Disclaimer: Don't own Once Upon a Time, just writing for fun here.

Rating: T for now, may jump to M later on

Summary: What if Hook hadn't been protected by Cora when the curse hit? What if it had taken him to Storybrooke? What if all he knew of the Crocodile was that he had this unexplainable hatred towards Mr. Gold? An alternative tale of season one.

Characters: Hook, Mr. Gold, Emma Swan, Mary Margaret, Regina

Pairing: Golden Hook, eventual Captain Swan, eventual Rumbelle (the first pairing will be explained, trust me)

Emma was fuming as she stormed across the street towards the Pawn Shop, the burnt rope clutched in her hand. She could still smell the awful fumes the thing had been doused with. It was not fear that gripped her when she realized Mr. Gold had gone far enough to actually set fire to a building in order to paint Emma as a hero to win her the election for sheriff. Talk about overboard. She was going to set him straight, tell him she wouldn't stand for this kind of thing and to back off. He may have had a stigma in the town, considered more dangerous than even Regina, but Emma wasn't impressed. She knew he had power, to be sure, but she wasn't going to let him push her around, that wasn't really how Emma worked.

She was reaching for the door handle when the door swung inward, nearly making her stumble forward as the door before her suddenly wasn't there. Someone came out of the store so quickly he almost crashed into her. Emma had a brief look at a handsome face; blue eyes, short black hair perfectly mussed, facial hair and most alarming, a split lip. He was wearing a black peacoat, his hands jammed into the pockets and dark jeans. He didn't offer any sort of apology, just twisted slightly to avoid ramming her with his shoulder and kept on going. Emma watched him for a moment before she shook herself mentally and tightened her grip on the rope, entering the shop. Mr. Gold looked impeccable as always, if not a little more triumphant and smug than usual.

"I seem to be having many visitors in my shop today," he commented as though taking note of the weather.

Emma stopped in front of his desk and placed the rope on it. "Really?" she asked. "You're willing to go this far? Because I am not that kind of person."

"What are you going to do about it, Miss Swan?"

"Exposing you is on my mind."

"Ah, think about what you'd be exposing and who'd you be disappointing before you do that. You needed something big to win this election."

She frowned at him. "I'm not playing this game," she repeated. There was a moment of tense silence, broken only when Mr. Gold smiled. She sighed. He had a point though, if she came clean on what happened she might lose this election and she needed to win, for Henry's sake. She remembered the young man who'd come out of the shop, split lip and all. "Who was that in here before me? I haven't seen him before."

"That was Mr. McGurn," Mr. Gold replied and Emma canted her head to the side slightly. Was that a level of anger in the pawn keeper's voice? She had yet to hear anything but arrogance in that honey-sweet voice because Mr. Gold always seemed a step ahead, deadly confident in the way of things and for good reason.

"There a reason he walked out of here bleeding?" Emma asked. Mr. Gold frowned at her and she shrugged. "Hey, if I'm going to be the sheriff I need to start looking into these things."

"Peter McGurn and I have a…complicated history."

"You're evading."

"Because it's a personal matter, Miss Swan."

"Not when fists are being thrown."

"I did not punch Mr. McGurn, I hit him with this," here he lifted his cane slightly. "Because he decided to get in my personal space."

"Any reason he might decide to do that?"

Mr. Gold shrugged. "You can ask him yourself, Miss Swan," he replied but she knew he had the answer. Mr. Gold would not be the type to let a grudge escape him, if this Peter guy was getting in his face about something he knew the exact reason and Emma was well aware of that. Judging by the look on the man's face, he knew she was aware of it and was opting not to share any more information. She turned and headed back towards the door, pausing as she opened it. "Still not going along with the whole arson ploy," she grumbled, slamming the door behind her.

"You know a guy named Peter McGurn?" Emma asked.

She was leaning against the refrigerator, sipping on some brandy. Mary Margaret was folding laundry on her bed. She looked up at the question. "Peter? Yeah, I know him. Well…sort of, I know who he is. He's kind of a cad," she wrinkled her nose as if recalling an unpleasant memory. "Why? Did you meet him today?"

"More like I almost got ran over by him today," Emma sighed. "I went to Gold's shop while he was coming out. Apparently he and Gold had an argument or something; it ended with Gold cracking him in the mouth with his cane."

Mary Margaret raised a hand to her own mouth and gasped. Emma couldn't help but wonder how someone stayed that innocent. The woman reminded her of a fairy tale princess…or maybe that was just Henry's influence interfering with her imagination. She was Snow White in his mind. Emma stared at her expectantly and the other woman shrugged. "I don't know what happened between Gold and McGurn all I know is Peter seems to be the sole person in this town capable of angering Mr. Gold. I mean, you know how Mr. Gold is, he's arrogant and kind of scary but he's polite…granted I think it's all so he gets what he wants, but he doesn't even bother with that façade when he's dealing with Peter."

Emma lofted a brow. "Wonder what he did to piss Gold off so much."

Mary Margaret smiled wanly and shrugged. "You and the rest of Storybrooke," she replied.

Clearly not going to learn anything else on the matter, Emma pushed off the refrigerator and drained the rest of the brandy, setting the glass down in the sink with the promise to wash it in the morning. Mary Margaret wished her a good night and good luck in the debate that was taking place the following day. Emma found she couldn't answer her. She was torn. On the one hand, if the town viewed her as the hero willing to help Regina, it was not secret the women didn't get along, they would surely vote for her knowing she would discriminate when it came to helping others. On the other, she was doing this to prove to Henry that good could win without dirty tricks but Gold's plan was definitely the lowest of the low and how could she prove anything if she went along with it? Was it better to win and come clean later on? Or risk losing and being the person Henry needed her to be?

She ended up with the truth. She knew it cost her the position, it had to, she lied to her friends and worse of all to Henry. So when Regina and Sydney came to Granny's and she was presented the badge, she was not feigning surprise. She could see the pleasure Regina gained from learning Emma had slighted Mr. Gold, sure that the new sheriff would have her hands full fending off her 'superb enemy' but Emma had never let Gold intimidate her, she wasn't going to stop now. But she should have seen it was all part of his act, when he came to her at the office the following afternoon and said as much, she knew he wasn't lying. He wanted her to challenge him in front of the people, wanted the people of Storybrooke to know she wasn't afraid of him and it had indeed given her the victory she craved. Despite this, she was proud of what she did, she was proud that she hadn't lied that good won through honest deeds.

"Congratulations, Sheriff Swan."

Emma jumped at the new voice and turned around so quickly it was a miracle she didn't fall over. Peter McGurn was standing there with a smirk on his face. She had nearly forgotten about him in everything that had been going on. "Thanks…" she replied, a bit off put.

"We haven't been properly introduced. I'm Peter McGurn."

She was pretty sure the smile he flashed her way had broken plenty of hearts in the past. If she wasn't so guarded against that sort of thing she might have melted. "Emma Swan. I don't see you around much."

"I stick to the docks; I work in that part of town. I was, however, in the neighborhood and decided I might as well get to know our lovely new sheriff."

"Your lovely new sheriff has a crap load of work to do," Emma pointed out.

Peter grinned. "Fighting the good fight? Well, I should leave you to it though I may just have to cause some trouble in the future so we can meet again, love."

He winked and turned to go and that's when Emma noticed it. Peter's left hand was stiff at his side, seemingly carved of wood. A glove covered it, but Emma was sure…

Peter McGurn was missing his left hand.