Emma could barely blink her eyes open, the sun was so strong. Killian was kneeling next to her; she could smell his scent and hear his voice, harsh and commanding, shouting orders. She was disorientated; she felt as though she was tilting, pitching, and she tried to reach out for Killian, to steady herself against him.
Wet. Her clothes felt wet and sticky. And she could taste saltwater. Had Merlin sent her to the Jolly Roger? She supposed she lay somewhere on some deck, gaining her bearings, but she could ever remember the correct nautical terms. She smiled to herself, thinking how amusingly annoyed he'd be to have to remind her for the eightieth time…
Anyway, how had she made it back to the Jolly? She ached as though she had been bashed about. Her fingers flew to her belly, but that link of magic she shared with her child, insubstantial as it was, reassured her that the baby had survived. What had Davy told her? Don't worry, the baby is tough. Have faith, she told herself, no matter how much it cuts against your nature.
The shouting all around her grew more insistent. Killian still knelt nearby, but she could feel anger rolling off him. Better reassure him, too, Emma thought to herself, before he kills someone for hurting me.
"Killian, hey, I'm okay," she grinned up at him, his face no more than a shadow with the sun positioned directly behind his head. She reached her hand up to smooth his hair away from his eyes. Was it longer than before? "Stop shouting at everyone, please. My head hurts something awful. I think I must have bumped it."
He remained absolutely silent. The shouting immediately around her stopped, though, crew and all, at the sight of her hand entangled in the captain's hair. For the first time she could hear gulls and the angry slap of storm waves against the hull, the urgent conversations of sailors and anguished groans further off. She tried to prop herself up on her elbow, but the deck felt slippery and dipped with the waves, and she worried that she'd fall if she tried to haul herself upright. Blinded and immobilised, she reached her hand out to him. "Could you help me up, babe? I don't think I can manage."
Killian turned his face to the side, his profile sharp against the sun, throwing another order across the deck to an unseen sailor: "Gut that traitor from neck to balls. Do it now. Then throw him overboard." He turned his face back to Emma. His hand reached up to grip her wrist and pull it harshly away from his face. "And you'd better tell me exactly who the fuck you are, before I gut you as well."
Emma stopped breathing. "Killian?" she whispered.
"How do you know my name?" he demanded, his voice dead.
Just then another sailor passed behind Killian, blocking out the sun. The movement threw Killian's features into sharp relief. He was scowling at her, blood dripping from his coat and sword, and from his hook. Emma stared at the hook. Why… how… did he get the hook back? Killian gave her a sarcastic grin, "You must have at least suspected there'd be a hook, love. The name didn't give it away? Perhaps milady thought it was a euphemism?"
She blinked. She cursed her hormones, but her lip was starting to tremble with the effort of not bursting into tears. "Killian," she whispered again. "Tell me this is a dream. Wake me up."
Something about her expression seemed to give him pause. He signalled for two of his crew to step forward and drag her to her feet. He hopped to his much faster. Emma looked down and saw that her dress was covered in blood mixed with seawater. That was why the deck felt so slippery, she realised. She slowly ran her gaze over the sun-drenched deck, taking in the crew gawping at her and the seven or eight dead bodies scattered across the wooden decking. The latest – slit open precisely as Killian had ordered – was still twitching as he bled out. The dead wore elaborate red and blue naval uniforms. She blinked beyond the crew, towards the rear of the ship. She made out the skull and crossbones on a black field, flying proudly over the Jolly's maindeck.
Emma vomited. The crew members holding her up didn't even flinch, as though this reaction was both expected and desired. This made Killian smile at last. No, Emma corrected herself, not Killian. Hook.
"Now... who the bloody fuck are you?" he demanded again. His pirate's eyes took in the necklace. "And why are you wearing my jewels?"
Emma opened and closed her mouth like a goldfish. "Killian, please, I need to sit down. I need some water."
"If you don't answer the question, love, I'm about to give you more water than you bargained for," he retorted, nodding towards the side of the ship. A few of the sailors guffawed, sneering at her.
Emma could feel a deep anger bubbling away in her blood, but her only surface acknowledgement was that she began to cry. The sailors holding her arms were squeezing her to the point of pain. "If you want the necklace back, just have one of your crew take it off me." She spoke clearly despite the tears.
"Those are Eternal Spring stones, love. They only clasp if put on by your True Love, and only he can take them off again. So I repeat… how the hell did they end up around your neck? They belong in a trunk in my quarters." Hook wasn't sure if he believed the legend, but he knew the stones to be precious beyond price, and he wanted them back. He'd been planning to pay his crew a fat packet of gold each with the money raised from those gems.
Emma's wet dress was stuck tight to her body, highlighting every curve. Hook ran his gaze across her body, and he seemed to notice her belly for the first time: not very large, yet, true, but it was obvious enough that her belly was not in keeping with her slim frame. "I assume it's the same man who put that baby in there, put the stones on your neck?" He laughed derisively.
Emma gave him a hollow laugh in return. "Yeah, it's the same guy." She swayed as the ship hit a choppy series of waves. The sailors either side of her tightened their grips, digging their fingers into her arm. She winced, which brought more tears. She hated herself for looking weak in front of this man. Both pirates at her side tried the release the necklace, but of course neither could.
"They're stuck tight, Captain."
Hook seemed to stiffen in his stance. "Take them off," he told her in a voice that made her jump slightly. To their left, he noticed a fallen man in a naval uniform struggling to his feet. Hook lunged towards him and with a graceful swipe of his hook, tore the man's throat open. The sailor hit the deck with a sickening crack, mouth open to scream, but vocals chords severed. He did not die immediately, but thrashed and twitched nearer and nearer. Emma couldn't look away. She felt the nausea rise again.
"Sympathetic to that shit-eating piece of rubbish, are you?" Hook demanded. "You must be one of King George's minions, then. Is that bastard sending women to do his work now?"
Emma shuffled a bit to one side, both to distance herself from the dying sailor, and so that she could see Hook more clearly without the direct sun in her eyes. "No, I don't work for King George." She tried to keep her voice strong, and she tried not to throw up again. Her true identity was definitely off the table, then, as David had been George's heir. She had no idea exactly where in this timeline David began fighting against George, and whether Killian would have any knowledge of it out here on the high seas.
"We can work out who you are in the brig," Hook snapped. "For now, take off the jewels and hand them to me."
"I can't. You know very well that I can't," she responded quietly. She leaned into him, her eyes large and accusatory. "Why don't you try?" she hissed.
Hook stilled. He looked her over from her satin slippers to her golden hair, lingering on her emerging belly. Emma followed his gaze without blinking, and she saw it, just there, the moment that Hook joined up the dots. She saw the realisation dawn on his handsome face, every bit as beguiling in this incarnation. He reached forward tentatively, his fingers lingering on her collarbone. Emma met his gaze and held it; he looked like someone papering over his nerves with an expression of bored disdain. He inched his fingers around the back of her neck to the clasp. With one touch of his hand, the clasp fell open and the necklace dropped onto his waiting hook, hovering just above Emma's swollen breasts. He wasn't smiling now.
"Take her to the brig, then, Jasper," a familiar voice barked. Emma snapped her head round to look at him: Smee. "You heard the cap'n. We need this deck cleared before George sends another of his attack dogs on us."
A sailor that Emma couldn't see, behind her, pinned both of her arms back and started shoving her below deck. Hook stopped him with the flat of his sword. "Jasper… hold her still." Hook brought himself almost nose to nose with her. Emma breathed far too rapidly, feeling a strange coldness taking hold, alongside a dizzying headache. And heartache. Shock, her logical self argued. You're going into shock. Calm down, calm down, she ordered her mind and body. Calm down for the baby. This is how people miscarry. She closed her eyes to regain control of her emotions and reactions.
Hook pressed the long edge of his sword across her body and let it bite in, just a touch. Emma began to gasp for air. He's going to kill me, she thought. I'm George's granddaughter, and somehow he knows that. Merlin must have sent me back in time so that Killian could murder me and destroy our love. She let out a long, low sob and tried to back away from the blade, but the sailor behind her stood fast, immovable as a mountain.
"Answer me girl. Where did you get those stones?" Hook hissed.
Emma met his gaze at last. He looked angry, yes, but also curious. "You know very well where I got them. There's only one possible answer. Only one person could possibly have fixed them around my neck, and it's the same person who took them off," she shot back.
Hook snapped the sword back and sheathed it without a word, never taking his eyes off of her. "Take her to my quarters," he spoke gruffly. The pirate holding her hustled her forward, causing her to trip and nearly fall on the blood-slicked deck. Hook caught her. "Be careful with her, you bloody great prick." He didn't seem to entirely believe her, but that at least had bought her a reprieve. "Put her in my quarters, lock her in, and leave. No one stays with her. No one touches her. If anyone does, I will personally bleed him long and slow."
…
When the door to the cabin closed behind her captors, and Emma was left on her own, she sank to the floor and cried. She took deep, gasping breaths and spoke aloud to the baby, telling her not to worry. I have to combat the shock, she thought. Get warm. She shrugged out of her soaked, ruined dress and wandered over to the washstand in her shift.
She felt at home here, the cabin so unchanged from this time to hers. She cleaned her face and hands and arms, washing away the salt and blood. She picked the blanket up off his bed and turned it over in her hands – it was the same one they'd lain under in Neverland. That thought brought a fresh round of tears. She wrapped herself up and sat on the floor, her back to the bunk, and waited until her shaking stopped and her dizziness eased.
After an hour or so, she stopped crying and opened the drawer where she knew Killian kept handkerchiefs – and there they were. Neatly folded, everything in its place. She helped herself to one and wiped her eyes. The room smelled like him, moreso now when he lived here full time than it did in her timeline. She remembered meeting another version of past-Hook in the tavern, stumbling back to his ship, and how carelessly he had treated her, as just another conquest. She glanced down at her bump sardonically: no chance he'd dismiss her importance to his future self this time, she thought.
Emma decided to look around for familiar objects, hoping to calm herself down. She was running her fingers over the beautiful, hand-drawn maps spread across his desk, her back to the doorway. She let one fingernail trace his elegant cursive rendering of strange names of islands and seas and ports. She heard the hatch open and shut behind her, and she could sense him standing in the entranceway, taking her measure. She decided to break the silence herself: "Your maps are works of art, Killian. I'm going to have to frame some of them, in my time. Once we have a home, of course," she smiled, knowing he couldn't see her face. He took a step closer, and she looked over her shoulder at him. He had washed off the worst of the blood and little drops of the seawater he'd used still clung to his hair and eyelashes. He moved to stand next to her, at the same time twisting off his hook and laying it on the desk next to the maps.
She could tell with one look into his blue eyes – cautious, curious – that Hook's brain had processed the entire scenario. He knew exactly who she was to him, or at least some version of him.
"I hope you don't mind…" she held up the handkerchief. "I washed up, too. I didn't intend to intrude, but…" she shrugged, and smiled faintly.
Hook simply nodded. "But you know this cabin well. Apparently some version of me has given you permission to do as you please here."
"Killian," she began, turning full to him. "This is a shock for both of us…"
Hook cut her off. "Please sit down." She automatically perched on the edge of his bed. He raised his eyebrows at this, and she noticed he had been gesturing to a chair in front of the desk. Emma blushed and made to move off the bed. "No need," he said curtly, holding up his hand to indicate that she should stay put, "I suppose I should expect a level of familiarity, given…" he waved the hand in the direction of her bump. "Might I ask your name?"
"Emma Swan."
Hook raise the eyebrow again. "Not Jones, then?"
"Oh, um, well, we hadn't really discussed that."
His eyebrow shot up slightly higher. "Have I not married you, then, Emma? That seems like bad form, considering your condition." He was clearly weighing the evidence: Eternity Stones and possible True Love, but no wedding ring and not a Jones.
Emma coughed and then rambled, suddenly wishing she had gone down a more traditional and easily defensible route with the wedding. "We are married. But very recently, and I guess taking your husband's name isn't a foregone conclusion in my time. It was sort of an unexpected ceremony."
He cocked his head to the side, considering that. He nodded again to himself. "The necklace implies more than just marriage. But the lack of marriage implies that the stones are a parlour trick." He stood and paced the length of the cabin, never taking his eyes off of her.
"We are married, it's just.."
"Your clothing implies a certain level of wealth," he continued as though she had not spoken, "but then I assume I wouldn't let my wife wander about in rags." Hook sat down heavily on the chair across from her, leaving that statement hanging between them. "What am I to you?" he finally asked.
Emma angled herself towards him. She blinked into his familiar blue eyes. The man before her had all the potential to be her Killian. The naval officer was still there, the man of honour. "What are you to me?" she repeated thoughtfully. "You are everything to me, Killian, and much more." Her voice shuddered a bit. "And I've been ripped away from you. I don't know what my you must think, whether or not you know I'm alive, whether our child is alive." She felt the tears starting again. "You promised me that you wouldn't leave me alone," she sobbed.
Hook made no move to comfort her, letting her cry and studying her all the while. Finally, he coaxed her down onto the bed and pulled the blanket up over her. "Whoever you are, you're exhausted and ill. I'm going to send for some water for you to drink and a bit of food. You need to eat."
Emma started laughing through the sobbing. "Oh my God, even this version of you is obsessed with feeding me regular meals."
Hook regarded her with an emotion that bordered on the wistful. He tried to conjure this version of himself: Killian, not Hook; a devoted husband and soon-to-be father; someone who brought his pregnant wife snacks because he worried about the baby; and someone who gifted her with priceless, romantic jewellery. He recognised this person in himself. He knew it could be. This woman was blindingly beautiful, with her shining hair in soft waves and her jade eyes, and her breasts, oh god, her breasts beneath that thin chemise. And she looked at him so trustingly, absolutely believing that he would protect and care for her. Care for the breasts.
Then again, perhaps she was a siren, or a witch. Or a traitorous mermaid somehow walking on two legs.
He called over Smee, and sent him for a tray of food and fresh drinking water. When Hook returned with the food and drink, Emma had a book in her lap. One of his books. More accurately, one of Liam's. She was running her fingers down the cover. "This poetry book," Emma smiled. "You read it to me all the time when I can't sleep."
Bloody fucking hell, if any of what she said was true, then he really must be wasted for this woman, because the mere suggestion that Captain Hook read poetry to his lover to chase away her nightmares… it was ludicrous. And now that she had mentioned it, it was all he could do keep from cuddling up to her against the pillows and reading her the damn book. He handed her a glass of water without a change in expression. She kept looking at him with those big green eyes, like she also expected him to crawl under the covers with her and read a few stanzas.
Hook pulled a chair up near the bed – but not too near – while she drank the water and ate the stew. "Where, or when, are you from?"
Emma looked at her hands. "From our future, at least I think so. You've never mentioned this battle, but… there's a lot about your past that I don't know."
"And in this future, we're married, you're pregnant, and I take it that child is mine."
Emma nodded her assent, but answered a bit sharply, "Of course she's yours."
"She?" He swallowed that. "Do we have any other children?"
Emma shook her head. "I have a son, but from years before I met you. His father is dead, and Henry thinks of you as a father, now." She decided not to mention Baelfire by name; the story was too confusing as it was, and she feared making any direct link between herself and the Dark One. "I'm not really sure how much I should tell you. I mean, it could mess up the future, right?"
Emma shivered, and Hook immediately reached for another blanket and arranged it around her shoulders. "I want to know why you're here, and how. But right now I need to tell you that there's a battle on. A bloody enormous battle against King George's men, and I certainly wouldn't choose to have my pregnant wife right in the godsdamned middle of it. I lost a man in that last skirmish."
"King George," Emma breathed, catching on a bit more now. She knew roughly where she was in time then, sometime just before her birth, as George's cursed self had existed in Storybrooke.
"You know of him? In the future?" Killian looked slightly suspicious.
"Yes. My parents knew of him, and they told me stories," Emma lied as smoothly as possible. Do not mention the sort-of grandfather by adoption of father's twin brother situation. Or Baelfire.
"Ah, so is he dead in your future?" Now he simply looked curious, perhaps a bit hopeful. "Tell me I killed him."
"Listen, I really shouldn't tell you too much about the future. I've probably said far too much already," she deflected. "But I will tell you why I'm here: Merlin. He sent me here to ummm…" Emma faltered. "To destroy our love."
Killian kicked back in his chair. Merlin. A dark wizard. Another wanking magical creature trying to screw with his life. Assuming this blonde enchantress was telling the truth. Still, hard to fake the Eternity Stones, he reasoned. Or his undeniable desire to rip off that chemise and bury his face in those fabulous… but no. He needed space to think, that's what he needed. It was hard to think with those eyes cataloguing his every movement, and damn it to the depths, he could make out every line of her body in that chemise. He had caught sight of her nipples, and they were making his mouth water.
Killian shoved the chair back and rose suddenly. Emma flinched involuntarily.
"I'll not hurt you, Emma, if what you tell me is true," he said, somewhat more softly. "If you're mine… no one will hurt you."
Emma did not consider that particularly reassuring. If he found that she had magic, he might consider the stones a trick. A pounding on the hatch interrupted them. "Captain! Another of King George's ships is coming this way at full tilt!"
Hook strode over to the desk. He picked up his hook and snapped it decisively into place. "Stay put," he ordered. He considered her, lying in his bed, tucked under his quilt, wrapped in his blanket, his brother's book in her hand. And allegedly, his child in her belly. His jewels around her… Ah, yes.
"Here, lass," he pulled the Eternity Spring stones from his pocket. "You'd best have these back." He walked back her and sat down on the side of the bed, his eyes steady on hers. He handed her the necklace.
Emma shook her head. "I can't fix them in place," she reminded him. "You'll have to do it."
Hook hesitated. Then he gently brushed his fingertips across her neck and swept her hair out of the way. He slid the clasp into place at the back of her neck. It clicked shut, locked now until he unlocked them for her. "Those look like they've longed to grace your neck since they were dug up from underground." Emma tried to stifle a happy sigh and failed. Hook leaned forward and pressed his lips to the third finger of her left hand. "I know the stones mean the same thing, but I find it hard to believe I haven't put a ring on this hand. I must have changed greatly in the future, if I don't feel the need to warn off any bastards who might try to speak to a woman that's mine." He gifted her with a sexy smirk. "At least tell me I've killed someone over you."
She grew a bit nervous over his line of questioning. Jealous, armed, and about to wage another battle to the death, he looked like Hook to her, rather than Killian, and the difference was stark. She recalled his joking words to her on the street in New York: 'Where'd you hide the pirate?' 'Right here love. Why, do you need someone killed?' They didn't seem quite so funny now.
"You've killed men for me. But no one's been suicidal enough to try to tempt me away from you, at least not in your hearing."
Hook seemed satisfied with her answer. He placed another kiss on her left hand and rose to climb the steps out of his cabin. "I mean it, lass. Do. Not. Move." There was not a hint of a smile on his face now.
"I can help, you know, with the battle."
"No, lass, I'll not have you in danger, especially not with the babe." For a moment, his frown looked exactly like Killian's. Emma felt her stomach do a little flip. He continued in a dead-cold voice of authority: "You will stay down here, out of sight and out of the way." The tone implied consequences for disobedience.
He rushed up the ladder and the cabin's door swung shut with a bang that made her jump. She laid one protective hand over her belly and let her head fall back against the wall. She shouldn't interfere, she reasoned. He would certainly fly into a rage at being crossed, and worse still, her presence could put him off his game. She found it hard to sit still, though, when a deafening crack reverberated through the Jolly Roger, as the naval vessel slammed into it. The Roger's cannons fired, shaking her again, and a thunder of feet above her seemed to be stamping and scraping across the wood. She could smell blood and heard the metallic scrape of sword against sword. She could hear him through the din of the battle, rasping out orders and insults and curses. Emma tightened her grip on the quilt and tried to stay out of it. When she couldn't take anymore, she ran to the ladder and opened the hatch slowly, just enough for a glimpse of him.
She had chosen the exact moment that the past tense of her husband was digging his hook deep into a man's throat. Blood sprayed across him as he pulled away, the body hitting the deck with a lifeless thud. He turned without a sound or a backwards glance and slit the abdomen of another assailant, using his hook and sword together to slice open the enemy sailor. The expression on Hook's face wasn't murderous, and that surprised her, just intensely focussed. He was thinking logically, critically about each move, the location of everyone on his ship. So it shouldn't have surprised her when his next attack, sword slashing with precision and intent, brought him right in front of her. She could see the blood seeping into the space between the sole of his boot and the heel. He was so close that the hatch obscured her view, so did not see him thrust his blade through the man's neck, but she saw the result clearly enough when the body flopped into her line of vision, eyes rolling and throat spurting arterial blood. Hook yelled as he spotted her, momentarily distracted from the fight by the sight of her head and neck exposed to the battle. She felt his voice echo around her bones and seep into the soft tissue of her body.
At that moment, a pulse of power surged from within her, unbidden. The action on deck froze: one pirate was poised with his cutlass half-sunk into a sailor's belly, and she spotted Smee in mid-battle cry, hurling himself at a red-coated sailor, swinging a mace. She and Hook were the only people still moving. She felt his arm tighten around her upper arm and he dragged her to him, turning her and tugging her until she was nose to nose with his icy blue stare.
"What is this?" he demanded, his voice threatening but level and no louder than necessary.
Instead of answering, Emma closed her eyes against his gaze and let her magic penetrate the tableau before her, freezing it solid. She opened her eyes again to him and whispered, "The baby. Your voice… you shouted to me… the baby doesn't know you aren't him. She sensed danger to you, or to me, and, well…"
Hook stared at her, letting this news sink in. "I married a witch," he said aloud, turning the facts over in his mind. "After spending two centuries searching for a way to defeat a dark wizard, you're telling me that I married a witch?" He pushed her away from him, and let his eyes travel to her belly. Instinct made her quickly bring both hands up to protect her bump. "And what's more, my child is a witch as well."
Emma's spine straightened as she mustered a response, his evident disgust completely undoing her. "I'm not a witch," she shot back. "Our daughter is not a witch. She is gifted, because of our True Love." She tried to back further from Hook, but he snagged her arm with his hook and hauled her back. "Killian would never say that, he just never would. Never think it."
"Possibly he would never say it, but I find it hard to believe that the thought would never occur to me. And he's still me, isn't he?"
"I'm not evil! Our daughter is not evil!" She whipped her arm out of Hook's trap and shoved him full in the chest. "She was trying to protect you! I'm trying to do the same. Look," she turned Hook around, "you were distracted looking at me, and this man had the tip of his blade inches from kidneys."
Hook's features hardened. He glanced around him at the frozen scene, "You and I will finish this later. However, I'm not one to turn down an opportunity." Without a thought for Emma, who still stood watching, he ripped his hook jaggedly down the chest and gut of the man whose sword had come so close to killing him. The man remained frozen, no blood spilled, not even his face could contort with the torturous pain.
Hook wandered the deck of his ship at leisure, running through every one of the king's men with his sword. At the end of this killing spree, he wiped the blade clean on the trousers of his last victim. "Please thank my child for me. You may restart time whenever you please."
Emma let the control she'd been exerting to hold things still falter and die. She closed her eyes against the results, even as the shrieks of the dying and the confused shouts of Killian's crew filled the air. She felt her strength drain away with the spell, but whatever else she knew him to be, Emma knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that Hook would catch her as her legs weakened and her feet skidded on the slippery wood beneath her feet.
He had his arms beneath her shoulders and knees as soon as her saw her falter. He thought it a feminine sort of swoon, she could tell, which pissed her right off. It took a tremendous amount of strength to exert that kind of force over time and physics. She just needed a moment to rest and more secure footing. Then again, she thought, his arms did feel rather wonderful, and she didn't care to walk through the death and muck on deck, truth be told. She leaned her head against Hook's chest, closed her eyes and pretended that she had fainted. She pretended he was Killian.
"Smith!" he yelled. His voice punctured her daydream of Killian and she opened one eye. A burly sailor strode over to him. The pirate had a long straggly beard and a bleeding gash across his ear and left cheek and at least a week's worth of grime worked into every surface and crevice. Hook dumped Emma unceremoniously into the pirate's arms. "I've work to do and this woman has passed out. Again. Put her in my bed for me." She could almost hear Hook smirking and the pirates around him snorted lecherously. "No touching. I will take both your hands if you do."
Smith smelled precisely as he looked. Emma tried to wriggle from his grasp. "And Smith, lock her in. If she doesn't like my cabin, we can always put her in the brig." Killian leaned in closer. "Did you hear that, love? Be a good girl and wait in my bed for me. I'd hate to lock you in the cell. I have a feeling you're used to more sumptuous surroundings."
Emma tried to escape Smith's iron grip and lunge at Killian's arrogant head. But she was held fast, and unless she resorted to magic, she would have to do as he ordered, along with everyone else on the ship. She felt a growing resentment at him and the whole situation.
"Don't be too long," she called to him sarcastically, as Smith carried her towards Hook's quarters. "I really can't wait to get my hands on you."