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A switch was flipped and the recording stopped, Regina’s pale face staring down at the machine with a scowl that would have made Mason say something had he not been asleep. Good help was so hard to find anymore, and not only her power over the city crumbling into tiny pieces before her feet, but now her mud-slinger of a reporter was beginning to question things. Sherry knew about the mines; Regina didn’t know how, or the extent of what she knew, but even that subtle little drop to Knox couldn’t be tolerated, Regina was just glad to have put a bug on the inside of Robert’s shoe soul the last time he had come to stay the night.

Drumming her fingers on the surface of the desk, Regina relaxed back into her home office chair and let her eyes stare out the window into the black night. She said nothing, but her mind was busy with words up until the point where she could no longer sit still and pushed herself up from her chair.

What was she going to do with Sherry? She couldn’t think on that right now; instead, she needed to visit the only person who truly cared for her; Henry Mills.

Regina walked to the small refrigerator and opened it up, pulling out a bundle of fresh flowers she had been keeping cool throughout the day and then hastily left her office and began the short walk from her home to the Storybrooke Cemetery.

She walked with blatant disregard for the others buried there as she made a direct line to the center of the cemetery, over the tops of other’s graves where a mausoleum had been erected and reached into her pocket to pull out a skeleton key that once inserted, unlocked the door that hadn’t been opened in years. The creaking of the door filled the surrounding air, startling even the vocal owl resting upon a dead tree branch not too far away and caused him to fly off.

Regina stepped inside the small room that held just enough walking space around the stone coffin that sat in the center and shut the door behind her before laying the fresh flowers on the coffin’s dusty surface, engraved in the side was ‘Henry Mills’ but otherwise the coffin was very plain.

“Daddy I don’t know what to do.” Regina said somberly, letting her fingers trace the engraved name into the stone. “I was supposed to be happy here, but Snow just keeps getting her happy ending. The curse is nearly broken, and Rumpelstiltskin won’t help us. Daddy…I’m scared…”

Regina rested against the coffin, letting her forehead rest down on the cool stone as she was bracing herself, ready to cry. In the silence, she could hear her heart beating steadily in her chest where she felt an aching pain for the loss of her father. She rested her hand on her chest, feeling her heart beating against it, taking it as some sort of comfort. If Mr. Gold was right, and he usually was about these things, her heart wouldn’t be beating any longer once the curse was broken and the people of Storybrooke rose up against her.

A second sound came to Regina’s ears, faint at first but steadily grew. She checked her heart again, curious as to why she was hearing a second heart beat, and then a third, until the entire room seemed to be filled with the sound of beating hearts. Regina lifted her head from the coffin and let her eyes fall to where her father’s face would be resting underneath the stone, tears welling up in her eyes no longer of sadness, but hope.

“You’re right! Thank you daddy.”

Regina stood up tall and put both her hands on the side of the coffin, and pushed. It took a bit of effort, but the stone coffin eventually began to slide. Inch by inch the coffin moved until at long last a hidden stone staircase appeared in the floor and Regina descended.

She was grateful for the larger room down under the graveyard. She made a quick point to walk to the opposite end of her vault and pulled down a black leather satchel that was big enough only to fit a single apple inside; the bulge within confirming just that. She then went to a wall opposite the entrance and took a good look at the hundreds of tiny little boxes that had been placed there, each of them blinking at random intervals a glowing red color, like bloody stars twinkling in the night sky.

Regina ran her hand over the boxes’ faces until she came across the very one she was looking for, and pulled the box out from the wall. She carried the box over to a stone table that held vials of potions, ingredients, and other things she had managed to bring over from The Enchanted Forest but she dared not to concentrate on that now.

Opening the box as delicately as if it were made of glass, Regina pulled out the still beating heart that laid inside and cradled it into her hand. How long had it been since she had crushed a heart? She stared down the beating thing, feeling it tremble in her grasp as if it knew what was coming. Regina hesitated though, was killing Sherry really the best option? Would it truly grant her some sort of resolve for the situation at hand?

Regina shook her head slightly. No, she couldn’t think like that, she couldn’t be going soft. She was The Evil Queen, even here in Storybrooke, and she had to exercise that title.

Her fingers clenched around the beating organ and immediately felt its feeble attempts to squirm and write out of her hand but it was far too late. With a final grip, the heart crushed down into dust and Regina let the remains slowly trickle from her fist with a satisfied smirk. Wherever Sherry was right now, whatever it was that she was doing, she was no more.