Three hundred years.
That was how long she'd been trapped inside the silver urn, beating the walls with her fists uselessly, hurling balls of dark-tinted ice that ricocheted around her until fading into pure white snowflakes. Three hundred years of experimenting with her power, and letting the anger and pain fester inside her. Watching the ice that she created turn from brilliantly white to a darker, menacing hue that cast longer shadows than it should have.
The space was barely big enough for her to lay spread eagled on her back, which was what she had done at first, creating snowflakes that bounced on her fingertips. Before she had discovered the idea of revenge.
Now it was all she thought about, how to kill the Dark One , who'd imprisoned her, and kill the ones he loved. She watched him through a shimmering portal of melting snow, calculating his weaknesses, finding ways to overcome his strengths. She practiced sending bolts of magic that wormed their way so cleverly into people's minds until they were nothing but flesh puppets, practiced throwing fatal stabs of ice, or filling lungs with snow, until she was sure she had surpassed the Dark One by far.
Yet his prison held fast.
At night, when plots of revenge quietly receded in her sleeping mind, she dreamt of Anna. She tossed in her sleep when her face entered her mind, even whimpered. Once, and only once, tears snaked down her cheeks as she dreamt of her sister.
She awoke with the tears frozen to her face.
She was dreaming yet again of another reunion with the sister kidnapped by the Dark One, when the urn suddenly flipped over, and jolted down hard again, almost immediately. Someone had picked up her up.
Echoes of a British voice speaking to a…Swan?...floated down to her. She let out a shaky breath and a smile, almost unsure of what to do before she sensed it. The magic in the air, the humming, the whisk of a wand and the elated laugh of a woman. The urn began to rock.
A portal. They had opened a portal.
With all her might, she threw herself to the side of the urn and pushed with all her strength and all her magic; whoever had picked her up had accidently unfastened the top. Her magic shot out of the urn and she flew into the portal, spinning faster than she ever had before.
"I'm coming, Anna, and I'll get our revenge," she murmured as she felt the portal touching down.
"Elsa's coming; I'm always coming for you."
Regina tore out of the diner before Emma could say another word, before she could even try to express how sorry she was. The door slammed behind her, and a chill snaked in from outside. Emma wasn't sure if it was the weather or Regina.
She shook her head. Regina, in short, was fire and heat. It was probably just a cold front.
She was forcefully reminded that she had been left alone in the diner, standing next to Robin and Marion, who were still hugging. Marion had already tried to kiss Robin twice, but he kept his head buried in her shoulder, Roland wrapping his tiny little arms around their legs, still murmuring "Mama, Mama, Mama!" Emma smiled and then felt terrible, then felt terrible about feeling terrible. Robin and Roland should have never lost Marion in the first place, but in saving her, she had ruined Regina's happiness. Emma sighed. Couldn't she do anything right?
Her eyes flickered over her parents, and then to the table where she'd left Killian with Henry. She touched her lips without thinking and quickly dropped them, but a smile still lingered before she remembered, yet again, what she'd done. Killian met her eyes and immediately stood up and crossed the diner to her.
"Stop it," he said, his eyes holding hers.
"Stop what?" she said, looking at Robin and then the door Regina had run out of.
"Blaming yourself! If you had left Marion to die, you'd feel miserable, perhaps more than you do now, Swan. You did the right thing. Regina and Robin will work this out."
Emma blinked and looked up at him in a way she hadn't looked at anyone in a long time- her eyes turned years younger along with her voice, and her expression screamed that she just wanted him to tell her it was going to be okay, that he could take away all her pain. It was the gaze of a hurting child. "Really?"
"Of course, love," he said, tilting his head to one side and smirking. "She does have a way of getting what she wants."
At once, Emma shook the hopeful expression off her face. "But I don't know about this time, Killian. Nobody can," she glared accusingly at the pirate in front of her.
Killian looked over at Mary Margaret and David cooing over baby Neal.
"True love always finds a way, Swan."
He hesitated, but kissed her once, quickly, but long enough that she felt the warmth and his reassurance that everything would be okay. He smiled against her lips when David let out an outraged yell.
She felt his reassurance, of course she did. She just didn't know if she believed it quite yet.
And in that exact moment of doubt, the windows froze over, the glass hardening into ice tinted a menacing black. The ice trickled from the windows and spread over the walls, making a crackling sound as what was once wood turned into something cold and dark. The ice spread and thickened heavily over the doorways, and the room hushed as the lights sputtered and the diner went black.
A woman stepped straight through the ice in the doorway, her figure pushing the mold forward before snapping clean out. Emma drew her gun, Killian and David their swords, and Snow her dagger, one hand pushing Neal behind her. Ruby snarled under her breath.
Emma didn't know what to make of it, her breath hitching in her throat and coming out in a puff in the rapidly chilling air. Why was it that whenever they defeated one Big Bad, another one came to steal the show?
The woman, the darkness hiding her face, chuckled as she flicked her wrist, and everyone in the diner slammed against the wall, tugging helplessly as tendrils of ice bound their hands and slid over their mouths, slowly moving to encompass their whole bodies.
"Oh, you all are just adorable. But, pray tell, where is that Dark One of yours?