Enchanted Adventure

XXI. An Apple as Red as Blood

Third Person POV:

Regina, Henry and Aubree were eating dinner in silence at home. The doorbell rang.

Regina frowned. "I don't recall us expecting company."

She got up to answer the door. It was Emma. "Sheriff Swan. What are you doing here?"

"Henry and Aubree invited me," Emma replied.

"Do you honestly believe, I'd allow you into my house for dinner, after all the threats you made to my family?"

"I didn't come for dinner."

"Then, what did you come for?"

"You."

Regina, confused, looked behind her into the kitchen and saw that Henry and Aubree were gone. She turned back to Emma, where several Storybrooke citizens had gathered behind her.

"We all did," Emma added.

Regina turned around and retreated into the house, when she saw Henry and Aubree holding nooses at the top of the stairs.

"Henry. Aubree," Regina called.

The mob brought Regina to the main street, where an apple tree had sprung up in the middle of the road. They tied her to the tree as she protested. The rest of the town watched.

"No... No... Let me go. I command it!" Regina cried.

Ruby narrowed her eyes. "After everything you've done to all of us?"

"My apologies, Your Majesty, but my conscience is clear!" Archie said.

"You're not Queen anymore, sister!" Leroy added.

"Tighter!" Granny ordered. "She needs to feel our pain!"

"You took our love and ripped it apart!" Mary Margaret yelled.

"And now, you're going to pay!" David finished.

Emma approached Regina and picked one of the blackened apples off the tree. She held it in front of Regina and crushed it in her hand. "Rotten to the core."

"I just wanted to win... For once," Regina admitted.

Emma grabbed Regina by the throat. "You took away our happiness, and now it's our turn to take away yours."

"...What? Henry. Aubree. Henry, Aubree, please don't let them do this to me."

"You did this to yourself," the twins said.

Emma wielded the sword, aimed for Regina and swung. Before the sword hit her, Regina awaked from the dream and jolted upright in her bed. She quickly got up and headed to Henry's room to check on him. Inside, she saw him underneath the blanket. She checked Aubree's room to check on her. She saw her underneath the blanket.

Instead of the kids under the blankets, it was a pile of pillows.

Aubree's POV:

We drove along the road that led out of Storybrooke.

"Is that all your stuff?" I asked.

"All I need," Emma replied.

Henry frowned. "Wait. You want to go now? We're leaving now?"

"Uh-uh. I'm getting you two out of here. Away from all this. Away from her."

I shook my head. "No, no. Stop the car! You can't leave Storybrooke. You have to break the curse."

"No, I don't. I have to help you two."

"But you're a hero -- you can't run," Henry told her. "You have to help everybody."