Find My Way Back To You

Prologue

--- EMMA'S POV ---

By now I've gotten pretty used to the fact, that my life will never be 'normal'. I'm the Savior of a small fairytale town in Maine, which is connected to all kinds of other fairytale realms with iconic fairytale people in them – and they're nothing like their Disney versions at all. Also, everyone in this town is kind of related to each other in weird ways. The family tree is honestly so complicated, I doubt anyone really understands it. If someone ever wrote a book about it, it would probably be thicker than the clocktower is high.

And as if living there wasn't already crazy enough, I'm included in all this mess...the constant crises, the confusing family tree and pretty much everything else in this town since I'm the sheriff and I broke the first dark curse. With the latter being the reason for why everyone always expects me to fix all off their problems even if I have nothing to do with them.

It doesn't really help, that I'm the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, whom everyone in this town considers their leaders. It's actually funny since my parents just crowned the Evil Queen the Queen of this all-realm, but no one really considers her the ruler of anything. It's more like she doesn't even exist, and I can't say that I mind it. It's quite refreshing not having to deal with her unreasonable dramas all the time. I only feel bad for my son Henry, who is her adoptive son.

He's all grown up now and everyone seems to have realized that – everyone but Regina. She keeps following him around like a lap dog. She should really stop that. It's not healthy. Henry isn't ten years old anymore. He doesn't need his mother fussing over him 24/7. He has his own family to take care of now – his own daughter.

I get that it's hard to let go, but that doesn't mean it's impossible and if Regina would start trying, she'd manage eventually. The problem is that she doesn't care about anyone but herself. She doesn't care that this might not be what Henry wants since she's only focusing on her own happiness. I wish he would tell her that since she must hear it from him in order to believe it, but he's a good person, who'd never even hurt a fly. It's one of the reasons I love him so much.

And exactly that helped me get over him leaving Storybrooke after graduation. I knew, that wherever he might end up he'd be strong enough to remain true to himself. I knew that wherever he might be I'd still love him, and he'd love me in return – even though he was cursed for a while, but I still think that deep down he carried me in his heart because I thought of him every single day and so did the rest of our family.

So, in the end him leaving was never a terrible thing. Me and everyone else in Storybrooke might've missed him and felt his absence every day, but deep down I know that this was the right thing to do for him. He had to leave to find his happiness and the moment I truly accepted that was the moment his absence hurt just a little bit less.

I remember that day clearly since it's the day Killian and I had a serious conversation about our future. We realized together, that you can't live in the past and try to change things that happened a while ago – and you shouldn't even try to change possible mistakes since you can't avoid pain in your life forever. All you can do is look forward to happy moments, which will eventually light up your heart after the darkness tried to swallow it. That pain and the mistakes too won't weaken you unless you let it happen.

So, after we realized that, we quickly came to the conclusion, that we don't have to stop living our lives just because Henry is all grown up and is trying to build his own life. We must accept his decision and just keep living our happy white-picket fence life together. This once again isn't an ending as Killian said back on his ship, when we first suspected that Henry might leave home soon, it's a beginning and as we soon realized it was a happy beginning since that day Killian and I decided that we want to start trying to have a baby.

Six weeks later after only a few negative pregnancy tests, we got a positive one and we were ecstatic. I still remember the tears in both mine and my husband's eyes when we looked at each other after looking at the test. We both were at a loss for words and just hugged a lot in between sweet, but passionate kisses, while the tears of joy were still streaming down our faces like our eyes were beautiful waterfalls.

Our joy hasn't faded ever since. We were so incredibly happy, that we couldn't even keep my pregnancy secret for a day. We actually planned to wait with telling everyone just so we could enjoy our happiness in peace without my insane mother, who'd get a big folder out of her secret stash as soon as we would announce the pregnancy. We knew she'd start getting crazy in an instant with planning a baby shower and the baby's nursery.

The only problem with our plan was, that we were invited to my parents' place for dinner that same day and our smiles were so big and bright, that as soon as we entered the house my mother realized that something was up and we caved in almost an instant and told both my parents and my little brother about our baby growing inside of me. That part actually went better than I thought – I always expected my dad to either faint or get very angry, but he was actually the one who started crying first and it weren't tears of pain. He was also the first to hug both me and Killian and run his hand lovingly over my stomach.

My mum was very happy too, but just as we expected before she brought the big planner out of her closet to the living room right after dinner and started planning basically everything – including the doctor's appointments, which I honestly didn't see coming.

But all in all she was a great help during my pregnancy and I wouldn't change a single thing even though she could be annoying at times, when she went crazy because we never really decided on a name until the moment our baby was born and one word just felt right: Hope.

Because that's literally what she is. I was so upset and at a dark place when Henry first left, but as soon as I found out about my daughter, I felt hope again. I worried less about every little thing that might go wrong in Henry's life and just started to trust him more, that he'd let me know instantly if something bad ever happened to him. Because of Hope I found my happiness again and was proven that Killian was right all along: this is far from being an ending, this is the beginning of a whole new story with lots of new adventures.