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When Emma woke up, she found that there was a distinct lack of a certain pirate and she was splayed out, the wrong way, across the bed, on top of all the blankets. Hook must not have wanted to disturb her any more than he had to.
Oh god. Emma massaged her temples.
Hook.
Emma's hand automatically went to her neck. The necklace was still there along with her swan locket verifying that she hadn't been dreaming. Her face burned. She hated feeling vulnerable and yet whenever that bloody pirate was near, she felt like she was being stripped down until there was nothing left. She did the only thing she knew how to do when he was near, she built up her emotional block, a wall to keep out all trespassers.
Sighing, Emma hid the necklace under her shirt and got up. As she made her way down a narrow hall to the stairs leading to the deck, she heard a sudden stream of cursing and what sounded unmistakably like swords. Panicking slightly she clambered up the stairs and was met with utter chaos.
There was a number of strangers onboard mixed in-between her fellow pirates, all bedecked in blue and gold. Emma recognized them instantly, navy was another ship that had been anchored uncomfortably close to the Jolly Roger, bearing the logo of the royal family.
Grabbing a sword laying a foot away, she jumped into the fray, slashing at any flash of their uniform in her peripheral vision. Several of the privateers seemed to be trying to avoid her (sexist scum) but as she hacked away at them their demeanour changed and they unleashed proper ferocity upon her.
As Emma dueled, she scanned as much of the crowd as she could. Her panic only increased once she realized that she couldn't see Hook anywhere amidst the onslaught of navy men. There he was! He was busy taking on three men at once but Emma sighed inwardly with relief, he could handle them. Then, the privateer she was fighting struck, missing but causing her to fall backwards against the ship's railing. Before he could swing again, she swerved out of the way and tumbled over the edge into the waves.
Before he could swoop in and strike down the pirate who had backed Emma against the rail, she had fallen. That was the point where he lost it completely.
"Swan!" he yelled, diving in after her headfirst, throwing any co
mmon sense clear out the non existent window. When he hit the water, he saw that Emma was doing a valiant job of keeping her head above the waves but she was quickly losing strength. He grabbed her by the waist and one of his crew members threw a thick rope of the edge of the ship for them to climb back onboard. Once he had tossed her over the rail, he clambered over it as well. And saw that his crew had managed to dispatch all of the navy men who had attacked and their accursed ship was steadily retreating.
Emma was thrown back onto the familiar wood of the deck and, standing shakily, she promptly turned and retched over the side of the Jolly. Hook spoke in whispers with one of the crew who hurriedly ran off. Then he rushed over to Emma, escorting her back to her cabin to change out of her wet things.
Once he was satisfied that she didn't need his help, Hook left her be. She dried and headed back to help survey the damage those privateers had caused.
It appeared that nothing had been taken from them and none of the crew members had lost their lives. There were however several injured so Emma spent the rest of her day helping tend to them. After a few hours, Emma concluded that injured pirates were at the maturity level of five year olds. She ended up staying awake far longer than anyone else, catering to their needs because Hook had told her to humor them.
When she climbed down the stairs and through the hall to her cabin she was bone tired.
Emma heard a creak of the floorboards. Before she could react, someone came up behind her and held a knife to her lips. She was about to give them a swift knee to the groin but there was a hoarse whisper in her ear,
"Not a sound or your crewmates will get it." Emma stiffened until she had all the emotion and movement of a plank.
Whoever had the knife was behind her and she couldn't twist her head around to see him. He began nudging her forward, urging her back onto the deck. He grabbed Emma's shirt collar and began to drag her to the edge. Emma saw at this point that he was wearing a blue and gold uniform which shone in the moonlight like it was spun from real gold.
It was one of those privateers! No one had thought to search the ship after the attack, had they? If they had they might have discover him hiding in the storeroom behind a few well placed barrels of rum.
Emma noticed that he was not alone. One of his ugly friends was here and when she was pushed against the rails, there were more of them in a dinghy below. Emma scanned her situation desperately, looking for a loophole or an escape plan of sorts. I daresay, she didn't find anything of the sort.
As she was thrown into the dinghy and they made haste for their boat hiding just beyond view of the Jolly Roger, she felt pretty hopeless.
Just in case any of you were wondering, a privateer is an old fashioned term for people that worked privately for the government (or in this case, royalty) to capture pirates.