The End of the World (and After) Chapter 13: Close you eyes And the years go by, an once upon a time fanfic

Interlude: Granny

Ruby is her grandchild, not her child, but that has never mattered to Granny. She's raised the girl and thus couldn't love her more even if she had been her actual child.

Tough love, sometimes. She knows that. She has pushed Ruby in ways Ruby doesn't like to be pushed, has argued with her and been angry with her and has sometimes even been close to despair.

But that is how she knows how to love. By wanting what's best for her, by trying to get Ruby to see what's best for her too. It's always been love.

And so, as the end of the world happens, Granny hugs her grandchild and tries to shield her, and that is very much love too.

Chapter thirteen: Close your eyes / And the years go by

Emma

Emma's first memories are of mommy and daddy's arms.

They hold her safely, rocking her or just carrying her, the safe frames of her life. Mommy gives her to daddy and daddy gives her to mommy and she's passed between them with laughter and love and gentle teases about how she's growing bigger.

Emma doesn't like that. She doesn't want to grow bigger. She wants to stay in mommy and daddy's arms forever, the only life she's ever known. Beyond those arms, it seems like death and danger waits. She wakes crying out with that fear sometimes, not understanding where it comes from, just knowing that in mom and dad's arms, she is safe.

But for her, time passes. Years go by, and so Emma Blanchard Nolan Swan slowly but surely begins growing up and making new memories.

"Blow the candle, honey," mommy says, kissing Emma's temple softly. "It's your birthday, you can make a wish."

"That's right," daddy says, beaming down at Emma and Emma smiles back up at him. Daddy. Daddy and mommy. Her daddy, who knows everything and her mommy, who knows everything else.

How can she wish for anything else?

So Emma closes her eyes and blows, and when she opens her eyes, what she wishes for is right there.

Emma is sleepy, her head against mommy's chest, dad's chest against her back and daddy's arm around both her and mommy. They're in mommy and daddy's bed, another fairy tale having been read and Emma feeling wonderfully sleepy. She knows the moments she dozes off that daddy will lift her up and carry to her to her own bed, so she isn't giving in to sleep just yet.

"Did you meet like that?" she asks sleepily. "Like in a fairy tale? Like Snow White and Prince Charming?"

"You like that story, huh?" daddy asks, and Emma can hear the smile in his voice.

"Mmmm," Emma agrees.

"I do too," mommy chimes in. "I like that Snow White."

"You would," daddy says, and Emma knows he's about to tease mommy. His voice always sounds like that when he teases mommy. "You pretend to be a meek schoolteacher, but you're really more badass than Snow White."

"Is she?" Emma asks eagerly, and mommy blushes.

"Yes," dad says, lowering his voice as if he's about to reveal a secret. "She once shot a very bad man in the shoulder with an arrow to protect daddy."

"Really?" Emma asks, finding the thought strangely thrilling.

"Really," daddy confirms. "You see, mommy and daddy didn't meet quite like in a fairy tale, but mommy was just as brave as any hero we've read to you about. Braver in fact, and kinder and more beautiful and..."

"David!" mommy protests, but her eyes are bright, Emma notices. "Stop being so charming."

"Never," daddy swears, and Emma makes a slight face as her parents exchange a quick peck above her. Fairy tales and kissing always seem to go together, so do mommy and daddy and kissing too.

Maybe she'll find someone she wants to kiss one day too, as strange and gross as the thought seems.

"We'll tell you the story of mommy and daddy and their princess Emma one day," mommy says softly after a moment, and Emma nods sleepily. Her eyelids feel heavy, and she can't keep them open anymore.

"We will," daddy agrees, kissing the top of her head. "Sleep, honey."

Emma sleeps.

From her position on daddy's shoulder, Emma surveys her kingdom in the light of the bright and still warm autumn sun.

There is their house, wooden and weathered and always being built and improved on by mommy and daddy. Inside it is Emma's own room, her throne room, decorated and painted by mommy and daddy with all sorts of odds and ends they've managed to make toys out of. A hat made into a stuffed animal. A wooden sword made out of stick. A rainbow of colours on her walls from leftover paint mommy and daddy have recovered.

Emma likes her room, not caring it isn't a room in a castle filled with expensive toys and all the best furniture. Her room has everything mommy and daddy can give her in this world, and every inch of it is a testament to how much they love her. It's a good room.

Mommy and daddy have their own room too, sleeping together in their bed. They have no toys, which Emma finds a bit strange, but maybe they get enough fun playing with each other.

It's a nice house, their house. To Emma it's a castle, their castle, large and safe and walling them in when they want.

There are other houses too. Belle, Ava, Nicholas, Regina and Owen living in one. Ruby, Whale and Granny live in another, and then there is Gold and his cane, Sean and Leroy, Jefferson and Paige, and all the others of the kingdom. A lot of people, Emma thinks. More than enough people for a kingdom.

There's also the barn. Emma likes the barn. It seems filled with treasures and magical things, and once she managed to sneak away from mommy to go exploring in there. It was thrilling, but mommy and daddy's worried and frantic faces as they came looking for her did make her feel slightly guilty afterwards.

But still. It was a small adventure, and Emma thinks she might like adventures. One day she might even take the small yellow car and go for a drive. (She likes yellow.) She's only driven once, one time when daddy let her come along when he drove his truck to get some supplies they had found that were too heavy to carry. That was an adventure too, especially when daddy let her sit on his lap and hold the wheel with him.

It also showed her there is land beyond her kingdom. Mommy and daddy don't talk about it much, but she knows there is something beyond the borders of what she can see. Other kingdoms, maybe. Adventures to be had.

"It's been a good harvest," daddy says softly to mommy next to him, and mommy nods. That means they will have enough food, Emma knows. There was one winter they had not, and while she didn't go hungry, she knows mommy and daddy did. Already, young Emma knows this is not an easy world. There isn't always enough food, and she's heard enough to know there are dangers too. It's just hard to be afraid of them with mommy and daddy with her.

Mommy and daddy would protect her from anything, Emma is certain. Anything.

It hurts. It hurts, and Emma can't stop crying, not even managing to get the words out as mommy swoops down and lifts her up onto her lap.

"Emma," mommy says softly and comfortingly, kissing her temple and rubbing her arm. "Did you fall?"

"Yeee-ees," Emma gulps. Her knee hurts, and she can see blood on it. She was just trying to run in the grass, but the grass was wet and she tripped.

"Oh, honey," mommy says, looking up as daddy comes running, his face dark with worry. "It's all right, she fell over and hurt her knee. It's just a scrape."

"Oh," daddy says, exhaling. He smiles gently at Emma, lifting her up into his arms as mommy stands up as well. "I'll carry her inside so we can get the wound cleaned and dressed, and then she can play inside the rest of the day."

"It's just a scrape, David," mommy reminds him, but she is smiling.

"It's Emma's scrape," he says defensively, then his face softens. "I just don't want her to get hurt again."

"I know," mommy says, touching Emma's hair and stroking it lovingly.

"I want to play outside again," Emma says stubbornly. As mommy and daddy have been talking, her knee seems to hurt less. Now it's more of a dull ache, and she remembers from the stories mommy and daddy reads her that sometimes, heroes and princesses and knights (and she wants to be all three) get hurt. That doesn't make them give up.

Mommy and daddy exchange a look, then daddy smiles almost sadly.

"As you wish, Emma," he says, and mommy leans up to kiss the underside of his jaw. "We'll get this wound cleaned and dressed and then you can play outside again. Just be a little careful, can you do that for mommy and daddy, and for daddy's hair so it won't get grey in it already?"

Emma nods solemnly as mommy laughs softly.

"I'll be careful," Emma promises seriously.

She does fall over again later that day, as it turns out, but this time, mommy and her keep it a secret to protect daddy's hair – and Emma learns that sometimes, sometimes you can fall over (especially in wet grass) but you can get up again and run on.

And that mommy's kiss can't remove pain, but it does help with enduring it.

Sometimes, Jefferson comes over with Paige and lets Paige and Emma play together. He often brings hats along, always encouraging Emma to try to make them spin.

It's a strange sort of game, Emma finds, as nothing ever seems to happen when she does, yet he always looks like he's waiting for it to happen.

On a snowy morning, Granny dies.

Emma knows death is a thing, has known since she first saw daddy at Graham's grave leaving a flower and asked mommy about it. Mommy told her that sometimes, good people die and then Emma saw her cry against daddy's shoulder about it later.

So Emma knows that sometimes, people can be alive and then they can be gone and be buried in the ground.

She's known that. This is the first time she's felt it.

Granny was nice. Granny would look after her on some nights with Ruby when mommy and daddy had date nights, just like Belle also would sometimes. Emma likes all three of them, Ruby for her fun, Belle for her reading, and Granny for her treats and funny remarks.

Liked, Emma realizes. She liked Granny, she likes Ruby and Belle. Death means having to change how you talk about them.

She doesn't like that.

Ruby cries on Whale's shoulder, mommy cries on daddy's shoulder, and daddy holds Emma's hand while they watch Granny being buried. It seems like such a very strange thing that someone can be alive one day and dead the next. It seems wrong.

Emma looks up and mommy and daddy and wonders how she would feel if they were dead. It makes her cry too, and daddy lifts her up and hugs her against his chest while mommy rubs her back.

Death. It happens, Emma realizes, and wishes it didn't.

Emma watches the snow with disinterest, noticing how mommy gives her worried glances sometimes from where she and daddy are shovelling snow.

"Hey Emma," a voice says, and Emma looks up to see Regina look at her with her usual stern expression. Regina only ever looks soft when she looks at Owen, but Emma is used to that by now. She likes Owen too. Owen is the only one who she doesn't seem to gain any height on. Ava and Nicholas she used to be very small compared to, but now she is gaining on them and might even be taller than them some day. But not Owen. He is growing taller too. He seems to be the only one.

"Hey," Emma mutters. She looks down at the snowflakes on her gloves.

"Don't you want to play?" Regina asks, looking over at where Ava and Nicholas are making a snow witch rather than a snow man.

"No," Emma mutters.

"Why not?"

Emma shrugs, not sure how to explain it. "Don't wanna."

Regina looks thoughtful. "Are you sad because of Granny?"

Emma nods slightly. She misses Granny, and the time when she didn't think about death and about the possibility that others might die too.

"I lost someone once," Regina says after a moment. She sounds stiff, forcing the words out.

"Oh," Emma says. She wonders who. "Sorry."

Regina looks at her in a way that makes Emma almost uncomfortable, then nods very slightly.

"Do you miss him?" Emma asks honestly.

"Every day," Regina replies, and her face softens in the same way as when she looks at Owen.

"It hurts to miss someone," Emma says. She wishes it didn't.

"It does," Regina agrees.

"Does it get better?"

Regina closes her eyes, her face very strange for a moment. "I hope so."

"Emma honey?" mom asks softly, and Emma looks around to see mommy and daddy having finished their snow shovelling. "Would you like to make a snow dragon with us?"

Emma hesitates. Snow dragons are her favorite thing to make in the whole world, especially because daddy lets her fight it afterwards with her wooden sword and declares her the bravest in the whole kingdom. She wants to make a snow dragon with mommy and daddy very much.

"Do you think Granny would be mad if I wasn't sad all the time?" she asks Regina.

"No," Regina says, and she looks over at where Owen is walking towards her. "I think that those who loved us would want us to find happiness again after they're gone. Go play, Emma."

"Okay," Emma says, getting up. She remembers mommy telling her to be nice back when people are nice to her. "Go be happy, Regina."

Regina makes the oddest face, but Emma barely notices, already running towards her mommy and daddy and throwing herself at them. Mommy and daddy laugh at her enthusiasm and speed and then make an exaggerated fall into the snow, and they end up a laughing heap in the snow.

Then they make Emma's dragon and slay it, as they always do.

In the spring, a sheep dies, and some lambs die, and this time, Emma already knows what death is.

She still doesn't like it.

Mr. Gold is strange, Emma is becoming more and more aware of this. He calls her princess and charming, but not in the way daddy and mommy do. No. Mr. Gold does it in a way that is serious and like it's a joke at the same time in a way Emma can't quite explain properly. It's just strange.

He watches her too, watches her grow and always gives her a birthday present and tells her he's looking forward to seeing her as an adult. Why, Emma isn't sure. Maybe he doesn't like kids.

He acts strangely around Belle too, because he looks at her the way daddy looks at mommy, but he never kisses her. That is very strange. That sort of look should mean kissing. It seems to mean kissing with mommy and daddy, and Ruby and Dr. Whale, and if a boy ever looks at Emma like that she'll know either to kiss him or tell him he should run cos daddy will come after him.

She asks mommy and daddy why Mr. Gold is so strange, but that just seems to make them all strange too, and she never gets a good answer.

So she asks Mr. Gold himself on day.

"Why I'm so strange?" he says, looking at her and then laughing. But it's a sort of good laugh, like he likes her laugh, not a mean laugh. "Miss Swan, you have the tact of your father, that is for sure."

Emma doesn't mind hearing that. She wants to be like her dad, so she just beams.

"I'm strange because I'm old and know a lot of things other don't," Gold goes on, and his tone is serious. "That makes me seem strange to others, but I'm not really."

"Oh," Emma says, crinkling her forehead. "So it's like an act?"

"Yes, Miss Swan," Gold agrees. "Very perceptive of you. Yes, it's like an act."

Emma thinks about that, and about the people she knows. Sometimes people say things to her and she knows they aren't true, and that's a sort of act too.

"Mommy and daddy don't act a lot," she finally says, and Mr. Gold smiles very, very faintly.

"They seem quite straight-forward, your charming parents. But you might find that things aren't always what they seem, Miss Swan. Why, even the Nolans might turn out to be a long lost fairy tale royalty in the end."

Mr. Gold really, really enjoys acting strange, Emma decides.

There are bad people in the world just like there is in the fairytales, Emma learns.

They're out in the forest on a bright summer day, a picnic by a lake so that mommy and daddy can teach Emma to swim. It's fun, especially when she and mommy team up to splash daddy with water until he surrenders and they demand hugs and kisses as their reward.

Emma gets hers first, a long lingering hug and kisses to her forehead. Mommy just gets a kiss, but it's a really long one that lasts until Emma gets bored with it and splashes them both.

It's a good day. In the afternoon, they eat their packed food and then mommy and daddy cuddle up on the blanket and Emma explores the forest around them, swearing to mommy she won't go far.

Of course, she ends up going a little too far, and suddenly she is aware of loud voices.

"Albert Spencer," her daddy is saying, and his voice makes Emma's skin prickle. It feels like something is wrong.

"David Nolan, upstart king of the survivors," an angry voice says back, and Emma creeps closer. She can see them now, see daddy standing halfway in front of mommy and with a strange man standing in front of them again and pointing something at them.

"Better him than you," mommy says angrily, and Emma hasn't heard mommy like that before. That voice sounds like someone who would shoot a bad man in the shoulder with an arrow. "David is a good, decent man who..."

"He's nothing more than a coma patient who fell in love with a school teacher and got delusions of grandeur," the man hisses, and Emma balls her fist. He's a bad man, she just knows. He's a very bad man.

"Is that my crime?" daddy says calmly. "That many people preferred me to you, and came to my camp instead?"

"Your crime..." the man says, almost choking on the words. "You woke a dragon, I don't even know how you did it, you set a dragon on my camp, you left me the only survivor..."

"Dragon?" daddy echoes, sounding completely confused.

"It kept me trapped for years, keeping me alive for its own amusement," the man goes on, and he sounds almost crazy, Emma finds. "I finally escaped and now I will have my revenge."

"Your quarrel is with me. Kill me and let Mary Margaret go," daddy says, and mommy makes a noise of protest.

"Where is the brat you adopted?" the man hisses, ignoring him. "That little girl from the hospital. Emma, wasn't it? I want to look at your faces as I kill her, I want to see you grieve as I shoot your wife as well, I want you to feel utter despair before I kill you as well, I want..."

Emma doesn't think as she hears him talking about mommy and daddy dying. She knows what death is now. She will not let that happen to mommy and daddy.

So, she reaches for the nearest rock and throws it with all the strength she has. It hits the guy's head, and he staggers and looks confused.

"Step away from my mommy and daddy," Emma says breathlessly, and mommy and daddy stare at her in wonder. Then daddy moves, socking the guy right in the jaw and down the bad guy goes.

"Emma!" mommy says, running over to hug her. Daddy is picking up the thing the bad guy was holding, then looking over at them.

"Like mother, like daughter," daddy says, and mommy laughs at that while Emma is left wondering what that means while being happy she is like mommy in any way.

It's officially her first adventure, Emma decides, but she isn't sure she wants more adventures like that.

They manage to get the bad guy back to their community. Regina and Mr. Gold insist on taking care of him, and mommy and daddy let them after a brief argument. They're going to make a cell, apparently, locking the bad guy up.

Emma thinks the punishment should involve more rock throwing since he was mean to mommy and daddy, and Mr. Gold laughs in that way he does when she says as much.

Then they go home. As mommy makes them dinner, daddy sits down next to Emma and explains to her that Albert Spencer was a very bad man that once tried set fire to their previous home. That's when Graham died, and daddy's face looks very sad as he mentions that.

It should have been a bigger rock she threw, Emma thinks.

"You were a hero today," daddy finally says, and Emma feels her chest swell with so much pride it's almost painful. A hero. Her. Just like in the fairy tales.

When daddy sets the plates, mommy takes over and explains that the bad guy has apparently gone a little mad surviving on his own for many years since he kept talking about dragons.

Dragons only exist in fairy tales, Emma knows. Mommy and daddy have told her that often enough. Still, she wonders why a bad guy would start imagining dragons. That seems like an odd thing to imagine.

There is one other thing Emma is wondering about, and she keeps wondering about it while they eat dinner.

"What does adopted mean?" Emma finally asks after they've put the plates away, and mommy and daddy exchange a glance.

"We wanted you to be a bit older when we told you," mommy says gently. "Emma, your father and I, we... You know how the sheep give birth to lambs?"

Emma nods. She's seen that, she's even cried over a few lambs that died.

"You remember the sheep that died last winter after she had given birth?" daddy says, and Emma nods again. She almost wishes she didn't. "One of the other sheep took care of her lambs became their mommy."

"Mommy and daddy didn't give birth to you," mommy says, looking at Emma intently. "We're your parents, but we didn't give birth to you. That's what adopted means."

"Oh," Emma says. Mommy and daddy are looking at her anxiously. "Who gave birth to me?"

"We don't know," daddy says. "I found you in the hospital in your baby blanket."

Emma swallows. "Are they dead?"

"We don't know," mommy says again, sounding sad. "A lot of people died then. They might be. I'm very sorry, Emma."

"If they're alive, would they come to take me away from you?" Emma asks, and daddy shakes his head furiously.

"No, Emma. If they came looking for you, we would... We would find a way and we would still be your mommy and daddy no matter what. But I don't think..."

He closes his eyes as if in pain. Mommy takes his hand and squeezes it, looking at Emma with sad eyes.

"Emma, your parents had given you to the hospital. I don't know why. Maybe they didn't think they could be good parents to you. Maybe they were trying to give you your best chance."

"They gave me up," Emma says tonelessly. Her chest hurts. Daddy pulls her onto his lap, kissing her head while mommy takes her hands.

"We wanted you," daddy says furiously. "More than anything. I took one look at you and you were my baby girl, Emma. I'm so proud to be your daddy."

"I'm so proud to be your mommy," mommy echoes, and Emma sniffles before giving in and crying against daddy's chest. Mommy puts her arms around them both, Emma can hear both mommy and daddy murmur soft, loving words, but they let her cry.

It hurts. She can't even explain exactly why, just that it does.

She runs out of tears at some point, and just sits in silence while daddy and mommy hold her. She's always felt their arms are the safest place in the whole world, but she's beginning to realize that even here, she can feel hurt.

Maybe there isn't a place that is completely safe. Maybe that's why people have to be brave, in fairy tales like in real life.

Emma is tired, resting her head against mommy's chest with dad's chest against her back and daddy's arm around both her and mommy. They're in mommy and daddy's bed, and Emma knows that tonight, tonight daddy won't be carrying her to her own bed the moment she falls asleep.

"Do you want us to tell you a fairy tale tonight?" mommy asks softly. "Maybe about Snow White and Prince Charming?"

"No," Emma says quietly. Tonight, she doesn't feel like fairy tales.

"How about the story of how mommy and daddy met?" daddy asks softly after a moment. "You see, mommy and daddy met because of you, Emma."

"You did?" Emma asks, glancing up at mommy, who nods.

"Yes," daddy says, kissing the back of her head. "Once upon a time there was a coma patient in a hospital that was woken by true love's cry. He heard the cries of the baby girl who was going to be his daughter. He just didn't know she would be that yet. But she awoke him with her cries. Her name was Emma..."

Emma closes her eyes and listens, letting her daddy's words slowly lull her to sleep.

Summer becomes autumn, and just like that, she's a year older.

"Blow the candle, honey," mommy says, kissing Emma's temple softly. "It's your birthday, you should make a wish."

"You should," daddy says, beaming down at Emma and Emma smiles back up at him. Daddy. Daddy and mommy. All a child could ask for. Loving parents, such very loving parents. It doesn't matter that they didn't give birth to her. They're all she could want in parents anyway.

She's like the lamb that got a new mommy. She's like Owen. Mommy and daddy chose her. She's their child by choice, not my birth.

But Emma Blanchard Nolan Swan isn't always going to be a child. She's growing up, as all children do. She's beginning to look beyond her parents, as all children eventually do.

She closes her eyes and wishes, not even sure what she's wishing for. Not mommy and daddy. She'll always have them, she knows.

What else can she have? Can she wish for anything else?

When she opens her eyes, mommy and daddy are beaming at her and pull her into a hug, and Emma forgets about her wish.

For now.