Bring Him Home

One-Shot

Emma sighed in frustration as she walked out of her home she shared with the man she loved and her son, carrying Killian's seas chest he kept up in their room since he had moved in with Emma some weeks earlier within her arms out into the cold so she could return it to his ship. It had been a trying day, and not because of any monster or villain. But because she actually believed her fiancé left her after the fight they had the day before, as she had learned that he was the one who murdered David's father. Yet what was worse… he had lied to her about it and tried to bury the secret for good by burning his memory, then he ran without bothering to say so much as goodbye. Or so she believed, until something most unexpected happened that chilled her to her bones more than the cold weather ever could.

"Emma…" the Savior suddenly heard spoken muffled from inside the chest she still held in her arms while she was breathing raggedly because of the chill in the air, and at first she believed her despair over Killian's abandonment was making her hear things, until she heard his voice calling out to her once more. "Emma…"

"What the hell?" Emma uttered in shock upon hearing his voice, quickly set the chest on the ground and sat down on the bottom step of her porch, then she opened the chest so she could rummage through the items inside until she came across the item where Killian's voice was being projected from, at last coming across the shell necklace inside a small case containing numerous treasures within.

And then, she heard him call out to her again and again through the static also coming through, sounding hopeful and yet desperate saying, "Emma. Emma. Em… Emma. Emma, are you there? I didn't mean to leave. I was… I was on my way back to you, and… Gideon… he sent me away. I would never leave you."

She stared down at the shell in her hands in fear upon hearing the despair in his voice and whispered between his words, "Killian?"

"Emma, he wanted me out of the way," her pirate captain continued on, despite not knowing she was listening to him. "And I love you. I don't know if you can hear me, but… I'm trying to get home to you… and I won't ever stop until I do."

"I love you too," the Savior answered him through her tears of relief and joy that he still loved her and still wanted to be with her, as though her anger she spent all day holding against him for leaving her never existed, as it all immediately faded away from her thoughts.

However, fear also for the man she loved suddenly arose within her when she finally grasped the danger Killian was really in, and she whispered again, "Killian…"

When she could no longer hear his voice coming through the shell, Emma worryingly cried out for him once more, "Killian?"

"He can't hear you," someone Emma didn't expect to see again so soon after leaving his bar strangely responded to her, as she immediately looked up to find who she believed to be Aesop, then stood firmly upon immediately sensing his threat. "Not while I hold onto the tears of the Savior."

"This is some powerful stuff," the man continued as he held up a napkin from Aesop's Tables, which he had preserved within a small plastic bag so he could show it to her, although his reasons for doing so hadn't dawned on her just yet. "You should be more careful where you leave it."

Emma stared at him sternly while they both moved in closer to one another, then she questioned, "What are you doing here?"

When the threat he gave off only intensified as he continued to smile at her, she added coldly, "You're not Aesop, are you? You're not even a bartender."

"No," the man replied after he suddenly transformed back into his true form… the figure under the hood who was destined to kill her.

"What now, Gideon?" the Savior darkly asked of him again. "You try to kill me again? It didn't turn out very well for you last time."

Gideon answered her out of agreement, "Mm… indeed I made a terrible mistake, trying to steal the powers of the Savior."

All of a sudden, the villain poofed himself behind Emma and whispered haughtily into her ear, "But what I really need is for you to use those powers… to help me."

"You don't really have me in a helping mood right now, pal," Emma responded to him in a scowling tone.

"You sure about that?" he mockingly asked, then cruelly began to taunt her. "Because love makes us do things we never thought possible."

Emma suddenly realized why Gideon had held onto the napkin he then raised again in front of her, as she recognized it to be the one she had used to wipe away her tears earlier at the bar once she allowed herself to cry over losing the man she loved while her mother and Regina comforted her the best they could, and he continued, "And so long as I have this… I can ensure there will be no portals between you and the man you love."

He finally walked around to stand in front of her again as he added, "So I'm afraid… the good Captain will have to stay right where he is until you help me out and earn my gratitude."

"All right, I'm listening," she retorted coldly as she glared at him. "What the hell do I have to do?"

"The one thing I never could…" Gideon firmly began. "…kill the Black Fairy."

Once the figure under the hood had begun to explain why he needed the Savior's help, he followed Emma inside her home while she angrily and fearfully asked him, "You sent Hook away on the submarine? You took him away from me?!"

The villain smugly replied, "And you'll get him back… as soon as we destroy the Black Fairy together."

"Now you want my help?" she curtly questioned him when she spun around to face him again when he walked up behind her and stood close. "You have a funny way of asking for a favor."

"I suspect… without a little nudging, I already know the answer then," he arrogantly answered her once again.

Emma quickly responded, "Answer's always the same."

However, Gideon was still positive she would help him as he replied, "Then I suggest you reconsider, because given the protection spell I placed over him, it's impossible for him to return."

"I'll find a way," the Savior retorted again, then suddenly raised her hand and emitted her powers to put a magical chokehold over his throat in order to get him to give her back what she wanted, and tightly squeezed.

"I have your tear, remember, Savior?" the villain snidely questioned, as he continued to look into her eyes despite her still choking him. "I'm the only one that can bring him back.

However, his taunts only made her grow angrier and she released her hold on him while she swiftly forced him across the room and into the support beam behind him, then as Gideon struggled to rise again to his feet, she answered threateningly, "You tried to kill me with that sword, and you failed. And now you think you can bully me? I will never help you. If you don't bring Hook back on your own, I will make you do it."

Before he saw it coming, Emma immediately smacked him hard across his left cheek as she swung her hand with every bit of force she could muster within her, yet when he stood tall to face her again while she saw the blood now dripping from his mouth, he glared at her, then asked sinisterly, "Do you really think you frighten me? Do you think anything frightens me? You have no idea what I've been through. I was raised by the Black Fairy. Do you know the depths of depravity in her soul? If I don't stop her, no one will. Hundreds of people are depending on me to save them… children that I swore to protect. So you… you think… you think you're so righteous? You think I'm the bad guy? You are so far wrong, Savior. So, yes you bested me. But now we have a common cause, whether you know it or not, so I would think long and hard how badly you want to see your Captain again. I will not give up my mission… or my word."

And once he finished his threat, the threat against her and the man she loved, Gideon finally vanished from before her as he poofed away within a cloud of brown smoke. Emma could only glare ahead of her blankly once he disappeared as she struggled to grasp the direness of all she had just learned. However, when she thought of Killian again and feared that his life was more in danger the longer he would be forced to be apart from her while he remained trapped in an unknown world.

So, she quickly pulled out her phone from her jacket pocket and sent off a message to her mother before Snow could return to sleep by kissing David, and one to Regina as well before she too settled in for the night, urgently asking them both to come over right away so they could help her find a way to bring Killian home.

Once she finished and waited for them to arrive, not bothering to wait for their replies as she put her phone away again, the Savior then magicked her cheval mirror from her bedroom she shared with Killian, and focused on her fiancé in hope of being able to conjure up an image of him like Regina had taught her to use mirror magic a long time ago, so she could try to find out where Killian might be.

When she did so, Emma at last saw him within the mirror, as he was fighting his way through a terrible sandstorm surrounding and bombarding him, until he finally entered what appeared to be a dark cave as far as she could tell from what little she could see of the world around him so he could escape from the danger which the storm imposed upon him.

Wherever he was, she could see that he was trapped within dessert. However, she didn't know it was Agrabah, since she had no way of knowing he had run into Aladdin or Jasmine after he and Captain Nemo's submarine were forced through a portal the night before. Or that Killian had helped them and Ariel to save the missing dessert Kingdom from Jafar after they left the Enchanted Forest together because of a wish made by Princess Jasmine to find Agrabah and granted by Aladdin.

The Savior studied the image within her mirror and focused on her fiancé while he carefully guided his horse inside the cave with him, then gently stroked the beautiful creature's long neck and its back in order to comfort his horse, as it had clearly become frightened from the raging storm outside of the hollow.

Killian then pulled away the scarf he had been wearing over his nose and mouth to cover his face while he traveled through the sandstorm until he could go no further. And once his animal was finally calmed, she watched as he looked around until he found a stick lying on the ground, then pulled out his flint he wore in his jacket pocket so he could try to light the stick to use it as a torch so he had some light, no matter how dim the light was that it finally offered him when he succeeded lighting it.

He then looked around the cave further until he found a support hanging on one of the stone walls that once held a torch before whoever hid out within the hollow last had taken it, and he placed his makeshift torch inside of it, then at last collapsed to the ground in exhaustion which Emma could just barely make out on his face, as well as the hopelessness in his eyes that she had heard in his voice while he spoke to her through his shell. He hadn't given up on her and she knew he was fighting to get home to her, but she also knew that he was still afraid she wouldn't forgive him. For killing her grandfather, for attempting to destroy his memory of doing so, and for making her believe he had abandoned her even though she now knew better.

Emma finally watched as Killian reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out her engagement ring, until she had so callously thrown back at him because she realized even before now she had overreacted to the fight they had gotten into and that she had hurt him terribly by doing so. Killian didn't abandon her like she believed he had, but seeing him in that moment so distraught, she wouldn't have blamed him if he had. And it killed her even more so knowing she and everyone else in Storybrooke thought the worst about him.

"Oh, Killian…. I'm so sorry," Emma finally whispered aloud, when she raised her hand to touch the glass of the mirror as a tear slipped down her cheek, and continued to watch him while he stared despondently at the ring in his hand. "I wish I could take everything I said to you yesterday back. I love you. Please don't give up. And I promise I will do everything I can to bring you home."

"Emma?" she suddenly heard her mother call out to her a few seconds later when Snow and Regina both walked inside, then came over to join her in the living room before they saw the images Emma had conjured up within the mirror. "Is that Killian? What's going on? What's wrong, Emma?"

The Savior shook her head as she wiped away the tears in her eyes and without looking away from the man she loved, she shamefully responded, "Killian didn't leave like we all thought he did. He would never abandon me and I should have known that. We all should have known it, but I was so miserable, that we all assumed the worst of him."

Snow thought a moment and then she replied, "But Grumpy said that he and some of the other dwarfs saw Killian getting into Nemo's submarine. Didn't he?"

"If they did, then Killian must have been doing so to say goodbye to his brother and Captain Nemo," Emma answered crossly upon regaining her composure again once she finally shut down her mirror magic so that it became just a mirror again. "Gideon just paid me a visit minutes before you both got here. It's why I called you. That wasn't Aesop serving us drinks all night long at the new pub. It was Gideon. And now… He came here to tell me he banished Killian to another realm last night and cast a protection spell over him using my own tears he collected on the napkin I cried into while we were at the pub so that Killian will never be able to come back home."

"Oh, Emma…" Snow remorsefully responded while she wrapped her arms around her to try to comfort her.

Regina spoke sympathetically then as well saying, "That's terrible. Why would he want Hook gone?"

The Savior looked at her friend while she replied, "So that Killian can't be here with me when I finally face Gideon again in the final battle? But he claims he did so to blackmail me into helping him to kill the Black Fairy so that neither one of us will have to fight it. So that he can save other kids he claims to have protected from the Black Fairy all those years he was raised by her. But I'm not so sure I believe him. And right now… I don't really care what he wants. I just want Killian back. We all believed he left of his own free will because he gave up on me after our fight, and we failed to give him the benefit of a doubt. Now… he's God knows where and from what I just saw in the mirror, he's taken cover in some cave to get out from a fierce looking sandstorm. I don't know what to do, or how I can help him."

"Killian thinks I no longer want to marry him," she continued once she felt tears begin to well up in her eyes again, and struggled to keep herself from crying all over again. "I gave him back his ring after we fought. I was mad and hurt, but he didn't really do something so wrong to where I should have reacted that way. I've kept terrible secrets from him too. I was wrong to overreact and now he's all alone. Yet he's still fighting to come back to me whether he thinks we'll get back together or not."

"How do you know?" Regina asked her again.

Emma pulled his shell necklace he had spoken to her through and showed it to Regina and her mother while she answered, "Because Killian spoke to me through this. I found it in his sea chest. He told me Gideon had sent him away. That he didn't mean to leave and that he's trying to get home to me. That's how I knew that Gideon was telling me the truth. And I believe Killian. He promised me he would never leave me so many times. I wronged him and now I need help to save him. I know it's late… or early really, and I'm sorry, but…"

The Queen shook her head as she interrupted her, "Don't apologize. Of course we'll help you in whatever way we can. We all owe the pirate to help get him back home. He belongs here… with you, Emma. I'll head home and search some of my books to see if I can't find any spells or ways to lift the protection spell over him without your… tears you said Gideon was using to keep Hook trapped out there?"

"That's right," the Savior responded. "Thank you, Regina. And Mom… would you mind coming with me to talk with Gold? Gideon's his son and I'm sure if anyone can get through to him, or help us with getting Killian home…"

"It would be him too," Snow replied in agreement. "Of course, Emma. I'd be happy to help you confront Gold. After all, I'm still wide awake after tonight. I could help you kick someone else's butt. Besides, it's like Regina said… We all owe it to Killian to help him. I told him yesterday I couldn't be happier for you both. That I was so happy he was the right man you found to share your life with. And I mean that. So let's go."

Sometime later, Emma and Snow arrived at Gold's shop to confront the Dark One and Belle about their son, and found out that the Black Fairy was also mother to the two hundred year old villain. Eventually, Emma chose to trust Gideon meant what he said about wanting to destroy the Black Fairy, not knowing that the villainess had possession of his heart or that she was using him and the Savior to break herself free once and for all from the Dark Realm.

Emma had nearly been killed that day because Gideon had tricked her, then left her to die. Were it not for Gold who did the right thing by saving her from the fairy's spider's web, she most certainly would have been. Yet after their brief alliance, the Dark One made it clear to Emma he would no longer help her so long as she continued to fight to stop his son by killing him like he believed she wanted. However, in trying to kill her, Gideon had also been successful in freeing the Black Fairy unbeknownst to everyone, except Gold's son.

When the trouble was finally over and Emma returned home alone to rest after such a trying day, having been unsuccessful in bringing the man she loved back home like she hoped to do, she sank down on the couch in the living room without bothering to turn on the lights feeling nothing but defeated. She had survived, the giant spider that threatened her life had been squashed, and for now Storybrooke was quiet again after Gideon disappeared to wherever he was hiding since his arrival. She failed Killian despite her efforts to bring him home. How long could he possibly survive the dangers he was facing alone wherever he was?

After several minutes while she remained in the dark thinking about Killian, Emma finally stood up and used her magic again to summon an image of him again in her mirror in order to check in on him, to make sure he was still alright. However as she did, a part of her wished that she hadn't when she saw Killian running from someone, somewhere within a forest she didn't recognize to be Neverland since she could really only see him. However, she also caught a glimpse of someone else running with him from whatever was chasing them, and it wasn't long before the other man revealed exactly what world Killian was trapped in.

At last, Emma could hear the other man with Killian calling out to him while they continued to run as he shouted, "I've heard tell of this place, but I thought Pan was dead!"

Her true love then answered him, "He is. This land must have transformed without him."

"If he's dead, then who in the bloody hell is chasing us?" the stranger to Emma asked him.

"When last I left, we rescued his minions…" Killian responded to him again. "His Lost Boys… but not all wanted to leave. Some stayed."

His companion curtly questioned, "Who?"

The man she loved replied, "The worst of them. And they have no love for me or anyone."

"Keep up, old man!" Killian then called out just when Emma could see they had reached a wide opening outside of the trees and brush surrounding them. "The shore is just through here!"

The Savior watched as her love finally stopped running a moment to look out at something beyond her view within the mirror and it was then she finally saw who it was running alongside of him when the stranger came up behind him. She never met the man before, but she remembered seeing an image of him within a crystal ball talking to her mother at Rumplestiltskin's castle back when she and Killian had fallen through Zelena's time portal as they worked to fix their mistakes that prevented Emma's parents from meeting. Killian had told her the other pirate's name was Black Beard.

And then, Emma watched in horror as she gasped, when Black Beard raised a broken tree branch over her love's head and suddenly knocked him unconscious and ran to whatever it was Killian had led him to. She was grateful Killian managed to awaken again within a matter of seconds, then struggled to sit up again while he looked towards where the other pirate ran to.

"Oh, what the…?" her Captain mumbled weakly, before Black Beard shouted back to him.

Emma heard him call out, "This 'old man' still has some spring in his step! Enjoy your stay, Captain!"

Once Hook finally stood up again, he cried angrily, "What are you doing?"

"No way I help you… after all your double crosses," Black Beard cruelly answered him and then cruelly laughed at him from a distance.

"I double crossed you?!" Killian retorted crossly. "You just knocked me out!"

The other Captain shouted again, "We're pirates! What did you expect?! And if you do manage to survive, don't forget… you owe me that ship!"

The man she loved adamantly responded, "Captain Hook always survives!"

"I'm counting on it!" Black Beard haughtily replied, then began to laugh.

Emma fought to keep herself from crying again while she watched as Killian continued running along the island's beach and away from the Lost Boys still chasing after him, having wept enough since their fight. At last, she could no longer keep watching and cut off her magic to once again to return her mirror to normal.

The Savior then magicked the cheval back up to her room and despite feeling her own exhaustion, she pulled her jacket back on before she left the house she shared with her true love to make her way down to the harbor where the Jolly Roger remained docked. At least for that night, she needed to be closer to him and upon hearing Black Beard threaten to steal his ship from him once Killian survived and returned, the Jolly Roger was her in charge now to keep it safe until she somehow brought him home.

The End