It was odd how the dreams came, even though she didn't sleep. They were like flashbacks of a life she hadn't lived, of people she wasn't completely sure she knew. It was all very unclear. The dreams felt familiar but she didn't recognize the faces.
The first night it was a woman she had never seen before. She smiled down at the sleeping toddler in her arms with a young boy of about ten standing next to her. They gazed at the sleeping child but a sadness covered her face as though she was distraught about something. "Mama, when is Papa coming home? It's been forever."
"It's not been forever Liam Jones and I'll thank you not to exaggerate so. You'll teach your brother bad habits. Your Papa will be home when he gets home. He's off providing for our family."
"Does he miss us? I know that me and Killy sure miss him." With a start Emma realized that the flashback she was having was not of just a random person. It was of Killian as a child. She looked closer at the sleeping toddler but his face was tucked into his mother's chest drawing comfort from her warmth.
"I'm sure he does lad. Your dad is a good man. A man of honor. " Her eyes held a sorrow that Emma couldn't place until she thought of her own experiences with Henry. The times she had told him a half truth or even an out and out lie. She imagined she had worn a similar expression. Whatever Killian's father was, whatever his mother was painting him out to be, he was not a man of honor. In an instant she gained a deep respect for his mother for fostering positivity in her boys for their father, even if her eyes indicated he didn't deserve it.
As quick as the flashback started it ended, leaving Emma feeling a little disoriented. They couldn't see her there. She wasn't there really and yet she knew details of that moment in his life that Killian never would. He had been lost far away in dream land as his mother defended his father from the questioning mind of a young boy. There was a loss she felt now being removed from his past so abruptly. It was something they rarely talked about. He was always inquiring about her past, eager to learn more about her beginnings, but he rarely spoke about his own past. He had divulged once that his father had abandoned him and Liam in a boat in the middle of the sea but he didn't expound on it. The statement had been matter of fact told by a pirate who had had hundreds of years to deal with the trauma. However she had often wondered how much of that was real and how much was false bravado. The glimpse she'd gotten into his childhood was small and yet she felt like she understood him just a bit better from that tiny moment. His mother had loved him and his brother completely. She had no doubt of that. Whenever he spoke of her, which was incredibly rare, she could sense that love had been reciprocated tenfold. She sat, rubbing her hand across her face. It was hard, never getting tired. Especially since the lack of a need for physical rest didn't alleviate the emotional exhaustion that had taken over. When she looked in the mirror she could see it in her drawn expression and her lifeless eyes. She had known when she made the sacrifice that life as the dark one wouldn't be easy but she had expected it to be far simpler to rid herself of the darkness. Now it had settled into her bones, urging her daily to take yet another step away from the woman that she had been. She moved about the room, glancing from the window of the house that she had overtaken down to the street. People were walking, living their lives unaware of the turmoil that was simmering beneath her surface. The glimpse into Killian's childhood had awakened something that she thought was going dormant. Her ability to connect to those around her. So much of her time now was spent as the dark one that she rarely had the opportunity to just be Emma. Throughout the day she continued to move about the house, hiding away from the prying eyes of those that wanted to help her. She had asked for their help and even now she wanted it to some degree. The darkness whispered to her though, urging her to leave weak and mortal Emma behind.
The second night it was Regina, standing over a crib looking at a crying infant. Without hesitation Emma knew that it was Henry laying there. Her false memories from their time in New York made that very clear. He cried, looking up at his adoptive mother, as though imploring her to do something to ease his restlessness. "Henry you have to stop crying. I don't know what you want. Why don't you ever stop crying?" Regina looked frazzled, tired of the persistent cries of the infant. "I need you to love me Henry. Can't you just give me a chance? This isn't fair. I'm not a mind reader. Can't you just calm down?" Emma understood the frustration, although her experience with an infant Henry had been far different. He had been a calm and happy baby. She knew that a large part of that was Regina giving her happy memories with him and she was grateful for that. Being so young when she had him she wasn't sure how she would have been with a fussy Henry either.
Yet again it ended as quickly as it had begun. One minute she was looking down at her infant son and the next she was back in her house, alone. The feeling was jarring. Isolation was one of the many drawbacks of being the dark one. To protect her loved ones she felt she needed to stay away. Keep a distance. It was easier for some than others. Henry had come the day before and she had, yet again, set him down to explain to him that his safety was of the utmost importance and that as much as she loved seeing him she was afraid that he was putting himself in danger by coming to see her. His other mothers reticence to allow her time with Henry created yet another barrier. She understood Regina's fear but something, perhaps the dark one inside of her, balked at being kept from her son yet again. It seemed that her sacrifice had just given Regina the opportunity to put distance between the two of them again. Killian, too, had come by to see her. He was more difficult to keep away. There were days where she didn't even try. Days where she felt that she had the darkness controlled enough that she could let him in and let him hold her. She tried not to notice that there was a difference in the way he touched her, in the way he kissed her. When she thought of it it stirred up her anger and the darkness fed on it. It was for that reason that her parents had been turned away when they had come to see her. She loved them. There was never any doubt about that but the darkness fed on her abandonment issues and magnified them. She knew why they had sent her to this world but she couldn't accept it. To protect them from her anger she simply turned them away. She had expected Regina to come to talk with her, to assert her power, but since their confrontation on the docks she had stayed away. The distance between them had returned and while she knew that Regina was working to help rid her of the darkness she felt that their friendship had been tested. She moved to the living room and sat on the couch, staring at the walls. This was how she passed her day. Some days she would turn on the TV or listen to the radio, but most days she just wandered the house thinking about the life that was going on outside the walls she was trapped behind.
The third night found her looking at her mother, hand on her expanding stomach, staring out at the Enchanted Forest. Her father walked in, eyes shining at the sight of his expectant wife. "So Snow how is our little one today?"
"Active. She must be putting on a performance in there." When he reached her he placed his hand next to hers and felt his daughter kicking, reveling in her parents attention. "What do you think life will be like for her Charming?"
"Her? What makes you so sure that it'll be a her darling?"
"I may have spoken to someone that can tell these things. Besides a mother knows. And you didn't answer my question."
"I think life will be amazing for her. She'll be a princess, wanting for nothing. She has a beautiful mother and a father that will spend his life attempting to give her everything she could ever imagine. You were a bandit and I was a shepherd but we'll raise our daughter to be a princess. To understand that to be a leader sacrifice is almost always necessary." Snow covered Charmings hand with her own, tears forming in her eyes. "Do you think we can keep her safe? That we can protect her from the Evil Queen?"
"She'll try to hurt us I'm sure. But we have true love on our side. And true love always wins."
Emma sat up straight on the couch, attempting to distance herself from the loving flashback of her parents. No doubt they had loved her. No doubt they had done their best for her. Yet she couldn't just put the past behind her and allow herself to fully embrace them. Too much had happened in her life for her to act as though the first twenty eight years had never happened. The foster homes, Neal, giving up Henry, and so many other moments in her life played out as though it were a movie every time she opened her heart to the thought of them. It hurt her to be so distant from them. To see the pain on their faces every time she shut the door in their faces or refused them access to her. Her mother, once her closest friend, seemed as though some of the spark had gone out of her and her father was nearly desperate to reconcile with his only daughter. There was no way she could just let it all go. But she wanted to. So badly. A knock on the door drew her out of her reverie. There was only a handful of people it could be as the dark one was not really known to be the most accommodating hostess. She found Killian standing there, a smile lighting his face. He was here and that was enough to make her try not to notice the fact that his smile didn't quite reach his eyes. "To what do I owe the pleasure Hook?" Her smile, lovely though it still was, was full of ice. Perhaps it was just the blood red lips on the face as white as snow that made her smile look drawn and fake. "I just wanted to see you love. Not a crime now is it?"
"Are you here to try to save me again? I told you. The Emma that you remember, the Emma that you love is gone. You have no business here." The words burned beneath her cold flesh and she wanted nothing more than to take them back. "That's where you're wrong love. I love your dark every bit as much as I love your light. The two make you who you are and as I've mentioned in the past I'm a fan of every part of you Swan. I may revile the foreign darkness that has taken up residence in you but your darkness, Emma's darkness, I love. " Her heart picked up pace with his words and it felt like the room was spinning around her. "We all have darkness in us Emma. It creeps up on you normally. You just happened to get a stronger dose of it. It makes you no less to me. I'll take you however I can get you if you'll just fight for us. We've come to far to lose each other now but I've seen what loving the dark one can do. We can't do that. Fight with me Emma. Fight for me, for us." His voice was a desperate plea and memories from their time together hit her so hard it nearly took her breathe away. Him bandaging her hand with his teeth as he gazed at her with his piercing blue eyes, their first kiss after he saved her father's life, his confession in the Echo Cave that he hadn't believed himself capable of loving someone again after Milah until her, the pain on his face when he had to go back to the Enchanted Forest without her after Pan's curse, his face when she opened the door in New York after a year had passed, dancing with her at her first ball, watching her parents fall in love right beside her. She remembered the warmth in his embrace when the Evil Queen threw a fireball and tried to kill her mother, and she remembered the tenderness of his thumb brushing the tears from her cheeks. Something shifted inside of her and as she staggered forward a bit his name pushed its way from somewhere deep down. "Killian..."
"Aye love. What is it?" Concern played on his face as he reached for the hand she extended for him. "Killian we have to break the curse."
"Aye love we're trying but you have made it a little difficult on us by casting a secondary curse."
"You have to break my curse. I can't tell you how. The darkness is fighting inside me right now to stop me from saying anything. But break my curse and we can break the Dark One curse."
"What do you mean?"
"When you tried True Loves Kiss it didn't work for two reasons. It won't work if I want to be the dark one and because I've cast a curse that's taken your memories. True Loves Kiss doesn't work when one person is under a memory spell. If you break my curse your memories will return and Killian I assure you that kiss will work. I thought I was willing to pay the price but I'm not. I can't let go of you and Henry, even my parents." A ghost of a smile danced across his face as she once again let him know how much she loved him. Sometimes the emotion between them was so strong that even the darkness couldn't come between them. Or maybe the darkness didn't create a barrier with him as it did with others because he didn't treat her as though it was an illness she needed to be rid of. Dark or not she was simply Emma. He worked with the others to rid her of the darkness that had taken root in her because he knew that was what she wanted at her core but he never made her feel damaged by the weakness. In her time as the dark one she had done things she regretted. Horrible things. She knew he grieved them not because they were so awful but because she was going to regret them when the darkness was gone. His concern was always for her. Often even more than his concern for himself. Even when her desire to simply be, even if that meant simply being dark, battled his desire to stay true to the man she had helped him become again she never doubted what his driving motivation was. Her. It was always her. Everything he did was for her and it still touched a part of her that had not been tainted by the darkness. "You should go Killian. Find your memories before the darkness strangles out the ground we've gained. In this state I am gloriously free yet irrevocably chained."
"Can you tell me anything about where I might locate them."
"They're recorded in the corridors of history." He stopped for a moment in front of her before he left wondering if he would ever stop chasing a life with this woman. "No."
"You'll never give up on me. On our life together."
"How did you know what I was thinking?"
"The dark one knows things," she said with a genuine Emma smile on her face. It had been to long since he'd seen it last. "Besides Killian you're something of an open book."