Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time is but my plaything. All rights belong to Adam Horowitz, Eddie Kitsis and ABC.
Author's Note: I was a wreck the entire finale and I'm not much better since. It was everything I could have hoped for and more. I loved every second. Decided to pay homage to Mama Snow/Emma with a little one shot entitled...
Burn
"No, please... no! Mary Margaret! Don't... NO! Mom! Mom! Moooom!"
Emma is a writhing, moaning, tangled mess in her sheets when Mary Margaret flies into the room, but she has always had deft fingers - the touch of a mother - and so it is rather short work, freeing her daughter. Emma comes to with a shuddering gasp, body heaving. Her wild eyes dart about the room until they alight on Mary Margaret's face. The small woman smiles gently, resting her hand against Emma's cheek.
"Calm down, Emma. It's okay. Breathe. You're home. You're here with me."
"H-home?" Emma slurs with drowsy confusion.
"Home," Mary Margaret repeats, moving the pads of her thumbs across the hollow of Emma's eyes. They come back wet and the sensation seems to rouse Emma from the dregs of her nightmare. She blinks, drawing breaths with a growing but vapid awareness.
"Bad dream?" the dark haired mother says softly, her query more a statement of fact and understanding than anything else. She had had a feeling this would happen. It was a large part of the reason why she had invited Emma to spend the night, especially now that Regina was back in Henry's life, and he, back in his old bed at the mayor's manor. Her daughter shouldn't have to be alone, after what she experienced.
Emma wraps her arms around herself, curling inward. She nods ever so slightly.
"You were dead," the blonde chokes, and Mary Margaret knows immediately the memory her daughter has just relived. It is a night terror she herself endured for months after her near death at the stake, and even now there are moments when the former bandit princess wonders, what if she'd been too late? But they are fleeting; few and far in between after so many years' distance.
Except it is not years later, to Emma. For her, Regina's failed execution happened only yesterday.
"I watched while you burned... and then you were dead. I was too late."
There is a hopelessness in her daughter's gaze that Mary Margaret endeavors to stanch immediately. She grasps the girl's shoulders.
"Emma, honey, listen to me. You weren't too late. I'm here. You saved me," she whispers. Emma gulps; nods again.
"In the Enchanted Forest, when Blue returned you to human form, I was so relieved. I've never felt that relieved before, ever," she admits. Her green eyes are searching.
"Yes, I vaguely remember there was an intense hug from a complete stranger?" Mary Margaret chuckles, and Emma's lower lip trembles at that.
"You looked right through me," she recalls.
"That must have been awful," Mary Margaret intones sadly. Emma sucks in sharply; Mary Margaret can see that she is very close to falling apart.
"Mar... Mom."
It is hard to breathe over the rock in her throat. Mary Margaret tries to remain nonchalant; light... for Emma's sake. "Twice in one night, what did I do to deserve this?"
She should have known - any efforts at humor were destined to be a complete bust.
"I know I suck at this... this sharing feelings thing. But I'm, I'm just, I don't want to run from it anymore. You're my mom; that's who you are and that's what you deserve to be called."
"Emma..." It's Mary Margaret's turn to parry loss of composure, but Emma isn't finished breaking down her walls, little by little, brick by brick.
"Watching you die... that was one of the worst moments of my life. I would have done anything to save you. Anything." Emma's voice cracks and so too does her tenuous cap on emotion. "Please don't leave me like that again. Please, Mom. I need you. I know I don't show it well. But I need you."
Mary Margaret's own eyes burn as she watches her beloved firstborn finally crumple. She grabs Emma and pulls her adult child against her chest, shushing, rocking.
"I will never go anywhere, sweetheart. I will always be right here. Whenever you need me, I'm here," she promises, and she can feel Emma's fingers squeeze the fabric of her nightdress in silent gratitude.
The moments pass and eventually Emma's shaking subsides. Still, Mary Margaret holds on. She won't let go until Emma initiates, and for perhaps the first time ever, Emma seems beyond content with their profound closeness. She stays ensconced in her mother's embrace, simply breathing to a languid tempo. In, out. In, out.
Her limbs begin to go slack, and Mary Margaret realizes she's about to lose her daughter. The woman smiles.
"Sleep, Emma," she murmurs, running her hand through Emma's flaxen locks. "You're exhausted."
"Don't go," Emma pleads with sluggish conviction, and Mary Margaret sighs happily as she carefully eases her daughter down onto the pillow. She watches her offspring fight the invisible weights on her eyes.
"I won't. I'll stay right here with you. I'll sit by your side until you fall asleep."
Emma's expression becomes one of somnolent relief. In her last seconds of consciousness, her hand wiggles across the blankets until it finds Mary Margaret's. Keeping their connection, Mary Margaret thinks joyfully.
"Thank you."
"What are moms are for?" Mary Margaret's teasing reply falls on deaf ears, as Emma lets out the tiniest snore. Mary Margaret smiles. She tucks a piece of her daughter's hair behind her ear, then gets up. Her breasts are beginning to ache, and somewhere below, a muffled mewing is starting up from the confines of a cherry-wood crib. She has comforted her firstborn... now it is time to pay visit to her second. But before Mary Margaret departs, she pauses at Emma's nightstand to light one solitary candle. The dancing flame illuminates the room, chasing away the shadows with its warm glow.
"For sweet dreams, my love."
In slumber, Emma relaxes.
This is a much more pleasant burn.
FIN