Picking up the pieces takes far longer than she'd imagined.
After the disconcerting chaos of Underbrooke, the fire and brimstone battle with Hades, and the freezing numbness of Killian's cell, returning to the realm of the living feels strange. Beyond the exhaustion, both emotional and physical, everything seems slightly off, as though the bonds of their mortal lives are too loose and too tight against them.
If she's honest with herself- and if she's anything, now, it's honest with herself- Emma hadn't really given much thought to what would come next, when she'd made her plan. The call of the dagger had dragged her off of her couch, ringing in her ears like the starting bell at a prize fight, and she'd followed it; realizing Gold's treachery, infuriating as it was (and oh, but she's still going after him for that), had spurred her on with the wisp of an idea that had been circling her head. Killian had begged her to let him die a hero, and she had, but she'd be damned if she let him go gentle into that good night, not with Gold stealing the victory (if not the heroism) of the act.
She'd never expected that they'd want to join her, when she'd gone to tell her parents, Henry, Robin, and Regina of her plan. Truly, she'd just wanted to let them know that she was leaving; that they didn't need to worry over her, wrapped in a gray, static haze, staring up at her ceiling in a silence deeper than words. But they'd insisted- we will always find each other, she sees, in her father's eyes, in the support from Regina's lips.
They're hard to get a handle on, this family of hers.
Because, in spite of the truly ridiculous turns her life has taken, Emma still can't quite believe that it's all real. Not just the wild adventures in strange lands, the dragons and magic and castles that appear more in her history than they ever did in her childhood imaginings. The fantastical elements, she finds, are somewhat easier for her to reconcile as fact than the flesh-and-blood family she's built; even now, after everything, their existence feels like the most miraculous, shocking thing she could ever experience. And by god, she feels like she's earned it, that she's put in her time as a lost girl, as a savior, as a Dark One, as any and everything that life has ever asked of her, but it still knocks the breath out of her, that these people are for her, and she for them.
They followed her, because she said she would go, and they couldn't stand letting her face it alone. They walked into limbo with their heads high and their eyes open, because they wanted Killian back, too, and that- she feels it, as if the tiniest ball of light has unfurled beside her heart, burning in her chest.
And so she'd marched into the Underworld to find him; she'd have marched through Hell itself, through a thousand hells, through the rotting core of the deepest pits of the universe, and still considered it a minor price to pay. She'd fought by Liam's side and fallen head over heels for Milah, and she'd held both of them in her arms wishing, wishing that they could come home with her. She wanted to sail on the Jolly Roger with Liam and Killian, to watch them bicker with brotherly affection; she wanted to walk hand in hand with Milah to the docks at sunset, and to giggle over plans to celebrate Killian's birthday with the most absurd gifts they could find; she wanted to look down the table at Granny's during family dinners and see them laughing with her parents. Impossible as it was, she wanted (and wants) them- and she made the most of their time together, trading stories, telling them of the life that Killian carved out for himself in Storybrooke.
It'd gone far more smoothly than she'd hoped, once they'd finally arrived at the cells. They'd been attacked, of course- Hades was hardly just going to let them waltz away with one of his souls- and by the time Emma collapsed into Killian's arms, she'd wondered how angry he'd be if she died on her way to get him back.
(Very.)
But they'd escaped, and returned to her family; Killian had said his goodbyes to Liam and Milah, and they'd raced to summon Charon before Hades could appear. And they'd stumbled onto the grass by Storybrooke's lake in the pouring rain, together, alive, whole , and he'd kissed her as though she was the only thing tethering him to the world, and when they'd finally looked up, they were alone.
They'd walked home, hand in hand.
Those first hours together had been glorious, desperate, wonderful. They'd ended up in bed for nearly two days, wrapped around each other, hungry for the other's touch. It was more than she'd hoped, those days, tucked together in their house, shrouded by the rain, a step out of time in the best way.
But eventually, they have to peel themselves away from each other; eventually, they have to put on their armor again, hiding their vulnerable raw selves beneath leather and metal as they face the world again.
And as the days pass, even as they press love into the walls of this house (the house which creaks with painful memories, no matter how they pretend otherwise) she can't help thinking of the murky darkness of the time after, of the screaming, burning pain, fading into endless, nauseating static. She's grateful that she doesn't quite remember all of it, that the grief had mercifully allowed her to block out everything between watching him vanish into the ambulance and arriving back at the house. It's there, the desire to just swim down into the pain and the loss, down, down, until she reaches the end, until she finds the blessed peace of nothingness. It's a constant ache in her chest, even now; she finds it over and over in her dreams, reliving that night. But he's there when she wakes, every single time, and if she sometimes spends the rest of the night watching his face in the light from their window, she doubts he'd mind.
Killian keeps his arm tight around her waist in his sleep, and his hand in hers in their waking hours, and he doesn't think she knows (she does, of course she does) but he finds her with his telescope when he's gone too long without seeing her. He makes up ludicrous excuses, sometimes, to come assist her at the station or on her patrols; mostly, though, he just shows up, bringing a coffee for her or a message for her father or just himself, sinking into the chair in her office to watch her. They rebuild their orbits close to each other.
He texts her that he's run into Belle one morning, when he's picking up breakfast for them at Granny's, and then never shows up at the station. Emma rushes home early, heart in her throat, to find him carrying boxes into one of their spare rooms for the visibly pregnant Mrs. Gold- "she can't stay with the Crocodile, love, just look at her, she needs help"- who sits in their living room looking slightly shell-shocked. And it's weird- very weird- but she knows that they'd become friends, before, and Killian looks so determined, and honestly, she feels a bit guilty about not telling the other woman about Gold's deception before she'd traipsed off to the Underworld with him. So she tells Belle that she's welcome to stay as long as she likes, and kisses Killian on the cheek, and as she leaves she hears them debating over their favorite books about the sea.
And that night, when she can't find sleep, when Killian and Henry both scream themselves out of their nightmares, she drags them into the living room to find Belle waiting with cinnamon-topped hot chocolates for all of them.
Emma's parents watch her with eyes that make her heart ache, and she knows that they thought they'd lost her; not the way they'd originally feared, when she'd appeared with sparks and leather and dark magic, but to the utter devastation they'd witnessed. She feels it, in the way that her father finds new reasons to hug her, in the way that her mother reaches for her hand when they're sitting together. And she knows that, all the times she's been lost, they've lost her, too, and she thinks, sometimes, that the fact that they always find each other has cursed them to some strange cycle of heartache and joy.
(She hopes that it's over, now; that they've found each other for the last time, that loss will give her family a wide berth, defeated at last by their sheer hard-headedness.)
The next disaster hits the town within a few months of their return, some witch from another realm who's after Regina (what else is new?). Emma climbs out of the cruiser with her father, Killian, and Regina, cracking a joke- "it's so nice to see things are really back to normal"- as they step onto Main Street. She sees it before Regina does, the quick spiral of an arrow in flight, and shoves her out of the way; it stings as it grazes her arm, and then she's on the ground, and then-
Flames.
She's barely gotten to her feet, stomach twisting in knots (because she knows this place, doesn't she, knows that this must be where Henry had come to try to bring her home when she'd first fallen into the Enchanted Forest, and it's worse than she'd imagined), when she's yanked up and out of the room, the smoke fading away in a pulse of bright light. Killian calls her name frantically, saying it over and over like the most fervent prayer she's ever heard, and when she opens her eyes he all but collapses over her. He presses kiss after kiss to her lips, fingers tangled in her hair, still murmuring her name, and she whispers back- IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou- until they finally catch their breath.
Regina dispatches the witch after that, and Emma doesn't bother asking what or why or how. Killian nods tightly when Regina comes over to make her report, a muscle jumping in his cheek as the woman cautiously asks how Emma's feeling. Her father hovers over her, his hand resting gently on her head every so often, and Killian grips her hand so hard that Emma's beginning to lose sensation. She begs off from the rest of the workday, giving her father a tight hug and a promise to come by the loft later, and lets Killian all but drag her back home. He rushes past Belle, ignoring her confusion, and locks them into the master suite. They curl into each other on their enormous bed, foreheads together and eyes on each other, and this time they don't stay in there for two straight days, but only because Henry comes slamming into the house after school, demanding to see Emma at the top of his voice.
It's harder, after that.
Emma's shaken, she knows it; she can't keep her heart rate from jumping every time she realizes that Killian is out of sight, and she can't keep herself from constantly texting him when she's away, just to make sure he's still okay. If anything, Killian is worse than she is- which she supposes is fair, since he did see her get taken down by some form of a sleeping curse- and he ends up at the station more often than not. At the first opportunity, he whisks her away on the Jolly, and they spend a whole weekend out at sea. She comes home with a ring on her finger and a death grip on his hand, to a son who is over the moon (apparently having grown bored of waiting for Killian to find the right moment) and parents whose smiles are so huge and happy that she knows they had a moment-maybe several moments- of wondering if she'd be lost to them again.
Belle goes into labor a few months later, on the same day Gold finally shows up at the house demanding to see his wife. Henry rolls his eyes and sends him away, while Emma holds Belle's hand in her hospital room and promises her that everything will be fine, just fine. Her parents, Regina, Robin, and Killian all pace in the lobby, and if Emma's heart catches in her throat when a few muffled shouts bleed through the walls, and the tinny taste of magic sits bitter on her tongue, she pushes it aside in favor of wiping Belle's face with a damp cloth. When she finally emerges, the lobby is a mess, but Gold's nowhere in sight and her family sits placidly in the few remaining chairs. She brings Killian back to meet their newest resident, and she can't tear her eyes away when he holds the little boy gently in his arms.
They put extra protection spells on the house.
Killian takes to living with a newborn faster than anyone she's ever seen, and between Belle, Killian, and Emma, little Andrew wants for nothing. Gold begins standing on the lawn every day, staring up at the window where they'd placed Belle's rocking chair, but Emma enchants it to show scenes from faraway lands that keep Belle from seeing her ex-husband, and Gold from seeing inside. Ruby returns from the Enchanted Forest when Andrew is six months old, and though Emma's not entirely sure what happens during the visit, it somehow turns into Belle moving into Ruby's brand new apartment. The house feels overlarge without her, and too quiet without Andrew, and Killian refuses to admit that he's moping a bit but he really, truly is.
Emma's got the seed of an idea in her mind, and she plans to bring it up- she does- because really, it's something they need to talk about- but her body's three steps ahead of her. When she tells Killian, he's more excited than she's seen him since she told him she'd marry him, sweeping her up in his arms and kissing her so hard that she sees stars. And if she'd thought he was overprotective before, it's nothing compared to the way he's glued to her side now, day and night.
They marry on the deck of the Jolly Roger, and while they haven't told anyone about the baby, her mother slips a tiny nautical onesie into the stack of wedding gifts. Her father places her on mandatory Savior maternity leave, and while she rolls her eyes and insists that she's just pregnant, she can still work, she'd be lying if she said that she didn't love every moment she spends safely at home, building baby furniture with Killian and Henry.
If it isn't exactly peace, it's something like it.
She finds it over and over again, this almost-peace. It's there when she's at the loft, laughing with her parents; it's there when she's with Henry, watching him grow into a better man than she ever could've hoped for; it's there when she goes to the diner, and Granny has a grilled cheese and cinnamon hot chocolate in front of her almost before she sits down. Most of all, it's there when she wakes up in the night, the warm circle of Killian's arm across her waist and the soft huff of his breath against her skin; when he takes her to bed with a smirk and a shocking innuendo, and she laughs until he makes her catch her breath with a gasp; when he talks to the wide swell of her belly, singing the shanties of his childhood; when he looks at her as if she's everything, the moon on the waves and the warmth of the sun and the feeling of freedom on a fast-moving ship.
She thinks that's more than enough.