Emma is driving with the magical portal top hat in the back of her car, and Jefferson pops up out of nowhere in the backseat, completely giddy that it worked
~o~
Emma didn't know why she was still driving around with the dumb top hat in the back of her yellow bug. But she felt partial to it, partial to the mystery of where Jefferson had vanished to after falling out the window with it. She'd been held at gunpoint to make that hat and she deserved to keep it in the back of her car if she wanted to. It was a token of that strange night.
She was driving along the road where she had first met Jefferson, night had started to fall – much like before, but this time instead of a strange man appearing in her headlights, strange purple smoke began to fill her car. The smoke blinded her vision, causing her to drive off of the road, slamming her foot into the break and bringing the car to a screeching halt, before coming perilously close to crashing into a tree. She coughed, trying to get the pungent purple smoke out of her lungs.
"It worked!" A voice shouted before laughing like a mad man. She twisted around, trying to see through the smoke that swelled in her back seat. There surprisingly – and somewhat not - Jefferson was, sitting in her back seat, clad in blue leather pants, and a puffy burgundy shirt and his hair was strangely longer than it had been several days ago.
"What the hell?" Emma coughed again, wondering if the smoke had some strange narcotic properties.
"You are magic! It worked. I went to Wonderland! I went back. I went back! Emma do you have any idea what this means?" He was giddy, he was smiling, he was laughing, he was happy. It was strange to see the madman with a grin on his face. He'd been so solemn that night that she was held hostage, so serious, so sad.
"What?" How?" Emma asked, still flabbergasted that Jefferson had appeared in her backseat. And it seemed like the hat was the only answer to his disappearance and reappearance. He leapt forward, clambering over the middle console to make his way into the passenger seat. "What are you doing?"
"You are magic!" He seemed to have come slightly unhinged in his return to Wonderland – no he hadn't gone anywhere. That was impossible. "Thank you!" He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her. He squeezed her tightly, "I'm sorry that I kidnapped you, but you were my last try! My last chance. You made it work!"
"Why are you wearing leather pants?" Was the only question Emma could mutter as she looked at the insane man sitting in her passenger seat. Frustrated more with his means of appearing and less about the fact that he had, she groveled, "You almost made me crash."
"That'd be twice now that I've done that. At least this time you didn't hit me." He smirked, running fingers through his shaggy hair. She wondered what it would feel like to run fingers through it, but quickly pushed those thoughts away.
"At least this time you didn't fake a limp." Emma snarked, staring at him in disbelief. "Where did you go?" She couldn't understand it, it defied logic.
"Through the hat." Jefferson hugged her, invading her personal space again. "I knew I smelled magic on you." He hadn't lost his lust-lidded eyes. The way his gaze flicked between her eyes and limps, like he was contemplating whether or not he should kiss them.
"Do I need to drive you back to your house?" Emma asked, turning away and gripping the steering wheel. She didn't want to see him looking at her like that.
"Thank you." He leaned towards her and kissed her cheek, breathing in her scent deeply. He kissed her check again, this time his lips traced the outline of her cheekbone. She turned, almost against her own will, and caught his lips with hers. She hated him, but she sure as hell wasn't letting him be the one to initiate the kiss. She was tired of feeling like putty in his hands, he could manipulate her and it made her uneasy. No man was allowed to control her like that. Twist her feelings. God! The whole time he'd had her held at gunpoint she'd been wondering if he was going to kiss her, push her against the shelves of hats, and have his damn way with her. It had clouded her judgment and almost made her risk her chance to get herself and Mary Margaret free.
She leaned towards him, fingers twining into his hair like she'd imagined, his hair was soft against the pads of her fingers. He parted her lips with his tongue, kissing her thoroughly, desperately. He was a starved man, thirsty for the sanity she gave him.
"Jefferson-" She gasped as she pulled away from him, her eyes flickering to the scar around his neck. She hadn't noticed that he wasn't wearing the cravat.
"I know." He replied, self-consciously stroking the scar. His free hand tangled in her hair, fingertips playing across her scalp. "It will always be there."
"A reminder of.." Emma gulped on the words. "Wonderland."
"You are a wonderland." He wrapped his fingers behind the back of her head, tugging her towards him. He could read the questions in her eyes as she unbuckled her seatbelt and leaned over the middle compartment a block to keep them apart. His eyes were accepting of whatever decision she made. She settled arms around his neck, toying with the long hair at the base of his neck, laughing at how strangely appealing it was.
"We're in the middle of the woods; no one is going to find us." Jefferson assured her as she looked out the windshield, hesitantly.
"We could go back up to your house," She kissed him again, needing to feel his lips.
"Aren't you afraid I might tie you up again?"
"Sounds fine by me." Emma smirked, letting the desire in her eyes shine through. "Let me drive up there." Jefferson pulled away from her reluctantly, watching her as she buckled her seatbelt and started to reverse the bug. How had she gone from carrying a top hat around her in her backseat, to nearly having sex in the front seat of her car with a man in blue leather pants with a Cheshire grin plastered to his insane face? Now of course she was driving them to his house she could lose herself in wild abandon in his arms. The tables had turned.