And we're in the home stretch now! Only one more chapter to go after this one! Actually, I wrote the final chapter before I wrote this one before deciding that there needed to be something else in between the previous chapter and the last one. But, even though the last chapter is finished, I'm going to make you wait…because I'm mean like that. So I'll post it tomorrow.

As always, enjoy!

~The Last Ronin~

"What are we doing?" I groaned, burying my face into the crook of his neck, inhaling his wonderful scent.

"Right now? Hiding from your parents," he'd chuckled, his fingers teasing the hem of my shirt. He had been driving me crazy and I know the smug bastard knew that.

"You know that's not what I meant," I said with a snort and smacked him on the back of his head playfully, "I'm talking about this…us."

"There's an us?" He'd smirked though there had been a giddy smile in his eyes, "And here I thought you were just taking advantage of my being a gentleman."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" I'd shot back, giving him a dirty look.

"Simple love," the smirk didn't waiver for a second, "every gentleman knows that when a lady kisses you you shut up and kiss her back."

"Oh I see how it is. Well I'm sorry. I won't put you out like that again," it was my turn to smirk at him.

"And if I like being 'put out' as you put it?" His eyes bore into mine as he pulled me closer, letting me know what he wanted while still leaving the choice up to me.

As my lips captured his yet again, a single thought ran through my head over and over.

I was so screwed.

x-x-x-x-x

I'm back in my small padded room again after a stint in the ICU. At first they just had me hooked up to an IV…and strapped to the bed. After continuing to refuse food, however, I was graduated to a feeding tube. That had been the last straw that broke the grip of my depression. I was not a fucking invalid. I could bloody well feed myself.

Of course, by that point my inability to eat had weakened me enough that I couldn't really get much down, despite my renewed desire to do so. Thus it was a number of days before I actually could feed myself again and by that time I was angry enough to attack anyone who so much as looked at me wrong.

Where the Hell had Neal been then when he could have been useful? Goddamn asshole.

Now that I'm out of the ICU again and my anger has cooled considerably I don't know what to do with myself. I mean, I get that something has to change – I can't stay in here forever. I have to…move on with my life. But how? What do I have to look forward to anymore?

"He's dead," I say out loud, testing the words on my tongue. They're alien, foreign…wrong. And yet everyone says he's dead. I watched it happen. So why does it feel like a lie? Why don't I believe it?

Perhaps I'm just delusional. Heroes are supposed to get happy endings – live happily ever after and all that jazz. But…time and again I've come within reach of all that only to have it snatched away. If I'm a hero, a savior, then why can't I have a happily ever after? When can I stop fighting?

But…maybe that's the answer right there. It's so obvious, how had I ever missed it? I was a thief. I abandoned my own son. I got Graham killed for having the gall to have feelings for me. I fell in love with a pirate who had spent centuries plotting a single murder and had no doubt actually committed dozens – if not hundreds - of others. A hero doesn't do any of that.

I'm not a hero.

I'm the bad guy

I'm a villain.

And villains don't get happy endings.

Villains don't get to live happily ever after.

A knock on the door pulls me from my thoughts and I turn towards it as it opens and a woman slips inside.

"Mother Superior?" I ask, surprised to see her. I don't think she's ever sought me out before.

"Hello Emma," the older woman smiles, "I was hoping we could have a little chat."

x-x-x-x-x

"So why did you call Mother Superior?" I ask Archie, looking over at Snow to see if she has any idea but she just shrugs and shakes her head, apparently as in the dark as I am.

"Well it was her or Regina so I thought my old friend the better choice," Archie says, "but I thought it would be a good idea to have someone with a magical perspective take a look at Emma."

"You're suggesting we use magic on my daughter?" Snow says, "Magic has a price Archie, in case you've forgotten."

"I'm suggesting no such thing," Dr. Hopper assures her quickly, "I'm only suggesting that we've been looking at this from a scientific perspective up until now when maybe there's something going on that…"

"That science can't explain," Mother Superior finishes for him as she enters the office, closing the door behind her, "you're right. Science can't explain what's wrong with Emma."

"And magic can?" I ask, not sure I like where this is going.

"I didn't say that," Mother Superior replies, "but what I suspect is wrong is beyond either science or magic."

"Beyond…what else is there?" Snow asks and she sounds every bit as confused as I feel and Archie looks.

The former Blue Fairy shrugs, "Fate? Destiny? Providence? I don't actually know the name for it."

"Mother Superior, what are you saying? What's wrong with Emma?" Snow presses.

"Have you ever heard of Soul Mates?" The older woman asks and for a moment I think I heard her wrong.

"Soul Mates don't exist though," I feel stupid for even having to point this out.

"You believe in True Love but not Soul Mates?" Mother Superior shakes her head with a chuckle.

"What's the difference? I mean, I've always thought they were the same thing," Snow says, "and even so, how could having a Soul Mate be something bad?"

"They're completely different," Mother Superior snorts, "True Love is exactly what it sounds like, but Soul Mates are more of a…birth defect if you will. They're astronomically rare thankfully because they are literally a soul that has been split in two and born into two separate bodies."

"And…how is that bad?" I'm more than a little confused by all this…not that I really believe any of it.

"Soul Mates are unbreakably linked to one another, so if you kill one then the other dies as well."

Snow gasps but otherwise there's silence in the room and I suspect my wife has realized something that as of yet eludes me.

"Then that would mean…" Snow starts and Mother Superior nods.

"Yes. If I'm right about Emma and our apparently deceased pirate being Soul Mates - and I'm almost certain I am right - then it means that, somewhere out there, Killian Jones is still alive."