juliet •peter pan•

FIFTY-TWO

By the time she got there, Henry was setting up to destroy magic. "Henry, there are other ways to stop Regina, ones that don't involve blowing up a well." Henry shook his head. "She's planning to cast a curse on me, and kill Mary Margaret."

Juliet heard footsteps behind her. She turned her head to see Regina. "Speaking of which..." Regina walked towards them with her hands up. "Henry, what are you doing?" Henry picked up the stick of dynamite. "I'm getting rid of magic. It's ruining everything, and you can't stop me."

Regina sighed. "All that's gonna do is get you killed." Henry put the dynamite back on the well. "You just say that because you need magic. So you can cast that curse on me." Juliet folded her arms.

Henry lit a match, but Regina waved her hand. The dynamite disappeared. "I can't lose you, Henry. You mean too much to me." Henry dropped the match. "Then don't cast the curse. Don't kill her." Regina looked on the verge of tears. "Henry, she has to pay." Juliet shook her head. "No she doesn't." Regina looked up and glared at the teenager.

Henry pleaded with Regina. "The curse. It won't make me love you for real. It'll be fake." Regina took a step back. She wasn't expecting Henry to know about this curse. "But it will be something. I know it's hard for you to understand right now but you'll see. We can be happy. We can have everything."

Henry shook his head. "Not like this." Juliet heard Emma behind her. "Hey Regina! Get away from my son!" Regina smirked. "He's not yours. He's mine. And after I cast this, you'll never see him again." Juliet rolled her eyes. She was so done with the whole whose son is Henry thing.

Charming showed up. "That's never gonna happen." Emma agreed with Charming. "You wanna kill Mary Margaret, you're going to have to go through us." Regina smiled. "Okay." She held out her hand, a glowing fireball ready to fire. Charming held up his gun. Henry ran in between the two groups. "Stop." Neal gestured for Henry to get out of the way. 

"Henry, get out of the way." Henry did not. He stood his ground. "Not until someone helps me destroy magic." Regina looked down at Henry. "There's no way to get rid of it. You can't just blow it up." Emma looked from Henry to Regina. "Magic isn't the problem, kid. It's her." She held out her hand, but Henry didn't take it. 

"It's not just her. It's everyone. Look what magic did to Mary Margaret." He turned to face Regina. "Look at what it did to you." He then faced Juliet. "Magic made your mom give you up." All eyes turned to Juliet for a second, which made Juliet lower her gaze to the ground. "It's ruining everything. It makes good people do terrible things." Emma kept her hand held out. "And bad people."

Henry walked over to Regina. "Please. It's gonna destroy my family. Help me get rid of it." Regina shook her head. "I can't do that, Henry." She sighed, keeping the flame intact. "But there is something I can do." She pulled the scroll out of her pocket and dropped it into the fire. The fire went out. Henry looked up at his adoptive mom. "Thank you." 

Charming put the gun down and Henry ran over to join them. They all walked away, leaving Regina standing at the well.

Later that day, Juliet was drawing in her notebook when Regina knocked on her door. "Can I come in?" Juliet nodded. "Yeah, sure." Regina sat on Juliet's bed. "Did your mother really give you up for magic?" Juliet set the notebook down, taking a deep breath in. She turned around in her chair, tears in her eyes. 

"Uh, yes she did. She needed her magic to get revenge on something, I don't really remember what it was." That was a lie, Juliet didn't want to say the truth in front of Regina. "So, on the day of my sixteenth birthday, she pushed me through a portal." Regina looked at Juliet, feeling sorry for the experiences Juliet went through. Juliet noticed Regina's expression. "It's fine. It happened a while ago, and I'm almost over it." 

Regina nodded. "Well, this room is yours, if you still want it after everything that happened today." Regina went to leave the room. Juliet walked over and gave Regina a hug. "Thank you."