Everything I Do, I Do It For You
Chapter Four
When she left the loft before she was even able to finish breakfast, feeling anxious and grateful to be able to occupy her mind and thoughts with work so she could avoid thinking about the mistake she made towards Regina, and her feelings for Hook, whatever they were. It couldn't be love like he felt for her as he admitted to her just the night before. The truth was, Emma wasn't sure she was capable of loving anyone that way any longer. Not since Neal. However, she knew she did feel something for him. Something that frightened her a little. How could she not feel anything, after everything he's done and sacrificed for her? Plus… when Killian had told her in Neverland that the fun would begin once she rescued Henry, she couldn't help but feel in that moment a brief spark of excitement she hadn't felt in a very long time.
Yet right now, there was trouble in town like there always seemed to be, so she couldn't think about him or taking the next step forward in any kind of relationship with Killian until the danger was taken care of and she found a way to fix things between her and Regina too. She just needed to figure out how.
Emma was just about to the station so she could get a few things before she headed out to the woods with Grumpy and a few of the other dwarfs to get a look at their frozen over truck, but as she was about to enter inside, Killian appeared behind her while he suddenly called out her name, then ran forward to catch up with her when she quickly turned away from him.
"Swan, are you avoiding me?" he questioned her, as she started walking away from him until he reached out to grab her arm to stop her from going inside.
"I'm not avoiding you," she answered in frustration while she looked up at him. "I'm just… dealing with stuff. We have a crisis right now."
Hook put his head back and closed his eyes upon feeling his own frustration before he lowered his head again to look at her as she finally faced him while he sternly replied, "There is always a crisis. Perhaps you should consider living your life during them. Otherwise, you might miss it."
Killian moved in closer to her and tenderly laid his hand over her arm as he was about to lean in to kiss her, until Leroy interrupted them when he cleared his throat, then sarcastically grumbled, "I'm sorry to break up this touchy feely moment between the two of you, but the town is under attack, you know?"
"When is it not?" the Captain retorted as he glared at the dwarf after Emma stepped back and turned away from him out of embarrassment from being caught in such a precarious position. "We'll get right on it. Will you be showing us where you last saw this… attacker then?"
"I don't really think there's a need for that," Emma responded when she looked down at the ground and noticed a trail of ice leading past the station towards a warehouse down the street and then started to follow it, while Killian followed close behind her.
When they heard and saw the door of the gated fence surrounding the building ahead of them slam closed, both of them picked up their pace hoping to catch up to the intruder with ice magic. As soon as they ran through the gate, the Savior pulled her gun and raised it in case of an attack. However, neither of them expected to face off against a giant snowman that suddenly formed right in front of their eyes, while whoever conjured it hid out of fear.
Emma and Killian both stared up at it in disbelief as Killian uttered, "All right… that's a new one."
As the snow beast began to growl when it turned towards them threateningly, Emma slowly lowered her service weapon a little in an attempt to show they weren't a threat to it, then called out to it and to its maker saying, "We don't want to pick a fight."
"Swan…" Hook whispered worryingly as he moved closer to her to try to protect her until she pulled away from him again.
"I just want to see what it wants," she answered sternly, until the snowman suddenly roared at them, demanding that they go away as it blew Emma back against Killian, who immediately caught her when they both fell back against the ground, causing her to land on top of him while her gun inadvertently fired off a shot at the snowman.
Emma and Hook immediately got back up to their feet to run away from the giant, then started back towards town while the snowman followed after them, and once the dwarfs and the townsfolk who were around saw it coming, they all began to scream in fear as Grumpy shouted out, "Evil snowman! Run!"
However, as everyone began to run around and cry out, the monster turned off, started stomping away in another direction, and when the sheriff saw it do so, she watched it while she stated again, "I think the noise is scaring it. It's headed for the forest."
"Well then… let's follow it," David said in frustration once he came running over to join his daughter and friend.
"Of course," the pirate retorted crossly, then followed after Emma again when she and David started after the snow beast as it continued on towards the woods.
It felt like they had been chasing after the snowman for hours by the time they finally ran into Robin's and the merry men's camp within the middle of the woods, after they had lost sight of it. However, they suspected it wouldn't be long before the monster showed itself again and actually attack someone if they couldn't figure out a way to stop it.
As Emma, Hook, and David all came running into the camp, Robin immediately sensed something was wrong when he stood up from where he, Marian and Little John were sitting around a fire and looked at them in concern while he asked, "What is it?"
David quickly replied, "Some kind of… snow monster."
"No monster shall cross our path," the archer responded, as John immediately rushed to get his crossbow to defend them. "We'll give you our assist…"
"It's getting closer," Hook swiftly called out before Robin could finish after they all heard the magical being roar out somewhere in the distance as it neared them. "It's coming from the north."
After Robin also picked up his bow and tethered an arrow into it, the heroes all could hear the snowman's heavy footsteps as it grew closer until it finally appeared before them and then while he raised his finger to point towards it, John shouted, "There!"
Before Emma, Killian, or David could stop the merry man, John fired one of his crossbow arrows into its shoulder while Emma cried out, "No, no, no! Don't shoot!"
"It only attacks when it feels threatened," Killian worryingly added before the beast suddenly roared at them all again, then the Captain quickly glanced between his friends to assess what they had to fight against the snowman with. "Pistol… sword… hook… my cunning wit… I don't think we have what it takes."
"Emma does," David immediately answered him as he turned his head to look at his daughter again.
She glanced towards him in surprise as she questioned, "What?"
Hook also looked over at her while he continued, "Your magic, love."
"Right," the Savior replied nervously as she reholstered her gun.
"You can do this," Killian assured her, when Emma raised her hands to ignite her magic within her to defend them all against the monster threatening them, while her friends remained by her side.
Once she shot the snowman with her light magic, causing it to stumble back, Emma then mumbled sternly, "Take that, frosty."
However, upon her attack, the snow beast only grew angrier and suddenly become more threatening as it formed giant spikes all over its body while they all stared up at it again in greater shock, then Emma uttered, "Really?"
All of a sudden, the snowman struck Emma down with its arm when it backhanded her and then swiftly attacked David, Hook, Robin, and Little John too as it blew its icy breath at them to force them against the ground unconscious. However, before it could continue to hurt them, Marian stepped forward with Robin's bow in hand, then attempted to fire an arrow from it at the snowman again, but before she could, the snowman attacked her too and quickly knocked her off her feet. She stared up at it in fear, until she glanced towards a tree nearby upon seeing Regina step out from behind it when the Evil Queen suddenly appeared among them and watched the scene play out before her.
"Please…" Marian pleaded with her as Regina stepped out between her and the snow monster, then turned her head to look down at her coldly. "Help me. Please."
"No," she then cried again in fear, when Regina simply disappeared in her purple smoke without a word and without lifting a finger to help her.
When the woman who was supposedly from the past quickly looked around her in fear and saw that no one was around to help her since they had all been knocked unconscious, she finally toughened up to do what she knew she had to do in order to save herself as it lifted up his leg to crush her beneath its foot, and she raised her hands to conjure up the power she also possessed, aiming her green colored magic against the snow monster. What she didn't see until it was too late, was that Regina had reappeared behind the snow monster to do the same, as both women worked their magic to destroy it together.
Once the creature was destroyed as it burst into a whirl of ice and snow, the two women stared at one another with suspicion. Yet while Marian looked up at Regina in surprise by her return to save her, as well as fear that she had been caught using her magic, the Mayor looked down on her with coldness and anger in her eyes upon realizing that this stranger Emma had saved from her past self wasn't really who she claimed to be.
After Robin, Hook, Emma, David, and John started all came to, the archer immediately rushed over to the woman he believed was his wife upon seeing her sitting up on the ground so he could help her stand and see if she was okay, until Regina was the first one of the two women to speak up as she asked Marian coldly, "So… just who are you really? You can't keep pretending you're Marian because we both know I saw you use magic to try to defeat that giant snowman on your own before you knew I came back to save you."
Robin also looked between them in confusion, as did the other heroes while he questioned, "Regina, what are you… Marian? What's Regina talking about? What magic?"
"You're right, sweetie," Marian cruelly responded to him at last, then pulled away from him to get from out of his comforting arms. "Your beloved Marian didn't ever possess magic like I have. So sorry… but I'm just not her. The Savior and her pirate here did rescue her from the Evil Queen before Regina could have her beheaded. However, they were pretty careless in the past. They made a lot of mistakes, including leaving your wife all alone for a brief moment to try to help the Charmings. And that moment was all I needed. To kill Marian and to take her place so I could come back here to Storybrooke freely and try to rip Regina's happiness away from her. Unfortunately, things haven't exactly gone according to plan."
"So who are you then?" Emma asked her again, while the archer stumbled back and stared at the imposter in shock as she had spoken. "You never answered Regina's question. And why… Why did you want to come here from another time to take Regina's happiness away?"
The woman pretending to be Robin's wife laughed as she finally lifted the six leaf clover hanging around her neck to transform herself back into her true self, suddenly becoming Zelena again, then she answered, "Because Regina doesn't deserve to have her happy ending, especially after she ruined mine when she defeated me. Because of her, Rumplestiltskin very nearly succeeded in killing me after you all placed me inside that jail cell of yours. Had I not been successful in harnessing just enough magic I needed to open up my time portal, or to make it appear to him like he had killed me, I would have died. But I did and I traveled through the portal along with Emma and the pirate, then bided my time before the right opportunity presented itself to me."
She turned back to Robin again as she added cruelly, "I am sorry, Robin. Though, I can't say that being with you was all bad. I did somewhat enjoy making love to you last night. Despite your reservations to do so. I suppose I'll be seeing you all around."
"I don't think so, sis," Regina angrily replied, when she swiftly used her magic to return the magic dampening cuff around Zelena's wrist before the Wicked Witch had the chance to vanish from them. "You won't be getting away from us again so easily. We're not finished talking."
"Not again!" Zelena screamed as she glared at her sister when she saw she had been caught and her magic was stripped from her. "You're not going to get away with this!"
The younger sister retorted, "I already have."
She then used her magic to poof Zelena back to the jail cell inside the station like before so they would be able to question her further again later. Once she did so, she turned back to Robin and started towards him, until he backed away from her as well while he spoke quietly saying, "Please… not right now. I can't… I need some time to think."
"Robin?" Regina called out after him in worry, as the archer suddenly took off running deeper in the woods so he could be alone for awhile. "I'm so… I'm sorry."
"Regina, we've been trying to find you," Emma said to her in concern when she walked towards her. "We need to talk about…"
The Mayor suddenly vanished from the camp before Emma could finish, and the Savior sighed in frustration upon realizing that talking to her still wasn't going to be so easy. Marian was no longer in the way of the Queen and Robin being together because she had turned out to be an imposter much to everyone's surprise. However, the strain between herself and Regina was still too heavy.
Emma stepped away from the others while David stayed with John to talk to him for a few minutes before they returned to town. Once she was alone a little further away, the Savior bent down to pick up some of the snow that remained behind from the snowman and started playing with it in her hands, when the pirate Captain who loved her walked up quietly behind her.
She made a snowball and swiftly cast it away in frustration, then in trying to ease her guilt a little, Killian lightheartedly stated, "So… crisis averted."
Emma chuckled, feeling grateful to him upon knowing what he was doing and while she didn't feel any better, she humorously responded, "Now you want to go home and see what's on Netflix?"
"I don't know what that is, but sure," he eagerly answered her and laughed as well, not quite catching that she was only attempting to keep up her false façade.
"Killian, someone created that… snowman," the Savior replied to him again, though this time in all seriousness. "This isn't over."
The Captain shook his head and responded, "It never is. All the more reason to enjoy the quiet moments, and right now… We have a quiet moment."
When he moved in closer to her once more and she felt his hand over the small of her back after he wrapped his arm around her, she smiled until she answered quietly, "I know. I just got to do something."
"Right," he finally retorted out of frustration once he stepped back again, then made a motion with his hand for her to run off. "Of course. Go ahead. Don't tell me you're not avoiding me anymore because I'm actually quite perceptive, and this… This is avoiding me."
"No… I know," Emma replied to him with a nod of her head, though she smiled at him sadly. "I am. I just feel… Right now, I just feel too guilty."
Killian looked at her as he questioned, "Over Regina?"
The Savior responded, "She lost someone she really cares for because of me."
"No… there's more to this than just Regina, isn't there?" he sternly asked her again upon sensing there was something she was still keeping from him.
"Be patient," she whispered to him and then leaned in close to kiss him tenderly on his lips.
The man in love with her understood and said gently, "I have all the time in the world."
Once she walked away from him, before he too walked off to join back up with David and John, Hook then added more sternly, "Unless… another monster appears and kills me."