This chapter is fraught with headcanon, bro.
Part II
Left Twice
iv. for crying out loud
"Do hurry, please, as I am disinclined to tangle with a hundred and fifty pixies at once," Hook called down to the others, shaking his bag of star dust empty over the mainsail. "And especially on my ship."
"They didn't seem like much of a problem," Regina said, spreading dust over the bowsprit.
"That's because you only dealt with a few recon pixies," Hook said. "These are warriors on our tails—the ones who don't have to bother with magic to kill us."
"So these are the ones who'd rip our faces off and strangle us with it?" Regina asked snidely.
"That attitude of yours is pushing me closer to pushing you off the ship, Queen Mayor," Hook sighed, turning his back on the infuriating woman. He swung back down onto the deck and came up beside Henry, who was sprinkling his own bag over the quarterdeck. "How are you, Master Mills?"
Henry nodded. "I'm okay."
"Ready to get off this island?" Hook asked, feeling the subtle vibrations of magic all over the ship already.
"You have no idea."
Hook smiled and patted him on the back. "As soon as we're in the air, captain's quarters are yours. You need the rest."
"Thanks," Henry said, taking a deep breath.
"Pirate!"
Hook scowled and turned around. "Crocodile!"
"We have a shadow now," the Dark One answered casually.
"Already?" Hook sighed.
"Literally," Emma said dejectedly, dumping the rest of her bag on the rest of the stern and tossing it aside, her eyes fixed on the cloud of multi-colored lights and the white-eyed shadow hurtling through the dusky sky toward them. She turned to Hook. "You need to get us in the air. Now."
"More like five minutes ago," Regina groused, dusting her hands off.
"Oi! Hush!" Hook huffed as he jogged to the bow.
"What's going on?" Prince Charmless asked, emerging from the below deck with Snow White.
"Pan's shadow's right behind us," Hook answered. "Did you get it all over?"
Charming held up his empty bag of star dust. "Yeah. Everything's humming down there already."
"They're gaining!" Emma called as she worked on loosening the sails. "Hook, we need to get airborne now!"
"No time!" Charming barked, standing at the railing with his wife, who had Hook's spyglass already extended at her eye. How she managed to get said spyglass, Hook wasn't sure. He figured Emma must have inherited her thieving skills from someone. "We need to fight!"
"Damn it, Hook! How slow is this thing?!" Regina cried. Regardless of whatever attempt at a change of heart she'd made so far on this journey, she was sashaying on Hook's last nerve.
"This is a heavy ship," Hook snapped. "It's going to take some time to get her up in the air, you know." Gods knew the woman's arse and ego wouldn't help matters.
Hook caught the spyglass Charming lobbed at him on his way back to the quarterdeck, where he approached Henry and set a hand on his shoulder. "Master Mills, I think it's time you retire to our agreed-upon hiding place—"
"Wait—I-I can't help?"
"—unless you've decided that you are, in fact, quite fed up with your shadow and would like to have it brutally ripped from your person and—"
"Okay, okay," Henry said, hands up in surrender and then dropping them to his sides. "I just…don't wanna be so useless."
Hook glanced at Charming, an involuntary gesture due to the fact that the young man was indeed Henry's grandfather. Grandfather Charming merely frowned, confused and suspicious. But it wasn't as if Hook was asking permission anyway. It was his ship.
He dropped down to one knee and leveled with Henry. Reaching into his boot, he pulled out a curved, seven-inch knife and held it up between them. "You wait for your opportune moment," he said quietly, studying the young man's expression. "The element of surprise is always man's best friend."
Henry nodded and gingerly reached for the small weapon, but Hook snatched it out of his reach.
"Never hesitate with a weapon, mate—whether you're picking it up or wielding it. Treat it with the respect and deliberation it deserves, for it will save your life or take it."
Henry nodded once again, lips pursed as he stared Hook in the eye. He pulled the knife firmly from the captain's hand. Brows furrowed, he looked up to his grandfather, not seeking permission either, but rather support. So Charming could only nod and hope whatever sword lesson he'd given Henry was enough.
"Good man. Now go," Hook commanded softly, nudging him toward door leading to the brig. Once Henry was safely below, Hook glanced aft, gauging how long they had—which wasn't long at all. He dropped back down to the main deck and pulled open a chest hidden under the quarterdeck stairs. "Swan!"
"What?" She jogged up behind him.
He paused, feeling the gradual fade of the rocking as the Jolly Roger stabilized as it began to rise from the water. Finally.
"How's your arm?" he asked, turning to Emma and nodding toward her bandaged shoulder.
Thanks to the Lost Boys' ambush as they made their escape from Hook's hideout, she'd taken a tumble down a hill and nearly flew off the cliff edge at the bottom. Thankfully, David had met them in the middle, and he and Hook managed to pull her back to safety.
"Functioning," she answered flatly, eyeing the cutlass he pulled from the chest.
Hook sighed, thoroughly unconvinced, and hooked her right wrist, bringing it up so he could wrap her finger around the handle of the cutlass and squeezed gently. "Be careful."
Her frown softened—though not quite affectionate, it was enough for him. Tilting her hand, he lifted it, kissed her knuckles, and then released her to turn back to the chest. He didn't miss the look on her face, and that expression, combined with the slow lift he could feel reverberating through his ship, made him smile.
"Where's Henry?" Regina asked, running up to them.
"Hidden," he answered. "Safe."
"Is that your plan?" the Crocodile asked, limping over to them. "You're going to use swords against five-centimeter insects?"
Hook cast him a sideways glare and tossed Charming a broadsword. Then he skirted around the mainmast to the chest on the other side. He kicked it open revealing small canvas bags.
Regina sniffed. "I thought you were friends with the pixies, and yet you have a chest full of iron?"
"There's only one pixie I liked, and her personality was loony enough to escape the psychotic derangement of her comrades. Of course I've got a bloody chest of iron. Though my status as a pirate is beginning to wane considering the lack of pirating I've been doing, I'm not an idiot." His eyes involuntarily found Emma again—until Grandfather Charming discreetly whapped his knee with the flat of his blade. Hook scowled at the man and slammed the chest closed.
"We just…throw this up at them?" Snow asked, picking up one of the bags.
"Yes, but that'll only incapacitate them," Hook answered.
The Crocodile sneered. "And what's your suggestion to finish the job?"
"Well, if your willingness to crush and destroy hasn't abated since our little incident, I suggest you employ that same tactic with the pixies," Hook said.
"Princess," he said to Snow, motioning to the bow and quiver strapped to her back, "if you'd please take your position in the crow's nest. Keep a lookout."
Snow nodded. She trapped the rim of the bag between her teeth before darting up the rigging to her new post.
"That thing's a shadow," Regina said. "I don't know what good this iron will do to him."
"Leave him to me," Hook said with a grimace.
Hook turned back to the rest of their little crew—Prince Charming swinging his sword, Emma exercising her arm, the Dark One glaring at him, Regina hefting a bag of iron. "Crocodile," he sighed, "man the helm—hard to port. Charming, Mayor, load a port and starboard cannon."
"Why?" Emma asked the other two darted off to either side of the ship.
"We're rising from the water, but we need to get up faster," Hook said, pulling out a chest and handing it to Charming. "The fuses, mate."
Emma smiled a little. "You're gonna use the cannons to propel us up?"
He grinned and winked in reply. "Spot on, love. But that's only step one. We may be up in the air, but as you can see, they are flying."
"What are our chances, even in the air?" Emma asked.
"With the savior onboard? Exponentially high."
She scowled at him in reply.
"Well, having me helps, of course," Hook muttered, "but considering we've got Gimpy over there and a queen who's never wielded a sword without some magic… Not to mention your injured arm and the wonderful fact that we're outnumbered and that your father still hasn't quite got his sea legs and he's firing a bloody cannon?"
"So basically you're saying this is all riding on you and Mary Margaret?"
"Unless our resident witch and warlock suddenly regain full use of their magic and turn every one of those buggers into wisps of smoke in the wind…?"
Emma sighed and held onto the railing, rubbing her shoulder as the Jolly Roger turned, tipping the deck slightly. "We're screwed."
He gripped the railing beside her and leaned over the side, noting how far up they'd gone. "You really didn't inherit your mother's positivity, did you?" He turned to Rumplestiltskin. "Crocodile! Are we in position?!"
"Yes!"
Hook turned back to Charming and Regina, who were ready with the cannons, pointing downward into the ocean. He reached out and held Emma's good arm. "Princess!" he roared up at the crow's nest. Her dark head poked out over the side. "Brace yourself!" He looked back at Charming and Regina and nodded. "On my mark. Three—two—one—fire!"
The two cannons exploded, and the ship lurched, rocketing up out of the water. Emma stumbled, but Hook's steady hand kept her from falling to the floor the way Charming and Regina had. As soon as the shaking stopped, Hook leaned over the edge of the railing again and saw that they were finally in the air and quickly rising, He released Emma and ran to the chest by the mainmast.
"What are you doing?" she asked, helping Charming up from the floor.
He yanked open the chest and pulled out a wad of glittering netting. He ran back to the port cannon. "It's rope infused with iron and star dust—it'll catch some of the pixies and send them down into the water. One of my best ideas, I think."
How he managed to singlehandedly clean, load, aim, and fire the cannon, none of them would be able to describe, but they all watched the small tuft of glimmering netting puff out of the cannon and into the sky, unfurling into a wide blanket of intricate webbing that sailed straight toward the cloud of pixies. The buggers tried to disperse, but at least a third of them were caught under the net and dropped into the water.
"Do you have any more of those?" Charming asked.
Hook sighed. "Unfortunately, no. Took me a whole bloody month to make that one."
"Now what?!" Regina called over the rush of wind as they picked up speed.
"Now we use the iron," Hook replied blandly. He turned to Emma as Charming unsheathed his sword. "Do not—under any circumstances—go down to the brig. Do not give away Henry's position."
Instead of being offended, Emma only nodded. "I know."
And because they'd saved each other enough to lose count during the course of their journeys, Hook kicked caution clear off the side of the ship. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek again. Right in front of her father.
"Watch your shoulder, love," he muttered against her cheek, lips brushing her skin with every word and making her freeze. "Wouldn't want our swordfight to be postponed for much longer, hm?"
He stepped back and Emma released a deep breath.
"Jeez, Hook."
He stuffed a bag of iron into her hand and then ran off. The shadow and the remaining pixies had spread out, circling the top of the Jolly Roger. Snow had somehow managed to set her arrow tips on fire and was now firing them at anything within range with awe-inspiringly accuracy. She somehow managed to skewer a couple of pixies at a time, but it wasn't enough. They lit up the air above the ship, dancing merrily, before they suddenly swarmed.
"Fuck all of this," Emma muttered as the furious chittering and chiming descended.
Hook chuckled at her and threw up the first handful of iron dust, and the chittering/chiming turned into screeching/hissing. The nearby pixies dropped onto the deck, and Hook immediately stabbed and stomped on as many writing little demons as he could.
The others quickly followed suit, throwing around handfuls of iron shavings from their bags. Clouds of iron dust enveloped the deck, Snow having chucked out her own bag, raining iron down so most of the pixies were trapped. However, the ones who managed to escape were getting smart, hovering just out of range.
"How far up are we?!" Hook called down to Charming from where he stood on the main boom, still swinging at a small group of pixies who were darting around him, swiping at him with their claws.
Charming pulled a Regina-swing and batted one out of the air before leaning over the railing. "'Round seven hundred feet!"
"Witch! Warlock!" Hook roared. "Test the waters!"
"What the hell does that mean?!" Regina shrieked.
Hook growled. "MAGIC! USE IT!"
Regina lifted her hand, eyes narrowed in concentration as Emma fought off any pixies that were trying to attack. When her hand caught fire, Regina grinned. "Finally." Conjuring a fireball in each hand, Regina started firing into the sky and fiery pixies began to drop.
"Don't set my bloody ship on the fire in the process!" Hook bellowed before grabbing a rope and swinging around to the other side of the mainmast.
Charming somehow managed to find one of the muskets and was now firing at pixies, protecting Gold, who was trying to steer the ship. Regina was still throwing fireballs, and Emma had unconsciously moved to protect the door leading below decks. The pixies were dwindling quickly, but Pan's shadow had caught hold of one of the lanterns hanging from the mast, and from the direction it was flying, the sails were in serious jeopardy.
"PRINCESS!" Hook roared.
Snow's bow quickly swiveled, and upon finding Hook's finger pointing at her new target, she began firing arrows at the shadow. She managed to hit the lantern, shattering the glass and sending it out of the shadow's grip. It harmlessly fell over the side of the ship, but the shadow's attention was successfully-but-unfortunately diverted.
"EMMA!" Snow shrieked at an unholy pitch.
Hook immediately swiveled to see Emma trying to peel a pixie off her face. It was because of the pixie that she didn't see the shadow hurtling straight to her.
Charming was too far away, Regina was preoccupied with trying to keep the pixies from sabotaging the ship, the Crocodile was trying to keep the ship on course, and Snow's angle prevented her from shooting the shadow without shooting Emma in the process.
Hook didn't even think about it; there was no hesitation.
For three hundred years—three hundred years—he sat on his life, forcing it under his grip instead of letting it run its course. He sped up his childhood in his attempt to prolong it, he froze his youth for revenge, and he aged himself in his own mind. Three hundred years of denial and regrets and sadness and pain; of the need to forget the past, of the need to escape, of the desire to run; of everything he wished he had and everything he wished he didn't. And he threw it all down the same way he threw himself back down to the deck.
He leapt off, the rope still in his grip burning his skin, and hit the deck in front of Emma. The white eyes were all he saw when the shadow tried to stop itself from careening straight into Hook, but it was too late. The wispy blackness slammed into his chest just as Emma finally managed to rip the pixie off her face.
"Hook!" she cried, but her voice was muffled—as if he was underwater and she above it.
In the few times he'd contemplated it, he expected the sensation to feel like ice—ice seeping into his bones and frosting over his skin and congealing his blood. It didn't feel at all like ice.
It felt like tears.
The deeper the shadow sunk into him, absorbing like water into cloth, the heavier the pressure in his chest became, filling his lungs and choking his throat.
Warmth, weight, and water—a hot spring in a blizzard. And like the cold he hadn't known he'd harbored abated with the heat, the hazy reality succumbed to nightmares.
"Hook!" Emma rushed forward to catch him when he suddenly collapsed.
"What the hell?!" Regina shrieked furiously, nearly setting the mainsail on fire in her shock.
Emma tried to keep Hook upright, but he was too heavy. She stumbled backward against mainmast and sliding down so he was leaning back on her chest, her legs on either side of him. "The shadow just—I don't know!" She pressed her fingers against the side of his neck. "He's still alive, but he's not waking up."
"Enough of this!" Gold finally snapped, having seen and understood exactly what had happened. He yanked the back of David's shirt, hauling him behind the helm. "Keep us on course," he ordered.
Gold stood in front of the helm, briefly taking in the mess of the ship—pixies flittering left and right, small patches of fires here and there. Then he clapped his hands, and shockwaves rippled out, sending the pixies flying ass over wingtips off the ship. Regina made quick work of them, whipping out lashes of fire that turned them into ash.
Snow dropped back down onto the deck, rushing over to where Emma and Hook were lying.
"Gold, do you know anything about this?" Regina asked as he hobbled down the quarterdeck stairs.
"I have my suspicions," he replied evasively.
"Well, what are they?" Snow asked, glancing up at him as she gently dabbed away some of the blood on Emma's face—courtesy of the pixie who'd tried to peel it off.
"Can you revive him?" Regina asked. "Actually, can he even be revived at all? I mean, I've heard of the shadow ripping out other shadows, not the opposite."
"Why did it get sucked into him?" Snow asked. "The way things looked, it was like the shadow was trying to stop itself from doing it."
Emma grimaced as she tried to shift Hook so he wasn't lying on her bad shoulder. And yet she didn't try to move him away from her completely. It was an action that was not missed by Snow, much to Emma's chagrin.
"It must have something to do with whatever Hook was hiding from us," Regina said. "Remember that drivel he spewed in his hideout?"
"Wait, wait," Emma breathed, looking down at how tightly clenched her fingers were around Hook's leather coat.
There was no sign, no burn marks or anything, of the shadow. It was just an unconscious pirate captain in her arms.
Regina frowned. "What?"
"Henry," Emma said, looking up at the three assembled in front of her.
Regina and Snow seemed to catch on.
Snow jumped to her feet and ran for the door leading below. "Henry!" she called, throwing it open. "Henry, they're gone! Come out, honey!"
"What does the boy know?" Gold asked.
"He somehow figured out Hook's secret. Though it didn't matter at the time," Regina answered, throwing a pointed look at Emmma, "now is a perfect opportunity for a little storytelling."
There was some thumping, then some rustling, then footsteps clumping up the stairs, and Henry emerged, throwing off a thick blanket. The smile he'd directed at Snow immediately fell when he spotted Hook and Emma on the floor. He sprinted over, nearly sliding on his knees the last foot or so.
"What happened?" he demanded. "Did the pixies get him? Did his shadow get stolen?"
"The—Henry, the shadow got sucked into him and he collapsed," Snow answered.
"Whatever you and Hook were keeping secret, you need to tell us now," Regina said, running her fingers over his hair.
"He's Pan!" Henry blurted out hurriedly, looking up at them. "He's Peter Pan. Th-The shadow is his."
"You have got to be kidding me," Regina sighed.
"He's Captain Hook and Peter Pan at the same time?!" David barked from the helm.
"That's why he knew about the Star of Neverland," Henry said. "He was there when it hit the island. He was there right from the start."
"But…" Emma looked down at Hook again. "But he said his name was Jones."
"It could be an alias," Snow offered.
"Or this man is just a pathological liar," Regina huffed, crossing her arms over her chest, "which is a theory I'm inclined to believe."
"He's not a liar," Emma said flatly. She turned to Henry. "Who told you all this?"
"The Lost Boys," Henry replied. "When I said the shadow went all red-eyed, it stormed off, and one of the Lost Boys told me."
"What else did they say about him?"
Henry shook his head. "Just that the shadow wants him dead."
Regina nodded in understanding. "That makes sense."
"What?" Snow asked.
"Of course the shadow would want him dead," Regina said. "If he was there at the beginning—when the meteor hit—the magic that warped the fairies must have ripped his shadow from him and caused it to…have a life of its own. If Hook—Pan, Jones, whatever his name is—was dead, the shadow's problems are solved. It could maintain its sentience."
"We need to wake him up," Emma said. "Get the story straight from the horse's mouth."
"More like the ass's mouth," David said from his post.
"Language!" Snow barked.
Henry started poking Hook's chest. "Wake up," he said. "Come on, Killian."
Emma started shaking him and then patting his cheek. "Wake-y, wake-y, numbnuts," she muttered. "Get up."
"Are you sure he's even still alive?" Regina asked.
Snow leaned forward, her cheek close to his nose. "He's still breathing."
"Unfortunately," Gold muttered darkly. He walked around to Hook's other side, opposite Henry and Snow. Bending onto one knee, he pressed his hand against Hook's chest and closed his eyes.
Two seconds passed before Hook's eyes snapped open. Henry, Snow, and Gold took note of the wateriness of those eyes, but it was Emma who nudged him forward so he could sit up, drop his head, and surreptitiously wipe his face.
Breathing deeply, Hook glanced back at Emma with an unreadable explanation.
"Welcome back, Peter," Regina said.
Hook looked up at her and then moved his gaze to the others. "Spilled the beans, did you, Master Mills?"
Henry shrugged. "Had to."
"Are you okay?" Emma asked, pushing herself up to her feet and holding a hand out to him.
He took it with a nod and a bland smile. "Spectacular."
"I think it's time you give us a history lesson, pirate," Gold said, sneering.
Hook brushed himself off, expression unreadable. "Shipwreck got me stranded on an island as a lad," he said flatly. "A star hit the island. The magic of the island was poisoned—caused the fairies to become pixies, caused time to stand still on the island, caused my shadow and I to split. Bloody thing took on a life of its own, a personality that can be hearkened to a petulant child only a bit more megalomaniacal than your typical eight-year-old. Began bringing children to the island, convincing them that they can be children forever, never having to grow up, so they could be…playmates forever. I found my way back home; the shadow stayed. I grew up. End of story."
He looked up at David, who was frowning down at him, though the expression was just as unreadable as Hook's. "Aim for the second star to the right," he ordered, pointing at the night sky. "We'll sail straight through 'til morning."
Hook turned back at the rest of them, congregated around him. "Satisfied? Now if you'll please excuse me." And then he turned his back on them and walked away to the door leading below. "Captain's quarters are still yours, Henry," he called over his shoulder.
Because of his vantage point, it was only David who saw what Hook did once his back was turned: Grimacing in pain, he lifted his hand and pressed it against his chest.
Neverland was far behind them when the sky began to lighten into morning. Hook had relieved Prince Charming of his post once the rest of the group had gone to sleep, unable to sleep himself.
Reckoned there would be many a sleepless night for the near future, all things considered.
However, he had more pressing issues to deal with: the foremost being the fact that while the land that lay in front of him was indeed familiar, it was not the land they'd intended.
"No," Emma said flatly.
"You have got to be kidding me right now!" Regina shrieked.
"Calm yourself, woman!" Hook barked, rolling his eyes and leaning his elbow against the helm. Though secretly, he agreed with the sentiment.
"I thought the pixie dust was supposed to get us home," Snow said.
"I suppose it all depended on what each of us believed was home," Hook answered, scowling ahead.
Henry jogged up to the bow, coming to stand between Charming and Emma.
Charming set his hand on Henry's shoulder. "Welcome to the Enchanted Forest."
List of Headcanons:
1) Killipan (obviously)
2) Rumple and Regina both cannot use magic because of the world (much in the same way Regina couldn't use her magic in the beginning of the second season; the world is different, bros)
3) Neverland Origin Story