Author's Note: So, the Storybrooke section ran really long in this part, so I'm making Cardiff its own chapter this time.. The first scene is also the second time I wrote it. I was originally writing it straight onto 's document manager, but I must've accidentally closed the tab, because I lost all my progress. Hopefully this second time is just as good., if not better.

Storybrooke, Maine, 2016

"Captain Jack Harkness" was now sitting across from her in the interrogation room, spinning the most impossible tale Emma had ever heard in her entire life, which, given her life up to that point, was quite the feat. Never mind the fact he looked like an Abercrombie model on his way home from a World War II re-enactment.

He'd tried a couple of false stories, before sighing with resignation and opting to tell her the whole, unbelievable truth.

'Let me get this straight,' she said, after a lengthy pause 'You hunt aliens…for a living? Flying saucer, death ray, "take to your leader" …aliens.'

'Sometimes,' Jack admitted with a nonchalant shrug 'Other times, it's helping the good aliens get home, or saving people stranded in the wrong time, or stopping an asteroid crashing into the Earth and causing another intinction event,' he laughed to himself 'Bit of a Jack off all trades.' He grimaced queasily '…That was a joke.'

Emma looked up and down. He quirked an eyebrow 'What? You don't believe me?'

'Oh, I believe you,' she said 'And I don't know if that means we're both crazy…'

'But?' Jack pressed.

Oh, damn, he is perceptive, Emma just felt there was something…off about him. Not in his story, her every well-trained instinct was telling her that, at the very least, he believed what he was telling her was the absolute truth, but something else, something deeper than instinct was telling her he was just wrong somehow. That unnatural sense of wrongness seemed to hang about him like an aura.

'Well, Sherriff Swan,' said Jack with a winning smile 'I've told you my deal, what's yours? Call me crazy, but I think there's a lot more to you than a small-town sheriff.'

Emma frowned 'What are you, a pickup artist?'

Jack shrugged and pulled a guilty face 'I've dabbled.'

'Sorry,' she told him 'That's not how an interrogation works.'

In response, Jack scoffed 'Am I a prisoner?' he challenged, grinning.

Emma crossed her arms 'Until I can figure out whether you're a threat to my town and what you've done with my husband, yeah, you are.'

Jack threw his head back in exasperation 'I've told you, I don't know anything about your husband! Last I checked I was in Cardiff in 2009, now I'm in Maine and it's…'

'2016,' she supplied.

Jack whistled 'Damn, of all the crappy years to be stuck in…' he trailed off 'Look, either way, I'm no threat to you or your town, that I can promise you. I'm just trying to find a way back to my team.'

He looked her dead in the eye, and that extra, magical sense of awareness screamed his unnatural wrongness in the back of her head. It reminded her eerily of tremors and Saviour visions.

There was a long, unsettling pause.

Doing her best to put it aside for now, Emma crossed around the table to uncuff him.

'Ah, that's better!' Jack exclaimed, flexing his hands exaggeratedly.

'You're going to help me figure out what happened to my husband,' Emma explained, so there were no misunderstandings. 'You seem to know way more about this "cross-gate" thing than I do, so I need your help.'

Jack looked vaguely impressed 'Only freeing me for information. You are good.'

Emma smiled, mock-sweetly 'I do my best.'

'Alright, I'll help you,' Jack put in pointedly 'On one condition. You have to tell me your story. Do we have a deal?'

'Deal,' Emma said, though the sigh in her voice was audible.

~Line Break~

So, she really did tell him everything. Growing up in the system. Prison. The Curse. Henry turning up on her birthday. Cora, Greg and Tamara, Neverland, Witches, Dark Ones, The Underworld, the whole shebang. Strangely, despite the many unbelievable things that came up over the course of her telling, he never raised an objection, only nodded intently, occasionally putting in interested little 'mm's and 'hmm's as he listened, taking in the story.

'Well, Sherriff,' he said once she'd finished 'Sounds like you've had a hell of a life.'

'You have no idea.'

Jack leaned forward, grinning with fascinated excitement 'So, this husband of yours, he's…'

'Captain Hook,' she said, casually.

'And you're Snow White's daughter,' he repeated, as if still getting used to the idea.

'Yup,' Emma said, a slightly bashful look on her face. Hearing it said by an outsider like that reminded her what an odd existence hers was.

'And everyone in this town's a fairy tale character?'

'That's about the size of it,' Emma agreed with a shrug.

Before her could question her further, the door opened and David entered, followed by Henry and Snow. His face seemed oddly panicked. Henry was clutching something she didn't recognise.

'Emma, did you find anything about Hook?' David asked, unconsciously putting an arm on her shoulder.

Emma set her jaw, looking guilty 'No, sorry. He didn't know anything.'

David leaned closer into her, his manner softened 'Don't worry. We'll find him.' Then, he straightened up and looked past her at Jack 'What about him? Who is he?'

Emma turned and gestured at Jack, who waved blithely 'This is Jack. He's…complicated, but he's offered to help me find Hook, as a kind of consultant…' she wasn't sure how David would take a whole "aliens" thing. Better to let the expert handle that bombshell she decided.

Jack jerked his head in David's direction 'Who's the hunk?' he asked.

Emma blinked at him, totally bewildered 'That…would be my father.' She said, feeling her cheeks flame.

'Ah, Prince Charming,' Jack nodded, sounding far too delighted. Snow was wide-eyed with disbelief, Henry looked visibly mortified.

'He's married,' Snow spoke up, her voice a squeak.

Jack looked unfazed 'Don't worry, Princess,' he said with a soft laugh 'You can join if you like.'

'Okaaay,' Emma announced, more loudly than necessary in a desperate attempt to wrest the conversation off this trajectory 'Why don't we start by scoping out the house where that gate thing appeared?' she suggested.

'Wait, Mom,' Henry stepped forward. He'd been waiting for her opportunity to speak. It was then she realised what he was holding was a book 'Look at this. I…felt something, like when the quill first called out to me, so I checked out the Sorcerer's Mansion, and when I did, a new book had just appeared there.'

Emma frowned, taking it curiously in her hands '"Assorted Fairy tales and folklore of the Time Lords…51st Century Edition… Foreword by Dr J Smith.'" She read aloud, although she might as well have been reading a foreign language, it was all gobbledegook to her.

Jack, however, had perked up at the words 'Can I see that?' he asked.

She obliged him, and Jack took the book, examining it. It was a glossy black hardcover, it's cover stamped in silver foil with spiralling symbols he guessed where Gallifreyan script. Wait a sec…he remembered this! These were all the old fables of Time Lords—the legends of Gallifrey—his mother used to read to him at bedtime. Jack began rifling through the book. All the old favourites were here: Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday, Cinderella and the Magic Box, Frozen Beauty…classics.

'What is it?' Emma asked, unnerved by the silence.

'Something that shouldn't be here…' Jack muttered, a frown creasing his face. He handed it back to Henry and got up from his chair 'We'll take it with us. I need to check out that cabin again.'

He walked out in the department, the others following behind, before pivoting on his heel 'Oh. I'm going need the device you took from me when I came in. It was on my wrist?'

Emma knew what he was referring to. She hadn't thought much of it. She'd prodded it experimentally a few times, but it'd oddly bleeped at her. Nonetheless, she retrieved it from evidence lockup for him 'What is it?' she asked, handing it back to Jack.

'Vortex Manipulator,' he explained 'I used to use it to travel in time. Doesn't work now, but I can use it to scan for traces of temporal energy around the cabin, maybe pinpoint a source.'

'You…really travelled in time?' Henry asked, unable to conceal his excitement.

Jack turned to Henry 'You must be the author kid, right?' he smiled at him. 'Yeah, I've travelled in time. Space, too. But I can't do what you do. I mean, rewriting reality? I've only ever seen that once before…'

Henry looked at him quizzically 'Really, when?'

'Long story,' said Jack with a sigh 'Long time ago now.'

'Wait,' interrupted David 'Time travel?'

'Yeah,' Jack told him 'I used to work for an organisation called the Time Agency, then I…knocked around a bit, ended up working for Torchwood, an institute dedicated to defending Britain from alien threats.'

David and Snow looked to Emma. She nodded, confirming his story.

'That is so cool,' Henry said 'But…Britain? You sound American.'

'Well,' said Jack with a wistful laugh 'I'm from a little further afield than Oklahoma.'

~Line Break~

They were at the cabin. Jack was crouched over the spot where the gate had been, scanning it intently, occasionally punching in commands on the device on his wrist, consulting the little display.

'You picking up anything?' Emma inquired.

'Just faint traces of temporal residue,' Jack admitted with a frustrated grimace 'But if I had to guess, the two gates are linked, so your husband's probably in Cardiff. With any luck, he's with my team…actually, that might not be lucky.'

Before she could ask what he meant, a huge boom rippled through the skies above them. The glass in the windows shattered inwards, and everyone reflexively ducked an covered their faces.

'What the hell was that?!' David demanded.

'I don't know,' Emma admitted, her voice quiet.

A few seconds later, a deafening crash shook the ground, causing everyone to duck again.

~Line Break~

It hadn't taken them long to see the see the source of the impact. A huge, disk-shaped spaceship lay, lopsided, in a crater in the middle of the road, its lights and engines sputtering and dying weakly.

Several residents of the town were emerging from their homes, gaping and whispering to each other.

'The hell…?' Emma breathed to herself.

'I think…' Jack said 'Aliens have come to Storybrooke.'

Additional Author's Note: The Time Lord fairy-tales mentioned in this chapter are real stories you can read in a Doctor Who tie-in book called, unimaginatively in my opinion, Time Lord Fairy Tales. I thought, since this is a story about fairy tales and the Whoniverse, why not include them as an Easter egg? Next chapter, we catch up with Killy in Cardiff.