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Chapter Six
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"Bitch," Emma muttered breathlessly when Tamara finally subsided the electric currents that sent pain radiating and coursing through her body like knives. Her muscles were clenched and there was a sharp coiling in her stomach, but she was proud of herself, nonetheless, for only crying out once or twice from the pain.
Shaking her head, Tamara let out a short 'tsk'. "And here I thought we were actually becoming friends back there," she said, a mocking frown on her face.
Unable to do anything else, Emma just groaned and rolled her eyes as she sarcastically murmured, "Please."
Tamara looked across at something again, and much to Emma's disgust, suddenly started laughing. What the hell? With a conspiratorial smirk on her face, Tamara's focused her attention back on the machine. "You're a tough girl," Tamara questioned, still looking bemused, "right, Emma?"
Emma didn't have a chance to shoot back an insult before Tamara turned one of the knobs even further than before, catching Emma off guard and causing to her wail involuntarily. Sizzling, hot fire exploded throughout her body and without a doubt, it was the worst pain she had ever felt. She lost track of time, unable to think of or process anything besides what was happening. Emma barely registered it when Tamara turned the machine off. Her entire body shook, but felt paralyzed at the same time, and she could tell she was about to lose consciousness.
There was a loud banging coming from somewhere outside the room and Tamara's alarmed eyes darted toward the door. Emma was almost too exhausted too care anymore; passing out and falling into oblivion and forgetting everything about this day and the fairytale crap that came with it was sounding more appealing each second. She closed her eyes just as she heard the clicking of Tamara's gun, quickly followed by the slam of a door.
Now that she was alone, Emma weakly tried to wiggle out of her restraints, but it was no use. Her skin was glistening with sweat and sleep was slowing pulling her….
There was a forceful shake of her shoulder. "Emma."
Swallowing hard, Emma managed to crack one eye open, only to see Neal's anxious face hovering above her. "Neal?" she croaked, confused to how he had even gotten there.
With a sigh of relief, Neal began to hurriedly remove the wires and restraints holding her down. "You're okay," he said reassuringly as he helped her sit up, putting her arm around his shoulder so that he could help her stand, "I got you."
"I can't believe you were engaged to her," Emma grumbled, willing herself to think about anything other than the way her body wanted to collapse, her eyes hooded as they stumbled out the door and into the hallway of… a cannery? The smell of sardines hit her hard, churning her stomach even more.
Neal let out a short chuckle and hoisted her up against his shoulder a bit more. "Neither can I." He stopped walking once they got to a row of big, smoky machines and then cursed under his breath. "Where the hell did he go now?" Neal grunted. Emma furrowed her brows and tried to look around, was he talking about Hook? Even amidst all the torture, she had been wondering what Tamara had done to him. There were some sounds of scuffling somewhere to their left and Neal hurriedly pulled her in that direction while trying to keep her upright.
"Hook, stop," Neal ordered irately, startling Emma and causing her eyes to pop open fully. While her vision was still having trouble focusing, she could blurrily see that a deranged looking Hook had an unconscious Tamara pinned to the ground, clearly on the verge of killing her.
When he didn't listen to Neal, Emma hoarsely whispered, "Hook." She was sure why she felt obligated to stop him or that he would even listen to her, but his name was out of her mouth before she could stop it.
Hook paused momentarily before he violently shoved away from Tamara and stood up fully. "Emma," he growled, a wild look still in his eyes as he pointed down at Tamara, "if you remembered all this woman –"
"Well she doesn't," Neal interjected irritably, cutting him off, "so you can spare her the gory details until she gets her memories back."
"Like you did?" Hook mockingly quipped, glaring hostilely at Neal, "You apparently jumped at the chance to load information on her. We agreed-"
"Whatever agreement we had went out the window when you left me in Storybrooke the second we got here and then hightailed it down the coast in your ship to look for her on your own," Neal argued, accusation and annoyance rising in his voice. If Emma's head wasn't spinning before, it certainly was now. They knew each other? And had come here together? She tried to find a way to connect all the dots in her head. She guessed it made sense. Hook had said her parents had sent him and Neal was the father of her child…
"I told you I would dock for one hour and then be off," Hook indignantly sneered, "it's your own bloody fault for meandering around town in search of information that wasn't even here to begin with."
Well, even if they did know each other, their relationship seemed rocky at best. She wondered why… Looking smug, Neal snapped, "I found her first, didn't I?"
"Would you like a round of applause?" Hook shot back, the bitterness clear in his voice.
"For the love of God," Emma groaned, their bickering causing her head to pound even more, "both of you, shut up."
At least they both had the decency to look a little ashamed. Or maybe she was just hoping they did. After a stretching moment of silence, Neal sighed, "Okay, if anyone is taking care of Tamara, it's me."
"Is that so?" Hook commented in a bored voice, rolling his eyes as his arm moved to rest on his belt.
"We're not killing her," Neal told him sternly, "Some of us actually have morals, but you wouldn't know anything about that, would you, pirate?"
"Listen here, boy-"
"Enough," Emma hissed, getting tired of all their shit. She didn't have the energy to try to work out whatever was going on between them. The room started to shake and she found herself clutching her head.
"Have it your way, Baelfire," Hook conceded with a hint of annoyance as he walked over to them and moved to grab her Emma's arm, "but if that's your choice, you can stay here while I take Emma back to the Enchanted Forest ."
"Don't I get a say in this?" Emma asked weakly, her pride flaring up, hating being told what to do. She let go of Neal and attempted to stand on her own, but her knees buckled and she fell forward in to Hook.
"Not when you can barely stand," Hook muttered tiredly to her, crouching slightly so his arm could wrap underneath her knees, picking her up and cradling her against his chest. Emma immediately relaxed into him. Okay, so this wasn't so bad.
"Whatever," Neal grumbled, throwing his hands up in defeat, glancing at Hook darkly, "Emma, I'll meet back up with you and Henry in a few days."
"Wait," Emma said, thinking of Henry. This was suppose to be his dad, she couldn't just let Hook leave him here. Besides, if her parents had sent him with Hook, did that mean they didn't think she would be okay alone with the pirate? Instinctively gripped the lapels of Hook's leather coat to steady herself, she asked, "How are you getting there?"
"I'll use the bean that's hidden here," Neal told her with some reassurance. He jerked his head toward the exit, "Just get out of here."
"Always a pleasure, lad," Hook stated dryly, turning to walk them out of the cannery.
"You two know each other?" Emma mumbled against his chest, the swaying of his footsteps quickly putting her to sleep. Her entire body was exhausted and needed to recover from whatever Tamara had done to her.
"I thought you didn't want to know anything," Hook replied sharply, his mood dark. His tone normally would have angered her but she wasn't in the mood to deal with whatever drama she had apparently been thrust into anymore tonight. Part of her still believed she would wake up in her bed in Boston tomorrow morning to find that everything had been a crazy dream.
When she didn't reply, she heard him sigh and then felt something rustling in her hair. "How are you feeling?" Hook asked quietly. She started to say 'fine', but the words ended up coming out in a tired, incoherent jumble. "Reassuring answer, darling," he chuckled, but there was still an edge of concern in his voice.
Something tugging at her feet woke her up. She didn't even remember when exactly she had fallen asleep. She noticed she was lying on a bed and looked down and saw Hook removing her boots. "Where are we?" she asked sleepily, reaching a hand up to rub at her eyes.
"My ship," Hook answered, a little pride entering his voice before he gently pulled a cover up over her. "It might get bumpy, love," he told her with a wink, "Just a fair warning." Hazily, she saw him start to walk out of the room before she was claimed by sleep once more.
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She was following Neal down a crowded sidewalk, almost having to run to catch up with him. "C'mon," he said to her, "should be one more block west."
"Once we get the car, what do we do about Hook?" she asked, the thought of the pirate stressing her even more than she already was.
"I don't know," Neal said dismissively, "he made his way to New York, I'm sure he can make his way out of a basement," he turned to her, a bit of accusation and annoyance in his voice, "Do you have a problem leaving him behind?"
She shrugged, pushing down whatever concern she might have been feeling. "Actually, I've done it before."
"Great," Neal replied shortly, effectively ending the conversation.
"I have to admit, after some of the things you've said," she continued, glancing briefly at Neal, "I'm surprised you'd rally to his side like this."
"There's a difference between running away from your father and watching him die in front of you. He may be a monster, but he's my blood…."
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Emma couldn't remember ever feeling this comfortable. Snuggling deeper into the bed, she sighed contently. Wherever she was, it felt like home. She froze and realized she didn't want to open her eyes and see the inside of her flat.
Slowly peeking an eye open, the room she was in was unfamiliar. She let out a deep breath. It hadn't been a dream. Why was she so relieved? She had been chased after, kidnapped, and tortured in less than 24 hours. That wasn't a life people generally tend to want to hold on to, but it was all she had. And soon, she hoped, she would have Henry.
Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, Emma sat up and looked around the room. The linings of the wall were wooden and intricate, it was clean and organized, there was elaborate looking armoire next to a desk, and she was lying on the only bed in the room. Was she in the captain's cabin? She didn't know why she suddenly felt flustered that Hook had brought her to his room where she had slept in his bed. She glanced to her left and saw the other side of the bed untouched. Running her fingers through her hair, her mind went back to her dream. It had to be a memory, she knew that now. It had felt too real and familiar not to be. And it had been her first dream that hadn't had anything to do with mythical creatures and lands. It frustrated her that she couldn't remember the context of her conversation with Neal, especially since she had brought up the person whose ship she was now on. So they had met before. But they had been leaving him behind? And why hadn't it seemed like it wasn't the best of circumstances?
With an annoyed huff, she decided to let it go. Nothing would make sense until she got her memories back, if she ever got them back, that is. And after everything that had happened with Tamara, she wanted to keep to herself until she was with Henry and her parents.
Looking around the room curiously, she bit her lip before deciding it wouldn't hurt to just… look around. It wasn't snooping, she just wanted to find out more information about who she was dealing with. To make sure there weren't of any secret documents with plans to kill her lying around…
Emma made her way over to his desk and flipped through the parchments that were lying on top. Most of them were just maps of lands she didn't recognize, but there was a bent up one of Boston among them. Just as she was about to move to the drawers, the corner of something colorful caught her eye. Gently grabbing it, she pulled out a picture that had been buried beneath a stack of papers. Her heart stopped. It was her. And Henry. They were posed in front of a birthday cake, Henry in front with a little triangular hat on, her bent down behind him with her arms wrapped around his shoulders. It was surreal to see herself with blonde hair again, but even more so to see the smile that was on her face, because she couldn't imagine herself ever being that happy. For the past year, she had only been alone and miserable. Why did she have a feeling that this had been the picture missing from her room? And why did Hook have it? It wasn't like he had been looking at it, right? It had been buried beneath -
She whipped around in a panic when she heard someone coming through the door, hurriedly stuffing the picture back to the bottom of the pile. Hook looked somewhat caught off guard to find her awake and going through his things, but he quickly recovered. "I was just making sure everything was still okay down here," Hook said with a small flourish of his hand, leaning against the doorframe.
Yeah, I was just going through your things. "Yeah, I just woke up," Emma stammered, her voice a little too high. Hook smirked and raised his eyebrow at her, calling her bluff. "I was just looking…" Emma trailed off with some embarrassment, not exactly knowing what to say and hoping he wasn't too mad and decided to make her walk the plank. Pirates did that, right?
"It's fine," Hook said, shrugging indifferently, his mouth tipping up at the corners.
Just that alone made her heart beat a little faster than it already was. Wow, he really was attractive, and this was the first time she had really gotten to get a good look at him under a somewhat normal setting, not him harassing her on the street, her on the edge of a breakdown, or her dizzy from torture. Oh God, she was staring. She shook her head, wanting to slap herself. It's not like she hadn't been around good looking men before. Well, ones that didn't grab her and kiss her randomly anyway. She involuntarily flushed. Get a grip, Emma. Clearing her throat awkwardly, she asked, "Are we in Enchanted Forest?"
He nodded. "I'll sail as close as we can get to the castle but it'll still be a few days journey on foot after that," Hook informed her, his eyes studying her curiously.
Castle? This was certainly going to be interesting. "Okay," Emma replied lamely, the question of the picture on the tip of her tongue, but she stopped herself. She had told herself she didn't want to know anything else about the life she couldn't remember until she was safe with her parents, but the picture had thrown her for a loop. She wasn't entirely sure if she trusted Hook enough yet to believe what he would tell her anyway. She was at a complete disadvantage to anyone she might meet in the world and she couldn't risk repeating a Tamara incident.
When it was clear she wasn't going to say anything else, Hook straightened up and scratched the back of his neck. "Well I'll be above deck if you need anything," he offered with a polite bow of his head before leaving the room, shutting the door behind him.
Emma let out a short breath she didn't know she had been holding. Hesitantly pulling the picture out again, she studied it for a minute longer before stuffing it in her coat pocket where the one of just Henry was already kept.
Bracing herself and pushing down any emotion that might threaten to show, Emma walked out of the cabin and up the short stairs to the main deck. Her eyes immediately widened at the sight before her. It was unlike any view she had ever seen. She strode over to the railing, ignoring how she could feel Hook's eyes on her from where he was standing up by the helm, and drank in the Enchanted Forest. They were sailing fairly close to the shoreline, the hills of green visible, the outlines of mountains framing the horizon. It looked like something out of a movie or… well, a fairytale. "Wow," Emma breathed, somewhat awestruck.
"Not quite what you're used to, I take it," Hook said bemusedly, suddenly standing beside her, causing her to jump slightly.
Emma shook her head, glancing briefly at him out of the corner of her eye. "Definitely not," she muttered, leaning down to rest her elbows on the railing.
They both stood there in silence for a long moment before Hook crossed his arms and leaned against the side of ship, turning slightly toward her. "So what do you remember?" he implored. Emma raised her eyebrows at him, feigning ignorance. "You're somewhat of an open book, lass," Hook announced to her, a smirk on his face. "You were lying when you said you didn't," he chided lightly.
Feeling a little uncomfortable that he was somehow able to see right through her, she objected, "I really don't though." Because she didn't. All she had were flashes and blurry images. Those didn't count for anything, not when she couldn't decipher them. When Hook raised an eyebrow at her, continuing to stare at her expectantly, she begrudgingly admitted, "I've had this one memory ever since I woke up after surgery."
"Surgery?" Hook repeated, sounding out the name like it was foreign to him.
"Yeah, I had a really bad head injury and it caused a lot of hemorrhaging in my brain," Emma said, trying to explain to what had happened to her and failing. When he still looked confused, she sighed and lifted the front of her hair to show him the scar that followed her hairline at her temple, "They open up your skull and fix it." With that, alarm flashed through his eyes as he grabbed her head and held it in place so that he could get a better look. Emma flatly stated, "I'm guessing that's not something they do in the Enchanted Forest."
"I've been in a hospital before, but they didn't do that," Hook replied, his voice almost as at a growl as he finally pulled away from her, moving back to his former position, "it sounds barbaric."
"They knock you out so it's not like you feel it," Emma said with a shrug. Surgery was something that was normal to her, it was weird to see somebody so appalled to it. "Anyway," she began with a sigh, getting back to the subject on hand, "I always thought it was a dream."
"What was it?" Hook asked, his attention focused on her.
Emma swallowed down a dry lump in her throat before answering, suddenly nervous at saying something she had never been able to say out loud before. "Me lying on the ground with people arguing above me and then somebody helps me up," she told him, the hazy memory so rushed and blurry that even remembering it makes her head spin, "and I remember seeing this castle… but then I'm being pulled into this whirlpool, which I guess I now know was a portal," Emma added, glad that some piece of the puzzle was finally sliding into place.
"You don't remember who the people were?" Hook asked, his voice careful. Emma looked over at him and saw that he was decidedly keeping his face blank, but she couldn't help but feel a hint of anticipation coming from him.
"No," Emma told him honestly and she could have sworn she saw a brief flash of disappointed go through his eyes before he turned to face the water, "and then I had this dream back in Storybrooke," she continued, deciding to leave out the dream she had just had since it had partly had to do with him, "Henry was talking to me and then I was fighting a dragon," Emma said, her voice turning disbelieving and skeptical.
"That happened," Hook said, a grin flitting over his face. When she sent him a questioning look, he shrugged, nonchalantly saying, "I've heard the story once," he then glanced over at her briefly, tiredly muttering under his breath, "…or twice."
Part of her wanted to dwell on how he knew it, but she couldn't stop a small, indignant, tight-lipped smile from forming her face. "Why do I feel like you're making fun of me?" she wryly quipped.
The smile on Hook's face said he was doing exactly that. With a mischievous glint in his eyes, he lowered his voice, suggestively countering, "You're free to feel anything you'd like, love."
Emma rolled her eyes, but something about it unsettled her. The banter, the innuendo… she didn't know why but it just felt familiar. She couldn't stop herself from reaching in her pocket. "Here's the thing," Emma began cautiously, trying to gauge his reaction as she held up the picture to him, "I found this on your desk."
Hook froze and stared down at the picture. She saw his throat bobble a little before he looked back up at her, a smirk plastered on his face. "Is this your way of asking whether I prefer blondes or brunettes?" he inquired, his eyes flitting between brunette her and blonde her.
Emma blinked, thrown by his comment and impassivity. "This isn't about my hair," she spat out frustratingly, annoyed that he was trying to blow her off.
"Then what is your point, darling?" Hook asked in a bored tone, but his stance was way too tense.
"Why do you have it?" Emma demanded through gritted teeth.
He stared at her intently, jaw clenched, before he finally shrugged, "I had to make sure I grabbed the right princess, now, didn't I?"
"Oh," Emma mumbled, looking down at the picture and feeling embarrassed that she hadn't thought of that, that she had automatically begin to assume that maybe… she didn't know what she thought exactly. And she hated that a little part of her was disappointed that he hadn't told her anything, because she didn't want to, not yet anyway, not when she still felt vulnerable from all the information that had been thrust on her already, and was still being thrust on her in her dreams, confusing her even more, scaring her even more.
She jumped when Hook grabbed her arm. "Back in Storybrooke, you were on the brink of a breakdown," he voiced, his eyes intense and unwavering. Her pride told her to object, but she knew he was right, she would have ran straight back to Boston and tried to write all of this off as a dream if he hadn't stopped her, "I said I wouldn't try to tell you anything, and I will keep that promise, unless you trust me enough now to believe whatever I say. I'm not going to risk you trying to run away from me." Hook held out his arms, an open, honest, determined expression his face, "Do you trust me?"
Emma swallowed hard, her heart pounding as she searched his face, and she was suddenly scared. Not of him, but of how overwhelmed she seemed to get around him, and she still hadn't decided if it was a good thing or a bad thing. She had been feeling completely helpless ever since all these random people had come back into her life, using what she didn't know against her and expecting things from her. He was the only one who was giving her a choice on whether she let him do that to her or not, because no matter what, that's exactly what it would feel like to her, just like it had been with the others. She didn't trust him. And she had a feeling he already knew that. "No," she whispered.
He didn't look surprised, if anything, he just looked tired. "Very well, princess," Hook drawled, mockingly bowing with a smile plastered on his face that didn't reach his eyes. She inwardly cringed at the word princess. He possessively eyed the picture in her hand for a moment before he suddenly snatched it away from her. "I'll be taking that, then," he said quickly and placed it in the inner pocket of his coat.
"Hey!" Emma protested, trying to grab it back, but he dodged her and started walking toward the helm.
"You should learn to keep out of other people's things, lass," Hook yelled back at her, not bothering to turn around, leaving Emma on the deck with nothing but her hollow thoughts.
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