A/N: I am on a roll here! I'm so glad you like my first fanfiction! And I just caught this mistake on my last author's note, but whenever I say A/U, I mean A/N as in author's note. I sometimes don't realize I do that. Please R&R! :)
Emma, Snow and David were walking for hours and taking breaks all day long to get to the castle. They were all exhausted as they slumped against an old log in a big sandy plain. It had been an hour since they found a small river to get water, so they were getting dehydrated again.
All three of them had been quiet all day, but Emma finally spoke up.
"How do you know where we're going if you haven't been here in 28 years?"
Good point.
"Well," David said tiredly. "We sort of know where we're going. I didn't at first because I've never been over near that island in my whole life, but for the past few hours today, I've been recognizing some familiar spots from my childhood. But it feels just like riding a bike again; it feels like I never left."
Snow took in her surroundings, but then she furrowed her eyebrows, deep in thought. David looked over at her and squeezed her hand, which he was already holding. Emma noticed that they found one way or another to connect to each other all day. It was either holding each other's hand or David putting his arm around Snow as they walked or even small pecks on each other's faces, necks, or mouths. They are inseparable, Emma thought to herself.
Snow suddenly stood up, despite how long they had already been standing and walking all day, and quickly walked all around the sandy plain. Emma looked up from dragging a stick around in the sand beside her and noticed Snow was hurriedly searching the area.
"Mary Margaret…?"
"Snow, what are you doing?" David asked in a concerning tone. He stood up to follow, but then just decided to stay there standing. Snow finally looked up and rushed back to them, a smile starting to show across her face. Her face lit up more and more and she went right into David's arms.
"Charming, do you recognize where we are?" She asked, looking up at him. Her smile faded a little, but still had a light to it.
His brows furrowed as he looked around, trying to remember. Then he finally recognized the log Emma was sitting against and remembers searching for something everywhere around and near it 28 years ago. Water.
"Snow," he started as he paused to look around more, confirming it. "Are we-?"
She nodded, tears forming in her eyes at both the good and bad memories surrounding her. Snow pulled David into another tight hug as his eyes started watering along with hers. Emma had been watching this reaction.
"Am I missing something?" She said. Snow and David wiped their eyes as they pulled apart and looked down at their daughter. She now had to know.
"Emma," She focused on her and motioned for her to come to them. Emma got up, throwing the stick far away, and walked over to her almost-crying parents, wondering if they were either happy or sad.
"What's happening? Where are we? Are we almost there?"
"This place right here," David's voice was cracking up a little. "Is very special to us. Your mother and I."
Emma was confused and wanted to learn more, so she took a guess at it. "Is this that scenic route you took and met Mary Margaret?"
Snow shook her head and continued in her saddened voice. Her smile had faded completely. "No, that's not here. Last night, when we were telling you the story of us, we never got to this part, but I'll summarize so you can understand.
"After I left Charming's kingdom after breaking his heart, the dwarves caught up with me and I stayed with them. They convinced me not to take the potion Rumplestiltskin gave me and I didn't. Not that night, anyways. The next morning, the dwarves were gone when I woke up, and I had been crying and crying because of what I did to Charming, so I took the potion and forgot about him immediately. The dwarves came in a few minutes later and told me that Charming escaped the castle, dropped the wedding, and went looking for me. He was searching for me to find me, just as he promised he always would. And I had no idea who they were talking about…"
David wrapped his arms around Snow's stomach from behind as she continued.
"Later, I wanted to go at Regina and kill her myself, so I went to Rumplestiltskin again, since he made me forget who Charming was."
She put her hands on top of David's hands on her stomach, like they would do when she was pregnant with Emma. She just needed to feel him with her while telling their daughter this story. It was hard for both of them.
"Rumplestiltskin introduced to me a magical bow and arrow that never misses its target, but it would turn my heart evil if I killed Regina with it. I didn't care and set out to find her on her way to her other castle. Then comes along a man who claims he loves me and he kissed me, but I knocked him out with a rock and tied him up to a tree. True love's kiss failed, but in order for it to be true love, the love has to be deep within both. When I finally saw Regina on her horse later that day or something, I aimed and fired the bow, but someone got right in front of it."
"Me." David spoke up, his voice back to normal again.
Snow smiled. "I still had no idea who he was to me, but then Charming explained to me the love he felt for me ever since the troll bridge. He kissed me, and I remembered him again."
"Finally," Emma complained. She's been waiting for the good part ever since last night.
"You have no idea how it feels to kiss the man you've been in love with for so long." Snow smiled as David kissed the side of her neck from behind. Then he moved his mouth to hers and locked lips. Knowing Emma was waiting, they unfortunately couldn't keep in that moment forever. They had to go on.
"Right after our short reunion," David continued, pulling apart from Snow's lips but still having his arms linked around her. "I got captured by King George's men."
"Are you serious?" Emma's eyes widened.
Snow nodded and continued. "After I apologized to the dwarves for my heartless behavior from the past few weeks, all of our friends – the seven dwarves, Red, Granny, a lot of fairies, and many more – and I made up a rescue team to save my Charming."
"You did all of that for me?" David smiled, but then remembered all that work they did was useless then. His smile faded.
"Of course I did. I would do anything to save you from King George, even back then if it was all useless."
"Useless?" Emma questioned.
Snow turned her attention back to her daughter. "Yes, it was all useless. When I finally got to the cells after we took out most of King George's soldiers, Charming was there. I found a key and unlocked his cell, ready to embrace him and spend the rest of our lives together, but I then saw it was just one of Regina's tricks. She put a mirror in the cell with Charming in front of it from her castle. He had been moved."
David took a deep breath. "Do you know one of the very first things I said to your mother?"
Emma shook her head. She was far more than ready for a happy part back, but it didn't look like they were anywhere near one.
"'I will always find you.'" Snow quoted, turning her head sideways and looking into David's eyes. He kissed her chastely and continued.
"We always found each other, but it also turned out that we also lost each other. But we never lost faith. We always found each other."
Snow smiled at what he had to say. "That is definitely true. Anyway, Regina appeared in the mirror and told me to meet her, alone, no weapons or anything, where it all began. So I met her in the field she rescued me from that horse so long ago when I was very little. She threatened to kill my Charming if I did not eat the apple she poisoned just for me, so I ate it." She turned to David. "I believe you can continue, since I was asleep for all of what happened next."
He chuckled, rearranging his arms around Snow until they were comfortable again. "You know, when you ate that apple, I felt a searing pain in my heart. Literally."
Snow froze, and then she slowly turned her head to see David out of the corner of her eye. "Really?"
He nodded. "I just knew something had happened. It was like half of my heart was ripped away from me. It was the worst feeling ever. Anyway, the huntsman, Graham in Storybrooke,"
Emma's eyes widened at the name. She completely forgot about Graham!
"He let me out and told me he knew Snow and was a good friend of hers, so I went out to find her in whatever trouble she was in. I went to Rumplestiltskin and he charmed my mother's ring to glow when I was near Snow. But in the deal, I had to hide a potion inside of an egg inside a dragon."
Both Emma and Snow gasped. Emma knew about the potion, but it now seemed really real to her from David's voice. Snow, on the other hand, never even knew about this.
"What potion did he want you to hide!?" Snow questioned. She thought Rumplestiltskin just wanted him to do his dirty work for him in return.
David smiled, even though she couldn't see it. "A potion of True Love. Snow, it was our love bottled up as a potion. Our love."
She gasped again, realizing what he meant. She heard it was impossible to bottle up love. Rumplestiltskin told her himself when she wanted something to help with her feelings of an already-taken prince at the time when she met Rumplestiltskin for the first time. But it was possible with their love. Now that is definitely true love.
"Right before I broke the curse," Emma interrupted her parent's eyes gazing into each other's. They turned their attention back to her. "I went to Rumplestiltskin for help because Henry got poisoned from Regina's apple turnover – long story – and he told me to get a potion inside an egg inside a dragon, and told me it was a true love's potion made from both of your hairs."
"Did you have to battle her all by yourself?" David asked, concerned. Emma nodded.
David's brows furrowed, but Emma spoke again. "I defeated the dragon and Mr. Gold – I mean Rumplestiltskin – got the potion before I could use it for Henry, and that is how magic came to Storybrooke. Through that potion. And David… I used your sword, by the way."
Both Snow's and David's eyes widened. First, they learn that their love was magical enough to bring magic to a world where magic doesn't exist, and then they hear that their daughter used a sword. Most importantly, she used her father's sword. Trying not to get too emotional, David continued. "So, anyway, I got it in there, as you can tell from Emma's story as well, then went to wake up the love of my life. I woke her up with true love's kiss and proposed to her after with my mother's ring, the same ring she tried on the very day we met. Snow suggested we take back the kingdom, "together", so we caught up with Red and a few others who would support us and planned out how to attack." David paused, his voice cracking from talking too much. "Snow, do you want to take over?"
She nodded. "This is good timing to start with me, because this is something I never told you…"
David looked confused. "What?"
"Is this something good or bad?" Emma interrupted. She thought her parent's love life was happy and trouble-free, not hard and always separated.
"Yes and no," Snow explained. "It is something awful, but once you hear what it is, you'll already know it doesn't last forever."
David was still confused, so Snow explained further.
"So from where Charming left off, King George's men found us, so we had to split up. Charming sent me off to his old house to meet me in two day's time, but the leader of King George's army found me before I could get there and took me to the castle."
David gasped behind her. Snow pressed her finger softly on his lips, and David licked her finger in surprise, so she took it back down.
"Wait, it was that guy that Red warned us about? I can never pronounce his name…"
"His real name was Sir Lancelot." Snow revealed. David was speechless.
"Wait!" Emma interrupted again. "Was that the man who we met yesterday?!"
Snow nodded, then continued. "He took me to the castle and brought me to King George, where he droned on and on about his love life and what he had to go through, and then he poisoned me to be barren forever with no chance of producing children, just what he had to go through."
David spoke up, practically shouting in her ear. "He did that to you?!"
Snow caressed his hands on top of her stomach soothingly. "Yes, but we all know how that turned out."
David was so confused. "How did we break that?"
"Like father, like daughter," Snow murmured as she ignored his question. "Anyway, Lancelot had no idea King George was going to do that to me, so once he found me in the forest trying to find your old house, he explained, and that's how I trusted him."
"Snow, can I interrupt for a sec?" David asked. She nodded, so he went on. "While this was happening, I was traveling to my old house. When I got there, King George's men followed, so once I got there, I had to send my mother back into the house. I specifically told her not to come outside, no matter what…" His voice cracked and he could feel his eyes slightly start to water a little. "Sure enough, I was surrounded with no backup, but I took every single one of them out in less than a minute."
"Charming," Snow leaned into David and whispered, but to where Emma could hear. "Don't be such a show off."
David chuckled and kissed the back of her neck, squeezing her lightly but more closer into him. His smile faded after a while, knowing he had to keep going.
"But I remember turning around, and seeing my mother standing there, calling out to me, with an arrow in her chest."
Emma gasped. She was not prepared for that. David continued, even though his eyes were starting to water again. "Snow and Lancelot got there right when I was trying to save my mother. But before I go any further, I have something to say that Snow doesn't know about yet either."
Snow wasn't prepared for that either. She turned her head and gave him a confused expression. Instead, David gave Snow a short, chaste kiss, then continued into his new story. "When I first left the kingdom to find Snow, after Snow left me tied to a tree, Jiminy Cricket found me and eventually untied me. I continued my search for Snow, but King George and Princess Abigail found me. She actually understood what I was going through, but her fiancé was turned into gold accidentally. She told me of a lake that the waters could bring things back,"
"Lake Nostos," Snow murmured to herself, remembering.
David continued. "So she sent me to get the water, but I had to defeat something that had never been defeated before. A siren."
Emma looked confused at why that was so horrible. She didn't even know what a siren was. Snow connected the lines, then turned her head to David again, mouth open in why he never told her this. Maybe she's about to hear the reason now. She knew exactly what a siren was.
"Charming…"
David tightened his hold on her, never ready to let go. "Yes, I had to battle a siren… but Snow, the last time I was here, we saw there was no more water. That means that I won. That I overcame it. But it was hard for me, because you know that sirens can turn into anything you desire…"
Snow took that in and realized what he meant. That must've been hard for him. "Me."
David nodded, but she couldn't see his response. "Yes."
"May I interrupt?" Emma asked. "What is a Siren?"
Snow replied, "A Siren is a monster that is in human form, but it seduces its prey into a trap to kill them, and it lures its prey by becoming something it desires very much." She turned her head around to David. "Charming, what did it do?"
"Snow, it wasn't easy. It became you once it realized I was stronger than I looked. But when I saw you again, coming out of that lake in a very almost-transparent dress, I became weak. It was so… seducing. I was lured underwater, but I eventually had to kill it. I knew it wasn't you because of the way it kissed me. It just wasn't the same."
"It kissed you?!" Snow exclaimed, still looking at him.
"You know I didn't want to; I was weak! You have to know that! Once I saw it as you coming towards me, I just… Snow, I'm sorry! Just please know that you are the only woman in my life that I love deeply. I would do anything for you. The siren became you because I love you more than anything. I am truly sorry. Please believe that, Snow."
Snow turned around in his arms to face him, and then wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him passionately. David kissed her back with the same amount of passion into it. He took that as a "you're forgiven".
Emma watched her parents. They probably forgot she was even there, but she didn't want to interrupt. After everything they went through back 28 years ago, it sounded like they deserve this moment. Besides, it was just yesterday or the day before (she got confused) that the curse was broken. David and Mary Margaret were in a relationship for just a little while, but mostly were ignoring each other and in a bunch of drama. Emma remembered one day back during the curse when Henry showed her Snow White and Prince Charming's story in the storybook, but only the part where Snow White just gave birth to her and Prince Charming's baby girl and the curse was coming straight for them. Emma remembered reading that their last moment in their castle in their land was Snow White crying over her beloved husband's dying body from one of the Evil Queen's men stabbing him with a sword. Yes, as fairytale characters AND Storybrooke characters, they both had mostly hard times and needed a break in each other's arms.
Emma was jealous of her parent's love. The only guy who she only recently fell in love with was a guy who saved her mother's life 28 years ago and died by the Evil Queen's wrath.
Snow and David eventually broke apart a minute or two later, untangling themselves, suddenly remembering where they were, and noticed their daughter watching them. Snow blushed, embarrassed, but Emma smiled.
"Well," David said, breaking up the awkwardness flowing around them. "Anyway… we were telling Emma about my mother, her grandmother…"
"Right." Snow pushed. David put an arm around her and pulled her towards his side, allowing her to rest her head on his shoulder.
David continued from his story. "So as I was saying before, Snow and Lancelot showed up right when I was trying to save my mother. Snow had never met my mother before, so she only knew her for a short time. We found out nothing could cure it. Then I remembered the lake. Lake Nostos. It turned a solid gold statue into flesh, so it ought to heal my mother. We traveled all the way to the lake, only to find that it was dry. No water whatsoever. Nothing. Fortunately, Lancelot knew where to look and he found just a little to cure my mother. She drank it, but it didn't work…"
"Actually," Snow protested. "Lancelot told me he told her to fake it… it would've worked."
"What?! And how did she know the reason to fake it?" David asked, curious.
"On the way there, we spoke about you and she told me how much you always wanted to be a father of a son and all that. It just all came spilling out what King George did to me, but she told me that the water could also heal me too. When she found out there was only enough for one, she told me to take it, but she drank it instead… apparently she didn't."
"I see…" David was connecting the pieces of the puzzle together.
"So is this where the lake was?" Emma asked, waiting for an answer forever. Snow nodded.
"Why is it special then?" She then asked.
David and Snow smiled at each other knowingly. David spoke, "Well, one of your grandmother's last few words of her life were that she always wanted to live to see the day her son got married to the woman he loved. Snow asked Lancelot to marry us in front of her, so we got married on the spot, right there. He said there was a tradition back in his land with a cup that both the bride and the groom had to drink from a cup that promised eternal love."
Snow interrupted, "Lancelot told me that in that cup was the last remaining water from the lake. That is how we broke the curse King George gave me."
"Wow," Emma said in awe. "So if it weren't for Lancelot or my… grandmother," it would take Emma some getting used to. "I wouldn't be here right now?"
David nodded. "That's right. Even though she died right after our wedding vows, this is one of my favorite spots in all of the Enchanted Forest."
Snow looked up at him from his shoulder and kissed his jaw sweetly. David looked down at her and gave her a chaste kiss.
"I think we're closer to my old house than the castle," David said, looking up and taking in his surroundings again. Snow eased her head off his shoulder and looked around as well, remembering every single moment of their small but cute wedding, and when they said their vows to each other under the arch of flowers and vines, her mother-in-law watching them gaze into each other's eyes. Then she remembered burying Ruth, and she looked at David again.
"Charming, do you think Ruth is still here? Where we buried her?"
David gave that a thought. He hadn't thought about going to her burial site and visiting her.
David took Snow's hand and Emma's as well, and they headed up the hill, looking out for a big mound of dirt. Something crossed Snow's mind.
"Emma, this is also where I first found out you were going to be a girl." She told her.
David looked at Snow. "You knew? How?"
"Charming," She placed a hand on his shoulder. "You couldn't remember which direction meant what, so to my advantage, I let you keep guessing and guessing. Yes, I knew." She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him, but only for an amount of time that was teasingly too little time for both of them.
They continued walking until David ran up to a mound of dried-up dirt. He knelt in front of it as Snow and Emma caught up with him. He looked up at them with one tear rolling down his cheek, one hand on the dirt.
"Emma," He said, his tears almost taking over his voice. "This is your grandmother, Ruth."
Snow knelt down beside him right in front of the dirt and leaned into him. She felt tears slowly start to trickle down her face. She only knew Ruth for not even a day, but she knew that she was nice, polite, and a good woman to be around. She was the only family blood-related David had left, which was why he was sobbing now as tears landed on the mound of dirt. Emma stood awkwardly behind them as her parents mourned over her father's mother. She never met her grandmother, so she didn't know what to do. Finally, she decided.
Emma slid in between Snow and David and rested her hand on the dirt in front of them. She spoke softly, feeling a little strange, "Hi, grandmother…"
Snow looked over Emma at David and met each other's tear-filled eyes, realizing what Emma was doing.
"Thank you, for sacrificing yourself for me to be born. I'm here now. With my- my parents." It took a lot in her for her to admit that.
Snow and David were sobbing now, watching Emma talk to her dead grandmother she never met. It was all silent. They were both amazed at what Emma just said. She just called them her parents. Her mom and dad.
Emma normally didn't get this emotional, but she felt her own tears forming in her eyes. She never even met this woman, but she already felt a love between her grandmother and herself. If it weren't for her grandmother's sacrifice, Emma wouldn't be here talking to a dead woman she didn't even know.
A tear slid down Emma's cheek. She tried to hide it, but Snow and David were on both sides of her, watching her. All of a sudden, in one swift movement, all three of them stood up and gathered each other in a deep, emotional group hug, embracing each other tightly, never wanting to let go, letting all of the sorrow and sadness flow with their tears coming out like waterfalls. They stood in front of Ruth's grave like this, sobbing, for who knows how long, gaining energy and love from each other. Emma felt perfectly content in the arms of her parents, no longer needing to search for them, which is what she had been doing most of her childhood.
She found them. They found her. They will always find each other.
A/N: Wow. Even that brought me to tears. Well, please tell me how I'm doing! Less lovey-dovey or more lovey-dovey? More family moments or less family moments? More canon or more AU? More storytime or less storytime? More scenes from the show or less scenes from the show? What would you like to see? I'm now definitely planning on making this a huge, major Snowing fanfiction filled with surprises, Charming Familyness, and possibly a side of tacos :) Thanks for reading!
