59So here's the thing. This was written before the finale aired, and there were a lot of spoilers for the finale posted, and my ideas just started running away from me and forming a story, so I decided to write it! Some things might not match to the show, so just bear with me.
It'll be angsty, so I'd suggest leaving your feels at the door before proceeding.
Enjoy!
"That page wasn't a prediction," the Apprentice said with a twinkle of his eyes. "It was merely reassuring you that one day, you would get a happy ending."
"But with whom?" Regina asked, desperate for an answer. It wasn't Robin, so who could it be?
"That is up to you, but I feel like you already know."
It had all come to this.
The past day had been absolute madness. A wild trip to the Enchanted Forest, and now they were back in Storybrooke. It was always like that, wasn't it? Storybrooke was where everything started.
And where everything ended.
Emma stood in the middle of the street, a wild storm brewing around her. There were people all around her: Hook, Hood, and her parents, but she paid them no mind.
No, she only had eyes for one person. Regina. The amazing woman who had sacrificed so much for Emma in the past week, now stood, possessed as the Dark One's dagger was seemingly sucking away all of her light magic.
"Emma please, don't do this!" Mary Margaret pleaded, sobbing in David's arms. She still hadn't cleared the air with them, hadn't talked to them since the night they had admitted that they lied to her. She had been too angry, felt too betrayed, and she still did.
Ignoring her mother, Emma moved forward again, only to be stopped by a firm hand on her wrist. Hook. "Emma, please, think about what you're doing."
Whipping around, she wrenched her arm away with as much force as she could muster. "No! I don't have to think, I need to save Regina!"
"There has to be another way! Think about what you're sacrificing; your happy ending!" Hook insisted. He still had such a simple way of viewing the world, and Emma was tired of it.
"You still don't get it do you? The Author and the Apprentice both confirmed it: happy endings aren't a finite thing, and right now, I need to save Regina: my family." She sighed and after a quick glance to Regina, who didn't have much time left, she added, "Look, I know you have this wonderful fantasy about your happy ending, but it's not mine. It never was. I'm sorry, I have to do this."
Turning back, she quickly went to grab the dagger lying on the ground, and thrust it up into the air before anyone could try to stop her.
Suddenly, the sounds of the storm and of the people pleading and yelling her name all died out. It was silent. Suddenly a whoosh thrummed by her ears, and she felt the power coursing through the air - away from Regina - towards her.
"Emma?" She heard it clearly, even though it was barely louder than a broken whisper, and saw Regina's panic-stricken face looking at her, realizing what she was doing. "Emma, what are you doing?!" Louder, more forceful.
All she could do was offer an encouraging smile, the kind that she had offered countless times before, and a wink.
Regina felt like her heart had plummeted to her stomach. "Emma stop!" she tried again to plead, but Emma couldn't - or wouldn't - hear her.
The dagger's partial draining left Regina weak, so she stumbled, but someone caught her. Robin. No, he hadn't caught her, he was holding her back, stopping her from doing anything. From rescuing Emma.
"Let go of me!" she exclaimed, stepping on his foot and elbowing him. He yelped and groaned, and Regina savagely thought, good, before she wildly looked around for something, anything, that would save Emma. But she saw nothing. There was nothing.
The storm grew stronger, more forceful, surrounding Emma until no one could see her. Then, like a giant vacuum had been turned on, all the clouds were sucked inwards towards the dagger.
And with the seemingly mundane fall of a wavy dagger onto the damp gravel, everything stopped.
The five of them stood, seemingly frozen, until Mary Margaret gave a strangled whimper, seemingly breaking them from their trance. Regina slowly, on auto-pilot even, made her way to the fallen dagger, and with shaking hands, she picked it up, not daring to turn the blade around, and see what was written on the other side. She saw her reflection on the silver, between the intricate patterns. She was pale, tears were pooling at her eyes; she barely looked like herself.
"Is she...?" A man's voice tried to ask, but couldn't get the words out. Regina couldn't even register who said it, she couldn't discern anything but the blade in front of her. She turned it around and saw a clear name etched, a name she had prayed wouldn't be on it. Emma Swan.
No.
Her legs gave way under her, and she fell onto her knees, keeping a tight grip on the dagger as her whole body shook with a wracking sob.
It had all been for naught. The search for the Author, the talk with the Apprentice, finding out that her happy ending was her own to make, that a ripped page depicting something from a lifetime ago meant only hope when she needed it most, rather than a prediction. It was all for nothing.
Emma, her family, her partner raising Henry, her friend, was lost.
What could've been hours later, she felt a jacket thrown over her with the caution of someone who was afraid of getting mauled by her but still wanted to make sure she was warm. It was David's jacket, she was certain of it, and it reminded her so much of Emma.
Regina couldn't give up now. Emma would never give up so easily, she hadn't done so during the countless times that things seemed bleak or hopeless, so neither would she.
Looking up, she glanced at the dagger, still in her hand, and made a promise.
I will find you Emma, if it's the last thing I do.
I will accept tears as payment.
Sooooo, should I start running away now?