AN: I know this ending will be going a different route from the movie, a sappier route playing up the ROM aspect of the rom-com action movie we've experienced thus far. I appreciate the subscriptions and reviews. Please check out my other works, including my personal favorite, The Heat SQ AU. Let me know if there's an epilogue you'd like worked out here, or maybe an alternate ending.

"So," Gold claps his hands together with a big smile on his face, "she gets the Guild, I get my son, and you two get each other. Do we have a deal?"

Emma and Regina shared a look before the brunette pursed her lips and gave her wife a terse nod. Turning back to the Queen of Hearts and the Dark One she took a deep breath, "No. No deal. Kill her."

Hook had been standing behind them, watching Emma and Regina like a guard would his prisoners, and his presence had been ignored up until now. At Regina's words he pulled a gun out from under his coat and fired two quick shots, killing Cora instantly. The Queen of Heart's body slumped from her seat, where she'd been perched like it was a throne, to the floor and the Dark One's eyes widened in shock.

"Regina, dearie, I-"

"Save it," Regina cut him off. "That woman was my mother and she still joined forces with you against us. She plotted to have her own daughter killed," she spat out, "but that's not exactly a new M.O. for her, is it?" At Gold's surprised look she sneered, "Yes, I know all about Zelena. During my first year with the Royal Guard my mother sent me on a hit and luckily the target told me who she was before I could kill her. I pretended as though I had never found the target-my own sister. She faked her death, with some help from my father, which I assume is why my mother killed him. She's alive and well, if you were wondering, and should be here any moment. In the meantime, Mr. Jones met the conditions of his deal with you by bringing us here. He is no longer in your debt and you will excuse him."

Gold looked over at him and nodded silently.

"Thank you, your majesty," Hook told Regina with a little dip of his head. Emma thought if he was any dumber he might have tried an actual bow and she wasn't sure whether or not her wife would have let him leave alive at that point. She looked over at the brunette and could see the vein pulsing in her forehead and knuckles white, gripping the arms of her chair firmly.

On their way from the bullet-ridden Kost Mart where Hook had found them to Gold's offices where he blindfolded them to act as though they weren't about to ambush the very people he had promised to help, they had devised their plan and Regina had quickly explained that she'd gotten in contact with Zelena and asked for her help.

"So why am I still alive then, dearies? You've thrown quite the coup here today, wouldn't have been terribly hard to have that imbecile fire a couple more shots and finish me like you've finished her."

"My mother tried to kill me, she tried to kill my wife, she tried to kill my sister. She made me a monster and I will not give her the opportunity to do the same to the boy. You can tell us all day long that you love Baelfire but this deal you struck with my mother wasn't some selfless act to get your son back, it benefitted you to do so, like all your deals. I don't trust you any more than I trusted her-"

"I never tried to kill my own offspring."

"That we know of," Regina glared at him, unmoved by his interjection. "The only reason you're still alive is because we need you."

Regina was practically vibrating with tension and seething with rage by now so Emma reached over and placed her hand over her wife's. Slowly the shaking stopped, her grip on the armrest loosened, and the brunette seemed to calm.

Not wanting to risk another blow up Emma took over, "I'm going to contact Neal. If he does get back to me and does decide to meet, I will ask him if he wants to speak to you. I'm not going to force him into a relationship with you." When Gold huffed, Emma glared, "Do you really think anything will convince him short of coercion? He has to want it for himself for it to be genuine or he's just going to run again and then neither of us will be able to find him."

"Very well, but-"

"No," Emma cut him off. "You're not the one running shit anymore. I will contact Neal and I will talk to him, the rest is his decision. In exchange, you're going to give us new identities and ensure we are safe. This is our deal, our way, and if you even think about double-crossing us or putting another hit out I will come back here and I will beat you to death with your own cane."

"Ooh," came a voice from the now open door behind them, "I quite like her, sis."

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As part of the deal they ensured Zelena would be taking over Gold's Guild and he would help her merge his agency with the Royal Guard before leaving the business behind for good.

"I haven't decided on a name yet. Maybe the Royal Guild? The Dark Guard?" She stroked the sleeve of Emma's jacket, flirting with her for no reason other than annoying her sister. "You really are a White Knight, aren't you? Acting as Regina's personal bodyguard against Gold."

Emma ripped her arm back from Zelena's touch, "She doesn't need a bodyguard. She's the bravest woman I know."

"Ooh, such fire in your eyes. With that kind of passion and your penchant for violence maybe I could persuade you to join my forces as a Dark Knight."

"I'm not Batman," Emma scoffed. "And I'm not leaving her."

Zelena had somehow managed to remove anything of value from their home - Regina was relieved a box of pictures and two suitcases of clothing had made it out of the destruction and Emma almost cried when she found her favorite red leather jacket - and loaded it in Emma's old yellow Bug. From the brief amount of time she'd spent with her sister-in-law Emma assumed she knew how much Regina hated the car and that was why it was chosen as their getaway vehicle.

They drove it to a safehouse where Gold arranged to have one of his doctors meet them to tend to their wounds. Emma insisted she would be fine with a shower, some peroxide, and a couple band-aids but Regina definitely needed stitches on her bicep where she'd been nicked.

After a thourough examination the doctor left them with antibiotics, change of bandages, and instructions to keep their wounds clean and cared for. Regina had been quiet since getting in the car to leave Gold's office and once the door to the safehouse was closed behind the doctor and the locks were secured in place she took her wife by the hand and led her to the bathroom. They showered together, like they had in their own bathroom the morning after their fight, before breakfast and the chase on the interstate. After their fight the shower together had been a way of cleaning away the damage they'd inflicted on each other, kissing each bruise and scratch they'd caused on the other's body in a silent apology. This shower however was filled with Regina's quiet sobs.

"I know she was a terrible person, but she was still my mother. I had to have Hook pull the trigger. I didn't want to resent you for it later on and I'm not strong enough..."

Emma held her wife in her arms and let the water rain down on both of them. "You may not be strong enough," she pressed a gentle kiss to her wife's temple, "but maybe we are. You can have happiness now, you just have to fight for it. If you won't, I will. We are going to do this the way we do everything. Together."

Regina looked up into Emma's eyes and was overwhelmed with the look of tender affection reflected back at her. She leaned up and kissed the blonde, feeling the love pouring out, warming the heart she tried to keep cold and closed off for so long.

Zelena took a moment to study her sister and the blonde. "You're in love with her," she finally decided with a nod. "I can tell by the way you look at her."

"Oh?" Regina chuckled, not used to being read so well especially about an emotion like love that her mother had drilled into her was a weakness. "And how exactly do I do that?"

"The way the moon looks at the sun," Zelena replied instantly. "Like for the first time in your life you feel warm."

"Together," she repeated like a vow.

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Emma sent Neal an email containing only two words.

It's time.

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It takes Neal three days to reply to her message and when he does it's with two words of his own.

Storybrooke, Maine.

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In the distance Emma sees a sign labeled 'Welcome to Storybrooke' and eases the Bug to the side of the road. Over the town line a man and a small boy get out of a silver SUV and Emma starts to panic.

"I don't think I can do this."

Regina takes her hand, "Together."

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The 10-year-old boy with Emma's chin and dimples and green eyes looks up at her, "Are you Emma Swan?"

"Yeah," she admits softly, her voice catching in her throat. "Who are you?"

"My name's Henry." He rocks on his feet from heel to toe with a mischievous little smile and all Regina can see is a tiny version of her wife. EmmaEmmaEmma her heart sings and she loves the boy instantly. "I'm your son."

Emma chuckles a little and brushes away stray tears before kneeling down to be at eye level with her son - her son - and holds open her arms. He doesn't hesitate, like he's known her all his life and been waiting for her to come see him, and launches himself at her, enveloping her in a hug. She squeezes him tight and when Neal tells her Henry had known all about her and had been waiting to meet her when the time was right she hugs him too, thanking him over and over again for keeping their boy safe and not making her a stranger. When Neal tells Regina that Henry is named after her father because he was a fine man who had helped them disappear, she hugs him as well.

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They move into a large home on Mifflin Street that the people in town call the Mayoral Mansion, though the mayor lives in an estate two blocks away. Henry lives with his dad in a loft apartment in town and his three parents work out an arrangement to share him. Neal works for the mayor's office doing IT and it doesn't take much effort for him to get Regina a job at the stables. When Emma grows restless she takes work from a bounty hunter in Boston.

"Want to come with me on this one, babe?"

Regina looked up from where she was helping Henry with his math homework, "Do you really need help tracking down a bail jumper, darling?"

Emma shrugged. "Stakeout rhymes with makeout," she tried to entice her with a flirtatious wiggle of her eyebrows.

"Moms, you're being gross."

They both looked at him in shock. It was the first time he'd addressed either of them with that title.

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The next time he does so is at his school. The blonde and brunette are seated in the office, waiting to pick him up. He'd called his dad to be picked up early because he hadn't felt well.

The nurse needs the signature of the guardian coming to get him, so she looks up at the women waiting and asks him, "Which one's your mom?"

Henry simply shrugged, perfectly imitating the blonde's nonchalance. "They both are."

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"I'm interested in the progress you've made in the last year."

"Umm..." Emma swivels in her chair in front of Archie to glance over at a smirking Regina. "Doing all right, aren't we? I'm not gonna lie to you, there were times when I wanted to..." she flexes her bicep and clicks her tongue to make a snapping sound, acting out how she'd like to choke Regina until her head popped right off her body, "...kill her, but-"

Regina shares an amused smile with her, "Likewise."

"-couldn't take the shot. Who'd have thought."

"That's a good sign," Archie chuckles. "Sometimes you have to battle through."

"That's marriage right," Regina says with a sly wink.

"Yeah," Emma smiles at her again, all warmth. "Take your best shot, and..."

"Oh, we moved. Got in contact with Emma's son-"

"Our son."

"Our son," Regina smiles, repeating the amendment.

Archie hates to potentially burst the bubble and ruin this lifted mood the couple walked in with today because he's so impressed with the progress he's seen since their last visit a year ago, but he feels obligated to warn them of the reality of marriage. "You know there will always be challenges. Threats out there." Regina and Emma look at each other, weighing his words and knowing how true they are, especially when applied to their relationship. "But you can handle it together."

Emma knows they can handle anything together, that it's become their mantra, but she can't help but tease her wife, "So far."

"So far?" Regina laughs, "What is that?"

"I'm leaving room for the unkown."

"So far," Regina scoffs with a chuckle and roll of her eyes.

"And do you feel your relationship styles are more conducive to this-"

"Ask us the sex question," the blonde interrupts him with a mischievous glint in her eye.

"Emma," Regina admonishes her, a blush warming her cheeks and chest.

Archie squirms in his seat and Emma smirks, holding up both hands to flex her fingers and mouth TEN while Regina side-eyes her, fighting off a smirk of her own.

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After two years Neal confesses to the nature of his monthly trips to Boston. Emma takes them for work and had assumed Neal was privately seeing someone, but lately he'd started coming home pale and looking sickly and weak. She finally told him to spill it or she was going to spill his guts all over her living room rug.

With a chuckle he admitted, "Cancer might beat you to it, Em."

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Three months after that the cancer had spread from his lungs and the occassional cough or rasp Emma noticed when they'd first shown up in Storybrooke, the one Neal had written off as too many cigarettes in his youth, finally took him.

At the funeral, Henry held Emma's hand and leaned against her arm while they both cried. Regina stood behind them with a hand on the small of Emma's back - keeping her grounded - and a hand on Henry's shoulder - soothing him - offering them both comfort with the gentle weight of her palm while she cried as well. They had lost one family member and were grieving the same way they did everything else, together.

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On the cusp of being a teenager, it was getting harder to lock Henry down for any affection but that night he climbed into bed between them and let his Ma cuddle him and asked his Mom to read him a bedtime story.

"What would you like to hear, my little prince?"

"Tell me the story about how the sun loved the moon so much he died every night to let her breathe."

"There was once a moon," she started the story, speaking softly and brushing shaggy hair back from his eyes to lull him to sleep, gazing at her twin suns Emma and Henry who brought her warmth every day, "as beautiful as can be, only the stars could fathom, but the sun could not see..."

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It takes them a long time to move on. They'll never forget, his Ma reminds him, always insisting that it was because of Neal that Henry had his best chance at a happy, healthy childhood unlike any of his parents. The last time his Ma had told him that, his Mom had squeezed her thigh and told her, 'you gave our son to Neal for that very reason, my love. You both gave him his best chance.'

"You should ask her to marry you again."

"What?" Emma laughed, almost dropping the baseball Henry tossed to her. They were playing catch in the back yard, both banished from the kitchen for stealing too many ingredients Regina was using to make dinner.

"No more lazy grazing. Both of you, outside."

"Well you eloped last time, right? For your cover. You could renew your vows and we can have a ceremony here," he dropped the ball and ran over to her, jumping around excited. "Uncle August and Aunt Ruby and Aunt Kat can come!"

Emma looked inside at her wife, the wife who at one point had tried to kill her and now had mastered cooking because 'our child isn't going to be raised on Pop-Tarts, Swan.'

She turns her attention back to Henry, smiling at him, "Sounds like a great idea, kid."

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"I give the whole thing six months, tops."

"You said that last time," Emma reminds Ruby with a chuckle.

"How long's it been now?"

"Eleven years."

"Twelve," Regina corrects her with a smile and shake of her head, knowing Emma's messing with her.

"Right. Eleven or twelve years."

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They buy Henry a car for his 16th birthday and when he pulls them both into a tight hug Regina's heart constricts thinking about the little boy who used to look up to smile at her and is now looking down, beaming and thanking them over and over again. They wave him away, letting him take it out to enjoy the rest of his day with his friends as long as he texts them to check in and is home by curfew. With some puppy dog eyes that look alarmingly similar to Emma's he gets that time extended an extra two hours and rushes out the door, yelling over his shoulder, "Love you, moms!"

Emma has her arm draped over Regina's shoulders and it reminds her of their first date and their baby is driving away from their home and it's all too much and the slow stream of tears turns into full-blown waterworks.

"Babe? What's wrong?"

"He's growing up so fast," she wails, turning to whimper into her wife's sweater.

"Oh, babe," Emma chuckles and then yelps when Regina pinches her.

"Don't you 'oh, babe' me, Emma Swan!"

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When they hear Henry get home that night they both sigh in relief. Their room is dark and Emma knows Regina is relaxed because she's playing with her blonde locks, twirling a curl around her finger.

"Want to talk about it?"

Regina stills but remembers all the togethertogethertogether moments they've had and admits, "When we were first married I looked into in vitro fertilization. My mother found out about it and told me 'love is weakness, Regina.' She had told me that my entire life, and it's haunted me a long time, but it really effected our relationship. That was when I started to pull away from you."

Emma pulls Regina's left hand closer, placing it over her heart so her wife can feel the steady beating of her heart. "Love isn't weakness," she whispers, tracing over the metal of the brunette's wedding band, "it's strength."

"Together," she whispers back, the same promise they made in the shower at the safehouse, when they first met Henry, when Neal told them he was sick, in their second wedding vows; all those togethertogethertogether moments flicker through her mind again and give her strength.

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Emma needed to reassure Henry he wasn't being replaced by a newer model because when she was three the foster family she was with sent her back when they conceived a child of their own.

"We want to expand our family. Give another kid their best chance. What do you think about that?"

He could tell she was nervous and then relieved when his smile wasn't forced or faked because he was honestly excited.

"I've always wanted to be a big brother."

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"Congratulations, Mrs. and Mrs. Swan," the adoption agent tells them with a smile, placing a car seat on the table in front of them with a tiny baby buckled inside.

She is three months old and they drove to an agency in New York City to pick her up. When Regina unfastens the buckles and gently lifts her from the car seat she takes a moment to just gaze at her daughter and smile with tears in her eyes at the grumpy expression that crosses her face at being disturbed from her slumber. She kisses the baby's little face and falls in love in an instant, the same flood of motherly instincts hitting her like they had with Henry.

The baby's little blonde curls peek out from the bottom of the cap she's wearing and Emma strokes her fat cheeks and kisses her forehead, pressing against the hair so similar to her own gently with her lips. Henry tickles her belly when she yawns and stretches and she opens her little eyes and gazes at him. They're kind of grey looking right now, but his Mom said babies eyes can change colors and he knows there's no genetic tie but he's hoping they end up dark brown like hers since he got Ma's green eyes.

Henry knows his mothers both have to fight their natural instincts sometimes. That he's kicked his soccer ball too close to the car once and his Mom had intercepted it perfectly. That the neighbor had stepped behind Ma and clapped his hand on her shoulder, startling her, and she'd had him wheezing on the ground in the next breath. He knows he's never been able to sneak out of the house because they're both alert and wary of their surroundings. He knows his Ma would be perfect for the sheriff in their town, but she's still struggling with her redemption and that's why she goes after bounties. He knows his Mom battles her inner rage and that's why she loves working with the horses because they calm her. He also knows his mothers love him unconditionally and when his sister is old enough he'll teach her how to spot the tracker his mothers hid in his car because he's sure they'll place one on hers as well.

"Ready to take her home, kid?"

His Ma still calls him that, even though once he finally hit his big growth spurt he started to tower over both his mothers.

"Your mother is a short ass, kid. Don't let her heels fool you."

"I am not a 'short ass' and watch your language!"

"Your mother also swears like a sailor when she thinks you can't hear her."

"Oh, god. I just realized I'm outnumbered. Can I go visit Grandpa next weekend?"

Henry also knew his mothers both kind of hated his grandfather - though he was his Ma's boss at one point and seemed to have an odd sort of respect for her, and was his Mom's mentor at one point and it pissed her off when his Ma accurately called him her 'frenemy' - so their answer didn't surprise him.

"No," they answered in unison.