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This wasn't her first battle.
After time travel, fake memories, ogres, snow monsters and too many damn villains to keep count of, she got used - as best as one can get used to this madness - to the cycle of lose-fight-find. This wasn't her first battle, but nothing can compare to the exhaustion that has settled in her bones.
She can't shake the thrilling feel of dark magic from her finger tips, the pain of having it ripped away. She can't get rid of the shame of the things she'd done, the people that she hurt and god, she could have killed them all.
There are goosebumps in her arms and no matter how much Killian rubs at them, it doesn't seem to disappear, the comfort of her bed doing nothing to soothe the ache in her muscles. She burrows her face further in his neck, limbs tangled under a mess of blankets, and even if the coldness in her skin lessens, it doesn't fade.
His arms tighten around her in response, and she feels the rumble of his chest as he speaks but she can't hear him through the white noise in her head. Her eyes are screwed shut as she tries to find something to focus on, and she can't hold back a whimper - all she can feel is the sheer agony as the dark magic was taken from her, taking her warmth, her sanity, her very being along with it. She digs her fingers in her head, feeling the pain pulsing behind her eyelids, the emptiness in her chest and it's just so cold.
"Breathe, Emma."
She can't. Not with her mind throwing everything she wants to forget in a loop. She sees Killian's happiness as he found her, how it turned into hurt as he realized that the darkness had filled to a point where she barely recognize him or her family. She sees the pain in her parents face, realizing that the woman they had found was not their daughter. She sees Henry behind Regina's protective stance, fear in his eyes. She sees Graham and Neal, dying in her arms; being set up on that alley; her baby torn from her hands before she ever had a chance to hold him; family after family choosing someone else over her.
Her throat feels raw as she sits up - when had she started screaming? -, opening her eyes and taking deep gulps of air that end on a sob. Killian is kneeling over her, his hand on her face and despair over his own. One sob turns to another and she can't stop crying, can't stop seeing the things she never wants to remember.
When her finally tears end, leaving behind only the occasional sniffle, she open her eyes and sees herself in Killian's lap, his back against the headboard, fingers holding tight to her own.
"I'm sorry", she whispers, after a long while of peaceful quiet.
He stiffens and she finds herself afraid of what is to come. She remembers all too well of his promises, but she won't blame him if he decides to leave. Not after traveling realms for her (again), only to find terrible storms and destruction.
"I know you are." he said, after a sigh so deep that lifted and then lowered her head. "But you don't have to be. That wasn't you, love."
"It was me" She replied, lifting from his shoulder to look at his eyes. (How could she ever had forgotten that blue?) "I was the one doing all those things, I enjoyed it. I-" She took deep a breath, trying to control the despair in her voice.
"That was the dark magic." He interrupts, voice steady and sure, but somehow still soft, as if he was afraid to scare her. "I know you, lass, and that was as far from you as one can be."
He knew, as her expression remained unchanged, that she didn't believe him.
"You", he continues, his hand framing her cheek "are Emma Swan. You are Henry's mother, Snow White and Prince Charming's daughter. You are the savior, one of the many heroes in this town. You are brave and beautiful, brilliant and bloody stubborn. You are good, Emma."
She hears the intensity in his voice, feels his words in her bones, and even if the the fist around her heart is still very much present, it doesn't feel so tight. When she fits her face in the crook of his neck once again, she focuses harder on his words to chase the dark memories from her mind; wills his touch to rid her body of its cold.
She falls asleep eventually, and for the first time since her family rescued her, she doesn't see the horrors that the darkness put her through. With Killian's heart beating under her ear, she dreams of beanstalks and red dressed twirling in a ball room, kisses on her lips and gentle touches against her skin.
Emma knows, without a doubt, that this is the hardest battle she has ever fought. But this time she is not alone. And while she is not willing to leave the comfort of her bed – or Killian’s arms – any time soon, she knows that together, this is a battle they can win.