A/N: Episodes referenced: S2E17—Welcome to Storybrooke and S4E21—Mother.

Chapter Eleven

"No!" Henry's eyes flew open and he realized that his father was holding his hand and gently shaking it to awaken him.

"Hey," Neal whispered reassuringly. "Hey, it's okay. You're awake. It's over." He looked around at their uncomfortable surroundings and winced. "I mean, if you overlook the fact that we're chained up in some root cellar and all."

Henry shook his head. "No, you don't understand!" he exclaimed. "I gotta get back to sleep! I gotta!"

In the dark, Neal's eyebrows climbed. "I'm… kinda glad you're over this whole 'don't want to sleep thing', but you were having a pretty bad time of it; that's why I woke you." More sharply, "Do you have any more burns?"

There was a moment's hesitation. "It's just a little one," Henry said. "I think."

"You th—"

"Grandma was there!" Henry exclaimed.

"Wait, what?"

"She was," Henry insisted. "It's because she was under a sleeping curse once, too! She can get to that same place where I go now when I sleep! A-and she said she can help me control it. She was starting to show me when you woke me up! I have to fall back to sleep! I have to!"

"Your burns…"

"I'm only going to have worse ones if she doesn't show me how to deal," Henry pointed out.

Neal frowned. He couldn't believe he was about to say this, but what choice did he have? Henry couldn't go without sleep indefinitely. And if Mary Margaret could help him… "Okay, kid," he sighed. "You want to sleep, sleep. But if it gets too rough, I'm yanking you out again."

Henry shook his head. "I'm too awake now," he groaned. "I don't think I can."

"Well," Neal sighed, more than a little relieved, "seeing as you've barely slept at all in the last few days, I'm guessing that when you're ready again, you won't be able to help yourself."

This wasn't real, Regina thought over the thudding of her heart. Her mother was dead! She'd ordered it done, seen the body—

But did you ask the pirate to bring you her heart in a casket, like you commanded the huntsman with regard to Snow?

"How is this possible?" she whispered, and Cora laughed as she rose to her feet.

"Really, dear, I'm much harder to kill than that," her mother said calmly. "I'm impressed that you made the attempt, though," she added, drawing closer, "although at first, I was a little hurt that you sent an intermediary to do the job. Of course, once I heard your eulogy, I understood."

"You heard that?" Regina asked faintly.

"I was feigning death, darling; I wasn't deaf." She brought her hand gently to her daughter's cheek. "It was a very nice speech, Regina. Now…" She raised her hand and Regina's chains fell away. "You're probably hungry and," her nose wrinkled delicately, "I think a hot bath would do you a world of good. Yes, I think bathing should come first. Then you'll come back here, we'll have dinner, and then we can discuss what went wrong with your curse and how you can do better next time."

"What?" Regina blurted, just as Cora snapped her fingers. "No, I—!"

She was no longer in her mother's sitting room. Instead, she found herself in a large windowless marble hall with a vaulted ceiling. Close by, she could hear the splash of pouring liquid and the air was heavy with the fragrances of rose and lily.

"My lady?" There was a woman standing at her elbow holding out a linen robe and towel. "If I can assist you to disrobe, the steam room is ready for you now."

Clearly, her mother had ordered her brought to the tower by so circuitous a route in order allow time for these preparations. She had half a mind to refuse, but thanks to recent experiences, she was definitely feeling a good deal grungier than usual. She snatched the robe and, through clenched teeth, gritted, "I can manage it myself!"

Rumple looked at the tray in Belle's hands and shook his head. "I'm not hungry," he said, as he reached for another piece of straw.

Belle sighed. "I don't remember when I saw you eat last."

"I'm the Dark One, dearie," Rumple replied. "The most powerful Dark Wizard alive today. For the right price," he continued bitterly, "I can provide a magical solution to any mundane problem and more than a few that aren't. I'm immortal, requiring neither food nor sleep." He watched the strand of spun gold drop from the wheel and reached for another piece of straw. "And," his voice broke, "with all the power at my disposal and all the spell books that have been lying about my back room unnoticed until they made their presence felt, my boy is lost to me again and his in turn. And I'm no closer to getting them back now than I was when the hat tore them from me afresh."

Belle set the tray down on the wooden counter and walked back over to Rumple. Scuffing her shoes on the wooden floor a bit so as not to startle him, she moved behind him, laid her hands on his shoulders, and stooped until her chin was near on a level with the top of his head. "It… it hasn't even been a week," she said. "You've only just given Snow White the means to communicate with Henry, and you told her yourself that it might be some time yet before he dreams of that… other place."

"If he's even still alive," Rumple whispered. "W-we don't know. Bae's been away from our land for nearly three hundred years. Will he even remember all the dangers?"

"Rumple…"

"He lived all his early life in our one village and I don't believe he ever ventured more than a league away from it until that bean. We've no way of knowing where the hat brought him. And Henry knows even less."

"Regina won't let anything happen to Henry," Belle said. "And for Neal to have survived for so long on his own, I think he must have the knowledge he'll need to survive there." She squeezed his shoulder and, after a moment, Rumple brought his hand up to cover hers.

"It just feels so overwhelming," he murmured.

"Well, perhaps," Belle allowed. "But only because you haven't made a real start of it, yet. Once Snow White makes contact with Henry—"

"If she makes contact with Henry—"

"Once Snow White makes contact with Henry," Belle repeated, "we'll, at least have a better idea of where they are and what they're facing. Until then…"

Rumple sighed. "Until then, I'll be spinning my wheel," he gestured toward the device in front of him, "waiting for—"

The bell over the shop's door jangled and running feet hurried onto the shop floor.

"Gold?" Emma called. "You in there?"

Rumple and Belle exchanged a look. Then, Rumple reached for his cane and stumbled to his feet. "Sheriff Swan," he said, as he made his way out of the back room. Belle on his heels. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Emma gave him a tight smile. "Don't get excited yet," she cautioned. "The others think I'm making a mistake coming here, but I know if I were in your shoes, I'd want to know this, even if it's not really anything yet."

Rumple gripped the edge of the counter. "I'm not in the mood for idle chatter, Sheriff. Get to the point."

Emma nodded. "Yeah. Okay. Mary Margaret said that he woke up before she could tell him anything, but… she made contact with Henry. He and Neal are both okay."

A wild hope flared up in Rumple's heart. "She saw him?" he repeated. "You're certain?"

Emma nodded. "They're alive," she said, smiling a bit more widely. "They're okay."

Belle was squeezing his shoulder again and despite his efforts to keep his emotions in check, he felt his lips pull back in a grin that mirrored the sheriff's as he covered her hand once more.

"I must say, that's an improvement," Cora greeted Regina on her return. "Come, let me look at you."

Hesitantly, Regina took a step forward and tried not to flinch under her mother's appraising scrutiny. The gown that had been waiting for her when she'd stepped out of the bath was grey with a white underskirt and lace at the neckline, the sort of thing she'd worn in her teens. When Cora held up her hand and rotated her wrist, gesturing for Regina to turn, she felt her cheeks grow hot, but she obeyed.

"Yes," Cora said, sounding satisfied, "I suppose that will have to do. Well, come and sit down and you can tell me all about that curse you had to cast." She smiled. "The one that was so important to you that you thought you had to kill me to make sure it would work?"

Regina's eyes narrowed. "Just how did you survive that, Mother?" she asked curiously, lowering herself to one of the padded armchairs.

Her mother took the one closest to her, set her teacup down on the tray on the small table between them, sighed and motioned to the woman standing in attendance by the door, who dipped a quick curtsey and exited. "I thought you'd learned my lessons better than that, dear," she said with that same disappointment—the disappointment that put an unwary victim off-guard with its mildness, so that they didn't notice the razor-sharp blade it concealed until it cut deep. This time, as it bit, Regina felt a surge of rage that she ruthlessly stamped back. Her mother hadn't changed a bit and Regina knew that she would be a fool to hope that she had. She pulled her attention back to what her mother was saying.

"When you want something done right," Cora said, smiling gently, "if you can't do it yourself, you should, at the very least, supervise."

The door opened again and the woman returned. This time, she was accompanied by a dark-haired man sporting a chevron mustache and stubble beard, who wore well-oiled black leather over a fine silk shirt. Regina recognized him at once. "Hook," she breathed.

He inclined his head briefly in their general direction. "Your majesties."

"After we had the opportunity to talk at greater length," Cora was almost purring, "the captain realized that his best interests and mine were rather closely aligned."

"You betrayed me," Regina said, locking eyes on the pirate.

"Don't take it too much to heart, dear, you never were the best judge of character," Cora said gently. "Luckily for you, I'm here now…"

It was harder to concentrate on the paperwork this morning, Emma thought. She had too many other thoughts intruding. Her parents were nice people, good people. She knew this now. And these nice good people had done everything they so that she would have her best chance. She understood the intention, but because of their well-meaning actions, she'd grown up bouncing from placement to placement, never feeling like she belonged. Until Neal.

Not that she was much better. She'd given up Henry at a low point in her life, because she'd wanted Henry to have a better chance than she could have given him. Yes, she'd been manipulated into doing it, but at the time, Ross's words had made so much sense. That the adoption agreement had been illegal, that she'd changed her mind about giving Henry up and been made to think that there would be financial penalties she couldn't pay if she kept her baby, all that was true, but it was also true that she never would have considered giving Henry up if she'd had enough confidence in her ability to be a parent. She'd never had a parent in her life to serve as a model.

She wasn't blaming her parents, of course. Not exactly. They'd done what they'd thought they had to and she understood that. She did. Seriously. But even if they'd done the right thing, even if there had been no real choice, she'd suffered and the ripples of that suffering had led to her losing her son.

And now she'd lost him again. And Neal. And unlike her parents, she had no way to reach either of them.

Emma shook her head. And then she pushed the file she was holding away, scraped back her chair, marched to the coatrack, grabbed her red leather jacket, and strode purposefully out of the sheriff station.

When Regina was done describing the events that had led to her return to Misthaven, Cora nodded sagely. "I suppose it was inevitable," she said. "Once you let Snow White's brat escape, it was just a matter of time."

"I tried to prevent it," Regina retorted, doing her best not to sound defensive. "Unfortunately, by the time I got there, it was too late."

"Yes," Cora said, patting her cheek. "I know. Well. I suppose we'll just have to step in and make sure it's done properly."

Regina felt a cold chill pass over her. "Wait. What?"

Her mother shrugged. "You made a decent try of it, dear, but in the end, that pathetic little princess got the better of you. Now, it was a very good curse you tried," she continued. "And I was willing to stand aside and let you take your best chance, but now that you've failed, well, you'll simply need to try again. And with me at your side, and the captain's assistance," she glanced briefly at the pirate, who nodded back grimly, "we will succeed."

"No," Regina said, feeling as though the ground had shifted beneath her feet and, in another moment, might give way entirely. "No, I can handle Snow White, Mother. I just need to get back there and—"

"What, darling?" Cora asked lightly. "Disguise yourself as a hairdresser and stab a monkshood-laced comb into her scalp?"

"Nothing so dramatic," Regina sighed. "I may not have my magic, but let me get her alone with a good piece of cord and I'd say garroting has promise."

"There is something to that," Hook murmured approvingly. He'd taken up a post by the door where the serving maid had stood previously. She slipped away some time earlier and hadn't returned, but Cora didn't seem to be at all put out by her absence.

Cora glanced at the pirate and shook her head. "Magic," she said, turning back to Regina, but speaking at a level that made it clear that she meant for Hook to hear her as well, "once unleashed, never truly goes away." She pushed back her chair from the table and rose gracefully to her feet. Striding over to her desk, opened one of the drawers, and extracted a thin volume. "I think that if you just review the basics, it'll start to come back to you." She held out the book and Regina started to reach for it, only to have it pulled back.

"First, though," Cora said, "I would like to know a bit about your two companions. Who are they? And what do they mean to you?"

Visitors really did intrude at the most inopportune times, Rumple thought. Spinning was much like learning to ride a horse. Muscle memory, while not quite infallible, was strong enough that after less than a half hour at the wheel, he'd been spinning a smooth, even thread. Within an hour, he was back to turning straw to gold. And after Emma Swan's visit earlier, he'd really thought that the rest of the day might pass without interruption.

Spinning was a soothing pastime. Moreover, it helped to clear his thinking, and he definitely needed his head clear for what was to come. So when the bell jangled at a quarter past two, it was with no small measure of irritation that he found himself unceremoniously jerked out of his meditation.

Belle immediately looked up from the ancient tome through which she'd been leafing. "I can see who that is," she murmured, already getting to her feet.

Rumple shook his head. "No," he sighed. "If they're coming to see me, then the sooner I find out what it is they want, the sooner I can send them on their wa—"

"Hey, Gold?" a familiar voice broke into their conversation. "You in here?" A pause. "Belle?"

Rumple's eyebrows shot up. He reached for his cane and braced his weight on it as he got up. "Something else for you, Sheriff?" he asked, as he pushed back the curtain that separated the back office from the shop floor. "Has your mother managed to reach young Henry again so soon?"

Emma shook her head. "No, nothing like that."

His expression hardened. "Well, then," he snapped, "just what is it you want?"

She didn't answer right away. She seemed uncharacteristically nervous. Finally, she swallowed. "I… guess I came to see how you're holding up," she said.

"I beg your pardon?" he breathed, irritation yielding to astonishment almost instantly.

"Look," Emma said, "I've been worrying myself sick over them a-and, you seem to be managing okay, but, well, I seem to be managing okay, or at least that's what I tell people when they ask, only I'm really… not. You're working on getting them back. My pare—Mary Margaret is waiting to try to get through to Henry, and all I'm doing is staring at paperwork and hoping someone needs me to get a cat out of a tree so I can have some distraction. I-I started thinking, maybe I could be… useful here. Somehow," she added with a wince. More softly, she added, "And maybe it'll help if I can talk about Neal with someone who really knew… knows?" she tilted her head questioningly. "Someone else who knows him," she finished. "I-I mean, if that's okay?"

Rumple eyed her searchingly for a moment, the harsh lines of his face softening almost imperceptibly. He took a breath. "Well, you don't know much about magic, dearie," he said. "However, if you don't mind menial labor, there might be a few tasks you might perform, if your offer was a serious one."

"It was," Emma nodded quickly.

"All right," Rumple said. "At the moment, I'm preparing myself mentally for the work ahead."

Emma frowned. "You mean, like, you're meditating or something?"

"Something along those lines," Rumple nodded. "Meanwhile, Belle is going through such reference materials as have recently surfaced with your breaking of the curse. Once we sit down to apply ourselves in earnest, I would imagine that there will be a number of spells we'll need to try before we find one that will work. Such experimentation," he continued, "will require, well, some equipment that I believe won't be entirely foreign to you. Come."

Wondering, Emma followed him into the back room and nodded a friendly greeting to Belle, who smiled back. Rumple stooped to pull back the sliding doors of a wooden cabinet and beckoned Emma forward. "If you could remove those," he murmured, gesturing to two slatted wood crate that occupied the lower shelf. "Carefully," he added. "The contents are rather fragile."

Emma obeyed, wincing as she heard the objects within clink and tinkle. "Sounds like glass," she said. "You didn't pack straw around it? I mean," she shot a glance over her shoulder at the wheel, "you've got plenty."

"I do, now, dearie," he replied mildly. "But I was indisposed when the Curse swept through my castle and collected this paraphernalia. Careful, now," he admonished again. "Set it on the counter. There."

He lifted the lid, disclosing a number of beakers, test tubes, vials, flasks, and clear, hollow, pipes. All were coated with a layer of dust and grime. "You'll find a basin over there," he instructed, gesturing toward one of the shelves. "Sink in the bathroom, let the hot water run for a moment or two before you fill it, add a bit of this as it fills," he handed her a bottle of dishwashing soap. "Be sure that you remove every bit of dirt and every bit of soap residue from these," he motioned to the contents of the crate. "You'll find brushes, rags, and towels under the sink. Try not to break anything," he added. "I suspect we may need all of them and more. Unless you're having second thoughts, dearie?" he added.

Emma shook her head. "No."

"Excellent. The basin, then, Sheriff. Let me know when you've finished."

With that, he walked back to the wheel and sat down. Emma watched with fascination as he picked up a piece of straw and fed it to the wheel, her eyes widening when she saw the bright gold wire drop into the tray at his feet. He reached for another piece of straw. After the fourth golden strand joined the tray, Emma pulled her gaze away and went to get the basin.

Regina lifted a forkful of quail to her mouth, thinking quickly as she chewed the morsel. She could tell her mother everything. She'd love Henry. She'd also happily take care of Neal or Baelfire or whatever he was calling himself. Henry was her son and her mother would back that up.

But if she disclosed the truth of the relationship, then Regina knew that she'd be handing her mother the leverage she needed. It would be her adolescence all over again. She'd be back under her mother's thumb and her mother's hand would be squeezing Henry's heart to keep it that way.

She swallowed the quail and gave her mother a nervous smile. "Well, I hate to admit it," she said, matter-of-factly, "but you were right, Mother. I never should have drunk that potion. As time went on, I realized what I'd been missing. And," she smiled, remembering another father and son who had turned up in Storybrooke years earlier, "when I cast the Dark Curse and transported everyone to the Land without Magic, as fate would have it, a man and boy were camping in the area where the magic set us down. It was funny," she continued softly. "I'd crafted the Curse to ensure that the only happy ending would be mine. I had my victory, but I was the only one who even remembered that there'd been a battle to fight. As far as they all knew," she smiled, "I was the mayor of the town and they all worshipped me." Her smile fell. "And none of it was real. It was… like the Curse of the Captive Heart. They all believed that they loved me, but they didn't, not really. They obeyed my every wish, but it wasn't enough."

"Because it wasn't their free-will choice," Cora said gently, and Regina shook her head.

"No." She sighed. "Except for the boy. Henry. I… suppose you know what casting that curse cost me."

Her mother frowned. "I'm afraid I don't, my darling, but I do know that all magic comes with a price and a curse of that magnitude must have come with a heavy one."

Regina nodded. "I-I had to rip out and crush the heart of the thing… th-the person I loved most."

A flicker of emotion flared in Cora's eyes for a moment. "You're saying that I'm free to marry again, if the inclination strikes me," she said. Then she smiled. "Oh, really, Regina, he was a decent man and I got what I wanted from him, but I never pretended that it was any sort of love-match. I only hope it was worth it."

Regina swallowed hard, but she composed her features, knowing how her mother would react to any show of weakness. "I thought it would be," she said. "And then, when I realized what I'd done, I wondered. But then Henry came into my life. His name…" she smiled. "Well, Fate has an interesting sense of irony, I suppose. He caught my interest. I suppose he's become something of a protégé over the years."

"Hmm," Cora took a sip of claret. "So it's just the two of them? What of this Henry's mother?"

"Dead," Regina shrugged. "It was the reason for the camping trip." She struggled to remember how Kurt Flynn had described it all those years ago. "She'd passed away about six months prior and Baelfire thought that a change in environment might help to take Henry's mind off things."

Standing by the door, Hook gave a start. "Did you say 'Baelfire'?" he interjected sharply.