Disclaimer: Once Upon A Time belongs to ABC.

This whole idea came from that one scene in Broken where Emma says "But we would've been together. Which curse is worse?"

Emma woke up suddenly, blinking in confusion. She tried to take stock of her situation before she moved, becoming aware that she was sitting in a chair, her head resting on her arms on a cold, flat surface. She sat up slowly and rubbed her tired eyes. She had fallen asleep at a desk at the sheriff station. She frowned and looked around for the clock, only to find she wasn't alone.

Emma jumped when she saw Mary Margaret sitting on the couch under the windows. She was staring at her daughter with a frown on her face and her eyebrows drawn down wearily.

"What's going on?" Emma asked in alarm.

"Nothing," Mary Margaret replied quietly, the expression on her face remaining the same. "You were late, so I came to check on you."

She didn't offer anything more than that. Emma glanced around the office, trying to get her bearings. It was dark outside and the streets appeared empty through the windows. Most of the lights in the station had been turned off, leaving just a few desk lamps to cast the room in a low light. She finally got a look at the clock to discover it was nearly midnight. She remembered David leaving around eight, telling him she would be home soon, and then…

"I fell asleep," Emma said dully. Mary Margaret didn't respond. Emma frowned at her. "You've just been… watching me sleep?"

Mary Margaret shrugged just a bit. "You looked peaceful," she said simply. "I didn't… want to disturb you."

Emma stared at her. Mary Margaret stared right back. She was acting very unlike herself, and it left Emma on edge. She couldn't imagine what had caused it. It had been a surprisingly normal few days for their family. Mary Margaret and Henry went to school, Emma and David worked at the station, Henry had even had dinner with Regina last night and nothing horrible had happened.

"Mary Margaret?" Emma asked cautiously. Her mother simply glanced up to meet her eyes. "Are you okay?"

Mary Margaret seemed to think about this for a while. Emma could see her warring with herself, clenching her jaw as she tried to decide what to say. When she finally did speak, it wasn't an answer.

"We wouldn't have been together," Mary Margaret said, her voice low and deliberate.

Emma's frown deepened. "What?" she asked, confused.

"I've been thinking about what you said, right after you broke the Curse," Mary Margaret continued after another long silence. She started drumming her fingers anxiously on her knees. "When I told you if we hadn't sent you here, you would have been cursed as well. And you said we at least would have been together."

Emma said a lot of things, most of which she didn't remember, but she did remember saying that. She also remembered feeling guilty for saying it when she saw the looks on her parents' faces as she strode past them. She wanted to interrupt Mary Margaret, but then she saw tears in her eyes, and a lump formed in her throat.

"But we wouldn't have been together," Mary Margaret said, her voice thick with tears. She clasped her hands together in her lap to stop them from shaking, and Emma swallowed hard. "Regina came for you. She wanted to know where you were. She was going to take you from me."

Emma felt panic rising in her chest as she watched tears roll down her mother's face. It had been hard enough to see Mary Margaret cry when she was just her best friend, but now? Now it was her mom.

"Don't… you don't have to…" Emma stammered, her breath hitching in her chest. But Mary Margaret didn't seem to hear her. She was slowly shaking her head as she spoke, staring at the floor.

"I don't know if she was going to kill you, or if she would have kept you as her own here in Storybrooke, or if she would have just… just left you to die," Mary Margaret continued slowly. She squeezed her eyes shut tight and bit her lip in a gesture Emma recognized as her trying to stop from sobbing. "I wouldn't… I wouldn't have even remembered you. And your father would never have woken up from the coma. And even if I saw you…" She stopped and took a shaky breath. "It would have been just like Mary Margaret seeing John Doe on her rounds at the hospital. All I would have felt was sadness. And I wouldn't know why."

Emma tried to blink the tears out of her eyes, but it was quickly becoming a lost cause. She had no idea what she was supposed to do. She wanted to say something, anything, to stop her mother from crying, but her voice caught every time she tried.

Mary Margaret let out a shuddering breath and looked up at her daughter. Emma tried to speak again, but she couldn't seem to get enough air in her lungs.

"The whole point of the Curse was to take away my happiness," Mary Margaret said slowly. She met her daughter's eyes, tears streaming down her face. "And you were my happiness."

Emma broke. She lurched out of her chair and sank to the floor in front of her mother, taking both of her hands in hers and squeezing hard.

"I know," Emma began haltingly, staring wide-eyed into her mother's face. "I know we wouldn't have been together. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry I said that. I was confused, and scared. And angry. I was just… I was so angry, for such a long time."

Mary Margaret shook her head, avoiding Emma's eyes. "I'm sorry, Emma," she whispered. Her shoulders shook with repressed sobs, and Emma felt for the second time in her life that there was a fist around her heart. "I'm so sorry. I haven't… I haven't apologized to you, and it should have been the first thing out of my mouth." Emma shook her head vehemently, but Mary Margaret continued anyway. "If I had gone into labor just a little bit later… if I had been stronger…"

"Hey," Emma snapped, and Mary Margaret finally looked at her, surprised. "That is so not fair. You had absolutely no control over when I was born. Hell, I had more control over it than you did." Mary Margaret let out a quiet, teary laugh, and Emma smiled. "It's okay. I mean… yeah, it sucks that we didn't get to be a family, but there's nothing we can do to change that now, so there's no point in blaming yourself."

Mary Margaret sighed heavily. Emma squeezed her hands again, and she finally nodded. Emma let out a relieved breath and smiled. She got to her feet, only to sit down heavily on the couch next to her mother. Mary Margaret leaned back with a tired sigh and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Emma watched her silently.

"Been holding all that in for a while, huh?" she asked wryly.

Mary Margaret glanced at her, eyebrows raised. "Hey, I'm your mother, not the other way around," she pointed out, the slight smile on her lips twitching into a smirk.

Emma held her hands up in mock surrender. "Geez, sorry I asked," she laughed.

They sat in silence for a short while, both staring straight ahead as they slouched together on the couch. Emma shot a sidelong glance at Mary Margaret. They'd gotten a lot closer since they were stranded in the Enchanted Forest together, but it was still hard for them sometimes. Emma was trying so hard to accept the reality that this woman was her mother, but there were a lot of realities she was trying to accept lately. The existence of magic, for example.

Still, every moment like this took her a long way. So she only hesitated for a few moments before she laid her head on her mother's shoulder. Mary Margaret just smiled and wrapped an arm around her daughter.

"Thank you, Emma," Mary Margaret sighed, and she turned and kissed her head.

Emma laughed, embarrassed, but she didn't pull away. "What for?" she asked, closing her eyes comfortably.

Mary Margaret hummed thoughtfully. She couldn't seem to decide how to answer. But finally, Emma heard her laugh lightly. She rested her head on Emma's and whispered,

"For finding us."