All right, I really hope this chapter makes sense, because I was writing it today in an attempt to distract myself. My sister, who was in the intensive care unit for 10 days earlier this fall with a blood disorder, has just had to go back into the hospital with sepsis and a raging infection and high fever and other fun stuff. I know there's a lot going on the world right now, but I would really appreciate it if you kept her and my family in your thoughts. Hopefully they'll be able to control the reaction with antibiotics and she'll be out in time for Christmas. Thanks!

Chapter 8: Flesh and Bone

The first thing Killian Jones saw after he'd broken down his own door – something that he deeply disliked doing, it was hand-carved mahogany for heaven's sake – was a blazing white light. Since he didn't think he'd died quite yet, and doubted in any event that the destination waiting for him when he did was this color (a vile, sulfurous, flaming red was more like it) it meant that Cora had just done something of a regrettable nature. Regrettable for her, that was. If she – if she had dared –

The precise nature of Killian's fury was hard to define, even to himself. Especially to himself. After that moment on the pier when he had seen the Dark One, and realized just how many of his memories of Milah had slipped away on moth's wings while he wasn't looking, it had left him with a mounting avalanche of questions when his revenge should have been the simplest thing, the only thing left. And now it had made him very, very angry indeed, and the door to his own cabin, hand-carved mahogany or not, was the last thing in his way.

It never stood a chance.

As it gave, Killian went straight into a somersault, underneath the conflicting, scorching currents of magic dueling it out in midair. His cabin was going to be a bloody mess, and he fully intended to collect reparations from all the guilty parties. He didn't forgive debts. Most pirates worth their weight in piss didn't. He'd stabbed a man once for failing to pay him back a shilling. And now, since he'd been forced to recruit Prince bloody Charming as an ally and face off with the whole sodding lot of them exactly when he hadn't planned it, when he wasn't ready, when he'd acted like a bloody idiot just to get to her –

Aye, someone was going to pay. And pay dear.

Killian rolled to his feet, wondering if it had been wise to turn his back on Charming. No easier way to get knocked out, trussed up in sailcloth with a cannonball at his feet, and pitched into Storybrooke harbor. But the one advantage of having chivalrous opponents was that they generally turned up their well-formed noses at such discreditable activities. A good enemy was to be preferred at your back to a bad friend.

Either way, it was beside the point. Cora was still attempting to fry two women – he couldn't see their faces, and he did very much hope that he wasn't going to all this fuss and botheration for a pair of kitchen sluts – and therefore had committed the cardinal sin of failing to look around at his dramatic entrance. Charming would be galumphing in here at any moment with blade drawn, breathing blood and fire, and then things would really go cat-a-wampus. Besides, Killian had a more effective method in mind.

He stepped up behind the witch as she was readying for another blow, and tapped her on the shoulder. Distracted, she spun around, and the lethal dose of magic she had been aiming at the two women went harmlessly wide, deflecting off the wall.

"Captain?" Cora stared at him. Shock turned into fury. "Captain!"

"Hello, sweetheart," he drawled, making it as casual and patronizing as he could. "I'd like me hook back now, thanks."

(8888888)

Emma Swan had no idea what had just happened, only that something had. Only that there were suddenly a crap-ton of pyrotechnics flying at her, lighting up the place like the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, and she'd thrown up her hands in a totally instinctive response (yeah, like she could deflect a high-grade payload of murderous magic). She'd managed to get Belle behind her, and thus far, considering the circumstances, they were hanging in all right. But it wasn't going to be for much longer.

That was when she saw – just barely, through all the noise and light and heat – the door break down. And saw him stride across the cabin floor and step up behind Cora, causing her to spin around just as she was launching an Emperor Palpatine-level of lightning at them, which Emma was not at all confident in her ability to withstand. Saw him, cool as a cucumber, hold out his hand, smile in that way he had, and meet her eyes.

"Hook," Killian Jones repeated. "That's all I care about. Then you three lovely lasses can feel quite free to get on with your fight. Such a pity there's no mud in here, but you all have excellent hair for pulling, and I'll be happy to lend my assistance if any of you feels like ripping off her top. After which, however – " his gaze moved off Emma, whom he'd been staring at the entire time, and back to Cora – "I'll be extremely interested to hear just why you thought you could use my ship for yourself, and why I shouldn't treat you as I would anyone else who stole something very dear to me. Don't look so surprised."

Cora had apparently been so shocked by her co-conspirator's appearance that she didn't have an immediate answer, a fact which Emma noted analytically. She didn't want him to know what she was doing to me. But all her faint, kicked-on, counter-rational hopes that this meant – meant something – vanished the next instant.

"Yes, Captain," Cora said sweetly. "I am surprised to see you. After all, the last time I saw you, you were plotting with that dismal little henchman of yours to kidnap Miss Swan yourself. I was just expediting the plan, since you were distracted with that other shabby imbecile in your entourage. It must be something about you that attracts them. What did you call him?" The witch looked straight into Emma's eyes. "Our princess's former amour? Who you had so much influence over that you could make him go see her at just the wrong moment?"

Emma's head went light. Neal. Is she – she can't be talking about Neal? Oh God. Had that been part of Hook tormenting her? He'd sent in fucking Neal to give her a heart attack and drive her into drinking until her eyeballs floated? What had she said to him, back on the beanstalk – had just her admission that she had maybe been in love, once, been enough ammunition? How the hell had he met Neal and figured it out? And even if so, why? Why?

She was so stunned that she couldn't even say anything. Hook, she noticed, was not denying it, and that made it worse. To Cora he said again, "My hook, please."

The witch smiled nastily. "No."

"Fine." Hook shrugged. "Then I won't tell you about our visitors. Either they'll be storming in here to take you on, or they're all fighting amongst themselves on the deck. And I do have to warn you, I will hold you very liable for any further damage to my girl."

"Do you mean the ship or Miss Swan?" Cora asked, arching an eyebrow. "I confess myself uncertain. But very well. It's a deal. For now."

The hook dropped to the floor with a thump, and the witch was gone in purple smoke.

(8888888)

"Well, Emma," the pirate said. "Believe me, I most sincerely regret that little scene. It's a pity it had to happen at all." He stooped, retrieved his hook, and slotted it into the brace over the stump of his left wrist, locking it with a click. "But you may thank me any time you like."

That did it. Her state of paralyzed numbness snapped. "Have – you – lost – your – fucking – mind?" She lunged at him, hammering him with her fists; he blocked them adroitly, catching her arm out of the way with his hook and draping it elegantly over his shoulder. This infuriated her further, and she kept struggling, trying to punch him, but only managing to get more entangled as he got her up against the wall of the cabin, his body in uncomfortably close proximity, his smirking fucking unfairly handsome face just a few inches from hers. "You think I'm going to thank you? If any of that – what she just said, what – "

"You can stop hitting me any time you like, as well," he shot back. It was infuriating how untroubled he sounded. "And perchance recall that you have no good reason to believe anything Cora says, eh, love? You never even asked me why I was here."

She left off, chest heaving, wishing that he would let go of her, that his sheer physical nearness would stop scrambling her circuits, but he had her in both arms and her back against the wall, and Belle must have run out after Cora, because there was no one else in the cabin to intervene. God damn him and his total lack of personal space and common decency, like the creepy drunk at the bar who found every excuse to sidle up to you, grind on you like a dirty dancer – which Hook wasn't actually doing at the moment, but not by much. Still. . .

"All right," she said through her teeth. "Was Cora lying? Everything she said about you arranging to kidnap me? About Neal?"

His unsettling sea-blue eyes held hers. "No, love. She wasn't. But she wasn't telling the truth either."

"I really don't like that answer." She squirmed, which had the effect of bringing her hips to align solidly against his. "It's you talking out of both sides of your mouth again. If you're so confident in what you've done, why did you have to push me up on this wall? Huh?"

"Firstly because I am not one to pass up an opportunity to get a beautiful woman on her back, on whichever surface presents itself." The bastard was doing the sultry murmur thing where his lips were just a breath from her ear, as if he thought it was distracting (it was, it was extremely distracting). "Secondly because I informed you, back at our last acquaintance of note, that I wouldn't have done what you – " he shoved against her harder, while his hook almost tenderly stroked a long lock of blonde hair out of her face – "did, and left you behind. I supposed it was my duty to back up that statement. Here I am. I came back. I didn't leave you to the mercy of the witch. It's more than you did for me."

Emma's throat was dry as a desert. Her heart was going like a trip hammer. She either wanted to kill him or she wanted to kiss him, and whichever it was, she wanted it very badly. The back of her neck was soaked with sweat; butterflies were rioting in her gut. She was mortifyingly aware that this was not at all an appropriate physiological response to a man she supposedly hated, and Hook, seasoned professional rakehell that he was, undoubtedly knew it too. How easy it would be to lean forward just a fraction and take his mouth with hers, turn the tables on him for once. He liked to use his looks and sex appeal to one-up everything with two X chromosomes that he met, but for whatever reason – probably just because he thought she was playing hard-to-get, and he couldn't resist a challenge – he'd acquired a particular fixation on her. If she played it back. . . stopped letting him have all the power over her, reducing her to goo like she was a hormonal teenager. . .

But she had never been good at feminine wiles, and definitely not at playing. And trying to start it on him. . . he knew too much about her. He could destroy her if he wanted, and not just with his sword. She was too fragile, too compromised, for him to really fear her. And a much larger game was raging around both of them.

Hook had been watching her face intimately, reading her thoughts, in just another of his multitude of infuriating habits. "I'd wait until you finish struggling with your conscience, love," he said, his words so close that she could feel them on her too-hot cheek, "but unfortunately, we don't have the time for it. There's liable to be something messy going on outside between your father and Cora, and even Charming and his farts that smell of roses could use some help against her."

"What – my father?" Emma stared at him. "What the hell did you do with him –?"

"Saved your neck, love." He encircled it with his good hand, resting his callused thumb at the pounding pulse in the hollow of her throat. "And an exquisite neck it is. But if you're ready to bin the tiresome old wanker, stay in here, and make passionate love, that's perfectly fine by me too. He'll just have to do for himself."

"Bastard!" Emma shoved him off with both hands. "I really can't stand you!"

"Ah, sweetheart, but I can stand you." He quirked both eyebrows salaciously. "If you know what I'm saying."

"Rot in hell."

"Oh, don't worry." With a final cutting smirk over his shoulder, he crossed the floor and wrenched the cabin door open. "I will."

Seeing that, there was no choice but to throw herself after him.

(8888888)

A blast of cold, salty air hit Emma broadside as she emerged, followed almost immediately by a feeling of foreboding so strong that it almost made her physically sick. The reason for it was divined an instant later. Standing at the far side of the deck, arms folded, were the four people who could make the situation worse: Charming, Belle, Gold, and Regina, in that order. There was no sign of Cora.

Hook stopped short. She could detect surprise in the set of his shoulders – how had she already become so attuned to his unspoken emotions? – and disquiet. But that was gone in an instant. "And what in the thousand thieves of Ali Baba," he enquired, voice so soft with malice as to almost sound pleasant, "are the lot of you doing on my ship?"

"Thousand thieves?" Emma interjected. "I thought there were forty."

"There are, as a point of fact, seventeen, and they're a lot of ill-groomed and incompetent mongrels who couldn't stick up a dishonest merchant if their lives depended on it. Ali Baba's a liar, just like me." Hook's gaze had not swerved from the intruders. "Ah, Your Highness," he threw out to Charming. "So quick to take up with my enemies now, are you?"

"Belle told me what she saw inside that cabin. She saw you threatening my daughter. So you brought me here on a lie, as I suspected, and I don't know what you thought you were going to get away with, but – "

"Your darling daughter is standing right there, perfectly intact, except somewhat fluttery in the chest and weak in the knees from how much she. . . hates me. You're going to have to do better."

"Do we?" It was Gold that spoke this time. He had one hand possessively on Belle's shoulder, and the other rose up like the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, a specter pointing at his nemesis. "It's just a coincidence, Mr. Jones, that after all this time when we come face to face again, this young lady has a gash on her cheek and there's dried blood on your hook? After by her account, escaping from captivity in your bed?"

Killian paused, but only for a moment. "Yes," he said. "Matter of fact, it is."

"You vermin." Now it was Regina's turn. "You've betrayed every one of us, and you took up with my mother and brought her here to this world. There's no forgiving that crime. I should have killed you when I had the chance."

Hook drew his sword and brought it up, slow and tauntingly, as he stepped back behind the great wooden wheel of the Roger. "How about you try?"

"No! All of you!" Emma stepped out onto the deck between them. "If you think I'm letting this turn into a massacre on my watch, you're wrong. And I'm the sheriff, so you had better think long and hard about listening."

"Get out of the way, Sheriff," Regina snapped. "There's only one person who's going to die here, and I'd rather not have to explain to Henry that it was you."

Emma glared back at her. "Oh yeah? Look, Regina. We don't like each other and that's just a fact, but you know what your mother is capable of doing. You know she's here, she already burned your house. And Gold." She turned entreatingly to the pawnbroker, who was looking less and less like his mild-mannered, soft-spoken self every moment. In his eyes, she could see a truly bestial rage. "There's a better way to handle this. A better way to. . . to deal."

"I'm afraid there isn't, Miss Swan. Kindly step aside. I too would not care to explain to your lad what a tragic accident befell you."

That made David break ranks. "Rumplestiltskin, I don't know what's between you and this good-for-nothing loser, but you'd better not ever threaten my daughter's life again."

"Oh, that wasn't a threat, dearie." Gold giggled. It was a high, manic sound, one Emma had never heard from him. "It was a warning."

"Rumple!" Belle said angrily. "Don't!"

Shooting a panicked glance over her shoulder at Hook, Emma realized that he didn't appear ruffled in the slightest by the battle royale shaping up aboard his beloved vessel. In fact, he looked a lot like she thought the Cheshire Cat would (Jefferson could confirm or disprove later) what with the shit-eating smirk he was currently wearing. This entire time, while they had been arguing among themselves about who got to kill him, he'd been hauling on the wheel, and as the wind hit the opposite side of her face from before, Emma realized that they were moving, already reversed out of their mooring in the harbor and starting to pick up speed down the coast. What was more, she was the only one who seemed to notice it.

Something about this was off. She knew how much he'd been looking forward to getting here, to taking revenge on his crocodile, and for him to be treating this long-awaited appearance so cavalierly. . . they were definitely well underway, moving fast and now faster, and. . .

"Hook!" she said, trying not to take her eyes off any of the ship's half-dozen passengers. It was about as easy as you'd think. "What are you doing?"

That woke Gold and Regina back to the presence of their least favorite person in this world or any other, and they were once more united in the death glares they turned on him. "Yes, Captain," Regina said, poisonously sweet. She sounded unnervingly like her mother. "What are you doing?"

"It's unfortunate, but since coming to Storybrooke, I've barely had a chance to nose around. Get out to the country, take in the sights, stretch me legs and do a bit of exploring. When I first arrived here, however, I encountered an establishment called Clark's Drugstore, proprietor by the name of Tom Clark. Seemed a bit of a strange bloke, so I made a few discreet enquiries. And. . ." Hook shrugged. "The answers were very helpful."

There was a pause as Emma, Belle, Charming, Regina, and Gold all stared at each other blankly, but it was Charming who got it first. "No!" he shouted. "You son of a bitch!"

Emma turned wildly to her father. "What? What's he doing?"

"Don't worry, Your Highness," Hook taunted. "Your beloved daughter will be just fine. As will I, seeing as I was never affected by the curse in the first place. The rest of you, however. . . well, surely you've been bored out of your skull, cooped up here for twenty-eight years?"

"No!" Belle screamed. Shaking off Gold's hand, she lunged at Hook, and he caught her and spun her aside almost carelessly. "Turn around!"

"What – " Emma bellowed. "Is – Going – On?"

"Don't worry, princess." Hook sounded only slightly breathless as he wrestled Belle off from her second attempt to assault him. "As I said, nothing will happen to you. But since these four were foolish enough to step onto my ship, I'm just going to sail us beyond the boundary and put an end to all this nonsense in the quick and humane way. Once they forget who they are, there won't be anyone sadder than me. I may even shed a tear."

"What – forget?" Emma grabbed her father's arm. "What is he talking about?!"

David looked at her blackly. "We can't go beyond the town limits. If so, our cursed selves become our only selves. Gold, Regina, Belle, and I. . . we'll all forget that we have a life outside this world. Belle and I definitely will, at least. Those two might have some sort of guard, seeing as they were the ones who made the curse. Now let go of me. I'm sorry, I have to do it."

"No. . ." She had no idea who she was talking to, only that she breathed the word in utter, absolute horror. She spun on her heel. "Killian! Killian, don't!"

"On first-name terms, are we?" Gold was right behind her, his hands starting to crackle with magic. "I'm very sorry, dearie, but this is not negotiable."

"Don't worry!" Hook roared back. His teeth were bared, and there was a crazed look in his eye, almost murderous in its intensity. "When we get to the far side, I'll be sure to remind you of why I'm killing you, before I rip your heart out! Then you'll have that! But I won't! I'll never remember! I don't even remember my bloody childhood, anything from before I went to Neverland!" His voice cracked, frenetic with grief and rage. "I've forgotten, and you – will – too!"

The lost boy. Emma stared at him, suddenly speechless. All those times when she'd been a child, when she'd read Peter Pan, when she'd imagined flying away from her dreary life, having adventures in a magical world, finding a mother and father – having a home –

"Killian," she begged. The sails were straining and creaking in the wind of their speed. She didn't know how close to the edge they were, how at any moment her father could forget her for good, lose everything they were struggling to put back together. Tears were starting to stream down her cheeks. "Killian, don't!"

"Sorry, love." He bit off the endearment like it was poisonous, hauling on the wheel with his hook. "You had your chance. I told you back there. I proved to you what I wanted to prove. I haven't forgotten why I came here. It wasn't for you."

"No!" Charming hurled himself headlong at the pirate.

"No!" Emma screamed. Without him, there was no way they could turn the ship around in time – without him, there was no way she could –

"You owe me a favor, dearie," Gold breathed in her ear. "And right now, I'm calling it in. Step aside. Step aside so I can kill him, to save you and your family and all of us. You're not going to be quite so selfish as to refuse. As if you could. You have no choice. Step aside."

For a horrible, unending moment, the world was entirely silent, except for the sound of Emma's blood pounding in her ears. She saw a seagull reeling overhead, saw Regina trying to cast some kind of spell to bring the Jolly Roger under control, but whatever enchantment Cora and Hook had laid on it held fast; he was still the only one who could steer it. Saw David about to tackle Killian, saw Belle about to scream something at Gold –

A favor. She did. She owed him one. She'd made that bargain to save Ashley's child. She didn't regret it. But it was only now she learned, with the strange, queer, perfect clarity that attends the most calamitous moment of one's life, what it was going to cost her.

It's more than you did for me.

She turned around, and said the last word on her lips. Almost in a whisper.

"No."