A/N 1: Hello. I don't have much to say about my two year absence except: thank you for still being here. Thank you for the continued reviews/favourites/follows and messages asking if I'm okay. I hope the wait has been worth it. The fic is completed, it just needs a little polishing. I'll be uploading the rest over the next two days.
A/N 2: This fic was started during season two, and so I'm sticking to my original ideas from way back when rather than the direction the show took. A few lines of dialogue have been edited in chapter nine to include the idea of Oz hosting guided tours of the Emerald City which provides access to the ruby slippers, although there's nothing radically different that needs you to re-read that chapter. Enjoy!
"I am so done with Oz." Hook glanced at Emma but said nothing, and so she continued, "You think I'm going to be able to watch the movie once we get home? Not a chance, buddy. That's another timeless classic that's been ruined for me."
To begin with, Emma had talked to fill the silence. Now she found that, actually, there was a lot she was mad about and now seemed like a really great opportunity to get it all off her chest. Hook didn't seem to be listening anyway.
"And I never got a chance to see Wicked, but I guess that's off the cards too," she said, mourning the love of musicals she had never had the chance to develop. "If Henry grows up to be a musical theatre kid, I'm screwed. I'll get PTSD every time I hear 'Defying Gravity'."
Hook kept his eyes trained on the road ahead of them. While he only ever responded to her pop culture references with a raised eyebrow anyway, his complete lack of reaction now gave Emma pause.
"Hook. Hey, what is it? You've been quiet all morning."
She expected an offhand comment, most likely sexual. What she didn't expect was for Hook to stop walking and turn to her, a frown creasing his handsome face.
"What do you expect will happen when we return to Storybrooke? Truthfully."
Emma stopped beside him and shrugged. Beyond being reunited with Henry, she hadn't given it much thought. "I need to find a way to get Mary Margaret back."
"And what will happen to me?"
Was the pirate developing abandonment issues? Emma matched his frown.
"You'll go off and do your own thing. I remember something about a suicide mission involving Rumplestiltskin, maybe you can get your ass kicked on the way to trying that."
It was delivered in the same deadpan tone she was used to trading with Hook, only now it seemed crueler. Perhaps it was the subject matter which made it so, or perhaps it was the unexpected fear she found in the prospect of a fight between Hook and his old enemy. The Captain didn't have a chance in hell of leaving the fight with his pretty face intact, if he even left at all.
Hook made a low noise in the back of his throat. "You realize I am still, for all intents and purposes, allied with Cora?"
Emma didn't like being reminded that Hook had been her enemy. They were allies in that moment, and in every moment until they found a way back to Storybrooke, and she was finally beginning to believe that he wouldn't suddenly turn around and abandon her to his own self-interest.
She scoffed to hide her unease. "You think Cora's still going to want to be best pals after you took off on a magical adventure with me?"
Hook tilted his head in a motion Emma had learned to associate with speculation.
"Well, what if an alliance with Cora was no longer in my interests? What if I wanted to give up my devilish ways and fight the good fight?"
The hint of mockery in his voice did not diminish the genuine desire to know what reasons she might come up with. Emma felt her instinct to quip drain away the longer he stood before her, waiting for an answer. Finally, she shook her head.
"What are you asking?"
"I'm asking," Hook began, his eyes intent on hers and without a trace of innuendo, "what can you offer me?"
In truth, Emma didn't know. She could promise him freedom and safety once they returned to her world, though these were things that Hook could likely manage for himself, reckless tendencies aside. Maybe she needed the incentive of something that reached further than the next few days.
She thought of Storybrooke. The town had given a home to a wanderer, a family to an orphan. It had given her hope and happiness when she had resigned herself to a life spent a step or two above apathy. Maybe it could do the same for Hook. She looked at him, hoping he could read the sincerity in her answer.
"A second chance."
The shadows in Hook's eyes fell away as he smiled. It was small but bright, a promise to match the hope she had given him, and Emma felt her own lips lift in response.
They walked until they reached a towering wall, stretching around the Emerald City and blocking their progress. The dark gray stone was interrupted only by a set of thick wooden doors crisscrossed with dark metal. Emma craned her neck up but there were no foot holes or anything to use as leverage.
"What do we do?" she asked Hook. "Do we just knock?"
Hook nodded, also eyeing the structure. "Aye, unless you have a key."
Alrighty then. Emma pounded a fist against the door and then resisted the urge to wince. The damn thing was a lot sturdier than it looked, and it looked pretty damn sturdy.
They waited in silence as a series of whirs and thunks heralded the slow opening of a section of door above their heads. A head poked out, ornamented in a heavy helmet daubed with brash lime paint.
The man gave Emma a dispassionate glance in lieu of a greeting. "You're not green."
The logic was difficult to argue against.
"No," Emma agreed. "We, uh, we're not from around here. Tourists, you know, come to see the Emerald City."
"Hm. The new laws passed under Lady Maudgage clearly state that citizens of Oz, including those on a temporary stay, must wear something green."
"Oh go on, let them in."
A second head appeared in the gap. He smiled brightly at Emma and Hook, who lifted his hand in half-hearted greeting. The first guard scowled.
"There's nothing green about her," he said, jabbing a thumb towards Emma.
The second guard glanced over Emma before nodding and turning to his friend. "Her hair is yellow. That's a type of green."
The first guard pursed his lips and then dragged his friend downwards and out of sight. Their muttered conversation carried through the opening.
"It is?"
"Oh yes," the second man replied. "Yellow became a classification of green during the sixth quarter of Billina."
"Ah, I remember now. But what about him? Pirates are notoriously ungreen."
"He can be her guest! Lady Maudgage isn't unreasonable, after all."
"After all," the first guard repeated in agreement. His face reappeared in the peephole, struggling to lift his chin under the weight of his headgear. "All right! You may pass!"
"Thanks," Emma said. Under the heavy scraping of further locks, she added in a mutter to Hook, "This place is nuts."
It was an assertion that only gained strength the further they travelled into the Emerald City. Violent shades of green assaulted their eyes from every angle, ranging in shades of unnaturalness. A mosaic of a young girl was patterned against several buildings, each lovingly adorned with Dorothy. Shops offered souvenirs of squawking green witches complete with thimblefuls of water and tiny broomsticks, whose full-sized replicas leaned against a far wall. The streets were disorganised and crowded, with hawkers clamouring over each other to be heard.
It's kind of…tacky, Emma thought, stepping quickly aside to avoid a horse-drawn cart not dissimilar to ones found by Central Park. The idea of the Emerald City hosting its own tour suddenly didn't seem so unbelievable.
"What do you think?" Hook asked, leaning in close.
Emma wrinkled her nose. "That the Hulk and the Jolly Green Giant spent a drunken night together and this was the result."
Hook sent her a strange look. "I meant about the tour, love."
"Oh, right. Uh…follow the crowd, I guess."
After all the trouble they had gone through to get into the Emerald City, getting on the tour itself was surprisingly simple. Hook employed his pick-pocketing trick to buy their tickets in front of a side-door to the palace, and the guide did not look twice at her oddly-dressed guests. In fact, she did not seem to look twice at anyone in the small crowd of tourists; if Emma were to guess, she would say that the job was the young lady's first, and it had not made a memorable or interesting impression.
"Please don't touch the exhibits," the girl recited, tugging a lock of green hair between her fingers. "Please don't perform magic on the exhibits. Please don't talk back to the exhibits. Please ignore the exhibits' promises of wealth and everlasting life in exchange for releasing them."
A murmur of intrigue ran through the group. Hook and Emma exchanged a look.
"Follow me," the guide called over her shoulder as two tall doors of dark gray metal opened before her.
Oz had embraced its theatricality more than ever when it came to impressing tourists. Lanterns in parallel lines running far above their heads blazed green. Glass cases and cabinets filled with objects of all sizes and colors lined a slim hallway down to another door on the far side of the room.
A hush fell over the group as they were led forward. Emma and Hook lagged behind.
"Of course, not everything here is from Oz. We've had some marvelous visitors to our great land who have all left generous gifts." The girl still sounded as though she would gladly return these gifts to a less than polite place. "To your left is genuine set of crystal balls, courtesy of His Royal Highness the Goblin King. They're not to be confused with the Orb of Thesulah in the next hall. Also gifted was this portrait of an unnamed woman. Speculation is abound as to her identity, but all we know is that the King seemed eager to part ways with it."
Emma's attention was drawn to a canvas which had drooped under the savage knife attacks it had endured. Due to its state, it afforded only glimpses of a dark-haired, beautiful young woman in a dress which put Glinda's to shame.
"You think that painting was possessed?" Emma asked Hook, thinking with unease of their own attack on Dracula's portrait.
Hook smiled without humor. "I think something was possessed."
The next cabinet held their goal. Emma gazed at the ruby slippers with a trace of disappointment. They were pretty, she supposed, and sparkly as hell, but not entirely to her tastes. 'Black leather slippers' might not have had the same ring to it, but damn they would have been an improvement.
"The famed ruby slippers," the guide announced with barely a flicker of attention. "Last worn by Dorothy and retrieved by the Wizard once he in his infinite gloriousness sent her home."
Emma jerked her head up. Hook glanced at her, a slight frown replacing the question he wanted to ask. Emma shook her head. She wouldn't argue with a little revisionist history when they were on a time-sensitive, incognito mission.
The group moved on while Emma and Hook pretended to be invested in the glowing blue cube in the case next to them. The pure power radiating from it sang to Emma, coaxing her to reach out and touch it, absorb it, control it, consume it –
At the closing of the doors to the hall, Emma broke herself away with a blink.
Don't touch weird blue glowy things, she reminded herself as she stepped back towards the slippers.
"Reckon we have a couple of minutes before anyone comes looking for us," Hook said, eyeing the case. "Let's thank our lucky stars for disinterested tour guides. Question is –"
The doors at the other end of the hallway screeched open. With hammering hearts, Emma and Hook stumbled away from the objects they were truly interested in and came to an awkward stop in front of a tall display of weapons.
"Who goes there?"
The voice rang out before the man came into view. A guard, dressed in armor coated in green fluff – Terrifying, Emma thought flatly – narrowed his eyes and leveled his spear at them.
While Emma was still deciding whether to talk or punch her way out, Hook took the smooth initiative.
"We're tourists. We snuck in." He moved to wrap his arm around Emma's waist and nodded to the cabinet full of swords by their side. "We're on our honeymoon. Blades get the missus all riled up, if you catch my drift."
The guard's demeanour changed instantly. He peered around Hook to leer at Emma. Emma smiled in what she hoped was a Gee, looking at pointy things really makes me want to have sex kind of way. It wasn't far off; if the guard kept looking at her like that, the thought of violence would definitely have an appeal.
"You wouldn't be the first," the guard said, lowering his spear. He paused and then flashed a grin. "Got a bet on with my buddy that this hall is more popular with lovers than the next one."
"Nice," Hook said with an appreciative nod. "Are you winning?"
"So far!" He cleared his throat and tried to regain his authority with a stern expression. "Make it quick."
Hook frowned. "That's not really how I –"
"Great," Emma cut across, shooting a quick glare at Hook and then a smile at the guard. "Thanks."
Only when the heavy doors closed behind them did she scowl.
"Was that really necessary?" she asked Hook, who raised an eyebrow. "All riled up? What am I, a bull with a red flag?"
"Are you questioning the results?"
"No, but I would've preferred to leave here without people thinking I'm a sexual deviant. Say anything," she added as Hook grinned, "and you leave Oz as Captain Hooks."
"Sounds rather deviant of you."
Emma shook her head and stalked back towards the cabinet with the ruby slippers.
"How are we going to get them out?" she asked as a still-chuckling Hook came to a stop beside her.
"I'm a pirate." He lifted the bottom of his coat and wrapped it around his hook. Without further explanation, he drove it into the case and stepped back as glass splintered to the floor. At Emma's sardonic look, he shrugged and grinned. "Never said I was a subtle pirate."
"There's no way that didn't get anyone's attention," Emma said, resisting the urge to smack Hook on the back of the head.
Hook's little smirk was captivating, and the sideways look he sent her was designed to trap completely. "Let the guard think we're being a little rambunctious."
That had no effect on Emma. None whatsoever. The lurch in her stomach was from hunger, probably. And she hadn't drank anything in awhile, hence the sudden attack of dry mouth she was experiencing.
Hook, either oblivious or pretending to be, reached into the cabinet and plucked the slippers out. He rotated them in his grip, playing the part of a discerning gentleman of fashion.
"You'd look fabulous in them," Emma said with an edge to her voice. "Now can we please figure out a way to –"
The opening of the double doors interrupted her. With growing dread, Emma turned to face the newly appeared guard, whose grin faded as he spotted the ruby slippers clutched in Hook's hand. Hook's own eyes followed the same path as he tried for a sheepish grin.
"Uh…watching me vandalize priceless artifacts really gets the lass going?"
The guard raised his spear instantly.
"Guards!" he called, not taking his eyes off Emma and Hook. "To me!"
His fellows came flocking in from both doors and assumed the same stance. The guard, betrayed by those he thought to be fellow perverts, narrowed his eyes.
"You will answer for your crimes to the Wizard himself!"
Great, Emma thought as they were led through the back halls of the palace with spears dangerously close to their backs. This is exactly how I should've expected this to go.
More than once, a guard tried to snatch the slippers back but Hook held them to his chest and shielded them with his hook.
"Try it," he advised.
The guard retreated with reluctance, although the hushed way they spoke of the Wizard made Emma think that worse lay ahead. She just hoped that the Wizard who took over from the one during Dorothy's adventure was the kind and understanding sort.
Their retinue grew smaller in number the closer they marched into the heart of the palace, until eventually it was just Hook, Emma, and the original guard standing in front of yet more large doors. Did Oz play host to giants a lot, or did it have some kind of height complex that it had to make up for? Had the Munchkins doubled as interior decorators? The enormous green plant pots which guarded the entrance suggested something of the sort.
The guard smacked the door three times with the butt of his spear. Hook glanced at Emma, who read the question in his eyes. She shook her head in response. Yes, they could take the guard now that his weapon was deflected and his tremoring attention on what lay beyond the great doors, but then they would still have a palace full of guards and tourists to battle through. Besides, the Wizard of Oz was no more than tricks and levers. If he wouldn't give any answers to the questions Emma planned on asking him, then they could plan their escape.
"Enter!" cried a voice from the other side of the door.
Emma had to admit, it gave her the shivers. Even Hook look ruffled, while the guard appeared to be having a near-death experience from fright. Still, the doors swung inwards and Hook and Emma were ushered forwards at the point of the spear into a large hall with shining black floors and green glorified organ pipes scaling the back wall.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz demanded the room's attention. He – or rather, the illusion of him – was large and terrible, with veins protruding from his bald head and flames roaring beneath him. He stared with rage-filled eyes at the strangers and opened his mouth to bellow Who are you? at such volume that Emma's ears were left ringing.
Although Hook stared at the head with a mixture of horror and confusion, after a moment of speculation Emma was left unperturbed.
"Huh," she said. "Giant floating green head. Wish I could say that's the strangest thing I've seen recently but it probably doesn't even break the top five."
"Your Wizardness, sir," the guard called out, less certain of himself in the presence of his master. "These two trespassers were caught trying to steal the ruby slippers. I have brought them here for your judgement, Oh Wise Wiz, Wizzier than All Wizzes, if ever –"
"Leave us!" the booming head interrupted.
The guard almost fainted in relief. "Yes, thank you."
He scrambled backwards and heaved the double doors closed. Somewhere in the distance, there was a crash which sounded suspiciously like the upending of an enormous green plant pot.
"Fine men you have here," Hook said, turning to the Wizard with distaste. "Courageous sort."
Flames shot up beside the head which contorted in anger.
"You dare insult the Wizard so?"
Emma didn't listen to the exchange. She scanned the large room for a tell-tale sign of – there.
"Seriously?" she muttered to herself as she strode forwards. "This whole curtain thing worked a second time?"
Hook gave a vague noise of protest at her proximity to the Wizard, but Emma only sighed and yanked back an emerald curtain. The man behind it froze in his machinations and stared at her. The head floating above them stopped speaking mid-sentence.
"Hey, how's it going?" Emma asked the man in the suit with a nod. "Listen, my friend and I really need a way home. Think you could rustle up some ruby slipper magic for us and send us on our way?"
The true Wizard, a balding man a decade or two older than Emma, slowly lowered his hands from the controls surrounding him. He blinked owlishly and then, once it was clear Emma was unconcerned about uncovering a grand deception, relaxed his stance. His fear turned to curiosity as he glanced over her clothes.
"You – you're from the land without magic."
"The land mostly without magic," Emma corrected. "There's a town in Maine, and…you know what, it's a really long story. We need to get back to that land, or the Enchanted Forest, and we thought the ruby slippers could help us do that."
Indignation passed over the Wizard's face. "So you stole them?"
Emma paused as she tried to think of a positive spin on the situation. There really wasn't one.
"Pretty much."
"Desperate times, desperate measures," Hook added, sauntering up to them. "The lady has a son to get back to."
Emma inclined her head towards Hook. "And he has a ship and a poorly thought out vengeance plan. We're busy, busy people."
"That's, ah, unfortunate," the Wizard said, sending a mystified look to Hook. "But I can't let you just take the ruby slippers."
"Why?" Hook challenged. "Do you like to slip them on in private when you want to feel all pretty?"
The Wizard scowled at the mockery. "They're iconic in Oz, a symbol of hope and of defeating evil. I couldn't possibly let just anyone take them."
"Right, of course, but…" Emma frowned as a snippet of the guide's information came back to her. She wondered if the events of the movie reflected what had truly happened. "Didn't you leave Oz before Dorothy did? How did you get back?"
The Wizard gaped at her for a moment before shaking himself off. "I – it was a complicated, magical…trick, that I couldn't possibly…explain."
Hook scoffed. "Convincing."
A slow thought process came over Emma. It seemed unlikely, yet she had to ask.
"Are you the same Wizard who was here when Dorothy visited?"
The Wizard blustered and looked for a moment as though he would continue his attempts at lying, but then sighed miserably. "As far as the rest of Oz is aware."
Hook ran a finger along his namesake. "Less of the riddles, mate. And if you feel the need to burst into song, now might be the time to introduce you to my violent tendencies."
The Wizard's eyes darted between the hook and the ruby slippers, still safely ensconced against Hook's chest. When he spoke it was with reluctance, as though the words had to be dragged out of his unwilling mouth.
"The Wizard you know, the one involved in Dorothy's journey, left Oz and his duties behind. All fine and dandy for him," here bitterness leaked through, "but Oz needs a Wizard. She can't function without one."
Hook nodded, believing he understood. "And you volunteered."
"Volunteered?" The Wizard sneered the word. "Would you volunteer for a lifetime of lonely servitude inside a glorified box?"
Emma realized that he hadn't yet stepped out of his small space. She wondered now if it was physically impossible for him to do so. With growing pity, she listened as he continued:
"Oz chooses you. I came into the great hall to sweep up the day after the Wizard left and…" He cast a long, mistrustful look at the flung-aside curtain. "Something in this tiny room called to me. I couldn't resist. I didn't want to. So I stepped inside and closed the curtain behind me, and behold!" He bent at the waist in a mocking bow. "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz."
"How do you survive?" Emma asked, scanning the control panels for signs of a hidden fridge, bathroom, or bed, and finding nothing of the sort.
"You don't need anything when you're the Wizard." He trailed a hand over the buttons with a closed expression. "Magic sustains you."
"But you're not magic," Emma argued, more confused by the minute. "That's the whole point."
"The original Wizard wasn't," the Wizard agreed, giving her a brief look. "He created all these levers and pulleys. One day, he promised an evil witch that he could solve her problems, only to realize that playing at magic couldn't get the desired results for something so powerful. He tried to run, but the witch caught him and cursed him to a lifetime of pretend power. Soon enough, he was such an integral part of Oz that the realm forgot how to exist without him."
Wow, did we come to the wrong place, Emma thought. Should have knocked out the guard when we had the chance.
"How did the original Wizard escape?" Hook asked.
"The witch put a clause in the curse. Only an act of true magic could set him free." The Wizard finally drew his hand away from the machine. Hard lines were etched into his face. "She meant it as mockery, to place freedom within his reach but only if he first accessed something he simply didn't have."
"But he found it?" Emma pressed. "This act of true magic?"
"In a way. He found love."
Emma nodded in understanding. "True love's kiss."
"True love's kiss," the Wizard repeated, spitting each word like a curse. "He wandered off, happy as a cloud, while his unsuspecting apprentice was hauled into the control room and trapped there for the next sixty years. On and on it went, and now that's my lot, too. Faking magic to cover up darker magic."
Emma doubted her sympathies would be well-received, so she kept silent and instead thought back over the implications of what she had just learned. They were taking advantage of the Wizard's loneliness to keep him talking and gain as much information as they could, and yet she didn't feel as bad as she perhaps ought to.
"So, what, the rest of Oz just forgot that they saw their leader float away in a giant balloon?" she asked.
The Wizard nodded, his eyes sad. "Ask any of them. It's like history has been revised in their minds. They think the Wizard, in his infinite greatness, sent Dorothy home and continued to rule as he has done for the past…" He shrugged. "Forever."
There were more trapped-in-time curses than Emma had even thought possible. She would have to remember to stay on the right side of witches from now on. It was kind of unfortunate that she had already pissed off so many of them.
"The last Wizard," Hook said. "How did he escape?"
"If I knew for sure, would I still be here?" The Wizard's withering look softened as he turned his attention back to Emma. "My closest guess is that he siphoned off the dark magic keeping him trapped as the Wizard into the objects he gave to Dorothy's friends."
"The ones that drove them insane?" Hook asked, giving the Wizard a deeply sardonic look. "Yes, brilliant job on that one."
"If I knew how he did it, I'd be handing out cursed objects all the live-long day," the Wizard snapped.
"Hey!" Emma said, interrupting the volley of insults she sensed were incoming. "I don't have time for this. Please, Wizard. I just want to go home."
Heartache bled into the words and softened the Wizard's bitterness. He scanned her face, his eyes mirroring hers in sorrow, and sighed.
"I can't let you take the slippers," he said, and what seemed like genuine regret tinged his tone. "But I know what it's like to be separated from your loved ones, so I can offer you something else. A spell. Or rather, knowledge of a spell."
"Knowledge of a spell?" Hook repeated, skeptical even as he held magic shoes in his hand.
"Knowledge is power," Emma reminded him. It unnerved her that what she once would have said ironically, she now knew to be true.
"She's right," the Wizard said with a nod. He cast a lingering glance at the control panel that shackled him to this life, before turning his back on it and letting the makings of a smile start on his face. "Now, tell me. What do you know about time travel?"
