"Come on, Gina!"

Small fingers intertwine with her own, tugging her towards the lake as his other hand dangles the bag of stale bread she'd given him earlier, clearly trying to entice her towards the chorus of quacks erupting from the water's edge. She scans the park behind them as she stands fixed in place, the shot of ice crawling up her spine making her clutch her slightly rounded stomach instinctively as she pulls the boy closer to her side.

"Is something the matter?"

Eyes that match the chocolate still smudged on his cheek look up at her, and she kneels down to his level, watching as the wind toys with his curls. So much is the matter right now, she muses, the fact that hers is not the only child being born to Robin, the fact that the other was conceived through illicit deception, the fact that both of them fear their child will be favored over Zelena's when neither of them want to admit it, even to themselves.

Then there's the additional fact that at some point in her life, she gave birth to a child she can't even remember, something that gnaws at her far more deeply than does Zelena's pregnancy, that eats at her with more vigor than Emma's darkness.

"We'll figure it out," Robin has assured her repeatedly with more confidence than either of them truly possess. "We won't stop until we do, Regina."

But the trail has run cold, her memory loss so complete that not even the pangs of a second pregnancy have stirred lost images from her past.

"No, sweetheart," she lies, stroking Roland's cheek as he studies her far too closely. "I'm just a little tired."

That seems to placate him, at least for the moment, and he grins up at her, swinging their joined hands as he resumes his job of leading her to the lake, jumping excitedly at the sound of incessant quacking. She pauses again, once, twice, confusing her waist-high companion but not enough to deter his enthusiasm, even as she begins to realize that something is off.

Correction. Something is very off.

Heat and cold scurry up and down her legs, something she doesn't write off as a symptom of pregnancy, even though her body continues to surprise her with the manner by which it is stretching out in more directions than one. Roland leaves her by the bench as he skips towards the overly-fed ducks, laughing as they begin to swarm his feet when they realize just what he's carrying in that sack of his.

"Be careful," she calls out, taking a step in his direction, only to hear him squeal in delight even as he jumps back a step or two. His beaming smile warms a place in her he's already claimed as his own, a part he's marked with smudged fingerprints and dimples, with drops of jelly dotting the table and kitchen floor, with a stuffed monkey he sleeps with every night and calls George after his favorite books and television show.

He already feels like hers, even though there's still so much to work out. She just wishes she didn't feel as if something were terribly wrong.

"Well, well, well. What have we here?"

It's the voice that slices her from behind, its steely edge an echo from another world that moves directly to her heart and squeezes mercilessly, effectively freezing it in place. It can't be, but it is. She knows it even as the dreaded word slides from her lips.

"Mother."

The two syllables slam into her ribs as nails into her coffin, and she spins in place to face the impossible.

"Hello, Regina."

For a moment she hopes she's hallucinating, that Granny's pancakes aren't settling quite right, but she knows better-she knows all too well. If anyone could manage to breach the underworld, to find a way back from the dead and torment her when she's already feeling stretched far too thin, it would be her mother. She blinks, but the vision standing just feet from her doesn't change.

Cora stands just there, donned in black and crimson, her hair immaculate, her skin a shade whiter than usual, her lips in a forced smile that sets Regina's teeth on edge.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

A smooth chuckle reaches out to her, touching her with cold talons, make her step back without realizing she's done so as ice streaks up her limbs.

"Oh, Regina. Is that any way to greet your mother?"

Bile pushes its way up her throat, burning, singeing, but she swallows down the impulse to be sick, not wanting to show the first sign of weakness here-not with her mother.

Or the ghost of her mother. Whatever the hell she is.

"It is when you're supposed to be dead."

Her smile is reminiscent of the one she gave Daniel just before she ripped out his heart, and Regina shivers as Cora moves in her direction, her feet gliding soundlessly over crisp grass. Fall blusters around them, its breath whirling leaves around her boots, although the air now bears the distinctive bite of winter-stale, cold and foreboding.

"Death is so misinterpreted by the living," Cora hums, reaching out to touch Regina's cheek, missing it by inches as the younger woman steps back yet again. "The underworld is simply another portal, my dearest, one with stronger barriers, one from which it is difficult to escape, but still simply another realm of existence with rules of its own."

"Rules you've managed to sidestep?"

Cora stands without blinking.

"Only those that don't suit me." There's a glint in her eyes, one similar to what Regina saw when her mother's spirit tried to destroy Snow.

"And just how did you manage a Get out of Hell Free card?" Regina asks, wrapping her arms around herself as the wind picks up.

Cora's smile is broad, full of teeth and venom.

"Not by sharing my secrets. Knowing when you hold your tongue is an art you never quite mastered. Of course, neither is choosing the right man."

Her legs feel leaden-weighted, as if they've grown roots to the spot in which she stands.

"Who I love is none of your business, mother," Regina hisses, her words taking on vaporous form as they brush against the cold. "I'm not seventeen any more."

Lines harden around lips and eyes, creasing into skin a shade too pale for the living.

"No," Cora utters. "You're not. But you keep making the same mistakes, Regina. I honestly thought you would learn by now."

Hands gesture towards her expanding middle, and Regina wraps her arms around her stomach instinctively, protectively, taking a step back even as she straightens her spine.

"This baby isn't a mistake. None of my children are mistakes."

Heat fills her, the words she just uttered standing around her like fiery sentinels. It's then that Roland calls out her name, and she whips around to see him, the child's arms flailing madly in her direction, and she wants to magically summon the boy into her chest and to dissipate into thin air, back to her home, away from danger, away from her mother.

But there's the baby. She's discovered that her unborn child and magic don't always get along.

"How did you find him, Regina?"

"Who? Robin?"

His name leaves her lips before she thinks it through, its texture scaling across undead eyes before a smirk curls knowingly across Cora's mouth.

"No, although I suppose the two of them do come as a set."

Ice splinters in her abdomen, freezing her veins as she casts another look towards the preschooler tossing breadcrumbs into the air.

"Yes," Cora utters, sliding in her daughter's direction. "I'm far more interested in the boy."

Sick dread seizes her everywhere at once.

"I won't let you hurt him, Mother."

Cora stops then, her form suspended in time as she stares through her daughter at little the boy playing by the pond.

"I have no intention of hurting him. I simply want to know if he has magic."

"Roland? You think Roland has magic? Why?"

"Oh come now, Regina," Cora interrupts, her patience obviously as thin as Regina's coat suddenly feels. "After all of the trouble I took to conceal and protect him, to make certain he was cared for while I saved you from certain ruin, you shouldn't be surprised to know that I'm curious if the boy has potential or if he's as common as his father."

She can't feel her legs and wonders just how they are managing to hold her up, thankful for the fact that they are as her head begins to spin unsteadily.

"I don't understand…"

Spots scatter across her vision, and she turns in spite of them, gazing at Roland with eyes trying to focus through fog. The child she bore-the one she can't remember-the one ripped from her body and memory-could it be? No-this is impossible, would be too ironic, but he looks like her, Snow has commented on it more than once as has Robin. And he's Robin's-the child of her soul mate, her lover, the man she ran from in a panic and left sitting in a tavern.

Or did she?

"Careful, dear."

Cold fingers grip her arms, holding her upright as her mind snaps back into reason. She stares into her mother, eye to eye, knowledge meeting suspicion in a collision that changes life as she knows it.

"He's my son, isn't he? Oh, God, Roland is my son."

Her lips tremble as the whispered fact leaves them, and dark eyes rimmed with red narrow into slits, taking in Regina's genuine shock with a shake of her head.

"I've always given you too much credit," Cora states, releasing her daughter when she regains her balance. "Of course, my skill at casting a memory spell has always exceeded yours, but I thought you were quicker than this, Regina."

She shoves herself away from her mother, staring, gaping, trying to breathe, trying to understand as waves of nausea smack her from behind. Her lips move independent of speech, her mind trying to reassemble splintered shards into something resembling logic.

"But, Marian-"

"Conveniently lost the child she carried," Cora supplies with a shrug of indifference. "It made replacing her baby with yours all the easier."

Regina bends at the waist, dry heaving until bile pushes its way up her throat and out her mouth. She wretches once, twice, three times on to grass and fallen leaves before standing and wiping her lips, dabbing tears from her cheeks as raw anger takes over.

"Don't look at me like that," Cora purrs. "At least I allowed him to be raised by his father, and Evangeline took extraordinary care of him in Neverland until it was time for him to return to the Enchanted Forest. Gray fairies actually do have their uses, you know."

"Robin and I had a child-a child you took from me-kept from me and gave to some fucking charcoal fairy, and you don't think you did anything wrong?" The world spins around around her, but she refuses to faint, not here, not with Roland within Cora's reach. "Of course, this shouldn't surprise me, coming from a woman who abandoned her firstborn and left her alone to die."

"Stop being overdramatic, dear. It's not good for the baby." She's seething now, her mother's sense of calm only infuriating her further. "And Zelena didn't die, dear. No harm, no foul."

"No harm?"

She can't see straight, and she knows she has to calm herself for the sake of her child. But this collision course she and Zelena have been on since before Regina even knew of her sister's existence, and Roland-her son not only by choice but now also by birth, her son by Robin-it all hits her at once. Red tints her vision, a fury like none she's ever known crackling just under her skin, the need to unleash her pain on its source held in check only by her swollen belly and the life nestled just within.

"You've caused more harm that any Dark One ever conceived of doing. At least Rumple cared about his son."

"Yet he abandoned him when it served his purposes. Children can't become your entire life, dear. It's unhealthy."

Regina laughs then, a brittle, bitter sound she wishes left no aftertaste in her mouth.

"You, who controlled most of my life, who tore love out of my arms more than once, you now have the audacity to stand here and try to offer parenting advice? How dare you, mother? How dare you?"

"You should be thanking me, Regina. My actions probably saved your life, and your thief's, as well."

"Thanking you?"

She's shaking, uncertain if it is her legs or the earth that trembles. The roar in her ears is nearly deafening, but she takes a step towards her mother, feeling a modicum of satisfaction that this time it is Cora who steps back.

"Tell me, what would have happened had Leopold managed to find the two of you and your love child? He mounted quite the search for you, his young, lost queen, left no stone unturned, offered rewards large enough to tempt an army. You know damn well he would have had both you and Robin executed if he'd found the two of you together, and then who knows what would have happened to the baby." Long fingers reach towards her face, bejeweled and white-knuckled, ever-regal, even in the grip of death. "Oh, Regina. I couldn't let that happen, not that I cared about that bearded reprobate of yours. But you and my grandson-I had to protect the two of you."

"Don't ever call him that." She slaps away the cold hand cupping her cheek and leans in, her teeth bared, her face wet. "You will not touch my children-not any of them, mother. They are off-limits, all three of them."

Cora shakes her head, looking from Regina's middle to the boy now running in their direction. His feet don't slow until he's right beside her, and Regina takes his hand instinctively, fighting back the urge to clasp him to her as tightly as she can and never let him go. Cora watches her, watches them, her gaze shifting from shrewd to dismissive as the boy moves closer into Regina's side.

"I should have known you'd disappoint me, dear. And to think, you could have been the mother of kings."

No magic then. Her mother senses no magic in Roland. Thank God, she mouths to herself, releasing a breath she's held until her lungs can't stand it anymore. Her arm wraps around the boy who clasps her legs like a lifeline, and she thinks he must sense something off in the woman staring back at him, something that makes him bury his face in her coat and hug her all the tighter.

"Perhaps Zelena's child, then."

Then she's gone as quickly as she'd appeared.

The sense of cold that accompanied Cora's presence warms into a seasonal autumn chill, but the residue of what she left in her wake coats her inside and out. She kneels before her legs give way, crunchy leaves scattering at her descent, and she nearly melts at the sensation of small hands cupping her cheeks as she looks into eyes both new and familiar.

"Why are you crying, Gina?"

His words only make her cry harder, and she takes his small hand to her lips, placing a soft kiss to his palm, wondering if she'd done the same when he'd taken his first breaths. How long had she held him before he'd been stripped from her life? Had she counted the fingers that now wipe her wet cheek? Had she marvelled at dark lashes that now blink back at her in concerned confusion?

Had his father cradled him against his chest before the life they'd chosen became one her mother chose to rewrite without their permission?

Just as she'd done to Snow all those years ago. A fresh slice of pain nearly severs her into.

"Gina?"

She hugs Roland then, and he hugs her back, the feeling of his little hand patting her back suddenly the most wondrous thing in the world.

"I'm alright, Roland," she lies, leaning back far enough to see him, to tug a stray curl from his eyes, to stare at him yet again and wonder how she could have been with this child all this time and yet not have known that he's hers. "I just...I just love you."

Dimples split open his smile, and then he's kissing her cheek, imprinting her soul in ways he cannot begin to fathom.

"Then we're even," he grins, looking around them as a breeze tugs at his hair. Small eyes then grow serious, wary, even, and he gazes around the park as if looking for something, clutching Regina's hand again as she pushes herself up from the ground.

"That lady. She's watching us."

Her vision scans their surroundings, but she sees nothing, finds no sign of her mother.

"No, sweetheart. She's gone."

He shakes his head insistently, his eyes narrowing slightly before he looks back up at her.

"No," he breathes, his confusion squeezing her already sensitive heart. Understanding dawns before he continues, and she breaks into a cold sweat as renewed fear claws its way up her legs at the untapped magic showing it's face for the first time. "She's still here. I can feel her. And she knows it."