I am so sorry this took so long to post! I'm a terrible person... I wrote this ages ago, thought I'd posted it, and I guess I didn't. It's not beta'd because I wanted to get it to you quickly, so please let me know if I've got any typos and such. I'm so sorry, I love you all, please forgive me for the delay? Here's the final chapter!
-KM-
Chapter 13
Emma awoke slowly, blinking in the bright light of the airy bedroom. She looked around as familiar faces came into focus. "Where am I?"
"You're in the Enchanted Forest, Love." Hook's voice came from her bedside.
Emma turned her gaze to the man who had barely left her side in a week, shaking her head in an effort to clear the fog in her mind. "But how?"
David stepped forward. "As best we can tell, you two broke the curse."
"And not just the curse in the dart that hit you." Snow supplied. "All of them."
"All of them?" Emma repeated blankly.
"All of them. Every dark curse within the town limits." Rumple stepped forward, revealing the dagger in his hand, now empty of all writing. "This is nothing more than a very good blade with some very bad memories now, Dearie."
"But... how?" Emma managed, looking around the room.
David sat on the edge of the bed and offered her a goblet of water. Her hands shook as she accepted it, and Hook steadied it, helping her to drink. "As near as we can tell," David began, "When Hook kissed you, your love for him somehow twisted together with your love for Henry and the town, and that, blended with your raw magic, and it did..." he waived his hand around the room. "This. We're home. There's no trace of the witch."
She blinked, barely following the conversation, but latching on to one word. "Henry?"
Regina and Henry entered the room, Henry running to Emma and throwing his arms around her neck. "You're awake!"
Regina followed slowly behind him. "When you and Hook kissed, you broke all the dark curses. The witch's curse on Henry and the other monkeys, the one that I used to suppress Henry's memories. We've been getting reacquainted over the last week. He's been very worried about you." She approached cautiously, as if unsure she'd be welcome.
Emma cradled Henry with one arm and reached to Regina with the other. "You love Henry. That makes you family." Regina took her hand slowly and allowed Emma to pull her into a three-way hug, though she looked fairly uncomfortable and extracted herself at the first polite moment.
"You're really okay! You've been asleep over a week!" Henry gushed. "I was starting to think you'd never wake up."
Regina rested her hand on Henry's shoulder. "Henry, we talked about this. All magic, even true love's magic, comes with a price. It's never the easiest answer. In this case, from what we can tell, the magic used to break the curse on the dart that hit Emma came from Hook." She acknowledged Hook with a nod. "It was a very powerful curse and we still don't know exactly what it was meant to do, but breaking that one curse took a lot of his personal energy, which is why it took two days for him to wake up."
Emma looked to Hook. "Two days?"
He squeezed her hand. "I'm fine now, Love. Just had a mother of a headache for a bit."
Henry looked at Regina impatiently. "But she was asleep so much longer!"
"Because while Hook's energy went to heal Emma, Emma's magical energy healed everything. You, Rumple, and it even healed the land. Storybrooke was the product of a dark curse. It was never meant to be. Emma's release of raw magic unwove all of it." She looked back and forth between Emma and Hook. "It was the most powerful act of true love in recorded history."
Emma flushed and looked down, while Hook looked uncomfortably around the room. "If Emma feels anything like I did when I woke up, she needs some rest."
Everyone slowly cleared out of the room, David and Snow herding a protesting Henry toward the door. Regina lingered behind, and Hook rose from Emma's side, giving her a questioning look.
"She's going to need a lot of help, Killian." Regina began, speaking for his ears only. "Her magical channels weren't opened through training; they were blasted open. She has to learn to control it. She will need a lot of patience, help, and someone to hold her hand every step."
"You know I will..."
Regina reached for his left arm and he shied away, still uncomfortable with people handling the hook that had defined him for so many years. Regina caught his elbow. "Please." He met her eyes and then cautiously nodded, allowing her to unbuckle his brace and gently slide the hook off his stump. "I know you'll be there for Emma. I know you'll be there to catch her and hold her hand." He felt heat rising through his arm and looked down curiously. "This might help."
He felt a searing pain and cried out as light flashed behind his eyelids as he fell to his hands and knees. His brain took a moment to process that. Hands and knees. Hands. As in two. He sat back on his heels, staring down in disbelief, opening and closing his fingers. "Regina... I..." he began.
"No totally painless way to reconnect nerves, unfortunately." She helped him to his feet and then sagged back against the wall. "And as I told Henry, all magic comes with a price. I'm going to go lay down before I fall down."
With that, she was gone, leaving Hook reaching after her, whispering "Thank you" to the empty air. Finally gathering his wits, he returned to Emma's bedside, taking her hand in both of his. "Well, that was unexpected."
"Maybe she thought everyone should have a fresh start." She chuckled to herself. "So... the most powerful act of true love in history, and I wasn't even conscious to remember it."
Hook smiled rakishly. "I'd be happy to reenact it for you anytime, Princess."
...and they lived happily ever after.
The End.
Thank you so much to everyone who's read this all the way through. Please leave a review and let me know what you think of the ending! I really love hearing from you, even if you hated it! And, if you're so inclined, check out my other Once Upon a Time story, "For the First Time in Forever." I just wrote Emma and Hook their happy ending, so of course Regina needs hers too, right?
-KM-