Author's Note: Oh man, this was a thing.
I clearly went a different route with this story than the show did, but in case it needs saying: The Lost Boys? Not the innocent little boys who just wanted a home that the show turned them into. My Lost Boys are battle-hardened soldiers who have every intention of killing our heroes.
I still choose you might well be the most painful thing I've ever written. It was, indeed, the first time I've ever found myself crying while writing. You're going to hate me while reading. All I ask, is that you finish the story, no matter how much you hate it.
If you still hate it and me at the end, I welcome your fury, because I wildly fangirl over any and all reviews I get.
Love you guys, my lovely readers. Thanks for your support, and your patience during the wait.
I wish you'd hold me when I turn my back
The less I give the more I get back
He wants to be furious. But he... he can't quite work that up here.
"How can you not know if you're alive or dead?" he demands.
Snow tilts her head at him, a gentle smile playing at her lips. "You don't know if you are."
Exasperation, apparently, is possible here. He rolls his eyes. He can't believe he's rolling his eyes, in this kind of circumstances, but his wife - his beautiful, cheeky, maddening wife - just seems to draw it out of him. "I don't know, because you're here. I'd know if... you shouldn't... if I were dead... You can't be dead, Snow. You just can't. You shouldn't be here."
"You're here," she says softly. "And I'm with you."
"You keep saying that."
"It's how it is."
He groans. "You know that, but you don't know if your heart still beats?"
She bites her lip. "You don't know, Charming."
Frustration grips him. "So that's it, then? That's all I get? You're here, and you don't know anything."
"I'm not just here," she tells him. "I'm with you."
Something about the way she says it this time breaks through to him. "You don't know anything," he says slowly. "Because I don't know. You only know what I know."
She nods.
It hurts, this sudden rush of simultaneous relief and pain. "This isn't real," he breathes. "You're not real. I've made you up. This is all just in my head."
Her face changes, loses the pacifying smile she'd worn this whole time. She shakes her head. "It's me, Charming. I'm with you. I don't know any more than you know, only that I'm with you and it's where I'm supposed to be."
"No," he insists, fiercely. "If I'm dead, no, you're not supposed to be with me. You can't be dead, Snow!"
"Okay," Snow murmurs gently. "Then I'm not."
He stares at her. "I don't think it's as simple as just deciding not to be dead."
She hums, considering. "Maybe it is, here. What do you want, Charming?"
Hanging his head, he sighs. "What I want stopped mattering long ago, my darling. I'm gone. If I've lost consciousness and this is a dream or hallucination, or if I'm already dead, I don't know, but it's immaterial anyway. There's no saving me. But you, there is more for you. So all that matters now, is getting you home."
To his great surprise, his wife barely seems to be paying attention, staring past him, biting her bottom lip against the smile that threatens to spread across her face.
That smile wins the battle by the time she makes eye contact with him again, for she is beaming at him when she finally murmurs, "Maybe we already are."
Bewildered, he stares at her for a few long moments, before it finally occurs to him what that might mean.
He spins, wildly, so that it takes a second before his vision clears enough to see what's in front of him.
There, not too far in the distance, just visible through the thick fog, is their castle.
It's impossible.
But they're home.
She hadn't known. She'd... she'd taken a guess, that this place was his, that she'd been brought here with him, for him; even followed him here. But she hadn't expected it to turn out like this.
He'd brought her home. Just not the way he'd planned on. He'd meant to send her back, she knows, to send her away from wherever they found themselves now.
But this place, wherever - whatever - it is seems to take things more literally, seems to take Charming at his word. He'd wanted her to be home.
This castle was always supposed to be their home. She doesn't know much, but she knows that.
She laughs. It's wild and slightly choked off, as if there's some profound sense of loss and pain behind it, but ultimately, it's real and it comes from joy.
"What the hell?" Charming mutters from just behind her.
She has no answer for him. Not one he'll accept, anyway, so she says nothing, just takes a step forward, a step home.
"No, Snow, wait!" Charming demands, and she can hear it in his voice, the worry, the distrust. And she knows, just knows, that he desperately wishes he had his sword, so she stops, she waits for a moment, waits for it.
She doesn't even have to look. She knows it's appeared on him as soon as she hears the sudden intake of breath.
"What the hell?" he mutters again.
It's easy to start walking back towards the castle after that, even when she hears the groan that signals Charming's immediate disagreement. She simply spins, so that she's facing him, but still walking, backwards, towards the castle, and flashes him a quicksilver smile.
"It's okay, Charming," she calls. "We're okay. Nothing's going to hurt us here. You make the rules. And we both know you'd never let any harm come to me."
He still looks skeptical, staring at the castle with wary eyes, but there's a curiosity there too, in the tilt of his head, in the way he bites his lip when he makes eye contact with her again, before exhaling and following her forward.
He may have severe reservations about all of this, but he'd never leave her to go in alone.
For the first time in over twenty-eight years, they're going home.
The funny thing is, he's never particularly enjoyed fighting. It had always been more his brother's thing, all fire and pride. Of the two of them, he'd been the calmer one; more concerned with honour and a fair fight than actually winning it.
Losing his brother had changed him, of course.
He'd never known hate before that.
Oh, but he'd learned it, fast and bitter. He'd hated the King, he'd hated Pan, he'd hated everyone and everything. There was some small part of him who even hated Liam, for not listening, for being so bloody headstrong and stubborn and stupid, and most of all for leaving him alone, all alone.
Whenever those thoughts snuck up on him, he'd hated himself too.
Hate corrupted, he'd always known that, and it certainly had him; turning him into someone his younger self would not have recognized nor been able to stomach.
And then... Milah.
She'd brought the hope back into his life, the light. He'd devoted his life to revenge on the King through piracy, and taken no satisfaction out of it. No, his was a soul that had always craved companionship, and indeed, Milah had made him happy again. He'd delighted himself with thoughts of how much Liam would have adored her, the sister-in-law who would have been.
He should have known better than to have taunted her husband. He knew Rumplestilskin's type; such weakness, such fear.
There had been ghosts behind the coward's eyes.
A man unwilling to fight for what he wants deserves what he gets, yes; but he knew better than anyone that a haunted man is a desperate soul. Rumplestilskin would never fight fair, he'd take and seize.
The mistake had cost him Milah.
It had left him with nothing, again. He'd devoted his life to revenge, again.
And what good had it ever done him?
He'd become Captain Hook; Killian Jones gone and presumed dead. And Captain Hook had done whatever he chose - pardon the language - no fucks given.
He fought. All the time he fought. And he always won.
His last loss had cost him his hand and his heart, and he'd sworn he would never be beaten again.
He'd become the most feared pirate in the high seas, so feared he was respected even in Neverland, home to that demon child.
And he'd hated every last miserable minute of it.
He'd never liked to fight.
Which makes rather it odd, he thinks, how very much of his life he's spent doing it.
But this one is different, he decides quite quickly, and that much is obvious right from the off. For when the demon boy orders the onslaught, his own first move is to shout out a panicked reminder to everyone that their attackers' weapons are laced with the very poison that is already killing the prince.
He's been fighting for himself for the better part of 300 years.
It feels strange, very strange, to now find himself fighting harder than he ever has, for someone else.
But as strange as it does feel, it's also healing.
He's in love with her, the beautiful blonde, wielding the sword around like she was born to it, and in some respect she was.
After all these years, he lets Milah go.
Emma is here now.
And damn if he's going to let anyone take her from him.
At first, she's ferociously cursing every moment she has spent not learning how to harness her magic, for the powerful fireballs Regina and Gold are throwing seem like a much more poignant weapon than the sword she's still somewhat wild with. However, it quickly becomes clear that the Lost Boys have set defenses against magic, when Regina has to duck against one of her own fireballs returning back to her like a damn boomerang.
"How many times do I have to tell you all?" Pan hisses, evil incarnate. "You want to play the game here, you play by my rules."
"Your rules involve a rather fatal poison," Hook roars back. "Far from a fair fight, boy."
"Nothing wrong with using the tools my island gives me," Pan smirks. "I believe you know as well as I do, that Dreamshade is readily available to anyone willing to risk its effects. Isn't that right, Lieutenant Jones?"
Hook's face has twisted into an unfamiliar grimace; agony she both doesn't understand and understands all too well flashing in his eyes. She is utterly unsurprised when he throws the knife at Pan in a fury, though bitterly disappointed when their enemy simply flicks out a wrist and stops the weapon's procession in its tracks.
He holds the knife in his hand, tilts his head, and smirks. "Gonna have to do better than that, Lieutenant."
Nausea twists her stomach. Pan is one to talk about using magic.
She spares a glance for Hook even as she continues to fight, and it happens to be at the exact moment he looks over at her.
There's a brokenness to his expression that shatters her, if only for a second, before something in his eyes changes, hardening somehow, becoming more determined. He looks frightening, but she's not afraid. Would never be afraid, not of him.
He reaches into his jacket, pulling out another weapon, and refocuses on the fight. She does the same, but with the more than slightly distracting thought of the way he'd looked at her flashing through her mind.
It is rather overwhelming, she thinks, to realize that you are another person's strength.
But she cannot afford to be distracted right now. Not in this situation, not while fighting the Lost Boys for all of their lives, not when they are so badly out-numbered, and frighteningly out of their league skill-wise since their magic has been neutralized. Tink is trying her best, spunk and buried anger helping her fight, but it couldn't be plainer that she'd never really fought before; that she'd always kept to herself in a lonely little life. Regina seems overwhelmed, her magical crutch lost to her, and while Rumplestilskin is dealing with it better, his attempts to fight are defensive at best.
Hook knows what he's doing, knows very well, and he's fighting like all hell, but some instinct tells her he hates it. But he does it anyway. Does it - she knows now - for her.
So it's him. He's all they've got, pretty much.
Because then it's her, wild with the sword she's still unsure of; the sword her father was supposed to have taught her how to wield. She should have been great at this, and with a bow too - that would have been Mom's doing. She was supposed to have spent her entire life learning how to defend herself, learning to be like them, strong and brave.
She's struck by it, how badly she longs for them now. Snow White and Prince Charming, sure; badasses the both of them, the best fighters their group had. But more than that, she wishes Mom and Dad were here, with their ferocious protectiveness. They'd keep her safe, she knows. They'd take care of her, even at their own expense.
They love her. They love her so much, and damn it, she's not about to lose it now that she's finally accepted it.
She yells, twenty-eight years of fury and regret and fear released into the air, and throws herself headlong into the fight, taking out the Lost Boy she'd been struggling with, spinning and going after the two who'd cornered Regina and Tink. At the slash of her sword, those two Boys fall as well, leaving the two women to stare at her, stunned silent.
She doesn't have time for stunned. She spins back to the centre of the fight.
"Who's next?" she roars, murder in her voice.
She needs to get back to Mom and Dad. She needs to save her father.
So it's time to be her parents' daughter.
Coming home is eerier than he would have imagined.
He feels a profound sense of loss from the moment they walk in the main doors, though he can't quite wrap his mind around what that loss is. Only that he feels it, with every step he takes. Hears it, echoing in the silence.
The castle is not meant to be quiet like this, empty like this.
They are alone here, so utterly alone here. He's unsure of it, unsure of their being there.
Snow seems to handle it better. Not at peace, no. There's ghosts in the shadows of her eyes, but she walks ahead of him, marching through the castle with a purpose he cannot find in himself.
She's searching for something, he knows, but he can't imagine what. Everything was lost, the castle was destroyed -
He freezes.
He has no idea where that thought came from, that bone-deep certainty.
The castle is not destroyed at all. There is no damage. It is completely, entirely whole, as it is meant to be.
And yet... and yet he cannot shake the feeling that it shouldn't be so.
"Snow," he calls. "This doesn't feel right."
She slows but doesn't stop, allowing him to catch up to her but continuing through the castle.
"What is it you're afraid of?" she asks, softly. "We're home. Nothing will hurt us here."
"We have been hurt here," he says, paradoxically both unsure and certain of it. "I know we have."
She nods. "We have. But we weren't in control then, Charming. Everything was out of our hands. We don't have to worry about that here."
He stares at her. "I still don't know what you mean?"
Snow flashes that quicksilver smile again. "You do, my Charming. You do know."
He sighs. "Can I have a hint?"
She laughs, easy delight that is as familiar to him as his own name (the name she'd given him, that had always felt more his than anything else he'd ever had, until he'd had her too).
"Oh, Charming," she murmurs, an echo of the laugh still in her voice. "I think, I really think, that you need to stop thinking so much. It's not going to help you here."
He smirks. He can't help it, it seems to be a nearly conditioned response to her at this point.
"And what would you recommend in place of thinking, my dear?"
"Go on faith?" she suggests, with a twist of her lips that suggests she's still fighting a smile. "Of the two of us, I do believe you're supposed to be the optimist. Stop second guessing yourself so much, Charming."
"It's not myself I'm second guessing."
"Isn't it?" she asks.
"No!" he insists, fiercer than he'd wanted. He takes a deep breath. "I don't like this. I don't trust this situation. Walking through our home after it appeared out of thin air, it feels like a trap."
"I promise you, it's not."
"How can you know that?" he demands. "You keep insisting you only know what I know, and yet you have a trust and a certainty right now, that I just don't have!"
She blinks up at him. "Is it not obvious? Charming, the certainty I have right now is because I trust and believe and have faith in you."
"How is this about me?"
She doesn't say anything, simply raises an eyebrow at him, but it gets the point across.
"We keep going round in circles," he sighs, frustrated. "You know nothing, yet you seem to know much more than me, but you refuse to tell me, because I should know, because you only know what I know, which is nothing!"
Snow shakes her head, apparently amused. "I guess that's one way of summing it all up."
"Snow," he groans, dragging out her name. "Please, please, just tell me, so I can stop worrying that we're about to get clobbered by some horrible monster bashing its way through our walls?"
She grins at him. "Oh Charming, you would never let that happen."
He scoffs. "I don't think I make the calls here!"
He sort of wishes he wasn't quite as familiar with the smirk that spreads across his wife's face then. He's seen it so very many times, her 'my husband's being an idiot but hell if I don't love him anyway' expression.
And it's that expression which finally clues him in that what he's been missing is something rather obvious. He'd even said it himself.
The realization of it damn near staggers him.
"The castle appeared out of thin air. But only when I wanted you to be home."
Snow is beaming now. She's beautiful when he finally gets things.
"My sword was suddenly on me, the second I wanted a way of protecting you."
"I told you you knew," she murmurs gently.
"Nothing's going to hurt you here, because I would never let it. I'm in control here. This land, whatever it is... it does as I want it to."
"Yes, Charming. You've got it now."
They continue through their home together, though he pays no attention to where they are headed, otherwise distracted - understandably, he thinks.
"Then I am dead," he says suddenly, struck by the pain of it. "And this is just... this is what comes after, for me? 'After' for me is you, and anything else I could want, as if I could ever want more than you?"
She shakes her head again, though differently than she had just moments earlier. She had been teasing and amused, now she seems pained and almost panicked.
"We don't know that, Charming," she insists.
He doesn't mean to ignore her, but it's hard to focus on anything else.
"You... you can't be dead. You just can't, there's no way. I don't accept it. So you're not really here with me. It's an illusion. A lovely, perfect, beautiful illusion that I've somehow been granted. The Gods saw fit to let me keep a piece of you."
"Charming, no!" she says more forcefully than anything else she had said here. "We've been through this. It's me. I am here with you."
"You can't be..."
"You'd know if it wasn't really me. You'd know. You'd feel it."
He finds himself staring at her. Something about what she's saying... she's right. He knows she's right. If it weren't really Snow, he would be able to feel it.
And all he can feel now, looking at her, is that all-consuming love.
He thinks maybe she can tell, because the fear leaves her eyes, and her face relaxes into her always stunning smile.
"I love you," he whispers.
She kisses him, quick and determined, and yes, that is her, that is Snow all the way, to answer his vocalization of his love for her with the act to show her own.
"As I love you," she promises, slipping her hand in his.
He still can't shake the fear he feels. It doesn't make sense that she should be here with him, wherever it is they are.
He refuses to believe she's dead. It's simply not possible.
Does that then mean he's not either?
But if he does still live, if this is just a dream or a hallucination, how is it that she shares it with him? For this is not ordinary - though he's spent countless nights dreaming of Snow, it's never been like this, never been this real. His mind alone could never recreate Snow in all of her absolute perfection quite this way.
No. Whatever this is, wherever this is, she was right. She's here in it with him. It's really Snow. They're in this together, sharing it together.
Besides, if this were all of his mind's invention, he's pretty sure he would have had himself rather than his wife being the one who knows what's going on.
Then again, she was always the smart one.
She continues to lead them through the castle now, an obvious purpose to her steps. Wherever she's taking him, there's intent to it; and yet he's not sure that it's for him. Something about the look in her eyes...
"My darling, where are we going?" he asks softly.
"I'm not sure," she says, and he can just tell she's being honest. "I just feel like... something happened here, and we need to..."
She cuts herself off when they finally emerge into the room he knows as well as she does had been their destination all along.
They have reached the nursery.
And the memories, immediate and sudden, are piercing.
The room is undamaged, though he knows it shouldn't be. Knows that his blood should be on the floor; knows from some faint recollection gained while only - and barely - semi-conscious that the ceiling should not be in tact.
Knows that at least in this part of their home, the roof had been ripped off when the Curse hit.
He glances over at Snow, knows that the memories have come back to her just as strongly as they have for him just by the stricken, stunned look on her face. She'd been back here, he knows, with Emma when they'd been sent back to the Enchanted Forest together. The room had been absolutely destroyed, she'd told him. He wonders at how strange this must be for her to see it so whole, so unbroken now.
It's strange for him, and he hadn't even seen it at its worst.
"Snow," he tries, but she just shakes her head, and he swears he feels his heart drop.
It would have been hard to see it completely destroyed, he knows, but seeing it here, now, exactly as they'd painstakingly designed it, looking for all the world as if their baby should be there in her cradle...
He doesn't realize he's longing for that; longing for the baby they lost, until he hears her cry, and sees Snow's face go ashen.
Emma.
He's never seen her like this.
Caught in a fury, she is wild and deadly, all flashing eyes and murderous snarl, a vengeful goddess of another realm.
Of the Enchanted Forest.
She should have been raised a Warrior Princess, daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, respected and beloved and just a little bit feared worlds over.
Hell of a time for Emma Swan to find her lost past inside of herself.
She's taken out five of the Lost Boys already, and he's contributed another two to the cause, while Regina, Tink and the crocodile seem to have found it prudent to just get the hell out of the Savior's way.
Still, Pan does not make it a habit of losing. He still has oncoming forces, Lost Boys appearing seemingly out of thin air. They are brutally outnumbered, even with Emma suddenly fighting with all the force of an oncoming gale.
They can't win this, he thinks with a sudden swell of sheer panic. Not unless Emma's got a miracle up her sleeves.
His stomach drops in horror as he realizes he's not alone in this thinking.
Out of the corner of his eye, he catches sight of Neal running headlong into the midst of the fight, dodging and ducking weapons. He carries Henry, protecting the boy's unconscious body with his own, but he finds himself scarcely able to see the protective gestures, only that Emma had trusted Neal with her son, and yet he brings him straight into the fight.
"What the hell are you doing?!" he demands, reaching out to grab him, but Neal simply lowers a shoulder into his chest, knocking the wind right out of him, staggering him, and then continuing on as if nothing happened, as if nothing else matters.
He doesn't know Neal. But he did know Baelfire, the boy he'd once wanted so badly to call his own, and oh, he can see the boy in the man, even as he's down and out trying to gain his breath back. The fear on his face, the desperation, oh that was all Bae, but so too was the hope, the headstrong stubborness he'd always get when he was doing what he thought was best, and oh no, oh Gods no.
Emma was not to be distracted from her ferocious fight, so she doesn't see it coming when Bae - Neal - runs straight at her, until the very last second, when he grabs her, and she cries out.
"What the hell are you doing?" she screams, and he'd be heartened, heartened by how very alike he and Emma are, but not right now, not like this, not in quite possibly the worst situation of his entire life - and he's had a very very long, very very crappy life.
Neal ignores her protests, shifting Henry in one arm and picking Emma up using the other, with the strength he knows the lost boy would have started harnessing during too much time spent in Neverland.
Emma fights him, and fights hard, screaming in a panic that cuts at him like knives, but she is limited, limited because her son is right there with her and she won't hurt him; and Neal is running on adrenaline and fear and the desperate desire for the family he'd felt was robbed for him.
Neal doesn't think they can win, he knows. Neal thinks they will all die should they keep fighting, should they keep attempting the insane rescue mission of the man dying - perhaps already dead - back at their camp.
Neal thinks they've been defeated already, and so Neal is cutting his losses, and trying to save the only people he cares about anymore - his son, and the woman he loves.
He understands it. Really, he does. If they're all doomed - seems that way - Emma alive, and with her son, it really does seem like the best case scenario. Even though it's not with him. At least she and her child would live.
Yes, he knows why Bae is doing this.
But it's not what Emma would want.
And so, he hauls himself back to his feet, clumsily dodging the weapons still flying around everywhere (Regina, Tinkerbell and 'Stilskin having thrown themselves back into the fight having realized they're in all kinds of trouble), forces himself through the pain, so much pain, pain, pain. He struggles, he runs, and he just manages to reach the messed up little family just as Emma connects with Neal's jaw on an uppercut.
With the man who would have been his stepson just slightly off balance from the force of Emma's punch (he's felt it - it packs a wallop), he hauls the boy out of his arms into his own.
"No, no, no I promised!" Neal cries out.
He shakes his head. "Not like this, Bae."
"You can't stop me!" Neal screams, reaching to grab Emma and Henry both once more.
But yes, yes he can.
He didn't want it like this.
But Emma didn't want it like that.
He reaches round with his hook hand, and carefully turning the sharp end away, he slams the hard cuff that exists where his wrist once did against the back of Neal's head, knocking the other man as unconscious as his son.
Emma stares at him, disbelief and resignation and just the slightest hint of gratitude waring in her eyes.
"Not like this," he whispers, weak, already so weak.
Her subtle nod of acknowledgement means the world.
He spins back to face the fighting, Emma following his lead.
They're all they've got. And so the boy he still holds... needs protection.
"Regina!" he bellows.
With a poof, she appears immediately next to him, while Emma leaves to take her place in the fighting.
"Keep the boy safe," he begs, handing Henry to her.
Regina nods. "I'm his mother."
"You're not his only one," he mutters, running back into the fight, eyes only for Emma, who seems unaffected by the altercation with her ex, if not for an increased fury.
Pan, floating just above the melee cackles, delighted.
"Turning on your own now, are we? Perhaps I should just leave you all to kill each other, you're doing such a fine job of it already."
"Go to Hell," he breathes.
"Oh come now, Hook, I thought we were already there? An eternal nightmare for you all, sounds about right. All we need now is the death of every last one of you, and oh, we are so close. Some of you are already gone, no?"
He glances at Emma just in time to see all the colour drain out of her face.
"No," she whispers.
"I made you a promise, Emma. Remember, when you first came? I told you you'd be an orphan. Did you really think Daddy was going to survive? You poor, naive little Lost Girl."
Emma's glare is like ice, her expression turned to stone.
"No more!" she screams.
"Excuse me?" the demon boy asks, incredulous.
"You missed the update, you little shit," she hisses. "I'm not a Lost Girl anymore. I'm found. I have my family. I have my parents."
She looks straight up into the night sky then, eyes slightly shadowed, as if she's gone somewhere else, as if she's not entirely there where she stands.
"And they've even given me a present."
When the pulsing wave of magic she has called upon appears, they are all staggered by it.
And something tells him that Emma Swan actually does have a miracle up her sleeves.
"Emma," Snow murmurs through a broken smile, as she strokes the back of the crying baby's head. "My sweet girl. Mama's here."
"I didn't mean to," he whispers, stunned. "I didn't mean to bring her here."
"Oh we know, don't we baby girl?" she coos to the baby. "This was just what was meant to happen, wasn't it? A gut feeling led us here, so we could come back to you. Because our family, we always find each other."
How many times can his heart break?
"Snow," he tries.
She shakes her head. "It's our do-over, Charming. That's what this is. You and me, and our daughter, from the beginning. With no threats, no curses hanging over us. Just us. We can finally have our happy ending."
He can't want it. He can't.
But oh, he wants to want to.
The power courses through her.
The Savior, that's who she is, that's who she's always been. The daughter of the truest of loves there has ever been.
She has more magic inside of her than anyone who has ever existed. Good magic. Pure magic.
So she can do things that no one else can.
Pan and his little minions have neutralized fireballs, but the island's magic is fair game?
Fine then. She'll just have to call on the island to do her bidding.
The squid ink she pulls from the sea to freeze them all, that's the easy part. Now they're all trapped where they are, though it didn't exactly differentiate between Team Good and Team Bad and Team Depends On the Situation (who freaking knew it was her destiny to team up with so many fairy tale villains?).
But hell, she doesn't have time to sort that out, so everyone on her side can sit back and shut up and listen too.
"The island is fair game, didn't you say, Pan?" she roars, letting her rage and her pain overtake her.
The demon boy glares at her. "You may think you've won now..."
With a wave of her arm, he is forced to shut the hell up. "I didn't say you could talk! When I said no more, I meant no more of any of this! It's over!"
"Because here's the thing your all-knowing powers failed to inform you of. There's more to me than the Lost Girl you think you can manipulate. There's more, because that's not who I am anymore. I am Snow White and Prince Charming's daughter. And you know what happens, when you're born of that kind of love? Magic."
"I'm more powerful than them," she announces, vaguely waving a hand towards Regina and Rumplestilskin. "And I'm more powerful than you. I can do things that you could never have ever dreamed of in your sick, twisted little mind."
"And you know what one of those things is?" she whispers, walking close to Pan's prone body, until her face is inches away from his.
She wants to see the fear in his eyes when she kills him.
"I can manipulate nature. And oh, oh, oh, does your little island of damnation come with its own built in little weapons, doesn't it?"
And yes, there's the dawning horror she was looking for.
She grins, feral and threatening.
"This is for my father."
She sticks her right arm straight up into the air, palm outstretched, and brings the Dreamshade plant down upon them, having used her other hand to shoot protection spells at everyone on her side first.
The Lost Boys fall to the ground en mass, killed immediately, for unlike her father who'd just barely taken a nick from a weapon laced with the poison; she cuts them up directly with the source.
Pan has no followers left. It is him and him alone, for she'd left him alive just long enough to see it.
The Demon knows it's over.
And she has no mercy to spare.
"Just using the tools the Island gives me," she says calmly. "After all, if I want to play the game, I have to play by your rules."
With a flick of her wrist, she sends the Dreamshade directly into his heart.
And the Demon hits the ground with finality.
She spins to face her allies, strange group though they are, and with a snap of her fingers, releases them from their frozen state.
"Apologies," she says, voice flat. "There wasn't time to spare on pulling the magic off you all."
She glances over at where Regina sits, stunned, with her son beginning to stir in her lap.
"Now let's go save my Dad."
Snow doesn't offer to hand the baby to him, and he doesn't ask.
He can't do it. He can't let himself get attached to this.
It's not real.
"Snow," he tries again.
She doesn't look up, eyes only for the baby. But she speaks to him, and her voice, the longing in it, is near hypnotic.
"Stop fighting it, Charming. I know you want this. I know you want our happy ending, it's all we've ever wanted, together."
"It's ours, but what of hers?" he asks. "We're alone here. There's no one else."
"We're all we need," Snow murmurs.
"For now," he insists. "For now, all our baby girl needs in the world is her parents. But what about when she grows up, into that beautiful woman with my eyes and your smile? What about then, when she wants her true love, when she wants her turn at being a mom, when she wants her little boy?"
Snow's lower lip trembles. "We could figure it out..."
"You know we can't. Maybe this is my happy ending, and yours and mine were always intertwined; but Snow, it's not Emma's."
She finally looks up at him. "This is our second chance!"
"We got our second chance already, Snow. Our baby girl is all grown up. She's in Neverland, and she's waiting for you. You need to go back to her."
"I can't go without you!"
"I don't think I can be saved."
"Then why can't I stay here? With you? We can be together here!" she cries.
"This isn't real, Snow."
"Of course it is! You feel our love, you feel how real it is. This isn't like the Siren!"
"No," he shakes his head, fighting the tears. "No, this is far more painful, because this is you I have to let go of."
"I need you!"
"And Emma needs you," he whispers. "Not that baby I wished up, but our real, beautiful, vibrant daughter."
Snow sobs, choked with it, clutching the baby to her.
"Come with me," she begs. "If I have to go back, you have to at least try to too. Our daughter needs you too."
"Okay," he cries with her, pulling her into his arms, granting himself the tiny joy of stroking a hand over the baby's soft hair. "Okay, I will try."
The boy wakes up during the frenzied race back to camp.
"Henry!" his mothers both cry out.
"Mom!" he calls. "Mama! You're both here! Is... is Dad asleep?"
"That's one way of putting it, Henry," the crocodile mutters, as he maneuvers the magical stretcher that carries his son through the jungle.
"I did what I had to do, or we were all dead," he huffs, though disappointingly lacking in the murderous snarl he can usually muster for the imp.
Stilskin glares but says nothing, which he decides to take as tacit concession.
"Henry," Emma starts, "You're safe now. I promise you that. Pan is gone. We're all going to leave Neverland soon, but you have to do something really important first. It's time to be a hero, Henry."
"What do I have to do?" Henry asks, already eager for the task.
"Gramps is in trouble," Emma says, and he can tell it's a fight for her to keep her voice steady for her son. "He got poisoned. But we can save him, with pixie dust. This is Tinkerbell," she says, gesturing behind her to the fallen fairy, who smiles back at the boy. "She's a fairy. She can help us, but she doesn't have any pixie dust."
"You need me to believe, so she'll get some?"
Pride flashes in Emma's eyes as she smiles. "That's exactly right. Do you think you can do it?"
Henry nods. "I know I can. It's why Pan brought me here. I can bring magic back."
The boy closes his eyes, and they all freeze and go silent, just outside of their campsite. Minutes pass, and no one says a word.
No one, until...
"Oh Gods!" Tink shrieks. "It's worked! He's done it! I have magic back!"
The relief in possible salvation is glorious.
"And you'll hold up your end of the bargain?" Emma demands.
"Of course," Tink says, beaming. "Lead the way. Let me bring back your father."
They walk into camp, and the first thing she sees is that her parents are both unconscious.
"Dad!" she yells, running to them, and in the back of her mind she can hear Henry crying out too, struggling to come to his grandparents with her, and she thanks God and whichever of her allies that grabs him for stopping him, because she doesn't want her son to see this.
"Please be alive, please be alive, please be alive," she begs as she checks his pulse, and yes, she finds it. It's faint, too faint oh God, but there's something there, barely there, staggered and weak and oh God he's dying.
"Tink!" she screams. "He's alive, but his heart's stopping, do something!"
"The poison must have just reached his heart," she vaguely hears Hook say, though it seems from very far away, overtaken by the sound of heartwrenching sobs that it takes her far too long to realize are her own.
"It's alright Emma," someone says. "I can still fix this. Just give me some room to work."
It's Hook who finally pulls her away from her father's body, she knows that. She knows he's trying to help, so she doesn't fight it, but she screams, oh she screams.
Tinkerbell - that's who it was - kneels over the bed where her parents lie, and hovers a hand over her father's chest, moving it down along to his abdomen. She can see the pixie dust even from the distance Hook holds her away at; can see the magic of it, and she begs, pleas, prays to every God she can think of that it is working.
Finally, Tink stands back up, and backs away.
She has to swallow three times before she can even attempt to speak.
"Did it work?" she manages in a hoarse whisper.
"I've gotten the DreamShade out of his body," Tinkerbell says. "Now it's just a question of if we got here in time."
She pulls away from Hook, and he lets her go this time, allowing her to run back to her father's side.
"He's still breathing," she says, checking it. "And his heart still beats. It's steadier than it was before. That's a good sign, right? It has to be a good sign!" she demands of everyone there.
"Of course it's a good sign, sweetheart," Hook murmurs from behind her, and it's good to hear, but she has to wonder if the man who loves her is just humouring her.
It's fear like she's never felt, and she finds herself painfully relieved that her mother is sleeping through this.
He wants to let go of everything this land gave him.
And so it goes.
His sword disappears first, then the castle around them.
Snow still holds the baby.
She stares at her. "How is she..."
"I make the rules here, remember? And we get the chance to say good-bye."
Her eyes fill with tears immediately. "Thank you, Charming."
She doesn't say a big speech. He wouldn't have expected her to. They've done this too many times before.
"Hey baby girl," she murmurs to the baby. "It's okay. You grew up. But we love you every bit as much. So we're coming for you."
"We love you, Emma," he agrees, kissing the baby's head, just as she vanishes too.
He expects Snow to sob with the baby now gone, a rehash of the sobs he'd heard at his back a lifetime ago, as he tore through the castle with a newborn in his arms; sobs that had haunted his nightmares even as David Nolan.
But no. No, Snow smiles at him, fiercely.
"I love you," she promises. "I always will."
"And I you," he replies, willing himself not to cry, willing himself not to show his fear.
He knows she knows it anyway.
He doesn't believe this will work, but he had to try. For Snow, he had to try.
But when they step into the unknown abyss together, he is utterly unsurprised when he loses his grip on her hand.
"Daddy?" she asks. "Daddy you need to come back. You need to wake up."
Nothing. It's been so many minutes, too many. Hours, maybe. Feels like it, anyway.
"Wake up, Dad!" she demands. "Wake up! You have to wake up!"
She lets herself cry. "Don't let this be it, okay? It wasn't enough. It hasn't been enough. I need more time with you. Mom needs more time with you. We both need a lifetime. We need... we need the life we always should have had, me and you and Mom, and I'm finally ready to give it, okay? I'm finally ready to really be your daughter, so you need to wake up and let me."
"Sounds good, kiddo," he murmurs.
"Daddy?!" she gasps, staring at his face.
His eyes blink open. "Hey, Em."
"Oh my God," she sobs. "Thank God, Dad, Daddy, you're alive. You're going to be just fine. We fixed everything. The poison's gone. We got it out in time."
"You did it, baby girl," he murmurs, and the sheer pride on his face has her beaming and weeping both.
She's waited her whole life for a father, and for him to look at her like that.
"I'm so glad you're okay," she laughs out of the pure relief, glancing behind her for just a second, where she can see Hook flashing that - okay, yeah, gorgeous - grin at her, and further back Henry's jumping up and down, hugging his now conscious father.
And Mom, she decides, Mom needs to be a part of this.
"Mom, wake up! The plan worked, Dad's gonna be fine!"
Snow doesn't stir.
"Mom?" she asks, glancing at her father. "Is she usually a heavy sleeper?"
"No," he says, sitting up, shifting his wife in his arms. "No, she's not."
"Snow?" he tries, shaking her shoulder lightly. "My darling, it's time to wake up. Emma did it. I'm going to live. We can go home."
Still nothing. The cold coil of fear and dread begins curling in her stomach once more.
"Mom!" she demands, yelling it.
All the colour her father had gained back with consciousness has drained out of his face.
"Snow, Snow, Snow," he tries.
She grabs her mother's arm, feels around her wrist, before dropping it in terror. She can't find her pulse.
Nearly blinded by panic, she shoves past her father to lean down against Snow's prone body to search for a heartbeat, for the sound of her mother's breathing, anything.
"I don't... I don't think she's..." she chokes.
"No!" her father snarls vehemently. He kisses her mother, almost brutal with the force of it, but nothing. Grabbing Snow's arms, he shakes her harder this time.
Hard enough so that the knife falls off her mother's body to the ground with a thud.
She recoils violently off her parents' cobbled together bed, spins out of Neal's arms where he has come to try to hold her, stumbles to the bushes off at the edge of camp and vomits.
"Don't touch me!" she screams through aching sobs, when Neal tries again to grab her arm, shoving past him to get back to her parents once more. "It's not true, it's not true!"
Somewhere through the haze, she can hear everyone else, can hear Regina screaming a wordless release of horror and pain into the night, can hear Henry hysterical, struggling violently as Hook tries to drag him the hell out of the campsite, knowing, just knowing that he cannot be here for this.
"No, no no, no, no!" she cries. "Dad, she wouldn't have done it. She wouldn't have done it to me."
Her father is shaking, tremors all over his body, but he nods vaguely. "There's no... there's no wound anywhere. She didn't do this to herself, I know she didn't, but I can't figure out..."
"Soul fusion," Rumplestilskin murmurs, and there is actually profound regret in his voice and on his face when she and her father turn to stare up at him.
"What are you talking about?" she demands.
"I didn't want to tell you back in the Cove, Ms Swan, for I thought the fear of it may shaken your focus from the task at hand. But when I said your parents' had a soul fusion, rather than the soul bond that characterizes every other true love that the realms have ever known, I meant it in every way. Their souls were tied together forever, Emma. So when your father's heart slowed, and his soul began to move on from his body, your mother's went with him. I believe we got here just in time for your father, that Tinkerbell was able to stop the poison just as his heart stopped beating. It lost a beat, maybe two, but we were able to bring him back."
"What does that mean for my Mom?" she asks. "My Dad's soul came back, Mom's should have too!"
Stilskin closes his eyes. "Her soul would have already left her body to be with his, while we essentially grabbed and pulled your father's back. And at that point, with your parents' souls now in different... spaces... for a moment, just a split second, they lost grip of each other. She went on. And he didn't."
And her father breaks before her eyes, collapsing, clutching his wife's body in his arms. "Snow," he cries. "I love you. I love you, I love you, I'm here, come back!"
She will never, no matter how long she shall live, be able to get that image out of her mind.
She stands up.
"Fix this," she demands of the imp.
"I would if I could," he says, and she's stunned to hear his voice actually shake. "I was very fond of your mother. Believe me, if there was something I could do... But no magic can bring back the -"
"DON'T SAY IT!" she screams, shoving him. "You son of a bitch! You should have told me! You should have warned me! This is your fault! You did this to her!"
"If there was something I could have done differently..."
"You're all fucking powerful!" she sobs. "The God damn Dark One! You could have done everything, everything different!"
"I'm so sorry Emma."
"SHE'S NOT GONE!" she shrieks. "And if you won't save her, I will!"
"There's nothing to be done," he tries.
She hauls off and punches him square in his beady little eye.
"I'm more powerful than you are," she threatens. "And I am her child. I can do this. If her heart stopped when my father's did, I'll just link them back together again. I'll make her body feel that his still lives."
Clutching at his face, Stilskin stares at her appraisingly. "I'm not sure that will work..."
She damn near snarls at him. "That's a far cry from 'it won't'."
Running back over to her father, she reaches out, touches his arm. For a moment she fears he is past all sense, but his daughter's touch gets through to him.
"Daddy," she murmurs. "It's not over yet. I refuse to believe it's over. I have magic. More than anyone. You and Mom gave it to me. And I have to try."
He nods. "Okay. Try."
He gets Tinkerbell to give Henry what is effectively a magical sedative, knocking the boy out again.
He feels sick about it, but there's nothing for it. Henry was hysterical, and if they weren't careful, the state he was in, he'd hurt himself, make himself sick.
He hands the boy to Neal without a word. Better he be held by his father, than a pirate he doesn't know.
And then he collapses to the ground and covers his ears against the sound of Emma sobbing, Emma railing against Rumplestilskin, Emma giving the monster the hell he deserves.
He'd have done anything, given his life, to spare her this pain.
But then, then he hears the faintest note of hope come back into her voice, and he looks back up.
It's impossible. But if anyone could do it...
He watches as Emma and Charming work together to lay Snow back on the bed. Watches as Emma directs her father to kneel next to her, to match his wrist against his wife's. Watches as Emma finally sends a link of shimmering purple magic to tie between where Charming's pulse is and Snow's should be, trying to force Snow's body to feel how her husband lives.
Watches for many minutes. Watches when Charming gives up, bowing his head in broken grief. Watches the tears stream down Emma's face, watches her bite her bottom lip out of pain, out of stubbornness, out of refusal to give up, even past time when she probably should.
He watches them.
So he doesn't see it, until it's too late, when Regina stands, and from her own hands, shoots an opaque dome to overtake the bed, and Emma and her parents with it.
"What did... what did you just do?" he cries out.
"I sent them into a magical antechamber," Regina says, voice flat and broken. "Soundproofed and windless, it'll give Emma's magic its best chance to succeed. The elements won't interfere with it now, and she won't be distracted by us."
"Will it work?" he demands.
"I don't know," she murmurs, voice cracking. "I doubt it."
"And if it doesn't?"
She finally looks at him then, with eyes filled with tears. "Then I've given Snow's husband and daughter a private place to let her go."
She can't... be gone.
What is he supposed to do without her?
They're alone. Just him and Emma. Everything and everyone else has disappeared.
It's better that way, he thinks vaguely. Nobody else should be a part of this. It's his and Emma's loss.
She would have been so proud of Emma. So overjoyed with the way Emma had embraced who she was. They could have been a real family, if only they'd been given the chance.
If only they'd been given the chance.
He feels it, when Emma drops the magic. Sees it, when she pulls her legs into her chest, curling her body into the tiniest ball possible, and sobs.
He should comfort her, he thinks. Snow would want him to.
But he's broken too. Who's to comfort him?
He picks Snow's body up, pulling her tight into his chest, and cries.
"I'll come for you," he promises through tears, through sobs that feel as though they'll tear his chest in half. "Someday. I'll take care of our daughter, and our grandson. I'll make sure they have a good life. And someday, someday Snow, we'll be be together again. I love you so much, forever."
His voice breaks on the last word, and he resigns himself to being unable to speak.
But Snow always did prefer action to words, and so he kisses her, with all the love he has in him.
His heartbeat feels staggered, and he cannot, cannot get enough air into his lungs. His whole body aches, it aches so badly.
Is this what dying feels like? Stilskin said the connection was gone when their souls got separated, but it doesn't feel that way. It feels like he's going to her.
It feels like she's calling for him still.
The way he's holding her to him, his heart is right against where hers would be.
And for a second, just a second, he glances over his wife's shoulder to Emma, and their eyes connect.
Their daughter, their beautiful, amazing, perfect daughter is crying.
But there is something fierce in her eyes too. Pain and determination, and hope, still hope.
Their daughter hasn't given up yet.
And when the magic shoots out from Emma's heart, sending a trail right in between his heart and Snow's, and then careening into a 'T', branches stretching into his heart and his wife's, linking the three of them together, a human family tree, connected by the pure magic that is love...
That's when he feels Snow's heart beat.
"Snow?" he breathes, disbelief obvious in even sighing her name.
Oh, how it hurts to hope. He's convinced now that if this fails, if it's not real, he would simply cease to be, unable to go on to a life without her.
"Did it work?" Emma demands, letting the magic fade away.
And he's scared, so scared. With the magic no longer connecting them, he fears that the beat he feels against his own chest will fade back away into nothingness.
But, no. It continues, steady and strong and so damn reassuring, like she's just asleep, there on his chest, the way she's slept for so many nights.
"I..." he stumbles. How can he tell Emma that it might have, but he's really not sure? How can he let her feel the same panicked mixture of hope and panic and love, desperate, desperate love that he's feeling right now?
And then, and then he doesn't need to tell her.
Because she sees Snow's eyes blink open just as he does.
She sobs openly.
"Mom," she cries. "Mom, Mom, Mom."
For her part, Snow seems mostly bewildered, but puts up a good front.
"Hey, Em," she hums sleepily. "Um, where the hell are we?"
Yes, she cries, and so does her father, but oh, do they laugh too.
He can feel himself fading, but he doesn't say a word, staring at the dome Regina had created with all the desperation he can muster.
They've been in there too long, he agonizes. They've been in there too long, and so all hope must be gone, they must have lost her, Emma, Emma, Emma, and oh he just wants to hold her, wants to hold her without saying a word, because what words will help her now? She'll want her father, only her father, and maybe her son; she'll want her little family because only they'll understand her loss, and Gods, what can he give her now?
The dome finally fades away after an hour, maybe two, and the little family emerges, and Emma's face is, as always, the first thing he sees, and it's shining, shining with -
Joy.
She did it.
She found one more miracle.
Snow White lives.
They're all going to be okay. They're all going to make it home, together.
He was able to do what he came here to do. He was able to help Emma save her family.
So, he decides, it's finally okay to pass out.
"Killian!" Emma shrieks.
And oh hell, he thinks, are they all gonna take a turn dying on each other before they make it off this God forsaken island?
Emma's running over to the collapsed pirate, and he needs to help her, needs to help his daughter, but his wife literally just came back from the dead, and she's still slightly unsteady on her feet, and he's kind of serving as a human crutch to her, and the last thing she needs is to be dragged over to help with another desperate rescue attempt.
The hand on his shoulder startles him, and he nearly jumps ten feet in the air when he sees the hand belongs to Regina.
"Go," she tells him. "I've got Snow."
And it's strange, so strange, that he suddenly trusts that. Snow nods to agree, worry for her daughter showing all over her face, and there's too much of that to be even vaguely concerned over Regina, so he passes Snow's weight off to his stepmother-in-law (which, yup, still weird), and runs over to join his daughter by Hook's prone body.
"What the hell, what the hell?" Emma cries.
"He get hit?" he demands of her.
"What? No! I don't think... he would have told me!"
He can't help it. He snorts. "Yeah, no he wouldn't have." He glances over his shoulder to the fairy. "Tink! You happen to have any pixie dust left?"
"I have enough," Tinkerbell says, walking over to join them. "Has the poison reached his heart yet?"
"No. Heartbeat's still steady, breathing is even." He lets himself smirk then. "Just doesn't have the pain threshold I have, clearly."
Emma shoots a glare at him just as she finds where, yes, Hook clearly had taken the slash of a sword to his side. "Nice, Daddy. Mock the wounded."
He grins, unrepentant. "If you had any idea the crap Hook's been giving me since he first knew I was hurt..."
"Sensitive soul, your daddy's got," Hook groans, gaining consciousness again. "Can't even take a few casual slights on his impending doom."
Emma laughs at that, and yes, he can't help but feel slightly offended.
He cheers up quick though once Tink works her magic, because the second the wound's gone, his daughter turns her glare on the pirate.
"Just so we're clear," she threatens with a tilt of her head, "if you die, I'll kill you."
"Are we all quite done dying then?" Rumplestilskin demands, still staring over at Snow with rather a lot of disbelief. "Because if you don't all mind, I think it's high time we get back to Storybrooke."
"Yeah," Emma murmurs, patting Hook's shoulder with a look of affection that he is going to try very hard not to ponder the meaning of.
She's still, and always will be, his little girl, and so it means every world when she reaches over to grab his hand and pull him back over to Snow with her.
"Let's go home."
It's a long, strange, voyage home.
There's so many awkward, confusing dynamics between everyone on the ship now; and so many bewildering discussions that need to be had.
She's still not entirely sure what happened tonight, and neither her husband nor her daughter appear particularly eager to share the details, beyond that she'd basically been gone, and Emma had saved her, bringing her back.
Well, considering the agony that had been waiting for Charming's death, she can understand entirely her family not wanting to relive her own, and so she doesn't push them. They're alive, all of them, and at this point, that's what matters.
But hell if the imp isn't going to have some explaining to do soon.
She's curious, too, how they managed to save Henry, and that's a story that everyone is willing to regale; a tall tale of legends and magic and holy crap, her daughter being more powerful than she would have ever dared to imagine.
"At the end of the day, kid," Emma tells Henry, "we figured out that your heart will always seek magic. 'Magic calls to belief, belief calls on magic'. You were born out of two magical lineages, and so we figured our magic could summon your heart to it, even if you weren't aware that was what happened. Pan knew we were up to something - he thought it was an attack on his camp to grab you away - so he had Felix knock you out and make a run for it with you, but Pan guessed wrong. Even when you were unconscious, the combination of mine and your grandfather's magic brought you to it, and your Dad was waiting for you there."
"Cool," Henry says, delighted by it, this new story that he is very much a part of.
Oh, yes, she has so many questions, about so many things.
But right now, here, sitting on deck, curled - very, very tightly - in Charming's arms (he hasn't let go of her since they left camp), smiling a 'good night' as Emma leads her son off to go to bed... well, maybe she doesn't need explanations right this second.
Maybe she's doing pretty great as is.
Her husband's alive. Her grandson is safe. And her daughter has developed a brand new insistence on calling her 'Mom'.
Yeah, she's just fine.
Hook works alone and quietly to manage the ship's course, gently turning down any offers of help. 'Stilskin and Neal sit together talking, a lifetime's worth of complicated emotions to work through together. Tinkerbell, having decided she was more than ready to leave Neverland, sits higher up on deck, staring out at the seas spread before them with a look of overjoyed wonder written across her face.
Every so often, they see her shoot green sparks into the air, and hear her accompanying giggle.
And Regina... Regina approaches herself and Charming, plainly uncomfortable and unsure in a way that she is quite certain she has never seen her stepmother.
"Regina," she says calmly.
"I'm glad you're alright, Snow."
Maybe it's the shock that makes her say it, because she can't imagine it coming out of her mouth otherwise, when she teases, "Can't have me die unless it's by your own hand?"
And yes, she can feel Charming stiffen in surprise behind her, but Regina...
Regina chuckles.
"I deserved that," she muses. "But no more, Snow. No more. You were a child. I'd lost sight of that, until you said it. I let pain take over and turn everything dark, and it was easier to blame you than to blame my own mother. I was... too young too, I think, when it happened. Young and immature, and so head-over-heels in love with a dead boy, and I let myself forget how very young you were. I twisted and turned what had happened so many times in my darkened mind that you became a monster, rather than a little girl. And you were... you were such a little girl. My little girl, you could have been, if I'd just let myself remember how I adored you, the innocent little thing I saved off a rampaging horse. Yes, Snow, you were right, about everything. Every last thing that has happened from the moment you saw me kiss Daniel that night was my fault. I shouldn't have burdened you with that secret. I should have warned you that my mother would resort to trickery. And I should have run away with Daniel when I had the chance; or told your father as you suggested, he was a good man, he could have helped. So many things, I could have done differently, and that's my fault. And I can't fix it. That's what I hate most, I can't fix any of it. But I am sorry, Snow. I am so, very, very sorry."
Blinking away tears, she exhales shakily, grateful, ever so grateful, for Charming's reassuring presence behind her; for the way he holds her just the slightest bit tighter, letting her know he's there, keeping her steady, keeping her strong.
"Okay," she murmurs.
"Okay?" Regina asks.
"It's all I can give you right now," she admits. "I appreciate... I so appreciate that you're finally saying these things, but Regina, they've come so out of no where..."
"You died," Regina interrupts, the first one to actually say it, and she feels Charming flinch considerably behind her, and so she reaches back to touch his hand, reassuring him as he did her.
"You died," Regina continues, "and I realized how very badly I didn't want you to. I want you to get your happy ending. I want you to have the life I kept stealing from you. And I want... a chance. I can't fix the past, Snow, but I want a chance to fix our relationship."
"I've tried," she sighs. "Regina, I've tried so many times..."
"This time will be different."
"How?"
And finally, Regina smiles the easy, affectionate smile she hadn't seen since she was twelve years old and thought Regina was the most beautiful woman she'd ever seen.
"This time I'll be trying too," Regina promises.
She swallows. She wipes furiously at the tears streaming down her face. And then, finally, she nods.
This time is different. The woman standing before her right now, she's not the Evil Queen.
She's the woman a twelve year old had wanted to be her mother.
"Okay," she says again. "One more time. We'll try."
"Hey," she murmurs to her parents, having rejoined them once Regina had come to take over watch-Henry-sleeping duty with a strange - almost hopeful - smile she'd never seen on the other woman's face before. "Any chance I can wiggle in here?" she asks, showing her offer of the biggest blanket she'd been able to find on the ship.
"Of course," Mom replies with a radiant smile, opening up her free arm to let her curl into her side. Dad takes the blanket from her, spreading it over the three of their bodies, taking great pains - she can't help but notice - to ensure that the vast majority of the blanket covers herself and her mother.
Some things, she decides, just won't change.
But some things will. She's twenty-nine years old after all, and clinging to her parents like they might disappear into thin air if she doesn't hold on tight, for the very first time in her life. They huddle together, curled into each other, holding each other, and she feels, very much, like a little girl.
And that's kind of really okay, she decides. She's no child, no, but she's their little girl, and she's finally ready to accept that.
"How are you feeling?" Mom asks gently.
She snorts, in an expression she's recently learned she very much inherited from her father. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?"
"Mmm, maybe," Mom hums. "But I'm holding my daughter while my husband holds me, so I think I'm doing just fine. But you... you've been through so much."
"It's over now," she starts to brush off, but then stops. "But yeah, I was... terrified, Mom, the whole freaking time. You have no idea how much I need you guys."
Mom places a kiss to the top of her head, and it might just be the best thing she's ever felt. "Oh, we know Em. We know."
She swallows. She doesn't want to say this... but no, she has to say it. It's a discussion they have to have. "Mom, you know I get why you told Neal to take me and Henry and run, right?"
They're all close enough together that she feels her mother stiffen and her father flinch.
"No, no, don't worry about it. I do. I understand all of it. I'm a Mom too, now, so I get it. I was more important to you than you are. You needed to know I would live. I completely understand that motivation."
Mom manages a smile. "But you don't agree with it."
She nods. "I would never have willingly left this island without you guys. I lived twenty-eight years without you. I'm not giving you up now. And I need you to know that. I need my parents."
Mom tilts her head. "And you needed Neal to know that too," she suggests, prompting but not pushing, in the parenting technique her father had long ago perfected and her mother has started to learn.
She smiles, bittersweet but genuine. "I know why he did it too. He thought he was fulfilling my parents' wishes, he thought he was saving me, saving our son. He truly believed he was doing the right thing, and I get that."
She glances over to where Killian mans the steering wheel, and her father catches the look.
"But Hook stopped him?" Dad asks.
She nods. "He knew... he knew I'd need to try. To get back to you. Even if I died trying, I couldn't just let you go."
Mom smiles through teary eyes. "And that's why I didn't ask him."
Her eyes flash to her mother's face.
"He loves you, Em. It's pretty obvious he'd do anything for you, even if it destroyed him. I knew he'd never let your father and I go, because he'd never do that to you, not even to save you."
She takes a deep breath. "I think... I think they both might love me, Mom. Neal... he chose me. He chose me, when he tried to take Henry and I and run. He chose me. But Killian... he chose what he knew I'd want. He always chooses what he knows I would want. He tried to get Henry out of there, when we couldn't wake you up Mom. Neal came to try to comfort me, but Killian turned away from me to help my son. Even if it's not what's best for me, he's always doing what I would have wanted. And that's the difference."
"So it's him, then?" Dad asks.
She nods. "Yeah, Daddy. I think it is. You gonna be okay with that?"
"I guess I have to be," Dad admits, though it seems as though it pains him slightly. "If it's what you want, I'll accept it. I just want you to be happy, Em."
She grins back at him, and for a short moment, they're all quiet together, before Dad speaks up once more.
"Can I at least threaten him within an inch of his life?" he begs.
Oh, it feels good to laugh.
"I wouldn't expect anything less," she confirms.
He nods over to the ship's wheel. "Who goes to talk to him first, you or me?"
She cuddles in closer to her mother. "Neither of us, for now. I'm good right where I am."
"You're going to be even more connected than you were before," Emma says, suddenly.
"What do you mean?" Snow asks.
Emma clears her throat. He suspects she'll never be comfortable talking about it, and he completely understands. So if there's something Emma feels the need to tell them about it, it's got to be important.
"I think... when you came back, the link between your souls would have reconnected, as you found each other again. I don't know... anything really about how a soul fusion or soul bonds work, you'll have to ask Gold about that. I just... I just know that when I brought you back, I did it with your heart. I connected yours and Daddy's hearts together, in order to make yours beat again. And now, lying so close with you guys... I think I can hear it. Your heartbeats have matched up. You're not just connected by your souls anymore, you're connected by your hearts. And I think... someday... a long, long time from now... there will be no losing each other between worlds this time. Your hearts will stop at the same time. You'll go on together."
He swallows. He quite likes that, actually, the idea of never, ever living without his wife, but there's a flaw to this explanation...
"But Em, your heart was connected to ours too," he points out. "The magic came from your heart."
She shakes her head. "But I wasn't directly tied to either one of you. Your hearts were directly tied, while my link was between you two. Just like a family tree. I came from your connection."
"So how does this all work then?" he asks.
"I have no idea," Emma admits. "We'll have to figure it out as we go. But if you and Mom could feel each other's pain before... that's going to be amplified, hugely now."
Something occurring to him, he stretches out and upwards grabbing a paper at random off the table they all lean up against. Pulling it down, he deliberately slices the page across his right hand, producing a - okay, ouch, bigger than need be - paper cut.
Snow's reaction is immediate. "Ow!" she cries out, glancing at her own hand, where an exact replica of his same cut has appeared, outlined for only a second in the shimmery purpleness of magic.
"Um," Emma says, staring at it. "Holy crap."
"I uh..." he attempts. "I'm sorry, my love. Had a hunch but... didn't think it would work like that. I just thought maybe you'd feel a phantom of the pain, like -"
"Ah!" Emma cries out, looking down at her own hand where... theres nothing at all.
They stare at each other.
"Well, like that," he finishes, lamely.
"It's okay," Emma murmurs, "the sting is gone. It was just a second of it, an impression. Ghost pain, I guess. So I am connected to you guys now, forever, just not nearly as directly. I only get a sense, an echo of it, but I don't get the actual injury. My heart isn't so directly linked to yours."
"But then... when we die," Snow starts, to his and Emma's flinch. "You'll feel it?"
Emma shakes her head, fierce determination flashing in her eyes, and she looks so very much like Snow in that moment that he loses his breath over it. "You and Daddy are going to live a long, long life," she announces, "and you'll... you'll go just simply of old age, in your sleep, in each other's arms, a long time from now. Like, when you're 110 or something. And I won't feel a thing. There will be no pain, not that kind, anyway. You'll just fade away, so easily that I won't feel it at all. Because I said so."
Snow laughs. "And that's your call?"
"Yup," Emma proclaims. "I'm crazy powerful, so I can decide these things. No more craziness. No more crap. No more danger. Just our family, and a good life together. In Storybrooke, for now."
"For now?" he asks.
His daughter glances over at him, and the absolute adoration on her face causes him to lose his breath again.
"Mom asked me awhile ago if I would go with you if you guys went back to the Enchanted Forest. I never answered then, but I am now. The Enchanted Forest is your home. And if it's what you want, of course I am coming with you. We'll rebuild. Hell, the crazy ass magic I've got, I'll whip us up the most fabulous castle anyone's ever seen in approximately thirty seconds."
Yes, oh yes, it feels good to laugh.
He is alive.
He has his wife, and his daughter, and the real little family they're making together in this, their second chance.
He doesn't know where they'll be. He doesn't know what adventures will come.
But he's finally found his happy ending.
"I love you," he murmurs. "Both of you."
"I always will."
Oh your hands can heal, your hands can bruise
I don't have a choice, but I still choose you
Author's Note: Thanks, as always, for reading.