What if Jefferson never freed Belle and sent her to Gold. Gold never needed his revenge so he kept the potion for when he needed it. Jefferson however wants Regina to pay. Regina took his child. He is going to take hers.

Prologue,

Henry was lying in the hospital. Machines beeped around the room. The Mayor watched her son in his vulnerable state and broke down at his bedside. She had never wanted this. She just wanted to stall the curse. She walked closer to his bed and spoke to her comatosed son. "I'm sorry."

"Pity isn't it, there's nothing harder than not knowing if you will ever see your child again." Jefferson stepped out from the shadows and approached the woman.

"Jefferson now is not a good time."

"For you. Well for me it's the perfect time. I'm here to collect. Where is she? My daughter."

"Emma was supposed to eat that apple and she didn't. As far as I'm concerned that makes our deal null and void." He shook his head. It couldn't be happening again. 'Not again.'

"I did what you asked you are not gonna screw me over again."

"Look at it however you want Jefferson, the fact is I am done with you."

"B-but I'm not done with you."

"What are you going to do? Kill me? I know you want to but I also know you can't."

"Do you?"

She scoffed and smirked at him. "Yes you don't have it in you. Now if you excuse me I have to save my son."

Regina stormed out of the hospital ward leaving Jefferson standing there without his daughter. It was twice now she had left him with nothing for helping her. He walked out of the hospital and went back to his mansion. He didn't care that it was over a mile. He trudged through the back roads. He thought the walk would help fight off his anger. But he just felt numb. All the hopes he had of getting Grace back were dashed. 'She promised I would have her again.'

He remained numb until he got over the threshold. Once inside his home, his prison for almost three decades, his emotions tore through him. The reality that he may never be reunited with his daughter hit him hard. He felt the tears roll down his cheeks and an frustration seer throughout his body. His breathing became ragged and he needed to escape. He needed to disengage.

Jefferson grabbed a cane that stood on a hook by his door and swung it heavily hitting a self portrait that stood staring down at him. Jefferson tore the painting out of it's frame and let out a scream.

Mirrors got smashed. The glass littering the ground as it fell from it's frame. He stepped on it but didn't even feel it. His adrenaline was running high. He kept thinking in his head.

'This is all my fault if I had listened to Grace none of this would have happened. We could have been happy. This is all my fault! I did this, this is all my fault!'

As if it was caught on a loop. He threw ornaments against the wall. They shattered on impact sending shards onto the ground. If he had neighboors they would have complained by now. He wailed loudly as he tore wallpaper off the walls.

He had always wanted this. A place like this back in the enchanted forest he had thought of how much better it would be than the shack he had settled for. A castle for his daughter where they could play long games of hide and seek but now the castle from his fantasies had become his jail. He stomped up the stairs.

Jefferson went to his sewing room. Shelves stood on one wall with hats, hats that had failed him. Hat's without magic. Hat's he had wasted 28 years trying to get them to work, to open a portal home. He took one off it's shelf and used a sharp scissors to tear it to shreds. Then he took another and did the same. And then another.

When the room was destroyed his body grew tired. Tired of fighting, tired of the trying. He slide down to the floor with his back against a desk. His breathing was ragged. He looked down at the scissors in his hands and in a humorless laugh said "Off with his head."

He brought the scissors to his neck but no matter how much he wanted to end his suffering he couldn't. He pressed the blade against his skin. He could feel the cold metal and though he wanted to end it he couldn't will himself to go further.

"You don't have it in you." He heard the queen's words taunt him in his mind. He heard her laugh, her taunting sing song laugh. She was mocking him. She was always mocking him.

'This isn't my fault...This is her. I just wanted Grace to never have to ask for anything. I just wanted her happy. This is all her fault. She is the one that took me from her twice. Twice! She trapped me in that horrible land then she trapped me in this one.'

He thought about Regina and his mind whirled to when he had seen her last. She had been standing over her son. Both were vulnerable. He focused his memory on the pain in her face when she spoke to her son. Her son in critical condition under a dangerous sleeping curse. One Henry was sure not to survive. A smile crept on Jefferson's face.

'I hope Henry dies. Then she will see. See what it's like to lose a child. Her child.'

He laughed manically to himself on the floor. The thought of the Queen losing what she had taken from him gave him a weird sense of relief that he couldn't quite explain.

'That bitch will pay for her crimes. Maybe when she loses her son she will know what pain she put me through. She will suffer. Kinda poetic.'

His body grew even more tired and soon he fell asleep.

He had slept through until morning, he would have slept longer if he wasn't woken by loud chanting from people going past his house up to Mifflin Street.

"KILL THE QUEEN!"

He opened his eyes, sure he had misheard. He stumbled to his window and watched a crowd follow Dr. Whale to Regina's house. They marched in unison chanting "Kill the Queen!" As they walked they grew in numbers.

"The curse has broken? No it can't be." Jefferson jumped up from where he was lying and rushed to the other room to grab his telescope. He took a telescope and moved it so he could see the door of 108 Mifflin Street.

He watched in glee as Dr Whale threatened Regina. He was feeling ecstatic. "The curse is broken...I can get my girl back! The queen is at the mercy of the mob. Her son is..." His face dropped when he saw Emma run to the Queen's aid with their son close behind them.

"He survived?" He would have been more angry if the idea of seeing his daughter wasn't making him fill with excitement.

He stopped watching the Queen and grabbed a coat. The hope he was sure had been dashed barely hours before was reawakened in his heart. He took off in a sprint as he ran as fast as he could to her house. He had watched her in there many times before. He knew he had the right address. He rang the door bell but no one answered. He frantically knocked on the door.

"Where is she?" He knocked again. Louder this time.

"Papa!" Jefferson didn't even have to turn around he would recognize that voice anywhere.

Grace was standing behind him. She had a big smile on her face. He burst into a large grin as she wrapped him in a hug. "Grace, honey I never meant to leave you...we can go...we can be together."

He cried holding her. He had waited so long for this that he didn't register that she was pulling away. When he did he saw a couple standing behind her. She moved back to them. "Papa, this is my...my mom Lucy and my...dad Ray." The man Grace had introduced as Ray offered his hand to Jefferson for him to shake but Jefferson ignored him.

He held on to Grace's shoulders. "Grace, honey. I...I am your father...not this...not him." Grace looked back at her parents. "They are my parents too. They have been since the curse."

He shook his head. "No they aren't!" Grace stepped back away from him. She had never seen this side of her father. He was not the man she played hide and seek with anymore. He was darker than before. She stepped back again.

Her parents held her protectively. Jefferson never thought about this in any of his scenarios. In his mind she would run back into his arms and they would go back to his house but she never rejected him and yet here she was. "Grace?"

"It Paige, Papa." She corrected him.

Jefferson offered her his hand. "We can go and have a tea party...would you like that?" His voice was broken. "Paige sweetheart, I think you should go inside." Lucy told her. She nodded in agreement and watched with tears in her eyes the man she once knew.

"NO GRACE!" Jefferson pleaded with her.

"Papa, you should leave."

Ray and Lucy led their daughter into their house. Jefferson stood in their garden staring at the closed door.

'This is her doing. Regina. Her curse is to blame. I am gonna kill the Queen and everyone she loves.'

...

The curse had broken but Gold had kept the true love potion in his shop. He wanted to use it when he needed it. Without magic back Regina became a target whenever she left her house. She had hid for the past week fearing an attack but Henry had gone back to school for the first time since the curse hit barely a week ago and she was trying to get everything back to normal. Or as normal as it was before.

He had been staying with the Sheriff for his safety per her request. When Mary Margaret and Emma agreed that she could be free from the cell in the sheriff station last week she had hoped to see him but she knew he was only doing as he was told. She was excited to see him again. She had seen David that morning when he came by to get Henry's uniform so she knew he would be there today.

Regina was waiting outside the school building in her BMW knowing that it was safer than waiting out in the open. In the open she could be an easy target. She was better off waiting in her car. She wasn't afraid. A queen is rarely afraid and if she is she should never show it. 'I am staying in her because it is raining.' She tried to convince herself.

The rain fell onto her windscreen she knew she was early but she had to leave when the coast was clear. She took a sip from her travel mug. It was nice to leave the house even if it was to just sit in her car.

She would have stayed in her spot if she hadn't seen Emma Swan run towards the school trying to get to the door to stand under the shelter.

Regina felt rage bubble up inside her. On Mondays she always picked her son up from school. She got out of the car and ran through the rain to where the blonde was letting her umbrella down and shaking off the excess rain off her red leather coat.

"What are you doing here Sheriff?" Regina asked frustrated.

"Picking up Henry..." Emma stated it not getting why it was such a big deal. She had been looking after Henry for the past week or so.

"I always pick my son up on Mondays." Regina told her through gritted teeth.

"Henry asked me to take him home today." Emma shrugged. Regina stared at her.

"You will do no such thing!" She was becoming irate. She was going to yell at the blonde when the double doors opened. Archie brushed past them with a big smile on his face. "Emma, Regina...horrible weather we're having isn't it?"

"I thought crickets liked the rain." Regina snapped back making Emma frown at her. "Nevermind her Archie she is being her usual self."

"Maybe you ladies should drop by for a joint session...for Henry's sake." He looked in his bag and handed them his card.

"I know where you work Bug." Regina bit back and handed him back his card. He looked down with pink cheeks. "J-just a gesture..." He opened his black umbrella and went off in the direction of his office.

"You could be nicer. You wonder why everyone wants your head on a pike?" Emma rolled her eyes.

Regina ignored her statement and went back to what they were talking about before the therapist interrupted them. "You are not taking my son home."

"I am his mother. I can if I want."

"Are you kidding me?!" Regina was shouting, invading the Sheriff's personal space as she did. "You left him for ten years and you think you can just swan in and take him back? He is legally my son. If I tell you to stay away you are to stay away."

"He doesn't want to be with you." Emma yelled back. "Do you get that? He thinks you an evil witc-"

Emma didn't even get to finish the word. The sting of a slap tore across her cheeks. Regina was panting she pushed Emma against the door holding her by the chin.

"Don't you dare call me that." Her voice was higher than she would have liked. Emma was staring at her with wide eyes. She had meant to push Regina's buttons but she feared she had pushed too far. She looked at the woman close to her, she had never noticed the color of the Mayor's eyes. They were like chocolate. She looked down to Regina's lips and watched the bottom one quiver and saw her gulp.

"I am not evil." She ground out. Emma looked the intense glare and nodded. "You are not evil." Regina loosened her grip and dropped her hand. "I...sorry." Regina surveyed the damage she had done to Emma's face, instantly regretting flying off the handle.

Emma continued to glare at her, having never heard the mayor apologize to her.

Regina looked down at her shoes, feeling bad for snapping when she was trying to be good. "I am sorry for snapping at you. Do you accept my apology?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Yes." She offered the Sheriff a soft smile feeling bad for how she had reacted.

"Then yes." Emma sighed as she watched as the Mayor run a hand through her slightly wet hair. 'Stop staring at her.'

She was trying to think of her next move when a loud bang went off inside the building.

Regina snapped her head up immediately. "Was that a gunshot?"

...

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