"It's ready, we should try it out." The Blue Fairy slapped her hands together enthusiastically as the bubbling potion in front of her took on a pleasant sky-blue color that shimmered silver in the light of the torches.

"We've been of that opinion before and it ended in a fire," Zelena returned grimly, eyeing the brew suspiciously. "I want it to be absolutely safe!"

The Blue Fairy nodded and ventured a step closer to the witch. "I can understand your concern, Zelena. After all, it's your sister we're talking about. But before we try to see if we can use it to breathe magic back into the wardrobe, let's see if it works on other magical objects first. We won't do anything that could endanger anyone."

Zelena was still scowling at her; the last thing she needed now was reassuring words from the Blue Fairy. Her constantly positive thoughts were driving her completely crazy. She couldn't understand how you could always go through the day in good spirits, but perhaps it was simply because she had already had too many bad experiences in her life.

"Come on, let's try the goblet."

Torn from her thoughts, Zelena refocused on the artifact that the fairy had placed between them on the wooden table. They had received the goblet from Snow, who had tracked it down in her family's treasure chamber. According to the legends, it transformed any liquid poured into it into the finest wine. However, the magic, if it had ever worked, was long gone.

With a thin glass flask, into which the Blue Fairy had poured a little of the magic potion, she stood in front of the goblet and dripped three drops onto its shiny, golden surface.

Fascinated, Zelena watched as the rubies embedded in the precious object shimmered bluish for a brief moment as the entire goblet was covered in the liquid. A moment later, the effect had already disappeared again and it looked exactly the same as before. "And that's supposed to have worked?" she said suspiciously, with her hands on her hips.

"We're about to find out." The Blue Fairy poured water into the goblet from a clay jug and then looked at the clear liquid with as much anticipation as Zelena.

"Nothing is happening! What did I tell you! We've got nothing, we're back to square one! How is this moldy soup supposed to reactivate a mighty cupboard if it can't even do it with a laughable drinking vessel?" Zelena roared.

"Be patient, Zelena," the Blue Fairy placated her again and put her hands around the goblet. As she closed her eyes, she let a little bit of magic flow into it. When she looked again, the transparent liquid had turned a deep dark red. "There you go, look!"

"You used extra magic. I wouldn't have needed a goblet for that, if you want I can turn the whole damn clay jug full of water into rum! Would just be a shame, now that our best drinker has left."

The fairy shook her head. "I didn't use a specific spell, I just used a little of my magic as a trigger. Everything else was done by the goblet itself."

Zelena fell silent and thought about it for a few moments. "Well, then I guess the stuff does work and restores the original spell, in the case of the wardrobe, the portal. I can only see one tiny little problem: a portal of this size and range will take more than a quick laying on of hands. We'll need a lot of magic for that."

It was probably the first time the Blue Fairy looked at her seriously. "We're going to need all the magic and power we have."

Zelena's lower jaw tightened as she realized the implications of those words. The wardrobe would literally suck the life energy out of them if they tried to reactivate it.

One moment Emma had seen the dog run into the road and the car lurch towards her as it tried to avoid it, the next she was lying on the ground holding her bruised elbow as the car shot past where she had just been standing.

Adrenaline made the blood rush to her ears and quickened her breathing as she struggled back to her feet. "Bloody hell, can't people keep their pooches on a leash?" she cursed, looking down at the spot on the ground where she had just stood up from. She had no idea how she'd gotten there, as she'd just looked frozen at the car that had been about to hit her.

"Did you see that?" Her eyes went to Regina on the passenger side of the car, only to find an empty wheelchair there. Emma's breath caught as she rushed around her car and saw her friend lying on the ground. "Regina!" she gasped in panic as she knelt down heavily next to her.

Regina was unconscious, blood was running from a wound on her temple that she had probably sustained when she fell out of the wheelchair and her body was hyperextended and convulsing.

"Regina... Shit!" Emma was completely overwhelmed by the situation and in her distress held Regina's head to protect it from even worse damage. However, as her lips began to turn a bluish color, she began to get scared.

"Ma'am, should I call an ambulance?"

Emma hadn't noticed the man in his mid-40s who had appeared at her side until then. Now she only made eye contact briefly before nodding. "Yes, please do that!" Immediately afterwards, she turned back to Regina and tried to rest her head on her own thighs.

The next few minutes seemed to stretch like chewing gum and when the ambulance finally turned the corner with its flashing blue lights and siren, four more people had arrived to help, but they were just as overwhelmed as Emma herself.

"Everything will be all right now, just hang in there, please," Emma said to Regina with tears in her eyes, before the paramedics and the emergency doctor took over and pushed her aside. She watched every move of the rescuers with suspicious eyes as they sprayed a drug into Regina's nose, which stopped the seizure shortly afterwards. Only then were they able to insert a venous line.

"Is she an epileptic?" one of them asked Emma after Regina had been placed on the stretcher and pushed into the ambulance.

Emma looked at him in confusion for a moment before shaking her head. "No, she... she had an accident just over a week ago and injured her head. But she's fine now, she was discharged from hospital yesterday." How could she explain that her seizures started when she used magic? And it was only at that moment that the scales fell from her eyes. How else could she have gotten out of the line of fire so quickly than with magic? Regina had shouted the warning, realizing that Emma would never have managed to get to safety in time. She must have used magic to save her life. When she realized that it was her who had caused Regina's condition, her knees threatened to give way. Also, the slowly fading effects of the adrenaline in her blood didn't make it any better.

"Are you not feeling well? You're bleeding," the paramedic said when he noticed Emma's gray top torn at the sleeve.

"Just a bit of abraded skin, I'm fine," she replied defensively as he reached out his hands for her arm and automatically took a step backwards. Her gaze slid back to the ambulance, behind whose closed doors Regina was being treated. "Why don't they go to the hospital?"

"We'll stabilize her first," he explained curtly. "If you want to follow us, we'll go to the medical center," he informed her and then got into the car with his colleagues.

Emma only briefly caught a glimpse of Regina, who didn't seem to have regained consciousness yet. She slowly felt for the driver's door of her Beetle and sank into the seat, breathing in and out slowly and deeply. If Regina died now, it was entirely her fault. How could she explain this to Henry? She was the Savior, she was supposed to save Regina, not the other way around.

Another quarter of an hour passed before the ambulance finally set off. Emma then joined the traffic, even though her fingers were trembling slightly at the wheel. She wouldn't have been able to keep up with the speed of the ambulance anyway, which is why she drove extra slowly and concentrated so as not to cause another accident in her agitated state.

xxx

"I'm sorry, but if you're not family, I'm not allowed to give you any information."

Emma was getting tired of hearing the same sentence over and over again. By the time she had arrived at the hospital, Regina had already left the emergency room and Emma didn't know what they had done to her afterwards. She had at least been persuaded to have her grazed elbow bandaged, but that was all she had allowed. "I'm her friend, she doesn't have anyone else here."

The doctor looked at her for a while before nodding. "I believe you, yes. But rules are rules." He sighed regretfully and looked at his wristwatch. "As soon as she comes out of the OR, you can go to her, of course." With that, he gave her a brief nod and left her alone.

Emma's fingers stroked her belly nervously. So Regina was being operated on. She didn't want to imagine how serious the situation could be. Even if the cause was magical, it still had physical effects that could be dangerous. Emma knew too little about what magic did to the brain when it was used, but Regina knew for sure and had accepted the risk. For that she hated and loved her in equal measure.

xxx

"Miss Swan?"

Emma winced as she was addressed the way Regina used to do when she was about to cross a line or had messed up. She looked into the eyes of the nurse who had stepped up beside her at the uncomfortable yellow plastic chair she had sat down on in one of the corridors.

"Your friend is on the ward now, if you like, I can take you to her," she offered.

Emma hadn't noticed how much time had passed since she had been staring ahead of her. "Yes, that would be very kind," she finally pressed out and got to her feet. She slowly followed the nurse through the winding corridors as if mechanically, until they arrived at the intensive care unit a little later.

"Go ahead and talk to her. You never know how much she'll notice," the nurse said calmly as she opened the sliding door and allowed Emma into the hospital room. "I'll leave you two alone for now."

Emma remained standing in the doorway for a long time, staring at Regina, before slowly putting one foot in front of the other, crossing the room in this way and finally arriving at her side. She gently took her slender fingers in hers and gave them a little squeeze. "What are you doing?" she whispered in a choked voice. She didn't know enough about hospitals to be able to tell from Regina's appearance what was wrong with her. But the fact that she was being artificially ventilated and the number of tubes and cables running under the fabric of her nightgown didn't bode well.

Emma pulled a chair up to the bed and then reached for Regina's hand again, placing it gently against her cheek. "Don't you dare die now. Henry needs you. And I need you." She didn't know if she would have ever said those words if Regina had been awake, but at that moment it didn't matter and she didn't close herself off from her feelings.

She absolutely had to find out what was wrong with Regina. And if there was anything she could do about it, she would do it, whether Regina had warned her not to use magic while she was pregnant or not.