
"A person is harder to break when in the comfort of their own space, your majesty."
"If anything they are easier to break. Their guard is down," she drawled out and watched her fingers lightly scratch at the arm of the chair.
"Your guard is never down though now is it."
"Of course it is. Simply depends on whose company I'm in."
"You're stalling."
"What is there to stall? I am merely making conversation. It's not like I'm going anywhere. What did you stab in to my neck anyway? Because I must say it is rather irritating," she nodded slowly but was quickly silenced and rather startled when he lunged at her and stopped suddenly with his face mere inches from hers and his hands firmly gripping her wrists as he bent down in to her space. She wanted to rip her hands away from his chilling and controlling touch but of course she couldn't so she simply tried not to show him how much he unsettled her.
"What have you done to Tamara," he hissed at her, done with her games and ready to get things started.
"Your darling little sex toy?" She drawled out and he huffed a long slow breath through his nose, likely furious that she had been aware of their little fling when he had tried oh so hard to keep it a secret, "I fed her a good meal so she wouldn't starve to death and then took her over the town line. You know that."
"What did you do to her?" He spat and she sat tall and unmoving, waiting for the right words to express his question despite her already knowing what he was asking. She was stubborn and trying to maintain the upper hand despite being bound to a chair. He refused to let her win again. "When will she wake up."
"Tomorrow morning."
"What did you and Rumplestiltskin do to the border around this town."
"Strengthened it."
"Why."
"So we no longer have to deal with imbeciles like the two of you disturbing us and threatening our families and our town," she spat back, growing irritated and wary with his voice that was building to be more unstable than anything else. She was not certain she was prepared for his anger to break. She also didn't believe she had a choice.
"You have stood in the way for long enough," he snarled in her face and her brow furrowed ever so slightly in confusion before he pushed himself off her chair and turned around to the machine standing in the corner.
"You say that as though I have been in the way longer than these past months."
"Do you really think that the 'Home Office' had only just learned of your dear dear Henry? You truly think that they haven't tried to get their hands on him since the day he was born?" He laughed coldly over his shoulder and then shook his head as he looked back at his machine and began flipping switches and turning dials, "you just had to come sweeping in. A pretty little mayor of a fairytale town wishing to start her own family. What adoption agency would say no to that?"
She felt her blood run cold. Her heart stopped and her blood went cold and she couldn't seem to snap out of it. Her Henry. Her precious Henry. He would have been killed as an infant or groomed until he was old enough for their wishes before they killed him. Either way her precious boy wouldn't have had a life, he wouldn't be the mind he was today and that was because of her. Her darling son had been in danger his entire life and she had had no idea. It was an unsettling feeling to say the least. But he was safe now. She knew that for a fact. Tamara was over the line and Greg was here sorting out a personal vendetta. She had stood in the way for this long and she wasn't about to step aside now.
"You're pregnant."
"Indeed," she answered simply as though she were bored as her strength and her resolve began to return to her.
"You seemed to have let that go untold."
"You didn't ask," she retorted and he laughed quietly before he turned and wheeled his machine closer to her. She didn't know what it was but she was rather certain she didn't want to find out.
"Yes well that carelessness of mine certainly has put a damper on things," he nodded as he strolled toward her with several electrodes in his hand, "you see I was going to have you on your back," he started as he bent at the waist and stuck one electrode to her temple and she flinched away from his touch but that only made his smile twitch higher for a moment before he moved his attention to the other side of her head, "but I decided that seeing that round stomach would take away all the joy in watching you scream and arching your back off the bed," he smiled at her and she didn't say a word. Her dark eyes didn't move as she stared at him with no expression on her face whatsoever.
"So a chair will just have to do," he smiled at her as he stuck two more electrodes to her. One on each forearm before he turned back to the machine.
She felt her heart start to race when he returned his attention to her by clipping wires to her fingers and the electrodes on her arms and temples. Yes she was scared. She was terrified but she wouldn't let it show. She did her best to keep her breaths even and her expression schooled but she had a sinking suspicion that that wasn't going to be easy in a few moments.
"There we go," he breathed out as he clipped the last wire to her temple and took the time to slowly run his fingers down the side of her face and along the edge of her jaw to her chin where he lingered and leaned in closer, "now where is my father, clever queen."
...
Snow barged in to Regina's house to find chaos. Just utter chaos. Henry was pacing back and forth along the length of Rumplestiltskin's body. From the end of the dining room table to the middle of the foyer and back again. He was hugging and crying in to a pillow that must be Regina's for it was too white to belong in a little boy's room. Rumple was not moving and there was blood pooled around him that Henry avoided stepping in with his bare feet. She couldn't see Emma but she could hear her to her right mumbling incoherently between shouts and thrown books.
She ran to Henry first and stopped his pacing with her hands on his tense arms as she dropped to her knees. The pillow was Regina's, it smelled just like her and it twisted her heart in a cruel manner as Henry continued to cry in to it and cling to it, "Henry, Henry come sit down."
"No."
"Henry-"
"No! I need to make sure he doesn't stop breathing! Emma told me that I need to make sure he doesn't stop breathing!"
"Okay, okay, it's alright. You make sure he doesn't stop breathing then, alright?" She nodded as she rubbed his arms and he blew out a shaky cry as he nodded too, "do you want to sit down?"
"No."
"Okay. I'm going to go talk to Emma, you stay here and make sure he keeps breathing. Alright?"
"Okay."
"We'll find her, Henry. We'll get her back," she assured and he simply hugged the pillow tighter and as soon as she stood up and let go he began pacing again as he cried and mumbled quiet words of comfort to himself. Reluctant to leave him alone, she turned and quickly followed the sound of Emma and found her in Regina's study throwing books off of shelves, pausing every now and then to flip through the pages of one before she threw it behind her and searched the shelves again, "Emma."
"I can't remember what book it's in," she cried as her shaking hands pulled another off the shelf, "I can't remember. I can't remember if it was plants or-or-or herbs or if it was just," she cried at that book and then threw it behind her to pick out another, "or if it was just in a regular spell book or one of the big ones that she brings out for me but keeps somewhere secret and I don't have time to go look in her vault and-Henry!"
"Yeah?"
"Where does your mother keep her plants for her spells?!"
"In the locked cabinet by the fireplace."
Nodding and wiping her tears from her cheeks, Emma stepped through the mess of books she had made on the floor and made her way toward the living room on the other side of the house but was quickly grabbed by her arm and she had seemed to have forgotten that Snow was there.
"Emma-"
"Let go! We don't have time for this!" She shouted as she jerked her arm away and jogged out of the study and to the living room without looking at Gold laying on the floor.
"Emma what are you trying to do?!" Snow called as she haphazardly navigated through the piles of books to quickly follow Emma.
"We need to find Regina and this town is a whole lot bigger than everyone thinks!"
"But what are you doing, Emma!"
"I am trying to remember how to make a locator spell, Snow!" She shouted at her and then quickly turned back to the cabinet and tried tugging on the doors but it was locked.
"I told you it was locked."
Emma gave half a laugh at Henry's call and then stared at the cabinet whispering, "open, open, open. Open the cabinet, open open open."
Snow simply shook her head as Emma tugged on the handles again with a growl, "what do you mean remember how to make a location spell? Emma you've never made one before."
"That is true," she nodded and tried to move the tumblers in the lock only to promptly give up on that.
"Then what are you talking about?!"
"I don't have time for your magical cabinet bullshit, Regina!" She screamed and shook the furnishing before kicking it and turning away from it for a moment to calm herself for just a moment so she could focus her own magic.
"Emma-"
"Seriously, Snow, stop talking for a second! Can you please go upstairs and bring me something of Regina's," she instructed in a shaky voice as she turned back to the cabinet and blew out an unsteady breath.
Snow watched in confusion and disbelief as Emma bent down a little and lifted her hands over the lock. Nothing happened. Of course nothing happened, had Emma gone mad? Snow was about to start laughing and pulling Emma away from her deadly concentration when the unbelievable happened. The locked cabinet clicked open. With her jaw slack and her eyes wide, Snow watched as Emma shook out her hands and sniffed back her tears before she began rifling through the contents of the cabinet.
"Snow! I need something of Regina's!"
Snapping out of her trance, Snow jumped and turned and hurried up the stairs in search of Regina's room with more questions than answers. Emma had magic? Is that what she he been doing with Regina all this time? Learning to use it? It must be. There was no other explanation for the constant presence in Regina's company. But how in the hell had she not noticed?!
Four doors later she found Regina's room and she scanned the room first before zoning in on a jewelry box and heading straight for it. What did Emma need? What kind of object? And then something caught her eye. One necklace in particular that had her undivided attention. A silver horse caught in mid gallop with a detail unheard of slung on a delicate silver chain. She hadn't seen that necklace since she was a little girl and had given it to Regina as a gift. Why did she still have it?
"Snow!"
Once again snapped from her thoughts by Emma's voice, Snow took the necklace and ran back downstairs and presented it to Emma, "here."
"Wha-where the hell did you find that?" Emma frowned at the little horse with a shake of her head and then looked back to her work on the coffee table, "that was in her vault! I saw it when we first started together and she got all weird and never mind it doesn't matter just give it here."
...
She was shaking. She never shook. Not ever. But she was shaking from head to toe in panic and fear. She felt like she was going to throw up and her tears had not stopped since they had left the house hours ago. Hours. She had no idea where Regina was. She couldn't find the seductive call of her magic and that had Cora more scared than anything. No matter where she was she was always able to find Regina's magic. It was strong and powerful and distinct but now there was nothing. Just nothing.
With a loud outraged cry she spun around and let her pent up magic loose. She flipped desks and blew out a couple lights and threw books and various other office items but it didn't help. She was just as riled up as before. She hated this feeling. Hated it. She never wanted to feel like this again and she sure as hell wanted to tear Greg apart limb from limb.
David felt for the woman, he did, but he was in no different a state than her and he hadn't time to comfort her. He came back in to the main space of the station from Emma's private office and lifted the map, "got it," and just as he said it Cora had flipped and slid a desk back between them with the squeal of metal on linoleum so he could spread it out on its surface. He wasted no time in scribbling out the places they had already searched and tried so hard not to focus on the way his heart throbbed and the way his tears burned in his eyes.
"We have checked everywhere in town!" He growled furiously as he viciously threw the marker across the station and turned around to push his shaking hands through his hair.
"We can't have looked everywhere!" Cora yelled back just as furiously as she scanned the map herself. But sure enough they had checked every warehouse, every abandoned building, every possible location in this ridiculous town. And then she lifted her hand to see what it was covering and she sniffed, her voice tired and thick with her tears, unwilling to believe Greg had taken her across the town line even though there were plenty of clues leading to it, "what about the harbour?"
"What about it?"
"There are boats there. Buildings there. It's quiet, it's where I came in to this town and I ran in to only one person and now he's a fish. There's this bigger building right here. What is it?" She asked as she pointed to it on the map and David stepped back up to the desk.
"The cannery," he answered but then thought a little more on it, "the cannery...its big and loud and it's basically a maze in there. No one goes there, no one needs to."
"Well we should go there then," Cora tapped the map firmly as her stomach churned with worry and dread. Why would Greg wish to be somewhere where any voice would be covered by the sounds of machines? It wasn't like Regina was the type to cry out for help. Everybody knew that. Then David's phone rang and they both jumped before he quickly pulled it out of his pocket and Cora's eye was pulled to the window to find the sky to no longer be pitch black. Dawn was near.
"Emma what's wrong?"
"Nothing I am just sending Snow to you with a locator spell so you can find your idiot girlfriend."
David choked out half a sob and felt hot tears roll down his cheeks at Emma's exhausted and shaky voice. She was terrified and crying but trying to be strong and keep a level head and break the tension with some light humour even though she knew it wouldn't work. The news of a locator spell had him laughing and crying in relief though and that caught Cora's full attention as she stepped closer to him for an answer. "Tell her we'll meet her at the cannery. Cora and I have checked everywhere else. It better not lead us to the town line."
"David don't even bring that up! What the hell is wrong with you! Go to the fucking cannery! Gold is waking up I have to go."
"Thank you, Emma," he breathed out and then the line went dead against his ear and he cried in to his arm before taking a deep breath and grabbing Cora's wrist and pulled her behind him when he started running and jumping over overturned desks. Surprisingly enough the older queen kept up easily and unsurprisingly she didn't speak a word for she was very much like her daughter and knew that sometimes it was best to just follow for speaking wasted precious time.
...
"Where is he?!"
"I have already told you, many times, that he is no longer in town," she laughed tiredly as pain filled her body. And then she was shouting again, long and loud as the electricity took over her body. It hurt but she was stubborn and her pride would not let her back down or roll over. She had no idea how long she had been in there, she had no idea how long it had taken for the drug to wear off in the first place. Had it taken her minutes to wake up from the town line? Or hours? All night? She hadn't a clue.
"Where is he."
"Perhaps try asking a different question. Clearly this one is getting you nowhere fast," she croaked out as she closed her eyes and let her head fall back and tried not to show how much pain she was in, "you're simply beating a dead horse."
She was rewarded with another lengthy current and her cry sent a shiver of excitement down his spine before he turned it off and heard her try to catch her breath as she made a sound that was half whimper and half laughter. "Did you kill my father?" He bit out and she started laughing, her head fell forward a little as her scratchy throat lent her laughter a low and worn raspy sound. She sounded mad. Perhaps he had turned it too high.
"There it is. Progress," she chuckled as she pushed more of her exhausted magic around her baby to assure it was safe. She could heal later. Or die later. Didn't matter. The baby would grow and be fine regardless. Cora would figure it out.
"Answer me," he snarled and she sat back and tall in her chair as she looked him in the eye and he couldn't decide if he was disheartened or thrilled that her dark eyes were still filled with fire and life.
"Yes," she grinned, hissing out the 's' before she started laughing low in her throat and he took a couple steps toward her. A couple steps away from the machine. Good. She was terrified out of her mind but she was now digging deep for the strength of her darker counterpart. The strength of the Evil Queen.
"Why," he growled out, his top lip curled back in a snarl as he stepped even closer to her.
"Why not? I didn't have any use for him and technically speaking, Storybrooke does not exist," she whispered and he leaned down again, his hands on her wrists and his face right close to hers.
He could not describe the satisfaction it gave him to see her quivering. Nothing noticeable from afar but being this close let him see her vibrate. "I'm sure you could have thought of something to do with him," he snarled as he took his time looking her up and down, his eyes lingering on her breasts and her throat. The button on her burgundy silk blouse threatening to pop open across her breasts.
She hated being looked at like that. If she weren't tied down to the chair she would play along and then flip the roles and make him regret it. But she was tied down and did not want to even attempt going down that road. So she sat with her posture straight and her expression clear that she did not appreciate his bitter gawking. When his eyes finally met hers again he cocked his head with a smirk and she replied with a smooth voice but it had a clear and dangerous edge to it, "I offered but he didn't bite. So I had no use for him. Shame really. He had all of his morals in the right places," she finished on a more dull and uninterested tone that was meant to push his buttons. And push them it did.
Her chair was pulled forward and tilted back so only the back two legs of her chair were on the ground. It didn't seem to faze her in the slightest as she held his eye without blinking, "I don't believe you," he gritted out through his bared teeth and she leaned her head forward and rose to the challenge, refusing to back down.
In reality she was simply winning herself a break from electrocution. She had always been good with words. Words and knowledge gave her the upper hand when she had nothing left. "I killed him. I put a dagger through his heart and laughed as his blood warmed my hand. It had been so long since I had killed someone and it felt so good to fall back in to habit," she laughed lowly, her lips pulling in to a provoking and twisted grin as she leaned forward as far as her restraints and Greg's proximity would allow.
His rage was boiling and he was about to snap but to buy herself just a few more seconds she kept talking to keep him there and away from his machine, "it was thrilling and as I washed the blood from my hands I wondered about poor little Owen who would never again see his father, wondered about what kind of life he would have, if he would be alone, or if he would find himself a new family. But no. No, no, no, poor little Owen grew up wondering if the mayor was still as pretty as when he left the town and had difficulty deciding if he wanted to torture her or screw her. The electricity won out in the end though. The best of both worlds," she snarled and leaned in even closer, "you get to hurt me and hear me scream."
Then her chair was dropped and as soon as his back was turned she closed her eyes and took a deep breath as her chair balanced. When she opened her eyes he was spinning around to look at her as his hand slammed on the button and the electricity tore through her body stronger than ever before.
The scream that reached their ears caused them all to freeze and stare at one another in horror as the necklace looped around Snow's fingers pulled like a magnet toward the sound of that tortured voice. A split second later they were all sprinting toward it. It was Cora that ripped the door from its hinges and moments after that David was shooting four bullets in to the machine that had Regina crying out in pain. He was ready to shoot the man himself when he turned and ran but he stopped when Cora promptly cut off his escape route and Regina's soft sobbing reached his ears. Cora could have him. He was sure she'd do far more damage than he ever would anyway.
"We've got you," he whispered repeatedly as he dropped to his knees and began helping Snow untie her from the chair and unclipped the wires as she fought the restraints and let herself cry. "It's okay, we've got you," he assured and as soon as she was free she was jumping at him and he was holding her close as he stood and held her up as she cried in to his neck and clung to him with shaking arms.
Cora didn't believe she had ever been so truly livid. She could practically taste the man's blood as she slowly stalked up to him, looking him up and down, sizing him up, trying not to simply snap his neck and be done with it. No. She wanted him to suffer, "you hurt my daughter."
"Your magic can't touch me," he spat back and the woman merely laughed through her menacing grin as she stalked closer and his heart began to race as adrenaline coursed through his system.
"I do not need magic to hurt you, you fool," she shook her head with a snarl and to prove her point she broke a narrow pipe down from the ceiling with her magic and the instant it was in her hand she swung. The metal collided hard with the man's jaw causing him to fall to the ground with a cry of pain and rage and was soon scrambling back to his feet with a hand on his jaw as blood dripped from his mouth. "You do not touch my daughter," she yelled furiously as she swung again and the pipe connected with his temple and had him falling to the ground again with a sharp cry of pain but he took longer to get up this time.
"Get up!" Cora roared but the man remained down and disorientated on his hands and knees spitting blood on to the concrete floor. Enraged that he would not get up she sliced the end of the pipe off at a diagonal with her magic to give it a sharp point and just as she was ready to stab it underneath him through his belly with both hands he was up on his feet again with lightning speed and a gun in his hand. She was just as fast as he though and ignored Regina's panicked cry of her title and jerked her arm up so the end of her pipe hit his wrist and therefore caused his aim to falter and the bullet to hit something other than her head before the gun landed on the floor with a clatter.
And then the pipe was in his gut and he gasped while the deafening sound of the gun firing echoed in the small room. "You do not threaten the well being of my family," she snarled through clenched teeth as she leaned in to his face, "you do not harm my family, you do not touch my daughter, you do not take my grandson, for I will make sure you die slowly," she spat at him and used her magic to simultaneously slice off the end of the pipe as she had done to the other end as she bent it and pushed it in to him just below his sternum.
He grunted and tried to fight her off him but the wires that had been clipped to Regina quickly bound his wrists together and then wrapped around his neck so whenever he pulled, the wire would tighten around his neck. He discovered that fact quickly and stilled as best he could as the enraged sorceress remained inches in front of him with a snarl and sharp angered breaths, "my death won't go unnoticed."
"I'll make certain it doesn't," Cora hissed and with a sharp flick of her fingers she began to manipulate the narrow pipe so it burrowed deeper in to him like a snake and he shouted in pain and tried to get away but she slammed him back against the wall. He yelled and writhed as she heard the metal scrape against his bones while it coiled around his spine and began to tighten. The wires tightened around his throat as he fought and spasmed and she kept him pinned against the wall while her magic wound the metal tighter and tighter, cracking some vertebrae and shattering others. Now whether it was a broken spine or strangulation that killed him first, she couldn't say. But either way the man was dead on the floor and the room was silent.
Cora stared at him as she tried to calm her breathing and assure he was dead and when she was satisfied she turned and made her way to Regina. She was cradled in David's arms as she stared at her with wide teary eyes as tears rolled down her cheeks and lingered around her parted burgundy lips. "My darling," she breathed out as she rushed to her and held her face between her hands and examined her for any superficial injuries, "are you alright?"
Never. Never had her mother protected her. Not once. And she had just killed for her. Had spent who knows how long searching for her and then killed the man without a second thought so he could never hurt her again. She had never seen her so emotional, so angry, so protective. It had her choking on a sob as she stepped out of David's arms and fell in to Cora's. Decades of her life had been spent wishing her mother would scare the monsters from her life and decades later she followed through and killed the one she couldn't stop on her own. It meant so much to her. She wasn't sure Cora realized just how much.
Cora held her tight and let herself cry in relief as she tangled her fingers in Regina's hair and wound the other arm around her waist. "You scared the hell out of me tonight," she cried out quietly in to her hair and Regina laughed through her tears and hugged her tighter.
"I'll try not to do it again."
Cora laughed lightly and then nuzzled her face in to her soft hair, "you precious thing."
David let out a long breath of relief as he rubbed his hands over his face and dropped down to sit on his heels and balance on his toes. He let the tension dissipate from his body and let himself shed a few tears as he shook his head in his hands. It had been a long night and he was both physically and emotionally exhausted. He was sure he was going to be crying with Regina tonight.
Slowly he stood up again as Cora and Regina began to pull away from one another just a little. Regina was dependent on Cora for balance just as she had been on him while she was in his arms and he truly hoped it was something a simple good night's rest would fix. He was about to go pull both Cora and Regina in to his arms but he paused when Snow suddenly tipped and stumbled in to him. He caught her gently and she shook her head clear but he frowned, "are you okay?"
"Yeah I'll be fine, don't worry about it," she nodded but then swayed again and winced with a small hiss as the pain grew. She didn't think gunshots were supposed to hurt that much. She felt David catch her again but this time it was Regina's voice that called her name.
"Snow?"
"I'll be fine. It went through and through. Didn't hit anything," she waved it off while her other hand squeezed her side.
Everyone's eyes dropped to Snow's side and found her hand to be coated in blood. "Shit," David hissed as he spun and dropped to his knees and ripped Snow's shirt open, ignoring her sharp protest as the buttons flew every which way and she tried to cover herself back up. But the purple webbing was there around the bullet hole above her hip and in line with her navel.
Regina's eyes widened at the sight and as she leaned against Cora she snapped her eyes to Snow's and the woman came to realize that something was wrong. And then she collapsed and David was shouting her name as he caught her and kept her from hitting the ground.