CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: TEDIOUSLY LONG CONVERSATIONS ABOUT DEAD PEOPLE

(In which four seasons of Emma not dealing with anything is finally addressed in a fanfiction trainwreck of a therapy session that gave The Author headaches to write.)

"I don't know what to do!" Emma exasperatedly told Dr. Hopper as she paced his office. "How did it get this bad? Am I bad mother?" she asked, worried. "Did I ignore Killian's bad influence on him to suit my own needs?"

"Honestly? Yes."

"That's not making me feel better!"

"I'm not here to make you feel better by absolving you of guilt," Dr. Hopper stated. "I went through the same with Regina when she first and sadly only briefly engaged my services in helping her accept responsibility for the consequences of her selfish actions... before involving herself with a man who told her that no longer being that person absolved her of any responsibility for her criminal actions. Have you wondered why you and Regina have similar approaches to relationships?"

"If this is going to spiral into a 'Do you secretly have a lesbian crush on your own step grandmother?' then I'm outta here!"

"Well, I do detect a certain degree of possible bisexuality considering Lily's descriptions of your early encounters, but sexual preference is beside the point."

"Did you ever think maybe Regina opted out of therapy because you betrayed her doctor patient confidentiality?" Emma pointed out and the doctor sighed.

"You're trying to deflect, Emma, and that may work with your family members, but I am psychiatrist."

"Who got his degree from a Curse."

"After close to seventy years of being a the not-entirely-metaphorical-fly-on-the-wall in many a situation of human interaction. And don't even try to claim that being the Dark One gave you some sort of omniscience that exempts you from requiring these sessions. And stop trying to bring the subject back to Henry when you are mandated by the public health authority to resolve the matter of your medical situation. And, yes, that was an infection, but it is my job to assess your mental health in order to differentiate between any brain damage you incurred and other underlying psychological issues so that I can say, with certainty, that you have been rehabilitated to the best of Dr. Whale's ability, such that it can help his other patients. So, we are going to talk about what I want to talk about in these sessions, and you are going to be honest in the interest of helping your community recover from this epidemic, is that clear?"

Feeling like chastised child, Emma slumped back against the couch, crossing her arms. "Fine, whatever."

"Now you sound exactly like Henry. Have you noticed that when it comes to addressing personal issues, you tend to revert to a maturity level one would expect of a teenager, perhaps, say of the age at which you ran away from your group home only to be quickly betrayed by two people you trusted?"

"Not really."

Dr. Hopper made a note on his pad. "Why don't we get back to how youfelt about Neal turning back into a teenager with no memory of you or Henry?"

"I told you. Annoyed. Pissed. I should have been... consulted or warned or something! How do you tell a kid that his father would rather be a kid again than be his father?"

"I think you know that's not the reason Neal made that choice. I think you know that was the last choice Neal would have ever considered, but given what he had been through in his life, and seeing no place in yours and Henry's, it was the only option left in which he had a chance at happiness."

Scowling, Emma defended, "I was sick. I know that now. And I hate it. I hate that he thought all of those horrible things about me and I treated him like crap, but it wasn't even really me. And I hate that because of that I just let Henry treat Neal like a jerk in his operation whatever to snap me out of it by emulating his jackass stepfather. He thought I would realize that I was being a jerk. I didn't."

Dr. Hopper asked, "Why do you think you were being jerk?"

"Because of STDs. Duh!"

"Reasons other than STDs."

"You're the shrink," Emma responded, defensive. "You tell me."

"All right. I think you have been repressing a great many things that cannot be blamed on a neurological infection. I think what happened the day of the accident was your PTSD from accumulated emotional traumas for which you never sought counseling and appear to have subverted so deeply that they were bound to manifest eventually and did so in a psychotic break precipitated by general paresis, a neuropsychiatric disorder usually occurring in late-stage syphilis presenting with psychotic symptoms of sudden and often dramatic onset. Like raging out magically and beating someone black and blue with a broom."

While Emma scowled, Dr. Hopper continued, "You've only come to see me over the years to talk about Henry, but never yourself. Quite frankly, it gets frustrating trying to wheedle anything personal out of you, Emma. You're even worse than Gold."

"So why bother?" she grouched. "I mean, apart from court orders or whatever."

"Because you need to talk. Your child's father, your first love, is now a fifteen year old boy. Your husband, his stepfather, is recently deceased, in part due to actions you took during your psychotic break. Your son is acting out for reasons which are quite likely more complicated than some ill-conceived attempt at reverse psychology. And you have just discovered that a relationship you epitomized as true love was, in fact, precipitated in large part by a combination of a infections acquired from your last two lovers who used you as a means to their own end... which ended up being literal."

Dr. Hopper sighed, then amended, "Emma, you have never taken the time to compartmentalize all of the revelations in your life since coming to Storybrooke. Your nascent bonding with your parents was halted by their secret, for instance. You returned to Storybrooke with over a decade's worth of false memories that paint you as a super single mom who made all the choices you wish that you could have made without any negative consequence you anticipated and informed your choice to give up your son, a choice which defined the person you became on a deep psychological level, the person who broke the Dark Curse, and have attempted to reconcile those two contradictory versions of yourself without any professional help, thus resulting in a laundry list of what seems to be poor choices made out of a misguided desperation to prove you can still be that super mom and without any bitterness toward Regina, and thus what seems to be a forced overcompensation of gratitude, for simply refitting her own memories to a basic framework of your life resulting in an amplification of the self-esteem issues you had originally. On top of that, you were the Dark One, yet everyone and you act as though that's had no lasting impact on anything, which I think we both know is not true. Once the drama has passed, your family brushes things under the rug and refuses to address the impact, as though there is no such thing as an accumulative effect of repeated emotional trauma.

"You can't simply say that the past is the past," Dr. Hopper argued, "that people are not now who they were then, and just start over. It sounds nice, but life doesn't work that way. We all have baggage. And sometimes, you need to unpack it. And that's why you're here."

Emma harumphed, but didn't otherwise protest. He wasn't wrong. She'd known from the start that Regina's fake memories had messed her up, made her desperate to still be that mom while knowing that she never actually was, not on her own merit, and that just really really sucked. But, at the same time, she was grateful for having memories, even if they weren't real. When she wasn't pissed at having those memories, because they just reminded her how great Regina was at the stuff she sucked at, especially when the older woman got over her (some) of her selfishness and actually proved herself capable of showing affection. It was just that much harder to compete!

"Have you asked yourself," continued Dr. Hopper, "why you never had a long-term relationship until you lost your memories - but even then you kept your distance?"

Shrugging, Emma responded, "I seem to target the impossible ones. With deadly accuracy? I dunno. Some spell before I was born that made me some tragic hero destined to be alone?"

"That, or maybe you've been protecting yourself?"

"Protecting myself? From heartbreak, misery, sexual violence and possible death?"

"From committing."

"I committed! I was with Walsh for eight months. I was married to Killian!"

"And why were you attracted to Killian in the first place?"

"Pixie dust?"

"Pixie dust lowers inhibitions, it does not make one completely delusional and act against their nature."

After a petulant sigh, Emma answered, "He fought by my side. He saved lives. He apologized for his crimes and became a better person. He respected me and helped me be a better person too. I mean, apart from giving me syphilis, obviously, but I have him monkey herpes, so that cancels out."

"Emma, don't rationalize his behavior into a noble act to the point of fabricating motivations - and their outcomes when you know his motives were not genuine. Swapping STDs aside, he was a sociopath who was using people, murdering, and raping long before he met Milah - and it was those qualities which apparently attracted him to her, being herself a person who seems incapable of experiencing empathy. And as Dr. Whale said, Killian's progressing brain damage made himseem more empathetic, operating on a hormonally-based delusion, but even so, his motivations were purely selfish and you hardly became a better person due to his influence, but rather in spite of it, and I think even you would argue, that saying you are 'better' as a person now than you were before that relationship is a stretch. Or you wouldn't be sitting here dealing with the issues that drove Neal away."

Emma frowned, not liking where this was going. "Okay, I thought Killian was helping me be a better person. Happy?"

Dr. Hopper made another note on his pad. "I'm curious why you thought he was helping you, Emma, when to my observations there was nothing remotely healthy about your interactions. From what I saw and others have told me, the conversations you had, which didn't begin with him offering you alcohol at your most emotionally vulnerable and conclude with some sexual interaction, were few and far between. The fact that you became aware of your father's family history of alcoholism before you even became sexually involved with Killian and that you already had a penchant to turn to it in moments of existential crisis, and yet continued this behavior, equating drinking with Killian during periods of intense emotional stress as romantic rather than deflecting and manipulative is troubling in and of itself. And even if you were in denial of your addictive behavior, given you time in the foster system, prison, and working as a bountyhunter who focused on helping scorned women, I find it hard to believe that you would consider it healthy to become involved with a man who reacted to you moments of emotional vulnerability by adding the mental and physical vulnerability of alcohol consumption."

Emma just shrugged uncomfortably and Dr. Hopper continued, "And more than just the alcohol, do you want to know what I observed of your relationship? I watched how Killian pursued you and how you reacted. Every time you refused him in some manner, he took 'no' to mean 'keep pushing until you get what you want'. I rarely witnessed any confrontation between you in which he didn't grab you to keep you from leaving, often in direct conflict with your statement to be left alone. I saw that he often made you uncomfortable using his hook in overly sexual overtures - and he continued to do so until you accepted that as affection. That he told Mr. Gold he wanted his hand back for the express purpose of physical intimacy at the end of your first date, a date he spent attempting to get you to drink while making inappropriate jokes about making you more pliable to his charms, should be telling. That he lied about Ariel and Eric all these years, using that matter with Ursula as leverage to get Ariel to keep quiet. That he manipulated his getting blackmailed into doing Mr. Gold's bidding to his advantage when he was one who neutered himself by making death threats against Belle just so he could feel you up with two hands, should tell you the kind of man you 'loved'. Which isn't even including the mess of his getting cursed by Zelena, already under the delusion that you were his one true love after one kiss and knowing one another for what amounts to a couple of weeks, and then being so certain you couldn't defend yourself against her, even though he was your single weakness that could lead to the nonexistence of your family, he still had to go with you. Just as he disobeyed your command as Sheriff and nearly got himself and Elsa killed by Ingrid, as though he again didn't trust you to handle the situation on your own and wanted the spotlight for himself, to prove himself a hero and redeemed, which speaks to his extreme narcissism and lack of empathy. And furthermore, his apologizes for all of his crimes and many times he defied your wishes, resulting in even more problems for you, the words were often parroting back something somebody else said to him in a habitually insincere manner that was singularly focused on getting you to not only forgive him but view him as either a hero or victim in need of sexual comfort."

After a pause, Dr. Hopper concluded, "You said Killian became a better person who respected you, Emma, but that's neither character growth nor respect. That's manipulation and entitlement."

"Spent a lot of time watching us, did you?" Emma grumbled.

"Well, it was rather hard not to," the former cricket bluntly stated, "when you were almost habitually together, join at the hip - or more accurately, the lips."

She scrunched her face and huffed, "Okay, I get it, we made out a lot in public."

"But do you understand why? Do you see how unhealthy that behavior was?" Dr. Hopper prompted. "Because it's clear to me that Killian believed he was entitled to make you stop and listen to him, often when you had far more pressing and personal issues to deal with, and demanded that you trust him, get over any issues might have had so that you could move quickly to the part of the relationship he considered most important: physical gratification. That every conversation about your fears he twisted into being about what I would consider, given his history and completely contrary behavior up until the point at which he perceived you returned a physical attraction, were fabricated insecurities meant to lower your inhibitions, further facilitated by the addition of alcohol. Unless Isaac recorded his supply run tavern-visits wrong, did he not tell you he got women drunk to sleep with them?"

Emma let out a muttered, "I guess..."

"And yet, after you admitted you were afraid of commitment because of habitual loss, after very recently losing two men you had cared for deeply, he cajoled you, as he did in Neverland, as he did after your return from the past, into pushing down that insecurity in favor of showing him gratitude for his being present in your life. He advised you, he offered you a shoulder, but only as a means to end - his own gratification. You say that Killian helped you, but a handful of words, a flask of rum, and making out like horny teenagers is not helping. It's hindering by using sexual gratification and judgment-clouding subsistence abuse to distract from actually dealing with the deeper issues, the ones you have been burying for what I would wager is the better part of your life."

Emma frowned and Dr. Hopper continued, "Ask yourself, what would a real friend, someone who genuinely cared for you, have done in those moments, Emma? If Killian actually had cared about what you had been through, he would have thought twice about trying to start a relationship with you when you were so vulnerable. He would not have told you to get over your trust issues, grief, guilt, what have you, because he was as indestructible as a cockroach. He would have given you space, expressed understanding that you were not ready to trust yet, to open yourself up in that way while reassuring you that you didn't have to worry about driving him away with your issues, your imperfections. Imperfections which he should have acknowledged as at least in part of your own making rather than denying you were at fault for anything and deeming you perfect. Add to that repeatedly declaring that his not falling back into criminality was all thanks to you is a terribly selfish and unfair burden to place on someone. So, no, I don't think that he helped you become a better person, Emma. I think he hindered you becoming a better person by telling you that you were an infallible person and manipulating you into deeming his crimes absolved and his flaws as somehow excusable or even positive as viewed through some warped prism of an unrealistic love."

After another pause, Dr. Hopper said, "But the real issue is why did you trust him so quickly? Why, when he made you so uncomfortable did you accept that as affection? Given your history together in the Enchanted Forest with Cora, and your own past tracking down men like Killian, letting yourself trust him should have been a difficult task, a considerable issue for you, and yet you rather randomly, it seems, decided to trust a man who had shown himself, up until days before, to have constantly lied to you in order to protect himself and caused grievous bodily harm to people weaker than him who stood in the way of acquiring that which he desired - which turned from murderous revenge to you."

"I don't know," Emma groaned. "I was... I didn't want to lose anyone else. He... he told me I didn't have to worry about losing him, that he was good at surviving..."

"Not exactly the best way to address abandonment issues," replied Dr. Hopper. "No one can guarantee survival. You needed to come to terms with the root cause of your fears, not have them swept away by an empty promise and a kiss. He enabled your fears as much as you enabled his bad behavior. He showed a habitual lack of interest in who you are as a real and flawed person, underneath the labels that have been assigned to you, and you - inexplicably it would seem to an outside observer - capitulated on every issue of substance in your relationship, particularly his dishonesty, even about matters that quite often placed you and the people you love in danger, by deeming him not responsible in instances when doing so was, quite frankly, irrational to the point of delusional - and well before, Dr. Whale has deemed, you would have suffered brain damage enough to impair your judgment to so severe a degree. That's not healthy, Emma. It's certainly not the romantic ideal that, for whatever reason, you and your parents decided to view it as, red flags and all."

After a pause, Dr. Hopper concluded, "I think we both know the truth of it, Emma, and given your upbringing, your time on the streets, in prison, and your choice of career that allowed you to pretend to be the object of affection for dangerous men without the commitment - You like men who hurt you."

Emma went stiff and her eyes flashed with anger, "What!? That's not true!"

"It's not a criticism, Emma," Dr. Hopper reassured. "And I would imagine that the removal of your potential for darkness you trying to compensate through association with other people's darkness. It likely played some role in your attraction to Killian, as much as any illness, but that was resolved very early on in your relationship. And so to continue to do so after that wrong was righted, that's the real issue here. You're not bound by that spell anymore. So why did you continue living that way?"

"Um, brain damage, duh," Emma countered.

"Again, hallucinations aside, I think you know it wasn't enough to destroy your concept of right and wrong then. I think you were just in pain. I think now that the haze of your illness has lifted, you still are. And you should ease up on yourself. You don't have the patent on bad relationships, you know."

"Wouldn't it be cool if I did, though?" she snorted, earning an exasperated look from the shrink.

"Emma, the first person to trust in you other than Henry in years died in your arms as did your first love. Your almost fiancé was killed after you spent eight months with him, duped into feelings for someone who was not real. You were possessed by the darkest entity in all of the realms. And then, immediately after the imbalance between you and Lily that started the whole mess was resolved, you decided that you were supposed to settle down with the first man who was interested and not scared away by your destiny in spite of the atrocities he had committed and an obvious Narcissistic Personality Disorder that made everything of value about him, including you. To be drawn to that when you were incomplete and incapable of your own darkness is one thing, but to still cling to it is troubling. It tells me that there are underlying psychological issues you have not dealt with. Issues which attracted you to him against any rationality."

Dr. Hopper tapped his pen against the pad and asked, "Is it because Killian still denied your capacity for darkness? Or that he was enamored of your destiny and that allowed you to deny one and accept the other without actually doing so yourself?"

Shrugging, Emma answered, "I know I can do awful things. I know that I have. And I don't need to accept it. I just have to stop psychos from killing a bunch of a people."

"I understand the battle against evil, but that's not the issue."

"Then there's no issue," Emma stated, becoming aggravated again. She didn't like talking about Killian, but she liked even less talking about what her being with Killian meant.

"Let me ask you this: who's fault was your destiny?"

"What do my parents -"

"So, you do hold them responsible."

"I... maybe."

"Maybe? I'm just curious. Your opinion."

"My mom mostly," she let out through a sigh. "She believed that she was better than Maleficent. That I would be better than her kid, but only if she made sure. She made the choice to steal that egg without caring what was inside of it and - pressured my father into agreeing with her. And even after that... she convinced herself and him that doing something awful would be inspiration to make them kinder people and so that made them virtuous. Which is... which is what she said after I wasn't the Dark One anymore, for the things I did. I should use that awfulness as inspiration and it was just an unfortunate consequence of trying to do something good, so I was still virtuous."

"And you don't believe that?"

"I think being self-righteous about making a selfish choice is... I don't know... it's not right."

"So you think taking on the curse of the Dark One was a selfish choice? Even though you were protecting everyone? Even though if it had joined with Regina, her darkened heart might have fueled a far more terrible creature than what you became?"

Emma shrugged. "More evil, maybe, but not more powerful and I think the later outweighs the former. And even if Regina would have been a worse choice, it wasn't right either. It came down to that because of a lot of other failures that added up to one shitty choice that I wouldn't have made if I hadn't... filled up that emptiness."

"I see. Tell me about the emptiness?"

Frowning, Emma picked at Graham's bootlace on her wrist... which seemed silly to wear since he was alive now, but it was too frayed and stained to go back in his boot that she'd fitted with new laces before returning it with his jacket, dismayed that she'd let Gold throw out the rest of his things. A nasty habit they'd both carried forward with Neal, and she knew it was horribly selfish given her own sentimentality toward hoarding the little trinkets that marked various people and events, good and bad, in her life to care so little about other people's things... but then given her life, it had never felt like she had place in it for other people's sentiments.

Emma let out a breath before answering, "It's like I had an empty space where the darkness was taken out. And even though I fought my whole life to rise above the bad things that happened to me, when I found out what my parents did, when I knew it was because of me that my friend's life sucked, that I lost her as a friend because of it, it was like... that empty spot started to fill with all of the hurt, anger, rage and pain that I'd pushed down and avoided. It's like... this well of darkness began to pool inside me and fill that empty spot. And bringing back everything with my early life, withNeal and Ingrid and Lily and the pressure of being The Savior... it was just too much. And I made... I made bad choices, like killing Cruella out of anger... even if it was to save Henry. And everyone... they kept saying the darkness couldn't really touch me, that they would protect me, but... but they couldn't really. I had to save them. I always have to. I have to do whatever it takes to save the people I love, because I'm the Savior - even when it's at the expense of my own soul and my happiness."

Dr. Hopper made another note. "Do you blame your parents for your having to make that choice? To sacrifice your soul to save them all?"

"No... I don't know... maybe," Emma conceded. "I think... I think they were the ones who were quick to call Gold evil and demand his banishment before anyone could ask him what was going on. And when I... when I was the Dark One, when they knew I was around they were so supportive, but when they didn't know I was there, all they did was lament about lengths they went to in order to keep me from going dark, and look where it got them, and then sigh and weep and play the sympathy card, pretending that they were the victims in this terrible story."

"So you feel like even though it was your choice to save them by that sacrifice, it was their choices that negated any other course of action?"

Emma shrugged again and looked down at her hands, remembering what it felt like to hold the dagger and feel the connection, like it was a tuning fork to some dark song inside of her, and looking down at it for hours on end, hating this thing that she'd become and wondering how she'd ever be rid of it. Wondering if Rumpelstiltskin ever felt like that, but unable to ask him because he was still in a coma. She'd sat at his bedside too, because Gold's hospital room was nice and quiet and calm and there was nothing to aggravate the darkness there. But it also made her think of Neal, and wish that he was there, because he was the only one who had experience with someone who just became the Dark One, and she didn't know what she was capable of, who she might hurt without meaning to... but then she was glad he was gone too, because how disgusted would he be if he hated her having magic only to have her willingly become his worst nightmare?

But had she really had a choice?

"I guess... I hate that I'm always the victim of other people's good intentions. Or maybe I hate more that none of them ever seem to see it that way."

"Well, villains are always the heroes of their own tragic stories," said Dr. Hopper. "But I think I see what you're saying. You wish your parents, Regina, everyone, would take responsibility for the consequences of their choices instead of blaming others for the choices they made in order to make themselves more heroic - or more victimized - than they actually are."

"Well, yeah," Emma conceded, "but I'd kinda like to just stop being the victim. The shit always falls on me from the day I was born. I get the power and responsibility, but not free will to use it, not really. Every time I try to do things my way, it goes wrong. Like, I have this power, but it's never any good for things I want. It's the opposite and just makes things worse. And my parents say happy endings aren't always what you expect, and that doesn't mean they can't be just as good, but that's such a crock of shit, you know? You can make the best of what you're left with, but that doesn't mean it's going to be just as good or better than what you could have had if your life hadn't been repeatedly fucked up. "

Shaking her head, she concluded, "They're all obsessed with happy endings, but I can't even get a happy beginning, you know? And it's like they don't remember that, or don't really care, because it was for the greater good, so it was justified. Like that just erases everything I went through and if they shove enough Enchanted Forest crap at me, I'll become the perfect princess they want me to be, instead of the person I became because of their choices."

The shrink made another note on his pad, then asked, "It sounds like you still blame your parents for putting you in that wardrobe?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"I'm sure it must have been very hard after discovering they abandoned you to save everyone else how quick your parents were to have another child, a child they then named for the recently deceased father of your child without consulting you or Henry."

Emma averted her eyes. She didn't like talking about her brother. She didn't like seeing him or getting anywhere near him. Her sister... well, she avoided her because the kid was a magical terror. But Prince Neal... he was a good kid. Which just reminded her even more of Neal.

"It wasn't a surprise," she finally said, knowing Dr. Hopper would push her. "I mean, in Neverland, my mom told my dad that... that the relationship she had with me, it wasn't what she wanted for their child. I was... I was great as a person, all things considered with how I grew up, and she was proud of me for that, but... it basically translated to, as her daughter, I was a disappointment, and because she never got to actually raise me, I'd never be... enough. She couldn't love me the way she'd love a kid she'd raised, didn't want to try and form some real maternal bond after the fact. It was too late to give her everything she wanted to get, felt she deserved, out of motherhood. And I just... I didn't get that entitlement, because I love Henry so much even before the fake memories, and I just don't see how that matters, how raising a kid from birth is the thing that defines loving your kid or being a mother. It just seems so selfish, and then... then Regina said when my magic went crazy, her first instinct was that I should get rid of my magic. And then finding out what she did to Lily...

"It was like, was she really doing any of it to save me from being evil or hurting people or to save herself from having an evil daughter who hurt people? That's not what being a mother should be any more than Regina's screwed up, self-centered version, you know? It's supposed to be selfless, that's what a hero is, that's what a mother is. But sometimes it feels like, like everyone here who got labeled a hero, it was just the label that douchebag Author or Apprentice gave them, and they don't deserve it. And instead of making me a better person, someone my son would be proud of, someone who could be a - a roll model to him, it's like you said: they just made one more self-righteous jerk with a savior complex."

Dr. Hopper tapped his pen on his pad. "I see. So, all those relationships of yours that you knew, subconsciously, were doomed - is it possible that just a little bit, you couldn't connect because you thought they were not worth it? Maybe you think you're better than them? Because of this 'self-righteous savior complex'?"

Emma scoffed. "What? Where the hell are you getting that from? That's insane. I never wanted to be 'The Savior'. And I wouldn't have married Killian if I didn't think he was worth it. If anything I never thought of myself as anyone's happy ending."

As soon as it was out and the shrink smiled, she realized that Dr. Hopper had skillfully maneuvered her into a trap. "Damn it."

"You know what I think, Emma? I think that empty spot isn't just some magical contrivance. I think you went your whole life feeling unwanted, undeserving, and then someone came along who worshiped you and your destiny, who could fill a void at just the time when everyone was depending on you as the Savior, and a part of you liked - wanted - to feel superior, to be the woman that Killian envisioned you as rather than the insecure - and very human - person you really are. It was easier to be his perfect version of you than to be the flawed person you have always been - that all of us are - and that Neal reminded you that you had been. Someone who wasn't strong or righteous or she wouldn't have given up her son."

Emma lowered her gaze as she grumbled, "Plus the hurt thing."

"You know that Henry doesn't blame you, Emma. And that all of us make choices when we are in a dark place, alone, that we later regret."

"I've made some really bad choices, though. If I'd told Neal what I've done, Archie... he wouldn't have needed any further motivation to forget me. He'd be so much more disgusted," she said voice trembling. "You would be too."

In spite of her efforts to remain impassive, Emma started to tear up.

"I'm here to help you, Emma, not to judge you," Dr. Hopper reminded kindly.

She sniffed. "When we were in Neverland, I told Neal - I told him that I wished he'd died when he was shot, that my life would be easier. I had to tell him, it was my secret so I could rescue him. But who feels that? Who wishes someone dead because it's easy? And I didn't even let him see Henry before he died. And I didn't try to save him when he was dying or when I was in the past. I told Rumplestiltskin, the past one, to take a forgetting potion so Neal could die a hero, not to take that from him out of the risk that things would end up worse, but what could be worse than what happened? What's worse than Henry not having his father? His mother becoming the Dark One, I guess, but maybe that would have been avoided if I'd saved him. At least, Gold seems to think so."

Emma shook her head. "But the worst part is that, when Neal did come back, I was so... so horrible to him. And I let Henry be horrible to him. But it wasn't because I wished he was still dead, it was because I knew he'd be ashamed if he knew I didn't even try, that I let him be dead, and it wasn't for some... some heroic death bullshit, it was just because I kept losing him and I wanted it over with, I wanted to be with someone who thought I was perfect and have it be easy and that could never be with him, because he knew me better than anyone, always saw through my bullshit, and I'm supposed to be the strong one, the perfect one, the one who saves everyone," she admitted ashamed, before reiterating meekly, "If anyone knew what I'd done, they'd never look at me again."

"I think they would."

"You don't know. Sure, they forgave me for killing a couple of psychopaths, but... the other stuff, stuff they don't know..."

"And you don't either... until you tell someone."

"I couldn't," Emma insisted, fighting back tears.

"And that was part of the appeal of your relationship with Killian?" Dr. Hopper prompted. "That he didn't want to know what you did, so long as you didn't ask what he had done?"

"Maybe. I don't know." Emma let out a breath and wiped at her eyes. "It was just... easy with him. Sex and death and pain and love, to him it was all the same. He didn't care that it wasn't healthy, that it wasn't how love is supposed to be. And I know how he treated me is messed up, and it's even more messed up that I excused it or convinced myself it was romantic. But the worst part is, he might have been the certified sociopath, but I'm the one who behaved like a monster even before I became the Dark One. I knew it was wrong, our attraction, I knew Killian was a bad person, that he was the opposite of everything I stood for, that I claimed I believed in, and still I let him just take me over and do things to me that..."

She took a breath. "Oh god, I'm so sorry... I don't know what's wrong with me... I wasn't even this weepy when I was really pregnant."

"There's nothing wrong with you," Dr. Hopper told her and smiled. "I'll make a deal with you. You tell me your deepest secret and I will tell you mine."

"Seriously?"

"Scouts honor."

"Pretty sure you weren't a boy scout."

Dr. Hopper smiled encouragingly. "Until you let it out, Emma, it will have control over you."

She frowned, ran her hands over her thighs, then finally admitted, "I'm afraid. I'm afraid I can't ever let go of this the darkness. The emptiness is gone, but it's... something else, the potential or whatever, and I don't know how to deal with it. I got... I got so used to the emptiness and then to the darkness that filled it. The power. I have so much power. I didn't ask for it, I don't deserve it... sometimes I think... I think the relationship I had with Killian was... like I wanted to be punished for filling that emptiness with all the bad stuff, letting the bad stuff take over, because being bad is easier. I wanted to hurt like I thought I deserved to."

"Do you still believe you deserve to hurt?"

"Sometimes," Emma admitted. "Because if I was really a hero, I wouldn't have killed people. And," she fidgeted with the swan keychain necklace she'd started wearing again after her fight with Henry, "if I was really a savior, the product of true love, I would have saved Neal. I would have let love fill that emptiness. But I didn't. I was selfish. And when I didn't even try, I broke my promise to Henry that I wouldn't do to our kid what Neal did to me and his dad did to him - not put him first."

"I see."

"And the joke is, Neal still loved me after Neverland. I told him I wished he'd stayed dead and he still loved me, he lost his life for me when he knew I probably didn't even want him anymore, and he told me to be happy with Henry, to find Tallahassee even if it was without him, but that's stupid, because any happiness I'd have without him couldn't be Tallahassee. That was ours. But I tried. I couldn't break my last promise to him, even though by trying to keep it I ended up breaking it and the other, and now everything is just a mess, and Killian is dead, and maybe he was a jerk, but in his own sick, psycho way, really did care for me too. He shouldn't have, though. He died because he wanted me and he thought I loved him, but the truth is, I didn't want to be loved by Killian either. Not really."

"Didn't you?"

"I just wanted to be touched," admitted Emma, eyes downcast in embarrassment. "To be reached. And I know I can't go back to the place I was in my life when I let that take me over. That... no defined line between us. Where he ended and I began... it was... blurry. Not sustainable, though. Not without brain damage, anyway. The thing is, I know I'll never have that kind of passion again. That all-consuming kind of bodice-ripper romance that was so... addictive and blinding."

Grimacing, Emma continued, "It was passion that came with a price. He changed a lot, a LOT a lot, even if it was just an act for me or some disease, while I let myself..." She shook her head. "No, I... I just can't feel as low as I did when I... chose to be with him, why I chose to be with him and do what I have to do. I know that now. My head is finally clear. But now I have to fight to stay good, because the potential is there, potential I can't fill with love, and the truth is, I don't have any more answers than I did when all of this first dropped into my lap. There's so many people to protect..."

"And you feel that you have to do that alone, when it's even harder than it was before."

"My family try. But they don't understand the burden, that I have to do it 'cause I was chosen, even if it was by that selfish spell, because I was bound to the Curse, to this town, to magic, and now I still have to, but I'm... tainted. I'm not that perfect whatever they wanted me to be. I know they love me and just want the best for me, but they don't understand how hard it is. They don't understand how imperfect I actually am, what getting that... other part of me back really means."

Emma paused and looked up at him, understanding a bit better. Maybe this therapy wasn't such a bad thing. But on the other hand...

"I think... this is complicated and my hour is almost up-"

"I don't have any patients until three. Keep going."

Emma wiped at her eyes and took a breath. She as was silent for several moments before speaking in a small voice, "I feel like I'm worse than anyone, honestly, I'm beneath them. My parents, my friends, my lovers, I feel like I'm not worthy of their love 'cause even though they love me it doesn't really mean anything because their opinions don't matter. They don't know. They haven't been through what I've been through and done what I've done, they didn't grow up thinking they were trash and feeling incomplete and not knowing why, and they don't know what it's like to fight this evil inside you that wants to destroy everything you ever loved... and they're not the Savior... I did and I do and I am. And sometimes I feel... this is what's so awful."

She frowned before concluding, "I do feel like I'm better than them. Superior. And I... I like it. Which I know is wrong. Because I'm not. I don't deserve their praise or their forgiveness."

"So," Dr. Hopper surmised, "you went from having an inferiority complex to a superiority complex... but you've got an inferiority complex about your superiority complex."

"It doesn't make any sense."

"I think it makes every kind of sense. It just adds up to you feeling alone. And, Emma... everybody feels alone. And everyone fights against the darker side of their nature. I can't imagine how hard it must be to emerge from the hell of being the Dark One only to have to reconcile a part of yourself suddenly restored, that's tempted by that darkness. To not let all of the hurt you poured into that empty space into your heart. But even if you do make mistakes, Emma, act selfishly and hurt others, that's only human, which is exactly what you are. And even if you can't fill that space with love, that doesn't mean you can't put more love into your potential for goodness. Real love. Being afraid of failure, of rejection is normal, but it also feeds the darker part of our nature and makes it that much harder to accept love when it's given. But you don't have to deserve love to be loved."

After a pause, Dr. Hopper reminded, "I told you I would reveal my secret. Well, here it is. My parents were grifters of the worst kind who treated me terribly, so I went to Rumplestiltskin and got a potion that would, essentially, be their deaths, thought I decided that ignorance was bliss in exactly what the potion would do, as though it would absolve me from any actual blame. So, of course, they were wise to my plan and switched the bottle so that a young couple with a son drank it and died. For my penance, the Blue Fairy had me look after Geppetto, cursed with eternal insect life for as long as he lived.

"And bad as that was, what I had done, I regret just as much that I failed Geppetto. I failed to help him get over his trauma and make friends, find a wife, have his own children. Instead he made Pinocchio, and I failed to help him as well, said nothing when Geppetto made that deal to send him through the wardrobe with you. So, I failed you as well, Emma.

"Everyone regards me as the great conscience of the Enchanted Forest, but it's a lie, an act, and I am forever waiting for the people I regard as friends to see the truth, to see that all of my attempts to make up for that one horrible choice have merely compounded. And forever hoping that I can find a way to right my many wrongs."

Emma regarded Archie with a mix of surprise and skepticism before asking, "Do you think that you can?"

"I don't know. But you have to not be afraid of the unknown, Emma, that's where you start. You accept that a complete Emma is never going to be perfect, that you'll make mistakes that will leave dark spots in your heart, but that doesn't mean you can't be a good person. It just makes you human. And then you have a chance of finding happiness, whether it's with someone who will love you for who you are, warts and all, or just you learning to love yourself as you are. Which isn't the Savior or a princess or sheriff or even a lost girl - it's just Emma," Dr. Hopper advised.

"I think," he said, closing his notepad, "maybe you need to spend some time figuring out who you are and part of that is looking at that potential for darkness, looking at the, anger, rage and pain that you pushed down and avoided so that you can come to terms with it, and perhaps even find ways that it can strengthen your love."

AN: Ugh. This was a long and tedious chapter. Every time I tried to edit it down, it just gave me fits. This is what happens when Once Upon A Time utterly fails to have Emma address any of the crap in her life unless it's to nod at Hook and take a swig from a flask or get stabby with a mystical weapon. On the footnote front, some dialogue is borrowed from Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes "Selfless", "Conversations with Dead People" and "Never Leave Me" and altered with love to Joss Whedon who should replace The Brothers Dim and send Jane Espenson to the corner for a time-out. Other snippets of dialogue were inspired by twuwuvdearie's tumblr post "Let's Image an Unforgiven Emma" post/118797225978/lets-imagine-an-unforgiven-emma. Emma's line about her most passionate relationship is taken from one of the few episodes of Backstrom that I watched, and her monologue about the empty space is from an interview Jennifer Morrison gave movies-tv/tribeca-interviews-jennifer-morrison-talks-warning-labels-ouat-and-happy-beginnings/#.VWN3XkZa_18, one of the few regarding Emma's darkness that doesn't sound completely like she was pulling it out of her ass.

Next up: We time jump a few months, Season 1 style, and learn a little more about what's been eating Henry Mills... or maybe just about his taste in mood music.