A/N: Hi, everybody! Author's note at the top, this time. After this chapter, there will only be one more before I go on hiatus. There are reasons why I am stopping at a certain place, and roughly halfway into Season 5, you can expect updates again. Thanks for the patience.
He does know the Jolly Roger better, he should have said. Hell, the Captain can't even remember when or how he scratched out those letters up by the helm. That they stood for "port" and "starboard," he'd gleaned, but why they'd been scratched out and with what, well...Killian would certainly remember if he'd marred his own ship in such a way. He climbs up the rigging, although there's not much reason for a standard able-bodied sailor to be up there when the riggers had hopped down ages ago. He just enjoys the climb, the hard ropes stroking the line of calluses that form the top of his palm. Not quite to the crow's nest, he peers out into the horizon, the sky gleaming with pink in spite of it being early afternoon. Still too early in the day for screams. Good.
With a sigh, he lowers himself down onto the deck and drags his hand against the spokes of the wheel. He could stroll right on across the gangplank and venture into town anyway. He'd saved enough gold that he could still make the most of a weekend. The taverns and whores he could bypass in favor of a walk along the hills, a visit to a shop or two...somewhere he could be alone without feeling as alone as he does right now. But he'd be watching over his shoulder all the while, so it's not worth the risk.
"Ahoy! Is anyone here?" a voice calls from closer to the stern near the gangplank. Poking his head around, he spies a lad with a bag hoisted over his back, so jauntily it boggles his mind.
"Careful, boy," he warns. "No one steps aboard the Jolly Roger's deck without an invitation from its Captain first."
A smirk dances across the boy's face, along with something akin to relief in his eyes—bright, intelligent ones that look familiar. There's a sarcastic tilt of his head as he makes his way up to him, like he's been on the ship and talked to him a hundred times.
"Are you going to make me walk the plank?" the boy challenges. Well, not if he can talk him into leaving, he thinks, cringing. Captain Blackbeard would have mentioned an expected guest, might have even ordered someone other than him to stay behind and prepare the ship. An unexpected one, he fails to form a scenario in which a mere boy could hold his own against the Captain.
"All depends on why you're here."
"I need a ship to take me to the Bottomless Sea."
Casual, indeed. Relaxed, even. Gracious, he must be exceptionally brave or exceptionally ignorant to not give the Bottomless Sea its due.
"Now those are treacherous waters. There must be something of great value there to be worth taking the risk." It's none of his business if the lad really does intend to hire the ship for such a journey, but it's the Bottomless Sea. Krakens prowl the black depths, so massive their tentacles can still stretch up to the topsails of most ships. Charybdis could churn itself into such a frenzy the entire ship could be sucked right through, and below the murky waves? He didn't want to know.
"Someone. Her name is Emma. She's my mom, and she was put there by the Queen," he says with the utmost seriousness of an adult as he hands him the course, already charted. Just as well; now a more foolhardy crew can go toward the danger. Just because it has a name, or, rather, she has a name, doesn't change what surrounds her. Or what she's purported to be, for that matter...
"Well then, I'm sorry for you. Even if I wanted to, I can't help you," he says, for he is sorry. Sorry the lad's obviously left all alone in the world. Even his clothes seem foreign. How long had it even been since he'd seen his mother?
"Why? You're a captain. Can't you take your ship wherever you want?"
His mouth drops open, but the laughter he hears is the furthest thing from what he would have uttered. What awful timing, he thinks, bracing himself for an invisible lash, or the jab of a sword, or a strong hand clawing into the back of his head and submerging him underwater for however long it takes to pass out.
"A captain? Is that who he says he is?" Like countless times before, the cruel laughter makes way for something even more sinister. "I thought I told you to be done swabbing the decks when I return."
"I'm sorry, Captain Blackbeard," he says. You're on your own, lad. Tried to warn you.
"Wait. He's the captain?" the boy blurts, and the complete disbelief in the question renders Killian rather envious. He's wondered the same thing, night after night swaying in a hammock that offered so little comfort or support—why is that wretched man the one in charge? He's always feared him, but...
"Indeed," Captain Blackbeard scoffs, ignoring the insult in favor of scrutinizing Killian's every move. Oh, brilliant. How shall it be this time? Woodling? Keehauling? Slavery? "Unless deckhand Hook wants to keep playing pretend. What do you say, Hook? Beat me, and the Jolly Roger is yours. Or are you still a one-handed coward?" He's drawn his sword. No, no, no. Scurrying past the boy, he spots a brush over near the rail. It's all the Captain wants, really—to put him in his place, and he'd rather go there willingly than be tortured all the way back down.
"What are you doing? Stand up to him! You can beat him!" the boy growls at him.
"I'm afraid you don't know me very well. I'm sorry. I can't help you."
"Then I'll have to help you," he groans. The piercing sound of a sword being drawn forces his eyes up from the deck just in time to see the boy slice away at the rigging, hurling a pulley right into the Captain's forehead. It would be comical...all right, it's a bloody riot...how quickly C—Blackbeard slumps to the deck, limbs spread every which way. But the boy's just assaulted the captain of a ship...and beaten him. He's not afraid of him; he's probably not afraid of anything.
"What the bloody hell are you doing?"
"Getting you your ship back! Come on. Let's dump Blackbeard and go!" the boy demands.
"You think it's that easy?" Actually, the lad does make it all look remarkably easy, a persistent voice deep in the back of his head chirps back. "I can't sail the Jolly Roger alone."
"I can help."
Something's wrong. Something is definitely wrong, and it has less to do with his former captain lying in a stupor and more and more with this boy's face: his eyes, his smile, this total lack of fear. True enough, Killian's not exactly a fearsome sight to behold, but he's a pirate on a pirate ship and those who are not such tend to regard all those who are with a degree of caution.
"How do you know how to sail a ship?" he asks, hoping somehow that will answer everything.
"I had a great teacher," the boy says with a smile. "You."
Killian stands there and watches the boy tower over Blackbeard and drag him by the armpits to the middle of the gangplank. Just watches, his bottom lip quite incapable of touching his top one. Angling his head, he searches this face for a sign, a trigger that will remind him of...he doesn't know what.
"Have-have we met?"
"Okay," the boy pants, dusting off his trousers and retrieving the charts again. "We can't waste much time. Can we at least cast off before I start explaining? That way there's nowhere for you run off and hide. I'm guessing you're not going to want to dive into the Bottomless Sea." Without waiting for a reply, the boy saunters off to the lines and works in a diligent, albeit novice, manner, untying the knots and looping them over the hooks. He knows how to secure the ropes, but Killian narrows his eyebrows. The way he twists the rope, winding it back and around instead of through at the first notch...
"That's...that knot. I came up with that, to be able to tie it down with one hand," he says, catching his voice crack.
"Yeah, I know. You showed it to me."
"Wait, just-just wait one moment now. Something's not right. I-I don't remember meeting you. Ever," he stammers, backing away from him.
"Okay, okay, calm down. Let me get up there real quick." The boy dashes past him up to the helm and, sure enough, he does know how to sail, at least with enough skill to maneuver out of the harbor. He shoots a smile down at him, pleased with his success, maybe even expecting some praise. He has another think coming, he thinks, shaking his head as he marches up the steps to his side. Answers first.
"My name's Henry. And your name is Killian Jones. Now, there's no way I should know that, right? Blackbeard called you Hook. I want you to think really hard and answer something for me—how did you lose your hand?"
Oh no. He won't be falling for any tricks today, namely the boy evading his questions and asking a few of his own.
"That's a bit extraneous, don't you think?"
"Just answer the question." And he looks so knowing, too. Not smug; more like catching a sleepwalker and guiding him back to bed. Looking down at his hook, he blinks a few times at the realization a gap exists in his past, one too massive for his tastes. Well, think back. Yesterday, he'd taken his shift at the helm, cleaned, mended, fished. The day before, they'd sacked a ship, taken a shift at the helm, cleaned, mended, fished. Before that...he can feel himself pale.
"There's nothing before now, is there?" the boy, Henry, asks.
"E-everyone draws a blank now and then," Killian tries, running his fingers through his hair. The spray of the sea on his face, the slick backs of the dolphins spiraling just beneath the surface—why does he know those things and yet not what maimed him, crippled him, ostracized him?
"How'd you become a pirate? What was your life like before? This is going to sound crazy, but this? None of this is real. This—this reality—is a book."
Oh gods. What had happened to his day? Punished, coerced into a suicidal journey, and his only companion for it is a lunatic little boy who insists the Mad Hag is his mother. His brain should have shut off by now, shouldn't it? Closing his eyes, he inhales.
"Henry. I'm not a character in a book."
"No, no, you're not. You have a life, a real one, and it was taken from you, just like everyone around you. You live in a town called Storybrooke. It has magic, and a very powerful Author took all your lives and flip-flopped them way the hell around so the bad guys have all the power and the good guys' lives suck. It's a lot to wrap your head around, I know, but it's true. That's why you can't remember me. Even though I know things about you. Your hand? My grandfather cut it off of you. Long story." His voice begins to wobble, something in his shoulder quivering. He doesn't lack sincerity, to be sure. With a shaking breath, he continues.
"This has kind of happened before. That's why we need to find my mom. She's really good at finding people, and she's even better at helping them find their happy endings. If we can give the good people back their happy endings, all this can go away and everyone will have the life they had before. You'll remember everything."
His heart spasms so intensely he's afraid it will lunge him overboard. There's no other way to explain everything, and this is a land filled with magic, after all. Curses and spells abound, but, but he can't escape this cloying urge to pat the lad on the back and encourage him for having come so far on his own. It just feels true, and yet he can't trust himself to believe that a life of emptiness and loneliness has nothing to do with those feelings.
"If, if, what you're saying is true—I'd have to give up my life here," he murmurs.
"Lies. All of it's lies."
"Your mother—she's the key to all this?"
"She broke the curse the first time and brought everyone their memories back." He speaks so lovingly of her, so proudly. "Now, my m—uh, the first person I found here, someone in my family, she said that a woman once called herself the Savior and so Snow White locked her up out here on an island somewhere. The Author didn't include a Savior in this story, but he couldn't get rid of her completely, so that has to be my mom. That has to be Emma."
"Henry, the Mad Hag of the Tower is no Savior..."
"WHAT did you call her?" Henry bellows, jerking his hands off the helm. Killian catches one of the spokes and winds his way around the boy to gain control of the ship.
"It's...look, there are stories. People are afraid to even sail by the Tower."
"Why?" he commands, the fire in his eyes not cooling. He might be smaller than him, but this rage coupled with the boy's cunning could make him quite the opponent. Holding his hand out in a goodwill gesture, he takes a breath and waits for Henry to do the same.
"They say a witch lives there, that her screams can be heard for miles. They say to just look at her is to go mad."
"What better way to get people to stay away," Henry huffs, glancing down at the helm, finally realizing he's not in control of it anymore. Scowling at him, he swaggers back to the rail and rests his back against it, gazing out into the water. They can sail by it, he'll give him that. He's come this far, and just because the woman's a witch doesn't mean she couldn't also be a mother, he supposes. Perhaps that's all this really is, a child missing his mother. They can sail by it and maybe they'll hear her and maybe they won't. Either way, he won't turn the ship around. Not yet.
Henry seems to sense it, a soft smile erasing the sullenness in his demeanor. They watch each other for a minute, weighing and measuring, trying to understand the other.
"Let me ask you one more question," Henry says. "And answer honestly. Do you remember ever being happy?"
"No."
"Do you want to?"
In a half-hour's time, the misty blur of gray and green materializes into a tower that takes up nearly all the tiny island, no more than a few steps' worth of grass all the way around it before piles of jagged rocks make up the frame.
"Look! We found it!" Henry calls to him. As if he doesn't see it. As if he hadn't been dreading it and silently musing that the whole place had been nothing more than a tall tale told over drinks. Whipping out his spyglass, he does spot a door in this so-called impenetrable prison, one of the Queen's men opening it.
"There's a Black Knight standing guard," he calls back.
"Only one," Henry argues, and, bloody hell, he can hear the lad rolling his eyes! "We can take him out."
"Well, perhaps you hadn't noticed, but I'm a deckhand, not a soldier." Common misconception, pirates knowing how to fight, he's tempted to add, but...if she's that powerful a witch, why only one guard? Surely she didn't enjoy being trapped up there and would have conjured some kind of spell to be able to come and go as she pleased?
"Then maybe we don't need to fight," he says after a pause.
"Suits me. You sound like you have a plan."
Henry sprints back up the steps to him, grinning, a touch contagiously, he thinks, stifling the desire to grin right back. Breaking into a prison doesn't fit his definition of courage. Suicide, on the other hand, that's the more fitting word. Scrambling around, mumbling an indistinct "uh" the entire time, Henry grabs a coil of rope by the tip as if it were a viper.
"I'm going to put these on you-"
"Not for a thousand curses breaking."
"Okaaayyy, you put these on me." He crosses one wrist over the other and extends them out. Raising an eyebrow, Killian reads the boy, a task becoming easier by the second. Impersonate a prisoner. He won't ask how going in with two and leaving with three will render the guard stumped, not worth it.
"See, I'm going to-"
"I think I know what you have in mind," he says. "But no one's going to believe a child's earned enough of a sentence to wind up out here, even with Queen Snow White running things. Let's see..." A small burlap sack should do the trick. The boy's tall enough to pass for a grown man provided his face stays covered. Rolling up the edges of a sack discarded on a crate, he steps away from the helm and watches Henry's eyes vanish behind the sack. Trusting eyes, ones he's sure he's seen elsewhere.
"Hey! Hey! Just for fun, can you say I'm a transfer from Block 1138?"
"What? I don't think that's a place."
"Yeah, well, how about that I'm from Kashyyyk? Just for fun?" he pleads, a hint of an actual child beneath all that talk of alternate realities poking out. It prompts a smile. "It's from something we watch."
After securing the ship, he guides him up a rickety set of wooden stairs someone had set into the rock formation probably centuries ago, alerting him when to take wider steps, when to take smaller ones. Imagine himself, a bloody deckhand, setting free the Mad Hag at the behest of her own son. It seizes his jaw and shuts down his hearing for a time, the crashing waves nothing more than white noise to him, but it also gives him the sensation of feeling his blood circulate. If he truly is someone's character, then maybe this is what it feels like to come alive. He almost laughs at the image of himself jumping out of a page.
"All right, Henry. We're coming up on the door. Be sure to act afraid," he whispers to him.
"And you be sure to act sure of yourself," he hisses back before he feigns a groan. Killian tightens his grip on the boy's clothing and almost lifts him off his feet as they cross the threshold. The guard waits for them at the end of a narrow corridor that forks off into various directions, one hand on the hilt of his sword.
"I'm here on official business for the Queen, delivering a dangerous prisoner from the kingdom of..." Blast, what was it called? "Kashyyyk."
The fire pit in the opposite wall crackles. It might as well be the guard cackling at such a ruse, for he's already removing the sack and looming over Henry, wondering as anyone would why a child's been brought to the island. Henry takes hold of the grip of the sword sheathed on Killian's belt and thrusts the pommel right into the guard's forehead. The lad knows how to amass a body count when he's after something he wants, he'll give him that.
"Well done, lad."
"The Wookie prisoner gag. It always works."
"The what?" Wookie? What the bloody hell did they watch together? If they watched something together, he corrects himself.
"Never mind," he grunts, bending down and removing the ring of keys from the guard's belt. It strikes him as a bit too easy. Again, one guard for a witch? A witch the queen herself believed to be a threat? Whether Henry's version of reality proved real or not, this world had already changed. Something had been covered up in all this mess and, now that he was a part of it, he'll be finding out what that was.
"Lock the guard in the cell. I'll be back with my mom as soon as I can."
And if he should wake? Why bother, he scolds himself. Henry's already taken off, rounding the spiral of a stone stairwell. He supposes Blackbeard would have slit the guard's throat or rammed the hilt of the sword into his head even harder. The dead are far quieter than the living. Clasping the gloved hand, he tugs, and, for a limp adult, the guard moves for him without difficulty. Well then, why make it difficult? Scooping the torso up, he hauls the guard over his shoulder and dumps him into the nearest cell.
Standing over him, Killian folds his arms. Too easy. Something's wrong. Something's wrong with this entire setup, he thinks, bouncing on his heel, shuffling. Henry's taking far too long. Even if the three of them leave here without so much as a scrape, what next? They sail around the world making people happy? Blackbeard would be furious, he snorts, grinning down at his arms. The Jolly Roger is his now, his very own, the way it was meant to be, and he's not sure if he can leave the boy to his fate now. He owes him his freedom...via breaking into a prison, and, and if he's correct, his other life at the very least sounds like more fun. And it's not as if his mother will object to him cavorting with a pirate, seeing as he's part of this insane rescue mission; that, and her reputation's not any better than his.
Henry's taking far too long. Something's wrong.
He takes off for the stairwell, fearing shouting will rouse the guard. Millions of scenarios flutter about in his head about what could be happening up in that highest room, none of them good, but with a sudden impact into his side, his arms instinctively catching the blue and gold flash that's collided with him, every single one of them flies clear out of his head.
Because he sees her.
The only, only things in existence besides the most beautiful smile he's ever seen are her fingertips, working their way across his chest until they settle and press right into his heart, her grin widening in rhythm with the beats. The light in the room is as drawn to her as he is, shining on her until she's practically glowing right in front of him. He can't help but gaze right into her eyes, inexplicably gazing right back at him like there's nowhere else she'd want to be. And yet he's the one torn in two. Half of him just wants to sift his fingers through long blonde waves and close the space between them while the other half just wants to fall to his knees and thank the gods one of them has shown herself to him.
"Killian, this is my mom. Mom, Killian." It sounds far, far away, but it reels him back to the here and now, pushing him to speak, to rescue her.
"Uhhh..."
Oh, you fucking moron! She's the one who's been locked up, ripped from her child, probably starved and tortured, going without everything she needs and deserves. Say something encouraging.
"Yeah, er, pleasure," he all but snorts, desperate to regain a pattern to his breathing. He takes her hand and can't quite give it a hardy shake, the situation calling for something far more gentlemanly. She flinches, eyelashes fluttering with...it can't be disappointment. The crew sometimes hired whores for him, for their amusement, to watch him sputter and blush and attempt to hide the ever-growing bulge that would form when they flirted with him, and always, they'd looked at him with pity. Carefully disguised pity, but he still saw it in their faces, although he can't recall any specific ones. Must be part of this book reality, he thinks. But this woman, unmistakably, had expected more.
"Yeah. Right," she mutters. "Look, we need to get going. We've got a wedding to stop."
Hitching up her skirts, she sprints down the corridor, Henry just behind her.
"Henry, Henry, I owe you an apology," she pants once they've leaped off the path onto the deck of the Jolly Roger. With the ropes weaving between her fingers, she sidesteps to her son and heaves an arm over him.
"Sorry for what? You were a prisoner."
"I know exactly how it feels now to be the only one who knows what's really going on and for no one else to believe you," she clarifies, eyes shimmering as she gathers him to her. "Come here, kid."
She cuts her own embrace short, gesturing for him to go back to casting off, her movements too abrupt and harried to be those of someone content to be out of their cell. It all follows what his instinct's been pushing him to believe ever since Henry had uttered the words—none of this is real. She is. She's all too real, and yet watching her move about the ship, knowing it, not quite as well as her boy, but well enough, it's too good to be true. At the helm, he steers a hard starboard direction, shortening the distance between them and the nearest port town.
"This isn't the way we came," Henry notes, calling up to him.
"This will put us back on land quicker than how we came before," he says, adding, "And if you're really on a time limit, do you want to have to go back and deal with Blackbeard?"
His mother bounds up the steps and stops right next to him, inches from him, giving him the same awed look she gave him before, and he's too afraid to face it head on again so soon.
"This doesn't mean much now, but...I missed you," she breathes, hardly audible over the wind. He gulps, almost choking on his own air when her hand reaches up and runs its fingers through his hair with a surprising amount of strength. Her fingernails scrape against his scalp in such a way it sends a jolt of life into him.
"Thank you for your help, Killian."
"Yeah, of course. I'm pleased you regained your, uh, your freedom." There, very much improved.
"Me too. Unfortunately, it's not going to last unless we put some distance between that tower and us before the guard wakes up," she says. Motioning her arm back at the Tower, her face hardens.
"Why?"
"Because that was not any ordinary black knight. Her name is Lily. She's dangerous." It's so deliberate, like the name is supposed to carry some significance with him. Another witch? He doubts a witch would be willing to work for the queen.
"I don't understand. What's the problem with this Lily p-?"
An ear-splitting roar from the Tower drowns out even crumbling stone—a slick gargantuan dragon bursting out and perching atop it. Gnarled and fringed, he can almost swear he can see its eyes even from this distance peering out in search of them.
"Henry! Get below now!" the woman shouts to Henry, who disappears down the hatch below decks. The creature spreads its wings and takes flight, immediately closer. It roars again in fury.
"I need you to load the cannon with a chain shot. Come on! Now!"
Loading a cannon doesn't take time. He could do it with his eyes closed, but the shrieking beast closing in on them leaves some room for doubt. Positioning himself behind the cannon, he fights the temptation to fire it now and waste the arsenal right into the water.
"Hold your fire till I tell you!" she shouts, diving right in front of the cannon. "Lily! Over here! Hey!"
It answers her. It bloody answers her with a snarl that, on a dragon, must pass for irritation. It turns and whooshes low along the water in pursuit of them. Close now. Not close enough to fire. But it won't keep them waiting long.
"Now!" He lets it go the second she rolls flat along the deck and grips the shrouds at the sight of flames beginning to pour out of the dragon's mouth. Smoke from the thundering cannon blocks it out, like after blowing out a candle. Primal sounds escape the beast as it plummets into the water, leaving nothing but a great splash and a wave that will heave them in the right direction even faster than he'd planned.
"Well, that was close," he sighs, standing up and mirroring the relieved look on her face. Unfastening his flask, he holds it up and takes a swig. "Cheers. You did it."
"We did it," she corrects him, yanking it from him, but not with any malice; more like casual teasing. After defeating a dragon. Who is she?
"What is that?" she demands after puckering her lips at the taste of the milk.
"It's goat's milk." Every babe recognizes that taste, but she runs her tongue against the inside of her cheeks to erase it.
"Where's your rum?"
"I'm allergic. Never touch the stuff." Memories, well, not memories per se, but rather, facts start running through his mind of having nothing but bad experiences with rum and not caring too much. Foul drink anyway. But...he can't remember what his allergic reaction actually is. Hives? Swelling? Death?
"Of course you are," she mumbles. Had Henry not spelled out his mad premise that sounds less and less mad the more he considers it, he would have told her she had him mistaken for another, that everything she seems to expect from him belongs with someone else.
"Can I ask you a question?" Still leaning on the shrouds, she twists so that she faces him, the smudges and tears on her tattered gown all the more apparent. "You trusted me with your life just now. Why?"
And her son's life, and her freedom, and he has to fight his body off leaning into her.
"It's complicated," she settles on. "Might take a while."
"My schedule's pretty clear," he argues, wanting to tease her that an explanation's the least she could do after he's fought off a dragon for her...but he'd fumble it all up. She rocks back a little, thinking.
"Okay. Let's first work on your fighting skills. Then we've got to help Regina stop that wedding." Tearing her face away from him, she steps around him. "Henry? You can come up."
"Is everything okay?" he asks, emerging from below decks.
"Fine." She turns back to him. "You've got stuff to change into, right?" She tugs on her skirts at either side as if she were about to start a curtsy. "Preferably pants?"
It's more alerting him to where she's going to go and what she's going to do than an actual question, his assumption proven correct when she heads down. She seems to know exactly where to look. Emma and Henry have both been on this ship before, and yet he's only just met them today. Fighting skills? He again gulps down a protest that he's not the man they think he is, that he's not worth all this faith they're placing in him.
"It's okay," Henry says, coming up to meet him back at the helm.
"What is?" The fact he's a fictional character? The fact he's now going to have dragons and evil queens after him? Henry, however, reddens as he hoists himself up on a barrel.
"It's okay to fall in love with my mom. We've never really talked about it before, but if it's okay with me, it should be with you."
It sends his head swimming, even the spokes of the helm failing to come into focus. He should remember things. He's Killian Jones, up until recently, a lowly deckhand on the Jolly Roger that hadn't ever really had to rise to any occasion or do anything more than what kept him out of trouble, and while he didn't know or remember much about Henry or his mother, the one thing he definitely knows is that they are trouble.
Irresistible trouble.
"Take over for me," he says, stretching out his arm to signal to Henry to take the wheel. He descends down to the cabins until he hears shuffling sounds from behind one of the doors.
"Are you in there?"
"Yeah. Hold on." She opens the door with her wavy hair tied back from her face, wearing a white blouse and blue doublet. "Never actually had to put one of these on." She wipes a smudge of gunpowder off her cheek, only to leave a streak.
"You're beautiful," he breathes. Her eyelashes flutter, a ghost of a smile gracing flustered lips. To look at her is to go mad, indeed.
"My name's Emma. Emma Swan." That hopeful tone again, that what she says will awaken his memories, and he's beginning to become quite frustrated with himself for not remembering. Sighing, she crosses her arms and rests her weight on the threshold as she stares up at him.
"It's not helping me remember. Emma. I'm sorry."
"How'd you know I was thinking that?" she asks him. Pointedly. This time, he can't fight off a smirk that escalates into a grin. Still trying. Not giving up on him.
"It's easy to tell what you're thinking, like you're an open book."
She swallows, leaving him to wonder if he's said the wrong thing. Well, if he does know her in this other world, he has all the time in the world to fawn over her. Should they miss this wedding, however...
"This Regina. Is she the Author Henry mentioned?"
"Oh! No. No. Regina's as big a victim as the rest of us. The Author's a man. I'd like to stay as far away from that asshole as possible. Regina's Henry's other mother."
"He said you were his mother."
"Complicated, again. She's someone we can give a happy ending to because she's in a position for it. I don't think my parents are going to be very receptive to the idea in the time span we have to work with," she says more to herself than to him. There's no time to even contemplate how her parents, whoever they are, fit into this, because she's gazing at him again, smiling. "If we can change the events of the book, we can all get out of it and go home. Now, the Author's set things up so the man she loves is all set to marry another woman, her sister. Stay with me here." There's something soft in her face, so fully aware how insane it would all sound if his heart wasn't yelling at him louder and louder that it's all true. "We make sure he doesn't marry her and that he stays with the woman he really loves, that should do the trick."
"Henry knows where to find her?"
"Should."
"He said you're supposed to be the one who's good at finding people," he says, tilting his head when she does, knowing their grins match.
"I think between the three of us, it shouldn't be too hard to get things done."
His breath hitches, the fierce warmth in her eyes feeding him so much, so much more than her words do. She hasn't stopped looking at him like she's in love with him, and believes in him, and he's the one she and her son have chosen to be their partner in this mission. It's a different kind of unbearable, wondering what it would be like to kiss her, to wrap her in his arms, for her to be his, for there's no point in trying to deny he's hers. Everything in him hums to life when she pays him the slightest amount of attention, and he's ready to do anything to keep it that way.
It really is okay, he thinks with a smile. It is more than okay to be in love with Emma Swan.
