A/N This chapter answers a lot of your questions regarding how Emma was able to find Cora in the forest. It strings a lot of things together actually.
Chapter 19: Revelation
"Emma, I really think you should stay with us. There's been no word on Talice since… well, your assault," Mary Margaret pleaded as she entered her daughter's apartment followed by her husband and Emma herself.
"It wouldn't bother us and Henry could stay with us too, we have enough room," David said reasonably, putting down the bags in his hands next to the couch. For the first time since the attack, the blonde woman looked around her apartment. Her parents had done a great job of cleaning the blood from the floor and her furniture was all back in place. The only difference was that one chair was missing from her dining set; the one that had broken when Talice knocked her over.
Emma sighed and walked over to sit on the couch.
"I'm fine, really. And don't worry about Henry, Regina and I have agreed that he'll stay with her until Talice is found. They made it clear when they were beating me that Henry's life was meaningless in the equation." Her voice was indifferent; she didn't want to reveal just how worried she was for her son, or just how much it was affecting her to be separated from him.
Mary Margaret sat down next to her, shuffling so that she faced her daughter.
"Honey, you can stay with us. Henry will be safe with us and so will you." David came around the couch to sit on the coffee table opposite the two women.
"If I change what I usually do then he wins. I can make the decision to go back to normal by myself, Henry's life is the only one that has to be protected, he's the only one I won't let go back to normal," Emma said, looking earnestly into her mother's eyes. They were so much like her own, it was so strange sometimes that they never picked up on the resemblance before the curse broke.
"He doesn't win if you make sure you're safe. As a parent I can understand you making sure Henry is okay, I really can. But you're forgetting that we're your parents and we want to make sure this doesn't happen again." David's fatherly instincts kicked in and Emma looked at him.
"David, there's a big difference between me protecting Henry and you trying to get me to live with you guys. Henry is eleven, I am twenty-eight and I'm getting a new security system put in."
The blonde stood up, moving to the kitchen to make herself a coffee, a decent coffee. Hospital beverages were crap, especially their coffee. David and Mary Margaret shared a worried glance before following her.
"I don't want to frighten you Emma but he's still out there and until we find him you aren't safe."
"It doesn't frighten me though, he doesn't scare me. I can handle him; this time the playing field will be even." The saviour's voice was a monotone but David picked up on the icy edge when she mentioned an even playing field.
"You can't just pretend like nothing happened," he said as Emma poured three cups of coffee and handed two of them to her parents.
"Yes I can, and I intend to." Her voice was starting to sound stoic, and she could feel her nerves tickling with a little bit of indignation. She had been a bounty hunter for crying out loud, she had hunted down criminals who jumped bail. That wasn't the kind of job where you could get away without a few bumps and bruises. Hell, she'd been beaten up before, in an alley after trying to chase down a guy whose parents had used their house for his bail.
Luckily for her, a kindly couple had happened upon the situation and chased the guy and his friend's off. They had also taken her to the hospital where she sat, alone, for the night. No on visited her then and she had no next of kin to contact.
"Emma, please –"
"No. I'm staying here. I love you guys and I'm really, really grateful that you care so much but I'm a grown woman and I can take care of myself." Emma cut her mother's plea off and sat down at the table, cup of coffee in hand. She sipped it gingerly and the desperate appeals for her to move out of the apartment ceased.
They stayed for an hour before leaving, David was taking the shift at the station since Emma was still recovering and Mary Margaret had work. The isolation wasn't as comfortable as it used to be and she twitched whenever she heard something. It took only an hour for her to ring the only man she knew who could fool-proof her protection system.
Of course she would still be getting the new security system installed but something extra was needed, something that would give Emma piece of mind.
Two sharp taps on the door alerted her to his presence.
"Gold, come in," The blonde said, slightly nervous. The wiry man before her was expressionless as he entered her apartment, his cane making a loud noise whenever it hit the wooden floorboards.
"Miss Swan, I should wonder why you called me," he said, taking a seat at her dining table and looking back to her in curiosity. Emma walked smoothly to the chair opposite his at the dining table and took it. Sitting down she clasped her hands in front of her and began.
"I wanted to know what I can do about… protecting myself and Henry," she said quietly, almost ashamedly. Gold's lips quirked up slightly at the notion of the saviour asking him for help.
"I'm guessing you mean options that involve magic?" he asked, watching her expression intently. Emma nodded and met his inquisitive stare. His smile broadened and he looked around the room.
"Why don't you do it yourself?" he said abruptly, watching with glee as her face took on a look of incredulity. She shook her head.
"I can't, I don't know how to… um, I don't have magic." Gold shook his head conspiratorially, he knew something Emma didn't and he was relishing in having one-upped her. He knew she was powerful before she did and now he possessed knowledge about her capabilities that she didn't.
"Your dear parents told me about what happened with Cora, my apologies for not interfering," he said, "and thank you for defeating her. Your presence in the situation proved to benefit me."
Emma realised what he meant and her temper flared up a little at the mention of that day. She hadn't thought about it much before but that whole entire time, Gold should have been doing something. If anyone in this town should have known about Cora being here it was him. He essentially owned the place and yet he couldn't figure out that one measly sorceress was here? It was hard to believe.
"Wait, yeah! Where the hell were you when all that went down?" Emma asked angrily. Gold smiled.
"I didn't know she was here," he replied simply and she scoffed.
"How could that be possible, if anyone drops a pin around here you know about it?"
"You're right, I should definitely have known of her arrival. That much magic radiating from one person is usually very obvious to me. But, like you pointed out, I was nowhere to be seen during the entire charade. And the reason for my inaction is that I had no idea that anything was going down."
"What?"
"When Cora arrived, she used a great deal of magic to shroud her powers from me and specifically me. I'm the only person in this town who can sense that much of a deviation in the power radiating from Storybrooke." Emma shook her head, still confused.
"Additionally, when Regina thought I had taken Henry, she used another mass of power to disguise her magical mark as mine so that even with someone as powerful was Regina up-close, she couldn't be distinguished. Cora was utilising a phenomenal amount of power to keep herself unrecognisable to Regina and invisible to me." It still wasn't making sense and the blonde's eyebrows furrowed in befuddlement. Remembering the original topic, Emma spoke up.
"What does this have to do with me protecting myself?" Gold ignored her question and continued.
"Now believe me, I was very much surprised and slightly offended that she could veil herself from me. But I believe she was hiding herself specifically from me because, other than Regina who was distraught over her son's disappearance, I am the only one who possesses magic and is powerful enough to sense and stop her… or so she thought."
Emma's eyes widened at what he was insinuating.
"Yes, dearie. You have magic." Gold smiled brightly at her and she looked around the room. How could Emma possibly have magic? She didn't even know about this other world until Henry came in. She'd lived her whole life in reality where magic was for fairy-tales and they were just stories. For Gold to now reveal that she possessed that intangible force, it was a revelation in itself.
"I've always had my suspicions but it was confirmed when your mother told me that you were unexplainably drawn to where Regina was confronting Cora. The witch never even really figured your abilities into the equation, expecting instead that the captain would keep you busy." Gold's eyes flashed at the mention of Killian and Emma desperately tried to keep him talking.
"I still don't get it, what do you mean?" she asked, drawing attention away from the thoughts currently circling Gold's mind.
"After you escaped the immense levels of magic being used drew you to that spot, which ultimately means that you can sense magic and therefore possess it."
Emma remembered the pull to that spot and how she thought it was adrenaline coursing through her as she neared the spot. Looking back, it was far too much of a heavy feeling for adrenaline. It had felt like her veins were crackling more so than speedily running. It had been the magic urging her forward. The realisation dawned on her.
"Cora couldn't take my heart." Emma said abruptly and even Gold looked a little shocked.
"Your parents didn't mention that," he replied, looking over the saviour with refreshed curiosity.
"She tried twice but when she pulled… it didn't, um, come out," she said numbly, vaguely recalling the way Cora had yelled in fury at her inability to draw out the saviour's heart. She shook her head, erasing the thought from her mind. Gold's face lit up with his signature smile – the one that screamed trouble despite its pleasantness.
"It doesn't surprise me, you are the product of true love, dearie. That is something you and I are yet to fully understand," he said, "nevertheless you have magic. So I believe you can set up your own security blanket."
Emma shook her head again, "I don't know how, I need…" her words drifted away, this man never gave out help without a price. He seemed to know what she was thinking.
"I'll help you free of charge," he said, surprising her infinitely.
"Why?"
"Because I'm curious to see what you can achieve," Gold said vaguely, the wheels in his head spinning with ideas that Emma was sure she wouldn't like. This man was always manipulating people and her gut screamed at her not to trust him – in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Killian's.
Despite it, she knew she wouldn't be able to move on without it. Her sanity depended on this.
"Okay," she said, nodding in agreement. The regret was instant as Gold's smiled widened again. He appeared very pleased with this development. Unwilling to ponder the subject, Emma straightened up, all-business.
"How do I do it?"
"Well that depends what kind of security you're looking for?" he asked, standing up and walking to the middle of the room. She followed him, biting her lip nervously.
"I just want to make sure Talice can't come here." Emma needn't worry about Regina's house, Henry was safe there. She was sure that the witch would have set up some intricate system ever since magic returned.
"Just Talice? Okay. I want you to close your eyes and think about the people you want to protect. Think very specifically and let that feeling of protection fill you." His words were calm; the usual high-pitched accent almost disappeared.
Emma closed her eyes and let the images flit through her head; Henry laughing wildly, Mary Margaret and David embracing lovingly, Ruby with her welcoming smile and fierce loyalty, Granny who was always warm and reasonable, Archie who so selflessly put others before himself, Leroy and the others who protected her family with ferocity unmatched in this town, even Regina who loved Henry enough to save Emma's life. Most surprisingly, Emma thought of Killian and his trademark smirk and the way he'd put her life first in so many situations. She wanted to protect him too.
Without knowing it, she felt some door open inside her and the rush through her veins was reminiscent of that day she had gotten off Killian's boat.
"Now, think of Talice and why you want to protect this place," Gold said, his voice sounded like he was smiling. The name snapped Emma's quiet reverie about her loved ones, abruptly changing her mood. The thrum in her veins became more prominent as she remembered him hitting her on the ship, beating her in her home, his sadistic smile when Grimes mentioned Henry. Henry.
Her pulse quickened and she felt like she was glowing. The mixed emotions filling her until she was sure she might burst. It made her feel… powerful.
"Using that emotion, draw from it and imagine a boundary being drawn around the perimeter of this house. Be specific."
In her head, she imagined a line of gold tracing the walls of her apartment on both levels. She imagined it like a stencil, looming up and over the roof and down to encompass the entire flat. The burning in her waded as she pictured the stencil and the emotions of before died down as she completed it in her head.
"You can open your eyes now." Gold said, his voice was further away now.
Emma opened her eyes and gasped. Every line she had drawn in her head, the outline of her apartment, was glowing gold. It faded and was eventually gone but she could still picture it clear as day. She turned to the wiry man and stifled a smile, doing her best to remain indifferent toward him.
"It is done. He cannot come within the lines you drew," Gold said, shuffling forward to her.
"Will it always take that much prep?" she asked, if that whole meditation thing was permanent then Emma wasn't sure she'd be bothered to use magic frequently. The man laughed and shook his head.
"No dearie, this was your first time doing something significant. I needed you to draw on something that automatically fuels magic," he said, and she coked her head in misunderstanding, "emotion."
Emma remembered Cora's sudden burst of energy when Hook had stabbed her in the back and she had been unable to take the saviour's heart. All that rage would have been like a buffet of magic for her to feed from. The same way Henry's despair and Regina's consequential anger made her powerful enough to kill her own mother.
It made sense.
"Eventually, you'll be able to draw from yourself without dragging up emotions. It'll be as natural as breathing," he said and smiled again in that way that made Emma wary. She nodded and walked Gold to the door.
Before he left, the man turned to Emma, still leaning on his cane heavily.
"Miss Swan, I would be interested in helping you develop this skill. If you like?" his tone was open but the saviour wouldn't make the mistake of calling him friendly. He far too resembled a snake, even if he had just helped her.
"No thanks, I've seen what magic does to people." She opened the door and Gold stopped again to face her, expression less jovial than before.
"Also, don't mistake this," he said, motioning to the apartment, "for anything it's not. While I won't penalize you for bringing him here since you essentially saved my life, I will still be seeking out the pirate. I haven't forgotten what he did to Belle." Emma's eyes burned into his and she wondered what in God's name Belle saw in him.
"You don't have to worry about Hook; he'll be leaving you alone." Without another word, Gold left.
8888
From a vantage point on a building across the road, Killian watched in annoyance as the crocodile left her apartment. Why he was there was a mystery to Killian but he didn't like the idea of the monster being anywhere near his swan.
Review?