So this was just some random story idea I got! All I can say now is that it basically takes place sometime in what would be season three. An AU, but an AU with the current OUAT storyline already happened, if that makes sense. Let me know what you think and if you want the next chapter :)

Ringing.

Why wouldn't the ringing stop?

Pain was meticulously clawing against the inside of her skull and if her eyes hadn't been closed, she was sure the world would have been a blur of spins and turns.

A faint pressure began to press up against the side of her head, a sharp gust of cold air cooling and tingling the wetness that seemed to run down her cheek and neck.

But why?

Her eyelids were heavy as she willed them open, the sight before her not helping her decipher the situation in the slightest. Everything was still so shaky. A woman with short, dark hair was above her. The cause of the pressure on her head she had been feeling was the woman's hand and her features were too distorted for her to attempt to try to recognize her. She looked frantic, her mouth moving in words she knew she was supposed to understand and hear, but couldn't, her heartbeat was pounding to furiously in her ears and the high-pitched ringing, though growing fainter, was too much of a distraction. Past the woman, she could see another figure. Back to her, it was blurry and black with a touch of silver that moved too quickly for her eyes to follow.

She tried to close her eyes again, hoping that would give her some answers and subside the confusion and panic that was starting fester in her chest, but a forced shake of her shoulders popped them back open. She could hear the woman's voice now, a desperate command of "you have to keep them open."

The other figure she had noticed was suddenly in front of her, almost pushing the woman who was cradling her head out of the way. This one was a man, looking just as furious as he did pained. "What the bloody hell were you thinking?" he growled. She didn't know how to respond, everything about these two people and wherever she was at foreign to her, and just continued to stare blankly up at them. She wanted to yell and demand to know what was going on, but the weakness and heaviness of her body was already to overwhelming as she focused on just trying to stay awake and make the world around her come to a standstill. The man looked concerned at her lack of response, but was soon distracted into a heated argument with the other woman. Arguing with words, places, people, and things she didn't understand.

The man tried to yank her from the woman's hold. "Wherever she goes, I go."

"David needs your help!" the woman yelled back, forcibly tightening her grip around her shoulders, "I'm taking her."

Loud clashes and clangs and other voices reached her ears as the two snapped their head sideways to view something she couldn't see. The woman was the first to turn away, bellowing another determined order at the man, "Go, I have her!"

Reaching down to cup her face, the man was looking at her in such a way that was beginning to freak her out, but he soon jumped to his feet and took off in the direction of where most of the noise was coming from. She felt herself being hoisted upwards. "Can you stand?" the woman asked with desperation.

She nodded, seeing no other option than trying to comply, and used what strength she could muster to wobbly get to her feet. A sharp pain shot up and radiated from her side. She winced and fell against the woman with her, shoving most of her weight on her as they began to walk. She reflexively moved a hand to the source and looked down to see her side bleeding profusely. What had happened? Why was she the only one who seemed confused at the moment? She risked a glance around and saw that they were on a bridge of some sort, a lake below them and a thick forest of trees ahead of them. She didn't recognize any of it. Everything looked so… medieval.

Within the next moment, though, she was being grabbed from behind as the woman beside her was knocked unconscious and shoved to the ground. Unable to still support her own weight, she slumped against her captor, their arm wrapping around her neck threateningly. Whoever it was, turned them around so that they were facing in the direction of a… castle? There was a large number of people in front of it, all with weapons out, still somewhat distant from her. She was being scooted closer to the edge of the bridge, so close that she could look down and see a colorful swirling whirlpool. Whatever it was, she had a feeling she didn't want to go in it. The man that had been arguing above her broke from the crowd, his attention now on them. He had a sword menacingly swinging from his hand and a look of pure rage on his face as he roared, "Don't you dare!"

She barely registered his look of panic before she was free falling, her captor's grip tightening before they were sucked into the whirlpool below them

.

.

.

.

Her eyes popped open as she forcibly gasped for breath, trying to sit up. Her hands shot up and flailed on reflex, remembering expecting to hit water. Had that been a dream? Had she been in an accident? Absolutely nothing was making sense. She was being wheeled through what looked like a hospital corridor, four or five people around her. Hands shoved her arms down and poked at her side, too many voices commanding her to do too many things. Her body was shaking and her breathing was erratic. "Where I am?" she managed to choke out.

"Massachusetts General Hospital," one of the guys dressed in blue scrubs answered, a clipboard in his hands as he wrote furiously, "You've lost a lot of blood and have some subarachnoid hemorrhaging. You're being taken in for emergency surgery." He wrote something else down before looking down her expectantly, hastily asking, "What's your name?"

She remembered someone yelling something as she flew off a bridge and toward a whirlpool. Whether it had been a dream or not, it was the only name she could think of and for some reason, it just felt right. Before the consuming dizziness of anesthesia overtook her, she managed to hoarsely whisper "Emma."