Once again, this story is only canon through 6x08 and is not based on any spoilers.

Unsurprisingly, Emma couldn't sleep that night. Killian sat up in bed, watching her as she paced back and forth in front of the fireplace. "Love, we'll figure it out."

"What's there to figure out?" she asked. "Rumplestiltskin's our enemy again, and Regina's out of commission. The person we rely on to walk into a library and come out with answers has been whisked away along with my son. The only thing I need to figure out is whether or not my subjects will care that my second husband is a one-handed pirate thirty years my senior."

"Pardon? I wasn't aware that we were getting married. Not that I'm opposed, of course, but I'll need a more romantic proposal."

"Well, we're obviously never getting back to Storybrooke, and I can't get Henry back on my own." Didn't he get that? She'd only succeeded in rescuing Henry from Pan because all of them had been trying—she'd had Regina and Gold on her side, and they'd worked together as a team.

"And don't say that wasn't going to stop me before," she said as he opened his mouth to protest. "This is different and you know it. So we're just going to have to resign ourselves to living here and pretending this is normal, and I'm gonna have to push out another heir, so we're going to have to get married."

"Swan, you will succeed in getting Henry back. And then if you insist on marrying me anyway, I won't protest much. Although as I said before, I'll need something more romantic before I'll agree. And you will have to actually ask me."

"You're not taking this seriously!"

"I am!" She glared at him. "All right, perhaps I'm making light of the situation a tad, but darling, you are panicking. Please, come here."

She sighed and shrugged off her robe before climbing into bed. "Sorry. I just—Gold's supposed to be on our side now. And I'm tired of having to rescue Henry, and I know he's tired of having to be rescued."

"He's growing up, and he's just as resourceful as his mother," Killian reminded her as he tucked her into his side. "I'm sure he's already finalized his first escape plan and will be putting it into motion soon." She grunted noncommittally. "Do you remember what I told you in Neverland?"

"That you'd win my heart? Yeah." He loved to tell that story.

"Well, yes, but after that. That I'd yet to see you fail?"

"I remember," she said softly, playing with his chest hair and feeling suddenly shy about the praise she knew he was about to heap on her.

"That's still true."

"I didn't get you out of the Underworld."

"Yes, you did. I was only able to move on because you were able to defeat Hades. It just so happened that moving on, for me, was coming back to you."

"I didn't defeat Hades."

He let out an exasperated sigh. "Swan, don't argue with me. You had to find those pages, and you were the one who did the right thing with them. Had you handled Zelena any other way, who knows what the outcome would have been? Anyway, my point is this: you will succeed, you will rescue Henry, we will return to Storybrooke. And if you still want to marry me then, and if you can put together an adequate proposal, then I'll marry you."

She snorted. "What, no insecure comment about how you're the one who's supposed to propose to me?"

"Not this time, Swan. I'd marry you in a heartbeat, so when you tell me you're ready, that'll settle the matter. Unless you'd prefer that I propose?"

"I'll think about it."

"Fair enough. Now, not to draw attention to insecurities again, but I'm not as young as I once was, and I'd like to get some rest. Shall we?"

But of course, she couldn't sleep. Her insomnia wasn't the same kind of desperate sleeplessness she'd dealt with as Princess Emma, when Prince Henry had been kidnapped. She'd still been herself, of course, and so she'd been up all night thinking of solutions and methods, ways to find Henry and defeat Regina.

It was different now. She felt angry, not desperate. And this time, she had some advantages. She knew Gold's motives; Henry with his memories back would probably be a much more difficult prisoner than he'd been before; Belle and Gideon were almost certainly working against Gold as best they could; and now Zelena was here to help.

But they'd lost the element of surprise; even if Gold had taken everyone back to his estate, it was now probably impossible for Emma to get inside. Her magic, which would have surprised Regina, was common knowledge to Gold; he even had intimate knowledge of her magical abilities and limitations, now that he'd taken up the Darkness again after it had passed through her.

If anything, the only way to rescue Henry was to figure out how to get back to Storybrooke, and even then, that seemed impossible without Regina, Belle, or Gold to help. Maybe she and Zelena could handle the magical aspects of it, and Killian was pretty good at research, but even so …

Long after Killian had fallen asleep, Emma slipped out of bed, pulled her robe back on, and made her way down to the sitting room, where she knew there would still be a fire even at this hour. She had plenty of memories of visiting in the dead of night whenever she couldn't sleep, especially in the weeks leading up to her wedding. She hadn't ever been there for real; all her memories of the room were fake. But it still felt like the best place to go.

To her surprise, the room wasn't empty. "What are you doing up?"

"Same as you," Neal replied from his favorite arm chair. He stared intently at the fire. "I couldn't sleep."

"Fair enough." She sat in the arm chair next to him. Her favorite chair, she reminded herself—a chair she'd never actually sat in before. "What's keeping you up?"

He scoffed. "I'm sorry, should I not care that my nephew's been kidnapped by the Dark One?"

"I didn't say that."

He sighed angrily. "Just because I don't quite understand or believe the story you're all suddenly telling doesn't mean I suddenly don't care about my own family."

"I didn't say that either!" She groaned. "God, Neal, will you pull your fucking head out of your ass?"

"This is exactly why I've been avoiding everyone! My name isn't Neal, and this is not how you used to speak!"

"I'm not going to argue with you about names, because god knows I wish Mom and Dad had named you Leopold for real, but yeah, kid, this is how I talk, okay?" She stood up and blocked his view of the fireplace. He stubbornly refused to meet her gaze, craning his neck instead to look at the fire.

"I know you're upset about the fact that you're really only six months old, but you need to understand how important it is that we get back to our real lives. There's a world you're supposed to grow up in where Mom and Dad don't hate each other, and where I don't end up in an arranged marriage."

"Oh, I know," he retorted. "It's a world where apparently you and our parents are the same age, you grew up as a miserable orphan, and you didn't even get to raise Henry. Please tell me how that's preferable."

"I—" She hadn't really thought about that. "Well, that's not important! What's important is that we're not crazy. That's our real life back there, and we need to get back to it."

"I'm not stopping you."

She let out an exasperated sigh and sank back into her chair. "No, you're not, I guess."

"Please try to look at this from my perspective," he said, his voice unexpectedly gentle. "In one day, I learn that my entire family is made up of strangers, who all seem to know some sort of secret that I'm not privy to. You're all speaking strangely, of strange things, and when I've expressed my doubts and reservations, I'm treated like I'm mad." He chuckled. "Honestly, I'm not sure what's been the most absurd occurrence: Regina returning voluntarily with Henry and referring to him as her son, or you coming home with none other than Captain Hook and claiming he's your lover."

"Would it be called 'claiming' if it's true?" she asked, and he chuckled.

"You might all be mad, but you are my family, and I do love you," he said. "But promise me that when we return to whatever reality you seem to think we need to return to, you'll make sure to wipe my memories. I doubt a six-month-old babe needs to know what I know."

"I don't think we'll need to. Babies don't remember stuff anyways."

"Just to be safe, please. If you even know of a potion."

"I do. Well, Regina does. We had to use it on Roland one time."

"Who's Roland?"

"Her boyfriend's son. It's a long story."

"The beau she accidentally killed, according to that strange book Henry found?"

"Yeah," she said with a heavy sigh. "Yeah, same guy. God, I know it was different for me, but killing your boyfriend is the worst."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"Nothing."

"Anyways," he said, sounding not entirely convinced that he didn't want to know the backstory, "this Roland must be devastated at the loss of his father."

"Yeah, he would be." She wasn't about to go into what had happened right before Regina had tried to undo the split, with Robin coming back from the dead. She wondered if Roland knew what had happened to his dad here. Actually, if Roland were here—

"Oh, holy shit!" She leapt out of her chair again.

"You're doing it again," he said unhappily.

"No, Neal, that's it! Roland!"

"And again."

"Oh, this is huge. We need to go now."

"Go where? And now? It's nearly midnight, Emma."

"I know, and I don't care. Look, I have to go—tell Mom and Dad, okay?"

"Tell them what?"

"Robin might be alive!" And with that, she rushed back to her own quarters.

Killian didn't wake up until she was half-dressed. "Love, what on earth are you doing? Why aren't you trying to sleep?"

"Robin might be alive," she said quickly. "Get up, okay?"

Killian's response was nearly instantaneous; he practically jumped out of bed and rushed to dress himself. "Where are we going?"

"We'll start with my place," she said. "And then Sherwood. I'd say we should start near Gold's place, but that might be too dangerous right now." She finished pulling her boots on.

"What exactly is going on? Not that I'm questioning your judgment; I'm just a little in the dark here."

"Roland," she replied breathlessly. "I saw Roland."

"Where?"

"Gold's place. Now come on, give me your hand."

"Why?"

"We need to go."

She shut her eyes, visualized the road that led into her estate, and summoned her magic.

"A little warning next time, Swan?" Killian asked, irritated.

"Sorry."

"Where are we?"

"Just outside my place—my estate, I guess. I didn't want to poof directly inside. Might cause a bit of a commotion or whatever."

"Wise." They began to walk down the track, approaching the currently quiet market. "So that means you have time to explain the situation, doesn't it?"

So she explained how she'd been caught by a thief on her way into Gold's place, and that the thief had been looking for a magical artifact that would dispel the same kind of curse that the book said Regina had cast on Robin. How she'd helped that thief find a magic wand that might help him. How the thief had been around her age, with dark hair and eyes. How he'd flinched and then helped her when she'd commented about thieves having a code.

As she told him what had happened, she felt a knot of stress in her stomach. Killian had supported her through thick and thin, but hearing herself talk, she realized just how … unlikely this whole scenario was. What the hell were the chances that she'd just happened to run into Roland, and she'd just happened to make sure he got a wand that would save his dad, and that had just happened to work?

"Then we'd better hurry, love," was his only response.

"You think I'm right?"

"Well, it seems a little coincidental, but then again, doesn't it seem coincidental that you would just happen to hire me to take you on your journey?"

She blushed. "Uh, it wasn't really a coincidence. I used the compass. I thought about finding a ship's captain who could help me and wouldn't fuck me over, and it pointed to you."

He laughed. "I did fuck you, as it were. Eventually."

"Very funny."

"The compass pointed to me?"

"Yeah, why?"

"But you couldn't get it to work after the storm."

"No, it worked, it just pointed to Henry or my mom."

"And me, although you neglected to inform me of that particular feature until now. I suppose that does answer that question."

"What question?"

"The question of when the compass works and when it does not."

"And when does it work?"

He gave her a wide smile. "When you're thinking of someone you truly love."

She felt like she was melting a little under his gaze, but she stumbled a little on an uneven stretch of the road, and it ruined the mood. "All right, we should focus on getting to my place. My manor. God, that's way too fancy."

But she couldn't help but comment: "You know, it's the same compass."

"I know," he answered roughly, and he reached out for her to hold his hook. "It's brought us together twice."

Soon enough, they were at her manor, much to the surprise of the sentries. She tried very hard to slip back into her princess persona as she asked to see her top advisor, Charlotte, who'd been left in charge by Snow. Killian, meanwhile, seemed nervous and was definitely trying to keep his hook inconspicuous. "What's wrong?" she whispered to him as they made their way to the front hall.

"These are Baelfire's people," he reminded her. "I doubt they'd take kindly to meeting Captain Hook."

"They're not going to care. Most of them don't even know about your history with Neal, and besides, these are my people, not his. I'm the princess here, even if I don't really feel like one."

"Fair enough." But she noticed he was still trying to hide his hook.

"Your Highness!" It was Charlotte, rushing towards her in a panic, trying to hold her dressing gown shut. "I didn't realize you'd be back, and so late in the evening!"

"Yeah, sorry about that," she said, smiling a little. Killian nudged her, and she remembered she needed to speak a little more formally. "I would have warned you, but there was really no time. I trust that you haven't encountered any issues in my absence?" See, she could totally be a princess.

Charlotte opened her mouth to reply, but then looked at Killian suspiciously. "Perhaps we can speak privately, Your Highness?"

"Killian is my friend and ally," she said firmly. She wanted to roll her eyes and tell Charlotte that Killian was way more than just a friend, but it wouldn't be fair to confuse and alarm a trusted advisor and loyal subject who just wanted to help. "Anything you tell me, I'll simply tell him later, so you might as well speak freely in his presence."

"I see. Well, we've had no news of Henry whatsoever. But a rather mad man arrived a week ago, insisting he knew you and needed to speak to you immediately."

"Can you describe him? Besides mad, I suppose."

"About eighteen hands tall, dark eyes, dark hair, perhaps your age. He said his name was—"

"—Roland," she interrupted. "His name is Roland, yes?"

"Yes, Your Highness. I—so you do know him?"

"I do." She didn't want to alarm her advisor with the whole truth, but she figured Charlotte deserved some sort of explanation. "He assisted me during my search for Henry. Is he still here?"

"I'm so sorry, Your Highness! I didn't know he was an acquaintance of yours. He wouldn't leave, and he was spouting such nonsense …" Charlotte grimaced. "I had him arrested."

Emma sighed; at least that meant they wouldn't have to go looking for him. "It's all right, Charlotte. You did what you should have done—you had no way of knowing he was telling the truth. Please have him brought to the Red Room immediately."

"Very well, Your Highness."

Ten minutes later, Roland burst into the receiving room where Emma and Killian were both waiting. "Emma! And—is that Hook?"

"Roland!"

She hurried to embrace him, remembering all the hugs she'd gotten from his toddler self and almost laughing over how ridiculous was that he was older than she was, even if not by much. "Sorry about the whole 'imprisonment' thing."

"I assume you didn't give the order," he pointed out, before releasing her and hugging Killian.

"You're a mite taller than you were last I saw you, lad," Killian said.

Roland laughed. "Well, I'm not five years old this time." He grinned at Emma. "It's a bit odd, isn't it? I've always been older than you, I suppose."

"Yeah, well, I'll try to keep that in mind after we fix all this. Before we talk about anything else, I have to know—"

"He's alive," Roland said quickly, but he didn't sound happy or relieved or anything.

"I sense a 'but' coming."

"He's alive, but only because that wand you gave me let me cast some sort of stasis spell on him," he finished. "I've spent the past weeks trying to find another solution. But if I recall, you do have magic, yes?"

She nodded. "And I know how to use it pretty well. Let's go."

He blinked a little blearily. "Now? But it's well past midnight."

"Magic, remember?"

"Ah, right."

Once they were out of the manor, after reassuring Charlotte that she wouldn't be gone for as long without sending word, Emma asked Roland to describe the Merry Men's encampment. Grasping Roland's hand and Killian's hook, she tried to imagine it as best she could. The startled gasps and shouts that surrounded them moments later told her she'd succeeded. "Roland! What on earth is going on?"

She opened her eyes to see the speaker: Little John. He frowned for a moment before recognizing her and Killian. "Oh!"

"Hey," she said, smiling a little. "Sorry about that. We didn't want to waste time riding here."

"You're here about Robin?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"This way," Roland said, pulling her towards a small tent. Both Little John and Killian followed, although only Killian followed them inside.

Robin lay on a cot in the center. He looked the way Killian did: still handsome, looking young for his age, but still too old. Through a thin film of magic, though, one thing was clear:

He was alive.

Now she just had to figure out how to keep him that way. Her knowledge of magic from when she was the Dark One hadn't evaporated, which was useful, but she knew that Robin had been close to death when Roland had come to get the wand in the first place. There was a chance that she'd lift the enchantment Roland had managed to cast, only to have Robin die moments later as she figured out how to lift Regina's curse.

"If this doesn't work …" she began, unsure of how to continue the sentence.

"We have to try," Roland said. "Otherwise, he stays this way forever, and either way, I lose my father again."

"Yeah," she breathed. "Just give me a minute. Can you get the wand?"

As Roland went to fetch it, she held her hands over the enchantment to get a better feel for it. It was rudimentary, obviously cast by a non-magical hand with a powerful magical item, but it was effective enough. Roland hadn't been able to lift the wasting curse, but this was a really solid charm he'd managed to cast. As far as she could tell, it had held steady over the entire month.

Now for the curse itself. She pushed her magic a little deeper and almost recoiled when she felt it. It was definitely Regina's brand of magic, even if more confirmation hadn't been necessary. She could feel where it had taken root, and how it was poisoning Robin's entire body. This spell was not rudimentary, though, and would take more than just her own magic to undo.

"Here." Roland was back with the wand.

The wand changed everything. As much as she'd felt nothing but relief when the Darkness had left her (well, not nothing but relief, since her boyfriend had been dying, but besides that), and as happy as she was to be herself again, she did appreciate the knowledge and magical wisdom that had lodged itself in her brain. And part of that magical wisdom was that she could easily use this wand to undo Regina's work.

Moments later, she heard sharp intakes of breath from everyone around her—Roland, Killian, but most importantly, Robin.

He was gasping, which made sense because technically, he hadn't been breathing for the past month or so. But his color was good, and Emma couldn't feel anything left of the wasting curse. "You okay?"

"Emma! Oh thank goodness." At least his memory was back, too. "Dying once was enough." And his sense of humor.

"Try three times," Killian joked.

Robin's head jerked up towards Killian and he grinned. "This is a competition I'm happy to lose."

"Papa?"

"Roland!"

Emma quickly got to her feet and dragged Killian out of the tent, surprising the hell out of Little John, who'd been standing guard. "Sorry," she said. "Just wanted to give them some privacy."

While father and son celebrated their reunion, Emma stood awkwardly with Killian. The rest of the Merry Men seemed wary of them; Little John was one of the few people she knew from Storybrooke, which meant that the majority of the band of thieves saw her as a suspicious stranger. Except for Will Scarlet, who was clearly avoiding her; she wasn't usually one to hold grudges, but the man did almost ruin her first date with Killian.

Killian, meanwhile, had also spotted the thief, and looked a bit smug about it. "I think I aged much better than he did, don't you think, love?"

After what felt like forever, but was probably only about five or ten minutes, Robin and Roland emerged from the tent. Emma waited anxiously as the he greeted his Merry Men one by one, celebrating his return. "Relax, Swan," Killian reminded her; she hadn't realized how tense she'd gotten.

Finally, Robin approached her, with Roland close behind. "So," he said, as cheerful as he'd always been, "I suppose we now know what the price was. Shall we get to determining a way home?"

"Yeah, but we have another problem first," Emma said.

He grimaced. "Of course. And that is?"

"How would you like to break a sleeping curse?"

"On who?" But before she could answer, he scowled. "Oh, she didn't, did she? Because of me?"

"There were quite a few factors," Killian said.

"Well, let's get on with it then. I assume we're traveling magically?"

"Yep," Emma confirmed. "Hold on tight."

Moments later, all four of them were in Regina's chamber beside her bed, where she'd been moved after they'd found her on the floor. Robin didn't waste a second; he immediately dropped his hand from Emma's shoulder and rushed to Regina's side.

Emma was ready for the waves of light magic she'd come to associate with the breaking of a curse.

She wasn't ready to find herself standing in Regina's living room, staring at Regina herself. One Regina. Singular. Alone.

"What the hell?" she asked.

"What just happened?" Regina asked.

"Congratulations," the Dragon said. "It seems as though you have succeeded. The price has been paid." And with that, he left.

"Well, I guess that was deceptively simple," David said.

"Yeah, wait, so are you consumed by the Evil Queen?" Henry asked, sounding confused. "I thought you had to have that happen and then survive it, or did I misunderstand?"

"What are you talking about?" Regina asked.

"Hold on," Robin said. "What did you all see?"

"Regina holding hands with the Evil Queen, then a flash of light," Snow said. "That was it. Why, what did you see?"

"We saw the same thing," Emma said quickly. Regina opened her mouth, looking like she was planning on disagreeing, but then she closed it and nodded her head. "So I guess that's it?"

"But nothing happened," Zelena said.

"It … was an internal battle," Regina lied. "It's over. It was just very weird."

"But you're all right?" Snow asked. Regina nodded, and Robin embraced her. "Okay, so … lunch at Granny's?" Everyone chuckled a little.

Emma met Regina's gaze and they both nodded at each other. Whatever had happened, they needed to talk about it, but there was no reason that everyone else had to know. What mattered was they were back, and everything was okay.

She felt Killian grasp her hand, and she squeezed it tightly.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I'd love to hear what you think! All we've got left is the epilogue!

As usual, please head over to swankkat's Tumblr to check out her artwork for this chapter, and to give her feedback!