Disclaimer: I do not own the show or the characters of Once Upon A Time. There's no profit except writing practice being made here.

Only once had Emma almost run into her existing self. She'd remembered that there'd been a particularly elusive tail that had taken her four or so days to fid - she found him in the end, Emma Swan always finds her man. Or at least, that's what she and Henry had thought would be funny for the add to read, despite neither of them understanding why they found it so amusing.

She understood now, at least.

Emma, unfortunately, had forgotten a crucial detail.

She'd found the guy in Chinatown at twelve noon on Monday.

Killian had seen the other Emma before Emma had and shoved the pair of them down an alley that spelt of spice and hot green beans, like the start of a meal.

Or, that's what it would have smelt of if Emma had been able to register anything other than the warmth of Hook's solid build behind her - close but not pressed against her - and the ever-present sea salt smell he carried with him on that leather jacket as though the ocean was as much a part of him as cinnamon was a part of her hot chocolate recipe.

"How do you even know that's me?" Emma had asked him, disbelieving that something as simple as a silhouette - hers, of all people - would be so recognisable.

"She looks like you," he moved away from her at that, moving to Emma's side to look her in the eyes as he spoke. She sighed, half wishing he'd remained where he was, breath hot on her neck, words whispered against her ear. "Walks like you. Carries herself the same as you," he grinned at her, amused, "All the airs and breeding and paying absolutely no nevermind to it at all."

Emma rolled her eyes. As often as she told him she would leave Storybrooke and never return, Killian would remind her, one to one, but alternatingly, that she was a princess and surrounded by people who only wanted the best for her and Henry. For all that her script must have been tiring to hear, so was his.

Except that it also made her feel like she was blushing from the inside out, warming in the middle.

She actually laughed at that one, shushed by Killian who wore a winning smile as they hid between the bricks and awnings of a restaurant and a supermarket.

Side by side when the coast was clear, the pair of them continued on, Emma very grateful to be wearing flat boots on the pavement where she'd seen her counterpart wearing heels - hardly perceptible and basically flat but still heels. She remembered the aches in her arches because of those shoes and was glad she hadn't brought them with her in her suitcase to Storybrooke.

Amazingly, it wasn't as difficult as Emma had imagined to find the healer named the Dragon. A few targeted google searches, a couple of less than legal searches on typical cab routes from hospitals that weren't to pubs or residences, and Killian's vague and unelaborated on comment that she should look up places Tamara had been.

She couldn't do that, Emma had tried to explain, although Hook didn't seem to grasp why her phone could look up people in general and people specifically but wasn't intuitive enough to answer his general question.

"It just won't," she told him. "I'm sorry. But that's not a bad idea. August knew her. And she wanted to destroy magic. Maybe she went and saw the Dragon."

"But she died in Neverland," Killian supplied helpfully, a grim expression on his face.

Emma considered that. "So Tinkerbell says."

Hook sighed. "I've known Tink a long time."

"Yeah," Emma snorted. "I'll bet."

He didn't take the bait or smile indulgently at her, ignoring the comment instead, something that surprised Emma immensely.

"Thing is," Emma tilted her head sideways, considering the man in front of her. "I don't know much about Tamara."

"Neither," he sighed, pursing his lips together the same way she did. "But I bet Neal did."

"Not bad." Emma pat Hook's shoulder and pushed him out of the alley so they could find their way to Neal's apartment. "Then that's where we'll go. C'mon cowboy,"

"What?"

"It's a saying, here. Just a word."

"What does it mean?"

"Cowboy?" Emma wasn't totally sure. She wasn't an idiot, far from it, and she knew that. She'd grown up on her wits alone, education never steady and not providing a paycheck so she'd managed without it, and survived almost happily because of it. Yet the thing she hated most about Hook was that she never felt like she could explaiin properly. He didn't actively try to make her feel dumb, in fact, he seemed to attempt to make her feel the opposite by giving her a chance to explain her world to him.

"It's like a, I don't know," Emma found herself waving her hands impotently. She never used to talk with her hands before meeting Hook. "Hollywood has made them really cool, like land pirates, I guess, rebels and gunmen out for revenge. But I suppose they were really just farmers, herding cattle."

"Oi, who are you calling a shepherd?"

"What?" Emma couldn't stop the laughter that bubbled out of her.

It must have been the curse that paid for the apartment, because the place hadn't been rented out to new tenants, nor was there even a pile of bills in the letterbox or at the bottom of the door.

The last time she'd been in here, the place had meant nothing to her, the time before that, a man had been dying, another revealing that their relationship was built on lies, and her son had decided he no longer trusted her.

Much to Killian's dismay, there was dust everywhere and furry looking things in the "ice-box." Plus, there was blood all over the towels that covered the couch. The whole place stank of something metallic and ticklish to the nose, nothing more definable than that.

"Is that a problem?" Emma asked, nodding along with the 'aye' she expected in reply as she walked around the small apartment.

"None of this was here," he said before correcting himself, "Or will be here when I get here."

Without another word, Killian pulled the trashcan, calling it a 'pail' in that lilting accent of his, and piled everything he wanted to discard in it.

Emma watched, curious, as he moved toward the door. It might not have been politically correct, but Emma couldn't stop herself from staring. Hook moved like a well-oiled machine, his missing hand not even hindering him. In fact, he'd swapped the fake hand (she remembered finding that on her desk after the first time she'd been in this apartment. She got the shock of her life when she first saw it, fully believing it was a real hand and prepared to cordon off a crime scene. When she'd figured out what it was and who it belonged to, Emma had almost laughed at how he'd left something in place of the thing he'd taken and tucked it away in her desk with his scarf. Emma hadn't been able to give it back to him. Not in person. But right before the whole situation with Greg and Tamara, in fact, before it was confirmed Hook was even back in town, Emma had taken the wooden hand to the docks and left it on the deck of the Jolly Roger. Despite what Neal said, she knew it wasn't a good idea to enter someone else's property and even less so to board a ship without permission and Emma wasn't about to break that trust, so instead she left his hand on the boards right by the gangplank, safe in the knowledge it would be safe from theft because the ship itself was cloaked. Emma hadn't even been sure he'd received it until she'd remembered who he was and seen that he was in possession of it) for his hook and was manoeuvring about like a bloody octopus, bin and blankets tucked beneath his arm and a plastic bag hanging from his hook as well, his other arm free to open the door 'and any waste receptacles,' he called them.

"What are you doing with that?"

"Going to the bin, as you say," Killian's shoulders shrugged with the action of bringing Emma's attention to the dirty rags and mouldy food in his arm. "Then to procure a meal or two so that the fridge will be stocked for my arrival."

"Want a hand?" She did not mean the pun but Killian's blue eyes glittered as though he heard it anyway.

"I quite like the appendages I have, thank you very much."

Emma relinquished that. She supposed, had she been kicking around for two hundred years without a hand she'd probably stop thinking about it as a 'without,' probably forget what it was like before. Then again, she might lament every moment she didn't have that limb anymore and wallow in the things she couldn't do because of it.

"I meant, I can do the shopping for you. Or give you a list of cheap, edible things."

Killian blinked his vibrant blue eyes at her in the sort of obvious surprise that made Emma's stomach curl when she realised he was surprised by the tiniest kindness.

"Thank you, Emma."

"So," she gulped, "Want that hand?"

Killian's smile turned slightly larger, splitting his face. She knew that look, the little shit. "I think I recall what was in the ice box last time I was here. Next time."

With that, he made to duck out the door again, until Emma stopped him.

"Killian?"

"Aye."

"Thanks." Killian had shaken out the towel that had been on the couch and it had dispelled the dust from the floor so that Emma's boot no longer carved circles when she moved it against the floor.

"Whatever for, love?"

She rolled her eyes and then met his knowing ones. "For giving me a moment."

He nodded, keeping his chin down but his eyes on her. "You look like you need one."

"Only go to the shops just across the street," Emma warned. The city was a dangerous place, she knew, and she'd hate to lose him in it.

Another smile. "I'll be back soon."

A good three slow counts after Killian exited the room, Emma turned and moved into the bedroom in search of a pocketbook or diary of Tamara's with details of The Dragon.

She rolled her eyes at the neat printed letters that hovered above the provided line, small enough to touch neither the line above nor below, prim and practiced; calculated.

What Emma tried not to do was skim through the actual dates the woman had left, careful to unfocus her eyes on anything printed if the word 'dragon' or 'magic' didn't jump out at her. Emma knew Neal and Tamara had been happy together, there must have been anniversaries and outings and weekends planned that explained their engagement. She didn't need to hurt herself by reading through the woman's notes to see how easily Neal had moved on - anything to preserve the truth in Neal's "I regretted abandoning you every day" and not become enraged as she realised that too was a lie.

There it was! Emma found it at the start of the journal, mention of her boss directing her to a healer.

Alarmingly, the Dragon had both been located, confirmed and then been tasered to death, according to the proud exclamation point in Tamara's diary. Emma thought it was brazen of the woman to have kept such legible, uncoded notes in the book she kept at Neal's ignorant bedside, but that sort of arrogance certainly checked with the cocky writing style and the haughty woman Emma had known. Tamara had been a cold woman, even noting her defeat of August and following of him, hoping Neal would lead him to more magic.

The only thing that kept Emma holding on to hope was her knowledge that a taser on a magical being might not have been as effective as the woman thought it was.

The good news was that she knew where that address was.

The bad news was that it was in Thailand.

A quick search on her phone, however, confirmed Emma's suspicions. The name of the place Tamara noted the healer worked was a franchise with a few major branches including one in New York. Turned out the Dragon's place of business was only a short walk from their momentary hideaway.

There, on the foot of the bed, were Henry's gloves. Emma picked them up, the fingers definitely shorter than hers confirming they were her sons. Emma shoved them in her pocket and turned to leave when she noticed it.

There on the desk by the door of the bedroom, which seemed to serve as more of a bookshelf than a computer desk, sat Henry's camera in its stiff leather case. As though he'd left it there in a hurry.

What? Emma frowned. She was sure it hadn't been there when she found it after the stranger told her to go to that apartment.

No, she remembered it clearly, the camera had been out of the case, the strap with the stitched name on proud display right beneath the dream catcher that she had taught Neal about. It hadn't signalled to her that it was Neal's apartment, but it had made her think of him, never realising that dream catchers were a staple in magic and particularly stealing and preserving memories.

Perhaps Neal's lack of knowledge all those years ago about the object hadn't been a lack at all, but an attempt to distance himself from the magical item and an attempt to dismiss it too. Gold had explained it to her after using her magic on Pongo that the dream catcher was a way for even the non-magical to displace their memories and keep them safe. Maybe he kept it around because he'd stored his two hundred years worth of memories in it, for all Emma knew.

Instead of dwelling too much on it, Emma moved Henry's camera, posing it in exactly the place she remembered finding it a few weeks ago.

"Hook!" Emma shouted when she heard the door sigh closed. He was quiet, he always was, and he never let a door slam, she'd noticed, but still Emma nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of his almost silent arrival.

"Everything alright, Swan?"

"I didn't expect you back so soon," she admitted, turning to face the pirate before bursting into laughter at the way his whole face was pulled downwards in a deep and dark frown. "Is everything okay with you?"

"Fine, love." He ripped open the fridge and tilted the brown paper bag on its side on one of the shelves, shaking its contents out.

Emma watched as a bunch of bananas hit the back wall of the fridge. Two oranges rolled out, caught and pushed back in by his forearm, followed quickly by the red rind of a wheel of cheese and a baguette crossing over them.

"Whatcha got?" she stepped forward to inspect his pickings.

"Provisions," he explained, but even for a single person, his haul was measly. She'd never thought about it before but the cheese and bread were classic peasant foods.

"Afraid you're gonna get scurvy?" Emma asked, trying not to laugh.

Killian practically growled. "I've never lost a man to scurvy. I won't be starting now."

"Never?" That was some feat. As far as Emma was aware, scurvy was meant to be quite common, wasn't it? That must have been one hell of a story.

He didn't explain.

"I must say, I do approve of the set prices of this realm," a wayward eyebrow rose on his forehead to prove his agreement with the statement. Emma felt her frown deepen in confusion. "Makes obtaining goods far easier than haggling."

"I thought pirates stole what they wanted," she quipped, not ignorant of how this world must have been so different to the ones he was used to. Instead of looking at his face, terrified of that downward slow blink and the wide, sullen eyes that accompanied it, Emma moved passed him to peer closer into the fridge. "That can't be all you ate in the days you were here?"

Beside her, Hook grumbled. "There were a few other bits, noodles of some sort. But the market was so crowded and I wouldn't have even known where to start or what to call them should I ask, so I left it."

"Two-minute noodles?" Emma smiled, "They're Henry's favourite. I'll go get us some so that past you," Emma hesitated, pouting at the pirate, "Or is it future you?" She shook her head. "Doesn't matter. I'll get some for the fridge and we can have some before we leave."

"Leave?" Did he step forward or were they always standing with only a breath between their noses? "Did you find out where we're going, Swan?"

If eyes could glitter and twinkle, Emma was certain hers did in that moment, full of mirth and a little bit of sarcasm. "You'll never believe it."