A/N: If anyone knows a good place for episode transcripts, that would be a really useful tool since soon all I'll have to go on is youtube clips (special thanks again, KillianHook!). I just like to have multiple reference points. Let's see...notes for this chapter...well, I will not be including the deleted scenes of Season 2. The jello scene for this episode is referenced in my other fic "Rescue Me" and the other scene doesn't make sense when mixed in with the finished episode, which is why I think it was cut in the first place.

The thought hits him, terrifies him—he could die here, alone, cold, wet, in excruciating agony. His breaths grow more rapid, more shallow. Not even going to die in his native realm. A howl pierces through the night, almost singing in time with Belle's own cries of pain off on the other side of the road. Flashes of blue and red almost light up the street. Get it together, he scolds his mind, his back, his legs. Tears sting his eyes when he attempts to roll over into a crawling position. Voices echo here and there.

"...car pretty banged up with Pennsylvania plates..."

He can't twist. He knows Swan's voice when he hears it and yet has to wait for her to approach him. There won't be any way of masking just how much it hurts. The rain on his face and the puddle cradling the back of his head chill him to the bone and it hurts too much to even bloody shiver. Emma Swan usually carries a weapon of some kind around with her, and in his pathetic state it wouldn't take much to make her see just how badly he needs to be put out of this misery. She could finish him off, be his literal undoing.

"Hey, beautiful!" he cries out when she comes near enough to him, forehead creased. She kneels down. "Here I didn't think you noticed."

Pain. Pain, searing, bloody hell...bloody idiot for trying to laugh at the exact same time her hands search for a wound. Wincing, he snaps his eyes shut and feels around until he can flatten her hand out, flatten out the ungodly amount of pressure from her fingertips.

"Your ribs are broken," she says.

"That must be why it hurts when I laugh." Life seems to pour back into him. He can lift his head. His eyes scan around her for Rumpelstiltskin, Mr. Gold...gods, how cowardly to go by a new name here. If anyone will put him out of his misery...

"Did you see his face? His one True Love gone in an instant! Just like Milah, crocodile! When you took her from me!"

The crocodile limps toward him, face cold and steely. Good. Marvelous, even. He can prop himself up on an elbow now, that's it. His vision zeroes in on Rumpelstiltskin, the last sight he will see, just as he always knew it would be.

"But you took her first."

He's not quick enough to respond, the monster's good leg up and kicking him in the face. Done. Whatever jolt of energy, whatever magic that had coursed through his veins seconds ago evaporates now. The weight of the cane presses down on him like a stack of stones; his hand can't even manage to swat at it. Swan and the man's voices, her father, are reduced to sharp, incoherent background sounds. Then it all goes black...

"...hey, hey, come back, buddy. It's not that bad."

His eyes snap open to a man in a dark blue jacket kneeling over him, another one running up to them. Swan is all over the place, walking here, walking there, and the only reason he can see her is because of her hair swishing this way and that.

"No, take Belle with you!" she calls over to...why bother, he thinks, the man's face right by him fuzzy enough. "Mary Margaret, take Belle and ride in the driver's ambulance. She's not going to want to ride with Gold right now. David can ride with Gold to the hospital. That's his car." There's a pause, and then her voice grows louder. Probably because she's now standing over him. "Okay, I'll meet you there."

Her hair swishes again, this time in the direction of the man. It's not that he can see him better, but he can feel them binding him in something.

"No, no, he wasn't part of the curse. He doesn't understand what you're doing. Talk to him. Please," she says in one breath. One of her hands takes out the noisy little device she was talking into earlier when they lift him on a cot with wheels. Her back is to him and yet her other hand runs gloved fingers through his hair, too rough to be soothing, and yet it keeps him from blacking out again.

"Okay, just tell Dr. Whale to get everything ready." Stuffing her phone back into her pocket, she turns to him. "These people are taking you to the hospital where they're going to take care of you," she says right before she tells the man to get into whatever an ambulance is.

It's all still blurry, but he can tell he is inside, or at least completely out of the night air, somewhere with brighter lights. Like riding in a carriage, he thinks, a cramped, blinding carriage on a bumpy road.

"It's mostly some contusions and broken ribs, Sheriff," one of the men says to Swan. "I've seen a lot worse."

"You have?"

"Well, not here. That's just curse stuff, you know, the fake memories. But back home, some of the things people can survive from ogre attacks..." he laughs.

"I don't need to hear it," she says and then looks back down at him just as he's trying to focus on her face a little more. "Hey, hey, don't pass out now." She slides her fingers through his hair again, hard enough to angle his chin into the air. Blinking, he tries to summon up enough energy to smile. She does it again, just a little slower this time, a gentler reminder that he's still alive. There is some background noise again, tidbits of it indicating it's in regards to the operator of the vessel. He should fade away, should let them concentrate on the poor unlucky bastard, but another stroke clears those thoughts out of his head, a whispered "you're going to be okay," tingling in his ear.

Coughing, he sits up, grimacing at the pain in his torso after doing so, although it is considerably less pain than before. He'd had dreams, dreams of the past and present fused together in swirls of red and black and now it all feels hazy, a lost memory. He didn't care much for dreaming anyway, especially ones that left him gasping and shuddering, and not in the good way.

It registers too slowly. Gods, how he wishes his senses had been up to the task of observing Swan at the foot of the bed before he'd opened his eyes. Just still and watching, the minx.

"Where's Cora?"

To hell with that, he decides, ready to swing his legs over to the side of the bed and depart. Ah, chains. Woman thinks of everything.

"Again? You're really into this, aren't you?" he whispers it, remembering tears welled up in his eyes, cries of anguish—maybe he hadn't wanted to wake up alone. Waking up chained, however, he could do without. He pulls once more and is less than astonished to find the action futile. "Damn, that hurts."

"Told you. You cracked a few ribs." She stands, towers, right over him, and damned if he will again let her best him. Hook gone, some fluffy white robe—he would not bend to her will and lose all remaining shreds of dignity.

"Where's Cora?" she asks again.

"You look good, I must say, all 'where's Cora' in a commanding voice. Chills." Throw in a smirk there for good measure, mate.

"You have all sorts of sore places I can make you hurt."

Well, who's being the forward one now, Swan? Let's have a drink first, shall we? Picking up where we left off on the beanstalk, I see. Grinning, he decides the coat she's in leaves too much to the imagination. Without warning, she pushes her hand into his ribs, all the pain from her hand on them before returning in full force. And a satisfied little smirk, he notices. Last time he goaded her into anything, to be sure.

"I have no idea where Cora is. She has her own agenda." He didn't need his eyes open to feel her scrutinizing stare. Go on then, love. Assume I'd be idiot enough to lie to you and earn another little push. To be fair, he theorized yesterday when Cora disappeared that she'd go wherever Regina was, but let the sheriff figure that one out for herself. "Let's talk about something I am interested in—my hook. May I have it back?" He honestly loves the expression she answers him with, that incredulous "did you really just say that" face that never fails to reveal he'd ruffled her feathers. "Or is there another attachment you'd prefer?"

"You're awfully chipper for a guy who just failed to kill his enemy, then got hit by a car."

Well one does need to steer conversation so it is on one's terms and not someone else's, am I right? He spouts off some gibberish about things not being so bad while his mind proceeds to debate whether she would have brought his hook in with her, in a pocket, for instance. With no idea how long he'd been unconscious or how much Belle or the injured man had taken up her time, it was anyone's guess. "Plus I did some quality damage to my foe."

"You hurt Belle!"

"I hurt his heart. Belle's just where he keeps it." Come now, Swan, you admitted to being in love before. You ought to know. "He killed my love. I know the feeling."

He decides he doesn't like this satisfaction smile she has, at least not when it's at his expense. She leans in a little closer, her weight on one arm.

"Keep smiling, buddy," she says. "You're chained down. He's on his feet. He's immortal, has magic, and you hurt his girl." How his blood boils at all those words. "If I were to pick Dead Guy of the Year...I'd pick you."

Nice to be picked, he considers retorting, but he can't speak. No mere comeback could suck the truth out of her words. No mournful gaze in any realm could rival hers, her eyes and smile hardening like she had just decided to pretend he was already dead. She leaves without another word, just himself and his broken body, broken soul.

After he'd tired of watching people pass by his door and then tired of the information box's current fascination with an intense skunk-like creature with claws called a honey badger, he positions the bed back and stares out the window. The first red lines of sunrise peek out from behind the treeline, one of the few things about this world that seems remotely familiar.

"Hey."

Bedraggled, drooping Swan...not quite staggering into his room, her coat draped over her crossed arms. He raises an eyebrow, locking out an elbow so as not to even rattle the bonds trapping him in this bed. She pays no heed to his arm, wrist, plopping down at the foot of the bed just as she did before. Sighing, she shakes her head, not at him, but at herself, like she'd wrestled with herself once or twice before coming in, like she had almost given up and was well on her way to somewhere else. Her own bed, most likely. She stifles a yawn.

"So I have to ask an insensitive question," she finally says. Thousands of responses swim around in his mind, each one leaning towards the lewd side, and yet he finds himself staying quiet. "Do you think he saw anything, the man who hit you?"

Exhaling, he slumps. A question he couldn't answer.

"I know," she says. "Impossible for you to know." Her grip tightens on her coat, lips tucking into her mouth before she settles on an ironic smile. "He's okay, thought you might want to know. The sooner he gets out of here, the better."

Everyone's paranoia isn't quite unfounded. From what he could glean, Storybrooke is an anomaly, a little pocket of magic hidden from an entire world that runs on some other sort of fuel. Books in his own cabin hinted at beings from other worlds possessing an entirely different set of basic building blocks. Perhaps she feared the physicians here stitched the outsider up wrong, or that something in her appearance...as she also was from the Enchanted Forest...something in all their appearance would appear off to this man somehow. Then she, her family, and everyone would be at the man's mercy. Everyone including himself.

"I could find a way to get him out of Storybrooke." A bemused little turn of her mouth prompts him to continue. "My ship is faster than any vessel here that he may or may not be so talented at controlling."

"Nice try, but your ship is magic. That's kind of what we want to keep a secret from him."

"Let me finish, love. I come along, no hard feelings about being pummeled by his...car, is it? So we go out for drinks as new friends are apt to do. I help his inebriated ass to my ship and haul him back to wherever he lives, leaving him to wake up in a most disorienting state the next morning believing all this to have been a dream." His tongue slides into his cheek, and yet now that he's said it, he wants it. The chance to explore this place, fully immerse one's self in it, sail its uncharted waters and then return having done everyone a service. Oh, they wouldn't want to thank him, but gratitude often shines through in surprising ways.

"And then when you get back here, you just wind up going back to all this revenge business?" she asks, with some resignation, he notes, as if he might have tempted her just now.

"You could turn a blind eye to it."

"Not if Gold presses charges, I can't!" she blurts, her tone harsh.

"Then just what are your plans for me when I'm released from here?" Now is not the time for anything suggestive, but he can't resist. "The shackles can stay as long as neither one of us wears all these clothes."

"Likeliest scenario, you're formally arrested and face some serious jail time. It sucks, I know," she sighs. Her eyes dart around the room. At last she stands up and begins to put her coat on, resting her cheek on her scarf while she fastens the buttons. "He's got to get out of here," she mumbles, lost in her own head for a moment. "Something terrible's going to happen if he sticks around." She looks at him, right at him, in disbelief, eyebrows up in the air, mouth tight. For show, he glances from side to side because such a look is most certainly not the result of something he said. "You're not going to say that's crazy?"

"Should I?"

"Well, there's no concrete thing anywhere that dictates he's going to start trouble..."

"Just who are you arguing with here, Swan? I offered to dispose of him for you." He'd sit up to stress his point, but that required holding down on the button that raised the upper half of the bed for a countless number of seconds, and he is in no mood to lose any more dignity at the moment.

"It's nothing," she whispers, looking toward the door.

"Instinct's not 'nothing,' and I'm under the impression you're rarely wrong." He shoots her a smile and pouts just a little when she won't return it. For a truly absurd moment, he wonders if the whole reason she'd come in the first place was to bounce her thoughts off him, pragmatic in a way, flattering in another. After all, he hadn't created this situation. The man in the vessel would have run into a tree or into another person further into the town as he apparently didn't know the first thing about operating such a device. Therefore everything would have been exactly the same... Forgetting the woman in another bed somewhere in here who can't make heads or tails of who she is? Bad form, Killian, he chides himself.

He's created more situations than he'd care to admit. His head falls back against the pillow.

"Go home. Rest...Swan." Swallowing, he angles his head until he faces the window, much more of the sky covered in pink than before. He'd almost called her Emma, which was out of the question now, what with all the formality his ultimate punishment here would be if her words were true. Just as well, he thinks, not sure he likes what saying her name does to him. It gives a fervent, significant, needful sense to everything. Rolling his eyes at her blurred reflection in the window, he turns back to face her. "I'm not going anywhere. He's not going anywhere, and the more you hover over him the more he'll suspect there's a reason for you to do so."

This placates her, a fraction. He can tell thanks to her stance changing, a transfer of weight.

"You get some rest, too," she says.