Surfacing

Emma hadn't sleep a wink all night long. Lying alone in the cold bed with images of Gideon taunting her, his voice goading her, she'd tossed and turned until daybreak. Leaving a note for Henry on the kitchen table, she'd hastened to her parents' loft, wanting – needing – guidance in this time when her nerves were so highly strung there was a good chance she could end up doing something she'd regret later. The violence of her fury at Gideon the night before had surprised her, but she was still too raw for regret. It was as if he had known the very innermost part of her that was still, after all this time, not healed, not whole, and had picked it as the very spot in which to plunge and twist his knife. She had felt ready to punish him, even kill him for the hurt he had caused her, but some part of her had listened to his tale of woe and acknowledged its resonance. Some part of her attuned to him, to his suffering, to his solitude. Half enraged, half pitying and wholly missing the one man she had always leaned on in times of trouble, Emma did what she had always resisted doing until now, and went to her family.

At her parents' door, she hesitated only a moment before knocking urgently. In the seconds before she was answered, she realized she didn't know who to expect, or who she wanted to speak to more. But when Snow opened, surprisingly none the worse for wear after her rather eventful evening with the Vikings, it was all Emma could do to keep from bursting into tears right then and there.

"Emma!"

Emma gulped, fighting for her voice. Snow looked at her with concern.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"It was Gideon," she blurted out.

"What was Gideon?"

"It was Gideon that sent him away. Mom, Hook didn't leave me. Hook didn't leave me!"

Wordlessly, Snow beckoned her daughter inside and shut the door. As Emma stood restlessly wringing her hands, Snow went to the kitchen, poured a cup of freshly brewed coffee into a mug, then went over and handed it to Emma. Steering her toward the couch, Snow sat them both down and said firmly,

"Now, tell me everything."

Obediently, Emma recounted the events of the previous night. The alarming sound of her boyfriend's voice emanating from his chest of belongings, the message he had given her in the shell, the sudden appearance of Gideon, first in disguise as Aesop, then in his own unabashedly dramatic form. And finally their confrontation and the blackmailed act he wished her to perform.

"That's a lot to take in," Snow said at the end of it. "We knew Gideon wouldn't lie low forever, but threatening you like that... that is beyond the pale."

"I deserve it," Emma said quietly. The unburdening had left her unspeakably weary and deflated.

"Of course you don't deserve it," Snow retorted, surprised. "What makes you say that?"

"If I'd only had a little faith, none of this would have happened." She took a long, shaking breath. "Hook didn't leave me, but I believed he did, and Gideon used that."

"Emma..."

"I was so quick to believe the worst of him. I never even stopped to think I might be jumping to the wrong conclusion. All this time I could have been helping him get back, but instead I let Gideon take that tear and now..."

"You can't blame yourself. What were you supposed to think?"

Emma shook her head. "I believed Leroy over my own heart. Leroy! Of all people!"

"Leroy was telling the truth," Snow said gently. "And don't forget, I saw Hook on the docks myself. With a bag."

"We'd had a fight. I'd more or less told him I didn't want to see him unless he was ready to make it up. I was angry and hurt – I guess I still am – but I didn't think he'd really leave. Maybe he was going to and then changed his mind, but Gideon got to him before he could come home." She froze as a thought struck her. "Or maybe he thought he was leaving for me. Maybe he thought that's what I wanted."

"Sweetheart..."

"What's wrong with me, Mom? I talk about trust but it seems I can't even trust the man I love to not abandon me. How messed up is that? After everything we've been through, after everything we've shared, I still didn't believe in him. When it really counted, I came up empty." Emma turned her face from her mother's and, staring ahead, murmured, almost to herself, "Killian is my true love. How could I forget that?"

"What?" Snow's shocked tones brought her back.

"It's true. In the Underworld there was a test that only true love could pass and... we passed."

"You never told me that!"

She smiled ruefully. "It's not really the sort of thing you just slip into conversation."

"Even so!"

"I didn't know how to mention it. And besides, I didn't know how Dad would react."

"Your father loves you. So do I. Your happiness means everything to us."

"I know that."

"Did you really think we wouldn't accept our daughter's true love? Whoever he was?"

"I... I don't know what I thought."

"Emma, I'm going to say something, and you might not like it, but it has to be said." Snow looked seriously at her daughter, the sheer force of her gaze locking Emma's eyes to hers.

"When you came to Storybrooke, you were alone. But all that has changed now, Sweetheart. You found your family, and we're not going anywhere. You don't have have to worry about being alone again, because none of us are ever going to abandon you. Ever. Do you understand? Even if we disagree or get angry with each other, even if we fight, we're still a family and we'll always love each other. That's what family is: love. We've all fought so hard to be together. Don't lose faith in us."

"I'm sorry. I won't do it again," Emma said. Snow reached over and squeezed her hand, and almost involuntarily, Emma sighed a sigh of sad realization.

"I drove Killian away, didn't I?" she said regretfully. "I was so afraid he'd abandon me that I practically willed it to happen. I thought I was better. I thought after all this time I'd be... whole, by now."

"You were wounded very deeply, as a little girl, and that doesn't heal overnight, even with all the love in the world. I know that your father and I are partly to blame, and I'm never going to stop trying to make that up to you as long as I live."

"Mom..."

"No, it's true. Now I know I can't undo the past, but I can help you now. And I will."

Emma smiled a watery, grateful smile at her mother. "Thank you." She took a deep breath as if to steel herself. "I know I don't always do this the right way, but today I really needed – I really need – you."
"You have me, Baby. You have me."

She smiled again at the pet name, her heart too full, for the moment, for words.

At last, when she trusted her voice again, she said, "You and Dad share true love. Have you ever lost faith?"

Snow paused and considered the question, while Emma, her mind racing as the silence dragged on, wondered if she'd overstepped some boundary. But when Snow eventually spoke, her voice was soft, honest, and unhesitating.

"I've wavered. More times than I'd like to admit, as the mouthpiece of Hope and all that. I never stopped believing that your father loved me, but there were times when I wondered if it was enough. But even when things were darkest I don't think I ever truly lost faith, not entirely. There was always some little part of my heart that stood strong. And I think there was a little part of yours that did, too."

"Maybe," Emma said.

"The important thing is that you fight for it, fight to keep that part alive. After all, if true love was easy..."

"...then we'd all have it," Emma finished, her smile brighter.

Over in his crib, Neal stirred and started fussing. Snow immediately turned toward her son but before she could get up, Emma said,

"Let me."

She went over to her brother and picked him up, as she had never done – she thought with a pang – with Henry. Bouncing him gently, she carried him back over to the couch and sat him down on her lap. Snow smiled, watching Neal as he tried to twist around to look at Emma.

"He's curious about you."

"Yeah. He hardly recognizes me, does he?"

"Of course he does. He knows his sister."

"I hope so."

The truth was that sometimes Emma forgot that she was a sister. She forgot she was a daughter, a mother, a friend, a girlfriend. These identities, though indisputable, still felt new to her. Her old identities – orphan, loner, a woman abandoned, unloved and unloving – still had a hold over her that was proving difficult to shrug off. Snow was right. She had been wounded deeply, but it wasn't enough to leave that wound be and hope it would heal with time. She had to heal it herself. It wasn't enough to know her new identities, she needed to accept them and embody them, just as she'd accepted being the Savior. She had fought for herself and reclaimed her future – was it only last week? She had fought and she had won, and now it was time to fight again. She was not an abandoned orphan, she was Emma Swan, a woman with a home and a family and a true love who was fighting with every fiber of his being to get back to her.

Neal wriggled and cooed in her lap, and she found herself smiling as she held him, a memory arising: Killian with Ashley's little girl, chatting and making faces, utterly enraptured by her rapt focus on him. Watching them then, Emma had felt envy, but also longing. Archie had once told her that envy revealed our desires, and she had learned in that moment what she desired.

Because she did desire it. She desired it so much her heart ached with the thought of it. She wanted it all: house, husband, kids. She wanted that white picket fence life she'd once dismissed as an impossible dream. Once, in her old life, she might have abandoned such a dream. But not now. This Emma fought for what she wanted. This Emma had the strength, and the support, to dare to believe she might deserve it. That she might fight and win. In a dark and distant corner of her mind, the germs of a plan began to take shape.

She had not intended to, but after a few words of coaxing from her mother, Emma agreed to stay for breakfast. It was nothing elaborate – toast and orange juice was about all either of them could manage – but it was a ritual she realized she needed, especially in this time when so much was in flux, and the future so uncertain. Together, the three of them watched the video David had recorded to wish Snow and Neal good morning, and Emma couldn't help marveling once again at the faith her parents had in each other. They were living out a nightmare, but somehow, through some ingenuity and the magic of modern technology, they – and their love – were surviving it. They had figured out a way to hear each other's voices, for each to keep the other assured of their love. Just – she realized – as Killian had found a way to reach her from a realm away. She sighed. Clearly, she still had a lot to learn.

"What is it, Sweetheart?"

Without realizing it, Emma had sighed aloud, a long, melancholy sigh that stripped the breath from her body and made Snow turn from her own somewhat melancholy observation of her husband, asleep on the other side of the room, to attend to her daughter.

"Just thinking."

"Of... Killian?"

She nodded.

"Last night, when I heard his voice in that shell, it was like waking up from a dream. A terrible dream. When I thought he had left me, everything seemed unreal. It was dark and foggy and cold, like I was trying to keep alive under water." She felt her mother's arm on her back, rubbing in slow circles as if soothing a child.
"Do you think Killian's feeling like that too?"

"Didn't you say he was trapped on a submarine? I'd say it sounds like a pretty accurate description, then."

Emma nodded slowly. "Maybe he's still trapped. He couldn't hear me, when I spoke back to him into the shell. Gideon said my tear prevented that. So he doesn't know I got his message. He didn't hear me when I said..." She swallowed, stopping herself. She was wallowing, giving in to sentiment again, and she'd had enough of that for one morning. It was time for action. Snow, as if reading her mind, said,

"Emma, we can sit and speculate all day and it won't get you one step closer to him. The question is, what are we going to do?" She heard the steely note in her mother's voice, a little audible reminder of the fighter her mother was and had always been.

She shook her head to clear it, squared her shoulders, and looked Snow dead in the eyes.

"We have to find this fairy."

"I agree. But how?"

"I'm not sure yet, but I have an inkling Gold knows. Gideon is his son, after all, so I think I'm going to pay him a little visit."

"Count me in."

Emma nodded. "Good. I could use the support."

"Whatever you need."

"Then I hope you're ready to be ruthless because I'm done playing nice. I don't care what it takes, I am getting my pirate back. And this time, I'm not going to let him go."