Emma kept her eyes squeezed shut; Killian had her pulled so tight to his chest that she couldn't see anything even if she wanted to. She could still use her other senses, though. Beyond the familiar musk of Killian, she picked up the overwhelming scent of damp vegetation, mixed with the heavy floral sweetness of Neverland. She felt the flat of his sword's blade against her back as he stood tense, ready to defend her. And she could hear rustling and stifled giggling and the delicate flutter of wings. Her pirate relaxed and sheathed his sword. They had reached Fairy Hollow.

"You okay, love?" He released his grip on her and let an inch or two of air creep in between them. He brushed his hands across her face and smoothed her hair back then settled one hand over the baby. He looked down with obvious concern.

"We're both fine, Killian," Emma raised herself up on her tiptoes to kiss him reassuringly. "If you're so concerned about the baby, perhaps you shouldn't cut off my oxygen with that death grip." He sprang back from her a pace, taking her at her word. She laughed and kissed him again. "I'm just joking – god, you are never going to survive parenthood if you don't relax a little." She waved her hand around the supernaturally bright trees and flowers that formed a protective arbour over their heads. "Honestly, where could be safer?"

Killian raised an eyebrow. "Fairies, and you want me to let down my guard."

"Pirate!" He heard a shrill voice cutting through the still air. "Captain Hook!" another called. The whispers and calls and gossip buzzed across the dense forest, mixing with the insect song and breeze through the flowers, and it all created a background music of infinite peacefulness. At least Emma thought so. The sounds of Fairy Hollow soothed her. They seemed to be having exactly the opposite effect on Hook.

A swift beating of wings stopped just short of Hook's face and hovered there, and an angry whirring sound grew louder and louder as the little fairy worked up a good anger. "How did you do it, Hook? How did you worm your way back in here? You were banished! Just wait until Queen Clarion hears about…" The little lilac blur stopped her rant abruptly. Killian had stepped back enough to expose Emma's neck and the priceless gems that sparkled there.

"Eternal Spring stones!" The tiny fairy reached out tentatively and touched one, then drew back in wonder and considered Emma for the first time. Then she drew back slightly further to take in the whole tableau of Emma and Hook together. Their glow outshone the dim Neverland sun in the overcast sky. Emma found herself stepping back into Killian, a bit unsure of herself. The glow intensified, just as it had in the first fairy village in the Enchanted Forest.

Suddenly, the little fairy's eyes went wide with wonder. She stuttered and sang out in a high, pure voice, calling to the others in a language that Emma did not understand. Killian was smiling, though, so she reckoned that Tinkerbell had taught him enough of the language to know what was going on. She leaned in to ask him, but a sudden, deafening buzz stopped her. It seemed as though hundreds of fairies, in every colour – bright pinks, muted yellows, sunkissed blues – swarmed around them. Emma now started to feel a bit threatened. Normally that made her want to reach for a sword or a gun, but right now she just wanted to disappear into Hook. She felt bone-tired, and for once in her life, she just wanted someone else to take care of the problem. To take care of her.

"How have you tricked the Saviour into marrying you, pirate?"

Emma scrunched up her face in confusion, staring openly at the little creature. "What do you mean, marry?"

The lilac fairy fluttered in front of Emma and reached out to touch the stones she wore around her neck. "These stones come from a deposit beneath the Eternal Spring of Fairy Hollow. The minerals from the water seep beneath the sacred ground and harden over millennia – and millennia in Neverland is a very long time indeed – then the stones are mined from this deposit. The only one in any of the realms. They are harder and rarer than diamonds, far more precious. And they can only be given or accepted by True Loves when they marry." Emma looked unconvinced. "Go on," the fairy retorted smugly. Try to take them off."

Emma shrugged and reached for the clasp. It wouldn't budge. The necklace stayed fast around her neck. She tried to subtly use her magic to break the hold, but nothing happened. The fairy shook her head, "True Love is more powerful than your magic, even when the True Love is your own. Only your husband can unclasp the stones."

Killian raised his eyebrows. He had known that the stones represented True Love, which is why he had given them to Emma. He didn't know he had married her when he fixed the jewels around her neck. He had a feeling he was about to pay for this oversight.

"Well…" Emma growled slightly on the next word, "…husband… would you like to unlock the necklace for me?" Killian moved quickly to obey, not wanting to upset Emma any further. The clasp slipped open in between his fingers almost as soon as he touched it. "Fabulous," Emma deadpanned. "We're married."

"Love, I had absolutely no idea about this," he stumbled over his words, fixing the necklace back in place around her throat. "I knew they could only be worn by a True Love, but I honestly did not know…"

Emma cut him off with a wave of her hand. "Honestly, Killian? What does it matter at this point – I'm carrying our child, we're lit up like a string of Christmas lights and the fairies stamped 'True Love' on us before we'd even reached a one month anniversary of first…" she cut herself off and raised her eyebrows knowingly at him. He had a brief flashback to that first night in the Enchanted Forest, by the campfire, when Emma first opened her legs and hugged them tight around his hips. He shook off the reminiscing before he was carried away.

"It's not a proper marriage, Emma. I will still ask, a ring, a ceremony, your family, all of that… when you are ready. It's just a – you know – a Neverland-fairy sort of marriage." He smiled hopefully.

"Yeah, just a magically-bound-to-my-husband marriage, no big deal, just the latest thing we've stumbled into. You know, four months ago I thought it was romantic that you were meeting with take-away coffee with the right amount of sugar and cream in it."

He coughed nervously. "You're not… murderously angry?"

The fairies watched their conversation like a tennis match. They waited in silence for Emma's answer. The simple truth was that the fairies themselves still harboured a great deal of anger at Killian, but if True Love forgave him, there was little they could do without the Queen's permission.

Emma sighed. "If it had been up to me, we would probably be on our third date, with me still kissing you goodbye outside my parents' door. I was – well, clearly I was wrong. And waiting way too long. You were too patient with me." She put her arms around him. "I love you so much, and I'm not sorry that any of this has happened."

"I love you, too… wife," he grinned. He ducked a playful swat from her. But the chorus of fairies murmured loudly with protest. The Saviour had forgiven him, the Saviour love him, but they were not quite ready to let go of their anger and resentment.

"You will come with us," the lilac fairy snapped at them. "The Saviour may have forgiven you pirate, but you will still need to answer to the Queen for your crimes."

Not this again, Emma thought. She suddenly felt tired, in that bone-deep way that pregnancy sapped her sometimes.

"Killian, I feel a bit ill," she began, and immediately all the noise and the arguing stopped. She could hear the insects and the breeze again. She felt light-headed and insubstantial, barely able to stand, and both ravenously hungry and nauseated, all at once. Killian lowered her to the grass, sitting himself down next to her and rubbing her lower back soothingly.

"You must be hungry; we've had nothing to eat or drink in hours. I'm not doing a very good job of taking care of you, am I?" He looked up at the fairies. "Emma needs food and water. The pregnancy makes her feel ill if she doesn't eat regularly." She sighed and leaned her head against Killian's shoulder, reining in the nausea. A hundred winged fairies flew off in search of something to tempt Emma. The longer she waited to eat, the more ill she felt, and then it became difficult to eat anything at all. It started a vicious circle that could take hours to break.

Emma ignored the fairies. She closed her eyes and tried to connect with the magic of the baby. She could increasingly sense it as a separate magical presence, a complement to her own, but somewhat independent. What do we want to eat? she asked their magic. Most food she normally liked made her ill even to imagine. But once, in the Enchanted Forest, Killian had fed her a strange green fruit, spiky on the outside and full of brown seeds, but firm and sweet and juicy. That was it. The only thing in the world they wanted to eat. So she held out her hands, and the fruit appeared in her palm. Killian opened his eyes more widely.

"That's rather impressive," he said drily. "Nura fruit doesn't grow in Neverland."

"And your hand wasn't in the Enchanted Forest, but I wanted it anyway," she replied, and she picked up the left hand in question and kissed it tenderly. "This is what the baby and I want to eat." She placed the fruit in his hand and raised her eyebrows expectantly. He smiled, pulled out his dagger and began peeling away the spiky skin, then handed it back. She ate the whole thing eagerly, and felt instantly stronger and more stable. Without a thought to the now hundreds of winged creatures watching their every move, he leaned over sucked the juice off one of her fingers.

"You might have ordered one for me. Nura fruit are my favourite." Emma looked into his eyes and opened his left hand. Another fruit appeared in his palm. "Thank you, my love," he kissed her.

The fairies had seen quite enough. "Pirate! We trust your wife is well enough to walk the rest of the way into Fairy Hollow?" A green blur whizzed next to Emma and rematerialised at human size. She handed Emma a cup of cold water with lemon. Emma thanked her and drank, offering some to Killian as well. "The queen awaits."

The fairies pressed ahead, with Emma and Killian walking along the path behind them, absorbed in their own thoughts and conversations.

"If the queen doesn't arrest me and order me killed, then maybe we'll get some answers about Merlin," he said hopefully.

"No one is going to kill you. We could take these fairies out with a fly swatter," she said menacingly.

"They're more powerful than you think, love, and we're on their home ground."

They walked along silently for a while, ducking tree branches and stepping over fallen vegetation. Killian was ticking matters over in his head, when a thought occurred.

"Emma, if you were able to reach into another realm for my hand, or for an exotic fruit, why couldn't you magic yourself a cup of coffee? Or… those pills you were on about?"

Emma stopped in her tracks. Why couldn't she? Why hadn't it occurred to her to try? "I'm not sure, but I think it has something to do with you. Your hand, your favourite fruit that you had given to me. We could try an experiment. What's something in Storybrooke, something small, that you don't like, but I do?" Killian laughed, and tried to think. He hadn't been in Storybrooke very long, really, and the time he had spent there had been largely taken up with fighting off monsters and witches. He didn't like the swan pendant Neal had given her, for obvious reasons. He hated the Crocodile. He wasn't overly fond of onion rings or donuts or fast food.

"You had this grey hat. I never really liked it; it covered up your gorgeous hair. But I presume you liked it, as you wore it quite a lot," he said.

"Ooookay," she gave him an odd look. "I would have left that in my wardrobe, in my parents' loft." She closed her eyes and walked up the stairs to the loft. Her wardrobe was on the left. She poked through her things until she found the hat. She grinned and put it on her head – even in the muggy warmth of Neverland, the hat felt cosy and familiar. She popped one hand happily onto her head and opened her eyes. No hat. All she felt was her hair, going wavy and unkempt in the humidity. Her face fell.

"No luck?" he asked with a grin. "Why don't you try to pick up some lingerie? When we arrived, you were wearing this black lacy scrap that held your breasts in the most mesmerising fashion…"

"Captain, that will do." Emma huffed in annoyance. "And I suppose you wouldn't have liked my birth control pills anyway. You were probably quite happy to get me pregnant."

Killian flushed. "I was, aye. But even I would have waited a bit, given the option. I don't know if that would have worked or not." He stepped closer to her, taking her face in his hands. "You're not sorry, are you? You don't regret… me, all this, the baby?"

"No, not at all." She looked into his eyes and still saw some uncertainty there. "Not. At. All. Killian, not for one moment do I regret this child. Or you."

…

Fairy Hollow looked to Emma like a dreamscape, far more than anything she had seen before in the Enchanted Forest or even other parts of the island. A strange collection of houses spilled over a fragrant, floral valley – little homes made of mushroom caps or leaves, secreted in trees or built out over an idyllic, sparkling stream of what looked like soda water. The colours hurt her eyes with their vibrancy, and the overarching greenness seemed to tinge even the air. The fairies converged upon a grand home fashioned from bamboo and glass, far larger than any other residence. The Queen, Emma knew, was inside. She slipped her fingers through Killian's and squeezed.

The Queen ambled onto the large deck at the front of the house and quickly materialised in human size. She strolled casually around Killian, looking him over from every angle. Her gaze reminded Emma of their first trip to the fairies in the Enchanted Forest, but this being Neverland, everything felt more threatening here. There, Emma felt that the fairies would ultimately allow her to decide Hook's fate, by virtue of True Love. She feared this lot might be less sentimental.

Clarion stopped directly in front of Emma and tilted her head to one side. She touched Emma's necklace and gave it an experimental tug. The clasp held fast. She saw Killian's lips twitch upwards just a bit. Clarion passed her hand across Emma's belly, as if seeking confirmation of the baby. The Queen did not smile, nor frown, and Emma found it impossible to read this fairy's mind.

"Saviour," she finally spoke, her voice clear and strong and operatic, "you have arrived here with one wanted for crimes in this land. Did you know of his crimes?"

"I know of his crimes, and I have forgiven him," Emma answered. "He is mine to forgive. Killian is my husband and he belongs to me."

The Queen smiled slightly at her naivety. "Killian may be your husband – and that point is debatable – but Hook is my prisoner. My claim predates yours." She looked straight at Emma. "Hook violated numerous fairies, stole these gemstones from us, now hanging so prettily on your chest. He must pay." With that she passed her hands across Killian's arms, and he felt himself shackled and chained.

Emma sucked in a breath. She reached out and touched Killian, and the shackles fell away. There was no way she would let this evil fairy out-magic the saviour. "You can't have him, Your Majesty. I told you, he's mine."

Clarion turned a cool gaze back on Emma. "I didn't want it to come to this, Emma. Hook must pay for his crimes with his life. We do not wish to harm you. If you feel some responsibility for him, then stay until the end." Clarion swirled a finger around Emma, who immediately felt herself tied to a thick stake by a light, silky and infinitely strong fibre. She tried to break it with her magic, but could not. She saw Killian being pulled away from her and shackled again, this time to another stake.

"Since when do fairies imprison an innocent, pregnant woman?" Killian spat.

"She knew what she was doing, taking up with a wanted criminal, and besides, we will release her at your death tomorrow. No harm will come to the baby or to Emma." The Queen had situated them a good 50 metres from each other and then she had them both turned, so that they couldn't look at each other. Clarion didn't want Emma's magic to find a way to free him.

"No harm?" Emma yelled. "You plan to murder my husband and this child's father. How can the baby be anything but innocent? He or she hasn't made any choices, but you plan to deprive my child of their father!"

Queen Clarion finally raised her voice, so that both Emma and Killian could hear clearly. "The baby has no voice and no evidence to give. In the morning, we will carry out the sentence. Hook will be hung from the tree at the centre of Neverland."

Emma quietened. "How can you do this? How can you kill my True Love? You know what he is to me."

Clarion walked back to Emma, so she could see the Queen drawn up full height. "We don't always want what's best for us." And with that, Clarion disappeared back into her grand house.

…

Emma and Killian spent the evening talking, well past the spectacular twilight that charged the air with gold and blue streaks. They kept talking beneath the stars. Emma refused to believe that after everything, she would lose her love to a mob of angry fairies.

"Killian, there must be a way," she said for the hundredth time. "Tell me what to do."

Killian fell silent. "Perhaps this time there is nothing to be done. My past has caught up with us."

"Your father…"

"Even Davy Jones has his limits. This is the heart of the fairies' magic. It is incredibly powerful, even too powerful for you."

Killian stopped speaking for a moment, running through the possibilities in his mind. When he fell quiet, Emma felt a deep sadness settle over her, an overwhelming disappointment. But Emma herself felt… angry, confused, frustrated. None of the emotions that seemed to be overwhelming her felt like her own. It was as though some other part of her was feeling and thinking for itself, and the lack of Killian's voice triggered an enormous grief.

"Love, you still okay?" Killian called. That small, independent spark of magic that she knew was not her own gladdened instantly. When Killian's voice stopped, the happiness fled again, just as quickly.

"Killian," she called out. "Talk to me. Tell me a story. Recite a poem. Anything."

Killian stared straight ahead. He tried to think of something to tell her.

"Did I ever tell you about the time Liam tried to make cakes in an empty house that we found? The owners must have been away. I was… I don't know… maybe 6 or 7. There was a kitchen, lots of flour, eggs, milk. Liam took it into his head that he could make a cake for us. He said he'd seen Mum do it many times, and he let me help him. We'd never had a steady supply of food, and he showed me now to fry us up some eggs while he started on this cake…"

Killian's voice dipped up and down with the story, melodious and deep, and Emma felt the joy flood through her. The baby adored his voice. The baby loved him, even without any other sense of him.

"Queen Clarion!" Emma's voice boomed across the empty square. Killian stopped mid-sentence. "Bring the Queen here now!"

The whole of the fairy village seemed to awaken. The Saviour called out again and again, demanding that the Queen come out immediately. At last, when the entire population of Fairy Hollow was buzzing and whirring in the starlight, the Queen appeared.

"Do you feel that, Queen? Come here, close to me. Do you feel the grief?" The Queen drew closer to Emma.

"I feel it, Saviour, and I told you, I'm sorry that you're unhappy, but you will be better off…"

"No!" Emma shouted. "I'm not grieving, not yet. I'm angry. That sadness, that depression… that's not me. It's the baby. You have still its happiness and its laughter. What happens to fairies who cause babies to grieve?"

The Queen stiffened. All the many fairies sunk slowly to the grass and trees and flowers, listening through the silence. They could feel everything that Emma picked up from the baby.

"Killian," Emma called. "Carry on with your story."

Killian immediately began speaking again, in the same deep singsong that he always adopted when he was telling a tale. Happiness bubbled up again in Emma, and she couldn't help giggling. All of the fairies did the same. They laughed along with it.

"Let him go, Clarion. The baby loves its father already. He or she knows Killian's voice and his stories and his songs. Don't fairies survive on babies' laughs?"

Clarion sighed deeply. She dropped the bonds from Emma. Emma raced over to Killian and magicked his shackles away and hugged him close. The joy and laughter from within increased ten-fold as Killian murmured his thanks and love, and all of the fairies basked in it.

Clarion turned on her heal. "Leave the hollow. I don't want to see him again." Emma wasted no time. She pulled Killian along behind her, back down the path they'd arrived on. "Come on, let's find somewhere to sleep the night. We'll figure out how to get the information about Merlin in the morning."

"Tinkerbelle's house, love. You know it, so you can take us there." They disappeared and then reappeared in a white mist inside Tinkerbelle's dusty, abandoned treehouse. Exhausted, they collapsed onto the bed and snuggled together. "Go to my ship, love, and bring back a blanket from my quarters." Emma did so, and they lay together listening to the Neverland night once again, huddled under a blanket from the Jolly Roger and safe together.

"This kid's already saved your skin and he or she isn't even born!" Emma laughed.

"I didn't expect any less from the child of the Saviour," he smiled back. "Now go on, find us some pizza..."