CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: THE UNHAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH
(In which the promise of vacation family bonding fun is cut short by someone being stupid and magic bullshit, because family bonding fun is not drama or action and really hard to write, yo!)
Murphy's Law states: "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."
Emma had to wonder if she had any ancestors named "Murphy" as they drove back to Carrabelle from Orlando where the three days at Disney World and a suit at the Swan Hotel that she'd been dreading on the drive from Maine was now an aborted reprieve from solitary confinement with a depressed teenager and a brooding grown man in the beach house from Hell.
It had to be their particular brand of fucking "luck" that instead of spending the morning at The Happiest Place on Earth, they were awoken from their hotel beds with the power out and told they had to pack up their things and leave, because a major failure in the subterranean water pump system was turning Disney World back into its original name: The Swampiest Place on Earth, complete with a sinkhole that had swallowed up Storybook Land during the night, meaning the park and the entire resort complex on the former swampland had to be evacuated until the water could be pumped out and geologists had determined nothing else was going to fall into a limestone cavern, which could take weeks.
Emma probably shouldn't have punched Goofy in the parking lot, but he was well-padded, and the security had tried to be understanding that people were seriously pissed off. So, here they were, back in Carrabelle where the only tourist attraction was the phone booth and adjacent bench that served as a police station.
Needing air, Emma left Henry to a rusty shower and Neal to whatever.
What a fucking disaster this had turned out to be!
Damn it, this vacation was supposed to be about reconnecting, and if all Neal was going to do was accuse her of intentionally re-gifting everything that mattered to them out of spite, then what chance did they really have, anyway?
Emma kicked at a pile of sea weed and sighed.
The vacation was a disaster and Neal was being a jerk, but mostly, she was furious with herself.
She'd heard it said that sometimes, people never get what they deserve because they're too busy holding on to things they're supposed to let go of.
She'd held onto a lot of things. Before leaving Tallahassee, she'd almost thrown Neal's keychain into the surf, but hadn't been able to do it. Ultimately, she was glad, but that inaction signified a weakness that she'd always fought against, the evidence of scars left over from her orphan childhood that made her cling to things that most people, people who weren't so fucked up and had families and a home, would cast off to be free of the pain. But when you didn't have love growing up, pain could easily fill that void, and she'd gotten used to it, that hurt, and all of the little things that signified it, until she became a collector of painful things and pieced them together into an armor that shielded her from love. And she'd worn that armor for so long that when the pieces finally started to come off, she hadn't even known how to identify real love. Somehow she hadn't realized that the two were so very similar, that sometimes love hurt as much as the loneliness.
Perhaps, she should have listened to more country music instead of sea chantey, Emma thought as she pulled the brass-plated circlet necklace from her pocket.
Killian was the first person since she got it to equate it with a stylized ship's wheel - with the claim that her wearing it was foreshadowing of their destined romance. She'd smiled at his romantic bullshit and let him have his belief, even though she refused to be boxed in by some fated romance idea, particularly when it came at the expense of so many people's happiness, and honestly hadn't given it a thought since then until Neal expressed obvious ambivalence about the charm.
She'd gotten it in Florida, not very far from here, from the first bail jumper she'd nabbed. When she'd tried to return it to the deadbeat's ex-wife, the woman hadn't wanted a reminder of the guy who lied and cheated. So Emma had kept it, a reminder of another woman who'd been wronged, a reminder to never be like that woman, stuck in some abusive, codependent nightmare with a violent jerk... because she didn't have the family or friends to step in, to help her get away and get her shit together, help her figure out the difference between love and mutual self-destruction.
The irony wasn't lost on her. She had found family and made friends, but not a single one of them had said anything. Well, maybe Regina had in the beginning before her attention was taken by Robin, but otherwise, people had just brushed it off when he got alarmingly jealous or was just always there like he didn't trust her to be an independent person; making suggestions and flattering comments, but always standing in the way or grabbing her by the arm or twisting her personal business into something about him, about his needs or making him her savior from her own inner demon.
Emma sighed.
Her therapy sessions with Archie had been both revelatory and embarrassing. That she had allowed herself to get involved in such a toxic relationship with a man that was so sexist and controlling and manipulative was a bigger blow than Emma wanted to let on after trying to live her life railing against those who tried to take away her agency, who treated her like a thing rather than a person. Maybe the difference was that most of those people had treated her like a meal ticket and Hook had treated her like a prize, and it was flattering.
Now... now it was just humiliating.
Even for all of the maybe subconsciously self-loathing reasons she'd let herself be with someone like that, it still debasing herself. And to have sent a message to her son, that it was okay to be with a jerk (or be a jerk), to sacrifice the better parts of your nature to excuse away the worst parts was just... as crappy a form of parenting as anything her own had done.
Her relationship with Killian was so disgustingly cliché, so demeaning and degrading that Emma hated herself for instigating it, for sticking with it, for convincing herself that she was in love with him and he with her. From the very beginning they were a mess. She found him under people he helped murder. What she tried to tell herself later was flirting during that swordfight, what he boasted as such a romantic line - and cited it in his marriage vows - was an attempt to dominate her plain and simple, to instill fear while boasting about his sexual prowess by pinning her down and sneering that when he "jabbed" her with his "sword" she would feel it. Their relationship from start to finish was about him gaining power over her. With every one of their interactions, he'd found ways to emotionally manipulate her during his relentless pursuit, no matter how much she'd conveyed disinterest. He'd manipulated her feelings, taken advantage of her vulnerability, gotten her to make out with him as rewards for good behavior, given him her heart every time he grabbed her, kept her from walking away until he'd either belittled her feelings as fear of opening up to him or reminded her that everything in her world boiled to him and his love for her, his duty to protect her and save her, because she couldn't take care of herself on her own.
For trying to find a modern fairy tale happy ending, she'd ended up with the same kind of misogynist bullshit as the stories she'd hated as a child, trapped in a weirdly adolescent relationship that consisted of a lot of passion and not much else. She'd reduced herself to the clueless, superficial teenage girl she never was while branding her bad boy lover a hero, even though nothing about him had really changed. By virtue of his "love" she'd just excused his horrible actions as what pirates did... when she wasn't actually encouraging it or falling into stupid fairy tale adventures and enjoying it.
Neal wasn't wrong about that. The trip to the past, Isaac's fanfiction... she'd enjoyed the thrill of it, getting to dress up, being a bar wench or a pirate, or a princess, getting a taste, a thrill, of what the life might have been like if she'd lived it. But there was a difference between Cosplay and real life... a difference that she'd ignored. It was fun for a day or two, because it wasn't real, but making that screwed up view of right and wrong, romantic and creepy, the rules by which she lived and chose relationships? That was the definition of self-destructive behavior. It was a world, a life, in which right and wrong had no meaning anymore, just 'caught' and 'not caught'.
But it was hard to admit that she was that fucked up.
That she'd been attracted to an obvious murderer and admitted rapist.
Because dead bodies didn't lie and he had boasted that getting women drunk for sex was his m.o. After having threatened to rape her, she should have seen that red flag. After all the times he repeatedly invaded her personal space, touched her against her will, manipulated her into sexual favors, she should have looked at him and saw the worst sort of creep. But even before the pixie dust, she had to admit, some part of her was attracted to him. Just... not the good part of her.
Watching the sun rise, Emma remembered telling Ashley Boyd that there were no fairy godmothers in this world. She'd learned otherwise... only to learn eventually that fairy godmothers were basically breaking bad with fairy dust and keeping everyone addicted to the idea that they needed magic to get their happy endings - magic that took away free will, that made it so that no matter how strong your resolve to change fate, you were going to be destiny's bitch until they day you died... and were brought back... and died again. It was power she had, that she was given at the expense of another, that she loved because it gave her control in a life that was so otherwise out of control and hated because it was generally the reason her life was an unending cycle of fiascoes. It was power that had corrupted her, no matter how good she'd wanted to be for Henry.
It was power she had even outside of Storybrooke, and it tingled in her hand as she drew on it - and then threw the old necklace as far as it would go out into the surf where it glinted in the orange glow of the sunrise before vanishing in the deep blue water.
Around her neck, the swan pendant felt heavy.
"It was supposed to represent our life together."
Tallahassee had never felt so far away.
With a sigh, Emma headed back up the beach house.
Neal was pouring cereal into a bowl when she entered and with a glance in her direction, he informed, "I don't think any of us want to stay here another night. I called the rental office. We can drop the keys off and then, I don't know, get a hotel room in the city, at least for the night, then maybe just head back before things get worse, like an early start to hurricane season or something."
"Sounds like a plan. I'll drive," Emma stated as she put water in the microwave for some sub-par instant hot chocolate.
"Emma-"
"It's through a deserted forest, Neal," she cut him off. "This town has a phone booth for a police station and a sheriff's department that's too busy wrangling alligators and trailer trash meth heads to randomly stop out of state cars. I'm driving."
"Fine," he grunted. "But if you end up in jail, you can't pin it on me."
"Just like old times right," she scoffed.
Neal threw her a look. "Why the hell are you so angry with me?"
"Who wouldn't be angry? You ate all of my cereal and faked your death for three years!" she shot back. "And, you know, you left me pregnant and got me arrested because a puppet told you too!"
"I didn't fake my death. You didn't put your name on the damned cereal. And how many times do I have to apologize for that!?"
"I don't know, Neal. There's no set number on forgiveness for sending your pregnant girlfriend to prison."
"August sent you to prison," Neal stated. "The guy you considered a friend, because all your friends screwed you over, so by that definition and my being solely responsible for what happened to you and Henry, I should be your best friend. Here I thought you'd forgiven me, but I guess we're back to regretting things said in the heat of mortal peril," he snapped, turning to wash his bowl out - and knocking over her bottle of cinnamon in the process.
The glass bottle tumbled from the counter and hit the tile floor, shattering and spilling its contents.
Emma growled. "You did that on purpose!"
Neal scoffed. "Seriously? You have got to be kidding me. I am not that petty."
"Yeah? Because I seem to remember you making some rather petty remarks when you were rubbing Tamara in my face. Not to mention fighting over a fucking lighter with Killian."
"Oh, I'm sorry that I was offended you fucked my stepfather while our son was kidnapped by my evil grandfather."
"I told you, all we did was kiss!"
"Yeah, one of those super romantic blackmail kisses you apparently love so much."
Emma growled. "It was pixie dust! Why are you are being such a child! I said I was sorry!"
"There's no set number on forgiveness for marrying my stepfather."
Glaring, Emma grabbed the broom. "You know, Killian would have offered to clean this up and go into town and get a new bottle."
Neal scoffed, "Yeah, well, Killian did anything to keep you happy and putting out whether you deserved it or not. Excuse me for believing relationships aren't about bullshitting each other's self esteem to keep the sex coming!"
"Yeah, well, you've made it perfectly clear you don't want to have sex with me, anyway, Neal."
Neal threw his hands up in the air. "Excuse me for having issues with being one degree of separation from screwing my own mother and knowing it's thanks to the guy who's the king of passion by which you measure all lovers!"
"Is that what you think?" Emma scoffed. "That I'm going to compare your penis size?"
"I think no matter how hard I try, I'm gonna be found wanting. I mean, you told Archie no one would ever come close to Killian. So obviously I didn't measure up on the passion scale the first time around."
Emma gaped and sputtered. For the first time she understood Regina's wrath when Archie spilled her private session. "Leaving aside that I'm going to throttle Archie, we were kids! We didn't even know what passion was, and even if we did, we were living out of a car. And I wasn't lamenting that I'd never have passion like that again. I was angry that I let having that much passion cloud my judgment. So if I had to choose between an excess of passion to cover up all the crap and insecurities and someone I felt comfortable with-"
"So, I'm comfortable?" he dubiously returned.
"What's wrong with comfortable? I could be myself with you. I never had to be someone else, what you or anyone else expected me to be."
"And yet you chose him," Neal countered.
"Because I didn't like being reminded that I felt that comfortable around you, after you hurt me," Emma tried to explain.
"So, you were comfortable with me then, but I became a bad memory," Neal sighed, then prompted. "You ever think it's that maybe, deep down, you can't stand the thought that fate or destiny or whatever brought us together just to make Henry, just to get you here, and that's all we are, some magical contrivance?"
Grimacing, Emma conceded, "Maybe... maybe I did wonder that once, but I know now that there are people you are meant to be with and people you just choose. We were meant to be together, Neal. Killian, I chose, for all the wrong reasons, because I lost you when I was too afraid to love you again, and I didn't know how to find Tallahassee without you. Maybe the Curse caused us to meet and feel a connection, but I don't believe that magic can make people fall in love, can make them choose to be together."
Shaking her head, Emma insisted, "My feelings, your feelings, those weren't a 'contrivance'. Henry wasn't the only good thing that came out of us being together. You were my first love, we shared a life, a home together. You were so many things to me that made me who I am, that I will always be grateful for. Don't devalue that."
"But you did," Neal countered, not trying to attack her, but he couldn't ignore it.
Emma sighed, tired of this argument going in circles. "I'd lost you three times, Neal. I didn't... I couldn't hope..."
"Yeah, you needed me to be dead," he uttered. "Because I hurt you and you didn't want to deal with the pain. Well, you hurt me, Emma, and I told you, I'm trying to get past that. I'm trying to see your point of view. I know there were some extenuating circumstances and you're not entirely at fault, but sometimes... sometimes I'm not sure that I'm really the one you want to be with."
"Why? Because you're not a knight in shining armor?" Emma countered. "How am I supposed to convince you that I don't care about that? I can't go back in time and not choose him, even though I wish that I could. I wish I could save you in the forest that day or find a way when I was back in the past, but I didn't. I can't. I know I screwed up. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I keep hurting you. But I'm trying to make this work. I'm choosing you for the right reasons. What more do you want from me?"
"Maybe, for once, I want to actually matter," Neal stated, "instead of just being a plot device in someone else's story."
"Neal, you're not-"
"Yeah, I am," he cut her off. "My father's story, yours, the Darlings, even Killian's, I was just a plot device. It wasn't ever my story. I don't get one. I try to help my father, I fall down a portal. Try to help Wendy, I get whisked off to Neverland and I wasn't even helping her. I get rescued by my asshole step-dad and he gets to use me as leverage to make supply and whore runs, and after I'm dead I get cast in some bullshit reinterpretations of our halcyon days together so he can win your heart and make my own kid believe that I idolized him for the wonderful things he taught me."
With a snort, Neal continued, 'I find someone I want to spend my life with after centuries alone in a fucking cave only to be told I'm good not enough, I'm just a bit player in your story. We finally find each other again, I find out I've got a son, so I get shot, I try to save him, I get locked in a cage, and I can't even get a cup of coffee with you. You didn't even want to fucking hug me, Emma, when you could be flirting with that jackass in our last moments together as a family, and maybe you snorted some pixie dust, then, but when I came back? I couldn't even see my kid one last time before it was off to the next round of punishment for the horrible crime of wanting a family. I finally found my family, Emma, I had a chance to make things right and you told me that you loved me, that you needed me, so I fought like hell to get back to you - only to find out that love couldn't compete with a man you barely knew, who'd been trying to murder your entire family until just a few days before, the same man my mother chose over me. And then you either threw away or handed him everything that represented us like you were trying to erase me from existence, like none of it mattered, like I was just a footnote in your life. He got to be your knight in shining armor while I got a cheap-ass headstone with a shitty epitaph that you never visited and some postpartum bullshit name-saking after centuries of literary hacks who capitalized on our world's misfortunes didn't even mention me, so why should I believe this'll be any different? When no one ever chooses me, why I should I actually believe that you're choosing me isn't just another eventual disappointment?"
Emma fought tears while wondering how she'd missed that. Her sessions with Archie really should have clued her in that there was usually a deeper meaning to the bullshit that people argued about. She knew things with his father had messed him up, that much was clear back in Portland, but Neal had never talked about it then, and it had just never occurred to her to ask about it once she knew the truth. Of course, there hadn't been time until recently, but considering her own parental issues, maybe she should have gotten a clue that it wasn't just about a pirate.
"Of course you're good enough, Neal!" Emma exclaimed.
"Then what the hell, Emma? If it wasn't about him, if it wasn't about me-"
"BECAUSE I WASN'T GOOD ENOUGH!"
There was silence after the words came out and Emma shrunk back, tears falling in fat droplets while Neal stared, mouth slightly open in confusion. She'd take his revelation and raise him one.
Emma swallowed and repeated, her voice meek, "I wasn't good enough for you. I wasn't good enough for someone better than him. I didn't visit your grave, because I was ashamed that you died for something I couldn't ever live up to, so I could find something I didn't even know I couldn't with out you, and because I didn't know, because I screwed up," she said, gripping the pendant at her throat, "you didn't get Tallahassee. I killed you with my magic. The magic you hate."
Neal blinked several times, his mind trying to make sense of her words, before responding, "Hey, no, Emma, I don't hate magic. I ended up using it because I was scared of losing you and Henry- and yeah, it screwed me over, but I still don't hate it. Was I thrilled to find out you have magic? No, but that's only because I'd seen how dangerous it is, watched my Papa, a good man, changed by it, and I didn't want the same thing to happen to you."
"But it did. And now I am changed," she argued, shaking her head. "And that was my choice. Every wrong choice I've made was my own, starting in the woods that day. I wanted to be the hero, the Savior that everyone expected, but I was afraid of it. Like I was afraid of loving you. After you died, I tried to embrace it, to accept that it was part of me, so I wouldn't screw up again when I had to use it, but I kept screwing up. I told you father in the past that you needed to die a hero, that changing things would just fuck it up more - but how could it be more screwed up than Henry not having his dad? Than you not getting your happy ending after centuries of suffering? Then me becoming the fucking Dark One so Henry had to go through the same thing that you did? You died so I could become the thing you feared the most, that you spent centuries running and hiding from? And I left you rotting in that vault. I didn't even know. I can't even tell what true love is in my own heart. What does that say about me? What kind of Savior, what kind of person is that fucked up?"
Neal took a step toward her, his shoes crunching on the glass. "Emma, you're not 'fucked up'. You're a good person-"
"I'm not." She sniffed and shook her head. "Killian thought I was. That's why I wanted to be with him, okay?" she told him harshly. "He thought I was perfect. But nobody's perfect. Love makes them that way. And I needed... I needed someone who saw me that way, that I would never disappoint. Because I know the truth. I'm not just imperfect. I'm so much less than what he thought, than what everyone thinks, Neal. I killed people! I did horrible things! I killed a pregnant woman. Robin's unborn child. And somehow I get a free pass because I'm The Savior. And I can't... it's not fair that everyone sees me as this epitome of good that nothing dark can touch, and call me a hero for destroying the Dark One, because it's not true!"
Emma should have been relieved that everyone forgave her immediately, didn't even hold her accountable when she was doing all of those horrible things, but she wasn't. She pretended otherwise, and sometimes she even had herself convinced, but the dreams... remembering what that power felt like, remembering how she'd liked it and the things she did... it just wasn't right. Why didn't everyone remain as bigoted and judgmental as they had proven themselves to be time and again just because it was her? She killed Zelena and her unborn child, because she killed Neal, but not for justice, just to make her pay. Her parents should have been up in arms about her killing a pregnant woman, an unborn child, but they insisted it wasn't her fault, she shouldn't hold herself responsible; it was the beast within.
The Dark One inside her was nothing at all like she'd anticipated. The headaches were horrible, the snide, uncontrollable voice always spewing darkness in her ears. But the worst of it wasn't the Dark One at all, it was the people she loved. Because she beat people up, killed people, said horrible things to them, and they just smiled and took it and when it was all over they told her what a hero she was!
But if she'd been a real hero, she would have realized or found out or cared what was wrong with Gold so soon after Neal's death that he broke his promise. She should have considered he wasn't breaking it, that something was wrong, that he was trying to do good. And she understood it now, fighting that darkness, and he was the hero for trying to find a way to get rid of it that would spare her from being the next target, because if she was dark it wouldn't go after her first and maybe they would have a chance. But she failed. Like she'd failed at everything.
"You don't know what it was like," Emma continued, her voice shaking. "They didn't... they either don't care or don't want to know. They kept trying to be supportive... and behind my back it was all about them, how they screwed up, back to that stupid spell and they could use that as some excuse, why it wasn't my fault, because then I would be evil like your father was and they'd have to treat me like they always treated him, and heaven forbid their progeny should ever be anything less than perfect and reflect badly on them, make them imperfect! But they don't know, they don't know that I was there, that I heard them and their self-pitying self-righteous bullshit. I was upstairs, looking down on them, and it filled me with such anger, such hate for them that I ripped out my brother's heart and came this close to crushing it."
At Neal's look of surprise, Emma averted her eyes, then shut them as she remembered, the image still so clear...
"I held this little ping-ball sized ball of white light in my hand and squeezed until he screamed, and I wanted them to suffer, I wanted them to lose their perfect little replacement that they wanted because even making me perfect, I wasn't good enough. And I almost did it. I was sick and tired of him having my life, and having your name, being this reminder. I was so close. But your father... he summoned me. So I, I gave the heart to Killian," she confessed, raising her eyes again to his. "He said he was proud that I didn't do it, that it meant there was still good in me, but... I know that's not true, and your father did too. Because he commanded me to. Because he knew I would have crushed it. I would have killed my own brother."
Neal grimaced at that, remembering how afraid he'd been that his father would hurt him. "Emma, you can't hold yourself responsible for what some... demonic spirit made you do, not when you were fighting just to keep your sanity. Yeah, it preyed on your weaknesses, your fears, but it was a millennia old evil and your being The Savior... some half-assed good-magic-swapping spell was never going to make you a match for it, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Author was just a pawn who figure it out and that the Apprentice knew the hat wouldn't contain the Dark One, that it would go after you, and that's why he gave your parents that idea in the first place, because anyone who's spent centuries doing damage control for ancient demon summoning evil and handing out world-altering pens is probably shady as shit."
After a pause, he continued, "You had a better chance of containing it than anyone, but that doesn't mean you should be held to a higher standard. There was always gonna be collateral damage, whoever played host, and there was probably less for you being the one to take it on."
"But it doesn't change that I hurt people I love because of... of fear and anger and hate that was already in my heart," Emma argued. "I told my parents that I forgave them. I thought that I could, but didn't, I hadn't. I thought that I'd forgiven Regina, that I wanted her to be happy after the effort she put into being a better person, but I really didn't. I didn't want her to get a free pass for stuff she wasn't even sorry for. I didn't want to share Henry with the crazy bitch who's the reason I didn't get to raise him and now I have stuck in my head these fake memories that are all knockoffs of hers, so every time I remember him calling me 'mommy', he's really talking to her, the woman who destroyed my family."
Shaking her head, Emma concluded, "Every time I got close to Henry... I was so, so afraid of him, because what if, one day, this terrible force inside of me made me hurt him too?"
"No, you couldn't have any more than my papa would have hurt me," Neal insisted. "Henry was your light, Emma. He kept you sane, gave you a fighting chance to be free of that monster and destroy it once and for all."
"I'll never be free of it, don't you see?" Emma countered. "The things I fantasized about while holding that dagger, I still see in my dreams. And the power, I miss it and feeling better than all of them. I'm not a hero for taking on that curse. I failed at being a hero for not helping your father find another way to contain it. I became a villain whether anyone sees it or not."
She was crying now and Neal tried to touch her but she withdrew. "Emma, you are not nor were you ever a villain. You were trying to save everyone and you fought as hard as you could to not give in to the darkness. If you were really a bad person, you wouldn't have been punishing yourself."
Emma shook her head again. "You don't get it. It's not just that I was the Dark One, Neal. Look at the person I became after? That I was already before I even knew about Lily or killed Cruella. I was clinging to my anger,, my hate, my fear, and maybe some spell prevented it from darkening my heart, but it was there, filling up that empty place inside."
"Everyone has some darkness in them, Emma. No one expects you to be a saint."
"Yes they do."
"Okay, I don't expect you to be a saint," Neal clarified. "We've all got... baggage. After the life you've had, Emma, you'd be crazy not to be angry, not to feel hate or fear. But it was love that won out in the end, because you had more love than any of that darkness."
"Did I, though? When your father was in his magical induced coma, I asked Belle how he survived with that demon inside of him, when I could fee it eating me alive. And she told me, he had one bright spot of love to see him through, and that was his love for you. He clung to that love, to that hope, and that was what kept the darkness from taking over completely. She said that I had that love too, because I had my love for Henry. But it wasn't enough. Because I didn't have you. Because I let you down. Because I could have saved you. And I didn't."
"Emma, you don't know-"
"I do know," she cut him off. "And I think a part of me always first magic I ever did was in the pawn shop when I used my love to protect my family. But I forgot that. I used hate to protect Henry from Cruella. And I used fear when I split you and your dad. Fear of my love for you. I knew, in my heart, that if I chose love, I could save you, but I was too afraid of needing you like I did back then. I felt that emptiness and instead of filling it with love, I filled it with fear and bitterness. I wished you were dead and then I let you die," Emma wept.
"How could I deserve to be with anyone good after that? Killian said it was his job to guard my heart, but he couldn't touch the part of it that belonged to you, that I already ruined. I was supposed to be a hero, the Savior. Everyone says my heart was pure and that's how I was able to fight it, how the Dark One was able to be destroyed, but I know that's not true, because if it was, I would have saved you. But I didn't. I turned my back on the thing that made me. You were my true love and I killed you. And I damned myself."
Before Neal could dispute her claim, Emma reached into her chest-
"Whoa, hey-" he cried out before she gave a tug and pulled out her heart. A very... odd looking heart. It was red but with a white glow within that appeared to be falling into a large dark center like light falling past the event horizon of a black hole.
After what felt like mesmerized minutes, but was surely less, Neal raised his eyes back to Emma's, tear-filled and... unfocused.
"Em-"
Her eyes rolled back and she went suddenly limp, the heart falling from her hand. Neal lurched forward, managing to catch the crystalline organ and half grab Emma, though not fast enough. She struck her head on the counter on the way down and blood blossomed from a cut on her forehead.
Just then Henry entered the room calling out, "Hey, did you pack the-"
He stopped short at the sight of his dad holding a magical heart and pressing paper napkins to his mom's head. Her face was wet with tears. "What happened!?"
"Emma thought it was a good idea to play show-and-tell with her heart and then passed out and hit her head," Neal explained, trying to sound calm while inside he was a fucking mess. He'd had no idea that Emma was holding in so much guilt and self-loathing, but maybe he should have known. She built walls just like his papa, tried to be strong all the time because her life had made her fearful of being vulnerable and appearing weak. He knew that he was part of the reason for that, a big of it - in both of their cases. He had his own complex dealing with that.
"I didn't even know you could remove a heart outside of Storybrooke," Henry uttered, kneeling down. "Why does it look like that? Is it because there's no magic here?"
"I don't know."
"We just have to put it back in then."
Henry took the heart and gave it a proper shove as he'd seen others do... but all it did was result what sounded suspiciously like a rib cracking. "Why won't it work?"
"Shit."
"What?"
"Her pulse, it's getting slower."
"What do we do?"
"I'll call 9-1-1," Neal decided, even though he had no idea what medicine could do. "You call your mom."
AN: You didn't think they would actually make it into The Magical Kingdom, did you? Some snippets of dialogue were inspired by twuwuvdearie's tumblr post "Let's Image an Unforgiven Emma" post/118797225978/lets-imagine-an-unforgiven-emma
Next up: Belle really needs to ward the Library against intruders. And The Author really needs to learn how to edit down disgustingly long, dialogue-heavy chapters. Warning, the next one is the longest chapter yet, and is mostly heroes and villains shouting at each other in a confined space and without the promised margaritas.