Emma's Pov

I run into the dark forest not caring about my safety. Where could he possibly be? I have to find him. He needed me, he needed help. I hear voices off in the distance. I run towards them, not knowing where I am or where I am going.

"Try to ignore me. Bet you can't," one voice says.

"Talk all you want, spirit. I know you're lying. There's no way that I can get my revenge when Gold's in Storybrooke and I'm trapped here in Camelot," the other voice said.

It is Hook. I breathe a sigh of relief/

"Well, that's where we come in, dearie. Might I suggest a dark curse?" Rumplestiltskin, the Dark One Spirit.

I stop dead in my tracks. He wouldn't kill me for his revenge, he wouldn't go that far. Not after all that we have been through, would he? Killian is still in there. I know it.

"And crush the heart of the one I love most to enact it? No, no, no. I won't kill Emma."

I finally was able to breathe as I collapse against a tree. It feels as if I was suffocating waiting for his answer. Once I regain my breath I run into the clearing where the two men stood.

"Yeah, but there's always a loophole."

"Killian! It worked! You're alive!" I cheer joyfully.

"Aye. It did. After spending centuries quelling my bloodlust, you threw me right back into that darkness! Job well-done, Emma!" He yells as I hold back unwanted tears from running down my cheeks.

"Binding you to Excalibur was the only way to save you," I plead.

"Right, Excalibur. And where is my shiny new tether?"

"I don't know. It disappeared right after you did," I lie.

"Ah. Isn't that convenient?" Rumple says and I glare in his direction.

"How long has he been with you?" I question.

"You can still see him?"

"Sadly, yes. I mean, she's still a Dark One. No matter how ineffectual she may be," he responds for me.

"Don't listen to him. He's not real. But I am. I'm right here. Look at me. That future you told me not to be afraid of... We can have it. The house in Storybrooke. I'm not afraid anymore. I want it. With you. It's ours. You just have to want it, too," I beg, looking for any sign of my Killian beneath the darkness..

"Aye, love, I do. More than anything," he holds me closer.

"Killian... look."

We both look in the direction of the nonexistent Rumplestiltskin. Hook gasps and holds me tighter.

"The demon's gone."

"We can do this. We can get the darkness out of both of us for good."

"How?" Hook asks, doubtful.

"By doing what I just did with you. By going to those we love."

He crushes his lips into mine. I smile. He holds me as close as he can and kisses me passionately. He moans into the kiss. I laugh.

"All right, enough distractions. I am going to go scout our path," I grin sheepishly.

"I'll go replenish our water supply," he says with a smirk on his face.

I walk away slowly.

"Oh, what is that noise?" I hear Killian say from not to far away. I know he can hear the dagger. I hate lying to him.

"That's the sound of the dagger singing to the sword. And if you can hear it, that means Excalibur is quite close," the demon returns.

"No, it's impossible. Emma said it disappeared."

"Wake up, dearie! Your lover's lying. She has the sword," I feel the guilt creep up into my throat, choking me.

"Why would she lie to me?"

"So she can control you. Not that she needs Excalibur. She's quite good at doing that all on her own," the voices grow fainter the further I walk away. I should be helping him, but I feel disconnected from the world, with all the horrible feelings I am feeling. Guilt at the top of the list.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

I come back into reality and run toward the clearing.

"You! Get out of here!" I yell.

"Oh, we were just talking about you. Why don't you ask her yourself?" The demon says.

"Ask me what? Hook, what is going on?"

I say trying to cover that I was eavesdropping.

"Emma, do you know where Excalibur is?"

"Killian... Rumple is manipulating you. That's what he does," I lie again.

He is painting from all the voices in his head. I bite my lip trying to keep the lies and guilt from taking over.

"Are you lying to me? I can hear it calling to the dagger, Emma. Do you have Excalibur?"

I cave. I can't stand lying to him.

"Yes."

"Did you use it on me?"

"What?" I say infuriated, "No, of course not. I was never..."

"Then why not tell me the truth? Are you afraid I was gonna ask you for it? You never planned on giving it to me, did you?" He interrupts me.

I struggle with my feelings, but let Excalibur appear in my hands.

"I did it to protect you. You told me yourself you were not strong enough to resist the darkness," I touch him lovingly.

"Which is why I begged you not to turn me into the Dark One in the first place! But you went and did it anyway," he yells, as I flinch at the raising of his voice, and I can't keep the tears back anymore.

"You were dying," my voice breaks.

"You know the worst part, Swan? When your own mother wanted to use the dagger to stop you from crushing Merida's heart, I'm the one that convinced her that you needed to make that decision yourself. There's never been a moment where I didn't believe in you, where I didn't trust you. But you clearly don't believe in me anymore, so how am I supposed to fight this?"

I try not to sob, but my attempts are pointless.

"Killian..." I plead.

"Don't," he disappears in a cloud of smoke and Excalibur clangs to the ground as it slips though my fingers.

I collapse on the ground. The pain is too much. I try desperately to escape this reality, and all this pain. I stand up my heart aching. I call for Killian. Searching for him. Somehow my feet knew by instinct where I needed to go. I kept walking and calling for him until I appeared in the Middlemist Flower Meadow. It reminds me of the time he helped me resist the darkness. And I needed to do the same. I need to save him, or at least help him fight the darkness. I have to make a choice, for better or for worse. I need to speak to him. I call out to him twice more.

"Killian? Killian?"

I summon Excalibur. I struggle with the decision to use it on Killian. He never used it on me. It is unfair, but I need to do this. I sigh, my decision made.

"Dark One, I summon thee," Killian appears in front of me, a scowl painted on his face.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know how else to get you here," I apologize.

"You could have given me a choice," he says the scowl not leaving his face, his true feelings hiding from me.

"We need to talk about this."

"Do you have any idea how it feels to not be in control of yourself? The last time a Dark One controlled me, I had to watch as Rumplestiltskin almost killed you. I had to kneel, powerless, while he almost crushed my heart!" He yells.

"I know exactly how it feels! All my life, everyone I loved abandoned me!" I yell back through the empty space between us.

"I didn't abandon you."

The guilt stabs my heart again.

"I know," I say softly, not daring looking him in the eye, "But I was about to lose you to the darkness. When I'm scared, that's when my walls go up. That's when I stop trusting the people around me. You know this," I finally look at him tears burning in my eyes, about to spill over.

"It doesn't make it fair, Swan," he starts to walk away.

"Killian, wait!" I shout.

I hold Excalibur in one hand, my command forcing him to stop.

"Ugh! I didn't mean to do that."

"Aye, but you did... and that's my point!" He turns to me.

"That's not why I called you here! I called you here because I do believe in you! I do trust you to control your own fate! It's yours if you want it," I hold Excalibur out to him. I am breathing heavily.

"We are going to get the darkness out of both of us. We are going to do it together. I promise you, I will never try to control you again. I love you."

Killian doesn't say a word. He just look at me with something I can't quite figure out. Is it anger? Or is it love? I can't tell and it breaks me that I can't.

"What?"

"It's just I'm usually the one that has to say that first."

"Yeah, well..."

"I love you, too," he cuts me off with a passionate kiss.

We walk back to Granny's. Killian goes inside. After a few minutes I follow after him and go inside. Killian is holding Merlin's heart over a cauldron. Nimue was next to him.

"You were playing me the whole time," I say hurt.

"Once you lied about Excalibur, all bets were off. I knew it was just a matter of time before you tried controlling me. And now no one will ever control me again. Go back from whence you came. Back to stone," he says as Excalibur disappears.

I walk towards Nimue.

"I don't understand. Why are you helping him get his revenge?"

"Don't be naive, Emma. Dark Ones never do anything without getting something in return," she says manipulatively.

"What do you want?" I ask.

"You're a Dark One. You know what we want. You want it too."

"No. You can't," I say fear flooding my vision.

"Yes, we can. And we will."

I turn to Killian.

"Killian... Your revenge is not your happy ending. I am. You told me that. If you destroy this heart, you will destroy your happy ending along with it," I plead with a man that isn't my Killian.

"No, Killian Jones told you that. Your lovesick puppy dog. But that man died the moment you turned him into a Dark One."

Hook crushes Merlin's heart and pours the ashes into the cauldron. Merlin falls to the floor, dead. I just want to wake up from this nightmare. I look at Hook with a look of pity for the loss of the man I love.

"It's over, Emma," Killian says smugly.

"I told you I would never abandon you. I'm not going to start now."

"I'm sorry, love. Once a curse has been enacted, you can't stop it."

An idea enters my head. It is horrible, but I have to do it.

"Yes. I might not be able to stop it... but I can make you forget why you cast it," I wave my hand and Hook falls, unconscious.

"And that you were ever the Dark One in the first place."

"Clever, dearie," the darkness who is now Rumplestiltskin replies.

I use one of my dreamcatchers on Killian to capture his memories. I kneel down beside him, tears hovering over my eyelids.

"When you wake up, you'll be the man you were. The man I love. The man who loves me," I kiss his lips, one that he doesn't return.

"Ah, you'll have to do more than that if you want him to forget he was ever a Dark One," the demon in my head says.

"I know. I need to erase the memories of everyone who knew that I turned Hook into a Dark One."

With one wave of my hand, my family lies unconscious on the floor. I use a dreamcatcher to take each of their memories and set the dreamcatcher on top of the boiling cauldron.

"Right. Because no one could possibly understand. Why trust your family to help when you can do it all yourself?" The darkness says smugly.

"This was my fault. I'm the one who's going to fix this."

"By using dark magic to add a memory wipe to the curse. But you won't like where it leads. Or worse... you will," thunder rumbles around me taking me far away from the land of Camelot, with the man I love in my arms.

—————
I am finally able to escape from that nightmare, jolting awake and sitting straight up, breathing heavily, just like the two previous nights. The room is almost pitch black. The lamp on our nightstand turns on, Killian is awake.

"Another nightmare?" He says in a husky voice, from just waking up.

I nod.

"Do you want to tell me about it?"

I shake my head.

"I think it might help."

I shake my head once again.

"I thought we agreed that you would go see Archie."

"I thought it wasn't a serious problem. I was hoping they would just go away," I whisper quietly afraid to use my voice.

He rubs my back.

"How many nightmares have you had?"

"Six."

"Oh Em," he pulls me closer to him. What were they about? You don't have to include the details, if you don't want to."

I smile he was taking care of me even when it was like 3 in the morning.

"Well they're more of memories. There was the one where you died in Storybrooke that I told you about. You died in the alternate reality. You almost died in Camelot before I turned you into the dark one. Neal died. Graham died. And tonight it was when we were dark ones in Camelot, when you betrayed me," I tried not to cry re-accounting all the horrible memories, "And it's like I can't escape them until there are over. I am trapped."

He pulls me closer. I know he is thinking of the guilt of hurting me like that when we were dark ones, but also trying to comfort me.

"I am sorry, for saying those things back in Camelot and that you have to have these nightmares."

"Don't apologize," I turn to him, "I just want you to hold me and be there when I wake up. And I will go see Archie if you really want me to."

"Of course. I think Archie will help ease both of our minds. Now come here."

I snuggle up to him, feeling my nerves settle ever so slightly the more he held me close to him.

I don't know if I should say your welcome or sorry for the really long chapter. 😂😂😂 Sorry if it is kinda boring. The videos for the recap of the nightmare are below. Sorry there are so many of them, but they only come in multiple sections. (The videos are in order) Have a great day.

-pinacolada07

https://youtu.be/BWS7Xr0tvwo
https://youtu.be/u-EyhqYm6Dg
https://youtu.be/RLQbnmPnNn0
https://youtu.be/v9Uo4sZ9Qn0
https://youtu.be/eIicQUEGgmw