There was a comment about why Regina didn't just use magic to transport them. This story was originally written in season 2, and at the time, Regina's magic was still sort of unpredictable. Also, I never liked how magic seemed to be something that didn't take any energy. That's not how it should work. So for the purpose of this story, using magic will be just like using any other muscle. There is a limit to how much can be used at once.
Also, thank you to everyone who's reviewed and who supported this story when it was first put up. It makes me happy to see that people remember it and missed it.
Seeing the town she had created from nothing in such a state of chaos should hit Regina harder than it does. But she is too much in shock for the destruction to completely register. On their way to the sheriff's station, they pass dozens of bodies and countless, well, zombies for lack of a better word. Twice, Emma has reached back and covered Henry's eyes as they drive past groups of the living dead crouched over an unfortunate victim. It makes even Regina sick to her stomach when she realizes what exactly is happening.
"Should we stop and-"
"We can't help them now," Emma interrupts tightly. Regina does not know what makes her ask in the first place. It is not like she actually likes any of the residents of Storybrook. Perhaps it is because she understands the helplessness they would feel in those final, terrifying moments. Regina is well acquainted with helplessness. "Just keep going. If you stop for too long, they'll swarm the car."
Regina nods, noticing how the sound of the car does attract the attention of the zombies. She knows she can probably defend them with magic, but that will eventually take its toll on her. Better to save it for an emergency. Her magic is unpredictable in this land, and she feels its use like she feels a well worked muscle, aching and tired. There are limits to how much she can do at once, it seems. Which is beyond frustrating. She is accustomed to having nearly limitless power at her fingertips, and now, when she needs it most, her magic fails her.
"When we were in your world," Emma begins quite suddenly, startling Regina, "your-I mean Cora used some sort of spell to send these corpse monster things after us. Could this be like that?"
"I don't think so." Regina pushes down the pang of loss that wedges itself in her chest at the mention on her mother. "You say it seems to be spread through bites."
Yeah. Probably any kind of contamination of the blood or something."
"Like, it can get into your blood through a cut or a scratch, too," Henry pipes in. Regina glances at him in the rearview mirror. He looks shaken and pale, but he says the words with such confidence. Her poor, brave, baby boy. She has worked so hard to protect him from the horrors of the world, to shelter him and keep him safe. And now the world has turned on them. All her hard work for nothing. "You have to be really careful." Regina can see that he is consulting one of his comic books. Not one she has bought him because she certainly would not have approved of a coming about these zombie things. Emma must have given him the money. Somehow, looking out the windshield at what has become of her town, Regina cannot find it in her to be angry.
"That's assuming that these...creatures are like the ones in your comic," she replies. As horrible as the situation is, she relishes having a conversation with Henry where he does not recoil from her or look at her like she is a time bomb waiting to explode in a fit of uncontrolled rage and magic.
"They seem to be." He ducks his head to read again. "Slow-moving, but attracted by sound. And they're not too scary by themselves, but they're really dangerous in big groups."
"Glad one of us is ready up on zombies," Emma mutters. "Take the back way," she then says to Regina, pointing down Main Street, which is slowly filling with its former residents.
By the time she pulls in behind the sheriff's station, Regina is sure that coming into the center of town is a mistake. They need to get as far away from the bulk of the population as quickly as possible.
"Your parents better not take too long, or I'm taking Henry and getting him away from this," she hisses to Emma as they slip into the empty station.
"That's probably a good idea."
The agreement shocks Regina, but she recovers quickly. "I'll give them ten minutes."
"We can't leave Grandma and Gramps!" Henry insists, looking stricken, and Regina fights to keep the grimace from her face. Her hatred of Emma's parents only grows as the days go by, but they are still important to Henry. And she is trying to be better for him.
"I'd stay and wait for them." Emma's assurance seems to appease him for the moment, and he nods. "They shouldn't be long." She checks her phone, and Regina can see they worry behind her eyes. It strikes her then that Emma chose to be separated from her parents to come to the mansion and retrieve her. As isolated as she has been lately, Regina knows she would not have realized what was going on until it was possibly too late to defend herself against the hordes. Emma has no obligation to her, to save her. Unless she did it for Henry. Regina hopes that he still cares enough about her to want her to survive.
All three of them turn at the sound of the door opening, Emma with her gun raised and Regina conjuring a fireball, ready to throw.
"It's just us," Charming shouts, hands raised. Trailing after him are Snow, Red, Granny, and Archie. Part of Regina is glad to see the cricket alive. Despite his betrayal, he still tried to help her. He tried when no one else did.
"What is she doing here?" All eyes turn to Regina at Granny's growled question.
"Emma! You said you had to get things for Henry. Not that you had to get her!" Charming places himself between Regina and his wife.
"If I wanted to kill Snow," Regina growled, "I would have done it when she came to my home, begging me to crush her heart." She sneers and leans forward, any wall that she may have let down around Emma and Henry coming back in full force. "I wouldn't waste the effort."
"Regina," Emma says sharply. Then, to her father, "She's with us because she's Henry's mother, and she has magic."
"So do you," Charming argues, looking like a petulant child.
"Yeah, but I don't know how to work mine. Sure, Gold gave me like on less, but-"
"You learned magic from Gold?" Regina cuts in, long learned fear and anxiety flooding her system. "Are you out of your mind?"
"Uh excuse me, I needed to know how to create a protection spell because someone was trying to kill us." The way her head is cocked makes her appear especially irritated.
"Not you," Regina clarifies, teeth grinding together. "Just him. He's dangerous, Miss Swan. You of all people should know that."
Emma sighs and rolls her eyes. "Of course I know that. But I couldn't exactly ask you at the time, could I?"
"As entertaining as your banter is," Granny cuts in, "we have more pressing matters." Her crossbow is hitched over one shoulder, and Regina is suddenly glad to have her there. They may not have ever gotten along, but she immensely respects the elder Lucas woman. And Red, for that matter. She trusts them to protect Henry with their lives. "We have to leave. Get out of town."
"But the town line is still there," Charming reminds them. "We leave, and we lose our memories."
"Yes, and these things can still get in," Red adds. Nervously, she glances at Regina. "IS there any way to put the barrier back up, Your Majesty." The title is said with such sarcasm that Regina feels herself bristle, but Emma lays a hand on her arm. It is enough to make her choke down on the biting retort that wants so badly to jump from her lips.
"I don't know," she says instead. "Gold created the original curse. He was the one who knew what it would do, not me. I just enacted it."
"Wait, Gold made the curse?" Archie steps forward, regarding Regina seriously.
"Yes. Presumably to find his son. Had I known, I would have been more hesitant to use it." If she thinks about it too much, the sheer amount of manipulation that has brought her to this point threatens to overwhelm her. Nothing in her life has been her own. "According to Henry's book, Rumpelstiltskin became the Dark One and then lost his son when he refused to give up power. The rest of his life has been about engineering a plot to get to this world and retrieve said son."
Emma's face softens considerably, and Regina tries not to shift uncomfortably under the all too understanding gaze. "So he used you, too."
"So it would seem."
"That doesn't excuse what she's done," Charming says, putting a protective arm around Snow.
"I never asked to be excused," Regina snaps. "Not by you." Her eyes flit to Henry, who is looking at her with a strange expression. Once she cannot quite place. Something close to puzzlement, maybe some understanding. She has worked so hard to keep him sheltered. He does not have the frame of reference to understand people like her. People like Emma. People who have to work every day to keep the darkness inside them from taking over. Regina reflects that she has failed to do that much of the time. The darkness in her is so very strong, and it is so much easier to let go than try and claw her way back to the surface, fighting against everything in her life that has beaten her down to this point. Sometimes that has bled over into how she has handled Henry and the whole Emma situation, and if she lets herself think about that too long, the guilt will keep her from breathing.
Sometimes someone very brave or very stupid will ask her if she regrets all that she has done. Usually, she tell them to kindly fuck off, but the truth is that if she lets herself feel that regret that is always churning in the pit of her stomach, a constant in her life since the day she killed the King, if she actually lets herself feel that remorse, she will lose what little grasp on sanity she has left. It will consume her. So instead, she focuses on her rage because, while it will destroy her just as surely as the remorse, it is a much slower process and so much less painful. Her live has become about minimizing her pain. It is all she has left, and she wonders, at times, what it is like for the people who have happiness to look forward to, even if it is just brief shining moments. She would give anything, has given everything, for those moments. They do not seem to be part of her story.
"Can we just like forget the whole curse thing for the time being?" Emma asks, inclining her head towards the window where Regina can see the zombies, for lack of a better term, beginning to congregate around the building. "Regina, do you know how to cast a like protection spell thingy?"
"Yes, I know how to cast a protection spell thingy. How eloquent, dear." Regina glances out the window, counting how many zombies there are. Too many, she decides. "But not here. There's no food, no beds, or anything helpful in survival."
"God, Regina, of course I didn't mean here," Emma says. "I'm not stupid-Shut up!" Regina clamps her mouth closed from where she had been about the challenge the veracity of Emma's statement. "I've seen more zombie movies that you have, okay, so I think I know a bit more about the proper course of action than you do."
"We shall see."
"Why," Red asks with a tilt of her head, "is everything a competition with you two? Seems like a lot of unresolved...frustration." She lifts a brow, and Emma and Regina both turn to glare at her. Snow looks as though she is ready to either faint or vomit, Regina cannot be sure, and Charming just stares at them, uncomprehending.
"You don't know what you're talking about," Emma assures her, but to Regina, it may sound a bit too defensive.
"Yes, I can assure you I have much better taste." Regina sneers at Emma to prove her point. Red just shrugs, clearly unconvinced and amused.
"Anyway," Emma gives another glare in Red's direction. "We need to find a better place to hole up, and Regina cat put up a protection spell thingy." She says thingy very deliberately. "Sound like a plan?"
"Great. But first we have to get through that." Granny jerks her thumb at the window. They all gather around, looking at the undead citizens of Storybrook, and Regina feels a blanket of dread drop over the group. How many of them can come out of this alive?