Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.
Note: This writer was feeling lazy as fuck and decided to skip right to the end instead of trying to bullshit through magical MacGuffin plot devices.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A STRANGE LOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE DARK CURSE BOMB
In retrospect, Emma should have put off talking with her sister until after interrogating their alchemist. By the time she reached the Asylum, the poor sap was being sucked into a familiar hat in the hands of The Apprentice.
"Perhaps you'd like to join my friend?" the old man inquired.
"Perhaps you'd like a ticket back to The Underworld," Emma shot back, gathering magic in her hands.
She had hoped to avoid a one-on-one confrontation. This guy was obviously dangerous, powerful, and almost certainly insane enough to have his own cell down here. But Emma at least expected her attack to have some impact. Instead, like attacking Jekyll, the sorcerer barely flinched. And even more insulting, he laughed.
"Saviors," he scoffed while putting his hat upon his head. "To whom so much is given, and in whom so much hope is placed, but yet they're always such fools. You think you're some sort of savant when your gift just turns on, but you're just a magical savage, no training, no understanding, no control. Have you even learned one single spell or is throwing raw magic around the extent of your tricks?"
"Throwing raw magic around has knocked a lot of bastards like you on their asses!" Emma hissed, and she tried to gather her magic together again, but before she could complete it, the old man had his shriveled weird wand at her throat.
"Perhaps it was your sister doing the learning then. Rather a waste, don't you think? Weeks wandering around her mind with all those Dark Ones, and that is the best you can do? You couldn't even take the opportunity for some tutoring and I suppose she just let them do all the heavy lifting, channel their knowledge for trapping memories and ripping out hearts rather than take the time to actually learn how to do it all on her own. Six weeks with a phantasm of the most learned of the Dark Ones, and this is all you've got? I actually had hoped choosing you to succeed Rumplestiltskin would lead to a bit more of a challenge. But you're just pathetic, aren't you?"
Sadly, she was. Emma's lessons had been all of a few days with Regina which had been mostly to rely on her instincts and her willpower more than any book, because she was, honestly, a crap student with books and Regina realized quickly that she was more action than academics and they didn't have time to change that. Then it was Anna who had all the power and then some, and Emma had wanted no part of the Dark Ones' whisperings even if she couldn't help but absorb a few things while Anna had just let their experience guide her rather than learning the techniques.
"Why are you doing this?" Emma demanded as the wood dug into her neck. "You're willing to sacrifice thousands, perhaps millions of lives just to spite the gods?"
"When life and death are nothing but prisons, nonexistence is the only escape," The Apprentice reasoned before vanishing in a swirl of black smoke.
All the details pertaining to how they reached the climax of Storybrooke's worst fiasco wasn't terribly important. They had, at least, unbound the books, sequestering the other realms and had apprehended The Apprentice, but he'd still managed to set things in motion to revert the Dark Curse.
They'd managed to unbind most of the books, to cut those worlds off from the destruction before it fully began, but they couldn't cut themselves free and still save those worlds, which left them running out of time until there was none left.
Much like had happened with the Doomsday Crystal, the trees that had been transported back to The Enchanted Forest to make room for Storybrooke began exploding through the pavement and buildings while at the same time the town's infrastructure just started unraveling, everything put there by magic rather than acquired from the outside world disintegrating like piles of salt in a rain storm..
The road out of town became a massive bloody car wreck and half the Cannery's fleet of lobster boats began to sink from freak waves as the currents and tides reversed, their occupants doomed no matter whether or not Hook and Anna were able to rescue them aboard the Jolly Roger. That was before the cars and ships created by magic began to themselves unravel.
Regina had tried to cast her spell to solidify people's cursed memories, but by then there was no longer magic separate from the Dark Curse itself, the magic of the Land Without Magic pushed aside, trapping them in a void while in the sky above the tendrils of remaining magic were being pulled away, siphoned into a growing darkness that she well remembered from The Black Fairy's spell: nonexistence.
To everyone with magic in their blood, it felt like something was being ripped out, surgically removed by a sadist with a scalpel and no anesthesia. It was no less terrifying to everyone else.
"We failed," Snow wept, holding her husband where the faux historic "Welcome to Storybrooke" sign used to stand but was now just a few old moss-covered cobbles. Both of them had become weak, clinging to each other as the magic that allowed them to live with one heart was sucked out and destroyed.
"We kept the other worlds safe," David stoically reminded. "That counts for something."
"Well, at least we won't exist much longer to feel the disappointment," mused Regina with an arm around Henry and then turned to Emma.
"You should take Henry, see if you can still make it out. You won't have your memories, but you'll exist."
Emma swallowed thickly. Deja vu all over again. But different.
Everything suddenly became very still, the last gasp before the end.
Looking at her son, Emma saw as she always did his father in his warm brown eyes and she hoped capturing that old asshole meant the deal still stood... assuming they'd at least protected Mt. Olympus against the impending magical mega-bomb. Even if they did, she had no idea what would happen to everyone here, if their souls would move, be trapped in the Netherworld like a sleeping curse with no bodies to go back to, on or just... be obliterated like they never existed, like none of it had mattered.
Then Emma remembered Belle's crazy 'theory' that everyone had half tuned out like most of the things she prattled on about and she had a thought, possibly absurd, possibly pointless, but she had to try. So she took Henry by the shoulders and told him, "If this doesn't work, you leave."
To Regina she demanded, "You make sure he leaves."
"Mom, what-"
There was no time. Emma ran to grab the reigns of the horse that Henry had tied to a tree. They'd had to ride here when the town's local roads got swallowed up by forest and all but a few cars disappeared. The other horses had all spooked and galloped off, Regina even getting thrown before they'd reached the clearing. Apparently, compared to Manhattan traffic, getting sideswiped by cyclic and pelted with bottles by drunk homeless people, an apocalypse was no big deal for the seasoned carriage horse.
Emma had never properly learned how to ride. She supposed Geronimo hadn't done any riding of that sort either in a very long time, but she found her barrings and he galloped in the direction she urged, toward the old toll bridge and from there up the ridgeline's trail, past the old campground where the Flynn's had set up their tent that fateful night and found themselves trapped inside a storybook nightmare.
And from there Emma reached the wishing well, quickly dismounting.
"Love is more powerful than magic. Hope is more powerful than Darkness," she recited, yanking the chain from around her neck, thinking of the first time she did magic. No spell. No training. .Just love and the deep desire to protect those she held dear in her heart, hope that this wasn't the end of everything she had dared to dream of.
Emma clutched the small bit of tin tightly in her hand and remembered what it felt like to be truly loved and love so deeply in return, to believe in a home and happiness when she was a homeless car thief stealing from convenience stores.
She focused on her love for Henry for she wanted all the chances she never got, for parents who could do things right with her brother, even her sister and Regina who could be more than others had told them, who could fight against what magic or genetics (or both) had made them.
She had hope for that future.
And on Neal, a love that burned with pain, a hope that he could find peace. Love lost could be a more powerful love than any other. It could corrupt a heart, turning it black and destroy worlds. Or it could stop that destruction and heal, and it was on the later that Emma concentrated and reached deep into her heart and the strange magic her parents and her presumed complete destiny had created.
She had love for her family. She had hope that they could find happiness. She had hope that she would be reunited with her true love one day to share all of the unwritten stories they would make.
When the burn grew so great that it felt like her heart might spontaneously combust and turn to ash in her chest and her hand glowed so brightly her bones stood out like an x-ray, Emma unclenched her first and watched the small, brilliantly lit piece of tin fall into the dark depths of the well.
Regina stood ready to shove Henry over the town line if need be when not unlike the triggering of her sister's time portal, a sudden, massive pillar of brilliant light erupted from behind the trees, up into the sky, and right at the nothingness.
It struck with a deafening crack and the shock wave of rainbow light that followed knocked over everyone not already moaning on the ground from their injuries as it rippled through the town, vanishing the trees, repairing the buildings, healing those wounds incurred in the destruction.
Where moments ago Regina and Henry had been standing amongst bloodied townsfolk and bits and pieces of their cars and luggage - presumably parts that had come on the train over the years - everyone was now without a scratch and their cars... well... back on the road with the scratches they had from three decades of use.
"She did it!" Henry exclaimed. "Mom saved us!"
Indeed, it seemed that Emma had.
Out in the harbor the turbulent sea went calm and the sinking, fragmenting boats were restored allowing Anna, Hook, and the few others who'd joined them aboard the Jolly Roger to cast off life preserves and haul them in.
A swish of Tinkerbell's wand observed that magic had been returned as well, which helped in the rescue considerably.
"You have to admit," Hook said after a self-congratulatory swig from his flask, "playing the hero does feel good, aye, luv?"
"It does," Anna agreed and took her own gulp, giving her almost-husband a considering look.
"What? Not terribly upset that ripply rainbow light didn't restore my hand, are you?"
Anna shook her head, wondering if she should admit...? No. She wasn't keen on being that reformed. "I was just thinking. I mean... you felt that. I know it's not the first time I've experienced the whole true love ripply rainbow light thing, but..."
"Aye," Hook nodded. "T'was a bit different than breaking a run-of-the-mill sleeping curse or a memory block. Or it's the one doing the breaking. Belle mentioned once, about how when Emma broke the Curse originally by waking Henry, when she finally believed in what and who she was and that magic was real, that it felt far more powerful than any since."
"She may no longer be a designated savor," Anna mused. "But she was created by true love. She should feel it more deeply, manifest it more powerfully."
"And you're worried you can't channel the magic of true love without your sister playing parasitic twin?" Hook asked.
"I don't know," Anna shrugged. "I'm the product of a curse. But I don't want my life defined by that. I don't want to end up like my uncle. Or Zelena. And I'd rather not be seen my whole life as the physical manifestation of an affliction upon my family's bloodline."
Hook eyed his true love and deduced. "You want to find a cure. I can't imagine that's easy or it would've been discovered centuries ago and this Evil Twin thing known of only in history books."
Anna tipped her head. "When have you ever backed down from a challenge? You spent centuries hell-bent on taking down the Dark One. You pursued relentlessly even when given no indication that your salty seduction was having any effect. And if Emma can stop an apocalypse, this shouldn't be that hard in comparison."
"Aye, I suppose. But to be fair, you gave some indications," Hook argued, "through your sister's frosty refusals and then gave in without resistance once she'd been subverted."
"Well, okay, that's true," Anna conceded. "But my point is, I'm going on a quest to rid my family of this curse. I might not be able to make myself into someone else. At least... I hope not entirely. I mostly like who I am. But if I can make sure no other families have to deal with this, then maybe that's the one good thing I can really do with my life that matters," she declared. "So are you in or are you out?"
"If I say I'm in," Hook inquired, "does that mean the odds improve for another generation of Joneses?"
Anna rolled her eyes but smiled. "If I say 'maybe' do the odds improve for you putting that flask away and loading up with enough supplies for a lengthy and not entirely sex filled honeymoon?"
"We're still not technically married, luv."
The sea suddenly began to boil off the starboard bow and though they prepared for a krakan or some other sea beast, it was actually the Nautilus surfacing.
The hatch opened and Captain Nemo emerged, remarking, "A mermaid brought me a rather confusing wedding invitation. I think she also stole my forks. What's this about Emma having a sister? And where can I purchase more forks?"
888
Merlin's former Apprentice was none too happy, bound up on the floor like a caterpillar in a cocoon in the middle of the Library with Zelena pointing his own wand at him. He was less happy when three birdlike women appeared, the leader taking the golden sword from Belle's daintily gloved hand.
"Oh, how those bindings must burn," Alecto taunted the sorcerer. "You'll be pleased to know that there is a new Lord of Death ready to take this sword and strike you down. I do think he will truly enjoy it."
"Let's go for a ride, old man," one of the Furies hissed and lifted him up with her sister, carrying him to the elevator.
Instead of opening to a car, it opened to a glowing portal which they stepped through just as the rest of Henry's family minus Emma, Anna, and Hook entered the Library.
Ignoring them, Rumplestiltskin demanded of the chief Furry, "I know Emma made a deal to free my son from his servitude. I assume her side has been met."
Alecto inclined her head. "It has. He is no longer Lord of The Underworld. And as you all are now free to live your lives as just that, without strings attached to please the gods with your stories, The Underworld will become merely a way station for souls to pass on beyond Zeus' reach when they are ready. Which does not mean my sisters and I will not punish any who tamper with the realm of the gods or seek to use magic not of mortal worlds."
"Of course," Rumplestiltskin allowed. "We all still have jobs to do, even if we are not playing roles on the stage your creators built."
"Indeed, and mine is not quite done here."
First, she turned to Regina and imparted, "The Wish World is no more. Gone are the soulless, defective carbon copies of you. But your essence remains." She pulled a heart from inside her cape and then in rapid fashion, before Regina could react, snatched out her own heart and smashed the two hearts into one.
Regina gasped.
"You cannot save yourself by splitting yourself to rid yourself of darkness and then send your other half off into a fake world created by a genie, the gods' prank upon humanity," Alecto said cooly, handing the heart back to Regina. "Such an act is cowardly and foolish. If you wish for true redemption, you will fight back against that darkness you yourself put in there with your light."
Alecto then turned to Zelena, moving her blade lighting fast to the former Wicked Witch's throat and holding it there as she hissed, "But you, I have little sympathy your for you even with your father's curse. You have been given more chances than any despicable person such as yourself should to better yousrelf. But that requires remorse, of which you have none. And self-awareness enough to admit your failings."
She clicked her tongue and continued, "Every mortal woman who beds a god thinks above her station. Had I the full powers imbued by this blade, I would cleave off your silly red head and plant it on spike outside the Halls of Justice to remind those being judged what befalls bitches who think they can become gods.
"Instead..." She retracted the sword, dropped it to her side, then thrust it forward in lightning swift motion, imbedding the golden blade in Zelena's abdomen.
Everyone gasped, including Zelena, but instead of blood or guts when Alecto pulled it free, there were tendrils of green light and the redhead wailed and clutched at her abdomen, the light seeping through her fingers until the last wisps were sucked into the sword and her shrieking subsided.
"What... what did you do to me!?"
"I exacted justice for those you have wronged. I have taken away, permanently this time, the thing that makes you special: your magic, and the thing that makes you happy: your child."
"You... erased my daughter from existence!?" Zelena shrieked.
"That girl was a time aberration," Alecto stated, "created as a result of actions undertaken in the past that should not have been. Time is sacred and it can't be changed to suit any one person's desires without causing harm to the lives of countless others."
"That's not fair!" Zelena wailed.
"Me me me. It's not fair!" Alecto taunted, imitating the redhead's accent. "Once a pathetic toddler, always a pathetic toddler. A mother should want to spare her child from her own despicable fate, not suffer through it so she can take her on play dates and feel important!"
"I'm sorry!" Zelena continued to wail.
"Only for your loss," Alecto accused. "Many paradoxes were created by your little time stunt. For instance, Killian Jones falling drunkenly in lust with a blonde temptress he did not know was from the future, thus enticing his past self to alter his reason for ferrying your family," she directed at Snow and Charming, "to Neverland from penance for wronging Henry's father to the desire to bed his mother due to what he perceived as nothing more than a recurring dream for decades until it became a message from The Fates that she was his one true love. Yet the dream was not recurring at all for that one time was actually the first time it happened. A paradox of lust and love. Some would say that he seduced her. Yet it was she who entrapped him. Due to this paradox, both and neither are true. Harmless, perhaps, outside of their romance, but every little paradox adds up into a cascade failure of existence. I think we'd rather avoid another one of those.
"Not to mention the future spawned when this counterfeit timeline was allowed to continue as Zeus saw fit."
"Wait," Henry interjected, "if there was a future before this almost apocalypse that destroyed that world completely, then does that mean-"
"I can neither confirm nor deny any temporal meddling by gods or mortals. But if Time Lords did exist, their duty would be to set right all the aberrations you people's actions have caused... or track down rogue time pirates who seek to disrupt what ought to be... or are just greedy assholes."
"Please!" Zelena begged. "I love her! I can be a good mother instead of a greedy arsehole!"
"You are incapable of love," Alecto challenged her. "You are, tragic as it may be, the result of a curse upon your despicable father's line and he perpetuated his wretchedness with you and you continued that line with your rape-acquired future blight upon society. You have shown little inclination to attempt to better yourself for anything but the pettiest of reasons. You have made no reparations to those you have harmed, including the boy whose father you murdered," she reminded with a gesture to Henry. "So Hera has only pity for you and that is why your life is being spared. No magic. No legacy to carry on your warped desires. Your womb will carry no more children. No potion or enchantment will restore the power you covet as it did before. You will remain here in this town, wretched in your ordinariness."
Zelena wailed inconsolably on the floor and Snow considered, "Must you be that cruel? She's just like my daughter. She couldn't help that she was created that way."
Alecto eyed Snow White with a cool expression and told her, "Have I not made myself clear? Perhaps you are a bit slow to understand after all of the brain injuries you have suffered. That child should never have come to be. Marian was dead in the past. To use her likeness to entice a man into siring a child is not merely rape of an unconscionable sort that merits punishment, but any child thus sired is a temporal aberration and its soul an innocent ripped from the natural order and life into which it was meant to be born, a life that will be filled with suffering, incapable of even the love your daughter can feel because of her sister. Would you inflict that upon a child? Would you inflict what she will become on the future victims she would revel in destroying?"
"I..."
"No, you wouldn't. Or the woman you used to be would not," Alect scoffed. "But the woman you are now? She wants blind mercy because of the selfish and careless meddling of two women with black hearts that she sees instead as teaching her hope. That is not hope. That is a foolish self-delusion to suppress your anger and grief at how you were wrong so you and your family can continue inflicting your virulent strain of corrupted charity and clueless nepotism on others. No true mother would want to subject any child to the wretchedness from which those two suffer.
"So I suggest," the goddess told the wide-eyed princess with a shrewd look, "you step off your self-righteous soapbox, Snow White, look hard in a mirror to see that you are very far from the fairest of them all. You are a hypocrite and a fool since trying so absurdly to merge your true and your cursed personality. The 'Snow White' you finally settled upon much too late is far more like the selfish, amoral little twit the Dark Curse turned you into for her amusement than the woman who truly went by that name. You should be beating your breasts in self-pity, not praising the inspiration of their spoiled milk."
Snow opened and shut her mouth, sputtering and Charming came to her defense, brandishing his sword. "I don't care if you're a goddess! No one insults my wife like that!"
Alecto waved her hand and the sword became a fish as she scoffed, "Ah, Prince Charming. I would not be so high-minded. Fate unaltered by the gods for you was death that day Regina cast the Curse. But Artemis liked you enough to convince Zeus to spare your life, to put you in that coma instead of a coffin."
Both David and Snow blanched at that.
"So count your blessings and know that having fangirls will no longer save you from recklessness," Alecto told him. "And remember your parents raised you to have compassion, but not without justice. Like your wife, you dishonor the sacrifices of your fore bearers by simply shrugging off atrocities in favor of homemade lasagna and imported rum. That manner of forgiveness does not make you heroes, it makes you pathetic doormats."
Alecto look at all of those assembled and scoffed, "Had Lady Themis given me such discretion it would be my great pleasure to inflict such suffering on all of you hypocrites and brainless fools who not think you should be held accountable for your thuggery and all of the horrendous paradoxes you have created with your careless use of magic. I would have you forgotten by the sands of time for there is no moral to your pathetic stories other than to strive to not be any of you fairytale nitwits. But Hera will not permit it. So hopefully, you will live your lives now better than you acted out your useless stories. Happily ever after! Ha!"
The goddess' scathing accusations left all speechless. Save Henry.
"I have a question!" he blurted out as the goddess made for the portal. "Was that you that attacked us by the lake for trying to save Robin?"
"Ah, yes, I'd almost forgotten..."
"Eeeeep!" Henry exclaimed when Alecto transformed into a hideous black scaly creature with demonic wings, bug-like eyes, and really absurdly large breasts for no discernible reason.
Alecto shifted back, shrugging, "Mortals are far more willing to quake in terror before the hideous than the beautiful. Also, men - and some women - are quite easily distracted by ridiculously large breasts. Makes it much easier to apprehend them."
Regina snorted at that.
"I'd best depart," Alecto announced. "I would caution you that after the sun sets... and until it rises and sets as it should, you do not seek to travel to other realms and keep others from attempting to visit. Hope is a marvelous thing that can restore balance, but repairs must be done, paradoxes sorted out in a far more diligent manner than Zeus simply creating other worlds to shove all the mismatched puzzle pieces into. The Fates have much weaving to do. But Hera will keep the true intention of the bargain with Zeus and keep the worlds of the gods separate from yours from then on out, and we will work to see that all mortal souls in our realms find their final destination.
"So do not let your reckless mortality and wanderlust jeopardize this gift as your kind are wont to do!"
"We won't," Belle promised.
"Wait," Henry stopped the demi-goddess again. "My dad. Can you... before he moves on, can you tell him that I love him? That I miss him. And... I'll take care of Mom... And Geronimo."
"I will," Alecto confirmed before stepping into the portal that instantly closed up, leaving the empty elevator car.
"So..." Belle asked, "who wants burgers?"
"I could eat," nodded David.
"I'm starving, actually," agreed Snow.
"Can I get a hot fudge sundae?" Henry asked Regina.
"Averting an apocalypse does seem to warrant sundaes," she agreed, shoving her own heart back in and wincing at the dark emotions that rose up inside of her. Though not as dark as her sister's.
"I HATE YOU ALL!" Zelena wailed, sniffed, and put in rather pathetically, "I suppose I wouldn't object to some apple pie and ice cream."
Anna found her sister not far from where Geronimo was munching on weeds, sitting on the swing set in the little used park that Regina had built after tearing down Henry's castle. The genie-lamp inspired slide had play horses had rusted and been taken over by vines.
Emma was swaying back and forth with rusty squeaks, clutching a stack of yellowed paper, her expression set in that numb mask Anna knew well was the brittle calm before a breakdown.
A big part of Anna wanted to just leave her sister there. Like 99.9% of her. She wasn't good at this 'caring' thing. It literally wasn't in her nature, a nature created not by nature but an insidious spell some asshole - she had her money on Neal's grandmother - invented and got spread around by greedy shit mortals who liked to fuck a lot. In a sense, Anna was only slightly more real in her origin than people made from a magic quill or a genie's spell, just because the magic triggered what a quirk of nature would otherwise... just with the caveat that the magic remained, ensuring that bunch of cells developed wrong, developed with a broken moral compass from a pre-blackened heart. And that darkness fought against the absorbing of any light, the seeking of redemption for past wrongs and happiness that came from love rather than the pain of others.
It was not a particularly fun existence, and Anna could understand how it had driven Zelena to become such a crazy, fucked-in-the-head cunt. She'd killed her twin before birth without even knowing it, though it seemed that her mother had and tossed her out like trash, perhaps hoping the Black Fairy would take her to at least put her magical psychosis to some use rather than wolves tearing her to shreds. Anna had been spared that, and by ad hoc accounts, it seemed that her uncle wasn't particularly happy even as a wealthy prince, so perhaps missing out on a life of her own for thirty years and having to share a past with the sister she would have killed in the womb without destiny and a spell was really the best fate she could have asked for. And while Anna doubted that Emma would agree at the moment, maybe it was the best fate she could have asked for too.
Emma didn't look up as Anna approached and took a seat in the other swing, just kept staring at the top sheet, a pencil and ink sketch of her first date with Neal, the two of them sitting on that Italian trapeze. Anna had those memories, hazy and disconnected as they were for her, bits and pieces of Emma's life that had been emotional highs and lows, that resonated with the little patch of light her sister had protected in her heart for all those years and Anna had spent the last few days torn between wanting to let the darkness swallow it and fighting the darkness back.
"I'm sorry you had to sacrifice your keychain," Anna finally broke the silence, getting a surprised look from Emma. "What? I'm observant. And not as dumb as Gold thinks."
"We're all still alive and Neal gets to move on, that's what matters," Emma answered with a shrug and flipped through the drawings, some of them fanciful ones of the life they could have had.
"And no one can question anymore that your love was true," Anna pointed out. "That it still is. It stopped an apocalypse. Pretty sure people will write that down. Either way, Emma, you both loved each other, and you've still got that in your heart, with or without some cheap piece of tin."
"Somehow that makes it hurt even more," Emma admitted, fighting tears. "Turns out I hadn't accepted it fully how much I loved Neal, no matter how much I thought that I had. There was still a part of me that was holding back, that was afraid, because I knew it would hurt to lose him again. I think that's really why, even in that wish world, he was dead. Because it wouldn't be real, and I knew deep down that I'd always take a nightmare that's real over a dream that's a lie. Still, it would have been nice to at least know we could have had Tallahassee.," she concluded with a sob, finally losing the battle against her grief.
Terrible as she was at this sort of thing, Anna slipped an arm around her sister, the rusty swings squeaking in protest. Emma cried for a long time, finally pulled away when her eyes were red and her nose running.
"Here," Anna offered her a wad of tissues as Emma pushed her glasses up to wipe at her eyes.
"Thanks," Emma sniffled. "I'm sorry I messed up your jacket."
"I did buy it with your money, so, no big deal," Anna quipped.
"Right," Emma snorted after blowing her nose.
"You don't need a genie to know that, Emma," Anna insisted. "Or a book. Or even that keychain. This town still being here, everyone getting the chance now to write their own stories, fight to make their wishes come true, that's how you know your love could have done anything... even if that anything was something ordinary and boring like raising a nosey kid in a dumpy apartment in a swampy city that's actually not right by the beach."
Emma smiled at her. "Thank you."
After a short silence, Anna cleared her throat and began again, "I know I appear strong, but I'm not. And don't tell me you understand, because you can't. You don't know what it is to be... unhinged, to be... flailing about. Killian's the only one who can hold me together. And maybe that's not the kind of true love that fairy tales are written about. It doesn't save thousands of lives and it can't break a terrible curse and rebalance reality, but it saves mine every day. His love for me, it gives me a reason to keep fighting against my own darkness, the darkness that made me, to hold onto that little bit of goodness that's there because of you, that let's me feel something I shouldn't be capable of."
Letting out a breath, she concluded, "So, I know you don't like Killian, and you probably never will. But I wouldn't have him without you, so it would mean... a lot if my sister would be there, in about an hour, when Nemo, hopefully, officially, barring any kraken, hydra, and giant squid attacks or mermaid rebellions, gets us hitched aboard the Jolly Roger."
Sniffing a bit still, Emma responded, "You're right, I probably won't ever like him. But also that I can't fully understand what it's like to be you. I guess we really can't fully understand each other. But you are my sister, and it doesn't change that I love you, and that, of course, I will be there to see you get your legitimate happy beginning... and then sail off into the unnatural sunset and leave me alone to deal with this crazy town of freaks and their old world laws," she amended at the end with a slight smirk.
"So, change the laws," shrugged Anna. "Maybe there's some kind of middle ground between letting everyone get away with anything with a slap on the wrist and a few hours of community service and locking all the murderers and crazies under the hospital. Well, personally, I wouldn't change locking up the crazies. But otherwise? Who knows what'll work best. This town's not dependent on a curse anymore thanks to you, so seems like a chance to try some new things. Even if you're not a savior anymore."
Emma blinked at that. It hadn't even occurred to her. She didn't feel any different. But if there was no longer any part of the Dark Curse left, if Storybrooke was just a town that had some unusual magic in it from another land, then did that really mean she was normal? Or as normal as the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming who had magic could be?
Instead, Emma asked her sister, "Are you saying that you're not going to contest my claim as Sheriff?"
Anna shrugged again and replied, "The bountyhunter thing was more my style. Kicking ass, taking names, breaking so many rules it's basically illegal in most of the country. Just bad enough to suit my taste without the risk of jail time. Joining a sheriff's department? That was all you. Well, maybe a little bit me in upping the odds of bedding Graham, but the actual job part without sexual benefits, that was you. You're the good cop. I'm the bad cop, but the corrupt one that gets busted by Internal Affairs for abusing criminals and taking bribes kind."
"Well," mused Emma, "there goes my speech."
"You had a speech?"
"Yeah, I worked on it in New York.."
"Don't let the hard work go to waste. Lay it on me."
"I don't know..."
"You think I can't take it?" Anna snorted.
Emma rolled her eyes, then put on a lecturing tone, "You owe me for what you've done to my reputation in this town, Anna. So I demand you hand over my badge and resign immediately! I can overlook the constant absences, the blatant disregard for rules and regulations, but your moral compass is broken and I point blank refuse to work with someone whose sense of right and wrong is as flippant as the weather! Someone who thinks getting laid is more important than justice. You are unfit to be Sheriff. You have no place in law enforcement!"
"Flippant?"
"That might have been Henry's suggestion."
"Well, that certainly was blunt in its cruelty," Anna told her with a snort.
"Sorry."
"No you're not."
"Yeah, you're right," Emma conceded. "I haven't changed my mind about any of that. You're my sister and I love you, but you're a shitty cop."
Anna smirked at that and handed over the badge to Emma. "Was a shitty cop. Now I'm just a pissed off bride planning to take a six month honeymoon cruise. Of course, that's assuming I can actually get married. Twenty bucks says Dad gets wasted before the ceremony."
"I'm not dumb enough to take that bet, Anna," Emma snorted. "Regina told me Henry was assigned to keep him from drinking before your last two."
"Fine. Fifty bucks says he threatens Killian with his sword and tries to get him to walk the plank before the end of the reception then," shrugged Anna and Emma groaned.
"Fine, it's a bet."
A much smaller wedding party in a mix of fairy tale and regular clothes gathered on the docks just before sunset, fresh off fighting evil for the umpteenth time.
"At least I don't have to be Hook's best man again," groaned Henry.
Emma smirked at that and nodded toward the Nautilus. "Ever gonna explain that little adventure, Kid?"
"Other than that I had a chance to let Hook die and chickened out because I thought you wanted to marry him? Not really," he sighed.
Slipping an arm around her son, Emma told him, "Well, heroes don't let people die just because they don't like them. And you don't have to worry about him throwing out your Pop-Tarts anymore."
"Yeah, the boiled mackerel was nasty. He's still annoying, though. And kind of useless."
"Well, your aunt thinks he's useful for something..."
"Yeah, I know what 'something'. I walked in on them once!"
"Ah, right, forgot about that," Emma grimaced. "I mostly blocked out all of... ah... that."
"I wish I could!"
Someone on board rang a bell to welcome the guests aboard and as everyone began filing up the steps Henry asked, "Do you think... if Dad hadn't died you two would have... you know... gotten married?"
"I don't know," Emma answered honestly. "It was losing your dad that made me realize how much I loved him still. I want to believe we'd have found our way back together, even if my aunt and her lady boner for Hook got in the way for awhile. But I don't know if we'd have gone the traditional route. It wouldn't have changed how we felt about each other, though. Or you."
"I wish I could have seen Dad," Henry moped, "talked to him one more time."
"I know," Emma grimaced. "I'm so sorry I didn't let you see him when we got here from New York, Henry. I was afraid. I didn't know how to explain that he wasn't the guy I'd thought he was without my memories, that I made you think he was. I was being selfish. And I'll regret that for the rest of my life. I made a lot of decisions out of fear that hurt you. And then my sister made a ton more that I couldn't stop. And I know all of that has left you with more on your plate than any kid your age should be dealing with."
"One less now, though," Henry reminded. "It was kind of a sucky destiny sometimes, but it made me special, you know? And now I can't add Dad's story," he moped. "Or how you met. Not that I'd want to anyway, since apparently all I've been doing is magically enslaving people or something."
"Hey, that's not your fault," Emma insisted. "You didn't know that. No one did. And we don't need to be in a magical book, Henry. Who says you can't write it down without a fancy quill? The pages are still there even if they're just ordinary words and pictures now. And you definitely don't need some magic destiny to be special. Believe me, they're overrated. You were an amazing kid long before you picked up that quill, and you'll continue to do amazing things long after it, Henry."
"You really think I'm amazing?" Henry asked with a suspicious look and his mother smiled.
"Yeah, Kid, you are. You have more hope than anyone I've met. You got me here to break that crazy Curse. And you can be whatever you set your heart and mind to. Which I know is all your dad wants. For you to never limit yourself, never give up. So don't let yourself get boxed in by any world," Emma advised. "By anyone's expectations. Or people saying you need fancy powers or titles to be important to someone or to do good in the world. What matters is that you feel good doing good, helping people who can't fight the good fight alone, taking down bad people who don't care who they hurt; not that it's written down or comes with medals and fancy titles. It's about what you do, the stuff you learn along the way, not blindly focusing on some happy ending. I know it might not feel that way around here sometimes, not the way this family tends to prioritize stuff," she amended, "but that's what really matters. Okay?"
"Okay," Henry agreed, still a little sad, then asked, "So... are you gonna get a house now or what? I know Aunt Anna wants you to watch her place, but I don't want to stay there with you. It's creepy."
"I'm not planning to live-in house sit, that's for sure with all the 'good for something' stains that would make a black light explode," Emma assured. "I don't know where I'll call home yet. And I think... I should probably try to work things out with my parents... and get a bit more cash in my bank account before taking out any mortgages. But I'll figure it out."
"Maybe we could even have a stable in the backyard for Geronimo? I mean, having him at Grandma and Grandpa's is nice and all, but it's kind of out in the boonies."
"Maybe you should petition Regina for that, Kid. I don't want to end up mucking stalls!"
The bride and groom appeared then looking suspiciously unkempt. Emma warned her sister, "You'd better not have been having a Titanic moment in my car or this wedding will be followed very shortly by a funeral. It cost a fortune to get The Bug professionally cleaned to get your stank out!"
"Our stank?" Hook scoffed. "Have you any idea the cost of getting your horse's stank out of my cabin?"
He threw a sour look at Henry, "And don't pretend it wasn't you who let the mangy thing out of the hold!"
"Wasn't me. I swear. He's just a really smart and devious horse."
Emma bit back a laugh. "Still not getting a house with a stable, Kid."
"Was worth a shot."
"Come on, idiot!" Belle cut in, not looking very thrilled to be there and dragging Hook toward the aft of the ship.
"Sure you don't want to be my best man?" Hook asked. "I can push my brother overboard if you-"
"Stop looking at my breasts!" Belle hissed, giving him another shove.
"All right, everyone!" Nemo announced from the back of the ship by the wheel once Hook had joined him. "Let's get these nuptials completed so the happy couple can sail off into the... ah... sunset apparently. That doesn't look right. Anyway, then I can get back to finding the klepto mermaid who stole my ship's tableware before the father of the bride and best man stab the groom death for killing their fathers!"
"Oh, come on!" Hook groaned. "Low blow, mate!"
The wedding march began and Anna, dressed in a replica of her time trip ballgown and golden sandals emerged from the captain's quarters to join her parents and walk down a 'carpet' of pink rose petals to the ship's captain who'd given her his heart.
The ceremony was short and Emma watched from the docks as her sister sailed off into the sunset... and then got swallowed up by a portal along with the Nautilus.
"The sun is going to go back to rising and setting where it's supposed to, right?" wondered Snow. "Not that it isn't very pretty..."
"Well, that goddess seemed to indicate it would eventually," Gold interjected, leaning on his cane as he limped over from the boardwalk, the magic he'd used to heal his old injury undone by The Apprentice's handiwork.
"Whatever normal is around here," David mused. "Not sure we've seen that yet."
"Let's get this over with," Regina spoke up, "before some idiots finds some magic beans or enchanted unicorn dung or Ariel shows up with an enchanted spork."
Together, Emma, Regina, and Gold, combined their magic toward the setting mirror sun. The different colors combined to a shimmering white that briefly made the water glow and struck the barrier around Storybrooke, rippling through the town.
"It won't hold forever," Regina concluded, "but that should keep visitors out until the magic sustaining Storybrooke has solidified. We just need to make sure no stupid dwarfs try to leave to get PhDs and destabilize things."
"I'll talk to them after the town hall meeting tonight just to impress the point," David assured. "And put up security cameras at the town line. Probably should have done that awhile ago."
"We'd better head back into town then. I'm sure there's a mob gathering to bombard us with questions," Regina said, leading everyone away from the water.
Emma was last. She watched the unnatural sun set and the stars come out, not sure if they were reversed to, but sure Neal would be able to tell her. She wondered if there were stars where he was now, if the sun would rise in the morning - if there was even morning. As long as he was at peace, his soul free after so many years of imprisonment, a life so full of misery and pain, then she supposed it didn't matter.
She'd felt his love for her in that final moment, when existence had been near its end, felt that he was happy, and for that moment she'd shared that happiness with him, one blissful moment when reality was everything it could be and nothing it had been, when even, maybe, she could have reshaped it with their love into the life they both wished had been.
But that wouldn't have restored the balance that was so long missing. It would have been selfish, even if they both deserved it. So she'd let Neal and that dream go, even though she would hold onto that moment of pure joy and love until she saw him again.
"I hope you've found home, Baelfire," Emma told the dark sky, blowing a kiss to the stars before turning to head back toward town and resume her role as Sheriff Swan, bringer of justice to the town of Storybrooke, Maine.
- End Part 1 -
AN 1: Alecto borrows "time aberrations" from Legends of Tomorrow along with some dialogue. I was sorely tempted to have her kill Zelena, but since Merlin hadn't yet fully assumed the role of Death, it just wouldn't work plotwise, so I had her wipe Baby Robin out of existence and take her magic instead. Oops! Emma's "speech" is from The Flash. And Anna's spiel about being "unhinged" is taken from Princess Margaret's words to her sister Elizabeth in The Crown Episode 10. Bits of this and their previous conversation in Chapter 13 were inspired by Episode 8 and the overall relationship between the two royal sisters and their personalities (to some degree) as portrayed on the Netflix show. Elizabeth, like Emma, has a leadership responsibility that her sister envies while she envies her sister having what she perceives as a confidence in her won skin, charm, and wit that she lacks, that gains people's adoration for her as a person rather than reverence for her duty and what she represents. She's actually quite insecure and always feels at a disadvantage in her duty because her parents gave her no academic education, so she struggles to understand and converse with members of government on top of having to reconcile being daughter/wife/sister with being Queen, something her uncle, the abdicated King Edward VIII, likens to mythological creatures like minotaurs and sphinx that are part human/part monster and ever at war with themselves; I see Emma in her savior status similar to this, always picking duty even if she hates that she has to do it and that it may hurt the ones she loves. (And that in canon instances when Emma did such things, it was Emma's strength and conviction as a savior that over-powered her sister's selfish and individualistic nature). Elizabeth has also long been troubled that her parents called her their "pride" and Margaret their "joy" and it seems somewhat common knowledge in the family that Margaret was their father's favorite, no matter what their mother might claim, which just seems to reinforce Elizabeth's insecurities at being valued for what she can do, not who she is regardless of titles and duties. Anna, like Margaret, sees her sister as unsympathetic to her situation as the sister without any duty but still bound by its expectations and regulations, particularly in her love life; she is devastated when Elizabeth breaks a sisterly promise to support her marriage and as Queen declares that she must choose between duty to the Crown or love, the later which will be disinheritance and (at least temporary) exile like their uncle, simply because her lover is divorced. The difference here, of course, is that while Elizabeth seems to be heading down a path that further disconnects her from her individual self and her family, her own marriage in a rocky place because she did not side with her sister, I wanted Emma to be at a place where, like at the end of Season 1, she was essentially free of her savior status and back to a place where being Storybrooke's protector is a choice rather than inescapable burden, the absence of which means cutting out a part of and diminishing herself. Frankly, I think the show's choice in that regard is just one of the many choices in plot that have worsened Emma as a character, turned her into a plot device rather than a character with conviction and morals that chooses to be a hero because it's the right thing, not because it's demanded or expected of by some unseen hand of fate. So eliminating the Dark Curse and solidifying Storybrooke was a way to un-savior Emma by her fulfilling her duty rather than chickening out of it. And creating Anna, of course, was a way to MacGuffin out of all the atrocious choices the canon character has made since Season 3 both in present and flashbacks.
AN 2: So the season finale is over. It wasn't bad until the end there, Deputy Hook and the creepy Last Supper meal aside. But don't worry, 'Heathens' and 'tOBoM' will continue. Though I became uncertain the past few weeks of who West and that girl would be and so took a hiatus from writing, I was 99% sure they would be Henry and his daughter (I thought with Violet, but apparently that didn't stick and Henry just secretly wants to bang his mom so he has a thing for Latinas.) so it turns out I don't have to change much that I wrote with that theory in mind. I also thought Gideon might go back to being a baby and almost wrote that in. Jeez, these guys are predictable, aren't they? I was hoping they'd switch to The Wish Realm with Adult Prince Henry and the brat would be EQ's kid so I could just separate myself entirely from this shit Oh well.
Anyway, if you are reading those stories, here is a contingency plan I included at the beginning of 'tOBoM'. Even before the new casting, I kept The Alchemist's identity a mystery because I intended, if required, to have him be Future Henry and a Time Aberration like in the Legends of Tomorrow finale where they had to go back in time to fix their own time travel screw-up and were thus fated to be murdered in that past. So Henry in the future realized the mysterious evil was unleashed because of Zelena's time travel spell violating the laws of magic and unleashing a darkness not unlike Fiona's spell that would destroy reality, but not because of disbelief, rather accumulating paradoxes from the rewriting of the past and/or some contingency Zeus wrote into those world should someone try to change his plans.
He also discovered that her spell only destroyed the magical worlds because Zeus was using them as entertainment and his job as an Author was just being Zeus' pawn as he also learned his father was, trapped as the Lord of The Underworld so Fiona couldn't actually resurrect him and become as powerful as Zeus and take over Mt. Olympus; anyone would lose their optimism after discovering they'd been living a lie for like 15 years and left their father rotting in Hell to save Hook. It wouldn't help to realize everyone in the universe was basically an aberration that shouldn't exist, including you and your daughter, and that you helped to cement it as the only true timeline.
But worst of all, Future Henry discovered that his mother had an Evil Twin and that after years of being lost inside her sister the way his aunt was for 30 years inside Emma, because of Anna's curse and Emma no longer being a savior, Emma died never getting even a happy beginning. And because Neal was Lord of The Underworld, she couldn't move on with him even to a fake afterlife. Going back in time with the help of Hera, Henry realized, was the only way to fix things, but because of The Apprentice using a Time Remnant of himself to travel through time to help unleash that evil to destroy everyone (and presumably help himself escape from The Underworld), Henry ended up in a time after Zelena's spell and had to find a way to fix it there.
So the end of the finale and S7 do not exist in this universe. Anything that happened in it could be the result of multiple dumb Barry Allen like time traveling before Henry realized he needed Hera's help. I have zero intention of including Henry's love life in the stories. And even if he had an "epic true love" it was a fake love contrived by Zeus' rules not free will. I see Snowing as maybe being actual soulmates that Zeus either allowed to meet in life for creative reasons or that Hera and Aphrodite got to meet against his plan and many things that happened after were Zeus trying to recoup his losses and still tell the story he wanted/keep Fiona from becoming a god.
Other borrowed dialogue in this chapter:
"I'll take a nightmare that's real over a dream that's a lie." — Sara choose reality over getting her dead sister back using time travel and mystical bullshit, Legends of Tomorrow
"You can't just go back and change things like that. Time is sacred and it can't be changed to suit any one person's desires without causing harm to the lives of countless others." —Sara faces off with Merlin over a mystical amulet compass MacGuffin, Legends of Tomorrow
"I can overlook the constant absences, the blatant disregard for rules and regulations, but your moral compass is broken, my friend. I point blank refuse to work with someone whose sense of right and wrong is as flippant as the weather. Someone who thinks friendship is more important than justice. You are unfit to be a CSI. Barry Allen has no place in law enforcement." —Julian, The Flash
Before Part 2, please read "Heathens", a brief story interlude that explores Neal and Merlin's quest that occurred concurrent to the battle against The Apprentice. I have a few more chapters of that to post before this story continues.