A/N: So here it is. I just wanna say that this has been one of my favourite things to write and certainly the most emotional one. If you enjoyed the ride half as much as I did, I couldn't ask for anything more. Thank you!

Emma parks her car in front of the garage, eyeing the gate like it's a wild bull ready to charge her. The staring contest continues for a full minute before she sighs, deciding that she is indeed too lazy to get her car in and kills the engine. She reaches over to the passenger seat, grabbing the bags full of Chinese (it's Friday so she can let it slide and promise herself that she'd do some baking during the weekend because it's been awhile and she likes the smell of flour and eggs in her kitchen and the sight of Liam trying to help and ending up with melted chocolate all over his nose and fingertips and she knows how copious amounts of chocolate affect Killian).

"Mm, yes, definitely chocolate soufflés tomorrow."

She got out of jail a month ago and here she is, with nothing but the clothes on her back and the yellow bug parked in front of the coffee shop she is sitting in, seeking refuge from the cold February weather.

Emma wraps her arms around her cup of hot chocolate, which is a luxury in itself so she tries not to look at the display of different cakes and cookies and pies, gaze sliding to the table to her right against her will. The girl's giggles and the boy's sloppy kisses have been irritating her ears for the last half an hour and if it wasn't fucking freezing outside, she would have left 29 minutes ago.

She feels an absolutely baffling combination of pity and envy as she watches them split a piece of chocolate cake between themselves. Going so far as to feed each other. Are those people for real?

She truly pities them, doesn't even need to look at them really, she can tell them right now how it's all going to end, how it always end. But she envies their delusion.

Sometimes she wishes she was still deluding herself too. Still believing that happily ever after existed, that there was a home out there waiting for her.

She crosses her lawn quickly, eyeing it critically and making a note to herself to have Killian or Henry cut the grass, depending on who gets on her bad side during the weekend.

It hits her out of nowhere. She has a lawn. A beautiful house with a huge green lawn and two amazing boys to torture with it when they get out of line and… she has a lawn, ok? Emma Swan never thought she would have a lawn. Ridiculous as that may sound to anyone else, she feels the full weight of it, settling comfortably in the pit of her stomach.

She's lost in her head and maybe she's not paying attention and thus has barely opened the front door when her son barrels into her, nearly knocking her over.

"Woah, kid!" the teenager promptly rolls his eyes at the endearment but doesn't slow down, one foot already out the door. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Out," he mutters, shuffling his feet, obviously anxious to be gone.

She would be amused, if she wasn't 100% in Mom Mode as Henry himself calls it. Looks like she had a candidate for the lawn already.

"Care to be a bit more specific?" she lifts an inquisitive eyebrow and her son rolls his eyes again.

Who the hell did he get that from? Oh, right. Nevermind.

"I'm meeting Grace and I'm already late," he says, glancing exasperatedly at the phone in his hand.

"It will be dark soon."

"Mom, I'm almost eighteen years old. Come on! Dad said I can go!"

"Oh, did he?"

As if on cue she feels Killian's arms wrap around her from behind and his chin comes to rest on her shoulder.

"Aye," he rasps in her ear, sending Henry a wink that she's probably supposed to pretend she didn't see. "Get a move on, lad. It's bad form to keep a lady waiting."

Henry's grin outshines the sun setting behind him.

"See you tomorrow!" he shouts back merrily, already a good ten feet away. "Love ya!"

"Wait. Tomorrow?"

Her son is already too far to hear her reply so she turns on Killian who has the decency to look sheepish.

"Told him he could spend the night at Jefferson's."

"You-" she stands gaping him for a few seconds, clearly at a loss for words.

Truth be told, she isn't mad or anything. She's more than comfortable with Killian settling things like that with Henry without consulting her. She might be a little jealous though. She learnt about Henry's relationship quite some time after Killian and she thinks she has every right to 'bloody pout about it' for a few more days.

"You are so mowing the lawn!" she says finally, giving herself a little satisfied nod before brushing past a clearly bewildered Killian.

"I'd apologize, love, but I'm not letting the boy woo a lady through his bloody computer," he replies defensively, following right behind her.

She's about to make some comment about his own wooing techniques when a ball of movement and pure energy launches itself at her.

She gets up on the stage but doesn't bother to scan the audience. There's nobody there for her. Never is. She is used to it by now. It's just a stupid Christmas concert and she can get through it. She can.

But then she makes the mistake of looking off to the side and she sees the girl that sung before her, jumping from the last step and right into her mother's arms. Her ponytail swings merrily as her mother smiles at her, all pride and encouragement. The girl starts talking and gesticulating enthusiastically.

For a second Emma forgets the first verse. Tearing her eyes away from the happy sight, she takes in everybody's expectant faces, focused on her. Her palms start sweating. She doesn't know where to look, doesn't know who to ask for help, whose gaze to search for encouragement. There's no one there. Not for her. But then the words come back to her and she takes a deep breath and pushes through.

She is rather proud of herself for making it to the end without a hitch, enough so as to let her excitement show as she walks through the door, the door she has been walking through only for a couple of months, later that night.

"The Christmas concert went well," she says tentatively, trying to keep her smile in check.

She takes the lack of response as encouragement.

"I had a-"

"Food's on the kitchen counter."

And with that she's alone and a couple of minutes later there's some banging upstairs. She doesn't know what's going on. Something more important than her, that's for sure. The excitement inside her dies like a tiny flame with a bucket of ice cold water poured on it.

"Mommy!" Liam puts his arms around his mother's neck as soon as she picks him up. "I have g'own an inch! One inch! And I watched Annabelle when Daddy helped Henry with his homewo'k and I talked to G'anmama on the phooone. Daddy said we talked for 'a whole bloony hour' and he talked to G'ampapa and we going to have a piiic-nic tomo'ow!"

Liam is in a phase where if you don't stop him he would talk your ear off and Emma just beams down at her son as she settles on the spotless rug in front of the couch.

How on earth the house is always so clean after Killian has been looking after the kids all day she would never understand. Emma knows she always leaves the place looking like a hurricane has passed over it. But her captain runs a tight ship. He is an indulging father but he has taught his boys what they need to do to qualify for 'best mates'.

He got Henry to actually fold his clothes before putting them away! She is convinced the man is unstoppable!

She mouths 'picnic?' at him, unwilling to interrupt her son's excited babbling, and Killian just rolls his eyes.

"Your father said that he hasn't spent a decent amount of time with his grandchildren in forever and that I was gonna turn them all into pirates without his knightly influence."

Emma tries to swallow her laugh. Between the order Killian maintains at home and David's constant attempts to be a 'cool Grandpa' she is pretty sure that it's her father's influence they should be worried about.

"Annabelle?" she asks as Liam, tired of bouncing on her lap and filling her in on every detail of their day, runs off towards his room.

"Exhausted. She was crawling around all day like there were ogres chasing her," replies Killian with a proud grin, plopping down next to her and drawing her into his side.

"And thank you for that image," mutters Emma, shoving him lightly and only receiving an amused chuckle in response. "I'm more than happy with our children never seeing anything like that outside of their storybooks."

"Mm," he nods in agreement, nuzzling her neck and making her whole body tingle. "Did you get my text? I gave up on getting dinner ready on time when Henry cracked open his geometry textbook again. Wasn't sure if your phone wasn't dead."

"I have three kids. And you. My phone is never dead. I got Chinese. Think I left the bags in the hall when the teenage tornado struck."

His laugh is deep and warm and makes her skin flush as his mouth, leaving a couple of sloppy kisses in its path, makes its way to her ear.

"Well then, go get your daughter, I'll warm up her purée and set the table. I think I've exhausted the little buggers enough to put them to bed early. And then," he bit down on her earlobe. "I'll put you to bed."

Now for that she might consider turning off her phone.

Sometimes she passes through some park or another and notices a young family. Two kids, sometimes three. She feels the horrible pull in her stomach and drops down on the nearest bench, eyes glued to them.

She always thinks about how it wouldn't have worked and she doesn't know if she does it to convince herself that she didn't miss out on anything good or because she genuinely believes it. She thinks it's a bit of both but it doesn't really matter – the images come unbidden anyway.

She pictures Neal, coming back late, always late, from a dead-end job he hates, and secretly blames on her and the kid. She pictures their son, crying and holding his arms towards her. But she has to set the table and Neal is already in the shower and don't kids cry all the time anyway? She pictures them sleeping with a foot of space between them. Too exhausted to reach over, let alone do anything else. She doesn't even entertain the idea of another kid.

It's a miserable life that takes your freedom away. That's what she thinks.

And then the kids on the playground laugh and she watches their father put his arms around the beautiful brunette that must be their mother. It doesn't look miserable. And if what she has is freedom… well, she'd like to exchange it for some of that or get her money back.

Emma slips into the nursery, her whole face lightening up when she lays eyes on her little girl.

"Hey, baby" she whispers softly, leaning over the beautifully engraved crib. "How was your day, mm? Did you have fun with the boys? Did they listen to you?"

"Mmaa!"Annabelle squeals happily, lifting her arms towards her mother.

Emma still isn't sure if that stands for 'mama' or 'Emma', she is ecstatic about it either way. Though she's pretty sure Anna said it so early only because Killian won't stop repeating both words to her day in and day out. Liam said 'Da-da' when he was barely seven months old and while Killian tries to be inconspicuous about it she knows perfectly well how set he has been on teaching Anna to say 'Ma-ma' first. Her adorable wonderful man.

"Maaa!' her baby girl cries out again and Emma is sure there's an authoritative note in her voice.

"Alright, alright," she laughs, lifting the little girl into her arms and kissing her forehead. "Come on, Daddy has some carrot-y mess for you."

She wonders sometimes what her little boy would have liked and disliked. She doesn't want to but it seems that she can't help herself. And so, almost a year after giving her baby away, Emma finds herself in the baby food section of her local supermarket. She fingers the little bottles, the tiny jars, a faraway look in her eyes.

She wonders if somebody is choosing her son's dinner right now. Wonders if he's gonna spit it out, making a mess and demanding something more suitable to his baby taste buds. A horrible feeling settles in the pit of her stomach at the thought that he might get yelled at if he does.

A woman stops next to her to pick up a peas purée. The kid inside the stroller she has parked on her right is a dark haired little boy and the second his big brown eyes focus on Emma, she has to get out.

She goes back the next day and buys the peas purée. Eating it alone over her sink, with a shaking spoon and tears in her eyes, she decides that her little boy definitely doesn't like that one. That supposition knowledge only makes her eyes sting that much more.

"Swan?"

Emma blinks, finding Killian in front of her, arms extended to take their daughter from her.

"I got her, go get Liam," she says, smiling down at her baby girl, and he hands her the little jar he warmed up.

She's sitting on the table, waiting for Annabelle to finish making bubbles so that she can offer her another spoonful, when Killian comes back, their son bouncing on his shoulders and laughing his little ass off.

"Mommy, I want a fo'tune cookieee!"

"Liam," Killian cuts in before she can proceed to promise her boy anything he wants. "Manners, lad."

She hides her amused grin in Annabelle's golden locks as her little boy immediately straightens his shoulders, glancing down at his father before looking back at her.

"May I get a fo'tune cookie…"

"After…" Killian prompts him and Emma bites her bottom lip so hard she thinks she might taste blood.

"afte' I eat my chicken?"

God, she loves them. She knows she is a good mother but Killian takes parenting to a whole different level sometimes. He never yells or threatens. She doesn't even think 'lecturing' is the right word. He just guides them. Be it Henry or Liam. She thinks he might have some trouble with Annabelle, who already has him wrapped around her finger, but then again so do the boys and yet somehow he knows exactly when to indulge them and be at their beck and call and when to put his foot down and set them straight.

He sets her as an example more often than she is comfortable with, something that she doesn't have in common with Henry, who, she swears, grows a couple of inches every time Killian tells Liam to 'watch how his brother does it'. But she has learnt to control the light blushes his praise causes and, frankly, she does the same thing with him so she tries not to complain too much.

Her husband's phone pings next to her.

"Can you get that, lass?" he says distractedly, balancing a plate of fried rise on his left forearm and one full of Gong Bao Chicken in his right hand while trying to supervise Liam's handling of the Chow Mein.

She's almost too distracted by the sheer cuteness that is her boys to hear him but when she does a teasing grin slips over her lips.

"You're not worried it might be one of your other lasses?"

"Unless you taught Anna how to text in the last ten minutes I think I'll be alright," he says with a pointed look and she can't keep down her satisfied hum.

The text is from Henry.

you're the best! tell mom I'll make it up to her. she gets the right to three embarrassing questions when I get home

Home.

It jumps at her right out of the bright screen. Home.

They all use the word every day but suddenly her senses are attacked from all sides with it and Emma feels the breath back into her lungs.

The smell of vanilla and cinnamon coming from her girl's soft hair, the sound of Liam's giggles as he wrestles a piece of chicken into his mouth, the sight of his oh-so-familiar blue eyes flashing in victory, the feel of Killian's fingers, prying the spoon out of her hand and scooping up the smallest bit of rice and offering it to Anna, who wiggles excitedly in her lap, reaching towards her father.

She's home.

It catches her completely unprepared – the absence of the little lost girl. She reaches inside, looking, searching, going deeper and deeper, but she's not there. She's gone. Just a memory.

"Love, are you alright?"

She lifts her eyes to meet Killian's, soft and loving and just a tad concerned and so so blue.

"The best I've ever been," she replies softly, bending her head to kiss her daughter's hair without taking her eyes off him for a second.

She is home.

/

(Later that night, as she is lying half on top of Killian, boneless and warm and satisfied in every way possible, she feels him tense beneath her and the movement doesn't send her into a fit of panic, into a game of second guessing herself or straight to the 'is that the moment he leaves?' question. She knows that moment's never coming. So she just shuffles a little bit closer and holds him a little bit tighter and kisses his collarbone and asks him to let her inside his head as he has let her inside his heart.

The ramble that he starts on is adorable and confusing all at once. All about Henry being off to college soon and how Liam is already doing so many things by himself and how Storybrooke has been quiet for awhile and how he does still have a chest full of gold in the basement and how he can't stop thinking about when they were little and how Annabelle would really need a partner for sword practice who is her own size. She swears if both his arms weren't wrapped tightly around her he would have scratched the spot behind his ear bloody by the time she cuts him off with a kiss.

But when she pulls back his brows are furrowed and she can tell he is just so damn nervous. He wasn't that nervous the day he fell down on one knee and asked her to be his forever (as if she wasn't already).

And then he tells her. And, honestly, Emma was certain there was no way she could love this man more. And she was so wrong. Because at that moment she feels like she might implode with the way her heart is growing, desperately racing to adjust itself to the adoration unfurling inside it.

All she can do is nod. Nod and kiss him again and again, telling him how much she loves him, how it's the best idea he's ever had, how he is the best father in the world, wonderful and amazing and bloody brilliant. And that last one makes him chuckle and helps calm down the blush spreading all over his scruffy cheeks.

It really is the best idea he's ever had.

She's no longer a lost girl. It's time she helps another one find her way home. )

I normally don't ask but this fic holds a very special place in my heart so I'd love to know what you thought of it. :))