Spider ahead, consider yourself warned. And one last chapter and we're done!
"I really hate magic," Tamara grumbles, glaring at the wand.
Emma sighs. "Yeah, me too. But it's all we've got." They're fighting a fairy, after all. They don't have much choice in the matter.
"No, it's…magic is wrong," Tamara says, and there's something flickering in her eyes like a lie. Emma's brow furrows. "It's destructive and unbalanced and…I don't know if I actually believe that because I want to or because Glinda wanted me to," she says dully. "If I'm just her chauffeur now while she goes and creates a new world order in that other realm."
"Is that her plan?"
But Tamara only shrugs, staring at the wand pensively as Emma shifts on the balls of her feet and watches the door. "We don't have much time."
"Where are you going?"
They both freeze at the voice. Zelena has rolled over at last, staring at them with glassy eyes. "Glinda won't want that," she says gravely, jerking to sit up.
"I don't give a fuck about what Glinda wants," Tamara snaps. "And if you ever broke free of her hold, maybe you wouldn't, either."
But Zelena is only half-present in the room, pale eyes as sightless as the rest of the town's. "Glinda," she mutters to herself. "Glinda." She moves toward the door and Emma nearly trips in her rush to cut her off.
Zelena waves her hand and Emma goes flying across the room. "Emma!" Tamara runs for her but Emma holds up a hand.
"You go with Regina to Zelena's farmhouse– where you first came into Storybrooke. Open the portal. I'll come when I can." She meets Tamara's gaze, finds the pragmatist in her eyes, and waits until Tamara nods slowly.
Zelena needs to be slowed. Zelena needs to be stopped, and Emma's going to stay for as long as they need to hold her off. Even if Zelena has magic and Emma has only the bow on her back.
Emma charges at Zelena again. Tamara clicks her heels and vanishes.
This time, Zelena is a little too slow, her movements stilted by the fairy-kindness enough that Emma can slam her onto the ground for a moment, hands pressed to her neck in warning. "I know you're…possibly on our side right now," she grinds out. "And that Blue has you under her influence. But if you don't stop elbowing me in the gut, I'm going to–"
Zelena elbows her again, sharp edges that bite into Emma's side, and Emma winces in pain and rears back. "I have to…" Zelena shakes her head, hair flying everywhere like a wet puppy, and she pushes Emma into the door. "Glinda is looking for you," she says, and it sounds a little helpless.
The door opens behind her and, for a moment, Emma thinks that they're all doomed. It has to be Blue. Blue might be too good to kill her directly, but her patience with Emma must be running low, and she'll stop only for a moment to punish Emma before finishing off Regina and Henry.
Henry. She twists around, fists clenching already, and nearly punches David in the face. "Whoa," he says, turning them both around, and in a flash, he's got Zelena pinned to the wall and Emma free. "Big brother to the rescue, huh?" he says, grinning.
"She has magic, you absolute dunderhead." But Emma says it affectionately, crossing the room while Zelena struggles against David's grip with lethargic movements. "Let me talk to her, okay?"
She focuses on the moment when Zelena had had her pinned against the door, the flicker of hesitation in her voice, and she takes Zelena by the shoulders and says evenly, "Listen to me. You've spent a year fucking up Regina's life every step of the way. And she might be forgiving– too forgiving of the people she loves," Emma mutters. "She might be, but I'm not going to be anymore, got it? I will kill you." Her eyes flash and Zelena's eyes focus and then fade. "So you're going to listen to my voice right now– mine, not Glinda's– and you're going to think about how much you love your sister and stay right here. Do you understand?"
Finally, something defiant shines in Zelena's eyes, fading in and out with every moment they stand there. "Kill me," she gasps out at last. "Kill me or– You have to stop Glinda from–"
"Enough," comes a new voice from behind them. Regina flicks her fingers and Zelena's eyes close. She sinks to the floor, snoring lightly, and Emma snatches a pillow off the bed and eases it under her head. "David, downstairs before you get yourself executed. And Emma…"
She rounds on her. Emma gulps. "You idiot," Regina accuses. "You can't insist on togetherness and then run off and try to sacrifice yourself for the rest of us. That isn't how it works."
But she only looks relieved, her anger all but faded, and Emma dares to ask, "How does it work, then?"
"Like this." She kisses Emma and then swats her away, and then kisses her again. "Idiot."
The portal has to be huge to include the horses, both of whom seem ready to run when Tamara expands it into a whirling mass of dark energy. "We don't have a choice," Regina says, urging Rocinante forward. "If Rumple's wards are still in place, we won't be able to get into the Dark Castle or environs by portal. We can't risk jumping through and incinerating ourselves. So we ride."
"We ride," Emma agrees.
Henry is staring wide-eyed into the portal, hanging onto Regina's back for dear life while they plan an exact location to have in mind for the jump. "And then we'll be in the Enchanted Forest," he says, dazed.
"You've done portal-jumping before, kid," Tamara says, and all three of them blink at her accusingly. She rolls her eyes. "Touchy subject?"
Henry, naturally, is the most mature of the three of them. "Neverland was different," he says, dropping his glare. "That was a new world. This is the one where I was born. Where Ma's been until now. It's so…awesome," he finally breathes, and gapes at the portal again.
"Hang in there, kid," Emma says, mostly to distract from how choked up she's getting over his enthusiasm. She is a hardened outlaw. She isn't going to get sentimental over her son going home with her. (Her eye twitches and certainly does not tear up.) "Let's do this." She turns to Tamara. "You can hold the portal open?"
Tamara nods. "I…think so? Unless Glinda finds me and murders us all," she offers, then casts a nervous glance to where the ceiling of the barn is beginning to shred a bit at the top of the portal. "Or this whole barn collapses on me."
"Encouraging." Beetle whines, and Emma scratches reassuringly at his neck. "Go for it, big guy."
She leans forward, squeezing her knees into his sides, and he finally leaps forward. Quickly, she thinks of where they're meant to be, the blackness of the portal swallowing her up, and they both emerge safely at a spot in the lands that were once Sir Maurice's.
She does a spot check for ogres and is surprised to discover that they haven't ventured back into the towns this time. In fact, there's no sign of life at all, not even the animals they'd seen roaming the lands when they'd been living at the Dark Castle.
Maybe she's just on edge, waiting for a sign that Blue is a step ahead of them again. Maybe she's seeing what she wants to. Either way, Emma's learned to trust her instincts, and by the time Regina and Henry energy from the portal, Rocinante braying wildly, she's crouching on the ground, studying faded paw prints in the dirt.
"Is it Blue?" Regina asks, terse from the trip into the portal.
"I don't know." Emma snags a loose branch from a bush and studies it, searching for insects. Nothing. "It's just…the land seems kind of dead, doesn't it?" She tucks the branch into Beetle's saddlebag and–
There's something in there. She feels familiar material and gasps out loud, pulling her cloak from its hiding place and drawing it around her. "Was this here all along? I thought I'd lost it with the curse!"
"You did," Regina says, and Emma twists to eye her suspiciously. But she's smiling, warm and knowing, and her gaze traces the movements of the cloak with affection. "When I had it made, I enchanted it to always find you again. I guess it's just been…waiting for you to come home."
"I didn't know," Emma breathes, stroking the smooth, sturdy fabric. "You put a spell on it?"
"I put a lot of spells on it, Emma," Regina says, and now she's laughing with her eyes. "Do you have many articles of clothing that can survive decades in the woods? Riding on horses and sneaking through castles?"
She'd never really thought much about it. The cloak had been comforting, Regina's presence in her heart surrounding her when she'd been distant from her, and she hadn't put much stock into why it had never been time to retire it. Even now, cloak around her shoulders, she can feel a confidence that she hasn't in Storybrooke.
"You look badass, Ma," Henry says, pumping a fist.
Emma smirks at Regina. "You should have seen Mom back in the day."
"Not child-appropriate!" Regina scolds. "And in case you've both forgotten, we have a dagger to secure. Wherever Belle and Milah emerged, they have a several-hour head start."
"Right," Emma says, sobering right up. "And the whole land is dead." It still screams as suspicious to her, still screams to her like only someone who knows the woods intimately would hear.
"Not the whole land!" Henry says suddenly. "Look, a hummingbird!" There's one fluttering around him and the second saddle, poking at his finger as he raises it to inspect the bird.
At once, Emma has a bad feeling about it. "We should ride."
"Yes, we should," Regina agrees, her voice strained. "In Oz, Glinda– Blue used hummingbirds to hunt us." She already has Rocinante moving forward, and Emma spurs Beetle on as she catches sight of a burst of moving light in the distance. Fireflies. Whatever animals are still in this land, they're under Blue's control.
They ride in terse silence as the cloud of fireflies bears down on them, and Emma calls, "Split up! It's the only way." She tears to the left, the fireflies scattering as they struggle to follow her, too, and Emma keeps her head down and rides high up the mountain toward the Dark Castle, higher than the fireflies as they follow and sting her.
Beetle whips his head around, ever protective of her, and swats the fireflies with more and more pained grunts. Emma holds onto him as tightly as she can without slowing him down, hating herself for subjecting him to this, too.
They're riding blind, the sky growing dark and their eyesight obscured by the flashes of the fireflies around them, and Emma closes her eyes and does her best to ride from memory. Beetle is getting older now and he doesn't have the stamina he'd had in his youth, and Emma can feel him staggering with exhaustion. "Come on, boy. Easy," she coaxes him. "It won't be far now."
She thinks they're just a few minutes from the castle, and she slows as much as she can without stopping altogether. When they're close, she drops from Beetle's back, running at a sprint to draw the fireflies to her.
Instead, there's a rush of magical wind and they scatter, flying back into the night. At the door, Regina rubs her hands together with satisfaction. "Took you long enough."
"I had to take the long way here!" Emma protests, looking over her companions. Their burns are already healing, courtesy of Regina, but Henry is looking a bit more subdued. "You okay, kid?"
"Evil fireflies?" he says disbelievingly.
"Or very, very good ones," Emma corrects, wincing at Regina's hands on the welts on her skin. "Let's heal Beetle and get inside."
"Take your time." For a moment, Emma thinks that it's Blue behind them. It's her voice, light and patronizing and disdainful, layered over a second, softer voice. Belle stands in the doorway of the castle, blank-faced as Blue speaks through her. "This land is devouring itself whole in anticipation of a new world."
"Blue," Regina growls, and the two of them move instinctively, arms wrapping around Henry to protect him as they stand together.
Belle's mouth stays upturned in a smile. "Did you think you could stop me with my own father's dagger?" Blue asks through her. "Did you think that you could halt a mission that's lasted for eternity, children?"
Emma glances down the mountain and sees, for the first time, mist growing and growing in the distance. "It will end here," Blue says quietly. "Here, where I was born. This realm will be cleansed of darkness and be born again in goodness, no longer the dark and corrupted."
"That's why she wants the true love babies," Henry whispers. "You're going to build a new world with the purest hearts."
Belle-Blue smiles at him, light and nearly affectionate for Blue. "Smart boy. I had wished you might be the one, once. But there is too much corruption in your bloodline."
Emma ignores the insult. "You want to…breed a master race? This is the plan for ultimate good?"
"Kidnapping their godchildren and betrothing them? It's what the fairies were made for," Regina grumbles.
"You're not taking Snow's kid from her."
Blue laughs. "By daybreak, this castle will be renewed. No one within it will come out alive." Behind her, unicorns are clustering in the hall that had once held suits of armor and beasts. They wait, silvery-white and silent, and when Belle's body turns and walks into the castle, their heads turn in unison to face Emma, Regina, and Henry.
"She's lying," Emma says immediately. "She sent Belle and Milah here to retrieve the dagger. If they're still here, she hasn't gotten it yet, which means she's left them an escape route to return to Storybrooke."
"If Milah's still here. If she wants the dagger retrieved at all." Regina steps in front of them, crouching down and putting her palms against the ground. It lights up in streaks of violet, creating a path into the castle and straight to the front door. The unicorns rear back, hissing snarls in reaction to the dark magic. "Walk this way."
They walk cautiously, Regina at the front and Henry between them with Emma's hand gripping his shoulder. The unicorns let out menacing snorts as they walk past but don't cross the line, and Emma fires one arrow at the door to confirm that they can enter.
Belle is dusting at the corner of the main room, eyes glazed over but hands busy. She opens a china closet and items hop out of it– a teapot, a candelabra, a clock– followed by more and more objects, rapidly growing in size and marching and bouncing to them.
"Seriously?" Henry demands it in the exact same tone as Emma would, and she feels a spark of real parental pride. Oh yes, that's her son. No patience for absurd magic at all.
"Stay close," Regina orders, and then there's no more time for a retrospective on the effect of Emma's genetics on Henry. They spring into action, Regina with her magic and Emma with her bow, a flurry of motion around their son as they fight off the enchanted objects. Knives fly at them, lit candles rain from the ceiling, and Belle dusts peacefully as Emma ducks her head and races for the stairs, Henry's hand in hers.
Regina brings up the rear this time, and when she slams the passage door shut, it's to silence. There are no more attacks as they climb the stairs, no more unexpected visitors. "That's it?" Regina says, scowling. "That was Blue's big defense?"
"No," Emma breathes, rounding a corner. "No, it wasn't."
Milah is in the next room, trussed up in a corner and unconscious. And there's still one animal in these lands that isn't Blue's.
That damned spider. Emma had spent the bulk of her pregnancy held captive by that spider, living out thousands of lifetimes before Belle had freed her. When they'd taken the Dark Castle after the curse had broken, she'd gone upstairs to find it and seen only cobwebs where it had once been.
But now it's back again, spinning a trap for them all. Hanging from the center of the room, nearly concealed in the web, is the dagger.
They'll rot in this room, fade away into nothingness until Blue's magic purifies the land and takes them all with it. No. They can't–
"You are not going back in there," Regina orders in a low voice.
"I'm the only one here with any experience with it. And we need that dagger."
"I'm the only one here with magic," Regina says, seizing her by the cloak. "Or haven't you noticed that that's the only defense we have against Blue and Rumple?"
They stand for a moment, glaring at each other in mutual determination to sacrifice. "Together," Emma concedes finally. The spider turns, clicking its pincers and gazing at them with black eyes.
"Together," Regina agrees. She turns back to their son. "Henry, ten minutes. If we don't make it out by then, you take Rocinante and ride back to the portal, understood?"
Henry nods, his face unreadable.
Regina and Emma step into the room, both of them reaching the dagger at the same moment, and their hands close around it as their eyes meet.
And then…
She's seventeen and planning an ambush when she realizes that something is wrong. The woman who steps out of the carriage is too confident, too easily amused by their fighting, so Emma shouts "Retreat!" and they flee into the woods.
A girl who would be queen watches Swan Hood from the window of the carriage and then looks away, her interest sparking and then fading again.
Emma never meets her. Emma doesn't target King Leopold's carriages anymore, not when he is a good king to his subjects and there are mouths to feed in other kingdoms. Emma is far too busy humbling royals to befriend one.
Regina endures; in silence, in loneliness. When a fairy promises to find her soulmate, she flees at the door of the tavern as Emma drinks with Quinn inside.
The Evil Queen rises. Emma brings food to an inner village and watches the next night as they're all executed for enabling a thief. She learns her lesson and writes off the Queen's kingdom as untouchable, same as the Dark One's castle. The people of the Queen's kingdom rarely starve, anyway.
The Evil Queen is bitter and angry and bent on vengeance. Emma glimpses her at David and Abigail's engagement ball, a tiny woman who dominates the room. She's beautiful and dangerous and for a moment, Emma feels a tiny thrill at the thought of approaching her.
She does not.
Emma never sleeps with Neal. Emma never has a child. The Dark Curse comes and swallows them all whole, and Emma is riding on one of her trips away from the Merry Men when it happens.
Mayor Mills orders Deputy Sheriff Swan around with such mocking dismissiveness that Deputy Sheriff Swan loathes her. She forgets it every morning and remembers it each day, again and again and again.
The curse is broken seven years later when Snow White and Prince Charming kiss. Emma returns to the woods. The Evil Queen returns to evil. There is no son in her life, no perfect opposite to war with. There is only emptiness and Snow White's mercy to spare her.
Emma's life is lonely, quiet, simple. Emma pauses that first night when the Evil Queen is spitting vitriol at her from her cell with an odd kind of disconnect– they're always disconnected– and wonders, for a moment, if…
No. Never.
Emma doesn't think about it again. The Evil Queen never does, either. They continue through bland lives, empty existences. They never notice how lacking it all is because they've only ever known it. There never will be anything more for them than this.
And then something changes.
She's sitting in her little cottage outside the woods when there's a knock at the door and a boy behind it, barely a teen and with determination in his eyes. "Hi," he says. "My name's Henry. I'm your son."
And he marches her to where the Evil Queen still lurks, still untouchable but as alone as Emma, and Regina Mills gapes at him with the same confusion. They don't even think to protest when he sits them down on the couch and takes a seat opposite them. "This world is wrong," he tells them. "This isn't our reality."
"We have a reality," Emma repeats skeptically. Regina snorts with the same disbelief. And there's something oddly soothing about her presence, something familiar at the boy leaning back against the couch as though he's at home here with the Evil Queen and Swan Hood. "Look, kid, I think it's time you went home. Whatever dare your buddies put you up to–"
"Not a dare," he says. "We have to find the dagger."
"Dagger." Regina repeats it and laughs, clear and mocking. "You came here to get the Dark One's dagger? Good luck with that."
"I don't need–" Henry starts, exasperated. "Look up. Haven't you looked up yet?"
Regina turns to stare at Emma instead. Emma hesitates, caught in her gaze, and it feels as though it's the first time they've ever seen each other. Something gaping in her heart- something she'd never noticed before- seems to fill with warmth. And then, as a team, they both raise their faces to stare at the ceiling above them.
The dagger hangs above them– had it been there all along? and Henry darts forward as they both reach for it, their eyes flickering to it and then each other. And together, the three of them grab hold of it and–
Regina's coughing in the dust of the room as she summons a fireball, her hand still wrapped around the dagger. "Oh," she says, very softly.
"Oh," Emma echoes. It takes the moment they remember for the yawning emptiness that had been their lives alone to sink in, and Emma is sick with the thought of it. "Regina–"
Regina spins around, hurls a stream of fire at the spider until it's curled up in death, and then kisses her, long and hard and needy. Emma grips her elbows and tugs her closer and winds hands through her hair as Regina's slide under Emma's cloak. Home. This is her world, not the dull emptiness of the other universe. This is theirs, real and whole and right, and she won't let it go ever again.
Henry coughs politely, then louder, and they pull apart red-faced and unapologetic. "Come here, kid," Emma says, and pinches him when he's close.
"Ow!"
"You came in after us?" Emma demands. "Do you have any idea what you could have done? Don't you ever think?" She wraps him and Regina in a constricting hug together, the three of them with their heads bumping each other's in an attempt to hold on tighter. Regina is shaking and Emma knows that she is, too, the visions taking their toll on them both. This is theirs, Emma thinks again, and she kisses Regina's cheek and then Henry's and holds them tighter still.
After some time, they drift apart with reluctance. Regina untangles the dagger and Emma drags Milah's prone body out of the room, and they hurry back through the now-silent castle to retrieve Belle, too. "How long were we out?" Emma asks.
"A half hour, maybe," Henry says, peering out the window. "I think we're running out of time."
They hitch Beetle and Rocinante to a carriage and ride back to the portal, wary of the white mist that's creeping closer to the Dark One's lands now. "We should make it in time."
"I hope so." Regina leans against her. Henry is inside the carriage with their unconscious captives, watching over them with a sword that Regina thinks he's too young to bear. Emma is driving the carriage, and Regina has the dagger on her lap, turning it over and over again to stare at the smooth blade that bears no name.
"Thank you," Emma says suddenly.
"What?"
"For…" She bites her lip. "I'm not okay with the years I missed," she says. "I'm never going to be okay with them. But I don't blame you."
Regina winces. "It was my curse–"
"It was Blue and Cora. It was…" Emma laughs, a burst of air almost giddy in the threat of the night. "It was fate. Fuck fate."
Regina is silent, twisting fingers around the hilt of the dagger. Emma says, "I just…I know I wasn't there for a decade of his life. But that kid– that idiot kid who runs into danger to save his moms and–" Silent tears spill down her face. She's done it twice, now, lived her life without Henry, and she'd take the time when she'd known what she'd lost over the spider's vision any day.
And her good, brave, stupidly noble son…he is everything. She can't imagine him ever being anyone other than the boy Regina had given her. "When I couldn't…I'm so glad that you were the one to raise him, Regina. I'm so proud to be his mom with you. Thank you."
Regina is silent and Emma thinks she might've gone too far– revealed too much– when she glances over at her and sees that she's crying too, silent and just as hard as Emma. "I love you," Emma says. They'd never said it very often before. Emma had been afraid that it would feel cheap, if she'd said it every time she'd felt it. But tonight it's a balm of reassurance in a world about to end.
"You do," Regina says, voice no louder than a whisper. And there are other ways to say I love you back without repeating the words.
The mist is nearly at Sir Maurice's lands, and Emma guides Beetle and Rocinante around to the portal, breathing a sigh of relief as she sees that it's still open. Blue might know what they're up to, but at least she hasn't yet found Tamara.
"Let's go!" Emma calls, and it echoes strangely in the incoming mist, like words devoured by a black hole of silence. "Get the others. We'll take the horses through." She unhitches the carriage as Regina levitates Milah and Belle, stepping through the portal with her hands on theirs to direct them all back to Tamara.
"One last push, Beetle," she murmurs to her horse, rubbing his snout. "Get my boy home." He nuzzles her hair affectionately and she breathes in this final scent– Beetle and Emma in the Enchanted Forest– one last time.
This time, the horses shy from the portal less and Henry crosses through it as Emma mounts Rocinante. "Come on, boy!" The mist is closing in on them, just across the market from the portal, and Emma bears through it as the mist reaches them in eerie silence.
And then chaos.
There's a moment of darkness and then a burst of light, and Emma catches Tamara's face for only an instant before something hard hits her from above. The barn is caving in from the force of the portal. Debris is hurtling down around her, and there's a low rumbling as though they've summoned up an earthquake below. "Hurry up!" Tamara is shouting over the noise. "You need to–"
Emma rides blindly through the falling barn, seeing stars as more of the roof collapses. Rocinante neighs loudly in protest, charging forward with one last spurt of energy, and they clear the barn just as the whole thing collapses.
Emma breathes a sigh of relief. "Just in time," she says, turning to Regina on the ground beside her, as dazed as she is from stray chunks of ceiling. She frowns, noticing who's absent. "Where's Henry? Didn't he come through the portal?"
"He did." It's Tamara who speaks, voice low and eyes fixed on the fallen building in front of them. It's sunken into itself now but there's still crashing inside it, the last bits of the infrastructure falling apart. "He never made it out of the barn."