AN: Don't own Once.
She is no longer your little one.
She was so angry when she came to you, young and angry but with eyes so very bright; the first in years who did not fear you and the first to make you believe that maybe–just maybe–you could fly again.
Sometimes you wonder if you could have been happy together, if only you could have kept that bright-eyed girl. But then time passed and you watched her eyes lose that beautiful shine; you saw them become flat, empty, devoid of any trace of the girl who saved you.
You miss her so much, although you never show it.
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She was always rough, always left marks when you took her to bed, but now the pain she inflicts is for the sake of her own pleasure, not yours; for the way it makes you wince and shy away. Your mouth presses hungrily against her and she cries out, but you know that she has never been so far away from you.
That bright girl is gone.
It is years before you see her through human eyes again.
"I'm sorry," she says one night. You don't respond, looking over to where Lily and Henry are playing something called a 'video game'. Lily is still angry, still dark–she'd nearly torched the whole of Storybrooke in rage when Emma was taken by the darkness–but her shoulders aren't quite so tense anymore and her eyes are softer. Sometimes you can't believe that you really have your daughter back.
"Are you?" you ask finally, letting your gaze drift to Henry. He's laughing at something Lily did, and absently you wonder how he can look so like his mother when they don't share one drop of blood between them.
"For the curse, no. I could never regret him," she responds, shaking her head. "But for what I did to you…."
"I would have done worse to you," you tell her. It's true; you really would have, even if it killed you to be the cause of more of her pain.
"I know." There is a pause, and when she speaks again, the words are heavy with resignation and a weary sort of apprehension. "Do you hate me?"
"Don't be stupid." You turn to face her. "You gave me my fire back. How could I ever hate you?"
Her mouth on yours tastes just like you remember.