For the love of a mother:
A/N: I've recently gotten into this side of TV and once I got over the finale (God I'm addicted this thing), I noticed a lack of knowledge into Hook's parentage. Seriously, we have a tree so complicated that it's practically a meme yet we know next to nothing about the Jones family apart from Liam and a few side comments about Mr Jones being a complete asshole! So, having been taught these last few weeks in Carol Ann Duffy A2 level work on the World's Wife anthology and being an admitted feminist and equalitist, I figure I'd better honour the woman behind the curtain and give her a word or two into things. This is going to be my pet project till series 4a, chronicling all my ideas as to who she is and how she came to be so anonymous to us Viewers. Warning: this is based on nothing but my own bizarre ideas and rambling so there's no proof as to her identity till we find out as to who exactly she is. Also this is going to be a Captain Swan based fic, no disrespect but SwanQueen is just not my cup of tea and Swanfire is not either - sorry I prefer Emma not to go with an admitted rapist/murderer/destroyer of her life or an emotional blackmailer/abuser/pig as I like her just the way she is - fixing her life back together with a man who will always support and have her back to the end of the world or time. But that's just me.
My Tumblr is Pirate Queen Randomness so just pop in for a chat if you want, suggest a prompt or just ramble about those who piss you off if you do so wish.
Chapter 1: Gentle mother:
"I can't hold on!" I called behind me as I struggled to stay standing against the icy blast of wind which I was holding back with an admittedly pathetic shield charm, why the hell didn't I ask Regina for more lessons? Oh yeah because I'm a bloody idiot - God I'm kill that pirate one of these days for making me so coarse! But seriously, the freaking Ice Queen? Miss Let-It-Go? What. The. Hell? I'm fighting a bloody - fuck you pirate - Disney character for a freaking load of other Disney characters, and not even the really cool ones - yes I know terrible pun! Shut up! Couldn't we get a less powerful villain next time? Like Cruella, and we can just call PETA and have them deal with her? Then I just relax and freaking take a bloody - Jesus Jones I hate your disgustingly large and fucking amazing in bed vernacular sometimes - day of rest. Preferably with a lot of Rum involved. And tearing of clothes. Yes, I need a holiday! Doesn't everyone?
"The counter-spells nearly done Miss Swan, just keep her back till then or I swear what I did to Snow won't even compare to what I'll do to you!" the noticeably irritable Mayor shouted back, obviously not aware that her lack of timetabled lessons is about to make snowmen of us all. Thank-God Robin was able to go back to her before all of this or her constant threats would have real weight to them. One of these days, she might follow through but till then she's as harmless as a freaking kitten when shacking up with the outlaw. The evil Queen and the thief, what is my bloody life?
"Keep fighting Swan, just a little longer lass!" Mr innuendo grunted as he tried to fight off a particularly lethal snowman. God, he's hot with a sword. Bet his hands aren't that bad at manipulating that cold, hard, steel - shut it Emma! Seriously not having these ... slightly delicious fantasies ... about his fingers wrapped around ... and that mouth ... remember that time with the scarf ... God that was deliciously sinful ... no, not happening brain! Deal with Snow Queen first then make the Pirate not be able to stand again later. Plus he'll be sweaty so his shirt will just be hanging to those delicious abs of his - No! Concentrate, bad girl, no wet dreams right now Swan! Those come later!
If there was even such thing as later, what with the nausea from having to keep the main bulk of Elsa's power away from my family. So tired, so weak, maybe just a little rest, just a small one ... I can't stay between the danger and them much longer. I can't save them. I'm no savior, no hero, no protector. That's David's job, and Henry's and Snow's. I'm just the Lost Girl, pathetic little orphan, too stupid or stubborn to keep coming. Why did I even try this, I'm just going to fail. Like I failed Graham. Like I failed Neal. Like how I'm failing them now.
My arm dips a little under the weight of pressure building up behind the shield, but something holds it up from sagging underneath it. An arm, warm and comforting, yet stubbornly resilient to my protestations for rest. I look beside me to see a woman I've never met before yet somehow she's familiar to me. A pair of blue eyes, like a storm over the sea, and hair that falls around her like silk over a cold blade. So familiar, yet who is she? Her mouth, its small and saying something?
"Let me help you, lass, just let me in to help you!" her words creep into my ears but they're honest, my superpower tells me. She wants to help me? Why? I inspect her more, most obviously she's beautiful. With eyes that are like hooks for the soul. She's from wealth, her dress is of good make and is almost luscious against her had it not been for the small line around her neck that the low-cut of the gown enhances. It reminded me of the Mad Hatter - Jefferson - and his neck? She's been beheaded? For what, who would want to harm such a wonder? The dress is a shimmering pastel blue body with golden skirts outer skirts, complimenting her pale skin as well as her dark hair. It clung to her, like a fine glove over a blue-blooded hand, and made her look as if she were an angel attending on us mere mortals. In her hand lied a rose, dark and sensual token, a lover perhaps? Maybe a jealous husband took an axe to her head enraged by the loss of such a beauty's heart. The thorns don't prick her fingers as it absent-mindedly dances between her finger tips in an action that reminds me of Mary Margaret's - no Mother's - playing with her ring when she's nervous or upset at something in her mind. It's important to her, like the ring that Mother wears, yet not quite a full explicit explanation as to why she is never mentioned to me. Did she do something she wasn't meant to? Was the lover the one who did her in? My own family tree is full of drama yes but even a freaking storybook knows its history but this drama is not known to me or anyone properly outside of the pirate and her. A family secret, something they know but will never say about. Why is she an enigma to me? Just who are you mysterious woman?
She looks back as the counter spell traps Elsa in the device, sealing the Ice Bitch in her cage once and for all, and looks straight for Hook - Killian - who stands there dumbstruck as if trying to work out if this is a dream or if its reality as the last of the snow minions falls to his feet. God I'm quoting Bohemian Rhapsody now? I must be tired. But there's a long look there between them and then she shimmers out of being like mist through sunshine and time seems to slow as I analyse the look that launched a thousand dreams inside me.
Her look is one of longing, not romantic but definitely personal, and of utter love and happiness. As if he was a kindred spirit she had moments to see before she's taken from him. There's no doubt that they're family, the blue eyes and dark hair and those words are so like Killian's its scary. Mother and son? Yes, most likely. So this must be his mother, the mother of the man who has both infuriated and infatuated me so dearly? He never mentioned her, not even her name, to me. In the corners of her eyes are unabashed tears of loss and sacrifice, I know the look well enough by now to recognise it. She's missed him dearly, almost as if the lifetime Killian's been alive (seriously it's weird dating a guy that's almost three hundred, and that's so not mentioned in those horrific novels of that lusty Gothic Horror betrayer bitch - I mean Neal is just as old but damn its weird sometimes when I don't, I repeat don't, imagine his hair grey with age with that immortal smirk plastered on his face) has been spent pining for him to return to her. She never wants to leave him, never wants to part yet knows so soon she will have to. I feel pain in the look, but not as much as I do when I see Killian staring so openly at her in fixed confusion, almost as if she's a ghost of a memory that shouldn't, couldn't exist.
But he sees her anyway, a manifestation of something he's searched for endlessly - true love. The love I have for Henry is but a poor substitute for that mere look etched into their faces. That care and understanding that he has always given so freely to me in his words - you're a bloody hero, Swan - yet never has he been so freely given in return. It's open, honest and beautifully tragic. As if she sees the man he truly is and the man he has been, and yet accepted it completely without prejudice or malice. She sees the Lieutenant - I got him to open up about that chapter of his life somewhere after falling into bed together the second time, and its such a turn on to imagine him as a simply navy man in that decidedly tight uniform he complained about - and the pirate as one. No strings attached, no shying away from it but as someone whole as a true parent would do. He drinks her in, as if she's an ethereal spirit that has been sent down from whatever heaven he believes in (what religion do they even follow in the Enchanted Forest anyway?). And he loves her truly, with conviction and loyalty of that of a dutiful and humble son.
I see in that moment, a flash of a rare yet oddly familiar event, that of a mother and a son reuniting just for a moment yet as if they had all the time in the world and were just concerned about whether the other would feel the same love as they do. I want to see that again, that look of pure devotion that I now know is hidden under Captain innuendo/comedian. I want to see him look at me that way, at Henry and our children - in the future, not right now, calm down folks - and realise that we feel the same. For him to feel as safe as he makes us.
For him to have a family that will never leave him ever again.
And as the effect leaves him, I vow that as soon as I deal with the Ice Bitch that I'll never run from him again. Because I'm no longer the Lost Girl who runs from her problems. I'm the woman who runs to them and holds them close till they never feel like that again.
A savior, a hero and a protector as he is.
As he always will be.