Thank you once again for the reviews! Just magical. And to answer the question about how many more chapters this will be: I hesitate to answer, as I had initially envisioned this as 10 or 12 chapters. I was waaaaay off! As always, I hope you enjoy the chapter, and I'll be back with more as soon as possible.

"Have you managed to get the sword off him?" Will asked hesitantly, peering into the abandoned farmhouse from a safe distance. The sound of pottery shattering and furniture splintering resounded across the packed earth of the front yard, as did the nonstop swearing and cursing of the man inside.

David and Mac both slumped from the house and shook their heads. "We can't get near him," admitted Mac. "He won't listen to either of us. He's been taking that place apart mud brick by mud brick for the better part of 2 hours."

"Every time I think he's exhausted himself, he comes back for another round of destruction," David sighed. The three men looked helplessly through the gaping doorway; the solid oak farm door had been the first of Killian's casualties. They leaned on their swords and waited. At another pause in the swearing and smashing, they stood up taller and listened closely, but the pauses only served to let Killian's rage reboil and spill over, all the hotter.

The snapping of a twig behind made them all jump, momentarily fearing that the pirate had somehow made his way behind them. Snow made a disapproving sound with her tongue and gave her husband a short shove towards the door. "What are you three doing out here? You were supposed to stop him."

"He's swinging the sword at us, in a blind rage. He beat us back twice and didn't look like to stop for fear of drawing our blood," Mac explained.

"We can't just leave him in there," Snow exhorted them. "In this mood, he might turn that rage on himself. After all, it's his own self he's so angry at."

Snow made to cross the threshold, but both David and Will caught her arms, and Mac flung himself across the doorframe. She shook them off and motioned for Mac to step aside. "I'm not going to take him on myself, for godssake. I'm only going within shouting distance. And Killian will not hurt me, no matter how angry he is," Snow insisted.

"He's not in his right mind, Your Majesty," Mac argued. "The memories clashing have left him with headaches and he's not… stable. Not himself."

Snow inclined her head to acknowledge that truth, but she carried on inside anyway, the three men following at a short distance. They could hear a clatter and crash above their heads, and climbed the stairs cautiously, calling out Killian all the while, so that they wouldn't surprise him.

Snow found him in the chaos of what used to be a large bedroom. Shreds of fabric and feathers from the ruined bedding circled the room in a breeze gusting in through the smashed windows. His boots crunched through the shards of pottery and glassware and broken mirrors that littered the wooden floorboards. He had hacked through 3 of the four tall, wooden posts on the corners of the bed, and they lay like fallen tree trunks on a thick rug beneath the bed. His hands were bloodied, blistered and raw from a rampage that had lasted most of the last week. Killian looked as though he had never slept in his life, blank blue eyes underscored by heavy dark smudges of sleeplessness and self-hatred. He roared at the door when he saw her blocking it.

"Did you think sending a woman would make me relent, David?" he snapped.

Snow crept closer to him, holding her hands out in offering. "Killian, please put the sword down and let me bandage your hands. Emma would never forgive us if we let you hurt yourself like this."

"Emma!" he scoffed, "Your precious little princess. Do you know where she's been, Dave? Her parents must want an update," Killian called around Snow through the doorway. "She's in the middle of our fucking bed with him, that's where." Killian began pounding away at the final bedpost.

"Killian, please, set the sword down. Please. She's trying to get back to you, you know that. She's trying to convince him…"

Killian whipped round and stomped three steps towards Snow, a move that finally brought David, Mac and Will to the front, swords drawn, to deter him. Killian didn't flinch, but he took his sword and thrust it straight down through the centre of the bed, so hard that it cleaved through the thick mattress and embedded in the floor beneath.

"Do you know what's she is doing to convince him, Your Majesty," Killian spat. "Shall I spell it out for you? I have a fairy good visual recall."

Snow had a hard time believing that Emma, who had after all resisted Hook's charms for months after their first meeting, would have dived into bed with the man within a month. Then again, she and Killian had gone from the occasional date night to impending parenthood in roughly a month, so perhaps Hook had worked his charms on her. No… Snow shook off the thought. She loved Killian far too much to upset him like this.

"Killian, anything Emma is doing, she is doing out of love for you and her children and her family. You know her so well. She would never betray you," Snow spoke softly and moved a step closer to him. She motioned the men to move back. "There is simply nothing we can do from here. We cannot touch the past…"

"I know that!" Killian erupted again, then sank down on the bed and dropped his head into his hands. He kneaded his fingers into his skull.

Snow sat hesitantly on the bed next to him. "Is it painful – the memories constantly changing?" Killian nodded. Snow reached around him and pulled a pillow from the bed and tucked it onto her lap. Then she coaxed Killian's head onto the pillow and placed her palm over his forehead. She rubbed her fingers into his temples, and he shuddered out a breath of relief.

"Killian, please, no more stalking around like a wounded animal. You are sad and angry and frustrated and physically hurting. Let me help. You have family now, you know. We will always help you."

He opened his eyes just enough to look up backwards at Snow. He didn't smile, but she could see that the rage had run its course. "I'm sorry I didn't bring a stock of Advil with me," she smiled at him. He just closed his eyes again and mumbled, "No worries. I've always medicated with rum. Works just as well." Snow shook her head and grinned at him.

"I'll find you a bottle, cousin," Mac called from the doorway, as he and David and Will sheathed their swords.

David wandered over to put a hand on his wife's shoulder and give it a gentle squeeze. "Killian, I know she'll make it back. No incarnation of you can say no to my daughter for very long."

"Let's hope so," Killian replied. He pushed himself to him feet and yanked his sword back out of the ruined bed. "I'm going to take a little walk in the meadow to clear my head. Don't follow." He clumped down the stairs and headed toward the grassy plain where he knew that the quiet would calm the ache. David and Snow watched him disappear down the rickety stairs, and only after he'd gone did Snow rest her head on David's chest and start crying.

…

At sunrise, Regina threw open the window of her room, wondering as she had every morning for nearly a month if this was the day Merlin told her that there was a time limit. She'd not figured it out yet. When Emma had disappeared, Regina had smashed everything in Merlin's carefully appointed drawing room, only to have him magic them all back to pristine perfection a moment later.

She'd considered leaving the castle to talk things over with Hook and Snow, but she knew that once out, she could not get back in. And since she could not fathom Merlin's game plan, she didn't want to leave. As it turned out, he seemed happy for her to stay. He must, she supposed, have been lonely, and after such a long quarantine, even hostile company must have been welcome. She also couldn't figure out if he was allowing her to stay, or if it was simply beyond his power to make her go. But then what had allowed him to curse Emma into the past?

It only took Regina 24 hours to find the hall of mirrors. Garish and ornate, with gilt shimmering from every frame, the long ballroom was covered floor to ceiling in clear mirrors. Regina had nearly fallen to the parquet floor in laughter. Who would leave the evil queen alone in a hall full of mirrors? She wasted no time in finding Emma and Hook, and Killian, Snow and David. She sat in the room every day, watching and waiting. She could see Emma's anger and desperation, Hook's guilt and conflicted feelings, and Killian's despair and pain.

She tried at first to reach Emma, but she couldn't break the barrier of time.

Still, each morning, as soon as the sun was up, she returned to her spot beneath the mirrors. She could see Emma and Hook's whole world writ large across the hall, playing out in pieces of a huge picture all around her. The daily life aboard the ship, the horizon beyond, the storms and the sea and the sky. She saw Emma's belly growing bigger, and she knew that Killian could see it, too. He might miss the first times his baby kicked. He might, at this rate, miss the birth.

That was when Regina figured out the time limit. It was the baby. Just like Snow hadn't been able travel with Emma through the wardrobe to escape her own curse, the baby would be unable to travel back through time with Emma once it was its own entity, even if Hook finally did discover that she was his true love. The timeline, currently in some sort of holding pattern, would alter forever, and Emma would be trapped in the past with the baby she would, of course, never leave.

From the moment she made that discovery, Regina watched Emma's belly every day with increasing dread. So when she saw Emma introduce the pirate to his own magic, to the magic he was able to wield through his love for Emma, she felt hope for the first time in weeks. Not hope of the Snow-White-butterflies-and-rainbows sort, but hope based on evidence. Hook was weakening, becoming ever more invested in Emma's happiness and well-being above his own. And now he was sitting on a big bed, across from his true love, in a paradise of his own making.

Regina all but skipped into the kitchen to whip up some hot chocolate for her friend's imminent return.

…

Hook opened his eyes and there it was, just as he had seen it in his mind. Liam had been captain of the Jolly Roger when he'd seen this place last, and fuck knew that was lifetimes ago. This woman, this witch, his love and his sorceress, she'd made it come to life again. Or he had. Had they actually travelled there? Was he drunk, or drugged? The fairies used to induce fantasies in him to get what they wanted, but never something as real or as personal as this. Something he knew to be real. Their fantasies had been… fanstastical. And lecherous. And based on their own desires, never his. This felt soothing, gentle, loving. And he felt that he had… somehow… created it himself.

He kept his voice gruff, not willing to show her outwardly his utter awe of this – trick? swindle? miracle? – while things were still so tense between them. "How in seven hells did you do this, woman?"

"I didn't, you did," Emma held his hand more tightly. "This little house, our little house, is powered by our own magic. Our true love. I didn't know if it would work… Killian is my true love, and I didn't know if it would be… I don't know, backwards compatible?" Killian raised an eyebrow at the odd phrase. "I mean, even though you could work the necklace, I didn't know if our magic would still work. True Love is its own magic, kind of separate from mine, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that it's fated, in some strange way, not just chosen." Emma shook her head.

"Aye. You mean, I never fell in love with you, I just was in love with you. Always. Even when I didn't know who you were." She smiled at him; Killian always cut through her ramblings and put things into the right words.

"I've seen this place before. You've shown it to me before."

"Did I tell that it really exists? Liam and I found this place when we were boys, still working as slaves on a godawful ship. We'd pulled into a port at this island, which should be there" – he pointed west – "but this version has blocked it out. While the crew and captain were dead drunk, off the ship in taverns, and we dived in for a swim. We nearly drown getting here, or at least I did. But we stayed the night on this little sand bar, and it never quite went under the tide at its highest point. We just watched the stars and talked all night, and felt free."

She smiled sadly at him – both of their histories were tragic, pathetic. Emma let her hand roam up and down his arm. So many blank pages had filled in, and did she really want to read all of them? She had never told Killian about how she spent night after night in alleyways and under bridges in the middle of a Portland winter at 15 years old, hungry and freezing and wishing herself dead. Or loved. Neither thing had happened. No one ever came to her aid. She struggled until she met Neal, and then she struggled after. Killian knew enough, and he knew better than to ask for more unless she wanted to tell it.

"Hook, I've made you up a forgetting potion. If you choose to send me back, you will need to drink this, so that we don't mess up the future."

"If I just keep you with me here, then the future won't matter. The most important thing is that we are together."

Emma clenched her teeth. "Hook, I have a son. I need to go home to him. And I cannot abandon your future self either. We cannot mess with time this way. But most importantly, I cannot love you if you will not send me home."

Hook tightened his jaw and glanced off to the side, as if looking for confirmation in the ocean outside the windows. "I know."

"What? You know? Does that mean you plan to send me home?"

Hook nodded. "Very well, Emma. I will send you back to myself." Emma launched herself across the bed and into his arms, cuddling into his embrace, crying and kissing his neck. "I'm going to miss you, Emma."

"No," she insisted. "You won't. You'll drink this, and you won't remember that we've met. I already took the memories of your crew. They're absorbed into the enchanted wood of the Jolly's mast. You must carry on exactly as before."

Emma suddenly realised that she could now share anything with him. He was going to forget. She could tell him some secret of her past, show him some key place that even Killian had not seen. Maybe somehow, even when he drank the potion, some part of her dark story would light his.

She thought back to her absolutely most dismal times. She had had no idea where she would sleep that first night she left prison, or any night after. She had given birth only six weeks before her release, and she was still feeling bereft. At least she'd had the Bug, a small but important mercy, which provided a roof and a locked door. She had no proper education and never had enough money to finish school. She was old enough to work when she left prison and she had worked ever since. Two weeks after she left prison, she'd had enough money to feed herself – legally, without shoplifting – for the first time. Four months of living in the car later, she'd finally saved enough for first and last month's rent on a tiny studio apartment with no heat. It had been heavenly. It took her another month to save enough for a mattress and a warm blanket.

"Hook, I know just what to show you in return," she almost laughed. "Close your eyes and try to focus on me, on what I'm thinking and feeling." She kept her eyes open, and saw the scene around them morph into that studio, after she had bought the mattress – her first ever piece of furniture. She'd blown some hard-earned money on fairy lights, because she was still just a girl, and somehow they made the place look magical, at least to her. She shook Hook's arm. "Look! This is the first place I ever called home. My own place." Hook looked around himself. They appeared to be sitting on a thin mattress over a hardwood floor. A single bulb hung from the ceiling above, lit without flame. The room held a pile of clothing, neatly stacked and folded in one corner, and a couple of books piled next to the mattress. No pillow, one thick blanket. Against the dim light of the bulb he could see dozens of twinkling lights stretched around a window that rattled in the wind and seemed to let in the cold. There were no curtains to keep out the breeze or the light. He could see his breath in the frigid air. On one wall, a hodgepodge of pictures had been stuck together to create a scene: mostly the pictures were of forests, trees, meadows and waterfalls, with some of beaches and sunsets. Emma was grinning from ear to ear.

"I loved that collage! I made it much bigger than that, in the end. I used to come home and just look at the photographs and sort of meditate, put myself in those places. It's funny now that I realise I'm from the Enchanted Forest and my True Love is a sailor," she giggled, then sighed. "I still love those fairy lights. I think I had to eat nothing but plain pasta for a week to afford them!"

Hook's jaw had dropped open, then closed firmly, then tightened. His lips settled into a hard line. "Love, you lived here?"

Emma nodded enthusiastically. "It was my first real home. I could come back after a double shift at the diner, and close the door. It was all mine, and I'd never had anything that was mine. Even the Bug was stolen. But this place I paid for myself," she added in a voice lit with accomplishment. At this point, Emma turned from walls to Hook's reaction, and noticed that the colour had drained from his face, and he looked… angry.

Emma supposed that if one were entirely objective, her little haven had been a shithole. But…

"Where the hell were your parents, love? Your family?"

"I didn't have parents, not while I was growing up," she stammered, suddenly uncertain of herself. Killian knew all of this. She felt sure that he would have been proud of her, taking such good care of herself at only 18. Hook, however, was floored. "I only met them when I was 28, after Henry came to find me. In a much nicer apartment!"

"And just how did you survive before you happened upon this godsforsaken hovel?"

Emma blinked. "Just a minute, there. I was happy in this place. Heartbroken at first, sure – more about Henry than Neal, really - but I felt like things were finally picking up for me. And they did, sort of. I got better and better jobs. Made more money. And I did it all for myself…"

Hook shook his head in disbelief. "You are a princess of the realm! You should not be starving in order to buy little twinkling lights!"

"Well I didn't know that at the time! I think I'm pretty amazing to have gone from absolutely nothing to this in only a few months."

At this, Hook reached out and grabbed her, hauling her into his lap and hugging her close. "Oh my gods, my love, I am so sorry." He took her face in his hands and pressed his forehead to hers. "I swear I will fix this, love. It doesn't have to be this way. Now that I know… I can send you back to my future self, but at the same time I can travel to your realm and find you as a babe, save you from this fate. I can buy you whatever you need, keep you safe, keep that bastard Neal away from you…"

"Hook, no! No Neal means no Henry. No rescue when I'm 28. No discovering my parents, or breaking the curse. No you can't. Please… Hook, no. You need to let me live my life as it was. It sucked, that's true, but look at the compensation in the end. You, a whole big family, Henry, my friends, really good friends who love me, you… I mean, for fuck's sake, look at yourself. How did I get this lucky?" She grinned through her tears. She didn't add that she was equally condemning him to 30 years of unnecessary loneliness: he had a family, too, unknown to him. She had the power to heal him of his self-hatred and thirst for vengeance, but couldn't, and it was tearing her soul apart. But she had spent too long here already, jeopardising their future.

He sighed. "Emma, I can't let you go through all of that."

"You must let me. I've already survived it, and you spend every day making it up to me. You've bought me a home in New York, and I have a feeling we'll soon have one or two others scattered across the realms when all of this is over. You want more babies." He raised a sceptical eyebrow at that one. Emma slipped her fingers through his hair and round to his face. "Believe me, I know I have a home with you."

Hook took the vial of memory potion from her hand. "What will happen if I drink this?"

"You'll kiss me, and then you'll be back on your ship, all memories of me forgotten. You'll take The Excelsior and celebrate for weeks. In 28ish years, Henry will find me, and then I'm going to find you. We're going to find each other. And we'll have adventures together, and travel through realms and time, and then one day you'll buy me a coffee and walk down the main street in Storybrooke with my hand in yours, and we'll fall through a portal. And I'll stop denying that I love you."

"Aye, love. I believe it. I can wait." He pressed her against him. "What's another 30 years, eh?"

She nuzzled her face into his shirtfront. "I want to go back so very badly. But I don't want to leave you."

He tilted her chin up to look into her eyes. "Are you sure there's no one I can kill for you, Emma, to ease your way a bit?"

Emma burst out laughing, apparently not the reaction he had been expecting his very serious suggestion, but her memories of that phrase just made it funny. "No, Hook, but I always love it when you offer." He raised both eyebrows. "Send me home. Take care of yourself, because I love you, and our daughter loves you."

Hook swallowed and kept her chin tilted to him. She felt his hooked arm drag her closer, so that she was almost crushed against him. "I love you, too, Emma Swan. Tell my daughter that I love her, and always did, decades before she was even conceived."

"Hook, you're going to tell her that yourself," Emma whispered against his lips. She tried to control her tears. She didn't want to sniffle and ruin the moment. She gripped the back of his head and kept her eyes locked on his, her fingers in his hair.

"Ready?" He asked her softly, and she sniffled in response. "Here goes…" And like the pirate he was, he didn't give her a gentle, chaste kiss. He bit her bottom lip and teased her mouth open, then slanted his mouth over hers and kissed her with enough passion to last him the next three decades and a dark curse. Emma pulled him closer, tugging his hair and responding with everything she had. Then she felt the familiar pulse of light, and then the calmness and heat, and the imageless white space that was their true love.

Hook opened his eyes to find himself stretched flat out on the deck of the Jolly Roger, his crew surrounding him, shouting and arguing, having just hauled him out of the ocean. He was soaked to the skin and freezing cold. Smee had poured a quantity of rum down his throat to revive him, and the burning liquor had wiped out the sweet memory of Emma's scent and taste on his tongue. His arms were empty. Emma was gone.

Hook didn't wait; the pain burned all the way through to the last places unreached by Liam's death and Milah's murder. He reached into this coat pocket and found the little vial she had given him. He uncorked it and swallowed it down without a second thought.

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