Authors note:

Been Assassin's creed fan-girling recently (oh the feels) expect possible reference and violence….. (Joking) maybe

Disclaimer: it would be nice but no

His choice

The flames surround her, yet darkness consumes her as if the fire is stealing away all other light. She tries to escape, running in the dark, the heat making her sweat. It's no use the flames will always find her, she thought she'd escaped it once but it found her in quick succession.

Emma stops, gives up on trying to escape and the flame reaches her once more.

Her surroundings have changed, she's back on the ship, her ship. Her crew are around her, lying on the ground, blank expressions on their once lively faces, soulless eyes staring at nothing. They're all dead, Aaron, Mark, Wallace, all dead, blood strewn across the deck around them. She falls to her knees and closes her eyes.

"I hope your proud of yourself, dearie" a shrill taunting voice sounds out behind her. She knows that voice, heard stories of the man behind her, Rumpelstiltskin.

She hasn't turned she knows what will happen and the amount of the pain life has given her she welcomes it.

He shoves his hand into her chest through her back, she screams as he whispers "the saviour never got to be a saviour without the curse. But you're still powerful and I can't let you continue to live with this potential" he starts to pull…

She wakes with a scream in her throat and fear in her heart. Killian is beside her, staring at her with wide blue eyes. He can't stop himself can he? He can't stop worrying, he hasn't stopped since the fire. She doesn't want him to stop she just wishes he'd hide it better.

"Love, are you ok? I've been trying to wake you for twenty minutes" he pulls her close "You were screaming and thrashing in your sleep"

"I'm fine" she tries to be convincing but fails

"No love, you're not. You've been through a lot and you may be able to hide it from everyone else, but not from me. Please talk to me"

She sits up and turns, her back against the wall, Killian turns as well and she starts with the dream. Telling him about a dream is easy, she can do that but she will never tell him of the life she left behind of who she was before becoming a pirate, as far as he will ever know she was just an ordinary person, not Princess Emma of Misthaven, not the future Queen of a kingdom.

"…and that's my life tied up in a ribbon"

"That's…. I'm so sorry darling, it must be…" horrible. He's staring out the window, the sun is coming up they talked the rest of the night away. "I think I should take you somewhere nice, maybe a nice town or a tropical island eh?" he looked back at her with hope in his eyes. He want to distract her, get her mind off of what has happened throughout the last three years.

"Ok… but there's a specific town we can't go anywhere near. Apart from that I'm happy anywhere" the town is the one closest to her castle and she doesn't want to go there.

"It's your choice lass."

"Surprize me? I can't think of anywhere"

"So it's my choice where I take you?"

"Yeah it's your choice"

Emma had shown him the exact town she didn't want to go to and he'd promised that wouldn't take them there, but staring at her now, seeing the sadness in her beautiful green eyes, he has a feeling that is the exact place they need to go.

She's staring over the ocean at a storm in the distance, he's sure it will pass before they reach it but she doesn't look so sure. She's tense, he can see in the way she's standing.

The crew bustle about their jobs as if she's not there and by her distant stare he thinks that to her they're the ones who aren't there. He loves her, he doesn't want to see her hurt anymore so he turns the helm to port gently, it's only a minor adjustment to go to that town and he thinks it might help. He thinks that maybe she has family there that she didn't tell him about earlier that morning, why else is that the only town she didn't want to go to. His mind is made up, he's taking her to that town whether she likes it or not, after all she said it was his choice.

Her look of worry is increasing, the storm is still directly ahead, as if it moved when they did and it looks like it's not easing up.

She hates storms, has since she was a little girl, even more so recently though, since she found out firsthand what's been hiding within them of late. She's not overly thrilled that they're headed straight toward one with no way around it. It stretches as far as the eye can see. Well shit

The waves are picking up, they're on the very edge of the storm and heading in. the waves getting taller as they move and the thunder growing louder. Just what she needed a bloody fucking storm, perfect fit for the mood she's been in. she's not gonna run down below though, she's helping, keeping the ship on a straight line course and making sure that no lightening hit the ship. She hasn't got high hopes for the outcome of the storm because as she has always said "when shit hits the celling in a storm… you're pretty much fucked"

She managed to avoid them since the first time she came across one, in the first few weeks as Captain. It had killed several members of her crew then especially due to the beasts lurking underneath. Gruesome creatures haunted the storms waiting for a moment to strike, a moment of weakness in the humans aboard the ship.

Killian has a tight grip on the helm, trying to keep the ship steady as it surges through the angry waves, and Nathaniel is below decks, she wouldn't know what to do if she ever lost him or Killian.

As they ride a wave down the sea becomes suddenly calm, they're in the eye of the storm, the temperature has increased and sheets of rain are falling behind them but not on them. They can still hear thunder all around but they're safe for the moment.

She looks down at the water to check if everything is still intact and her heart comes to a halt, all thoughts leave her head and she freezes as she looks upon the face staring back.

"Were fucked, were completely and utterly fucked"

Evil dark eyes surrounded by scaled greenish skin stares at Emma with bloodlust. It's long green tail silently swishes underneath the water, its pointed spine running down its back to the end causing fear but Emma will not remove her eyes from the creature below, as long as she can see it, they're safe. For now.

"Emma, darling are you alright?" he'd handed someone else the helm and is making his way over but halts when she puts her hand up.

She would have visibly blanched at the sight of the monster that's staring at her now, she knows that much, after all she knows the true danger of the seas.

People believe that sea serpents, sirens or krakens were the worst thing the ocean could spew up but no she knew better, she knew that merrows were the worst of them all.

Now one stares at her, ready to lunge, poised to kill but still it just sits there, it's waiting for others.

"Killian we need to get this ship moving now, I don't care what you have to do just get us back into the storm" she says still not taking her eyes off the demon.

"Emma?" he tries to step closer

"NO!" she shouts still not looking away "We have to get out of here now"

A crewman Jacobson screams and falls into the sea and at that she makes her mistake, she looks away. When she looks back the merrow is gone.

"No, no, no… were fucked, were gonna get eaten by merrows and die. This is it, the shit has hit the celling and were in the middle of a bloody. Fucking. Storm"

"We need to go now! Or else we will die here" she says turning back to him, her heart pounding in her chest.

"Emma what is it?"

"MERROWS!" she says as one of them jumps onto the railing and tears the man standing close by to shreds

"What the bloody hell is that!" he's never seen one before?

"A merrow" she says pulling her pistol from her belt and shooting the creature in the head. "We'll have to fight if we wanna survive this!"

They all spur into action at once, yelling this way and that, running about the ship, hoping they survive this ordeal.

Another merrow jumps aboard but Emma shoots it before it has the chance to grab another crewman. Then another she doesn't have time to refill the gun so she drops it and uses her magic. A burst of flame and another is dead then another, then another, she's holding them at bay while the crew works on getting them back into the storm.

The merrows won't follow them there, it's their only hope and what a slim hope it is. As Emma scorches another of the demons they are thrown into the rain once more and the attack halts, and the ship bucks and thrashes against the waves but at least the merrows are gone.

Now all there is, is to deal with the storm. "Fuck" she thinks as they continue in.