Notes: Beta/Edited by Peaceheather

I had Chapter 11 all written. Then I started editing it and I realized that it sucked. I tried to fix it and ended up with a chapter with as much visual appeal as Frankenstein's monster, if it was falling apart at the seams.

So I trashed it and started from scratch. One chapter then expanded to two, again. After watching Sunday's episode I'm really glad that I did start over. I think there was a reason I wasn't feeling the previous version. Unfortunately work and life got in the way over the weekend, so I only just finished editing it.

Hopefully I'll have 12 ready to go by tomorrow.

Chapter 11

Hook's expression is intent, almost predatory, as though he's hunting for something.

"Be still," he says softly.

Emma complies—she really doesn't want to go for another swim.

Hook's eyes narrow as he studies her face. She doesn't know what he's looking for; some sign that she's a demon still, maybe; who knows? Emma feels her pulse racing, but she sets her jaw and stares right back at him. Her face is made of stone, but if eyes are the windows to the soul, she leaves hers open, for him.

He's never been able to resist an open window.

She waits, trusting him not to drop her, willing him to see her and believe.

Hook's gaze flickers to her shoulder, and Emma's aware of the dull, low ache there. The water was cold enough that the injury itself has mostly gone numb, but her shoulder muscle hurts like a bitch. Her jacket is plastered to it, and every time she shifts slightly it pulls against the wound. Her hands are wrapped around his leather coat sleeve, but her right arm has begun to shake from the strain on it. He notices, and abruptly withdraws his hook from her throat to stare at her hands.

"Where did you get that?" he asks, his voice low and hoarse.

Emma follows his gaze, then slowly uncurls her left hand from its death grip. She holds it up so they both can see the thimble, which seems to have frozen to the tip of her finger. "You gave it to me," she says. "Just before you turned to gold."

He blinks, like a man still half asleep and dreaming. "Emma?"

"Hey, handsome," she says, not sure whether she should relax her guard yet or not. "Was kinda hoping you'd figure that out."

"I had to be certain," he says, frowning. "The water—"

Hook swears and jerks her upright. Emma's so relieved that she sags against him, and he has to half carry her up the beach. Once they're far enough away that she's not worried either of them will just fall in, Emma tries to stand on her own again. Her shoulder bumps his, and she hisses as it jars her aching arm.

"You're hurt," he says, and she's surprised by the thread of anger beneath his words.

"It's fine," she says, too tired to point out that it's his stupid fault that she's injured in the first place.

"No, it's not," he says quietly. "May I?"

She doesn't say anything, just gives a one-shouldered shrug and fumbles for the zipper on her coat. His hand arrests hers, pushing it out of the way. He reaches for the zipper pull and tugs gently. Watching Hook unzip her coat with that dangerous, intent look on his face leaves her feeling breathless and warm inside. "Clever device, this."

"Says the guy who does up all those buttons and buckles one-handed," Emma says.

His mouth twists into something that's a touch too bitter to be a smile. "Practice, darling." His tone is oddly polite and distant, and Emma peers into his face, trying to find a trace of the Killian Jones she knows. If he's there, she thinks he must be sleeping.

Emma helps him peel the leather away from her shoulder, wincing as it pulls on the wound. Ice snaps and falls, and Emma grits her teeth against the sudden pain. There's a hole in her shoulder, big enough she could probably stick her finger in it. Blood cakes the skin around it and partway down her arm. Ice rims the hole, but it's already begun to bruise and swell around the edges. It's no wonder her right arm feels weaker than the left.

"Yep, that's gonna leave a mark." Emma attempts to inject some levity into her voice but it falls flat.

"I could have killed you." His face is coldly furious, but this time it seems to be directed inward rather than at her.

"I know," she says seriously. "But you didn't."

"My apologies." Hook shakes his head slightly, as if he's not quite awake. The frost still paints sharp patterns over his face and tips his hair, and when he touches the mottled skin around her wound his fingers are inhumanly cold. Emma can't help but flinch slightly. He withdraws his hand and scowls at the rime that coats the rings on his fingers. "I am ... not myself. I think I was ... Was I dreaming?"

Once more his gaze finds hers. "Am I dreaming?"

"If you are, I really wish you'd wake up," Emma says.

He shakes his head again and focuses once more on her shoulder. "That wants bandaging. Here." He fishes around in the pocket of his coat and comes up with a black handkerchief. It's only a moment's work to crush most of the ice from it; he folds it and presses it against the wound. "Your coat will serve to hold it in place, I think." Together they get her jacket back on, and Emma zips it with clumsy fingers. Between the ice and the blood and the tightness of her sleeve, the makeshift bandage stays where it belongs.

"Thanks," she says and tucks her hand into her pocket to help take some of the weight off her arm.

He doesn't smile, though. Instead he moves away a few paces and stares out at the water. "How long have I been here?"

Emma shrugs. "I don't know. Not much longer than me, I think."

He looks at her sharply. "You followed me? How?" Once more his gaze rakes over her as though searching for more injuries. "Did he curse you for assisting me?"

"Who, Gold?"

His answering nod holds more than a hint of a threat, and she realizes how tense he is. "No," she says. "No, I - I followed you on my own."

"How then—unless you were cursed as well?"

Now it's Emma's turn to blink. "I don't know. I ... You were turning to gold; and in Henry's book a kiss usually breaks the curse, so … I kinda … kissed you." She blushes, which turns out to be painful with her face already so cold.

"You kissed me." His voice holds no inflection, not even the hint of a tease. She'd thought that Hook would make it into a joke, or a come-on, like he had when she'd grabbed him in the giant's lair to stop him from triggering the trip wire. But his voice sounds so dead, she can't tell if he's incredulous or disgusted or what. Somehow, that hurts more than she thought it would.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time." She looks down at her boots and kicks at the stardust under her feet. She instantly regrets that decision when her numb toes meet the frozen ground.

"True love's kiss ..." Hook's mouth twists bitterly and he turns away from her to gaze out at the black horizon. "True love's kiss only works if it's true love."

His quiet words hold all the physical force of a punch to the gut. Emma sucks in a breath, holds it, and mentally counts to ten. When she finally speaks her voice is steady enough, though smaller than she would like. "Look, I - I know I'm not Milah … but supposedly I'm the product of true love. I thought … I don't know. I thought maybe that would count for something." He doesn't even look at her, and Emma feels like crying again.

"Obviously I was wrong," she mutters.

"The road to hell is paved with noble intentions. Believe me, I know," he says. "Not that I don't appreciate the gesture, but I'd rather you hadn't done something so foolish."

"Didn't really have the option of asking, did I? I couldn't just ... abandon you."

"You've done so before," he says.

"Yeah, well ..." Emma rubs her chest, where her pendant used to lay. "I was dumb."

Hook finally turns to look at her, eyebrow arched.

"I should have trusted you," she says. "I shouldn't have left you up there."

"You'd have been wrong."

Emma frowns. "Huh?"

"I have been many things in my time. But I'm not a hero, never was. I was an arrogant lad, and a man brimful of conceit. I had been lost for a long time. I didn't know what love truly was, until Milah. The only person I'd ever loved until then was myself. But in her eyes, I was something else: a hero, like in all the tales I'd ever heard. For a time, I fancied it might be true. Then I lost her, and all my happiness died with her."

He takes a step toward her, stops and clenches his hand into a fist. "I swore my revenge: him or me. I've traveled worlds, crossed oceans and lands beyond your world's ken. Lived longer than should even be possible. I've stolen, lied, killed, even tortured. I would have sold my own soul to ensure his death. What makes you think I wouldn't have betrayed you to get what I wanted?"

She'd known this. Up there, standing in the giant's treasure vault, she'd known this. Emma knew the story of Captain Hook. Maybe her version included a real crocodile, but she'd known he couldn't be trusted. And yet ...

"I told you before. I'm pretty good at knowing when someone's lying to me," she says. "I wasn't really sure then. You ... I didn't want to trust my instincts. I didn't want to believe it. But they kept telling me that—you know, after you dropped the stupid blacksmith thing—that you only told me the truth."

"Aye, and I would have told you the truth right up until you'd taken me back to Storybrooke," Hook says, snidely flippant. His expression hardens. "You were a means to an end."

It'd be easy to believe him. After all, he's telling the truth, as far as it goes. He's just not telling all of it.

"Okay," Emma says and forces her numb legs to reduce some of the distance between them. "So why'd you come to me when you were hurt? You could have crawled off anywhere else to lick your wounds. Why'd you come to me?"

Hook's scowl darkens. "You shouldn't have followed me. I know how my story ends."

"And how's that?"

"Like this. Defeated by the crocodile. Consumed by darkness. Forever alone."

"What happened to revenge? I thought you were the guy who never gave up," Emma says.

"I tasted it," he says. "In your New York, before I made my way back to Storybrooke. I thought it would be sweet, but ... it was bitter."

Several things click in Emma's head. "That's why you didn't attack Gold. Why you were just spying on him. You ... you weren't trying to kill him."

Hook laughs, but there's no joy in it. "Oh, don't delude yourself, darling. I would have attempted it again, eventually. But I'll admit I wasn't in quite such a rush. It's a queer thing to think you've finished your life's work, only to find the satisfaction fleeting; odder still to realize that once it's past, you've nothing else to live for. Then to discover yourself back at the start, no closer than you were when you'd begun—let's just say that all of this is no more than I had expected." He gestures vaguely at the empty netherworld around them. "And no more than I deserve."

"So you're what? Giving up?" Emma's fists clench until her frostbitten fingers ache. She wants to punch some sense into him, or shake him. All this time she thought he'd been hell bent for revenge, but the truth is so much worse. Emma thinks that this is what defeat sounds like. She'd never have guessed that someone else's defeat could hurt her so much, too.

"Weren't you the one espousing the merits of forgiveness a moment ago? I seem to recall quite the lecture on the drawbacks of vengeance."

"Not forgiveness. I ... I can't expect you to forgive something like that. Or forget it. And I wouldn't want you to. But you can't make revenge yourentire life."

"It's been my life for the last three hundred years. You'd have me relinquish my reason for existence, just like that? And for what? What else is there?" He sounds weary, as if he feels every one of those three centuries. The look he gives her is unreadable, but not challenging; almost as if he hopes she'll provide him with an answer.

Emma had wondered. She'd guessed. Hell, she'd known, somewhere deep down, thanks to fucking Neal and his random anecdotes. But there's ahuge difference between suspecting that someone is hundreds of years old, and actually hearing such a staggering number come out of their mouth.

When she'd gotten out of prison, Emma had spent two years looking for Neal. That was how she'd gotten into bail bonds in the first place. For a while she'd followed leads, listening for any rumor of him, going from city to city, trying to track him down. And then one day, she'd woken up and it just … hadn't seemed that important anymore. He was gone. Her child was gone. She could continue to cling to the past, or she could try to find herself a future.

Only her future, like her present, had been nothing if not bleak. She'd worked because it was something to do, it was a way to fill all the empty hours. It wasn't until Henry had found her that Emma had discovered a better reason to keep going.

How can her pathetic little life compare to the epic tragedy that is the life and times of Killian Jones? A few years is a drop in the bucket compared to the ocean of grief he's sailed for more lifetimes than she can imagine. She'd hoped ... but this seems as uncrossable as the black sea before her.

Emma stares at the water and frowns in confusion. "What the hell?"

"Jones," she says. He's still standing a few paces away, facing the glassy sea. His face is set, gaze unfocused, as if he's looking at something else entirely. He doesn't respond to his name.

"Killian!" she says, louder and sharper. "The water!"

He glances at where the waterline should be, then follows it to where it now is. They'd moved farther inland, after he'd pulled her away from the brink. She knows they had. But the water now lays silent and still only a foot or two from the pointed tips of his boots.

Hook backs away from it quickly.

"I walked along this beach for ages," Emma says. "I don't remember there being a tide."

"There's not," Hook says, his brows furrowed in confusion. "It doesn't move."

For the most part, he's right. There are no waves; not even so much as a ripple disturbs the placid, dreadful surface. Even so, Emma could swear that as she watches it swells an inch or two closer to their feet. He retreats until they're standing side by side, several feet away from the water's edge. For a time neither of them speak, they just watch as, slowly but surely, the distance between them and the sea is swallowed by the tide. When it becomes completely obvious that the water is edging closer, they share a glance.

Without a word, they turn and begin to head inland.

Whether it's because of her earlier dip in the ocean, or because she's so emotionally drained, the walk is much harder this time. Her legs feel like lead, her clumsy feet are solid blocks of ice in her frozen boots, and her arm aches every time she jostles it. Hook, on the other hand, moves as if he's out for a stroll on a warm spring day. She'd hate him for it, if she weren't so scared by what that might mean.

"Do you even feel the cold?" she asks.

"Not any longer," he says, and Emma wishes she hadn't asked.

When it feels like they must have gone far enough to escape the tide, Emma glances behind her, then swears. Hook follows her gaze. Though they've probably moved at least fifty yards from the shore, the water is still creeping after them.

"Can you run?" he asks.

"Yeah," she says, even though she's not certain she'll be able to go far. They break into a jog, and Emma grits her teeth against the shooting pain in her shoulder at every jarring stride. She clutches her arm to her chest to try to reduce the impact.

While they'd been still, on the shore, the cold air hadn't bothered her as much. Nothing, after all, could possibly feel even half as cold as the frigid water. Now that they're moving again, though, she's back to breathing in icy lungfuls that bite into her nasal passages and throat.

When she glances back, the water is still spreading toward them at an alarming rate.

"What changed?" she asks.

But Hook only looks behind them, then realizes he's outpacing her. He drops back to her side, and grabs her left hand in his frost-coated right.

"Hold tight and put some wind in your sails, lass," he says, and hauls her after him.

They run and the water pursues, devouring the stardust behind them.

In the last few months, Emma has faced dragons and ogres, giants and witches. There have been moments when she has been more scared than she can ever remember being, and she's not someone who scares easily. Regardless, there is something visceral and terrifying about the slow, inexorable approach of the dark water behind them. She escaped it once; she's not sure she can do it again.

Maybe that's why it's after them now. Maybe it's angry—and whoever heard of water being angry?—that she'd beaten it. Fairytales, Emma decides, really, really suck sometimes.

They run as if their lives depend on it, because it's entirely possible it does. Hook's hand in hers is so cold she fears that if she grips it too hard his fingers might snap off, but she doesn't dare let go. She doesn't dare stop, or even turn her head to see whether the water is still flooding after them. The only sound in her ears is the loud thump of her heartbeat and the harsh rasps of her breath, otherwise they run in perfect, eerie silence.

Hook glances over his shoulder and swears fiercely. He yanks her arm so hard that Emma stumbles and nearly falls.

"None of that now," he says.

"Where ... are we ... going?" she gasps, somehow getting her feet back under her and her legs churning again.

"Higher ground," he says, as if that should be obvious.

Emma stares at him as if he's lost it. "What higher ... ground?"

He jerks his chin in answer and Emma follows the motion. There, barely visible against the empty sky, is a black shape breaking the horizon. She can't make out what it is, or how far, but with a destination now she gets a second wind, finally keeping pace with Hook.

"How did ... you know ... that was there?"

"I didn't land on the shore, love."

And that's all the answer he seems willing to give.

Her legs are finally reaching their limit. Whatever immunity she'd had from exhaustion has been gone since she fell in the water, and her muscles burn from strain. If she gets home—when she gets home—Emma swears she's going to take up jogging again. She finds herself wondering inanely whether Storybrooke has a gym. Then she wonders who runs it: Hercules?

Her eyes lock on the shape ahead of them, and as they draw closer she can see that it's a great black rock rising up from the flat plain. The sides slope steeply up to a gently domed plateau. The face of it is dark and slick, with deep cracks and crevices that look as sharp as volcanic glass.

"We're ... climbing ... that?" she asks.

"Just pretend it's a beanstalk."

"Your imagination ... is better than mine," she manages between wheezing breaths.

Hook glances at her sharply, then chuckles. Emma's so startled by the sound that she stumbles again. This time her feet shoot out from under her, and she throws out her right arm to catch herself. Her palm hits the dust and agony lances up her shoulder, causing her to cry out in pain. Her vision goes dark. Hook swears and hauls on her left arm. Before she knows what he's going to do, he's swung her up over his shoulders in a fireman's carry.

He grunts beneath her weight, and Emma almost attempts to get him to put her down, but then he's off and running again and all she can do is try not to unbalance him. Ice shatters as he moves, reforming as quickly as it falls from him. But Hook doesn't let her go, his hold on her never slips. Her leg is locked in place by his left arm, and his hand holds hers firmly. The position stretches her shoulder, which should be excruciating, but the chill that emanates from him helps numb the pain. When she glances behind them, the water is only a couple of dozen yards away. She twists her head around to face forward and tries to think fast thoughts.

The black rock comes closer and closer still. It looms over them a good thirty feet in the air, and where it meets the plain there are broken and jagged slabs jutting up around it, as if it had erupted violently from the earth. Scree litters the ground in a wide ring around it. Hook puts on a burst of speed as they get nearer, until he's almost flying. Emma's hair streams out behind them, and for the first time she feels something like wind, the cold scouring her face and making her eyes water.

"Can you climb?" he says, as they pass the outer ring of debris.

"Yes," Emma says, though she suspects he feels her nod better than he hears her.

He skids to a halt about ten feet from the base and lowers her to the ground. Hook's arm is steady as he helps her get her balance. When he glances behind them, whatever he sees causes him to scowl.

"Nothing for it. We'll have to climb."

Emma scrambles for the base of the rock; however, when she grabs for the first handhold, she hisses and yanks her fingers back in surprise. She'd been right before that it looked hard and sharp; she should have been expecting it to be viciously cold as well. Hook has already started up, however, his frost-coated skin apparently not registering the frigidity of the surface. He pauses and glances back at her, then extends his hand, his hook caught around a protruding bit of rock. He looks as much at home scaling the rock as he did ascending the beanstalk—several lifetimes spent climbing around in a ship's rigging will do that to you, she supposes. Emma envies him that, for a moment.

"Come," he says.

She grabs his hand tightly, braces herself for the cold, and lets him haul her up a few feet to the next handhold.

This is not like the beanstalk. There is no time for flirty banter or pointed insights, he doesn't waste breath on teasing her, and Emma is silent more because she's gritting her teeth against the pain than because she's shielding herself from him. Every stretch of her injured shoulder is agony, and she's forced to climb nearly as one-handed as Hook since her right arm can't bear her full weight. Her fingers feel for each crack and crevice, ignoring the sharp bite of the rock into her palms. After awhile, she realizes her hands are bleeding, but all she can do is wipe them off on her jeans when she can and keep on. Her jeans stiffen where the blood freezes, and she leaves red-tinged frost on everything she touches.

There is a sense of urgency that doesn't let her pause.

They are running out of time.

Emma doesn't look back, and she doesn't look down.