Author's Note: And we've reached another end. I never really thought I'd do a Wee Emma story, but I wanted to do an enchanted object story and I figured what better time than now? ;) Thank you all for following this little (*again looks at word count, snorts*) story of mine, and thank you all for your absolutely lovely comments. I hope you've all enjoyed!

Chocolate chip pancakes were the breakfast of champions. Or at least, they were the breakfast of the sheriff of a small town filled with fairy tale characters. One of these days, she'd have to ask her mother how to make them – any and all pancakes Emma had ever made had involved a box from the freezer section of the grocery story and a microwave. After yesterday, she had a funny feeling that Snow would be thrilled for the chance to give her another cooking lesson.

By the time she finished the meal, Emma had come to a decision regarding the medallion: it needed to go back to Gold. The opportunity it had afforded her was of course wonderful and certainly one she would never forget, but that opportunity had also proven to her that there were far too many reasons that keeping a wish-granting medallion around was an absolutely terrible idea. The realization that she didn't even need to speak her wish out loud had been the final straw; she couldn't keep it. She had absolutely no desire to live with the potential of wacky magical hijinks, thank you very much.

"I'm sorry, kid," she said after she told her family about her decision. "I just … can't keep it."

"It's okay, Mom," Henry replied, and she could have hugged him for being so understanding. "I wouldn't want to take the chance of making another accidental wish, either."

Snow had gotten up to retrieve the medallion from her room, where she'd hidden it from her little daughter. "Do you want us to go with you?" she asked as she handed the velvet box over to Emma.

"No, thanks," Emma said, tucking the box in her jacket pocket. "I appreciate the offer, but I think I need to do this on my own."

Everyone in the family exchanged a slightly troubled glance, so she smiled to set them at ease. They were worried about her, she could tell, but they let her go by herself as she requested.

It wasn't that she didn't want them around. It was that she needed to talk to Gold, and she needed to do so without an audience. Plus, there was a tiny part of her that was afraid that she'd chicken out if her parents came with her. By returning the medallion, she was taking away the chance for them to have any more time with her little self. She needed to give it back without them standing over her shoulder, without the chance that she'd spy pain in their eyes and change her mind.

When she reached Gold's shop, she opened the door and allowed the bell to signal her arrival. Sure enough, the imp himself stepped out from behind the curtain that separated his office from the rest of the shop. "Good morning, Miss Swan. I see you've slept on my offer."

Emma was about to snidely inform him that she had indeed slept on his offer and was rejecting it when his wording registered. Sleep on it. He'd said that before, too, when she came storming into the shop after discovering the medallion granted wishes.

She had slept on it, literally. It was a wish made while falling asleep that had made the day before happen in the first place. "Wait, did you know this was going to happen?" she asked incredulously.

"Did I know what was going to happen?" he asked.

His voice may have held pure innocence but the impish sparkle in his eyes held anything but. "You did know," she breathed, narrowing her eyes at the shopkeeper. "From the second you gave this to Henry, you knew I was going to–"

"What, wish yourself into a small child by mistake? Yes, of course I knew."

Sudden anger swirled through her veins. "A warning would have been nice, you know."

"Why would I warn you?"

"I was eight years old for an entire day! That should be reason enough."

"Yes, you were eight years old for an entire day. So tell me, Miss Swan, did your time as an eight-year-old help you or did it not?"

At that, she blinked. Her day being eight had indeed helped, more than she ever thought possible. It had given her love and family. It had given her some good childhood memories. It had given her a sense of belonging that she'd lacked her entire life.

Not that she wanted to admit any of that to Gold. "What does it matter to you if it helped me or not?"

"You all needed to see."

All right, she'd officially had it with his cryptic way of giving non-answers. "We needed to see what?"

"That what you have is what you have. Your son missed you, Miss Swan, and you should ask your parents about how they felt not having you while you were a small child. I think their answers will surprise you."

With that non-answer, she had skated past irritated and was well on her way to pissed off. He'd done all of this – giving Henry the medallion and planting the idea of wishing back lost time in her head – just to teach them all some kind of lesson? She angrily pushed the velvet box across the counter. "I don't want this anymore."

"Ah, but you do. You know you do, Miss Swan. Not the wishes, perhaps, but the medallion itself. Such a lovely gift from a young boy to his mother. Such a perfect gift for you."

She really did want it. He was right; it had indeed been a very thoughtful gift and it was indeed absolutely perfect for her.

She shook the thoughts right out of her head; there was no way he was going to talk her into keeping it. "Right, but the medallion comes ready-made with wishes. I want no part in using magic like this, and I don't want it around me."

"You're still not getting it," Gold said, sighing somewhat impatiently. "You can have it both ways. The very fact that it comes ready-made with wishes means that it doesn't have to come with wishes."

Sometimes – okay, most of the time – she really hated the way he spoke in riddles. What in the fresh hell did he mean? If the damn thing came with wishes, how could it not come with wishes?

After a moment, her eyes widened in realization. She could have it both ways: she could wish to take away the medallion's wish-granting properties. That way she could keep the medallion without having to worry about those wacky magical hijinks.

Gold smiled at her when he realized she finally understood. "Would it be permanent?" she asked. She knew she could undo her wishes, but once the magic granting the wishes was gone, would she be able to undo it?

"That depends on you and your magic. I don't doubt that you're powerful enough to re-enchant the medallion should you so desire, but it would be your choice."

"No accidental wishes?"

"No accidental wishes," he confirmed, sliding the box back to her.

Emma set her shoulders as she removed the medallion from the box. Holding it in her right hand, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and murmured, "I wish this medallion no longer granted wishes."

Her eyes snapped open as a deep shudder ran through her. She caught the dual flash of light, one from the medallion and one from her own hand, but it all of a sudden felt as if someone had sucked all the air out of her lungs. She gasped for breath, hand tightening around the medallion. The silver piece first felt blistering hot, then ice cold, and then became room temperature again.

She turned a hesitant look on Gold, who nodded in response to her silent question. What she had felt was indeed the enchantment leaving the medallion. Holy. Shit. She did not like that at all.

The grin on Gold's face was a combination of a proud teacher and a cat that had eaten a canary. "You are so very powerful, Miss Swan. Not everyone could have broken that enchantment. I doubt Regina could have."

"But you knew I would be able to."

"Of course. I wouldn't have suggested it to you otherwise."

Right. Why had she suspected any different? She set the medallion back in the box, snapped it closed, and slipped it into her back pocket. "I still have no real idea why you did this, and I'm still mad you used my kid to do it, but thanks."

"Family is important, Miss Swan. Time spent with family is precious, and time is what has been stolen from your family."

"Yeah, you should know. You and Regina are the ones who stole it."

"Yes, that we are," he admitted. She noted with irritation that he didn't sound at all apologetic. "Your family has been caught up in the stolen time, so focused on it that you didn't even see what was right in front of you."

And there he went again, speaking in riddles. "If this was all some weird way of apologizing–"

"It wasn't." Of course not, because that would have been asking a bit much, apparently. "It was simply a lesson. Ask your parents, and you'll understand what I mean."

How come every time Emma went to Gold for answers, she ended up leaving more confused than before she walked in? Hadn't the man ever heard of giving a straight answer? Unsettled, she turned around and, without another word, stalked out of the shop.

The bright sunshine of the Storybrooke morning settled her nerves almost as soon as she was out of the dark shop, which was great because she still had one more stop to make before heading back to the apartment. Her feet carried her there as if she were on auto-pilot, and honestly, she might as well have been. As soon as she stepped through the door of Granny's, Red graced her with a wide grin. "Welcome back, Sheriff," she said as Emma approached the counter.

"Thanks," Emma replied somewhat sheepishly. She glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone had looked up at Red's words, but no one seemed to be paying them any special attention.

"Only the people who saw you yesterday know," Red murmured to her. "Snow swore me to secrecy. She mentioned that she didn't think you'd appreciate everyone gawking at you."

Her mother had been correct; she wouldn't have appreciated the entire town seeing her as an eight-year-old kid. "I wanted to thank you for yesterday," she said just as softly. "You made little me feel very special."

"It was a piece of cake to do," she replied, smiling as Granny exited the kitchen and made her way over to greet Emma. "Little you was adorable. Not that adult you isn't adorable, too, of course."

Emma chuckled while rolling her eyes. "I get what you mean."

"You were absolutely precious," Granny said, smiling warmly at her. "I'm very glad to see that you're back to yourself, though. You were missed around here, let me tell you."

The open affection for both her little and adult incarnations was beginning to make Emma uncomfortable. "Thanks for sharing your secret cocoa recipe with me," she said, mostly to shift the focus of the conversation.

Luckily, Granny went right along with her. "Not a word of that to anyone, girl," she said sternly, then winked.

"I promise," Emma replied, echoing her words from the day before. Granny smiled at her.

Since she was heading back to the apartment, Emma purchased four cups of Granny's secret recipe cocoa to take to her family. After Red and Granny served her the cocoa, she said goodbye and began heading home.

On the walk back, she tried to let her mind settle. It was weird how everyone had seemed to adore spending time with her eight-year-old self and yet they were all so happy to see her return to her normal self. Maybe it was like her parents had said, after all: they didn't trade down getting her back.

As soon as she stepped through the front doors of the building, her emotions began to roil again, bubbling in her stomach and rolling around in her head. The anger that it had taken twenty-eight-years and a wish on an enchanted object for her to feel truly loved. The fear that if she let that love in completely, it would go away, just like it always had. The intense desire to allow the lonely little girl who still resided deep within her to have the one thing she'd always wanted: the love of a real family.

It was as she was turning her key in the deadbolt that Gold's riddle came back to her. She was supposed to ask her parents how they really felt about yesterday. She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know the answer.

When she opened the door, Henry came bounding over and took the tray of cocoa cups from her hand. She smiled a thank you at him as she shrugged her jacket off and pulled the velvet box from her pocket. "I thought you were giving that back," Henry said, drawing his grandparents' attention.

"I was," Emma admitted, "but then Gold showed me something. Watch this." She removed the medallion from the box and held it in her right hand while setting the box down in the kitchen counter with her left. "I wish the room was filled with bubbles."

"Emma ..." Snow admonished but she trailed off when absolutely nothing happened. No flashes of light, no bubbles pouring forth from anywhere. Her eyes were wide as she looked up at her daughter. "Did he … deactivate it for you?"

Emma chuckled at her mother's choice of words. "No, I deactivated it myself."

"You wished for it to stop granting wishes!" Henry exclaimed.

Damn, the kid was good. She stepped up to him and placed her hands on his shoulders. "Yeah, I did. It was such a great present from my great kid that I didn't want to part with it. This way, I didn't have to."

He grinned and threw his arms around her in a hug. "Thanks, Mom."

"No, Henry, thank you," she said softly. "I know you didn't mean for any of this to happen, but I'm glad it did. It … it helped me a lot."

His grip around her tightened. "I'm glad it helped you a lot."

She held him for a moment longer, then let him go and turned to her parents. "Gold told me to ask you about yesterday. I don't really know why; he told me Henry missed me and then said I should ask you about your feelings, too."

Snow and David exchanged a glance, and it was David who eventually spoke. "We missed you, too, kiddo. We had a version of you but we didn't have you. We didn't have the Emma we know and love, and we missed her."

"It was great seeing you as a little girl, Emma," Snow continued when David trailed off, at a loss for words, "but we definitely missed you. I wouldn't trade the opportunity we had yesterday for anything, but I also wouldn't trade anything if it meant losing you. You're our happy ending, Emma. Not some other, idealized version of you, but you, the woman standing in front of us."

Emma's eyes filled with tears. The second they did, both her parents stepped forward to wrap her in a hug. She hugged them back, clinging to them the way her eight-year-old self had clung to her mother yesterday.

This was what Gold had wanted them to see, she realized now. He'd wanted them to understand that wishing things were different was pointless. Or maybe not pointless, but definitely not what they really wanted. At the end of the day, all they really wanted was to be together, which was what they already were. Not even the Dark Curse could change that. They were an unconventional family, to be sure, but they were a family, and they were together.

When Henry joined the hug a moment later, Emma drew him closer to her. Although this world had been awful to her, it had also given her her kid, her fantastic kid whose simple desire to give her a present had brought them all so much closer together.

"Hey, kid," Emma said, sniffling as she pulled out of the hug.

"Yeah?"

"Operation Ladybug?"

Henry cringed sheepishly. "Yeah?"

She smiled at him. "Mission accomplished." Henry grinned at her in response.

Her parents turned loving looks on her. "You all right?" Snow asked, cupping Emma's cheek in her palm.

Emma thought a moment, darting her gaze among her family. Her family. She finally had a family, a real family. She was theirs and they were hers, and that was how they were going to stay. Her kid had given her more than just a gift, more than just an opportunity. He'd given her eight-year-old self a family, and her family in turn had given her eight-year-old self everything she'd never had. And now at twenty-eight again, she was able to see what she couldn't before: she'd had her family from the day she set foot in Storybrooke.

They'd been drawn to each other. They'd found each other.

Eventually, she nodded. Her parents smiled back, Snow running her thumb along her daughter's cheek and David lightly grasping his baby's hand. She wasn't a hundred percent all right yet, but she had no doubt in her mind that she would be with the help of her family.