Henry Mills sat on the end of his bed the following morning, absently bouncing a miniature basketball off the wall in front of him and repeating. His mind was awash with different emotions and had been since discovering he had magic. Once or twice he had even tried to summon it again, but thus far he'd had no luck. It was frustrating, to say the least, as he couldn't even distract himself from thoughts of what he'd done with the very magic he'd used to do it. Shouting in anger, he launched the ball a bit too hard against the wall and it promptly bounced into the nearby lamp.
In an instant his door had flown open and both of his mothers stood in his room, Regina fussing and Emma taking note of the lamp. Henry stood at the foot of his bed while Regina brushed imaginary dirt from his shoulders. He watched as his birthmother picked up the lamp, put the shade back on and then turned to him.
"You okay in here kid?" she asked, and Henry gave a stiff nod. Regina's hands fell off his shoulders and she moved to stand beside Emma, her arms crossed over her chest while Emma's hands found home in the back pockets of her faded blue jeans. He sighed and sat back down.
"Henry..." Regina's voice, much lower and decidedly more...mom-esque...than Emma's, pervaded the room next. "You can talk to us, you know. We're your mothers."
Henry rolled his eyes dramatically.
"Yes, I know," he answered with another sigh, and this time he let a smile slip onto his features. "It's just...why can't I make my magic come back?"
Regina, now offering a sad smile of her own, took up residence beside him at the end of the bed while Emma hovered a few feet away, attentive but not comfortable enough yet to join them.
"Honey..." the dark haired woman began, rubbing her adoptive son's shoulders, "Most of the time, magic doesn't even begin to reveal itself in a person until they are much older...16 or 17, usually. You're only 11, dear. You really can't expect it to just come when it's called—not at this point."
Here, Emma stepped in.
"Look at me, Henry," she said with that lopsided grin the boy knew all too well, "I only recently found out that I have magic...I'm 29 and even I can't control it yet!"
"Then why did it show itself when we were all in the vault?" he asked, seeming confused. He felt Regina squeeze his shoulder affectionately.
"There's no way to really know for sure, Henry, but my best guess is that it had to do with a heightened state of emotion, and possibly the fact that it wasn't the only magic in the vicinity. In rare cases, the presence of one type of magic—dark magic, like Cora's—can draw light magic into the forefront."
"So why wouldn't it have drawn Emma's light magic out?"
At last, Emma moved to sit on the opposite side of him, her hand mirroring Regina's on his other shoulder.
"I was all sorts of messed up kid," he heard her say as he looked at her. "But I can say that I could feel it trying. But I stopped it, because I knew I wasn't ready to take on Cora alone. Without my heart...my magic wasn't going to be strong enough. I'm not sure how I knew that, but I did."
"It's something you pick up on as your system becomes more accustomed to magic," Regina replied, more to Emma than to their son. "If you'd have tried to use magic on her before I got there, Emma...in all likelihood you would have died trying."
A stiff silence fell over the room, Henry feeling quite awkward about it, and so he sought to break it.
"I'm glad you saved her Mom," he issued, leaning into his adoptive mother's side and hugging her. He felt her lean her cheek against the top of his head and felt them lift in a smile he could't see. "You saved all of us. And even though you promised you wouldn't use magic...I forgive you."
Snow White sat at the table of the loft, absently sipping at a late-night cup of tea. David was leaning against the island bar flipping through the pages of a magazine called National Geographic. This return to normalcy was a welcome reprieve from the stress of weeks past, and the pixie-haired woman would always be grateful for moments like these. Still, her mind had been wandering as of late, and in spite of her daughter's apparent well-being at the hands of Regina's sacrifice, Snow White was worried.
"Hey David?" she called across the room, and her husband turned immediately and came to sit across from her. She smiled, for he always seemed to have an innate knowledge of when a serious discussion was about to occur. It was something that had come about following the splitting of her own heart. She and David had always been on very similar wavelengths before, but sharing a heart had improved upon that immensely.
"What is it?" the man asked his wife, his blue eyes both curious and concerned at the same time. Snow sighed, taking a moment to compose her thoughts and think about how to articulate her fears in a way that wouldn't border on seeming paranoid.
"Do you think...that Emma having half of Regina's heart...do you think it will change her?"
Her husband's close-set eyes narrowed and he tilted his head, but he didn't need to speak to prompt further explanation from Snow. She understood she hadn't given enough context, and so she continued.
"After you and I began sharing a heart...we noticed changes, didn't we?"
"Of course we did. But they were for the best." He reached across the table and squeezed her hand in his.
"But we loved each other."
"You don't think that Regina and Emma care about each other?"
"I do—I know they do—but what they share is different than what we had. Have. Regina split her heart out of propriety, I think. Love for Henry—not for Emma. Sure, Regina cares about Emma..but is that really enough?"
David smiled reassuringly at her.
"Well, I think that if it wasn't enough, the magic wouldn't have worked. I think we would have seen evidence that it wasn't working, by now. Emma's seemed perfectly normal and healthy, so far."
"So far," Snow repeated, her voice sounding far away. "But what if...Regina's dark magic...what if the darkness in Regina affects our daughter? What if it hurts her? What if..."
David tilted his head again, squeezing her hand harder.
"Yes?" he prodded gently, his brows lifting. Snow White sighed
"What if having half of Regina's heart means Emma doesn't get a happy ending?"
Regina Mills lay supine on top of the blankets on her bed, clothed in a blue silk full-length night gown, rubbing at the burning sensation emanating from her chest. It hadn't happened since before she'd freed Emma and, although the discomfort was not to the magnitude it had been before, its sudden return was disquieting. She'd known there could be side effects following the splitting of a heart, and she would deem herself a fool to believe that pain wouldn't be among them. After all, she'd only recently ripped a very important organ in two. It was bound to be sore, right?
Rolling her head to the side, she saw that the numbers on the clock read 3:31 A.M. A deep sigh sounded, and then she sat up, deciding to partake in one of the wonders of the world without magic—Aspirin.
Finding her slippers and then padding her way to the bathroom, Regina tugged open the medicine cabinet only to find her desired medication missing. Confused, she checked the other two cabinets in case it had been misplaced, but she found nothing. Could Henry have taken it? Only when she remembered that a certain blonde sheriff had managed to stay a second night in the Mills mansion did she finally shake her head.
Switching off the light, Regina made her way down the stairs, taking note of the faint ambient light which emanated from the direction of the study. Regina narrowed her eyes—Emma had been sleeping in the living room, not the study. Or had one of them merely forgotten to turn the light off?
The door was cracked just wide enough for the brunette to silently peer through it before she made her presence known. She could see Emma with her feet pulled up onto one of the armchairs, a thick and rather worn-looking book held open between her hands. And there, on the coffee table in front of the chair, was a bottle of aspirin.
When Regina pushed the door open it creaked, eliciting a jump from the blonde and a hastening to close the book. The former queen's motion into the room hitched somewhat at Emma's bizarre reaction to her presence—it was as though she wanted to hide whatever it was she was reading from the once-mayor's curious eyes.
"I see your claim to having trouble sleeping is true enough," Regina commented as she stepped toward her and snatched at the bottle of aspirin. Without even bothering to find a drink, the woman popped two pills into her mouth and swallowed them down without a hitch. She clunked the bottle back onto the table and then gracefully sat down on the loveseat across from Emma's place, neatly folding her legs onto the cushion and beneath the fabric of the gown. Her eyes fell to the book in Emma's hands, and she absently wondered if the woman really thought she was stupid enough not to know what she was reading just because the spine was turned away from her. It was Regina's book, after all. She crooked an eyebrow and met the wide blue eyes. "Why are you reading that?"
Looking embarrassed, Emma relented and tossed the heavy book onto the coffee table. Her normally pale face was ripe with a blush, and Regina thought the sight almost endearing against the platinum blonde frame of her hair.
"I want to understand how magic works."
A deep chuckle came from the loveseat and Regina's perfect teeth shown between her lips as she smiled.
"You and every other magical being in the Enchanted Forest."
"I was reading the section about hearts...and what happens when someone's is taken out."
Here Regina's stomach knotted. How much had she read? Emma Swan might be the daughter of the Enchanted Forest's two biggest idiots, but that gene had miraculously, for the most part, skipped a generation. Emma was an intelligent woman, and it wouldn't take long for her to connect the dots if given the right level of suspicion. It's why Regina had allowed her to become Sheriff in the first place. But for now, she would have to feign only vague interest in what her counterpart had discovered.
"And what did you learn dear?" she asked nonchalantly, fussing with her manicured nails.
Emma leaned back against the chair and stared up at the ceiling.
"Nothing of consequence. Just that it hurts, a lot, which I already knew."
"Oh? So that's why you helped yourself to my aspirin." It was not a question, but a declaration, and Emma seemed suddenly quite alarmed as though she'd been caught stealing something of immeasurable value.
"I just thought—I figured it was worth—Christ, Regina, how do you always manage to do that?!"
Regina grinned faintly and gave a light, barely audible chuckle as Emma realized she had been only teasing.
"I suppose it's one part of the evil queen that I will never truly be rid of," Regina responded, still smiling. "I've never grown tired of the ability to frighten people. It's a gift."
But the lightness of the conversation took a nosedive when Regina winced and flattened her palm over her heart as it throbbed again. Emma's eyes were perceptive enough to detect the motion and the brunette found their roles reversed when Emma's next words came.
"Is it your heart?" she asked, and Regina's nervous eyes met hers. "It's your heart, isn't it? You're awake for the same reason I am. Not dreams this time."
Relenting, Regina shook her head in acknowledgement.
"What are the chances that we both experience the same pain at the same time, Regina?"
Gritting her teeth and mentally cursing herself for the knowledge that she was about to outright lie to Emma instead of just omitting the truth, Regina answered.
"Minute."
"The book said that just having your heart removed doesn't necessarily mean it will cause pain after it's been returned, but it did say that nearly having it crushed could. Like a bruise, almost, but it doesn't heal."
"And I presume my mother took such actions on your own before I was able to retrieve it?"
"Yes. Several times," Emma responded.
"That would be the likely explanation, then, Miss Swan."
"But why is your heart hurting you?"
Regina cringed and found that the blonde's nature to incessantly question was finally getting to her.
"Why is this of such interest to you Miss Swan?" she bit out, swinging her legs over the front of the loveseat now and threatening to stand and leave. "It's an impossible hour of the morning, and you're questioning me about things that don't and shouldn't matter to you. My pain is my own. I thought you would understand that by now."
"I understand that you've been through a lot, Regina—I mean, what your mother did to Daniel...right in front of you...that was just awful...but I don't think she ever took your—"
In a flash Regina was on her feet and Emma found herself pinned against the wall on the opposite side of the study. The fallen queen's hand was against her throat and threatening to squeeze but it didn't, as the dark eyes bore into Emma's with a ferocity she reasoned Emma had not yet experienced from her. She watched as the emotions flickered behind the blue—surprise, confusion, fright...and something else Regina found herself not totally unwilling to contemplate. She moved her face close to Emma's and hissed, with venom in her voice, "How the hell do you know what my mother did to Daniel?"
Emma opened her mouth to speak, but Regina tightened her hold on her throat in the same instant. Somewhere, deep inside, the evil queen had roared back to life, and she found she wanted nothing more than to choke the woman who dared threaten her with knowledge of a past not willingly given. But she fought it down, breathing heavily and forcing herself to calm—in the same instant that Emma swiftly moved her elbow over her head and brought it down on Regina's arm, forcing it away from her neck and freeing herself. Suddenly, Regina found it was she herself who was pinned against the wall of the study, held there by an arm across her collar and another at her hip, while a foreign emotion inexplicably bubbled to the surface and popped.
Thrusting her head forward as far as it could go, it happened to be just far enough that she could close her mouth over the Savior's and kiss her.
But the gesture was short lived. Just as Regina was certain she felt the blonde cave and start to return suit, a CRACK sounded in the room and they both collapsed to the floor, gasping and clutching at their chests in unison. As they came back to their senses and the burning sensations waned, Regina found she was abruptly terrified to even look at the Savior.
As it were, she didn't have to, because the moment she chanced doing so, she saw nothing but an empty space where Emma's form had once been. She heard the front door slam. Her eyes glanced over to the book, still sitting on the coffee table as it had been all along.
What had she just done?