Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter one

"House!" the enraged administrator shouted as she flew into his office.

Said person looked up from his team, and stared Lisa Cuddy down, "'sup?"

"Why are you still here?"

"I'm working," he lied, showing her a blank file.

A snicker could be heard, and Cuddy narrowed her eyes at Thirteen, who shrank back in her seat.

"You are supposed to be giving a speech in Maine tonight," she sighed.

"As I recall, I never agreed to that," House replied calmly.

"As I recall, you did."

House looked at Foreman, Thirteen and Chase who each returned a disbelieving look, "they agree, that doesn't sound like me."

Cuddy closed her eyes in frustration, and replied, "one night and you'll be excused from clinic duty for the next three months."

House suddenly perked up, "twelve months."

"Six," Cuddy grumbled.

House practically jumped up, as well as he could, and said, "come children, it's time for a road trip."

-Two weeks earlier-

Emma leaned her head on her hand, and continued to flick small pieces of paper across the sheriff's station.

It didn't happen often, but on days like this she could admit that she missed her old job. There was never a boring moment. Even when they didn't have a case, she would still have House's metaphors to keep her occupied.

But she could also admit that the job had been wrong for her, even if she had been very good at it. Allison Cameron was just a person she had made up, and although it had been her legal name for years, at heart she was still Emma Swan and after what Chase had done she could no longer pretend that being a doctor was what she wanted. However, that didn't change the fact that she often found herself craving a puzzle, and though Storybrooke certainly had many of them, at the moment there was nothing going on and it was driving her insane.

"Our tax dollars hard at work I see."

Emma rolled her eyes, though a small smirk was tugging at the corner of her lips, "you already used that line Regina."

"Is it my fault sheriff, that you merit that comment so often," the mayor replied.

"Is it my fault madam mayor, that there is nothing to do in this town," Emma answered watching as the woman came closer.

Regina's eyes drifted to the pile of paper on the desk, "I could suggest something that you could do." Emma smirked, "I have a better idea," she said, and without warning pulled the brunette into her lap.

Regina scowled playfully, but still brought her arms around the other woman's neck, "I came here to ask for a crime report, not to distract you further."

"You must know by now that my brain stops working whenever you're around."

"Does this mean that you can actually be smart when I'm not around?" Regina smirked.

"Probably...too bad we'll never find out," with that Emma connected their lips.

A few moments later, Regina leaned back, "so...no crime report?"

The blonde shrugged her shoulder, "do you really care?"

Regina sighed in resignation, and mumbled "no" before she crashed her lips against her wife's.

-Present day-

"What are we going to do?" Henry sighed.

Regina placed a hand on his shoulder as she looked at the sedated blonde. Though it had pained her to ask Whale to do this, it had become apparent that the saviour was not capable of dealing with the darkness, so Regina had decided to protect her town.

She just couldn't wait to smack her around the back of the head once all of this was all over, though she knew she shouldn't be surprised at Emma's sacrifice, the fact that it had happened didn't hurt any less. She could just feel the name on the dagger taunting her from inside her coat, but she refused to let this be the end of her happy ending.

"We'll find a way Henry."

"You sound like grandma," the boy half laughed and half sniffled.

Regina scowled at her son, and he just slightly smirked at her, before falling into one of the plastic chairs.

David ran into the room abruptly.

Regina and Henry each turned to fix him with a questioning gaze, and the blonde man seemed to be working hard to catch his breath, "...town line..."

Regina furrowed her brow, though she felt like setting this whole stupid town on fire, why can't things ever just stay good?

Henry handed him a cup of water, which the man took gratefully. Once he had downed its entirety in one gulp, he said, "A car crashed over town line."

"That's not possible," Regina replied, though she felt a twinge of fear thinking about what had happened last time.

"We don't know how it happened, but there are four people in the ER right now that are not from Storybrooke."

Regina's head fell in her hands, and she sneaked a quick look at the sleeping blonde, and silently wished that she were awake to deal with this.

"Well then patch them up and send them on their way," she scowled.

"Their car is wrecked."

"Then give them another one," she almost shouted, before she deflated at her son's shocked expression. After a calming breath she added, "I am not in the mood for this."

Charming gave his daughter-in-law a sympathetic look, and said, "Blue said that the barrier between Storybrooke and the outside world just slightly fluctuated, and then strengthened. No one can leave."

"Are any of them actually hurt?" Henry asked, trying to avoid his mother smacking her head against something out of frustration.

"Just cuts and bruises, they're all conscious," David replied and offered his grandson a grateful smile, "Whale wants you to talk to them, he said he's running out excuses as to why they can't leave."

"Why can't he just make something up, he can embellish their injuries," Regina suggested.

"He tried, it didn't work."

"Why?" the mayor asked through an exasperated sigh.

"Because the people that crashed are a team of doctors."

Chapter Text

Chapter two

"Are you even a real doctor?!" a male voice carried down the hall and Regina closed her eyes in frustration as she made her way to the ER.

"I..." Whale began, only to be interrupted by the mayor.

"I can handle this Whale."

"Yes madam mayor," he said sardonically.

Gregory House instantly looked up to find the source of the smooth authoritative voice, and as soon as his eyes trained upon Regina Mills, his jaw practically dropped.

Whale scowled, and walked away to treat someone else.

"Please forgive Doctor Whale, he can be quite incompetent, but he's the only doctor in town," Regina said calmly, hoping that she could quickly convince this people that they need to stay, and then go back to trying to get her wife back.

House cocked his head, and said, "I'm surprised he's actually certified, he clearly has little understanding of cuts and bruises."

A scoff could be heard across the room, and Regina shot Whale a warning look, which caused him to roll his eyes and move out of sight.

"Again, please accept my sincerest apologises, and please allow me to pay for your sleeping arrangements, Granny's B&B should suffice until we can get your vehicle in working order."

House looked at the woman sceptically, from his experience, he knew that he couldn't trust a politician, and there was just something mysterious about this woman that he wanted unravel.

"Is that so we don't sue this quaint little town for having unsafe roads?" House shot back.

"I believe you lost control of your car over the town line, and crashed into my quaint little town, so good luck with that lawsuit, doctor," House's eyebrows shot up in amusement. Regina continued, "as mayor, I hope you enjoy Storybrooke...aren't there supposed to be four of you?" she asked with a furrowed brow, she was relatively sure that Whale could at least count.

"The Aussie went in search of a toilet," House replied dismissively.

Regina nodded slowly, though she had the urge to hit Whale for letting one of them explore, she silently prayed that this 'Aussie' wouldn't see anything strange.

Chase yawned as he made his way down the hall, hoping that he would walk passed a men's room soon.

He had to admit that this hospital seemed awfully low-tech, almost like it hadn't been updated since the 80s, and the way that he had suddenly lost control of the steering wheel seemed more than a bit odd, even despite House's insistence that he was just an idiot.

Chase rolled his eyes at the thought of his boss, and continued to inspect every door in hopes of finding his goal. That was until he stopped dead in his tracks.

Outside one of the private rooms, the name card read, 'Emma Swan-Mills', and though he was sure that he had never heard the name before, he felt inexplicably drawn to whoever held it.

It was for this reason that, after looking down the hall twice, he slowly pushed the door open, and sighed in relief when he saw no visitors were present.

His relief instantly fell away, however, when he saw the blonde lying asleep in the hospital bed.

"Allison?" he choked out, and made his way across the room in just a couple steps so that he could stand next to his ex-wife.

With a shaking hand, he softly stroked her hair.

He hadn't seen her in almost four years, but that didn't change the fact that he knew he still loved her, and the regret over losing her only intensified as he looked around at the medical equipment surrounding her.

After a few silent moments of staring, a thought suddenly occurred to him, and he grabbed the chart at the end of the bed.

The moment he opened the folder, he was met with that name again, "Emma Swan-Mills' and he clenched his teeth. Even though he knew he had no right to dictate any of her care, he thought that he at least had the right to be angered that the imbeciles hadn't even got her name right, who knows what else could be wrong?

He blew out a breath of frustration, and went straight to the information he wanted.

The moment he saw the words 'sedated' and 'danger to others', he sighed and threw the chart back into his place.

He looked again at the peaceful sleeping face and decided that there was no way that his Allison Cameron could ever need to be sedated, and the idiots had obviously made a mistake.

Then there was the fact that she seemed to be on a higher dosage then even an elephant would require, so after taking a deep breath, he gently pulled the IV out of her arm.

"It's going to be okay," the doctor whispered softly.

Knowing that it should take hours for her to wake up, he stormed off in search of the person responsible for this.

Regina rolled her eyes at House's forth racist comment, and continued to take the details of the accident from Dr Foreman.

"You can't ignore me," House pouted as he limped over to stand next to her.

"Really? It would seem that I'm rather good at it."

Thirteen laughed quietly, and whispered, "will you stop hitting on the mayor."

Though she had intended it to be inaudible Regina had heard it, and without looking up from her pad she said, "you're not my type."

House fake pouted and asked, "not into hot world class doctors?"

"House," Foreman tried to scold, but he went ignored.

Regina let out a breath of frustration and decided to shut down this irritating flirting, "why don't you ask my wife?"

House's face went from confusion to a look of pure joy in a second, "I would love to talk to your wife."

Foreman put his head in his hands, and Thirteen just snickered as Regina just stared the man down. Her heart contracted slightly as she imagined Emma shutting down this flirting herself, admittedly in her current state, it would turn out much more violently than would be necessary.

The moment was interrupted, however, when an Australian voice called from the entrance of the ER, "what the hell?!"

Regina looked over at the angry blonde man, and honestly tried not to laugh at just how non-threatening he appeared to be.

"What's wrong Chase?" Foreman asked with a furrowed brow.

"Cameron," he replied, causing the other man's eyebrows to shoot up.

Whale walked around the corner looking at a chart, only to be suddenly thrown against a wall.

The two doctors stared each other down, until another blonde man stood between them.

"What's going on?" David asked.

Regina blew out a breath, she decided that she had already spent way too long with these people, but she also couldn't leave the stand in sheriff to deal with the situation.

"He attacked me!" Whale said rather childishly.

"He sedated my wife!"

"Ex," House called, and Chase only clenched his fists further.

Regina and David shared a look, knowing that there was only one person sedated in this hospital.

"Who's your ex-wife?" the sheriff asked cautiously.

"Allison Cameron," Chase said defiantly, and Regina felt herself relax somewhat.

"There isn't even anyone in town with that name," Whale retorted.

"How would you know? You clearly have a knack for getting people's names wrong."

"What are you talking about?" David sighed, still holding out his hand to block the other man's path.

"Her chart said her name was Emma something," Chase scowled.

David nodded slowly, "and you're sure it was her?"

"One hundred percent certain. Just like I'm certain that you were giving her enough sedative to cause kidney failure," Chase almost shouted.

Regina ran her hand across her face. She had already had this discussion, and Whale had assured her that Emma's magic would prevent any damage the sedative could do, which would also interfere with her ability to perform spells should she wake up.

"How long were you married?" Regina asked.

Chase looked at the mayor in confusion, and said, "that's not important..."

"I disagree," the brunette said firmly, "how long?"

"A year," he replied, which instantly caused Regina to begin storming off.

David let out an exasperated sigh, and grabbed her arm, "what are you doing?"

"I'm going to kill Emma," she said simply.

"For what?"

"Oh, I don't know David, take your pick. For not telling me that she used to have a different name, for not telling that she was married before, or for not being awake so that I can yell at her."

David put a calming hand on her shoulder, "when she wakes up," he began, knowing Regina knew he meant when she was no longer the Dark One, "she'll be able to explain."

Regina deflated slightly, before noticing the look of horror on Chase's face.

He seemed to abandon his crusade against Whale, and Foreman asked the question on everyone's mind, "you're Cameron's...wife?"

"Her name is Emma," Regina snapped, "and yes."

"Well clearly you're not a very good one," Chase replied, and David had to hold Regina back. "I'll never understand why you would allow her to be sedated."

"I have my reasons," the mayor ground out.

"Care to share?" House asked, though the bombardment of information was rather a lot to take in, he was still eager to discover the fate of his former employee.

"Not really."

"Well then it's a good thing that I already took her off it," Chase replied angrily.

Regina stared at him blankly for a moment, before the implications of the words finally sunk in.

"You idiot!" she shouted and David instantly released her arm, allowing her to run down the hall at top speed.

As she approached the room in record time, she barely even registered the team of doctors and her farther-in-law following her.

As soon as the room came into view, she hit her head against the door when she saw the empty hospital bed.

Chapter Text

Chapter three

Chase stared blankly at the vacant bed, and he just about managed to stutter out, "that's not possible, she shouldn't have woken up for hours."

David quickly grabbed Regina's tense shoulder before she could even think about summoning a fire ball, and the former-queen shot him a grateful look.

"Well clearly it is possible," Whale said triumphantly, which caused Regina to scowl deeply at the doctor.

"That doesn't change the fact that she shouldn't have been sedated," Chase finally retorted, his shock somewhat falling away.

"How would you possibly know that?" Regina shouted, though she would normally be much calmer in a crisis, there was something about the man that angered her. She refused to acknowledge that she was simply jealous that he was married to her wife, and continued, "when was the last time you even saw Emma?"

"Her name is Allison!"

"Her birth name is Emma Swan," Regina growled, "clearly she changed her name."

Chase looked desperately to House, sure that if Cameron had a legal name change, then the man that had gotten into sealed records would know about it, but the older doctor simply shrugged, "I never thought to look for a different name. It was strange though that her life seemed so perfect."

Regina scoffed, unable to believe that these people claimed to know the blonde so well, and yet clearly knew nothing of the years she had spent as an orphan, not to mention what Neal had done to her.

"So she must have changed it before med school," Foreman pondered.

Regina stared at the man for a moment and blinked a few times, "med school?"

Foreman nodded slowly, "she's an immunologist."

The mayor began to take calming breaths, but internally she was almost screaming, is my idiot actually smart?

Regina's anger was cut short by the ringing of her phone, and the moment she saw the caller ID, she answered instantly, "what's wrong Henry?"

"Why is ma awake?" he whispered.

Regina's eyes widened and she asked urgently, "where is she?"

"At the diner."

The brunette furrowed her brow, she was sure that the newest Dark One would be up to something far more sinister, but then she didn't know what the blonde was doing.

"Doing what?"

"Drinking a hot chocolate," he replied.

Regina pinched the bridge of her nose, "is that it?"

"Yeah."

"Then why are you whispering?" she sighed.

"I don't know," he whispered back, "can you please come here?"

"I'll be right there," with that she hung up the phone and turned to David, "Emma's at the diner."

The sheriff nodded, they were about to set off until Regina noticed they were being followed, "really?" she scowled at Chase.

"I want to see her," he insisted.

Regina closed her eyes in frustration, and asked, "and you too?"

House nodded, "this is shaping up to be quite the puzzle, do you honestly think that I would miss it?"

"You two stay here," Regina commanded, making Thirteen and Foreman nod their agreement, both clearly slightly afraid of the mayor.

Emma audibly yawned as she stirred the last bit of her drink.

She could feel all of the eyes trained upon her, and though she was sure that it should have bothered her, she was strangely satisfied. Especially whenever she caught Ruby's eye and she would instantly tense and turn away. Honestly, she was grateful that no one seemed to know that she didn't have her magic at the moment. It would certainly dampen her almost oppressive intimidating presence upon her fellow patrons.

Stretching slightly, she felt her black leather squeak against the booth seat, but she still felt somehow bone tired, stupid sedative, she internally grumbled.

The Dark One felt all of the eyes shift from her as the bell rang out, and languidly she looked up with a small smirk on her face as Regina came into view. The smirk slightly fell away, however, when she saw who was coming in behind her father. She never thought that she would see Chase again, and she certainly had no plans to ever visit House. As her former-boss's cane hit against the floor, her smirk quickly came back, though it was more forced, she didn't want people to see that she had been affected by these people from her past.

Her golden eyes trained onto Chase's own blue ones, and she could tell that he sucked in a sharp breath. No doubt he'll probably think that I have jaundice she quietly chuckled to herself. She noted with satisfaction that he seemed to have been rendered speechless by her new, much darker look.

The group finally approached her, and she couldn't help but notice House inspecting her, probably trying to come up with an explanation for all of the differences, but she was relatively certain that any logical explanation he could come up would be overcomplicated and incorrect, no matter how hard he tried.

When Regina finally entered earshot, Emma called, "hey Gina, can you tell the kid to stop staring at me?"

Regina's eyes snapped to the far wall where Henry seemed to be hiding, and she tilted her head slightly making him come over to hide behind his mother.

"What the hell are you doing?" Regina sighed.

Emma shrugged, "getting a hot chocolate."

"Why?"

"I'm thirsty," Emma smirked, and then looking at Chase's dumbfounded expression, she quickly added, "babe."

House returned with an amused expression, and Regina just rolled her eyes.

The brunette replied, "you need to go back to the hospital."

Emma tilted her head and asked, "why? I'm fine."

"I disagree dear," Regina ground out.

"Tell me why I was sedated and I'll go," the blonde returned.

Regina stared at the woman, knowing that she couldn't say the truth in front of the 'non-believers' she resorted to plan B.

Bringing her hand up, she rested it on the dagger inside her coat.

"You need to go back to the hospital Emma," she said slowly, hoping it would suffice as a command.

House looked at the woman curiously, noticing the tight grip on the outside of her coat. Even weirder was the fact that Emma, or Cameron, actually stood up and seemed to be willing to follow her wife despite her earlier protestations.

As the group, now with the addition of a certain blonde, approached the door, House whispered to his fellow doctor, "I think we may have a case."

Chapter Text

Chapter four

Regina stared at the petulant Dark One in silence for a few minutes.

The blonde woman lay in the bed with her arms crossed arms, and Regina finally sighed and asked, "what could possibly be wrong with you?"

Emma rolled her eyes and looked at her wife, and replied, "not too happy to see them again, speaking of which, why are they here?"

Regina raised her eyebrow, and explained, "they crashed over the town line and according to Blue they can't leave. I did get the joy of learning that you lied to me, however."

"It was more of a small omission," Emma smirked back.

Regina looked over her shoulder at the closed door to make sure that no one was listening to the impending argument, and asked as calmly as possible, "who is Allison Cameron?"

"Someone who doesn't exist anymore," the blonde replied cryptically.

"But she did?"

"Why does this matter, Regina?" Emma sighed dramatically.

"Because I told you everything, and it would seem that you lived a life that I didn't know about."

"If it helps they didn't know about Emma Swan, so it's only fair," she replied languidly.

Regina clenched her fists, and tried to take a calming breath, "were you ever planning to tell me?"

"Nope," was her simple reply.

Regina stared into the golden eyes of her wife, and instantly this argument felt absolutely pointless. The Dark One was not the woman she had married, and it seemed that she was set on being more childish than she had ever been before. That didn't change the fact that she needed the truth and had no intention of waiting.

Bringing her hand up, she placed her hand upon the dagger, and Emma instantly rolled her eyes.

"Is this going to become a regular thing, Gina? You do know that there are far more interesting things that you can command me to do," Emma waggled her eyebrows, and Regina scowled.

"I command you to tell me the whole story."

Emma rolled her eyes, and let out a breath, "while I was in prison, I had nothing else to do but complete college work. Apparently, I was some genius special case, so when I completed a full years work, they just kept giving me more until I had enough credits to not actually have to go to college, so they gave me a scholarship to medical school, I took it and created Allison Cameron so that no one would know the real me. House took me onto his team and I worked for him for years, and that's it."

Regina closed her eyes, feeling utterly guilty for her anger. She herself had created the Evil Queen to escape the pain of being just Regina, but then again she had also told her wife countless stories about this painful time of her life.

"And Chase?" Regina asked, her hand falling away from the dagger, she hoped that the blonde would just tell her the truth without being forced to.

"We were married for a year, and then he turned out to be a bad person. We got divorced and I became Emma Swan again."

"You say it like it was simple," Regina sighed.

"It was that simple, I tried to be someone else and it wasn't working so I went back to being miserable with a different name."

Regina blew out a breath, "if it was that simple, why didn't you tell me?"

"Because it's not important," Emma laughed, though she was clearly trying to mask her true feelings. "Allison Cameron was never a real person."

"So you're not a certified doctor then?"

"If you want to be technical..."

"You are such an idiot!" Regina shouted, a part of her knew that she wasn't really that mad about this, but it was just easier to shout at the blonde in her current state, then to have an actual constructive conservation.

"Isn't the issue here that I'm not an idiot?"

Regina stared blankly at the woman for a second, and just said, "I command you to stay on that bed," before she walked away in search of coffee.

"What if I have to pee?" Emma shouted, but went ignored.

"You think there's something wrong with Cameron?" Foreman asked sceptically.

"You didn't see her, Foreman," Chase sighed and unhitched himself from the wall, "everything about her is completely different. How many cases have we had where the patient had an altered mental state?"

Thirteen looked around the empty private room that House had led them to, and wondered if the mayor knew they were here, but she just shook her head and contributed, "a lot can happen in four years. She could have just changed."

"People don't change that much," Chase countered.

"People can lie, though," House pointed out.

"What are you talking about?" the blonde man sighed.

"We clearly didn't know her as well as we thought," House continued, "we knew Cameron, but I'm willing to bet that we knew nothing about whoever Emma Swan was."

"I thought you said we have a case," Chase said with an exasperated sigh.

"We do, I just enjoy pointing out facts that make you uncomfortable," House chuckled.

Chase rolled his eyes, and asked, "So you agree that she has an altered mental state?"

"Absolutely, but the question is, how do we know just how altered her personality really is?" the oldest doctor asked as he limped/paced across the room.

"I know her," Chase said firmly, "the Allison we knew is who she really is."

House raised his eyebrow, and just nodded, "lets base our diagnosis on your gut feeling shall we?"

The blonde rolled his eyes and said, "can we focus on helping her?"

Foreman looked between the pair, and quickly tried to break the tension, "why don't we start with her eye discolouration?"

"The sedatives clearly damaged her kidney," Thirteen said, "it should be reversible with dialysis."

"That begs the question of why so much sedative," Foreman said almost to himself.

"None of these questions will ever be answered if the mayor doesn't allow us to care for her," Thirteen countered.

Chase tensed at the thought of Regina, he could certainly wait until House started the jokes about him turning Cameron onto women, thankfully he hadn't seemed to have thought of any yet.

"Why would she not want her to get better?" he sighed.

"She doesn't seem to think that there's anything wrong."

"You can do whatever you want," came a seething voice from the doorway.

The four doctors each snapped their heads towards the doorway where Regina was standing, they hadn't been particularly quiet in their secret differential diagnosis.

"What?" House asked after a moment.

"You can take the case," and have to stay in town, she mentally added, "but any treatments have to be approved by Doctor Whale."

Chapter Text

Chapter five

"What are you doing?" Emma asked while Regina looked through a book.

Finally finding what she was looking for, she whispered a spell and the emerald green eyes that she loved more than anything returned.

For a second, she simply stared at Emma, pretending that she was completely fine, but the feeling of metal inside her blazer told a different story, and she blew out a frustrated breath. Finally she replied, "giving you dialysis."

"You know House doesn't like having to report to anyone, he's going to start realising that you're not actually giving me these treatments," the blonde replied.

"Well hopefully Blue will have time to figure out what is happening with the town line before he begins his rebellion."

Emma rolled her eyes, and asked with a pout, "when is my magic coming back? This is horrible."

Regina tried to ignore the part of her mind telling her that the other woman's expression was adorable, and simply replied, "I have no idea, regardless you won't be able to use it."

"You know I don't appreciate being controlled by my wife, it must be some kind of abuse."

"Will you stop complaining?" Regina sighed, since being commanded to remain on the bed the Dark One had been becoming increasingly petulant, and though she used to find it endearing, it was just becoming annoying.

Emma crossed her arms and puffed out a breath of air, "can you get me lunch then? I've never been a fan of hospital food."

Regina rolled her eyes, "I thought you to be a fan of all food."

The blonde tilted her head, a small smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth, "I'm the number one fan of grilled cheese."

"Fine," Regina sighed, "I'll be back as soon as I can."

"What about Dissociative Personality Disorder?" Foreman suggested.

"She doesn't have two personalities," Thirteen replied, "she can remember her life as Cameron."

"There are rare cases where they are able to remember the other personality," he countered.

"What kind of trauma could she have lived through to have triggered the condition?"

"Foster care," Chase said in a hollow voice. The two doctors turned towards the blonde man at the desk, even House turned away from the white board that he had requested.

"What?" House asked.

Chase looked up from the file that Regina had given them and explained, "she's an orphan and she lived in about thirty foster homes before being sent to prison for stealing a car."

House's eyebrows shot up, and he turned to Foreman, "it's a shame we didn't know sooner, you two could have made the perfect team."

Foreman rolled his eyes, and continued with his theory, "so she could easily have been traumatised by a particularly bad foster parent," he allowed the implications of his words to go unsaid and looked to the other doctors for their thoughts.

"So how did we never see a glimpse of Emma Swan?" House pondered.

"Maybe we didn't notice?" Thirteen began, "if she ever went out of 'character' it was small enough that no one thought anything of it. Or we tried to explain it away."

"She did seem different after all nighters," Foreman contributed, he was now thinking more seriously about her 'jello shots and wild sex' comment from all those years ago.

"It doesn't fit," House sighed as he turned away from the whiteboard with only 'altered personality' written upon it. "She seems to be in perfect control of who she is, Cameron was clearly just an alias that she created."

"So you're saying that foster care didn't traumatise her?" Chase asked, sounding almost hopeful.

House shook his head and replied, "I'm saying that it damaged her enough that she felt the need to create a new person who grew up with a perfect family."

"So...her real personality isn't altered?" Thirteen asked with a furrowed brow.

House sighed dramatically, and explained, "everybody lies, but nobody lies that well."

"Unless you're a sociopath," Thirteen sighed.

"She is not a sociopath!" Chase growled.

"How would you know?" House smirked, "sociopaths don't tell people that they're sociopaths."

Foreman quickly held up his hand before Chase could retort and said, "so Allison didn't exist as a separate personality, but this Emma exists as a separate personality to the real Emma. How can we know that for sure? We didn't know Emma."

"Regina obviously felt the need to sedate her, so something must be different," Chase pointed out.

"We should ask whether she has received any head injuries," Thirteen suggested.

"Or we could just do a CT scan, look for any physical damage, possibly any tumours," Foreman suggested.

"Excellent, go forth and get permission from our idiotic master, I'll administer the house search," House announced, receiving an eye roll from everyone in the room.

"Will you just eat your food?" Regina asked with an exasperated sigh.

Emma inspected the grilled cheese once again. She had been craving one since she had woken up, but now faced with it, particularly the smell, she felt like throwing up, but for some reason she was still hungry.

"Are you sure that this is from Granny's, it seems different."

"There are only so many ways to melt cheese between bread, Emma," Regina replied, and began to unwrap her chicken salad.

"What do you have?" the blonde asked, throwing the grilled cheese, just about getting it in the bin.

"Nothing you would be interested in," Regina replied and violently speared some lettuce.

Emma looked into the container, and asked "can I try some?"

Regina's eyebrows shot up and the moment was interrupted by the appearance of Doctor Whale, "they're asking for a CT scan."

The mayor managed to finally tear her attention away from the blonde, and took the consent form he handed her, "what do they think is wrong now?"

"Head injury or brain tumour...and they said they want to be present to control what parts of the brain to focus on."

Regina closed her eyes in frustration, and replied, "fine," and was about to sign before Emma interrupted.

"Don't you think an MRI would be better?"

"Why?" Whale asked with a furrowed brow.

"House probably assumed that we don't have 3D isotropic imaging, it will produce a clearer image and MRI's are better for finding brain tumours," she explained.

Regina stared at her blankly for a moment, and replied, "you know that they won't actually find anything."

Emma shrugged, and countered, "House will doubt the CT and make you do the MRI later if he finds out that we have the latest technology, so the CT would be a waste of time."

Whale looked at the blonde sceptically, and Regina couldn't help the feeling that he was forming some kind of theory, but Emma returned with narrowed eyes, and he instantly turned on his heels, "I'll go and change the consent form."

Chapter Text

Chapter six

Henry and Snow sat on Regina's living room couch, each gaping at the laptop screen on the boy's lap. The saviour's mother had found herself in a state between shock and pride that her little girl was some kind of highly respected doctor, mostly though she felt disbelief.

Now, however, she could hardly deny the truth looking at a picture of 'Allison Cameron' attached to some medical paper that she didn't understand one word of, but was supposedly written by her daughter.

The only thing she found herself able to say was, "she was a brunette?"

Henry shot his grandmother a sideways look, and laughed, "Is that really what you're focusing on?"

"She almost looks like a different person," Snow sighed, did she really have to make someone up to be happy? She thought with an internal sigh, the fact that it obviously hadn't worked making her feel so much worse, not to mention the fact that she was unable to even go near her for a conversation about all of this, due to her new found urges towards matricide.

"It's kind of cool," Henry commented, only to be met with an incredulous look from the woman next to him, "I mean...she was a doctor."

Snow sighed and turned towards her gurgling youngest, who was asleep in the push chair next to the couch, he smiled in his sleep and Snow felt guilty yet again.

"She isn't really mad about Neal you know," Henry said reassuringly.

'You don't need me anymore, you have the shiny new unbroken kid to look after,' Snow closed her eyes against the memory of her daughter's words from just last week. "I know, it's just hard to believe when I heard her say it," she sighed.

Henry nodded in understanding and they fell into a silence as the boy continued to scroll through the Google hits for 'Allison Cameron.'

A few minutes later, a rustling sound made each of them jump and look off into the direction of the foyer.

"Is Regina back?" Snow asked with a furrowed brow.

Henry shook his head instantly and replied, "she always stays with ma for a few hours and the goes to work until dinner."

His grandmother nodded, and stood cautiously from the couch, motioning for Henry to stand next to his uncle, which he did instantly.

"Cameron's done well for herself," she heard someone comment, and tried not to wince at the use of that name.

"Shut up, House," an Australian voice ground out.

"I'm just saying, her life is looking pretty good without you, Chase. Big mansion, hot wife..."

Chase seemed to decide to end this line of conversation by pointing out, "the place looks pretty clean."

"Unless Cameron is a full time stay at home wife, there is no way that this place is completely clean," he clearly doesn't know about the cleaning charms, Snow thought, before she shook her head and grabbed something to defend her son and grandson with.

Jumping out into the foyer, she asked, "why are you here?"

House didn't seem to respond, and the blonde man held up his hands, and said, "woah, put the lamp down."

Snow blinked a few times, and looked at the lamp that she had grabbed from side table, she realised that it would have to do since her usual weapons were not an option, and pulled it higher to show them that she is serious.

"Answer my question," she said threateningly.

"We're doctors, we're just trying to find any environmental causes for Cameron's...Emma's personality change," Chase replied, clearly trying to be reassuring.

"So you break into her house?" she asked incredulously.

"We're trying to help her," he tried.

Snow inspected the man for a moment, and remembered what her husband had told her about the doctors, he had told her something in particular about one of them that had made her very, very angry. "Are you Robert Chase?" she asked stalking towards him.

He nodded quickly, clearly believing that the information would help his case, but instead of a surrender he received a lamp smashed upside the side of his head.

You can't break my little girl's heart and get away with, she thought triumphantly as the blonde fell backwards clutching the side of his head.

Ten minutes later, the two doctors sat on the couch, Chase with a bag of peas clutched tightly to his head, scowling deeply at the woman that had introduced herself as Mary Margaret as she calmly placed the lamp back where it should be.

House, on the other hand, seemed to be trying to gain all of the information that he could, "Cameron has a son?" he asked sceptically.

"Yes, Emma, has a son," Mary Margaret replied as she took a seat on the coffee table.

"You expect me to believe that she had a baby in jail, and then got a scholarship to med school? And then ten years later her son found her, and she fell in love with his adoptive mother?" Chase asked disbelievingly.

"Mad that you don't know her as well as you thought?" House asked mockingly.

"You didn't know her either."

"The difference being, I don't actually care," House laughed.

"Then why are you here?"

"Because it's interesting, I don't actually care that she used to go by a different name. I am a bit annoyed that I didn't figure it out sooner, but what can you do?"

"So you're annoyed that she's smarter than you?" Chase asked with a furrowed brow.

"Hiding her crappy childhood does not make her smarter than me," House said rather childishly.

"Shut up!" Mary Margaret shouted, finally gaining the two doctor's attention.

"Who exactly are you?" House asked with a quizzical look.

"I'm her...friend," she replied, "now why didn't you just ask to have access to Emma's home? What if Henry had been alone?"

"In our defence, we didn't know that he was her son," Chase said unconvincingly, he had seen the resemblance in the diner, but it had been something that he refused to give further thought to.

Henry looked at the man sceptically, and he felt strangely nervous under the familiar eyes, though House was forming another theory that he was sure was the Vicodin influence. Henry and Mary Margaret had the same eyes as Cameron, and then there was her hesitation before saying 'friends'. He was beginning to see that something very strange was going on in this town, but he couldn't quite crack what it was, and he would be lying if he said he wasn't going to stay here for as long as he needed to in order to figure it out.

"Are you going to allow us to look around, or do we need a note from the mayor?" he asked after a few moments.

Mary Margaret rolled her eyes, and pulled her phone out quickly pressing her daughter-in-law's name.

"You know I was kidding," House pointed out, only to be met with a raised finger to silence him.

"Is everything all right?" Regina answered a couple rings later.

"Henry's fine," Snow assured, knowing where Regina's mind would jump to, "but House and Chase seem to think that they have to search your house to see what's wrong with Emma."

On the other end of the line, Regina pinched the bridge of her nose, and replied, "fine."

"Really?" Snow asked in shock, "isn't there any...err."

"Stop stuttering, all of my magical items are in my vault," she sighed.

Snow nodded and hung up, "she said fine."

"Fantastic," House said in fake excitement, "let's start with the photo albums."

Chapter Text

Chapter seven

"It looks like there's something on her frontal lobe," Thirteen pointed at the screen.

Foreman leaned closer and shook his head, "it's benign," he sighed, "do you really believe that she's that different? I mean we haven't talked to her."

Thirteen shrugged and continued pressing buttons to look at different sections of Cameron's brain, and pointed out, "her brain looks healthier than most average people."

"So her issue is that she's too healthy?" Foreman scoffed.

"You know I can hear you," streamed through the microphone and each doctor jumped, Foreman finally realising that he was leaning on the switch.

They shared a look, before Foreman tentatively pressed the button, and said, "sorry Cameron."

A growl of frustration was what they were met with, and she replied, "my name is Emma."

"Right, sorry Emma," Thirteen answered, considering Foreman's dumbfounded expression.

There was a silence, and finally the blonde in the MRI machine said, "how long are you guys going to do these tests before you realise that I'm fine?"

Foreman shrugged, and replied, "well I don't think there's anything wrong with you, but..."

"You finally realised that every time you went against House, you ended up being proven horribly wrong, and you had to go home and be embarrassed."

"He wasn't always right," he said, trying to maintain his dignity by not pouting.

"Yeah, he was," Emma laughed, "but trust me, he won't figure this one out."

"So you admit that there's something wrong with you."

"Depends who you ask," she replied cryptically, "I personally think I'm fine."

"Then why with the sedation?" Thirteen asked.

"It's irrelevant to your diagnosis, and from what I can tell you only have one symptom. Isn't anything you come up with going to be weak?"

"If you know what's wrong, then just tell House and he'll leave," Foreman pointed out.

"I'm not allowed."

Foreman and Thirteen exchanged another look of confusion, and the latter of the two whispered a theory.

"Before you start making suggestions, I'm not in an abusive relationship," Emma announced.

The female doctor cleared her throat, those words on the tip of her tongue, and she replied, "obviously people would lie about that."

"You're really grasping at straws aren't you?" the blonde scoffed, "have you seen any of the signs, do I really seem afraid of Regina?"

Foreman flipped to the last slide on the screen, and with an audible sigh he said, "MRI's over, there's no signs of damage to any of the personality centres, and no abnormal cell growth."

"Told you," came through the microphone, "now can you let me out? Apparently I have to go back to bed."

"House, no," Chase breathed, standing in front of the door that he had just snapped shut.

"We need to search every possibility, and in my head this is where they spend most of their time," House laughed and pushed past to the other man into the Swan-Mills bedroom.

The first thing that Chase zeroed in on was the framed photographs upon a dressing table. Ignoring whatever his boss had to say, he made his way over to them and picked one of them up. It was an image of Regina and Emma sitting down for a picnic, Emma was laughing as Regina wiped something off of the face of the scowling teenager's face. With a deep breath he placed the picture of the happy family down, and looked over to House, "what are you doing?"

He was met with the sound of drawers opening, and House replied, "tell me you're not the least bit interested?"

Chase rolled his eyes when he realised what the older man was looking for, and retorted, "how would that be medically relevant?"

"Well...I'm a doctor, and I find it very important that we see their...inventory, so obviously it is medically relevant."

"They have a son, don't you think they would make things like...that hard to find," Chase sighed.

House shrugged, finally pushing the last of the drawers closed, and replied, "it was worth a shot, unless Cameron is that good that she doesn't need assistance," he laughed.

Chase clenched his fist, and began to look around for actual medical significance, "it's just as clean as the other rooms, I don't think it's environmental," House announced.

"Do you really think that she spends all her time at home?"

"Have you seen her wife?" House chuckled.

"I get it, Regina is hot, will you stop mentioning it?" he asked as they began to make their way back down the stairs.

"It's not a fact that I can easily ignore," House replied in faux innocence.

Finally they made their way back to the living room, where Mary Margaret and Henry were whispering, and House announced sardonically, "well thank you for your hospitality."

Chase felt a sharp pain run through the bruise on the side of his face, and his scowl deepened as he looked at the woman, and he was met with narrowed eyes.

"We have one more question," Chase finally said.

"What?" Mary Margaret replied rudely, she had more of enough of these doctors, and she was beginning to feel sorry for her daughter who had spent years working with them.

"Where else does she spend her time?"

Mary Margaret tilted her head in consideration, and instantly took her chance to make the blonde man uncomfortable, "the mayor's office."

Chase scowled and nodded for her to continue.

"Granny's diner, the sheriff's station..."

"Why?" Chase asked with a furrowed brow.

"Because she's the sheriff," she replied slowly as if she were talking to a child.

Chase pinched the bridge of his nose, and tried to imagine Cameron with a badge and gun, and he couldn't help but think how ridiculous that would be.

House looked stunned for a moment at the information, before he composed himself and said, "Looks like you have your next assignment Chase."

Chase rolled his eyes and began to make his way to the door, not even sparing Mary Margaret or Henry a look.

He didn't want to have to delve into another aspect of Cameron's new life, but he would do anything to get back the Cameron that he knew.

Chapter Text

Chapter eight

Chase walked into the sheriff's station, clutching his sampling bag tightly.

It was more than strange to imagine that Cameron had ever handled a gun, much less carried one every day. As much as he loved her, he just always thought of her as innocent, someone who needed to be protected rather than be the protector of others.

His mind kept trying to tell him that maybe Emma Swan wasn't the same person that he loved and that he should quit while he was ahead, but then another part of him refused to admit it. If he did, than he would be admitting that years of his life had been a lie, that the woman he had spent a year betrothed to had done nothing but lied to hlim. That was not something that he would chose to accept, no matter how much that his boss and co-workers tried to convince him that Allison had nothing medically wrong with her, he would continue searching for a logical answer, anything but the fact that he simply didn't know the blonde as well as he had thought.

Finally he managed to navigate his way into the main room where he saw the familiar blonde man sitting at a desk.

David looked up, and resisted the urge to scowl at the man who was interrupting his work, and instead smiled when he saw the somewhat violent bruise that had formed on the side of his face.

"Dr Chase?" he asked while trying not laugh, "are you okay?"

Chase saw the glee clear on the other man's face, and he set his jaw in frustration, "the woman babysitting Henry mistook me for an intruder."

At the news, David actually smiled broadly. Snow had been royally pissed off when he had told her about Robert Chase, and it was now clear just how agitated the thought of their former son-in-law made his wife.

"Mary Margaret can be very protective," he replied.

"You know her?" Chase asked with a furrowed brow.

"She's my wife," David said casually.

Chase scowled, thinking back to Mary Margret's eye colour, he now saw the resemblance between the interim sheriff and Emma, and finally he had to ask.

"Are you related to Alli-Emma?"

David blinked a few times, before finally he replied unconvincingly, "no, why?"

"Then why do you look like her?"

David tried to keep the smile off his face, he liked the idea that his children would actually look like him, it just clearly wasn't very helpful in this situation.

"I guess we both have generic faces, why does it matter?"

Chase sighed and replied, "I always wondered why she didn't introduce me to her family, I suppose I should have guessed that she was an orphan."

David clenched his fists under the desk. He hated that word with a passion, mostly because he didn't like the thought that Emma had lived as one for almost her whole life.

Chase narrowed his eyes at the man's reaction, before David replied, "did you not ever think that she didn't think you were good enough to be introduced to her family."

"What?" Chase asked with an exasperated sigh.

"Like maybe if she had grown up with her parents she wouldn't have married a pretentious jerk who is incapable of moving on?" David replied in as casual a voice as possible.

"What is everyone's problem?" Chase sighed, "Everyone in this town seems to hate me for no reason."

David raised his eyebrow, and once again noticing the bruise, he decided that the man had probably had enough abuse for one day, "shouldn't be a problem, right? I mean you should be leaving as soon as possible. Speaking of which, why are you here?"

Chase gave the man a dirty look for a moment, before he replied, "I need to find environmental causes for changed personality."

David nodded, and pointed in the direction of the separated office, "that one's Emma's office, but I doubt you'll find anything."

"And why is that?"

David shrugged, "no reason."

"You don't believe that there's anything wrong with Emma?" Chase asked with narrowed eyes, he just couldn't understand why everyone in this town seemed to want to so adamantly ignore the issue.

"Well...I'm no doctor, but from what I've heard you only have one symptom, so you know..."

"Being a bitch could be a symptom," someone slurred from the holding cell.

David rolled his eyes, and spun around in his chair, "shut up, Leroy."

Chase turned his attention to the short, drunk man in the cell and felt instantly agitated.

"She arrested me like every day for no reason," the dwarf retorted.

"She arrested you for public intoxication, which the last time I checked is very much illegal ."

"So is murder, but nobody seemed to care when she offed..."

"Shut up, Leroy!" David almost shouted as he jumped out of his seat.

"Murder?" Chase choked out.

"It was self-defence," David tried to assure, but it didn't seem to help with the other blonde man's shocked expression.

"No it wasn't, it was man slaughter," Leroy slurred, "she couldn't even have hurt Henry."

"Emma didn't know that, she was protecting her son," David growled.

"Well she really should have known that before she threw her off a cliff," he laughed.

David continued to stare Leroy down, until he fell onto the cot and shut his mouth.

"Ignore him," David said with a nervous laugh.

"She threw someone off a cliff?" Chase asked, the colour having completely drained from his face. He couldn't help but think that his ex-wife was a complete and utter hypocrite, she had left him because he took the life of a dictator to save a nation from tyranny, and she saved one person and somehow she didn't think it was unethical.

"To save her son," David repeated.

Chase shook his head, and began to walk away, "I have work to do," he said, almost in a daze.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" Emma asked after she swallowed her second attempt at lunch.

"I don't think I've ever seen you eat salad," Regina replied, "or even turn down a grilled cheese for that matter."

Emma shrugged and speared another leaf, "can't be unhealthy and immortal, right?"

Regina narrowed her eyes and replied, "that makes no sense."

"Why do you always have to see sense in everything, Regina? Why can't you just let something be?"

"What in the world are you talking about, Emma?" Regina asked, "what exactly did that MRI entail?"

"Listening to two former colleagues talk about the difference between Allison Cameron and Emma Swan," the blonde shrugged.

"And what is the difference?" Regina retorted after a moment.

"Does it really matter? It's not like I'm either at the moment," Emma laughed and stuck some more lettuce in her mouth. "Then again, Cameron did eat a lot of salad, so maybe I'm reverting?"

Regina rolled her eyes again and muttered, "idiot."

"So how long am I going to have to stay in this bed? You know when you're not here it gets really boring."

"You can stay in the bed until they leave, and according to Blue that could take a while."

"I don't think you understand just how bored I get, I need my magic back," the former saviour pouted.

"Well hopefully that will also take a while," Regina replied.

Emma sighed audibly and finally handed Regina the empty container, when she felt the familiar spark of electricity as their fingers brushed, an idea occurred to her.

"You know I've really missed you?" she said.

Regina tilted her head, and replied, "You've seen me every day."

"Not in that way," Emma said with a devilish grin.

Regina just shook her head, trying not to bite her lip as she had the urge to, "is it my fault that you might as well be a hormonal teenager?"

"Please, just come closer," Emma pouted, "a kiss might tide me over, you can't say you haven't missed it."

"I'm not a teen, Emma; I can survive without a kiss."

"Is this really the most sinister thing I could have asked for, please Regina?" she said.

Regina rolled her eyes, mostly at herself because she knew she couldn't say no. So, she brought her hand up to her coat and then placed the dagger behind her in her seat, so as to prevent the Dark One from attempting any tricks.

Then she leaned forward in one quick fluid motion and captured her wife's lips in her own. Much to her surprise, the kiss started out sweet and innocent, like many of their kisses before, and she could almost pretend that everything was completely normal.

As soon as their lips touched, Emma felt the darkness melt away for a few seconds, and she could finally focus on what was happening and actually enjoy it. It was then that she began to move her lips faster against the other woman's.

Emma was about to swipe her tongue across Regina's lower lip to ask for entrance, until the sound of a high pitched yelp behind them caused Regina to pull back quickly.

The blonde looked up with a scowl at the person who had ruined such a perfectly enjoyable moment, and her scowl only deepened when she saw who it was.

"What do you want Chase?" she almost growled.

The doctor looked torn as he tried to take in what he had just seen. Honestly, he hadn't actually believed that their marriage was legitimate until this moment, and now he could hardly deny it. He had come here to ask about what he had found out at the station. After he had found nothing at the sheriff's station but a shocking revelation, he had decided to finally confront the blonde that he had spent the last day thinking about.

Emma suddenly smiled as she realised that her plan had worked as expected, and Regina furrowed her brow at the wide grin.

"What did you do?" Regina asked with a sigh.

"Well you wouldn't help, so I sorted out my own problem," she returned.

Both of the other people in the room looked thoroughly confused, and so by way of demonstration, Emma raised her hand causing the clock to come off the wall and smash Chase up the other side of his face.

As he fell to the ground with the clock on top of him , Emma explained, "I got my magic back."

Chapter Text

Chapter nine

"What the hell Swan?" Regina shouted as she made her way over to the unconscious man.

"You can't say that he didn't deserve it," Emma smirked triumphantly, before her eyes widened as they fell upon the chair where the brunette must have forgotten she had left the dagger. For the first time in a day, she didn't feel the oppression of magic forcing her to stay put, and stealthy swung her legs around, allowing them to touch the ground.

"What happened?" someone asked from the doorway.

Regina and Emma both looked up, and the mayor sighed deeply.

She couldn't help but think that, of course, the three other doctors would chose now to come to the room.

"He tripped," Regina mumbled, throwing the clock to the side.

"Storybrooke seems like quite the dangerous place for him," House pointed out and made his way past his unconscious employee, and over to the mystery that was his former employee.

"Well when he chooses to act like a pretentious jack-ass, I would say that he deserves whatever hits him."

House's eyebrows shot up, and he replied, "I didn't know that you had such a dark side, Cameron."

Emma laughed lightly, and said, "You have no idea."

House tilted his head and Regina simply rolled her eyes as she looked over at the pair while Foreman and Thirteen inched their ways into the room.

Regina was silent for a moment, before she took the chance to do something that she had wanted to do for a while, and slapped the blonde Australian across the cheek.

Chase sat up with a deep breath and shouted, "What the hell?"

Regina raised to her feet regally and said, "He's fine."

The blonde man held the side of his face, he decided not to put too much thought into the fact that Regina seemed to have purposely slapped the bruised side, and stood alongside her.

"Did the clock fall?" he asked.

Regina nodded instantly, she had been worried that he might have actually seen the magic at work, but at his words, she felt her tension fall away.

"You were knocked out by a clock?" Foreman asked with a smirk.

Chase narrowed his eyes at the other man and moved past the comment, "why are you guys here?"

"Because Storybrooke's resident imbecile promised us blood test results, and I thought it would be interesting to bring Cameron in on it," House said.

"Emma," the blonde in the bed said.

"Whatever," the older man sighed.

"Since when is it ethical to bring a patient in on a differential?"

"Since the patient is a world class immunologist," House replied, "who else is going to wrongly suggest lupus?"

"Oh ha ha," Emma drawled.

Chase looked between the two and Regina furrowed her brow as she noticed his clenched fists. She suddenly got a feeling that she knew exactly why their interaction bothered the man, it was clear that Emma was attracted to the older doctor, but she couldn't really find it in herself to be bothered by it. She couldn't say that she hadn't been attracted to others during their relationship, and she honestly believed that the blonde was legitimately afraid of cheating on her, she knew that she would be met with a fire ball and it just wouldn't be worth it. In fact, she couldn't quite believe that it bothered her ex-husband, if attraction bothered him, she couldn't imagine what the thought of the blonde being in love with someone else must have been doing to him, and she was trying not to have a satisfied smirk on her face as she thought about it.

Emma's attempt at a further reply was cut short by the sound of someone powering their way down the hall, and the next moment, Whale stopped short at the doorway clutching a crumpled piece of paper.

"Regina…" he started to say before he saw the others in the room and clamped his mouth shut.

House raised his eyebrow at the man's look, and gestured for Foreman to take the paper, which he didn't do, causing House to roll his eyes.

"What is it, Whale?" Regina asked with a sigh.

"This is probably something that you, I and Emma should talk about in private," he replied after a moment.

Regina tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at the man who was obviously holding her wife's test results. She suddenly felt her stomach clench at the thought that there could actually be something wrong with the idiotic woman.

"Don't you think that it's something that her diagnostic team should be made aware of?" House asked, and before the other man could reply, he strode across the room at an impressive speed for him and snatched the paper out of the doctor's hand.

Whale rolled his eyes, and fell back against the door in resignation, having decided to just allow the intruders whatever they wanted.

House's eyebrows shot up over the paper, and he lowered it with a huge smirk on his face, "well it would appear that Cameron has a parasite."

Chase furrowed his brow, while Foreman and Thirteen tilted their heads in consideration.

"A cysticercosis parasite could attack the brain, if it invaded the Frontal Lobe it could have caused a personality change, but those cases are extremely rare," Foreman pondered aloud.

Regina's eyes widened, and Emma laughed which caused her to frown at the woman, her worry making her not even realise that her wife seemed to be sitting up with no issues.

"Calm down, Gina, he didn't mean that kind of parasite."

"At least one person in this room gets me," House sighed dramatically, which just earned him confused looks from everyone but the supposed patient.

"What on earth are you talking about?" Regina asked with an exasperated sigh.

Chase scowled and grabbed the test results from his boss, as soon as he read what it said, his mouth dropped open, after a moment of complete and oppressive silence, he said, "you're pregnant?"

Regina blinked a few times, before she realised that it made complete sense. The blonde had been repulsed by the grilled cheese, she wanted an MRI instead of a CT, she was sure that it wouldn't take long for the saviour to begin throwing up each morning.

"You knew?" she asked accusatorily when she noticed that the blonde didn't seem the least bit fazed.

Emma shrugged and replied, "it was hard to miss."

"And you didn't tell me because?"

"You seemed preoccupied," Emma smirked.

Regina tried to take a calming breath, but found that it didn't work as she shot back, "I swear to God, Swan…"

Chase continued to look dumbfounded for a second, before a satisfied grin crept upon his face, "isn't it obvious why she didn't tell you?"

Regina managed to refrain from forming a fireball, and turned to face the bruised man next to her and looked at him expectantly.

"Because she cheated on you," he said gleefully.

There was a loaded silence following his words, before a loud crack sounded out as Regina retracted her fist from the man's nose.

Chase took a deep breath and brought his hand forward and sighed in relief when he didn't see any blood. However, he didn't seem to have learned his lesson, "you obviously didn't think that you were trying for a baby, so clearly there was no IVF planned. She doesn't love you, clearly you were just a rebound to get over the person she really-"

Before he could finish his sentence, he suddenly began to make sputtering sounds and clawed at his throat.

Everyone in the room looked completely and utterly confused, except Regina, who turned to the woman sitting on the bed.

Emma casually stood from the bed, and picked up the dagger from the chair next to her.

"Emma," Regina said, after she silently berated herself for allowing the kiss to rob her of all of her sense, she added, "stop."

The blonde tilted her head, and walked over to Chase who was still desperately trying to take a breath that he physically couldn't.

"But he was irritating me."

Regina desperately tried to think of what to do, though allowing Chase to die was rather appealing, she knew that it would set her back on her road to redemption, so she grabbed Emma's shoulder and tried again, "you can't kill him for being a moron."

The Dark One sighed for a moment as Regina's touch sent a shot of clarity through her mind, which allowed her to release Chase. The blonde man fell sputtering to the ground, and looked up fearfully at his ex-wife, "what the hell?!"

"I told you I'm not Cameron anymore," she laughed, before a cloud of white smoke engulfed her body, leaving nothing behind once it vanished.

Everyone in the room turned to the mayor with faces completely drained of colour, and she dropped her head into her hands and muttered, "dammit Swan."

Chapter Text

Chapter ten

Silence fell over the room, and each doctor, except Whale, stared at Regina expectantly.

Despite this, however, she found that she couldn't care less about what they were thinking about, the only thing on her mind was the fact that Emma was apparently pregnant. She couldn't say that it wasn't something that she wanted, but this certainly wasn't the best time for it to happen. All she could think about was whether her wife's new found darkness could be infecting the growing bundle of cells. She didn't think that she could handle having an evil child, especially if she was half as irritating as Emma seemed intent upon being.

"What was that?" House finally asked, a calm look came over his face after a moment, and he added, "so Cameron learnt some deadly parlour tricks?"

Regina rolled her eyes and didn't even bother answering, it was obvious that the man didn't believe what he was saying and she honestly didn't have the energy to explain.

"Whale!" came another Australian voice, this time female.

The doctor turned around and faced the woman who called him.

"What's up Belle?"

"Rumpel's awake," she replied while taking a deep breath.

Regina pinched the bridge of her nose and hoped for a moment that the outsiders would think that they had misheard the name, but then a thought occurred to her and she began making her way to the former Dark One's room.

House, Foreman, Thirteen and Chase each narrowed their eyes at the woman, before they seemed to make their decision at the same time to follow the brunette.

After a short walk, they came to a room where a middle aged man sat drinking a cup of water.

It was clear that what the woman had said was true, the man had clearly just woken up from a long sleep. A moment later, the Australian woman that they had heard in the hallway ran up behind them, along with Doctor Whale, who just looked completely and utterly fed up with the entire situation.

Gold looked over the rim of his cup at each new person in the room and then with an audible gulp, he placed it on the side and looked over at the former Evil Queen.

"Has a lot happened during my absence?" he smirked.

Regina rolled her eyes as soon as she heard the familiar infuriating voice and replied, "I have a question for you."

"And you brought back up?"

Regina looked over and seemed to realise for the first time that she had been followed and instantly scowled, "may I please have some privacy?"

"Nope," House replied simply, which only made her scowl deepen.

Regina clenched her fist to prevent the formation of a fireball, and said as calmly as possible, "I don't really have the energy, or desire, to explain to you what just happened."

"What did happen?" Gold asked curiously.

"Emma tried to kill the blonde one," Whale replied and instantly clamped his mouth shut when the brunette shot him an evil look.

"I had no idea our dear sheriff had it in her," Gold laughed, "but then again I suppose she isn't truly the saviour anymore."

"Saviour?" House asked with a furrowed brow, this whole situation was beginning to spiral way past what he had tried to rationalised it to be, and now it seemed that there was more to learn.

Regina rubbed her temples and turned to Whale, "could you take them somewhere else and explain?"

Whale's eyebrows shot up and he suddenly got the urge to say 'no', but instead he just nodded, since he had the feeling that someone was close to being incinerated if the mayor didn't have the chance to talk with her former tutor.

"All of it?" he asked in a squeak.

"Yes," she sighed, "just take them anywhere but here."

Both House and Chase looked as if they were about to protest the arrangement, but they still dutifully followed when Whale led the other two out of the room.

"Seems as though you've had quite the eventual few weeks, your majesty," Rumple commented once the door had snapped shut.

Regina sighed and finally allowed herself to fall into the seat next to the bed, across from which Belle stood. She knew that if Rumple didn't have the answers that she was looking for, the bookworm would at least know where to begin her research.

"I certainly have, but irritating doctors are not what I need to talk to you about," she replied after a moment.

Rumple raised his eyebrows with a small smirk on his face and said, "there's more?"

"I'm assuming that you have already been informed about Emma."

The man nodded and replied, "rather ironic, but I suppose it makes quite the story for young Henry to write about."

"Shut up," Regina said instantly, it was becoming clear that the now powerless man was trying to stall for as long as possible. She was sure that many of his cowardly tendencies would have returned, but centuries of power had clearly made him much more prideful then he once was. To the untrained eye, he looked very much the same as he always had in Storybrooke, but to the woman that had known him for decades, she could see cracks in the façade that he was desperately trying to keep the topic of conversation off him. "I have an important question."

"And why would I be obliged to give you an answer?" he sneered after a flash of fear crossed his eyes at the queen's tone.

Regina tilted her head and smirked, "because it would appear as though you no longer hold any bargaining chips."

Rumple took a deep breath, and nodding replied, "what is your question?"

"What exactly could the darkness infect?"

The man considered this for a moment, before he replied, "I suppose you could say that it infects every cell of a mortal being. Are you having dreams of getting your wife back?" he laughed, "there is one very specific way to be rid of the darkness, and I don't think you would appreciate it."

Regina tried to ignore the second part of his statement, deciding that attacking the defenceless man was not something a 'hero' would do, even if he was being infinitely annoying. Instead she asked the pressing question on her mind, "every cell?"

Rumple tilted his head at the woman's worried expression and he replied, "I suppose so, why?"

Regina took a calming breath, and said, "so if the mortal housing the darkness were to be pregnant?"

The former Dark One blinked a few times at the new piece of information, before his expression became one of deep thought.

"I don't know," he finally admitted, and at the same time, the pair turned to the other woman in the room, who also seemed to be considering the revelation.

Once she realised that the two were staring at her, she shook her head and said, "I don't believe that it has ever happened before, but then again, most Dark One's have been male."

Regina sighed and asked almost desperately, "do you not even have a guess as to what could happen to her?"

"Her?" Rumple asked with a smirk.

"It's basic biology you insufferable imp," she snapped, before she turned back to his wife with a much softer expression as the man cowered slightly in his bed.

Belle looked at Rumple for a moment, before she turned her attention back to the mayor and replied, "I believe that in a normal case, the darkness could attach itself to the growing child, and therefore become a part of its DNA."

Regina nodded in understanding, before she asked with a furrowed brow, "this is not a normal case?"

"Well...this is just a theory, but Emma has more light magic than...anyone in recorded history..."

"Meaning?" Regina prompted.

"As a product of True Love, your child should have the strength to fight the darkness, and since Emma is also the product of the same kind of love, it's kind of like she has double protection," Belle explained.

Regina nodded and let out a sigh of relief, even though it was only one issue amid a sea of problems, she couldn't help but feel as though it was at least a start.

"Where is Emma?" Belle asked after a moment of silence.

The mayor pinched the bridge of her nose and replied, "she managed to get the dagger and disappear."

"You were outwitted by a Charming?" Rumple laughed.

Regina rolled her eyes, and replied, "apparently she isn't as much an idiot as I have always assumed."

Chapter Text

Chapter eleven

"You are an idiot," House chuckled as Whale finally finished.

Whale took a deep calming breath and said, "I told you everything, it's up to you if you want to believe it or not."

"Let me get this straight," Foreman began, "you expect us to believe that we are currently in a formerly cursed town where everyone is some kind of fairytale character? Who are you supposed to be?"

"Frankenstein," he replied.

House laughed and pointed his cane at the man, "now we know you're lying, Frankenstein was a real doctor," Whale rolled his eyes and House continued, "plus that isn't a fairytale."

"Regina brought people from other places, but most of the people in this town are from the Enchanted Forest."

"And who is Cameron supposed to be?" Chase asked incredulously.

"She's kind part of a continuation of a fairytale more than an actual fairytale."

"Meaning?" Foreman prompted.

"She's the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming and she was sent to this world to avoid the curse and become the saviour at the age of twenty-eight," Whale replied in one breath.

"She doesn't seem to be a very saviour like figure at the moment," Thirteen said skeptically.

"She's the Dark One now, she sacrificed herself because the darkness would have killed Regina since her heart is already so deeply blackened. You know it isn't my job to try and make you believe," Whale said with an exasperated sigh.

Chase looked to be in deep thought, and replied, "one more question."

"Fine," Whale grumbled.

"How is Cameron pregnant?"

"Through True Love, two women can conceive a child, with the only catch being that it can only be a girl," the Storybrooke doctor replied.

"True Love?" Chase stuttered.

"Looks like you have no chance of getting Cameron back," House whispered mockingly, and Chase clenched his jaw.

"You cannot seriously believe any of this crap," Chase shouted.

House laughed and shook his head, "of course I don't, there's always a logical explanation and I think it's safe to say that this fairytale theory isn't it."

Whale rolled his eyes and turned on his heels, "whatever," he mumbled, "I'm done with you people, take it up with Regina."

As soon as the door clicked shut, House turned to his team, "lets go and do exactly that."

"She escaped?!" Snow shouted.

"Calm down," Regina snapped.

"You expect me to calm down when my homicidal daughter is just roaming Storybrooke, you said you would find a way to help her by now."

"I have been doing everything in my power to help my wife, Snow," Regina ground out, "now will you stop pacing and sit down!"

Snow turned and stared at the woman sitting on one of her kitchen stools, and instantly sank onto the couch next to her stunned husband.

"What are you going to do?" Snow asked in a much more measured voice.

"It would be helpful if I knew exactly what she was planning," Regina said almost to herself.

"You don't have any ideas?" Charming asked desperately.

Regina tilted her head and thought back to why they had sedated the blonde, "only the obvious."

"If she wanted to kill me, why hasn't she even tried yet?" Snow asked in a trembling voice.

"Remember, Snow, she has all the time in the world to carry out her plans, maybe she just wants to enjoy it," Regina sighed.

"Because that got you so far," Snow grumbled and Regina just rolled her eyes. "So what exactly are we supposed to do?"

"We need to get the dagger back," Charming offered.

"Because that was such a simple process last time," Regina replied with sarcasm dripping through her voice.

"You're being awfully unhelpful," David growled.

"Oh, excuse me Charming, not everyone can have your intellect, I don't think it's possible to surpass your moronic suggestions," Regina drawled.

Charming was about to retort, but Snow grabbed his arm and said, "come on Regina, you must have some ideas."

Regina took a short calming breath and nodded, "give me some time."

Belle stood at the counter of the pawn shop pouring over the contents of a book that she had read at least four times in one week.

"Don't you work in the library?"

The librarian jumped and turned to see a smirking blonde leaning against one of the grandfather clocks across the room.

Belle swallowed hard and snapped the book shut, "E-Emma?"

"You know, I didn't think you had this in you," Emma laughed,"it is quite a brilliant plan, you get your man and there will be nothing from interfering with your relationship."

"What are you talking about?" the Australian asked as casually as possible, but her cracks didn't exactly inspire confidence.

With a flick of her wrist, the book underneath Belle's hand appeared in Emma's hand and she opened it to the page at which the spine was most bent.

"Is it really so important to you that Rumple has power?" Emma sighed, "rather superficial of you, wouldn't you agree?"

Words failed Belle and she simply shook her head in disagreement.

"Do you really think that I'm going to allow you to harm me just because you can't love your husband as a coward?"

"I love Rumple enough to make sure that he survives, without his power his heart isn't strong enough. Plus without the dagger controlling him he has the chance to do good," she finally admitted.

"Doesn't the fact that it will cost me my life negate the intention to do good," Emma laughed, "has a life of reading finally sent you mad, Belle?"

"You are a beast!"

Holding her hand over heart, Emma replied in faux hurt, "the beauty can't see the good behind the monster? Should I be worried for myself?"

"You have done nothing but try and kill your parents," Belle argued.

"Rumple killed his father."

"He abandoned..."

Emma laughed as the librarian trailed off, and replied, "so you agree that the man who spent over three centuries terrorizing the Enchanted Forest is more of a beast than I am, and yet you wish to use me as a sacrifice?"

Belle bit her lip and considered this for a moment, before she reached under the counter, "you would do the same for Regina."

With that she lifted the gun and without a second thought shot at the Dark One's leg. Emma keeled over more out of shock than pain, and with speed that surprised even herself, Belle jumped over the counter and grabbed the dagger sheathed in Emma's belt.

Chapter Text

Chapter twelve

Chase paced the B&B room that the mayor had sent them to the other day.

His colleagues were no doubt on their hunt for Regina to interrogate her for more answers, but he found that he would much rather have some time alone just to process everything.

After the feeling of being choked by his ex-wife, he had no doubt that magic genuinely existed, even though he was just trying to convince himself that there must be another, much more reasonable explanation for everything.

In addition to that, he also was beginning to believe that he didn't truly know Cameron as well as he thought he did. He didn't know that she had grown up as an orphan, that she had gone to prison and most of all, he didn't know that she was a mother.

"You know, pacing only makes a person more anxious," someone commented from behind him.

Chase resisted the urge to allow his mouth to drop open, and instead managed to stutter out, "Cameron?"

When the blonde woman made no attempt to correct his choice of name, he felt himself relax marginally. If only she wasn't dressed fully in black leather, he could almost pretend that they were still married, back in Jersey. But then the small smirk playing upon her lips and the relaxed demeanour told a different person, the blonde stood before him was every bit the Emma Swan that he had learned so much about over the past couple of days.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

Emma raised her eyebrow with a small laugh and began to walk towards him, "are you trying to tell me that this isn't what you wanted?"

Chase swallowed hard and tried his best to back away from the married woman, but as soon as his legs hit the edge of the bed, he knew that he had already lost the battle against morality.

For that reason, as soon as she leaned forward and captured his lips in her own, he felt himself become completely powerless to stop her and lifted his hand up to tangle into her hair.

After a few seconds, he finally felt his mental facilities return to him, and lightly pushed her away, letting out a small, very much non-masculine, yelp when she bit her lip on her way away from his face.

"Anyone would think that you haven't been thinking about this since you saw me," Emma chuckled, "don't you think I look better like this?" she taunted.

Chase allowed his eyes to roam over her body for a moment and quickly cleared his throat and shook his head, "I prefer Cameron."

"So you admit that I'm not her," Emma laughed triumphantly.

"What do you want?" the blonde man tried again.

"I came to tell you that I don't love Regina and I want to come back to Princeton with you and live happily ever after."

Chase's eyes widened, and he asked, "Seriously?"

Emma's laugh only increased and she took a step back from him, "no of course not, dumb ass."

The doctor took a steadying breath and replied, "Are you just here to terrorise me?"

"Well technically no, but it is fun."

"According to Whale, Regina is the Evil Queen," Chase began, and when he saw no shock upon the woman's face, he continued, "how can you leave me for saving a nation from tyranny and yet love a woman who is considered evil?"

"Are you really using that as an argument Chase?" Emma asked with a raised eyebrow, "Do you even believe that she is the Evil Queen?"

"Well…no, but you clearly do."

"That is why I left you," she replied, and when she was met with a furrowed brow she explained, "you also need to be right, your just a pretentious jack ass who became too much like his boss."

"But you loved House," Chase retorted almost desperately.

"House or Regina? Not really a difficult choice."

Just before Chase could question why he wasn't part of the options Emma got a faraway look on her face and turned to face him.

"What's wrong?" he asked cautiously, looking around him for a way out, but he soon realised that was well and truly trapped.

"Apparently I'm taking too long to do as I'm told," she sighed and walked towards him.

"Do as you're told?" he repeated.

"For some strange reason, you're my first real love, why do you think you were brought here?"

"What?" the blonde man asked, trying not to smile at the thought that she had at least loved him once.

"There's really no reason to explain it to you," she chuckled and sank her hand into his chest, "you'll be dead as soon as Belle decides she's ready to start the ritual."

"What do you want?" Regina scowled as she fell into the booth next to Thirteen.

House raised his eyebrow at the irritable woman and replied, "I think you may want to consider a new medical team, your current head of medicine is insane."

"So I suppose that means you didn't believe what he told you, if you can't accept the truth when it is set out in front of you, I'm afraid I cannot help you Dr House."

"So you believe it too?"

Regina rolled her eyes and replied, "I more than believe it; I've lived it. Now as much as I would like you to leave my town, you cannot do so until the barrier has been weakened. You and your team could make that process as painless as possible by simply waiting like adults and leaving as if nothing ever happened when the time comes."

"And how long exactly will that take?" Foreman asked.

"In this town you just have to be patient," Regina replied, feeling anxious to go back to her vault and continue her research, even if she knew it was in vain, she still felt better there than wasting her time with the four inconveniences.

At the thought, she looked around the booth and commented, "Where's the fourth one?"

"He said that he needed some 'alone time'," House replied mockingly.

Regina was about to nod, when a stumbling sound came from the stairs that led to the B&B.

The whole diner fell silent, and all eyes turned towards the source of the noise, not long after, a very familiar blonde man came into view clutching his chest.

Regina stood regally allowing Thirteen to rush over to the very distraught man, the woman promptly placed her hand on his shoulder no doubt asking him if he was alright.

A moment later, Regina walked over to him, she was relatively certain that she known what had happened and she was trying to resist the urge to smirk at his pain.

"What happened?" House asked, and Regina was genuinely surprised when she saw a small amount of concern etched onto his face.

"Emma ripped out my heart."

Chapter Text

Chapter thirteen

Emma stood silently and watched as Belle poured through the tome on the counter.

Eventually, half an hour of silence past, with the only sound being the beating of a heart in the box next to the librarian.

"Is there anything else you need?" Emma finally asked, she absolutely hated having nothing to do, at least at the hospital she had the chance to bug Regina for a couple hours a day, but this was just mind numbing.

Belle looked up distastefully at the Dark One.

It wasn't that she didn't like Emma, far from it, before all of this she had considered her a friend, but that didn't change the fact that in this moment the former saviour represented exactly what had destroyed her relationship.

It was for that reason that when she had found a way for a mortal to have the power of the Dark One without associated darkness being able to control them, she knew what she had to do.

"I'm translating the final passage," she replied through gritted teeth, she had to admit that the blonde's presence was not helping.

"How did you find out that I was a doctor?"

"Does it really surprise you that I've read medical journals? I remembered seeing Allison Cameron in one of them, at the time I thought nothing of it, but when I realised that I needed to find your first love, I went back to it. It didn't take long to find the marriage certificate."

"You're more resourceful than I thought," Emma laughed, "I'm guessing you used something from Rumple's collection to close the barrier to the outside world."

"Why do you care?" Belle sighed, finally looking up from the book.

"Because if I have to die, I would think that an explanation is common curtesy," Emma replied, despite her words she still had a small smirk on her face and Belle realised that she was getting some weird pleasure from this.

"I just used one of his charms, then I found your first husband and booked them for a medical lecture with directions leading through Storybrooke and then I just had to wait for Rumple to wake up."

"Because if he had died anyway, then you would have felt guilty?" the blonde asked mockingly.

Belle rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the book, instantly furrowing her brow while running her hand across the unfamiliar symbols she sighed.

Suddenly her head snapped up to the blonde who was looking disinterestedly around the room, and she remembered that she had read that the Dark One gained all of the knowledge of their predecessors and she hoped against hope that the theory was correct.

"I command you to translate this for me."

Emma rolled her eyes exasperatedly and didn't even bother resisting as she came over to look at the page.

"The ritual requires the heart of the Dark One, the heart of their first love and…" Emma trailed off and Belle looked at her expectantly.

"Tell me," she urged after a minute of silence.

Emma sighed knowing that there was no way that she could not tell her newest master, and replied, "The heart of the Dark One's True Love."

"She took your heart?" Thirteen repeated after Ruby had led the group into the back room for some privacy.

Chase nodded and brought the woman's hand to his chest, instantly her eyebrows shot up as she felt nothing there. Regina decided not to note the fact that it meant she must have already believed on some level and said, "if she has your heart, then why aren't you already dead?"

Chase paled, and Regina rolled her eyes, opting to explain before anyone of them could answer the question, "the heart can be used to control a person, or it can be crushed to kill them."

"Why hasn't she done either of those things yet?" he asked.

"Did she seem like she was being controlled?"

Chase thought back and nodded, "yes, she said someone wanted her to do something."

"Who?" Regina urged, she was genuinely surprised that the blonde could have lost the dagger so quickly, but then it wasn't like there wasn't many people in the town who would pass up the opportunity.

Chase furrowed his brow in concentration and thought back to what had just happened, honestly everything was a little fuzzy, "I can't remember."

House shook his head in disappointment and urged, "just go through exactly what happened."

Regina stared at the man for a moment, she could see that he was beginning to believe but was clearly resisting, he probably wanted the whole story so that he could try and find a rational explanation.

Chase nodded and took a deep breath, "well I was pacing and then she just appeared. She walked towards me and then kissed me."

Regina clenched her fists and just about stopped herself from trying to hurt him, though he was rather lucky that he already had his heart removed from his chest.

"Then she called me a dumbass and insulted me," a calm smile spread across Regina's face as she imagined Emma doing exactly what she had wished to do since she had met the man, she could almost forgive her for kissing him, almost.

"And then?" House urged, he clearly had no interest in the state of Emma and Chase's relationship, he was very impatient to get the piece of information that would help him to disprove everything.

"Then she got this far away look in her eye and said something like that she was taking too long. I asked her what she was talking about and then she just thrust her hand forward into my chest. She said that she couldn't be bothered to explain because Belle would be starting the ritual or something like that."

Silence fell over the room as everyone considered the words.

The doctors were trying to comprehend exactly who Belle was, though it didn't take them long to figure out what fairy-tale she was from.

Regina on the other hand spent a few moments and finally felt her shock fall away as she spun on her heels, ready to leave the room.

"And where are you going?" House asked.

Regina didn't even break her forward motion as she replied over her shoulder, "I'm going to kill a bookworm."

Chapter Text

Chapter fourteen

The door to the pawn shop slammed open and Regina stormed in, followed closely by the doctors who seemed intent upon not leaving her alone.

Without a second thought she lighted a fireball in her hand and ignored the shocked gasp from Foreman and Thirteen, as well as the grimaces from Chase and House. She honestly didn't know just how much magic it would take to make these people believe and she honestly didn't care.

Belle looked up from the counter, and her mouth fell open in shock for a moment, before she grabbed the dagger and said, "I command you to protect me."

At the same moment Regina threw the fireball, which dispersed as it hit some kind of magical barrier.

Regina instantly turned to see Emma retracting her hand, and she realised that the librarian had just controlled her wife, which only served to make her that much angrier.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Belle took a shaky breath. Under normal circumstances she would be very afraid of a pissed off Regina Mills, but right now, she had the power of the Dark One behind her and therefore had no reason to fear the Evil Queen, or at least that was what she was trying to tell herself.

"I'm doing what's best for Rumple," she replied adamantly.

"Which is what exactly?"

"Sacrificing the new Dark One along with two others, gives a person the power of the darkness without the need to be controlled," Belle explained as evenly as possible.

"In other words, Gold officially sent her off the deep end," Emma offered.

"Shut up," Belle scowled and Emma instantly clamped her mouth shut.

"Have you had the water tested for toxins?" House asked.

Regina rolled her eyes and turned to face the doctor, "what?"

"This delusion clearly extends across this whole town, so therefore whatever toxin is causing it must be in the local supply."

"How would one toxin cause the whole town to have the same delusion?" Chase snapped, much to Regina's surprise.

"You believe this crap?" House laughed.

Chase swallowed hard and brought his hand up to his chest, and was met with no beat. He could almost feel the presence of his heart across the room, "having your heart ripped out of your chest is not something that can be easily faked."

"But that doesn't mean that it can't be faked," House retorted.

"Shut up!" Regina shouted.

Both doctors turned to looked at the angry mayor, and she continued, "I told you before that I don't care whether or not you believe, any attempts to try and 'cure' my town will be a waste of everyone's time. House, if you are so adamant that this is all because of some toxin, I invite you to hold onto that belief for the rest of your life, but in this moment, I just don't care what you think."

House blinked a few times and nodded, feeling distinctly like he had been told off by a teacher, which was weird because he had never listened to a teacher in his entire life.

With a huff, Regina strode over to Belle and said, "give me the dagger, Miss French, or you will sincerely regret it."

Belle looked up at the woman who had been her capture for decades and suddenly decided that she'd had enough of being the weak little bookworm. She held control over one of the most powerful beings across almost every realm, and she would be dammed if she didn't use it against Regina, who had made her miserable for so long.

A moment later, Regina found herself pinned against the wall and tried desperately to catch her breath.

"You know Regina, it never seemed fair to me that you got redemption and yet Rumple didn't."

"He didn't get redemption because even when he was trying to be good, he proceeded to be a power hungry bastard. It was for that precise reason that you sent him over the town line. You cannot possibly have changed your mind in such a short space of time," Regina replied as she fought against her magical binds. This reminded her far too much of her mother's personal brand of punishment, and somehow the fact that it was now her wife casting the spell, made the entire situation feel one hundred times worse.

"You've had more chances than anyone can count," Belle sneered, "why should Rumple have a finite number?"

"It took centuries to blacken his heart, Belle," Regina retorted, "he had every chance in the world to change, but he will always be the man who chose to send his son alone through a portal because he couldn't bear the thought of living in a realm without magic."

"And yet he actively brought himself to the same realm."

"To which he promptly brought magic. Face it, Belle, you married a beast who will never transform into a virtuous prince," Regina sneered.

Belle took a deep breath, desperately trying to ignore everything Regina had just said, and replied, "by that logic, your princess has been transformed into the same beast."

Regina's eyes fell upon Emma's neutral expression, it didn't seem as though Belle's words bothered her in the slightest, though she did notice a slight tremble in her jaw, almost as if she was actively resisting whatever restraints were being placed upon her.

Chase looked over at the box on the counter and felt completely helpless. He didn't know about his colleagues, but he no longer had any doubt about the legitimacy of Whale's claims, he was sure that he would actually feel sorry for the way that he had treated the man if he was able to feel anything other than numb. Looking at Emma, he finally decided that there was no way that she was the same Cameron, but he was also sure that this indifferent woman couldn't be the one who Regina had fell in love with. Though he now saw that he had no chance with the blonde who he had believed to be the love of his life, he certainly didn't like the idea of her being used in some kind of sacrifice for this crazy ass version of Belle.

"Are you sure that she is your True Love?" Belle asked.

Emma swallowed hard, still with the one muscle twitch revealing her resistance and replied, "yes."

Regina just about stopped herself from letting out a ragged breath, the look that her wife was giving her in this moment meant more than she could ever describe. It was reassuring, and even though the gold irises had returned, she still could have sworn that she was looking at the saviour instead of the Dark One.

"Then you know exactly what I want you to do."

Emma nodded, and after a pained hesitation, she began to walk towards the trapped brunette.

Bringing a hand up, she rested it on Regina's shoulder and looked deeply into her eyes, clearly trying to convey every emotion that she wasn't being allowed to share in this moment.

With a quick squeeze of her shoulder, Emma brought up her other hand and sank it into the former Evil Queen's chest, lightly wrapping her fingers around her heart.

Regina knew that the blonde was somehow managing to be gentle despite what she was being forced to do, and as foolish as the notion was, she couldn't help the flare of hope she felt as the former saviour was able to pull out her heart without the slightest bit of pain.

Once the deed was done, Regina fell to the ground as her restraints were loosened.

She vaguely recognised Belle announcing that they had everything they needed before she commanded Emma to poof them both to Rumple's hospital room.

Chapter Text

Chapter fifteen

Regina fell back against the wall and placed her hand on her chest where she felt no beat.

Taking a shaky breath, she looked over at the four doctors who were looking at her expectantly, "what?" she snapped.

"Are you not going to do anything?" Chase asked, he never thought that he and Regina would ever have a common goal, but now it appeared as though they each wanted to save a certain blonde, and he imagined that she was just as attached to her heart as he was to his.

"What do you expect me to do?"

"I…don't know, but you're supposed to be some kind of hero, right? Aren't you going to save your own wife?" he asked incredulously.

She knew that this was not something she should be focusing on in that moment, but she felt pure hatred consume her. Though things hadn't exactly been perfect before the arrival of House's team, at least they had been under control. On top of her worries of the woman she loved turning to the darkness, she also had to worry about these idiots finding out the truth, only for them to figure it out anyway.

She took a deep breath and was about to approach him for a cathartic slap, before a realisation hit her: Emma was pregnant, and Belle was planning to kill her. If she didn't do something, then her unborn child would die along with her wife. She didn't so much care about the fact that the ritual would also involve her heart, she just knew that it was a miracle for her to ever be blessed with a biological child and there was absolutely no chance that she was going to allow that child to never grow into an actual person.

With these thoughts in mind, she strode past Chase and over to the counter that Belle had been standing at just a moment ago.

"What are you looking for?" House asked, sounding more unsure of himself than he had ever in his life, though he was desperately trying to come up with a rational explanation for everything in this town, what he had just witnessed had poked holes in all of his theories.

"I'm looking for something to save my wife," she replied without looking up, "and Chase, I suppose."

"What are you planning?" the blonde doctor asked.

"Believe me, I have neither the time nor the energy to explain it to you," she replied as she lifted up a phial of clear liquid.

Emma stood and watched as Belle intently read the book that she had probably spent more time reading than anyone in history. She had been commanded to take her to the hospital room next to Gold's and she expected that it was no coincidence that it was empty considering all of the other thought the librarian had put into the details of her plan.

She was frantically whispering to herself, checking that she had everything required for what she wanted to happen.

"If this is possible, why hasn't it been done before?" Emma thought aloud.

Belle sighed and looked up from the tome, clearly having lost her place and said, "what?"

"I mean, all you need is three hearts and the dagger, it should have already been done by now, right?"

The brunette rolled her eyes and replied, "it involves the first love and true love of the Dark One, clearly those are not ingredients that are easy to come by."

"And how did you know that Neal wasn't my first love?"

"Because you were a teenager when you met him, statistically, it was unlikely that you knew what love was, much less being able to feel it."

"Statistically?" Emma scoffed, "you're willing to bet the saving of your husband on statistics?"

Belle tilted her head and smirked, "but I was right."

"I think the word you're looking for is lucky."

Belle rolled her eyes and looked back down to the text, "that should be everything, except…"

Bringing the dagger up, she silently commanded the Dark One to give her the final ingredient.

Emma took a deep breath and brought her own hand up to her chest, with a small grunt, her pale hand sank past her skin and a moment later, she was holding her glowing heart.

For a moment, Belle took notice of just how much brighter the former saviour's heart was then Rumpel's. It occurred to her, that the blonde had been denied the chance to darken her heart in any way. Her family had prevented her from taking a life, the worst she had done was say some hurtful words. Taking a breath, she just about managed to strengthen her resolve and commanded the blonde to place the heart in the third box in front of her.

The next moment, a black smoke engulfed them both, taking them to the room next door.

Rumpel opened his eyes after a rather pleasant sleep, and instantly his body jerked into a sitting position at the sight before him.

There stood his wife holding the very familiar dagger, with a table bearing three beating hearts and his successor standing behind her wearing a surprisingly pained expression.

"Belle?" he asked cautiously.

Said woman took a second to look at the heart monitor revealing that his heart beat was already weaker than most doctor's considered to be healthy.

"I found a way for everything to go back to normal," she answered his unasked question and handed him the book that she had been reading a moment ago.

He quickly scanned its contents and shook his head, "you can't do this," he croaked.

Belle furrowed her brow in utter confusion and said, "but you'll get your power back without the restrictions, you'll get what you was aiming for before I sent you away."

"While I had the power, I was unable to see that my will was not completely my own. I never truly wanted to be free of the dagger, it would have completely taken over my mortal body without any way to rein it in. It would have destroyed me if I had been successful," he said softly.

Belle looked down to the dagger that she was holding and shook her head, she felt a unexplained force grip to her, a whispering that had been getting louder and louder as of late.

"You don't know what you want," she replied and spun on her feet to grab the first heart, only for a purple glow to engulf her arm.

"I wouldn't do that, dear," Regina growled.

Chapter Text

Chapter sixteen

"Will you ever give up?" Belle growled as she desperately tried to move her arm.

Regina heard the distinct sound of the doctors coming up behind her and she didn't even bother to roll her eyes. They were relentless and annoying, but at least they were brave enough to see things through until the end.

"I could say the same thing to you Miss French, most people would have given up on that little imp decades ago, and yet here you are planning to sacrifice four lives."

Belle furrowed her brow and replied, "three."

"It would seem that your insanity has rendered you incapable of simple arithmetic," Regina sneered.

"Emma, Chase and you," the librarian replied rather condescendingly.

"And Tamsin."

Emma tilted her head and asked, "you already named her?"

"No, you did, you told me that if Henry was a girl, you would have named him Thomasina," the brunette replied as if it were obvious.

"I said that when we were dating, how could you possibly remember that?"

Belle rolled her eyes and snapped, "I command you to be silent, Dark One."

The blonde clamped her mouth shut and Regina clenched her fists, "if you value your life, you should probably stop controlling my wife!"

Belle smirked and said, "release me from this spell."

The next moment, the purple glow had evaporated from her arm and she reached forward to pick up the heart, instantly squeezing it.

Chase let out a little squeal as he gripped his chest, Regina would have found it almost entertaining if he hadn't become marginally less annoying since his heart had been removed.

"Stop," Thirteen pleaded as she gripped the blonde's shoulder in support, Foreman stood beside him giving the same expression, while House was trying to hide a look of concern.

"Belle, please," Rumple said in a weak voice, "I don't want you to do this."

The brunette refused to look at him and replied, "you'll die if I don't."

"I have lived longer than any man has the right to. I am not a person who deserves to live any longer than I already have, just let me go."

Belle closed her eyes against his words and Regina watched curiously as the hand holding the dagger twitched slightly, almost as if she was resisting something.

Emma seemed to notice the same thing as she exchanged a curious look with her wife, but another groan of pain from the blonde doctor brought her out of preparing theories

"Please," Chase pleaded.

Releasing her grip slightly, she knew that this was not something she truly wanted to do, in fact, she couldn't even remember the moment that she had decided to carry out this plan. All she could remember was a kind of dark void and then the urges to save her husband from a death that he probably more than deserved.

Emma instantly recognised the look on the librarian's face, it clearly represented the feeling she'd experienced on numerous occasions during her time with the darkness.

It was the look of someone trying to resist a power much stronger than themselves. She was pretty sure that she wore that expression when the darkness told her to kill her mother, deep down she knew that there was no way she would want to kill the woman, but she had been convinced that Snow White deserved it. She had even felt guilty after one of her attempts, but the darkness had stopped her from even attempting to reconcile with the woman who had given her life.

In this moment, she wished that she could relay this information to Regina, but try as she might, the direct command was just too strong to go against.

Belle took a deep, rather ragged, breath, and her fingers once again came around the glowing organ, this time she was hardly able to apply enough pressure to cause Chase any pain at all.

"What is wrong with you?" Regina asked cautiously as she inched closer to the clearly conflicted woman.

"I…" she began, almost as if she were about to give a full confession, but she instantly trailed off as something prevented her saying what she wanted to.

"Do it!" a voice roared, though only Belle and Emma seemed to have heard it.

The Dark One looked over to the source to see a very scaly version of the man lying in the hospital bed, dressed in the familiar garb of her predecessor.

She was very used to seeing him around, but what she was not accustomed to was someone else reacting to his demanding voice.

Belle looked straight at the manifestation of the voice she had been hearing for a couple of weeks now, she was never quite sure who it was, but now it all made complete sense. She had long ago let go of her feelings for Rumpelstiltskin, it was this thing that had convinced her that he needed to be preserved. What she didn't understand was how he had infected her mind.

"How?" she stuttered out.

The doctors and Regina each stared at the empty wall that Belle seemed to be addressing and the mayor turned to the sheriff with a questioning look.

Emma pointed to the patient in the bed and then made exaggerated gesture with her arms, amazingly, Regina instantly knew what she meant, but the doctors were completely stumped.

"We're playing charades now?" House asked.

Regina pinched the bridge of her nose and chose to ignore him, turning back to hear what Belle was saying to the invisible spectre.

"Get out of my head," she said in a pathetic voice.

"I need you to set me free of the saviours body, her child is far too light for me to effectively inhabit her, if you do this then you will have the husband you love back. He will have the power he always strived for, there is nothing that he could possibly want, therefore nothing to get in the way of your marriage," the Enchanted Forest version of Rumple said.

"I…don't…" Belle tried.

"You don't love me anymore," the supposed coward announced with complete sincerity, there was no bitterness behind the dying man's words, only acceptance.

Belle turned to look at him with a confused look, she was sure that there was no way she would ever be able to tell him that little fact, much less for him to have already figured it out himself.

"I have known since I came back to town and saw you with that thief, I have no right to any longer expect you to owe me anything."

Belle looked between the two Rumples, they were so completely different, but she definitely knew which one she liked more in this moment, the issue was that the other one had the ability to control her actions.

Relaxing her hand for a moment, she just about managed to release Emma from her last command, and the blonde instantly let out a breath of relief.

Regina looked between Belle and Emma and realised what had just happened, "Emma, what the hell is going on?"

"I honestly have no idea," the blonde replied as she stared at the scaly man.

Regina rolled her eyes with an exasperated sigh and ground out, "take a guess then."

"Rumpelstiltskin…I mean the essence of the Dark One….I think he may be controlling Belle."

"You see another Rumple?" Regina as slowly as possible to make sure that she had heard her wife right.

"I've been seeing him for ages," Emma replied with a dismissive wave of her hand.

"And you didn't mention this because…"

"You didn't ask," the blonde replied.

"You are an insufferable child!" Regina nearly shouted when someone cleared their throat to bring her back to what was important.

Regina looked over to Foreman who pointed back at Belle who was visibly trembling.

"How can it be controlling her?"

With some trouble, Gold managed to raise from the bed and go over to his wife, placing a hand on her shoulder, she seemed to relax for a moment but her eyes were still unfocused as she tried to fight against what she was about to be forced to do.

"It is unlikely that the darkness was able to co-exist with your child. A second generation product of true love is a rare occurrence indeed. It is conceivable that a portion of the darkness was forced to leave your body and attach itself to another."

"And why would it choose Belle?" Regina asked with a furrowed brow, it sounded possible to her, but at the same time she didn't like the idea that she had been completely unaware of the presence of another dark presence in her town.

"Because she has the knowledge it needed, and it clearly believed that she wasn't strong enough to resist, though I would say that she has been underestimated," he said almost proudly as he carefully removed the heart from her hand and placed it back into the box.

Once he had already done this, Belle seemed to realise what was happening around her and gripped the dagger more tightly in her hand, "I-I have to complete the ritual."

"No you don't," he whispered softly.

"That child will only continue to weaken the darkness, she cannot remain the Dark One," Belle growled, though it sounded very much like she was reciting someone else's words. With that she walked over to Emma, "if she will not allow me to perform the ritual, I must protect the power."

Regina's eyes widened and she was about to walk forward to stop the librarian from doing something she would regret, but she was stopped when Rumple took the potion she had been clutching since leaving his store.

She gave him a quizzical look and he smiled at her weakly, "your child needs you Regina, it will be better this way, you know what you have to do."

Without leaving room for further talk, he downed the clear liquid in one gulp and instantly winced.

With one final surge of energy, he surged forward and took the dagger out of Belle's hand just as it sank into the Dark One's chest.

There was an almost spectacular display of dark energy as it escaped the saviour's body.

Regina watched with widened eyes as the tip of the blade sank through the skin and into her wife's heart, just as she had planned to do herself. It was what came next that she hadn't planned.

The darkness attached itself back to its former vessel, but instead of taking control of him as it had for centuries, he collapsed to the floor while the potion began to take its desired effect. Regina had grabbed the potent liquid in the hopes that she would have drank it herself, and it was now systematically destroying the brave man's heart as it would have done to her own.

She managed to tear her eyes away from him and rushed forward to the saviour's side.

Blood was spewing from her mouth and she was already coming close to taking her final breath.

Her original plan had involved healing the wound before it could have taken the blonde's life, but try as she might, nothing was happening. The damage done by the dark metal was apparently irreparable with light magic.

A future where she would have to live without her wife and in the knowledge that she had lost her child forever quickly flashed through her mind and a feeling of hopelessness flooded her system.

"Her…heart…" someone said behind her.

Regina shot a glare over her shoulder, to see a very confused Belle was trying to get something out. Her expression softened, however, when she saw the librarian no longer looked torn, clearly the power of the dagger had drawn all of the darkness back into Gold's body, where it would now remain for the rest of time.

"What?" she asked.

"She doesn't have her heart," Belle reminded her.

Regina's eyes widened and she leapt up to the boxes on the table, it quickly became apparent which one belonged to the saviour. Without hesitation, she picked it up and dropped back to her knees next to her wife.

Emma's eyes were closing, and her breaths were becoming shallower, after a second, Regina thrust her hand into the other woman's chest, then she quickly healed the wound which promptly closed at her magical touch.

She was sure that the four doctors were watching in amazement, but all she would do was wait with bated breath.

Her entire world could literally be ruined in the next few moments.

Three seconds later, Emma took a heaving breath and sat up looking around the hospital room.

She remembered everything that had happened, but it almost felt as if someone else had experienced it all.

The blonde looked at everyone in the room, but ultimately her attention fell upon Regina, "I…" she began.

Regina took a moment to inspect her wife's demeanour, expression and most importantly her beautiful green eyes, and instead of allowing her the chance to say 'I'm sorry', she launched forward to capture her lips in her own.

"Never try and sacrifice yourself for me again," she whispered.

"I can't make that promise," Emma shot back.

"Idiot," Regina mumbled against her neck with a laugh.

"You know we're still here?" House announced.

Regina rolled her eyes and said, "I am well aware."

Chapter Text

Chapter seventeen

"Are you okay, kid?" Emma asked as she fell into the booth next to her son.

Henry looked up from his hot chocolate, and as most people had been doing, he inspected the saviour cautiously. It didn't take long for him to decide that she was completely back to normal, however, as he laid his head on her shoulder.

"I'm fine," he mumbled.

Emma brought her hand up and began to lightly stroke his back as she replied, "you're allowed to be sad about your grandpa."

"But…" he trailed off, he honestly had no idea how he could voice his thought without sounding like a completely terrible person, and it was only making him feel worse.

"He sacrificed himself so that me and your little sister can survive. What he did in the past was the Dark One, but the way that he died proved that he was capable of bravery. He died a hero, Henry, and that is exactly what I want you to tell Tamsin."

Henry smiled weakly at the thought.

"How's Belle?" Henry asked.

"She's in shock," Emma sighed, "she has Ruby to cheer her up though."

They sat in silence for a moment, before he sniffled and brought his head off her shoulder, "where's mom?"

"Probably watching Whale work," the blonde laughed, "he ran a few tests to make sure that everything was okay since I'm actually willing to take the tests now."

"And you didn't stay?" Henry asked with a furrowed brow.

"Trust me, I know everything is okay."

"So what's her middle name going to be?" he asked out of the blue.

"Why does that matter now?" Emma frowned.

"Mom likes to be prepared, she's probably already planning which room to turn into the nursery, you have a lot to think about, ma," he warned in a joking manner.

The blonde's eyes widened in fear as it hit her just how much they needed to do, but she was interrupted by the sound of a cane hitting the floor.

Smirking slightly, she looked up to see her former employer coming towards the booth, she was moderately surprised that the others hadn't come over with him, but they were all at the counter, she imagined that they were still trying to process what had happened during their little detour.

"What am I going to tell Cuddy?" he asked in his usual mocking tone, though it seemed to be missing some of its edge.

"Tell her the truth, she'll just call you an idiot and tell you to get back to work," she laughed.

"And what about Wilson? He loves me too much to not realise that I'm telling the truth."

Emma rolled her eyes, and said, "then come up with a lie, you're capable."

House bit his lip, clearly reluctant to air his thoughts.

"You want to not remember?" she realised after a moment of silence.

"I don't know about the others, but I would much rather live in a world where fairy-tales are not true, things make a lot more sense when there are no happy endings."

"So you want to live a lie just so things will make sense?" Henry asked.

"It will be like I finally gave into religion," House quipped.

The boy gave a shocked expression to his mother, but Emma just shook her head telling him not to further question Gregory House.

"I'll ask Regina," she replied, "if she agrees, then she can place new memories for the last couple of days. I'm guessing Foreman would want the same."

House nodded, it had been the other doctor who had first suggested he idea, but they had both secretly been afraid to air it just encase the magic users would think that they were being idiotic.

"Chase will probably want to remember, and I honestly have no idea about the other one," he replied.

The bell rang out, and a moment later, Regina walked regally over to the booth where her wife and son sat.

She shot House a questioning look, but he just waggled his eyebrows with a smirk and limped back over to the counter.

"What did he want?" she asked as she fell into a seat.

"We can talk about it later," the blonde assured, "what did Whale say?"

"He said that everything appears to be perfect," Regina smiled.

"Did he also complain about having the mayor hover over him as he worked?"

"What's your point?" Regina asked.

Emma just rolled her eyes and brought her hand across the table to intertwine with the other woman's.

"Are you seriously a doctor?" Henry asked, completely breaking the romantic moment.

Emma looked over at the people she used to work with nodded, "I was a doctor."

"How can you just choose not to be a doctor anymore?" he asked with a furrowed brow.

The blonde smiled at Henry's curiosity, and replied, "I'll tell you everything, family dinner tonight?"

Regina couldn't resist the smile that spread across her face as she realised what the blonde was doing, she was agreeing to tell her the truth, not that she was particularly angry at the woman who was carrying her child anymore.

The mayor's phone buzzed and she instantly looked down at it, "Blue believes that the town line is safe to pass over now" she announced.

Emma nodded slowly and looked over at the counter, despite having his heart back, Chase still sat somewhat away from his colleagues, with his head leant on one hand as he nursed a glass of clear liquid that was almost certainly not water.

"Go and talk to him," Regina sighed.

Emma blinked a few times and replied, "really?"

"I would certainly not pass up the opportunity have another conversation with Daniel, but if you kiss him again, we're getting a divorce."

A look of genuine fear passed over Emma's face and Henry laughed at her reaction.

"You know about that?" she choked out.

"Don't worry sheriff, you get one pass for being controlled by ultimate darkness," she smirked.

Emma's expression relaxed and she stood from the booth, quickly kissing her wife as if to prove a point. Henry pretended to grimace at the sight and Regina and rolled her eyes at the boy.

The blonde woman walked away from her family with a smirk on her face, finally, she slid into the seat next to Chase at the counter.

"Feels good to have your heart back doesn't it?" she asked.

Chase looked up with blurry eyes, he certainly liked this Emma better than the one he had been subjected to during their visit, but she still wasn't Cameron.

"It was weird without it," he chuckled half-heartedly.

The pair sat in silence for over thirty seconds, until finally, he male blonde managed to build the courage he needed to ask, "were you ever planning to tell me?"

"You sound like Regina," she grumbled, he frowned and she held up her hands, "sorry, not helping."

"If we had stayed together, would you have continued to let me believe that your name was Allison?"

Emma thought about this for a second, and replied, "my name was Allison. Back then I thought that I needed to create a new person in order to be happy, I wanted to create someone who had a perfect Childhood, someone that I believed had the right to actually be a doctor."

Chase nodded, and said, "but we was married."

"I would have told you eventually," she sighed, "I thought I would need to tell you on our wedding day, but you never questioned where my parents were."

Chase blinked a few times, and he rolled his eyes at his own idiocy, "I guess I was preoccupied with someone in a dress."

"Seriously Chase?" she laughed.

He sighed deeply and replied, "sorry, I guess I still need to get used to the idea that your married."

"That's really the biggest thing you need to get used to?"

The blonde waved his hand dismissively and said, "the other stuff will probably take a long time to sink in, like years."

"You could just forget like House and Foreman," Emma pointed out.

"I thought about that, but I think it would be better for me to remember that you're completely unavailable, and then I can start to get over you," he replied in a rather pathetic tone.

The saviour nodded and they sat in silence for a moment, before she asked, "why doesn't Thirteen want to forget?"

"She said that the idea of fairy-tales being true was comforting or something."

"Or she doesn't want you to be the only one that remembers," she replied, rapidly coming up with a theory.

"Meaning?"

"She wants you two to have something to talk about, think about it, she has been the most concerned about you, like when Belle was about to crush your heart."

Chase thought about it for a second, and quickly glanced at the doctor who was talking to Foreman, he had certainly thought about asking out the insanely beautiful woman in the past, but he hadn't yet been ready to give up on the idea of his ex-wife eventually returning.

"It's a good thing that House is going to forget about me and Regina though," Emma thought aloud.

Chase looked away from Thirteen and asked, "why?"

"Because if the two of you broke up and her next relationship was with a woman, he would never let go of the jokes about you turning women away from men."

The man finally genuinely laughed and replied, "please make sure he doesn't remember."

-One year later-

Emma looked down at her phone after it buzzed, and she saw a reply to the picture she had just sent, 'the treatment worked- Chase.'

"You know a lesser woman would be concerned about you texting your ex-husband," Regina commented as she walked in holding a little bundle of joy.

The sheriff looked up, her eyes instantly trained upon her three month old daughter, "it's a good thing that you're not a lesser woman then."

Regina laughed and handed Tamsin to her other mother, who brought her closer to her chest.

"I don't think I'll ever get used to the thought of you being a doctor," she sighed.

Emma smirked and looked up from admiring her daughter's face, "I'm just a consultant, plus it means I never get bored at the station."

"You're always on your phone," she pouted. "We're supposed to be going to Ruby and Belle's bridal shower."

"And you're being childish," Emma returned and walked over and gave her a peck on the lips, "besides you know I always put it down whenever I see you."

Regina sighed as her wife's kiss let the tension fall away after a hard day at work, she still maintained that it was unfair that her leave had to follow the rules of paternity leave.

"And House still hasn't questioned why you suddenly decided to become a consultant?"

"No, he just thinks that I need the extra cash."

"You know we really don't need the extra money, you don't have to be a mother and a consultant, plus it won't be long until you go back to being sheriff," Regina argued.

"I like being both," Emma shot back, "I get more to focus on than chasing Pongo, and I don't have to spend every at hour of the day at a hospital. Trust me, this is the perfect balance of Allison Cameron and Emma Swan."

"Well as long as Dark Swan stays out of our lives, I'm happy, there are already too many former villains in this family," Regina sighed contently.