He'll make himself useful, digging out Blackbeard's, well, his now, maps of the Enchanted Forest. The port will bring them to land more quickly, but from there, they need to know precisely which way they need. At the desk, compasses and sextants strewn all over the place, he finds the town Henry had described earlier where Regina's love would be marrying her sister, who...his chin falls into his hand...would be Henry's adoptive aunt. Gods, if he's to be associated with this family, he'll need to keep the order straight.

Friends, Henry had said, not family. But they both knew the ship, the boy proving they'd at least interacted before. Holding his breath, he folds the maps and stuffs them back into the drawers, shoving the thought into the back of his head with just as much brute strength. What if they in fact are family to him? Swallowing, he steadies himself against the desk. He's never felt this way before. And he never thought he would fall so damn hard for a woman he feels he's just met but feels that he's known all his life. Among all the questions he's dying to ask her—between kisses, between stolen time tangled in sheets, between just standing on the deck with her and begging her with his eyes not to go anywhere—chief among them is if he is as much family to them as they are to-

He presses his lips together and tucks them into his mouth when he hears them approach. Family. Grinning like an idiot, he hustles over to them with the charts.

"Look. We're here. Your, er, this Regina person—she's hiding in the Queen's forest. Which is here." He points to the two locations and glances up at them, making sure they're following. Of course they're following. At the rate this day is going, one of them probably taught him how to read a map in the first place. "If we take the ship to this pier, it not only bypasses Blackbeard, who will certainly be keeping a weather eye out for the Jolly Roger, but it's a closer route to where you have to go."

Emma bends her head down and stares at the patch of land between the coast and the center of the forest.

"How far is this?" she asks.

"Less than two hours if one of you knows how to steal a horse."

"Well, that can't be that hard, right, kid?" she asks Henry, giving him a gentle smack with the backs of her fingers. In return, he mocks staggering around and seeming about to collapse. Smiling at him, she looks right back up at Killian. He should back away, the proximity a little too much, but every instinct in the world keeps him planted right in front of her.

"Looks like we've got at least two hours' worth of a plan," she says.


"Hey, remember how I said you had to work on your fighting skills?" she asks him once the ship is tied down and Henry has scampered off to find some food...and scope the pier for an unsupervised horse or two.

"D-do we really have time?" he asks her. "I was under the impression all was lost if we didn't stop this wedding."

"Have you ever seen The Graduate? Of course you haven't. There are only two ways to stop a wedding, and since nobody's going to bang on the glass and beg Robin to marry them instead, we've got to go in with guns blazing, uh, swords blazing." Rolling her eyes at herself, she gestures at the sword she's brought with her from the ship. "Look, I know swords don't blaze, but I'm not the one who will be instructing you. You're going to be able to do that yourself."

Extending her arm, she waits for him to take a harness from her, with a sheath for a sword. Something tells him that, regardless of which world they're in and who has whatever memories, she wins most of the arguments. It takes a mere minute to fix it to his person as he's seen so many of the crewmen do.

And now for taking the sword. The hard part. It's heavy, but much lighter than he imagined it would be. Sure enough, it fits exactly how it's meant to fit.

"Ready?"

"You're telling me that, in this other reality, I'm an expert with such a weapon?" Instructing himself?

"You're a regular Jack Sparrow," she half-sings, an odd mixture of pride and amusement on her face.

"Is that good?" Oh, gods, if he can't even recognize the names of the experts in the subject, how is he supposed to just become one?

"Here, let me show you how to use it." He lifts his hand to motion for her to wait, that maybe it would be better to just discuss the theory of it all first, but she's quick, reaching around him and pressing into his back. There's a hum in the air as she does it, a stiffening of everything he can't quite mask with a laugh. All he can do is watch her place her hand over his and help him guide the sword out of its sheath. Drawing it out, their arms reach to the other side at the same time, the sword not really a sword anymore but an extension of his arm, their arms. It curves and thrusts through the air, his blood traveling right along with it.

"They say once you become an expert, your subconscious takes over. Back in my world, that's what we call muscle memory," she murmurs, almost right in his ear, her cheek just barely brushing his.

They stop moving, but they're still entwined, and he finds himself more and more intoxicated by her nearness, her light touches on his wrist and his back, the sound of her breathing against his skin—he has to close his eyes. He swivels just a fraction, for if he moves more, his lips will be on her jaw, and it's just below the bone where she really lets go and moans just a little...what? How does he know that?

Muscle memory.

They say to look upon the Mad Hag is to go mad, but he'd despair if they took their eyes off each other now. He won't even be bothered to make sure she puts the sword back where it needs to go.

"Tell me more about...this reality you want to return to," he grunts out, wondering if he gazes at her long enough if some other secret will reveal itself to him. "Us, for example. I sense..." He shrugs, just in case. "Uh, we may be close?"

"Very." No irony in her tone, so much sincerity in her eyes he swears he's never seen anything like it. Unless he's already seen it on her. Very. So...then...

"Really?" he chuckles as they break apart. No wonder Henry had asked him about happiness. What kind of reality allowed him to be very close with such a woman? That any woman might accept him was enough of a stretch, but this one? A ship, some skill, a family...her? He must spend the bulk of his time there wondering why she'd ever gift him with her presence, much less her love.

"Well, I'm starting to get jealous of the other me." That's it, Killian, he scolds himself. Attempt to flirt and sound like an imbecile.

"Let's see what food Henry's discovered. I'm starving." And there it is again. It's the cruelest evidence of this other world being real, that she catches herself, that she returns to distancing herself from him because he hasn't known her before today. They may be very close, but he's not quite the man she fell in love with...so she can't be the woman that's in love with him, either.

"There they are!" a cold voice rips the humming in the air to shreds. A woman in armor, Black Guard armor, approaches them. "It's as I told you, my Queen. The one-handed pirate was helping them, and the boy was with them, as well."

He's drawn his sword. He hadn't even known he'd drawn it, but he had. His head snaps back toward the buildings where Henry had gone.

"Tell us where the child is hiding!" a dwarf orders, drawing his own sword and all but backhanding his with it. Block. He blocks, but stumbles back.

"Hey! Back off, dwarf! Or they'll change your name to Stumpy!" Emma bellows, shoving the dwarf to the ground.

Recovering, he glances back again to make sure Henry hadn't returned. Surely the boy had enough sense about him to hide. This was Queen Snow White, scrutinizing Emma with narrowed eyes, her Huntsman mirroring her.

"I know you. You're...Emma," the Evil Queen says with the slightest lilt in her voice. "The Mad Hag who was locked in the tower. I almost didn't recognize you out of your chains."

"You're the one that's hard to recognize. Both of you. This isn't who you are."

"Tell me—who are we?" the Queen challenges.

"You're my parents," Emma says.

Parents? More like peers. Dark, monstrous peers...but now is not the time to question anything. Of course everyone else would be under the same rules as he apparently is. Of course he isn't the only one who is a character in a book and someone much better in another place and time. Magic had whisked everyone away. The flash in the usually stoic Huntsman's eyes proves it.

And that could be more dangerous than anything. If they are her parents in the other world, then they will be the last two people to ever be inclined to care about her here. Lifting the sword, he doesn't know whether to assault or wait, leap in front of her or have some faith her words will reach them.

"I'm the product of your True Love. You taught me how to be a hero. You taught me how to believe in hope. And I do. And now I need you to believe in it, too."

For a moment, it seems to work. Memories seem to flood the Queen's mind. Maybe they are the correct ones.

"You're right. Emma, hope is a very powerful thing." The right words, but the icy glare remains, an emptiness. "Which is why I'm going to have to snuff it out of you and that awful son of yours. Kill them."

As the guard, Lily, edges closer, her hand on the hilt of her sword, the Huntsman stops them.

"Wait! There he is." He points behind them, where Henry has just returned. Out of the corner of his eye, Emma's face contorts into an expression of absolute fear now that her child's close by.

"My, my," the Queen sneers. "I am going to enjoy watching him die in front of his mother."

They'll die here, all of them. This talk of darting through the forest, stopping a wedding, changing damn well everything—suddenly it will become nothing. All the wondering, all the questions he'd had—what did any of them amount to if the two most wonderful creatures in the world died...at the hands of their parents and grandparents? He won't be able to ask what he means to her. He'd only slow them down anyway.

"Save Henry."

"Killian, you can't beat them," she argues.

"If I can help return things to how they were meant to be, then what happens to me here won't matter, will it?"

It gets her attention, that much is certain. She looks at him as if she's never seen him before. Well, he hadn't meant to be harsh, but that's what has to be done, and a man unwilling to fight for what he wants deserves what he gets.

"Now go. Save your boy," he adds, hoping the softer, more assuring tone will push her to run, and it does. As she runs, he kicks out the wooden post on his other side, knocking bags of flour onto Lily and the guards, leaving only the Huntsman in front of him. That hadn't been difficult. He'd scanned the area in front of him, pinpointed a weak spot, and took advantage.

"Is she worth your life, pirate?" the Huntsman challenges, handling his own sword so professionally, calculated and classic rolled into one terrifying package. Killian's hand shakes, but only for a moment.

"I'm willing to find out."

He doesn't even have time to move the sword, the Huntsman's so quick, clanging away with a faint look of smugness. Bloody hell, block! The man's toying with him. Only in street performances are the fighters aiming for each other's swords. If he is to survive, he'll have to ignore the sword and hit the heartless body.

At last one of his blocks locks itself into a struggle for dominance against the Huntsman. He's underestimated Killian. One can twist out of this grip and disarm an opponent in record time.

Killian inhales and knocks the sword right out of the Huntsman's hands, elbowing him right in the forehead to keep him at bay.

"Bloody hell, I'm a natural," he breathes. The tip of his sword has the Huntsman pinned to the ground. The tip of his sword has the Huntsman pinned to the ground!

They can survive this! The Queen. Shifting his blade, he points it at her, watching her hands go up in surrender. She sidesteps, between him and Emma and Henry, but the tip can go right into her throat at any minute. Why she's not using her magic, he doesn't know, but now's not the time to remind her of it.

"What about you, your Majesty? Shall I make quick work-"

It's a hot, squeezing force penetrating his back, reaching further and further in. Hot. Burning. He can't cry out, can hardly gasp for air. His eyes widen as he tries to breathe, everything growing hazy except for a guttural "No!" from Emma somewhere in the distance.

"I never did like pirates," the Huntsman whispers to him as he closes his eyes, wincing. No. No, he wants to find her, focus on her, even if she's just slightly less blurred than everything else. He may have been the one to find her, but she's the one who saved him, offered him something better than he deserved, something he hadn't even realized he'd wanted until she had lit up the world around him. He has to see her, even as he feels everything in him shut down.

She looks just like someone who had seen their love die right in front of them.

His heart stops.


His eyes snap open. Gasping, his eyes dart to and fro before he can even summon enough strength to lift his head. He's...bloody hell—he'd been stabbed! His hand flies around to his back, burrowing under his jacket. Not bothering to untuck his shirt, he feels for wetness. Nothing. Bringing his hand back around, he doesn't see one drop of blood on it. Then...

Sitting up, his knees hold his forehead in place while he steadies his breath. He'd died, hadn't he? Killian Jones...often known by a more colorful moniker...living in Storybrooke...

Lifting his head, he exhales at the sight of the apartment, the contents of Henry's backpack surrounding him. If he's back, everyone else should be back. Pressing himself up against the counter, he stands and shifts to see David lying close to the door, Snow just inches away from him. But they'd been after Henry. They'd had swords and fireballs and menacing looks in their eyes and... Henry was supposed to be retrieving the key from the loft.

He bolts up the stairs, his throat too dry to call out for Henry. Expecting to still feel the salty wind gusting over his head and the rollicking wooden planks giving way to cobblestone, he staggers over to the night table on the other side of the bed and leans forward until his head hits the wall.

He shivers at a few beads of sweat trailing over his eyebrows and down into his eyes. The whole thing had felt like a dream, the longest, most vivid dream he'd ever had. And yet, the details of it still swam around in his mind, treading water while his real, actual life pushes them back down. Closing his eyes, he almost mouths his own name, that he'd never lost his ship to anyone except by design, that he'd sacked ships, run disobedient crewmen through with the stench of old rum hanging in the air, that he'd met Milah, loved her, then lost her and his hand to the crocodile.

There's movement downstairs, the sounds of people waking up and collecting themselves, wondering how they got to where they did. But he still can't answer. They'd been the Queen and her Huntsman, after all, and one does have to hide from their ilk from time to time... Henry's not here. Henry had remembered. Emma had remembered. They'd done it.

"Where is he? Where's Hook?" He inhales. Swan. How the bloody hell had he forgotten her?

Suddenly, he springs his head back from the wall and stands upright. It doesn't matter; they're back. His family had saved everyone once again, and that terrible place, that terrible reality, manufactured or not, now belonged in the past with all the other obstacles they'd overcome.

"Everyone reappeared where they were before this whole mess started," he hears her, her voice breaking him out of himself. She's looking for you, he tells himself. Step to. He makes it as far as the railing, looking down at the sight of her and her parents in a place he knows, a place he can call home. But she's starting to sound a bit worried...

"Yeah, sorry about the mess. I really needed to find that book, and I'm usually a bit tidier," he calls down to her, adding in a smirk at the end. She doesn't mirror it; rather, she hustles up the stairs, beaming at him.

"Killian!"

She throws her arms around him in a tight hold, rocking back and forth with him. Sighing, he brushes his face against her hair and tightens the embrace even more. Her giggle is contagious, so he laughs, crying out in spite of himself when she literally sweeps him off his feet onto the bed. She positions herself so she's pinned him, which is by all means fine with him, giving him a look that's hungry, calm, moved, and incandescently content all at once.

How had he forgotten her?

"How many times do I have to tell you, love, I'm a survivor?" Now she has a distressed look as well. "Look, I didn't mean to cause any panic. I awoke moments before your parents and came up here looking for your boy."

He has to admit, the sensation of her straddling him and drinking in the sight of him helps push the false memories under the metaphorical waters even further. It hadn't even been for that long anyway, seeing as how he's in the same place he was before, and if Swan continues to look ready to put the whole ordeal behind her, he will also.

"He's fine. Henry's fine. I'm just glad you are too," she breathes, panting afterwards, lacking the strength to keep her head angled the way it is.

"What is it?"

For a split second, he braces himself to hear the horrible price attached to her and Henry fixing everything. She opens her mouth and then clamps it shut, instead tapping her fingers against his waist to signal they should sit up. Wiggling his way up, she extends her thighs and sits halfway on his lap, her hand pressing on his chest for the slightest moment.

"When I—watched you die, I was afraid I was never going to get a chance to tell you something," she says, her eyes never leaving his.

"Tell me what?" He swallows to keep from breaking into a grin. She's come close to voicing her feelings before, always censoring herself, always convincing herself her timing was off and something about the words would pull them apart. But she's right on the cusp of it now, and she looks so beautiful when she's lovestruck.

"That I..." she whispers.

Come on, love. It's just me. You know you'll hear it back. Gods, if he's able to even speak after hearing them and tell her how much he loves her, he's not going to be able to stop. She might just have to grow accustomed to being told it all the time.

"...want to thank you for sacrificing yourself. Henry and I wouldn't have succeeded without you." The deep, boundless eternity he'd seen in her eyes just moments ago darkens into shame. It's all right, he assures himself, mustering a smile. It doesn't make how she feels any less true. Hell, given Swan's experiences, he might question the sincerity of her words if she didn't struggle with them.

"Of course, love. It's all in a day's work for a hero," he says, sighing at how her forehead finds his. Her fingers sweep down his cheek and settle on his mouth for just a moment before cupping his neck. His hooked arm finally comes around and holds her waist. It's all right. He'll hear this stubborn, exasperating, wonderful woman announce from the rubble of her once nigh-insurmountable walls that she loves him. Him, the idiot who had taken three hundred years' time learning how to be a hero. Because of her.

Hearing the door close downstairs, he leans back and rolls her onto her side and kisses her. They might have all the time in the world to whisper "I love you" to each other now—since he's not planning on her father making short work of him a second time—but he wants to show her. Now.

Finding the dip underneath her jaw, he sucks on it before she can even breathe, her choked little gasp just fueling the fire. Her hair splayed out all around her like the rays of the sun, he smiles at them as he brings himself up, just enough to shake himself free of his jacket and tug on the ends of hers. Arching her back, it falls off of her with surprising ease. He'd almost forgotten what a pirate she could be in her own right, though, grunting at her touch on the waistline of his trousers. Her fingers dance their way to the zipper and scramble back up for the button. Falling back down on top of her, his hand holds the back of her head as he kisses her, anticipating how amazing it will feel for her to touch him there.

"Mom! Mom! Is he okay?"

This time, stopping hurts. Neither one of them can suppress a groan. He doesn't roll off of her, but he does find a more suitable place for his arms, curling around her waist. She bucks back onto her side and, for some adorably inexplicable reason, smooths the hair that's fluttered down over her collar.

"He's here, Henry," she pants. She forces a smile at her son once he's sprinted up the stairs. He supposes he shouldn't be all that put out—the lad only wanting to check on his well-being and all, but...he had only gotten as far as removing her jacket.

"You're back!" Henry cries, standing there, not even knowing enough to gawk at the two of them lying sprawled on her bed.

"Aye, lad. Thanks to you two," he says. He hoists himself up and props his elbow on one of the pillows that had fallen during their, er, romp.

"Thanks to Henry, mostly. I didn't even have my magic and now you're looking at the new Author," Swan says, nodding over at her son. He's sure the story behind this new development will be thrilling, and he does long to hear just how they put an end to the crocodile's little fantasy play, but...gods above, only to her jacket!

"Grandma and Grandpa just found Isaac. Everybody's looking for everybody, so they wanted me to get the word out that we can meet up at Granny's after they lock him up."

"That's great. We'll be down in a minute," she says without a hint of inflection. As soon as Henry hurries back down the stairs, she drops her head back down and unleashes a whining sound. "I guess calling and telling them we're more in the mood for a nap wouldn't be a good idea."

Oh, he knows exactly how that would go. They would pick up where they left off, only for her mother to burst through the door and call up to see if they need her to make them comfortable, politely demanding they go downstairs and flip on the Netflix so there is at least some pretense of wholesomeness going on. He gazes down at her, his Swan, and is helpless to resist the pull to lie on top of her just for a moment longer.

Nestling into her neck, he restrains both her wrists with his hand and hook until he finds her ear.

"One day, Swan. One day I'll have you, and we'll see how many times I can make you scream."

Her startled, wide-eyed, exhilarated expression is exactly the outcome he'd desired.


A/N: Well, that's all for now, folks! Start expecting updates the closer it gets to the Season 5A finale/hiatus. Thank you so much for reading and special thanks to everyone who has reviewed. Also be sure to give OnceSnow some love as she is the one who makes sure you guys can read this as seamlessly as possible without stumbling upon typos and errors. Coming up? Well, there will be some Camelot antics, Merida, a new baby, and what I'm sure is going to be an epic, excellent, complex Dark Swan story arc. I cannot wait.