Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine.

A/N: I profusely apologize for the delay in getting this chapter up. I thought things would be less hectic after finals ended, but then I came home to all of the holiday stress. Thank you so, so much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, or put this story/me on their alert list. I'm blown away by the fact there are more than 100 readers following this story! Thank you, thank you! I hope you enjoy this next chapter.

Much love to Melissa for the comments. All of the comments.

Snow pulled back the flap of the tent and stepped outside. The evening air was cool – cooler than it had been recently – and she wrapped her arms around herself. She scanned the camp looking for Charming, but there was no sign of her husband. He had gone to talk to the dwarves, and he was probably now talking to the other people who had come to launch a lantern. He was always good at making everyone who came to their camp each year feel comfortable and welcome, even those who had no idea why the lantern tradition had started in the first place.

It was strange to think that there were children who came to launch a lantern, children much younger than Emma would have been now. Sweet, innocent children who never knew a time when Regina wasn't the Evil Queen. Children who had never known anything other than violence and fear. At this point, she wondered if their parents could even remember such a time. Sometimes she had trouble, too.

A young girl with blonde hair raced past the tent, screaming with laughter as she was chased by another girl who had to be her older sister. Snow smiled sadly to herself. It was comforting to know that there were still children who were able to enjoy themselves, despite the darkness of the world in which they lived.

Snow turned away, looking around at the other tents. So many families, so many children. Would Emma have had a sister? Someone to chase her around the castle, someone to tickle her until she screamed with delight? Or would it have been a brother, someone who would challenge Emma to duels?

They would never know. And that had to be the worst feeling of all.

Suddenly, something collided with Snow's legs, interrupting her thoughts. She looked down.

"Sorry!" the young girl apologized, blushing. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"It's all right," Snow said, smiling at her as her sister came running up to them. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," the girl said breathlessly. She stared at Snow for a moment and then gasped. "You're Snow White!"

Snow felt her smile become strained. It was strange to be recognized by people she had never met. Even when she ruled over people, she knew most of them from her time on the run. And the ones she hadn't known, she'd made a point of meeting. It was a sign that she respected the people who were willing to fight for her and live under her command.

But this girl was staring up at her with wide, expectant eyes. Snow wondered what her parents had told her. She hoped they hadn't told her that she was supposed to be queen.

"You are, aren't you?" the girl asked, her brow furrowing, when Snow still hadn't answered.

"Oh-" Snow snapped her attention back to the girl and her sister. "Yes, I am."

The older girl stuck out her hand solemnly. "It's an honor to meet you, Snow White. My name's Mia, and this is my sister Daniella."

"Pleased to meet you both," Snow said kindly.

"My mama says you're going to defeat the Evil Queen!"

"Dani!" Mia hissed.

"You are, aren't you?" Daniella asked, ignoring her sister.

Daniella looked up at her with that same expectant look, like she thought Snow would do something amazing right in front of her. Mia shuffled her feet, embarrassed by her sister's enthusiasm, but Snow knew that she was listening intently. Snow knew whatever she said would be reported back to the girls' parents, and then it would spread around the camps. She wanted to be realistic. She wanted to say that there was a chance Regina would kill them all. She wanted to remind them that she was just one person, that there were hundreds of others also fighting, and that if the fight was won, it would not be simply because of her.

But she couldn't bring herself to dash that hopeful light in the little girl's eyes. Instead, she knelt down in front of her and placed her hands on Daniella's shoulders.

"Yes," she replied. "I'm going to fight the Evil Queen." She hesitated before adding, "And I'm going to do my absolute best to defeat her."

When they left the cave, it was dusk. Emma blinked rapidly, trying to adjust to the fading light. The grass was wet beneath her feet, and the scent of rain hung on the leaves. It felt like it had dropped at least ten degrees.

"Are you cold?" Graham asked.

Emma shook her head, even though she was a bit chilly. Graham wasn't wearing much warmer clothing than she was, but she somehow knew that he would give her the shirt off his back if he thought she needed it.

"We should try to find something to eat," Graham said. "You must be hungry."

"All right," Emma said, trying to ignore the ache in her stomach at the thought of food. She realized she hadn't eaten anything since the berries they'd had for breakfast. She glanced around. "Should we…?"

"If you can stand waiting a little longer, we should probably try to move closer to the valley," Graham said. "There'll be more game down there, and we'll be further from the stream."

Emma understood that he meant further from the Queen's army. "All right," she agreed. She'd do whatever Graham said. He knew the forest much better than she did.

They walked in silence for a while, moving quickly but quietly. Emma noticed how light Graham was on his feet and she tried to copy him, taking care to avoid stepping on any branches that would snap. Even though they were moving away from where the army had been, there was no telling where they would find soldiers next. Emma knew that Graham was listening carefully for signs of trouble, and she strained her ears, trying to listen, too. But she heard only owls and the occasional rustling of leaves as birds landed on the trees. Even though Graham was there, Emma still felt vulnerable. She was used to the familiarity of the cottage, the only place she had ever known, and she didn't like the feelings of discomfort brought on by the dark woods.

"We might have to keep walking after we eat," Graham said. "We lost a lot of time in the cave."

"I understand," Emma said, nodding. But she bit her lip when Graham looked away. The idea of walking around in the dark was unnerving, no matter how keen Graham's eyesight.

"We need to make it to the valley by tomorrow," Graham explained. "Preferably before the lanterns go up."

"The lanterns?" Emma repeated, frowning. "You think my mother's going to launch a lantern?" She knew it was childish, that there were much more important things she should be thinking about, but she hoped that her mother wouldn't launch a lantern without her. It had always been something Emma had wanted to do together.

"I'm sure she wouldn't do it without you," Graham said. "But I do think she'll be there. The Evil Queen is planning for war. The best time for her to strike would be after the lanterns go up because everyone who resists her is going to be in the valley. They're probably even making preparations for her attack."

"Oh," Emma said. She understood now what Graham had meant about being caught in the middle of the war. Assuming Graham was right about the war (and Emma knew better than to go against his instincts), it probably wasn't possible for her to find her mother and get out of the valley before the Evil Queen started the attack.

"Are you sure you want to go all the way to the valley?"

Emma turned to him, her eyes narrowed in confusion. "I just meant that it's going to be dangerous down there," Graham explained. "It would be safer if we stayed further up on the hill, away from the attack."

"But she's going to be down there," Emma pointed out. "I don't want her to be attacked either. We have to warn her!"

Graham shook his head. "She already knows. Believe me, they know the attack is tomorrow. They're preparing to make their last stand."

Emma swallowed hard. Something about Graham's tone…it was like he didn't expect anyone to survive. Emma wondered if that's what her mother expected, too. If she knew this was a suicide mission, but she had undertaken it anyway. One last stand against the Evil Queen to show her that good would fight until the bitter end, as long as evil had a chance of being defeated.

"Then I want to say goodbye."

She hadn't meant to say it, but once said, she didn't want to take it back. She wanted to see her mother again, to tell her how brave she thought she was, how much she admired her. How much she loved her.

Graham opened his mouth to respond, but then he froze. She could tell he was listening intently, and she wondered what he had heard. Slowly, Graham reached for an arrow from his quiver and strung the bow. Emma raised her sword, but Graham shook his head.

Emma threw him a confused look, but Graham was no longer looking at her. Instead, he released the arrow into the bushes. Emma heard the soft squelch of the arrow making contact with flesh. She realized he had shot at an animal. He slid another arrow from the quiver and released it. Emma heard the squelching sound again.

Graham entered the bushes and returned moments later with two squirrels. "Dinner," he said.

"All right," Emma said, trying not to sound apprehensive. She wondered how squirrels would taste.

Still clutching the squirrels by their tails, Graham led Emma to a clearing in the woods. She saw the remains of a fire pit; clearly, they were in someone else's makeshift camp. She hoped it wasn't one of the army's camps, but she knew that Graham could probably recognize those, and she trusted him to keep them out of the Evil Queen's path.

"Wait here," Graham said. "I'll gather some wood to start the fire."

Within minutes, he had a fire going. Emma moved closer to the flames, rubbing her hands. The sun had set completely since they'd left the cave, and the temperature had dropped even more. She hoped her mother had found shelter somewhere. Or at least a fire to keep her warm.

Graham had laid the squirrels out on one of the rocks and was considering them carefully. Emma realized he hadn't retrieved his knife from the first guard he had stabbed and wondered if he was trying to figure out how to skin the squirrels.

"Could you use an arrow?" she asked.

Graham started. "What?"

"An arrow," Emma repeated. "To skin them." But Graham continued to give her a blank look. "Was that – was that not what you were thinking about?"

"No," Graham said. "I was – never mind."

"You can tell me," Emma insisted. "I mean, only if you want to."

Graham considered her for a moment, and then said, "I was thanking the squirrels for their sacrifice. For providing us with food. It's – I know it's silly-"

"It's not silly," Emma replied sincerely. "I think it's sweet."

Graham smiled. "It's important to respect all living things. Even the ones whose lives you need to end to survive. Killing only when necessary doesn't just apply in war."

"I understand," Emma said.

Graham looked at her, and then at her sword. "That will work better for skinning than an arrow," he said. "May I?"

"Of course," Emma said, handing it over. She watched as Graham expertly skinned the squirrels, even though the sword was much longer and harder to handle than a pocket knife.

As she watched Graham work, her thoughts turned back to the lanterns. She'd lost track of the days since they'd left the cottage; she hadn't realized they were going up so soon. This was the closest she had been to the valley – perhaps the closest she would ever be. She remembered Graham's offer to take her to the valley to launch a lantern. She'd turned him down then, but she would say yes if he asked now. Then again, Emma realized, he probably wouldn't ask. He wouldn't want to put them in the middle of the war.

"Have you ever launched a lantern?" she wondered aloud.

"No," Graham replied. "I never really had a chance. The lanterns went up for the first time a few days after my parents died. I was with the wolves then, and when I left the wolves, I entered the army." He paused and then said, "I watched them every year, though."

Emma leaned forward. "Do you like them?"

"I do," Graham said. "I like what they stand for."

"The resistance?"

"That," Graham said, "but not just that."

Emma frowned. "What do you mean?"

Graham placed the squirrels on a spit over the fire. "I don't really know how the tradition got started," Graham began. "I mean, I know it started after the Evil Queen took over, and the lanterns are the symbol of the resistance. But I heard once that they also represented the children who died. Especially the baby princess who was killed in the siege of the castle."

Emma's breath caught in her throat. "The Evil Queen murdered a baby?"

"I think so," Graham replied. "But I don't know for sure. I was young when it happened and I wasn't spending a lot of time with humans." He turned the squirrels over the flames. "But I like to think that the lanterns represent the children who have died. Not just the princess, but all children. Children who died in the revolts or in retaliatory attacks-"

"Children like Graham?" Emma asked quietly.

Graham's face was pained. "Yes," he answered. "Children like Graham."

Emma watched as Graham turned the squirrels again, thinking about what he had said. She'd never thought of the lights that way. Of course she knew that people had died in the attacks, or in attempting to overthrow the Evil Queen, but she hadn't often thought about those who had been left behind. Parents who had lost their children. Children, like Graham, who had been orphaned by their parents.

"Maybe they represent everyone," Emma suggested. "Not just the children, but everyone who died because of the Evil Queen."

Graham nodded as he slid the one of the squirrels from the spit. "Maybe they do."

Emma took the squirrel from him, but didn't eat it. She watched as Graham speared the second squirrel and took it off the fire. Although he sat down next to her, Emma continued to stare at the dancing flames. Burning light that illuminated what was otherwise a world of darkness.

Tomorrow night, she knew, the lanterns would do the same.

Regina pulled her cloak closer to her chest against the cold evening air. She could see that the chilly night had not stopped the villagers in the valley from going outside; she could see a lot of lights around Snow's camp. She wondered if Snow and her prince were smart enough to station guards around the perimeter, just in case they were attacked at night. Regina smirked; even if they had, their guards wouldn't stand a chance against her army.

"We'll make camp here tonight," Regina announced. "Assemble the tents."

Her men scrambled to obey. While they were occupied, Regina moved away from them. She slowly extended her right hand, palm up, and closed her eyes. After a moment, she breathed a sigh of relief. Nothing had happened.

She had no way of knowing when Emma would break the curse, although it was only a matter of time now. Regina still didn't know what the world without the curse would be like; she hoped that it wouldn't be that different. But she knew of at least one thing that would be different, and it was a good one: she would get her magic back.

Ever since she'd realized this, Regina had been discreetly testing herself to see if her powers were back. So far, she hadn't been able to make her infamous fireballs appear. She was both comforted by the fact that Emma hadn't broken the curse yet, and frustrated that the inevitable still hadn't occurred. If Emma was going to break it, Regina preferred it be better sooner rather than later. At least she would get her magic back, and magic, as she had learned so many times before, would come in handy when trying to defeat Snow White.

Either way, it would all be over tomorrow. She'd informed her men of the plan to attack right after the lanterns were launched. Everyone who was against her would be gathered in the valley, and she and her men could trap them by surrounding them on all sides. The war would be over before it could even begin.

Now all she had to do was wait.

It was nearly another hour before Charming came back. She'd long since sent Daniella and Mia off to find their parents, as she hadn't wanted them to worry. The girls had run off, hands clasped together, but not before Daniella had thrown her arms around Snow's waist and whispered, "Please win."

Snow had patted the girl's back and murmured something back about how she would do her best. But her stomach had been in knots as the girls left. Snow knew that most, if not all, of the people who had gathered to launch a lantern were probably saying their own prayers that she and Charming would win. It made her uncomfortable to be responsible for the safety and happiness of so many other people. Above all, she didn't want to let them all down.

She'd felt these feelings before. When she'd fought Regina for the kingdom the first time, she'd had people's lives in her hands. And when she and Charming had looked for a way to defeat Regina's first curse, they'd been doing it on behalf of everyone else. For years, people had been able to count on her and Charming to keep them safe, for them to keep fighting Regina when no one else would. People would pick up weapons and run headlong into arrows for them, if that's what she and Charming told them to do. People trusted their judgment. Their decision to make a stand against Regina was practically taken as a proclamation of war.

And they'd faced this situation before. She and Charming had asked fathers to leave their families to fight in their army. They'd asked peasants who had no idea how to fight to take up the bow and arrow. They'd been responsible for the lives of everyone in the entire kingdom. But this time, Snow realized, this time was different. This time would be the last time. As Charming had said, they would defeat Regina or die trying. Either way, they would never fight her again.

But Snow had to wonder…if they died before Regina lost, would anyone else rise to defeat the Evil Queen?

She thought about what it would mean to defeat Regina, particularly whether defeat was synonymous with kill. She had always believed that killing Regina would mean going down to the Evil Queen's level; the one time the execution had been ordered, Snow had demanded mercy at the last minute. But at the same time, they hadn't found a permanent way to keep her from evil. Snow firmly believed the same young woman who had saved her all those years ago was somewhere inside Regina. Maybe deep inside, maybe buried under years of resentment and anger. But it pained her to think that in killing Regina, she would have to kill that woman, too.

"Snow?"

She looked up. Lost in thought, she hadn't heard Charming approach. She allowed him to take her hand and pull her up from the tree stump she'd been sitting on.

"Are you all right?" he asked, searching her face. "Your hands are freezing."

"Oh…" Now that he said it, Snow realized how much colder it had become. "I'm fine, I just lost track of time out here."

"Let's go inside," Charming suggested. "I brought back some food. One of the families I met had smoked rabbits and insisted that I take some."

"That was nice of them," Snow replied as she followed her husband inside.

Charming pulled a small, wrapped package out of his pouch and handed it to her. "Here, you should eat."

Snow took the rabbit meat and sat down. She unwrapped the package slowly, wondering if she should have offered Daniella and Mia some food to take home to their family. She knew many of the families that came to launch lanterns lived in poverty.

"What's wrong?" Charming asked quietly as he sat down next to her. "Are you nervous about tomorrow?"

"You mean about Regina attacking us?" Snow replied. Charming nodded, and she shook her head. "Not particularly." Snow had already accepted that Regina would attack when she attacked. They would be ready for that moment, whenever it came.

"What is it, then?" Charming asked, placing his hand on her knee.

Snow sighed and covered his hand with hers, trying to find a way to put into words everything she'd been thinking about for the past hour. Those feelings of doubt and responsibility – she knew that Charming felt them, too. They'd talked about it before. Thankfully, he was always able to find the light, even when she could not. His optimism was one of the things she loved most about her husband. He was always so reassuring, even to people whom he'd just met. It was one of the many reasons he was so wonderful with the people who came to launch a lantern.

Her breath caught in her throat. Of all the lasts that she had thought of, the most significant one was the one she'd just realized.

"Tomorrow will be the last time," she began quietly.

"The last time doing what?" Charming questioned.

Snow met his eyes. "The last time launching the lanterns."

She saw his expression change, watched the way that grief hardened his features. She knew how much the lanterns meant to him, how much they meant to them both. It had been a tradition started out of grief, but it had continued as a show of strength. Their own form of resistance against the Evil Queen, a demonstration that light would still shine, even when her evil threatened to consume the world with darkness. Their one true connection to Emma. Each year, the lanterns brought back memories of her daughter, and the memories were as painful as they were welcome. Even though it had been seventeen years, the profound sense of loss she felt around the time of Emma's birthday never lessened.

But tomorrow would be the last time. If Regina was defeated, no one would need to launch the lanterns anymore. The symbol of the revolution would be obsolete. Snow knew that she and Charming might continue to light a lantern every year on Emma's birthday, but it would no longer draw thousands of people to their camp. It wouldn't be the same.

And if Regina wasn't defeated…well, Snow thought grimly, tomorrow would still be the last time.

"She would have been eighteen," Snow murmured, her heart heavy with grief.

Charming drew her into his embrace, and she rested her head in the crook of his neck. His fingers traced light circles on her arm as he held her. She felt his tears landing on her cheek as he whispered, "I know."

A/N: I hope you like this chapter; I tried to make it a good one since it took me so long to update. We're slowly reaching the end; this story should be 16 chapters total. Only six more - expect them to be heavy on the reveals! My new goal is to update once every ten days, and certainly take no longer than two weeks per chapter. So stay tuned, everyone, and in the meantime, why not leave me and my muse some food for thought in the form of a review? Please and thank you! Happy holidays and Happy New Year to everyone!