A/N: Explanation time is always tedious. Just bear with me for a while ok? Also, only two more versions of Emma are going to appear. And I am already predicting confusion with the names. Another version of Hook? Possibly, but I don't want to say anything yet.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time does not belong to me, if it did, Captain Swan would be in development and have much more screen time.
Chapter Two – Miscalculations
Because, of course, this is her life now. Where she fights evil queens, climbs beanstalks, deals with pirates with no sense of privacy or personal space and, now, with a version of herself from another world entirely.
Emma Swan does what she always does. She tells herself to suck it up (there's work to be done), and sits down across the dainty, curly haired-princess version of herself.
I need a drink.
She lays the gun on the table and sits down, the younger woman following her movements with curiosity.
Resting her crossed hands under her chin, she stares straight at the woman.
"Start talking."
...
It's a complicated tale that the young princess weaves, and Emma has to stop her several times to explain a word or a term of magic that makes no sense to her at all. They are there for hours before the savior asks for a time out to examine closely the information that was given.
Basically, it's this.
It's Cora's fault.
And partly Regina's.
Most definitely Rumplestiltiskin's.
Princess Emma (and she will call her that; the young woman has poise, posture and a commanding tone, every inch the royal's daughter that she was) explains that all that business with curses and portals has destabilized not only Emma's world, but also hers and everyone's out there.
This time, the possibly is much more dire than the loss of the happily ever after.
It's complete and utter annihilation.
"Without balance, the worlds, but particularly ours, have no structure. It will break. Here", she gestures around the room "you have no magic to speak of and it remains fine, but someone, probably Rumplestiltiskin, this has him written all over it, has brought magic to this place, not accounting for the fact that it would react strangely with the land. This is what you call the real world. There's no true love's kiss, no happily ever after. Love is found with much struggle and sometimes it's not even enough", at that, she looked at her, wryly. "It's a miserable world that you live in, darling."
Emma couldn't help but snort.
"Don't I know it", she said, letting her head fall onto the counter with a 'thump' . "I need a drink", her voice comes out muffled by her own hair but it's completely comprehensible.
"You have no idea how many times I have said that over the last few days."
The sheriff raises her head from the table and stands up from the chair, going to one of the cabinets and getting a bottle of vodka and two glasses. She fills them with care (its expensive vodka) and puts one in front of the princess, clinking the glasses together and raising hers.
"Cheers."
Princess Emma, as she had been dubbed inside her mind, clinks her own glass against hers and takes it to her mouth to start drinking, but before she can, she looks at the older one.
"You have questions."
The tone was affirmative.
Of course she had questions. One of them is how the hell a princess with magical and combat training expects her to be of any help at all in a battle against some of the most powerful magicians in existence. And just how she had arrived in Storybrooke? As if people from fairy tale land weren't enough, now she had to live with them crossing universes?
Another is how exactly they were not cursed?
...How did it feel to grow up with parents who loved you? Did Snow tell bedtime stories, maybe James? Was she a daddy's little girl?
The situation was making Emma wonder about things she hadn't since she was a young child, distracting her from the situation at hand and making a emotional wound she had thought long healed, ache.
"How did you get here?"
That question was good for starters wasn't it?
The princess paused and tilted her head, as if thinking.
"I came here with the help of someone", then she frowned, as if realizing how cryptic that statement was. "I cannot tell you much more. The person that brought me here wants to speak with you face to face."
To her credit, she looked honestly contrite at the thought of withholding information from her. It still didn't make the sheriff any happier about the omissions, but she could see that whatever it was, it could wait to be revealed.
She decided to pass onto the next questions.
"What exactly do you expect of me?" She hadn't meant to say it like that, to sound so desperate, but oh well, it was the truth. Ever since this whole business with the curse had started, she had been navigating blindly through a world of chaotic magic and fairy tales that didn't exactly followed the script she was familiar with.
Snow White kicked ass. Jack had been in a war against giants. And Captain Hook…
Well, Captain Hook was not the fop with loud clothes and the cultured Eton English accent. Instead, he was an Irish rogue with a handsome face, a voice like sin and a body that would make a nun tear her habit.
The forget-me-not blues eyes part they got right though.
Emma violently shook herself mentally, before those thoughts could gain anymore root.
"I expect of you exactly what's expected of me", the princess stood up, the fabric of her dress shimmering under the artificial lights of the house. "For you to use your magic to reconstruct what was destructed."
Emma Swan, honest to God, gaped.
"How do you hope for me to help you when I don't have any magic to speak of?" she demanded of the princess, her voice getting a little shrill at the end on account of her nerves.
The young princess just looked at her, incredulous.
"Do you really think that? Are you absolutely sure you cannot feel it, within yourself? Granted, this place makes magic weird, it's feels a little out of place, but I can still feel it", at that she got closer to Emma, her green eyes observing in an almost eerie way. "Even with no training you should be capable of feeling it."
And then she grabbed her arm and shocked her.
At least it felt like a shock, something powerful, coursing through her veins, making her heartbeat accelerate and her breath become labored. It should have hurt, made her scream, gasp, tear her arm away from the girl so close to her, but instead she reached for her other hand, lacing them together, looking for the connection that, deep down, she yearned, wanting to laugh, cry, scream in elation, because, because- she had never felt this way, this complete and then they were smiling at each other and, on the others eyes, she could see that she understood perfectly what she was feeling.
Emma looked down at herself, the golden glow that her skin was emitting and laughed for, perhaps, the first time in years.
It felt like coming home.
By the time the connection was cut, she noticed that the princess had moved them near the couch and let herself fall onto it, still a little light headed from the surge of magic.
After of what seemed ages of the two just staring at each other, Emma finally broke the silence.
"It was me, wasn't it? Who sent you here?" the princess only smirked at her. "Or at least another version of me."
"It's incredible the connection that shared magic can create", she said, airily and then an incredibly mischievous smile came to her lips. "She's going to loath the fact that I found a loophole in our little deal to tell you absolutely nothing."
Emma had to smile a little at that, but it only made her think of the fact that it was almost four in the morning and that she now needed to meet this other version of herself before anything else happened, before morning really came. Standing up from the sofa, she turned to the woman, the girl, still in the beginning of her life and with so much responsibility on her shoulders.
"I am going to change and then you're going to take me to her. I want to know everything you have planned'', her eyes shone with determination. "And what do I have to do to stop this-"
"Apocalypse?" the princess finished, eyebrows arched.
The Sheriff sighed.
"If you say so. What I understood is that whatever disruption caused by the curse is threatening all of us; that includes my parents, my son, everybody that I consider important to me. I don't see how I can not do something to help."
Princess Emma nodded, standing up and putting the hood attached to her cape.
"Then let's go. It would be for the best to discuss this before dawn."
…
On the marina of Storybrook, a figure clad in a dress and coat observed the moonlit sea.
The storm was coming much more quickly than she hoped, and she would have to act fast.
Fingering the dagger inside her pocket, she hesitated before pulling it out and holding it above her head, against the moons light.
The metal was twisted and shiny, the handle had gold accents. Incredibly pretty and dangerous.
Just like her.
Lowering her hand to her side, she took in a deep breath. Because her reason for existing, everything she had sacrificed was finally going to be worth it. Her choices had taken her to this point, the culmination of her plans.
The security of her loved ones.
Something she hadn't been able to do the last time.
She increased the pressure on the dagger and brought it face level, the emeralds on the hilt digging into her skin.
And on the blade, illuminated by the silver rays of the moon, there was a beautifully engraved name.
Emma.