A/N: I've been listening to the Hamilton soundtrack (highly recommend btw!), and was really inspired by the title of the song, Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story. This is a quick little thing and features spoilers/speculation! This can probably also be filed under reasons we have no reason to worry at all ever. Enjoy ;)
Emma was standing at the end of the field of grass. It led to the cemetery, but she couldn't let her boots wander too far away from the paved road. She couldn't let herself get too deep into the field of greens so that she began craving Middlemist flowers and a presence that was no longer there.
She turned around, looking at her lonely yellow bug on the side of the road. She took a breath before turning her back to it, her hand subconsciously going to the ring hanging around her neck. Tears found themselves in the corner of her eyes but she refused to let them fall. Her heart quickened its pace as she walked towards the cemetery, walking deeper into the ironically vibrant greens until she found herself in front of the stone with his name.
For several moments she just stared. The name that had finally slipped so flawlessly off her tongue, the name she began breathing when her love for him blossomed like those beautiful flowers, was sorely out of place on that rock. Her thumb was still running over his ring; her mouth still tracing his name; her heart still beating for him.
They were all in Storybrooke now. She was back to wearing jeans and her favorite red leather jacket, but her soul still sang of what she wore in Camelot. She still could envision his red vest and coat, even though he was wearing modern clothes when she saw him last. Their love was so strong that day when he chased the darkness away from her. It was more vivid than a memory, more vivid than anything and she was unable to define it.
She sat down cross legged in front of the stone. She sat and began to talk to him. It began as a whisper, shaky and scared, until it was a chant, a mantra, all she could hold onto, until the birds around her seemed to be tweeting Killian, Killian, Killian, over and over and over again.
"I can't lose you. I can't lose you, too. Killian, I love you." A tear betrayed her confidence as it ran down her cheek. She didn't bother wiping it away. The only pause she took was for a breath of air.
"It took me a long time to admit, but I love you, I do. You're home to me." She smiled for the briefest of seconds before she said, "You've always brought me home. Always."
She stared at the stone; the reality of it betrayed her, her tears betrayed her, magic betrayed her. Killian never did, though. He tore her walls down one by one before evolving into one himself to support her. For a second she's back in Camelot, staring up at him with disbelief as he holds his hand out to her, offering support. Telling her to get on the horse. Telling her he still believes in a white picket fence life.
It was the thought of a white picket fence that destroyed her. Thinking of their new home, half empty with the white fence she'd selected just for him, she grabbed the grass at her sides. She didn't want to keep him alive through stories as the apprentice had told Henry to do with his father. She wanted Killian alive here with her, hook and hand around her waist, lips connected to hers. She wanted a future; she didn't want to restrain what they had to pen and paper. She wanted him in the here and now.
The here and now: suddenly she was standing up, heavy determination in her lungs. She felt her heart beating in her palms. She was Emma Swan. What was she doing? She was the one who always said you choose your own fate, that you punch back and change things for yourself. She was the SAVIOR. She wasn't nothing, never was. It didn't matter that she felt like she could dissolve into the earth with the weight of her sadness, but she knew what she was capable of—and she was even more sure of the man who helped show her.
She could see the bashful shake of his head; she could hear his voice, you have your parents, Henry… as the beginnings of a small smile crept at the corners of her lips. "I'm going to be making my way back to you, babe. I'm not telling your story, and even if Henry could write it with his pen, I wouldn't let him do it either. You're going to do it." She licked her lips, believing each word more and more as it passed through them. "You're a survivor, and I'm bringing you back to me."
She'd thought about bringing the Middlemist flower he gave her in Camelot, but was glad she didn't. She didn't need to leave it here as a symbol. She would soon hold him again, and, until then, it could serve as another reminder of the piercing-eyed, smoldering pirate that loves her—the absolute hero that loves her and that still would when she did what the savior does: saves.
Only, this time, she wasn't doing it to fulfil some role; she was doing it for herself and her love, because she'd go to Hell before she lost him, Killian, her one True Love. After all, as S. Morgenstern said in his own book: death cannot stop True Love, it can only delay it for a little while. And, hell, as if their quiet moments hadn't ever been delayed. This silence may just last a little longer than others.
Emma reached down to touch the stone before heading towards her bug and gripping the ring between her fingers. They would find their way back to each other as they always did. They'd been to more realms than she wanted to count on her fingers, and she didn't even want to do the math to figure how they ended up on the same timeline. She was just grateful they did. She would be even more joyous after she literally walked through the gates of Hell to find him. Because, honestly, what was another realm to them?
The important thing was this: their story wasn't over, and they were timeless.