Regina said she could do it, and she had done it. She had been working to reverse the impossible, the portal that took Emma and Killian away. So when the Charmings and Belle asked her to open a simple portal to Camelot, it took her only two days to conjure a way. Will agreed to go with them, but the Charmings wanted Regina to stay in Storybrooke, protecting Henry and Roland and the town. They didn't know what the threat to the town might be, but someone had been able to reach into Storybrooke and steal away the Saviour and Hook.

Belle packed her notes and two of Liam's journals into Hook's satchel and slung it over her shoulder. Regina took them into her impossibly green garden, just past the apple tree, and opened the portal. Henry rushed forward to David, gripping his tight around the waist. "Please give this to my Mom," he said, pushing an envelope into David's hand, "and tell her that I love her."

"Henry, of course I will, and she already knows that," David hugged the boy tightly. "We will find her and bring her home."

Mary Margaret kissed Henry, wiping away his tears with her fingertips, and gave him a gentle shove towards Regina and safety. Regina put her arms around Henry, and they watched as the four explorers dove one by one into the portal. It snapped shut behind them, the grass unblemished. Regina and Henry held hands and walked forlornly over the spot where the portal had been.

"Good luck," Regina whispered, and Henry started to cry in earnest.

…

Killian lay awake that night, in a soft, enormous bed on the 3rd floor of Mac and Oona's elegant house. Life on a pirate ship, and a childhood spent fighting for survival, meant he had become something of an expert at mentally sifting through noises in the night, which were harmless and could be disregarded, even in an unfamiliar place.

With Emma naked and sleeping across his chest, he had listened all night to the snores and whispers and footfalls of the household, to the creaks and groans of the floorboards and walls, the click of locks, the rain and wind against the windowpanes. A clock downstairs had registered 2am not long before.

So he knew in his bones that the noises he heard now meant trouble, something come to harm Emma or his new-found family. He gently turned Emma onto the bed and kissed her awake.

"Love, wide awake now," he said with authority. He needed her up, dressed and armed before whatever approached the house now was upon them.

He crept out of bed and pulled on his clothes, tugged on his boots and grabbed his sword. He checked to make sure the dagger was still in his boots.

"Emma," he repeated, all business. She slipped out of bed and into her clothes at his word. He quietly tossed her a sword and motioned for her to stay still. Emma listened, but she couldn't hear what he did.

Killian pulled her over to him, to move her away from the front of the door and out of the line of fine from the window. She had just been snuggled in bed, warm and relaxed and sated, and she struggled with the disconnect of suddenly having him hold her for reasons other than love or sex. He was holding her now for strategic reasons.

"There are five or six of them," he said, "all near the bottom of the house, beneath our window. We don't have time to warn the others. They are going to break…"

He hadn't even finished his sentence when Emma heard the glass shatter. She didn't scream, she kept listening and looking, but she did involuntarily shelter a bit more closely into the arm he still had around her waist. When two men burst through the window a moment later, she was ready with her sword. But Killian struck first, running both intruders through with practiced ease. He had an advantage, as the men could not overwhelm them via the windows.

"Watch the door, more coming up the stairs," Killian told her. He drew in a breath and ran through a third man at the window, booting him back down three floors to the garden below. He hoped that Mac and his brothers were up, and able to fight back. He knew if more men burst through the door, they would struggle to win a fight on two fronts.

Outside the door, Emma heard Mac's family calling, shouting, screaming. She heard the clank of metal and swearing, crying, cursing. She felt horrified. Two men bled out on the floor of the bedroom where Hook (Killian, he's Killian) had left them, so close she could smell their deaths, and she knew that it could be Oona downstairs now with a blade through her. Or Mac. Or any of the brothers, or the crazy sisters-in-law. She felt tears start to rise but she shook them away. Stay sharp, she commanded herself.

Killian motioned for her to cover the window while he threw open the door. A hooded man thrust a sword inelegantly at Killian's chest the moment the door swung wide. Killian knocked it away, readied for the next move, but the attacker fell at his feet. As the man fell to the floor, Killian saw Mac shunting his boot on the dying man's shoulder to pull free his blade. Mac wiped spurt of blood from near his eyes and smiled.

"Visitors!" he grinned at Killian. "We do love visitors. My brothers are taking care of the others below."

Emma's attention had been momentarily diverted from the window. That was all it took for another thug to crawl in. He lunged towards Emma, his sword plunging towards her stomach. Killian threw his whole body at the man, pinning him to the ground. Emma wasted no time. She used two hands to lift her sword and make sure her blow was accurate and wouldn't hit Killian instead. She ran the point straight down into the man's neck. She felt the snap as the blade severed the spine at the base of his neck, driving all the way into the floor beneath him.

Killian scrutinised Emma as he stood up. Mac ran to the window to check for more intruders, and gave the all-clear. Killian approached Emma carefully, loosening her grip on the blade. He centred his boot on the dead man's ribs, and removed the sword. Emma stared, transfixed, at the blood pouring out his throat. Killian thought she looked like she was in shock, pale and shaking ever so slightly. He knew she had killed a dragon, had seen her battle witches and monsters, but this was the first time, that he knew of, that she had killed a human being.

Mac seemed to notice, too. "Nicely done, lass," he nodded to her. " 'Twas him or you, or Killian, and you did what needed doing. Let's go downstairs. I think we could all use a drink."

Killian put his hand on her back, and she jumped a bit at the touch. He pressed a bit harder, moving her away from the bodies on the floor and towards the door. He gripped both their swords in his other hand, not entirely certain that the danger had passed. Mac led the way downstairs, past another body on the landing that two of the brothers were heaving towards a window to dump.

Another three attackers had been hauled away from the front of the house, one still alive. One of the sisters-in-law strode purposefully out the door towards the spot where he was tied up in the garden, guarded by another three brothers. She held a kettle of boiling water in her hand. When she saw Emma standing at the door to the kitchen looking shaken, she patted her cheek comfortingly. "We'll get him to talk, don't you worry, lovely," she soothed.

Killian guided Emma into the kitchen, where they found Oona patching up the cut hand of another sister. "Emma! Are you all right?" the sister asked. Emma nodded blankly, looking at the blood on the woman's arm. More blood. "Sure don't you worry yourself," the sister-in-law added. "Tis naught but a scratch."

Oona paused in her doctoring to consider Emma. "She's had a bad fright, Killian," Oona assessed. "Sit her down her by the fire with us and find her a drink." Killian settled Emma into a chair and poured out a glass of sherry from the open bottle on the table. "There now, Emma, you drink up," Oona said softly. "Killian, go ahead out into the garden. The boys will be needing you to … interview… that man."

Killian hesitated. "We've got her. Go ahead and shoo," Oona smiled at him reassuringly.

"Aye. I'll be right outside, love, if you've need of me," he bent down and brushed a small kiss on Emma's cheek. She shuddered.

"Okay, okay, I'm fine, you go ahead," Emma said, as much to herself as to him. In her head, she heard one word on continuous loop: massacre, massacre, massacre.

Killian saw some of Emma's walls rise up from the ground where he's shattered them. She was bricking up a distance between them as fast as she could manage it. Maybe best to leave her with Oona for a while, he thought. He sighed and headed out to the garden.

The prisoner sat on a bench, his back tied to a tree and arms bound behind him, his legs spread and secured to opposite sides. Killian pulled up a chair and sat just in front of him.

"What does Arthur want?" Killian looked straight into the man's eyes. "Talk, or you're only going to make this worse."

"He wants you dead," the man spat blood at him.

"And Emma, why did he try to kidnap her?"

"Her – he didn't want her dead. Just said one of us - or better yet all of us – need to fuck her."

Killian drove his blade between the man's legs so fast that even his cousins jumped. He halted the point just above the apex of the man's spread thighs. The prisoner's eyes went wide, then narrowed with contempt. Killian leaned in close and barked, "Speak."

"Didn't want you siring no bastards with 'er," the man sneered. His bravado ended abruptly as Killian's blade edged down over the man's balls. Killian briefly turned this idea over in his head until the truth of Arthur's intent hit him.

"Oh God, I get it. I see what that sick fucker is up to." It's not bastards that worry him, Killian thought, it's legitimacy. All those hundreds of women he'd bedded, and Killian knew it stretched the bounds of reason to think none of his seed had ever hit home. Yet never had Arthur made a move, until Emma, the first unmarried woman with whom he'd ever had an open, acknowledged love affair. Milah had been married, and legally any children she might have had by him would have belonged to Rumplestiltskin, no matter the truth of it.

Killian stood abruptly, letting the blade sink another centimetre as he did so, enough for the man's screams to bounce off the walls of the house. He pushed himself back from the bench, ignoring the tortured shrieking, and looked over at his cousins.

"Kill him as you see fit," Killian said, walking quickly back towards the house. He needed to decide how much of this to share with Emma, if any. She had looked so broken earlier, warrior enough to kill when needed but no ready for the emotional fallout. For Arthur, somehow this was about lineage. He wanted Killian dead, and any children he might have with Emma to be deniable. Arthur had hired men to rape her so that he could deny the paternity of any child that Killian and Emma might conceive. He felt sick. He remembered her tears, her fear and that thug's hands under her dress…

By the time he re-entered the kitchen, Killian just wanted to find a quiet, safe place to sleep the night away with her. Emma might not consider the house safe now, but Killian did. The family had protected them, and he was willing to trust them now.

As soon as he reached the kitchen, he called Oona over. She had finished bandaging her sister-in-law's arm and was busy trying to rouse Emma from her brooding.

"Is there a room – one without blood – where I can take her and get her to rest?" he asked.

"Yes, of course," Oona gave his arm a squeeze. "Get Emma and follow me."

Killian knelt in front of her. It was entirely unlike Emma to look so shaken and frightened. They had faced down monsters and witches, but this attack had thrown her like none before.

"Come along, love," he encouraged her gently, holding out a hand to help her up. "Let's get you back into bed, a bit more sleep. I need the sleep myself," he added.

"Liar," she said, taking his hand and rising out of the chair. "You were awake, waiting for that attack, and you won't sleep now, waiting for the next."

"I will sleep, I promise. I'll work out a watch schedule with the others." He gave a little tug on her hand and she leaned into him. She let him lead her down the hallway and up the stairs after Oona. He left them in the bedroom for a moment and spoke to several of Mac's brothers. Killian would sleep for the rest of the night while they kept watch. Oona said she was keeping watch on that first shift, as well.

Emma and Killian undressed and crawled back into bed, and she found herself in the same position she had been in only hours before the attack, curled naked against him and listening to his heartbeat. Only this time the danger of their situation seeped through everything else she felt for him. The love was edged aside by the overwhelming fear.

Killian could hear bodies being dragged out of doors, the sound of washing as the blood was cleared away and the family reclaimed their home from the slaughter. He tried not to hold Emma too tightly, worried that he would only increase her fear if he betrayed any of his own. He wasn't entirely successful.