A/N: This is what happens when I have several days off and nothing but time. I meant to make you wait but then it was done and I thought, well, may as well. Frees me up to get started on my next project. Anywho, I hope you've enjoyed the ride. Thank you for all the kind words and favorites and whatnot, it means a lot.

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"'Storybrooke Public Library'. I never even knew this was here." Emma stood with the sword clasped loosely in her hand, peering up at the sign that she had failed to see before though she must have passed the dilapidated building dozens of times.

She had felt a little strange walking down main street with a very obvious piece of medieval weaponry hiked over her shoulder like a baseball bat, but, when in crazy town. At least there hadn't been anyone loitering around to see. She didn't feel like stopping to explain to the townsfolk why their sheriff was strutting around with a sword.

"Really, dear? You never noticed the giant clock tower in the middle of town square?" Regina's massive ring of skeleton keys jingled in her hand as she slid one into the lock (And it was both amusing and disturbing to imagine what the woman had gotten up to with those- It was entirely too easy to imagine a bored mayor, creeping on her citizens.) with a metallic click of the door's tumblers.

"Of course I did. I just saw it was all boarded up and I never really looked any closer." Emma followed Regina inside, immediately assaulted by the stale, musty air. The lights flickered on to reveal a cobweb laden circulation desk and peeling green walls lined with filing cabinets- Card catalogues, Emma realised, and she wondered if there was actually anything in them. The room's most interesting feature, however, was the back wall, decorated with a mirror shaped something like a tree. Emma met the eyes of her own pale reflection and scowled. Her blond curls were looking a little on the scraggly side, dark circles like bruises beneath her eyes. She had the look of someone who had been on a bender without the benefit of a drunken haze.

"You weren't meant to. No one was. Hence the ramshackle."

"You telling me in twenty-eight years nobody ever once said, 'Hey, what's actually wrong with the library?'?"

"Mindless villagers trapped in time, dear. They never questioned anything."

It was comments like these, spoken so wryly, that made it easy to see the woman as a former fairy tale villain. As much as she had clearly changed there was just as clearly a part of her that enjoyed her own wickedness. Emma imagined a cackling witch, reveling in pushing her townspeople around like little pawns on a chessboard.

Regina crossed to the mirror wall, laying her palm flat against its surface. For a moment nothing happened. Then somewhere out of sight something clicked and clanked and the wall began to move, revealing the rusted cage doors of an ancient looking elevator. Startled, Emma took a step back.

"Woah."

"When you get down there... Be careful, Emma. Trust your instincts and whatever you do... Avoid the head."

"Head? Wait, what head? What's down there? What exactly is it you're expecting me to fight?" Emma felt the stirring of anxiety in her stomach. She had only the vaguest impression of what she was meant to be facing. Female. Angry. Somehow able to contain a magic potion.

"An old friend."

"So why don't you just talk to them?"

"Trust me when I say she doesn't want to see me." Regina looked away, though her expression remained hard and unreadable. As sure a sign as any that she was feeling guilty.

Emma feared she was going to grow tired of the question, but she had to ask, "What did you do?"

"When I brought her here I... I trapped her in another form."

'Ladies and gentlemen, my girlfriend the queen...' "What form, exactly?"

"Just mind the head, dear, and remember the underbelly is her weakest point. Get in."

Emma hesitated before stepping inside the elevator, feeling the need to say something profound but completely lacking the words. Regina's eyes were darting all over the blonde's face, as though trying to memorize every line, teeth worrying at her full lower lip, and Emma thought she might just kiss the other woman in spite of her lingering doubts and fears (The guilt she felt over breaking her promise to Henry was easily enough dismissed; He would never even know.). She even went so far as to lean in, but Regina stopped her, placing a single finger over Emma's mouth as though shushing her.

"Save it. Think of it as further motivation to come back to me in one piece."

And then her hand was on the lever and Emma was being lowered down, past the floor into darkness.

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When the elevator finally settled on the ground Emma gave her eyes a moment to adjust before stepping out into what looked like and extremely large underground cave. Connected to the mines probably, the ones that had caused them so much trouble back when she had first been named deputy. There were lights strung up at intervals but the glow they provided was far from sword felt heavy and awkward in her hand as inched her way cautiously into the larger chamber off the tunnel that led away from the elevator, weary of the as yet unnamed creature waiting for her.

A low hulking shape loomed in front of her and as she got closer she realized it was a coffin; A coffin made of glass and winding branches. It was cracked and broken now but she knew from the pictures in Henry's book it had once been eerily beautiful.

Snow White's coffin. Suddenly she couldn't breathe and Emma leaned her back against one of the lurking boulders strewn across the cavern, willing her heart rate to return to normal. Snow White's coffin, her mother's coffin, where the woman had once upon a time slept an enchanted sleep until her prince came to save her. How could any of this be real?

It was then that the rough surface beneath her fingertips began to move and Emma felt something rumble, a growl that vibrated in her chest like a drum beat. Startled, she jumped away, nearly dropping the sword in her mad scramble.

The first thing she saw was the eye, giant and yellow and glowing like a lantern in the dim light, then the horned head rearing back on the long serpentine neck, the wings unfurling, finally a long pointed tale snapping side to side.

A dragon. Only Regina, completely batty Regina, would keep someone trapped as a dragon.

Emma ducked behind a rock formation just in time to avoid a jet of flame and suddenly had reason to appreciate Regina's concern about the beast's head. Flakes of rock broke off from the force of the blast, lodging in her hair and misting against her face in painful splinters. She threw an arm up to cover her eyes and looked down at the sword still clutched in her opposite hand before tossing it away to reach for the gun at her belt instead. No way in hell she was going to be able to get close enough to that thing to actually stab it. She took one deep, belly expanding breath and then darted out from behind her cover.

It was a mad dash and scramble, dodging bursts of steam and fire and ducking beneath a lashing tail and raking claws as she unloaded bullet after bullet into the dragon's thick hide. They all bounced harmlessly away, no matter how true her aim, until finally she was pulling back the trigger to a dull, empty click. She dropped the useless weapon, looking around for anything, anything, that might help her somehow survive. Something shiny caught her eye and there was the sword gleaming on the ground where she had left it. She dived for it, fingers wrapping around the hilt as she rolled to her feet and sprung around, the dragon still turned away and flailing from the last shot she'd taken at its face.

"HEY!" When the dragon turned to face her she knew only fear and crazy adrenalin, and perhaps that was what drove her to throw the sword, heaving with all the strength left in her body, for she had no conscious idea of where the strategy had come from.

The blade sunk into the dragon's massive belly and the beast let out one last bone shaking roar before exploding in a flood of ash and smoke.

Emma stood, chest heaving in the aftermath, not quite believing that she had actually done it. She was still alive, all of her bits accounted for.

When she finally came back to herself she crept, loose pebbles skittering beneath her boots, towards the remains to see a large golden egg, covered in intricate designs and markings resting alongside her father's sword on its bed of ashes. This could only be the potion she'd been sent for.

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When Emma emerged from the ground, face stained in ash and the red leather of her signature jacket muted by dust, with the golden egg cradled under her arm and the sword held limply in her other hand it took a concentrated effort for Regina not to immediately rush forward and enfold the dazed woman into her arms. They still weren't okay, she knew; Her blond lover's turmoil had likely only been increased by this venture, not eased. She clasped her hands together over her own stomach instead, though she couldn't contain the relieved smile.

"I killed a dragon." Emma said when the grinding of the elevator's gears came to a halt, eyes wide, and Regina wondered if the woman wasn't in actual medical shock. She leaned her weight on the sword as Rumpel might do to his cane, something halfway between laughter and sobbing shuddering from her lips. "Dragon! The curse... It's all real!"

"Yes, dear. Yes it is."

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When they handed him the egg Rumpel immediately popped it open, freeing from it a small vial of purple liquid that seemed to shimmer as he twirled it around in his fingers.

"Your potion, as requested. Now where's my heart?"

Rumpel smiled, looking for all the world like he wasn't a man holding a vital organ hostage, and tucked the vial safely away in his breast pocket before ducking behind the counter. When the little golden box was placed before her Regina immediately snatched it up and was reassured by the tugging she felt somewhere beneath her solar plexus. It was there and it was safe, just waiting to be returned to its home.

"Your heart, perfectly safe and sound. Now if you'll excuse me, I have important business to be tending to."

Regina was too absorbed in the box she now held reverently in her shaking hands to pay him any further heed and was only dimly aware of the falter in the tap, tap, tap of his cane as he paused on the threshold.

"Oh, and Your Majesty? Don't follow me. Please."

Emma was frowning in his wake, holding her father's sword in a newly determined way like she might just go after him, but Regina wasn't bothered. Whatever his scheme was, it could wait. She had her heart; There was only left to put it back in its proper place.

She opened the lid, peering in at the shuddering, glowing red muscle that seemed to beat faster at her presence and was suddenly seized by gut wrenching fear. It was going to hurt. All the pain and rage that had been bearable in this world was going to come flooding back in full force and tear her asunder. She couldn't do it.

"That's it then? Your heart." Emma's face twisted in something stuck between awe and disgust. "How do you- Do you just-"

"Emma, take it. Take it. Please. I can't, you're going to have to- Please-"

"What? Oh! You want me to-" Emma eyed the glowing red heart with uncertainty but then seemed to steel herself. She had just slain a dragon. Touching someone else's heart? Perhaps not so strange. She reached for it, plucking it from its resting place and cradling it delicately in the palm of her hand and Regina felt that strange pressure in her chest, not quite painful but threatening.

"How do I do this?"

"Just put your hand here-" Regina placed her own hand flat against her breastbone. "And push. Just don't squeeze it."

Emma did as she was told, visibly flinching as her hand seemed to disappear, immersed in the other woman's flesh. "This is so weird. This is the weirdest thing I've ever done."

And then she was drawing her hand out again, the heart settled back neatly in place.

It happened all at once, the quick flood of emotion hitting her hard and fast and leaving her breathless on her knees. It was pain and pleasure and anger and sadness, all at once, and somewhere far, far away there was a clang and Emma frantically calling her name, voice high with worry.

When the world finally righted itself she found herself staring into wide, concerned green eyes, the blond having dropped the sword and knelt beside Regina's crumpled form. It wasn't, she realized, the pain that predominantly filled her but the love. Love for Henry. For Emma. Deep and intense so that the newly restored organ fluttered wildly within her. She had been aware of her feelings before, of course, but it had been nothing like this.

She sunk her fingers into the smooth leather lapels of Emma's jacket and heaved, pulling the startled blond forward into a kiss that was all teeth and tongue and then soft, smooth lips and tenderness and a wave of pure, true love rolled across Storybrooke.

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The stopper came free with an easy pop and for a moment Rumpelstiltskin admired his creation, true love in liquid form. It was genius, truly; He wasn't too humble to admit it.

Finally, finally, the plan he had been building on ever since he had watched his son disappear through that god forsaken hole in the ground had come to fruition. He was in the proper world, the one the blue fairy had sent his boy to, and now thanks to Emma Swan he was free to roam around it. All he lacked was power, and that was literally at his fingertips.

It wasn't without cost; He was an ordinary man here, in this place, and could readily admit to the guilt he felt for the world that had been shattered to bring them here, and for the blatant manipulation he had wrought on the life of the girl-Well, woman now, really, though sometimes when he thought of her he still saw the teeny tiny baby that had been promised him rather than the bitter, angry shell she'd grown into- who had made it possible. He was, after all, a father. Had been even at his darkest. It was that too, however, that had driven him to make whatever sacrifices had needed to be made. One soul had been the price to get him to this world, and he had payed it. For Bae's sake. Anything for Bae.

He finally let the vial drop, down into the well that was said to return things that were lost, all that remained of Lake Nostos. He watched its progress until the glowing purple liquid disappeared from sight. When it finally hit the water smoke began to spill over the lip of the well, thick and purple and he closed his eyes as it washed over him..

Some worlds needed magic and soon this one would have some.