Just for kicks...what if CS *didn't* have to happen? How would you have liked to see Emma develop as a character from 3A or 3B onward, if Hook had been written out after s2?
So let’s assume Swanfire is happening. I write Neal and Emma in a kind of awkward dating phase where they get to have sweet moments that keep getting interrupted by villain of the week. Use 4A to have Neal learn to accept the magic as part of Emma and contrast it with his experience with his father and then have them both worry about the threat of the darkness in 4B with both Emma’s fears and Neal’s about what it was like to loose someone to darkness. With swanfire as canon, 5A becomes super angsty and again have Emma do some real evil but probably in the name of protecting her family. Like some serious killing or maybe taking a heart of someone she loves to “keep them safe”. Just have her spiral and him become more desperate. So maybe he dies maybe it’s someone else but again she goes to the underworld to save someone because their death is her fault not because she can’t accept loosing them. Have her and Rumple and Neal deal with what the Dark one means and maybe he starts to understand his father better because he’s seen what Emma went through and is going through.
