AN: Hello, lovely readers! Welcome to this Captain Swan AU.

This piece was originally written for CS AU Week 2015, and I had a hell of a lot of fun with it.

I don't own Once Upon a Time. If I did, I'd have a car.

"Hey! No! We made a deal! I want his name! We had a deal! I need his name! I want his name!" Rumplestiltskin shouted after Snow White and Prince Charming from behind the bars of his cage.

"His name?" Charming called over his shoulder, scoffing a little. "It's a girl."

Snow paused, and her hand found its way to her pregnant belly.

"Missy! Missy, you know I'm right!" the Dark One persisted, and the young woman turned back to face him. "Tell me, what's his name?"

"Emmet," she said simply. "His name is Emmet."

A girl? In the King's navy? What the hell had she been thinking? This was a stupid idea. Gods, she should have known better than to try this. She was going to get found out for sure. A young, fifteen-year-old Lillian Jones discreetly adjusted the binding on her chest while the officer in front of her looked over her paperwork.

"Name?" the bookkeeper at the desk said, his voice dry and clearly bored out of his mind, beyond ready to go home after a long day of signing up new recruits.

"Li-" Lillian started to say, automatically it seemed, but she caught herself. "Killian. Killian Jones." She had considered giving a false last name, but she just couldn't bring herself to do it.

"Jones, eh?" her name seemed to peak the bookkeeper's interest. "Any relation to Liam Jones?" Lillian almost shook her head, but instead she shrugged.

"Second cousin, I think," she said instead. The bookkeeper let the matter drop and Lillian had to stop herself from heaving a sigh of relief. Her older brother Liam thought she was safe at home, still working at the Barker's inn. Liam was stationed on a ship anyway, she could avoid him pretty easily.

"Welcome to the King's Royal Navy, Jones."

"The wardrobe-" Snow realized as she held her boy - her beautiful baby boy - in her arms, "it only takes one."

Out in the hall, there was a crashing, there were shouts and crashes and the clanging of swords against armor.

"Then our plan has failed," Charming said. "At least we're together," he tried to assure his wife, rubbing her back and kissing the crown of her head.

"No," she said after a moment. "You have to take him, take the baby to the wardrobe."

"Are you out of your mind?"

"No, it's the only way you have to send him through-"

"No, no, no, you don't know what you're saying-"

"No, I do. We have to believe that he'll come back for us! We have to give him his best chance."

"Oh, shit," Lillian said under her breath as she read the letter that detailed her new assignment. She'd been excited - she'd proven herself, she was a trusted and esteemed member of the King's Navy, and her former captain had recommended her for a promotion. She'd been so excited, until she read the name of the captain she'd be serving under.

…serving under Captain Liam Jones.

Damn it.

"That was impressive, man," a voice said from the back seat of the volkswagon beetle that seventeen-year-old Emmet Swan had just stolen, scaring the shit out of him.

"Who the hell are you?"

"But it would've been easier to just ask for the keys."

"So now that we've, well, landed," a twenty-year-old Lillian Jones began - she still couldn't believe that their ship had flown of all things, "what exactly is this mission, Liam?" she asked her brother.

"Our mission, little sister, is to find this," Liam replied, fishing an illustration out of a tall stack of papers on his desk and handing it to her.

"Younger sister," Lillian corrected him. She was not his little sister anymore. Liam's little sister was a girl who did laundry and made beds and served ale at the Barker's Inn; no, Lillian was his younger sister, a young woman who was a distinguished officer in the King's Royal Navy - a king who still didn't know that she was a woman (hers and her brother's crew was another story).

Regardless of all that, the illustration was of a plant, a plant that was labeled as-

"Dream Shade?" Lillian asked for clarification. "I've never heard of it."

"It's a medicine, the King has asked us to retrieve it and bring it back for the war."

"And it's worth journeying across the realms for it?"

"Lillian, our sources say that it's magical!" Liam told her excitedly. "It's potent enough to cure any illness, any injury." Lillian's eyes lit up with understanding.

"We'll never have to bury another sailor at sea again," she realized.

"The number you are trying to reach is out of service. If you think you've received this message in error-" Emmet hung up the phone before the message had a chance to finish.

"Damn right, it's an error," he said to himself. What the hell, Neal?

"Unless he set you up," a voice came from behind him. Emmet whipped around to see a cop at the end of the alleyway, gun pointed directly at him. "Hands above your head please, sir."

"What, why? I don't understand-"

"Possession of stolen goods," the cop rattled off. Emmet willed himself not to glance to the new watch on his wrist. Both he and Neal had taken one from the stolen case of them. "Left you holding," the cop continued.

"I have nothing," Emmet told the cop.

"Sorry to tell you, but your partner took off," the cop said, steamrolling right over him. "Probably in Canada by now. He called in a tip, told us to take a look at the surveillance footage at the train station."

If Emmet ever saw Neal again that bastard was going to regret it.

"Give me the watch," the cop continued, and Emmet obeyed, though that didn't stop him from glaring up at the cop as he approached him, lowering his gun and instead reaching for a pair of handcuffs.

"You know your rights?"

"Yeah," Emmet answered the man, though he could barely register what was happening. Neal, his friend, his only friend, had betrayed him. Left him to take the fall for his crime.

"Turn around," the cop ordered, and Emmet did so, not even bothering to fight him as he cuffed his wrists together. "Where's the rest of the watches?"

"Gone."

"How are you feeling?" Lillian asked her brother hesitantly. She had been so nervous - so nervous that the water wouldn't work, that she had lost him forever, but he seemed to be okay. Seemed, being the key word. She could see it, he was walking around, straightening his shirt and fiddling with his belt right in front of her, but it felt too good to be true.

"Ship-shape," he answered her question, turning to face her. "Lillian," he began, "I should have listened to you. You always know when people are lying and I should have trusted you-"

"Liam, don't beat yourself up, I'm just glad you survived," Lillian cut him off. "What do we do now?"

"We reveal our King's cowardice," Liam replied at once.

"Well let's just hope the realm sides with us," Lillian said wryly, though she was a bit nervous about that bit.

"Oh they will," Liam assured her. "To fight battles with unholy weapons like this would be bad form," he said, giving her a teasing smile.

"Hey," she said, serious now as she reached up to straighten the collar of his coat. "I'll follow you, to the ends of the earth, brother," she told him sincerely, and Liam smiled a bit at that, patting her on the shoulder. There was a muffled shout from above deck, something resembling "brace for landing," shortly followed by the rumbling and rocking of their ship returning to the waters of the realm they called home. Lillian hurried to the window and had to admit that she was relieved to be back on water again. She smiled at the sight.

"What do you say, Liam? Do you want some company when you report to the admiralty?" she asked, turning back to face him, only to see him collapsing to the ground. "Liam?"

He didn't respond.

"Liam?" she tried again, rushing to his side - he was gasping with pain, just like he had been before she gave him the water- "No, no, Liam!" He was fading. He was growing still. "No, no, no, no, no- help! Someone please!" she cried. "Liam, no, don't leave me- Liam!" he was still, his pulse was dead. "Liam!"

He was gone.

And so was any shred of loyalty that Lillian had to the King.

So much for never burying another sailor at sea, Lillian thought to herself as she watched Liam's crew - her crew now - dump his body over the side of the ship. She couldn't even bring herself to say anything - anything to send him off, honor his memory - nothing. She was angry. So unbelievably, incredibly, and consumingly angry. She would never serve that King again. Never again would she follow the orders of the man who was responsible for her brother's death.

Never again.

Why couldn't people just cooperate? Emmet Swan asked himself as he climbed the stairs in his apartment complex, digging his keys out of his pocket as he did so. Things would be so much easier for everyone if these perps would just cooperate with him. He really did prefer it when hedidn't end his work nights with chasing down criminals. How that woman had run two blocks in those heels was still a mystery to him.

Suffice to say, Emmet was tired, a little crabby, and ready to change into some sweats and settle down on his couch with netflix and a cold beer.

He managed to get one sip before there was a knock on his door.

When he opened it and saw a kid, a ten-year-old boy standing there, looking up at him with the same blueish-green eyes he saw in the mirror every morning, he knew something was wrong.

"Are you Emmet Swan?" the boy asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"My name's Henry, I'm your son." he said matter-of-factly.

"Oh come on now, James, there's no way that she was-" Lillian had been calling one of her men out on another one of his tall tales when a beggar, a rat of a man, passed her and nearly knocked her over.

"Hey, you! Stop," she called him out, and he paused in his tracks. "Even gutter rats have more manners than you just displayed."

"Oh, I'm so sorry, ma'am," he said, turning to face her and her men. Even though he had his hood up, Lillian could see a bit of his neck and what she could see was scaly and sickly.

"I was wrong," she remarked aloud, "not a rat at all, more like a crocodile!" she said, and her men, her drunken men, guffawed at the remark. She approached the man and slapped the cup of change out of his hands. "What's your name,crocodile?" she asked, cocky and sure of herself as she watched him scramble for his coins. After a moment, he got to his feet with a giggle that she couldn't call anything but creepy, and threw the hood from his head, revealing a face she hadn't seen in years.

"You, I remember you," she said - he was Milah's husband, the coward who wouldn't fight for her. But he was different now.

"Always nice to make an impression," he said, making a mockery of her own words the day she had met him. "Oh, where are my manners, we haven't been properly introduced. Rumplestiltskin, or as others know me, the Dark One."

When Lillian had met Milah in that tavern two years ago, she had never expected to end up in this position. Milah had spun tales about her awful life in her village with her coward of a husband who didn't respect her and treated her as a possession and out of sympathy and a desire for more women on her ship, Lillian had invited her onto the Jolly Roger - at least until they reached their next port. When she met the husband in question the next morning he hadn't seemed so bad, but he was most certainly a coward - blaming her for a problem that was clearly between him and his wife? Please.

Milah had grown to be a close friend to Lillian; she would even go so far as to call her sister. Milah was happy on the seas, experiencing the world and its people like she never could have in that tiny village. Lillian didn't always approve of Milah's decisions, but then again, the same had once applied to Liam.

What Lillian had not been prepared for was for the Dark One to come after her, attempt to kill her, actually kill Miilah, and leave her one-handed.

The Dark One was going to pay for his actions if it was the last thing she did.

Lillian didn't want to work with Cora. She really didn't.

But if the manipulative witch had a way for her to kill off her crocodile, then she'd put up with her. It would be worth it in the long run.

There were voices - the voices of four people, three women and a man - and they were searching the camp. One of them recognized Cora's work. And one of them-

"Hey, hey, there's someone under there!"

One of them had noticed her.

"Please, please," Lillian cried from her position underneath dead bodies and wooden planks, feigning helplessness.

"Get her out of there, get her out!" another one of the women said, even as they were moving debris and hands were pulling Lillian out from the wreckage.

"Please-" Lillian repeated herself, still playing her shell-shocked and upset act. Now that she was out, she could see her 'rescuers:' one woman with auburn hair and a pale purple dress - definitely a woman of privilege of some sort; another woman with short black hair, a pink sweater, and a quiver slung over her shoulder; a third woman with skin darker than the other two, her dark hair pulled away from her face and dressed in armor that she was unfamiliar with; and a man, a man with golden blonde hair and damn beautiful green eyes.

"You're safe now, we won't hurt you," the woman in the pink sweater said reassuringly, with a kind smile.

"Thank you," Lillian said as she struggled to her feet with the help of the man - and damn he had some nice arms.

"We should leave here," the warrior woman, the one named Mulan, said, "in case Cora decides to come back."

"We should start searching for a new portal back to Storybrooke," the one in the pink sweater said, "I only got about five minutes with my husband, not to mention my grandson."

"You have a grandson?" Lillian asked. Surely that couldn't be right, this woman was barely old enough to be a mother, let alone a grandmother.

"It's a long story," she brushed him off.

"I know this land well, I can guide you-" Lillian was cut off by a hand gripping her long, dark hair and yanking her head back, a knife at her throat. Damn, this Emmet was good.

"You're not gonna guide us anywhere until you tell us who you really are."

Lillian liked this Emmet guy. She really liked him. Not only did he manage to call her out on her injured refugee act, but he had the balls to tie her to a tree to get her to talk.

Plus, he filled out those tight pants of his rather nicely.

"What if she's telling the truth?" the woman in the dress asked her companions as they walked away.

"She's not," Emmet said shortly.

There was another growl from the oncoming ogres. Damn it.

"Good for you," Lillian called after them, dropping the weak and helpless act. He stopped. "You bested me. I can count the people who've done that on one hand," she said as they turned back to her, ready to listen to the truth.

"That supposed to be a joke?" Emmet asked her, coming back to stand before her. "Who are you?"

"Lillian Jones," she answered truthfully. "But, most people tend to call me by another name: Hook."

"Hook?" the woman in the pink sweater repeated, realization dawning in her eyes.

"Check my bag," she challenged them, and the woman immediately did so.

"Hook? As in Captain Hook?" Emmet asked, and he looked like he was about to burst out laughing. "Are you telling me that Captain Hook, the infamous pirate, is actually a woman?"

Oh, how Lillian loved when she got that reaction. No one ever believed thatCaptain Hook could possibly be a woman.

"The one and only."

She was hoping it'd be him.

That was, until he left her stranded.

Lillian pocketed a piece of the Jolly Roger's rigging before she left her ship for the last time, leaving it in Blackbeard's damn filthy hands. It was worth it, she reminded herself. It would all be worth it as long as she made it back to him.

She said that not a day would to by that she didn't think of him, and here she was, standing in front of the police precinct and looking more nervous than he had ever seen her.

He remembered her. He remembered everything.

He remembered meeting her; lying through her teeth as she insisted that she was just a simple refugee, at least until he called her out on it; how she supposedly let him win on the shores of Lake Nostos and how he found her again in Storybrooke, half dead but still flirting. He remembered the look on her face when she agreed to lend her ship to his cause, to be a part of something, and her relieved expression when she and David pulled him out of the water. He remembered the feeling of her lips against her own when he kissed her in the jungle and he remembered, so vividly, the ache he had felt in his chest when he realized that he would have to leave her behind.

"Lillian?"

The nervousness was gone, replaced by a brilliant smile.

"Swan."

"How am I supposed to trust a woman who no longer believes in love?" a rightfully angry and upset Ariel spat at Lillian, after she confessed to trading Eric for her ship.

"I still do."

"Then swear to me on it," Ariel said. "This man that broke your heart, do you still love him?"

"Yes," Lillian answered simply, her heart in her throat because gods above, did she love him.

"Then swear to me on his name."

"I swear on Emmet Swan."

He fell into the portal. Of course he fell into the damn portal.

"One of these days I'm going to stop chasing this man," Lillian muttered to herself even as she unstuck her hook from the dirt and followed right after him.

Emmet fucked up. He could admit that fact. Accidentally interrupting his parents' meeting certainly qualified as fucking up. But Lillian- she helped him. She helped him blend in with a pair of stolen trousers, a shirt with sleeves that were baggier than he was used to, and a leather vest that Lillian would be thinking about for a long time coming. And then she got an idea, a brilliant, slightly scary idea.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Lillian stopped him as he loosened the laces of his vest, getting to his feet to go distract the other Lillian.

"Keeping her busy," Emmet answered with a grin, "after all, we both know I'm her type."

Watching Lillian knock herself out, literally, was quite possibly one of the hottest things that Emmet had ever witnessed.

They met with the Dark One again and he got them into his father's engagement party. When King Midas asked them for their names, Emmet panicked and blurted out the first names he thought of. He introduced Lillian as Princess Leia. He told him that he was Prince Caspian.

And damn it, he went and got himself arrested. Damn it. She found his parents and convinced them to help her.

She admitted to his mother that she would go to the end of the world for him. Or time.

"Oh, come on, Dad, just ask her out!"

"Are you sure, Henry?" Emmet asked. "Because if you're not comfortable with it, then I won't-"

Henry interrupted him by shoving him in the general direction of Granny's.

"She makes you happy, right?"

Emmet nodded.

"Then I'm okay with it."

It took a stint in another reality and watching her die for him to realize just how much he loved her.

And he still couldn't bring himself to tell her.

"I want to thank you," he said, internally slapping himself even as he said it.

"Emmet, Emmet no-" Lillian begged, even as the Darkness was swirling over their heads and as Emmet was running towards it like the stupid and noble hero that he was. "Don't do this."

She was crying, fuck, she was crying.

"I'm so sorry, Lillian," he said, taking her in his arms and resting his forehead against hers. The wind was picking up, howling and whipping her hair around her head.

"I love you," he told her - there were tears in his eyes - and then he broke free from her grasp. He was lifting the dagger and summoning the darkness to him - Lillian watched in horror as it swallowed him, consumed him, until he was gone - vanished. There was a clatter as the dagger hit the pavement, a new inscription upon the blade.

Emmet Swan

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