Hi there! So what did you think of the premiere last week? I gotta admit, I wasn't super impressed. But I do like Cruella's sass. Anyway, here is the next slightly angsty chapter.

Chapter 12: hurt

If she rolls her eyes one more time today there's a likely chance they're going to roll right out of her head. She's done with this magical world and everything in it. Chimera and Killi-excuse me, Captain Hook-are at the top of her list.

She just wants to go home. Her real home, back in Boston. Not the crazy town of Storybrooke where she's supposed to be some Savior running around giving people their happy endings. She doesn't need villains and fairy tales and books that show her in a basket on the side of the road.

She doesn't even know if he's still there. The real Killian. The last sane thing to happen in her life.

Her mother and Mulan are arguing about who is going to climb the beanstalk with Hook. With another roll of her eyes she stands up. "I'm going." She says loudly, interrupting them.

"Emma…" her mother starts.

"No. I'm going. We're getting this stupid compass and then we're going home." She feels bad when her mother's eyes light up at the word home.

"I was hoping it'd be you." He says with a wink.

She fixes him with a glare and holds out her arm for a - what else - magical cuff that will allow her to climb a beanstalk.

The climb is grueling. In her previous life, she spent a fair amount of time at the gym but nothing prepared her for this. It was like climbing a neverending weave of ropes all while the oxygen levels thinned around you. I guess even magic can't prevent that.

He's tried to engage her in conversation quite a few times during the climb but she has chosen to respond in monosyllables when responding at all. It's easier to focus on climbing. Hand, foot, pull, hand, foot, pull.

Finally they reach the top. Heaving herself over the wall, her palm catches on a thorn of the beanstalk. He notices immediately.

"Giants can smell blood." He explains, removing his scarf.

She nearly kicks him when he pours rum over the scrape across her palm. She didn't even realize she had muttered something about him being a gentleman until he winks at her while tying the scarf around her hand with his teeth.

She is in no mood for his flirtations. "Whatever. We have a compass to find."

It pains her to admit that she is impressed with how he took on the giant. So much so that she almost forgot to throw the sleeping powder Mulan had given her. He's babbling on about something when the glimmer of the trip wire catches her eye. Without a thought, she's hauling him against her. Of course, of course he thinks she's randomly decided to come on to him as though piles of gold and treasure have suddenly become aphrodisiacs. Unwrapping her arms from around him she steps back and points. "Trip wire." She says, dully.

-\-

She is not, repeat NOT, being taken down by a giant. Unable to move her arms and too far away to kick him, she uses the only other weapon she possesses. Her teeth. She bites down as hard as she can into the soft flesh between the giant's thumb and forefinger. With a cry, he drops her and she's reacting almost without thinking, activating the trip wire and capturing the giant in his own device.

Hook is looking at her with a mixture of awe and pride. "That was bloody brilliant!" He says, taking her hand to extricate himself from the rubble.

"I'm sorry." She mutters, handcuffing him.

"You're going to leave me here to die?" She can't miss the incredulity in his voice.

"You're not going to die. I just need a head start." She confesses.

Squeezing her eyes tight as he calls out to her she forces herself to head back out of the giant's lair and back down the beanstalk to where her party is waiting.

-\-

Just as I am done with you. The words shouldn't hurt. They're coming from a man she doesn't even know. A man who wants nothing more than to secure passage with them for the sole fact of killing Mr. Gold. He won't even tell her why but she is certain it has something to do with the name inked on his arm.

The words do hurt though. As much as she tries not to, she keeps picturing her Killian saying them.

-\-

When I jab you with my sword, you'll feel it.

Now that she's safely back in Storybrooke, she's gotta give it to him. That wasn't a half bad line given the circumstances that they were all running around a portal like some insane magical version of Duck, Duck, Goose. Begrudgingly she also concedes that he did earn a brownie point or two for returning Aurora's heart to her, even if he was the one to take it in the first place.

She is still desperate to return to Boston. Seeing him, in any form, has only increased the desire for her to return home. She pulls her cell phone from her pocket, scrolling through the contacts until she lands on his name.

When she first got to Storybrooke, she intended to call him right away and let him know she'd be staying a little longer than a week, but one excuse after another stopped her from making the call and then another week went by. And another and another and then it felt as though too much time had passed. What would she say? How would she explain a town that he couldn't see, let alone enter?

It rings once, twice. An automated voice comes on the line. The number you have reached is no longer in service.

She tries to pretend that it doesn't hurt. That although she never asked him to wait for her, he still would. That he would be different and unlike anyone else and still be there for her.

She falls into a restless sleep, filled with dreams of him, some as Captain Hook and some as the Killian she once knew. In one, he is yelling at her for never calling. In another he's telling her that it's okay and he knew she would come back sooner or later. But there is one dream that wakes her up from a dead sleep, tears streaming down her face, heart painfully thudding in the otherwise silent room.

He had been standing on a pier on a gray and stormy day. His eyes lacked their usual spark and sported dark shadows underneath. He was thinner and even through his coat she saw how his shoulders were hunched forward in defeat. Setting his lips into a grim line he pulled something from his pocket and threw it into the water. As it sailed through the air, she realized it was the spare key she had given him.

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