CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The sessions with Regina were getting no easier, Emma collapsed onto her back, staring up at the white ceiling of the Mayor's front room. At least they'd taken it in doors now, which meant Regina trusted her not to smash her furniture. Regina tutted and sat down primly on the edge of her sofa, staring at her in mild disgust.
They were alone, Jukes had long since stopped accompanying her, apparently satisfied that she was in no physical danger with the Evil Queen and not willing to intrude further on what Regina had called her 'emotional stripping'. Hook had been less accepting of that particular arrangement, but Regina was adamant in barring him from entering her home, so far at least as far as Emma knew he'd upheld that rule.
Emma turned her head, observing Regina. "It wouldn't kill you to offer some constructive praise once in a while." Emma muttered, "I did just conjure that rather fetching hat out of thin air." Emma lifted said hat from its position on the coffee table and placed it on her head, giving Regina a smug smirk. The fact that it looked like something the Mad Hatter had forced her at gun point to make wasn't something she chose to share.
Regina actually cracked a smile, causing Emma to chuckle in sheer exhaustion as she collapsed back against the floor, content to merely lie there, she'd spent the last three weeks with Regina, and it was surprising just how accustomed she was becoming to being around the other woman, alone. She'd only admit it to herself, but she rather enjoyed their barbed conversations, the challenge the other woman presented when she was being more Regina and less Evil Queen.
"It's late Miss Swan and you were reasonably successful today. Perhaps we can consider giving you tomorrow off." Probably the closest to praise she was going to get from Regina.
Emma rolled her eyes. "Thanks Miss." She rolled over onto her side, propping her head up on her arm and staring at Regina who had made no attempt to move, she hated to say it, but she was actually starting to feel that perhaps under different circumstances, they might have been friends, very different circumstances.
"Would you care for a drink?" Regina offered after a few moments of relatively uncomfortable silence, as she stood, crossing to her drinks cabinet and pulling out what Emma reasoned was the 'good' scotch, which meant she must have done something right, it was usually apple cider which really did nothing for her.
Emma sat up, accepting the liquid in the perfect crystal glass and knocking it back in one long gulp with relish, not quite the rum she'd grown used to, this was a hell of a lot sharper.
"The crew have clearly been passing on their bad habits to you I see." Regina quirked a disapproving eyebrow at her, but grasped the bottle of scotch, offering it to her. Emma accepted the second glass and sipped it as Regina took up her seat once more.
"Mary Margaret called today." Regina admitted quietly, causing Emma to stare up at here in surprise from her casual position on the rug.
"Did you tell them I was proving to be as much of an abject failure as a student of magic as I was a mother?" Emma smirked, throwing Regina's words from their first few days back at her.
Regina sighed, staring at the contents of her glass rather than Emma, like they offered her the secrets of the Universe. "Actually I suggested that we attempt a family dinner again."
Emma sat up abruptly, staring in disbelief at Regina. "What?" she all but hissed.
Regina gave her a dark look. "You've made real progress. And frankly, given as I've had to give up a great deal of my spare time to tutor you, time I would usually spend with Henry..." the glare she gave her was pointed, "I thought it might do us both good to have a little company."
Emma didn't feel ready, which meant she fell back on her old defensive mechanisms, of attacking first. "I have company." Emma reminded the other woman, "I don't exactly go home to a big empty bed." Ok so it was catty and the blow clearly landed because Regina pursed her lips, her grip on the crystal glass tightening reflexively.
"Crass Miss Swan. But I'd hardly call those unwashed, uneducated cretins on that ship, family." Regina's inner snob was clearly winning out and Emma bristled.
"At least I have people that give a crap about me." Emma bit back, "Which is more than you can claim." The wounded look Regina was too slow to mask made Emma regret her words, as Regina got to her feet abruptly, turning away to present her with her back as she returned the scotch to its cabinet.
Emma stood guiltily. "Regina... I'm" she wanted to say sorry, that she hadn't meant it to sound quite so harsh, but Regina beat her to it.
"I see that wall of yours is still firmly in place Miss Swan, and I had thought we were making so much progress. Perhaps inviting Henry around next Friday for Lasagne, with just the three of us was a mistake."
Emma felt the words like a slap, which was exactly what Regina had intended and she approached the other woman, raising her hand to place it gently on her shoulder. "Regina, I really am sor..." she froze, feeling the current of magic leaping between them, like she had just completed an electrical circuit with their contact. They had been careful not to touch since that first day, neither of them apparently wanting to experience the surge of power that ripped through her, opening her mind to the limitless potential of the magic inside of them both.
Regina spun on her, grasping Emma by the shoulders as if to push her away, but the increased contact of her hands only made the energy coursing through them both all that more potent. Emma felt like she was blazing... every sense heightened and her awareness of Regina, of the strength of the emotions and secrets between them laid tantalisingly bare as the bubbling intensity of the volcano waiting to erupt inside of her began to burst its dam.
Emma reacted, overwhelmed by the feeling and desperate to do something, anything to prolong it. Her hand rose almost beyond her control and slipped across Regina's cheek, curling around the back of her head and bringing her lips to crash against hers. For one shining moment, Emma felt utterly whole and connected to the blazing core of magic inside of her as it arched between them. Regina's outrage and frustration poured into her as their lips battled, Emma pressed herself as close to the other woman as she could until they were backed up against the wall, fighting to control the desperate power that Emma felt unfurling within her, desperately searching for its equal.
Then Regina shoved her violently away in blast of energy that send her sailing across the room, shattering every glass object in the room, sending it tinkling to the ground like crystal rain. Emma lay there, surrounded by broken glass, breathing heavily and stunned beyond all reason.
"Get out!" Regina snarled, looking dishevelled and utterly livid... and just as shocked as Emma was, her shaking hands clutched over her heart like she was afraid it had been ripped from her.
Emma got to her feet, hastily, all but running from the room and flying out of the door into the night. Emma didn't know what had possessed her, she certainly had never harboured any feelings like that for Regina... other than loathing and a certain grudging admiration for the other woman's strength. As she fled, she admitted, that perhaps there had always been a connection between the two of them, a spark of something, usually hostility, but it was and always had been charged and raw. Surely it wasn't really attraction? She had hated this woman, truly hated her. Now that was changing, it was too confusing to think about for long and she focused on putting one foot in front of the other, of gaining distance.
Emma stopped running when she reached the docks; god knows how long it had taken her to get her with the circling aimless route she'd taken. Stopping and catching her breath finally she ran her fingers over her lips, she couldn't shake the feelings that their brief contact had ignited however unfamiliar and powerful they had been and it terrified her.
Possessed. That was how she'd felt. Possessed by the magic inside of her, as it had clawed its way to the surface through the window she and Regina had been prying open.
"I take it tonight didn't go well?" Emma startled as Hook's distinctive voice floated to her moments before he seemed to melt out of the shadows. "That or you are being chased." He noted, clearly having watched her flee, Emma wondered just how much he'd seen, how much he knew?
Emma ran her hands through her hair in a nervous gesture, as she turned to face him.
"There's something I have to tell you." She tried for honesty, not because it was expected, but because she needed, no wanted to tell him. There were no secrets between them.
"About the reason you fled from the Mayor's house like you were on fire..." he stepped close, "All ears Love." His dark eyes bored into her with intensity and she felt a part of her curl up guiltily, this had never been a man to give her heart to lightly.
"I attacked her... kissed her." Emma felt the words tumble out of her mouth as she reached for his hands, trying to forestall the inevitable outrage from him, she recalled distinctly what had happened the last time someone other than him had pressed their lips to hers.
But Hook was calm as he grasped her hands in his, "Why?" he asked gently, if there was anger there he was concealing it, which was almost more concerning.
"I have no idea." Emma almost sobbed, "I touched her and it was like my magic took control, like it was alive, it wanted to..." Emma's eyes widened in surprise as she finally put her finger on what was causing her such distress. "It wanted to devour Regina's magic." Emma raised her hand to her mouth in horror, feeling sick at the thought of something so monstrous living within her.
Hook nodded, taking the barest of moments to process that. "Best to take a few days off from this magic business then Love." He dropped her hand and reached inside his breast pocket and pulled out the pendant she'd forgotten to grab as she fled Regina's living room. "The Queen thought you might be needing this tonight."
Emma paused, he knew. He always knew. "How did you...?" she trailed off, she didn't want to know; it was enough to know that he cared enough to make her business his. However infuriating a trait it was.
"The Queen also said that she expected you for dinner at 7 sharp next Friday evening." That was three days away, she couldn't believe that Regina was still willing to have her in her home after what she'd done... what she'd almost unleashed? How could she trust herself around Henry?
Hook smiled thinly at her, raising his hand to stroke his thumb across her lips before he dropped the pendent heavily over her neck, causing her to stagger as he caught her holding her up against the sudden crushing weight of it. "It's ok Love." Hook soothed, his hand going to her hair as he pressed a kiss to her forehead, keeping her upright as he forced her to put one heavy foot in front of the other as he led her back to the ship, he could have just as easily carried her, but he knew she'd have hated the gesture.
"How is any of this ok?" she asked sounding defeated even to herself.
"Because you are finally taking this magic thing seriously." He admitted, "And you have too many people who love you to let you face it alone."
"That's not comforting Killian." Emma sighed as he eased her up the gangplank and across the deck, "Right now they're just looking like targets, something for this magic inside of me to tear apart when it finally explodes... I'm like a bomb Killian and I started ticking the moment I stepped foot in this cursed town."
Hook was silent as he reached their cabin, gently ushering her inside and easing her down onto the Chez Longue. He knelt beside her, slowly stroking his fingers through her hair, the stardust glinting with every movement as if to taunt them both. His expression was so worn that she couldn't help but reach out and stroke the stubble across his cheek, pressing her palm against him as he closed his eyes briefly against her. This was the side of Killian that no one but she got to see. The side that made her forget the other man she knew he kept buried, just beneath the surface, his very own ticking time-bomb of rage and blistering vengeance. They were a pair, she was so certain of it that it actually hurt to see herself reflected in this so brokenly perfect man.
"Why aren't you angry?" she pressed, watching his eyes open instantly onto hers, as he sighed, pressing a kiss to her palm as she withdrew her hand.
His gaze was piercing as she stared back at him, trying to decipher the non-existent clues in his face... he was still wearing his mask in the safety of their cabin, which was concerning, she watched as he painstakingly let it fall and she felt her stomach flip. "Oh I'm angry Love." He whispered, leaning in close, his fingers tightening briefly in her hair, before he flexed them, sliding them behind her head and drawing her faces inches from his. "I'm raging." He breathed, his lips inches from hers. "But not at you." He pressed his forehead against hers and she could feel the tripping beat of his heart, pounding violently against his chest as he pressed himself against her.
"You were born this way Love... that isn't your fault, but it's someone's," he admitted and she saw the unspoken whisper of Crocodile in his incandescent eyes, "This wasn't you, it was the magic controlling you just like that Witch Queen warned it might." He admitted, pressing a kiss to her forehead, but she could feel the stillness of him, the stillness of his rage.
"Have you watched it all?" she pressed, hearing her breath hitch.
"Of course." He admitted. "Like I would let you strip yourself emotionally raw in front of that woman without backup." He leant back cradling her face with his good hand and drawing her to him, giving her no escape from his eyes as they bored into her, seeming to strip her just as raw as anything Regina's lessons had. "We have no secrets you and I."
"We have one." Emma pressed, knowing now, after everything that had happened today it was not the time to speak about it, but it weighed on her, even if she did trust him. "Tell me about the deal you made with Gold."
He flinched and she felt his hand curl tighter around her face, digging in, but she didn't move, kept her eyes fixed firmly on his.
He dropped his head and Emma felt her heart falter. She knew that look. The shame.
"Your right I have kept a secret." He admitted, raising his head and without warning kissing her hard, so hard she felt their teeth click together as his tongue slid into her mouth, as if he was tasting her for the last time, he pulled back just as suddenly. "I know what Rumple wants most in all the world. I know why he built this curse, why he orchestrated your life... your birth. I know the very reason for your suffering." His eyes were hooded as he seemed to plead with her for forgiveness behind them, "And it doesn't make a damn bit of difference, because I can't stop this. Can't fix it." Emma tried to sit up, struggling against the weight that threatened to pull her down from the pendant, but she didn't dare take it off, not now.
"Killian." She heard the warning in her voice as clearly as he did and she watched him swallow.
"Rumple has always been a coward... he abandoned his son, a son that tried to save him. He lost him to a portal, a portal to a world without magic." Hook sighed. "This world, a world he would do anything to reach; even curse his own to destruction."
"I don't...?" Emma trailed off at his look, she was going to say 'understand', but she had a feeling that was probably better.
"His name is Baelfire. And what happened to him seems to happen to a lot of abandoned little boys that cross Peter Pan's path." Emma waited, barely daring to breathe, this as tragic as it was meant nothing to her... which meant it was coming, the sting in the tail. "Tink never forgets a face you see. She came to me, quite distressed about you in Neverland. Seems she'd seen you before, on one of her and Pan's little excursions to watch the Lost Boys that had escaped him."
Emma froze, a series of impossible dots connecting themselves in her head. "No." She said it quietly, as if the simple word could prevent the truth she feared he was about to unveil, she gripped his chin, drawing him close. "Don't." She hissed, pleading.
"Neil." Hook rasped and Emma shoved him away violently, clutching herself around the middle and desperately trying to breathe despite the crushing weight on her chest. But Hook was persistent, his hand grasped her face, trying to draw her back to him, to focus her eyes on his, but she couldn't look at him.
"What did you promise?" she choked out the words, betrayal seeming to carve her in two as a hollowness threatened to swallow her whole.
"An introduction, nothing more." Hook answered swiftly, not relenting as he wrapped his hooked arm around her waist, tugging her upright and into his arms. "Emma," he pleaded, trying to get her to look at him, as his hand on her chin grew insistent. "Rumple wants his son back... a son that loathes him. I promised him an introduction... a way in, you and Henry."
Emma let out a keening sound and almost buckled with the weight of the pain as he crushed her close, unwilling to give her the space from him she desperately needed. He clung to her like a lifeline. "Let go of me." She hissed, feeling him tense, clearly unwilling.
"No." He intoned darkly. "I did what I had to Emma. What you needed. I protected you, from the Dark One, from your magic, from Neverland. I won't apologise for that." Emma raised her head to stare back at him, seeing him flinch at the depth of the betrayal clearly etched into her face and drawing satisfaction from him seeing it.
"You're a bastard." She bit out. "You said the deal was on my behalf... you never said anything about my son's!"
Hook blinked. "Emma I..." she shoved him violently, toppling him over and running to the door, desperate to put distance between them before she incinerated him, pendant or no pendant. But Hook was fast, and motivated, he slammed her bodily into the door, trapping her as he spun her round, pinning her hands with his good one above her head and trapping her with his legs. "Listen to me... listen!" He shouted, trying to stop her squirming, his eyes alight with panic but just like he'd promised, no remorse, it made her want to rip him apart.
"He is my son Killian. You had no right!" She snarled into his face.
"Then let us get something straight, Princess!" Hook bit back, just as savagely. "I don't give a shit about the little brat." Emma sucked in a shocked breath, trying not to allow herself to dissolve, reaching for fury instead of despair. "I care about you." Hook added bitingly. "And Henry, in your life, is one of the things that causes you pain. You gave the boy up for a reason Emma." His grip around her tightened as he sensed her going still with shock and not in the least bit reassured by it, "You didn't want him, didn't want the reminder of what he was. Of that bastard Neil. Of what he did to you. Like father like son Emma. Henry has abandoned you just as surely as his father did. He has three mother's now, Regina, Snow... and you. He's going to gain two father's David... and the bastard child of Rumplestiltskin and my Mila. Do you really think there is room in all that for you anymore... would you even want it?"
Emma watched his lip twist violently at the admission, the connection to his lost love that he'd clearly been denying to himself. But right in this moment she didn't care about his pain.
"Henry is Rumple's Grandson. I gave that bastard back hope... a family. Can you imagine what that cost me? And I did it knowing that I'd have to tell you about it. Knowing you'd do exactly this, push me away. Still I did it." He was breathing heavily, trying to force her to understand, to care about his words, "Don't you see Emma, you are more important to me than anything else in this wretched world or the next." He kissed her, softly this time, his teeth tugging at her lips, desperately questing entrance against her resistant ones. "Let them have their fucked up little family Emma." He breathed, "we can start a new one, you and me. We can leave this place. Go anywhere, we're not cursed to stay here."
Emma was numb, physically and emotionally as Hook tried to draw her unresponsive form into his embrace. It shouldn't have been a shock. She knew Hook, knew his desires, for her, for them, he'd never been shy in telling her what he wanted, how the thought of her belly swelled with his seed did powerful things to him. In Neverland that had never been an option or a concern for her, children weren't born there, it just didn't happen. But here? God she hadn't even been using protection, she had just been so used to being with him without consequences. Nausea rolled around inside of her. This wasn't happening.
"Let go of me." Emma's voice was flat, she barely recognised it herself. Hook relented, releasing her hands but not backing up and giving her space, or room to swing a right hook she noted.
"Emma please." He pleaded, there was real, desperate pain in his eyes and she stared hard at him trying to sort out her feelings in the jumble, to think.
"I don't want to give up my family Killian." She told him quietly. "I have spent my life running from one emotional car crash after another. I won't do that anymore, because as I realised so vividly tonight... it might just kill me and those I care about."
"Then don't give me up." He insisted. "I can bend Emma. You know I will do whatever it takes to make you happy."
"At what cost?" Emma hissed, shoving at his chest with more force than she was expecting as he winced, bowing over slightly, before raising his head defiantly.
"What should I have done Emma?" he raised his hook to her, the first threat he'd ever made and she eyed it warily. "Should I have kept this secret? Never revealed Neil's parentage. Never bargained for your safety? Let you float back to Neverland... followed you there without a word and lived happily ever after. Because we would be happy there Emma." He snarled. "We were."
Emma met his gaze unflinchingly, trying to process all the information he'd hurled at her. His last words resonated. This wasn't his fault. He'd told her the truth. Nothing more. Emma slumped.
"This isn't fair." she breathed, seeing Killian pause as the fight bled out of her, but not the feeling of betrayal, she wasn't sure that would ever leave her.
"How long have you known about this?" she pressed, knowing he wouldn't lie.
Hook grimaced. "I knew he'd been a Lost Boy since Tink came to me in Neverland... the rest I learnt here, when I was looking for ways to destroy my Crocodile." He reached for her again, wrapping his hand around her cheek. "I would have told you sooner, but I was concerned the effect it might have what with everything that was happening to you. I told you I would tell you when you had it under control. And I have."
"You call this under control?" she almost laughed.
"You're not floating are you?" he pointed out. "Your shadows still attached... and you didn't blast me to kingdom come." He reached for her chin with his hook, lifting it gently. "Have I lied to you Emma?" he threw those words back at her now, the same words he'd aimed at her in desperation as she left him tied at the mercy of a giant so long ago now.
"No." She admitted grudgingly, wanting to take him to task for keeping it from her since Neverland, but wondering if it had even been an option... had he even remembered it most of the time there? And he was right, she hadn't exactly been stable since they'd gotten back, and she had made him promise to keep her from slipping back into Neverland. He'd followed her instructions to the letter and then some.
Hook tried again, "If I could have undone this, unlearnt it, I would have." He promised, and she believed him. "But this wasn't my doing Emma."
"And Henry?" she bit back sharply, the crux of her real rage toward him coming to a head again.
Hook looked like he was chewing on something unpleasant. "The boy has the right to know his father, even if he was a deadbeat." Emma blinked, fury building again. "You lied to Henry about his father too. He may not forgive you that." He added, twisting the knife that little bit deeper. "This would have all come out in the wash Emma, with or without me. All I did was ensure your safety when it happened. Because like it or not, Rumple will protect you now, he will protect his Grandson, even if it's only to rebuild a relationship with his own son. I did that. I made sure the boy was safe... I made sure you were."
Emma felt his thumb brushing her cheek and wished that she wasn't soothed by it, wished she was strong enough to push him away and stalk out of his life forever. But she could see his twisted logic in all of this, the belief in his words, in his actions as he desperately tried to keep her in his arms. Was it his fault that her family tree was even more screwed up than she knew? Neil had been her choice, long before she'd met Killian... clearly she was just fate's bitch.
"Do me a favour Killian." She leant in close. "Stop trying to save me." But the anger had bled out of her and it just came out more exasperated than anything else.
Hook smirked. "Never." He kissed her again and she resisted, catching his chin and pushing him back.
"Don't think I'm over this Killian." She warned. "You and I are nowhere near done here." She stalked over to the bed and grabbed a pillow tossing it heavily at his head. "You are sleeping on the floor... possibly indefinitely." She stalked past him, stopping one last time to spin on him her finger raised threateningly. "And if you ever call Henry a brat again..." she leant in close, "I'll give your hand a matching stump for a leg."