Yeah, it's where the fight begins
Yeah, underneath the skin
Beneath these hopes and where we've been
Every fight comes from the fight within
She doesn't want to say any of it.
"Now, for what you all did to me—you're about to be punished."
They're her family. They're the ones she loves. Her parents, Regina, Robin, and Belle. Killian and Henry. She hears the words coming from her mouth, the mouth of the Dark One.
And Emma cries. Because they didn't do this to her, not really.
Emma became the Dark One all by herself.
To save Killian, the voices whisper. Without him you would have become like us only sooner. It's good they failed you. Now he's one of us. And we can destroy the light.
Emma remembers why she became the Dark One. It was to save the man she loves/loved/loves with everything inside her bones. The Dark Swan remembers differently. It was to defy the people she loves, to show that this is what she is now, that there's no saviour in Storybrooke anymore.
(What hurts most is when Killian calls her.
Right now, the Dark Swan is stronger. But Emma's still down in there; even Nimue, probably the darkest of them all, buried down beneath the strength of Emma's love, can admit that. That small part of what they used to be—it always remains.)
But Emma cries when she hears what she's saying, what Killian's saying, as they break each other's hearts.
All Emma had wanted was to keep Killian alive. All Killian wants is to bring back the woman he loves, the woman who's buried beneath the darkness.
But it's the Dark Swan speaking, and Emma's voice isn't loud enough yet.
Eyes open, open wide
I can feel it like a crack in my spine
I can feel it like the back of my mind
He doesn't want to say any of it.
"I want to hurt you. Like you hurt me."
There's a tear running down Emma's face. She's the woman he loves/loved/loves and, with every word, he's destroying her.
With every caustic word, he's ruining every hope of a future between them, those dreams they had cherished before Camelot and clutched closely in that land. Killian hates himself. The Dark One encourages him.
She turned you into this monster, a voice whispers. A voice he hasn't quite gotten used to, a voice that hasn't really explained herself. You should hate her. You should kill her family in retaliation. You should destroy her and take her powers for yourself.
Looking at her now, her broken and haunted eyes staring back at him, Killian weeps. He remembers why she turned him into the Dark One—to save him. To keep him with her. Because she loves him, too much to let him go, so much that she preferred to keep him as the Dark One with her rather than let him die untarnished.
(Killian tries to speak, tries to assure Emma that what he said earlier was true.
That no matter what she's done, he loves her. He has always loved her, and he will always love her, to the end of the world or time.)
But he's not loud enough. The Dark One continues, whispering things he can't really hear through the roaring in his mind. The roaring of a thousand voices, trying to come to life.
It's the Dark One speaking, and Killian's voice has just been buried in the darkness.
I am the war inside
I am the battle line
I am the rising tide
I am the war I fight
