Somewhere in the midst of the final fight–before the tide turned in their favor, when Henry was lying heartless and pale on an alter, Pan grinning like the glint off a knife, Henry's true believer heart pulsing gold in the darkness of the cavern–they receive their answer whether they wanted it or not.

For just a moment they couldn't do much of anything; Emma is transfixed by Henry's heart, how holy shit her kid's heart is glowing, and seems so precious, so priceless that all Emma wants to do is protect it, protect him, and all she can do is hold her sword and glare at Pan, and stare. Regina, just behind her is wearing a matching glare, her lip is curled and in her hands is a growing ball of fire, just waiting for Regina to throw it at Pan with gusto.

But Henry is slumped on the alter. Both mothers try their hardest not to look at him, for if they will, it will give Pan just the opening he needs. With each moment he's not breathing, it becomes harder and harder because oh god he looks so small, so still-

Pan has his heart.

One move, and everything could go absolutely wrong.

Pan examines the heart, the gold reflecting brightly in his eyes, turning it over once, twice.

"The heart of the truest believer. Even more powerful than a heart born of true love, lost girl." He said, throwing those words like an arrow in Emma's stomach. She grips her sword harder.

"Give my son's heart back, you detestable little louse!" Regina snarls, stepping next to Emma and burning that ball of fire impossibly brighter. Pan laughs, a hollow sound that rings through the cavern. They have to act quickly, because even though they know Pan can't destroy the heart–he needs it too much for himself–if they try to attack without a semblance of a plan, the heart could be hurt, Pan could speed up his own plan and Henry could die, so Emma steps forward ever so slowly, sword pointed out.

"You're not going to win, Pan. We are not leaving without our son, his heart with him."

He twists it around in his hand. "You forget how much you're outnumbered. Your pathetic little motley crew are probably all dead or dying right now."

"Yeah, I wouldn't be so sure."

He laughs again, and god, Emma wants to kill him. She feels the desire acutely, in the spot of her chest that's hurt ever since Henry fell down that portal–no–every time a foster parent gave her up, someone told her she wasn't worth it, since Neal abandoned her, since Henry was taken away, crying and crying and Emma crying and crying. She growls and steps forward again, her sword poised at the tip of his neck, the glow from the heart now reflected in her own sword. She feels sick.

Surprisingly, and yet not at all, Regina steps in front of her, brushes her side against Emma's, her face is hard and stern as she catches Emma's eyes, but her eyes tell a different story. A softness just in the corners. Emma takes a deep breath and refocusses her energies. Feels the soft hum of her magic underneath her skin, chaotic in its own right, but ready for her.

"What do you want, Pan? Is it power? Control?" Regina asks, every bit the Queen she was and is still. Emma doesn't lower he sword, but does inch it from Pan's face, away from Henry's heart.

Fury burns in her eyes. "Because I think you're just a sad little man-child who's far overstayed his welcome."

He squeezes the heart ever so slightly and there's a small gasp from Henry, and his body twitches, his small hand coming to clutch his chest. Both of them flinch ever so slightly, and Regina looks over at him for just a moment, but Pan can see. He's practically beaming now with this knowledge of their perceived weakness. What he thinks is definitive control he has over them.

"Interesting." He says, flickering his eyes between Emma and Regina. "Id expect it from you." He points at Emma with the heart before fixing his gaze on Regina, his head turning like a vulture's.

"But you, your majesty, are quite the surprise. You see, I was interested in why you even came here. What was your angle? Did you want my island, my power? And then I saw, oh how the mighty do fall. I saw that you loved Henry as your enemies do." He steps closer to her, and Emma steps forward, her sword coming between Pan and Regina before she even processes the action.

"Or perhaps." His grin widens. "Not quite so enemies, lost girl? The Savior and the Queen sharing a son. How so very interesting." He looks at the heart again, as if he's trying to decipher what exactly that means for the heart of the truest believer, what any of this means at all. Emma fights the urge to point his sword closer to his neck again. Come on, they just need a slight edge, and then they can-

"Love is weakness." Pan drawls. And damn she can't help the shiver running down her spine. She can almost hear the echoes of Cora in the echoes in the cavern.

"Wasn't that your mother's line?" He asks Regina, his head tilted. She snarls again, and relights the fire.

"You-"

Pan's eyes widen, and it's a startling reaction enough that Regina stops mid insult. His mouth forms an O for just a second before settling into a manic glee and Emma feels the chill intensify. He doesn't step forward, but reaches the hand holding the heart out, and then drops it a little lower closer to Regina's stomach.

Henry's heart changes from a glowing red to glowing purple and then glowing blue. The colors interchange, swirl around each other, intertwine like bodies in a bed, and Emma is transfixed once more, wondering where in the world she's seen this before and then it dawns on her like someone just dropped a stone on her stomach, pushed her in a pool of freezing cold water.

Those are their colors. Their magic, combined. When they stopped the trigger, when they saved Storybrooke.

And Regina's stomach-

"Well." Pan says, and draws back. The heart turns back to gold, and Emma can finally breathe again. She hears an exhalation of breath from Regina too, tiny, but not even slightly insignificant.

"It would seem that her majesty isn't so unacquainted with true love after all." He looks back at Emma. "And that there isn't just one child born of true love on this island." He holds the heart with both hands and he looks so much like the child he's trying to stay forever that Emma could just wring his neck.

"More for me, then!" He says and shoots up into the air, and that's when they can finally act, Emma and Regina lifting their hands up in a united front.

And then another realization hits Emma like another stone shoved in her stomach. She actually gasps and spares a glance at her, trying to decipher the emotions on her face, how her eyes are widened and bright, how her mouth is set in a hard line.

"Regina." She rasps. "Your-"

"Later." Regina hisses.

"Our?" Emma whispers, still a rasp, spoken in abject wonder, disbelief, and she feels a lurch in her stomach, and she looks at Pan with Henry's heart, at Henry lying on the alter and-

"Our son." Regina hisses again, and she doesn't have to say anything more. Emma gathers herself together and focusses every energy on Pan, on stopping him, feels the magic underneath her skin start to bubble and rise, feels Regina's join her, that searing connection their magic has always had.

They're going to win.

They're going to bring their son home.

And they do.

Emma almost finds herself thinking about how small Peter Pan looks dead, scrawny and grey, but can't bring herself to drudge up any pity. It all happens so quickly. Regina pulling Henry's heart from Pan's chest with a ferocity that leaves Emma breathless, putting it back in Henry's with a tenderness that brings the same reaction. Snow and Charming and everyone red faced with exertion and blood (of children, they were children) and breathing heavily, but breathing and that's what matters, telling them that they'd managed to save a few lost boys who want a new home.

And then Henry. Henry. Emma can't hold in the choking sob his eyes opening again brings, how she clutches him to her, how he reaches for both her and Regina, whispers Moms, and she doesn't even contemplate the warmth that settles in her belly when he says that, and Regina is pulled into their tight hug, and Regina is sobbing, her sobs gasping, but she's smiling and her eyes are smiling, and he whispers Moms again into the comfort of their hold.

Her little boy. Their little boy.

There are reunions all around, (Dad! Grandma! Gramps! Uh, Gramps 2! Oh, hey Wendy! Whoa, are you Hook?) And whatever that boy said before, he's still Henry through and through and Emma cries all over again.

She looks at Regina and they sigh a great exhalation of relief, more tears spilling down Regina's cheeks, and her smile is beautiful.

It's Henry who closes Peter's eyes with quiet contemplation and a furrowed brow, who says, I'm sorry I couldn't give you what you wanted. I mean I'm not, but still. You were probably like me once. And yes, Emma thinks. Their little boy has changed perhaps. He's not so little, and whatever darkness comes with that, well, they'll do whatever they can for him through it. Because they all have it. Even the most amazing heroes.

And then it's scrambling to get back on the ship with Neal to lead them home–seven people added to their strange little crew–fighting the urge to punch the lost boys who've decided to leave Neverland, but their sad small faces, the ones that reminded Emma of herself won out, and she simply claps them on the back and tells them to get some grub. It's pulling the sails, guiding them across the waters, Henry's laugh as he helps Neal steer the boat, the beaming grin at his mothers across the deck. Wendy's relieved smile, yet tinged with a strange sadness Emma can't decipher. Hook looking at the seas ahead with a scope, Snow crying, David, alive, crying.

They made it.

Hours later, when the noise quiets from the decks, when the boat is pulled into the lull of night, Emma remembers the heart and the purple and the blue.

She eventually finds Regina towards the starboard end. She's standing tall and proud against the side of the ship, and her head is pointed towards the seemingly unending outstretch of blue.

Hell, Emma has no idea how to begin.

She settles for sliding next to her, leaning over the side and positioning her elbows on top of the railing. Regina sighs, or really more of an exhalation, but does not look at her. Away from everyone else, Regina looks….Regina looks scared. Not obviously, it's in the tightening of lips, the corners of her lips, the pull in her eyes. But there's relief in the way she's standing, that rigid tension not quite as stark as it was when Henry was in Pan's grasp.

She knows Henry is safe now. Sleeping soundly beneath the deck. She's probably going to go see him after this, because Emma thinks she's going to as well. She doesn't want to be far from him. Not tonight.

But knowing Henry is safe…..now she has to deal with what she's been ignoring this entire journey. And Emma, god, now that Emma is…part of it? She has to deal with it too. And all she wants to do is see Regina happy for fucking once, because they just saved their kid, Regina is considered the hero by the one person who matters to her. If any time in the past few months she should be given happiness, it's now.

"Long day." She says.

Regina lets out another small breath. "Indeed, Ms. Swan."

For some reason, that makes Emma stop wanting to try any pointless small talk to start them off.

"Regina. It's Emma. I mean we've, we're-" She stumbles to find the word.

"Say what's on your mind, then, Emma." Regina fires back.

"Alright, I will. First of all, how? And second of all why?"

Regina finally looks at her, scathing, and it's all suddenly very familiar before there's a noticeable sag in her shoulders, before her lips tremble ever so slightly.

"Pan still could have been lying. He's not unknown to trickery."

"He looked pretty damn surprised, Regina. And the heart."

Regina looks across the water again. "I don't know how. It's not uncommon that a…child can be produced from a strong moment of emotion, but it mostly occurs during emotional experiences of a sexual nature."

Is that a blush that rises to Regina's face? No, nope. Regina Mills doesn't blush. But heat certainly rises to her collarbones, and Emma finds heat on her own, and in her stomach.

"Right." She coughs. "Yeah. But we totally didn't-"

"The trigger, Emma. We were both going through extreme emotion, and this was the way our combined magic chose to respond. Magic-" She laughs, dry and sardonic. "-can be very unpredictable at the least expected of times, no matter how adept one is at controlling it, focussing it."

There's quiet for a moment, as both contemplate. Emma runs her her thumb across the pad of her left finger and lets the cool night air invigorate her, the slight wind run through her hair.

"But what I don't get is that, yeah, we had extreme emotion, and our magic was combining, but it feels like you need something else, y'know? To create a kid?"

Regina looks out into the blue, gathers herself, wraps her arms around herself.

"Love, Emma. True love. It needs that."

The word reverberates in Emma's head–love love love love–no. Regina and her? They…..Emma breathes deeply, finding herself thinking back to all those moments she protected Regina without thought, how seeing her sad makes her sad, how seeing her happy has a similar affect, and sure maybe there's a connection, they have Henry after all, maybe their lives are similarly fucked up, but love? Love?

Love.

She glances at Regina, follows her profile from bright eyes to the slope of her nose, down her neck, and wonders for a moment what it would be like to hold her. She exhales with the warmth in her stomach building from that image alone. It terrifies her. Because they can't fall in love. Two people like them? With each other?

And yet.

Oh god, she doesn't know.

"But we-"

"Save it, Ms. Swan. You don't need to say it." Regina looks so hurt for a second before it's cleared away by practiced impassivity, and it hits Emma right in the gut, because she's expecting to be rejected. And well, Emma would expect the same thing in her case.

But she doesn't disagree. Because she just doesn't know, and there's too much to consider, too much to be processed, too much to cry about, too much sleeping to catch up on. A son downstairs who she wants to see the rise and fall of his chest.

Emma wishes she had an appliance to take apart.

"What are you going to do? What are we going to do?"

Regina looks out again. "Tonight's not the night to discuss this, Emma. If there's ever actually a right time."

"The ship has ears?"

Regina rolls her eyes, and Emma feels comfort in the familiarity this time.

"I'm going to see Henry. Are you coming with me?"

"Yeah, just…just give me a couple minutes." Her voice is still raspy.

There's an unexpected hand on her shoulder, a squeeze, and then only the sound of Regina's heels clacking against the hardwood decks. A pause in the steps gives Emma pause to her thoughts.

"You have a tattoo." Regina says. And it's not a question, although her head is cocked.

"Huh? Oh. Yeah. A dandelion."

Regina stares at it. "A dandelion. A dandelion." Her eyes widen.

"What?"

"Nothing, absolutely nothing."

Regina leaves quickly, and Emma is once again immensely confused, and then her thoughts overturned by home, Henry's safe, and, a baby. A baby that could be hers, and what does that mean, mean for all of them?

She leaves a few moments later, to see her son, to see the mother of her son, to see her family that she's still not quite sure she fits into but loves all the same, wondering just what's going to happen after they step back into their lives in Storybrooke once more.