Double Trouble 69

Chapter 69 'The point of no return'

108 Mifflin Street

A vortex of purple smoke cleared on the porch revealing the Sheriff and the Mayor, newly transported by magic to the mansion they both called home. It was nearing dark and Storybrooke was close to its magical twilight. They were worried for their son who ought to have arrived home from school by now to an empty house.

Regina reached for the front door first and found it unlocked. She pushed through the door in a hurry, with Emma at her heels. The house felt wrong and the former Evil Queen knew why. The magic responsible for its existence was thinning and now it felt like it could disappear in an instant.

"Henry," she called out, but there was no answer from the quiet house. "Are you home?"

Emma pulled at the elbow of the Mayor's coat sleeve. "Regina, look," she said, then pointed at some of the picture frames in the hall. There were frames on the wall and others on the spotless surfaces of the furniture in the entryway, each one held a photograph of Henry with or without his mother. Regina had added to the collection over the years, every time her son brought home his school portrait, and more recently she'd framed one of her and the Sheriff together looking very much a couple.

The frames were now empty, or so it seemed at first glance.

"What's going on?" said Emma. "The photos have changed. Did you do this?"

"No," Regina murmured. She went to face the wall where one of her favourite photos used to hang. As she got closer she realised that the photo wasn't completely blank, its subjects were fading away and were barely visible now. The backgrounds were intact, only the people were affected.

"This one's really faint," said Emma, holding one of the frames in her hand. "Henry's almost completely gone. Is this… Did something happen. Did we change the past?"

"What do you mean?"

"This whole time we've been worried about what would happen to the future if the girls learned something that changed things for them. Do you remember what Henry said about time travel? He said it was either like Terminator or Back to the Future."

"What exactly is your point."

"In the first Back to the Future movie Marty McFly has a photograph from the future of himself and his brother and sister. The kids start to fade from the photo when stuff happens in the past to interfere and it looks like his parents won't get together. If his parents hadn't gotten married the kids wouldn't have been born."

"You think this means that Henry won't be born because of something you and I have done? Or haven't done? Based on your expert knowledge of 80s sci-fi movies and their accurate depiction of the physics of time travel."

Emma nodded earnestly. "Based on classic 80s sci-fi movies. Yes."

"Hm. I bet Henry would know."

The two mothers shared a wistful smile, each thinking the same about their precocious boy who always seemed to know more about what was going on than anyone else.

"Henry?" Regina called upstairs for one last try and waited for the sound of a reply or running footsteps. Surely if he was home their son would have heard and come running to find out what was up.

"I'll go up and check his room," Emma suggested. "Maybe he has headphones in. You check on the potion?"

Regina nodded. She went into the kitchen where she'd spent most of last night tinkering with her chemistry set in order to fine-tune the potion, modifying it from the base instructions that Mr Gold had provided. All of the glassware, the bunsen burner, and the vials of ingredients were still set up exactly as she'd left them.

There was only one thing missing. The small flask that held the glittery purple True Love Potion was gone.

There were traces of someone's magic in the air. Someone whose magic she was all-too-familiar with. There was only one candidate who sprang to mind for the thief's identity.

"Gold." Regina gritted her teeth. She grabbed the parchment he'd given her with the near-useless instructions on it and crumpled it in her fist. He'd wanted her to make the potion for him for his own purposes - whatever he was up to she was sure it wouldn't turn out to be good for her.

The dark sorceress looked around to see if anything else was disturbed (maybe she was wrong about the theft and Henry had moved the potion?) but there was nothing to indicate that anything else had been touched. Whoever had come in and taken it had only been interested in one thing - the most valuable and powerful potion to exist in all the realms.

"Henry's not in his room." Emma came up behind her suddenly as though she'd bolted from upstairs. "It's empty! I don't think he's here anymore. He's-"

"The potion's gone," said Regina flatly. "Gold took it."

"What?!" Emma tipped her head back in dismay. "Fuck! Fuck that manipulative bastard."

"Yes, dear. Once again, he's managed to get what he wants from me under the guise of giving help. You'd think I would've learned this lesson by now."

"We've got bigger problems," said Emma, worry written all over her face. "We need to find Henry."

Regina knit her brows and nodded. "Yes, it's getting late. He definitely should've been home by now."

"No! I mean yes, he should. But that's not all. His room is empty empty. All his stuff is gone - toys, clothes, bed furniture - everything. Even the walls are white like the rest of the house."

"You mean-"

"It's like he was never here… Ever."

A small faint voice was heard calling from the backyard. They hadn't heard it before from the entryway at the front of the house but now in the kitchen they were close enough to hear.

"Mom? Mom, I need your help..."

The 'CLOSED' sign was displayed in the door of Mr Gold's shop but that didn't stop her. The Blue Fairy entered waved her hand over the doorknob and flung the door open, and then let it shut behind her with a clatter. The ring of the bell attracted the proprietor's attention and he came out to see who had circumvented the rudimentary security of the window signage.

"Ah, Mother Superior," greeted Mr Gold, apparently amused and nonplussed that she'd broken into his shop. "What can I do for you. We're having a special sale today - everything must go."

"I need your help," said Blue, unable to hide her difficulty admitting it.

"Oh ho ho!" Mr Gold chortled at the idea. "Really, dearie, and how can my humble self be of use to the supreme dictator of Fairykind? Assuming I'd want to be useful that is."

"One of my novices has granted a very ill-advised wish with far-reaching consequences for Storybrooke, indeed all of our lives depend on fixing that mistake."

Gold pierced her with his gaze. "Whose wish would that be?"

"You know very well whose wish," said Blue, dismissing his fake ignorance with some impatience. "Regina Mills, the teenager. She wished to return to the past. I know you tricked her into it by making her think you stole the wish - which is impossible. I need to know why."

"If I did trick her-" the corner of Gold's mouth quirked. "How would you know?"

"We record everything on our clients as regarding wishes. Documentation is crucial for their satisfaction. We need to know what our clients are thinking and feeling in order to best fulfill their wishes. Royals accept this as their price for our patronage."

"That sounds... invasive."

"Mr Gold! You tricked that poor young girl into making the kind of wish that should be granted to no-one, certainly not by one of my novices. Storybrooke is in danger of falling into a time paradox. We need to fix this mess before it gets any worse."

"I did not trick her." The imp put on a sing-song voice and a head wobble for good measure. "I gave her exactly. what. she. wanted."

"No, you gave her what she asked for, not what she wanted. Certainly not what was best for her. I doubt the Evil Queen will forgive you for that. She knows what you did to her now. She will remember."

"But which of us does she hate the most?" Mr Gold bit his lips like he was hiding a secret. "Here's a clue: it's you. Also, fairies in general. Good luck with that, dearie."

Blue sneered but was left without a response because he was right. She had inadvertently made an enemy when she ought to have made an alliance. But that was before she'd realised how important the former Evil Queen would be to the future rule of the kingdom and to Storybrooke. Who could have predicted that the Royal line would wend its way to the progeny of a ruthless social-climber like Coraline Mills?

Blue had to grit her teeth and screw up every ounce of her pride to ask, "Help me undo the wish."

"You can't undo magic," said Mr Gold, sounding far from sorry about it. "Not to worry! Time abhors a paradox. Circumstances will arrange themselves to prevent that from happening. I've seen the future and the past. Both of the girls will end up where they should be."

The Dark One wasn't afraid of this getting in the way of the masterplan he'd concocted over centuries and that meant- "You planned this. Why."

"Because children don't necessarily stay where you put them. I needed my monster to be waiting for me where I left her in the past."

"And Em Swan? She's still here," the fairy pointed out with raised brows.

"Not for long," said Gold. He checked his watch as though waiting for a scheduled train. "Any minute now..."

The Mayor and the Sheriff found their son in the backyard.

The floodlights illuminated the lawn and garden in the fading light of the day. A small figure sat on the back porch step working on something.

The two mothers ran toward him, yelling his name and asking him whether he was hurt. Regina had a head start so she got there first and saw that Henry had found a pair of garden shears and was trying to cut something. She immediately took the metal blades from him and checked him over for injuries. These were not ordinary scissors, the Mayor had enchanted them as undullable blades to give them a permanent sharp edge. She'd warned Henry in recent times to avoid any object with detectable magic - even hers.

"Henry! I've told you never to touch anything magical-..." Regina was gearing up for giving him a scolding. She grabbed her son's hands and noticed with relief that he wasn't bleeding. He was wearing gloves made from some sort of tough material. Had he been trying to cut the gloves off for some reason?

Emma panted, leaning over with her hands on her knees. "You scared us half to death, kid!"

"I'm sorry, Moms," said Henry. Then he told them how he'd come home to find that the pawnbroker had broken in. "Mr Gold was here. He came to steal the potion. I tried to stop him-"

"You should not have tried," said Regina sternly. "He's too powerful and you are too brave for your own good. So help me if you turn out like your mother... What are these gloves you're wearing?"

"I can't get them off! Mr Gold put them on me and now I can't do any magic. They're stuck somehow."

The former Evil Queen waved a spell in the air to give some extra light. She looked down at Henry's smaller hands and realised they were not encased in the usual cloth or leather of gloves, but in crocodile skin. It was far thicker than animal hide which only protected skin from cold, this was more like armour.

Regina felt the gloves to determine what spell Gold had used. He must've done something to block the wearer's magical power and to prevent the person from removing them physically. It wasn't a particularly powerful spell and most magical practitioners ought to have been able to avoid becoming gloved in the first place, but once the gloves were on they were essentially magical handcuffs. A beginner like Henry would not have suspected such a trick.

"Magical handcuffs," muttered Regina.

"Can you get them off?" Emma asked her. "With your powers?"

"Yes." Regina nodded as she began to work her magic and the crocodile skin gloves came off with a single tug. As soon as he was free Henry flung his arms around her for a hug and then did the same to Emma.

"What happened today, Moms?" said Henry, eager to hear what he'd missed out on while at school. "Did you figure out how to activate the potion?"

"Not yet." Regina smiled with an optimism she didn't feel.

"What are we going to do?" said Emma. "There's no point trying to activate the potion if we don't have it. Do we have time to make another one? Can we beat Gold to using it somehow?"

Regina shook her head. "No, even if we had time the potion can only be made once. We can't make another one. That was our only chance."

"Then I'll go find him. Make him tell us what he's planning to do with it and get it back. You stay here with Henry."

"No!" said Henry, eyes wide as saucers. "You can't split up. You have to promise to stay together no matter what happens ok. Promise me you will!"

When they questioned him about why he was so anxious that they not separate Henry told them that "somebody" had told him about his mothers being in danger. The boy refused to say who said so, how they knew, and where this all happened though. Henry maintained that it was prophetic and that they both had to "come back" alive.

"Come back from where?" asked Regina, confused. "Honey, did Mr Gold tell you this? Did he try to scare you with threats?"

"No! You have to believe me. The only way you can save Storybrooke is if you stick together. You have to kiss. It has to be True Love's Kiss."

Regina sighed. "I know that's what you believe but-... sweetheart, we have tried. Nothing's worked."

Henry gripped her shoulders like he wanted to shake some sense into her. "Mom, no! Don't be sad. The hero never believes it at first otherwise it wouldn't be a very good story. You and Emma belong together. The potion will work when you need it to. You're good now and Good will win."

"I wish that were true."

Henry smiled. He pulled something out from his coat pocket and tucked it safely into her hand. "Here. I learned it from Em-"

The last of his words were cut off by a deafening boom.

The time-space continuum had not reacted well to being manipulated by magic.

The sonic boom that shook the ground with its power sounded just like the one they'd heard moments before the car accident earlier in the day, the one theorised to have been caused by Regina's younger self being yanked back to the past. Regina was the only one who knew for sure because she'd been there on both sides of it the first time, as Ri and Regina.

Suddenly the wind picked up and reached crescendo from a gentle howl to an outright roar. The storm that swept through Storybrooke a few days ago was nothing to this. It was as if a hurricane had come out of nowhere.

Emma said something over the noise but her voice was drowned out. The Sheriff yanked her son to his feet, grabbed hold of Regina too, and pushed them towards the doorway at the back of the porch. The wind whipped at their hair and clothes as they ran.

The promise of shelter was within reach when suddenly the entire building faded away before their very eyes.

"What's happening?" yelled Emma, shielding Henry bodily from any flying debris. She held onto Regina in a protective embrace with their son between them.

"We're out of time-!" Regina said in reply, but there was no way to explain the extent of how true that was.

Ri had wished herself back to the past; Henry had wished himself into being born; Astrid said that Em was next…

It must have been Em disappearing this time, Regina realised. Would she come through the other side too?

With the mansion almost completely gone they could see through it to the houses across the street - or where the houses should have been. Even the bitumen of the road and concrete pavement were barely visible. All man-made surfaces and structures were being erased. Soon they would be standing in nothing but bare Maine land like it might've been before civilisation came. Before a town had magically dropped in out of nowhere.

"Moms, look!" cried Henry.

The boy held up his hand to the light Regina had created which streamed through the near-invisible skin. The ends of his fingers were almost completely gone and the rest of his hand was see-through up to his wrist. He was fading away.

"Oh no," Emma gasped. "He's disappearing. Storybrooke is disappearing. We have to stop this!"

Dread sank like shot in her stomach and Regina's eyes filled with tears that stung in the wind. Everything they'd been warning about since the girls arrived in their future Storybrooke from the past had come true. They'd changed the past and now it was affecting the future. The town the Evil Queen had worked so hard to create would soon cease to exist. Her precious boy was disappearing because he hadn't been born anymore. They'd failed.

"Do something!" said Emma, panic written all over her face.

Regina felt a spark of annoyance amid the panic. Of course Emma would be blaming her for not fixing whatever this was. "Me? I don't know what to do!"

"You have magic! Use it for something good for once in your life."

"So do you!" Regina shot back. "You're the Saviour. You're the one who's supposed to do good around here. Why don't you act like it for once instead of waiting for me do everything. I wasn't made for this. You were."

Emma grabbed a fistful of Regina's shirt collar. "Our son is going to disappear off the face of the Earth and you want to fight about who's good and who's not?"

"He won't be our son for much longer if we don't-"

"STOP FIGHTING!" said Henry. He succeeded in drawing their attention away from each other for a second, only for them to realise that he was fainter than before. They tried to cling harder to him but it was no use. The atoms of his existence were disappearing and there wasn't enough of him left to hold on to.

"Henry!" Emma sobbed. "Kid, no. We love you."

"Don't go!" begged Regina. "Please stay. Tell us what to do."

The ghostly image of Henry was trying not to cry. "I'm sorry, Moms."

Their son faded away in front of their eyes.

At that moment the forest was beginning to reclaim the entire area where Storybrooke once stood. The town now had never existed. Trees and shoots broke through the soil greedily taking over what might have long been theirs but for the Curse that made civilisation drop in overnight.

It was nearly full dark. Now that there was no light from streetlights or the soft glow of indoor lighting from the homes which used to be there.

The air became thin as though the oxygen were sucked out of it, but it was the magic that was being suffocated. The magical border was no longer fixed at the town's edge to enclose and enclave and protect the small population of refugees who'd been transported there from another realm. The border had shrunk to almost nothing. The last thing in its path was its creator, the Evil Queen. It seemed fitting that she would die by her own magic.

She didn't see what was coming for her.

"Regina, look out!" she heard Emma's warning too late.

The queen's head whipped around just in time to see a large sinuous tree branch shooting towards her out of the darkness. She couldn't seem to order her body to move in time.

Many times in her youth Regina had been swept off her feet and hung up in the air by one of Cora's border protection spells to stop her from running away. So she knew what was going to happen. She could already feel the branch tightening around her torso and arms and legs at her mother's behest, crushing the will out of her, stifling her freedom. But for once it never came.

At the last second Emma pushed the love of her life aside and put herself in harm's way instead. The branch curled around her waist and flung her high into the air. until she was gone from sight

Regina screamed out for her over the din. "EMMA!"

When the roar of the wind died down there was nothing left but the quiet and dark of the woods at night. The sun had set on Storybrooke and its Saviour for the last time.