Chapter Fourteen: Home

Emma grunted as she felt the soldier pull her from the cell and shove her up the stairs. She squinted as the early day's grey light hit her eyes. She clenched her fists, her fingertips pressing against the leather of her jacket as she looked up and saw her jailers. Regina stood next to her mother, her brown eyes showing nothing, her lips in a tight smile, her fingers clenched as the blondes are, the fingertips playing with the lace of her sleeves. Cora wore wide skirts and a tight corset, wrapped comfortably in a cloak of heaviness and a long staff held firmly in her hand.

"Mother, we don't really need the Deep Forest Army, do we?"

Regina smirked as she watched the blonde fall to her knees as she reached the top of the steps. Emma looked around, expecting more of these large men, but found none, other than the man whose heavy hand was on her once wounded shoulder. She looked up at him and recognised him as her captor, and pushed against him. He pushed her back to the hard ground, making her grunt.

"Mother?"

The blonde turned to the low husk of Regina's voice, seeing the brunette dressed in black and purple, oozing regency. Regina was glowering at her mother, who tossed the blonde back into the air, binding her tightly with invisible ropes, squeezing the air from the young woman's lungs cackling as she saw fear flash in green eyes.

"Mother, as much as I love to see Sheriff Swan rendered speechless and useless, we must go."

She grinned at the look of hurt and surprise in green eyes as she tightened the bound with a flick of a wrist and dropped her onto her feet. Cora laughed, almost cackled and waved the soldier away, making him vanish in the air, "I must admit, this way is more fun."

Cora watched her daughter's face as she tightened Emma's binds once more, and saw a flinch in the young brunette's face. She stamped her staff into the ground and purple smoke engulfed the three women, transporting them from the dark palace to barren wastelands. Emma groaned as her back hit the ground and dizziness filled her head. The binds gone in the smoke but pain in their place. She pushed herself upwards, only to be pushed back by the flick of Regina's wrist.

"Where is the lake?" Regina asked as she looked around and saw nothing but dried dirt and dead branches.

Cora smirked, "Right before you."

Regina frowned, seeing nothing but empty dunes, "There is nothing here."

"Still as impatient as you were as a small child I see."

Cora laughed and slammed her staff in the ground, and waited while the land returned to its former glory, lush greenness, and a clear blue lake. Regina stepped closer, her hand hovering over the water, feeling power, light and dark. She looked back at her mother, before dropping her gaze on Emma who was standing inches closer than before, her expression filled with awe.

"Miss Swan, not so close…"

Emma looked up at brown eyes and nodded, anticipation coursing through her blood. She glanced at Cora who was watching her carefully.

Regina turned to her mother, "The compass please?"

Cora pulled the compass from her skirts and held it in her tight grip, refusing to trust her daughter with it. Regina was unsurprised by the action and just quirked an eyebrow.

"We need the ashes my dear," Cora stated.

Regina took the vial of ashes from her purse, studying them as the reflection of pure water against the glass, before turning to her mother. "I would like the compass please."

"You don't trust me?"

Regina laughed, "Would you be concerned if I did trust you?"

Cora chuckled and stepped closer to her daughter, her grip loosening before glancing at the blonde who was watching them carefully, waiting. Emma raised her eyebrow and clenched her fingertips against the sleeves of her jacket, causing Cora to frown before looking back at her daughter.

"Are you planning to stab me with that weapon you're concealing? The dagger that my daughter returned to you." She turned to her daughter who looked at her with surprise. "Did you really think that I don't watch everything? So are you going to stab me Princess?"

Emma pulled the dagger free from her sleeve, her eyes moving from mother to daughter and back to mother. She twirled the blade between her thumb and her forefinger, pointing it at the witch. "If I must…"

Emma frowned as she felt the blade slip from her wrist, willing it to remain in her grip as she tightened her brow in concentration. "Regina?"

Cora and approached Emma, "Did she tell you what she plans to do on your return? That I pull your heart from your chest before your mother… crush it."

Emma glanced at Regina whose face was of stone, "Why not do it yourself?"

Regina said nothing and Cora could only chuckle, "Because she is weak."

Emma stepped closer and shook her head, "She is not weak."

"Love is weakness," Cora reiterated, standing an inch from the blonde. "My daughter learned that lesson before as I am sure you have heard before you bedded her. You found my daughter's weakness and exploited it… made her fall in love with you. Manipulation certainly runs in your family."

"Fuck you!" Emma swore as she glowered at the older woman.

"Quite the princess, aren't you?" Cora chuckled as she bound the woman once again. She looked over her daughter and recognised the look in her face. It was as if she had been transported back to that stable, to that moment before she ripped out the stable boy's heart. She turned back to the blonde, and pulled the dagger from her bound hand. She studied the blade before tossing it into the lake, letting it sink to the bottom.

"Shit," Emma mumbled as she struggled against her binds, recognising fear in her lover's brown eyes for the first time since the sun started this day.

Cora turned to her daughter and chuckled, "Did you really think I would believe that you set Snow's daughter up from the beginning… all you have ever wanted was love, like a dog with a bone…"

"Mother?" Regina's voice was laced with fear.

"You are foolish like your father, weak and stupid… You could have been truly great. You could have had great power, but you chose a world with no magic-"

"I just wanted to be happy," Regina whispered, feeling her mother get closer to her.

The sound of the slap echoed over the lake, causing the water to slightly ripple. Regina felt blood fall onto her lower lip, a cut replacing an old scar on her upper lip. She lifted her hand to her cheek, feeling the sting of her mother's slap. She lifted her eyes to the blackness of her mother's, feeling a tremble beneath her.

Both women turned to see Emma released from her binds, rage in her green eyes as she stalked towards Cora, her fist raised, punching her hard in the chin, knocking her to the ground. "You do not get to lay a finger on her again! Do you understand?"

Cora looked up at her from the ground, bemusement dancing across her face. She stood without effort, pushing the young woman back with an upheld hand. Emma ignored the magic, pushing against it as she raised her fist again.

Cora laughed, impressed by the young woman, and raised her other hand, blasting the woman to the ground. She turned to her daughter who was swirling a ball of fire in her hand, aiming for her mother.

"You choose her?"

"I will always choose her," Regina vowed as she tossed the fireball at her mother who merely deflected it with a flick of her wrist.

Cora stepped close to her daughter, her words concise and low as she spoke, "All I have ever wanted was-"

Regina gasped as she felt tightness around her heart, and stared into her mother's eyes, "Mot-"

Cora cut her off, twisting her hand, continuing her own sentence, "You and me together."

"Regina!" Emma shoved Cora's arm, standing between the two women, gasping as her own heart felt the tight squeeze of the powerful witch's grip.

"Emma?"

Cora raised a finger, effectively gagging her daughter before grinning at the blonde, tightening her fingers around the beating heart, "Interesting."

She looked at her daughter, seeing pleas in brown eyes before twisting her wrist, "One day Regina, you will be thankful for what I am about to do… After all, love is weakness."

Emma felt an unknown strength in her body, a glow and a warmth inside of her, a sensation she had only felt once before. Time had stilled, lasting only for the single beat of her heart, as a surge of love filled her. Henry's sweet smile and naïve sense of hope, Mary Margaret and David's smile of hope and relief at their brief reunion, Neal's grin as he gave her the gift of a dolphin key-ring... these memories accompanied many of her heartbeats. But this heartbeat, this final heartbeat, only one memory filled her mind, that moment when she kissed Regina, their fingers entwined as their bodies moved together and true love absorbed them both.

"Love is strength," Emma bit out, as a pulse of brilliant light surged from her, tossing Cora onto her back.

She looked back at Regina who was as stunned as she was, "What the fu-"

"She'll wake up soon," Regina interrupted, pulling the blonde away from her sleeping mother and close to the lake.

"That wasn't a magic dagger, was it?"

Regina smiled sadly and shook her head.

"It was all me, wasn't it?"

Regina turned to her love, pulling her into her arms, tilting her head to look up at the confused blonde, "Yes."

"And you knew?"

Regina nodded, "I didn't want you to suffer the thrall of magic… and the price that comes with it."

Emma leaned forward, kissing the older woman tenderly on the lips, "When did you know?"

"The hat," Regina whispered against the other woman's lips.

Emma nodded as she remembered touching the former mayor's arm, the flicker of energy that arose from the touch, causing the hat to spin. She took the ashes from the brunette's tight grip, stepping out of her embrace and tipped them into the lake. She watched the portal break open, swirling as a cyclone would, brilliant and loud.

Regina knelt over her mother's unconscious form, removing the compass from the skirts. She stood up and saw the blonde watching the portal with wonder on her face. She stepped up to the edge, next to the blonde, taking her hand. Emma looked at brown eyes and smiled weakly, "Home?"

Regina nodded and as she prepared to step into the swirling portal, she felt it and stood back, pulling the blonde with her.

"Regina?"

"That damned imp!" Regina cursed, "That snivelling, conniving, beastly bastard of an imp!"

"You're scaring me."

"He cursed the portal!" Regina screamed. "Gold cursed the portal. If we step through it, it will kill us."

"Can we do something?" Emma hissed, daring a look at the unconscious Cora. "We don't have much time."

"I can pull it back out but Emma…"

"What?" Emma grabbed the older woman's arm, not liking the frown upon a smooth brow.

"He put it to stop people… bad people coming through."

Emma spun the smaller woman to her, and rested their foreheads together, "You are not bad anymore. You've saved my life a thousand times and you never had to. And when we get home, you don't have to worry because I am going to spend every single day convincing them how good you are, convincing our son how good you are-"

Regina smiled sadly, the memory of their son haunting her mind as she thrust the compass into the blonde's hands, halting her speech with a gentle kiss to her lips.

"Step back, Miss Swan," Regina grinned. "This is going to be quite magical."

She stood close to the lake's edge, her hands open over the swirling portal, her brow tight in concentration and her lips curled in a determined smile. Waves of green spiralled from the portal, into the open hands of the calm mayor, her body shaking from the force of magic, her voice struggling to scream as Emma watched in horror.

Regina flew back, hitting the ground hard as the last of the magic coursed through her. She felt cool hands against her burning hands and gratefully entwined their fingers together.

"What the fuck?"

Regina rolled her eyes as she let herself be pulled back to her feet.

"Are you okay?"

Regina nodded, gasping for another breath before glancing at her unconscious mother and then at the blonde before her, "Time to go home Miss Swan."

"Indeed it is Madame Mayor," Emma grinned, before looking into the wild spirals of the portal and visibly gulped. "The last time I went through one of these, I was kind of dragged in."

"Just push through," Regina advised as she squeezed the hand in hers gently before letting go. "Just push through."

The women approached the edge of the portal, fear and anticipation mingling in the air around them.

Emma turned slightly, catching brown eyes with her own, "I need you to know that whatever happens next that I love you."

Regina sobbed a single cry and smiled weakly, "Then you will forgive me."

"Regina?"

Emma felt the smaller woman push her, and the portal spinning her away from the strange world. She saw brilliant colours swirl into blackness.

Regina watched as the portal disappeared, closing her off from the world she had desperately wanted to be in. She took a deep breath before whispering to the now still lake, "I love you too."

She raised her hands, casting the magic she had just taken back into the water, deeming the power of the lake as treacherous, and the possibility of it ever re-opening a portal no more. She swallowed her tears, pressing her fingers to her lips as she remembered that last kiss, before turning to her mother who lay sleeping on the dust.

She knelt down next to the older woman, caressing her cheek softly, before speaking, feeling nothing, "You won, Mother! It's just you and me now."

Emma opened her eyes and saw nothing but black surround her. She looked up to the sounds of voices and saw blue skies and green leaves. She knew that she was in the well and that it had worked. The portal had brought her back to Storybrooke. She climbed the walls, nerves and confusion turning inside her head. She pulled herself over the low walls, hitting the ground with a dull thud.

"Mom!"

She turned, hoping to see Regina behind her, but instead felt strong little arms wrap around her shoulders, brown hair tickle against her cheek and murmurs of "Mom" against her neck.

She wrapped her arm around her son, realising that she was Mom and she had returned alone. She saw Gold against the tree, the tip of David's sword against his throat, both looking at her with surprise on their faces. Near them stood Ruby, her arms around Mary Margaret holding her back, but letting go as Emma's green eyes fell onto her mother's tearing face.

"Emma?" Snow whispered, tears streaming down her pale cheeks as she stepped closer to her daughter. "Oh Emma!"

Snow wrapped her arms around her daughter and grandson, whispering into her daughter's dirty blonde locks that she would never let her go again. She pulled back, lifting her daughter's pale face, studying the green eyes pooled with tears and heard the slight whimper escape from the young woman's lips.

"She did it!" Henry looked up at David who was no longer holding his sword up. He stepped closer to his family, tears in his own eyes as he pulled the young boy close, hugging him.

Snow tightened her embrace of her daughter hearing nothing but quiet sobs escape the blonde's lips.

"You're home now, Emma," Snow whispered and felt Emma's hands at her shoulder, clawing her close as she broke.

"Alone," Emma whispered as her mother rocked her slightly.

A/N: And there you have it. The end of Pushing Through. This was always conceived as the first part of a trilogy but can be left alone as it is, I guess. I want to thank all those that followed, there were a lot of you. And thank you to all those that favourited this story. It's always a good feeling when people enjoy your story enough to want to highlight it to be re-read again. And a thank you to all those that dropped a line or two in the reviews... as cliched as it is, reviews really are a great thing to get. Hope you all have enjoyed the ride.