A/N: I've created a back-story for Cora (and Hook and Peter Pan) that will no doubt become AU after the next couple episodes. But Cora's story is hinted at here, and will be explored later on.

Chapter Eight: The Rightful Queen

Town hall was busy.

Lights flooded through the windows and cascaded over the sidewalk surrounding the building. Leroy paused as he crossed the street on the way back to his brothers, his perpetual scowl deepening at the sight. The last time town hall had been used for any sort of organized meeting, Regina had stormed into the building in a flurry of anger and flames and stolen Henry from their midst.

So who was there, and why?

He hesitated, then doubled back towards the building. Suspicious of most non-dwarves by nature, he couldn't quite ignore the feeling that if this meeting was anything good, he would have heard about it. Ruby would have mentioned it, or Granny, or one of his brothers.

He pulled open the door and slipped into the building, unnoticed by the crowd that had gathered. There were at least thirty people in the room, probably more, and Leroy only recognized a few of them. It seemed to be one large argument, or possibly many smaller arguments, but Leroy couldn't make sense of any of it over the din of several raised voices.

There were no other dwarves present. No fairies. No sign of Ruby or Granny or Archie or even Whale.

Leroy's unease grew.

"Enough!" a woman said, her voice ringing with authority and she stepped into the center of the crowd. The other quieted almost immediately, and she continued, "These arguments will get us nowhere. The Evil Queen is powerful, and we must be united if we have any hope of defeating her and her allies."

"Why should we get involved?" a man in the crowd demanded, edging his way forward. "She's after Snow White. She doesn't have to be our enemy."

"She cursed all of us," the woman replied calmly, her words ice and her gaze just as cold. "She tore us away from everything we loved."

"Yes, but her fight was always with Snow White," the man protested. "I say we let the two of them try to kill each other and stay out of their way."

"In case you haven't noticed, Snow isn't here," the woman answered. "But Regina is, and she is still destroying our happiness. It has been weeks since the curse broke and I have yet to find my daughter."

"Margaret…"

"Leah," the woman snapped, eyes flashing dangerously. "My name is Leah, Queen Leah, not Margaret." Her hands curled into fists at her side and she drew a slow breath, as though to calm her anger. In a more measured tone, she said, "I will not continue to use a name bestowed upon me by that witch. I am not the person she tried to turn me into, and I never will be."

"Your Majesty," yet another person from the crowd spoke up, "while we agree that Regina deserves to suffer for her crimes, I don't understand why we need to be the ones to fight her. Let someone else do it. Why should we get embroiled in a fight that was never ours to start with?"

"Are you afraid?" a man said, stepping up to take Leah's hand in his. "Too cowardly to fight the witch?"

"Of course not!"

"Stefan," Leah said, lifting their clasped hand to her lips and kissing his knuckles, "I know the people of this town, and they are brave. They want to protect what is theirs, to keep Regina from taking even more." Her eyes surveyed the crowd. "Don't you?"

A murmur of agreement ran through the room.

"No one in this room is a coward," another man agreed, stepping forward. "But no one here is a fool, either. And only a fool rushes into combat without first thinking through every possible plan."

Leah nodded slowly, acknowledging the speaker. "True, Charles," she said, a hint of deference in her voice. "So it seems to me that we need a plan."

"I agree," another voice called out. "We allowed Prince James to take the reigns of authority and what did he do? He forged an alliance with the very person who cursed us, became friendly with Rumpelstiltskin, and then put himself into an enchanted sleep. He was willing to risk the welfare of this town to get what he wanted."

"Thank you, Midas," Charles said. He surveyed the people gathered for a long moment, letting the weight of Midas' words sink in, and then said, "We have no mayor, we have no sheriff. We have no one to lead us, and the man we put our trust in traded our safety for his own desires. It is time we corrected that."

Leroy glanced around the room once more, and saw Moe French standing on the outskirts of the group, watching the scene unfold with a smug smile.

"Regina! Open up, we need to talk!"

Regina frowned, pausing mid-step with a plate in her hand to glance over her shoulder at the door. Henry, who was in the process of helping her clear the table after dinner, stopped as well. To the one-time Queen, the interruption into what had been a rather pleasant meal was both jarring and unwelcome, but Henry clearly wasn't thinking along the same lines as Regina because he dropped his plate and cup onto the table and darted towards the door.

He yanked it open with a grin. "Hi, Ruby."

"Hi, Henry." The brunette werewolf stepped past him into the foyer, and caught Regina's annoyed gaze. "We have a problem," she said without preamble.

Regina's lips quirked into a mocking smile. "I know. I was the one actually conscious when that problem came through the portal."

"Not her," Ruby replied, dismissing Cora with a wave of her hand. Regina barely refrained from rolling her eyes at that – when would people stop treating her mother so carelessly? – and Ruby explained, "Moe French seems to have stirred up a crowd."

Regina lifted an eyebrow, a bit surprised. Moe French was the last person she would have believed has the backbone to cause any trouble, but he had already defied her expectations once by seeking out his daughter, so perhaps she had been wrong about him.

Of course, besides the detached curiosity she felt at his sudden courage, she was still apathetic to anything he did. "So?" she asked, crossing the room towards Ruby and closing the front door to keep out the night chill. "How is this crowd my problem?"

"Well," Ruby said dryly, responding automatically to Regina's indifferent drawl, "they are currently clamoring for your head on a platter."

Regina smirked. If Ruby thought that was going to cause worry, she clearly underestimated just how much contempt Regina had for the people of this town.

"People are always demanding my head, dear," she replied almost lazily. "If I had panicked every time some trumped-up noble came after me, I'd never have managed to get anything done."

"This is serious," Ruby said in exasperation. "King Charles is there, and so is King Midas, King Stefan and Queen Leah…"

"Charles is hardly someone to worry about, and I am confident we can take care of Midas," Regina said coolly. She hesitated, then admitted, "Leah might be a problem, particularly with Stefan egging her on. But I can handle her."

She kept her voice level and her worry firmly in check, not wanting Ruby to see how distressing this news actually was. Although she absolutely refused to cower in front of these fools, their timing could not have been more disastrous. Just as Ruby had rightly pointed out that Regina could not afford to fight her mother and the werewolf and dwarves, she also could not afford the distraction of these idiots and their grievances.

"They're gathering right now," Ruby pressed, a hint of fear in her voice. "They're actually calling it a war council. We have to do something."

"Yes, dear. Because what would really calm them down is if the Evil Queen appeared and told them to play nice with each other," Regina replied sarcastically.

Ruby glowered at her.

She pursed her lips as she considered her options, then said, "I seem to recall that Mr. French had no love for you."

Ruby grimaced. "He doesn't," she replied bitterly. "Leroy went to this meeting, and he said that French… Maurice… whatever you want to call him… is trying to convince people not to listen to me. Or the dwarves, or Dr. Hopper. And the others are agreeing with him, claiming that I shouldn't have authority…"

Regina laughed and shook her head in amusement at the outrage in Ruby's voice. "You shouldn't, dear. You are a waitress, remember? You don't have the right to power here."

"And you do?" Ruby growled.

"I'm the Evil Queen, aren't I? Since when do I care about what I do or don't have a right to? I see something I want, and I simply take it."

"This is about more than just you!" Ruby snapped. "Don't you get it? With David in an enchanted sleep and Emma and Snow gone, there is no one left to stand up to them. They want this town, they want to rule. They're trying to take it away from Snow."

"This town never belonged to Snow," Regina shot back angrily. "This is not her kingdom, Miss Lucas, and you would do well to remember that. Because I, for one, am not going to waste my time trying to help you retain whatever influence you misguidedly think you deserve."

"I thought we were working together," Ruby seethed.

"We are. On my mother. But I don't recall offering to protect your tenuous claim to power." She narrowed her eyes. "You'll have to worry about that on your own."

There was a momentary silence as Regina and Ruby glared at each other, but it was broken by an inquisitive question.

"Who are all those people?"

Both Regina and Ruby turned in surprise at the sound of Henry's voice, each having forgotten about him in their ensuing argument. Regina winced when she saw the mixture of worry and excitement on her son's face. She wasn't sure if the worry was for her safety, or for Ruby, but either way she did not like it. Combined with his reckless disregard for both his own wellbeing and the authority of adults, that worry would probably lead him to do something incredibly stupid.

"Henry, why don't you go to your room?" she suggested.

"But I want to know who those people are," Henry argued, his voice a mixture of determination and petulance. "I have a right to know, Mom. It affects me, too."

"No, it doesn't," Regina said with more censure than she had intended. Henry's expression hardened into one of defiance, and she sighed inwardly before adding, "This is an adult conversation, Henry."

"But Mom…" he started.

"Oh, just tell him, Regina," Ruby said irritably.

Regina slanted a glare at the werewolf. "Don't tell me how to interact with my son," she hissed. "You might think that you have the right to interfere in my family, but I assure you…"

"What I think," Ruby interrupted, "is that he is right; this does affect him. And not just because you might end up getting your head cut off."

Henry blanched at that, and Regina felt an absurd rush of gratitude that he cared enough to react strongly to the possibility of her death.

"Anyone who wants to get to you is going to know that you have someone you love," Ruby continued, her eyes darting between Regina and Henry.

Regina gritted her teeth, but couldn't argue with that logic. She had always been more than adept at dealing with the other kingdoms during her reign as the Evil Queen, but she had never had anything else that she cared about, anything that she needed to protect. The only thing that mattered to her then was her own power.

Things were different now.

She thought back to the day Henry had first delivered news of her mother's survival, the day she had gone to Gold for help and offered her own words of warning. And those words came rushing back to her now, reminding her that while they were meant to be a warning to him, they could just as easily apply to her.

Gold wasn't the only one with a weakness.

She made a decision. "Henry, please finish clearing the table. Miss Lucas, come into the kitchen. I want to know everything that was said at this… war council."

Henry, for once, didn't argue or complain or even sulk at being instructed to finish his chores, though Regina thought that probably had to do with the fact that cleaning up meant he would be in the kitchen while Ruby explained everything that had happened.

In the kitchen, Regina reached automatically for two glasses, and then stopped, reminding herself that this was not a social call. During her stint as mayor she had often offered cider to anyone in her house as a way of both throwing them off their game – courtesy of the high alcohol content – and amusing herself by watching others consume a drink based on the one fruit she was infamous for.

She turned away from the cupboard, pushing thoughts of apples from her mind. Ruby was leaning against the wall with her arms folded over her chest, watching Regina warily.

"So, dear… in between our meeting around lunch time and now the entire town has turned against you?" Regina glanced at the clock. "That is rather a lot to have happen in eight hours."

Ruby scowled. "I spoke to French shortly after you picked up Henry from the diner – maybe that was around two o'clock? We argued, and the next thing I know, he's gone and called a meeting of a lot of the old nobility. They're talking about how to run the town now that there is no mayor and no sheriff."

"Hm… I wonder who gave him that idea," Regina said.

"You don't think he came up with it on his own?" Ruby asked, but it wasn't a question. There was something about the tone of her voice that suggested she already believed someone else was manipulating Mr. French, and just wanted confirmation of her suspicions.

Regina didn't answer the question – it didn't need one. Instead, she asked, "Who came? Besides the people you mentioned."

"Um… not sure." Ruby chewed her lip. "I didn't go, just Leroy. He said there were a lot of people there. Midas and Leah seemed to be in charge, though. And Leah was… angry. Her daughter is still missing."

Regina glanced at Henry. "Aurora isn't missing," she said pointedly. "She's back in our land. And before you ask," she raised a hand to forestall Ruby's obvious question, "no, I have no idea why the curse didn't bring Aurora here. Something must have interfered with it."

"Or someone," Ruby suggested.

"Yes," Regina agreed, but refused to follow that train of thought any further, knowing that it wouldn't lead anywhere productive. Her mother was the most likely culprit, but Regina was at a loss for how or why Cora would have protected Aurora from the curse.

Or had that merely been a side effect of something else?

"So Queen Leah is Aurora's mother?" Henry asked.

Regina nodded absently. "Queen Leah and King Stefan ruled a neighboring kingdom. We were feuding for a while, but once I renounced my friendship with Maleficent we were able to strike a tentative truce." She gave Ruby a wry look and said, "I imagine cursing them all constitutes breaking that truce."

"And the others Ruby mentioned?" Henry pressed on before Ruby could reply.

"King Midas is Abigail's – Katherine Nolan's – father. I met him once or twice during Leopold's reign, but I don't know him well." Regina's words took on a tone of utmost disdain as she added, "Leopold did not think highly of his intelligence, and that is saying something given how much of an idiot my dear husband was."

"Regina!" Ruby hissed in censure, but Regina ignored her.

"King Charles goes my Patrick Herman now. He and I do not get along… but his anger was always more towards Rumpelstiltskin given what the imp did to Prince Thomas and Princess Ella's happy ending."

"How many kingdoms are there in your world?" Henry asked eagerly.

"A lot," Ruby muttered.

"The number was always changing as kingdoms absorbed each other or split into two," Regina replied carelessly. The subject might have interested her son, but having lived through the boredom of diplomacy and the inevitable futility of war, she found it all rather dull. Neither method had been particularly useful for her – she had learned a long time ago that the best way to take and keep power was through subterfuge.

After all, she had won the throne by manipulating another to kill the man standing in her way, and had lost the throne when forced to fight in an open war.

"There was always a war being fought somewhere. The only time the kingdoms stopped fighting each other was when they had a common enemy – the ogres. And even then… even then the kings and queens kept trying to get an advantage over each other," Ruby added, turning to face Henry fully. "And then, of course, there were the lesser nobles. Dukes, earls, lords and barons. They all fought quite a bit, too." She paused, then added, "And the clans who had their own order. Like the fairies and the dwarves. But they generally stayed out of the conflicts."

"They were supposed to stay out of the conflicts," Regina corrected. "Blue never really understood that, though, did she?" Under her breath, she muttered, "Interfering, meddlesome, insufferable…"

"That sounds very… messy," Henry interrupted.

"It was," Ruby agreed. "And it will be again if this war council is anything to go by. Everyone is grabbing for power now. They'll take whatever they can get their hands on. It's going to lead to chaos… backstabbing, infighting. The town will fall apart without anyone to hold it together, and when Snow and Emma return, there might not be anything left."

"It still seems odd for Moe French to be behind this," Regina mused. "The man might not be particularly bright, be he must know that he does not have either the strength or the support to win power. The others will crush him without hesitation."

It was like trying to align puzzle pieces when one was missing. She knew that all this information could paint a very revealing picture if only she could see how everything fit together. But something was missing, something obvious, and no picture was emerging.

"Someone is pulling his strings," Ruby said. "The question is why."

"To cause havoc?" Regina suggested with a dark chuckle. "If the point is to destroy the town, this is a brilliant plan. Why bother doing any actual fighting when you can set everything up so that your enemies destroy themselves?" Then she sobered abruptly and said grimly, "Actually, it sounds quite a bit like something I would do."

"But you didn't… right?" Henry asked tentatively.

Regina gave him a forced smile and shook her head. "No, Henry, I didn't. But I learned almost everything I know about manipulation from two people, and I doubt Gold is behind this."

"Your mother?"

Regina nodded at Ruby. "Yes. It reeks of her design."

It had been her first suspicion from the moment Ruby had mentioned all this, and not just because Regina was of the opinion that everything bad that happened now could probably somehow be traced back to her mother. The manipulation – using people to hurt themselves while hiding in the background, unseen and undiscovered – was so very like Cora.

And yet…

There was one major flaw in the assumption that Cora was behind this, and that was the involvement of Moe French. How would Cora have known to go to him? He was a lesser noble, disregarded and overlooked. He had little influence back in his own land, and even less here in Storybrooke. He lacked courage or strength, and hardly ever went against those with more authority than himself. He would not be the obvious choice…

Unless his strained relationship with his daughter and his hatred for Rumplestilskin, Ruby, and David were all known.

And Cora knew nothing of any of that– though it was entirely possible that she had learned of Belle by now.

But even if that was the case, whoever had done this knew Mr. French – or, rather, Sir Maurice – well enough to know which buttons to push, and Cora couldn't possibly know that.

So.

Who else was behind this?

"Did you bring everyone from every kingdom?" Henry asked, interrupting Regina's thoughts.

"No," Regina answered simply, and didn't elaborate. She'd only brought the kingdoms ruled by those whom she had wanted to curse – either because they were allied with Snow White or because they had failed Regina at some point in the past. She'd brought individual people from other worlds for the same reasons.

Of course, it wasn't as though everyone she'd cursed had been guilty of something. There were plenty of innocents here, too – cursing entire kingdoms meant that she'd cursed commoners she'd never met.

But she hadn't cared about them, and she couldn't quite bring herself to care about them now. Not with her mother here, not with Henry's life on the line.

"Assuming your mother has something to do with this, what does she gain by it?" Ruby questioned. "Why does she want the town destroyed?"

Regina's lips curled into a thin smile. "Not the town. Just the kings and queens. My mother does not like royalty," she said, her words twisting with bitter irony. "For all the effort she put into making me a Queen, she still hates anyone with that title. Anyone besides her."

"Even you?" Ruby asked curiously.

Me most of all, Regina thought, but she did not say the words aloud. It was far too complicated to delve into her mother's history, and Regina did not know enough about it to adequately explain all the details. But she knew that her mother resented her, and she knew bits and pieces of the reason why.

And she had no intention of sharing that with Ruby.

Or Henry.

Instead, she said, "She'll take quite a bit of pleasure in destroying them, but I'm sure she has specific targets as well." She inclined her head towards Ruby, "The fact that Miss Blanchard will return to a destroyed town will please her. My mother could never stand that lineage any more than she could stand my father's."

"Your mother hated Snow White, too?" Henry asked eagerly. "Why?"

Another question Regina was not going to answer. She deflected easily, "And stirring up the town means that I not only have no one who could possibly be considered an ally, it also means I need to waste time worrying about those fools instead of focusing on Cora."

"You have Ruby as an ally," Henry pointed out. "And the dwarves."

"Yes," Regina said dryly. Somehow, the fact that she had an emotionally-complicated werewolf and a handful of miners to help her fight one of the most powerful, manipulative, and conniving people she'd ever met was not a comfort.

She sighed.

"Hey, Henry," Ruby said suddenly, giving Regina a shrewd look before turning towards the boy, "have you checked on David this evening?"

"Not since before dinner," Henry said with a slight frown, "but, I mean… he's not going to change."

"I know, but I bet he likes hearing your voice. Even if he can't really hear you because he's in an enchanted sleep, I think he knows that you're there. Somehow."

Henry considered this for a moment, then shrugged and left the kitchen. Regina watched him go, and felt a fleeting annoyance. He doubted everything she said, constantly looking for lies and tricks in her words, and yet he accepted Ruby's words at face value? Couldn't he tell that it was nothing more than an excuse to get him out of the room?

She pushed the annoyance aside. Most of this was her fault, after all – she had lied to him. Repeatedly. He had little reason to trust her, and she knew that, but it was still so damn hard to watch him give his trust so easily to someone else.

And they had made progress today. She had to remember that, had to remember that things were slowly getting better between them. She would not do anything to jeopardize that.

She turned to Ruby.

"What do you want, Miss Lucas?" she asked warily.

"Can you do this?" Ruby asked flatly.

"Do what?" Regina asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Fight Cora. Can you do this, can you fight her? Can you stop her?" Ruby pressed, taking a step forward. Her eyes bored into Regina, demanding answers. There was suspicion and mistrust and…

Something else.

"Are you questioning my magic?" Regina snapped back.

"No," Ruby answered simply. "I'm questioning your willingness to attack Cora."

"My willingness…?" Regina practically snarled, incredulity and anger warring for control of her emotions. Ruby had given her allegiance reluctantly, and had attached far too many strings to it for Regina's liking, but she had thought that the werewolf was on her side.

She shook her head. Ruby was Mary Margaret's friend – Snow's friend. She should have known that the werewolf would never trust her.

But she hadn't expected such a blatant accusation.

"I think I've more than proven that I am willing to fight her," Regina said angrily, and turned away, moving towards the sink.

"You've proven that you are willing to protect yourself and Henry from her," Ruby countered, speaking from behind her. "But if we're going to defeat Cora, you're going to have to actually attack her. I want to know if you're able to do that."

Regina whirled around. "What makes you think I wouldn't be able to?" she nearly growled.

Ruby blinked, then said softly, "She's your mother."

Regina stilled. There were so many reasons that she felt paralyzed in the face of her mother's presence, but underneath everything – underneath her fear for Henry, her fury at the way her mother was still trying to control her life, her desperate need for power, her insecurity over the best plan going forward – was the one simple trust she couldn't get around.

This was her mother.

Cora always said that love was a weakness.

The mirror rippled, like rings spreading out on a pond. The reflective surface shimmered, and an image appeared, distorted and vague. A hand waved over the mirror, fingertips just barely trailing along the glass, and the image came together. Lines sharpened, colors intensified, and the picture formed.

There were three of them – two women and a man. They were walking through a forest, their footsteps quick and determined. The man led the way, and his gaze roamed over everything, as though he was expecting an attack. The two women trailed behind, walking side-by-side. The brunette kept glancing around as well, a look of sorrow – of longing for something long gone – reflected in her eyes.

But the blonde stared only at the man, and there was suspicion in every line of her face.

Cora shook her head. "Bringing them to Storybrooke, are you? No," she murmured to herself, "no, my dear Captain Hook, this will not do at all."