This bit is ridiculously small but I felt like it came out nicely and I didn't want to detract or spoil it by adding more. Thanks to Tangy for giving me the confidence I needed to trust my instinct. Also, please check out Lagger2's Deviant Art for some amazing fanart! I want to gather all the lovely things people have made me into one place so everyone can enjoy them (and I can gush over them every day), so if you've made something, drop me a line and let me know! And since it keeps coming up and surprising people, if you have a Tumblr, I'm thestorieswesay and we should be fronds!
This next bit of story is a bit of a jump forward in time, but it was necessary to tell the story I wanted to tell. Sorry for any confusion, and for the delay in updates. Once again, my ridiculously poor health rears its ugly head – bronchitis and then I coughed so hard I sprained my lung (wat), and just haven't been in the right mindset for writing. Thank you for your lovely encouragement and well-wishes! This story is nothing without you lovely readers, and I hope you continue to enjoy it as we move into the final stretch of story. 3
IX: Home
The darkness surrounding her felt cool and endless. She drifted in the limitless space, the only tangible sensation that of her fingers clenching and releasing. Clenching and releasing. She tried to open her eyes, or to close her hand in a fist, but neither instinct produced the proper reaction. Instead, she remained adrift in the quiet nothingness, with only the faint pressure on her fingertips to ground her.
She could hear voices, indistinct, completely neutral, and no amount of straining could make the litany clear. Once, she thought she caught her name, but that was all.
The scent of straw filled her senses and she turned away from the pressure on her hand, finally feeling something solid pressed against her back. There was warmth here, unlike the coolness of the never-ending space, and she clung to that, ignoring the touch on her fingers in exchange for this full-length contact.
"Emma..."
The voice could have been beside her or light years away.
"Emma... please..."
A woman's voice, but echoed by a man's. Soft, plantive. Someone squeezed her fingers but she was still turned into the warmth at her side.
Mary Margaret's voice, she realized with a start.
Opening her eyes, she rolled her shoulder into the body next to her, clutching her stomach at the sudden movement within. Rumpelstiltskin lay beside her, eyes wide and shining with worry, one hand curved around her hip gently.
"I'm okay..." She murmured, pressing her tousled curls to his bare chest. He ducked his head against hers, his chin a comforting pressure on the top of her head. "I'm okay..." She repeated, wrapping both of her arms around the prominent swell of her belly.
"A bad dream?" He said softly, stroking a thin hand across her shoulders, cradling the muscles there as though they were something infinitely precious.
"...I don't know what that was..." She answered, the weight of the lie settling in her like a stone. Mary Margaret's voice. The scent of orange cleaner. A warm light on her face. Now that she was separate from the dark space, she recognized it for what it really was.
Storybrooke.
Her hold on this world was lessening by the day now. Soon, she might slip free entirely. What would happen to her body, to their child, if she opened her eyes in that borderless black? What would happen to this shy, tender man then?
Emma closed her eyes and tried to decide which was home – the far-away town she'd come from or the life she'd found here instead.