A/N: We're going to meet a couple of new characters this chapter. Their appearance in this fic pre-dates the first time we saw them in a movie. Also, I play fast and loose with the show's rules regarding the time travel spell. Because fanfiction. Enjoy!

"Time travel?" Emma repeated. She ran the idea over in her mind and then pulled a face. "Kind of seems like one of those big cosmic no-nos."

"Much like magic, realm-jumping, and vampires," Hook put in, raising an eyebrow. He turned to the Wizard, forgetting his antagonism in light of this new helpfulness. "Heard a great many tales about time travel, mate. None of them end well."

Emma, whose knowledge of time travel began and ended with the Back to the Future movies, waited for the Wizard to explain further. It seemed ludicrous, but then hadn't they already traveled through time when they visited Transylvania? Did it count when a realm was stagnant? She had so many questions and a hilariously pathetic lack of answers.

"It depends upon your intentions," the Wizard said, waving off Hook's concerns in an airily brusque way. "Some things are set in time. You can go back a thousand times and do things a thousand different ways, but every single time what is meant to be will come to pass."

"How do you know that we're meant to change the past?" Emma asked, as though the answer would change her determination to use any method to get back to her family.

"Oh, I don't," the Wizard replied with a smile. "But you're certainly not going to use the ruby slippers, and this is your next best option. The time travel spell can jump through dimensions as well as time. Speaking of the slippers," he added to Hook, his smile freezing into a grimace, "if you could just hand those to my guards on your way out…"

Hook inclined his head. "Tell us the spell, and I will."

"Knowledge of the spell," the Wizard corrected. "I'm of limited use here."

Emma appreciated the level of self-restraint it takes Hook to not retort with something scathing. Instead, the pirate gestured expansively in an in your own time motion and smiled with infinite patience.

"You need to create the symbol of a compass," the Wizard said. He spoke to Emma only, his tolerance of Hook having evidently ran out. "On this compass you must place three things: a symbol of wisdom pointing North; a symbol of courage pointing East; a symbol of love pointing South; a symbol of innocence pointing West."

Emma asked him to repeat it more than once until she committed it to memory. She'd never been big into metaphors but she was already trying to rack her brain to think of what could be suitable. She supposed wisdom and courage could be borrowed from the Scarecrow and the Tin Man respectively, but would they count in their corrupted state? How would she even go about taking them? She could use a brain for wisdom, she guessed, but how the hell was she supposed to find the epitome of courage?

Wait, no, she couldn't use a brain. She wouldn't slice someone's head open, no matter how much more quickly it might get her home. Henry needed at least one mother who wasn't accustomed to ripping out parts of people for her own personal gain.

"These tales about time travel…" Emma ventured, turning to Hook. "Were they tales that actually happened?"

"Think they were more tales of the tall variety."

Emma deflated. "So this has never been done before?"

She turned to the Wizard, including him in the question. The Wizard's smile was sheepish.

"Well, it's technically against the fundamental laws of magic, so no. But rules were made to be broken!"

"That's not news to us, mate," Hook said. "We're not exactly the trustworthy sort."

He took several steps back and nodded for Emma to join him. Emma followed his movements with a growing dread and felt rather than saw the Wizard draw himself up indignantly behind her. Hook winked at her.

"Might want to start kicking your shoes off, love."

"Hook, no –"

Her protest was drowned out by the Wizard's scream of "Guards!"

Emma had no idea what Hook would do. He didn't know how to work the ruby slippers, only that he had decided that the Wizard's suggested alternative was unacceptable and he wouldn't deign to hear any more of it. She ran over to him, determined to be by his side when they faced the consequences of his recklessness.

The doors slammed open and an onslaught of guards carrying spears surrounded them. In the center of the room, a large green head cast an eerie glow over the room.

"Seize them!" the head roared.

Emma shot Hook a swift Look what you did! glare.

"Didn't think they'd mobilize quite so quickly," Hook muttered, giving her an awkward shrug.

He did a tally of their enemies and then sighed. It was a soft noise of resignation, not meant to be heard by anyone else, but Emma caught it and frowned at him.

Without warning, Hook bundled the slippers into Emma's arms and took a step away from her.

"Go!" he snapped, not looking at her but at the advancing guards. "I'll find my own way out."

"Not without you!"

Emma closed the space between them again, angrier than she could explain. The anger translated into a rough shove as she entwined her fingers with Hook's, trapping the slippers between their chests. His eyes snapped to hers, confused, but he didn't voice his question. This unspoken trust gave Emma an extra boost of confidence in her magic. She closed her eyes and focused everything she had on merging her magic, the ruby slippers, and the thought Take us somewhere we can find everything we need for a time travel spell.

It could be the brush of green fur, or it could be the magic enveloping them, but Emma's skin prickled with sensation as a cloud of crimson smoke closed in around them.

The breath she tried to take caught in her throat and she felt panic close in instead as her lungs compressed and her head pounded and there was nothing beneath her feet nothing around her only Hook only Hook's steady presence and –

The magic released them with a sigh. The slippers crumbled to dust in their hands. Emma flexed her fingers and watched the remains sift down to the grass beneath them. She should have felt relieved to have escaped Oz with a new plan in place, but suspicion choked her.

Emma wrenched away from Hook and stared at him accusingly. They were in a forest clearing, she registered somewhere in the back of her mind.

"You were going to let me take the slippers," she said, telling herself she was immune to the way his uncertainty stripped him back to boyhood.

Hook nodded slowly. "Yes."

Something wasn't right. There had to be some angle Emma hadn't thought of, some benefit for Hook if he stayed behind. She was always the sacrifice others made, never the one they sacrificed themselves for.

"You were going to let me escape," she clarified, narrowing her eyes at him, "and just stay behind and let yourself be captured?"

"Aye." He looked away. "Figured you've got more waiting for you back in the real world than I do."

His discomfort gave his intentions a credence that his words never could. Emma didn't understand – couldn't understand – but her suspicion melted away and gratitude bloomed in its place. She propelled herself forwards without thinking, letting her actions translate the feelings she didn't yet know how to voice, and kissed him.

Hook froze against her. For a moment, Emma was certain that she had somehow misread all of his subtle-as-a-ton-of-bricks signals over the last few days. She was wondering how she could play the kiss off as a gratitude thing when his lips began to move against hers in earnest.

He pulled her flush against his chest even as she looped a finger through the fastenings of his coat, keeping their bodies as close as they could. His stubble scratched at her chin and she gasped softly into his mouth. He responded with a low moan, misreading the situation in his enthusiasm.

It took a painful amount of self-control for Emma to break away. She had learned that wanting something too much was dangerous and could only lead to pain, and for a single moment there had been nothing she wanted more than to stay locked in the embrace.

Hook slowly opened his eyes, looking as dazed as Emma felt.

"Oh, don't stop on our account."

The drawl made Emma spring further apart from Hook and cause an audible crack in her neck as she looked wildly around for its speaker.

Two men stood on the opposite side of the clearing, dressed strangely in a combination of metal and leather. They were both huge in height but only one had the muscled bulk that Emma was wary of going up against if it came to a fight. The other man was slighter and darker, a shadowy, smirking counterpart to his friend's bright and broad smile.

"Who are you?" Emma called out, keeping a close eye on the daggers the paler one had fastened around his waist.

"Who are we?" the taller one asked, laughing in the kind of arrogant way that reminded Emma of the jocks she had met at every high school party she'd ever snuck into. "Who are we, when it is you who strolls through our forest?"

Emma nodded once. "That's what I said."

The pair's mocking smiles vanished. Hook shifted uneasily at Emma's side.

"Don't much fancy my chances," he said in a low voice, "but I'll take the bigger one."

"We're not taking either of them," Emma muttered back, hoping that she sounded more confident with that decision than she felt. "We're obviously here for a reason. Maybe they can help us."

Hook looked less than convinced, but he nodded. "Either way, can't fault them on their dress sense."

Emma rolled her eyes. "Don't get any ideas."

"Confer all you like," the shorter man called across the clearing. "It will not change the outcome of this meeting. You do not know the sons of Odin, therefore you are either ignorant or intruders. I do not take kindly to either."

He reached for one of the daggers but his companion stayed his hand. "Peace, brother."

"Peace?" the darker one scoffed, although Emma noticed that he did not grip the dagger's handle. "Coming from you?"

"Delayed war, then," his brother said with a grin. He turned to Emma and Hook with an anticipatory glint in his eyes. "I wish to know more about our newcomers. There are few who can breach Asgard's barriers without detection. I would know the names of those whose heads will adorn spikes in the palace courtyard."

"Hold up," Emma said, her head spinning with the strangers' words. "Odin? Asgard?"

"That's what he said," the pale one said, mimicking Emma's earlier tone.

Emma wasn't listening. Asgard. Norse mythology. Not exactly her forte, but she'd read a few stories along the way to memorising what felt like the entire fairytale canon on Henry's behalf. When the paler one had mentioned The Sons of Odin, Emma had thought that was some kind of gang – or a really bad rock group – and added the appropriate capital letters, but she was slowly realizing that the men could actually be gods.

As though answering her unspoken question, the broader one held his arm out and unfurled his fingers. A faint whistling sound from beyond the trees grew steadily louder, accompanied by the cracking of branches as whatever he was summoning crashed through trees without pause.

When a hammer slammed into his palm without causing him any pain, Emma was surprised to find that itcleared things up rather than causing her usual reaction to those kinds of situations.

(Her usual reaction was something along the lines of ?!)

"Must you do that every time?" his brother asked, sending him a disapproving look. "I refuse to see trees that have withstood millennia brought down by your laziness to simply walk to Mjolnir."

"Thor," Emma said, her eyes flicking to the hammer. She might not have been freaking out, but she still wasn't sure she entirely believed it. "God of Thunder?" At Thor's nod, Emma looked at his brother. She didn't remember anything about him in the myths. "And…"

"Loki."

Loki's eyes were cold as he introduced himself. Emma guessed his pride was hurt over not being as recognizable, as though that was even remotely her problem. The name tugged in her memory, though. She remembered reading about him. She wished she remembered anything good. There was a thing with a horse, she recalled, although she probably shouldn't mention that.

"We're from Earth," Emma said instead. "To cut a really, really long story short, we were transported from Oz by a magic pair of shoes because apparently Asgard has everything we need to make a time travel spell."

The brothers barely blinked. Thor only inclined his head towards Loki with a look of interest and said, "After my coronation, brother, we shall take a trip to Midgard. It seems to have become interesting at some point in the last five hundred years."

Loki nodded and raised an eyebrow. "Their hallucinogens have certainly grown more potent."

"We're not hallucinating," Hook snarled.

Emma wasn't too sure. Three attractive guys dressed in leather didn't seem too far from something her mind might have conjured up.

Two jets of green light shot across the clearing without warning and stretched to encase Hook and Emma in two separate tombs. The light shrank down and sank beneath their clothes, under their skin. Before Emma could cry out – it didn't hurt much but it kind of stung, and also what the hell? – the light faded. As Hook and Emma cautiously made sure they could move everything, Loki nodded, satisfied.

"They are no threat to us, brother," he said, moving to stand closer to Hook and Emma. "In fact, they are as they claim."

"Midgardians." Some of Thor's antagonism faded as he joined his brother. "Unworthy to fight even if they did intend us harm. I mean no disrespect," he added as Hook's expression darkened. "I am sure you are fierce warriors in your own small realm."

His words were meant to pacify but his charm couldn't hide his arrogance. Emma would have argued except, yeah, these guys were like a thousand years old. They could probably kill every human on Earth without breaking a sweat.

"I need to get back to my son," Emma said instead. "His name is Henry. We got separated awhile back, and now I need to go back in time, find my mom, and take us all through a portal back home."

"Ah, a quest."

Thor seemed to warm up to the idea, despite having had no additional information. Emma got it; she came from a family of hero types – was in danger of becoming one herself – and understood why presenting Thor with a challenge would be enough to get him on their side. Loki was another problem.

"Magic can take you over distances, certainly, but through time?" Loki shook his head. "It cannot be done."

"The one time your tricks may have been of use, brother!" Thor chortled, clapping his brother on the back with such force that Loki visibly steeled himself.

"It can be done," Emma insisted. "We need four symbols. Love, courage, wisdom, innocence."

"Charming," Loki sneered, "but your ingredients only reveal the folly of your quest. You wish for innocence? There are beings here whose lives have spanned aeons. When you have lived long enough to partake in everything the universe has to offer, from deranged to divine, innocence becomes something readily and irretrievably sacrificed."

"The spell brought us here," Emma said stubbornly, "so there's something here we can use."

Loki shook his head and muttered to himself, "I'd have more luck speaking to the hammer."

"I shall gift you something of my own to place in courage's spot," Thor offered, ignoring his brother.

Loki snorted softly. "They need courage, Thor, not a willingness to blindly stumble into danger."

Thor only laughed again. "Are they not one and the same?"

"Not really, no," Emma put in, just as Hook said, "Aye, more or less."

Emma sent Hook a flat look. He shrugged in return.

"Don't know much about courage unless it's in liquid form," he said, although Emma didn't believe it for a second. She thought of reassurances she could make but then discarded them for being too sentimental.

"We're wasting our time," Loki said, cutting into the speculative silence with dismissiveness. "The spell would not work."

"I say it would." Thor's grin gained a challenging slant. "Shall we make a wager?"

Loki shrugged. "By all means. If I lose, I'll tell you where I hid the dragon carving you used to love."

"Done." The speed with which he answered made Emma wonder if his love for the dragon carving really was in the past. "And if I lose?"

Loki pretended to think about it, but Emma got the impression that he had just been waiting to pull one over on his brother.

"I've always thought that Freyja's wedding dress would look very becoming on you," he said after a moment.

Before Thor's face could turn an even more worrying shade of red, Emma nodded.

"So the stakes are dragons and pretty dresses," she said. "Great. Let's get started."

"Presumptuous, isn't she?" Loki turned his serpentine eyes on her. "You know, little mortal, we are of royal blood. There are those who have been flogged for less insolence than you currently display."

"No one's flogging anyone," Hook said, shifting so subtly towards Emma that Emma wondered if he even realized he was doing it.

Loki laughed. "That isn't your decision to make."

"No," Thor agreed. He drew himself up from his already impressive height, looking every inch like the imposing, mythological god he is. "It's mine. I say we will treat our Midgardian friends like treasured guests."

Loki's gaze flickered. The moment passes as he inclined his head to Emma and offered a graceful, "My apologies."

He was smooth, but Emma didn't buy into his remorse for a second. There was a reason the legends all remembered him as a troublemaker.

"Now," Loki said, turning to Thor in a business-like manner, "to work. Feathers from Huginn and Muninn could suffice for wisdom."

Thor frowned. "Surely something of Father's would make more sense? His pet ravens may be too tenuous a connection."

"Probably, but if you are willing to steal from him then I shall let you provide the token of courage after all." Loki's smile gained an edge. "Besides, the ravens gather and deliver the wisdom Father claims as his own."

"It will be too difficult," Thor said, his tone on the edge of complaining. "You know the ravens dislike me."

Emma turned to Hook and sighed. "Kind of makes you miss the other places where nothing made sense."

Hook raised an eyebrow. "Makes me miss the places that weren't home to millennia-old gods. I don't often feel inferior, but this'll do it."

Emma looked at him, surprised. "You know about the Norse gods?"

Hook shrugged. "Stories. Best watch out for that one," he added in a quiet voice, his eyes shifting minutely to Loki.

Emma was wary of both of them. They hadn't accepted a request for help but taken it upon themselves to assist out of friendly (on Thor's part) sibling rivalry. Hook and Emma had barely factored into the decision at all. Emma wondered what it must be like for gods to be around mortals. How small she must seem to them.

"That leaves love." Thor's words drew Emma's attention back to him. The god glanced between her and Hook. "Is there not some token you have exchanged which would suffice?"

Emma felt herself blanch. "We're not – no, I mean, we don't –"

"Not in love, mate."

Hook cut through Emma's stammering with a flatness that pricked at her, although she couldn't say why. When she glanced at him, his face was carefully clear of emotion.

"Of course not," Loki said with patronizing indulgence. "Forgive my brother. What he lacks in subtlety, he makes up for in absence of self-awareness."

"You must in turn forgive my brother," Thor said with a hard look at Loki. "He forgets his place."

Loki's eyes dropped to the ground. Emma watched his jaw work itself over and wondered how many little put downs he was jabbed with without his brother realizing the effect they had on him. And she thought her family dynamic was messed up.

"You're forgiven," Hook said dryly. "We'll leave the love symbol for later. You say you've got the other three figured out?"

"We do," Thor said, halfway between pride and arrogance.

"I have something for love," Emma said. The necklace at her throat meant many things to her, including a one-time love.

"Excellent. We shall make camp and then Loki and I will collect the items you need."

"Make camp?" Emma repeats, looking around dubiously. "We're in a forest."

"Precisely," Loki said with a nod. "Plenty of kindling for a fire, and there are many wild animals here to provide a generous meal." His smile is unpleasant. "Once you kill them, skin them and roast them, that is."

He clearly hoped to unnerve her, but Emma was long past squeamishness. She was not, and probably never would be, past suspicion. "You're just leaving us here?"

"Not alone," Thor said. There was a warning of sorts beneath his smile. "I will call our friends here to keep you company."

Emma understood Hook's soft laugh instantly; despite Thor's friendliness and the assurance of Loki's spell, he still didn't entirely trust the newcomers.

"And by 'I will call', you meant 'Loki will call'," Loki guessed, stooping down to gather up fallen twigs and hard clumps of dirt. He didn't wait for his brother to put words to his sheepish expression, instead sending him a long-suffering look and passing an outstretched hand over the palmful of debris.

There was a flash of green light and then the rocks transformed into four cawing ravens. They perched on Loki's outstretched arms and glared at Hook and Emma with the same disdain for them that their creator barely managed to hide. Emma stared back at them. She should be used to magic by now – and she was, for the most part – but it could still entranced her. Loki had just created life with nothing more than a sneer and a wave of his hand. If Emma had seen these ravens in the wild, she would never have guessed that they had been rocks and twigs just moments before. There was only one difference that marked the ravens as false: what Emma had heard as a caw from their sharp beaks was actually a word: Come.

"Clever," Hook muttered. He glanced at Loki, full of grudging admiration. "They'll lead your friends back here?"

"They will," Loki said. He flung his arms upwards and the ravens took flight. The four figures below them craned their necks to watch their progress. "It's a short ride from the palace. They'll be back within the hour, and then we will take our leave."

Within the hour? Emma suppressed a groan, and then settled herself down for the long wait. If these gods could deliver, she'd petition for a new altar or two in Storybrooke.