Once Upon a Time 1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hi! This is my first ever fan fiction (thought I'd give it a go considering I have four months, I think, until there's more OUAT!) I've just jumped right into this story with our ladies being in a relationship, albeit a new one, and I've ignored probably about half of the season. But anyway, enjoy!**

**...**

Emma has always been good at telling stories. She supposes she should be, considering how she is technically part of a fairy-tale herself; but before she even knew that she came from The Enchanted Forest she told tales of gallant knights, and even braver princesses. Scribbled on pages ripped out from her school books, she wrote of trolls and ogres and the heroes who battled them to protect their Kingdoms and-

'Ma, what are you doing?' Henry's voice is closer than expected and Emma physically jumps; the pieces of paper that had been clutched in her hand scattering across the floor.

'Jesus kid, could you try any harder to give me a heart attack?' Emma huffs.

'I think those burgers that you consume by the dozen at Granny's have already beaten our son to it,' Regina drawls, and despite herself Emma grins at the sound of her voice. It's still new to be so close to Regina on a daily basis, having only just moved in a few days prior.

'Just because you don't touch anything that isn't green or natural or whatever the hell else is healthy, doesn't mean that you get to preach at me,' Emma retorts playfully, throwing the brunette a smile just in case.

'Well don't come crying to me when you can't-'

Henry interrupts swiftly knowing all too well how quickly his mothers' arguments escalated, and Emma throws him a grateful smile. 'What are all these?' He toes a scrappy page that is filled with nearly illegible handwriting.

'Most likely a list of people your mother's aggravated,' Regina teases and Emma turns to her with raised eyebrows.

'Oh ha ha, you think you're _so_ funny, don't you?'

'I don't think so, dear. I know so'.

Ignoring her, Emma turns back to Henry who is waiting expectantly for her to share. 'They're stories I wrote when I was younger'.

'Really?' Henry says enthusiastically, as Emma reaches for the first of many discarded pages, but he beats her to it.

He clears his throat and Emma cringes before he even starts reading.

'_The Queen, already bristling with anger, lashed out at the monster before her. Her magic surrounded her, an impenetrable cloud as she coiled it into a vicious point and sent it flying at the dragon. _

_The beast, tall and cloaked in shadow, roared angrily at the brunette and swatted at her with its barbed tail. But the queen laughed and simply disappeared, only to reappear behind the beast._

_ With practised ease, she focused her magic upon the dragon's beating heart and let herself become consumed. She could hear it, the thump thump thump that pounded in time with her own frantic heartbeat. Stilling herself, she curled her fist and listened as the dragon roared again, agonised before falling, crashing to the floor. _

_Triumphant, the queen glided over to the trapdoor that the beast had been guarding and opened it with one deft tug at the silver handle. _

_'You took your time, your Majesty,' the blonde haired princess grinned up at her saviour._

_'Always so picky,' the Queen said but offered a hand to her princess, the one who'd been stolen from her; the one who she rescued and always would. With a soft smile she pulled her into a fierce embrace.' _Henry finishes, and stays quiet for a moment as if he's just taking in the story. He looks up at Emma, who is suddenly very interested with the now empty insides of the box in front of her. Before he can commend her on her story, his mother speaks up.

'How old were you when you wrote these?'

Emma contemplates for a moment, 'about fifteen I think'. She looks up at Regina, and can feel the heat of her blush run through the rest of her body when the brunette seems to stare right into her. It can't be lost on the other woman how the characters in her story resemble them, and she wants desperately to ask her what she really thinks. But Henry is there, right beside her and is no way interested in leaving them be.

'That was awesome, Ma!' Henry says, and reaches for the rest of them, but Emma holds them away from him.

'Nosy are we?' she says as she adds the last page to the collection, and secures them with an elastic band.

'I want to see what happens to them! And what happened before that, please Ma?' Henry gives her the puppy dog eyes, and Emma forces herself not to cave.

'Maybe I'll read them to you tonight, as a bedtime story?'

She expects him to shudder at the thought, especially since for the past week he'd been adamant that he no longer needed someone to tuck him in. _'I'm not a kid anymore!' _But he just nods in agreement, and quickly hurries out of the room.

'I didn't realise you liked to write,' Regina says, moving closer to Emma as she repacks the contents of her box.

'I used to do it all the time when I was younger, whenever I could'. Emma runs a finger down the wad of papers and it almost feels like she's running her fingers across her past; the pages whispering words she'd long since forgotten.

She's grateful when Regina doesn't push for details, doesn't pry as to why a teenager was more interested in a fantasy world than her own life. She guesses it's because, however much she wishes the brunette didn't have to, she relates with her. That they both searched for an escape when they were younger, and sometimes even now.

'Henry isn't the only one who'd like to read them'.

Emma looks up, her expression hopelessly startled. 'Really?'

Regina nods and Emma licks her lips, suddenly nervous. She's never shared her writing with anyone, and now the prospect of giving over the pages of what had lingered in her mind when she was younger makes her feel like she's baring her soul. Nothing in those pages even vaguely resembles a diary, yet it feels as if her stories are more telling of her personally than any teenage drama, or heart felt monologue could ever be.

Swallowing heavily, she offers up the collection of her teenage years that are secured by a fraying elastic band, and is grateful when Regina offers her one of those rare smiles that could stop an entire room.

The brunette settles down on the sofa, legs crossed despite the tightness of her pencil skirt, and Emma is helpless but to watch her as she draws out the first page and reads. It all feels very domesticated in that moment and she is almost surprised at herself when she doesn't freak out and succumb to the omnipresent urge to run.

'It's considered rude to stare, dear', Regina remarks without looking up, as she turns over another page.

'You love the attention,' Emma says dryly.

'Perhaps, but why don't you join me up here rather than sitting on the floor like a chastised dog'.

Emma huffs in annoyance, but gets up regardless and flops at Regina's side. The brunette looks up at her, a single eyebrow raised but Emma crooks her finger and Regina doesn't hesitate to rearrange herself so she is leant up against her. As she finishes getting comfortable, Emma wraps her arms around the woman's slender waist and pulls her a little closer before she buries her face in Regina's hair. She breathes in and out slowly, listening to the occasional rustle of paper and the easy, quiet breaths that Regina takes. There is nothing else. No laughter. No sighs or snorts or jibes.

And then, only then does Emma relax, realising that for the first time in her entire life, someone has accepted her childhood self.

* * *

Regina hands over the papers when she is finished with a firm kiss, her hands curling behind Emma's neck and drawing her close. Emma holds her awkwardly, one hand in her hair, the other trying to juggle the papers whilst simultaneously gripping Regina's waist. She hums as they break apart, looking between the stack of papers and Regina until she finally focuses on the brunette's warm gaze.

'So?' Emma says eventually, unnerved by the prolonged silence.

'Thank you,' Regina simply replies as she brushes another kiss against Emma's lips, 'for sharing that with me'. Checking the time, she gently nudges Emma toward the door, 'now go and share with our son, but try and make it a little less frightening. There were some pretty-' Regina seems to falter on the word for a moment, before seemingly finding it again, 'dark parts'.

Emma nods and goes to leave before stopping and turning, abruptly flinging her arms around Regina's neck and drawing her once more into a searing kiss, hoping to portray her thanks at her easy acceptance. She pushes her back until they're against the wall; kisses her until Regina is panting, her fingers digging into her shoulder blades before she pulls back just as abruptly as she'd kissed the woman.

Emma grins at the slightly glazed look in the brunette's eyes before hurrying up the stairs to their impatient son without another word.

* * *

'So are we starting at the beginning, or the end or what?' Emma asks as Henry tries hard not bounce around.

'You can't start the story at the end, Ma!' Henry exclaims scandalised, and Emma laughs before gesturing for him to slide under the covers, which he does with a little too much vigour, accidently kicking her hip. She scrunches her face up at him in protest, and he apologises whilst he laughs, her pain fading at the sound of his carefree laughter.

'Right, so the beginning it is then,' she says as she draws out the first pages of the story from the bound pack. She realises, as she glances over the words, that she has yet to read her son a bedtime story, and the prospect of doing so now, when he is twelve and growing older by the day, makes her ever so slightly nervous. Is she supposed to do actions? Make up voices for the characters?

She glances up at him, and he's watching her with such childish excitement and little expectation that she simply smiles at him, clears her throat and begins reading out loud for the first time in a very long time.

* * *

'_It was the middle of summer, and what little breeze blew was warm, like hot breath down the back of the neck. Emily continued walking, brushing away the sweat that had gathered on her forehead with the back of her hand before reaching for the canteen that hung next to her sword. She'd been travelling for days, in search of a beast that was plundering her land and had heard it was last seen east, near her old hometown._

* * *

Henry blinks as he feels a warm heat travel down his back suddenly, a light breeze blowing at his suddenly hot cheeks. He places his palm against his face but feels nothing but cool skin.

He watches his mother, still listening to her voice which seems rich and warm, and stares as her hair is moved by an invisible breeze. Beads of sweat appear on her forehead as her cheeks flush a deep red.

* * *

_She found it odd to be travelling back to where she'd been born, a place where'd she'd been happy and had parents; people who loved her. She'd been a princess there, her parents the crowned King and Queen, but they'd been taken, kidnapped by the same beast she tracked at that very moment. _

_Exhausted from her lack of sleep the night before, Emily settled beneath a leafy tree, thankful for shade it provided as she threw down her heavy bag that rested across her shoulders. She rubbed at her aching muscles and let her head lull against the rough bark, her eyes slipping closed-_

* * *

He feels cooler now, still warm but no longer unpleasantly so. Emma however seems to visibly sag, her shoulders slumping forward in relief as her chest expands on an empty breath.

* * *

_'I wouldn't do that if I were you,' a sudden voice came from behind her, and Emily started, drawing her sword even as she got to her feet._

_'Whose there?!'_

_A swirl of dusty purple appeared before her and as it cleared, a sharply dressed woman stood in front of her, a dark cape twisted around her shoulders._

_Emily stared, dumb struck for a moment at the woman's beauty before taking up her defensive stance once more._

_'Who are you?'_

_The woman smiled, 'Her Royal Highness Isadora Rhea Miller, Queen of The Forest and all its inhabitants. But let's just call me Isadora, shall we?'_

_Emily levelled her sword out, pointing it at the other woman's throat, 'what do you want? Why have you come to me?'_

_Isadora held her hands up in surrender, 'no need to be so defensive princess. I'm not the one you need to be worried about'._

_Emily blinked, her face scrunching in confusion. 'How do you know who I am? And what on earth are you on about?'_

_'So many questions! There's an eclipse scheduled for today, all the prophets and Seers have been raving about it for weeks. The Day of Shadows. I assume you know what an eclipse is, yes?' Isadora drawled. _

_Emily scowled at her. 'Yes, I do. Now what has this eclipse got to do with anything?'_

_'Good Lord, what do people teach nowadays? An eclipse is a rare opportunity for the Shadow Creatures to come out. I'm sure you've heard tales of their legendary murderous tendencies?' Emily nodded and the brunette continued, 'then you surely understand why you can't be here in the open when the eclipse occurs. You'll be one of the first things they come for; a young girl like you will be a wonderful kill'._

_'I can defend myself, thank you very much'._

_'Are you deaf or just stupid? These are Shadow dwellers, creatures beyond this world that cannot be harmed by any mortal weapon. You'd be defenceless,' Isadora hissed in annoyance, watching as the stubborn blonde held her ground. _

_'And what do you expect me to do, come with you? I'm not an imbecile'._

_Isadora could feel the darkness coming and looked to the sky as the moon began to creep across the sun. Shadows slid from their hiding places, elongating and twisting against the grass liked caged animals. _

* * *

Henry can feel the cold, like ice creeping down his spine. He shivers, draws the blankets further around him and wonders why Emma has never read to him before tonight. She's amazing.

She makes it feel like it's real.

* * *

_'I don't have time to argue with you. The eclipse has begun and I don't plan to be around when it's in full swing. Make your decision: stay here and die, or come with me and live'. Isadora held out her hand expectantly, her eyes betraying her body's calm exterior as they flashed with panic._

_'I don't even know you,' Emily wavered, watching as the moon covered half of the sun. _

_'And no one will know you if you don't come with me right now'._

_The tree's shadow that she was currently stood under grew darker with each passing second, and Emily could feel a thickness about it, a growing evil. _

_Just as she reached for the Isadora's hand, the sun completely disappeared behind the inky blackness of the moon and the shadows came alive. The woods were suddenly overrun with inky black creatures that bristled in the darkness._

* * *

His room suddenly seems darker, the light from his bedside table not doing anything to cut through the gloom and Henry reaches for his mother, his hand closing round her wrist.

Her skin is icy cold and she is shaking.

* * *

_Emily backed up until the tree's bark bit into her skin. Three of the creatures advanced on her, seemingly unbothered by Isadora who stood only a few feet away and instead reached for her. She could feel their fingers on her skin as they sunk through her shirt and rested momentarily against the skin of her chest. _

* * *

'Ma, you can stop now,' Henry says gently, but Emma doesn't seem to notice him. She's consumed by her own words, helpless but to continue reading.

'Ma?' He reaches for her, but pulls his hand back at the last second as he realises there is something else on her lap. It's transparent, almost like it's not there but it's just visible in the dwindling light, and when Henry realises what it is he scrambles from the bed, his voice trapped from the terror that grips him.

It's a shadow.

* * *

_Emily looked at them, looked into eyes that were blacker than their bodies, before crying out as claws suddenly found themselves inside her._

_Her white shirt blossoms with flowers of crimson and she can do nothing but fall-_

* * *

Only then does Emma stop reading, and Henry, suddenly finding his voice, _screams_ for Regina.

* * *

Regina's halfway through pouring herself a cup of coffee when she hears Henry.

'_Mom!' _

He's screaming and the coffee pot in her hand drops, shattering on the floor as she flies from the room. She's halfway up the stairs, her voice refusing to co-operate, stolen by the shock of her sons apparent terror, when Henry cries out again. This time his voice is cracked with sobs.

'_Emma won't stop bleeding'._


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Hi! First of all thank you so much for all the Reviews, Favourites and Follows! Seriously thank you so much, all encouragement and helpful criticism is much appreciated! Also sorry for the slightly late update but I've been stupidly busy! *Warning* for this chapter and probably the rest, there's swearing in here. Enjoy!**

Regina halts so abruptly she nearly falls. The scene before her is red, bright pulsing red like the hearts from her drawers in the Mausoleum, and it threatens to suffocate her.

Emma lies in Henry's arms, much like her mother had laid and died in hers, and the parallel is sickening; something that makes her feel close to dropping to her knees and crawling to them. She is frozen, such a cliché that it's painful, but she cannot help it. She is stuck, confused and shaking, unable to process that Emma, who'd come up here to read their son her story, is bleeding out on Henry's floor.

_Henry_.

He's shaking as he holds Emma, crying so fiercely that he looks ready to fall apart, and it is that, her son's weakness, his vulnerability that forces her to move.

* * *

With his hands pressed against Emma's stomach, Henry tries to remember how the heroes act in the movies. The hero will kneel at the victim's side and look into their eyes and tell them that everything is going to be ok; that they're fine. _Don't worry_.

He guesses he is no hero when his hands, now coated in Emma's blood and disgustingly warm, shake where they lay pressed against wounds that he can't bear to look at. He can't even look Emma in the eye and tell her it will be ok as he's crying so hard that he can barely breathe, and the realisation that he can't be a hero, even to his own mother, is crushing.

But then his mom is there, and she looks him in the eye as her hands slide over his against Emma's stomach. Henry keeps his eyes on her as he slips his hands away, and even though she isn't looking at him anymore, she tells him it's going to be ok.

And for the first time since the curse was broken, and even before then, Henry finds himself wishing he was more like Regina.

* * *

The idea of losing Emma threatens to choke her for a moment, as the woman's blood slips through her fingers much like the ash of a hundred different hearts she'd crushed. She refuses to dwell upon the people who she's lost- who she's _killed_- and instead focuses upon actually saving someone; something that is an entirely new concept to her. For a moment she's unsure if she has the ability, and it's odd to have so little confidence in her magic when she needs it the most. But she pushes past the idea of failure with familiar stubbornness and focuses once more, Henry almost forgotten behind her.

The darkness that she is so used to being affiliated with her magic isn't there as she imagines healing Emma, and instead there is a brightness that seems to come from both of them. Emma glows softly, luminescent and strangely angelic and for a crushing moment Regina panics that this is her lover's death; Emma's ascension to somewhere that she herself will never belong.

But then her hands glow too and warmth sweeps across her, even as her shoulders slump just slightly from the magical exertion.

'Emma?' she whispers, reaching for the woman's face. She brushes a fingertip across her cheek bone, cringing at the crimson smear that it leaves behind; a stark contrast to the woman's skin. She moves to rub the streak away with her thumb before it hits her, slowly and with an air of revulsion, that the entirety of her hand is coated in Emma's blood. She swallows heavily, before shaking the woman's shoulder, regardless of the handprint she leaves on Emma's shirt.

When the blonde groans, sounding as if she's just been punched in the stomach rather than viciously attacked, Regina drops her head forward to rest against Emma's collarbone, her breath hitching as her adrenaline ebbs away and the full weight of what just happened crashes on her shoulders. She sinks, if possible, lower onto Emma so that she lies atop of her, hands clutching at the crumpled material of her shirt.

'Regina-'

Before she can say another word Regina sobs. It's a mixture of things, one part relief and the rest sheer disbelief that she has saved someone she loves. Her best was good enough this time, and she wonders if it's maybe because Emma's the Saviour and the Fates or whatever else is out there could not afford to lose such a force of good. But it can't be because it was her who'd saved her. She'd not lost this time, not like so many times before.

She sobs again.

It's startlingly loud in the quiet of the room and makes both Emma and Henry flinch with its abruptness. Henry scrambles over to his mothers, and lays his hand on Regina's back to feel her shake almost as fiercely as Emma had when she collapsed just minutes ago.

Emma clears her throat as she hushes Regina, running her fingers through the woman's hair as she looks over to her son, who is knelt at their side his eyes wide with relief and confusion. She tries to smile at him, but she can't find it in herself; too thrown by what happened to her and the fact that Regina is sobbing in her lap. She leans down to whisper soothingly into the brunette's ear, knowing it will do little to calm her yet can think of nothing else to do, but Henry leans forward before she can. He smiles at her, their little boy who still has her blood on his hands and stained into the chequered print of his pyjamas, and she feels her heart swell with pride as he looks her right in the eye.

'Don't worry, Ma. Everything's going to be ok'.

* * *

Henry, remarkably put together for a twelve year old who'd just witnessed his mother's attack, jumps at the opportunity to watch TV past his bed time; a tact that Emma uses so she can talk to Regina alone. He collects a new pair of pyjamas and hurries first to the bathroom, switching on the shower for a few minutes, before hurtling out of the door, still dripping wet but clothed in new, mercifully untainted pyjamas.

Only when she hears his footsteps fade and the distinct thump of his small body hurling itself onto the sofa, does Emma push herself up, taking Regina with her until they're upright.

With Regina curled in her lap, she suddenly realises just how small she is; that behind the façade that she puts up every day, whether it be the Mayor or the Evil Queen, even over protective Mom mode, she's vulnerable. Emma can't help but smile at the fact that Regina is comfortable enough to let herself be small around her; that she lets her see behind her larger than life attitude to reveal the woman whose hands are actually smaller than hers, and who curls into the foetal position when asleep.

Emma lets her hand slide under Regina's blouse with a small smile, fingers stroking along the hard knots of her spine, knowing that the brunette responds best to physical reassurance. After all, that was why Regina has laid atop of her; to hear her heart beat, a symbol that was so very prominent in the brunettes' life.

'I'm ok, Regina,' she says gently into the shell of the woman's ear as her fingers continue stroking a pattern against her skin, 'I'm ok'.

Regina shifts in her lap, bringing her head round to look up at her. Her eyes are wide and red rimmed, and something in Emma aches at the look of her.

'What happened?' Regina asks quietly, her voice rough and despite herself and the situation, Emma burns at the sound of it.

'A good question, I'll give you that. But I have no fucking clue'. Emma shrugs her shoulders in indifference and watches as Regina glares at her.

'I'm glad you seem so blasé about this but you were just attacked-' Regina falters and Emma takes advantage of it, drawing her arms around the brunette and bringing her closer. She tilts her head back to look at her lover and resists the urge to map the features of Regina's face.

'I know,' she says slowly, 'trust me. I can still sort of feel it'.

'_What_?!' Regina pulls back, but Emma keeps hold of her, forcing her to sit.

'It's ok, you fixed me remember? But I'm pretty sure I'm going to be a little achy, considering I just had bloody massive sharp things in me'.

Regina swallows hard, biting her lip to stop another round of tears. 'Do you know who attacked you? Do you remember what happened?'

Emma sighs and lets her head fall back so that she stares at the ceiling. 'I remember reading and thinking it was weird, but cool at the same time because I could feel the things that were happening in the story. I could feel the heat. I could feel the exhaustion'. She closes her eyes and lets herself be submersed into her memories, 'I remember reading about The Shadows-'

'The Shadows?' Regina questions anxiously.

'They're the monsters in my story-' Emma's head snaps back up as it hits her so abruptly that she nearly jerks Regina from her lap. 'No _way,' _Emma breathes in realisation, 'no freaking way. I think that it was a Shadow'.

'What was?'

'The thing that attacked me was a Shadow. I remember reading and I kept getting drawn in. I couldn't stop. It was like, well,' Emma looks at Regina seriously, her eyebrows furrowed, 'it was like when I use magic. It felt the same-'.

Regina feels something in the back of her mind niggle at her, a story she'd heard a long time ago, years before she met Snow or Daniel. When she was just a girl who still believed in impossibilities.

'Jesus, I think I read it out of the story,' Emma says lowly, her fingers unconsciously curling into Regina's sides as she tries to think how that's even possible. 'I just brought my story to life'.

And then Regina has her own epiphany as the stories she'd heard when she was young rush back to her, whispers from pages long since burned. She remembers her mother's search for the person who could perform such magic, her yearning for that power and how desperately she sought for it. She'd sent her father's soldiers out to villages, had searched and burnt down whole populations in search of just one person.

_'A Wordsmith, Regina, is the most powerful of all. They hold the power of the common word. Can you imagine that? To write down whatever you may please on parchment and then simply read it into being? Imagine the things you could do, the people you could have knelt at your feet. You could rule them all. Possess them all'._

Regina looks at Emma again; her jade eyes and furrowed brow, bowed lips and pale complexion and realises that this is what her mother had been searching for nearly all her life. She had found a Wordsmith, A Storyteller.

It was almost laughable and so very fitting to find that she was in love with a woman her mother had sought to kill.

* * *

'A Wordsmith? Like a Blacksmith but I don't make swords I make words?' Emma frowns as she turns the shower on before beginning to strip. They'd moved to the bathroom when the blood began to congeal, sticking their fingers together in such a manner that Regina had actually yanked Emma up and toward the shower.

'You don't make words,' Regina sighs, unbuttoning her blouse as she glances up at Emma who's fiddling with her belt buckle, 'anybody can make words, dear. It's called learning a language, something even you have accomplished'.

'_Rude_,' Emma mutters.

'No, a Wordsmith is a creator, an author if you like. Write down the story, read it out loud and it comes to life'.

'Like a movie?'

'A little, I suppose,' Regina concedes as she steps into the shower, looking over her shoulder as if telling Emma to hurry up and join her.

Emma hurries up and joins her, stepping under the warm spray and sighing contentedly. 'So I'm a film director?'

Regina slaps her shoulder before scrubbing vigorously between the webbing of her fingers. 'No, it's like a movie only because you can bring whatever you like to life. Unlike a movie, it's permanent, life threatening and doesn't involve any actors'.

'So whatever I read, if it includes real life people, will happen to them?' Emma, rather than sounding impressed sounds scared and because of it, her disinterest in controlling others, Regina draws her into a firm embrace.

'Yes, you could make them do anything, believe anything you write down. Everyone is a puppet to you now, Emma, and you their master'.

Emma pushes back a little, looking down at the floor that swirls pink with diluted blood. 'I'm always something. The Orphan. The Bitch. Now I'm the Saviour. The Wordsmith. The puppet Master,' Emma chokes on her tears and if she weren't so lost, so utterly overwhelmed by the day's events then she would be horrified. 'When am I just Emma? I'm lost under it all, under all the fucking names-' She strikes out, fist cracking against the shower tile, and she stumbles; almost falls but Regina grabs her round the waist, holding tightly. She feels weightless yet hopelessly tied down all at once, and the contrast is infuriating.

Worried at the flickering emotions that burst within Emma, a whole surging myriad of them, Regina hangs tighter onto the blonde.

'I'm always something, Regina,' Emma says eventually, her body's vibrations calming until she slumps against the brunette.

'Yes, you are,' Regina begins resolutely, 'you're Emma Swan and you're –'

Emma's gasp cuts her off. The blonde struggles to get free, wrenches herself away from Regina until she is pressed against the tiled wall, eyes wide and frightened. For the first time Regina sees young Emma Swan, sees her more clearly than she had when she read the pages of her story. She wants to reach out but doesn't, knows that if it were her she would lash out.

'People can use me. If people find out, if they know I'm a _Wordsmith_,' she spits the word out like dirt, 'then they can use me'. She presses a trembling hand to her mouth, this title now the worse she's ever been called.

'I'm Emma Swan and I'm a Weapon'.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: So before you start reading be aware that I've made Regina's life a little AU, but only a little! Hope you're enjoying it, and reviews/favourites and follows are greatly ****_greatly _****appreciated! **

'Emma, listen to me,' Regina says quickly, desperate to stop the blonde from freaking out any further, knowing that with her still unstable magic she could blow a hole in the wall, or set fire to her hair. She grips Emma's shoulder and the woman vibrates but she holds on, a hand under her chin to guide the blonde's face to hers. '_Listen_,' she says louder and Emma stills a little, 'we won't let this get any further than this house, ok? I won't let anyone hurt you, Emma. I won't let anyone use you'. Her words are strong, made powerful from her fierce protectiveness but also from her understanding. She knows how Emma feels, she's been there, been used for someone else's gain. She knows what it is to be seen as nothing more than power, a tool, the next rung on the ladder to success.

'But what if I hurt you? Or Henry? Christ, Regina this is huge. I could bring the whole world to its knees with just a few words. I could summon all sorts of things, could throw us into an apocalypse- How the hell am I supposed to live with that,' she breathes sharply through her nose, fingers digging into her own sides, 'I'm a short fuse to a really fucking massive bomb'.

'It'll be difficult, I won't lie to you,' Regina says gently as she strokes Emma cheek, 'but we'll get through this together'. It feels good to promise such continuity to a woman whose been left at the side lines because she was deemed too difficult to look after all her life.

Emma is calmer now, though she can feel the panic like an undercurrent beneath her skin, but Regina's touch is good; it keeps her steady. The water is still hot, for which she is thankful as she clings tightly to Regina, pressing her face into the crook of the woman's neck. For a moment, breathing in the familiar, warm smell that's undeniably Regina, she forgets that her life has now effectively been changed forever.

* * *

They retrieve Henry from the living room, Emma picking him up despite Regina's insistence to wake him as she is in no state to be hauling all 90 pounds of small boy around. Emma simply grins at her as she takes him upstairs before carefully settling him in his bed that is sans blood, something that Regina had been particularly meticulous about.

They make sure he is settled, linger a little at his door as they watch him sleep; relishing in the peaceful rise and fall of his chest. Regina laces her fingers through Emma's almost subconsciously, although such an action can never go truly unnoticed by her. She will always be hesitant to reach out in fear that the hand she reaches for will draw back. It seems to her that she is always waiting to be pushed away, something she sees reflected in Emma. Perhaps that is a part of what draws her so closely to the infuriating blonde, despite their general clash of opinion.

Emma tugs lightly on Regina's hand and with one last look at their son, they turn away to their bedroom.

They fall into their usual nightly routine, Regina turning down the bed as Emma puts on her football shirt and pulls her hair into a loose bun. It still makes her smile at how different they are, as she climbs into bed and watches Regina dress in silks as if she is going out rather than going to bed.

But her smile slips slightly when the day's events replay in her head, and she draws her knees to her chin, clinging to her legs as her eyes track Regina's progress around the room. She knows the brunette can feel her gaze, that much is evident when Regina puts a purposeful sway to her hips. Despite herself, Emma warms, familiar heat flushing through her.

Finally, Regina finishes and as she climbs into bed next to her, Emma is overcome with such intense need for the brunette that it startles her. Blaming it on her scrambled nervous system or the tension that gathers round her shoulders, she reaches for the brunette and draws her closer.

She brushes a kiss against Regina's shoulder, her arms tightening reflexively around the woman's waist as she feels her lean back against her and for a moment her mind is filled with every line of the woman's body, from the hard slope of her spine to the full curvature of her breasts.

'Are you-', Regina gasps as Emma kisses down her neck, 'sure that this is what you w-want right now?' Emma, as if in answer, draws the brunette closer still slowly working her way down Regina's neck.

She is met by the arch of the woman's neck and Emma quick to take advantage of her boneless state, flips them so that she straddles Regina before she can so much as sit up. She leans down, and lets her fingers dance across the woman's skin in teasing, delicate patterns as she stares into eyes steadily deepening with lust.

'When do I not want you?'

'You're insatiable, but are you sure about this? I don't want to be a diversion'.

Emma stops her motions for a moment and looks down seriously at the woman under her, 'You're not, Regina, please believe me. I want you,' she pauses around words that are unwilling to make their way from her mouth, 'I _need_ you. Please'.

Regina smiles gently before she languidly traces her hands up Emma's body to hook behind the blonde's neck. Emma, before she is lost in Regina and her touch, pulls her shirt back over her head and quickly does the same to Regina, only happy when their naked bodies touch, something that is so vastly reassuring that Emma sighs.

'Kiss me?' Regina asks, licking her lips as she watches Emma watch her.

Without question Emma obeys, letting herself sink into the pleasure that is kissing Regina Mills. Her taste is the thing that hits her first, like always, the sweetly intoxicating mixture of apples and something earthier and darker that she is yet to identify as anything else but Regina. Her hands wrap themselves in Regina's hair to tug the woman forward or to lower herself down, she's not entirely sure, but it doesn't matter because soon their bodies touch closer, Emma's thighs opening to envelop one of Regina's and they both sigh because each touch feels like _home_, a place and feeling neither has ever been able to find before.

Emma brushes one hand along Regina's side, as her lips descend across the woman's jaw and down her neck to her prominent pulse, her teeth quickly latching on to it. The moan driven from the brunette's lips pushes Emma closer into her, her movements more frenzied as she desperately seeks to hear that sound again. She slides her body lower, lets her lips brush across the sensitive skin of Regina's collarbone before caressing the plump flesh of her breast.

She listens to the staggered catch in the brunettes breathing as her tongue traces heavy, wet patterns around her nipple that is already hard from the tease of her breath and the sweet promise of anticipation. Regina's fingers catch in her hair, draw her closer, before trailing down her back, nails dragging just enough to bring goosebumps, and Emma breathes out shakily before retaliating. She sucks gently at the woman's nipple, before letting her tongue flicker out, lashing the hardened and sensitized nub mercilessly until Regina is arching off of the bed, each breath punctuated with small, keening moans.

She switches to the other breast when Regina's hands drop from her back and instead twist in the sheets, before she moves her finger and thumb to play and twist the woman's other nipple.

"Emma!" The breathless, wanton sound brings a smirk to the blonde's face, her fingers creeping slowly down the brunette's stomach to play at the tops of her thighs. She knows that the promise, the sweet anticipation is building within her lover, can feel it underneath her touch as she trembles. Emma knows that Regina's body is already begging, that the twitching muscle in her thigh can translate to a breathless beg of her name, and that the fingers that coil in her hair are her panted plea to _fuck _her, and Emma can't find it within herself to resist. Her fingers delve lower, paint themselves with Regina's wetness, as she circles a gentle fingertip slowly around the brunette's entrance.

Regina moans and arches up against her then grinds against the sheets as if she can't decide where she most needs to be. Emma can't help but grin at her response, wanting to keep teasing, to withhold what Regina needs until she completely loses it; her composure, her voice, her mind.

The whimper that the mayor makes next slides across Emma's body; is the subtle pinch and flick of her nipples and she can't help but grind down on the thigh between her legs, seeking relief. Deciding to be merciful, to be kind, she slides her finger inside, keeps it still and just revels in the pure feeling of being within Regina.

"Please," Regina begs and Emma cannot help but moan when the brunette arches up into her, her head thrown back as she rolls her hips, urging her to move. Mercifully, Emma adds a second finger and curls both of them, roughly grazing that patch of skin that makes Regina surge upwards, hands seeking leverage as her hips buck.

"God, Regina," Emma breathes against her neck, and kisses her thundering pulse as her fingers thrust harder, her thumb reaching up to rub roughly at the mayor's clit, "you're so beautiful".

Emma rolls her wrist, thrusting harder and deeper, and the sound that escapes Regina's lips is something of a sob, a sound that Emma muffles with her lips, as she co-ordinates her kisses with the quick thrust of her fingers.

Emma knows Regina is close when she feels the silken clench around her fingers, and without hesitation she slows, even as Regina's body urges her to go faster.

"Emma, please." Regina sounds breathless, voice husky and Emma simply presses a slick finger to her lips, groaning as the brunette sucks it into her mouth and curls her tongue around her own wetness.

Emma slips agilely between the mayor's thighs, shamelessly grinding herself down onto the sheets, as she is met by the wanton display of Regina's legs spread wide just for her. Unable to do anything else, she runs her tongue along the length of her and hums with pleasure as Regina cries out, something that only drives the mayor higher and closer to an orgasm that lingers just behind her eyes, threatening stars and explosions.

She suckles Regina's clit, her tongue coiling around and over, and she has to physically hold onto the brunette's jutting hips as she bucks hard enough to arch off of the mattress. She drags Regina closer, lets her tongue press faster and harder, drinking in the smell and taste of her as she flickers her tongue and scrapes her teeth, and just like that Regina is coming. Hands claw at Emma's back as her neck arches, and the moan that falls from her lips is low and guttural and Emma can't help the sympathy streak of pleasure that licks its way through her body.

Regina collapses down, her entire body limp as Emma crawls up next to her and strokes away a strand of hair from her sweaty forehead as the brunette struggles to catch her breath.

"It's times like these that I'm reminded just why I keep you around," Regina says, although the tease in her voice is made null by the way she pants around each syllable.

Emma swats at her, refusing to catch at the bait that the mayor dangles.

Regina tangles her fingers in Emma's hair, closing her eyes as they kiss languidly. Kissing her is like letting everything go, letting the tension that builds on her shoulders afresh each and every day disappear when their lips touch. And although she refuses to admit it, even to Emma, she loves the woman so fiercely that she aches with it. It had seemed impossible in the beginning to ever let her past go, to let the pain of losing Daniel, and all the consequences that stemmed from her need for revenge, come to a close so that she could move on. Daily she is surprised that she's able to find her solace in a woman whom had been her adversary constantly for nearly a year. But here she is, needing and aching and _loving_ this woman whose hair is tangled round her fingertips and whose body responds deliciously to her.

* * *

Emma wants to thank her, but thinks it strange so instead nuzzles closer to the woman as they lie in the sweaty afterglow, the silence loud in their ears.

'As I'm a Wordsmith, can I rewrite the past?' Emma asks suddenly, the question bursting out of her before she can stop it. She's aware that it isn't exactly pillow talk, but she can't help herself; especially when she feels like she does, like she's a little drunk. Her curiosity is peaked, a hundred different ways she could use her magic for good becoming an overwhelming thought in her head.

Regina glances across at her with a frown, 'yes, I suppose you can. After all, anything you write comes true'. Something in her stomach that had been so light just moments ago sinks at Emma's question. 'Why do you ask?'

Emma rolls onto her stomach and props her chin on her hand, simply looking at Regina as if she can communicate her thoughts that way. She pictures the woman younger, with long braided hair and a smile that's a permanent feature on her face. She pictures her happy, then pictures herself happy and sees the two fit together perfectly, but she wonders guiltily if it is the same for Regina. If, when she's asked to picture her happy ending, she sees herself with Emma.

'If you could change your past, would you?'

Regina closes her eyes at the question. Of course this would come up; Emma was the Saviour after all, always looking toward helping the greater good.

'Yes and no. Yes, I would've changed the decisions I made, would've tried to be less consumed by my hatred for Snow,' she sighs tiredly as she looks over at the blonde, 'but then no, because Henry would never have existed'.

'Would you want Daniel back?' Emma asks quietly, her stomach twisting uncomfortably as she says it. Jealousy swells in her over a dead man and she feels almost as guilty as she had earlier, nearly dying in her twelve year olds arms.

Regina sits up then, 'why are you asking?'

'Because I want to know if you're happy,' she begins, not daring to look over at the brunette because she just knows she will somehow stop her from offering up what she is about to. 'Because now, with this power I have, I could write any happy ending you'd like. I could bring Daniel back,' she bites her lip as she pushes the offer out, 'I could make Cora never take her heart out, make her really love your father. I could give you Henry,' her voice breaks at that but she ploughs forward, 'let you all be a happy family. I could do it all,' she looks at Regina before her next words, 'for you'.

Regina is speechless; stunned that Emma would offer such a thing. None of it was for the greater good, none of it anything Snow White or her ridiculous husband would ever offer if they had the power. It was selfless and heart breaking and so god damn typical of Emma Swan that Regina would laugh had she not been choked by tears.

She wonders when she'd gotten so bad at expressing her feeling that she made people whom she loved most dearly feel like they were unwanted or unnecessary to her happy ending.

'You'd do that, for me?' she manages to say, and watches as Emma nods her head, looking like someone had just kicked her.

'I'll start writing, if you can wait a couple days,' she burbles and Regina, who is still reeling from Emma's extreme change of heart, literally flings herself at the woman. She takes her down in a tackle that a quarterback would be proud of, and pins her to the bed. She can feel her face burn from the guilt and the simmering anger, that Emma would give up on her so easily, and she presses the woman down harder because of it. She wants to pin her down until she'll listen, won't let her up until she sees how much she is loved.

'I'll make it beautiful,' Emma begins to stutter out but Regina cuts her off with a kiss that disarms the woman, strips her until she is silent.

'I don't need you to write me a happy ending, Emma,' Regina presses, her hands seeking out Emma's before lacing their fingers together on the mattress. 'Don't you see that _you're_ the one who makes me happy'.

Emma cocks her head to the side as if judging the weight of her words, wondering if they are true.

'You make me want to wake up to a town that I despise, to people that I've hated all my life, just so I can spend the day with you,' she says evenly, and she surprises herself that she doesn't shy away from the intimacy of the knowledge she is sharing with her. 'I find myself smiling at the colour of the leaves of my apple tree just because they remind me of your eyes. You've turned me into a bumbling idiot, much like your infernal mother, but I find I don't care because I have you'.

Emma has the grace to look bashful under Regina's intense stare, 'but I thought that all of this,' she gestures around the room, 'the whole reason Storybrooke is here is because of Daniel. You made a town for him, Regina. You broke a hundred happy endings for _him'_.

Regina grimaces. She supposes it's true and even now there is still some kind of accuracy in the statement, but it's for a very new, very different reason. 'You're right. But it wasn't my love for Daniel that drove me to do all the things I did,' she squeezes Emma's hips with her knees as she continues, wants her to be comforted as she talks, 'it was because I'd had my choices taken away and it was my fault. If I'd have been stronger, I could have told my mother no, I could have changed the course my life took. And this vendetta I've had this,' she pauses as the past clings to her like chains, shackles that secure at her wrists but Emma strokes her fingers and they fall away, 'constant anger has always been a distraction for the loathing I felt for myself. I blamed everyone I could so I could focus upon them, rather than accept that my loss came partially at my own hand'.

'Regina'.

'No, let me finish. Daniel was an important part of my life simply because he contributed to who I am today. He got me to this place and for that I'll always be grateful because,' she squeezes Emma's hands in her own, 'it led me to you. But you have to understand that every person I've ever loved has either died or been taken away, turned against me on occasion, and to admit my feelings for you feels like I'm taking you to the slaughter'.

Regina lies flush against Emma, foreheads pressed together. Emma is warm and whole beneath her, but despite herself she clings fiercely onto her hands, scared that she'll disappear with her next words. 'I love you, and I'm sorry I didn't say it before now'.

Emma feels her gut twist, but it's not painful more like the sensation of butterflies but more intense. She grapples with her emotions, the day having taken her through more than she can really compute, but now, with Regina looking at her as if she's the very thing that makes her heart beat, she can only feel the love.

Being a Wordsmith and potentially the most dangerous person in the whole town (which is really something considering her other contenders include The Dark One and Captain Hook) seems to slip to the back of her mind, and she knows that tomorrow she will wake up with that and think of nothing else. But for now, with Regina's eyes so full of promise, she lets herself soak in the feeling of being loved.

She rolls them over so that she has Regina beneath her once again. 'I'm glad you feel that way, you know because I'm sort of head over heels in love with you'.

* * *

**Storybrooke Town Line**

**Somewhere round midnight:**

_'We've found it,' he grins, grasping at the woman next to him. She slaps him away and instead shifts in her seat, opening a hatch that leads to the back of the van. _

_'Did you feel it? Did you feel her?' she questions the figure who sits stoically in the middle of the floor. The chains that tether him are pulled taut, straining to keep the man in place despite his lack of movement. _

_'Yes,' he growls in response before becoming silent once more. _

_'Oh don't sound so pained, you've been tracking this woman since you first met. You're the one who let her get away, and now you'll be the one to get her back,' Tamara smiles viciously into the cabin, snapping the hatch closed. _

_'And with the both of you, we'll have the world on its knees,' Greg laughs, before pushing down on the gas, letting the van roll over the town line with ease. _


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: So this is really really IMPORTANT so please read before you continue reading (that sounded better in my head!) So it's important to know that I'm basically ignoring the ENTIRE plot line of Greg/Tamara/Neal. Emma doesn't know that Neal is Rumple's son, she's never met Greg or Tamara. So they're new bad guys who have gone of on a tangent away from the secret service they work for. So as long as you bear this in mind then my story makes sense.**

**This chapter is a fair bit longer than my others, so have fun! And thank you SO much for Reviews/Favourites and Follows. All of them are really very encouraging!**

Emma wakes in a panic when something that feels akin to electricity ricochets down her spine. She bolts upwards, hands clutching at the duvet and then Regina's hand, the woman having woken the same moment Emma had shot up.

'Hey,' Regina hushes her quietly, '_hey_, what's wrong?'

Emma blows out a breath, embarrassed at having freaked out over nothing but a shiver but still she feels as if something's amiss, 'nothing. Just jittery I suppose'.

Regina smiles gently at her as she rubs her thumb along the blondes' knuckles, 'understandable. You did just bring a story to life'.

Emma smiles wanly, and Regina can see the unease in her eyes but knows that Emma won't talk about what's bothering her if she doesn't want to. Instead she lies down and gently eases Emma down next to her. The blonde settles so that her head lies atop of her chest, arm thrown over her waist and leg hooked over her thighs; something that further cements that something is bothering Emma. She's never particularly clingy in bed, only when she's spooked or upset, generally preferring to touch through the interlinking of their fingers or the press of breasts against back. Regina strokes her fingers through Emma's hair as they listen to the rain, which has seemingly come from nowhere, strike the window. She can't help but shiver herself despite Emma's comforting warmth pressed against her beneath the duvet, and she wonders if there's something more to it than the cold weather. Before she can take that thought any further, Emma begins tracing lazy circles against her side and within seconds she is pulled under into sleeps welcome embrace.

* * *

Emma doesn't sleep again that night. She stays tangled with Regina and watches the darkness dissipate to an almost equally murky morning, which is fitting really considering her own dismal mood. Yesterday's events play heavily on her mind, still reeling over the fact that her whole identity has been shifted yet another direction. How can so much responsibility fall on her shoulders? A woman who not ten years ago had to steal to stay alive, who let people down and could barely look after herself let alone another person. How was she supposed to be the Saviour whilst at the same time be wary of what she said just in case she bought aliens or the plague to Storybrooke? Fate must be laughing hard at the joke it'd made of her life.

She looks across to Regina, who even in the weak sunlight that is barely filtering through the window, looks despicably beautiful. For a moment she wishes that Regina was the one with this power, knowing that she could control it with an iron fist, but then regrets it. Magic is Regina's downfall, something that had almost completely conquered her. Emma will take this supposed 'gift' if it will save Regina from her power struggle, but she can't help but worry that her new power will hurt the brunette regardless.

Regina is her weakness, as is Henry, and if anything were to happen to them-

'It's too early for such concentration,' Regina mumbles against her shoulder as she brushes her lips against her skin in a sloppy kiss.

'Just thinking. I thought you'd be proud,' Emma jokes and Regina squeezes her waist lightly.

'If it weren't so early, I would be'.

Emma looks across to the alarm clock on the bedside table, 'five minutes before the alarm goes off'.

'Christ, really?' Regina growls in displeasure, burying her head further into Emma's neck as she tries to close her eyes and slip back to sleep. 'Can't we postpone Monday?'

'You're the Mayor, you can't bunk'.

'I'm the Mayor and that's exactly why I _can_ bunk'.

Emma walks her fingers up Regina's body, spanning hip to neck and back again, 'I could wake you up, if you'd like,' she grins, brushing her chilled fingers across Regina's nipple. The brunette breathes out slowly in response, an odd growl in the back of her throat. Emma circles that same nipple slowly with her index finger, spiralling inward as it grows stiffer and rosy until she rolls it between finger and thumb.

Regina arches a little at that, her breath a little quicker before shuddering out to a complete stop as Emma envelops her nipple in her mouth-

The alarm clock starts violently and Regina lunges and smacks it off the table, before reaching for Emma once more. But the blonde is out of reach and grinning as she stretches, letting Regina admire the ripple of abdominal muscles and the gentle curves of her breasts.

'You did that deliberately,' Regina complains as she grabs her dressing gown from the end of the bed and slips it on. Emma flashes an impish smile, before climbing out of bed and heading for the shower.

'Would I do that to you?' she calls behind her as she goes.

'Of course you would, because you're an insufferable menace'.

Emma smiles widely at that, turning around as she reaches the bathroom door, 'you love it really,' she laughs before slipping inside.

Regina shakes her head as she heads in the opposite direction, searching for her morning coffee before going to wake Henry up, all the way contemplating how on earth she allowed herself to fall in love with someone as infuriating as Emma Swan.

* * *

Emma tugs on her boots before hurrying through to the kitchen where Henry sits shovelling cereal into his mouth. 'Where's your mom?' she asks as she kisses his head, and he points through to the study, bringing his hand up to his ear to show she's on her phone, whilst chewing on a mouthful of Fruit Loops.

'Cheers kid'.

He smiles at her before she dashes off again, aware that she's late as usual. She's supposed to be meeting her parents at Grannie's for breakfast at 8:15, something that they'd had planned for a week now, and she can't bail on them at the last minute, no matter how much she wants to.

She creeps into the study, but Regina is finished on the phone, her face creased in a frown. 'Bad news?'

'No, not bad just strange,' Regina pauses for a moment and Emma feels herself frown, worry beginning to niggle in her stomach, 'That was the Blue Fairy'.

Emma struggles to compute the fact, 'the same one that hates your guts, right?'

Regina glares at her. 'Yes, the one and only. She was reporting an odd fluctuation in magic'.

Emma blinks once again, 'hold up. You can monitor magic? How?'

'When magic first came to Storybrooke, it was through the well, so any magic used in town is technically drawn from there,' Emma cocks an eyebrow and Regina raises hers, 'I know it sounds odd, but listen. Apparently Blue has set up some sort of monitoring system around it with the fairy dust. The mixture of a particular spell and the dust, when exposed to high amounts of magic within a particular area, will explode like a firework, sending a signal to whoever is monitoring it. Last night it went off for the first time since the curse was broken'. Regina paces as she talks, something that Emma is very accustomed too, but it still makes her nervous.

'Was that my fault?' Emma asks and her voice is embarrassingly shy. She clears her throat and tries to sound more like the adult she is, 'did I set it off?'

'I'm not sure, you're the most obvious option but-'

'But what?'

'It's nothing but a possibility, but maybe it was something else. Something bigger. You're magic last night, and this is in no ways supposed to be demeaning,' Regina steps closer and links hands with her, 'it wasn't _that_ powerful, certainly not as powerful as some of the spells Rumple has used, and even myself'.

'So it was Gold who set it off?' Emma questions, slightly confused. Regina squeezes her hand.

'That's the thing, Blue has already asked him and he denies it'.

'But come off it, Gold isn't exactly the most trustworthy person in town, is he?' Emma huffs in exasperation, thinking back to numerous occasions of the imps antics.

'But Belle is, and she vouched for him. She was,' Regina coughs embarrassedly, waggling her eyebrows and gesturing with her hands, '_you know_, with him'.

'It's always the good girls,' Emma smirks and Regina _tsks_ at her.

'Focus Miss Swan,' Regina snaps and Emma slides closer to her, drawn by the intoxicating authority in her voice. God, how many times had she gotten off on that sound.

'Don't _Miss Swan _me, you know what that does to me Madame Mayor,' Emma purrs lowly.

'Now is not the time for such lurid thoughts, Emma. This could be serious, a new source of magic'.

Emma stops at that, but draws the brunette closer suddenly very protective 'a threat?'

'I don't know, it's just an oddity at the moment. We'll have to keep an eye on it'. Regina reaches out and cups Emma's cheek, the silent _I need to keep an eye on you too so please be careful_ loud and clear to them both. 'I'll do some enquiring myself today and see what else I can piece together. When we get home tonight, we'll talk more about it'.

Emma takes Regina's hand and kisses her palm, drawing in a deep breath as she prepares herself to go out, to leave Regina's side. Since last night all she wants to do is be near to the brunette, as if she can reassure herself that nothing has happened to her- that she has done nothing to her.

'Now I know you have breakfast plans with the two idiots, so go. I'll see you tonight,' Regina says as positively as she can, despite the fact that she holds tightly onto Emma, 'and remember, it's going to be ok. You're still Emma Swan'.

'Right, yeah,' Emma says with as much enthusiasm and confidence she can manage, 'I've got this'.

'Of course you do, dear. Unfortunately for you, you're a Charming. It runs in your blood to have the ability to handle any situation,' Regina lets go of Emma with a final squeeze of her hand. 'Wish Snow a fruitful week from me, won't you?' Regina says with a sly smile.

'You're so bad,' Emma drawls amusedly, before kissing the brunette once more and heading for the door.

* * *

Emma arrives ten minutes late to breakfast, which isn't really that bad considering her previous records. She steps through the door, running a hand through her still tangled hair, and looks around for her parents. It doesn't take long to find them, considering they're the only ones in the room who are looking up at her with stupid grins on their faces as if she's just cured Leroy of his alcohol issues (god knows she wishes she could).

'Morning guys,' Emma says lamely, still having issues at calling them anything else but Snow and David. She thinks that's pretty good in light of all things, and knows that they won't push her for anything more in case she runs away. She's not entirely sure if she should class that as a good thing or not, but it's a thing that prevents her from going through any awkward moments which she's eternally grateful for.

'Good morning sweetheart,' Snow is quick to remark and David, much to Emma's amusement, rolls his eyes at his wife's lack of subtlety.

Emma slides into the empty side of the booth, glad that the two of them hadn't split so she'd be forced to sit with one of them. She picks up the menu out of habit, but already knows what she's ordering, coffee with milk and two sugar and a bear claw. Regina isn't around to berate her and she'll be damned if she's missing out on the opportunity.

'Sorry I was late,' Emma offers up as Ruby comes over. Emma orders and Ruby smiles before gliding off without even a hint of more conversation and Emma wonders if Snow had paid the waitress to not talk to her just so she wouldn't be distracted from them both.

'You're here honey, and that's all we care about. Right Charming?'

'Right,' David agrees, catching Emma's eye and giving her an apologetic smile at Snow's overbearing sweetness.

'How're things at Henry's?' Snow asks once Ruby has deposited Emma's breakfast.

'It's Regina's house, Snow. It's my home'.

Snow looks ready to protest but David pats her hand consolingly, 'we know Emma. How is our Grandson?'

'Probably traumatised,' she says before she can stop herself. She claps a hand over her mouth, but the cat is out of the proverbial bag and she's barely had a sip of her coffee. _Damn_.

'What do you mean?' Snow asks immediately, looking at Emma with such concern that the blonde feels like she's suffocating.

'Nothing, I- I don't mean anything. Burbling. Yep that's what's happening. I've had no coffee and I'm burbling,' Emma rambles quickly, hastily picking up her coffee and taking a scalding sip. '_Ow,_' she murmurs to herself as her tongue burns.

'Something's happened, hasn't it? Something bad? Oh God, Emma. What's Regina done?'

Emma forces herself not to growl as she tries not to throw her mug at Snow. 'Regina's done nothing, it was me. I-' she stops herself as if realising where she is. She looks around but sees no one but Ruby behind the counter and Granny in the kitchen. She leans forward and the pair in front of her do too. 'I discovered I have a pretty new, rare magical talent'.

'Oh this sounds foreboding,' David mutters, and Snow elbows him in the ribs.

'I can bring stories to life. Regina called me a Wordsmith, that I'm a-'

'Storyteller. Christ, you're A Storyteller,' Snow whispers panicked, as if Cora had just walked through the door with half a dozen poisoned apples in her hands.

David shushes Snow as he looks at his daughter, 'but something else happened, didn't it? What aren't you telling us?'

Emma swallows, impressed that he can read her quite so well in a short amount of time. 'I didn't know I was one until last night. I read Henry a story, one I'd written when I was younger, and the bad things kind of, you know, popped out and sorta just a little bit stabbed me in the chest,' she finishes quickly, like ripping of a band aid.

The pair of them look at her for a long moment, their mouths agape, before Snow pushes David out of the way, scrambling across him as if she's a cat before launching herself at her daughter. Her hands fly everywhere, and Emma is frozen for a moment at Snow's tenacity before she still's the woman's hands with her own.

'_Oh my god, are you ok? What- how – are you dying? Will you die? I can't lose you!_'

'Woah, Snow! Jesus, chill out for a second ok?' She brings the woman's hand to feel the pulse at her wrist, 'I'm ok, see? Regina fixed me'.

Snow melts against her side, breathing out easily once more. 'Oh thank goodness, I was so worried'.

'Really Snow? You didn't come across bothered at all,' David sighs from behind his wife, before peering over her shoulder to look at Emma. 'You're definitely ok though, yes?'

Emma nods with a grateful smile, glad she's inherited his level headedness. 'I'm fine, just a little weirded out I suppose'.

Snow nods in sympathy before pushing Emma along the booth so she can slide in next to her. Emma bites the inside of her cheek to stop herself from pushing Snow right back until she's on the floor. 'Perhaps Mr Gold has a cure, or at least something that could help you-'

'No!' Emma barks and Snow jumps at the sudden roughness. Ruby looks over at them with an inquisitive expression, but otherwise goes about her work. 'Nobody else is to know about this, do you understand? Especially not Mr Gold. I told you this in complete secrecy, ok?'

'Yes of course, Emma. We understand,' David says as he observes the panicked shake of his daughters shoulders, 'don't we Snow?' The woman nods as she takes Emma's hand.

'Good. I just need time to figure things out, ok? Because from what Regina says, I'm now pretty powerful and if certain people find out,' Emma trails off, scenarios playing in her head in quick motion pictures.

'It would be bad, for you and your family,' David says gently, and Emma really _really_ wants to climb across the table and hug him for his understanding. Instead she nods and throws him a watery smile.

'We'll make sure that this stays between us; we'll make sure you're safe'. Emma can hear a version of _we'll always find you_ in there somewhere and smiles warmly for once, rather than cringing.

Looking at the man in front of her, she suddenly realises how vastly she trusts him, despite his tendency to go into hero mode with a little too much vigour. She knows in that very moment that she can trust him with what Regina had told her earlier. Snow on the other hand, whilst loving and adorable and so very _very_ protective would most likely freak out before she got to the point.

With an 'accidental' knock of her wrist, her mostly empty and entirely cold cup of coffee flies over Snow's garish pink trousers. 'Oh my god, I'm so sorry Snow!' she exclaims as she hastily picks up the cup and sets it back on the table.

'It's fine, Emma, just an accident. No harm done,' she smiles at her, even as the coffee spreads to make an unfortunate looking stain in the crotch of her trousers, 'I'm just going to pop to the bathroom and try and clean myself up. Back in mo!'

As soon as the woman disappears behind the bathroom door, Emma leans across to David. 'Something else has happened,' she says lowly, and the man looks at her knowingly.

'I guessed as much when you deliberately knocked your coffee over your mother,' David says, sounding as if he's trying not to laugh.

Emma looks taken aback, 'what? That was an accident!' She insists.

'No it wasn't, you just needed to get rid of Snow in the nicest way possible,' David smiles kindly at her to show he understands, 'don't worry, I won't tell'.

Emma concedes to the fact that David knows her better than she thought. 'It's just that she'll freak out and probably stalk me for the rest of the year, and I really don't want her to do that especially with me and Regina-'

David holds up his hand and she stops, her cheeks burning red. 'I don't need to hear the rest, but I get it. What do you need to tell me?'

'Blue phoned Regina this morning,' David raises his eyebrows in surprise and Emma nods, 'I know, I was surprised too. But anyhow, she says that there was an odd fluctuation in magic last night, that something or someone powerful did magic of some sort. Something big'.

'Gold?'

'No, Belle was with him all night. And apparently the magic I used last night wouldn't warrant for that kind of fluctuation, which means-'

David straightens up, suddenly very serious. 'Somebody else is here that can use magic'.

'It's not definite, but that's what it looks like. And if they can set of this magical monitoring system then it means that they're the big guns,' Emma thinks it funny how young she sounds, and how she isn't quite so bothered by it because she's talking to David.

'Right, I'll go with you to the station today, see if we can maybe make up a two man patrol?'

Emma squishes her face up as she considers it, 'I think it would be better if you were to go around town with Snow, just looking for anything out of the ordinary, and if you find anything then we can convene and go from there?'

'Are you sure?'

Emma smiles at his concern, 'yeah I'll be fine. Besides I'm pretty sure Snow would be suspicious if you stayed with me at the Station from now on'.

'Point,' David concedes, before rolling into father mode, 'but if you find anything, or something happens at the station, ring me for back up?'

Emma huffs, but gives in at the look that he gives her, sort of pleading and puppyish, 'sure. I will'.

At that moment Snow appears, smiling and miraculously free of coffee, something that makes Emma think she isn't the only one in the family that can use magic. 'There, good as new'. Much to Emma's relief the woman slides in next to her husband, leaving her to eat the remaining half of her breakfast without clashing elbows with the brunette.

'I'd better go,' Emma says as she finishes off the last bite of her Bear Claw.

'Oh,' Snow says rather dejectedly, 'so soon?'

'I've got to work, crime never sleeps,' Emma shoots over her shoulder as she lays down a few bills on the counter.

'But it's morning Emma, crime would surely be having breakfast.

Emma physically stops at that, turning on her boot in a slow circle to look at Snow, trying to keep her mouth closed to stop the scoff that is aching to come out. 'Was that meant to be funny?'

Snow grins sheepishly at her, 'Um, no?'

'Good god, I'm glad I didn't inherit your humour,' Emma says and watches at the woman's face lights up, as if Emma just recognising that they're related is the best thing in the world.

'Have a wonderful day sweetheart,' Snow gushes, and David nods and waves as she leaves.

The door's only just shut when Emma opens it again and sticks her head back through, grinning. 'Oh and Snow? Regina says hi'.

* * *

_Gold doesn't look up as the bell above the door rings. _

_'I don't open for another half hour,' he says as he continues tinkering with a potion vile. _

_'Oh I know, that's exactly why I'm here,' Tamara smiles languidly as she advances through the shop slowly, pausing to look at the different objects that hang from each corner of the room._

_Gold looks up at that, looking at the woman inquisitively as he realises he has never seen her before. 'New in town are we dearie?' _

_Tamara smiles. 'Quite, just got here last night in fact. An awfully difficult place to find'._

_'Well, you're here now. What can I do for you?' He walks out from behind the counter, his stick tapping rhythmically on the floor as he goes. The woman meets him halfway, observing him casually as if sizing him up._

_'I was wondering if you'd like to do,' Tamara ponders for a little, humming as she does so before snapping her fingers, 'a deal with me?'_

_Gold is immediately wary at that, drawing forward a little with a sneer as he feels the magic at his fingertips. 'And what kind of deal would that be?'_

_'You tell me where Emma Swan is, and I won't kill you'._

_He laughs, walking away from her as he does so, 'well as tempting as that sounds, I'll have to decline. Good day'. _

_Tamara follows him until she is pressed against the counter, 'are you sure?'_

_He's about to laugh when footsteps run up behind him, and before he can turn, before he can blow them backwards something is attached to his wrist. It's cold against his skin, gives off an odd vibration but he ignores it and instead spins to his assailant, clicking his fingers to summon a fireball and –_

_Nothing. He tries again, then tries harder but nothing works. His magic's failed him, his power gone. For the first time since he'd become The Dark One, he's helpless. _

_Greg joins Tamara and they watch as Gold sneers at them, before striking out with his cane. Greg grabs it mid swing and pulls it toward him, chuckling as Gold overbalances and falls to the floor at their feet. _

_'I'll give you a moment to think about our little deal, shall I Mr Gold? Or should I say Rumplestiltskin?' Tamara says as she crouches down next to him. The old man glares hatefully up at her, and she smiles innocently. 'Tell me where I can find Emma Swan'._

_'Why would you need to find Miss Swan?'_

_'She's a pretty _vital _part of this project we have up and running. She's the missing piece, you could say. Tracked her here all the way from New York with our very own,' she laughs and he doesn't understand, 'sniffer dog. Now tell me where she is'. _

_Gold sneers, 'I don't think so dearie'. _

_Tamara pulls out her gun with a sigh, signalling for Greg to do the same. 'I'm beginning to get a little bored of this. Tell me where she is, and I won't put a bullet through your head'. _

_He is suddenly faced with the first moral conundrum of his magical life, for once thinking of someone else before himself. If these people wanted Emma, then they proved an immediate threat to Henry; the young boy who was his grandson and his undoing. Gold is about to shake his head once more, before the bell rings once more, and all three look over to the door._

_'Rumple?' Belle questions, her face the picture of confusion and innocence, and if his heart hadn't been removed long ago, it would've stopped._

_'Belle! Run!' Gold roars, but she doesn't and instead moves towards them, seemingly unwilling to leave him behind. He curses her good nature, curses just for a moment her loyalty to him. _

_'Oh, now this is good,' Greg laughs, grabbing roughly onto Belle's arm and dragging her to his side. 'Your girlfriend, old man?' He tilts Belle's chin from side to side before exposing the pale fragile skin of her neck._

_'You let her go!' he roars again, spittle coming from his mouth as he lunges for him, but Tamara kicks him down._

_'How about you tell us where Emma Swan is and I won't blow your girlfriends head off?' Tamara says slowly as she places the muzzle of the gun to Belle's temple._

_Gold can hear the rush of his blood in his ears as he looks at the woman who loves him even when he's a monster, who let him feel love for the first time since he'd lost Bae. He can't lose her, no matter if he's betraying family. _

_'I'll tell you, just let her go'. _

_'Rumple don't,' Belle exclaims as she watches him get to his feet. He looks her in the eye, reaches a hand forward to cup her cheek._

_'I won't lose you again'. _

_Their tender moment is ruined when Greg throws Belle to the floor, her head bouncing painfully off of the wooden floor, and Gold growls before rushing forward only to be thrown backwards once more. _

_'Belle?!'_

_But the librarian is unconscious, blood trickling from a wound that is tangled in her hairline. _

_'Belle?!' he shouts again, even as Tamara shoves a canvas bag over his head, before dragging him towards the back to where their van is parked._

_'Belle?!'_

_His cry is swallowed by the forceful bang of the vans doors shutting, and what little light had filtered through the canvas bag disappears. Gold struggles to push himself into a sitting position, but as he does so he hears the engine start and the scrape of a hatch being pulled open. _

_'Where's Emma?'_

_It's Tamara and if he had magic he would blow her into pieces. But he doesn't. 'At the Sheriff station,' he pauses for a moment, guilt running through him like poison, 'She's the Sheriff'. _

* * *

The day seems boringly slow compared to last night. She knows it's macabre but she feels the need to do something dangerous, even if it is just chasing down the local teenagers for their ever growing stash of pot. The clock ticks past half eleven and she sighs heavily once more before she rolls up some waste paper into a ball and aims it at the bin. That's when the phone rings. She fist pumps the air, takes the shot and scores before hurrying to the phone.

'Sherriff Swan speaking,' she answers.

'Emma?' a woman sobs down the phone, sounding dazed and more than a little frightened. Emma's heart skips a beat as she recognises who it is.

'Belle? What's wrong?'

The woman catches her breath as she tries to explain, 'I went to Rumples shop this morning, and people were there. They had guns and they,' she hiccups before continuing, 'they took him! They've taken him and I don't what to do!'

'I need you to calm down Belle, and tell me where you are and if you're hurt?'

'I'm at the Pawn Shop, I- I just have a cut on my head. But Emma, please hurry. I – don't want to lose him'. Belle starts sobbing afresh and Emma's heart goes out to her, imagining being in the same position. Her stomach coils at the idea of Regina being taken.

'I'll be two minutes, ok Belle? Just stay there. I'm coming'.

Hanging up the phone she grabs her jacket and slides her gun into her pocket before running for the door, knowing without a doubt that this is linked to what happened with the magic last night. It's not lost on her how the person she'd been most worried about finding out her new power has been kidnapped, and the whole idea of who and who not to trust swims in her head.

As she starts up the car, she phones David. Sliding the car into drive she pulls away from the station, tyres squealing as she waits for the man to pick up the phone. Her brain is falling over all her different thoughts as she tries to think who would have the ability to take Gold. The man has serious magic-

'Emma?'

'David, something's happened at Gold's shop. He's been taken by someone, and Belle witnessed it. I'm on my way. Where are you?' She gushes as she takes a hairpin bend at ridiculous speeds.

'Main Street, about thirty seconds away. Meet you there?'

'Yep'. Emma hangs up and considers phoning Regina to let her know what's happened, but she decides against it as she see's Main Street come into view. She can see Snow and David heading over to the shop and she pushes down on the gas to catch up to them.

Squealing to a stop she bursts from the car and heads into Gold's shop.

Belle is leant against the fair wall, holding a wad of tissue to her head whilst tears continually slip down her face. She looks up, obviously startled by Emma's abrupt entrance but then her face crumbles in relief to see it's only her.

'Belle, Christ,' Emma exclaims as she gets closer, seeing the blood soak through the tissue, 'you need to see Dr Whale. That's pretty bad'.

'No, need to find Rumple,' she says faintly, though there is some steel to her voice.

Emma rests her hand on the woman's trembling shoulder, 'right, ok. First I need you to tell me what happened'. She's aware of Snow and David checking around the shop, looking for any signs that the perpetrators were still about, or had left any clues.

'I only went out for ten minutes, just to open the Library up, and then I came back and he was on the floor,' she breathes out raggedly and Emma looks around for a chair for the woman to sit on, but there isn't one, 'there were two people. A man and a woman and they had guns'. Belle's breath becomes raspy as she begins to panic and Emma loops her arm around the woman's waist just in case.

'It's ok Belle, you're doing great,' she encourages.

'The man, he grabbed me and then the woman threatened Rumple that she'd kill me if he didn't,' Belle stops abruptly and looks at Emma as if suddenly realising who she is.

'If he didn't what, Belle? What did she say!?'

'She'd kill me if Rumple didn't tell her where _you_ were,' she whispers apologetically.

Emma takes a step back. 'What?'

Belle starts crying again, 'she wanted to know where you were but I don't know why'.

Now it's Emma's turn to panic. Someone was ready to kill just to find out where she was?

'David, Snow I need you to take Belle to the hospital for me,' she says with a faked smile as she helps the still bleeding brunette into Snow's arms.

'Emma, are you sure you don't want us here?' Snow asks even as she guides Belle to the door.

'No, it's fine. I need to start a search plan, try to think about this rationally. It'll be fine, see you later'. She knows she's talking too fast but she hopes the pair will pass it off as nerves about finding Gold. They look at her once more, frowns on both their faces before leaving.

As soon as the door shuts, Emma strikes out at the wall, fist aching as she draws it back. 'Fuck. _Fuck!'_ Someone was searching for her and it can't be a coincidence that just the day before she'd come into a new magical ability. They have to be after that, though why they need Mr Gold, she isn't sure. She's itching to phone Regina but she knows the brunette will drop everything to be with her, and doing that probably isn't the best way to stay inconspicuous about the whole situation. No, she'll head to the station herself, and if someone's waiting for her there, then god help them because she's pissed off. And she's pissed off bad. Gold's words come back to her, '_magic is about emotion. You have to ask yourself: Why am I doing this? Who am I protecting?' _

Straightening up she runs for the door, a mantra circling her head.

_Protect my family._

* * *

_The van stops and in seconds the doors are thrown open and he is dragged out, his feet stumbling on the floor as his legs try desperately to support himself. _

_He's led through winding pathways, his head forced down on several occasions to duck under things. His foot catches on something hard and cylindrical and he nearly falls but is hauled up again, 'you know this would be easier for all parties involved if I could see where I was going,' he comments, but his words are unheard and muffled, so he stays quiet for the rest of the journey. Eventually they come to a stop, and the bag on his head is ripped off. He expects the need to blink at the new light, but the room is almost as dark as the bag had been . _

_'Hospitable aren't we? Nice place, a little on the dark side,' he comments and laughs happily at his own joke. _

_'You always thought you were so funny. The almighty Dark One,' a disembodied voice comes from across the room, and Gold peers into the darkness even as Tamara secures him to a metal chair before leaving._

_'I see my reputation precedes me,' Gold chortles. _

_'Oh yes, I know all about you'. _

_'And yet I know nothing about you. Seems a little unfair, doesn't it?' _

_A light is snapped on overhead and this time Gold blinks, his eyes watering as the white light burns his irises. When his eyes finally clear he looks up to a man who is entirely new to him and obviously the owner of the taunting voice. _

_'You're right, how rude of me,' the tall man before him says, before crouching down so they are at the same height. Gold looks him in the eye, something deep within him stirring as he continually looks at him. _

_'Have we met before?' he asks curiously, continuing to assess the man in front of him. _

_'You could say that. But let's not get into our pasts, shall we? Instead I'm going to tell you what you're going to do for me, ok?'_

_Gold sighs dramatically, slouching in his chair, 'very well, what do you want?'_

_The man laughs cruelly and yet again Gold feels something in him react to this man, something that he can't quite put his finger on, 'your magic. I want every drop of your magic without The Dark One's curse'._

_Gold laughs in his face, laughing and laughing until his sides hurt. 'And I'd like to rule the universe dearie, but these things are impossible. You can't take my magic without killing me and taking the curse for yourself'._

_The man in front of him straightens. 'That is where you're wrong. That band around your wrist,' he points to Gold's left wrist, the one that is tied uncomfortably at the back of the chair, 'can be linked up to a machine. Your magic can be drawn from you like venom from a snake'. The man paces in front of him and Gold shifts in his chair, listening to his words carefully, 'though your right, in some ways. Not just anyone can take your magic this way. You've got to be special'._

_'And you're special. The Chosen One?' Gold questions jeeringly._

_The man stops and looks at him with piercing eyes, his expression familiar in an aching way to Gold. For a moment he's unsure, but then the man comes closer and he looks, really looks. _

_'No,' Gold breathes, 'no. You can't be'. _

_The man laughs._

_'Surprise'._


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: I'M SO SORRY! Hear me out, ok? I started a new job in the middle of June and at pretty much the same time I moved as well, so my mind's been all over the place and I knew that anything I wrote would be awful. I know pretty much no one will be following this anymore, but for anyone who does I hope you enjoy. Please Review/Favourite/Follow because it's much appreciated (and let's me know if I should continue after such a long absence!)**

Emma runs to the station. It's impractical and takes her longer than it would to go by car, but she needs this. She needs to feel the solid ground under her feet, needs to feel the way her lungs burn as she pushes harder and faster, forcing herself forward until she feels like she's going to throw up on the side walk. Even then she keeps going, and the physicality of it pumps her up for what she expects will be waiting for her. She is alive with energy, angry and slightly scared but she pushes all the harder because of it.

Her feet slide against the gravel as she turns the corner sharply, her hair flying out in an arc across her left shoulder as her entire body twists, refusing to stop or to fall. She feels like she's in a movie, that she's some desperately deranged woman running to a dramatic soundtrack. She can almost hear the song in her head, can feel the beat fall into rhythm with her step as she scrambles up to the station.

She barrels through the station doors, both hitting and rebounding against the walls, and her feet stick against age old linoleum floor tiles making that awful squeaking sound of rubber against rubber. She draws her gun from her pocket as she sprints down the corridor and flies into the main room, eyes wild as she swings round and round, searching for movement.

The door bangs closed behind her and her heart stutters, dropping to her stomach before jumping to her throat as she almost falls in her haste to face it.

Nothing.

Her breath is harsh, panting out into the silence of the room as she leans defeatedly against her desk. There's no one here waiting for her, no face she can blame for taking Gold or targeting her magic. These people are faceless, shadows playing games with her frazzled nervous system, and it makes it all the worse. She can feel the ebb of her magic beneath her fingertips as panic seems to consume her for long, blazing seconds before she deflates, forces herself to in case she blows a hole in the wall.

'Christ all fucking mighty,' she curses as she slumps into her chair. She leans back and closes her eyes, trying to think what to do first. It's hard to try and sort through the wreckage of her mind, everything swirling together in such a way that makes her frustrated and almost certain of an upcoming headache.

Deciding it best to locate Gold first, considering that the bad guys' having The Dark One probably isn't the ideal situation, she logs onto her computer. Her fingers shake as she does so, stammering against the buttons and she blows out a frustrated breath that hitches in her throat, almost a sob. It's not yet been a day since things started going downhill, but she feels weary, worn down like a rock crumbled to dust.

Managing to control her fingers long enough to browse through the computers software system, she finds what she's looking for: the towns surveillance camera footage. Storybrooke may be from a Fairy-tale World but it did have security cameras, and although there aren't many it's better than nothing. She's glad that someone thought to route the main backup of the cameras to the station, as it means that she doesn't have to walk around town taking each individual tape. Slowly, she begins looking through the footage, starting from one end of town to the other, pouring through them in search of any clue that could lead her to Gold or the ones who'd taken him. The images are grainy at best, black and white pictures of an almost empty Main Street. She checks the videos time stamp _01:07_ and is about to skip forward before something catches her eye. A reflection in the shop opposite. The window flares up as if caught in an explosion and it takes Emma a moment to realise what it is; the magical monitoring system that the Blue Fairy had talked about. Only a minute later an unmarked van tears down the road, blurring past the camera. By the time the vehicle disappears from sight, the explosion is only just dying out. Emma rewinds the footage immediately, hoping to catch sight of a number plate, maybe even a blurry face in the driver's side window, but nothing.

She lets the tape play out in its entirety, but there is nothing else of interest to be seen. The only thing she can be certain of is that she's never seen this van before, which means that it hasn't come from Storybrooke. These people are from the outside.

She's overly, ridiculously glad to be able to find some trace of them. They're no longer completely faceless, and she can work with this, no matter how small the lead is. It gives her some focus, some lead as to who or where these people are. She plays the footage again and again, relishing in the way the shadows that had previously clung to her shoulders slip away.

* * *

_Gold arches as the machine starts, his eyes flying up to the dirty ceiling that slopes like his spine. There are cobwebs in the corners, tiny delicate things that vibrate with the hum the machine makes. _

_'You don't have to do this,' Gold breathes as he feels his magic move through him as if magnetised, 'Bae please-'_

_The man at his side growls and it's such a far cry from what he remembers of his son that he flinches. _

_'My name is Neal', he bites out, his hand hovering over the dial on the machine, 'and I do. I need your magic to make a portal'._

_Gold turns his head to look at the man half cast in shadows that is apparently his son. There is scarcely anything recognisable about him anymore, apart from the stormy quality of his eyes; but here is nothing soft about him, not in the cut line of his jaw, nor in the broadness of his shoulders. He looks haunted, and Gold can only imagine that he is, cast away from his father at a young age to a new world, a world without magic or familiarity._

_'Even I cannot make a portal between worlds. Don't you think if I could I would've found you?'_

_Neal's face contorts, fingers bunching together to make fists. 'I don't need feeble excuses from you; all I need is your magic'._

_'But it won't work-'_

_'Yes it will!' Neal roars out, lurching toward the chair his father is strapped to, taking some weak amusement from the way the man flinches, 'you just don't understand. For the first time in your life, you don't understand'._

_Rumplestiltskin looks his son in the eye. 'What don't I understand?'_

_Neal leans in close, close enough that he can tell that his father is holding his breath. 'That for once you're not the important one in the story,' he waits, draws out a moment that finally belongs to him, 'I am'._

_'Son-'_

_'No,' Neal interrupts, 'no. You don't get to talk. Did you realise before you let me go, before you broke your promise like the coward you are,' he spits out his words like venom, 'that you weren't the only magical one in the family?'_

_Gold stays still, looking at his son who'd turned into the monster that his father had always been._

_'I have magic,' Neal says slowly, watching as the man in front of him stares unmoved by his words, 'not that I knew when I was in this world, this stupid primitive place that you left me to squander in. When I was in Neverland, when I fought Peter Pan and his Lost Boys, I discovered my magic but it wasn't until later on that I realised what I was'. He moves away from his father and back to the machine that continues to draw magic from the once great Dark One, his hand hovering over the dial once more. He turns slowly so that he faces the helpless man tied to a chair, stares at him and enjoys the power that he finally feels. _

_'Your son,' he says slowly, triumphantly as if he's won something, as if he's won everything, 'is a Wordsmith'._

_And with that he wrenches the dial to the right and Rumplestiltskin convulses. _

* * *

Regina glances at the clock again whilst she hands Henry his dinner. It's not _late_ late, but it's late enough for her to know that something's wrong. Emma hasn't called or texted, something that surprises her to no end since she'd thought the blonde would be eager to tell her of Gold's kidnap. She'd had to find out about it through David, who out of Emma's parents was the more agreeable one, and when questioned on his daughters whereabouts he simply answered that she was at the station.

She sighs as she sits opposite Henry, toying with the food on her plate whilst sneaking glances out of the window.

'You could just call her, you know,' Henry says round a mouthful of chicken.

'What have I told you about speaking with your mouthful?' she reprimands half-heartedly, before laying down her own fork and regarding her son, 'I'm sure she'll be home in a minute'.

He has the grace to finish his mouthful before he speaks again, 'I'm sure she will, but why don't you phone her to find out?'

'Right, yes,' she concedes, getting up and walking round the table to lay a kiss on his forehead, 'I'll be back in a minute'.

He nods and waits for her to leave, before quietly standing up, careful not to scrape his chair on the floor, and heads towards the bin with plate in hand, planning to ditch the small mountain of vegetables on his plate.

'Don't even think about binning your vegetables, Henry Mills,' Regina calls from somewhere in the house and Henry sighs, not the least bit surprised that his mother can second guess his every movement. He begrudgingly moves back to the table and is about to start a reluctant mouthful of broccoli, before he sees his mother's still full plate opposite him. He stands, aiming to scrape them onto the other plate, but before he can-

'And don't put them on my plate either,' comes another call and Henry huffs before plopping back in his chair.

'Stupid vegetables'.

…

Regina taps her fingers against the desk in the study as she waits for Emma to answer her mobile. Emma's the Sheriff and she knows the downfalls of the job: late nights, paper work and perilous situations. But just for the night she wants her to forget her duty and be where she can see her, where she can make sure no one will harm her, especially when there's people who are evidentially capable of kidnap running about.

'Hey beautiful,' Emma answers, and her voice is ragged with tiredness and frustration, 'I'm sorry I'm late'.

'It's ok,' Regina says, though it's not, she wants her _here,_ 'I just wanted to make sure you're ok. I heard about what happened to Gold'.

Emma can hear the loaded question behind her words, but ploughs into it business end first 'He was taken by people from outside of town; they're here for something and I,' Emma wants to disclose her theory, wants to tell her that she thinks these people are actually after her, but she can't. She needs to have Regina close when she tells her, she needs to be able to look her in the eyes and reassure her. Instead she seeks to apologise, 'I would've phoned to tell you, but then you would've dropped everything to come see if I was ok, and I,' Emma stalls for a minute and Regina inherently knows that the blonde is running her hands through her hair, 'I just didn't want to worry you'.

'And you thought that having your father tell me instead would fill me with unadulterated joy?' She snaps at Emma and then immediately feels guilty, her fingers twisting as she lowers herself to sit on the edge of her desk, 'do you know how worried I was about you?'

'I'm sorry,' Emma breathes into the phone, 'I didn't mean to- I just didn't think-'

'Evidentially so'.

'Regina please,' Emma's voice breaks just so and Regina's stomach plummets.

'I'm sorry,' she whispers, 'I'm sorry. It's just there's _people_ in town that I don't know about and they've taken Gold,' Regina lets this thought sit for a while, still reeling from it, 'Rumplestiltskin, the man who taught me everything I know has been kidnapped. He's been _kidnapped_. And if that can happen to him, to the most powerful person in Storybrooke, then what can I do?' Regina feels powerless, much like she had before she'd enacted the curse, and look at where that'd gotten her. The feeling was one she hadn't missed, one that was almost reminiscent of the way she'd felt when Emma had first come to town, when she thought Henry was lost to her.

Emma can practically hear the cogs turning in Regina's head. She needs to tell Regina exactly what's happening. She needs her right now, right next to her. 'Can you come get me?' Emma asks, 'I ran to the station from Gold's shop'.

'You ran?'

'I was a little-pent up, I suppose you could say'.

'Ok,' Regina says slowly, eyebrows knitting together, before glancing down at the delicate gold watch on her wrist, 'I'll be five minutes-'

'Can't you come get me by magic? Ya know, the whole purple poofy cloud thing?' Emma interrupts, part curious of how it feels to teleport across town, part desperate to see Regina. She feels like something in her chest is about to collapse, the awful heavy weight of fear and the unknown hangs over her heart, swinging like a pendulum in counterpart to her thudding heart.

'But, Henry-'

'Please Regina, I need to see you _now_'.

Emma's voice holds enough edge that Regina hangs up the phone and within a blink of her eyes disappears in a cloud of clinging purple smoke, before reappearing, seconds later, next to Emma. The blonde looks up at her from her perch on the office desk, before launching herself into Regina's arms. The brunette staggers just a little before stabilising the both of them, curling her arms around the blonde's waist. She clutches her tightly, not even bothering to hide her neediness, one which is thankfully reflected in the way Emma buries her face in her neck.

'Emma, what is going on?' she asks into the woman's hair, as Emma still clings persistently to her; a childlike trait that Regina has never seen in her lover before. The concern that had settled in her stomach suddenly comes alive once more, churning nauseatingly.

Emma doesn't dare look up at the brunette, and instead keeps her face buried in the safe haven of Regina's neck, where her senses are overwhelmed with the brunette; she can hear the thud of the her heart, can smell her delicate perfume- feel the heat of her skin. She wishes she could lose herself in the feeling, to never have to resurface from the safety she feels here. It's one of those moments where she wants to disappear, like those days when you can't muster up the energy to get out of bed, to face the world and it's constant battles. But she's The Saviour and she really doesn't have a choice but to blurt it out to the brunette whose fingers trace patterns along her spine.

'The people who took Gold are looking for me,' she says slowly, her voice a whisper, as if she's afraid that saying it too loudly will bring these people out of the wood work like vermin.

'_What?'_ Regina breathes, pulling Emma impossibly closer.

Emma backs up then, and tells the brunette of what happened in Gold's shop. Of how Gold was manipulated into telling whoever took him into telling them where she was, or else they'd kill Belle.

Regina's fingers dig into her sides.

'It can't be a coincidence that these people turn up the same time that I find out about my new magical skills. They have to be after that-'

'But why take Gold? Why not,' Regina swallows around the words that stick in her throat, the thought striking her squarely in the chest, 'why didn't they just take you?'

'I don't know,' Emma admits. There's a sudden stir of anger in her chest at her own admission. She's the Sheriff of this town and she's the one who is in the dark, helpless and being continually chased into a corner. And the only lead she has is a god damn unidentifiable van. Her fingers tighten around the top of the chair that she clings to, knuckles screaming in protest as the fear and panic and the anger wad together until she's filled with rage. It's stuck in her, shaking and unmovable and she feels suffocated by it-

'Unless they want something from Gold,' Regina pipes up and her voice, soft and mellow breaks through the haziness of her mind until she's able to surface, to look the woman in the eye without seeing red, 'but what?'

Emma's struck with her idiocy so hard that she slaps herself in the forehead. 'Why don't we just ask him?'

'We don't know where he is, dear,' Regina says patiently, trying not to let her confusion show.

'I know, but I can read him here,' Emma says all self-congratulatory like, before she wiggles her fingers in front of her, amused at her own antics, 'because I'm magic'.

Regina raises her eyebrows biting down on a smirk and decides to say nothing, instead wrapping her arms around the blonde's waist. The smoke coils around them, thicker and thicker until the station is lost, and is instead replaced with the homey features of the study at 108 Mifflin Street. Before the smoke dissipates Emma is already halfway across the room, searching for a pen to join the paper that she's just smacked down on the desk.

Regina crosses over to her and fishes a pen out from beneath the stack of papers, handing it over to Emma with a raised eyebrow. 'And how much are you planning to write, exactly?'

'As much as it takes to get Gold back here,' Emma replies without looking up as she settles herself at the desk. She nervously spins the pen between her fingers, suddenly acutely aware of how long it's been since she last sat down and _tried_ to write something that wasn't a report or a grocery list. She looks back up to Regina, who is watching her, 'how do I make it work?'

Regina gives a non-committal shrug of her shoulders, 'I'm really not too sure. This magic is so rare that nobody has ever bothered to teach others about it. I presume that you just write and then read it out loud'.

'Just do what you did with me, Ma,' Henry suddenly pipes up from the door and they both look up sharply at him. He, despite fiercely wanting to, doesn't take a step back away from their piercing gazes and instead sticks his hands on his hips. 'You didn't even try when you read to me,' he wrinkles his nose at the image of her, pale and shaking, 'you're powerful, Ma. True love, remember?'

She looks at her son who seems wise beyond his years and ever so slightly smug and wants to clap him on the back and tell him how proud she is of him. Instead she throws herself head first into protective parent mode. 'Henry, go upstairs,' Emma says as she uncaps her pen and puts it to paper, 'I don't want you around me if anything goes wrong'. She locks eyes with Regina and they have one of their silent conversations; something that was becoming more and more frequent between the pair. Regina nods at Emma's look, understands begrudgingly that she has to be alone to do this. After all, Regina knows all too well about magic and it's price.

'But Ma, I wanna see,' he complains, and before Emma can say no once again, Regina is ushering him out of the room, disappearing with him upstairs to ensure that he actually goes to his room.

Emma is suddenly alone with a pen that is as heavy as any sword she's ever wielded.

Breathing out heavily, she begins to write.

* * *

_He can't move. The straps that had held him tied down to the chair were now the things that were keeping him upright, his body limp from the magical drain._

_'Now what do you plan to do?' Rumple enquires weakly. He's nauseated by the pathetic drawl at the end of his voice but he cannot help it. His tongue is too heavy and speaking is far too difficult._

_Neal, not Bae, not his son, crouches next to him and smiles. It's wide, filling his whole face with smug satisfaction and Rumple wants to look away, but finds himself staring right back. 'It's really rather simple. I plan to make a portal and take over, one Kingdom at a time. After all, I am your son'._

_'How very cliché villain-esque of you,' Rumple manages to spit out, 'but if you only wanted my magic for portal hopping, why do you need those two henchmen of yours? And why are you so interested in Emma Swan?'_

_Neal stands up and paces a tight circle around the chair, his face thunderous. 'Because my magic,' he scoffs darkly, 'and yours I suppose, isn't enough to create a stable portal by itself'. His hands land heavily on Gold's shoulders, 'But if I join with another Wordsmith? I can make portals whenever I please'._

_'There are no Wordsmith's here'._

_'On the contrary, that's how I found you, father,' Neal says lightly, 'I followed the yellow brick road, so to say, and it led all the way over here, to the one person I needed. And with Greg and Tamara's help, I managed to put everything I need into place'._

_'And who exactly do you need? ' Gold urges, desperate for the information though he's almost certain he knows exactly who._

_'Your town's resident Wordsmith; the one and only Emma Swan'. _

_Gold tenses the little muscles in his body that actually still respond to him. _

_'And,' Neal continues, 'if I'm right, Emma is the product of true love, which is just as good, maybe even better, than the power of The Dark One. So, you could say we're the perfect match'._

_'She'll never help you,' Rumple says adamantly, knowing all too well how stubborn the blonde was, 'she'd rather die'._

_'Oh I'm counting on that,' Neal walks over to the door that is set on the far side of the room, 'you see, I've learnt a thing or two off of you, but I've learnt far more here. In this world, people look over the weak,' he slaps his palm against his own chest, 'they don't think that the victims, so to say, will ever be a match for them because they're too pathetic, or scared or helpless. So they don't consider them, at all. They forget'._

_Neal clicks his fingers and a spark flies out, burning bright against the concrete floor before the man stomps it out with his boot. 'So I've taken advantage of that. My two henchmen, as you put it, believe that __**they're**__ the ones in control. That I'm simply a power source for them, a tool that can find them the last piece of their puzzle before transporting them to a new world where they can rule over the people there. All because they have Daddy problems'. Neal smirks lazily, running a hand through his dark hair. 'They think that I've got nothing else to do but sit at their feet like a good dog and fetch them the paper. But in reality, they're my dogs- Mine'._

_'Oh I get it,' Rumple says, 'and you think you're so very clever. But why have a new world when you could rule this one, the one without magic? They would kneel to you'._

_Neal leans in closer, 'I don't want them to kneel. I want them to Kiss. My. Boots'. _

_He doesn't laugh as he leaves, not like a Disney villain of this world would do. Instead he leaves with his eyes dark and head held high as if nothing could stop him. And Gold realises, staring at the closed door, that this is the worst thing he's ever done. It bypasses dark curses and ripping out hearts; he's the creator of a monster that has nothing left to lose._

* * *

Emma pushes back her chair as she finishes the last word on the page. What she's written is barely a paragraph, let alone an entire page, but she thinks it's enough. She's clear, she's specific but she doesn't outright say _I really really want Mr Gold in my house. Now. And alive. Pretty please with sugar on top. _But as she rereads through it one last time, she realises that she sounds like a bad crime novel, all grainy descriptions and half arsed mystery. She's tempted to scribble it out and start again, but she knows that time is not on her side. The longer Gold stays with his captors, the worse it would be not only for him but for her too. She needs to find out who these people are and just what the hell they want with her.

She glances up briefly to the shadowy ceiling, as if she can see right through it to where Regina and Henry are, before flexing her jaw and sitting herself on the edge of the desk. She fidgets with the paper, her thumb smudging the still wet ink at the sides but the letters are still eligible.

As she breaths out, she begins to read.

* * *

_Rumplestiltskin stared up at the ceiling above him, the only thing which he could see anymore. The shadows moved lazily, like hazy images of past lives before his eyes as he listened for anything that may tell him where he was in the small town of Storybrooke._

* * *

Gold feels a sudden draw to ceiling above him, as if tiny fingers are pulling him towards it, as if the shadows themselves are guiding him-

He jerks when he realises that the shadows really do move, that they are alive and writhing with people and hearts that he recognises. He watches himself pluck hearts like bloody roses from peoples chests, can't help but stare transfixed as he pushes a young Cora to the bed and straddles her.

* * *

Emma slumps back onto the desk as she reads, resting her weight against her left arm that keeps her propped up as she carries on reading. She feels a dead weight, but also frighteningly empty as if she could disappear at any second as she weaves her magic. It's tiring, even after so few words and she can feel her knees begin to buckle but she holds out.

_But suddenly those shadows turn to grey, growing ever brighter and resplendent as he continues staring at them. They coil closer, writhing like serpents but floating like clouds and he wants to move away but knows that he can't. That he shouldn't. Instead he lets them float towards him until they encompass him, a thousand bright pinpricks that cling to him like smoke._

* * *

Those images are shattered by another that grows ever brighter, floating towards him. For a moment he struggles to back away as it nears him, but he stops when he realises what the image is.

Belle stares out at him, smiling as she offers him her hand. She's almost too bright to look at, but isn't that how he always sees her? Too bright for his darkness. But he continues staring, reaching out to her until all he can see is the blinding whiteness.

He wonders if death has finally caught up with him, but it is only a brief thought that is quickly consumed by the thought of Belle once more.

* * *

She wants to stop. She can feel her voice begin to falter as she reaches the last two lines, but she desperately keeps going, refusing to succumb.

_The whiteness consumes everything until Rumplestiltskin is floating, like a hundred thousand atoms suspended in the air. But that weightlessness is soon replaced by familiar feeling of falling down as his limbs grow heavy before he finally crashes down into the study of 108 Mifflin Street at the feet of the Saviour. _

* * *

Emma is the one who crashes down. The paper which had been clutched tightly in sweaty palms falls to the floor at the same time that the blonde does, where it lays next to the unconscious woman.

It's closely followed by the bewildered figure of Rumplestiltskin, who lands on the other side of the room, just managing to keep on his feet. He barely has time to take a breath before there's a pair of footsteps clattering down the stairs and across the hall, still in heels if he's correct, and Emma's name is called out. Regina barges into the room only seconds later, looking firstly at Emma's unconscious form and then at him, where he stands his ground and stares back at her.

'Well isn't this a surprise?' he says.

It's as if his voice spurs her into action because she quickly crosses the room and kneels at Emma's side, her hand coming to rest against her sallow cheek. 'Emma?' He turns away, deeming it only fair to give them a little privacy after they'd just rescued him.

* * *

'Emma?' Regina says gently as she brushes her thumb against the blonde's cheek, 'Emma, wake up. You did it'. Her heart flutters in her chest when the blonde doesn't stir, so she goes to grip the woman's shoulders. 'Emma, come on'. She refuses to cry in front of Rumplestiltskin, but it's a close call because Emma looks scarily dead and her mind keeps flashing back to the moment she'd found her upstairs and bloodied. She keeps checking Emma's chest every few seconds for signs of injury, but there's none and so she reasons with herself that the magic has simply drained Emma of her energy. She remembers quite clearly the feeling of complete exhaustion after first learning magic when she was younger; when she used to sleep for days curled under her quilts.

She gives the woman's shoulders another shake and smiles as the blonde manages to crack open her eyes.

'Gina,' Emma manages to slur, and Regina smiles broader before brushing her lips against the blondes.

'Your awake I see. Couldn't quite handle the magic could we dear?' She teases as she takes Emma's hand in hers.

'W-as just sleepy. Did I do it?'

'You did indeed Miss Swan,' Gold says before Regina can, and the brunette turns and scowls at him.

Emma tries to push herself up on trembling arms to see Gold herself, but she falls back down almost immediately. But Regina is there, her arm across her shoulder blades as she helps her to sit up and prop her against the desk for support, arm now wrapped around her waist.

'So, what h-appened?' Emma asks drowsily, leaning heavily against Regina as she does so.

'My son has taken my magic and wishes to bring the Enchanted Forest and all it's inhabitants, those who are there and those who are here, to its knees,' Gold says frankly and both Emma and Regina look at him, wishing they could send him back because they don't need this right now.

'For serious?' Emma groans.

'Indeed,' Gold drawls, 'and that's not all I'm afraid'.

Regina straightens up at this, suddenly rigid with tension and foreboding. She recalls this look that Gold has upon his face as the one when he'd first told her to take the heart of a unicorn. It was dark. Twisted. But it was different- fearful almost.

'He plans to take Emma, our town's Wordsmith, along with him for the ride because he's sure that together you'll be able to decimate any world,' Gold looks at Emma and then to Regina, both looking equally aghast, 'and I'm sorry to say I don't think he's wrong'.

'I'll never go. I'd rather die,' Emma spits angrily as she clutches at Regina's hand, whose fingers squeeze her own tightly.

'Oh I know that, and so does he. But he's much like dear Snow White, you see, because he realises the value of family,' he turns his gaze down then, as if ashamed, '_your_ family to be more specific. You're prepared to die, but are you prepared for them to die for you? For your mother and your father. Your,' he waves his hand at Regina, 'better half? Your son to die? Because he has nothing to lose Miss Swan, but you have so much'.


End file.
