Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.

CHAPTER TWO

SELF-REFLECTION FOR ASSHOLES

"I was expecting clouds and harps and angels," Emma said after digesting the words of Death.

"Well, at least you didn't say you were expecting an old, pale, white dude," scoffed the Grim Reaper while leading her through the darkened amusement park. "Although, I'd have though with the life you've lived, you'd be expecting fire and brimstone and getting jabbed in the ass by hot pokers."

At Emma's perturbed expression, Death amended, "I kid. People inclined toward taking the down escalator rarely ever preemptively consider that's where they're headed. Villains always see themselves as the innocent victims of other people's evil deeds, when usually, however manipulated by other jerks they might have been, they're still just assholes."

"Hold on," Emma sputtered. "Are you saying I'm a villain?"

"Shockingly asks the woman who was the Dark One," scoffed Death. "I'm saying, like Nieztsche, you looked into that dark abyss for too damn long, honey child. You chased monsters until you went from hunting 'em to fucking 'em and calling 'em heroes. If that shit don't stink...," concluded the Angel with a bad smell wave of her hand.

Emma huffed a little, offended. "I know I made some mistakes, but-"

"Ah but but but," Death cut her off, making a squawking gesture with her long-nailed hand. "Save your sorry justifications for someone with less omniscience who isn't gonna judge you on the purity of your soul, which is looking pretty dingy about now.

"Hence, Baelfire can't see you," Death explained. "You're not worthy to see him, or any of the other good people who've passed on before you."

"But... I'm sorry. I know that I... that I killed people-"

"Killed people, shmilled people," sighed Death. "Yeah, you did, but your real sins, Emma Swan, aren't the taking of life. It's that instead of repenting, you let yourself be swayed by your sad sack of 'reformed' bad guys into casting off all responsibility and blame on the demonic presence you chose to take into your soul... or the tattered remnants of it, anyway, considering the consequences of your little time travel holiday, which we'll get to later on your list of demerits."

"Demerits?" Emma asked.

"Shit you did that's keeping you in the 'Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collected Two Hundred Dollars' camp," said Death, and a scroll appeared in her hand while from her billowing sleeve she pulled out a fluffy pink quill with which she made a slashing mark upon the paper.

"Like the whole becoming the Dark One."

"But.. I was trying to save the town. To save-"

"Regina?"

"Well, yes, it was going to kill her and she'd-"

"Worked so hard for that happy ending after the mass murdering and attempted murdering and gas-lighting by giving you some fake mommyhood memories that turned you into a blonde version of her - a selfish tart whose definition of good parenting was guilting her kid into coming along to support a morally corrupt romantic affair with a honorless creep? Yeah, she did so much good for you and your son that earned her soul-sacrificing points," Death scoffed. "That woman deserves hot pokers up the hoo-ha for the shit she's done, not a congratulatory pat on the ass for downgrading from mass murder and familial homicide to adultery. Between the two of you, quite frankly, with your shitty codependent enabling of terrible motherhood and misogynist fuckery, y'all undid all of Xena's hard work to bring feminism to the fairy tale realms in like a year. A year.

"Powerful females my perfectly proportioned ass. You sold out every drop of self-respect and moral fortitude you had left to cater to the whims of an infatuated alcoholic with even less remorse and empathy than you step granny. And for the demerits that heart-crushing hoe had, she at least had self-respect and fighting against a patriarchal society bent on the oppression of women going for her - until her hot mess of a romance with that forest hobo that you sacrificed your sanity to protect - never mind your baby daddy's apartment, and who gave you the authority to do that? Letting his murderer sleep in his bed. Yeah, that's another demerit right there!"

She made another slashing stroke.

"I didn't know Marian was Zelena," Emma sputtered

"No, you just thought you'd alter the past by saving a stranger rather than trying to save your son's father. Hypocrisy. Another demerit!" Death exclaimed, writing again.

"And," the pink-highlighed Grim Reaper continued, "speaking of that, don't you even try to defend your little Dark One stint as some kind of unavoidable martyrdom, honey child. You made that choice because you'd spent the previous nine weeks too preoccupied playing pirate booty to notice your son was crying himself to sleep over his very recently dead dad and was only going along with his psycho adoptive mom's book plan because he hoped to write his dad back into existence. And did you notice 'Grandpa Gold', the guy you touted as your family and how you'd fight for his survival just a year and a memory potion ago was suffering from a terminal heart condition?"

As Emma's expression faltered further, Death continued, "Naw, you sent him packing without hearing his side, declared him an irredeemable asshole while you happily skipped off to shag the dick who banged his wife - you know, the woman who's your baby daddy's mama. That's another demerit right there! Being the wife in the 'the shalt not lay with thy brother's' doesn't give you a free pass, particularly when the sinner in question was a misogynist alcoholic who'd recently left you and your mother to starve to death after facilitating the mass murder of hundreds of innocent people whose corpses he hid under, who threatened to rape you at sword point and then stole your magic beans and left you and your entire town to die like the conniving, cowardly sociopath he is."

"He... he changed," Emma weakly defended, then recoiled at Death's furious bitch face.

"Oh, yes, he changed. Let us count the ways!" Death exclaimed. "Did he apologize for the time he knocked out your sleeping princess friend and ripped out her heart so the woman who wanted to regress your marginally reformed step grandma into a murderous wackjob in a plot to become the Dark One by poisoning your kid's grandfather could it as a walkie-talkie? Ahhh-no. After he insisted he'd only been able to scrounge up enough memory potion for you, after sexually assaulting you on your doorstep, when everyone knows kisses don't break memory spells - and the only scrounging he did was taking credit for your baby daddy's sacrifice, did he apologize for assaulting you and lying about how he got the potion and then declare that in the interest of showing gentlemanly decorum for his so-called 'friend's' tragically heroic sacrifice and just plain decent human behavior he would stop hounding you to fall in love with and sleep with him? Ahhh-no."

Death tapped her foot in obvious annoyance at these things which Emma had let slide before continuing to rant, "Or when he left Prince Eric to die to get his ship back, then conveniently left out that it was Blackbeard, the man he tried to murder after bailing on your parents, who actually helped Aril reunite with Eric, when you reached the wrong conclusion and intimated that you were so over Neal thirty-six hours after his funeral and might be inclined to hop into his bed, did he tell you about that? Ahhh-no. He let you think he was a selfless here and then convinced the klepto mermaid not to tell you the truth on account of finding her stealing silverware aboard his ice queen bottled ship.

"And," Death continued, "let's not forget that when you said your heart was broken, he was glad, because it meant he still had a chance to hound you into returning his affection, which he repeatedly did, invading your personal space, disrespecting your wishes. And when you revealed your fears of loss and the weight of your burden as the Savior, he laughed it off that he'd never die, made you solely responsible for his not doing bad things, and shoved his tongue down your throat. Real gentlemanly. And yet you, appointed hand of justice in your little world of magic, responded to this rake's lying, killing, and disrespect for others by blindly pardoning him to get your ass tapped?"

Emma stammered out an ineffectual, "I... I..."

"I-I-I," snarked Death, moving her quill down the scroll. "And how about when Killy Stu told Rumplestiltskin he'd murder his wife if he didn't give him his hand back so he could feel you up after getting you properly liquored up on your date? And, of course, you never even considered that he was the one who beat the living shit out of your cockney-accented burglar friend and tossed him through the library window, because no other man better get close to his princess pussy. Just like he beat the shit out of Rumplestiltskin for having the nerve to inquire about the well-being of his wife - you know, Milah, his original true love and your son's grandmother. That one's worth repeating, cause, girl, that's nasty."

Emma grimaced, averting her eyes. "It was two hundred years ago."

"Time does not decrease nastiness, honey child," argued Death. "And it was three hundred and change, actually. Two hundred was the number of years Baelfire spent being hunted Hunger Games style in Neverland by the child-abusing psychopath that your woobie buccaneer handed him off to out of spite."

"He said he had no choice," Emma tried to defend. "Pan would have killed his crew. He offered to let Baelfire stay..."

"You humans and the pathetic justifications you make just to fill your glory holes," the Grim Reaper sneered in disgust. "Just stop already before you dig yourself deeper into a fiery pit, Emma Swan. No good comes from trying to defend a man told your father he was only helping to save his life so he could get into your pants. Who told your first love, after discovering him not as dead as previously thought, that he'd fucked you proper in poor Baelfire's cave hovel during a time-out from looking for your kidnapped son."

Emma's eyes widened at that and Death snorted.

"You were just a prize to be won, honey child, and he was going to cheat and manipulate the competition in whatever way necessary. Tell you he'd fight honest and true for your heart, while trying to undermine his victim's chances by, say, cheering him on to ask you out, knowing full well, scared little shit you were who didn't want to past her past pain, that you'd leave the poor guy hanging, spending his last full day on that earth drinking a shitty cup of coffee and thinking he'd never be able to earn your forgiveness let alone your heart."

Emma wilted. "I didn't know he was the reason Neal was acting like a jerk. If I could back and have that cup of coffee..."

Death shook her head. "But you can't, honey child. You saw what you wanted and didn't see whatever would get in the way of your easy path to a happiness that included never having to deal with anything emotionally real or hard ever again. Hence, you went from a potentially good woman into a replacement pirate whore. Love has nothing to do with what sick, twisted affair you've carried on."

"But... true love's kiss..."

"True love magic is like ninety-nine percent belief," reported Death with an eye roll. "How else do you think so many homicidal maniacs have true love? Your step grandma? Paaalease. That woman's a bona fide sociopath who can't love anything unless it revolves around her, and she was able to break a curse by pecking your kid on the forehead. When a crazy bitch who'd just declared she would murder your family and hundreds of innocent people all over again because doing so got her a fraudulently adopted kid she gas-lighted into declaring her a hero so she could feel like a good person can use true love, that shit is meaningless in the hands of mortals," the Angel concluded with a harumph.

"But... it breaks curses."

"Most anything can break a curse if you believe it will. Ya'll just decided that True Love's Kiss was the be all end all of curse breaking and ingrained it into the social fabric and magical gestalt so hard that any infatuated whacko stalker with a boner for a pretty stranger can break a curse. That's the problem with humans. Nine times out of ten, ya'll choose shallow wish-fulfillment over hard choices that would make you better, stronger, braver people - and the world a better place. Particularly in your enchanted world where wishes can actually come true."

Death amended with shake of her head, "Like bumping people off, for instance. You don't want to deal with romantic complications? Just wish poor Baelfire dead and viola."

Emma's eyes widened and she stumbled back a step. "You're saying... Neal died... because I... I wished... it?"

"Well, duh."

"But... but that's not what I meant. I-I was just scared of facing that pain again. I-I was hoping he was dead when I thought he was dead, not wishing him dead when I found out he wasn't!"

"Magic's nothing if not remotely nuanced, honey child," said Death, "particularly in Neverland where it works on the whims of demons. What you ask of the Echo Caves, they giveth. You wanted easy, and that's what you got. Pan infused that magic into his alteration of the Curse. Regina the Drama Queen funneled that magic into the Enchanted Forest."

"So... Neal really died because of me?" Emma cried, distraught.

"You wished it. And then your magic assured it - rather than reversing it. Granted, you were missing a few key memories that fueled the fires of your love, and that's not your fault, but, honey child, you didn't even try to save him."

Emma once more dropped her eyes. "I didn't know how. I wanted to..."

"Naw, you wanted to run away," sneered Death. "You're always running from the hard stuff. Oh, taking down witches and monsters, that's the easy stuff. Dealing with the pain in your heart? That's much too hard. Much easier to trade something strong and true and full of complications for an epicly amoral love affair with your son's date-raping douchebag step grandfather."

Scowling, Emma tried to defend, "Killian wasn't a-"

"Are you kidding me, honey child? Don't even try to deny that truth. Captain Hook was the Bill Cosby of the Enchanted Forest."

With a wave of Death's hand they were standing in a fun house, a hall of mirrors and each one with the image of a woman in Enchanted Forest clothes. Most were peasants, some were pirates, a few were women of nobility. Roughly half showed signs of suicide from ligature marks to bleeding wrists or lips stained with poison. All of them looked broken, haunted.

"Your husband's victims. Women who made the mistake of having one too many drinks with a man who didn't take unconsciousness as a deal breaker... or who were just in the vicinity when he was desperate to get his dick wet before scuttling back to Neverland."

"He wouldn't," Emma tried to deny it. "He... he..."

0"He told you, the past him that you so happily made out with, that getting women drunk for sex was his tactic," Death shot back. "His future self warned you to be wary of his past self and then knocked the man out before he could do to you what he did to all these women. Did you think he was sticking his dick in coconuts for three centuries? That after he shoved you on your her back and said with a sword at your throat that when he jabbed you with his sword, you'd feel it, that was anything less than a threat based on a history of violence?"

"I..." Emma fought tears and growing queasy sensation. "I... he changed... for me."

"Oh, honey child, don't delude yourself. Sociopaths and rapists don't change. People who use looks and charm to victimize others are ugly and cuel on the inside, and no amount of magic kisses and enchanted fucks with a princess'll make any damned difference.

"Look at your grandmother? Queen Eva was a bitch from start to finish. No matter how much she thought she'd changed, complimenting servants is sure as shit no recompense for ruining a woman's life, causing a child to be abandoned, and letting a rapist roam free to ruin the lives of dozens more women."

With a wave Death's hand, the woman in the mirrors changed, not quite so many, but still dozens of which she reported, "The other women Jonathan raped after Eva framed Cora for theft, that your grandmother did nothing to help, not them, not any other unfortunate peasants who, like her 'rival' for your grandfather's throne had their virtue taken and thus their lives destroyed. Most lacked the ambition and, dare I say it, psychopathy, to overcome the consciences of slut-shaming in that world. They were cast out by parents, husbands, employers, unable to keep their rape-spawned offspring even if they'd been so inclined. Many a child was left by the roadsides in the hopes of a kind stranger passing by. Most ended up taken by perverts, eaten by wild animals, or spirited off by Rumplestiltskin to some nefarious end. Rather ironically, like Eva herself, the raven-haired, blue-eyed, empathy-challenged rape spawn of your swashbuckling true love."

Emma's jaw fell open in horror and disbelief, before she managed to get out a strangled, "WHAT!?"

AN: Yeah, incest, I went there! Between Eva's physical features and her being a cruel, back-stabbing opportunist who physically assaulted and laughed at peasant (plus the rape thing), it was a no-brainer. Poor Snow White, Captain Hook is her grandpa (which maybe explains why she kisses Floor so much). Death's opinion on Emma's family and the well-being of their kids comes from ouatcritic's, "No one here gives a shit about the well-being of their children if it interferes with getting laid." Credit on Emma's misinterpreted death wish to oncenadfuturekiki whose tumblr post on the matter of Emma's words inspired the magical mix-up plot device. Emma's actual dialogue was:

"When I heard you might be here, and that you might still be alive, I knew I should be happy, but I wasn't. I was terrified. I didn't understand why until now. From the moment I saw you in New York, in the instant you stepped back in my life, I knew. I knew I'd never stopped loving you. And before I even had a chance to take a breath, I… I lost you once more, and all that pain that I had pushed down for all those years, it just came… rushing back, and I… I didn't know if I could go through it again. I love you. I probably always will. But my secret… Is that I was hoping that this was a trick. I was hoping you were dead… Because it would be easier for me to put you behind me than to face all the pain that we went through all over again."

Next up: Emma has to face the psychological and emotional pain of the whole incest thing!