Title: Considerations
Summary: Arendelle was worlds away. Emma considered crossing every single one just to tell her all the things she should have.
Notes: For emmasneverland. Set in a post 4A AU where Emma and Killian didn't end up dating, but everything else happened pretty much the same.
She wishes she had the words to tell Elsa how beautiful she is and how much Emma would rather be there with her to tell her all the things they left unsaid, all that she should say right now.
Arendelle was worlds away. Emma considered crossing every single one just to tell her all the things she should have.
It was a daily exercise where she toyed with the idea of taking one of the beans Anton had started to grow again and using it to spirit her way to Elsa's side. Or, she'd mend Jefferson's hat and have him open a door to Arendelle right in Emma's room.
Sometimes she imagined using her own magic to make a portal right in the middle of the full-length mirror. She'd turn the smudged surface into a pool of light, sparkling in gold, purple and blues. She'd step right through and be in Elsa's room.
Considerations were put on the back burner when Emma dealt with everyone in Storybrooke and all their little disputes and issues. They were pushed aside to the back of Emma's mind, where all the dreams that made her heart ache and her head hurt went, while Emma contended with her family. She had to place Henry into school again because it had been far too long since he had an education that wasn't "Villains 301: So You've Been Put under a Curse!" Convincing Mary Margaret that she didn't need to have a death grip on Charlie Graham in order for him to stay safe took up so much time, Emma was too exhausted to consider anything.
Except, in her dreams, she and Elsa held hands again. Palms flat to each other's and foreheads pressed together but without tears, without sorrows, just smiles that melted the icy remnants around hearts that spent far too many days apart. Hearts that beat in unison, and hands that didn't hesitate to touch.
In her dreams, Emma would go back to that manor and that moment where she hesitated outside a door that would change her irrevocably. With her head fogged with sleep, she could admit that she had wanted to be saved. She hadn't chosen to be the savior. Emma had not chosen to live alone for most of her life, to be left, to have to find instead of being found herself. She hadn't chosen to have her magic and feel it pulse beneath her skin in everything she did, a presence that both frightened and warmed her.
She had chosen none of that, but still she had wanted to be saved. Emma had hesitated because she wanted Elsa to save her. It was selfish, but Emma had known that she could do it. She had faith in Elsa, even when she did not have faith in herself because even before Elsa was gone so far away that Emma could not reach her, she would dream of that ice cave where Emma couldn't do anything to save herself from the bitter bite of the cold, but Elsa would touch her shoulder and for a moment she'd feel heat.
Again, she'd see Elsa stand tall, face set with nervousness and a fear Emma knew all too well. Elsa's magic would shake the foundations of the ice wall and Emma would look up, freezing as she was, and see the relieved smile break through Elsa's fears. She would watch her carve a hole in the wall just wide enough to save her. As she had in that moment, she would think that it wasn't Elsa's ice that had saved her, but the warm beating of Elsa's heart, a heart that she had shared with Emma in a quiet torrent of truths and hurts laid bare.
Emma remembered that hesitation, born of wanting to be saved, and she remembered Elsa's words, "You have to love yourself, Emma. The good and the bad. The only way to ever truly be in control of your powers is to embrace them."
She remembered Elsa's hand, reached out towards hers, and thinking that it was the strength of her own love, that magic flowing in her, that would either kill her or save her. She would take the risk anyway because Elsa's smile shone light on the dark corners of her mind where Emma's faith in herself and love for everything that she was had hidden away.
In her dreams, the gold of their touch would tinge everything she saw and she'd replay Elsa's smile as she stepped before Ingrid's ice barrier. It was so very different from the one in that ice cave and it had split across Elsa's face, too wide, too happy, and too filled with the fires of her faith and pride in herself to do anything but melt away the wall of ice that she had fought with only so many days before.
She put all these thoughts behind her, but in her dreams there was no escape.
Escape wasn't what she was looking for anyway. Emma wanted to run into Elsa's arms, not away from them. The only thing she sought to escape was the loneliness that threatened to grip her heart with icy claws and freeze her as surely as that ice cave had nearly done.
Considerations were at the forefront of Emma's mind when Elsa sat on the floor in her light purple nightgown with the starry blue trimming. She had her legs folded beneath her and her hair fell around her shoulders in waves made by her almost permanent braid.
"I wish you could come," Elsa said in the same wistful way she always did when she talked of anything from balls to the daily chore of dispute settling to the walks she would take around the castle, seeing everything that she had spent so long hiding from.
Emma's heart ached as it always did. Elsa's birthday party was in two days. It was a day Elsa had not celebrated since she was very young, before her power became a curse. Emma had to stop her hands from reaching out to touch the mirror. They only did that when it was time to say their goodbyes, and Emma had no interest in doing so just yet.
In fact, she'd never had any interest in saying goodbye before.
The mirror shimmered. Emma ducked her head and blinked rapidly, thinking it was tears that clouded her vision. Her eyes were dry, but when she looked back, the mirror still had the look of a golden pool. Heart beating to the tune of a drum solo, Emma shook her head as if it would somehow make sense of her vision.
"Emma are you okay?"
Elsa had her fingers to the glass.
Emma breathed out a deep sigh and smiled. By the time, she touched the spot where Elsa's fingers lay and said, "I'm fine," the shimmering had disappeared as if it were never there at all.
The memory remained, however, as all her memories of Elsa did.
When they signed off to sleep, Emma dreamed about considerations, and when she woke up, those considerations had become a plan.
Henry sat with her as she tapped at the mirror, trying to make it shimmer as it had when Elsa was there. Emma wasn't stupid. The moment she realized she hadn't actually been crying, she knew somehow that she had made it work.
The problem was that she couldn't figure out what that somehow was.
"Maybe you're not in the right head space. Maybe you need to recreate what you were doing when you made it happen."
Emma gave him a frustrated smile. She ruffled his hair and said, "This is exactly what I was doing when I made it work. And I'm thinking the exact same thing."
Henry's expression grew curious.
"What were you thinking?"
Emma smiled. It was easy being honest with him. Some of the hardest things she ever had to do was lie to him; the hardest thing she ever had to do was give him up, the biggest lie she ever told herself, that she couldn't be the mother he deserved.
Henry's smile was proof enough of that.
"I was thinking how much I wanted to be there with her when she celebrated her birthday."
Henry's nose wrinkled and his eyes became suspicious slits. "You weren't thinking about kissing her, were you?"
"Henry!"
She laughed and reached over to tickle him. He wasn't having any of it, and with a speed born of knowing Emma's distraction tactics by heart, he swatted her hands away.
"You were."
"Not at that moment, no!"
Emma blanched. Her hands fell to her sides and she stared at Henry, who stared back at her. The silence fell between them.
They both burst out laughing at the same time. Tears formed in Emma's eyes at her slip up and Henry could barely manage to say in stolen breaths in between boyish giggles, "I didn't need to know!"
"You asked," Emma pointed out when her stomach stopped aching and she could finally breathe again.
"Well, I wasn't being serious."
Emma grabbed his hand. "Well, get serious, kid, because we have some traveling to do."
His excitement ran through his arm and up hers in the buzzing shake of his arm.
"I'm going to Arendelle with you?" he asked.
He didn't seem surprised, more ecstatic than anything. Still Emma turned away from her reflection for a moment and again looked into his glowing eyes.
"Of course. Either I take you with me, or you'll just sneak there on your own."
He let out an overdramatic sigh of exasperation. With an eye roll, he said, "Your bug can't fit in the mirror frame, you know. I wouldn't be able to sneak up on you."
"Oh, I'm sure you'd find a way."
His grin was all dimpled mischief. "True. Our family always finds a way."
Emma groaned. Even remixed as it was, she'd heard the phrase enough times to want to throw her head into her pillow and scream every time the words "find" and "always" met in a sentence. Henry knew it, too. He took great pleasure out of trying to fit it into conversations, especially when he wanted something and he knew distracting her with pain would make her more likely to agree.
"Who raised you?" Emma asked, looking towards the heavens of her bedroom ceiling.
It was a favorite joke of theirs. To think of all the time they hadn't spent together would hurt too much if they didn't make it into something that could make them smile instead.
"Well, should I go down the list? Or do you mean, who did I learn how to be so clever from?"
"I'll do without the list, Mr. Oh-so-clever."
She turned back to the mirror to stare at their reflections again. Elsa was on the other side, waiting to be found by Emma (she groaned at herself; what was this family turning her into?) Still the mirror did not shimmer no matter how hard she tried.
"Put your clever mind to this," she said. "Why isn't it working?"
Emma pouted. She knew exactly who Henry got that ability from.
Henry just looked at her in the mirror, his mouth twisted to the side. In a sad voice, he said, "I don't know."
Emma stared at their reflections. The mirror stayed as flat and as clear as ever. When she pressed her fingers to it, the cold of it held her tight and made her shiver.
She'd given up.
It made her feel awful, thinking that faith and love were not enough. How could they be when she'd spent all night staring at the mirror, fingers against it, fingers off, hands splayed out and sparked with electricity that did nothing to change the mirror's surface, although it did warp the bronzed frame.
Faith and love were not enough, however, not in this. As much as she believed in herself and Elsa, the mirror did not change.
The 24 hours until Elsa would celebrate her birthday ticked by, one by one.
Henry sat with her most of the time, but by hour 7, he had run out of suggestions. They would play games and intermittently, she'd try it again. They slept through hours 9-15, and afterwards Emma made sandwiches and they ate while she tried out different tactics. Henry's suggestion to remember all the magic that she'd seen in Disney films and try to imitate that worked well for making her hair straightener dance around the room but did nothing to change the mirror.
At hour 21, Emma's fingers had left enough smudges that she'd had to clean it. Henry had gone out with Mary Margaret and David for rallying ice cream. When he'd returned, the mirror was shiny enough to see even the minutest of glows.
So, from hours 22-24, she kept imagining she would see little sparks out of the corner of her eyes. Sometimes, for whole seconds where she stared dead on, but when she tried to respond, she was too slow.
As hour 24 ticked by, she lay, stretched out on her bedroom floor and sighed heavily. So much for her magic being useful.
"Love is strength, blah, blah, blah," she said to herself.
Henry laughed at her. At least she could make him laugh. She was always happy to do that. He slid down beside her and poked at her cheek.
"Oh, come on."
"No, you have to cheer up, mom. There's always next year!"
She lifted an eyebrow, mouth downturned in bemusement. "That's a whole year. Not really making me feel better.
"How about one more try? Put on your party dress and if it doesn't work, then we go eat our ice cream and watch a movie until one of us falls asleep."
It was a good suggestion. Go big and if that doesn't work, hang out together at home.
"You're the smartest kid I've ever known," Emma said.
He shrugged and the carpet slid with his shoulders. With a slowly spreading smile, he said, "Must be whoever raised me. They must be pretty smart themselves."
She kissed his forehead and with a sigh meant to whisk away all her defeatist attitude, she climbed to her feet and then helped him to his so she could send him out the room.
Choosing a dress was easy, which she didn't expect it would be. Her dance with Killian in the past had made her feel like a true Princess. If she were to dance with Elsa, she had to be a Queen.
She didn't have a real crown, but she had something better, a crown of bright red, dark purple and baby blue flowers made by Jefferson's daughter, Grace, just for Emma, who had brought her dad back to her, and – she'd whispered this into Emma's ear – hadn't beat the crap out of him for kidnapping her.
Emma had fought the smile and the urge to say, "If only you knew."
The dress she chose touched the floor and she'd never had the chance to wear it. Dresses that weren't easy to run in wouldn't do when you were a bounty hunter, sheriff, or Savior. She still hadn't managed to part with it though. The white and black threads of the dress sparkled with silver and with her makeup done dark but not heavy, well, she looked like a Queen.
She kind of felt like one too when Mary Margaret, David, and Henry looked at her and said, "Whoa."
Speaking in unison seemed to be another Charming family thing. At least no one mentioned, find, found, or always as Emma stood before the mirror and placed herself back in that moment where she wanted nothing but to be right beside Elsa, to bring in her birthday like Elsa deserved.
Her magic pressed against the mirror. Plans became reality in that moment where Emma held tight to the memory of Elsa's warmth, the yearning to see her smile again, and the love for Elsa that made Emma's heart beat loud in her ears and her thoughts race with happiness.
The mirror shimmered. Emma disappeared and Elsa's room appeared in a lake of golden water.
She didn't say how happy she was. She didn't have the words to say it, so she just turned and smiled at her Mom and Dad, and then looked at Henry and said, "You ready to cross worlds, kid?"
He tossed his head back and laughed.
"Ready? I've been ready my whole life."
Hand in hand, they stepped through the portal and into Elsa's room.
Where, of course, Elsa was not because it was her birthday party and she'd be in the Great Hall or something. Of course, Emma had no idea where that was. Scrambling, she turned to Henry who stared gape mouthed around Elsa's room.
"It's huge!" he said.
"Yeah, and not where we need to be."
With a teasing eyebrow raised in mockery of the one Emma sometimes used on him, Henry said, "Are you telling me that you can't find her?"
"Shush before I turn you into a door," Emma teased right back.
Mind back under her control, she walked through the bedroom door and kept Henry close because guards about, who probably weren't expecting guests to come out of the Queen's bedchambers or be anywhere near them to begin with. They snuck around the castle, following the sound of music and avoiding guards like a game of cat and mouse.
They nearly got caught, once, but they were rescued by Kristoff, who seemed to be sneaking around himself.
"I expected you sooner, to be honest," he said.
Henry's smile was wide as Kristoff offered to show him Sven. With a look from Emma, Kristoff corrected himself – he'd show Henry Sven after he showed them to Elsa.
"You don't argue with a woman like your mom," Kristoff said to Henry in explanation.
Henry scoffed.
"Chicken."
Emma coughed over a laugh of agreement.
The party was in full swing when they walked in. The music didn't stop, the crowds didn't part, but that was okay because Elsa had her back turned and so Emma was able to sneak around the crowd and let the nervousness and sudden choking rhythm of her heart abate before she reached Elsa's side.
Stealing a note from some of her favorite movies, Emma tapped Elsa gently on the shoulder and said, "May I have this dance?"
Elsa was not like her sister. She didn't scream in excitement or jump about in happiness. Instead, she turned and gripped Emma's hands so tight that she'd feel it for days.
"How did you – when did you –"
The crowd did part this time as Emma led the Queen onto the floor. She'd feel weird with all these eyes on her if the only eyes that mattered weren't on her as well. Emma glanced away once, just to make sure Henry and Kristoff were still here and not sneaking off somewhere else. Henry gave her a thumbs up as she placed her hand on Elsa's waist and Elsa put hers on Emma's shoulder.
"You look beautiful, Emma," Elsa said, finally managing to complete a sentence.
The music roared to life. Emma struggled for a moment but the sway of Elsa's body put her on the right track.
Their dance was magic; they moved like they were always meant to be partners in this. In all things, Emma thought.
"You look better," Emma said because it was true. Emma may have been wearing the look of a Queen, but Elsa was the Queen. She held herself like one even in this. Even without her hair braided atop her head and her crown resting amongst the bun, even without the dress of gold that made her cheeks look rosy and her green eyes swirl with color, Elsa reigned.
They danced in silence, but Emma hadn't come here for that. She'd come to say everything she should have said so many times when they were alone in their rooms and their fingers swept across their mirrors without the warmth Emma felt now in their clasped hands and their brushing hips. All the words that had died in her throat, how much she missed Elsa, how much she loved her.
Elsa beat her to it.
"I was – I tried not to hope that you would come. I'd feel it for a second, but then brush the thought away, but I felt it so strong when I was standing here, surrounded by all these people who see me, not a monster. I wanted you to be here because you saw me even when I was. You had faith in me. Just like Anna."
Emma leaned in. Elsa blinked rapidly when Emma's forehead pressed against hers. They were so close Emma could see the lines that formed beneath her eyes in her surprised smile.
"I don't think of you like a sister," she breathed.
Elsa blinked again. Her words came in a rush. "How can this even – But what about –"
"You're my friend. I'd like us to be more if that's okay with you."
The blinks kept coming. The smile never disappeared.
"Well, it is, but the logistics of us –"
The music changed. They'd been swaying along but Emma knew what she was meant to do now. She spun Elsa out, effectively cutting off her concerns and valid considerations. When Emma brought her back in, she dipped her, held the motion long enough to be blinded by the brilliant smile on Elsa's face.
Emma lifted her back up and when they're pressed chest to chest, she dropped their joined hands and pulled Elsa close enough to kiss.
Gold shimmered in her eyes and Elsa's mouth burned on hers. It was magic, pure and simple. Magic always came with a price, or so they said, but when the kiss was over and she could almost hear Henry's teasing, she stared into Elsa's lined eyes, felt her smile shoot heat directly into Emma's heart, and the moment felt priceless.
"Screw logistics," Emma said.
Reality became considerations again. As much as Emma would like to, she couldn't actually screw logistics and they had to think of how to get her home and what to do after that.
It was Henry that pointed out that it was their combined magic that brought Emma and Henry here. It would have to be their combined magic that sent them back.
Her son was a smart kid. Emma was glad she'd helped to raise him so well.
Knowing that however, considerations again became plans – plans to visit each other regularly and have dinners and celebrate birthdays and just have evenings spent with their feet curled around each other's while they watched a movie on Emma's couch or while they laid on Elsa's window seat and gazed at Arendelle's stars, while they cast their magic and made the skies swirl with blue and gold.
Reality threaded through it all – the reality of their shared smiles and kisses, and a shared future, spread out before them like a road paved in gold, lit by the sun of their love.