The big fuck-off vortex of evil has vanished into thick air. It's been unceremoniously sucked out of the Savior like the venom from a snake bite that's torn into perfect porcelain flesh. Poison still ghosts through her veins, her conscience, her soul.
The destruction is everywhere. Granny's windows are blown out. Her signage sways back and forth on one hinge, creaking out a sharp warning to anyone standing by.
The Bug is a smoldering pile of scrap metal, tires melted into the asphalt billowing tendrils of toxins creeping up into the night sky.
Smoke and ash hang thick like curtains drawn against the harsh winter winds. There's the smell of wood and rubber and plastic that's been ignited, then burned away to cinders at their feet. It clings to the air surrounding the town, choking and clawing at their throats.
The clock tower lay on its side, a monument obliterated and transformed into some modern day abstract work of art that calls to its sister Pisa thousands of miles away.
Emma Swan, the former Dark One, currently unconscious and barely breathing Savior has been saved. But at what cost?
Her parents cling to each other on the sidewalk, Charming cradling his sobbing wife in his arms, Snow clinging desperately to his collar moaning, sniffling promises to whatever gods are left in this realm to listen.
They are frozen.
They are terrified.
They are both wrapped in each other and anguish and despair because they won.
Because if they won, that means Emma lost.
David's head is turned slightly, glistening eyes cast downward and out, lips pursed and trembling with hope against all hope that his daughter is still alive. That his daughter is still in there, someplace deep down where the darkness quite possibly was unable to reach.
"Henry?!" Regina runs up the road, calling out for her son, and Her son and their son.
"Mom!" He zigzags away from just behind David and Snow, then runs, sprints, charges toward his Mom, his mom, his moms.
They meet in the middle of the road, each at one side of the crumpled woman and fall to their knees.
She promised. She promised she'd stop the darkness from snuffing out the light.
"Mom?" Henry reaches a tentative hand out to her shoulder, not quite sure if the darkness has truly dissipated as the moonlight reflects off of still too pale skin and a sharp angled jaw. Thus far not sure if it's his mom that's in there clinging, stretching, fighting for some kind of thin lifeline that's frayed and worn at the ends; so brittle and thin, but still right there and god, all she has to do is reach out just a Little. Bit. More…
"Mom." He breathes and bends and cries, stroking her hair, touching her cheek, searching her face for something, anything to wrap his hands around and shake. "I forgive you. I love you."
The pain that creeps into his features as each beat, as every aching second, as all the long minutes pass-by is unnerving her; it's unraveling herundoing her bit by aching bit.
"Emma." Regina tries.
Regina reaches; for quite possibly the very first time in her existence, Regina hopes.
"Get up, Swan!" Regina scrabbles and grabs and clings to that miserable hope, searching for any sign of those sea green eyes she desperately wants to latch onto like a buoy in a raging storm. An ice cold unmoving hand is pressed tightly between her own two, now shaking with anguish. Shaking with anger. Shaking with need for this infuriating woman to just…
"Emma, please –"She hisses like it hurts. Like it hurts and punctures and burns away the very worst parts of her in all the best ways.
And she drops her head, and her body shakes, and as all the hope threatens to seep out of her pores and soak into the frozen ground, she lifts that lifeless hand to her lips and presses a firm imploring desperate kiss to icy skin.
And gently, tentatively, determinedly, Henry places a kiss on her forehead that reflects his belief in her from what feels like a few lifetimes ago.
And Emma gasps; and Emma wakes.
Emma looks between the both of them, so disbelieving, so herself, then suddenly so sure.
Because, of course.
"You saved me." Falls from her lips and rises to their ears then weaves around their bruised hearts squeezing hard.
Henry grabs her other hand with glistening eyes, a toothy grin and looks at both his moms and "Mom, you did it." Is breathed out and wrought into something that sounds like fulfillment, feels like home. Looks a lot like family.
Regina allows the first of her tears to track down her cheeks. She permits the smile to set slowly, surely, firmly in place. "There is nothing you can't ever come back from."
For Henry it feels like a lesson, it looks like the start of something. When the words suddenly stop spinning and land square in his chest, they unfold quietly into your mom needs you and hero's always win on each side of the coin.
But for Emma it sounds like a promise. It echo's you're better than this and whispers you've had my back and I want you to know that I have yours. It screams I'm not gonna stop trying and it's gonna be fine and trust me.
Emma sits up, launching herself toward the small space in between the two of them and greedily drinks from their light, allows their warmth to engulf her as their mingled tears wash away the last of the darkness inside. Encased by them, with them – surrounded by the possibility and promise of us and home and family. She feels like this is the moment, today is the day they were all able to beat back fate, "There you go, telling the truth again."
Henry's left hand brushes across Regina's right as they meet in the middle of Emma's back. And he digs his fingers into the unforgiving leather of her jacket and squeezes and holds her right there.He breathes as if for the first time because she hasn't been right there in months and suddenly realizes how rapidly they're turning into something else. They're stitching their unraveled pieces back together; together.
With a firm grip in the back of a blonde head and her other arm tucked around her son, Her son, their son; Regina smiles. Regina inhales, and exhales then inhales one more time for good measure. "Idiot." She whispers. "You're not the only one who can make promises to Henry about his mother not dying."
If this is what losing looks like, Emma decides she'll take it over winning any day.
And Emma laughs because, Regina? Yeah, Regina really is a quick study and as far as hope speeches go, she just nailed it.
FINIS