I can't deal with that midseason finale. I can't, I can't, I can't. I must write my own ending in the almost 82 days we have left to wait until we see our babies again. I'm sorry to all of my readers who want me to update Once Upon A Thunderstorm and the like, but this just needs to be done. This is present day stemming right from that terribly perfect, feels wrenching finale.
Disclaimer: I don't own OUAT. There would have been a serious Swan Queen kiss goodbye if I did.
"Moooom! Wake up quick!"
Emma's eyes shot open faster than a gunshot.
"Henry? Are you okay?" she shouted, her voice cracking with grogginess.
"Yeah, I'm fine," the boy's voice called. Emma exhaled in relief, and sank back against the pillow, attempting to slow her heart rate down.
"Mom, there's someone at the door for you. He says his name is..."
Henry paused, and Emma shoved the blankets off of her, straining to distinguish the low tones of the voice feeding her son information.
"Mom, he says his name is Killian. Killian Jones. Do you know him?"
Emma groaned and pushed herself out of bed, padding on bare feet across the cold floor. She hustled through the kitchen, swiping a phone from off of the countertop - which was covered in cinnamon, she'd have to clean that up. She brushed past Henry, who looked at her very confusedly, and after taking one look at the man loitering in the doorway, her pinched expression dropped into a glare and she stepped in front of Henry, who tried to peek around her to see the man.
"I told you to leave me alone," she ground out. Killian Jones grinned in a way that Emma guessed he intended to be endearing.
"I am persistent, if nothing else love," he responded easily, leaning against the doorframe in what Emma classified as typical sleaze style. She narrowed her eyes.
"And besides, you didn't listen to me."
"Yeah, I don't listen to nutcases," she snapped. "Now get out, and stay out." She hefted the phone in her fist so it became visible to the man in the doorway.
Killian let out a dissatisfied sigh, his eyes darting to the phone. He pushed himself into a more respectable position.
"I need your help, Swan. Your family needs your help," he emphasized, his icy eyes searching her own. Emma rolled her eyes, careful not to shift her defensive stance. She could force the lunatic out like she had yesterday, but that would mean leaving Henry exposed. She couldn't chance him getting hurt by this guy who demanded she listen to his ranting. Emma didn't know what lengths the man would go to in order to get what he wanted - she had seen some pretty crazy stunts in the past and didn't particularly care to see one put into action this early in the morning, and this close to Henry.
"My family is fine," she answered sharply, glancing towards Henry over her shoulder, almost double checking to make sure he hadn't vanished into a poof of smoke or something. But that would be ridiculous.
"Go to your room," she said under her breath, "and stay there until I come and get you, okay?"
Henry shook his head stubbornly.
"Mom, you've gotta at least listen to him. He knows your name," he argued. Emma sighed.
"Henry, anyone could know my name. It's in the phonebook."
"I know more than just your name, love," the man drawled. Emma glanced at him testily, raising her eyebrows, after sending Henry one more demanding look, which he ignored.
"Okay, 'Killian'," she said, her voice dropping an octave. "What else do you know?"
She crossed her arms in front of her plaid pajama clad chest, tapping her fingers against her arm expectantly.
"Call me Hook," the man corrected. "You never called me Killian before, it doesn't make sense for you to start now."
Emma growled under her breath.
"I don't know you; I never did," she sighed.
Hook rolled his eyes. "Yes you did. You just can't remember because of the curse."
Emma winced internally as she heard Henry's intake of breath at the word 'curse'. He was obsessed with some old book of fairy tales he had found at a consignment store a few months ago, and Emma had heard countless recanting of multiple stories, all which he kept altering to fit their family. Emma had never looked in the book herself, simply because Henry always had it.
"Yeah, can we get back to the 'what you know about me', so I can call the cops?" Emma snarked, cutting off what was sure to be an enormous rant from the boy behind her.
"Your mother and father were named David and Mary Nolan," Hook recounted, his forehead creased as if trying to remember.
"Yeah, anyone who reads the newspaper or has an internet connection could have known that," Emma alleged. "Is that it?"
She pressed the nine button on the phone in warning.
The man's face took on a slightly more desperate look.
"No, I have more. You didn't know who your parents were until after they died, because they put you up for adoption."
Emma shrugged.
"You could have checked the databases or the obituaries. You've got one swing left, and then if you don't get out, I'm calling the cops." For good measure, she pressed the one button. Hook sucked in a breath.
"You almost gave up Henry when he was born, because you didn't think you could be a mother and you wanted to give him his best chance," he exhaled, his tight expression sagging.
The phone clattered to the ground, breaking apart into pieces of jagged plastic.
How could he have known that? I never said any of that. Not out loud.
Henry looked up at Emma for validation, kneeling down and scooping the broken phone into his hands.
"Mom?" he questioned. "Is he right?"
Emma took a step towards Hook, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"How do you know that?" she demanded, her voice low. "I never said that to anyone. Especially not you."
The man had the nerve to grin. He knew he had won; Emma saw the expression on the psychos she dealt with daily.
"As it turns out, it seems to be an inherited line," he said, folding his arms- Emma's eyes flared at the sight of the glinting metal barb protruding from his grimy leather sleeve; was that an actual hook? She had assumed he referred to himself as Hook because of some cult thing, or pure insanity- behind his head. "Your mother said the very same thing to you when she gave you up."
"You knew my mother, then," Emma stated, disbelief tearing through her mind. This guy couldn't possibly have known her mother; he was what, in his twenties?
Hook shrugged.
"You could say that. I knew your father better."
Henry piped up, "What were they like? Were they real grandparent material, like the 'give you cookies and throw the baseball' kind of grandparents, or all mean and strict?"
Emma turned and scowled at Henry.
"Do not talk to the scary hook guy," she hissed. Henry's eyebrows shot up indignantly.
"What? A kid's gotta know these things, Mom."
Emma's heart dropped a little; she had never known those things.
Hook shrugged.
"I can't really judge on that, lad," he answered, ignoring the dagger-filled glare Emma was sending his way as his lips quirked up into a smirk. "You'll have to tell me what you think when you meet them."
Henry's eyes widened. "You mean-"
"They're dead," Emma cut in. "How the hell would he be able to meet them?"
Hook grinned.
"That's what I've been trying to tell you lass. They're alive. And they need your help...Savior."
Leave a review telling me your thoughts! My fanfiction writing is probably going to explode as a result of this hiatus and that torturous, beautiful episode. Fair warning.