Chapter Text
Emma shuddered as she trudged her way back towards the Dark One’s abode. Hook trailed behind her, muttering under his breath as he carried the unconscious woman they had saved from the Evil Queen’s soldiers. That irritated her, as she’d already told him several times to leave the woman behind in any number of little hiding holes that had been pointed out to them by that very woman. She would have been fine, even if she’d never given them a name.
Smart, considering that the three days Hook had been running around with her ensuring Zelena’s plan (or some form of it at any rate) failed and Snow met Charming had all been done while Emma had been with the Evil Queen. Emma couldn’t share what she didn’t know (and Emma had shared a lot, not all of it entirely willingly but a great deal had just come pouring out of her without the need for the truth potion the Queen had given her).
That wasn’t all they had shared after the Queen had removed the illusion spell Rumpelstiltskin had cast over her, but Emma wasn’t going to share that bit of information. No, that was for her and her alone.
Regina would likely never remember, no matter what the Queen might have planned for. Why would she even want to or care when she already had her fairy-dust decreed soulmate? Emma was not supposed to mean anything more than a friend to the older woman. Henry’s birth mother. An oft times inconvenient annoyance and sometimes ally.
Emma couldn’t help that throughout everything she’d developed honest to goodness feelings for the older woman. Regina was attractive in many ways. Looking back, Emma had figured out that she was doomed from that very first moment.
Of course she had fought against it. The sheer overwhelmingness of Henry being right about the curse and everything afterwards helped (mostly just by being overwhelming and going against everything Emma had ever known and believed). She just couldn’t continuing running from it any longer. Not after having had a taste of what it would be like to have Regina’s attention focused on her as a lover. As someone who just might one day return her feelings.
“Hey Luv,” Hook tried to get her attention. He was worried about her, even if she looked physically fine. He knew from Snow that Emma’s heart couldn’t be taken, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t hiding or lying about some other hurt.
“Not your love,” Emma responded, stopping her walking to turn so she could face him. Kissing him was one of the biggest regrets she had. “What do you want Hook?”
“We’re here is all lass, unless you want to keep walking?” Hook knew he wasn’t the brightest person around, but things eventually got through even his thick skull.
He had hurt Emma, and he hadn’t wanted to do that. He’d tried to make it better, but clearly she wasn’t ready to reconcile just yet. He could wait. Persistence did seem to work with the woman.
“No, let’s get this over with.” Emma raised a hand to knock. “And we’re leaving her here.”
“Well Dearies, back after all.” Rumpelstiltskin looked the pair and their extra over. “Running a little late, aren’t we?”
“We still made it, or is there something else we need to do so we can return to our own time?” Emma just wanted to go home. She was going to be an adult, face the consequences of her actions, and then plan from there.
Maybe Regina would let her explain this time instead of just yelling at her.
Maybe she would be able to look her parents in their eyes as she officially met her little brother…and maybe she could get rid of her resentment towards him. It wasn’t his fault she felt that way.
Maybe she could even get Henry to understand her decision.
It was an awful lot of maybes, but at this point Emma was just resigned to the fact that her life was built on them. Those and the choices other people made for her and about her.
“No, no, but getting back is going to be on you.” He snapped his fingers, sending them to his vault where they would be out of the way. “The wand might work, but even if it doesn’t you can’t do any harm to my plans here.”
Emma exchanged a look with Hook. Honestly, neither of them were all that surprised. And the mystery woman was still with them. Maybe after she woke up, they could get the Dark One to memory wipe her and send her on her way. Something in her gut told her that bringing the woman back with them was a bad idea.
“Well, you’re the one with magic lu-” he backtracked at Emma’s glare, “lass.” At least, he hoped she could get her magic to work now.
“Yeah, yeah.” Why, recently, did it always seem to come down to ‘Emma needs to use her magic to solve the issue’? Everyone but Regina seemed to forget that Emma didn’t actually know how to use her magic.
Even so, she picked up the wand. The Queen certainly hadn’t had any trouble getting Emma’s magic to react to hers, which meant it wasn’t actually gone.
Thinking of the Queen, or Regina in general really, caused her magic to spark and fizz beneath her skin. Emma shivered with the feeling. It figured, given the reason she had magic, that love was the trigger (when it was something she had had little of throughout her life) for the unwanted gift. Still, it meant she could get them home.
“We’re leaving her here. Once we’re gone, he’s got no reason to leave her here.”
“You’re expecting mercy from the Dark One? He’d leave her here because it would be easy.” Hook did wonder what had gotten into the woman before him. He would have expected Emma to be the one to insist on keeping the rescued woman with them.
Emma opened her mouth to object, to try to explain why she felt that taking the woman with them would be bad, but found herself unable to. So she gave up and focused instead on what she wanted from the wand. A way home, back to her son and the woman she was in love with (even if she was nothing more than a fling for the other woman). Back to the rest of her family and the friends she had made in Storybrooke. Back to her world and not the (in her opinion) highly over-rated Enchanted Forest.
A portal whirled into existence and sucked them in, leaving the wand behind.