Author's Note: Shoutout to drfits1, who gave me an idea for the end of this chapter. Thanks! Also, second to last chapter, guys! This is a long one, but I couldn't figure out where to split it if I were to split it, so I hope you don't mind. ;)


In the wake of Emma's assertion that she had to face the memories to beat them, the room had fallen into a tense silence. No one seemed to be ready to release their hold on Emma and let her fall back into the memories, and Emma didn't seem to be in a hurry to tell them to let go.

Snow had no doubt in her mind that her daughter was brave enough to face her demons but the thought of doing so was clearly making her anxious and apprehensive. She could see the trepidation in Emma's eyes despite Emma's attempts to hide it behind comforting smiles, mostly for her son's sake.

Despite his agreement with his mother's plan, poor Henry still had a death grip on her hand. "It's all right to let go, Henry," Emma was saying softly. "I'll be perfectly fine with all of you watching over me."

He nodded but still couldn't make himself let go.

The poor boy was struggling with being one of the people to actually send his mother back to the memories, Snow realized. As such, she figured giving him another job to do would serve as a decent distraction. "Henry, will you do me a favor?"

"What is it?" he asked, his voice quivering slightly.

She nodded towards baby Neal, still nestled calmly in her arms. "Will you hold Neal for me?"

A smile tugged at Henry's lips, making Snow give him a smile of her own. This was clearly the perfect arrangement. Allowing Henry some baby time gave him both a reason to let go of his mother's hand and something to focus on other than his mother's battle with her demons while allowing Snow to give her baby girl her undivided attention.

When Henry nodded, Snow gave baby Neal a kiss on his little forehead and passed him off to his nephew. The baby didn't fuss at the changing of the guard, as it were, and Henry shifted over to the foot of the bed to make room for his grandmother at Emma's side.

Thank you, Emma mouthed, clearly relieved that her mother had found a way to occupy the boy during what was not going to be an easy experience for any of them.

You're welcome, Snow mouthed back, giving her daughter a comforting smile.

The adults in the room now held a collective breath. It was time for Emma to take the next step and face the memories and emotions plaguing her but none of them were ready to let go. Not that Emma was ready herself; that trepidation had yet to fade from her eyes.

"We're not going to let you go until you're ready for us to do so, love," Hook assured her softly.

Emma nodded and took a deep breath, shoring up her courage. Snow's heart was simultaneously aching and pounding in her chest. As a mother, it killed her to see her baby girl like this. It killed her to have to watch her baby girl shore up her courage to face every awful memory she'd ever had. But a mother also knew her child, and she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that her remarkable baby girl was strong enough to face down her demons.

She reached down and comfortingly took the hand that Henry had released to take the baby. Emma met her gaze and smiled nervously. Snow gave her a calm smile back, not wanting her own fear and trepidation to show. Her daughter needed her to be strong, needed her to be confident. "You can do this, Emma. We'll be right here with you."

Emma nodded again, squared her shoulders, and took another deep breath. "Okay. I'm ready."

After a glance at each other, Charming and Hook released their hold on her hand and knee, respectively. Snow took a deep breath of her own, gave her baby girl's hand a comforting squeeze, and then let go. Emma was lost to the memories almost instantly, her vision clouding over and her gaze settling on the middle distance.

Again, a tense silence settled over the room. "What now?" Henry shakily asked after a moment, looking up from baby Neal, whose happy gurgling proved he was completely oblivious to the tension in the room, as well he should be.

"Now we watch," Snow said, exchanging a determined glance with Henry, Hook, and Charming in turn, "and we be ready to bring her back the second she needs it."


The memories behaved differently this time, as if Emma's own determination to beat them had made them ramp up the emotional torture.

She was in the car with Jenna, a confused and scared three-year-old crying into a teddy bear. Why were Mommy and Daddy sending her away? Why didn't they love her anymore?

And then she was in Mrs. Martin's class, sitting by herself at recess, her focus split between the book in her hands and the kids running past her, engaged in games with each other. Why didn't they want to play with her?

And then she was talking to Mrs. Drummond in an empty schoolyard after having been forgotten by her foster mother. Mrs. Drummond was telling her that someday she would find a family who loved her and Emma was more certain than ever that that day would never come.

Then she was sitting in a dark closet, the melting snow on the coats hung above her making the tiny space smell musty. She was crying, begging to be let out, because it was small and dark and she was hungry.

And then she was shackled to a gurney, giving birth to a baby she knew she couldn't keep.

The memories flashed one right after the other, jerking her from horrible moment to horrible moment with no time to breathe in between. The pain threatened to drown her. It was too much, too awful and painful to bear all at once.

She whimpered as another scene flashed before her, a little girl with blonde hair and green eyes getting settled into a station wagon with new parents who loved her already. A little girl a few years younger than Emma, a little girl who was getting everything Emma desperately wanted and would never find. Because Emma's chance was gone. She was too old; people didn't want teenagers, they wanted kids. No one was going to want her now. No one.

Emma squeezed her eyes shut in an effort to staunch her welling tears. Not that it mattered. She could still see everything as if her eyes were open. "No," she cried when the image changed again, shifting to Ingrid holding her in front of a moving car while telling her to halt it in its tracks with her mind. "Stop. Just stop!"

And then something miraculous happened: the images stopped. Just for a second, as if there had been a hiccup in the power, but they stopped. Emma blinked, coming back to herself a bit. It couldn't be that easy … could it?

"Stop."

The test of her hypothesis was a success. At the second blip in the images, a smile tugged at Emma's lips. Maybe she wasn't as powerless in the realm of memory as she'd thought.


Snow kept a watchful eye on her daughter, her heart breaking as tears leaked from Emma's eyes. The tension in the room was palpable. Charming and Hook were watching Emma as well but a scared Henry had focused most of his attention on his little uncle.

Snow couldn't blame him. Seeing his mother in such a state was of course terrifying for the boy and the only reason Snow had allowed him to remain in the room was because he would not hear of being gently kicked out. He wanted to be there for his mom but he didn't want to watch her in distress, so he was doing what he could by being in the room with her, ready to help the second he was needed, while not watching her struggle against the memories.

Snow exchanged a glance with a just as concerned Charming. Still, he gave her a little smile, an effort to send her strength. She smiled back, giving him just as much strength as he was giving her. Then she shifted her gaze to Hook. The former pirate looked as if it was killing him to allow Emma to go through what she was going through, and truthfully, it probably was. It was certainly killing Snow. She wanted nothing more than to grab Emma's hand and pull her back to the present and tell her she never had to go through anything like that ever again.

And then, Emma's soft, pained voice took Snow's aching heart and tore it into pieces: "No."

Oh gods, what was she seeing? What was happening? She met Charming's pained gaze, the two of them once again trying to give each other strength. There were no words for how hard it was for them to listen to their baby girl cry out and know they had to let her experience whatever she was seeing.

"Stop. Just stop!"

Snow closed her eyes, fighting every maternal instinct she had. She wanted so badly to bring her baby girl out of this. She wanted so very badly to help her, but she couldn't. She couldn't.

"Stop."

Something within Snow twisted and broke. Maternal instinct took over and she grasped Emma's hand.

Emma came back to herself in an instant. Her gaze focused and then darted around the room as she tried to get her bearings. "What happened?" she asked.

And now, seeing that Emma was perfectly fine, if a little disoriented, Snow felt kind of silly. "You were begging something to stop," she explained sheepishly. "I thought you needed to come back."

Emma gave her mother an embarrassed but touched smile. "If I was talking out loud, I can see why you'd think that but it was a good, 'Stop.' I think I've figured something out. It's okay to let me go back."

And in her baby's eyes, Snow saw nothing but determination and strength of will. Emma had discovered something, something that would give her an edge and hopefully something that would help her defeat the memories once and for all. After giving her baby girl a nod, Snow let her hand go and watched as Emma sank back into the memories.


The memories started again as soon as Snow let go of Emma's hand. But this time, Emma vowed that they would not drown her.

Secure in her new knowledge that she could exert at least some kind of control over the barrage of images, Emma squared her shoulders and forcefully said, "Stop."

The images obeyed her command, freezing in place as if she'd hit some kind of pause button. In some ways, having them all paused in front of her was worse. Every single memory the spell had called up still surrounded her, lurking in the darkness and waiting to pounce.

But at least they weren't bombarding her. At least she had room to breathe. At least she had time to think.

These memories were just that. They were memories. They were things that had happened, awful things, to be sure, but things that no one or nothing could change. No amount of agonizing over them or wishing things had been different was going to make them un-happen.

So now it was time to accept them. It was time to stop burying them and face them.

It was time to start living in the present.

She turned to the first memory in line, the one in the back of Jenna's car. The one of a scared, confused, angry three-year-old who didn't understand why the only mommy and daddy she'd ever known were giving her away. Emma was that little girl once but not anymore. Time and circumstances had changed her, because now … "Now I have a mom and a dad who love me and want me and would do anything for me."

To Emma's utter shock, the image vanished, leaving an empty black space in its wake.

So this was the key then, acknowledging the pain of the past but refusing to allow that pain to consume her because she had so much more in her present.

To the image of the schoolyard in Mrs. Martin's class, she said, "Now I have friends who care about me." Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, Regina, Belle, Ruby, Granny … all these people in her life who cared about her.

That image faded as well.

Emma smiled smugly. To the image of giving birth to Henry and having to give him up, she said, "My son found me and our love for each other broke a curse."

To the image of sitting in the back of the cop car in the wake of Neal's betrayal, she said, "I have a guy who crossed realms to find me, to save me."

With each affirmation, the memories vanished. Soon, they were all gone and Emma was left in the darkness.

All right, now what? She'd kind of been expecting to be sent out of the memory realm once all the memories were vanquished.

Emma shut her eyes and tried to think. What was she missing?

And then it came to her.

Her past was important because it shaped the person she became but it no longer defined her. She wasn't the lonely young girl in those memories anymore. She was much, much more than that. "I am a daughter, a mother, a big sister, a friend, and a girlfriend. I was born a princess and grew up into the savior."

A blinding light overcame the darkness, causing Emma to squeeze her eyes shut against it. When she opened her eyes again, her parents' bedroom filled her field of vision. Her family surrounded her, Killian, Henry, Snow and David. She was so relieved to be back – to be home – that she collapsed against her mother in a hug. "Mom!"

She felt Snow's arms curl around her and she felt David grasp her from the other side. She shifted so she could hug both her mom and her dad at the same time. Tears welled in her eyes when Snow kissed the side of her head and David gently whispered, "I knew you could do it, kiddo."

She stayed in her parents embrace for a long beat before sitting up straight and turning her attention to the other two people in the room. Er, make that three, as Henry was still holding baby Neal. The relief on Killian's and Henry's faces were plain as day as Emma leaned forward and wrapped the two of them in a hug as well. (Well, she kind of just slung her arm around Henry's shoulders, mindful of the baby in his arms.)

Killian released a heavy breath in her ear, making her hand reach up to tangle in his hair. Her poor former pirate must have been beside himself the whole time, if the tightness of his grip was anything to go by. "I'm so glad you're all right, love," he murmured.

"I'm perfectly fine, Killian," she murmured back.

She felt Killian nod and then pulled out of the embrace. She sat back against the pillows, her eyes glued to her baby brother. She remembered quite well the anger that had torn through her when the spell was still working on her. Thankfully, she felt none of it now. In fact, she felt overwhelmingly guilty for even considering the notion of being angry with the little squirt.

"Can I hold my baby brother?" she asked softly.

She felt more than saw her parents exchanging a glance over her head. Still, Snow nodded at Henry while saying, "Of course you can."

Henry passed her the baby and once he was settled in her arms, Emma looked down into his big blue innocent eyes. She felt an explosion of love and devotion and protection for her baby brother, as if the previous anger had been nothing but an awful dream. "I love you, squirt," she murmured, bending down to kiss his little forehead.

He gurgled happily at her in response.

She looked up at her parents' smiling faces and then across the bed at Killian's. "Welcome back, love," he said to her.

Emma smiled. It was great to be back.