A/N: Originally, "roses" was supposed to a one-shot. But after re-reading the myth, I decided it would be more fun to stretch it out into 3 or 4 parts. :D Also, I have a doozy of a shift at work tomorrow, so I'm posting this early.

The inspiration for this chapter was the captive reindeer that carries Gerda to Lapland: Bae.

Yes. Seriously. Check out the wikipedia page.

Emma had no idea why she had wandered here, of all places.

It wasn't that she was afraid of the dark (no, that had been shaken out of her by her second or third foster home) or even of the graveyard (there were far, far scarier things than dead people, like living ones). It just made no sense that she had ended up here. There were too many people she knew and cared about resting here, even though her tenure in Storybrooke had been relatively short. And though she and Regina had forged a tentative alliance (she dared even hope that maybe it could be a friendship, once the simmering rage she knew was still there dissipated a little more), Emma was trying to avoid the mausoleum where Regina still holed herself up the majority of the time. Give her a little space in the hope of easing the tension faster.

Still, something in her subconscious had led her here, and so she crunched on through the crisp layer of leaves and frosted grass, tightening her coat. She'd dealt with enough snow and ice and cold for a lifetime in the cave-in, but with the current trend of villainy she doubted the town would get warmer weather anytime soon.

Emma realized where she was too late. The clearing, the footprints, the (relatively) freshly disturbed earth—she reeled back as though she'd been slapped.

Neal's grave.

This place was off-limits. Too much fresh pain and old pain and healed wounds that had been ripped open only to be bandaged up then ripped open again. In short order, she'd found him, lost him, found him again, lost him again (mercifully along with her memories), found him once more, and lost him again, this time for good.

That was too much for anyone, even for her, especially for her. Because now that Henry was growing, she had a walking, talking reminder of what she and Neal had shared, and hell if that boy didn't look just damn like his father (with a little more of her good looks thrown in), and she knew Killian had to see it too and that was yet another pain she had to endure, knowing that Killian felt responsible for what had happened and seeing the recognition and hurt in his eyes when Henry would do something just like the little boy that he had known.

And now she'd lost Killian too.

She didn't realize she had kneeled until she felt the wetness spreading along the knees of her pants, spreading goosebumps up and down her legs as it soaked through to her skin. Emma just sat for a moment, rocking a little, feeling like a fool.

"Neal," finally, the word came out, feeling leaden with the weight of sadness and remorse and whatcouldhavebeen, and then the words wouldn't stop coming. "Neal, I don't know what to do. And you always did. I was a stupid kid, I believed you knew, even if you didn't. And… and, god, Neal, Henry looks so much like you sometimes it hurts to look at him, because even though I know it wasn't completely your fault I'm still so angry."

There was wetness on her face now, and she was really sick of crying because it had happened at least three times in the past week and this was so unlike her, but maybe that was okay because she was melting, and maybe it was finally okay to.

"I know why you left the first time. But, damn it, Neal—how dare you do it again."

She paused to inhale, sticky dirt on her hands and when had she leaned forward, why was she looking at the ground. When she spoke again, it was almost a whisper.

"Neal, I don't know what to do."

And I don't want to lose him too.

There was no answer. She hadn't expected one, but still something inside of her had hoped. The tiny part that she had thought was long gone, but Henry had unearthed, and Graham had pulled from the ground, and Neal had dusted off and deposited gently in Killian's waiting hands, had hoped that maybe just maybe something would click.

She stood up with a sigh, trying and failing to rub the dirt from her pants, feeling like an even bigger fool for the tears on her face, when something crunched under her foot. Not crunched like the snow, but cracked, almost like—

Glass?

Emma knelt and picked up a shard, shaking it free of the mud that clung to it. It felt heavy, though it was a single piece, and something about it felt familiar. She dug into the snow around it, finally catching hold of something solid and metal. Her breath caught as she pulled it free of the muck.

Killian's compass.

She couldn't quite put her finger on why she had come here, but because of doing so, she now had a literal direction.

She turned back to the headstone and smiled. "Thank you."

She didn't see, as she turned away, the shadow across the headstones, nor did she see the figure with the cane disappear into the trees.