A/N: This story is COMPLETE. I will upload a new chapter once per week on Fridays. This story is crossposted on AO3, LJ and tumblr.

Storybrooke, Maine, The World Without Magic:

They wouldn't let her into the room. His casket was there. Leroy and David barred her entering, but Emma was not going to have any of it.
"David, Leroy, you let me in that room or so help me-" David cut her off.

"Emma, you can't. I can't let you," The urgency in his tone stopped her persistent efforts. Emma looked him in the eye, reproachfully, suspiciously.

"What's going on? Something is wrong. There's something that you're not telling me," She looked between the two men trying to guage their responses. David, she had found, was a pretty easy read. He wore his emotions plain upon his face. He looked to her, in that moment, drawn. "What aren't you telling me?" There was an edge of desperation to her voice. This was his funeral. This was her- this was-
"Emma, Neal's body is gone,"

David began and Emma's mouth fell open in shock. "Someone has been with his body at all times. When we transported it here, and set it up for the viewing… Emma, we opened it and it was empty. There is nothing for you to see, I…I'm sorry," For a few moments it was all Emma could do not to fall over from shock.

"Could he be?" Her question was only half formed as it tumbled from her lips and she could see her father's eyes grow sad.

"We're thinking that it was most likely Zelena, Emma. Maybe he's part of her spell or-"

"No! No, it…he…No. That's not true. I won't accept it. I can't," Her thoughts were swirling at an alarming rate, and David reached over, touching her shoulder.

"Emma, we can't tell anyone about this. Henry…" She looked up at him, startled. "We have to go through with the funeral. Maybe…" He hesitated and she braced herself for his next words. "Maybe it's for the best, Sweetheart,"

Emma said nothing.

The funeral was a properly sombre affair. The closed casket had surprised many people and disappointed Henry, but no one questioned 'Emma's decision'. As she went to toss her shovel full of dirt over the grave of her once lover, Emma worried at the Swan pendant hanging around her neck, the talisman a cruel reminder. Neal had always been so full of hope.

She was afraid to cling to it.

That didn't change the fact that hope was all she had left.

Middle of Nowhere, The Enchanted Forest:

At first he thought he'd gone blind, and sure, blind was better than dead, but it still was as horrible a fate as he could think of. Slowly his vision went from black to blurred. His head hurt something fierce and he could feel a sinking, bleeding sort of sensation, except he was certain that when a person bled, they bled out, and not in. He raised his head as far as he could and lifted a hand. A symbol was burned into his palm and it had grown…black.

"No…" He coughed the syllable hoarsely. He wasn't sure why, but he knew that whatever it was, it was evil. Groggily he sat up. Lush forest surrounded him and a patchwork of moonlight filtered through the leaves. "No. This… this isn't right," Intuitively, he could tell that he wasn't where he should be. That something was horribly, horribly wrong. He surveyed his surroundings. He lay in a small clearing in the copse of trees. A perfectly circular clearing. Something glinted in the moonlight and his eyes were immediately drawn to it. He squinted, trying desperately to will his still hazy vision better. It was a dagger, crooked and curved and inscribed.

A sharp pain accompanied by a tingling sensation tore his attention away from the ominous dagger and he looked once again at his hand. The seeping blackness had traveled up his arm, creeping, growing, encroaching.

"No, oh God, what's wrong with me?" he whispered in terror. The black shot up his arm in a sudden burst and he cried out in pain; the action jolted his whole body and he stood on shaky legs, holding his arm away from him and staggered towards the shining blade. When it rested in front of him, he dropped wearily to his knees. With his good arm, he tentatively reached for the dagger. The handle felt warm under his hand, and the tingling sensation began to crawl it's way up from the point where it made contact with his skin. He ignored it, and focused on the blade once more. In the moonlight, he could just barely make out the word inscribed, dark against the bright steel.

"Baelfire,"

The black reached his shoulder and scurried with ever increasing quickness to his chest, up his neck and traveled in tendrils up until it touched his eyes, spreading like black cracks against his skin.
Memories ensconced him completely, memories of lifetimes before him, of men called 'the Dark One'.

A hideous smile broke across his black veined skin.

"Baelfire, the Dark One,"