Author's Note: Hi, Y'all! Rogue here! I am so sorry for the delay, so I hope a super long chapter makes up for it. This is indeed the final chapter for this installment. I do like this particular little AU, so I do plan on making a part 2. I'm not sure what it'll be called yet, but I will make sure in the description it says part of the S&Q Knight U Universe so everyone who wants to continue can find it. Prompts for the next installment are great, as are general suggestions!

This is my first attempt at a fanfic, and thank you SO MUCH for reading! Also, for the Francophone readers, MissSwanQueen has very generously offered to translate these chapters into French! If that is your preferred language, please find her under her author name for the French version.

Happy reading, SWEN!

Henry and Gavin went through the rest of their meal putting a pin in Henry's never-ending questions about sexuality, going back to their easy-going conversation about general teenager stuff, with Henry learning a lot more about Gavin's parents and growing up in Winterland. By dessert, Henry was much more relaxed, enjoying his time with his new friend. Gavin had a natural charm about him; Henry felt like he just wanted to hang out with someone who got him. He definitely felt like Gavin got him. He had told him everything about his past self-employment, including his twinge of darkness that had threatened to come out as a milk-chocolate mob boss.

"So, Prince Henry of Candyland," Gavin started with a smirk, "how do Granny's sundaes measure up to a dessert connoisseur?"

Henry took a bite of his sundae. "Good texture. Premium melted chocolate, not that stuff that comes out of a bottle. Name brand candies and whipped cream on top. I give it high marks." Henry said, dissecting every inch of the mammoth sundae in front of him.

"They're having dessert!" One of Lilo's plants whispered into her wristpiece.

At Lilo's headquarters next door, the teens went into a frenzy.

"All bets are now locked! Betting is over!" Mikey stood on a chair and shouted out, as everyone huddled around the radio to hear any update they could. They were listening for markers of a date, something as simple as either of the two boys using the term "date", or asking each other out again.

"They're finishing up dessert. Are you two done playing spy-tech yet?" Ruby whispered.

"Loud and clear, Wolf. We'll take it from here." Regina said from Marco's shop. Emma and Regina both moved to the front of the shop, hoping to take a peek at the boys on their way out, knowing if Henry so much as caught a glance at either of them, he would know exactly what was going on.

Emma and Regina both looked at each other and nodded. It occurred to Emma in that moment that their couple hobby probably should include something more along the lines of ballroom dancing or wine tasting classes instead of spying on a teenage boy, but they were in too deep at this point. Emma was also really, really enjoying the idea of making Regina go to a cage-fighting match with her.

"They're heading to the door, and I'm now done with the spy games. Goodnight, nosy moms." Ruby said into her piece, before removing her spy apparatus.

Lilo's plants had sent out a similar message, causing the teens to all run to the front windows of their second story office.

"Damnit! We can't see the front of the diner here! Tell the girls to keep watching!" August shouted, keeping an eye on the board to make sure nobody messed with the boxes.

The teens might not have been able to see, but Emma and Regina positioned themselves to see everything in front of the diner.

They watched Henry and Gavin continue talking, seeming to linger. Even though they couldn't hear what they were saying, the two looked happy. They both nodded at each other, and they watched as Henry went in for a quick hug, pulling back and turning to walk back home.

They saw Gavin grab Henry's wrist, quickly pulling him back around, and planting a kiss on the other prince right in front of the windows to the diner.

"There has been a kiss! This is not a drill! Repeat! This is not a drill!" Came over the radio at the teenager betting headquarters. August immediately updated his Twitter account, with the room immediately erupting into a mix of cheers and boos, depending on which side each teen had chosen to bet.

Lilo turned off the radio, fighting back tears. If Henry was dating this prince, she knew she would have to start really trying to get over him, not cover her feelings up by dragging Tommy Handsome all around town, pretending to enjoy herself. She was also confused herself. Henry had appeared to be in love with her when they were together, and she was having trouble wrapping her mind around Henry now being with another boy. She needed answers, and she wasn't sure she could handle them.

"YES!" Regina yelled out, as her son kissed the Winterland prince. The two women quickly dodged away from the windows in case she was too loud and had been heard.

"I told you it was a date. I know when Henry gets that look in his eye. Prepare, my love, because we will have front row dinner-theater tickets in our hands by this time next week!" Regina began her victory dance, knowing how much it drove Emma nuts. It was the same little booty shake she did whenever she was right about anything in Emma's presence.

Regina added a sing-song-y, "It was a da-aate! It was a da-aate!" to which Emma simply rolled her eyes. Maybe Mulan would go to cage fighting with her when they got back.

When the hell IS Mulan getting back? Emma thought to herself. She couldn't really give a rat's ass about Cupid's heart, but now she wanted her friend back.

Mulan and Belle looked at the heart that Aurora had given them to transport back. Something was certainly wrong.

"I don't think she really gave us his heart." Belle said, opening the box and looking inside again. She saw the heart that as far as she could see, held no heart-like properties. The two were at Belle's house, not having told anyone of their arrival in case Belle's suspicions were correct and they were not holding Cupid's heart in their hands.

Mulan took it out, carefully holding it up. It wasn't red or glowing. It didn't pulse, or show any signs of life. Mulan and Belle had both seen ripped-out hearts in their lives, and this looked like just a dead animal's heart, not something attached to a person who was still living. It was also slightly graying, and looked disgusting by both Scholar and Warrior standards.

Mulan put it back in the box.

"Maybe he won't notice?" She asked. Belle shook her head.

"He'll notice. But at least we can show him we tried, and maybe he won't try to kill or steal the love for anyone else as vengeance…maybe we should make sure he's tied up when we show him."

Henry had beaten his mothers home. He immediately ran upstairs, feeling strange and now even more confused. He really didn't get it. He had such a good time with the Winterland prince. He had been talking to him excitedly for quite some time. Both times they hung out he had a great day. He always wanted to spend more time with him. He always wanted to run home and talk to him more.

But when Gavin had grabbed him and kissed him, he felt nothing.

There were no sparks. No flush of desire like the first time Lilo had kissed him. He still wanted to hang out with Gavin, but he wasn't in a rush to kiss him again.

Maybe he's just not very good at it. He said he's not very experienced. Henry was lying on his bed, facing the ceiling, with thoughts of confusion swirling through his head.

Regina was still engaging in her "It was a da-aate" dance when Emma's cell buzzed with a message.

"It's Mulan and Belle. They're back. They're in the War Room." Emma said, watching Regina immediately sober.

"They do know how to ruin my moment, don't they?" Regina frowned, helping Emma put away their spy gear back into their cases.

"You mean Henry's moment that we inserted ourselves into?" Emma asked.

"Now, now. You don't get to be cranky with me because you lost the bet. Unless you'd like to be cranky in song. It could be Emma: The Musical, you know, to practice for our date." Regina couldn't stop smiling. It wasn't often that her partner gave her a good run for her money and she got to rub it in. Truth be told, if Emma asked her to go with her to cage fighting anyway, she'd go just to make Emma happy, but in the moment she was having too much fun rubbing it in.

Emma rolled her eyes again, giving Regina a peck on the cheek.

"Let's get moving, Queen Lloyd-Webber. Hopefully they came up with something from Wonderland so we can get Cupid out of here and be done with this drama."

Once they were all situated in the War Room, Mulan and Belle went ahead and opened up the box with the heart in it. Cupid looked inside, with Snow and Charming watching carefully. Belle had given everyone the heads-up that she thought the heart they had been given was a dead animal's organ, so they were all prepared for a Cupid tantrum, practicing their apologies over and over again in their heads.

When Cupid looked inside, he immediately started crying. He pulled the heart out in his hand, examining it.

"That's it. That's my heart." He turned it over, seeing the organ as the exact shape and size as to when he had seen it last, including his weak left ventricle. As soon as he picked it up, he could feel that it was indeed his.

"Umm…it is?" Mulan asked, surprised.

Cupid wiped away his tears of joy.

"Now. Can you fix it?" He asked. Everyone in the room looked at each other, including Tinkerbell. Apparently, Cupid was already aware that his heart didn't glow and pulse like everyone else's. He also seemed to know what was wrong with it.

"What—exactly, very specifically, needs to be fixed?" Regina asked. She had done her fair share of heart ripping, but had never encountered, well, a dud.

"Cora. She cursed it. It's basically dead. It's the-"

"Dead Man Walking Curse." Regina and Cupid finished together. Regina looked up at Cupid, seeing the man nod.

"Cupid, I am so, so sorry for what my mother did to your heart. She was a cruel, sick woman. I can't imagine…" Regina trailed off, now knowing exactly what was wrong with the heart. She couldn't fathom it. Now that she had Emma, she couldn't imagine finally having someone in her life, and what it would be like not only to have her heart ripped from her chest, but essentially having the life and love sucked out of it, such that crushing it doesn't kill the body, but neither can it be put back in to love again. Sure, the Evil Queen had killed, but a Dead Man Walking Curse was worse than death.

She had had her heart outside of her body before. She remembered she could still have feelings, but it was like feeling a knife wound as a simple cut. Everything was numbed down. With the curse on the heart, Cupid would never feel deeply again, including love.

"Can you fix it?" He asked again. The whole room turned their heads back and forth between Regina and Cupid, watching them communicate more with facial expressions than words.

"There's no way. That curse, as far as I know, was what my mother used to call one of her 'unbreakables'. It was a nickname that she came up with for curses with no known way to break. You can't use True Love's kiss, because the ability to feel True Love has already been sucked out of it. You're literally-"

"A dead man walking." Emma chimed in, understanding what was going on, and why the curse was named as such.

"That can't be right." Tinkerbell chimed in. "You can feel." Tink said looking at Cupid. They had grown close over the last few months, and Tinkerbell wasn't willing to believe that it was all one sided.

"I can. But I'm supposed to feel more. Much, much more." Cupid said apologetically.

"I'm so sorry." Regina said, truly feeling sorry for the man. Of course he would invade another kingdom with no problem. Any remorse a person with a regular heart would have felt, he would only feel a tenth of. And it bothered her to no end to know it was her mother's fault.

Cupid put the heart back in the box. "Thank you, for getting this for me." He said to Mulan and Belle genuinely.

"Regina, there has to be a way. I thought there was no such thing as a curse that couldn't be broken?" Belle asked, feeling sorry for the man. She couldn't imagine anyone having to walk around partially empty all the time, especially not the king who was responsible for couples falling in and out of love.

Regina shook her head. Everyone in the room hung their heads out of respect for the loss Cupid had suffered. Cupid kept his head down as well, taking in the reality of the situation. He excused himself, leaving with Tinkerbell to go back to the Charmings' house.

Henry heard the doorbell ring twice in succession, followed by Bandit's growls at the bell going off. The dragon was not a fan of the doorbell, just as he wasn't a fan of the phone ringing or the mail carrier coming to the door. Henry listened for another moment, and heard the bell rang without anyone answering the door. This clued him in to the fact that his mothers were not at home yet.

Henry sighed, jogging down the stairs to open the front door.

He immediately felt a kick in the stomach as he opened the door to a tear-stained Lilo, her arms wrapped around the center of her waist.

"Why didn't you tell me?" She asked. The look in Henry's eyes told her that he immediately knew what she was talking about. He looked at her and felt the guilt of their break-up all over again. He knew the lump in his throat was preventing him from answering, so he opened the door more for her to come inside.

The air in the War Room held the heavy qualities of the air at a funeral, or at a wreckage site. Snow, Charming, Emma, Regina, Belle, and Mulan all sat glued to their chairs, taking in the gravity of the situation. Cupid could never love, or truly feel again.

Regina's thoughts kept going back to the curse going back to her mother. She thought back to everything that had transpired in her life, having accepted long ago that they rooted back to her mother's abuse, and Cora's cruelty in killing Daniel before her eyes. Regina's sadness was also mixed with the overwhelming anger she felt at her mother. She was learning that Cora would always come back to haunt her.

Emma's wheels were turning. If she had learned nothing from accepting that she was Snow White's daughter, it was that any curse could be broken. She wasn't going to give up so easily.

"Regina, who makes curses?" Emma asked, trying to put the pieces of exactly how magic worked together in her head.

"Anyone with enough dark magic can make a curse. Anyone with the years of experience, the years of accumulating power, can create the darkness. My mother certainly fit that bill." Regina said through clenched teeth. She had really believed that her mother's death ended her reign, but there were still after effects of her life that clearly had never been dealt with.

"Who makes spells? Or the ways to reverse a curse?" Emma asked, hoping for something to grab onto.

"Anyone with magic and the knowledge of magic can make a spell. But Emma, that's different than the magic to break a curse. Nobody makes that element. It's just like True Love. It just is. And my mother devoted a good chunk of her time finding ways around that little loophole." Regina said defeated.

Belle's head perked up during the exchange. She looked at Mulan, then back at the couple across from her.

"So anyone can make magical spells? If they know how?" The librarian asked. She began a scan in her head of every spell book she had ever read; every picture of every ingredient, every history of magic.

"I've never made a spell from scratch myself. Believe it or not, every evil thing I've ever thought of doing had been done before. Nobody just sits around thinking of new spells, because nobody's ever tried to do something that's never been done. And magic, it just exists. It's an element just like air or water. Why would somebody need to come up with new magic?" Regina asked, feeling even more defeated.

"If someone were to come up with new magic, what would they have to do?" Emma asked, genuinely curious. Belle was on to something; she could feel it. She just didn't know what yet.

Regina paused, thinking for a moment. "If I look at all of the spells I know, they're like little mathematical equations. The right measurements of ingredients, the right ritual, the right emotions—it's like figuring out a combination to open the lock to whatever you want to make happen." She said, thinking back to her knowledge of potions. It wasn't unlike baking; it was a list of ingredients, temperatures, proportions, emotions behind it.

Belle and Emma seemed to be on the same wavelength. They both started to look less depressed and more hopeful.

"So potentially, we could make a new spell that's never been done before." Emma said.

"Yes, theoretically, but Emma you have to believe me when I say there is no way to bring someone back from the dead. That's essentially what my mother did to him. He's dead on the inside." She said, trying to make everyone understand.

"You said that new spells aren't created anymore because nobody's trying to do anything new. Look at us. We've got three True Love couples in here. What if we figure out the formula to make a new spell?" Belle said, getting excited at the idea.

"What exactly do you suggest?" Regina asked out of curiosity.

"We could make a spell fusing as much love together and enchant the heart. Maybe it would break the curse, maybe not, but we could at least give him something." Belle said. She knew she was putting out an idea that would be an experiment at best, lethal at worst. She also wasn't one to sit around idling while someone needed help.

Emma was also someone who couldn't just sit around when they could try something. She looked at her partner, putting her hand on the dark haired woman's arm. The gesture immediately comforted both of them, even while the Queen maintained a distant look in her eyes.

"It's worth a shot. Even if we can only enchant it enough to get it glowing again-even if it's not beating, it's better than nothing." Emma said.

Henry and Lilo sat awkwardly around the kitchen table, after Henry had fetched some tissues for the girl. He hadn't finished wrapping his head around his afternoon yet, and certainly hadn't sorted out in his head everything that happened with Lilo.

"I don't really know where to start." Henry said, his eyes down, feeling guilty at how much his previous behavior had hurt Lilo.

"You kissed a boy in front of the whole town, so there's that." Lilo said with a sniffle.

"Yeah. Well, a boy kissed me to be specific."

"Are you gay?" Lilo asked quietly. She didn't mean to sound threatening, but she was trying to make sense of this whole situation.

"I don't think so." Henry said honestly. "I don't know what's going on with Gavin and me, but it has nothing to do with what happened with us." The prince added reassuringly.

Lilo thought over that for a moment. She really had felt like she didn't know Henry at all over the last month that they were together. Now she felt like she really didn't know him. At the moment, Henry wasn't sure he knew himself.

"What do you know right now?" Lilo asked, still thinking things over in her head.

"I could use a friend." Henry said, putting his had over Lilo's across from him. She looked at her ex-boyfriend. He seemed so different now than the last time she spoke to him in person. He seemed to slim down a bit from his candy-binging days, but that wasn't all. There was more there; more maturity, more experience, more caring in his eyes.

She put her hand over the top of his.

"I can do that."

Just then, Bandit, who had been watching the whole scene unfold like a bad Lifetime movie, burst into tears, sniffling into his own handkerchief.

"What the hell?" Lilo asked, startled by the tiny dragon.

"Lilo, meet Bandit. My dragon."

All of the couples had their assignments of what to gather to make a new spell. It would be the first spell ever composed in this millennium, and a love spell that defied all of the odds and breathed love back into an otherwise dead heart. They all hoped that having three True Love couples on the case would be enough to give something back to the heart.

Belle had spent her time pouring over the spell books with Regina, with them carefully mapping out not just each love spell, but the elements of each spell, calculating what were the components so they could mimic them for their own creation. The main elements of each spell seemed to be the ingredients, a ritual or incantation, and an infusing of emotion from a couple with True Love.

It was decided then that Charming and Snow would be the gatherers of ingredients. They returned home to gather things that were from what for them were a symbol of the triumph of their love: their wedding.

"Okay, things from our wedding, something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue." Snow started, as they ripped apart boxes from their attic, hoping that everything would somehow be around Storybrooke from when the curse was set.

"Something old—my mother's ring." Charming said, pointing to the ring Snow was already wearing.

"Well, that was easy." She said, looking at her hand. "Something new. What can we have from our wedding that would be new?" She asked David.

"Maybe we didn't think this through." David said, also not understanding how to have "something new" from an event that took place decades before.

"Time to be creative, David. We've got to make a new something that has to do with our old wedding." David looked at the clothing they had worn for their big day. The hamster-wheel inside of David's head starting spinning.

"Snow, do you think you can still fit in that dress?" He asked, piecing together an idea.

"What's that supposed to mean?! Do you think I can still fit in that dress? I'm not the one face-first in a case of beer every night. Do you think you can still fit in your wedding clothes?" Snow snapped back, immediately ready to take David's head off.

"Not what I meant—I was just thinking, we could take new wedding photos. We put the new photos in the box with the old ring." David explained. Now that Charming was thinking about it, there was indeed very little chance of him fitting into his own royal uniform from those days, but busting at the seems for a few minutes would be better than nothing.

"Oh. I suppose that would work. And look! Our invitations had blue lettering. Now, what can we add that was something borrowed?" Regina asked. This so far had been almost too easy. She had opened one trunk, and they had been handed everything on their list of responsibility.

"Technically, we have to borrow a Polaroid camera from Belle's shop. I'm sure Gold had one kicking around in there somewhere. What if after we take the pictures we just toss the whole thing in the box?"

Snow thought for a moment. They really couldn't borrow something that had been from their own wedding.

"I hope that works. I don't want this whole thing going down and have it not work because of us."

Belle and Mulan were tasked with putting together a ritual. The problem was that even though Belle had knowledge of every book on spells, she had no idea where to start when constructing a ritual that would somehow encompass her own true love. Given that their own wedding had been a rushed affair, and their honeymoon was technically a spy mission, the two didn't particularly feel like they were on par with Snow and Charming.

"This book has a dance with hula-hoops. You start swinging your hips separately, and eventually join together as one inside of one hoop. It's supposed to symbolize fertility for—oh, nevermind. This is for clown love." Belle closed yet another book. They were getting nowhere.

The Warrior sighed. Whatever they were going to do, it was becoming clear that it wasn't going to come from a book.

"Belle, did you ever think about what we would have done if we hadn't rushed to get married in the middle of the night?" Mulan asked, looking at her glowing wedding ring.

"First off, I love that we got married in the middle of the night. There's something romantic about the idea that we both decided we would rather jump in head first than have to be apart, even for a few months." Belle said, looking at Mulan in a way that the Warrior would never get tired of. "But, if it were planned, I certainly would have had a bottle of champagne ready." She said with a smirk. Mulan smiled back.

"I like that. Champagne. I suppose I would have done a lock-exchange with you. Where my family lived, couples used to keep a lock of each other's hair. Belle, I think this is good. Let's write this down." Mulan said, pointing to Belle's notebook and pen. The Scholar understood, gladly opening the book to start writing.

"Our ritual is going to be our wedding, as we write it." Mulan added, as the two excitedly put together their list.

The Queen and the Savior, much to their dismay, had been tasked with the emotion part. More specifically, the raw emotions.

As they had been in a sex time-out for a couple of days now, they were the only couple who could continue holding off until the spell was created.

When the two women had begun researching exactly how physical they would have to get with each other, hoping to merely kiss over the heart, they quickly learned that sex magic was nothing to take lightly. Every book had referred them to the master handbook, a thick volume on magical lovemaking. Belle was sure that she had remembered exactly where in the library she had last seen it. She searched every magical section over and over again, before checking the computer to see who had last checked out the book.

When they all finally got it back from Ruby, who had been auto-renewing the text for quite some time, Belle looked at the text in horror. Dog-earred pages, a ring from what was clearly a beer bottle in the middle of the spell for putting off an orgasm known as the "Prolonging the Inevitable" spell, and a big red circle around what everyone deduced to be Ruby's favorite position, complete with a drawn-in smiley face on the side.

As put-off as they were by Ruby's abuse of library privileges, Regina and Emma had no choice but to use the text for some pre-spell guidance. They would have to continue not having sex until the night of the ritual. Even more daunting was the indication that to create a new magic spell, for love, by True Loves that had never been done before would require a performance that would spur an entire future chapter.

The overload of information simply from reading all of the text was short-circuiting Emma, as the Savior oscillated between becoming severely turned on by picturing Regina in certain circumstances and exhaustion from thinking about just how much they were going to attempt to cram into one session.

Regina began gathering supplies once in the bedroom, leaving Emma to continue reading in the kitchen. She set out supplies for a bath with her partner, something that would soothe them beforehand with oils, soaps, and bath salts. She searched the hallway closet for her favorite set of sheets, also pulling out a variety of candles.

The Savior had begun gathering supplies on the downstairs level, seeming to be of the same mindset as her girlfriend, just in a drastically different direction.

Emma dusted off her old tailgating cooler and began gathering supplies. She found a box of old PowerBars, bottles of water, a few Red Bulls, she figured she might as well toss in a first aid kit as a just-in-case, a stopwatch in case any of their activities needed to be timed, and threw on top a bottle of FairyFire for good measure.

Both women smiled to themselves on their respective floors, feeling fully prepared for the next evening.

It had been arranged for Henry and Bandit to wait for the Charmings at their home, only being told that they were doing a spell for Cupid, and not disclosing why Snow and David would be back before his mothers, or why his mothers needed him out of the house for the evening. Everyone thought it best that way. As open as they were with their son, everyone agreed there was such a thing as too open.

They met in Emma and Regina's kitchen, the couples gathering around the box holding the heart on the center island. Every couple seemed to come with their own box of supplies.

"Ahh…it itches." David said, complaining yet again about his wedding attire. He was careful not to complain about the fact that his royal uniform was busting at the seams, especially after having made a comment to Snow about fitting into their old clothing.

"Really, David? That's what you're worried about? I'm wearing a thirty year old dress that we never bothered to have dry cleaned made of at least a hundred dead birds. I'll trade with you at any point." Snow smirked over, secretly hoping David would stubbornly take the bait. As funny as it was to watch Charming attempt to get into his old pants, her dress would be more fun.

"Okay, parents! We need to put you on bickering time-out for just about an hour or so." Emma scolded, nodding to Belle and Mulan, as they had all been standing around waiting for her and Regina to appear.

Emma and Regina had carefully set up their upstairs love nest, so that once the other couples finished their portion, they could kick the others out of the house, run up the stairs with the heart, and continue the new spell.

Belle and Mulan looked nervous. If either of them were honest, they both looked and felt more nervous than they had at their actual wedding. Now they had their best friends present. Snow and Charming were dressed for the occasion, albeit sloppily and smelling like moth balls, and Emma and Regina would have both been in their wedding if it had been properly planned. Even if it was just for show for the spell, this felt real to them.

"Alright. Does everyone understand what they are to do?" Regina said, using a commandeering voice that let everyone know that she was now in charge of the proceedings.

Five heads nodded, silently awaiting their instructions.

"Okay then." Regina took the lid off of the heart box, looking at the barely-alive organ. "Here we go." She stepped back and nodded at Snow and Charming.

"Something old." Snow said, taking her ring off and dropping it in the box. She had no problems with using the ring, since after the spell they were just going to take all of their items back anyway, but it did gross her out that the ring was touching what at the moment was a digusting old alive-ish and dead-ish piece of heart muscles.

"Something new." David said, handing the Polaroid camera across to Regina, who snapped a photo of the two, standing exactly as they did at the alter on their wedding day. The group didn't even wait for it to develop before dropping the photo into the box.

"Something borrowed." Snow said, taking the camera back from Regina and dropping it into the box with the photo and the ring.

"Something blue." David said, dropping the invitation into the box.

As soon as the box had all of the elements of the first portion, a flash of light appeared from the box, making a thunderous crashing noise, and then dissipating as quickly as it had come. The groups leaned over, all having seen the flash.

Nothing was different inside of the box. The heart still looked dead. Regina's face fell, but she nodded over to Belle and Mulan to enact their ritual.

Belle opened their supply box, taking out a pair of scissors, and bottle of chilled champagne, and a cup with two handles, one side golden, one side maroon. She looked up at Mulan nervously, hoping her Warrior would start.

Mulan read Belle's eyes correctly, and began their ritual. She pulled her hair out from the bun it was in, letting the dark mane flow down to her shoulders. She cut a few inches off of a pinch from the side, turning her gaze back to Belle.

"This is a piece of me, to remind you that you have all of me. Do you accept this token of my love?" Mulan asked, wide eyed.

Emma and Regina immediately moved so their sides were touching, with Emma grabbing the Queen's hand. Even though it was a hastily-planned ritual, it felt like they were really watching their friends' wedding ceremony. Everything about the two screamed that they were nervous and excited all at once.

"I do." Belle said, holding out her wrist. Mulan tied the lock of hair around the leather bracelet that she had given Belle when they first started dating, made out of a piece of her father's uniform.

Never breaking her gaze with Mulan, Belle picked up the scissors, and with a gentle smile she clipped a lock of hair from a long ring of red curls.

"This is a piece of me, to remind you that you have all of me. Do you accept this token of my love?" Belle asked slowly and with purpose.

"I do." Mulan said, smiling back. Belle tied the lock to the bell necklace that she had given Mulan months ago, still around the Warrior's neck. The Scholar grabbed Mulan and sealed the ritual with a kiss. The others couldn't help but clap, having watched the exchange of hair.

Belle popped open the champagne, pouring it into the glass. They each took a sip from the double-handled chalice, and began passing it around for all of those in the circle to take a sip. Once the cup had made it around and everyone had some of the champagne, they kissed again, holding the cup.

The box with the heart immediately flashed, with another clap of thunder. They all peered into the box with the heart and the ingredients.

All of the participants fell silent when they noticed a glow. It was faint; if someone happened to be passing by the heart without actively wanting to look in the box, they would never notice it. But it was there.

"It's working!" Emma said in a loud whisper, bringing her eyes up to look into Regina's. The Queen gave her a nod, and then took in a deep swallow.

"OUT!" The two women shouted at the other two couples, scooting the Charmings and the Frenchs out the door. While what they had just witnessed with Belle and Mulan was a breathtakingly beautiful exchange that warranted its own congratulations, the women knew they couldn't take a chance in breaking the spell once they had begun casting it.

Regina put the box on the nightstand next to the bed, taking off the lid.

"Ew…maybe we can leave that on?" Emma said, peering into the box of random items and the faintly glowing, dried-up piece of meat.

"Emma, the magic has to get in there." Regina said, not wanting to stall any longer.

"Okay maybe we can just…" Emma moved the lid away, but pushed the box to the far end of the small table. At least she wouldn't have to see it. The two women turned to look at each other. Emma suddenly felt very self conscious, aware that what they were about to do was exactly what they would be doing anyway, but the added knowledge that it was for this dead piece of muscle and not something they came to spontaneously made her feel a bit off.

"So, you have a bath ready?" Emma asked sheepishly. A bath sounded good. A little warm up. Getting ready to be naked—next to Cupid's nasty heart.

Regina looked up at her with eyes that let her know there would be no bath. There would be no taking the time to light the candles in the already dimly lit room. The Queen was not going to take her time removing clothing, softly, relishing in each touch and feel.

The Queen was ready to pounce.

Before Emma had time for a follow-up thought, Regina had her thrown on her back, straddling the Savior, attacking her with her mouth and hands. Their few days off from intimacy had Regina's body humming practically all day long, wanting more: more of Emma's tongue in her mouth, more of Emma's body against her, more grabbing, more hip thrusts.

Emma immediately began responding, on auto-pilot from a primal part of her that worked on pheromones and desires more than logic. She ripped Regina's shirt from her body, not caring that the buttons were now gone, before growling as she sat up to drag her mouth and teeth down the Queen's neck. Regina responded to the hurried nipping, gripping fingers in soft hair before gathering a handful at the base of the Savior's neck, firmly moving the blonde head down.

Regina was not wearing an front clasp bra that day, which did nothing to stop Emma from ripping the front in two, letting palms meet flesh roughly as her mouth continued sloppily biting, sucking, nipping every surface available. They were communicating in grunts and rough tugs, the Queen opting to grind her covered sex down in circles, never letting the fist-full of blonde mane go.

Regina pushed Emma onto her back, not knowing where to start. Does a panther contemplate a drumstick or a rib-eye before devouring its prey? Her hands ran the length of the body beneath her, moving her head around as instinct dictated; along a soft neck, a sensitive collar bone, teeth meeting jaw, then chin. She tried ripping pieces of Emma's clothing off without having to remove her mouth from the body, tugging, pulling, stretching fabric to get more skin.

Emma was panting, her clothes half ripped, letting herself be eaten alive. At some point in their groping and grunting, she snuck and hand down to the Queen's waistband, letting the backs of her fingers trail the skin along the inseam. She pulled the hand out, bringing it down to cup the warm place between the brunette's legs. Regina removed her mouth with another pleading growl. Emma saw the purple flash in Regina's eyes, before their clothes were completely and animalistically torn to shreds and thrown about the room.

The two continued marking each other with their mouths and teeth, moaning and grunting without words, rolling back and forth between top, bottom, and side, without a particular action or destination in mind. Emma let her animal-mind drive for the moment, letting go of every position she'd ever pictured or tried, every action she had learned from porn, every "this is how you're supposed to do this" piece of programming. All that mattered was that her body was covered by as much of Regina as possible, and the two made their way through bodies, head to toe, with their mouths and hands.

At one point, Emma had Regina in a little spoon position, writhing from Emma's hands running along the front of her body with the Savior's body pressed into her from behind. Emma had been running her hands along the insides of her lover's silky, warm thighs. When Regina's growls were paired with her ass rubbing into the Savior's crotch, Emma groaned before her hand brushed against wet lips.

One brush into the wetness was not enough, and Emma continued grinding her crotch along firm ass cheeks, rubbing her fingers along the slit. Regina let out a hiss of approving sensitivity, grinding back into Emma harder. Emma was in no mood to delay, and Regina was in no mood to let her if she had wanted to.

The blonde reached over with her left hand, spreading the Queen's sopping center, before quickly rubbing directly on a very swollen clit. Regina could only make incoherent noises, as Emma harshly rubbed side to side, so quickly that she didn't notice with she stopped being held open and instead a finger was moving as quickly inside of her as the fingers on her reddened nub. Regina could only shake, high pitched moans surfacing. Somehow, Emma was able to use her hands with the skills of a master pianist while still grinding against the Queen's body.

It was too much. It was harsh stimulation after days of not being touched at all, combined with the feeling of Emma's full body against her back, the blonde's grunting sending puffs of air over her ear.

Regina's mouth shot open, as her neck tightened and threw her head back, no sound coming out as liquid squirted out from her body like she had never experienced before. Her ejaculation shot out, soaking both of Emma's hands, that had instinctively stopped their assault, now providing soothing circles, moving from bites to kisses on the flushed and heavily marked skin of the Queen's shoulders.

Emma stopped moving, simply holding, but couldn't help herself, getting in one last shoulder bite before Regina turned to face her.

When her Queen kissed her, it was different than what they had been doing thus far. She was gentle, having exploded everything she had pent-up, lazily dragging her tongue through the Savior's mouth, slowly moving their lips, touching with fingertips instead of rushed handfuls. Emma was calmed by the gesture, lying back and letting Regina slow them down.

After Regina steered them from rough to gentle, then from gentle to slow, and from slow to stopped, she pulled back from Emma, tucking a stray blonde lock behind the woman's ear, caressing her face.

"It didn't work." Was the first thing Emma could think to say after catching her breath. Regina furrowed her brow before looking over at the nightstand. The box hadn't flashed; at least not that they had noticed. No clap of thunder. Not even a whisper or a rumble of what could become thunder. Regina turned back to green eyes.

"I guess we'll just have to keep going then." She said, smiling at the woman pressed beneath her body. Regina resumed the kiss, keeping it slow, but deep. She moved one arm to cradle Emma's neck, freeing up the space for the other to take a tour of the pale, soft yet muscular figure beneath her. She lightly traced, fingertips gracing hipbones, thighs, nipples, arms, sometimes in circles, but always lightly. Every time Emma thought Regina would touch her center, the Queen always backed the hand away, continuing her touches on every inch of skin she had previously visited with her mouth.

Emma kept her eyes closed between kisses, feeling Regina's hand move along her body, enjoying not knowing where it would end up next. When she felt them reach for her entrance, she let out a gasp, gripping her hands in the Queen's hair.

Emma was so wet; Regina didn't know how she was standing it. She immediately pumped two fingers in, wanting to give the blonde her well-earned relief. She tried to keep her lips pressed to Emma's as she worked her digits in and out of the space between the blonde's legs, but Emma's increased panting was making it difficult.

Regina watched Emma's face tense and strain, the veins beginning to pop out in her neck as she felt the grip on her hair drop in favor of the long fingers clenching her back. When Emma let out a tight, long exhale and stiffened her whole body, Regina could feel the pulsing around her fingers, knowing what silently just transpired. She brought Emma back with light kisses around her forehead, keeping her fingers inside for a moment longer, wanting to feel the tensing of every contraction.

"It's good to be with you again, love." Regina said in a whisper, getting a smile from Emma in return, who pulled the Queen's hand up to kiss her fingers.

"It is." Emma leaned up for another kiss, before an actual rational thought entered back into her mind. She broke away and looked over at the heart.

"No thunder. I guess we need to keep going." She said. She was grateful she had packed a cooler the night before. She was about to need a five-hour energy shot in the worst way if they were to continue.

Regina popped up, crawling to the side of the bed, peering into the box.

"Emma!" She said frantically, motioning for Emma to come over and look.

When the Savior looked into the box, she was greeted with the sight of a bright red, vibrant, glowing heart. A heart that looked full of life, that one would never be able to tell was ever dead or cursed at all. They had brought a heart back from the emotional dead. If there was a flash of light, the two had been too wrapped up in each other to notice.

"We have to get this over to Cupid!" Emma said excitedly, looking around for any articles of clothing that weren't completely torn to rags.

"Emma." Regina pulled Emma back down against her body. "It worked. It really worked." She said, looking into the pair of green eyes that she knew she could never tire of.

"I know! That's why we need to get it back."

"Emma, it worked. Meaning, the heart is alive. It's fine now, and it will be fine even if we don't rush it over. It can live outside of his body, for say...a few more hours." Regina, to emphasize her point, laid on her back. Once Emma's gaze was locked on her body, her eyes darkened, as she spread her legs.

"I suppose we should let it warm up a bit—it's been dead for a long time." Emma answered, before pouncing back into her lover's arms, letting the Queen pull the Savior back into their bed. After all, if the heart was alive, she reasoned, there really was no reason to rush.

And, Emma reasoned, if they had just created a new spell and did a good deed, she certainly deserved a reward.

Nine rewards.

In seven different positions.

Over the next six hours.

THE END OF PART I