Emma was always told that eventually everybody moves on from their loss(es), and she had forced herself to believe the same. However she soon realized that everyone always exaggerates. No one really ever moves on from any loss, they only believed they someday could.
x-x-x
She is yelling at Whale, shoving and dragging him by his coat, like an animal would a rag doll for entertainment. Except, this isn't for entertainment.
They are at Story Brooke's hospital, where Henry is lying on a bed, his face as pale as the white sheets underneath him, and a dozen tubes - transporting liquids of different colors – red, yellow, translucent – that run out of him, like extended veins.
She can't understand why everyone else is so quiet?
Her mother and father are holding each other, as if the other would collapse otherwise, as if as if they have had enough of trying to find a happy ending in the midst of having found each other.
Neal surprisingly is standing right next to Henry, but Emma can see in his eyes the urge to run, like he always does abandoning everything he calls his own.
Gold too, with Belle on an arm, has not spoken at all – not even to offer his usual slimy deals, when people are at their weakest, at their most vulnerable state of being.
The normally insufferable Hook is lurking in the background silently, like how the moon does, against the backdrop of a sky lit by a thousand twinkling stars.
The rest of those who were never on the Jolly Roger, who didn't have to see horror and evil rise every day instead of the morning sun or drink up despair and pain, like it was the only remedy to fix their broken souls, were speaking about the silence that had fallen upon Storybrooke an hour ago.
Except then, suddenly, Regina is sobbing like a wounded animal – scared, raw, helpless and disturbed, but looking like a war torn country – small, ruined, empty and broken.
This is not how she wanted the silence to be shattered and just that thought makes her blood boil. The monitors should have beeped with the heartbeat of her son or her kiss should have made him gasp for air, like it had when the curse was broken.
But Emma realized this time there was no curse to be broken. This time the curse had become them.
x-x-x
They buried him on a winter morning, when the snow had enveloped the entire town, giving it a fairytale effect, for when the entire town gathered together at his funeral, it indeed felt like the WhiteKingdom was waving to their young prince a final goodbye.
Emma was the only one who did not cry, even when she willed for the tears to cascade down her cheeks into the mud she was about to throw over Henry's black coffin.
She wanted a part of her to remain with him, so that when the time came for the earth to swallow his body completely, he wouldn't be all alone.
She is greedily downing all the words of comfort and love that everyone has been offering her, only to panic moments later, wondering if she could get drunk by consuming too many of those words, all at one go?
It is then her eyes fall upon a lonesome figure, still standing over Henry's grave. Regina is looking every bit graceful and intimidating, as she always does. Emma has not spoken to her, ever since they got back from Neverland.
If she were being honest, there is nothing left to speak about anymore. Henry was a catalyst of their conversations but also an instigator of the silences that followed.
This time the hush that has descended over them, seems to be crying out to break free but Emma feels like they're lost in the empty streets of some ruined city.
It is bad enough when a person runs away from their own shadow; it is worse when they can't face their own reflection.
Regina was her reflection.
In that moment, all the grief and pain and yearning in those sad brown eyes would drown her and sadly the one person could save her had taken his boat off shore.
But then something catches her eye.
Regina leaves something by his grave, something shiny and it is sparkling from the mud, like a diamond in coal. Emma wants to walk up and satisfy her curious mind, but she finds herself being pulled by Mary Margaret towards David, and then slowly everyone is gathering around them like moths to a flame.
If her mind wasn't so hazy she'd have thought they were members of some cult about to indulge in a sacrificial ritual, where someone else loses their good so that another's bad can be lost.
And weirdly Emma realizes this is indeed a sacrificial ritual in its own way, because her searching eyes weigh down in the realization of Regina's absence.
This town while consoling each other has forgotten to comfort the one mother who had to sacrifice all her badness for the goodness of the son that was her own. Not by the conception of her flesh and blood, but by something far more powerful than that, by the conception of her thoughts and love.
x-x-x
It is something about her Emma can never understand how the former queen could appear so elegant even when she is so drunk. Her inebriation explains why she hasn't yet sensed Emma's presence.
Or has she?
Was she just pretending so that when Emma got closer, she could hurl her over the pier into the cold water and drown her on such a frosty lonely night?
There was no Henry now to keep the former evil queen on some kind of leash. Besides, there was no one around to hear her cries of help. Emma didn't tell anyone where she was headed, because frankly she didn't know where she was headed, until her feet pulled her here.
All she knew was that she needed to get out. From her parent's home, from Neal's self-pity, from Ruby's hug, from Archie's kind words, from Hook's unwelcome concern, from Gold's failed magic remnants, from anything and anyone that reminded her of what happened in Neverland and what she lost there.
She lost herself.
She lost the light and found her darkness.
A darkness so pervasive that she can feel its stickiness clamped into the universe of her being, making her life a curse rather than the means to a happy ending.
So it is odd when she finds Regina by the pier and instead of walking away, she feels an odd sense of relief flooding the empty aching spaces in her heart.
If she were being entirely honest, she didn't want to be all by herself tonight.
They buried a part of her today and she fears that a drink or two more and she'd be back by Henry's grave, digging it open, hoping that she can take that part and once again feel whole.
She wonders if Gold through his hocus-pocus can resurrect Henry this time, which on the Jolly Roger left nothing but a whole ton of magic residue that almost killed them all. Or if she could perform a sacrificial ritual of her own, she would exchange her life in return for giving birth to her son, twice in one lifetime.
There is not much light towards the side where Regina is now standing, leaning, looking towards the sea, like a fisherman would before the break of dawn, with reverence and anxiety.
To Emma's eyes, Regina looks like a mythical sea creature; the moonlight filtering through her dark brown hair, radiating into her olive skin, making it seem like a shade of gold.
There is an empty whisky bottle lying surrendered next to Regina's heels and for a moment Emma can't help but wonder who seems to be the drunken one here?
She feels disappointed at the discovery, for she was hoping she could drink a glass or two. She hasn't yet felt the need to drink, until now, because everything already felt numb and dead.
Suddenly though her throat has gone all dry and her leg twitches like she is in desperate need of that drink. So when there is a tingle in her spine, she doesn't think anything of it, until that all familiar feeling of being watched encroaches upon her.
Someone is watching her, watching them.
Her eyes go wide when she spins around to find Tinker Bell looking at her with a little empathy and a lot of guilt.
Is she supposed to say something? Her eyes catch the blue ones that are now peering towards Regina.
Wait she needs to ask her something. What is she doing here?
Emma was surprised when she met Tinker Bell in Neverland. She wondered if Snow White's tale had the story of another daughter, who instead of a wardrobe was pushed into a boat and set sail to the shores of Neverland where the Peter Pan found her. She looked so much like Emma - the blonde hair, blue eyes, fiery personality, but mostly because Regina disliked her too.
They hadn't set foot out of the Jolly Roger and the former queen was all but rabid about having to take Tinker Bell's help. Snow White was able to form a semblance of truce, but not before Regina landed a nice solid punch across Tinker's jaw.
It had to hurt, because well hello, been there, felt that.
She was quite surprised how a petite, woman like Regina could pack such a nasty punch.
She looked across towards the end of the pier; Regina looked like the ships that were floating in the water, distant, anchorless and small.
"How long have you been here?" her tone came out far more interrogative than she would have liked. But hey, she still was the official Sheriff of Storybrooke.
"Long enough to know" then Tinker abruptly stopped as if even saying what she was about to, would shrink their already constricted hearts, " that she is sinking, and there is no anchor this time."
Pause.
Another heart beat later "The thing is we all need to sink, so that we can learn to kick our legs around, fight to regain our breath, float up, and swim across willingly, until we are back on our feet."
Tinker's eyes are like the waves of an ocean, the intensity of the emotions, losing momentum as they get closer to the shore.
Emma does not understand, but recognizes unwillingly, that here is yet another back-story in the former queen's life, that she hasn't bother to ask her parents, and that her parents haven't deemed it worthy to be discussed.
Guilt pangs bob up and down her chest like a paper boat trickling in a puddle of rain water.
She should have tried to read beyond the chapters of a silly book. After all isn't that what being the Savior is all about, ripping apart pretenses and masks that people wear as a second skin?
She could have forced Henry to write a new book, authored by only him this time.
But now it is too late.
"The thing though is," her thoughts are cut off by Tinker's distant voice "why will she fight to come back up anymore? Regina has lost her home – the place where she kept her heart, alive and beating."
Tinker had now moved a few steps ahead of Emma, like she was too afraid to get near to Regina, but bold enough to let herself be seen by her.
"You…you…" it is as if the cold air freezes her tongue, she wants to ask the question, but something holds her back "you should go home. It is late and well I don't think Regina wants any help"
"Home?" Tinkle scoffs "I don't know which one is it anymore? Fairytale land, Neverland or now Storybrooke"
That is all the opening Emma needs to ask the question perched on the edge of her tongue, like an eagle patiently waiting to pounce on its prey. "You knew Regina, from the Fairytale land days?"
Tinker raises an eyebrow "I thought that was evident from the reception I got in Neverland"
Duh. Emma thinks, Tinker must think.
Apparently Tinker does not know a leading question when she hears one.
"Yeah well" Emma says, digging her boots into the wood deck below her, wondering if this was built from the trees in the forests of the fairytale land "but I don't know what transpired between you. Snow…er….my mom didn't tell me."
As an after thought she adds "Not that I was interested to even know. My whole focus was just to get back Henry saf…" the word dies on her lips.
Tinker comes closer to Emma, she is whispering when she answers, as if afraid the secret about to tumble out will cast a shadow on the only illuminating thing in Regina's life at the moment – the moon.
"I was the fairy chosen for Regina"
Emma lets out a small gasp "But you…" The remaining words just hung in the air between them, but they need not have been completed.
"I knew a very young Regina. A naïve, kind, wonderful and vulnerable young princess, who thought everyone deserved to be happy, even Snow White."
Tinker turns around to catch a glimpse of the woman in question and sighs "As her fairy, I should have protected her, she even wished upon me, but I was forbidden by Cora and Rumple – they worked in tandem to birth most evils in Regina's life - and I cowered in fear, leading my banishment to Neverland by the Fairy Council"
Emma looks up in understanding "You blame yourself for the creation of the Evil Queen?"
"No, I blame myself for the destruction of the pure hearted Regina" Tinker says, without missing a heartbeat "Had I been around, her life wouldn't have gotten so messed up. She wouldn't have to marry King Leopold, she wouldn't hate Snow White, she wouldn't unleash the curse, she wouldn't have separated you from Snow and Charming, she…"
"Henry wouldn't be born" Emma says flatly, aware that her heart just felt like stone, heavy and cold.
"Yes Henry," Tinker now brings her hand towards her chest as if saying his name was breaking her heart too "see, he in some ways became her fairy. The one that I could not be for her; he broke the curse within her – about seeing love as a weakness rather than strength. He was her anchor and now…."
Emma is acutely aware that Tinker is trying to tell her something, but what exactly she cannot seem to decipher. For a Savior she thinks she is pretty dense when it came to reading between lines.
Apparently little fairies have better street sense than her in spite of living in a world where nobody grew up, but where creepy got a brand new definition. So…
"Maybe you could help her. Help each other through this. Like how parents usually do together at the loss of their child. You are after all the Savior, Emma."
"Tinker Bell" Emma clears her throat "I think guilt has colored your mind too much if you think we can be anything but destructive for each other. The only reason we didn't kill each other while we were on the shores of Neverland, was because we wanted to keep Henry alive."
Still you failed the voice in her head taunts her.
Nope not drunk.
"He is still alive, within you."
"These are just mere words. People say it when they don't know what else could be said. The reality is that Henry is dead and life is nothing but a bottomless ocean now and it feels like I'm drowning deeper one day at a time" she bites her lower lip, trying to keep her emotions at bay.
"I think what I'm trying to say is that," she swallows "perhaps now, through him, you can be each other's anchors?"
The suggestion makes her eyes widen like she has seen a ghost or something. How she wishes she could at least see Henry's ghost.
God, was she really not drunk?
"I don't need any anchor, I don't want to be saved" Emma says anger bubbling up within her.
"Well even the Savior sometimes needs a Savior. We all can be saved by someone" Tinker smiles
"I know everyone looks at me and sees this Savior with the pure heart, the strong arms, the brave soul and the kind eyes. What they don't see though are my long legs, all ready to run. Henry was my speed breaker and I no longer see any reason why I will be staying around anymore"
Tinker is shifting on her feet, impatient for Emma to finish, not wanting to be rude and interrupt her mid-sentence.
"Henry wouldn't want you to run though"
Ok, the woman has a mean punch without even needing to use her hands. Fairy shit at work here, she thinks.
"He never asked me to stay either"
"I think you'd be doing yourself an immense favor by staying." the other blonde woman says firmly, even though her voice is soft.
"Yeah? How is that?"
"It is the only way you will be able to forgive yourself. Because you will realize something that Regina," Tinker gestures towards the brunette by raising her eyebrows and jutting her chin out "learned in Storybrooke. No matter how much you try to run away from the demons within, by creating a different world altogether for yourself, in the end, the only way you can exorcise them forever, is by facing them in the place they happen to own – inside your heart."
Emma wants to ask her to shut up, wants to push her into the water. Talk about Regina being the one with the evil instincts here.
"Emma, no matter how much you run away, all routes will lead home. Who better than me to tell you this? We go searching for paradise across the world, but little do we know paradise is our roots, it is below our feet"
Yeah Emma thinks - the empty whisky bottle at Regina's feet is a testament to that. She so needs that drink now.
Before she could open her mouth to say something, Tinker continues…
"Remember this Emma: Even if we get a second chance to start afresh, we end up on the same journey as our first choices got us. Because, we are always meant to be, where we are; it is not what happens to us that matters, but what we make of what happens to us that does. So don't run Emma. Stay. Heal."
"Think about it. She could surely use a friend. So could you" the smaller blonde says softly, before she walks away into the night.
Emma stands there for a while, feeling the words of the fairy wash over her, the impact as brute as if she were standing under a huge waterfall.
Regina is now sitting down, her body battered with the weight of grief and tears, clutching onto something. Emma thinks it must be a picture of Henry or his favorite blue Batman shirt or some other tangible thing that connects Henry to this world.
She puts her hands in the pocket of her coat, her fingers brushing against metal and as she brings the glistening chain up to her eyes, she thinks about how Henry might be one of those stars up above her, watching her, from now on, always shining on her.
It is the same chain Regina left by his graveside today. After the crowd had left, Emma went back. She has always been a curious person and especially when it came to the fallen queen.
After all if there was one thing Emma could never compete with Regina in, would be how if they split open both of them, Regina would burst open with the wealth of far too much Henry within her, than Emma ever would, even though he lived within her for nine long months.
It is a gold chain, with a pendant – a heart shaped one – that could hold within in two photos, however this one only had that of a very young Henry.
Maybe when he was five years old, with his front tooth missing but his cheeky smile capturing you still the same and it is a moment Emma does not recognize, because she never was there – to change his diapers, soothe his fevers, and drive away his fears.
Emma wonders if the chain belongs to Cora, the Queen of Hearts, who didn't have her own, yet the piece of her heart she let loose in the world, loved her more than she ever deserved. She wonders if the missing photo in the locket was Cora's.
Is that why Regina had surrendered this to the earth? She was burying everyone she has every truly love in the past, knowing in the present that she could never ever love again in the future?
Emma brings her hand to rest down by the side of her body, the chain still clutched in her palms. She looks at Regina and knows that she must go and help the fallen queen back up on her feet, and in the process stop herself from falling.
Her grip on the locket gets tighter as the chain dangles from between the slight opening in her palms, like sand that is slipping away if held on too tightly. Like memories that she no longer wants to hold onto because she is too afraid, to feel anything, anymore.
And so Emma takes a deep breath. Puts the chain back into her pocket safely, and walks away without glancing back, knowing that if she did, she would find her speed breaker just a few meters away.
x-x-x
Emma has heard of a 7 year itch when it comes to marriage. Little did she know, in her case it could even extend to a city – she had been in Tallahassee for seven long years, since the night she ran away from StoryBrooke.
She had wandered a few places before she decided she wanted to start at the same point where fate had decided to rewrite her happily ever after.
It had been a busy but a lonesome life for her. She was pre-occupied with work for most part of her day, and so tired that by night she would crash until the sun swallowed the moon whole again.
When she first came into the city, she figured that she could go back to her old bounty hunter ways. But she decided against it, because if this was her second innings at the game called life, she didn't want to carry forward anything that reminded her of her past records.
So instead she settled into a life that now finds her as a sous-chef at a reasonably well known Italian restaurant.
Her foray into the world of cooking happened completely by accident, much like everything else in her life, but her love for cooking turned out to be completely by choice. She started off by bagging quite a few waitressing stints so that she could pay bills and it happened to be a job that also kept her rootless to a place. If she left, nobody would need her and if she returned, nobody would want her to stay.
But turns out a few months turned into a year and then turned into a few more seasons, Emma had stayed and ultimately found herself a roommate, who was a chef at one of the Indian restaurants around.
Hina,whose father was Pakistani and her mother Indian, but who always described her identity as fiercely American.
It was from her Emma learned about the wealth of spices and how one could prepare the simplest of meals, yet make it seem as the most exotic of menus on display.
Hina got pregnant with her Spanish boyfriend's kid one year and soon, one fine morning as Hina had her twenty-fifth bout of morning sickness beat her down, Emma stepped in to be her Savior.
Apparently whenever she has to play the role of the Savior, she plays it so convincingly well – by default- that even in this case, she soon ended up learning all the tricks of the trade by the best of them around.
It was how she had landed up as a sous-chef, after 6 long years of working diligently and with much discipline, Emma had beaten some of the best men in the business, only by using her kitchen knives and magical hands (as Hina called them).
Of course Emma hates the word Magic because it reminds her of everything that she has tried to forget.
Tried
Every night Emma sees the same dream. Henry calling out to her, sometimes for help, but most other times he is saying something she cannot hear.
When she tries harder to strain her ears to catch his voice, she wakes up from her dream, drenched in her sweat, as if someone is pounding her heart, with the pestle she uses to crush seeds of pepper in her kitchen.
She thinks about her heart and how it must be now, just like pepper perhaps, coarse and small. Without Henry it has never been the same, no longer pure and powerful she believes.
She couldn't help but miss the Savior role once in a while though.
On days when Hina's kid would be playing the Disney channel and Snow White would smile at her, Emma couldn't help but call up her mother.
It wasn't as though she abandoned all contact with her fairytale past. She called up her parents occasionally, when she either missed Henry too much or when there was no time to miss him at all.
When she ran away from Storybrooke that night, she did under the confidence that nobody would follow her.
They didn't.
How could they, the curse wasn't fully broken – the magical boundary line still existed. And she knew her mother was far too idealistic to abandon her subjects just because she wanted to be with her long lost – found – runaway daughter.
Hook had tried to find her, apparently for days on end in the streets of New York and Boston but stopped when he got lost in the woods of the EnchantedForest.
A certain Thief's arrow played the role of Cupid's and Emma couldn't help but chuckle at the thought if Hina's kiddo learned that Robin Hood ended up with a pirate rather than some princess after all.
The only person who ever finally found her was Neal. 7 months ago.
(What is with the number 7)
As always after a considerable gap, one night, by a terrible twist of fate, he showed up at her restaurant with his swanky looking date. She could never figure out what the hell women see in him anyway. She was barely a girl when she met him, so well she gets a pass because of that.
Turns out she too was one of those women who never learned from their mistakes it seems. For after one really persuasive month by Neal, Emma finds herself drinking and dancing with him in a bar.
It leads to something that come morning Emma couldn't really recollect, except that Neal's very naked body had coiled around her semi-naked one, like a python who wanted to devour his prey but stopped with the morning rays.
She remembers stumbling around in the damp motel room, just before vomiting.
As she just had now.
She is worried that someone will catch her standing outside on these empty streets. For a moment she thinks nobody will recognize her. How can they?
It has been seven long years after all.
She is standing in the same town, she ran away from. From the same people who always wanted to run to her.
Her hand quietly slips into the pocket of her flannel pants and she fishes out the gold chain, rubbing her thumb over the locket, like Aladdin would to summon a Genie, so that she could use up all of her three wishes, to banish away all her fears.
No Genie comes though, but instead she has managed to summon 40 seconds of pure foolish liquid courage, because when she looks up, she realizes she is standing outside the same white door, and as she looks at the keyhole she suddenly feels so very small, as if had drunk some liquid out of bottle like Alice in Wonderland.
Emma feels nervous and as uncertain as she was, that night, 8 years ago.
When she finally decided to go back home, she never thought this is the first place where her swollen ankles would finally lead her. She had been on her feet for far too long, the drive to StoryBrooke had not been easy and turns out she took quite a few tries before she finally found her way into town.
Emma blows out a long breath. Henry's warmth envelops her and before she knows it the doorbell has rung.
The eyes are still as beautiful and warm as Emma remembers them to be. But no longer do they hold within it a sea of emotions. It is glassy and blinking at her as if Emma is some apparition.
Perhaps she is. She isn't the same Emma Swan that left those drunk, lonely and wet eyes by the pier in the darkness all alone.
"Hi" Emma manages to squeak out awkwardly, but not before licking her lips.
Some things don't change after all, she thinks.
The eyes are still blinking, still devoid of any emotion, and then it happens, suddenly they widen, as big as the alien flying saucers of Hina's favorite tv show 'The X-files'.
Emma never really got the obsession Hina had with watching the re-run of the series on her laptop every night, but every time Scully rolled her eye at Mulder or scoffed at his ridiculous theories, Emma couldn't help but think of Regina.
Which she now realizes meant she thought of Regina almost every other night for the past one year.
Regina, who has finally started to age and yet manages to look prettier than Emma had remembered her to be. What she must be 40 now? Wait make that 70 if they had to be completely realistic.
The crow's feet have set foot on her kingdom of glory it seems, her hair still is the same, except for a grey streak striking through it, like lightning would in a stormy sky, odd wrinkles have cropped up here and there but they still can't blemish the otherwise perfect olive skin.
Emma feels entranced when finally Regina's lips part and she darts out her tongue, licking her plump lips, before finally disappearing right back in and then that husky golden voice shatters the silence of Emma's night, once again, just as it had 7 years ago.
But this time there is no sob, just a tiny gasp.
"You're pregnant?" the words finally follow.
Emma can't help but shrug her shoulders and smile. Because for the first time, since she peed on a stick and her world tilted on its axis, she feels steadied, settled and strangely, completely anchored.
Perhaps Tinker Bell was right after all. All routes lead to home.
And Emma was staring right back into it.
