Title: Battling the Darkness
Summary: A confrontation on the docks with the remaining Queens of Darkness had not at all been on the agenda for the evening ... and then, before either Killian or Emma had the chance to react, Maleficent and Cruella had taken advantage of their good fortune.
Spoilers: Up through 4x15, "Poor Unfortunate Soul."
Rating/Warning: T, mostly for safety, language, and possible later hints/descriptions of child abuse. Charming Family and Captain Swan angst/fluff, as per usual.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. They left the toys out, I'm just getting my playtime in before they put them away.
Author's Note: diyamehta2 asked me for a "Watch Over Me"-type story where Emma gets into a terrible accident. Everyone and their mother has done car accidents and I was in the middle of a sick!fic, so I decided to go with magical accident ... and then this came to me. Set in a very nebulous time post-"Poor Unfortunate Soul" but before "Best Laid Plans" (mostly because I conceived of the idea prior to "Best Laid Plans"). Bear with me, guys, for here be danger. Feedback thrills me to pieces! Enjoy. :)
Neither Killian Jones nor Emma Swan had seen it coming.
A confrontation on the docks with the remaining Queens of Darkness had not at all been on the agenda for the evening. What had been on the agenda was a quiet walk down by the harbor, mostly to calm Emma's nerves. Everything had been getting to her: Cruella and Maleficent, Gold being back in town, the sudden unreliability of her "superpower," an undercover operation being planned without her.
It was Killian who'd suggested going for a walk so she could clear her head and somehow by silent agreement, they'd both started heading for the water.
Neither of them had known that Cruella and Maleficent were down at the docks as well. From the surprise on the women's faces, it was clear that they hadn't expected to find themselves so close to the savior and her pirate, either. And then, before either Killian or Emma had the chance to react, Maleficent and Cruella had taken advantage of their good fortune.
All Killian had seen before his world went black was Emma Swan being magically flung through the air, hurtling towards one of the dock's weathered pilings.
Waking was difficult, as if Killian were struggling to kick to the surface of an inky ocean far deeper than he expected. The exhaustion – magic? – was heavy and crushing but some vague urgency at the very edge of his awareness made him fight all the harder. Something was wrong, something was very wrong …
And then he surfaced. His eyes snapped open to a gorgeous, star-filled night sky and he could hear and smell the ocean all around him. Had he fallen asleep on the deck of the Jolly Roger again? No, that wasn't it. There was something else, something …
Swan. Killian sat up, suddenly wide awake and heart pounding in his chest. Swan, where was Swan? His frantic eyes swept the docks, looking for signs of life.
The Queens were gone. How long had he been out? Judging by the stars' positions above him when he awoke, not very long. Where the hell was Emma? Had they taken her? If they had, he would bloody well chase them down.
It took a few panicked moments but he finally found Emma Swan, lying in a crumpled heap at the base of the piling. His heart in his throat, Killian dashed forward and fell to his knees beside her. "Emma, love," he said roughly, his voice hitching.
She didn't move.
No, no, no, this couldn't be happening, not again. With a trembling hand, he gingerly placed his fingers on her neck. Please, please, please …
A heavy breath of relief escaped his lips when he felt her pulse beneath his fingertips. Thank the gods, it wasn't happening again. "Emma, love," he repeated, trying to rouse her.
Nothing.
He shook her shoulder somewhat roughly. Still nothing. What the bloody hell had those monsters done to her?
Before the panic churning in Killian's stomach had a chance to grow into a burbling well, Regina appeared beside him and Emma on the dock in a cloud of purple smoke. "I heard them bragging and sneaked out as soon as I could. What happened?"
He didn't know. Oh gods, he didn't know. "I haven't the faintest," he said, looking up at the formerly evil queen pleadingly. "She won't wake."
Regina appraised the scene in front of her, then glanced to either side. Killian understood in an instant; she wanted to make sure the others weren't lurking about in the shadows. After all, she still had a cover to maintain. "Hold onto yourself, Captain, and hold onto her," she instructed, raising her hand. "This is going to be more than a little disorienting for you."
No sooner had Killian stood and gathered a still unconscious Emma Swan in his arms than a cloud of deep purple smoke enveloped the three of them. Killian felt a brief but sickening moment of weightless dizziness and then relief as his feet once again touched terra firma. The smoke cleared and Killian was surprised to find himself standing in some kind of underground vault filled with objects that looked like they would be more at home in the Enchanted Forest than in Storybrooke.
Regina waved her hand and a small air mattress appeared on the ground beside them. "Set her down," the queen said, nodding towards the mattress, "and tell me everything you remember."
Killian once again did as instructed, tenderly laying Emma down on the air mattress. Throughout the entire journey, she hadn't so much as flinched.
Without taking his eyes off Emma, Killian explained how the two of them had simply gone for a walk to calm Swan's nerves. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Regina pacing the perimeter of the little room. It took him a moment to realize she was taking stock of her supplies. "We didn't expect to run into Cruella and Maleficent. They clearly hadn't expected to run into us, either, but they certainly took advantage of the situation. The last thing I remember is seeing a blast of magic burst forth from the dragon's staff, magic that knocked Emma off her feet and must have rendered both of us unconscious. I don't understand, then, why I'm awake and she's not, nor do I understand what that magic did aside from allowing us a nap. I feel perfectly normal."
"Maleficent got you both with a sleeping spell, that much is for certain," Regina agreed. "However, I do believe you were simply in the way. She was the one they wanted."
"Then why didn't they take her? They certainly could have."
"They didn't exactly let me in on the details but I have a theory."
When she didn't say anything further, Killian finally tore his eyes away from his Swan. "Do you intend to share?"
"Let me see if I'm right first."
Her tone made her underlying meaning crystal clear: there was no sense worrying him if her hunch was incorrect. Killian nodded while saying a silent prayer that she was indeed incorrect.
Regina knelt down beside the still unconscious Emma. After taking a moment to simply observe her – her chest was visibly rising and falling with each breath, her brow was slightly pinched as if she were seeing something unpleasant – the queen held her hand out above Swan, palm facing down. Then she shut her eyes and concentrated.
When she opened her eyes, Killian winced at the concern swimming in them. "I know this spell. It's another of Maleficent's, designed to be a middle ground between the sleeping spell she cast on you and the sleeping curse she used on Aurora."
The very same sleeping curse that the queen herself had used on Snow White, though Killian didn't find it prudent to bring that up at this moment.
Regina continued, the grave tone of her voice punctuating the severity of the situation. "This spell keeps its victims trapped in a dream world populated by their worst memories. And we're not talking vague remembrances, here. She's essentially reliving each of those memories as if it were the first time, over and over again."
Killian's heart began to pound in his chest. He was angry. He was worried. He was scared. His poor Swan was in that dream world, experiencing every bad thing that had ever happened to her on a constant loop. "Bloody get her out of it," he practically growled.
Regina had already stood to get to work. Giving Killian a nod, she crossed to the other side of the vault to begin creating some kind of antidote or counterspell. Killian remained on the ground beside his Swan, holding her hand in his and gently running his thumb over the back of it.
Could she feel the real world while in the dream world? He hoped she could, hoped his touch would act as a kind of anchor for her.
From what little she'd told him of her early years, Killian gathered that his poor Swan's entire life had been one bad memory after another until a ten-year-old boy showed up on her doorstep on her twenty-eighth birthday. With twenty-eight years' worth of horrible experiences to pull from, this spell had to be utter torture for her.
It seemed as if it took forever for the queen to finish her work. It was, in reality, probably only a few minutes but to Killian, who could only imagine what his Swan was reliving in the spell's nightmare world, it felt like an eternity before Regina handed a small vial of pale blue liquid to Killian. "Unfortunately, she needs to ingest it."
Of course she did. After making sure he had the antidote firmly in hand, Killian positioned himself behind Emma, sitting her up as much as he could so she wouldn't aspirate on the liquid he was about to pour down her throat.
She actually managed to swallow the potion, though Killian figured that was more an unconscious physical response than any kind of conscious awakening.
And they waited. Nothing happened; there was no change in Emma's condition whatsoever. When the queen frowned, Killian grew even more concerned. "Why didn't it work?"
"Stand back, Captain," Regina said by way of a response. "I want to try something."
He didn't think he liked the sound of that. "What are you going to do to her?"
"If I'm right, absolutely nothing. However, if I am right, you're going to need to take cover."
He really did not like the sound of that but what choice did he have? Waking Swan from that hellhole was paramount; whatever Regina needed to do, he was going to allow her to do it.
His heart aching for his Swan, he squeezed her hand before letting it go and backing away from the air mattress. When he was at a sufficient distance, Regina conjured a small ball of sparkling purple energy. Before he had the chance to protest, she thrust her hand forward, sending the ball straight for Emma.
"No!" Killian cried too late.
Much to his immense relief, the energy didn't harm her. Much to his great surprise, however, it instead ricocheted off her and slammed into the opposite wall with a slight sizzle.
"Damn it, Miss Swan," Regina sighed.
Killian was beyond confused and beyond angry. "What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" he cried, whirling on Regina.
"Relax, Captain," the queen said, stopping just short of rolling her eyes. "That energy wouldn't have hurt her if it had hit her. I needed to use magic on her to confirm my theory. There is no reason that antidote wouldn't have had an immediate effect … unless she was somehow blocking it from taking effect with her own magic."
Killian's confusion must have been written across his features because Regina sighed impatiently. "Magic did this to her. Her magic has previously protected her from danger, even if she wasn't actively trying to protect herself. I believe you witnessed the incident with my mother in the Enchanted Forest. I also witnessed an incident where she saved herself from a very long fall without any conscious effort."
"She's unconsciously protecting herself from further attack," Killian breathed in realization.
"Precisely," Regina confirmed with a nod. "And that's all well and good but she's protecting herself from all further magic, not just threatening magic."
"So the antidote won't work," Killian finished, once again crouching down beside his Swan.
"It will work eventually," Regina clarified, "when she finally lets her subconscious defenses down."
Killian let out a heavy breath. His poor Swan was trapped in that nightmare world and only she could let herself out. "What do we do in the meantime?"
"Take her home and make her comfortable," Regina instructed. "Surround her with the familiar; voices and comforting smells might help her to subconsciously recognize safety. I'll poof you both to the loft but I can't stay."
Killian understood. She'd risked a lot by staying away this long.
But apparently she wasn't done. "Hook, there's one more thing. I don't know this for certain but I believe time is of the essence here. The longer she's under this spell, the more risk we run."
"The more risk of what?"
Regina spared a concerned glance at Emma and then looked directly at Killian, wanting to make sure he understood. "If I were trying to turn someone towards the darkness, making them relive their worst memories on repeat is where I would start."