The fire from the night before was nothing now but a pile of ashes and smoke. Emma had still felt slightly uneasy about stopping for the night considering not only what was out there in the woods, but who else was out there in the woods by now. But Emma couldn't focus too much on that right now, all she could think about was how a compass and the ashes from the wardrobe she torched that Cora still had were going to get her back to Henry and Storybrooke.
"So, what's the plan? Cora still has the ashes and we have no idea where she is to go get them from her." Emma said to the group. Snow and Aurora appeared to be slightly puzzled by the new problem they had to face, but Mulan seemed to be already planning their attack in her head.
"More than likely, Cora will know by now that we have the compass, she's probably looking for us as we speak. If she comes to us we can get the ashes off of her then." Mulan stated in a matter of fact tone, there was no wavering or hint of question in her voice.
"We're going to have to be ready for her then. Cora is powerful and if she catches us even slightly off guard, she'll get the compass." Snow said.
"We'll be ready for her." Emma said, she already knew some of Cora's favorite tricks from the few encounters she had with her and she was going to brace herself for the worst.
"Does anyone else hear that?" Aurora asked as she couldn't help but hear the sounds of someone approaching them and the leaves crunching under their feet.
The group went silent and tried to listen for what Aurora was hearing, as soon as they heard the leaves and twigs crunching as well, Mulan, Emma, and Snow all readied their weapons. They waited for something to come into sight, everyone's eyes on a different part of the woods around them, each of them growing more anxious by the minute as the leaves and twigs kept breaking but no one was in sight. Finally, it sounded like whoever was around them was right on top of them, but still no one could be found. Emma was on the verge of calling out to see who was there, but just then, a doe crossed in front of her line of sight, leaves breaking under its hooves, and Emma relaxed.
"It's just a doe." Emma sighed as the rest of the group now relaxed, but the doe charged off into the woods at the sight of them.
"Well, I must say, you lovely ladies have grown far more paranoid from the last time we met." A new, but very familiar voice said. Emma, Snow, and Mulan all turned their weapons towards the voice and the slightest bit of shock crossed all of their faces when they saw Hook standing there with his usual smirk on his face.
Snow and Mulan kept their guard up and weapons aimed had Hook, but Emma didn't. She still didn't trust him, but she did seem to trust him enough to not feel the need to be ready to attack him.
"How did you find us?" Snow asked.
"Honestly, you weren't all that hard to track. Which was surprising, I thought you ladies would be a bit more careful with Cora out there." He said and slowly approached them, but that only seemed to put Mulan and Snow even more on edge. "What? You don't trust me? After everything I think it should be me not trusting any of you, especially after how I was left with the giant."
"You're right, you shouldn't trust us. You should probably leave." Mulan said, Hook smiled in return.
"Now, where would the fun be in that?" He asked and walked around Snow and Mulan, though they kept their guard up. Hook walked over towards Emma which put Snow on high alert as she moved closer to her daughter that seemed to be leaving herself unarmed which seemed strange to Snow. "You trust me Emma, don't you?"
Emma was taken off guard with this question, she couldn't even begin to think of a reason why Hook would ask her this after how she left him. She knew she wasn't leaving him there to rot with the giant, she knew he would get free, but she didn't think he would come after her again and start asking her if she trusted him. Emma almost hadn't noticed how close he had gotten to her, but Snow had, she was almost as close to Emma as Hook was to her. She could tell that Snow wanted to make him back off of her in the worst way, but had hesitated since Emma seemed to be hesitating herself.
"Then again, you're not one for trusting people, are you?" He asked with a slight edge to his voice, but the smirk was still in his voice, and his blue eyes were getting too close for Emma's comfort.
"That's close enough, Hook." Snow finally said, stopping the pirate in his tracks though he was only a few inches away from Emma now, and Emma seemed almost frozen in place.
"It would seem that there is more than just one person here that has an issue with trust." Hook said.
"Trust isn't handed out freely, it's earned." Snow said.
"So it would seem." Hook sighed. "Fine, I'll just let you ladies be then. Go about…whatever you were planning to do before." He said and slowly walked away from Emma who still stayed frozen in place. Hook had reached the edge of their camp where he looked back at them with a smile on his face. "Good day, ladies." He said.
Just as he was about to walk away, something had leapt out from behind one of the trees and grabbed Hook, putting a blade up to his neck. The person who had come out from behind the trees was another Killian Jones.
Everyone now was frozen in place, but they knew now that one of the Hook's was not actually Hook, but Cora.
"Any day now one of you darlings could help me." said the Killian who was holding the knife up to the other Killian's throat.
"Help you? Its me they should be helping, you're the imposter!" The other Killian said as they struggled to get free. "A little help would be nice, Swan."
"Emma?" The other Killian asked as he held the struggling Killian tighter.
But in that moment, Emma was not the only one who did not know which Killian to believe. But if anyone knew Killian out of the group best, it would be Emma, and it would have to be her choice.
Note: All I can say is, thank god for Captain Swan fanmixes! I was so stumped as to how I was gonna get Killian back with the group and how to handle Cora, but eventually I thought of this and now Emma has to choose! I know that I want this story to end in Storybrooke with a (hopefully) cute ending, but I'm also trying to wait and see how the writers are going to send them back to Storybrooke, or at least get an idea about HOW they plan on doing that with some ashes and a compass. But, now at least you know that Captain Swan is coming in this story next, and Killian WILL eventually get his scarf back ;) ALSO, I wanted to ask and see if anybody knew when the winter hiatus is going to start, I know it's coming and I'm bracing myself for those weeks of no new OUAT, but I plan on writing some Captain Swan AU's/one-shots during that time to keep us all occupied so...if anyone knows, let me know!
P.S. I was gonna make this one big long chapter, but then I decided to split it in half. I'm pretty sure this one is still longer than the first chapter. And thank you for all your lovely reviews, I had a big smile on my face while I read all of them, they made my day and made me wanna write this story even more :3
