"Dark One, I summon thee." David's voice was prominent in the hollow silence that night. But she never came.
"Dark One, I summon thee." Hook tried the day after that fated night. He called out to her in that exact place where she was taken, in that exact place where she told him she loved him. Still, she never came.
"Dark One, I summon thee." Henry tried last and it had been a week since that night. He called out to her at the edge of town, and David and Snow and Hook were there too, and all four of them took David's police cruiser on the way there. Again, she never came.
Within the year of Emma's disappearance, they'd found Merlin and asked him to take away the darkness. Within the year of Emma's disappearance, Merlin had agreed to take away the darkness. Within the year of Emma's disappearance, they had looked for Emma with every single way they knew how, and Merlin had even tried to find her with his magic. Within the year of Emma's disappearance, they had never found her, not even a hint of where they could find her, and bit by bit, even the Charmings lost their hope.
By the end of the first year of Emma's disappearance, they had all stopped believing that Emma could still be alive.
So by the end of the first year of Emma's disappearance, they decided that their last sliver of hope would be spent summoning Emma.
They decided it would be at the edge of town, because this is it, this is the end, and none of them will ever have their happy endings anymore. It's all over.
And so, at the end of the first year of Emma's disappearance, at the town line stands her parents, her son, her lover, and Regina.
Regina, who holds the dagger in front of her, who can't even look at it, who would just rather stare out at the beyond of this small little town than to remember what happened an exact year ago.
Regina, who utters the words and calls out to the Dark One.
"Emma, please."
No, she calls out to Emma, because Emma's still out there and she isn't the Dark One yet. Emma's too strong for that darkness, Emma's just too strong.
"Emma."
It comes out like a plea, like a cry, like a desperate sound that slips from her lips but she just doesn't care. She needs Emma, she really does, and she begs and pleads and kneels down to the heavens for Emma to just come back.
But again, for the fourth and last time since that night, Emma Swan never comes.
So she lowers the dagger and they all agree that she'll keep it, and she and Henry ride her black Mercedes home where he walks up to his room and she goes to her study without a word, and she just notices now that she's gone a year without talking to Robin Hood and that doesn't bother her a bit, and just now she realizes that he broke up with her about nine months ago, or was it three, but she doesn't even care. She just stares at the unsheathed dagger on her lap as she drinks the glass of apple cider in her hand, and she wishes Emma's right there again, right there in the seat in front of her just like she was five years ago, that night when Emma first drove into town.
But Emma's gone, and still somewhere deep inside her she knows Emma's not yet dead, and that Emma's still Emma, and she's so positive it's true she nearly loses her grip on reality all over again.
She downs another glass and another and another and she's lost count and she doesn't even care and the next thing she knows, it's night already and Henry's carrying her up into her room and tucking her to bed, and when did he get this strong and this tall, but from where she's lying, she hears his cries and she knows he misses Emma, so much, and that because of that stupid idiot, there are no more happy endings in Storybrooke.
Just real, painful, hollow ones.
She watches them arrive, and park, and get out of their cars. She watches her parents hold onto each other so tightly yet so loosely, she almost didn't recognize them. She watches Hook try to walk without tripping on his two feet and for a moment there, she thinks he's drunk, but when she sees his eyes, it's hollow and lifeless and he's not drunk at all. She watches Henry drag himself over to the town line like he's pulling a boulder behind him, and it hurts her to see him in so much pain but she doesn't move. She never does.
Then she watches Regina walk up to the spot in the middle of the road, closest to the town line, with the dagger held up and Regina's eyes glinting with hope.
Then she watches them after seconds and minutes pass and she still hasn't appeared in front of them. She watches them with their faces of disappointment and surrender and Regina's death-like grip on the hilt of the dagger. She watches them and she knows her heart is breaking again, but after a year of just watching them, she doesn't even know how her heart feels like when it breaks anymore. It already hurt too much to hurt anymore.
But, miraculously, it breaks more and more every time.
So she watches them leave, and she watches Henry walk up the steps as if today's just another normal day, and she watches Regina walk to her study and drink apple cider for the rest of the day like she always has, and when it's nine-thirty, she watches Henry carry Regina up to her bed and Regina just lies there for a good hour before she falls asleep with tears streaming down her face, with her hands clutching her chest as if it hurt.
She just watches, just like she has for the whole year.
And every night, she watches Regina fall asleep, and it's the same thing, the same tears, the same way Regina cries herself to sleep, the same way Regina clutches her chest every night before she can finally fall asleep, the same heartbreaking way that Regina would beg to the stars and everything else out there for her to come back.
And every morning for the past three hundred and sixty-five days, she watches Regina wake up with a smile, only to find out that it was all a dream, and she's still missing, and she's never coming back. She watches Regina break down every morning after she wakes up, and after a while Regina stops, only to sober herself enough to make Henry breakfast and get ready for work and drive Henry to school and go to work and come back home at noon to eat lunch and get drunk for the rest of the afternoon. Then David brings Henry home with takeout from Granny's and Henry leaves it in the fridge and carries Regina up to her bed and the cycle repeats.
And Emma watches it unfold over and over again for three hundred sixty-five days and more.
No matter what happens and no matter how much it hurts, Emma just watches, just like she has ever since the night when she became the Dark One.
The years pass and bit by bit, Regina learns to go back to being who she was before any of this ever happened. She stops going home to 'eat lunch' and instead opts for a delivery from Granny's for lunch, courtesy of Red Riding Werewolf. She spends the whole day at work and picks up Henry from school and they have a healthy dinner and on Saturdays they have movie night while she goes to Henry's soccer practice during the day, because he's stopped with the writer's workshops ever since the one year mark passed.
On Sundays, they have fun with David and Snow and baby Neal who's now three years old, and they all go to the park and Henry and David play with Neal while she and Snow watch them and let the day fly by. Then at night they would all go to Regina's and the Charmings would stay for the night, and Henry would sleep with baby Neal snuggled up into him and none of them object, because they look too cute, too cute, except for the fact that them together are too much a reminder of Emma, but no one says it, no one thinks about it for too long, because the thought of Emma hurts too much.
On Christmas, they have the whole family over, and soon that includes Zelena and the baby and Robin and Roland and Ruby and Granny and Pongo and Archie and sometimes even August and Marco and the seven dwarves come. (But they prefer Leroy to come less than more because, well, he drinks too much.) One Christmas, Whale even comes and Jefferson and Grace (because there seems to be something going on with Grace and Henry) and Ava and Nicholas and soon enough, the whole of Storybrooke comes to the mayoral mansion at Christmas.
But Regina relishes the days when it was just her and Henry and David and Snow and baby Neal, because it felt closer and warmer and Emma could be right there, but whenever they look, she would always be nowhere to be found.
And so the years pass and soon enough, she's old and frail and the past years come in a blur, because all she remembers are green eyes and blonde hair and leather jackets and tank tops and that white sweater that wrapped around the body that was taken away that night, so many years ago.
She closes her eyes, for one last time, and she seems to have forgotten that it all started with her, only her, all alone. Just like now, in this bedroom that used to be so much, in this mansion that used to be so different, because Henry and Grace live in a different house with their twin daughters Emily and Rebecca and no one's here to hold her hand, because look at how soulmates turn out to be, but she's okay with it because she remembers how she was really just all alone that night when Emma left.
So she closes her eyes, for one last time, and she breathes out before all she can see is darkness.
She hasn't been wrinkle free since...
But all she remembers are green eyes and blonde hair and leather jackets.
All she remembers are pale pink lips and snow white skin and a voice that echoes with "I will always find you," and "I'll be your Prince Charming."
All she remembers, really, are not Christmases with the whole of Storybrooke or Neal hearing the story of his older sister or days when she doesn't dream and she doesn't break down and something feels missing because she can't remember the last time she didn't cry when she woke up anymore. No, all she remembers in the life she had lived is the Savior who is her undoing till the end.
After so many years, she's in total darkness, and she hears nothing but whispers of a life she can't even remember having.
But it's her life. At least it was.
It's the life of Emma Swan, daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming.
Emma Swan, the Savior.
So she guesses it isn't her life anymore. She lost the title of 'Savior' the moment she took everyone's happy ending with her.
At first she thinks she's the only one, but she sees a woman in mayoral clothes, she sees a woman in shoulder-length brown hair, she sees a woman with the deepest brown eyes she has ever known.
"Regina."
"Emma."
She's so far, but she's just an arm's length, and the nearer Regina gets, the more Emma realizes that Regina shrunk, because Emma's still as tall as she was when she chainsawed off that branch from Regina's apple tree.
Or maybe she was just hallucinating, because now, Regina's tall again.
"Where have you been all these years?" She can see the tears, the same tears she sees every night before Regina falls asleep, and for once she can wipe them off, and she won't just watch anymore, just because she can now.
"I've been your guardian angel." And she's telling the truth, or maybe not, but that's the best that she can do without breaking Regina's heart.
"Well then, my guardian angel, will you be coming to heaven with me?"
And in a moment, she sees Regina's eyes change from a forced hope to a sad shade of disappointment.
"One day Regina, you'll see me again."
"One day."
"One day."
And with that, Regina walks away, off to whatever lies beyond her Dark One-ness, but she hears the clicking of heels running back to her and soft lips crashing against hers.
It's so warm, so familiar, and it feels like she's in heaven.
When Regina pulls away her eyes are brighter, but Emma knows it's just from the hype and it's going to fade as soon as they turn away, because they both know the eternity Emma's bound to.
"One day."
"One day."
And so Regina goes, and she disappears, and Emma's back in Storybrooke with the echoes of her curse whispering in the wind.
"You will never be able to hurt any of them, for the price that you may only watch them, no matter what you try to do, and once the Evil Queen passes on, you may see her though you may never be with her, for the rest your eternity will be spent on Earth to be impossible to kill and immortal, for that is your curse and that is the deal. "
Emma's fingers come up to touch her lips, and here she is at the window of Henry and Grace's house.
"One day."
Emily and Rebecca are going to grow up and be wonderful girls, she knows that, with Emily as the green-eyed blonde and with Rebecca as the brown-eyed brunette.
They're going to protect each other and they're going to be a perfect pair of sisters, and no one can ever keep them apart.
Not even fate.