When Snow ducked her head out of the egress of the hideout stump to join the rest of their party, she found one of them missing. Well, two if you counted Hook, but ever since the Jolly Roger had docked a few days ago in the waters not far from their camp in the woods, no one had really counted Hook. He'd come and gone as he pleased and no one had given much mind to it. But now, the familiar golden hair of her daughter was absent as well, and noticeably so.

"Where's Emma?" she asked, trying to keep maternal worry from her voice.

"She went for a walk," Neal told her off-handedly as he continued to sharpen his sword where he sat.

"She's been gone a while, though," Charming mused, standing at the realization, his own parental concern gushing forward.

"I think she needed some time alone," Red said, catching Snow's eye meaningfully. Snow was not surprised. It had been over a week now and they were still no closer to finding a solution to their problem. They had journeyed to the dwarves house for the remnants of the potion in the desperate hopes of finding enough to determine its contents and produce some sort of antidote, but there was nothing left save an empty bottle that made Emma want to be sick. They had then turned course for lake Nostos, with hopes that the waters could restore Henry's memories, but they had only found a dry lakebed. Emma had stood beside it for nearly an hour trying to summon power enough to fill it again, as Cora had done, but her draining efforts yielded nothing and the group returned, Emma mumbling guiltily about how she should have allowed Gold to teach her other magic when she had the chance.

Snow found her daughter seated with her back against a tree and a frown on her face not twenty paces from the camp, but well hidden nonetheless. She was quite good at finding hidden corners of the forest, for someone who grew up in the city.

"Your father suggested we take a trip back to the old palace," Snow said gently as she stepped forward. Emma had no reaction to her mother making her presence known. "See if we can find anything there that can help us figure out how to restore Henry's memories. We have a fairly large library there, and if any of the books survived, maybe they will have some clues."

"What's the point?" she asked with a discomfit scowl, not looking her mother in the face. "We're not going to find anything there. We're not going to find anything to help anywhere, because there is nothing that can help."

"You sound like you've given up."

"Yeah, well, maybe I have," Emma sighed bitterly.

"You can't think like that," Snow insisted in a light, gentle voice, but the condescending optimism in her tone only provoked Emma's anger further. "We are all here, and we're not going to stop. We're going to keep fighting. You need to keeping fighting."

"I'm so tired of fighting. Where does it ever get us? Just deeper and deeper in this pile of…" Emma let out a long breath of frustration. "Maybe this is as good as it's going to get. Maybe it's never going to get any better, and the harder we try, the worse we will make things."

Snow scowled at her daughter fractious attitude. She had to remind herself that Emma had grown up in a world without happy endings. This philosophy was what she had been taught by years and years of being raised in that harsh world. Of course, she would see things differently. But she couldn't deny that a small amount of disappointment in her attitude flared inside her.

"Look, I know it is tiring. I know better than anyone. Because I've been fighting too. Fighting for a long time, fighting since before you were born…"

"Yeah, but you got a break at least, didn't you?" Emma asked mordantly. "You had twenty-eight years of blissful rest before you had to pick things back up again."

"Blissful?" Snow challenged, affronted.

"Meanwhile, I was fighting every second of those twenty-eight years. Fighting to stay alive, fighting to stay sane, fighting to survive a childhood that nobody wanted me to have. I'm tired, I'm just… I'm tired."

She looked more than tired. She looked exhausted. Snow remembered that not only was Emma experiencing the emotional pain of Henry's condition with ten times the severity that she was, but also that she was only six months recovered from a major, life threatening wound that she herself had dealt her. Snow wracked her brain, trying to think of something to raise her spirits, but before anything came to her, Emma stood, wiping the dirt from the back of her pants, and made to walk out further into the forest.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"I'm going to go sit by the pool," Emma said, not meeting her mother's eye. "In case Henry decides to show up again."

Emma had been sitting by the pool at dusk every night since her first night. He had begun to show up more and more often, expecting her to be there, until now they met their almost every night in an unspoken arrangement.

"I've been meaning to talk to you about that," Snow started. Emma was glad she was not facing her mother, as she could not stop herself from rolling her eyes in frustration. Snow persisted. "Do you really think it's a good idea to keep meeting him there? It might get him in trouble with his mother…"

"I'm his mother," Emma insisted fiercely.

"The more you let him get to know you outside of the context of who you really are, the longer you and he keep interacting while he doesn't know the truth, the harder it will be for him when he remembers."

"I just," Emma started, her voice soft and vulnerable. She was trying to come up with some strong rebuttal, but she couldn't think of one. "I just… miss him," she finished finally. "I just like to spend time with him."

"I know you do," Snow sighed sympathetically, stepping forward comfortingly, but Emma backed away, shaking her head.

"Don't get all condescending about this," she warned, and Snow stopped short, hurt by the insinuation. "He's my kid. I get to decide how I handle this completely messed up situation. He's not yours to decide how to raise. You missed your chance, and you can get it back. He's growing up, and I'm not going to standby and miss my chance to be there. I'm not going to waste any more time not being with him. It's my decision to make."

Emma stormed off up the acclivity through the tree trunks, partially from her own anger and partially because she couldn't bear to continue to see the hurt that had flooded her mother's face as she spoke.

Regina watched from her window as the small shadow of her son skipped across the lawn and into the woods, basking in the dull light of dusk. She'd known he'd been running off there every day for nearly a week now, and she had a pretty good idea where he went and who he met there. She was fairly certain Emma had not yet told Henry the truth about who she was and what had happened. He came back each night, and what made it worse was that he came back unusually happy, but he never let slip anything about remembering the past, and the Henry she had known and raised was not one to keep a revelation like that hidden for long.

But he skipped off nonetheless each night, and it killed Regina to know it was because Emma was giving him something that she just didn't know how to give. Comfort. It was something he would never accept from her, and on some level she couldn't blame him, considering what he needed comfort for were things she'd done to him. She stayed looking out long after the last trace of him had vanished under the cover of the trees. It was only the voice that spoke to her from the looking glass next to her that roused her from her perch by the window.

"I hope I'm not interrupting something," came the man's voice. Regina blinked, then turned to face her virtual visitor's reflection in her mirror.

"Not at all," she said, pulling on a nonchalant grin.

"Good," King George said. "How have you been, Regina? It's been a while."

"You asked to meet to discuss my well-being?" Regina asked, skeptically raising an eyebrow.

"I was just making pleasantries," King George admitted.

"We both know you're not a pleasant man," Regina sneered, "so why don't we skip to what it is you want."

"Well, that's quite simple," King George said. "I want Emma."

Regina blinked, though her smile did not falter.

"Why?"

"What's it to you?" King George responded. "I want her. You want her gone. Our interests are perfectly aligned."

"I've been in this game long enough to know that motive most definitely does matter," Regina insisted. "The fine print can make all the difference. Now that you are back here, I can only assume you have some kind of plans to restore yourself to a place of power in this world. I don't know how you found your way back, nor do I care, but I do care about protecting myself and my son in all of this."

"What if I were to tell you that if you help me, I promise that whatever plans I have for Emma, they will not touch you or Henry in anyway. I will stay out of your way if you will stay out of mine."

Regina considered the arrangement carefully, twisting a large ring around her finger as she did so. She did not like that Emma was back, threatening to tear down the very shaky scaffolding of a relationship she had managed to build with her son since he had drunk the potion and forgotten their past. Getting rid of her would solve a lot of problems, and perhaps give her and Henry the time they needed to truly make a fresh start.

"I tell you where you can find her, and you promise to leave me and my kingdom out of any plans you may have now or in the future?"

"That's correct," King George agreed, nodding.

Regina smiled and began with a long breath.

"There is a small pool…" she began.

Emma was becoming well practiced at pulling on a nonchalant smile as she waved goodbye to her son and watched him skip back towards the palace where he lived with Regina. But each one seemed to take a larger and larger piece of her heart with it. She watched him until he was out of sight, then turned back to stare into the still water of the pool, hugging her knees to her, a severe expression on her face.

"It's getting late," came a familiar British accent as Hook emerged from behind a tree. "I know you're a bit old to have a curfew, but I imagine your parents will worry nonetheless."

"I don't want to go back yet," Emma said, turning back to stare at her own hard reflection in the water.

"Not surprised," Hook said, settling himself on the ground next to her. She did not move her head, but he saw her watching him out of the corner of her eye. "I saw Snow come back from when she went to speak with you. I didn't get the feeling it was a pleasant conversation. I would ask what happened, but then again, I'm pretty sure I don't care."

"Must be nice," Emma said.

"What's that, love?"

"Not caring," she clarified. He seemed to pause for a moment, contemplating the statement.

"I guess that's the silver lining to having the one person you care about die," he said, nodding bitterly. "There's no getting her back, so there's no reason for hope, no reason to care anymore. Everything becomes inconsequential. It's surprisingly freeing."

"Sounds better than this," she said, her voice cold as stone. He looked at her, studying her face intently. Not a sign of emotion on it. She was surprisingly good at that.

"You know, you can cry if you want," he prodded.

"I'm not crying in front of you," she said.

"Why do you care?" he asked with a small smile. "Why do you give a damn if I see? Still think you need to prove you're strong to me? You've bested me three times now, don't worry, I've learned my lesson, so go on then, love. Let it out."

Emma stood abruptly and turned away from the pool. She paced her way towards one of the trees, then halted. At first, Hook, watched her from where he sat. Then he rose as well and moved to join her. She did not turn to watch him as he moved, but stayed stationary. Hook could not see her face, could not tell what might be going through her mind. When she turned to face him, there was no sign that any tears had left her eyes. In fact, they seemed instead to burn with some kind of passionate, desperate longing.

In one brisk movement, she reached for him, pulling him towards her as their lips collided. It was not like before – slow and seductive. It was forceful and carnal and full of unwanted emotions. She pressed her lips into his so hard it nearly hurt. Hook managed the surprise in a mere moment and then met her effusion full force, so that the entangled pair stumbled backwards. He had her back up against the tree and they continued to devour each other. He just let it happen, let himself dissolve into the sorrowful passion she was dealing him. As her hands traveled down his chest, tearing at the opening of his shirt and then wrapping around to his back, he looped his hook through one of the belt loops at her hip and pulled himself still closer to her. His free hand reached up and tangled itself in her long blonde hair as he felt her warm tongue slip between his lips.

She pulled away from him for a moment, her heated breath lingering on his skin as she blinked up at him, panting.

"Teach me not to care anymore," she whispered, pulling his mouth back towards hers.

So begins a new leg of our story with a new villain! What does King George want with Emma, and will he succeed? And don't worry, readers, I don't intend on Henry's memory being gone for much longer, but of course that doesn't mean their troubles are over!