Storybrooke, Maine

Six months ago

On days like today, David truly cherished his life and felt thrilled that he'd made the decision to leave law enforcement and buy this small farm for the family. Emma and Killian could deal with the town squabbles and the occasional drunk and disorderlies. They were good at it. When he left the Sheriff's Department, he had expected that some of the administrative work would fall by the wayside. Between him and his daughter, he had always been the more disciplined one when it came to reports and filing. However, Deputy Jones had turned out to be a surprisingly diligent and organized record keeper, once he had gotten some basic instruction on how to use the dreaded "magic box."

Now, David was overjoyed that, on gorgeous Spring days like today, he got to work outside instead of inside that stuffy station or in a patrol car. He relished the clean breeze, the warmth of the sun, and the chance to care for his land and his animals. Even better, today he was grateful for the chance to care for his four year old son and three year old granddaughter while they played and helped out on the farm.

It was spring break in Storybrooke, so the schools were closed for the week, and the kids and Snow were all off. Rather than have Killian and Emma send Hope to Ashley's while they were at work, David and Snow had offered to take her every day that week so that she could spend some time on the farm.

Hope was only three, but she was precocious and mature beyond her years. It made sense. Although her parents adored her and gave her everything she could want, neither of them were the type of people to condescend to her or baby her too much. They respected and nurtured her curiosity and her innate intelligence. Plus, she had a much older brother in Henry, who was a steady influence and teacher. She would sometimes use a big word or a grown up phrase that she had clearly learned from him, and it would sound delightfully adorable in her small voice and immature pronunciation.

But Hope could also be childish and silly, of course. She had spent the morning running around the yard with Neal while the family dog, Wilby, chased them. Neal and Hope had been giggling constantly while running, and they practically collapsed with laughter when David decided to tease Wilby by throwing the dog's favorite tennis ball into the mix. Wilby bounced back and forth on his paws, his tongue hanging out as he looked with confusion from the kids to to the ball in a futile attempt to decide which to chase first.

Before they cold tire themselves out too much, Snow appeared at the back door and asked if the kids wanted to come in for a snack. Neal rushed up the steps to his mother, but Hope politely declined and instead wandered over to the spot by the chicken coop where David was working.

He was sorting the eggs that he had gathered that morning from his chickens into cardboard cartons that he'd laid out on some overturned wooden crates. David would sell most of the eggs to the local grocery, and he brought the rest to the farmers' market that the town held every Saturday in the square.

"Can I help?" Hope asked sweetly after she'd stood by his side and watched him for a few minutes.

"Of course!" David replied. "You just have to hold the eggs very carefully so that they don't break, and then place them gently in the cartons."

He held her hand and guided her as she reached into the basket in which he'd gathered the eggs. She carefully picked one out and placed it into one of the cartons.

After he helped her a couple of times, she was able to do it on her own, and they worked in companionable silence for a few minutes. David couldn't help but smile at his delightful granddaughter's serious expression as she worked carefully.

"Grandpa?" she said after a few minutes.

"Yes, honey?

"Are these eggs going to hatch baby chicks?"

David sighed. Easter had been a few weeks ago, and the town had been covered in bunny and chick decorations. Hope and Neal had become addicted to those candy marshmallow chicks. Of course she would wonder if these eggs would hatch.

"These won't, sweetheart. They're, um, special eggs." The truth was, one of David's roosters had died recently, and he'd been keeping the other two separate from the hens for the past month or so. Therefore, these eggs had not been fertilized, but he didn't want to go into the details of all that with Hope.

She seemed a little bit disappointed about that, but she took it in stride and quietly went back to work.

Snow called them into lunch a little while later, and then she sat on the back porch with the kids while they colored and David went back out to finish the rest of his chores.

Later, when he came up to the porch for a drink of water, he found Snow and Neal looking at Hope with wonder. The little girl was sitting on the porch floor with her legs crossed, gingerly clutching something in her hands. Next to her, David noticed pieces of broken egg shells.

"Looks like your helper took a souvenir for herself, and it hatched!" Snow told him, amusement in her voice. "I thought you'd been keeping the roosters separate from the hens?" she added.

David knelt down and studied the tiny baby hatchling in Hope's small hands. His mouth dropped open in disbelief. "I had been," he finally replied to his wife. "In fact, I'm sure that they haven't been out of their pen in weeks."

Snow looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Hope snuck the egg onto the porch when she came up for lunch," she explained. "She brought it out to show it to us, and then she was just cradling it and looking at with concentration for a little while..."

"Huh," David replied. "Hope, honey, did you want that egg to hatch?"

"Yep!" she replied proudly. "I held it and pictured the baby chick inside ready to be borned, and then it pecked itself out! Do you think Mommy and Daddy will let me keep it?"

David shook his head in wonder. Emma and Killian had mentioned some minor incidents around the house in which Hope seemed to have used her burgeoning magic. But he was stunned by this one. The little girl had made life where there shouldn't have been any. It was extraordinary.

"Maybe we can keep it here on the farm," Snow said diplomatically. She was taking this in stride better than he was, or maybe she still thought the chick had been conceived the old fashioned way. "But it can be yours and you can visit anytime you want."

Hope seemed satisfied with that, and Snow helped her prepare a little habitat for the chick to live in while it was very young.

She named her Tinkerbell, after her parents' friend and one of her favorite babysitters ("Because Tink has yellow hair too!") After that, whenever Hope visited the farm, the first thing she did was rush to visit Tink.

Later that day, as an experiment, David returned some of the eggs from the same clutch Tink had come from back to the hens. He kept a close eye on them over the course of the next week.

None of the others hatched.

Present Day

David was pulled from his reminiscing by the smack of books dropping down on the diner table in front of him. He sighed and looked up at the green and black clad woman who had brought them. "Good morning to you too, Zelena."

She snorted in reply. "I suppose it is, although it would be a right bit better if I had about a dozen more people to help me get through these blasted books."

"Well, that's what I'm here for, and Snow and Regina will help out at lunchtime, right?"

She sighed in annoyance. "Yes, they're supposed to, just like always. I'm just tired of poring over page after page looking for this witch when we have so little to go on about who she is."

David nodded in agreement. It was frustrating as hell. They were trying to identify the witch who had come to town with the dark fairies to try to steal Hope's magic. Regina and Zelena believed that she had been the one to cast the curse at the town line.

They had all come to the conclusion that this witch and the fairies had intentionally driven Emma, Killian and Hope out of town after their attempts to steal Hope's magic in Storybrooke had failed several times. There was just too much powerful light magic in Storybrooke, and everybody that lived here loved Hope and wanted to protect her. Once the fairies had made their presence known, Hope was under close watch by every one of the town's residents.

But the fairies kept increasing their numbers, and soon the mysterious witch appeared in town. She was an ally of the fairies who was able to change her appearance in attempts to fool Hope and her protectors. Nobody ever got a good look at her true form. She wore hooded robes and kept her face in shadow, but a few people caught a glimpse of her terrifying eyes that seemed to glow with orange light.

The witch's shape-changing ability had changed the game. It got to the point where neither Emma nor Killian ever wanted to let Hope out of their sight for even a second. The effort it took to protect her started to wear on everyone, and Hope's parents began to hate the idea of forcing their lively daughter to live under constant guard.

It had been Regina who suggested that they should leave town for a little while. The fairies wouldn't be able to use magic outside of Storybrooke, so Hope would be safe outside of town. Regina also had argued that, because everyone was always so focused on protecting Hope, nobody ever had the time or bandwidth to actually figure out how to banish the fairies for good. If Hope was gone, safe in the land without magic, Regina and Zelena, who had regained her powers soon after the Final Battle, could take the fight to the fairies and the witch.

At first, Emma hated the idea of running away. But as everyone started to see the logic to Regina's idea, they were able to slowly convince Emma that it was their best chance to keep Hope safe.

What Regina hadn't counted on was the difficult dilemma the plan created for Henry. He was one of Hope's most devoted protectors, and as much as he hated the idea of leaving Regina, the thought of spending weeks or months apart from Hope was unthinkable for him. So he went, and his absence wore on Regina more and more every day.

These days, the mayor was in a constant state of nastiness and irritation that had begun to remind David of her worst days as the Evil Queen. He felt for her though. He missed Emma and the others like crazy too. They had all faced so many separations over the years, and they were all buckling under the strain of this one.

Regina was her usual terse self and Snow her typically cheerful one when the two women squeezed into the booth with David and Zelena just before noon. Nobody made small talk; they just got to work. There was just so much reading to do. They had sifted through the library and Belle's personal collection to find all the books that made references to different witches over the centuries. Unfortunately, there were a lot of them. Over the past six weeks, the four of them had perused hundreds of books with no promising leads about who the mysterious orange-eyed witch had been.

Until today. Today, miraculously, they had a breakthrough. It was Snow who spoke up, breaking the four of them from their dour research-focused silence.

"Huh," she said. David felt her begin to bounce up and down a little in the booth. "Hey!" she added, with more excitement. "I have something! This might be her!"

She held up the ancient book and pointed to an etching of a hooded figure with stringy hair sticking out of the hood of its robe and a clear depiction of glowing eyes.

Snow turned the book back towards herself and began to read, "Xanathusa, also known as the mistress of insanity, is capable of adopting many forms. Her true form is marked by her illuminated orange eyes."

David patted his wife's arm excitedly, "That sounds right so far!" he said.

"Keep going," Regina ordered.

"Okay," Snow replied. "Oh...Xanathusa was a student of the Dream God Morpheus and is known in many realms as the Mistress of Nightmares."

"I've been the mistress of a few men who nightmares," Zelena snorted. "Sorry," she added, off their scowls.

Snow continued reading a few details about Xanathusa's history, and David noticed that Regina had looked away and seemed to be considering something.

"Regina," he asked when Snow paused. "You're thinking something. Care to share with the group?"

She sighed. "Yes, I have a theory. But if it's correct, Hope and the others are in a lot of danger."

David nodded for her to keep going and then listened with dawning terror as she explained that a witch like Xanathusa, who had studied with Morpheus, might be capable of accessing a person's dreams even in the land without magic. If she could create a connection between Hope and a magical realm through her dreams, she might still be able to steal the little girl's magic.

"It's just a theory," Regina added as the group sat in distressed silence.

"It makes as much sense as anything we've considered before, though," Zelena replied darkly.

David asked, "So what can we do? Do I call them again and tell Emma not to let Hope ever go to sleep? If Emma doesn't have her memories, she's probably already suspicious of the phone calls from the crazy guy."

"I think we should call her again anyway," Snow replied. "She deserves some kind of warning. Maybe it will trigger something for her. We just have to believe that she'll know on some level that she should listen to us, that we just want to help."

Regina nodded, "I agree. It doesn't hurt to have Emma on her guard. From here, we can focus our research on this witch, see if she has any weaknesses we can exploit."

Zelena chimed in, "Now that we know her name, there are other things we can do, too."

At their questioning looks, she continued, "We can't put a locator spell on her, because we don't have something that belongs to her. But, I know a way to put a protection spell on the town that would alert us if she arrives."

"Why would she come back here?" David asked.

"Well," Zelena explained, "if she succeeds in taking Hope's magic, she's going to need to get her own physical form back to a magical realm so that she can actually use it. She can't open a portal from Boston. At least, I don't think she can, even if she has access to Hope's power. The witch will have to come back here to cross realms or to use her magic or the magic she stole in any way. When she comes here, we'll know immediately, and we can grab her."

"Okay," Snow said, enthusiastically clapping her hands together. "We have a plan!"

David put his arm around his wife and pulled her close as, across the table, Regina surreptitiously rolled her eyes. As always, David wanted to share his wife's optimism, but it had been six weeks.

He knew that the truth was that there was every likelihood that the witch had already gotten to Hope.

Boston, MA

Killian felt like he was in the way. He wanted to stay close to Emma while Hope went through triage and was admitted to Boston Children's Hospital, but he didn't feel like he was being any help. He wasn't even a relative, he thought sadly. As much as he wished that his dreams and Hope's fanciful notions of him being her father were real, he couldn't simply make it so in everyone else's reality.

He needed to be rational and steady for Emma, Henry, and Hope.

As scared as she must have been inside, outwardly Emma kept everything under control. She explained Hope's history and condition to the Emergency Department doctors and nurses. In fact, by his count, she explained it half a dozen times as different people fluttered in and out of Hope's curtained off area.

Emma's face was drawn, and she looked older than he'd ever seen her look, but she did not cry. She simply stood by Hope's bedside and stroked her forehead as she alternated between speaking with a medical professional and waiting to speak with the next one. Often, she would lean down to talk in the little girl's ear, explaining what was going on and letting her know that they were all there. That they were excited to see her and talk to her when she woke up.

Killian and Henry listened closely to Emma's conversations with the doctors, but they had little to contribute. Occasionally, Henry would move to the other side of the bed to lean down and speak to Hope himself.

Killian stayed back, though. He watched Hope every second, willing her to wake up, but he was afraid that making his presence more obtrusive would throw off the delicate balance of control that Emma was maintaining. After all, the bad things that were happening to Hope had started when Killian had entered their lives. David Nolan had mentioned him in the warning voicemail. And Killian had been a participant in Hope's latest, disastrous nightmare. And most likely, Emma knew that. Because she had been there too.

They hadn't talked about the shared dream yet, and Killian was afraid to bring it up. Emma had to deal with the immediate problem in front of her, and that was Hope's medical condition. He understood that there was no way she was going to be able to talk about shared dreams or return to the subject of altered memories and still keep a hold on her sanity. So he stayed quiet.

At around eight in the morning, Dr. Li showed up to talk to Emma, and he could see that her presence gave Emma some relief. He watched as she introduced herself to Hope's doctors and then explained her background and her understanding of Hope's severe history of nightmares in clinical terms. She was confident and even a bit stern with the other doctors.

When they left, Dr. Li turned to Emma, Killian and Henry and smiled sadly. "So," she explained, "I asked them to run me through the battery of tests they were performing, and it was all pretty much what you'd expect for a child who had lost consciousness like this. The ECG ruled out a heart issue, and there are no signs of trauma, obviously."

Emma swallowed and said, "They took so many vials of blood."

Dr. Li nodded, "I know, it seems like a lot when a child is so little. They're going to be focused on looking for an infectious disease that's causing this, like encephalitis or meningitis, even though Hope has little risk of exposure to those. These people are trained to look for a physiological cause for her unconsciousness. The good news is that they're not calling it a coma. She still has some motor and pupil response. It's more like she's just asleep, but she won't wake up to the normal stimuli."

"She can't wake up from her nightmare," Emma said quietly. Killian glanced at her and she briefly met his eyes before frowning and addressing Dr. Li again with the question that was on his mind as well. "Could the cause be psychological? I know that she was having another nightmare. Could it be stress or anxiety from what she's dreaming about that's keeping her asleep?"

"I have never seen night terrors, nightmares or other sleep disorders manifest in this kind of prolonged unconsciousness," Dr. Li replied. "But, I'm here to help you navigate these doctors and the diagnosis process. My advice right now is to let them look for a medical cause, but keep doing what you're doing. Talking to Hope and letting her know that you're all here. She may very likely just fight through it on her own."

Killian saw the tears of frustration spring to Emma's eyes, but she kept her cool and thanked Dr. Li for coming. The doctor needed to head back to her own offices for the rest of the morning, but she promised that she would continue to check in.

Emma suggested that Henry and Killian go to the cafeteria to grab some breakfast while she waited for the next batch of test results, but Killian asked Henry to go on ahead and told him that he would join him later.

When the boy left and it was just him and Emma in Hope's small curtained off room, Killian walked to the little girl's bedside and took her tiny hand. He felt Emma watching him.

"Hello, little love," he said. His throat was dry, and he could hear that his voice sounded tired and sad, so he cleared his throat a little before continuing. "I just wanted to let you know that I miss you very much, and I would love it if you would wake up. I promise to give you all the sword fighting lessons you want whenever you want!" He glanced up at Emma, who was watching him carefully. Her eyes were full of grief and worry, but he thought he still saw a faint light of hope. "If you feel like you can't wake up just yet," he went on. "That's okay, just go wherever you feel safe and rest for awhile. We're here, and we'll always be here when you need us. We won't let anyone hurt you."

It was on the word 'always,' that he felt the tears spring to his eyes. He knew that, as things stood, he had no right to make such promises to Hope in regard to himself. As much as he had these strange gut feelings that he had a history with Emma's family, he knew that such notions were nearly impossible.

"Killian," Emma said from the other side of Hope's bed. "Can we talk?"

"Of course," he replied. He released Hope's hand gently and walked around her bed to stand with Emma.

Emma smoothed Hope's hair back one more time and smiled slightly at the girl before stepping closer to Killian and talking quietly. "How did you know to knock on our door last night?" she asked him.

"Emma," he said softly. "I think you might know how." He didn't want to challenge her or start a fight, but he remembered so clearly locking eyes with her when they encountered each other in the woods of Hope's dream. He had seen the shock and the realization. She had been there in the dream too.

"We were both in her dream, or we were all having the same dream," Emma admitted. "How the hell is that possible?"

"I'll admit, I've never heard of such a thing," Killian replied. "But, I have a theory."

Emma nodded at him to go on.

Killian sighed and said, "Hope is clearly afraid in her dreams, of that witch that is after her and those other things, the things that fly and make the buzzing sound. I think that her response to that fear is to reach out for us and somehow pull us into the dream so that we can help her."

Emma snorted, "We weren't much help last night."

He looked at her sharply. Was she believing this?

She sighed and said "I know that it's impossible. Being pulled into someone else's dream is not a thing that happens in the real world. But I have no other explanation right now, because I know that you and I were there. I saw it. I felt it. And now, Hope is there, trapped with those monsters, and we're stuck here being completely helpless. What the hell are we supposed to do?"

Her voice finally broke on the last words, and he saw the cracks in her calm demeanor. The same fear had been nagging at him all morning too. Now, that nagging fear sunk deeper into his bones and froze into an icy cold dread as the realization truly hit him. They had woken up, returned to the real world, and left poor darling Hope alone in her nightmare.

He felt distraught and heartsick. Maybe Emma would have been able to continue dealing with this on her own, just like she had been dealing with things her whole life. The truth was that he couldn't. He couldn't look at the beautiful little girl in the hospital bed, the child whose life he believed he was meant to be a part of, and imagine that in her mind she was all alone and afraid. He thought it might break his heart.

He cautiously took a step forward and reached out to touch Emma's arm, just to see if she might let him comfort her and let him take some comfort from her. To his relief, she gave an exasperated sigh that he understood to mean "it's okay, you idiot" and threw her arms around his midsection. He pulled her into the hug and pressed his face down into her hair, dampening it a little with his tears. She embraced him tightly enough to hurt his bruised ribs, but he didn't mind at all.

Hope couldn't believe it, the witch and the bug fairies had left her alone. After they had taken her power out of her chest, the witch had disappeared, and the bugs had flown away. She was still scared that they might come back, so she went back to the bush she'd hidden in before and stayed for awhile.

That was boring and uncomfortable, though, and she didn't hear anything coming except for normal woods sounds. Sometimes, though, in the distance, she thought she heard her mom or Henry talking to her. She wanted to get up to look for them, but she was still scared that the witch might be tricking her. Or worse, that she would hurt anyone that came to help her. Finally, she heard her dad's voice. She'd been waiting to hear from him, and somehow she heard a few of his words clearly. "Go where you feel safe" he had said.

So she got up and started walking. She never walked anywhere by herself in real life. But she had been in this dream enough times to know that, in this dream world, these woods weren't far from her house. She thought she could find it.

It didn't take her long to reach the large, gray victorian house with the white fence and the shed in the backyard. She came out of the woods behind the house, so she had to walk right by the shed. It looked older and more broken down than it was supposed to. The paint was peeling, even though she remembered that her dad and Henry had painted it just after Henry got out of school for summer vacation.

Her swing set was gone too. She was sad about that. She loved her swing set, and it had been one of the first places she'd thought of when she'd tried to think of a safe place to go.

She sighed and looked up at her house. She wanted more than anything to believe that she would walk inside to find her family waiting for her. That Henry would be at the dining room table with his books and laptop. Daddy would be in the kitchen trying to cook something healthy that all of them would actually eat this time. Mommy would be on a work call, but she'd make Hope laugh by walking over to check out Daddy's cooking and wrinkling up her nose like it was gross. Daddy would pretend to be mad, but Hope would know he wasn't because he could never be mad at Mommy. His eyes sparkled when he looked at her, just like they always did. Mommy would rush to hang up her call and then pick up Hope in her arms so that they could both give Daddy kisses on the cheek and Hope would thank him for the"dee-licious" dinner he was cooking. They would laugh and hug, and everything would be good and normal again.

She thought all these thoughts as she walked up the front steps and opened the front door, and her heart hurt with disappointment when she found her house to be cold and empty. Of course they weren't there. They were outside, awake, waiting for her. She stood in the foyer and pinched her arm for about the millionth time since she'd been in this dream. For the millionth time, it didn't work.

So, she walked over to the living room, grabbed a pillow and a blanket from the sofa and threw them on the floor by the fireplace. From the coffee table, she grabbed a big book of pictures of old sailboats that she liked to look at with Daddy. She brought the heavy book over to her spot on the floor by the cold fireplace and began to look at the pictures. She pulled the blanket around her shoulders and tried to imagine a roaring fire. She tried to imagine that she wasn't trapped here all alone.

Alone at a corner table in the busy hospital cafeteria, Henry took the last bite of his chocolate frosted doughnut as he typed away on his laptop. The hospital's guest wifi sort of sucked or it was totally overloaded, which was frustrating because he was trying to search quickly.

He had started his research yesterday not knowing what he was looking for. All he knew was that Mrs. X creeped him out and had been on the scene when something terrible had happened to Killian, and that Hope's nightmares had started around the same time Mrs. X had given her the butterfly jar.

He didn't know exactly why Mrs. X would want to hurt Hope and why she would choose such a slow, deliberate way to do it. But, his mom had always taught him to follow his gut, and as crazy as it sounded, his gut told him that Mrs. X was a witch. In old stories, witches were always coming after young princesses. Sometimes it was because of jealousy. Other times it was because the young princess had a destiny or a power that the witch wanted to steal. That felt more right to Henry in this case. There had always been something special about his little sister, and he believed that this witch was trying to take it.

Henry had always prided himself on his research skills. He had begun working yesterday when he got home from school and continued again after his mom got back from Killian's. But just googling 'witches' had produced results that were pretty much infinite. Butterflies, too, had many meanings in different cultures all over the world. When he added search terms about dreams and dream manipulation, it narrowed the results a little. He learned about someone named Morpheus, like the guy in "The Matrix," but who was mythological god of dreams and could take a human form in people's dreams. But there was nothing about Morpheus that linked him to anyone that sounded like Mrs. X, and nothing that talked about using butterfly trinkets to create nightmares and hurt little girls. He had given up in frustration and gone to bed.

He had only been asleep for a couple of hours when his mother's cries had woken him.

Now, he was absolutely sure that Mrs. X and her butterfly were the cause of Hope's nightmares. Last night was the first night Hope had a nightmare while sleeping in their mom's room, and it was the only night she'd brought the butterfly in there. Plus, he'd seen it glow when he'd entered the room, and he'd noticed the way it had trembled, like it was alive or something, after his mom had thrown it on the floor. His mom had believed him in that moment, when she first realized something was wrong with Hope. She knew deep down that something crazy was happening. Killian did too, even if neither of them had told Henry everything.

Now, Hope was asleep upstairs, and nothing could wake her up. Thinking about how the butterfly jar had glowed so eerily, he'd decided to shift his research away from the dead end he'd hit with Morpheus and instead Googled 'real magic and unexplained occurrences.'

Most of what came up was people claiming to have seen ghosts or who had experienced poltergeist-type stuff. However, he also found a few blogs and Reddit posts about people who believed they had seen magic in real life. Just by scrolling through them quickly, he could tell that most of it was just weird crap from crazy people, but one post had caught his eye.

The poster described being in front of the New York Public Library when a teenage boy suddenly climbed up one of the lions and began addressing the crowd. Apparently, the kid had talked about how we've all lost our belief in magic, and then he'd asked the crowd to believe again just for a little while, because he needed their help. According to the poster, it was part of some trick that ended with four people appearing out of nowhere in the fountain in front of the library. The guy had been standing right next to the fountain and had seen the people materialize seemingly out of thin air. To Henry, the guy who had written the post seemed like a reasonable person. He wrote that he knew what he'd seen was some kind of stunt or performance, but he'd watched carefully and hadn't been able to figure out where the people had come from.

Something about that post struck Henry as important. The guy's story had nothing to do with witches or dreams or butterflies in jars, but there was something about it...something familiar. He decided to trust his gut, and used the date, location, and description of the incident to try to find more posts about the boy and the fountain at the New York Pubic Library. What he really needed was a Tweet or a Facebook or Instagram post with a picture of the incident.

After about an hour of searching, he found not one, but two.

Killian and Emma's lingering, comforting hug was interrupted by a nurse and an orderly who were there to move Hope out of the Emergency Department to a regular patient room. Killian stayed with Emma while they moved her, walking behind the gurney and carrying Hope's things as Emma walked beside Hope and held the unconscious girl's hand. Once Hope was resettled in the new room, Emma sent Killian to the cafeteria to check on Henry and to get something to eat for himself. He reluctantly agreed to go, promising to bring her back hot chocolate with cinnamon. She managed a smile for him as he took a final longing look at Hope and gave Emma a little nod of encouragement before he walked out the door.

Soon, another resident stopped by to check on Hope and update Emma. They were still awaiting more lab results and had not been able to trace the cause of her unconsciousness. Her vitals were still stable. There had been a slight decline in her heart rate, but nothing that they were concerned about. Emma mentally added the "yet" that the young doctor had left unsaid. Emma thanked him quietly, and he left with a slightly embarrassed nod.

Emma flitted around the room, trying to make it as cheerful as she could. She opened the blinds. She placed Hope's Olaf pillow next to her. Maybe she could ask Killian and Henry to go find some flowers or balloons. Hope would love seeing them when she woke up. Emma pulled a chair over to Hope's bedside to wait. She alternated between stroking Hope's soft blonde hair and squeezing her little hand. Sometimes, she would stand and just nuzzle the little girls baby soft cheek, closing her eyes and willing her to come back to them.

And she talked to her. She kept telling her about all the fun things that they would do when Hope woke up. How much ice cream they would get. How on Saturday they could go to the Boston Children's museum and then walk over to visit Killian at work.

It felt natural to talk to Hope about Killian. Emma knew that it was important that the little girl know that he was there. Emma was glad that he was here, too.

The voicemail from David Nolan and Killian's crazy ramblings from the night before still worried her. That she and Killian seemed to have been pulled into Hope's dream was simply too much for her mind to process if she thought about it for too long. Her brain was still telling her that she needed to be cautious around Killian, but her heart and her gut continued to overrule it.

She knew how much he cared for them. He made it clear in every word and gesture. Emma's instincts were telling her to keep believing in him. That he belonged with them right now.

She also knew beyond any doubt that if Hope woke up, when she woke up, that she would ask for him. For that reason alone, he had to stay.

Killian spotted Henry at a table in the corner of the cafeteria and decided to walk over to check on him before going through the line himself. The boy was staring intently at his laptop and did not even notice Killian approaching until he cleared his throat.

"Everything all right, lad?" Killian asked, as Henry looked up at him with a startled expression.

"Uh, yeah. Hey, Killian," he replied distractedly. "Actually, I'm glad you're here."

Killian cocked an eyebrow. "Yeah?" he replied. "I was just about to see if there was anything edible here and procure your mom some hot chocolate. Do you want me to pick up anything else for you?"

Henry shook his head quickly. "No, I'm good. But Killian?"

Killian had started to step away but turned back and looked at the boy with curiosity.

"Can you sit down for a second first? I kind of need to show you something."

Killian nodded and sat down next to Henry. The lad moved his laptop over a little so that they both could see the screen. On it, there appeared to be a post from that silly website, Facebook. Killian knew what it was. He recognized the logo and of course had heard about of all the controversies. He thought he even recalled seeing that movie about its young, arrogant founder. However, having no family and very few friends with whom he wanted to keep in touch, he had never used it himself.

The post that Henry had pulled up appeared to be a picture taken outside a building that looked familiar to Killian. A crowd was gathered in front of it.

"What are we looking at, lad?"

Henry took a breath and explained the "research project" he had undertaken in the last eighteen or so hours. How Mrs. X had been giving him what the boy called "really weird vibes." He told Killian about the strange glow he had seen from the butterfly jar in his mom's room last night. He explained that he had started to think there had been a supernatural or a magical explanation to the strange events that had been happening to them.

Before Killian could respond to any of it, Henry exclaimed, "And I'm not crazy! I think I found proof that something weird is going on. I'm just not sure what it means."

"Henry, I don't think you're crazy," Killian assured him. Henry raised his eyebrows. He looked guarded, like he was waiting for the "but" where Killian would tell him that he was just tired and stressed and it was making him irrational.

Of course, Killian was not planning on saying anything of the sort. "To be quite honest, lad," Killian replied, "I had a similar discussion last night with your mother. Only I was the one trying to convince her that I wasn't crazy."

At the boy's questioning look, Killian continued. "Since I've met you and your family, I've had the very strange feeling that we'd all known each other before. That we are somehow all closely connected, but for some reason, we don't remember."

Killian paused to gather his courage before admitting the next part. "And I know it sounds mad, but I've even started to believe Hope a little bit when she says that I'm her father." His voice cracked when he said the little girl's name, and he felt the tears well in his eyes. Still, he held Henry's gaze, needing the boy to understand that he was serious.

Henry's eyes widened, and Killian could "see the wheels turning," as the expression went, in the boy's sharp and active mind.

"Killian," Henry said after a moment. "You think that you knew us before? That somehow we all just forgot?"

"I know how it sounds," Killian whispered.

But Henry didn't seem to doubt him. "No, that's great! That actually fits! See, I started researching strange occurrences and real world magic and I found this crazy story about a kid at the New York Public Library who climbed onto one of the lions and told a crowd of people that they needed to believe..."

Killian was starting at Henry, trying to process what he was saying. Henry must have sensed his confusion, because he just sighed impatiently and pulled the laptop closer to them. He pointed to the picture on the post.

"Look!" he said.

Killian looked. The picture had been taken from a distance and was a little out of focus, but when Killian squinted, the boy in the photo quite looked like Henry. Younger Henry though, perhaps at age thirteen or fourteen.

"Is that—" Killian began.

"Me?" Henry replied excitedly. "It's totally me! I had that same coat and plaid shirt when I was thirteen."

"Okaaaay," Killian replied slowly, still confused.

"The thing is, I don't remember doing this! I've been to the New York Public Library, but I've definitely never climbed up on the lions and told a crowd of people to believe in magic and make wishes. Here, just read the rest of the post. I didn't do any of this! Not that I can remember, anyway."

Killian read the post and agreed that it was strange, inexplicable even. He was about to share the details of his suspicions that his own memories were wrong, or had somehow been replaced, when Henry pulled the laptop back and clicked to another tab in his browser.

"That's not even the kicker though," the boy said as he scrolled down a bit. "I found a different post from someone else who was there on the same day. They described the same event, 'me' making the speech, but the picture they posted was of the people that I apparently conjured out of the fountain. Look."

He pushed the computer closer to Killian again, and Killian found himself staring at a photo that clearly showed himself, standing in a fountain in front of the library. He was clad in dark jeans and a black leather jacket. In the photo, his eyes were closed, and his expression was one of both awe and relief. And why shouldn't it be? For the Killian in the photo was hugging a slender blonde woman in a red leather jacket. Her face was hidden behind Killian's neck, but she could only be Emma Swan.

Killian blinked a few times to make sure his vision was clear. He stared at the picture again and confirmed what he already knew.

"When was this taken?" he whispered to Henry.

"About four and a half years ago," Henry replied, a note of triumph in his voice.

"So we knew each other then, all of us."

"Yep."

"And if I was with your mom then, it probably means..." he felt laughter that was a mixture of joyous and crazy start to bubble up in his chest as he thought of the wedding band in the box on his dresser. Of the beautiful vision of Emma in her wedding gown. Of the times that Hope had called him "Daddy."

It was real. All of it.

They were his family. He knew it. He had been feeling like they all belonged together because they did belong together. If Hope hadn't been upstairs asleep in a hospital bed, he would have jumped out of his chair with joy because this beautiful, incredible fantasy that he'd secretly been nurturing had turned out to be reality.

But his worry for Hope tamped down his joy for now. Joy would have to wait until his little girl woke up.

Someone had done something to them to replace their memories. Why? To separate them? Make them vulnerable so that they could hurt Hope?

"Bloody hell," he breathed, finally looking up from the picture of him and Emma to the boy who was staring at him expectantly. "Henry, how could this have happened?"

"I don't know," Henry replied, shaking his head. "All I know is that Mrs. X is behind it. Killian, I think she's a witch. She gave that butterfly thing to Hope, and I know that caused her nightmares. I think she even made you fall because you were making Hope remember things, like who you were to her."

Killian thought back to his encounter with the old woman just before he'd climbed the stairs Sunday evening before his fall. He absently reached across his face with his hand and felt his left cheek just where'd she'd touched him with that weird, warming sensation. He knew with utter certainly that she had caused his accident.

Killian made a decision. "Henry," he said. "Please tell Emma that I had to take care of something and that I'll be back this afternoon. Don't tell her all of this until I come back with more answers. I'm afraid it will only give her more stress and heartache right now."

He stood and took out his wallet, handing Henry a couple of twenties. "Hope's new room number is 417. Please get your mom something to eat and some hot chocolate. Don't forget the cinnamon. And would you mind stopping at the gift shop to see if they have balloons or a perhaps a stuffed toy to brighten up Hope's room?"

Henry nodded, accepted the money, then furrowed his brow. "But where are you going?" he asked Killian.

"To speak with dear old Mrs. Xavier," he replied darkly. "To find out what the bloody hell she wants from my daughter."