Beth sighed, dejected. "Coming here was a bad idea."
Emma looked to Henry for clarification. "Are you saying you…don't need help?"
Beth shook her head, staring down at her feet to avoid the infamous lie detector she'd heard so much about.
"Where do you live? I'll take you home."
"I don't need a ride home—I'll be fine. Thanks, anyway."
"Hey," Emma knelt in front of her, the kindness in her expression threatening to shatter Beth's composure, "you sure you're okay? Showing up at someone's door and claiming to be their long-lost sister isn't exactly—"
"Normal?"
"Well…" Emma hesitated, "…yeah."
"I'm sorry. I got…confused."
Beth couldn't figure what'd happened. Her mother had known her an hour ago. If it weren't for Henry's unaltered age, she would've thought she'd conjured a time portal by mistake and brought them all back to the original curse. The town's atmosphere had shifted, and an ominous gray sky loomed overhead like the promise of malign fate. She wondered if its rain would take the form of broken glass.
"Come on," Emma said, standing to grab her badge and keys from her desk, "I've got just the cure for what ails you."
—
"It's not for everyone." Emma slid the cup across the table. "But it's always helped me out of a bad mood."
Beth felt the urge to cry and laugh at the same time. "My dad puts cinnamon, too."
"What's your dad's name?"
"You don't know him." Beth frowned into her hot chocolate.
But you did. He found you and you cried and hugged and—okay, so I turned away when your faces got too close, but there was probably kissing, which is gross, but magical at the same time because you were happy. I was happy.
We did it.
Why don't you remember?
"I know a lot of people." Said Emma. "Could've run into him here at Granny's."
Beth didn't respond.
"Does he work around here?"
She couldn't tell this Emma that her dad was a pirate—reformed, of course. Or that they were married, that they'd known true contentment, that they were separated by a horrible, wretched, monstrous woman, but he'd spent seven years missing her. She couldn't tell this Emma anything.
Dad wasn't the only one who missed you.
Grandpa David and Grandma Snow, and Henry. Regina would never admit to it, but Beth recognized the sorrowful tenor of her voice when regaling Beth with anecdotes from earlier days.
Gods, she was right there, and she was perfect. But how to wake her up?
Beth shook her head.
"All right, well, you know I can't just leave you. I'm gonna have to drop you somewhere—shouldn't you be in school about now?"
"Minimum day."
"Hm."
She felt Emma's eyes on her, scrutinizing—like what Beth did with her dad, only this time she was on the receiving end of a stare that was impossible to withstand.
"Okay. You win. You don't have to tell me anything." Emma leaned back in her booth. "But it's my responsibility to make sure you're safe. You understand that, right?"
Beth nodded as panic stirred in her mind. Where was she supposed to go when her dad was unaccounted for? And if she found him? She didn't know if she'd survive a Killian Jones with no memory of her. Where Grandma and Grandpa were, she couldn't guess. Not to mention the disheartening fact that her brother was, for all evidence, living with evil incarnate.
And her magic wasn't working, if the portal was any indication. She'd since tried making her hot chocolate disappear—she'd have to explain to her mother why it was suddenly gone, but on the list of strange things of which Emma would need convincing, magic seemed the least troubling.
What went wrong from the time the portal opened to the time she landed alone on the other side? In a Storybrooke that didn't know her—didn't know itself. What happened during their brief stint in the Enchanted Forest? It wasn't like the time her parents rewrote the past. Was it?
"He works at the docks." She said when Emma's piercing gaze became too much.
"Well, that's a start."
—
A frigid wind met them at the wharf, seeming to strengthen its assault the more they shivered. But Beth would not be so easily deterred. She and Emma huddled together on a bench overlooking the ocean, unspeaking for hours.
When the sun began its descent, Emma said, "I think it's time we find somewhere for you to stay tonight. Any relatives that can look after you?"
"He'll be here." Beth insisted.
He has to be here.
Henry had told her enough about the first curse for her to know that, even with false memories, parts of people's true characters remained. Grandma Snow still had an affinity for birds—and for Grandpa David, but Beth wasn't allowed to talk about that. It stood to reason that if her dad was cursed, he'd still be drawn to the sea. She hoped.
As night grew nearer, Beth's assurance wavered. She was about to concede defeat and let Emma take her somewhere to sleep when a dark figure emerged from the fog, approaching with a walk Beth recognized immediately.
"That's him."
He looked out at the sea, clad in leather and sporting his hook, the legends of which were endless. Only recently had she seen it in action. The pants were another issue, entirely—indeed, they were the first of many inconsistencies to make her stifle a laugh.
"You're kidding."
Beth watched her mom check out her dad, and bit her lip to suppress a smile. "Could I talk to him a minute before you come over and…sheriff?"
"Sure, kid." Said Emma, not taking her eyes off the out-of-place pirate.
Beth took tentative steps toward him, careful not to startle. "Dad?"
Glancing over his shoulder with a vacant expression, he scoffed. "You have the wrong man, Lass."
She'd known the chances of him remembering her, but still she'd hoped—with all her might, she'd hoped he would be the exception to whatever had befallen her family.
"You don't know me."
Turning to face her fully, in as cocksure a manger as Beth had ever seen, he gave her an appraising onceover. "I make a habit of avoiding dwarves."
Time for plan B.
"You're just as my mom described."
"Oh? Who's your mum?"
"Well, my birth mom's name was Milah, but I never met her."
His countenance was exponentially changed. A thousand conflicting thoughts flashed in his eyes as his mouth hung open.
She saw him working through the timeline in his head, once the initial shock faded a bit. "How old are you?"
"Physically, I'm seven. But I've…encountered quite a few curses, spent some years in…uh…Wonderland—perhaps you've heard of it? It's much like Neverland in the way time passes. Or…doesn't pass, as the case may be."
He shook his head. "It's not possible." Yet, somehow, when he looked at her, he knew it was. "When?"
"It was during the year you were separated." His posture went rigid with every piece to fall into place. "You were captured, but she and the crew didn't know who did it—they searched and searched, but—"
"They never found me."
"She couldn't bear the thought of raising me alone, so—"
He furrowed his brow, and Beth knew she would never forgive herself for the pain that'd crept across his blue eyes. "She gave you away?"
"She wanted to give me my best chance."
He seated himself at a nearby bench. "And when I returned, it was too late."
It was a tale she'd concocted on the walk from Granny's. She needed to persuade him of the only truth that mattered right now. In his current state, there was no way he'd believe that he and the pretty sheriff were married and madly in love and had a family, that they'd fought monsters and broken curses, that once they'd realized the power of True Love, there'd been nothing they couldn't overcome. It was better this than not spending time with him—than being alone in a town where everyone was cursed.
When her lip started to quiver and tears to roll down her cheeks, her dad reached his hand to wipe them away. "Hey," he said softly, sounding like himself, "I'm sorry. I didn't know."
"It's okay." She noticed Emma walking toward them, and spoke quickly, "Okay, so, the sheriff is going to ask you some questions about where we live and what you do for a living—you cannot, under any circumstances, tell her you're Captain Hook. In fact, lose the attachment, altogether." Beth closed her hand around the curved metal and released it from its brace, her dad watching her all the while with an expression that openly questioned how she knew to do that. "You work at the docks, cleaning fish. We live in an apartment in town. My name's Beth—I don't think I told you—short for Elizabeth. Remember, I'm seven. We're happy and functional and my mom's dead." His eyes widened at her bluntness and she grimaced. "You knew that already."
"Hey." Emma stepped nearer their conversation, in full civil-servant mode. "Everything okay?"
"Swan?"
Emma eyed him curiously. "Have we met?"
"I…believe we have." Hook squinted, attempting to retrieve the memory. He stood and offered his hand, which Emma accepted. "Killian Jones."
"Doesn't ring a bell."
"Strange. You seem quite familiar."
Beth's heartbeat picked up as her parents gazed at each other, still holding hands. After a while of neither speaking, Emma fluttered her lashes and backed away, securing both hands in the back pockets of her jeans. "Ever been arrested?"
Hook smiled. "Once or twice."
"Right, so," Emma brushed the hair behind her ear, "care to tell me why your daughter was wandering around town today when she should've been in school?"
He turned to Beth with a scowl. He may have had no memory of being a dad, but the look was far from gone—she wondered if it'd been ingrained in his subconscious somewhere.
Facing Emma, he plastered on a cheeky smile. "You know how children can be. Rest assured, she'll receive due discipline."
Emma nodded, despite appearing uncertain. "Just see that it doesn't happen again."
Beth watched her dad watching her mom walk away, and wondered how it'd taken so long for them to get together (embarrassingly obvious, these two), and she smiled to herself, thinking that perhaps this curse wouldn't be as hard to break as the first one.