Hey all! This is my first OUAT/CS story, so bear with me. This takes place after 4.20— so no Heroes and Villains ep, but Isaac is defeated and Rumple is good, there's no Dark!Swan.
Emma Swan wakes that morning with a slight pounding in her head, but no realization that anything is any different than usual.
Yet.
She can feel sunlight pressing against her eyelids, but her alarm hasn't gone off yet. She wonders halfheartedly what time it is, even though she knows that it's earlier than she would like. Grumbling, she reaches up to rub her hand over her face and massage her eyes before opening them.
She's not sure what she notices first—the odd olive green paint of the ceiling or the feeling of facial hair under her fingers—but she suddenly knows that something is wrong.
Her first thought is that of course something has gone wrong, this is Storybrooke after all and its only been weeks since the Apprentice helped them defeat Isaac and remove the darkness from Gold.
Her second thought is a string of curses, questioning what in the fucking buggering batshit crazy hell is happening to her.
Emma sits up, the movement awkward as her body feels heavier than she is used to. She holds her right hand in front of her face. It's rather large, and there are indentations around the first and third fingers, as if she should be wearing jewelry. But jewelry is one thing that Emma Swan does not usually wear.
"What the…" she wonders out loud, but the voice she hears is a tad deep, slightly lilted, and too damn familiar.
Eyes wide, she lifts her left arm up and gasps. All she sees is a stump, the arm ending at the wrist. The skin is paler than the other hand, and is more scarred than she expects. She moves her right hand over to drift it along the arm, but she can barely feel her own touch. A glance further to the left reveals a curved silver object resting on the bedside table.
"Hook!" She screeches out.
She can't believe what she's seeing. There is no way she could be imagining this, because it's the first time she has ever seen the bare arm. Despite the panic rising in her chest, she can't help but feel a bit of melancholy as she recalls the story of how Rumplestiltskin took his hand, and the love of his life, from him all in one fell swoop.
Her head is pounding even harder now and her vision begins to go black around the edges. She presses her hand to her chest in an effort to calm her ragged breathing, but it lands on chest hair and she pulls away in disgust.
Although, really, it's not as if she hasn't touched his chest before. They've been dating for a little while now and they've made out more than once. But it never went farther than a little groping, mostly because they haven't had time between battling for their lives, taking care of Henry, and living with her parents.
And he had been staying at Granny's, Emma remembers suddenly, and the red and green walls begin to make more sense. Her gaze sweeps over the rest of the room and she spots a mirror standing in the far corner. She doesn't want to go over to it, doesn't want it to confirm her suspicions, but she can't help it.
Slowly, she extricates her now stockier body out from between the white bedsheets and walks across the room. When she braves a glance at the mirror, she sees Killian's body standing there. She stares at his rich blue eyes, his square jaw, the hair trailing down his chest and stomach. And there goes her heart, racing again, as she trails over his…
She jumps, swiftly moving both arms to cover… that. But the single hand and the arm stump do little to block her view of his thick appendage, which is suddenly twitching for attention.
He sleeps naked. The body she is suddenly occupying, the body of the infamous Captain Hook, the body of her boyfriend … is unclothed.
"What the fuck?" She exclaims, her gaze flickering back and forth between the thing now dangling between her legs—god, that's such a weird feeling—and her eyes. Or, rather, his eyes.
She knows she needs to stop staring; staring isn't helping her resolve what is going on. What she needs to do is find her own body. As she thinks it over, she's not sure if something happened to Killian and now she is inhabiting his body, or if they have somehow switched bodies. But, then, why would they? Unless they weren't the only ones affected and this, whatever it is, has happened all over town.
Either way, she needs to get to her parent's loft quickly, and inconspicuously. It certainly wouldn't help to run across town naked and screaming and causing widespread panic.
This requires playing the part of Hook—Killian—even if only for a little while. Luckily she has training blending in from her bail bonds days and also, she feels like she knows Killian pretty well.
Hopefully.
With a quick shiver, she turns her—his?—body around and looks for clothing. There is no underwear in sight, but she spots a pair of dark jeans lying on the chest at the end of the bed. She sighs and starts to pull them on until her left arm just slides along the fabric.
Right, no hand, she has to remind herself. She glances back over at the bedside table, but coming out of the leather brace is a tangled pile of thick leather strips. Closing her eyes, Emma groans loudly. There is no way she is going to be able to get that on, she knows, so she turns back to the problem at, well, hand.
With an awkward shimmying motion, she shifts the jeans up her legs and eventually manages to get them zipped and buttoned. Searching around for a shirt next, she finds a black button down.
It takes her longer than she would ever admit to get that monstrosity on properly. The leather jacket is much easier to adorn, and she does so with a slight sigh. She can't help but feel a bit of pride towards Killian and all of the adjusting he had gone through, both when he had first lost his hand and began using the hook, and then when she had gotten him to start dressing in modern clothes. For a moment, she regrets how much she pushed him into that one, even if he did look damn good in them.
Emma finds his jewelry on the bedside table next to the hook and she slips it all on. She stuffs the leather straps up into her sleeve as she shoves the stump into the brace. She holds it against her—his!—stomach and hopes that the brace doesn't fall off during her trek across town. Despite his confident personality and lascivious commentary, there are still several things he keeps to himself. And this, she knows, is one of them.
She finds his boots resting beside the door and she slides them on. As she exits the room, she doesn't bother looking for a key or locking the door behind her. Whether or not he has anything worth stealing, this is Storybrooke for God's sake. In fairy tales people don't steal from each other, right?
Her own mother not included.
She pushes the thought away and slides out through the back door, not wanting to encounter any of Granny's morning crowd. She slips through back roads easily until she comes upon Mary Margaret's apartment building. She makes her way to the third floor but pauses in front of the familiar door.
She can't just burst in there and walk past her parents. Right now, she looks like Hook, and while the two of them have been dating, her father would never permit him to just barge in.
No, she has to play this through. Taking a deep breath, she reaches out and knocks twice on the door.
David murmurs something on the other side, and Emma realizes that he must be looking through the peephole. He swings the door open and there's a coffee mug in his other hand, another sign of the early hour.
"Good morning, Killian," He gives her a reserved smile, "Awful early, isn't it?"
"Hi dad!" She wants to scream out. "It's me, Emma. I know this is crazy, but it's really me but I look like Hook and I really don't know what's going on."
Instead, she pauses and nods. "Aye," She slips out, hoping that it sounds calm enough. Although now she needs to come up with an excuse to give him for her Saturday morning appearance. "Emma and I had plans to go sailing today." She leaves it at that, hoping it is just vague enough to get by him.
David looks confused for a moment, but seems to accept it. "Well come on in."
She has to turn to fit through the doorway beside him. She stomps into the room, feeling weirded out by the fact that she is now nearly taller than her father and just as broad shouldered.
The oddity sends her mind reeling for a moment and she still can't believe this whole thing is even happening. She's in Killian's body right now. But if she's in his body, is it still his? Or is it now hers? The thoughts jumble, racing around and around in strange loops she can't keep track of.
Once inside the apartment, she forces herself back into the present and immediately looks around. Her mom is sitting at the table with a half-empty plate in front of her. Henry is at Regina's, thankfully, and her own body is nowhere to be seen.
Her mother smiles widely, dimple and all. This time it's harder to keep her mouth shut, to not say anything to her, but Emma knows she has to keep this all to herself, at least until she figures out what exactly is going on.
"Good morning! Emma isn't up yet, but you're welcome to go on up and drag her out of bed."
Jokingly, Emma pulls one of Killian's little bows from her memory and recreates it. "Thanks, milady. I will do just that."
Mary Margaret is convinced by her act but David pulls up beside her and Emma can tell by the puff of his chest that he is about to do his protective dad thing.
She turns around quickly and heads to the stairs, hoping to avoid whatever rant he thinks he is about to give her boyfriend.
"I'm not so sure if that's—" He starts, but Mary Margaret shushes him. She mentally thanks her mother as she makes her way up the metal stair case. She almost stumbles for a moment—Killian's feet are larger than hers and she has to account for that in her steps—but she recovers.
But when she reaches the top and turns to look at the bed, it's rumpled and empty.
Shit. If her body is gone, then that is definitely a problem. If someone else woke up in her body, then where had they gone?
She hears water running and relief floods her body. She walks around the corner until she reaches the closed door that she knows leads to a bathroom. She knocks and the water on the other side stops.
"Kil—" She cuts herself off just as quickly as she had started speaking. Technically the person on the other side of the door is herself. Clearing her throat, she tries again. "Emma?"
It's weird, saying her own name, and even weirder to keep hearing Killian's voice come out when she speaks.
It takes several long seconds, and then the door opens.
She can't help but breathe out as she checks over the body standing there—her body. It is still clad in the t-shirt and shorts she remembers putting on before bed. Her blonde hair is a mess and for a moment, all Emma can wonder is if she really looks like this every morning.
"K-Killian?" Her voice croaks from the body standing there, and it sounds higher pitched than she seems to remember.
"Uhh…" She freezes, unsure of how to continue. The person in front of her looks skittish, like a deer caught in headlights. Is there any possibility that she is somehow inhabiting both bodies, without knowing it? Two consciousnesses? Or, if this body switching thing has affected more of the town, could it be someone else in her body? Like Belle? Or Leroy?
Her face screws up at the thought. But the more she stares at her body, sees the hands clenched in the hem of the t-shirt and the eyes wide with shock, the more sure she is that it's Killian standing there.
"Do you have any idea what is going on here?" She blurts out, the natural lilt in his voice intensifying with her increasing panic.
"Huh?" Her body continues to stand there, although now her eyes—wow, those are a really weird green—are scanning up and down the body that Emma is inhabiting.
And with that weird thought, she squares her shoulders and decides to take the plunge.
"Killian?" She calls out. "Is that you?" She makes sure to say it quietly, hoping that her parents can't hear them from downstairs.
"Bloody hell!" The curse comes quickly, and too loudly, from her own mouth. In that instant, she knows that it's him. She reaches out, pushes him further into the bathroom, and pulls the door closed behind her.
Hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you think! (Also I already have this whole story written, thankfully, so updates will be regular!)