V IS FOR VENDETTA

The World As We Know It

For the first time in a long while Lena finds herself feeling... lonely. Hook had been MIA since they returned and everyone else had either been busy sacrificing Cora's life to save Golds or stopping Henry from trying to blow up magic. She did visit the Mills' Mausoleum to say her farewells to Cora, and she was surprised to find the Queen teary eyed over her mothers tomb.

"Regina?" She asked tentatively and the ravenette sniffled, startled by her presence momentarily.

"What do you want?"

"To see her for myself... I didn't really believe it until now." Lena had dared to stand at the other womans side, gaze softening just slightly when Regina turned to her with a tremble in her lip.

"Do you know what she said to me? She said... that after everything, I would have been enough... what if we've wasted our lives, Lena? Looking for revenge, causing misery. Maybe Henry's right... Villains don't get happy endings."

"Regina, it isn't over." Lena told her quietly, firmly. "You have a son who loves you, who's willing to forgive your past."

"But i'm going to lose him!" She cried, and Lena could her the tremor of genuine terror in her voice. When Regina threw herself into her arms she had no choice but to hold her tightly, her face pressed into her neck as the world around them collapsed just as it had so many times before and slowly unstitching the wound she'd tried so hard to patch up alone.

"You're not going to lose him, Regina. I won't let you go through what I did. I won't."

She wanted to give into it so badly, but instead she gently pulls away with a sorrowful look. "I'm sorry, Regina. I really am."

They hadn't spoken since, and Lena wonders if they ever will again until Emma shows up on the  doorstep of her new house one morning with Gold's son Baelfire, who she had briefly met when he was a young boy aboard the Jolly Roger.

"Regina's gone missing. We need your help."

"Did you consider the fact she may just be in mourning?" Lena says pointedly, but Emma shakes her head.

"I haven't got time to fill you in, but I think Neals girlfriend Tamara is in cahoots with Greg, the guy who crashed into you. I think Regina's been kidnapped."

Lena blinks, taken aback by the rushed explanation. She casts a location spell upon the ring she had fashioned from a loose stone of Regina's crown many a year ago and it glows a faint green. "This will lead us to her. Let's go."

The glow becomes more and more prominent with each step they take until eventually they end up at the docks, right outside the cannery.

"She's here." Lena confirms, leading the way into the eerily quiet storage unit.

"You sure you wanna be here?" Emma asks Neal. "If something does go down with Tamara, I need to know you've got my back."

Neal huffs exasperatedly. "Emma, if Tamara is hiding Regina here in her evil lair by the docks, then yeah, I got your back."

"You two take the basement." Lena instructs "I'm gonna head up to the main floor. She's gotta be here somewhere."

She ascends the dubious staircase and listens intently for any movement over the gushing pipes and the fizzling in the near distance, and when she hears a sharp clap of electric she charges into a locked room just as Greg makes his escape through the window, leaving Regina laid spasming across a table hooked up to a voltage meter.

"Regina!" She rips the wired electrodes off her skin and grasps her face in both hands. "Regina, wake up. Come on. Regina!"

The other woman's body is completely limp now, eyes rolled into the back of her head and Lena notices the cuff on her wrist. She snaps it off, hoping her magic will be able to protect her. As much as she tries to ignore them, tears sting insistently at her eyes. "Gina, come on. You're gonna get through this."