Hey readers : ) So I don't have much to say today, but there is just one small thing that was brought up in a review that I thought would be good to talk about. Basically, I was asked if all the chapters in this story would be from Emma's perspective, and I figured other people might want to know the answer to that as well. The answer is no. As more and more of the characters come into the story, the more different perspectives I'll write from.
For example, this chapter is not from Emma's perspective, but from Hook's : )
Eventually I'm planning on writing from Snow's, Charming's, Regina's, Henry's, Zelena's, Robin's, Rumple's, Belle's and a whole bunch of other characters' points of views too as more events unfold and change due to Emma's and Hook's influence.
I just wanted to tell you guys that, since when I read the review, I figured it would be something you guys might want to know.
Anyway, beyond that there's not much I have to say, other than thank you to everyone that reviewed the last chapter and this story in general : ) The support is always greatly appreciated, and it does help me to get more chapters wrote and posted.
Please remember that Once Upon A Time is not mine, and I hope you enjoy this chapter : )
Tipping Points
Hook stared in horror at the spot where Emma had vanished into the Time Portal.
He couldn't believe just how easily she had slipped away.
It was like he was powerless to stop it.
'Stupid bloody useless pirate' Hook thought to himself bitterly.
The image of Emma's pleading, terrified face swam before his eyes, and it was almost enough to bring tears to the centuries-old pirate.
But soon that image was replaced by others, as Hook thought about the person that had come to mean so much to him.
The look of relief on Emma's face when she saved his life at the cost of her magic. She looked close to tears she was so relieved.
Emma drinking the Memory Potion. She had taken a leap of faith for him. He vowed to always return the favour.
Emma leaving Storybrooke and driving over the Town Line as the purple smoke wrapped around Hook and everyone else. He should have kept faith that he'd see her again.
The kiss they had shared in Neverland. Emma insisted it was nothing but Hook knew different. It had meant something. At least to him it did. And he was sure it had to Emma too.
Turning the Jolly Roger around and sailing back to Storybrooke, despite the magical trigger that would doom him with everyone else. But Emma had proved to him he was still capable of caring.
The sting when Emma left him chained at the top of the beanstalk. He had thought he meant nothing to her. She had still yet to admit it herself, but Hook knew he had been wrong in that assumption.
Meeting Emma and being bested by her. Despite being tied down and threatened to be left to the ogres, Hook couldn't deny just how impressed he had been by the blonde saviour.
But then he thought about how much Emma just wanted a normal peaceful life, with her son.
A safe, carefree, happy existence.
Like she had had before the curse in Storybrooke had broken and magic had come.
Hook was suddenly overcome with the desire to have a life like that too.
A life like that with her.
Hook knew what he had to do.
"One of these days, I'm gonna stop chasing this woman" he sighed as he ripped his hook out of the ground.
Thinking strongly of Emma Swan and the normal, peaceful life he wished they could share together, Captain Hook allowed himself to be swept away by the winds of time.
He had no way of knowing that he had just irreversibly changed the lives of everyone in Storybrooke.
Forever.
The awful sensation was of falling.
For hours or maybe even days, Hook tumbled through the abyss of nothingness, his own screams lost in the rumble of noise that pounded against his body.
It was like the storm and wind, crushing the air from Hook's lungs and pressurizing his flesh, determined to draw blood.
Minutes and Hours, Dimensions and Space, Hook fell through them all.
Colours swam around him in a rainbow, dancing around him as they flashed across his eyes. They were beautiful, and yet so wrong.
Nobody was ever meant to see them.
They meant bad things to those that crossed their path.
His skin sparkled as if a live current of static was running through him, so much so that his teeth were chattering from the bizarre sensation.
And it hurt.
It hurt so much, it felt as though every single cell in his body was changing, burning, morphing into something else yet also feeling exactly the same.
And just when Hook thought the falling would never end, he was suddenly slammed back into reality.
Everything had stopped spinning.
The noises in his head were gone.
So were his own screams of pain.
He also felt solid again; something he hadn't felt as he fell through everything.
Moaning something incomprehensible, Hook immediately passed out, and darkness consumed his world once more.
A Very Long Time Ago – The Enchanted Forest – The Day the Dark Curse was cast.
Hook groaned as he slowly came to a long time later.
His throat burned and his eyelids felt heavy, but eventually he managed to open his eyes.
For a split second, he thought he still had them jammed shut.
He was surrounded by total darkness.
Then he realised that he was slumped against a wall in a shadowy room.
But it was no ordinary room.
It was a mausoleum.
Lovely.
He went to take a step forward, wanting to get a better look around to try and find out where the hell he was, but he immediately wobbled and fell back against the wall for support.
What the hell?
Hook was a pirate, and therefore more than capable of downing many flagons of rum and still being able to walk in a straight line.
So why the hell was he feeling like he was about to empty the contents of his stomach all over the floor of… wherever the hell he was?
Then a barrage of memories came back to him.
He remembered everything.
Leaving the diner, talking with Emma, seeing the funnel of light, Emma informing him via a message from her father that it was the Wicked Witch's Time Portal, before finally allowing himself to be sucked in after her.
Huffing, Hook quickly arrived at four questions that he desperately needed answering.
One, Where the hell was he?
Two, When the hell was he?
Three, How the hell was he going to get back?
And four, the most important question of all - where the hell was Emma?
He had thought that they would both be flung to the same location since they used the same portal.
So where the hell was she?
Hook squinted through the darkness, trying to see if she was somewhere in the room too.
"Emma?" he called.
And that was the moment that Captain Hook's fate was changed.
That time itself was changed.
All with just one word.
One word in one place at one moment.
It was a tipping point.
"Hook?!" an angry voice barked at him.
Hook whirled around, his body tensed up, ready for a fight if necessary.
Suddenly the room was thrown into light as a fireball appeared, clutched in somebody's hand.
Hook squinted and shielded his eyes.
When the intensity of the light eventually died down, Hook took a good look around the room he had found himself in.
Whatever the pirate had been expecting, it wasn't what he saw.
In fact, the sight was enough to make his jaw drop wide open in horrified shock.
It... couldn't be!
Yet somehow, it was.
The place he had ended up in was not just any old mausoleum.
It was the mausoleum in the Dark Palace.
To be more specific, it was the mausoleum that Regina had built for her mother.
The mausoleum Cora had never used.
And the owner of the voice was somebody that Hook was familiar with as well.
Many people in this land were familiar with her in fact.
After all, the Evil Queen was very well known, and she was standing right in front of him.
There was no mistaking it.
The woman before him wasn't Regina Mills, the Mayor of Storybrooke.
It was literally the Evil Queen!
He was so dead.
"I thought I told you to leave us!" she yelled at him.
She did? …What the hell is this… how am I here and… oh no, when is this?! This can't be that day! Any day but that one!
But it was.
He knew deep down in his bones that he had landed back in time on that dreadful day.
His suspicions were confirmed by what Regina was standing next to.
A coffin.
And Hook could see who was in that coffin.
Cora, the Queen of Hearts.
Only she wasn't dead.
Just pretending.
Crap. Not this day. Not the day of the Dark Curse
"Apologies Regina, I -" he stuttered out.
Captain Hook actually stuttered.
He couldn't help it though. Normally he wasn't a man that scared easily, but damn, Regina could be very intimidating when she wanted to be.
And oh boy did she want to be today.
"And when did I give you permission to use my given name?!" Queen Regina was getting angrier and angrier, "A lowly, filthy pirate like you shall only call me 'Your majesty', and don't you ever forget it!"
'She's even worse without the sensible pant suits' Hook thought mildly to himself.
"Now tell me pirate, just what exactly do you think you're doing here when your queen ordered you to leave?" Regina got all up in his face and glared at him.
Hook was forced to think very fast.
"My apologies, your majesty. I thought I heard… an intruder… I came back down to ensure your safety" Hook quickly lied.
Regina scoffed in disbelief.
"What do you take me for Hook? An idiot?! As if an intruder could break into my palace without me knowing about it! I caught you didn't I?!" she snarled in his face, and Hook worked hard to suppress a gulp, "And even if there was, do I look like the type of woman that needs a one-handed wonder with a drinking problem to save me?!"
Hook could feel his mild fear of her turning into annoyance now.
This was just too much.
All this time travel nonsense was too much.
To find himself stuck in the past, with no idea how to get back, and worse than that to be all alone.
He didn't even know if Emma was safe.
And that tore at him in a way he hadn't felt since Milah had died.
It almost brought tears to his eyes.
And here was Regina, who had everything land in her lap and still not be satisfied, screaming in his face for accidently interrupting her.
Her attitude was making his blood boil.
And whenever his emotions were thrown into turmoil, Captain Hook had never been able to control himself.
"No. You look like the type of woman that needs a one-handed wonder with a drinking problem to do her dirty work for her!" Hook snapped back, and Regina looked outraged at being spoken too in such a manner, "What's the matter, your majesty? Afraid to get your own hands messy? Or are you just afraid of mummy dearest?!"
Regina's jaw dropped in disbelief.
'Serves you right too, bitch' Hook thought smugly.
The pirate would pay for his moment of fun however.
Dearly.
Practically swelling with rage, a furious Regina clenched her fist in the air, and Hook gasped as he felt a pressure on his throat as all the air was stripped from his lungs.
Regina was so angry, she could hardly even speak.
"Y-you… Ho-how dare you… you… stinking, thieving, dishonourable, worthless waste of bone and skin!" Regina shrieked, angrier than Hook had ever seen her. "I, the Royal Queen, only wish to say goodbye to my mother, who you killed, in peace! And what do I get; a sneaky eavesdropper listening in on a private moment, and then you dare throw insults about my relationship with my mother at me?! You know nothing about me or my mother, pirate! Nothing!"
Regina waved her hand and sent Hook flying backwards.
His back connected with the cold stone wall behind him, and he let out a groan of pain.
Hook sank to the foot of the wall, trying to get some air back into his lungs.
Unfortunately, Regina wasn't quite as keen as he was for that to happen.
She promptly began magically choking him again.
"R-e-gi-na…" Hook choked for air that just wouldn't come.
"AND I TOLD YOU TO ONLY ADDRESS ME AS 'YOUR MAJESTY' YOU SEA URCHIN!" Regina bellowed.
She clenched her fist in the air even tighter.
Hook clawed desperately at his throat, his hook leaving a few painful scratches on his neck.
The pirate was slowly starting to turn blue in the face.
He could feel the life ebbing out of him.
And yet all he could think about was Emma.
How he'd never see her again.
A tear rolled down his cheek at the thought.
Just when the pirate thought it would surely end, Regina released her hold on him.
Coughly harshly, Hook gulped in great mouthfuls of air.
His troubles were far from over yet though.
For after barely two seconds of relief, Regina loomed over him, looking him dead in the eye.
The look on her face was enough to chill the entire room.
"And to think, I was going to give you the closest thing anyone can get to a happy ending in the place I'm taking us all too, as a reward for killing my mother" the queen said in a deadly whisper that actually chilled Hook's blood, "Well forget about it, Pirate, because now, I'm not only going to ensure your life is miserable in the new world… I'm going to make sure that you never get your vengeance on Rumplestiltskin".
And with that promise, Regina waved her other hand through the air.
In a plume of violet smoke, The Evil Queen and The One-Handed Captain vanished from the mausoleum.
In the now empty chamber, Cora opened her eyes.
The not-so-deceased Queen of Hearts sat upright in her coffin.
Cora smirked, before a laugh bubbled its way through her lips.
"Oh Captain, you foolish man. Fancy taunting the Evil Queen on the day of her Dark Curse" Cora laughed to herself, "Still, at least that saved me the job of dealing with the pirate myself. A pity though. He still had some usefulness left in him".
Deciding to leave the Captain to whatever fate Regina had picked out for him, Cora climbed out of the coffin, before also vanishing in a cloud of smoke.
Now that she knew she still had a place in her daughter's heart, Cora had a lot of work to do, and not much time to do it in.
Not if she was going to protect herself from the Dark Curse.
Hook staggered and fell to the ground as he and Regina materialised in the middle of a dark and dense forest.
As far as the eye could see, the trees when on endlessly.
The forest seemed inescapable.
'Shit! What the hell are we doing here? None of this happened last time… because last time… Regina didn't catch you eavesdropping on her… and you didn't insult her and piss her off. Shit! Killian you fool, what the bloody hell have you got yourself into this time?' he mentally reprimanded himself.
And then suddenly he was flung painfully against a tree, and two thick vines slid around him, securing his body against it.
Hook struggled but he couldn't move an inch.
Even his hook was pinned down, the silver instrument useless by his side.
Hook had a horrible flashback of when Rumplestiltskin had done the same thing to him on his ship, right before he had ripped out Milah's heart.
For a split-second, Hook feared Regina was going to do the same to him.
Hook's heart clenched at the thought of never seeing Emma again.
Still, better this happen to him than her.
It did little to comfort the pirate, but at least it was something.
Instead of ripping out his heart like he was half-expecting however, the Evil Queen leaned in close and sneered in Hook's face.
'Urgh… this woman's a bloody menace and more hot-headed than a dragon' Hook silently glared at her.
"Right then, Pirate, we've arrived at the last place you'll ever see in this land" Regina spat at him, gesturing around at the forest, "This lovely place is known as The Infinite Forest. Do you know why it's known as that?"
"I'd hazard a guess that it goes on forever?" Hook asked bitterly.
"Not as stupid as you look in all that leather" Regina taunted.
'Bit rich coming from you love' Hook privately thought.
"Do you see the ingenuity of it though, Captain?" Regina laughed a sinister laugh, "Even if you escape your bindings, you'll never escape this forest in time. Only when my curse hits will you leave here… only to forget yourself. Goodbye Captain…".
"No! Wait!" Hook yelled desperately, struggling harder than ever.
He couldn't allow time to change in such a way!
Hook had never been cursed to be trapped in Storybrook with everyone else.
He had never received a new identity and false memories.
And the reason for that was quite simple.
He was never supposed too.
And if he did now - if time was changed in such a way - well Hook was no expert on time-travelling, but even he knew that the consequences could be disastrous.
"Don't do this!" he pleaded, but it was no use.
Regina just smiled at him.
That nasty, bitter smile.
"See you in hell" the Evil Queen laughed.
And with that, Regina vanished in a swirl of smoke.
"No..." Hook breathed, eyes wide with horror.
This couldn't be happening.
This couldn't be happening!
The pirate strained against the vines, but quickly realised that they were too strong and there was little to no chance of breaking them.
Hook fell limp in his bindings, trying hard to suppress the sob that threatened to break free.
He couldn't manage it.
Tears pooled in his sapphire eyes and cascaded down his cheeks as he struggled to breathe.
'You fucking idiot Jones! You just couldn't keep your mouth shut! You never keep your mouth bloody shut and now you're paying for it. Cursed, for twenty-eight bloody years! All because you changed one fucking moment. The timeline will never be the same now. I've messed it all up… oh god, what's Emma going to say?' Hook thought desperately.
He was filled with dread and fear now.
She's even scarier than Regina when she's mad! Hold on a minute! Emma! She'll arrive in Storybrooke one day! She'll break the curse and then I can finally reunite with her! And whilst under the curse, we might finally be able to get that peaceful life she's always wanted! At least for a little while!
And suddenly, just by thinking of his beloved Swan, being swept away by the Dark Curse didn't seem quite so dire anymore.
Yes, the timeline would be altered in ways Hook couldn't even imagine.
And yes, being stuck with no memory of his true identity for twenty-eight years wasn't exactly the ideal situation, but at least he'd find his Swan again one day.
And what was twenty-eight years when he would wait forever for Emma Swan?
She would break the curse.
He knew she would.
Not only because she had technically already done it, but because Hook had absolute faith in her.
Emma wouldn't let him down.
She wouldn't let any of them down.
So when night began to fall several hours later, and a cloud of green and purple smoke began tearing its way through the Enchanted Forest, Hook just watched as it approached, grim, but also determined.
Soon it would be upon him.
Soon time would be changed forever.
Hook swallowed anxiously at the thought.
Well, at that and what Emma was going to say when she found out.
Soon enough, the curse was upon the trapped pirate.
Within seconds, his fate was sealed.
Hook closed his eyes as the Dark Curse engulfed him and he was swept away to the new land.
'I'll find you Emma. I'll come back to you love' Hook imagined her in his mind's eye one last time before he forgot her, 'I just hope you can forgive me for causing this…'.
The Dark Curse invaded his mind.
His memories were sealed behind a haze.
And Captain Hook became nothing but a children's story.
And there's chapter four : )
Yay! Hook is in Storybrooke much earlier than he was supposed to be : ) Only downside, he's completely forgotten that he's time-travelled and that he's really Captain Hook. Oops ; )
So, Hook is going to stay cursed for a while, however I do have plans for him to wake up before the whole curse breaks. I'm not totally sure on all the details yet, but I don't want him out of action for that amount of time. Emma's gonna need help from someone who knows exactly what's going on after all : )
Now, I'm a little stuck with the next chapter, so I'm going to call on you guys for a bit of help.
What would people rather see? Do you guys want me to do a chapter on Hook's time under the curse with his fake memories, or do you want me to get straight back to Emma and Hook in the bar?
Let me know which you'd prefer to see in a review, and I'll decide based on the majority : )
Anyway, thank you for reading, and please leave a review on your way out.
Until the next time, keep on reading : )