Chapter 9

He looked around fearfully, trying to determine if it was friend or foe that discovered him, and then his eyes landed on her.

She couldn't help but notice how blue his eyes were, and a strange feeling came over her.

But in the next moment, sense took over and she realized that his gaze had lingered a moment too long. She knew what she saw in his gaze: Recognition.

This man recognized her.

And was now trying to feed them some bullcrap about being a simple blacksmith who lost his hand to an ogre.

So she held a knife to his throat and called him out on it. Just another day, just another perp.

Except that this perp was Captain fucking Hook, who for some reason knew her.

"Why should we believe a word you say?" She asked after he told them his tale of magical ashes and magical compasses and what not.

He had the audacity to just shrug, raising an eyebrow. "I guess you'll just have to trust me."

"Trust Captain Hook, that too after he confesses to be working with Cora?" Emma scoffed.

He just chuckled, lowering his voice so that only she could hear him. "Well, you've done it before, I think you can do it again."

That took her by surprise, but she regained her composure in the same moment. "So you're not going to try and hide our, ah, history?" She responded in an equally quiet tone. "Why don't you help us out a bit more and tell me how exactly you know me? Maybe that can make me trust you."

"You sure you wish to bring that up now? That is one long story, and alas, time is the one thing we're lacking right now. We need to go to your Storybrooke, don't we?" He said airily.

She considered him for a moment. "Okay," she acquiesced. "let's start with something simpler: why does Captain Hook want to go to Storybrooke?"

"I can tell you a part of it. To get revenge on the man who took my hand: Rumpelstiltskin." He spat the name contemptuously. Despite the strong emotional show, Emma could tell that this reason, though true, was secondary.

"What's the rest?" She asked.

He gave her a tight-lipped smile. "I'm afraid that is something for the longer discussion I'm sure we'll eventually have."

"SWAN! YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME HERE!"

She ignored the part of her that was telling her to turn around, to give him a chance. She couldn't.

"You still need me!" He yelled.

That made her turn around. "Why?" She asked.

"Because I'm the key to your past. The memories you're missing, I'm the only one who-who can help." He said.

It made Emma pause. "No," she eventually said, "if trying to know my past jeopardizes my future and family, I'd rather never know."

She turned around and started walking.

"No, no! Emma, you've got to listen to me! The past doesn't always stay in the past... There's more at stake than you know! Please, Emma, you've got to believe me!"

She turned around for the last time, looking straight into his pleading blue eyes, and she suddenly realized how familiar they looked.

Lennie's eyes.

"Miss Blanchard is Snow White, and Miss Mills is the Evil Queen! You have to break the curse, or-or they'll never get their happy endings." Lennie was shrieking by now, by no means agreeing to her decision to quit and return. Regina was making her life hell, and Lennie... She was getting worse by the day. Emma needed to get her daughter back to the normalcy of her old life; maybe that'll help her get over this fairytale fantasy.

"Lennie, you have to understand the difference between imagination and reality. You can think up an entire world and that's a good thing, a very good thing, but you have to understand that this isn't real." Emma sighed, sinking to Lennie's level. "Snow White, Prince Charming, Evil Queen... These are characters, they aren't real. The story in your book isn't real."

Lennie looked at her tearfully. "You've got to believe me, mommy... This is all true..."

Emma was shaken by the sudden flash of that memory.

The last time she refused to believe, hell broke lose and rampaged over her life until she could find it in herself to believe. She nearly lost her daughter that day.

She took a deep breath and a moment to consider her decision. She sighed, before running back to the giant and getting the key. She had to make this quick, her ten hours were nearly up.

Killian Jones was fairly surprised to see her return, but the elated smile he gave could light the entire room. She couldn't help but smile back. With every passing moment she was more and more intrigued about her connection to him.

She unlocked his cuff and they ran like hell, laughing inspite of themselves.