Title: A Final Ending
Disclaimer: I don't own OUAT. If I did, the travesty of "Quiet Minds" never would have happened, and "bold storytelling" would have been replaced with good storytelling and believing in second chances would mean something.
Summary: Death comes to everyone. What lays beyond for Emma Swan. Swanfire. Spoilers for "Quiet Minds".
AN: Please review. Constructive criticism is welcome.
A FINAL ENDING
When the blinding light faded away, in its place was a wide beach, pristine white sand and crashing waves of vivid blue water. And in the distance a lone figure seated on the dunes.
As Emma began to walk, she became aware that the omnipresent aches in her joints had vanished. In fact she was no longer an old woman whose body had taken far too much punishment in her life. Her skin was free of wrinkles and liver spots and there was no gray in the strands of blonde hair that whipped about her in the ocean breeze. Her frame was slender, lithe in a way she had not been since she was barely more than a girl who had not yet lost the ability to dream.
Unburdened by the frailties of age, Emma walked with her shoulders held back, her gate easy, and smiled a little as she curled her toes in the damp sand.
Her smile faltered a little, however, the closer she came to the figure. She had known who it was the moment she spotted him, of course, even before she was able to make out his features or the faded hoodie. Would have known even if he wasn't leaning against the hood of a yellow Volkswagen that she had not seen in almost as long as the man who'd first stolen it - and her heart.
Neal too looked younger than when she'd seen him last, the gray gone from his hair, the added decade of age lines gone as he met her at the top of the sand dune with a soft smile.
"Emma. I've been waiting for you."
Her throat closed up a little at that. "All this time?" she managed and he shrugged.
"After a couple hundred years in Neverland, a few decades is nothing."
After taking a breath, she stated the obvious. "I'm dead."
"What gave it away?" he quipped and then gave a solemn nod. "Yeah, you are. Gets everyone in the end. Even my papa couldn't avoid it forever. Thank you for that, helping him get his freedom - and with putting an end to that damned curse forever."
"I couldn't have done that if it wasn't for you," Emma attested. "If you hadn't broken that seal..."
"Sometimes stupid decisions work out after all," Neal remarked, "even if it doesn't seem like it at the time."
"Like stealing a stolen car," she laughed, looking at the Bug - which she knew couldn't be real, because that car was most-likely rotting on the old toll bridge where she'd left it before Storybrooke was, for the last time, swallowed up by the forest.
"Yeah, just like that," Neal agreed as she laid a hand on the hood, warmed by the sun.
It couldn't be their car, not really. But even all these years later, she knew the Geromnio Jackson sticker in the window, each little dent in the fenders and doors - the dreamcatcher that hung inexplicably from the rear view mirror. Her breath caught a little at that.
Gazing on the car with his own fondness, he told her, "That's how I knew you were coming. When it appeared. Until then... I wasn't sure if you would."
Now the tears welled up. "Where else would I go?" she choked out. "I told you that I would always love you."
"Probably," Neal reminded, lips quirking in humor.
Though Emma could see in his eyes the pain, the uncertainty, that modifier had caused him. They had both hurt each other with the best of intentions and fears they couldn't outrun. And too much had been left unsaid, because of avoidance or the circumstances that never gave them chance to just talk.
"I'm sorry," she told him, her voice trembling, "for all of it. For... before... pushing you away. I didn't even meet you for coffee. If I'd known we had such little time. And after you were gone..."
"We couldn't have known how fleeting our time together was. And as for after... I told you, I wanted you to find Tallahassee," he insisted, his smile understanding. "I never wanted you to be alone, Emma." His smile did turn a little sad as he amended, "And I knew - I knew you would probably never have ever accepted me in your life again. Not after the pain I put you through."
"I would have," she insisted, tears spilling free. "I wouldn't have worn this otherwise," she said, fingers grasping the swan charm around her neck. She had not taken it off once, the trinket that she'd insisted represented distrust and betrayal that had come to, as it did in the beginning, represent a love so true - but so tragic. "I just needed time."
"And the universe never gave us enough of that," Neal sighed. "Not where it counted. But not every story ends with living happily ever after. Mine - ours - just wasn't meant to be."
Emma choked on a sob. "I made sure that Henry knew, that you were a hero, that you would have been the best father a child could have. And he did remember. He knew that you loved him."
"Henry grew up into a fine man," he said with a nod and she had to smile at that.
"He did. We have grandchildren. And great-grandchildren. I wish you could have met them," Emma whispered, and she truly meant it. He was so good with children and he would have loved them - and they would have loved him. She knew that the one thing Neal had wanted his entire life was a family, and Henry had given him that, but he had never been allowed to be part of it.
"Me too," he said with a nod, "but I watched them. I saw when Henry got married, the first time you held my namesake," he explained of their first grandchild, Baelfire.
His smile turned a bit sad as he amended, "As I did when you held Anna. You were so beautiful."
Another sob came from her throat. She had never planned a second child, just as she had not planned the first, but her daughter had been loved. Emma had loved Anna's father too, but it was a different love, contentious and fiery, filled with passionate arguments and equally passionate make-up sex. Though her heart had eventually shifted and broken free and she'd let herself return Killian's affection after his persistent and often aggravating pursuit, she had never loved him as deeply as he did she - an imbalance which he had accepted. Which was not to say they were unhappy, but there are many kinds of happiness. He was dashing and enchantment, poetry and grand gestures meant to romance the princess she was born to be. He challenged her. Neal was a thief who'd won the heart of a gutter-rat orphan with bad jokes and stolen Apollo Bars, and contrary as it sounded to the nature of fairy tales, no prose or flower petals could ever match the sweet simplicity that was first true love - the man who had loved her as just Emma Swan, the girl with nothing more than a good name and long list of foster homes. He supported her. And choosing between the two, support was always better. Perhaps it wasn't as exciting, and she'd had it but briefly, a heartbeat in the grander scale of her life, but it was the home she had always wanted, the one that she had dream of still, many nights, even though Neal's face and the particular timber of his voice faded with time.
"And grew more beautiful with each passing year," he continued affectionately, "because you were loved and that love filled your life with happiness. And that's all I ever wanted for you, Emma. To be happy. Truly."
"How could I be truly happy without you?" she countered and at last dared to touch him, to reach out place a hand against his chest, over his beating heart - thought it made no sense as they were dead. "I love you. I always loved you. Never 'probably'. Always. I might have found a home and people to share it with, but I never wanted Tallahassee with anyone but you. Not a day has passed that I haven't thought of you, Neal. I've missed you."
Her breath caught as he leaned in suddenly, their foreheads pressing together and her tears spilled anew as he brushed his nose against hers in the way the used to, those playful swan kisses to get around the obstruction of her chunky black glasses. His brown eyes danced with happiness as she nuzzled him back, wondering how much she'd missed that silly, simple expression of adoration.
But her eyes were free now and they were so close she could feel his breath tickle against her lips.
Emma slowly slid her hand to his shoulder, the other joining at the back his neck, fingers entwining in his shaggy hair where it curled over the collar of his jacket and pulling them closer until their bodies were flush and she could feel his chest rise and fall in unison with her own.
It felt as though her whole life had been working toward this moment, that this moment was somehow crucial, fundamental to the story of her life - even if its ending was in death.
Her eyelids fluttered shut and she waited. Then Neal leaned over and slowly, tentatively, she felt his lips against hers for the first time in more years than she could believe has passed. And as she leaned into the kiss with the desperation of a thousand dreams that had never come to pass, Emma realized that at long last -
She had found Tallahassee.
_ the end _
I have read far more than I have written, which is maybe for the best. I go down with my ship, as I have with all the rest. Swanfire true love is canon. They can never take that away from us. Whomever Emma ends up with in life, I choose to believe that in fictional death Emma and Neal would reunite, get into their Love Bug, and drive off into the sunset to have a multitude of adventures, to have the happy ending they were denied in life. Perhaps they would raise their son and grow old together before fading into whatever lays beyond.