The Aftermath

This is a crossover story, full of angst. If you remember, Emma from OUAT has to kill Hook/Killian in season 5; Xena's friend Gabrielle dies when she sacrifices herself at the end of Season 3; and Aeryn from Farscape loses John to radiation poisoning in season 3 as well. All of them have lost someone they love. They now need to decide what to do next, and all three eventually travel to some sort of underworld (in Aeryn's case, the planet Valdun where they say you can speak with the dead). In this story, all three meet just before their particular journeys begin, on a place which is pretty much a version of Valdun. (There is a small cameo from Lucifer simply because it fits the theme of the Underworld, and it's nice to have a musical introduction.)

I

It was two am at Lux nightclub, and Hades was singing folksongs about hell.

Emma rubbed her eyes. It was smoky and dim, despite the club's name, and she had no idea why she was still hanging around when it was clear the guy who'd skipped bail wasn't going to show. And it wasn't Hades singing, the man's name was Lucifer. He was as beautiful as the devil, but he sang like an angel.

Come, come here, sing your song

And Eurydice shall walk free

Just close your eyes and you'll believe

Eurydice shall walk free

She remembered this one. Orpheus had charmed the god of the underworld, who'd promised he'd send his wife home, so long as he didn't turn and look for her. And he'd turned around when he shouldn't have, and his wife wasn't behind him. Hades had tricked him. She'd never been there, and he'd never had a chance. But Hades had the song for free.

She rubbed her eyes again. Two am didn't agree with her anymore. She looked around, just in case the perp had showed, and then followed the singer's gaze. He was staring at a woman at the back. Maybe he thought she'd disappear on him. It was pretty clear the woman was a cop, but she held a glass between her fingers, off the job maybe or undercover. Listening carefully to the song as though it was a code, a secret message just for her.

Emma slid out of her seat and headed to the door. What was she doing in LA, anyway? Going across the country for a bond made no sense. Her hand rested on the banister of the broad staircase as the last chords played. What was she doing here?

The banister became the railing of a ship. Not just a ship - she was on the Jolly Roger. God, she was exhausted. She had barely slept while searching for Henry in Neverland, no wonder she'd dozed off. She was lucky she hadn't plunged over the side, again.

'Swan?'

She looked up as Hook gestured to her from the deck.

'Take the helm, would you, love?'

She moved over to the ship's wheel, held it steady as Hook drew out his telescope, peered up at the stars, or at Pan's shadow that was apparently allowing the ship to fly. It still felt dream-like, as though everyone was pretending, as though she were pretending along with them to do magic, to be magical. Hook's workmanlike behaviour on the ship calmed her a little.

"Neal should be at the helm," Hook grumbled. "I spent long enough teaching the boy, and he'll lose the knowledge if he doesn't use it."

Emma blinked at Hook's description. Neal was her son's father – hardly a boy, though she remembered Hook had told her that he'd been just a lad when they'd met, when Hook had taught him to sail, helped him survive. Neal had grown up; Hook was exactly the same age, cursed not to evolve or change, just to enact the same attempt at revenge over and over again. It was like Storybrooke, stuck on the same day for twenty-eight years, until Emma arrived. Hook had been trapped by his own fate until somehow Emma had shown him another way.

"Neal's keeping an eye on Henry," Emma told him. "Regina's watching Gold, and Mary Margaret can't stop looking at David, in case – "

"Aye."

Emma stopped. In case, of course, he dropped dead as Hook's brother had. She changed the subject.

"Do you need another deckhand? Because I could find Tinkerbell – "

"No, this ship knows where she's going," Hook told her, patting the side of the vessel affectionately. "And you've got a good grip on the wheel yourself – not too tight, she doesn't like that."

Emma gave him a look, and he grinned. "I'll take over, if you like."

She stepped back from the helm and looked over the side. There was no longer any view of sea or even sky, just a blur as they moved through time and space. "Where exactly are we?"

"Who knows? Outside Henry's book, in the blank pages, perchance."

"But we can still see the stars."

Hook shrugged. "There are worlds out there, as much as on the earth we know," he remarked, surprising her. She remembered he'd been trained with the Royal Navy. She'd dropped out of school herself; he probably understood more of science than she did.

She let out a sigh, resting both hands on the ship's rail. Henry would finish school. He'd go to college, maybe. There' d be a graduation ceremony with so many people cheering him on, Regina, Neal, Mary Margaret, David, maybe the child Mary Margaret had spoken about conceiving. And she'd watch him and think she'd given him his best chance. Because she'd be there too, making sure no one else dared kidnap him. She'd work on magic with Regina until she could wield it with ease. She'd get David to teach her the sword, get Mary Margaret to train her in archery. Maybe she couldn't go back and be the mother he'd needed. But she was here, now. She would never let him go.

"You'll have to let him go, sometime, Swan."

Hook had given up the helm, was standing close, and strangely she didn't mind.

"You'll have to let me go, Swan. Let me go – let me go!"

Emma let out a scream as the sword in her hand plunged into Killian's body. He'd become the Dark One – they both had – and this was the only way to free them both, sending Killian to the Underworld, leaving herself to mourn and suffer. A haze covered her eyes and she tumbled into a different sort of darkness.

II

There was a blonde lying face down on the filthy stones, in the pouring rain; it couldn't be her, it couldn't be, but Xena grabbed her by the shoulder and turned her over anyway.

It wasn't Gabrielle. Hazel eyes, not green; her hair pale, it almost shone in the dark of this place. She wasn't dead, either, blinking, groaning and pulling herself to her feet.

"Regina?"

Xena stepped back. "Who?" She raised her sword in front of her body, waiting.

The woman rubbed her eyes. "What the hell are we doing here?" Then she squinted. "Oh. You're not Regina, are you? Blue eyes, big sword. And while your coat is kind of stylish, she wouldn't be out here without her nails being done."

"Who's Regina?" Xena asked impatiently. "And who are you?"

"I'm Emma Swan. And Regina's – the mother of my son. The Evil Queen? I mean, she's fierce, but you're more – feral?"

Xena raised an eyebrow. "Mother of your son? So you're together?"

Emma rubbed her eyes again. "Either I'm concussed, or it's really dark in here. No, we're more frenemies. But she became my son's mother when I – couldn't."

Xena sheathed her sword. "Ah."

"You know something of that."

"Yes. My son was also raised by others. Good people. If I'd left him alone, left them all alone, he would have survived. He's now a boy forever."

There was deep sympathy in the woman's eyes. "I'm sorry."

"I'm looking for someone," Xena went on. "Blonde, like you, but green eyes, kind of chatty. Doesn't wear – whatever you're wearing." She waved a hand at Emma's jacket and trousers.

"I haven't seen anyone," Emma told her. "I don't even know where I am. Is this the Enchanted Forest?"

"Does this look like an enchanted forest?" Xena hissed, moving forward to shake some sense into her. "We're in the underworld!"

Emma stepped neatly out of her grasp, and brought her palm upwards, balancing a ball of white flame there. "Back off!"

"You're a witch," Xena murmured, circling her. "Sent by Hades to test me, are you?"

"Oh, God, there's always something new, isn't there? Now I'm dead?"

"We're not dead," Xena said scornfully. "This is one of the entrances to the Underworld, maybe, but it's like no place I've seen."

Emma closed her hand and the ball of flame disappeared. "Well, I'm not a witch. I'm the saviour, whatever that means here. You're sure we're not dead?"

"We're all dead," a low, slow voice broke in. "Just not yet."

III

Aeryn had no idea why she bothered approaching the two women fighting in the alleyway on Valdun. She was half drunk, soaked from the driving rain, and shuddering still from the harsh landing she'd made on the planet that they'd called a place of mystics and criminals, a place where some said you could meet with the dead.

John Crichton was gone. He'd looked out with those blue eyes, smiled a little, and left her alone. She'd started drinking a half arn after and hadn't stopped. And now she didn't know what was real. Maybe she was still on Moya and John had never twinned. Maybe she was on Talyn and John had never died. Valdun in its ugly filth was exactly how she'd imagined non-Peacekeeper space, when she'd been a cadet. Perhaps John was a dream, too.

The two women turned and stared at her. She was leaning against the alley wall in her black leathers, her pulse pistol at her side; she looked like someone who could defend herself. But then, the two women weren't the diseased specimens who'd haunted the corridor of the carrier she'd landed at, not bent and filthy but tall, straight, powerful. The blonde in red leather, the brunette in a dark furred coat. They didn't seem to be robbing one another for credits. They seemed to be arguing about the nature of reality.

Suddenly, Aeryn began to laugh. "John – John would love this," she spluttered. "The more stupid and absurd, the more he'd blab, never able to stop talking . . ."

"I know someone like that." It was the tall woman in the coat, her eyes as blue as John's.

Aeryn sighed. "He's already got a double." The alcohol hit her all at once, and she began to slide down the wall, unable to cope with the gravity, somehow. Could you freefall on a planet? The women's faces blurred above her, and she began to laugh again. There was the sound of someone shooting in the distance; she remembered that she was on the planet of the dead.

IV

Emma ducked at the sound of shooting. The whole place reminded her of the seedier parts of Chicago, if Chicago had no sky and creatures that looked like miniature ogres making out behind broken walls.

"There's no point lingering here," Xena said, looking around. "Any sort of trouble could delay us."

"We can't just leave her!" Emma argued, and Xena shrugged, picking up the woman and slinging her over her shoulder.

"Too much to drink, but she'll be knifed by any one of these fools if she lies here," Xena agreed. "And it sounds as though she's searching for someone. We may as well find the gate to the underworld together."

Is that what she was doing here? Had she cast a spell in order to find Killian? Emma looked down at her hands, conjured the white ball of fire again. "He told me to let him go," she murmured.

"Who?"

"Killian. My – love. He's my – he's mine. And I couldn't save him." She choked on the words. "I tried everything. But in the end, I had to let him die. How could I ever let him go?"

Xena continued to search the alleyways for a gate, an entrance. "You hoped you would never need to." She kicked at a wooden fence, ducked through. "And yet, once you've sworn to protect those you love, even death seems a flimsy barrier." She grinned a little. "Which is why I'm here."

"Who are you searching for?" Emma asked, steadying her own breathing.

"A woman named Gabrielle. My soulmate. She sacrificed herself to stop a great evil coming into the world."

Emma let out a sigh. "Oh." She followed Xena through the fence. "I think we're sharing much of the same story."

"I'm sorry."

The woman in Xena's arms moaned a little, and Emma came to herself. "I might be able to help her, I think." She flicked a gaze at Xena. "Not using witchcraft."

"Hmm," Xena grumbled, but put the woman down, allowing Emma to pass her hands over her drooping head. The woman startled at once, and Xena looked interested.

"That could be useful."

"Doesn't always work," Emma warned, but held out a hand and helped the woman up. "I'm Emma Swan. This is – what's your name?"

"Xena. And who are you?"

"Aeryn Sun, Icarion company, Pleisar regiment." The woman snapped out, then rubbed her head again.

"So you're a soldier." Xena began walking around her, sharp-eyed. "I see it now. You've waded in the blood of your enemies, and you're cursed to walk the edges of the underworld until death takes you, as well. We should have left you where you were."

Aeryn shoved the woman, and Emma found herself creating another fireball, unsure that either woman would survive a battle between sword and pistol. "Takes one to frelling know one."

"Listen, we've all done things we regret!"

The two women turned and stared at her. "We've all made stupid, stupid choices," Emma went on, her voice breaking. "We're here because people died for our choices, people we love. Strangers, maybe, but we know each other, don't we? We're nothing left but loss, but the empty space they've torn from us!"

"I wish I was still drunk," Aeryn muttered, and looked between Emma and Xena. "You've got his hair, you've got his eyes. They said this is the place where you speak to the dead, but you're both still alive."

"We have to stay that way," Xena said grimly. "Or we can't bring them back."

"They're not really here."

"That's only because we haven't found the entrance. Once I find Hades, I'll force him to give her back to me!"

"Didn't work for Orpheus, though, did it?" Emma said, remembering. "It was all a trick."

"He owes me," Xena growled. "They all do, those gods. And they may think they're immortal, but they're bound by their oaths more than we are. They pay the price for their power every day." Her fingers curled around the hilt of her sword. "We were happy, until they did this to us. And if someone had to pay, it should've been me, for all the things I've done, all the lives I've taken. She was innocent."

Emma was reminded once again of Regina, her dark past, her struggle to move beyond it. But this woman wore her guilt more tightly around her. "You'd die for her."

"It was my job to protect her." Now Xena's face was wracked with guilt. "I couldn't."

"I couldn't."

"Nor I."

V

Aeryn looked at the two strangers kicking at doorways, searching for secret passages, hoping that on a planet of death that they'd find some proof of life. Not only did they have his eyes, his hair, but they had his foolish human hope, too. The blonde woman might have removed the pounding headache from whatever rotgut she'd swallowed, but Aeryn was certain it had still damaged her brain and thrown her into a world peopled by female Crichtons. Oh, but none of them was he.

He'd been so lovely. The strange way he spoke, the words he formed, their sound. He made no sense and it was beautiful nonsense, the kind that built a bridge between them that only they understood. Now she couldn't hear anything; or at least she could hear nothing she wanted.

The blonde woman, Emma, was questioning the other one about the underworld, trying to find a reason to believe someone could go there and return.

"I told you, my son – I went there, freed him from Tartarus, let him leave in the peaceful realms where I'm always about to come home," Xena said. "And I was able to come back out."

"How?" Emma demanded.

"I know the gods."

That word meant nothing to Aeryn, but it shook Emma, she could see. Maybe it was a word John hadn't taught her yet, though it was short, like run, like sun, the other words he was teaching her to read. Maybe if he'd taught her that one, she'd be able to stand and listen to Xena's instructions and drag Crichton back from death. But she couldn't believe.

"Those gods who owe you."

"She saved the whole world," Xena persisted. "That has to be worth something. It has to!"

"But we have to save it over and over again," Emma said in a low voice. "Because he saved it, too. Maybe it's just what heroes do – die good deaths."

"I won't give up."

Maybe Xena had John's stupid obstinance along with his eyes, Aeryn thought. Maybe it was a sort of bravery that hadn't grown enough inside her. If she'd known him longer, if she'd been able to have him longer, maybe she too would be kicking down the doors to the land of the dead.

The sound of shooting began again. Pulse pistols, peacekeeper issued, Aeryn noted dispassionately. They were here, probably for her. There was something about that vessel streaking through the sky that she ought to recognise. There was someone in it that she knew she should remember. The sound of shooting grew louder.

"I don't have any weapons with me," Emma warned, "and I don't know how well a sword does against whatever's making that noise."

Aeryn pulled out her pulse pistol. "I'll hold them off. You've helped me this far. I know how to get to where I need to go, after this."

She meant the hotel, where she was going to meet her contact. She could tell that they hoped it was something different.

"Our way is just over here, I can feel it," Xena murmured. "I can feel the pull of the water."

"Weirdly, so can I," Emma said, and tossed Aeryn another look as the sounds of fighting grew nearer. "You're certain?"

Aeryn gave her a sharp nod, and then drew back as Emma grasped her wrist. "I hope you find him again, somewhere. Until then –"

"Until then," Aeryn repeated, and spun around just as one of the burly peacekeepers burst out from behind the wall. It felt good to have someone to shoot at.

Years later she remembered Emma's emphasis on the word somewhere. As though she too knew worlds where there were more than one who shared a lover's face.

VI

Xena pushed through the last doorway and entered the tunnel full of foul-smelling sulphur. She breathed it in like the fresh breeze of the sea. This was the way to the underworld. Strange that it hadn't really appeared until Aeryn had left them.

She held her sword out warily as she traversed the tunnel; Emma's strange magic light allowed them to see in the darkness.

"So this is the way you think the gods lie," Emma said. "In a hole in the ground?"

"Why not?"

"I don't know, I thought they lived on top of a mountain or something. White palace, clouds, stuff like that."

"They're not all powerful. There are a lot of lands out there, with their own gods. We've visited a few of them. I know how it works. I know how to do this."

Suddenly a screech echoed through the tunnel, piercing, terrifying.

"What the hell?" Emma uttered, and then ducked as something dark with enormous wings flew at them. "Tell me that isn't a flying monkey!"

Xena gave out a cry, leapt up and plunged her sword into the creature. It threw her off, crashing her against the wall, pulling the sword from her hands. It wasn't a bird, it was some sort of winged, beaked lizard, with skin too thick for her blade, and a mouth full of razored teeth. She grabbed for her chakram while Emma stood and flung a fireball at the beast, lighting the tunnel, illuminating a strip of paler skin at its belly. With a low laugh, Xena gutted the creature as it rose up to kill.

"Ugh!"

They were splattered with a blue-purple blood, the tunnel walls slippery with the creature's innards. Xena laughed again. "I told you, I know how to do this."

Emma laid a hand on her arm, and she spun around. "What?"

"Hey. Maybe you do. But maybe you need to be prepared for something different. I mean, we started off in a pretty weird realm. I have no idea how we even got there. I'm just saying, maybe – this time will be different."

Xena gave her a steady look, then a single nod. "All right."

She turned back to the tunnel. The scent of water was stronger now, the feel of the river where Charon ruled.

"This Regina you spoke about," she began.

"Yes?"

"Is she a witch?"

"I don't know, I don't know how it all works," Emma answered. "Maybe she was one, once, when she used dark magic to get what she wanted. She could snap her fingers and a village would be burned to the ground. But – she's not that person any longer."

Xena tried to keep her hand steady on her sword. There would be more things ahead, lurking in the shadows. "And you thought I was her."

"Only the dark hair. You're taller. Different eyes. And, uh – "

"I remember. Feral."

"I didn't mean- "

"I know what you meant." She moved forward, pushing a thick curtain of cobweb aside. "I was that person too. Putting villages to the sword, murdering strangers for gold."

"But not anymore."

"She changed me. Gabrielle. I can't go back. If I did, it would be like – like she never existed."

"I understand. It's like that for Regina, too, because of my son. But it's hard. She has to fight the darkness every single day."

"And you help."

"I try. Lately it's been the other way around. They've helped me. None of us can do it alone. My parents, my son, Regina, our friends. The only way we've been able to win against the dark is to win together."

The tunnel grew narrower, and Xena moved sideways, rock behind her, earth in front. Like she was sidling into her grave.

"But you're seeking your lover alone."

VII

Emma kept the ball of light balanced in her palm while she followed the woman in front of her. The way she'd laughed as she'd ripped the creature apart did remind her of Regina. Her way with the sword, that was Charming's skill, her tracking ability, Snow's. Maybe Xena had all those skills, but she sure didn't. She needed all of the others if she was going to do this. Not only their skills with weapons, but their belief. The hope Snow held, and the utter belief Henry had in her.

The tunnel moved sharply downhill, and then widened.

"There," Xena pointed with satisfaction. "The river Styx. I cross that, and I'm in Hades' land." She flipped a strange coin in the air and caught it. "Just have to pay the boatman with one of these. Got one?"

Emma looked over at the river and then back at Xena. "I – I don't. And I don't think I'm meant to. I think this is where I leave you."

"What?"

"You're right. I shouldn't be going after Killian alone. I can't do it alone, I need everyone, all their power and their skills and, and their love." She swallowed. "I think you'll do just fine, though. You seem to have all of it yourself."

Xena inclined her head. "I don't need an army," she said. "I know what I'm doing. But I'll remember what you said. This time, this time it might be different."

Emma stood back and watched as Xena flicked the coin at Charon, stepped in the flat-bottomed boat, disappeared into the mist. She had no doubt the woman would save the person she sought. She wasn't used to failure.

Turning back, she noticed a small green door set into the earth wall behind her. Humble, unlocked, even. Pushing it, she ducked her head through and found herself falling once again.

VIII

She landed with a thud on the front seat of her yellow car. He was there and she lifted her hand to his cheek and whispered, "I thought you were dead – Killian, I thought you were dead!"

"You know me, Swan. I'm a survivor," he began, but he fell back, hand on his heart, and suddenly he was Graham, collapsing on the floor of the office, unable to be revived. She wept and shook him, and then there was no one there, she was alone, falling once again.

Emma sat up with a gasp. She was in her house, lying back on her red couch.

No, not her house. Their house, the house that Killian had chosen. He'd looked through the telescope at the sea, and his face had changed. The beauty of it. He'd loved the house, and even though he'd thought she'd embraced the darkness, he'd loved her too.

"I'll go," Emma said out loud. She stood up, slid on her red leather jacket, went to the door. "This can't be the end. We'll all go."

But as she ran down the steps to her car, she thought she could hear that song, once again.

Come, come here, sing your song

And Eurydice shall walk free

Just close your eyes and you'll believe

Eurydice shall walk free