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There is a pile of ash in Regina's office.
There is a pile of ash in Regina's office and it tells the story of a god who took and took from the dead and the living until he'd tried to claim just a little too much—took just a little too much—who’d discovered that selfishness was not a reward and the punishment—
Emma can relate.
::
The night Robin dies, everyone gathers at Granny's with the shades drawn and most of the lights turned off. Regina and Zelena both tried to duck out, but Snow had corralled them into a corner booth and said, carefully, “I know you'd rather be anywhere else, right now, but for tonight: none of us should be alone.”
Regina is stone faced and numb; Zelena on the verge of hissing like an angry cat. They are both raw in a new, bloody way.
No one mentions Emma, pale faced and silent at the other end of the diner—
It's better that way, she thinks. She doesn't know exactly what she feels, but it's like there's a warhead caught in her breastbone: large and looming and liable to level a city block if she's not careful.
And she doesn't feel careful. She feels—
Like the echo of an unclappered bell. Like the last snowflake of the season. Like a misplaced teaspoon.
There had been purpose, once, and possibility, and joy in the existence, and now—
And now—
And, now.
::
There are things she wants to do, now that it is after.
Find Regina and show her—heroes don’t get happy endings, either.
Find her mother and father and tell them—true love makes it worse, sometimes.
Find Henry and beg him—please, don’t forget he was part of it, too.
Find Hook and never let him—
Oh.
Oh.
::
Emma watches the sunrise from the docks the morning after Hades is defeated. The Jolly Roger is moored to her left, a comforting collection of creaking wood and rope that she can’t bring herself to look at directly.
It’s—too much.
So she stares into the horizon as the sun crests, watching the water go brilliantly incandescent. It hurts, in a way, the brightness and the light, and she’s glad of it—glad of something to feel, something to hurt that is specific, and focused, and not—not—
She wonders when the rest of the pain will come, or if it is, somehow, already there, already permeating the air around her, her skin, her hair, her eyes, her ears, everything—she doesn’t know if everything hurts, or nothing—or if any of it—will it ever—
Here is the thing, about this sunrise, that she knows deep down but will never admit out loud:
It is the first without him—without any hope of him. This makes it both unique and terrible, and there is a howling there suspended within the two that she can glimpse from the corner of her eye.
She is caught between her yesterdays—a sly smile, tentative starts, melting kisses, a redefinition of home—and her tomorrows, where there will be any number of new firsts, defined by what is not there instead of what could be, and—
The sun has broken free from the waterline; it is, somehow, morning.
::
She spends the day—
With Henry, for a time; with Snow and David, in the afternoon; with Regina, for a glancing moment in the morning—
Mostly, she spends the day lost in her thoughts, frozen and afraid. If she moves too quickly, she’s certain the entire facade will shatter into pieces, exposing her like a dangling nerve. Because he is dead, and there is no bringing him back, no chance at all. And she must accept this, and continue on, somehow.
Because she had told him—
She had—
She—
Somehow.
::
The thing is: if she thinks too much about it, it turns out she is so, so,so mad—at him, specifically. Because he broke a promise, somewhere in there, about never leaving her. About never giving up. About being there for her.
And she’d been a fool and let herself believe him, let herself trust him—
And of course it’s not truly his fault or anything—he’s dead, she’s not stupid—but fuck, if only it were that simple, to accept. To forget.
Because she’s furious at everyone, generally, right now—but she can’t help but be just that little bit madder at him, because he knows her—knew her—better than anyone else in the whole world and he took that with him. He had been her—her ally. Her partner. He was her person in a way that was terrifyingly selfish and personal and scary. She had let him in, let him see her—
Now there isn’t anyone else out there who—who knows, who cares, who loves her like he does—did.
He had chosen her, out of everyone, and kept choosing her, over and over, until—
Now she’s alone, and she’s so, so angry.
::
There is a gravestone in the cemetery at the edge of town with his name on it, and she hates it.
He is dead, and they have sunk him into the earth instead of the sea.
She hates that this is just another thing in the inventory of what he has—had given up to be with her.
She wants to flood the cemetery with saltwater, smash the headstone to ash with her fists. She wants to tear up the ground; pull the moon from its mooring. She wants the world to feel what she feels. She wants it to be undone; she wants to go back to when there was hope.
She wants—it’s as simple as that.
::
Her mother offers her sympathy; her father, too. It’s kind, but—difficult. Because while they have glimpsed what it would be like to face that kind of sorrow, for them it was only ever a brief pause between breaths.
They did not need to figure out how to go on, indefinitely, without air.
How to wake up, how to walk and talk, how to eat and nod and smile, how to hug, how to sleep and cry and not—not suffocate in the emptiness.
One evening, she finds herself sitting next to Regina at Granny’s, hunched over the counter, and for a moment—for a moment, they just…exist, together. Sad and fiercely grieving, separately and together.
They sit in silence, and for a moment: it is enough.
::
There is one afternoon she spends on the Jolly Roger, tucked back behind the helm where no one could see her unless they were looking, specifically.
She’d thought it’d be…okay—to sit on his ship and remember the things that she had felt afraid of: how he would look at her, and how he would smile. The way his fingers fit against hers. The way he’d duck his head and the way he’d kiss her like he was physically incapable of restraint. How blue his eyes were. How stupid his jokes, and how fierce his heart. How quickly she had wanted him, and how selfishly.
How he’d loved her in spite of the darkness, and how she’d finally let herself think about what came next.
How he’d been hers, if only ever for a little while.
::
She could not tell you how long it has been since she stepped out of the portal from the Underworld and back into Storybrooke. She could not tell you how many nights it has been since Hades’ defeat. She could not tell you how many meals she has pushed aside, or how many hugs she has received from Henry, or how many midnights spent staring at a blank ceiling, or how many times she has half-turned expecting to find someone just beside her.
She could not tell you how long she has felt like this—only that she fears she will go on feeling like this until she, too, has crumbled into ash and dust.
::
The day they bury Robin hurts like every other day, until suddenly: it doesn’t.
Suddenly, it’s—