The woman in white stands, just stands. Every once in a while, her hands reconstruct the air around them to add to her light-catching model fortress. There's not a clue to be gleaned from it, though...and that makes for unnerving reconnaissance.
"We've waited long enough. We have to find Emma," he whispers to Elsa. The curiosity that had almost overcome her twenty minutes ago had flattened out into objectivity. Perhaps the advice...unsolicited advice...she'd given him earlier had triggered memories of her sister.
There isn't too much of a need to be soundless, which is rather fortunate given the amount of dried leaves, some framed with frost, around them. He'd marked the trail, and the woman apparently believed she could take her time with whatever scheme she'd concocted, so it should be nothing to go out the way they came, regroup, and... His foot stuck, his other almost tripping at the sudden stop in his gait. He didn't remember having to avoid a divot...
He looks down and sees nothing but ice, the hem of his coat swishing around his frozen leg with every twist of his torso. It won't budge.
"I'm sorry. I'm afraid I can't let you leave."
"What?"
She's not old, is the first thought that punches through a stream in his brain struggling to maintain calm. Her features soft and hard at the same time, she hardly casts him a look, fixated on Elsa. But it's the way she looks at Elsa, familiar with her, a nigh-motherly look.
"Let go of him now!" Elsa commands, locking her arm out and wielding her own hand like a weapon.
"Not when you and I have so much catching up to do...my sweet Elsa," the woman argues in such a damned soothing tone.
"Catching up? What? You know her?" He'll kill her, not for luring him out here and freezing him, although that would have more than earned it, but they all took her in, that they gave her their promises, their home, their help...it can't be true.
"I've never seen her before," Elsa says without taking her eyes off the woman. Good. The worry that hangs in the air as much as Anna's disappearance, the mild but grateful relief on her face whenever she's around Emma—all genuine. Good.
"You've simply forgotten."
"I wouldn't forget someone like you," Elsa says a little too quickly. "Like me."
"The magic of the rock trolls," the woman answers, gathering up the skirt of her gown and pacing around her. For only a moment, she reminds him of Cora. "They pull memories. They did quite a number on you, I'm afraid."
Oh, bloody hell. First thing he'll do if this ice around him ever melts, he'll see what all it will take to make memories a little more magic-resistant.
"The rock trolls? Why would they do that to me?"
"For the same reason they did it to your sister, Anna. Some memories are too painful."
"You know Anna? What happened to her?" Elsa marches toward her, and he knows all too well it's always a lie that comes next. The only reason a villain wants a hero closer to them is when it works to the villain's advantage.
"The same thing that happens to every ordinary person," she says, summoning the hate right from her throat. "Eventually they grow to fear us. You wonder how you ended up trapped in that urn. It was your sister. Anna put you there."
"You're lying," Elsa snarls at her, unbending. He takes her faith in Anna as an opportunity to check his leg, maybe wiggle out toward a weak spot.
"Am I? Look at the people in this town. They're ready to burn you at the stake."
"Because of what you did! You hurt one of them!" she nearly screams in horror. He tries to burrow his foot into the dirt, tunnel under the ice somehow. She can't panic. He's seen what she can do when she panics.
"You mean that woman? Marian? Well, that was an accident." She has to suppress a shrug.
"No, it wasn't," Elsa growls at her, the resolve in her face more than enough assurance she won't panic now. The words aren't jabbing their way under her skin, not even cracking the surface. "You wanted them to think it was me, to blame me. Why?"
"I was trying to teach you a lesson." Flashing her a sad smile, the ice woman finally turns her attention back to him. "Eventually, everyone turns on people like us, even friends. Even family. They're just waiting for a reason." She speaks so softly it's as though she trails off, her arm curving over her head. Row after row of icicles crackle down the treetops right over his head. Grunting, he braces himself for the ice to cut through his leg as he breaks out of it. It will sting only for a second, the hot, piercing sensation of blood dripping down your skin. But it doesn't come.
"What are you doing?" Elsa's hands fly up.
"Don't bother. I've neutralized your magic."
Oh hell...not even a hint of the creaking sound of breaking ice. Bending over, he grips the ice with his hand, and he realizes cold can burn. Hardly any water brushes his palm, the ice too solid.
"When your friend is found, you'll look responsible," the ice woman says, louder. "Then they'll turn on you and they'll treat you as the monster that they truly see you as, and you'll know I'm right!"
"No!" Elsa cries.
"Hey! Dairy Queen!" He knows that snark, knows Swan's there before he reaches his full height to look up. He steals a glance over at the woman, wanting to see her arm perform the movements that will make the icicles fall and run him through, wanting to fixate on what will bring him the most pain...there's no time to think about why. In fact, he about does a double take at how still the ice woman has become, arm mid-air, only a deep swallow in her throat indicating she's even still alive.
"Emma?"
He's not enjoying this familiarity.
"Do we know each other?" Swan calls back to her. The woman controls her face.
"Of course not. Your reputation precedes you." Even moving now, lowering her arm, she looks only half-alive. The words sound practiced, a far cry from the way she'd blurted out her name mere seconds ago. "You really think that your magic is a match for mine?"
"There's only one way to find out." He'd thought she'd been heaving from the run to them, but it's just as likely it was to build herself up enough to shoot out a blast of magic strong enough to knock the woman right down to the ground. It's a violent gust; had he not been restrained from the ice, it would have trampled over him, too, and for a split second before David rushes toward him, he realizes Swan's magic has a distinct feel to it—as bright and windy as emerging onto the main deck of a ship after being down in the cargo hold.
He looks down at David, chipping away at the ice with a knife. In spite of himself, he looks back up at the icicles...he should really stop staring at everything out there hell-bent on killing him... He breathes a "no" to them as he watches a few in front of him snap off from the branches and pierce the dirt in front of him. More and more break free and shatter upon the hard ground.
He feels it again—sunlight and wind with a dash of cinnamon and warmth. It knocks his torso first, reeling him and David several feet from the ice without a chance to take a gulp of breath. Chunks plop against his arms and the hilt of his sword, and he winces at the sensation of his coat tightening around the shoulders...David's gripped the back of his collar.
"You guys okay?" Swan gasps.
Never better, he thinks, grunting as he turns his head to check David. No need, the hearty prince already staggering to his feet.
"Where is she?" David asks. Killian's heels shuffle against the dirt on his way up, not about to be that easy a target to the ice woman. Scanning the forest, he catches no glimpse of white, not a murmur of her unruffled voice.
"She's gone," Swan sighs, biting her lip.
"We'll fan out," David says, glancing back at him before sprinting off toward a row of pine trees. Elsa spins back around, but then stills, mesmerized by the tiny model the ice woman had been constructing. He takes it as a hint not to bother asking if she's all right and instead veers off in the opposite direction of David's search.
"Whoa, where are you going now?" Swan's not even bothering to head him off, confident her reached-out fist will tether him.
"I don't take too kindly to almost being impaled."
"Sure as hell seems like you do," she huffs at him. "Stay here with Elsa."
"Swan—"
"I don't think it's a good idea for her to be all alone with a snow queen running around," she almost sings as she sprints...make no mistake, sprints, in the direction where he had started for, not looking back.
Shuffling around, he exhales at the model of the fortress, loud enough that Elsa will hear, but she doesn't turn. They won't be gone long, he tries to assure himself, pacing around the ice model...as if she would come back for it. The "snow queen" announces when she wants to be found and has proven to be all too skilled at making herself scarce when she doesn't. That, that still is what bothers him the most about her, even more than acting like she knew Emma. Anyone who knew Emma and had nothing to hide would have made sure they found her long before now.
David returns first, shaking his head.
"No sign of her, not even tracks," Swan sighs, approaching them, unable to keep still. Hands on her hips, she paces the same little line of land, no longer than her own person.
"What is it? You okay?" Swan answers with an eyebrow lift, a clear I am not okay with more than a little idiot added to the end of it. Fortunately, David has enough fatherly experience behind him now to not be perturbed by it. "Hey, we're going to find her. Don't let Regina shake your confidence."
"It's not that. It's this Snow Queen. It's like she didn't just know Elsa. She knew me, too."
Truth be told, if he had just had his memories returned to him after a year's time, he'd find every little thing that failed to make sense dodgy, too, but she's an open book, her mind crossing out every possible explanation except for the worst ones.
"Well, you are the sheriff, and the Savior, and royalty...I think pretty much everyone in Storybrooke knows who you are."
"There's something more," she argues. "It's like when she said my name, I, I, I don't know...it sounded familiar."
Said familiar, or felt familiar, he considers asking, but she's avoided looking at him ever since she came back from her search, and he's actually beginning to feel relieved she didn't find her.
"Well, we'll figure it out, but today you did good. You stopped her. It was a pretty impressive show, Sheriff," David reassures her, a small smile his thanks.
"That it was," he tries, and for now he will ignore the utterly pissedexpression he's receiving. "But perhaps we should keep searching, find the villain's lair as it were."
"So you can almost get yourself killed again? That's exactly why I told you to go to the sheriff's station!" she snaps at him, almost pushing his shoulder with hers to march back over to Elsa.
David drives him back to Granny's in silence, although not an angry one, he notes, resting his chin on his knuckles. Gods knew where Swan and Elsa had gone, and as confident as he is that David does not share his daughter's cold disdain at the moment, it's too fragile a confidence to inquire about the next course of action.
"Regina? Is Robin with you? Got a few questions for him," he hears David speaking.
A newly discovered downside to these talking phone things is how childlike not being involved in the conversation can be, he concludes, his forehead brushing the window.
"Uh huh...well, it's more a recap of where all you went today, who all you talked to. If we can trace back where you and Marian were all day, we might be able to get a handle on...what's that?...she just gave it to her, free of charge?" The tone pulls Killian out of his reverie long enough to look over at David, who is giving him a meaningful look, but, again, not involved in the conversation. He sets his jaw. "And after that, you came straight to the mayor's office. Yeah, yeah, I think that's a lead...right, do not go back there, especially with Roland...okay...believe me, Robin, as soon as we find out more, you'll hear from us."
He waits for David to end the call and place the phone back in his pocket, lest he be accused of jumping into danger again...
"Marian had some ice cream right before she started freezing."
"Mate, even I've had ice cream in this world and freezing, alas, wasn't a side effect."
"Then I guess you also know it's not a great idea to accept free food from strangers in this world," he counters.
"What?"
"Robin took Marian to the ice cream parlor and the lady there gave her a cone for free, the same shop Emma and I were investigating earlier today. None of the ice cream melted during the power outage. Not only that, but when we got there, the back room is frozen. None of the..." He tightens his lips and sighs. "The machines used to keep things cool..."
"Coolers."
"Among other things... Anyway, none of it's used."
"So it's all frozen by magic," he concludes, nodding. "And, let me guess, the Snow Queen runs the place. Who is she?"
"Don't know yet," he says as he stops right in front of Granny's. "We kind of went in there illegally."
"The last thing you want is for her to know you're closing in on her. Next thing you know, she'll be making herself disappear completely. We won't see her at all, not until she wants us to." A thought strikes him. "Who was she in our world?"
"I don't know."
He doesn't recall her from the survivor's hold, but then he also didn't recall ever hearing about a woman with ice powers once he was back in the Enchanted Forest. Names of royalty traveled faster than any other news of the day, birds littering the skies with messages whenever anything throne-related changed, and he's sure if a kingdom came to be run by a witch or sorceress or some such he'd have heard about it for no other reason than he was sure the Dark One would have been privy to such information. Contrary to what he said to Elsa earlier, he supposes he hadn't tried all that hard to outrun magic.
But Swan outrunning him—maybe that much hadn't changed at all.
She loves you.
Aye, but she doesn't trust you, he argues with himself, well aware that response didn't feel quite right. But what else could it mean? She'd avoided him, literally ran hot and cold, and now spurned his help. With barely a nod to David serving as a goodbye, he leaves the car and takes a swig from his flask.
Aurora has had her baby. The small bump he'd eyed on her eons ago was now a tiny lad and the only quiet person in the diner, everyone else raising a glass and toasting her and what's-his-name...Philip. Just as well, he thinks, taking one look at the festivities inside and sliding into one of the outdoor chairs instead. Just this afternoon they'd all been ready to pounce on Elsa and do all matter of angry mob violence to her, and now here they were celebrating another new arrival. He takes a swig from his flask, swishing the rum around in his mouth. If he is to pretend hiding out here is anything other than sulking, he'll need some indulgence to close out the day.
It doesn't make sense. Swan trusts him with Henry, for gods' sakes. Henry! Her precious child. They've gone through so much, the trust unspoken for the most part, but unmistakably there, the trip to the past alone confirmation of that.
And yet, he thinks, burning a hole into the flask with his eyes, he has no magic of his own. That is something he will never completely relate to, and even Elsa expressed some memory of feeling alone after going on and on about her beloved sister, so trusted now she refused to believe the Snow Queen's aspersions against her.
But it doesn't mean he doesn't want to try to understand, and now he'll have to find a way to show her that sentiment.
The bell jingles in front of him and Swan comes out, of all people, hurrying through the courtyard looking like a storm cloud, her eyes fixed on everything in front of her—not him.
Opportunity knocks, or rather, jingles.
"Swan! Don't make a man drink alone."
"Not in the mood for a drink. Or a man," she mutters, already passing under the trellis. He springs up and chases her into the street.
"I'm sorry I didn't listen to you today. All right, I know you feel like you've got the weight of the world on your shoulders, but at some point..." His hook catches her wrist, but it doesn't force her to turn around and face him. She does that on her own. "Even though we're quite different, you've got to trust me."
It's backfiring. Horrendously. She's never looked so incredulous.
"That's what you think this is about? That I don't trust you?" she snaps.
"Is that not what it's about?" Bloody infuriating woman...
"Of course I trust you!"
"Then why do you keep pulling away from me?"
"Because everyone I've ever been with is dead!" He flinches as if she cut him. At once he sees the anguish in her face, her breath hitching, shoulders rising, not fighting off the tears so much as keeping them at bay. Not hiding them, rather, not letting them impair her from explaining herself.
"Neal and Graham..." she chokes out, and the little swallow she makes as she is determined to look him in the eye does him in, his own eyes welling with tears. So much pain, so much loss for someone so undeserving. "Even Walsh. I lost everyone. I can't lose you, too."
You bloody idiot, he chides himself as he can't help but melt at the intense way she looks at him. She doesn't love you. She loves you. And you've caused her nothing but worry and pain today, added one more burden.
"Well, love, you don't have to worry about me," he says, unable to take his eyes off a single tear streaming down to a tentative smile. "If there's one thing I'm good at, it's surviving."
Her smile broadens just a fraction more. How hard that must have been for her...how much sorrow's already hit her. He'll put as much trust in her as she just did in him and close the gap between them. It had always been her decision before, but, closing his eyes and pulling her into him, she needs to feel how dear she is to him.
He couldn't utter the words just yet, but come hell or high water he would show her, show her just what it does to him that she cares, that she can't lose him. The words buzz throughout his brain until they settle into that space reserved only for the happiest thoughts, memories one immediately knows will be revisited again and again.
His hand moves into her hair as he kisses her, letting his eyes close and roll back into his head. Her arm pins itself into his waist and so slowly, her fingers curl around him. For a split second, his eyes snap open to ensure this isn't a product of his imagination, and then, when she sighs into his mouth, they fall closed again and it's noses nudging against each other and heat sweeping through his veins.
Everything falls into a warm haze...or at least it seems to be since he's not sure how they've backed their way out of the street. There is the soft thud of her shoulder blades hitting the glass display window. About to comment, about to tear his lips off of her so he can dip his forehead down onto hers and spout off some foolish thing, she stops him. She stops him by one of her hands snaking up his back and into his hair, tugging downward relentlessly until he begins sucking on her neck. It's too much—her hair curtaining them, every thought drowning in her scent—too much to resist.
There's nothing to anchor him, so he keeps his eyes closed. Nothing to temper this dizzy falling sensation as his hand burrows into her jacket, her shirt, gods, her bare back, eliciting a shiver that runs all the way down her body.
"Killian," she pants into his cheek.
Again, his mind screams, pressing into her. And yet all he can manage is a growl that's met with quite the audible gasp. Their hips meet. Their legs tangle as she juts one out and tries to wrap it around his in an attempt to hoist herself up. Of all the places and ways he's dreamed of their first time, this most certainly isn't one of them, he thinks with ragged breaths, up against the wall of a bridal shop. It should be somewhere bathed in more ambiance, more privacy...a hand is groping its way down to the flesh just above his belt. Well then, let the lady decide...
He switches arms so his hooked one can act as a perch for her and keep her wedged in between himself and the window, the other gliding down her front. He stops at her collarbone, gasping at the fact if he drops just a bit lower, he'll feel her heart thrumming against him. The thought breaks their kiss just long enough for him to chase her lips with his, breathing her in, unable to stop trembling.
"I-" he swears he hears moaning its way out of her. The enticing warmth of her lips, her hands, her flesh is suddenly searing.
A snapping sound pierces the silence and fills the air with a burning odor. It's instinct, shielding her and sidestepping out of the way of shards of glass bursting from above them. Fragments of light crash to the ground from the streetlight above them.
She hisses and recoils in such a way his first thought is that she's been cut. He backs up enough to see her holding her thigh. Where his hook had been.
"Did I hurt you?"
She bites her lip and gives the spot an irritated look, but then instead of answering, she looks up and stares at the broken streetlight with her mouth hanging open. Without an answer, he reads her face, noting how slack it's all gone except for something behind her eyes, so honed in on the shattered glass surrounding them he has to bend his head down to see that it's dread.
"Swan? All right?"
"What?" she asks, snapping out of her trance. In an exaggerated, disjointed movement, she tenses her abdomen and slips her hand down her trousers to check her thigh. "Just a scratch. Skin's not even broken."
"Are you sure?" he asks, furrowing his brow at how she keeps looking up at the light.
"Yeah, yeah...you didn't get cut, did you?" She sweeps her fingers around the back of his neck, grazing around to the hollow of his throat. She tightens her lips and once more takes in the tiny glimmers around them, the dread not leaving her face. He scratches his ear and shuffles out around the mess, locking out his elbow to keep his hook as far from both of them as he can.
The mood's destroyed, regrettably. They share the same look, masking guilt, trying to not look ashamed. The horrified expression on her face after just looking like she'd been in absolute heaven prods and pulls his concern onto a new course, her hand not even on her thigh anymore.
"Swan?"
The dead smile answers him, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes now.
"I'll, I'll just see you tomorrow. Right?" Before he can answer, assure her he'd see her every day of their lives if it were completely up to him, she pecks his cheek and disappears into the night.
A/N: I've seen some discrepancies in regards to a few lines in this chapter, but I listened to clips several times and checked it against two transcript sites, so I apologize if you hear something else. I always strive to get the correct dialogue, so if I can't for the life of me figure out a line and throw in what I think it is, feel free to message me. The chapter title is a reference to A Song of Ice and Fire.