AN: Jeez! Is it Sunday already? Very well then, here is Chapter 3! I hope you enjoy it!
Also, please keep up with the reviews. It is important to me that your voice is heard, whether you like the story, or you have a question about something. I'm always excited to hear what you have to say.
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It wasn't an abnormal morning in Storybrooke on that early fall day. There was soft guitar music playing on the radio as Emma stood at the kitchen counter throwing together whatever she could find to make for breakfast. The door front door swung open and Mara came walking in with her jeans, sneakers, and t-shirt with her hair in a tight pony tail towards the top of her head.
"Something smells really good in here," Mara said, making her way to the stool at the counter.
"You could knock, you know," Emma sassed.
"Oh please," her daughter scoffed, "If you really wanted me so out of your life that I had to knock every time I come back, you wouldn't have given me an apartment directly beneath yours."
"Didn't your father or I ever teach you manners?" she snorted.
"I was raised by a pirates," Mara shrugged, "What else would you expect?"
"Still, you should at least knock before you come barging in like that," Emma suggested, "You never know what could be happening in here."
"Like what?" Mara scoffed.
Killian was more than grateful to be walking down the stairs in that moment, still in his pajamas, as he came to greet his wife.
"You know," he said, "Your mother and I might be… indecent."
The sneaky pirate went up behind his wife and started to kiss her neck while she laughed and Mara cringed with disgust.
"Ew," she shivered, "You guys might look young, but you're still old to me."
Killian and Emma laughed together and he kissed her cheek lightly before taking a seat next to his daughter.
"You look well-slept for someone who was up late last night," Killian joked, nudging her shoulder.
"What do you mean 'up late'?" Mara asked, "I must have gotten home towards 9pm."
"Oh really," he said, raising an eyebrow, "Peter didn't keep you up late?"
"Dad," she said, throwing her face in her hands, "Nothing happened between Peter and I last night."
"Of course, of course," he said, raising his eyebrows and getting up to head to the fridge to pull out the bottle of orange juice, "Whatever you say, darling."
"It's not like I'm some rebellious teenager or anything."
"Exactly right!" he said, grabbing a glass from the cabinet, "You're not. You're 21 and you should be free to make your own decisions… but that Pan has really tried to prove himself to you. It'd be a shame to reject him after all these years of separation and him pining for you."
"Your father has a point, Mara," Emma said, "He did tell you he'd always wait for you when you left him in Neverland."
"And now I regret telling you that," she muttered to herself.
"Look, all I'm saying is," Emma began, placing a plate of French Toast with butter thinly spread on the top, "we know that Peter didn't make the perfect first impression on us, but he's done a lot to prove himself, not only to you, but to everyone else in this town. It's clear that if Neverland can't be his home, he would want us to be his home."
"Don't use that phrase on me, mom," Mara said, rolling her eyes, "That's what Henry told me he used to say to you whenever you doubted getting together with dad."
"And she listened," Killian grinned, "See how well that turned out for you?"
Mara groaned and stuffed a large cut of French Toast into her mouth.
"Speaking of Henry," she said with food in her mouth, "Mom, you keep forgetting something…"
"Right!" Emma said quickly, "Cinnamon. Sorry."
"It's okay," Mara shrugged, continuing to eat her breakfast, "In actuality, you're halfway through your life, so you still have half a lifetime to try and get it right. Plus, I'm not going anywhere. I'm forever 21."
Emma firmly placed the cinnamon on the counter, causing a little bit of a sound as landed.
"Ha ha," she mocked.
The sun was close to reaching its highest point, but not quite yet. The wind wasn't picking up very much outside in Storybrooke, but Emma always enjoyed the gentle breeze the town gave her. Her commute to work was always peaceful, considering she was on her way to the police station. She would walk past the diner as it opened up, she'd see Jiminy walking his dog, and even see some kids on the school bus, depending on the time of year. It was a quiet day today, so there really wasn't anything unusual to watch out for.
Emma arrived at the sheriff's office and pushed the door open, moving around the corner to the room where her desk sat. Normally, there would be paperwork from her father alongside her wedding photo, a family photo with her parents, her husband, her daughter, and son, a picture of Henry and Mara, a baby picture of Mara, and a current photo of her daughter and her husband.
Instead of everything being in perfect order, there was a boy who was sitting on top of the sheriff's desk, holding the photo of Killian and Mara in his hands, smoothing his fingers over the glass in a circle.
"Can I help you?" Emma asked cautiously.
The boy looked up at Emma. She got a good look at his face at that point. It was a little roughed up with scars and dirt, but he looked to be about Henry and Mara's age. He flipped the frame around and showed Emma the picture in his hand.
"Her…" he said, tapping Mara's face in the photo, "Is s-she… Mara Jones?"
Emma raised an eyebrow at the suspicious character. He could have been an innocent, but she never took that kind of chance at first.
"Who wants to know?" she answered, taking a step towards him with her hand on her hip.
The boy took a sharp deep breath and stood up from the desk, scrambling to his feet and knocking over a couple of the frames in the process.
"Y-You're her mother, aren't you?" he breathed, "Her mother is Emma… you look like her… almost."
"Thanks?" she said awkwardly, "Now who are you, and why are you looking for my daughter?"
"Oh yeah, that," the boy said, tapping his foot and looking down at the floor while he fidgeted with his fingers, "I-I'm lost…"
"Lost?" Emma said, taking her gun out of her holster and putting it on her desk in front of her, "Where are you from?"
"I don't think you'd know of it in a place like this…"
"Try me."
He looked around the room, then tensed his arms together, "It's called the Enchanted Forest…"
"Well you're in luck, kid," she said, patting his back, "Turns out, most of us are from the Enchanted Forest, including my husband and my parents."
"I know who your husband is," he said quietly, "He's Captain H-Hook."
"And how do you know that?" Emma asked just as quietly.
"I'm lost…"
"I know, you told me… can you tell me what you're trying to find?"
"M-Mara Jones…" he shivered, "She was my captain."
"Your captain?"
"Yes…" he nodded several times, "I-It was years ago… I was in the crew of the Jolly Roger when the captain was young. S-She gave me a home… I left to find my father, but I'm afraid I've found myself lost again…"
Emma knew what it was like to find herself lost again after thinking she had found something. It was hard not to resist this kid who seemed so helpless and so alone. If she had assumed something bad of him, then she'd never hear the end of it from her mother, father, or herself. The guilt would be far too great.
It was a quiet morning at Granny's. Considering it was a weekday and fairly early in the day, it was understandable that business was a little slow. It gave Red and Granny a chance to relax a bit. However, in the diner, there was only 1 person sitting in one of the booths, slowly sliding a cup of coffee between his hands as he stared pensively out the window out to the street. Tristan didn't mind being the only one in the diner on that morning. In fact, he knew who was staying at the bed and breakfast, so it wouldn't be long until someone would notice him sitting there all by himself with just a cup of coffee in his hands.
Thankfully, he didn't wait long before he felt a pair of hands on his shoulders.
"I was hoping you'd be here," Tiger Lily said and made her way to the other side of the table.
"And I you," Tristan replied, "Please sit. I wanted the opportunity to talk to you at the party, but it seemed as though Henry had most of your attention for the evening."
"Oh, you think…." Tiger Lily trailed off, "No, no. It's not like that at all-."
"I wasn't saying it was," he said, "but it doesn't hurt to have your suspicions assured."
Tiger Lily blushed and attempted to look away from him, but that only made Tristan lean in closer.
"So how have you been?" he asked, "Peter has been intriguing Mara with whimsical stories of adventure and peril… you wouldn't happen to know any exciting stories of your own, would you?"
Lily looked up excitedly and threw her hands on the table, pushing herself forward, closer towards him.
"Did you hear about the one where the lost boys and my tribe fought the rogue pirates?" she asked with a flare of anxiousness and pride.
"Rogue pirates?" Tristan asked, raising his eyebrows.
"Indeed," Lily said, proudly, crossing her arms across her chest, "It was one of my more proud victories, if I do say so myself… but I can't take all the credit. Peter helped me… a little."
Tristan chuckled to himself as he sat back in his chair, "Go on, then."
Lily cleared her throat and began, "It was an unusually dark night on the island. The lost boys and Peter had made camp directly next to ours, only the indian camp we had made was much more concealed. My men were watching over the boys as they slept as part of our peace agreement. Suddenly, the boys assume they hear something and all wake up with a start, grabbing their arrows and pointing at all sides of the camp. We all heard the sound of swords crossing blades and men falling to the ground. I didn't see most of the fighting, but I climbed to the top of the highest tree over the lost boys camp to take a good look at what was happening. I ordered my men up that same tree and gave them my signal. Just as the boys thought all hope was lost, we jumped down from the trees in a sudden surprise attack! As bravely as we thought, there was still one pirate left. A pirate with only one eye…"
"He didn't happen to have a J on his jacket, did he?" Tristan asked cautiously.
"No," she shook her head.
"Good. Continue."
She nodded, then took another deep breath, "Peter and I figured we had an easy victory on our hands, considering our opponent had only one eye. However, we greatly underestimated his skills. We couldn't kill him on the spot as hard as we tried. But then we came up with another plan; to back him up to the cliffs. More like he backed us up to the cliffs, but that's when we turned things around and ended pushing him off instead. We weren't sure if he survived or not, but we took the rest of his crew, tied him up, and pushed the ship into mermaid territory. That's the last we ever saw of them."
"So Peter wasn't lying," Tristan said, taking a sip of his coffee, "You two have quite the tales to tell while you're in town."
"Indeed," she nodded, "While I may have had feelings for Peter in the past, the two of us have become quite good friends… it's rather curious how things work out like that. One moment you're pining for each other and the next you're fighting alongside like family against a common enemy."
Tristan sighed and looked at the ground, "Yes… I am far too familiar with that scenario."
"Why?" Lily asked, "Has something happened between you and Mara?"
"Well…" he said, resisting the urge to tell, "I shouldn't really…"
"Then you don't have to… I'm not urging you to."
"But I guess you're going to find out at some point, aren't you?"
"Perhaps."
"Good," he said, then took another deep sigh, "Well you see… after you and Peter left, it didn't take very long for Mara and I to fall in love… actually it did take long… about a year, actually… maybe longer. It's hard to tell. It all went by so quickly… Anyway, we fell in love and we were together for a year. We lived peacefully here with her family and friends. I even ended up finding the woman who was entrusted, by my father, to raise me. It turns out she was on her way to help, but the Evil Queen's curse brought her here instead. I learned that summer that I could have been a prince of high royalty if Cinderella hadn't been taken by that curse. She said she would have raised me like a son."
"But one thing confuses me…" she said instantly.
"What's that?" he asked.
"If you're from the time the curse was cast… wouldn't that make you as old as Mara's mother?"
He nodded slightly, "In retrospect, yes… but the curse didn't just freeze time in Storybrooke, you know… I didn't do any growing up during that time either."
"Ah, I see…" she said quietly, then sat up instantly with excitement, "How exciting it would be to become a prince, don't you think?"
"Yes… do you think that would have made a good first impression on Mara instead of stealing her necklace when I first met her?" Tristan laughed.
"I don't know about Mara… but I'm certainly glad you're not a prince…"
Tiger Lily reached across the table and touched his hand hesitantly, but lightly and gently.
"Me too…" he whispered.
The indian princess took his gaze from their touch to his eyes, and as she leaned closer, using her eyes as her spell to gain Tristan's attention, she swiped his coffee mug from his lightened grasp and drank all the remains from inside.
"Not fair," Tristan scolded, "You had the unfair advantage of being older than me."
"But who could really live for 300 years?" Lily grinned, "That's just unrealistic."
Tristan leaned across the table, catching her hypnotizing gaze, "Then I guess you're just unique…"
Lily slowly lowered the cup from her lips and remembered that same look he gave her when he first showed her the drink that was in the cup she was holding. It was the first time she actually felt loved or desired. She had been respected and feared by those who followed her, degraded and inferior by her enemies, but never desired in the way that could only be described in a love story. She had wished Peter would looked at her that way, but now that she could truly see Tristan, instead of having him blocked by Peter, she liked what she saw.
The door opened, causing a little scare in both Tristan and Lily that it made them jump slightly at the sound of the ringing.
"Lily!" Henry said, rushing in, "There you are! I've been looking all over for you. I thought I was going to meet you on the porch."
"Sorry," she shrugged, "I came down from some breakfast when I saw an old friend."
"Nevermind," he shook his head quickly, "You need to come with me now. Both of you."
"Why?" Tristan asked, standing up at the sound of his urgency.
Henry opened the door again, but in the midst of his panic, he looked back, "Something's happened to Mara."
After the boy had visited Sheriff Jones' office and told her where he could find Mara, he made his way, limping, to the building where Mara could be found. He looked down at the little piece of paper that was given to him with a number on it. Once he found the door that matched it, he gave it a good, slow, three knocks.
"Just a moment!" a voice called from one side of the door.
The boy took a step back as he waited for the door to open, revealing Mara Jones in all of her glory.
"Mara?" the boy asked.
"Yes?" she asked curiously, "May I help you?"
"Your mother said this was where I could find you," he said, trying to get a glimpse of the inside, which made Mara instinctively begin to close the door a little bit.
"Is there anything you need?" Mara asked, "Are you lost?"
"Lost…" he breathed, "Yes, that I was… but now I believe I have been found."
Before Mara could open her mouth to ask, a knife was revealed behind the boy's back, and he lunged forward.
"Mara!" Killians voice shouted from the staircase above her.
The boy turned around and saw the pirate coming towards him. Quickly, the boy kept approaching Mara and stabbed her in the side as fast as he could without being noticed by the captain. He ran out of the building by the time Killian reached his bleeding daughter who was now lying on the ground.
"How did you-" Mara choked.
"Your mother warned me," he said, trying to cover her wound with his hand.
"Who was that?" she asked again, her groans of pain apparent through her voice
"Shh," he hushed, trying to sit her up with his hand still pressed hard against her wound, "I thought I recognized him… but…. it can't be…"
Emma Jones was informed immediately by Killian once she was well on her way to the hospital with help from the other doctors and nurses. She was in her office with Tristan and David when she got the call. David and Emma ran to the hospital while Tristan stopped along the way to grab Henry and Tiger Lily from the bed and breakfast. The group arrived at the hospital just as Mara was finished getting all of her stitches in. She was sleep, but with Peter by her side, looking morbid at her sleeping body and his hand clutching her lifeless skin.
"Mara!" Emma gasped as she ran to her daughter's side, "I knew I shouldn't have trusted that creep."
"She'll be okay… it's a good thing Hook knew," David assured her, "He knew what to do."
"I wouldn't have known if she hadn't called me first," Killian said from the door of the room.
"Killian," she breathed, then rushed over to him, throwing herself into his husband's arms, "What happened to her? What happened to our daughter?"
"There was a boy at her door," he began to explain, wrapping his arm around his wife's waist as he lead her closer to the bed, "He had a knife hidden behind his back. He was aiming for her heart, but thankfully, I threw him off and he only got her side."
Emma patted his back and grinned at him with water in her eyes.
"Who could have done this?" David demanded.
"I'd like to know too, if you don't mind," Peter asked smoothly.
"I didn't recognize him," Emma said.
"I did," Killian interjected.
"You did?" David asked.
"Go on then, who is it?" Peter said.
"It can't be, though… I only thought he was a myth…" Killian said pensively.
"He claimed to be a member of Mara's crew," Emma added.
"That can't be right," Tristan said, "Anyone who was a part of our crew, left to become a lost boy in Neverland by choice."
"So the boy was obviously lying," Peter said, "No lost boy gains access off of the island without my say."
"So who are we dealing with here?" Emma asked.
Killian took a deep breath as he began to scratch his nose, "You're gonna think this is a little far fetched… but you have to keep an open mind."
Emma placed her hand on his shoulder, then widened her eyes at him. All she wanted to know was who to direct all of her anger to. It was bottled up inside her, at the moment, like a ticking time bomb. Whoever hurt her daughter was going to pay.
Killian looked around the room at the anxious eyes around him. He had only ever heard of this name through the stories of the modern world, and through myths he heard on the high seas after Mara was born. He assumed it was just a story, but the pictures the people drew of him to describe him matched that boy's image perfectly, so he swallowed his doubt and said, "Jack Sparrow."
"Jack Sparrow?" Tristan asked, "The pirate boy people used to talk about? That's a pirate's tale, isn't it?"
"Aye," he replied, "I assumed it was just a story as well until I recognized his face from an illustration that was given to me years ago."
"Wait," Henry interrupted, "Jack Sparrow? The confused pirate captain with dreadlocks and a drinking problem? That Jack Sparrow?"
"The Sparrow that's in your movie is not like the Sparrow that has been told in secret amongst the pirates," Killian explained, "In your world, you know him to be… well, a lot like me… except with longer hair, a better sense of humor, and more drunk on a daily basis than I'll ever be. In our world," he gestured to himself and Tristan, "the world of the pirates… Jack Sparrow is a name to be feared. So was Mara Jones, but Jack Sparrow was almost more fearsome than her. There were stories about a boy named Jack who grew up without his father's wisdom, but was instead, raised by a cruel woman who taught him the ways of murder. When he assumed he was old enough, he ran off and stole the first ship he could find, The Queen Anne's Revenge."
"Blackbeard's ship," Tristan added, "No one ever dared to cross paths with Blackbeard unless they had a death wish."
"Except for yours truly, of course," he continued, "Anyway, the young boy faced Blackbeard on his own with nothing but a bottle of rum in his hand. He won by stabbing him in the back with his own sword and throwing him out to sea. In all my years, I had faced Blackbeard once. I bested him, but I could not kill him. Anyone who could kill Blackbeard, obviously, was someone to be feared as well. So he took the Queen Anne's Revenge and sailed in search of blood. He killed innocent souls and left them under the deck of his ship only to resurrect them and make them a part of his skeleton crew."
"A skeleton crew?" Henry asked in disbelief.
"Then again, these are just stories," Killian said, "You heard Tristan, he too assumed Jack Sparrow was only a Pirate's Tale. There's no telling if it really was him or not."
"I am the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming," Emma interjected, "who's married to Captain Hook, and I'm in a hospital room with Peter Pan, whose son is Rumplestiltskin, who's married to Belle, who's friends with Ariel, who is enemies with The Evil Queen, who ran away to the Enchanted Forest with Robin Hood and his Merry Men with Tinkerbell not far behind. Fairy tales and myths aren't that far fetched in a place like this."
"Then if it is true, that Jack Sparrow really is here," Tristan said, "What on earth could he be doing here in Storybrooke?"
DUN DUN DUN!
Stay tuned for next week's chapter. I will be traveling all day on Sunday, so that will give me an opportunity to keep writing. However, I will most likely not be updating until late in the evening, it simply depends on how my plans go.
Thanks for reading!
