Bumping Into You

Part 17

A/N: So Once is done after season seven. I'm disappointed that it's happening but I hope they come up with a satisfying final episode. I am proud of the OUAT fandom and I hope people continue to write and share and read these stories. Swanqueen forever!!!

There could have been a tornado complete with a witch on a broomstick tearing through her house right then and she would not have noticed. Someone could be shooting arrows at an apple sitting on her head and she would have remained frozen in shock. A thousand volts could be coursing through her body and Regina would still feel numb.

"I-I don't believe it." The words came out of her mouth unprompted, as if they were wild horses that had been spooked by a snake and charged away in panic, refusing to be controlled by the rider. "How? How could she be Henry's mother?" Her eyebrows were furrowed in confusion.

Cora took a deep breath and painted a slightly distressed look on her face, as if she was struggling to break horrible news to her daughter and not preparing herself to deliver her latest move in her own grand chess game in which her daughter was only a pawn protecting the queen. "When Neal had drugged Emma during that graduation party years ago you recall that she was hospitalized."

Regina stiffened at the memory of that awful night, Emma's sickly pallor and the way she was slumped over, appearing lifeless as she sat in her car was an image that still haunted her. "Of course I remember." She snapped bitterly. "I was the one who drove her there."

"Yes dear." Cora nodded compassionately. "We both know how much Robert spoils his son." Bile began to rise in Regina's throat and her hands nervously rubbed Henry who had just begun to fuss. "I didn't know this at the time, but Neal's deranged mind was so fixated on Emma, so convinced that they belonged together that his plan that night was not just to rape Emma." Regina flinched at the word, that horrible word that represented the most terrible crime one person could inflict on another. With murder the victim's suffering ends, with rape however the victim's suffering continues for the rest of their life. It disgusted her thinking of what Neal had attempted, almost as much as it disgusted her when he went free.

But there was something about her mother's statement that bothered her just then. Cora had never admitted that she thought Neal had tried to force himself on Emma. In fact she had gone out of her way to downplay the incident. Regina found herself wondering why her mother had this sudden change of heart.

Cora continued. "Neal believed that if Emma became pregnant with his child then she would marry him and they would be a family." Regina shook her head in the negative, not wanting to believe, but slowly putting the pieces of the sick puzzle together. "You and Robin stopped him from succeeding just then, thankfully." That last word seemed to be tacked on in Regina's opinion, raising her antenna once more of her mother's true motives. "Neal would not give up so easily however, he managed to convince his father to use his influence to intervene. Robert pressured Dr. Whale to harvest one of Emma's eggs while she was drugged."

Regina's eyes went wide as she remembered the way Whale had enjoyed keeping her away from Emma when he brought her back to examine her. "That bastard." Her low growl was nearly inaudible but still filled with absolute fury at the slimy doctor.

"So Whale harvested the egg and then inseminated it later when Neal provided a sample. Then they had the embryo frozen." Regina interrupted her mother just then by raising her hand and closing her eyes in disbelief.

"Wait, why did they wait so long to use it?" She narrowed her eyes at her mother suspiciously. "Why not use the embryo right away? Henry is not even a year old and they have had the embryo frozen since graduation? It doesn't make any sense!"