Heyy guys! Sorry I have been rather inconsistent about the frequency of my posts. Rest assured, I am going to try to update at least a few times over the next week. Also~ we will be wrapping up this story soon so I can start a new (better) one.
Thanks so much for all the support!
Emma turned the small bean over with her fingers. It was completely smooth, except for a small nick on one side. The more she rubbed that little indentation with her thumb, the larger it became. Yet she kept rubbing it because the motion was reassuring to her.
Emma felt a lot like that tiny bean. She was trying to cover up her own imperfections so that her family didn't see how difficult it was to be Emma and The Dark One, The Dark One and Emma. And she sometimes just wanted them to leave her alone, but they kept coming back and expecting her to be exactly the same as she had been, and every time they came back, she got a little bit worse and had to hide even more of herself. Just like Emma couldn't stop rubbing that stupid bean between her fingers for her own comfort, her family couldn't stop expecting her to be something she wasn't.
This is why she couldn't decide whether or not to face alone the terrifying thought of this Merlin who could apparently take away all of her problems.
She knew her family was there for her, yes. She knew they would never leave her and that they would always try to understand if she messed up. But that was the thing. They didn't understand. They couldn't, no matter how hard they tried.
"Did you decide, Miss Swan?" Rumplestiltskin's voice made Emma jump. It was gentle, solely inquisitive, but the words held more weight than he knew.
Emma swallowed. She turned the bean over once more in the palm of her hand.
"Everyone's waiting, Miss Swan. They'll understand, no matter what you decide."
No they won't. They'll always be there, but they will never understand.
Emma accepted the scroll Rumple offered her and stepped over the town line. She needed to get used to the pain of magic if she wanted to go to Camelot.
In Storybrooke, every member of the town stood right near the town line, waiting for Emma. This was a big moment, sending her off to Camelot, and they all wanted a chance to show their appreciation for her in case she never came back. Dark One or not, they all knew none of them would exist at that moment if it hadn't have been for Emma saving them more times than they could count.
Emma made eye contact with the members of her family: Henry, Hook, David, Mary Margaret, and Regina. She would give her life (which she kind of had) for anyone in this town, but she didn't care about them. They were a separate entity, more important to Emma than her own life but somehow not important. Her family, she cared about. Her and her family were all in this together, whether her family understood her or not.
She dropped Rumple's magic bean on the ground. She stepped in. She saw her family advancing toward the hole to follow her down to the literal ends of the Earth.
The next thing Emma knew, she was on her knees in the grass. Surprisingly, the only side effect of being in a magical realm that she was currently experiencing was a ringing in her ears.
Mary Margaret was behind her, brushing grass off of her jeans, and Regina was attempting to pull herself into a standing position beside her.
"Well," breathed Mary Margaret, "the grass is a lot softer for a landing than concrete."
Regina gave Mary Margaret's attempt at a joke a pity chuckle, but no one else laughed.
David stood up, using a tree for support. "What is this place?" He had agreed to come with Emma without caring where he was actually going.
"Camelot," Emma responded, slightly shocked that they were so close to the end. Her heart fluttered in her chest, and butterflies danced lightly in her stomach. They were so close. They could stop this before anything became too serious. Before she made a mistake so monumental that it couldn't be fixed. "Merlin lives in Camelot," she said, so incredibly shocked that she couldn't even convey her emotions. Her voice came out in a monotone.
"Great," said Regina, sarcastically, perching her hands on her hips. "How do we find him?"
"How about that?" Henry pointed at an arrow-shaped sign that said, "To Merlin".
The group exchanged wary glances.
"Well, that was almost too easy," Regina said.
"Should we…?" asked Mary Margaret.
"I don't see why not. We don't have anything else to go by," David said.
"He's right," Lily affirmed from the back.
Everyone jumped at the sound of Lily's voice.
"What are you doing here?" Emma asked Lily slowly, spinning around to face the brunette. Lily wasn't supposed to come. It was only supposed to be the people that Emma had been through thick and thin, thin and thick with. Lily was, well, Lily was like an old friend you only see at high school reunions. "We didn't- you weren't-" Emma stuttered.
"I followed you through the vortex portal thingy." Lily shrugged as if it were obvious, then started heading down the dirt road toward Camelot. "Camelot will be here forever, but Emma won't! Let's bounce, Charmings!" she called behind her.
Regina was appalled. "I am not a Charming!" she responded defensively.
Mary Margaret jabbed her in the back. "Just move," she whispered through gritted teeth.
Emma watched her own feet, dragging step by dragging step, as she made her way down the road. "There's no way it can be this easy after this long," she muttered. "This is ridiculous. It makes us seem like we've been doing nothing but sitting on our asses for the past however long."
"You just have to have faith," said Mary Margaret. "Life can be easy sometimes, and you need to learn that not everything has to involve suffering."
It was like her mother didn't even know how to talk to her anymore.
"Mom-" Emma tried. "Not everything is cut-and-dry. Sometimes you have to look out for the unexpected and be ready for it."
Mary Margaret stopped walking. "Look, Emma. I know I haven't been handling this whole situation quite like I should, but I am trying. I'm accepting you, so please accept me."
Emma gritted her teeth. Her mom wasn't accepting her. Her mom was accepting the fact that her daughter was gone to the darkness. Emma could see this in the melancholy expression she received from Mary Margaret every time they made eye contact. And, for some reason, this gave Emma an unreasonable and unbearable mix of anger and sadness.
"You know what-" Emma's feelings could turn on a dime, and currently she had gone from wanting her family with her to wanting her family as far away from her as possible. With a wave of her hand, she disappeared from the group and reappeared a couple miles down the dirt road so that she could be alone with her thoughts.