Chapter 2 – What Happened?

"Regina!"

"Miss Swan"

"Where are you"

"Over here" Regina's voice became weaker.

Emma moved towards the place where the voice was coming from, she moved her flashlight towards a tree and there she saw her. It was really her, but she looked beside her old self. The Regina she saw before her was slimmer than she had been the last time she saw her, she had a cut on her cheekbone and an arrow was protruding from her right chest. She slumped against the tree with her guard down, breathing heavily with pain. "Oh no…" Emma breathed out.

Emma rushed towards her, kneeling beside her and holding her so that she doesn't hurt herself while slowly lowering Regina to the ground as her knees gave way. There was blood everywhere which gave Emma a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Oh god, it's really you." Regina winced in pain, Emma decided that she had to take her to the hospital pronto. But first she used her magic to break the arrow in half so that David could carry her to the car without causing further issues.

David was shocked at the sight of Regina sitting against the tree but he was broken from his trance by Emma's voice commanding him into action. "Regina, I am going to carry you to the car, so that we can get you to the Hospital". As David lifted Regina up Emma realized that they didn't have the time to drive to the hospital because Regina had already lost a lot of blood. "We can't drive there it's too much of a risk, take my hand…I'll poof us there". And just like that the three of them were engulfed in white smoke.

As soon as they appeared in the ER everyone was shocked to see the former Evil Queen in such gruesome state. But they pounced into action nonetheless, she was already unconscious when two nurses had taken her from David and placed her on a gurney and rushed her into the operation room where doctor Whale was getting prepped to perform her surgery.

Emma could tell just by the state of her that Regina had been tortured and malnourished, but she also noticed that she wasn't in the blue blazer formal attire she had worn in Neverland. Instead, she wore a black corset top with leather pants and boots and she also had a cape on. She looked like a warrior in that outfit, and she began wondering what else had she gone through during her time away from Storybrooke.

Snow had gotten word that David and Emma had gone to inspect the explosion at the forest, a while after she received a call informing her that both her husband and daughter were at the hospital, her heart rate sped up as she panicked and she hung up the phone just as the person on the other end tried to explain further. All sorts of terrible scenarios where forming a tornado in her mind as she rushed to the hospital only to find David and Emma in the Lobby, her daughter pacing impatiently while her husband sat on a chair covered in blood, she gasped and immediately ran towards him.

"Oh god! David, are you ok? Are you hurt…what happened? Is everything alright, I just received a phone call telling me both of you were at the hospital" she blurted out in one breath as her eyes roamed around the form of her husband looking for injuries. "Hey, I am alright and Emma is fine as well…this isn't my blood" he told her in a soothing voice while Snow embraced him "Hey, calm down its ok, I am ok". Then the realization hit her, she looked at Emma curiously "if the blood is not either one of yours, then whose is it?" Emma looked at her with a worried and sorry expression on her face. Snow began to feel impatient and uneasy "Wha…what happened?"

After a moment of silence which felt like an eternity to Snow, David spoke "It's Regina, she's back". Snow was dumbfounded having assumed that she had been dead for the last year, but she was happy after the shock had left her body. But then it hit her that the blood belonged to Regina and her eyes widened with horror. "Oh no! is she alright? What happened to her…we thought she was dead…I thought she was dead"

"Yes, well she is alive but she is in rough shape, she looks malnourished and she had been shot with an arrow at her right chest" said Emma locking eyes with her mother who had tears in her eyes "Doctor Whale is performing surgery on her as we speak" David said stepping towards his wife "She'll be alright, she's stronger than you think". Snow knew this and she knew that Regina was a survivor, so she did what she did best, she held on to hope as if it were the ledge preventing her from falling off a cliff.

Four long hours of surgery later, the red light above the OR turned green and Doctor Whale stepped out removing his mask. All three of them had rushed to him asking the reason for the procedure to take four hours, they owed their lives to Regina and so they were worried about her. "She is doing great at the moment, but there was quite an amount of arrowhead fragments embedded deep within the chest cavity which is why we had to take extreme precaution in removing the fragments to prevent further damage to tissue and loss of blood…she has also sustained burn injuries on her left arm".

"Burns? What kind, could you tell from what it was caused?" replied Emma, Whale sighed and replied "It doesn't look like it was accidental, due to the burn having a strange swirling pattern…I have come to the conclusion that it is related to magic". So, Pan used magic to torture her, she thought but Emma caught Doctor Whale hesitating "What else happened to her...what are you not telling us" David and Snow looked curiously at each other than at Whale.

"Unfortunately, I need to confirm my suspicions with some tests after which I will get back to you when I am certain that it is true…please understand that this is my duty". They weren't open to the thought at first but they understood that a Doctor's duty is to protect their patients and to speak without solid evidence would be unfair to Regina. So, they waited as they took a still unconscious Regina into another room to run the tests. Snow had told David to return to the loft to shower since he was covered in blood as well as because she had left a sleeping Neal with Granny.

A while later Doctor Whale emerged from the room carrying a clipboard. "What's wrong with her…are there internal injuries or something" said Snow in a worried tone. "Or something" replied Doctor Whale, Emma had had enough of him "can you just get on with it already". "She's pregnant", Whale revealed, both Emma and Snow were flabbergasted at Doctor Whale's revelation "what!" both replied in unison. "What did that bastard do to her" Emma was furious at Peter Pan. "Well, we can't know for certain what happened until she wakes up…at the moment all we know is that she is three months pregnant".

Whale had left after informing them that Regina is exhausted so she might be out cold for a few days. "Shit, I forgot to let Henry know that Regina's back, I'll go pick him up first thing in the morning" Snow smiled and nodded knowing that Henry would be relieved at seeing his mom returned to him.

Snow had returned home to tend to Neal while Emma stayed beside Regina, she looked at her sleeping peacefully and wondered what she had gone through in the past year to have been brought back in this state. Her and Regina had become close to friends, she had taught Emma how to control her magic even though Regina wielded dark magic and she wielded light magic. She still remembers how Regina was strictly opposed to the idea of Gold teaching her the ways of magic, she was afraid that gold would influence her into dark magic just like he had done to her. So instead she took up the responsibility to teach her the ins and outs of the trade.

The next morning Emma awoke to the nurses checking Regina's vitals and changing her bandages, she had thought that Regina was comatose because of the way she slept, but the nurses assured her that she was just drained therefore she was resting. Emma called Snow to let her now that she was going to go and pick Henry up from his camping trip, her mother said that it would be wise if she would be with Regina in case something happened or she woke up. After hanging up she called Killian to update him on the latest development and that he should cover David's shift so that he could be with Neal while Snow was with Regina.

It was a two hour drive to Henry's camping site, during the time it took to get there Emma contemplated various scenarios on how to inform her son that his other mother was alive and in Storybrooke not forgetting the fact that she was in the hospital and in rough shape. Oh well, who said being a mother was easy, she thought. She arrived to see that the students were busy putting away the tents, Emma went up to the camp leader informing him that she had to take Henry home due to a family emergency. While they were conversing, Henry spotted his mother talking with the camp leader, confused due to her presence, he ran towards her.

"Hey Ma, what's up…what are you doing here?" Henry said in a confused but worried tone, he was a smart kid and so he could tell that something was up. "I need to take you back home, something major has happened" said Emma…" What happened and why do I need to leave?" Henry was curious, Emma knew that not only was he her son but Regina's as well, he had both their wits. "Hey, I'll explain everything during the ride home ok? Just get in the car". Henry was suspicious but he listened to his mother nonetheless.

No sooner had they drove onto the road had Henry started asking question regarding this sudden emergency. "Ok Ma we are on the road, can you please tell me now?" he said impatiently. After a momentary silence Emma replied "Regina's alive and she is in Storybrooke" there was no easy way to say it so she just ripped it off like a band aid. To say that Henry was shocked to hear that, would be an understatement. Henry was overwhelmed with emotion "What did you say…can you say it again?" said Henry "She's really back kid, she's here" replied Emma reassuringly. Tears welled up in his eyes, he was in a state of euphoria and he also felt relief. But soon after he saw her mother on the horns of a dilemma and so he knew that there was more to the story.

"Are you trying to hide something from me...is she alright?" he said anxiously, he could feel his heart beat rising as beads of sweat formed on his forehead "She is doing well but she is in the hospital at the moment and she is unconscious…me and David we found her in the woods last night in rough shape, so we had to take her to the hospital to have surgery…" Henry's eyes shot at her through the mirror, panic rising in his eyes at the word surgery, Emma locked eyes with him and understood that he was about to have a panic attack.

Emma manoeuvred the bug to the side of the road, she got out of the driver's seat and opened Henry's door. She held him on either side of his shoulders, kneeling to the ground so that she was now at eye level with her son, looking deeply into his eyes she said "Henry look at me, nothing is going to happen to Regina…she is going to fight through this and she is going to be just fine…Doctor Whale performed the surgery and it was a success…she is just exhausted so she will be sleeping for a few days".

Henry seemed to calm down while Emma was instructing him to take deep breaths "She's a badass kid, she'll be ok" and Henry smiled positively at that. The rest of the drive to the hospital was spent in silence after Emma had explained the whole ordeal with the explosion, purple lightening and the "lighting up of the dark woods like a Christmas tree" to which Henry replied "Mom always knows how to make a statement" and to that she couldn't agree more.

TBC…

Author's Note

I didn't realize how short the first chapter was until I published it, so here is a longer one. I will strive to write longer chapters in the future.

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of this story they belong to the creators of Once Upon A Time.

Thank you for reading.

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