Part Two: Conflict
Killian wnadered a bit after Emma disappeared. He was still bothered by how completely distant she'd been to him, especially after she'd ripped him from his place in time.
The least she could do was show him around.
"Killian, right?" The red-headed woman, Grace, he thought her name was, had snuck up behind him. "Emma's speaking with someone. She'll be back later. Would you like to look around?" He nodded.
"So remind me. Why is everyone hiding from this mysterious King Allen, anyhow?" Killian rubbed his hands together, as though they were cold down here, in the heart of the land.
"You really don't know, do you?" Grace smirked bitterly. "You resist, even the tiniest bit? He kills you. No questions asked. If the police say so, you die." She snapped her fingers. "Like my dad."
Emma still wasn't quite used to the jagged stone beneath her feet, but the longer she was here, the easier it got.
"Hello Cora," she said, hoisting herself onto the stone shelf that served for a room.
The old woman smiled, and Emma never failed to be startled by the lines and grey hairs that hadn't been there when she'd had magic.
"Hello dear. I've been spinning again," Cora pointed out, as though she was a child seeking approval.
"I can see. Any luck?" The old woman hadn't yet been able to spin straw to gold, but Emma wouldn't give up. The resistance needed gold, needed it badly, and if Cora could help them, then they'd never have to steal from anyone.
"Not yet. I did get some rather nice copper, though." Emma nodded and rested a hand on her shoulder.
"Keep trying. You'll get there soon."
Getting down from Cora's perch was easier than climbing up, Emma had found, and bumping into Killian and Grace at the bottom was certainly convenient.
"Hello," Emma straightened her back and forced an icy calm into her voice.
"Hey." Killian looked up the rocky outcropping, and Emma quirked an eyebrow.
"Curious?" He nodded in reply, eyes still focused upwards. "Our resident witch-in-training is up there trying to spin gold. You'll get along fine." Her voice brooked no arguments as she was reminded of what had happened the last time Cora and Killian had worked together.
"Lovely." The pirate smirked and began scrambling nimbly up the rock. Emma turned to Grace.
"Maleficent?" Grace nodded, breaking into a smile.
"She'll help us. As soon as you can get there." Emma nodded soberly.
"I'm going to tell him."
"Everything? Even...?"
"Not all at once, but yes. Even that." Emma was resolute. "I'll start with the simpler things. The curse, Henry... I'll do that tonight."
And she found the perfect oppurtunity, pulling him up the huge rock outside the cave to see the stars.
"So," began Killian, "Tell me about yourself."
"Okay." Emma thought for a moment. "I'm the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming?" Killian stared back as though waiting for her to finish speaking. "And I dated Rumplestiltskin's son, Neal, and had a kid named Henry, and punched him in the face." At Killian's confusion she amended, "Neal, not Henry. And I gave him up for adoption," and when Killian looked even more confused," I let another family raise him because I couldn't. And then when he was ten, he found me. And he brought me to Storybrooke, where I found my parents. Only they were cursed, and couldn't remember who they were. And so I had to break the curse, and I did, and now we're a family."
Killian stared blankly at her.
"Shut up. It's hard to explain," Emma laughed as Killian shook his head, bewildered.
"I can see that," he snorted, "but you told me all of that- well I think you did- back in the inn. Tell me about you. Your favorite color, your happiest memory, your greatest wish. Why you kidnapped me..."
"Hey!" Emma smacked him over the head, smirking. "I'm not telling you that. Not any of that!"
"Tell me how you know me." His small smile was genuine, his hands hanging in his lap.
She reached out and held his right hand.
"When I met you you only had one hand." She turned his palm up, fingers tracing his lifeline, his fingers, lingering on his fingertips with gentle touch.
He felt a sudden urge to lean forward, so he did.
He reached up with his left hand, drawing her face to his. Her breath fanned out from slightly parted lips, and he smiled as he pressed his mouth to hers. She returned the kiss softly, as gentle now as she had been cold before. Their twined hands lay forgotten between them as he deepened the kiss.
And then, with a start, her eyes snapped open and she pushed him violently back.
"No, I can't. I can't." Her voice was desperate, breathless, apologetic. She didn't want to pull away. He didn't care, he had an answer now.
"Is that who I am to you?" He asked furiously. Her eyes were wide and afriad and angry, and she just bit her lip and shook her head hopelessly. "Is it?" He was half in tears for what she might be and half ready to throttle her for all her unanswered questions.
She just stared coldly back, defiant as winter rain.
She walked away in silence.
He strode away from the rock full of fire and confusion. If he was to her what he thought, then why would she be so cold? why so cruel and pitiless and obscure? He found the tunnel and left for the docks. He'd find a ship somehow, sail far away, far far away. If she wouldn't take him home, then he'd find a way to get there.
When he did reach the docks, though, he saw the winding, pitch-black masts, reaching lopsidedly towards the sky, and he was reminded that this wasn't the world he knew. There was no freedom here, not on land, not on sea, not in sky.
His only hope was to find out what Emma wanted.
"You can't leave, you know." It was that woman, Grace. "Not until she explains."
"Well in case you hadn't noticed, she's not doing much explaining, now is she?" Killian was long past caring. All he wanted was to sail away, as he had been doing for as long as he could remember. Back when he was Peter, before that, when he was James, and long into his life, when he was Killian or Jones or any number of names.
"She's not explaining because you're not listening." Killian turned around to argue, but no witty quip or argument srprang to his mind. "Just stay until she explains. She'll take you back no matter what, but you need to understand first."
Killian nodded, before climbing the gangplank of his ship.
"What've they done to you, old girl?" He muttered, stroking up the mast with cold-pale fingers, the ash falling over him like snow. "What've they done to me?"
The water was frozen around him, and his ship was burned.
No escaping this time.
The next morning, he woke up to find Emma leaning over the side of the Jolly Roger, blonde hair falling like ribbons on either side of her face.
"I'm not going until you listen to me." He smiled in response, laughing.
"I'd despair if you did." She smiled back.
"Come with me?" She reached out a hand, and he almost wanted to say no, just to throw the memory of the kiss back in her face, but he reached out and took it.
"An adventure?" he asked.
"Of a sort," she replied, leading him down from his ship of ice and ash.
The adventure she was leading him on seemed to end at a great stone fortress, heavily guarded and weather-worn.
"What is this place?" He squinted through the sun, instinctively searching out the weak points, unguarded towers and badly-placed archers.
"King Allen's castle," she said, picking her way through a group of stones poking up from the moss and grasses. "Taken in the seventy-third year of the ogre wars."
"Ogre wars? I heard about those. When did they end?" They're making small talk, but it isn't, not really. He really doesn't know, and she really wants to tell him.
"They didn't. Not really, anyway. Allen found a genie on a beach. He wished for the genie to do whatever he asked, no matter what." Emma looked up, too, watching a bird wheel in the air, blocking the sun and sky in turns. "He wished for infinite wishes and used the ogres to conquer the world." She pulled him on, past the first gate and towers.
"There was a couple who lived in the woods. Red was- she was a werewolf, and her husband was raised in the forest, abandoned by his parenst and raised by wolves. They were good together, a family of wolves and werewolves and half-wolves, and they were happy." She swallowed and led him past a shattered catapult, grown over with moss and dirt and ivy.
"They stood against him, summoning the strength of the forests. Old magic, green and powerful and ancient. He destroyed them." Killian opened his mouth to ask why or maybe how, or when, but Emma plowed on, hand clenching tighter to his. "There was a man, a man with a magic hat who loved his daughter very much. He was executed in the town square, in front of her, and when his head was on a pike on the castle walls they threw her to the mercy of the wilds." They passed burnt wooden houses and crushed fences. "Her name was Grace, and she wasn't the first or the last."
She stopped at the back of the castle, a cliff jutting out over the water. She had never let go of his hand, and she now drew him to look over the edge.
"Everyone I love, my friends, my family, my son..." She stopped herself from adding 'you'. "They're all dead. Or dying, or they never existed. My parents? True love?" She scoffed, shaking her head. "They used to say they'd always find each other, taht nothing could stand in their way so long as they had each other. Only in this world, they never met. My father grew up a poor shepherd, and he died in a fire. My mother grew up a princess, married to a man she hated. Nobody can be happy here, not anymore." She was close to tears now, but she wiped them away angrily.
"Grace and August are going to fight tomorrow. They're going to buy us time while we run." The bitterness in her voice stopped him from making a comment about how cowardly running away would be. "One more day." She said finally. "Just wait one more day and I'll tell you why you're here."
"I'll wait however long I have to," he said quietly.