III.

The glow of the three flashlights strafes the dark woods, throwing gremlin shadows from the twisted trees and turning every fallen log or rusted fender or marshy culvert into a potential threat, as owls hoot in the branches and Emma can hear water running in the distance, fast by the sounds of things, but nothing human other than them. "Henry!" She sweeps the light up and down, back and forth. Things seem to skitter just out of its beam. "Henry, where are you?"

"Henry!" Killian's shout is almost as raw, holding a lantern on high – clearly the first thing he could grab from the docks, where he's taken to living aboard one of the boats. She almost went to go look for their son without telling him, but knew it was unfair, that she needed his help. If they find Henry, she tells herself, she'll apologize for everything, she'll fess up. But she must have read that damn book half a hundred times by now, and there was nothing about her and Killian in it. None of their story, much less the truth about Henry and the twins. She can't think of any other way Henry would have learned it, and she doesn't feel as if it's something he would have the presence of mind to lie about. Besides, Henry isn't by nature a fibber. Has Once Upon a Time changed itself somehow? Rewritten its contents, revealed its darkest secrets? Emma is still hesitant to believe in this, in magic, in a curse, but she can't explain how else he would have known. I haven't told him. I haven't told him anything. But why now? Why reveal the truth to a ten-year-old boy, and not to her?

An unwelcome voice remarks that it wouldn't have done any good. She knows the truth, of course. She's known it all along. But that was never sufficient to make her do anything about it. To a fearless kid with a strong sense of adventure and a penchant for books and stories and imagination… that's different.

"Henry!" she calls again, forcing down the nervous clamor of her heart. "HENRY!"

"Elizabeth!" Next to them, Regina isn't really dressed for a nighttime forage in the forest – heels, pantyhose, business suit – but she's keeping pace and then some. "William! You are in so much trouble, young lady, young man! This isn't funny, come out!"

No answer. Still the distant water, dripping, and the sigh of the wind.

Regina wheels on Emma, lips pulled back in something close to a snarl. "I swear – if my children have been hurt by whatever damn-fool delusion your son dragged them into – that all of you tried to – "

"They're my kids too!" At last, after everything, Emma has had enough of this, of abiding by Regina's rules as long as it meant she got to see the twins, of shutting her mouth and keeping her head down, as if it was nothing more than a regular playdate, of pretenses and playacts and lies, lies, lies. "I don't care what you think of that, lady! They are, and I want to find them just as much as you do! And you better listen to me, Mayor Mills. If the kids are hurt by playing around with this – with this curse of yours… "

She can barely spit out the word, but she does, and the look on Regina's face is enough to see that hit where it was supposed to. The other woman breathes, "Who said anything about a curse?"

"Gold." Emma faces her, unflinching, unblinking. "I doubt either of us likes him very much, but I also think we both know he's telling the truth."

Regina husks a low, dry laugh. "When did you become such a believer, Miss Swan? It's not as if it's a habit in the rest of your life. Or tell me, do you also now want to – "

"Bloody hell!" That's Killian, looking angrier than Emma has ever seen him, face and eyes dark as thunderclouds. "While you two stand here blaming each other, the lads and the lass are out there somewhere, and something terrible will happen if they wander beyond the town lines. So if you'll excuse me, I'm getting on!"

With that, he spins on his heel and storms off, lantern waving through the trees like a ghost from an older era, as Emma and Regina pause, shake themselves, and run after him, catching up on either side. She'd like a better time to do this, more privacy, any time that wasn't them in desperate hunt for their missing children, but she realizes by now she might not get another chance. She lays a hand on his arm. "Killian, we… we need to talk."

"I've found when a woman says that, I'm rarely in for a pleasant conversation." He doesn't break stride, or look at her. "And I've been living at the docks, five minutes from the flat you rented with the boy. But as you couldn't bestir yourself to walk that far to see me, I'm not sure this is a good idea at all."

Emma flinches. Knows she deserved that, but it still hurts. "Killian, I… it's been a long time, I didn't think we could just jump back in, that we should – "

"Take it slow." The bitterness in his voice is fathomless. "Why do you think I've given you all this space, all this time? You agreed to come here with me, I thought that meant something. Not that you could get on ignoring me more effectively. Bloody hell, whatever it is you want, just tell me. Not this holding me at arm's length, to see you but not speak to you or touch you or bloody anything. The mayor's not the only one with unfair rules, love! You can see – can see them as long as you pretend they don't mean anything to you, and you're doing the exact bloody same thing to me. Well, I can't pretend any more, and I won't. Kiss me or kill me or tell me you want to marry me or never see me again, but do something! I can't live in bloody purgatory anymore!"

They're trying to keep it down, even though Regina has drawn several lengths ahead of them and doesn't appear to be listening. But at that, his voice rises almost to the edge of a shout, shattering and echoing, and he stops short, dragging his hand across his face. "Pardon, love," he says, cool and even. "As I said, not the time for it. Let's find the runaways."

With that, he starts moving again, jogging to catch up with Regina, as Emma follows more slowly. Her head is spinning, the ground feeling as if it's tilted under her feet, as if nothing in the world can be pinned into its usual place and the cupboard has been pushed over, the dishes fallen out to smash on the floor. It's like she is trying to walk on her hands instead of her feet, breathe through her heart instead of her lungs, while her lungs themselves are crushed in the grip of a giant hand, twisting and twisting. Nothing is real and nothing is right and ultimately, curse or no curse, it's ultimately not some great dark magic that has visited wrack and ruin on her life. A good part of it, yes – but in this, in the choices she has made, in what she could do to save herself or drown, she is the one who has been afraid. Who hasn't dared. Who has turned from the light when it poured in, for fearing to burn.

She chokes down a sob, rubbing at her eyes with her knuckles. The choices she's made with Killian, that they made with the twins, can't be ascribed to a dark curse. They are the ones who have lost their way, and their happiness has been destroyed as a result. Gone. Gone. No getting it back, all these missing years, all this lost time. It doesn't work that way.

But perhaps, maybe, there will be time to make new ones. When they find Henry.

If they find Henry.

Long ago, Emma and Killian used to play the birthday game. They reasoned that since they didn't know his actual birthday, it could theoretically be any day, and if they celebrated it every so often, they would have decent odds of doing so close to the real date. Those were the best days of the month. Killian would find a way to get them some kind of treat, Emma would sing him "Happy Birthday," and he would always close his eyes and wish aloud that a beautiful woman would kiss him – one which, of course, always came true. Sometimes she would almost feel guilty that he was spending something as serious as a birthday wish on something that he could have whenever he asked, as it seemed self-evident to her then that it would never be something out of his reach, never be something to come between them or to be desired as anything outside the natural order of things. One night, she told him shyly that perhaps he should wish for something different this time. Just in case.

He wanted to know why he would ever do that. That it was a miracle to him that he knew this one would come true. That he didn't need to wish for anything else, because it would never matter as much. That as long as he had this, and he never took it for granted, they'd be all right.

Thinking about that now makes Emma's heart ache until she almost can't stand it. She wonders if he ever found out when his birthday was, if there's no direct equivalent in this Enchanted Forest they're supposed to be from, or if he just kept celebrating it at random during the years they were apart, if he kept wishing for a kiss from a beautiful woman all that time. Maybe he got it. She'd be a fool to think he lived entirely celibate during their separation; after all, she had a one-night stand or three. It would only be fair if he did, but the thought twists her in half with jealousy until she almost can't breathe. She's only been separated from him physically, she realizes. Mentally, emotionally, in every other way, she remains inextricably intertwined with him. And she wants it back. She wants it more than anything.

Reaching Regina, she can see that the other woman's shoulders are hunched and drawn, lines of worry carved into her brow. It doesn't make Emma feel particularly warmly for her, but hearing Killian's accusations that she's been doing the same thing toward him that Regina has been doing toward her, she allows herself to recognize that Regina is as worried as she is. That, for now, is something to build on. "Is there somewhere the kids might go?" she says, low-voiced. "Somewhere the twins might take Henry – show him?" The disappearances can't be coincidental. Either they're together, or someone took them. Gold? But what would he want with them, apart from being an asshole?

Regina thinks for a moment, mouth still grim. Then she says, "The troll – toll bridge. This way."

Emma and Killian follow in cautious single file as Regina leads them through a dense thicket of underbrush, branches and brambles catching at their legs as they swear under their breath and hack and struggle through them. Then they skid out onto a scatter of gravel and down a river bank, as a graffitied highway overpass rises out of the shadows. Here's the source of the running water, tumbling over stones, and on the far side, they can just see three small figures, sitting in a circle.

"Henry!" Emma breaks into a run, Regina and Killian hot on her heels, as they splash through the knee-deep current and emerge dripping and furious. Sure enough, it's their missing parties, looking guilty as they try to scatter, but are swiftly collared by their respective parents. "Henry! What on earth are you doing? You scared us sick!"

Henry wriggles out of her grasp, staring her down with an expression that is the spitting image of Killian. Regina is hugging Elizabeth and scolding her in the same breath, and Liam looks as if he's about to make another break for it, but Killian reaches out and grabs his arm. Emma can see the small shock it sends through him, as it's the first time he's touched his younger son since those terrible few minutes just after the twins' birth, when they held them for the first and only time and then had to give them away. "You'll be staying here, young man."

Liam starts, glances up, and frowns. "Aren't you that pirate?"

Killian tenses but doesn't answer, looking over to the women. Regina, having assured herself that Ellie and Liam are in one piece, looks set to breathe her fire on Henry, but he's standing apart from them, still clutching the book. All at once he says defiantly, "We were trying to break the curse."

"What?"

"The curse." Henry swivels around to face them. "I told Ellie and Liam I needed their help, and they took me here, because I said that in the book Snow and Charming met when she saved him from the trolls at the bridge. So I thought maybe we could do it here. Break it."

Emma looks sharply at the twins, wondering what Henry told them – the truth about their parents? – but it's clear from their faces that they thought this was just a lark, an adventure, the kind of make-believe that all kids play – follow their friend out to a mysterious bridge at night to break a magical curse. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to be treated with suspicion. The world is a simple place when you're seven years old.

Regina is still clearly dying to have words with Henry about his idea of appropriate recreation with her children, but Emma glares at her, and she snaps her mouth shut. "Well," the mayor says instead, tone clipped and brusque. "Let's just chalk it up to youthful folly, be glad that no one was hurt, and forget about all this. Elizabeth, William, you're not going to be allowed to play outside after dark again, and if I find that you've run off again, I'll – "

She pulls at her daughter's arm, but Ellie remains rooted to the spot. She's chewing her lip, frowning. Then she says, "Henry told us that Miss Blanchard and Mr. Nolan were Snow White and Prince Charming. That they were his grandparents, and they didn't remember." She looks at Emma directly, those green eyes that are a mirror of her own. "That you're their daughter. Is it true?"

Emma opens and shuts her mouth. "The – the sheriff?" she says weakly. "The schoolteacher?" As if there can be any other. "I… don't know. I suppose it's – "

"Elizabeth Caroline Mills." The full name has made its appearance; Regina really must be mad. "We're going home now, and I'm not going to hear any more of this – "

There's a low chuckle from behind them. The measured tap of a cane on the fallen carpet of leaves and pine needles and mulch, as the beam of a fourth flashlight joins the party. "Family disagreement?" Mr. Gold's eyes glitter ferally as he moves forward. "I do hope it's nothing serious."

Regina, off her footing, bites back her words and glares poisonously at him, which he takes without turning a hair. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"It's a free country, isn't it?" Gold shrugs. "As a matter of fact, I was driving past when I happened to hear raised voices. Being a dutiful citizen and loyal subject, I pulled over to see if I could offer any assistance. I was quite surprised to find this unlikely confederation apparently having a fun campout in the woods. Only without the camp, or indeed the fun. The woods, though, certainly."

"Leave," Regina orders. "This isn't your affair."

"Oh, we both know very well it is, dearie." Gold leans on his cane like a victorious gladiator upon his sword, then turns to Emma. "So you've gotten your boy to believe as well, I see. Though if my hunch is correct, I suspect you individually had nothing to do with it."

"Mr. Gold?" Henry's mouth hangs open as he puts the pieces together, then looks wildly down at the book, then back at the pawnbroker. "You're him. Rumplestiltskin. The one who made all this happen. But… but why?"

"I see you've inherited your father's habit of asking dangerous questions, laddie." Gold smiles, even less comfortingly than before. "But only since it's worth it to see Her Majesty squirm, I'll answer. This – all this – the curse, everything – was meant for a very specific purpose. To find someone in this world. And in nearly all of the arrangements, it worked out. I found him. But I didn't. I won't ever. And it's the fault of someone close by. Someone very close by, in fact."

Emma doesn't like where this is going. She moves a few steps closer to Killian. "Gold. We'll talk about this later."

"We'll talk about it now." Gold straightens up, and removes something from his cane. "You see, I don't have much power left, and this will likely take what I do have. But it will be worth it. Because, Miss Swan, you were never meant to meet our mutual friend here in the first place. It was supposed to be someone else. It was supposed to be him. You were supposed to bring him to me." The pawnbroker's eyes are alive with malice and madness. "My son. It was supposed to be my son. Not him. Not this worthless, one-handed, lying, no-good… pirate."

And with that, he flourishes the object in his hand – something slender and dark, something like a stick or – if they're going with the magic theme – a wand. Black as ink. He points it at Killian like a gun.

For a long moment, everyone seems completely frozen. Then – Emma sees it unfold as if in stages, step by step, a stop-motion animation that has become caught in the frame. Sees Gold's arm move back to do whatever horrible thing he has in mind, feels her mouth open to scream, sees Killian grabbing Liam and Henry and shoving them out of the way, and sees something, something vast and consuming and darker than the darkest night, flaring from the tip of the wand. Sees it stretch and expand and splash like paint thrown on a canvas, falling and falling and falling and falling

and falling

Emma opens her eyes and she's in the crappy apartment back in Boston and this has all been a terrible dream, but it's over now and she gulps down air and sobs for a few moments until she can recover herself. She reaches for Killian's sleeping form, wants to pull him close, wants to wake and find comfort in his arms, but when she rolls him toward her, it is a strange man she's never seen before. "Emma?" he says sleepily. "What is it? It's late, go back to sleep."

She stares at him in confusion and terror. She doesn't understand. He reaches for her again, but she pushes him away, swings her legs over the side of the bed and retreats into the bathroom and barricades herself in, trying to remember what happened in her dream, if perhaps this is just a new one. Henry, she needs to go check on Henry, see if he's somehow been affected by this nefarious nocturnal phenomenon, but when she gets up and opens the door, she realizes that this isn't their apartment, this isn't her bedroom. It's a crappy motel, neon lights leaking through the polyester curtains and the rumble of traffic on the interstate, a no-account place on the way to nowhere where truckers and hookers keep each other in business, a hole in the drywall and probably cockroaches. And besides, Henry isn't here. She gave him up. She gave him up a long time ago.

Emma's knees almost give out as she clutches at the wall, and suddenly, as quick as it came, the filthy hotel room is gone, whirling off down a long hall of darkened mirrors. She is starting to see things, things which haven't happened to her, but are close enough to what did to make her stare. She's with this other man – the name floats to her as if through a haze – Neal. They're hitting up convenience stores, they're living in the Bug, and life, although morally dubious, is good. But then he's not there, then it's her retrieving the twenty thousand dollars in watches from a locker in the train station, and he's still not there… he's still not there, and she doesn't understand. He's not supposed to leave, Killian never left, not for that. Not until later, when they couldn't bear it any longer, when she was suffering silently in her fortress and never came down to open the gates, until finally they had no other choice. And even then, he was the one who came back to her. No, he can't be gone. He can't be.

And yet. Emma can feel herself starting to forget, memories tumbling loose like jewels chipped free of their settings, and she clutches at them frantically. The twins – what are their names, what, what? She's suddenly not sure they existed, that they weren't just some dark heartbroken dream, and they're being pulled down into the maw of something strong and dark and terrible. Killian is going down after them, and she can't let them take him away, she can't stand it – and she reaches out, straining, clawing into the abyss with everything she has and is, crying –

crying –

It's two weeks after they were released from prison in Phoenix and they're somewhere in west Texas, the evening still steaming hot despite the fact that the sun set an hour ago, the great big sky streaked with purple and pink and blue, the clouds glowing as if they've been smelted in the forge. There's no one on the two-lane county highway except them and they're parked on the shoulder, sitting on the boot of the Bug with Henry sacked out on her chest, sated and replete. She's been a mother for not quite three months and she still fears every time he goes quiet that she's killed him somehow, because nobody in their right mind should trust her with a baby. She's not sure this was the right choice, sometimes. Anyone has to do better. Anyone must know how.

"Here," Killian says, and holds out his arms. "Give him to me."

Emma hesitates, then hands the sleeping baby over to him. Killian props him against his shoulder, humming low in his throat. It's a sad song about a woman whose sailor lover drowns at sea during a terrible storm – when dawn came grey you went to catch the tide, leaving me waking in an empty bed, for I was loved and loved but never wed, and left alone to hope and pray and fear, God speed you back to me, my bonny dear – but Emma always likes it when he sings it, despite how morbid it is. Killian doesn't know where he learned it, just that it's something that seems as much part of him as his right hand, as his blue eyes, as she is. Something changes in Killian when they're near the sea. She wishes he could remember where he was born. She wishes she could.

They sit there in silence, except for Killian's humming, for some time. Since there's nobody nearby, nothing but the distant black silhouettes of pumpjacks and the whisk of passing tumbleweeds, Emma has her bra straps down, and Killian's shirt is mostly unbuttoned. The stars start to come out overhead, huge and bright, the Milky Way like a smear of luminescent dust across the dark arch of the heavens. Emma's never seen anything like it.

As she stares, mesmerized, Killian gets up, goes around the front, and puts Henry in his car seat. Then he returns, sits back next to her, and asks softly, "Do you want to stay here, love?"

Emma's startled. She's barely thought about where they'll go, as long as it's far away from Portland, far away from Phoenix. She doesn't think it's this, though. She doesn't want to be a rancher or an oilman's wife, not that Killian seems cut out for either occupation, in some sleepy little town down in Texas – the streets all rolled down, the shades all rolled up. "No," she says. "I want to keep going."

"Where?"

"I'm… not sure." They can't go back to being vagrants without a place to lay their heads, not forever. Not with Henry, and the great and terrible and wonderful future that sometimes Emma sees when she looks at him asleep. For a moment she's at a loss. Then she says, "Let's go turn on the radio. See what we hear."

Killian gets up and follows her into the car – because they are children, both of them, and the idea of spinning a bottle, of pointing blindfolded at a map, is how children choose, to throw the dice into the air and see where they fall, to let chance take its caprice and its due. He slides into the driver's seat, twists the key, and hits the power button for the old FM radio. It takes a while of futzing to make it get a signal, this far out in the boondocks, but at last through the white noise, some contemporary rock station comes on. They lean over the dashboard, listening.

You said you don't know me, and you don't even care, ooh yeah
And you said you don't know me, and you don't wear my chains, ooh yeah

She said I think I'll go to Boston
I think I'll start a new life
I think I'll start it over
Where no one knows my name

I think I'll go to Boston
I think that I'm just tired
I think I need a new town to leave this all behind
I think I need a sunrise
I'm so sick and tired of the sunset
Hear it's nice in the summer
Some snow would be nice.

In Boston no one knows my name

In Boston no one knows my name.

Killian leans back with a slow breath, and Emma can see the tears standing out in his eyes, spilling silently down his cheeks. She reaches clumsily for his hand and takes it, holds it hard, pressing it to her heart, as she kisses his fingers. Their foreheads brush, their breath mingles, as their shoulders heave with the force of holding back their sobs. They hold each other tightly.

In the distance, a train whistle sounds.

"All right," she whispers to him at last. "Let's go to Boston."

Emma remembers.

She remembers and she will not let go. She is still in that dark car at the end of summer, she's holding onto Killian and there's no force in any imaginable realm that can separate them – and then she's awake, and everything is slamming back into place around her, and she's on her knees in the dark woods in Storybrooke, holding onto his jacket, as he is lying unconscious in the leaves, blood trickling down his face from the gash in his forehead. Gold is standing above them with the black wand brandished, and Henry is shouting, and even Regina is shouting, and the world is spinning and spinning like a coin flicked with a thumb, and she keeps waiting for him to wake up and come back to her, because he has, he always has. Killian doesn't leave her. It's not in him. Not through time, eternity, grief, and death.

But he still doesn't move. Doesn't stir.

He isn't breathing.

Her world is small and crushed and impossible. Her mind reels. For a moment she's back in that dark and grimy motel with the strange man, and then it's just her and she's alone, she's alone so terribly that it moves in her like being caught in a gale and flung away like a leaf, into a far worse storm. She is so afraid and she has been so afraid for so long, and in the end it's cost her the one thing she feared the most, until the power it has over her multiplies and fractures and grows, given unholy and never-ending life. It's like that reflection, that hall of mirrors. Nothing real and nothing false. Only fear.

She has to stop it now.

She has to believe. In this, in them. In anything they ever were.

She closes her eyes, leans down, and kisses him.

And then, in that breath, in that brightness, the world changes.

Magic does not come to Storybrooke in one fell swoop, in some cloud of purple smoke billowing over the horizon and engulfing everything that came before. It comes in small pieces, in drops and dashes, a garden blooming where there wasn't one before or the graffiti on the toll bridge vanishing, when things turn up abruptly when Emma was just looking for them, or indeed the vast collection of artifacts in Gold's shop acting up in ways they are not supposed to. It comes in the way healing comes: sometimes a moment where everything seems perfect and transcendent and timeless, sometimes one where it seems beyond hope. Some moments where you can finally breathe when it feels as if your head has been held underwater for eternity, when rusted gears start turning again and new memories soothe the sting of the old ones, when sometimes it goes backward and sometimes it goes forward and you have no idea how. Only that it remains unfathomable, and impossible, and necessary.

And so, it is not the case that they never struggle again, that they never wonder what would have been if they hadn't made the choices that they had, that their lives are suddenly full of ease and joy and light. No life is. But it is so that Killian moves into the apartment with Emma and Henry, that with the curse broken they begin to find the truth about her past, that she meets Snow and Charming, that they start to learn and struggle how to be a family together. Elizabeth and William learn the truth, and nothing is easy and nothing is straightforward, but they are still breathing. They are still here, and they're still trying. Still wanting. Still loving.

Life here is not for the faint of heart. There are monsters and there are curses and there are trials. But ever more, it's home. Where the world turns toward a day where Ellie and Liam refer to both Regina and Emma as "Mom" and Killian as "Dad"; Regina's new partner, Robin, will have to wait some time yet for that honor, but he'll get there eventually. Along the way, there's a time when everyone does what they weren't supposed to, makes the wrong choice, acts on their worst natures – but where it's still possible for forgiveness to come, to creep into the fabric of their existence in the same slow, steady way. Where they become, knitted together in their crazy-quilt eccentricity and impossibility, a family.

These, then, are the chains they wore.

These, then, are the chains they break.