A/N: Ohmygosh! Last chapter, guys! Finale! I think you all will enjoy it! Thanks for reading and being so supportive!
Emma had thought she was getting what she wanted, ridding herself of Mary Margaret. But, as she crushed Mary Margaret's heart, something, an emotion, broke out on her face. Her brown contacts fell away, and she blinked her green eyes in shock, watching what she was doing as she did it, unable to stop it.
Her hair lengthened, turning back from brown to her natural, shining golden. As she let Mary Margaret's life drift away from her hands, Emma staggered back. She collapsed to the ground at the exact moment her mother did, her knees hitting the ground with a hard thud. She bent forward, pressing her forehead to the ground. She rocked herself forward and backward several times, pressing her forehead to the ground and lifting it up and pressing it back down again.
Nobody came to her aid. David caught Mary Margaret mid-fall, cradling her in his arms and pushing her hair back from her face even though she was dead, as dead as they come. Everyone else, freed of Emma's trance, rushed to be at Mary Margaret's side.
Nobody cared about Emma anymore. Nobody could care about Emma anymore because Emma had shown she didn't care about them.
Right as the group thought to direct their attention to Emma, to look at Emma, a cloud of grey smoke swirled around the blonde. When it was gone, she was gone.
The dagger clattered to the ground where Emma had been kneeling previously. Dark tendrils swirled in the air above it, and everyone watched them carefully, hoping it would not attack any of them. The tendrils made a sick squishing sound, and blue light shot out from in between the Darkness.
With sudden ferocity, the tendrils shot down and struck the dagger. The dagger shook with great intensity as it absorbed the Darkness, and the intricate swirls adorning the object slowly disappeared as the Darkness filled and blackened the dagger.
When it was all over, the midnight dagger quaked and quivered on the ground, barely containing the Darkness that had invaded it.
"Nobody touch it," Hook directed them. Then, he guided Lily out of the room to allow Mary Margaret's family a moment alone with her.
"Regina," David said urgently. "You have to give Snow my heart. You have to."
David knew in his soul, the only thing that was truly his, that this was the right thing to do. Snow had given him half of her life, and now he was giving it back to her. They shared a heart, Snow's heart, to be specific, and it would be selfish of him to keep his own life when who it truly belonged to was Mary Margaret.
"I- I-" Regina stammered. Henry was wrapped protectively in her arms, face pressed into her shoulder, sobbing. She didn't bother rubbing his back or stroking his hair. There was no comfort to be had here, nothing she could do that would offer him a reprieve from his grief. She just held onto him as tightly as she could with the two arms she had.
She frowned and blinked slowly, several times, as if she didn't understand David's words. Her lips moved silently, testing out the words in her mouth. They didn't feel right to her.
"But you'll die."
"I already have," David responded, not lifting his eyes from Snow. Death could steal her life, but it could not steal her beauty. She was still as lovely as ever. "Twice," he said. "So it's not fair for me to go on living with half of Mary Margaret's heart."
He twisted a lock of Snow's hair around his fingers, tenderly stroked her cold face that was usually so full of life and expression. He ran his thumb lovingly over her lips, wishing True Love's Kiss could fix this curse.
It couldn't, though. Not this time. Death was a far more formidable and permanent force than was love.
"Give. Her. My. Heart," he spat at Regina.
"David-" Regina said. Tears streamed down her cheeks, dragging her mascara with them like a warden hauls a prisoner to their death. Her eyes glistened and shone and sparkled behind her tears, and she found herself wishing to say all the things she never had.
I'm sorry.
This is all my fault.
I don't deserve the forgiveness you and Snow have given me.
"Do it!" David barked at her, still staring at Snow. "Now."
Regina choked out a sob as David cupped Snow's cheeks in his hands and pressed his forehead to hers. "I love you," he whispered to her, stroking her cheek with his thumb, "and I will always find you."
He looked at Regina then. Regina forced herself to tear one arm away from Henry and place her fingers against David's chest. She could feel the heart there, just underneath the surface, pulsing, missing its other half. There was a sad determination, a solemn kindness, in David's eyes, and Regina just couldn't watch herself doing something so awful. She shut her eyes and pushed her fingertips through his skin, through what was supposed to protect such a vital life force but failed in any world, and wrapped her fingers around David's heart. Snow's heart. It beat a rhythmic battle against her hand, and it lost as she gingerly tugged it out into this harsh world.
Regina felt as if she were ripping her own heart out.
Even though Regina could not watch this agonizing process, David's eyes stuck to Mary Margaret like glue. He wanted the last thing he saw to be the woman he'd loved for what might as well have been his entire life, because everything that came before her was fabulously unimportant to him.
Laying down on the ground, his lips curving every so slightly, David intertwined Snow's fingers in his.
And this was how Snow awoke, as Regina plunged the heart into her chest and David drew his last breath, with her hand wrapped lovingly in David's.
She placed a kiss on his knuckles, a tear rolling down her cheek. He was her Prince Charming.
Emma materialized in her old apartment in Boston. Grey smoke swirled around her, and as it dissipated, it revealed her hands, her arms, her neck, her face. Her forehead was pressed to the ground once more. She dragged herself to a sitting position and leaned against a wall.
Sobs wracked Emma's body. She shook and convulsed with guilt and regret, oh, unfathomable regret. She kept her eyes tightly shut; she couldn't bear to look at a world where her mother was dead and she had caused it. She dug her nails deep into her scalp and yanked her golden curls back.
She was magic-less, she knew that much. Even her white magic had drained away, and the only thing that pulsed through her veins was… blood. It was a relief. But it did not matter if her mother was not there to share that relief.
Emma rocked herself back and forth, trying to console some of her agony, her grief, her devastation, her loss, her something. It did not work.
The utter pain she felt was tearing her apart. Why was she the one to live and Mary Margaret the one to die?
Reconciliation, her mind told her. The punishment must fit the crime, and her crime had been absolutely unthinkable. Incomprehensible. Appalling.
Emma stood up and walked slowly to the kitchen, old memories about where things were located resurfacing. She pulled a knife out of one of the drawers and pressed it delicately to her wrist. It was Boston. She had no magic. She didn't deserve to live. She could die.
As she began moving the knife across her wrist, the doorbell chimed. Emma furrowed her brows. How could anyone know she was here? It had been five years since she had left and moved to Storybrooke; there was no way.
Emma set the paring knife down on the counter and walked over to the door. She looked through the peephole, but didn't see anybody in her line of view. She opened the door anyway.
Two hopeful, green eyes stared up into hers, partially covered by messy locks of chocolate colored hair. A shy smile was aimed at Emma's face.
A little kid stood in front of her door, twisting his hands nervously.
"Are you Emma Swan? My name's Henry. I'm your son."