it'll be the best year ever; you bring the smokes, i'll bring the beer

Birthday candles weren’t made to burn this long. They were meant to be lit for just long enough for a group of friends and family to engage in a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday (sung in several to a dozen different keys, usually, depending on the size of the crowd) and to be extinguished immediately thereafter.

They certainly weren’t made for a 32-year-old woman to stare at while she tried to figure out how this yearly ritual was supposed to work now that her life had gone through such a dramatic shift.

Because there’d never been a crowd of people gathered around Emma Swan, waiting for her to make a wish and blow out her candles. Her birthdays had mostly passed by unremarked, celebrated (for lack of a better word) by no one but her. For 28 years there’d really been no one to say ‘Hey, we’re glad you were born, good on you for being born, here have some cake and maybe presents.’

She supposed the better question was, now that she had that--family and friends and home and love--why was she sitting here with an oversized cupcake and single cheap birthday candle, struggling to think of something poignant to wish for, as had been her tradition for over a decade? Her wish had been the same every year: to no longer have to spend her birthdays (and Christmases, and Easters, and Thanksgivings, and every holiday in between) alone. Now she didn’t have to, and she was doing so voluntarily.

Maybe it was just habit. Maybe Emma Swan--the real Emma Swan, not the woman she’d been in New York, a cobbled up concoction that was part Emma Swan and part fake memories held together with magic--was just that broken. Or maybe it was just residual fear, since every good thing in her life up to this point had existed with a very short shelf life.

Introspection wasn’t getting her much, though, except for a puddle of pale pink wax settling on top of buttercream frosting. And sadly, the longer she thought about it, the more she realized that she no longer trusted magic of any kind, not even the stuff that should be innocent. Birthday wishes surely had strings, the tooth fairy was a glorified thief with a weird fetish and Santa Claus? Mr. I See You When You’re Sleeping? Santa was shady as fuck.

So not a wish. Maybe just hope. She’d take the Mary Margaret approach. All happy endings start with hope--but no, that wasn’t quite right, either. Emma didn’t want to think about endings. Endings were sad by definition. The best parts were the beginning, and the middle.

“Here’s to a happy middle,” she murmured, somewhat amused at herself.

She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath, and extinguished the single flame with a sharp exhale.