I couldn't stop thinking about how a heart still needs to be crushed to get everyone back to Storybrooke. This is my idea on how that might happen.
The characters belong to Kitsis and Horowitz but I like to take them out to play.
She wished it hadn't come down to this but she had known it would. He had told her, warned her, but how could she listen when he was dying in her arms. All she had been focused on, all she could do was not let him go. Not him, because he was it. Her happy ending.
"Well, Swan, you've got me. Now whatever shall you do with me" Killian's gravelly voice was accompanied with a leer.
Emma nearly winced but the years of masking her emotions and the full power of the Dark One flowing through her veins prevented it. She could feel the rage and power pulsing off him in waves. No longer was he Killian, the man she'd discovered under Captain Hook and he was no longer that vengeful pirate either. Them she could handle. The Dark one she created, however, she wasn't sure she could.
"What I have to," the deep timbre her voice had taken still startled her, another unforgiving reminder of what she'd become for him.
"Ooo, I like the sound of that," his lip curled into a mockery of a smile. "With how many times you've restrained me I shouldn't be surprised you did it again."
It would be easier for her if his appearance had changed. If his skin had turned a dull silver like his hook or if it shimmered as though thousands of diamonds had embedded themselves there she might have been able to easily do what needed to be done. But nothing had changed, at least nothing quite that dramatic. He still looked like himself, as if he'd just stepped of the Jolly Roger after one of their afternoons on the water. Only his eyes had changed. They were hard, flat, and she hadn't gotten near enough to tell if the crystalline blue had only darkened as he had or if they were, as she feared, pitch black.
"You left me no choice, not after what you did to Merlin."
"Greatest sorcerer that ever was? How easily he was defeated in the end, it was almost disappointing," Killian sneered. "Almost as disappointing as you trying to stop me from doing it. He was lucky to get Excalibur back into the stone when he did. Honestly, Swan, you're not acting as though you've accepted the Darkness at all."
"He's right you know," Rumplestiltskin trilled from behind him. "At least with this one we didn't have to push him at all. His embrace was a welcome one."
Not even blinking Emma ignored both of their taunts. She needed to focus. There was no telling how long the squid ink would last.
"I was wrong, Killian," she said carefully, approaching him slowly. "To tether you to Excalibur, to make you this, but I would do it again if meant not losing you."
"Mistakes were made but, oh, it's so nice to stretch out and find out how strong our power truly can be," Rumplestiltskin giggled and from the slight tick in Killian's jaw she knew he had heard him too
"Lovely sentiment but it doesn't change the fact that you've made me the one thing I've despised for centuries. Couldn't leave well enough alone," Killian ground out.
"No, I couldn't."
Quickly she grabbed his wrist and transported them back to Granny's where everyone was already knocked out, lying prone on the floor. Killian's eyes widened, not from that but from the large bubbling cauldron placed over a fire by the jukebox.
"What are you doing?" He asked, voice tinged with panic.
"Making things right."
She wouldn't have much time, not once the Dark Curse was enacted.
"I wouldn't do that, Dearie. You know the price for this curse is a steep one," Rumplestiltskin warned edgily.
"I know," she snapped, not caring that Killian would know she was talking to the voice in her head.
"Ah, is the Crocodile trying to talk you out of it Swan? I'd listen to him, in fact I have been and it's been quite enlightening."
Emma looked at Killian, took in the sight of him standing, breathing, living in front of her.
"I refused to watch you die and I refuse to watch you lose yourself to Darkness," her voice shook and tears gathered in her eyes but she continued looking at Killian. "I hope, when all this is over, you can forgive me."
Before he could do more than open his mouth to protest she shoved her hand into his chest. It was easy, to pull out his heart, like plucking a ripe apple off a tree. Her tears were falling freely, blurring her vision as she made her way to the cauldron.
"Swan, don't," Killian pleaded but his voice still sounded as though his vocal chords were made of granite, harsh and grating.
"I'm sorry, Killian," she looked back at him, saw the panic and pain in his eyes. "I love you."
The blackened heart pulsed hotly in her hand as she squeezed, doing what she had stopped herself from doing to Merida all those weeks before. She felt the dust fall slowly through her fingers into the cauldron but she hadn't taken her eyes off of Killian. He had collapsed, fallen to the floor the instant her fist had closed on nothing but he hadn't looked away either. In that last moment his eyes had cleared, practically sparking back to the blue she had known so well, and she had seen his love for her, still there, still unchanged.
Sobbing she stumbled back to him, the sound of the curse amplifying, growing in intensity. She pawed at her chest, frantic. Finally she focused long enough to pull her heart out. It was a funny feeling, holding her heart in her hand, tears drying on her cheeks as she contemplated it but she had no time.
Her parent's love had been strong enough, Mary Margaret had believed enough in them to have Regina split her heart to bring David back. Emma had no doubt that her love for Killian was just as strong. His for her always had been.
A small grunt escaped her lips as she twisted her heart in half, separating the pieces. She didn't hesitate as she plunged her hands back into his chest and hers. One second passed, then two and then Killian's eyes popped open as he sucked in a gasping breath.
Emma allowed herself a sigh of relief and Killian one last look at her face.
"Swan?"
"Remember that I love you."
"What…"
Before he could say anything more she held up her last dreamcatcher, the one that she'd made and remade a hundred times with a thousand different shells and a million heartbroken tears. She watched as his memories were pulled from his head, woven into the web to be returned when she had done what she needed to do to release them from the Darkness.
When it was over she put him under the same sleeping curse as everyone else, conjured him back into the clothes gifted to him in Camelot, and stood to watch the thick, cloying purple smoke rise from the cauldron. She knew she should leave, remove herself from the scene of the crime as it were but she couldn't make herself move. Not when she was still trying to convince herself that she'd done the only thing she could.
"I'm impressed, Dearie, casting the Dark Curse by crushing the heart of a Dark One," Rumplestiltskin said gaily from where he had perched himself on the counter. "Better hope it doesn't have any unpleasant side effects."
"I've already said I'm willing to pay the price," she said, looking up at him sharply. "I need a hero to get Excalibur back out and I won't find one here in Camelot."
"Not one that's going to help you at this rate," he smiled as he gestured to the bodies on the floor of the diner.
"Which is why we're going back. If I can't get a hero to do it for me, I'll make one."
"Oh, I do like the sound of that."
Without a sound he disappeared, finally falling silent. She looked around the diner once more as the smoke poured over the sides of the cauldron. Over her parents, her friends, her son, her everything and with one last glance at Kilian she transported herself away. If she was going to keep them off the scent of what she was really doing, she was going to need to make an unforgettable entrance.
A.N.: I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that someone's heart needs to be crushed to get back to Storybrooke. Plus A&E kept making a point of mentioning Snowing's shared heart in interviews and I couldn't let it go. Now I've shared my pain.