canon divergence where only Emma gets transported to the mirror realm by the Evil Queen

mirror, mirror

He remembers the cravats he used to wear, folded and tucked neatly inside his stiff and starched collar while he holds up this realm's versions to Henry's neck and hides his smile at the lad's nervous twitch. The expected attire for Storybrooke's upcoming school ball may differ from the kidskin gloves and the embroidered waistcoats that he once donned in that former life, but his knees had knocked under his breeches and his palms had sweated in the gloves at the prospect of squiring a pretty young flower like the Lady Violet to an evening fete.

(so many lifetimes ago, but his knees go weak when Emma smiles at him and the years slip away as they always do in her company, when Captain Hook is forgotten and Killian Jones smiles back)

Regina enters, ashen faced and jacket torn to ribbons at the elbow, she's bleeding and limping and all he can hear is a great roaring in his ears because she's alone. The thin cravat falls to the floor from his suddenly sweaty and shaking hand as Snow White and Henry immediately rush to her side and her dark eyes lift to meet his across the room. The Evil Queen bested them, anticipating the trap so carefully laid to snare her and Emma…

Emma is gone.

(he can't kill the queen, he won't orphan another boy ever again for the sins of another, but if Emma is dead he swears he'll find a way to make her answer for her crimes and she will pay dearly for what's she's done)

There are tears in Snow White's eyes that she tries to hide, her famed complexion gone grey and tired.

"We'll find her," he says, even as he presses the hook flat against his thigh to stop himself from sinking it into the nearest surface in despair, "The family motto, yeah?"

Regina returns from the privy with a thick bandage on her elbow and a mirror in her hand, "Finding her isn't the problem, I know where she is. Getting her out is what's going to be the tricky part."

The surface of the glass ripples like water and his heart thumps painfully in his chest when the reflection finally clears.

Emma is trapped.

...

Killian takes the mirror home with him, it's small enough to slip into the inner pocket of his jacket and he keeps patting his chest to reassure himself that it hasn't vanished. Dave drives – Snow woke him up after Regina left with Henry in tow. The infant prince babbles happily from the strange contraption he's safely strapped into, blissfully unaware of both his parents' shared curse and his sister's absence.

The ride is otherwise quiet, with the women they love so close and yet… Dave sighs, the lines around his eyes cut a little deeper than only a few short days ago. He may be sleeping half the days' hours, but it's clearly not a restful slumber and his knuckles are white on the steering wheel while his shoulders are practically hunched up to his ears with the tension. Still, he puts on a smile when he parks the truck at the curb and asks to see Emma again.

"Hey, honey."

She can hear him but they can't hear her – sound doesn't travel through the glass from the realm she's trapped in. Killian peers over Dave's shoulder and watches her lips move, frustration clear in the furrow of her brow when her father can't decipher what she's trying to say. He's grown fairly adept at parsing her moods without words, a necessity when their courtship consisted entirely of looks exchanged across the fire in Neverland and things left unspoken more often than not, but her unhappiness was plain to see and was reflected in the face of the man who sat next to him.

"I have to go back home to your mother, but if you need us, any time, day or night, just….I don't know, stick your tongue out at him and that'll be the Mom and Dad signal, OK?"

Killian snorts while the ghost of a smile flits over her face and he can see her stick her tongue out in the mirror.

"Yeah, that's it. I love you, Emma."

Dave lingers over the curve of the glass for a moment with his fingertips, clearly reluctant to let her go. But his wife and son need him in this world, and after a moment he hands the mirror back over with another deep sigh,"Call us if she-"

"I will," Killian promises, and once Emma is secured over his heart he pats her father on the shoulder in what he hopes is not an unwelcome show of support. His place in their family is…uncharted waters and sailing has been anything but smooth. Dave doesn't flinch from his touch, and the little prince gives him a gummy smile before he closes the door.

(his innocence in all this is almost painful to watch, and must be protected at all costs. Emma would want that for her brother, and he's already failed his own young sibling who is still convalescing in an infirmary bed)

The mirror itself is round and has a little stand that allows it to rotate to whichever angle he pleases. He sets it on the coffee table, on the kitchen counter, on the nightstand as he moves about the house and makes sure she can see him at all times - save for a quick but necessary visit to the privy. The enchantment was meant to keep the queen in bondage for the rest of Regina's life and is therefore supposedly unbreakable, though she swore to Henry she'd find a way to reverse it and get Emma back out before his big date.

If she can't, then he'll tell her to send him to the realm on the other side of the glass, he won't leave her alone in there, he won't, he can't, though he keeps that particular plan to himself for now. Emma will protest, even without words he knows they'll have a furious row about it and he's not in the mood for a one-sided argument that she will lose. Her parents have each other, and her brother, Henry has Regina, and Emma has him. He'll follow her into exile, and do it with a smile on his face and a song in his heart.

She watches him with her chin propped in her hand as he makes a simple supper of bread and cheese (the fish he bought has disappeared somewhat suspiciously) and finds himself telling her tales about the Jolly's old cook, a disagreeable man who was blind in one milky eye and insisted on serving pickled lemons at almost every meal.

"Think a regular lemon is sour, Swan? Now imagine adding salt. But there's not a sailor on my crew who ever lost so much as a single tooth to scurvy, so Ole Ben would box the ears of any who turned their nose up at his cuisine."

Emma wrinkles her nose at his description of a typical ship's rations (hardtack that could double as cannon shot, dried peas, salt beef that on less reputable vessels might well actually be old horsemeat instead) and he moves the mirror to the table while he eats, gesturing with his hook between bites as he waxes rhapsodic on the joys of fresh-made turtle soup (don't give me that look, don't knock it till you've tried it, love) and mangoes picked straight from the tree when they sailed the southern trade routes. Henry calls (Regina's buried in spellbooks, no progress yet) and he holds the phone up to the mirror so the lad can FaceTime (or Facebook, or Face...something he can't remember which is which right now) with his mother. Snow calls (Dave is asleep now, the bed is just visible over her shoulder) and talks at Emma with forced cheer.

Night falls, the shadows lengthening on the walls as the sun sets around their home. The irony is not lost on Killian – he's only just moved in, and now she's left, as always, his courtship of Emma Swan is two steps forward, three steps back. The happy ending he doesn't deserve is perpetually just out of his reach and if the Oracle's words are true and Emma's vision does come to pass….

A faint tapping sound pulls him from his thoughts and he sees she's rapping on the glass with concern on her face, a furrow between her brows and downturned lips. He sits on the edge of the bed and scrubs his hand over his face, suddenly bone-weary and feeling every last one of the hundreds of years he's lived.

(existed? endured? he'll sink back into grey nothingness without her, the light she gives to a broken pirate who resigned himself to being alone in the dark is not a candle that can be relit once snuffed)

"I'm sorry….I just, I miss you, Emma."

She looks down for a moment, lashes resting on her cheeks and then she draws a shape on the mirror with the tip of her finger.

It's a heart.

He doesn't need to hear the words when her lips move to know what's she's saying.

"I love you too."

She watches him undress and he gives her a bit of a show, smirking at the flush that rises in her skin when he pops the button on his jeans and tugs the material down with his hook. If the queen is secretly spying on them now from her hidey-hole he cares not, all he sees is Emma's smile and the heat in her gaze when he settles on his side in the bed with the sheet pooling low around his hip and the mirror propped so she can get a good, long look. He tells her another tale in a low tone, of just how he plans to thoroughly ravish her in this very bed and her tongue darts out to wet her lips when he describes spreading her thighs to feast on her delectable quim and making her scream his name so loudly the whole bloody town will hear just how well he satisfies their Saviour.

(he'd trade his ship a thousand times over to hear her voice right now)

He falls asleep at last with the mirror set carefully on the empty pillow next to him, tilted so that they can see each other in the night and his lone hand curled protectively around it.