"Peter Pan is dead."
Rumplestiltskin was hardly even looking at them, hardly even bothered since they entered his shop. He'd come to the front with tired eyes and tensed momentarily at the mention of his old foe but swiftly recovered and asked them with quiet patience to let him be.
"Bloody hell, crocodile, if this is you holding on to our old grudge I'll—" Killian began, hook twitching upward.
They'd left the house in a hurry, Emma grabbing jeans and a jacket and Killian pulling on jeans over his boxers but leaving his arms bare out of his white undershirt. He hadn't removed the hook, and his brace was taught against the tense muscles in his arms. Emma touched his shoulder softly, not because she was any less upset with the old man, but because murdering him wouldn't solve any of their problems.
She cautiously pulled the folded slip of yellowing paper from her back pocket, holding it out to Rumple with a shaking hand.
He shot her a look but accepted the paper, unfolding it, flitting his eyes over it and handing it back—expression unchanged.
"This means nothing— anyone in town could have taken your child, Emma. It could be a ploy to get you to leave. Pan, I'm afraid, is dead. I killed him. I'm sorry if I've inconvenienced you," he started to turn away and Emma felt Killian tensing swiftly beside her… but she was faster, rage filling her in one smooth wave— and suddenly she was vaulting the counter and grabbing his upper arm roughly turning him to face her again.
"That isn't good enough," she hissed, "Our daughter has been goddamn kidnapped and you are going to help us get her back or I swear to God you will be sorry."
She felt like her stomach, her arms, her whole body was full of a burning lava, bubbling and hissing. Papers were rustling throughout the shop and lights flickering as her magic simmered slightly out of control— and the imp finally looked just frightened enough.
He hesitated, and nodded.
"Follow me."
In the back he brought out a plain white globe—one with no markings, but a golden needle sticking from the top.
"Magic globe," he explained gruffly. "Just… prick your finger. It'll show you where she is."
He offered it out in front of him, and without hesitation, Killian pressed the pad of his pointer finger to the long shining tip. Scarlett blood dripped, and then, as if full of blood, the globe began to swirl red, melting through shape after shape before slowly, lazily settling into a shape that was vaguely familiar, but nothing Emma knew of this world.
The globe clattered to the floor, and she jumped, glancing at Rumplestiltskin with a start. He was pale, and it took all her willpower to return her gaze to her husband, to hear what she already knew had to be true. His eyes are watery but firm, his jaw set— determined to stay strong.
When he saw her watching him he could only nod once.
"Looks as if we're going back, love," he said stiffly, and she could see the notion breaking him.
He gave up being Hook over six years ago.
Pan was giving him no choice but to be him again.
xxxxx
She was so painfully aware of the fact that the ship— one Killian had picked almost carelessly to borrow from the port— was not the Jolly Roger. She wasn't sentimental, she was not sentimental, but in the unfamiliar cabin she felt even more lost than she'd ever been.
Killian was getting their bearings and starting them off. It had taken much convincing before Rumplestiltskin gave in, returning the compass and 2 whole blessed beans to… well, Emma. He hadn't hardly looked at Killian, which ultimately wasn't of any matter other than raising his level of rage by miles.
They'd stopped at Mary Margaret's apartment, only because Killian berated her when she'd muttered she hadn't been planning to tell them anything. Mary Margaret had been beside herself, heartbroken, babbling about how she would have to get things to come along until David, sensing the look in his daughter's eyes, touched her shoulder and mentioned something about staying to keep Neal safe.
Killian and Emma had left them in an argument— David keeping Mary Margaret just distracted enough not to notice.
Emma had never once been seasick on her adventures at sea but sitting on the unfamiliar bed in the unfamiliar captains quarters of the unfamiliar ship… she felt dangerously close to it. Waves of nausea burned at the back of her throat and her stomach felt like it was on fire and she just felt utterly sick. Suddenly the whole night was crashing over her and she had been anything but ready for it. Her feet ached and only now did she realize they were full of glass.
She tugged at her boots, head pounding, chewing on the inside of her cheek and tugging and tugging and the damn thing wouldn't come off her foot… and somewhere one tear broke loose and set free them all.
She didn't hear Killian enter, hear him shut the door behind him, until he was gently brushing her hands aside, sitting across from her in a chair he must've pulled over from the desk. He carefully loosened the laces of her boots (again with that precision of one with more than one hand) and peeled them from her feet one by one— silently focused on his task, saying nothing.
"Don't you have glass in your feet?" she finally asked stupidly as he studied her foot. He raised his eyes to her, smiling dryly.
"I wear socks to bed," he told her in a voice that was so soft and uncharacteristic it almost sent her right back into tears, "So I don't get you with cold feet in the night."
His brace was tense against his arm and it was all Emma could look at as he pried the glass from her feet, surely as carefully as he could but… It was something to focus on that wasn't their daughter, but all the same she was all her thoughts kept drifting to.
"I told you," she gasped as he tightened a final bandage around her still-bleeding foot, before again raising his eyes ever so slightly to her, "Killian, I told you to leave the window open."
Her heart thudded against her chest and finally something in his expression changed.
"Love…" he said, brow furrowing, "You don't think this to be your fault, do you?"
She didn't answer, focusing her tearing gaze on the floor. Her eyes burned.
The mattress shifted as he sat beside her, and she turned her head so maybe he wouldn't see the tears burning the back of her eyes.
"Darling, don't do this. Don't play this blaming game because believe me I will win. Why do you think the bloody little imp wanted Leia in the first place? It wasn't because he wanted a cozy family reunion, I assure you."
He took her hand, and softly tilted her face back to face him with his hook.
And as much as she wanted to believe him…
"Killian it may have been to spite you but Leia literally told us there was something outside of her room and I left the window open anyway. I might as well have opened the goddamn door and invited him to dinner."
She wasn't crying anymore, thank God. But now… now she was angry.
"Bloody hell, Emma, he wanted our daughter and he was going to get her whether through a window or a door or a damned house fire," he touched her shoulder, and his stupid brow was furrowed again, eyes stormy, "You know Pan— he gets what he wants."
"That's what scares me, Killian!" she finally snapped, pulling from his grasp and stumbling up onto her aching feet. He watched her with a touch of confusion. "God, Killian! He wants Hook, don't you see? He doesn't want you. He's angry and bored and he wants his old nemesis back and that is not what we're bringing Killian… But that. That is what he wants."
His gaze hardened as she spoke, but never faltered. She wasn't sure when he became the calm one but it absolutely infuriated her.
"Emma, love, sit down," he said gently after a moment of letting her words ring into the silence. She just stared at him. "You're making your feet bleed again, darling, please," his eyes momentarily softened, quietly begging, and she finally gave in, taking the chair he'd been sitting in earlier. After a moment he reached out between them, taking one of her hands.
"We're going to get our daughter," he told her gently, "And I'll do what it takes to get her back home," his jaw tensed, "Whatever it takes, love," he held her gaze a moment longer before scratching his ear, and rising to his feet. "Try to stay off those feet for a while, eh?" he said softly, giving her a final gentle look before exiting the cabin, shutting the door behind him.
She kept quiet until he left, staring at the floor until his footsteps quieted down the hall.
"That's exactly what scares me," she repeated softly into the silence.