Rashaka: I actually do know a bit about sailing and historical vessels, and all your criticism would be quite valid IF this fic was taking place back when Killian still had both hands and was just a regular pirate with a regular/non-magical ship and crew. But as we've seen the Jolly Roger go down a giant whirlpool to Neverland, appear out of smoke and sail silently out of the sky into Storybrooke, apparently steered/crewed by no one (Hook and Cora were just standing on the deck, after all) and now turn invisible. . . um, yeah, I'm really not too worried about extenuating naval accuracy. (Besides, it *did* note in the previous chapter that the ship is enchanted, and we'll be seeing more of it in this one.) Hope that doesn't ruin it for you.

Everyone else: Thanks to those of you who offered their well wishes on my sister. She is out of ICU for the moment, but remains in the hospital with a systemic staph infection (scary stuff, but it's under control, thankfully). Unfortunately, no discharge date in sight, so she might still be in over Christmas. On a happier note: THIS FIC WAS RECOMMENDED ON THE OFFICIAL FUCK YES EMMA AND HOOK TUMBLR! I'm so squee-ful right now. What an honor.

/puts on official "I Contributed to Fandom" hat

ahem anyway

Chapter 9: Into the Deep

"No?"

The word sounded strange, stretched out, spoken impossibly slow, with far more strength and spine-chilling coldness than it seemed possible to fit into a simple two-letter statement of negation. Time had stopped around it, freezing the seagulls in their flapping overhead and silencing the waves below, even holding the Jolly Roger itself motionless on the choppy grey water. It froze a blast of magic in midair, her father in the middle of his leap, at the instant he was about to hit Hook in a full-on flying rugby tackle. It reached out with a pale hand to touch her face, fingernails digging into her flesh, turning her eyes up to –

"No?" Rumplestiltskin breathed. Any remaining trace of Mr. Gold, mild-mannered pawnbroker, was shredding away by the instant, like strips of old wallpaper. "We had a deal, princess. A deal. And you're saying now you have no intent to hold up your end of the bargain? That, dearie. That is very – bad – business."

"I. . . won't." Emma sucked in a desperate breath as the world restarted with a sound like an explosion. Regina's magic hit the crow's nest like lightning, and her father hit Hook like thunder. They went crashing down, kicking and punching at each other like a pair of urchins scrapping in the mud, and the abandoned helm spun wildly, sending her stumbling sideways as the deck went in whatever damn direction it pleased. There was clearly some kind of enchantment on the ship (aside from the fact that it had been – still was? – fucking invisible) which Regina hadn't succeeded in breaking, so they were now totally out of control, sails flying amok as the lines unfurled and came crashing down, pulleys exploding, cold spray billowing over the spars. All this was proof of her theory. "Look!" she screamed. "He's the only one who can steer it! If you kill him now, we're all going to – "

"Sorry, dearie. So loud right now, I can't hear you." Rumplestiltskin clicked his fingers. At once, the fallen ropes leapt off the deck like possessed serpents, lunging for Emma before she had time to so much as get her hands up in (really stupid) hopes of a miracle. They raveled around her outstretched arms and slammed her back into the mainmast, tying her down like a hog for slaughter. If the crazed look in Rumplestiltskin's eyes was any indication, that was exactly what he had in mind.

Just up ahead, no more than a few hundred yards, Emma could see something on the water. Something like a heat refraction, shimmering like vapor. That's it. That's the boundary. "DAVID!" It ripped out of her lungs like a launching missile. "DAVID, JUMP!"

Her father was drawing back his fist in what looked to be an extremely successful attempt to knock Hook's lights out, as the two of them scuffled and swore and struck each other from where the prince had the pirate captain thrown up against the railing. Charming was bleeding from a long cut down his cheek, where clearly the hook itself had had its say, but at his daughter's shout, he spun around. So did Killian, for that matter, as both of them saw Emma lashed to the mast and Rumplestiltskin advancing on her like – like, well, a stalking crocodile.

"Jump!" Emma jerked her chin at the boundary, which was still getting closer, and faster. "Get off the ship!"

"No – Emma, I won't leave you – "

"GO!"

At last, David seemed to appreciate the gravity of the situation. It must have killed him to turn away from his only child at a moment like this, not to mention his hated blackguard of an opponent, but the alternative was even worse. Still, Emma knew he was going to have a hard time forgiving himself for this one. He was the hero, he was supposed to save the day. Instead, he had to bail out like a coward. She didn't care. If he forgot everything –

David grabbed Belle around the waist and sprinted to the railing with her, slipping and skidding on the crazily lurching deck. An instant later, there was an enormous splash from starboard, and Emma could just see the two small dark figures kicking hard against the current. She didn't know how cold that water was, but she was betting it was cold. It couldn't be that far of a swim, but if shock –

There was only one person left on this ship who might have any interest in saving her. Emma spat out the rope that was trying to crawl into her mouth. "Regina! Please – for Henry, please, for his sake – our son's sake, get me off before – "

Regina looked at her, white-faced, and then back at the boundary. It was impossible to tell what was running through her head, but she hesitated, staring at Emma as if hypnotized.

The shimmer was getting stronger every moment, like a wall of ice in the sky.

Regina ran to the side, and jumped.

"No! You b – " Emma couldn't even finish the accusation; it died in her throat as she watched Regina disappear under the water, surface gasping a few seconds later, and start swimming hard for shore. Apparently, the fear that her own curse might destroy her was a greater threat for Regina than risking her life to get Emma down from the mast, to go against Rumplestiltskin at his greatest and most terrible. And even if the Evil Queen had been about to do it, old habits had taken over instead. I should know something about that. But her bender episode hadn't –

Something lashed at her face, raking a line of fire down her cheek. It was another rope, slamming between her teeth so hard that she gagged. She spit and hacked, but couldn't get it loose, and now another one was looping around her throat. I don't generally kill my clients. . . it's not good business. Gold had said that back in the sheriff's office – but she'd be a fatal fool to think that the thing, the Dark One, closing in on her was anything like his alter ego. She could read his bared teeth, his maniacal expression. Whenever she did end up dead, it would be a relief, not a –

And then, out of nowhere, Killian was clawing toward her, slashing through the ropes that were attacking him. He reached the mainmast in the next instant, swung his hook into the wood directly next to Emma's head to brace himself, and used the edge of his sword to cut through her bonds, judging the stroke so expertly that he didn't even nick her skin. She came loose and slammed against him as the ship pitched again, nearly getting stabbed, and had no choice but to cling to him as they fell headlong to the deck. He rolled her over once more, planted his elbow in her shoulders, and almost bit her mouth off with his kiss.

Shock obliterated every single one of Emma's thoughts. He wasn't being at all gentle or romantic about it – not that she expected that from him now, not that she expected that from him ever. His dark stubble scratched her face, his tongue quested against her lips, deep hard wet desperate like she hadn't been kissed in she didn't even know when, like she hadn't been kissed ever. No denying he knew what he was doing, sloppy and frenzied though it was. She had the horrible urge to yield and open her mouth, to let him get on with it, to kiss him back and more, even though this was the worst of all imaginable times and some unhinged magical crackpot was about to kill one or both of them in an instant. Her hand came up against the back of his head, twisting her fingers in his hair. Both of them were gasping for breath by now, but he was still diving back in, claiming her mouth with his –

"Milah," he was saying indistinctly, kissing her harder, his lips burning down her cheek and jaw and neck. "Milah, it's all right, I have you now. I got you, it's all right. I got you back from him. It's all right now. All right." He bent in for another kiss.

Emma's heart shriveled. For some reason besides his misguided passionate attentions, she couldn't breathe. Instead, she shoved at his shoulder, not as hard as she should have. "It's not Milah," she whispered. "It's not. It's me. Emma."

For a moment, his blue eyes still stared into hers uncomprehendingly. Then he jerked away as if he'd been shot, uncoiling and springing to his feet. He spun around and stood motionless, and as she pushed herself, grimacing, to an elbow, Emma realized that they had stopped moving. An iridescent veil of magic was enclosing the entire ship, a pale amethyst color that locked them in place just a few feet from the Storybrooke boundary. Purple magic – that definitely wasn't Gold's color. Even if he'd decided to save his memories at the expense of letting Hook off, well, the hook, that was the trademark of another unwelcome visitor. Oh. Shit.

"Now that," the witch said, "was quite a display. I wasn't even going to interrupt it, it seemed cruel of me. But it's not very gentlemanly of you to leave our princess on her back, Captain. Do apologize. I'll wait."

Hook didn't answer. He just remained silent, stock-still.

Cora smiled thinly, then glanced to the other man on the deck. "Rumplestiltskin."

"Cora." It wasn't entirely Rumplestiltskin and it wasn't entirely Mr. Gold who answered. His moment of psychosis did seem to have passed, at least, and he was now almost unnaturally still, like a hunting jungle cat in the scrub. "So good to see you again at last, dearie."

Emma got to her knees and slowly, stealthily tried to edge backward. Whatever shit was about to go down, it was going to be completely cataclysmic, and she didn't intend to stick around for the show. If David had gotten to shore by now, he would be utterly beside himself, probably assembling a search-and-rescue party as they spoke, to come back out here dangerously close to the edge. Even if not, Cora would have some other nasty surprise waiting for them, and something in her felt queerly desolate each time she remembered Hook's murmured words against her mouth. Milah, it's all right. I have you now.

"I wouldn't be jumping overboard if I were you, dear," Cora called to her. "Aside from my magic, there are other things in the water just now. Not to mention, what do you call those terribly efficient bow-chaser guns of yours, Captain? The long nines?"

"All right." Emma clenched her fists to make them stop shaking. "What do you want?"

"I just want you to be a good girl and prevent anyone else from getting hurt." Cora shrugged. "Your mother was a misbehaving, willful child as well, but at least she knew to tell me about Regina and her poor little servant boy. Likewise, you now hold the lives of your family in your hands. I expect you'll remember that."

"I'm listening," Emma said through gritted teeth.

"Your mother, your father, your son, your friends. Even your unfortunate suitor."

Does she mean Neal or Hook? At the moment, Emma wouldn't necessarily object to either or both of them being turned into fricassee. Hook had saved her again, but she hadto put that kiss out of her head, right now. It wasn't even supposed to happen. Hook had been having some kind of flashback, only knowing that a woman in his vicinity was being threatened by the crocodile – had Rumplestiltskin tied Milah to the mast before killing her? Or perhaps Hook himself? But either way, the instant Hook had realized it was her, Emma, that he was kissing, and not his long-lost love, he'd dropped her like she was hot. "I'm listening intently."

"Very good," Cora said approvingly. "Now, here's what we're going to do. First – " this to Gold – "as much as I would love to catch up with you, you're going to get off the ship right now. Otherwise, I'm going to release the spell that's holding us all here, and we'll go straight through the boundary. You'll forget everything about who you are. All your powers, all your past. Everything. And that would just be a tragedy."

"Wouldn't it, just." It was Gold who spoke, his mask restored, his soft voice edged with every sort of genial malice imaginable. "You've learned well, dearie."

"From the master." Cora smiled demurely. "But before you do go, you're going to ensure that Miss Swan gets off the ship safely. It's foolish of me, perhaps, but I would so hate to take another woman from our dear captain. It would break his heart."

"That's exactly what I mean to do." Gold's voice remained low, and vibrating with rage. "Just as he did to me."

"How tragic," Cora said, sounding bored. "But it will have to wait. I saw what you did, Rumplestiltskin. I know what you've summoned."

Emma's head jerked up. She glanced between them surreptitiously, trying to gauge what was going on. Something had happened when she'd defied Gold's order to step aside, when time had literally frozen. And then the total chaos that followed, and Cora's warning that there were other things in the water right now. Monsters? Like what? Yet alarming as that was, it wasn't the important part. She didn't believe for a moment that Cora gave a damn about her personal safety, or that she thought it would be cruel to make Hook lose another woman – me? Since when am I his woman? No. For whatever reason, the witch did not want Emma to pass through the Storybrooke boundary, after she'd just broken her deal with Gold. He was the one who gave me the power to break the curse. And he was the one who told me that he didn't plan on my magic.

Her heart was hammering in her chest – it was good to know it was still there, at least. But a terrible plan was starting to form in her mind. If I go through, something's going to happen. Gold owned this town. . . until now. Nobody had ever dared to break a deal with him. Especially nobody who's supposed to be the savior. She was the offspring of true love. The witch had already failed to take her heart. She might die in some grisly fashion, she might lose her memory herself. . . or she might, at last, become more powerful than Cora.

Emma looked around, desperately judging the likelihood that she'd be able to make a run to the railing, jump overboard, and swim the twenty feet or so from the immobilized Jolly Roger to the Storybrooke boundary, without being zapped by magic, eaten by a monster, or shot by the long nines. Slim. Slim as an anorexic fairy, in fact. But just as she was calculating if it was worth the risk, Hook finally turned around.

"All of you are forgetting something very important," he said conversationally. "This is how it works on my ship. I make the demands. You follow them."

Cora gave him a steely look. "I'm not near finished with you, Captain. As a matter of fact, I am extricating us from the horrible mess that you and your recklessness got us into. The instant I release my spell, the Dark One's beast could spare this ship – or not. Think about that."

Hook might have flinched, but it was hard to tell. A sardonic smile upturned a corner of his mouth, yet his eyes were still black and bitter. "Well then. It looks to be a standoff."

"Looks that way, doesn't it," Gold agreed pleasantly. Neither man had taken his gaze off the other, and the hatred could be smelled as thick as brimstone.

"I can solve that dilemma." Cora raised a hand, and the veil of magic shrouding the Roger momentarily disappeared. It lurched again, sliding and spinning up just half a dozen feet, if that, from the boundary, before she brought it to a halt again. Gold cringed, and sweat was visible on his forehead as he stared at it. Emma saw his mouth shaping around words. No, Bae, no.

"Can you?" To everyone's shock, particularly Emma's, it was her own voice that had spoken. "I think you're bluffing, Cora. If you could solve it that easily, you would have just put us all through the barrier by now, made Gold forget everything and be on your merry mass-murdering way. Easy as pie. Except you can't. You won't risk me going through too."

"Really?" Cora said. "Won't I?"

"No. You won't." Leaving the witch to chew on that, Emma turned to Gold. "I don't imagine I'm your favorite person right now. That's fine. You're not mine either. But I'm still the sheriff of Storybrooke, and I came out here to rescue Belle. She's my responsibility, and so are you. So I'm going to tell you to jump off the ship right now – walk the plank, if you will – and get rid of whatever creature is in the water before you swim away to shore and think long and hard about what you're going to do next."

"Walk the plank," Hook murmured. "You do make such a delightful pirate, darling."

Emma chose to ignore that. "If you don't," she said to Gold, "so help me God I will throw you through the boundary myself. Got it?"

He gazed back at her with an apparently placid expression, but she didn't miss the virulently ugly look in his eyes. I've made a serious enemy today. Yet at last he inclined his head. "As you wish, princess," he answered, with enough false politeness to freeze her ears. He pretended to doff a cap to Cora, then to Hook. "Ladies and gentlemen. My leave."

He turned about smartly, stepped up onto the plank – pirate ships had such things already helpfully installed – and strode to the end. He put his hands together, executed a perfect form dive, and entered the water with barely a splash.

"Yeah." Emma hopped up on the plank after him. "I'm going to be saying sayonara as well. Don't wait up for me."

"Princess," Cora said sweetly. "You're not going anywhere."

"Yeah?" Emma said again. "Then what was that about how you wanted Gold to get me safely off the ship?"

"Well, you yourself have just gotten rid of him for us, so it's time we had a chat." Cora held out her hand. "If you go in the water now. . ."

"I'll take my chances." Emma backed up. "Nothing personal."

And with that, she jumped.

(8888888)

It was cold. It was really, really fucking cold. She remembered to hold her breath and pinch her nose, plunged under quite a long way, opened her eyes in the smeary grey murk, and began to swim like the dickens. She didn't know which way the Storybrooke boundary was, and didn't dare come up long enough to look – she could hear distant whistles and thumps, saw flaming streaks like meteors pummeling the water around her. She kicked harder and harder, feeling her lungs start to ache, bubbles streaming from her nose as she burned air, looking around frantically for any sign of an unholy specter rising from the deep. What was it? As far as classical aquatic beasts went, the choices were pretty broad. Moby Dick? A giant kraken? Captain Nemo's octopus? The Loch Ness monster? How about none. Yes, please how about none.

She was going to have to surface for a breath. She kicked up, gasped a lungful of damp air, and ducked as something else screamed overhead. She couldn't tell if Hook had gotten the Roger's guns into commission that fast – she had a vague memory that old-fashioned cannons took time to load – but would he be shooting at her?

Why not?

Down she went again, deep enough that she could almost see the silty bottom. Her boots were heavy and she wished she could kick them off, as you were supposed to do when you hit the water in your clothes, but they weren't very kick-off-able. Her hands purled the grey dimness, she had to rise up again, and this time when she surfaced, gasping and spluttering, she shot a panicked glance behind her and saw. . . nothing.

Right. I'm off the ship, I can't see it anymore. That thought was even more terrifying; it could be anywhere, it could be right above her, about to run her down. She was gagging on the brackish water, starting to shiver from the shock of the frigid temperatures, and the shore was still a few hundred yards off. Her best hope was to try to hit an incoming tidal current and do a crawl stroke. She hadn't been any kind of swim champion as a kid.

It didn't look like she was anywhere near the boundary; she'd swum away from it instinctively, trying to get clear of the ship, and she definitely didn't have the strength to make it back. Besides, she couldn't see it either. Just her, struggling in the North Atlantic, trying to avoid being carried out to sea. The salt was stinging her eyes, and her soaking, tangled hair was in her face. She shook it out and began to dog-paddle. Who cared if she wasn't winning any medals at the Olympics any time soon. She just wanted to get back to solid ground.

As Emma kicked onwards, feeling about as graceful as a dying frog, she glanced off toward the harbor and saw a small figure – two of them, in fact – running down a pier. A bare few seconds later, a rowboat pulled away from the dock and began to haul ass out to her like nobody's business. Wearily, she turned in that direction, pulling a stroke and then letting her momentum carry her forward, one at a time, just trying to keep her head above water. Please don't let it be Gold coming back to finish the job.

It wasn't. It was Leroy, rowing like a crazy person, and her father, still quite damp himself, leaning out so far he was in danger of capsizing it. As they got within shouting range, he did just that. "EMMA! HERE!"

A standard-issue white life ring hit the water with a smack a few yards in front of her, its other end anchored firmly in David's hands. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, and her next few strokes took her there. She grabbed it and held on, shaking with cold and relief, as he reeled her in like a big fish, until she bobbed up against the rowboat and he grabbed both her arms and pulled her in; she rolled into the bottom, coughing and gasping. He stared at her, speechless, then shook his head and snatched her into a tight, sopping wet embrace.

Emma, teeth chattering like a nutcracker, instinctively stiffened, but managed to instruct herself firmly to hug him back. He gave her a hard squeeze, then let go, smoothing her hair out of her face. "Oh God," he said. "I thought we'd lost you."

"N-not yet. Little m-more resourceful than that." Emma didn't resist when Leroy, leaving David to hold the oars steady, unzipped his fleece jean jacket and wrapped it around her. Of course – he was one of the seven dwarves, he'd want to care about her, she was Snow White's daughter. She was still only barely figuring out all these connections.

With temporary repairs effected, Leroy started rowing back in. Emma was so cramped by the time they bumped against the pier that she could barely stand up, but she waved off David's anxious arm. "It's all right," she muttered. "I got this."

"No," he said firmly. "You don't. Let me, sweetheart. Please."

Again, she glanced at him – hearing that from a guy practically her own age, it felt more like a "sweetheart" from a boyfriend, not a father – but for once, she let him. Still dripping, she let him help her up the path, to the parking lot, to where his old brown truck waited.

(8888888)

A few hours later, Emma had been stripped out of her wet clothes, bundled in pajamas and blankets, and made about a thousand cups of hot chocolate by her extremely worried mother, while her father paced up and down the living room and swore to kill Hook in increasingly imaginative fashions. Her son, on the other hand, wanted to hear more about the infamous pirate captain, since he wasn't in the book. Of course he wasn't. For whatever reason, he hadn't been sucked out of Fairytale Land when the curse hit, so he wasn't part of the story.

"Does he actually have a hook?" Henry asked eagerly. "He has to, right?"

"Yes, he does." Emma closed her eyes hard, wicking away the memories. "Kid, I'm sorry, but I really, really don't want to talk about him right now."

"You shouldn't have to." David desisted from his pacing to aim a black scowl in everyone's general vicinity. "Henry, your grandmother and I have told you many times that in this world, things aren't like what they are in the stories. I know you're excited about Captain Hook and that whole legend, but he's a very bad man."

"Well, duh." Henry rolled his eyes. "He's a pirate. I know that."

"He almost killed your mother. I don't think you know that."

"Actually. . ." Emma felt hideously uncomfortable talking about it, but emotions were running high right now, she had to clear some things up. "Of all the people on the ship, he did the least amount of trying to kill me. He cut me down from the mast after Gold had tied me up, and. . ." No way did her parents (or Henry, for that matter) need to hear what had happened next. "Just. . . for what it's worth," she finished lamely. "Don't get me wrong. I fully endorse you kicking his smarmy ass. But you. . . maybe don't have to kill him."

David's scowl deepened. "If he lays hand, hook, or any other appendage on you one more time, he's going to wish that he was dead, believe me."

"James," her mother said quietly.

The prince looked like he had something to say to that, but Emma interrupted. "Wait. I have another idea."

"You do?" her parents said in unison.

"Yeah." Emma cleared her throat. With that, she told them about her realization that something had happened when she defied Gold (they were not at all happy to hear why, but didn't interrupt) and that it had something to do with what would happen if she went through the boundary. That since the curse had been created by him, and meant to end with her, something very powerful would take place. That she might rise over Gold and Cora both.

When she finished, David and Mary Margaret looked at each other apprehensively. "Sweetheart," Mary Margaret said at last. "That's a horrible risk. We don't know what happened to us in the Enchanted Forest, or what spells Cora has cast, or what Gold is going to do to you now that you broke your bargain. If you do go. . ."

"No," Emma interrupted, knowing what her mother was going to say. "No, you two can't come with me. The whole reason I told David to jump off that ship was because I didn't want him to lose his memory. I didn't want to lose you again." Oh God, she could feel her throat getting thick. "I know you want to help me now, but. . . you can't."

Mary Margaret was already shaking her head. "No. We have to figure out another way to do it. We won't let you put yourself in that kind of danger, alone."

"I've been alone for twenty-eight years, remember?" It was cruel, and Emma wished she could bite it back as soon as she said it, especially seeing the pain in their eyes, but not enough to apologize for it. "I managed."

"But that was before you knew about magic," Mary Margaret pressed. "Please. Will you promise us that you'll stay with us tonight and think it through?"

Emma was quiet for a very long moment. Do they know when someone is lying too? Is that where I got it from? But her own so-called superpower had been going haywire lately. She couldn't make heads or tails of Hook's motives, if he was close to the truth or unable to see it with the Hubble Telescope. She should have known. But she didn't.

And there might just be only one way to stop this.

"All right," she said. She lifted her head and met their eyes. "I promise."