I know, I know. I'm sorry.

Regina sat on the cot in the cell. She looked beyond the bars, hoping for a glimpse of Emma. She didn't know where Emma was working from, but she hadn't been to the station. Her office was directly across from the cell. If Emma was at her desk, she would be eye to eye with Regina. Regina had had no such luck. She sat alone in the station. The door opened, and Regina looked towards it hopefully, waiting for the entrant to around the corner. Regina let out a sigh as Ruby made the turn around the corner, rather than Emma. The disappointment must have been clear on her face.

"Hoping for someone else? The Big Bad Wolf maybe?" Ruby quipped.

Regina rolled her eyes. "Why would I hope for the Big Bad Wolf? Isn't that who just walked in?"

Ruby laughed. "I suppose so."

"Why are you here, Red?"

"Emma loves you." Regina looked unwaveringly at Red. It wasn't a question, it was a statement. It required no reply, and Ruby didn't wait for one. "And I'm pretty sure you love Emma." Regina inhaled sharply. "That's what I thought. So, what I don't get…" Ruby paused. "Well, I don't understand why you would go after her mom?"

"I would never."

"You can't say you would never. You have, many times."

Regina inclined her head, an acknowledgment of Ruby's correction. "That is true. Now. I would never attack her now. I have too much to lose." Regina sighed. "I do love Emma. I love Henry. I love them with all my heart. They are…They are my family. They're truly all I have."

Ruby nodded. Her face scrunched up like she was trying to figure something out. "Where were you last night?"

"Don't you think if I knew, I would tell everyone?" Regina snapped. "Do you think I would choose to be here right now?"

Ruby sat on a desk in front of the cell. "There's something I don't get."

"And whatever could that be?" Regina growled.

"I went to Snow and Charming's place. Something wasn't right." Ruby rubbed her chin absentmindedly. "The place didn't smell like you."

"Excuse me?"

"You have a particular scent." Looking at Regina's scrunched up face, Ruby explained. "Don't make it weird. Everyone has a scent. Snow smells like happiness, grass, and flowers. Granny smells like homecooked meals. You smell like anger, cinnamon, and apples." Ruby paused. "But Snow's house smelled…unfamiliar."

"Is this some strange wolf power?"

"I assume so."

"What did it smell like?"

"Like magic. Unfamiliar magic. Poison. Hatred. And like home. It smelled like being back in Fairytale Land." Regina paled. "What? What's wrong?"

"It wasn't me. I knew it wasn't me!"

"Who was it?"

"Ruby, please. I need you to get everyone here. We have a problem. Everyone is in danger."

"What danger? Regina, what's happening?"

"Red, please, trust me." Something in Regina's eyes pierced Red. A feral, primal fear that any animal would understand. "Please call them. Emma, Mulan, all of them." Ruby asked no more questions. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed Emma.

"Emma, you need to get to the station right away. No, I don't know why. Bring Mulan, bring everyone." She glanced at Regina. "It's an emergency."

Everyone filed into the station. Emma wore worry on her face and in her body language. Mulan followed her, duty stiffening her spine. Aurora followed her, looking from Emma, to Mulan, to Regina. Regina looked beyond them, expecting David and Snow to follow them. Instead, Pongo came bounding in, skidding to a stop in front of Ruby. He jumped up and tried to lick her face. "Pongo, no!" Ruby shouted. Pongo dropped down and walked over to Regina. He sniffed at her, then stuck his snout through the bars, demanding to be pet. Regina's tense expression relaxed, and she stroked his nose. She hadn't truly loved an animal since she had killed her beloved horse, but Pongo seemed to want to challenge that. Regina stopped petting Pongo, and he sat down and whined.

"What's the emergency?" Emma asked, looking severe with her gun on her hip. "Do you have something to tell us?"

Regina drew herself up and away from Pongo, looking as regal as she could while peering through metal bars. "Ruby, can you tell them what you told me, please?"

Ruby looked nervously between Emma and Regina. "Well, since getting magic back, my wolf senses and abilities have returned to me. After Pongo identified that Archie was killed by a fake Regina, I thought I would go to Snow's and see if I could sense anything."

"What did you-what happened?" Emma looked so hopeful it broke Regina's heart.

"Whoever was there, it wasn't Regina. Their scent was off. I could smell Snow, I could smell Charming, but it wasn't Regina there."

"Who do you believe it was?" Mulan inquired, hand resting on her hilt.

"I don't know."

"Ruby, tell them what else you told me. What did this stranger smell like?"

Ruby gave Regina a quizzical look but continued on anyways. "They smelled like magic, poison, hatred, and…" Ruby paused, "home. They smelled like home."

"Home?" Emma questioned. "Like Granny's?"

"No, like Fairytale land. Like home. Like our kingdom."

Emma stiffened. "Emma," Regina pleaded, "Do you remember what I told you yesterday? What I was worried about?"

Emma ran a tense hand through her long blonde hair. "You said that we needed to look into that pirate ship because, if anything, it could have carried your mother here."

Ruby jumped up. "Your mom?" The fear in Ruby's voice told Regina that Snow had described Cora Mills to her in detail. "What would your mom want with us?"

"Well, she killed the man I loved, she sold me to a king who tried to claim me by force, I paid to have her murdered, and she tried to kill Emma and Snow. What could she not want with us?" Mulan and Aurora's jaws dropped. "It's a complicated story. Emma, where's Henry?"

"With my parents."

"How is…How is Snow? Does she believe it was me?"

"She does."

"I understand why. Ruby, could you talk to her?"

Ruby nodded, and she started to leave. "Pongo, let's go, boy!" Pongo looked between Regina and Ruby, unsure, before he bounded off after her.

Emma's phone rang. "Hey." She answered curtly. Regina assumed it was Charming on the line. "What? What do you mean you let him walk?" A voice responded loudly. "No, it's not safe! Why wouldn't you drive him?" She listened. "Regina didn't do it! All you've done is expose Henry!" She slammed her cell phone down on the table. A sharp crack told them the glass had cracked.

"Emma, what is it? What's happening with Henry?" David let Henry walk from the hospital to here. He thought that the town was safe," she spat out the word, "because you were locked up."

"We have to find him!" Regina insisted. The look on Emma's face gave her pause. "We're going to go find him, right?"

"We will." Emma looked at Mulan. "As in We, Mulan and I. I would love to let you out, but I can't just do that." The hurt look on Regina's face was fleeting. She replaced it with her cold, familiar, Mayor's mask.

"I understand. I will remain here. Alone."

"Nonsense, Mayor. I will be here with you." Aurora smiled a warm smile.

Emma looked like she had more to say. Instead, she turned and left the station, swiping the cruiser's keys from where she had left them on a desk. Regina watched her go. When she heard the door shut behind them, Regina sat back on the cot. The stiff, regal line of her back never wavered. Regina's hands sat gently in her lap, as if she was receiving guests at her throne, rather than sitting on a cot in a cell. Aurora contemplated the queen.

"Regina, could you tell me about your mother?"

Regina sighed heavily. "I can try."

Emma sped through the streets of Storybrooke, racing to the hospital. Mulan tightly gripped the handle in the car. She may have been traveling in vehicles for many months now, but that didn't mean she trusted vehicles, and definitely not when they're speeding. "Something's wrong."

"You're telling me," Mulan grumbled as they whipped around a corner.

"No, I mean we should have seen Henry by now." Emma pulled the cruiser into the hospital parking lot. "We should have crossed paths with him by now."

David came jogging out of the hospital. Emma got out of the car and slammed the door. "What were you thinking?" She shouted. "Where is he?"

"Emma, I'm so sorry. This is a safe little town!" He looked at Mulan and Emma. "And what do you mean, where is he? You didn't find him on the way?"

"Of course not! Cora is here!"

David stumbled. "Cora couldn't be here. There's no way."

"No way for what, Dad? No way for magic to get to this world? No way to get from Fairytale Land to Storybrooke? There's no way magic could be used to impersonate Regina? There's no way that I could be in love with Regina?" He looked gobsmacked.

"You don't love her."

"I do. I do love her."

He hesitated. "We have to go find Henry." He jumped in his truck. "You drive to your-the Mayor's house." He seemed confused. "I'll go check Henry's favorite places." He shut the door and peeled out of the parking lot.

Emma looked at Mulan. "That could have gone much worse, I think," Mulan said with a shrug.

"Get in the car." Emma groaned. How did I get myself into this?

I've woken up from a long writing slumber. I hope to be back.