"We failed." Cora's lips pursed, but even so no light faded from her eyes. There was no time for that: a machine so well oiled never stopped moving for long.

Sighing, Hook glanced at his companion, pride and pompousness in both his stance and his tone.

"Really, Cora. After all this time, why do you still doubt me?" He asked, holding up the shriveled, dead bean that he'd taken from the giant as a prize.

"That bean's petrified, it's useless." Cora nearly sneered, her nose in the air and a light trace of contempt in her voice.

"But these waters have regenerative properties," Hook paused for a moment, seeing the wheels in Cora's mind stop turning for a split second as they were both struck with perfect clarity. "perhaps it's time to do some gardening."

He tossed his prize into the water, and it began to move. Next to him, Cora's red lips curled into a deadly smile, and he felt his insides tighten. No one ran from the Queen of Hearts: and for all of his carelessness, Hook had never thought to try.

xxx

Killian Jones had sailed the seas: all seven of them. He considered himself an excellent navigator. Cora, for her part, had obliged his ego and allowed him plot their route. Both of them needed to reach Storybrooke. That compulsion was something that they would never doubt in one another.

"How long until our arrival?" She asked, parasol over her shoulder as she opened the door to his cabin without asking.

"A matter of hours." He answered confidently, looking up and meeting her gaze. "Assuming that the two worlds truly are parallel."

"And if they aren't?" Her lips drew together in a frown, and Hook's drew apart in a grin.

"Why bother with such questions? Snow White's portal worked, and so will this one." He was confident as always.

"I hope that you're right, Captain." Head held high, she approached him and grabbed his chin, forcing their gazes to meet. Whether or not her words dripped with sugar or poison, he could never tell. From the corner of his eye, he saw her set her parasol down on the cot where he slept. Why did she need both hands? "For your sake."

Before meeting Cora, Hook had never even considered that someone so slight could be so mighty. Peter Pan and his boys had been clever and courageous, but they had also been innocent and ignorant. Cora was more dangerous than any sea serpent, any reptile at all, that Hook had ever encountered.

"I wouldn't dare displease you, Your Majesty." Hook's words didn't drip with anything: they floated above responsibility and consequence. The look in Cora's eyes could mean anything, and he knew better than to dare try and interpret it. Such a thing could quite literally cost him his head, or at least his heart.

"A few hours, you say?" She didn't pause to let him repeat himself. They both knew what he'd said. "Then we have plenty of time."

"Time? For what?" He asked, and her grip tightened on his chin, fingernails starting to dig in.

"Don't be rude." She released him from her physical grip, but in the next moment he felt her magic take hold of him, and he was forced against the wall of his own sleeping quarters. "If you took the time to listen to anyone but yourself, perhaps you'd learn something."

Briefly he tried to move, but found it nearly impossible. Only his face was capable of movement. Even the smallest joints in his fingers wouldn't move an inch. For a moment he wondered why she still had magic, but quickly realized that they were not yet in Storybrooke. They were still between two different worlds: a place where, he was sure, anything could happen.

"So what, pray tell, does the Queen of Hearts have on her mind?" He asked, tense despite his usual nonchalant disposition. He knew that she wouldn't kill him: they were mutual beneficiaries, and killing was too easy. She would either do something much better, or much worse.

"Snow White and her family mean little to me. My daughter is what's important." Cora drawled, her eyes narrowed as she moved a hand to Hook's chest, pressing it over his heart. "But I'm not a fool, I respect them. I recognize every threat that they pose, few and small as they are."

"And what does that have to do with me?" Hook asked, his voice still smooth as satin as he looked down at the woman who had promised him vengeance.

"You've spent too much time in Neverland, Killian." Gaze caught between motherly and toxic, she moved her hand up and traced his jawline with the tip of her index finger. "You've forgotten exactly what those boys lost."

"I'm afraid that I don't follow." Again, he tried to at least move his wrists. For a second time, he failed.

"They lost more than themselves." She paused, and Hook realized that he'd been holding his breath. "They lost their mothers." She whispered, the tip of her finger against his bottom lip as he struggled not to breathe out against her skin. "And that, as I'm sure my daughter could tell you, is a terrible thing to lose."

"And what does that have to do with my current…vertical status, as it were?" Hook asked, his gaze threatening to plunge downward with Cora's neckline. His current position would have been delightful, had he been able to look down at a less dangerous woman. He didn't dare look at her face either, so he instead focused for the open door across from him, seeing blue sky and gentle waves surrounding the ship.

"I heard what you said to Snow White's daughter. What was it? Something about her horizontal status, and your own urge to breach her with your sword, willing or not?"

"You can't possible be angry with me for a joke." Cora had to be going on a different tangent: his remarks to Swan had been in the heat of battle, and to an enemy. Cora had no reason to cross swords with him over that.

"I'm disappointed in you, Killian. I'm disappointed in you for your blatant disrespect toward the sex who bore you. We bravely put aside our own unwillingness for man's precious sword for our own greater good. That's a sacrifice that both my daughter and I have had to make, and yet you make light of it. You treat it as something trivial. Do you have any idea the power that comes with womanhood? The risk? Do you know nothing of women?"

"You can't be serious." Nearly laughing, Hook looked down into Cora's eyes and felt his pulse nearly stop. Cora was, quite clearly, very serious. And yet, how could she be? Hadn't it been Cora herself who had pushed Regina into an unwilling marriage, into an unwilling bed?

"I see the way that you treat women, Killian. You assume that they want you, that their bodies crave you, and why shouldn't you? You are, I will admit, what most would call handsome."

Her fingers moved across his skin, her touch dangerously delicate.

"…and what would you call me, Cora?" He breathed out, realizing that more parts of his body were mobile than he thought if the stirring in his breaches were any indication.

"Common." She breathed out. Not for the first time since they'd met, Hook felt a rare tremor in his constitution. "…for too long, you've wasted your days chasing lost boys and our dear, dear crocodile, no different from any other man who has loved and lost."

"Again," Hook was speaking more slowly now. He knew how easy it would be to anger Cora further. "I must ask you what that has to do with this." He gave a fruitless attempt at movement.

"If you're right, and you wouldn't dare be wrong, we have time before reaching Storybrooke." Cora murmured, motherly again as she splayed her fingers against his own neckline, hooking them in the collar of his jacket. "…and I think it would serve you well to learn the sheath is just as effective as the sword, if you're willing."

"For you, Cora?" Again, Hook felt what lay between his legs stir hopefully. "How could I say no?"