A/N: Hi, readers! This is it and just wanted to thank everyone again who read this and especially to those who reviewed. Feedback is everything. Originally there was also going to be an epilogue but it felt too contrived and there were some structuring problems so, to sum that up, everyone is fine and sees plenty of everyone else and there are many adventures to be had. The show's creators, writers, cast, and everyone else involved with it has done too good a job to deserve any less. Not too much longer before the premiere!

"You think there's a height requirement for jousting?" Henry asked, sitting on the edge of his bed in one of the castle's guestrooms. A few of the lower floors remained intact, so really just half a maze to navigate through for starters, Emma thought, kneeling down to tie his tie for him. She'd chosen a simple white dress, no lace, no frills, and asked around until she could get it taken in enough to resemble something she would have worn in Boston for a sting—ankle-length this time, though. It was a coronation, after all. The skirt flowed more than the slinky numbers she'd rent for catching perverted embezzlers and con artists, a long sun dress.

"Mom?"

"Sorry, kid. Head's just spinning, that's all. Front row seat at a coronation and all."

"They've waited a long time for it," he said.

"Oh, Henry, I know! It's just..." Screw explaining. She wrapped him up in a tight hug. Was there really no breaking point for this kid? "You're kind of a trooper, you know that?"

"Hey, can we come in for a second?"

At first glance, the first instinct Emma had was to change clothes, taking in her mother's white gown, something like a wedding gown, all gold trimmed with some tulle. She cast her eyes down at the floor, the corner of one keeping focus on her father, decked out in some grayish blue doublet thing...and they were both beaming right at her.

"Sorry, I've just never seen you in a dress before," Mary Margaret...no, Mom. She's shed all that Mary Margaret stuff now. With a hesitant step forward, she felt her hands give her hair the slightest touch. "I did always like your hair curled."

"Oh, well, you guys are the ones everybody's going to be paying attention to."

"Henry, can we talk to Emma a second? Privately? Your dad's downstairs," her father said. Oh jeez. The apartment and Storybrooke's never-ending dilemmas never allowed the adults the luxury of discussion without Henry a stone's throw away, leaving Emma to wonder what kind of talk this would become. Surely, not the talk. Wasn't Henry proof it was a little late for that?

"There hasn't been much of a chance for us to hear how you feel about all this," Dav—Dad said, taking a seat next to her on Henry's bed. Mom wrung her hands. Okay, so a teeny-tiny bit of Snow White was still Mary Margaret.

"I'm proud of both of you," she said. "And I'm grateful. I couldn't have gone after Henry alone. I couldn't have processed any of this without you guys being around."

They smiled at her, shifting a little, their jaws clenching and un-clenching at how to get to the meat of whatever subject they wanted to bring up.

"Emma, we were wondering how you feel about being royalty," Mom said. Before her bottom lip could fall to the appropriate level, her mother dropped down to her level and took her hand. "We realize that you haven't had any time to let all this soak in, and while we think you'd be an amazing ruler..." she trailed off and looked to Dad for assurance. "We're kind of in a special situation with you being the same age as us."

"Sort of defeats the purpose of having an heir to the throne," her father added.

"Wait, if you guys think I'm going to try to get out of a responsibility..."

"It's not that," Mom said. "We want you to know that there is absolutely no pressure to become a princess like how you're thinking. In fact, we were wondering if we could offer up an alternative."

"Alternative? Short of starting some kind of democracy thing, I think I'm a princess either way."

"We want to know how you would feel about making Henry the official heir," Dad said.

"He's young enough that we could help him prepare for that kind of responsibility. You would have been preparing for it little by little your entire life had things been different. Now, of course if something happened to us before Henry came of age, you would have to be the queen regent, but...that's getting into the weeds. What do you think?"

"I think..." There was just no way to voice anything to those hazel eyes that matched hers and Henry's so perfectly.

"Given your background, we think there may be a better way for you to serve the kingdom," Dad continued. "Your background is law enforcement, finding people," he said with a grin. "Now while a captain of the guard's job is to be in charge of protecting the castle and everyone in it, they're not really trained to do investigative work. They can ensure the safety of the realm in a war or something overt, but there are other kinds of threats out there."

"So I would go from being the princess to being, what, the director of homeland security?" That shouldn't sound so insanely cool, she thought.

"It's up to you, Emma." Her mother finally sat on the bed with them, sandwiching Emma in the middle. "We're your parents and we think you would be a great success at whatever you choose to do, but if the idea of becoming a queen just isn't for you, then we would be more than happy to trust you to protect this kingdom the same way you protected Storybrooke."

"And I wouldn't be throwing Henry under the bus?" she asked.

"I think Henry's adjusting to this world a little too well to consider prince-hood being thrown under the bus," Dad laughed, giving her hair a stroke.

"I get paid, right? Benefits? Sick days?"

Laughing, her parents kissed each of her temples before they went downstairs.

She'd cursed their last triumphant day. She'd barged in uninvited, voicing nothing but disdain and unbridled hatred on their wedding day, a wedding day she was supposed to have with Daniel, in a castle or in a stable, she didn't care. It's all she had wanted, to start a family with enough land to raise horses, to teach sons and daughters how to ride.

She'd cursed them, cursed their friends, cursed even mild acquaintances and people who didn't even know them but had incurred her wrath nonetheless. She'd forced them to make the choice to send their child into a strange land, only going on faith that she would find them and rescue them.

She'd cursed herself, so intent on creating a place where she would always win that she had forgotten what it felt like to earn achievement, earn trust, earn love. She told lies, kept secrets, used whoever she could to keep up the closest thing she'd had to happiness. Then, for five years, she felt that she really did have everything. Her baby was real. His cries in the middle of the night, the stains on her designer suits, the battle of wills at home, at the grocery store, at the playground—it was real, and as long as he was a baby and the world was just the two of them, she had everything. And then, of course, she'd had to lie, keep secrets, and use people again.

Snow and Charming knelt at what looked like an altar, Jiminy the one chosen to officiate the ceremony. Crowns, pageantry, tradition—they understood everything that went behind those things, and she had just used them. The Evil Queen.

"Regina?"

"Yes, Miles?" she whispered back. She and the Lost Boys took up an entire row, the second from the front, an honored place.

"What's going to happen to us now? I need to tell the others something."

"I'm glad you asked that." They'd been gestured to to sit back down, a speech allowing her to hold her own hushed conversation with him. "There was a convent in the land I came from, Storybrooke, where lots of women lived together and did good works. They were fairies, so they're not around anymore, but there is such a place in this kingdom. If you'd like, and I do want it to be your choice, I can move into that place and arrange it so we can live there together, all of you and any other children that happen to be alone."

"Really?" He finally looked like a child, a toothy smile with bright eyes.

"I have the king and queen's permission as well as their blessing." Just flirt with honesty, Regina, she told herself. Just touch it and it will come easier and easier. "You see, I once kept their child away from them, and she grew up alone. I have to make sure that doesn't happen to anyone else. What do you think?"

"I think we'd love to," he said.

She smiled at him and caught Henry looking at her from the front row, smiling. She leaned forward and gave him a kiss before her attention returned to the coronation. She had Henry's love.

She had taken. Now she would give.

"So this is what you look like all dressed up."

Killian had looked stiff and acted like a statue for most of the ceremony, a deep red coat the only real change to what he wore, and, she'd found it cute and simultaneously pitiful he'd had to make an effort to be on his best behavior. She'd wandered out onto the balcony during the reception, fresh air and singularity the only cures for a party. Oh, she'd done her share of parties, but she'd always had to sneak off and take in some air, to be on her own for just a few minutes.

Funny how it was the first time that someone interrupting that was a welcomed change.

"Yeah, well, don't get used to it. Coronations don't happen every day." Smoothing the skirt, she approached him, opening her mouth to begin, but, screw it. Holding the back of his neck, she kissed him, trying to direct the assurances and even vows she'd thought up into the action, her heart and head reeling that she could feel his eyelashes brush his cheeks when he closed his eyes, could feel his hand snake around her waist and pull her close. I am not done with you, she willed him to hear. I am far from done with you. It ended and for a moment, she just stared into him, into those eyes that didn't have so much chill in them now.

"Was that to put your royalty fears at bay?" he asked her forehead, avoiding her eyes, probably avoiding some noble, "it's not you; it's my responsibilities" rejection.

"Actually, I'm offering you a job." Eyebrow up in the air, instant confusion—a giggle almost escaped.

"And what kind of job might that be?"

"Well, as my mother pointed out to me, there's not much point in having an heir that's the same age as they are, and since my area of expertise is, you know, thwarting evildoers and finding people..." In her head, she hadn't sounded so vapid. "This world needs some law and order, don't you think? I'm sure stretches of it are a no man's land."

"Sheriff of the world then?" Something close to a laugh broke out in him, an optimistic swallow following. "And so how would Sheriff Swan and her boy plan on traversing this land in pursuit of all these...villains?" His arm was scaling its way up her back, squeezing her upper body closer to him. There wouldn't have been any point in even entertaining going separate ways; he'd have seduced her too thoroughly to have followed through with that.

"See, that's where you come in. A ship would come in handy, and then so would someone who has a very specific kind of experience..." He switched arms to where the hooked one held her so his hand could caress the side of her face, looking so, so happy the rest of the world could have just faded away. A chaste peck of a kiss answered her.

Neither of them said anything, still working up to it. She had always thought that with the way these people viewed love that unsure moments just wouldn't be a thing. For the most powerful magic of all to break curses and stuff, some people, people with issues and heartbreak and darkness in their lives still needed to hear the words, which, to Emma, was refreshing. "I love you."

"I love you."

Nothing chaste about this kiss, she thought, closing her eyes and wallowing in it, and on a castle balcony, no less. An inability to stop grinning broke them up, settling for a tight, blissful hold while looking out at the horizon, the sun pouring down on everything, and it felt like theirs for the taking. At some level, Emma had always known that the words "happily ever after" contained more than they let on, but at last she could feel it. This was only the beginning.