Beta/Edited by Peace Heather

Chapter 9

Emma skids to a silent stop. Her heart is pounding in her chest, and her breath is burning in her lungs, but her disbelieving eyes are fixed on Hook's fist. He opens it, and tiny, black shards of stardust trickle from his hand to mingle with the rest at his feet. Then he wipes his hand on his coat, as if he's touched something vile and wishes to be rid of the sensation.

It was just a light, just a tiny little spark in the darkness of this god-awful place, but Emma feels its loss keenly, as if it had been a friend. She feels like he has just snuffed her own, personal guiding star. Her gaze lands on the cold, gritty stuff beneath her boots and she realizes, with rising horror, that this isn't sand—it's stardust. It's the shattered hopes and dreams of an uncountable number of worlds, broken into tiny, icy bits.

The temperature seems to drop around her, and if she'd been cold before, it's nothing to what she feels now. She pauses, hands on knees, trying hard to catch her breath and trying harder to ignore the burn of her lungs and throat from the glacial not-air. Her breathing is harsh in her own ears, but she knows that the sound of it is being swallowed up by the void around them.

"Why," she manages, even though every breath feels like she's swallowing razor blades. "Why did you do that?"

She's not sure that he can hear her; she can barely hear herself.

Then Hook turns to face her, and Emma stops worrying about breathing. She's far too shocked to breathe.

The look on his face is as bleak as the world around them. His fair skin seems unnaturally pale, bleached to the color of bone by the weird not-light, and his dark hair is black as ink. With the kohl rimming his eyes, he looks like a Tim Burton movie come to life. In any other place it would look silly, a goth caricature of a pirate; but here, now, the effect is horrific. It's as if this world has cut away the last of the softness from his features, and what is left is beautiful, sharp and lethal as a sword.

She's not entirely sure what she'd hoped for; after all, she's never been the kind of person to fling herself into someone's arms. But Killian looks as unapproachable as a fortress. There is nothing in his expression, not pleasure to see her, relief or even anger. His face is empty, almost soulless, and it chills Emma to the core.

Killian Jones has left the building, she thinks with a touch of hysteria. All that is left of him now is Captain Hook.

His gaze flicks over her with all the gentleness of a whip lash, and Emma feels as though he's not just seeing through her, he's stripping her down to her soul. She gets the impression that she's the absolute last person he wanted to see. Well, that's too bad, buddy, she thinks. After all, she's just spent what feels like more than a year of her life walking through hell to find him. So Emma straightens under that sharp scrutiny, tucks her hands back in her pockets, and stares right back.

"Why did you do that?" she repeats, in case he didn't actually hear her last time. The void seems to swallow her voice again, as if she's talking to him from the wrong side of a soundproof pane of glass, but she knows he hears her. His eyes narrow to dark slits.

"Bad form," he says, which really isn't the answer she was expecting. His voice doesn't seem to have any trouble traversing the not-air. His low, dark growl is the first thing she's properly heard in ages, and it sends a shiver skating down her spine.

"What?" she asks, because, really?

With slow, measured steps, Hook prowls closer, then begins to circle her slowly. He studies her, his gaze slicing up and down her body, but there's none of his usual lasciviousness in the act. No, this is detached and piercing, as though he's looking for chinks in her armor. In the darkness of the netherworld, his eyes are no longer blue, but black and empty as the sky.

Emma's played this game before, though. She lifts her chin and studies him right back—and she really doesn't like what she sees. From this close, she notices that his unnatural pallor is partially due to frost. It's painted over his skin in weird, branching patterns, as if it's following the veins below the surface. His hair is slick, the ends tipped with rime. Even his clothes seem coated in a thin layer of nearly invisible ice, like the stuff that lurks in patches in the middle of the road. Whenever Hook moves, the ice cracks and shatters, only to reform almost instantly.

She swallows hard, remembering that he'd been laying on the sand as if he'd dragged himself out of the water, the tips of his boots still in it. Suddenly, she's really glad she didn't try to walk on it.

The circle he's making around her tightens gradually, until he finally stops in front of her, just beyond arm's reach. Hook's hand rests lightly on the hilt of his sword and his lips turn up in a cold smile that doesn't touch his eyes. It's only at this moment, staring at it, that she realizes that this is the smile he usually reserves for everyone else. She's seen it before, but never once aimed at her.

It takes Emma less than a second to decide that she hates it. She kind of wants to punch it off his face. She wants his real smile back, the one that had a promise tucked up in the corner of his mouth, and lit a light in his eyes that seemed to beckon her home.

Maybe something of that longing shows on her face, because that cruel, awful smile widens in a way that only bares his teeth. Her fist, gone numb with the cold, abruptly itches.

"Remarkable," Hook says. "I would applaud your efforts but, well ..." He lifts his left arm in a gesture that somehow manages to be both explanatory and threatening. "Really, this is all quite impressive. But still, very bad form."

His hand, resting on the hilt of his sword, shifts fractionally in a way that makes Emma's pulse speed up in response. "Jones—"

"Hook," he says quietly, his voice laced with threat. "Call me Hook." He raises dark eyes, shadowed beneath black brows, to meet hers. "Better still, call me Captain."

Emma affects a confidence that she doesn't quite feel. She hates that he's scaring her. "I thought you liked it better when I called you J—"

"Have you ever seen someone gutted like a fish?" His voice is quiet, conversational. She gets the message loud and clear. Jones is off the table. She has a feeling that Killian wouldn't even get her a warning.

"What the hell has this place done to you?"

"You should know," he says softly. "After all, you did it."

Emma blinks at him, confused. "I'd ask if you're drunk, but I'm pretty sure this place isn't stocked with rum."

"No," he says, taking a step closer to her. "No rum."

Another step. "No light."

Another. "No warmth."

And another. "No laughter."

He circles around behind her, close but not touching. "No stories to be made. No adventures to be had."

His breath ghosts over her throat, and she realizes that it's cold. He's cold. It seems to emanate from him, as if he's carved of ice. "No love."

Then he moves past her, and Emma attempts to remember how to breathe.

"All the things a man longs for, thirsts for, craves—none of them exist here." He pauses, half turns so that she can only see his face in profile. His voice is low, quiet, and deadly. "Which begs the question: what are you doing here?"

Honestly, I'm not sure. Kinda leapt without looking, I guess. I thought I was ... I don't know, rescuing you."

Hook chuckles, and if she'd ever thought that sound was mirthless before, she realizes now how wrong she was. This is mirthless. This is the laughter of a man without even the faintest glimmer of hope.

"Oooh, rescuing me, are you?" His voice is mocking, cruel. "Just a moment; I'll have to fetch my reticule."

Emma has no idea what a reticule is, but she's pretty sure he doesn't have one. "Fetch whatever the hell you want, but could you maybe stop with the creepazoid act, so we can figure out how to get out of this place?"

He spins on his heel to face her again. "So commanding. So beautiful. So dangerous. Really, it's a very good likeness, even down to that stubborn chin. There's just one small problem, darling."

She frowns. He thinks her chin is stubborn? "Yeah? What's that?"

"Emma is many things: beautiful, cunning, fierce, and stronger than steel, but she's not stupid. The only way to get here is to be cursed, and while she might be rather ridiculously heroic, Emma Swan is not so bloody stupid that she'd throw herself on the Crocodile's sword for the likes of me."

She blinks at Hook and wonders if he'd believe her if she told him it hadn't taken a sword—she'd thrown herself on his face. So to speak.

Only she doesn't speak. Instead she just gapes at him, dazed at the way he'd listed off all those adjectives as if they were indisputable facts, as if they are part of the rock-solid foundation on which his worldview is built.

"Emma Swan would never come for me." He sneers, and in one smooth movement he's drawn his cutlass and leveled it straight at her heart. "Draw your weapon."

"What? Whoa. Wait... what?" Emma's running out of W-words, but she holds her ground.

"Draw your weapon, demon, or are you too much of a coward to face me?" His sneer has progressed to a full-on snarl.

"Okay, first of all ... not a demon. Second, did you seriously just call me a coward?"

"Well," he says sardonically. "It was that or codfish."

For the space of three seconds, Emma is annoyed enough that she actually considers leaving him there. Then she figures that being stuck in this place has probably driven him all the way crazy, and he'd been halfway there to start. There's no way that Hook could have known that she would come after him, and he certainly couldn't have known that she's been searching for him for-freaking-ever. All he's known, clearly, is that he was trapped here. If it had been the other way around, Emma's pretty sure she would have left sanity several exits back as well.

She holds her hands out in the universal gesture of please-don't-stab-me. "Jones—Hook! Hook, sorry—Look, I don't want to fight you—"

"Afraid to die?" His stance is loose, relaxed, his sword hand steady. Frost crawls down the blade, painting deadly patterns over the steel. "As I recall, the only way the real Emma Swan could defeat me in a swordfight was if I let her."

Okay, pal, that is it.

"You know, on second thought ..." Emma sets her jaw in determination and reaches for the dagger in her boot. "I think I might enjoy this."

She wishes she had a sword; she's been practicing with David's sometimes, down at the station when no one is around, figuring it might come in handy. And, aside from the occasional damage to a desk or chair or potted plant, it's weird how familiar a sword grip feels in her hand, as if she'd been born to wield a blade. The dagger feels even more familiar, though that's probably due to a couple of years' worth of self-defense classes that included lessons on knife fighting. Bounty hunting isn't exactly a dainty profession.

Even so, it sucks being the girl who missed the memo and brought a knife to a swordfight. The dagger is wickedly long, but it still shortens her reach, and she's not quite used to the lighter weight. In addition, Hook is taller than her, his arms longer, his cutlass twice the length of the measly bit of steel in her hand. Emma's palms would be damp with nerves, except it's far too cold for that. Her fingers feel numb, which is never a good way to start a fight.

Hook's mouth twists sardonically; he lifts his blade slightly, and then the dance begins. They circle each other warily, weapons ready, measuring, assessing, waiting to see which of them will lead.

Hook makes the first move without warning, slashing at her quickly, forcing her into a retreat. He follows it up with another blow toward her shoulder, then one aimed at her thigh. Emma blocks, parries, dances back out of reach. There's no whistle as his sword slices the air, and their blades clash in eerie silence. He's fast, too, faster than she remembers. She's not sure if it's because the cold isn't affecting him the way it is her, or if—and here's a scary thought—he wasn't kidding about letting her win before.

Emma's not sure how she feels about that or what it even means, and now—with him bearing down on her in cold, silent, fury—really doesn't seem like the right time to be analyzing that.

Her arm aches, her feet ache, but she tries not to show it as they circle each other once more.

The trouble, she realizes, is that she doesn't want to kill him or even injure him. She just wants Hook to believe her, which he clearly doesn't. Whatever hope of escape he had left is gone, and she's willing to bet that he's decided she's a hallucination. Short of knocking him on the head and tying him up, she's not sure how to get him to listen.

Shame there aren't any umbrella stands nearby.

Emma will be the first to admit that she can come across as stoic and emotionless. She'd be the last to admit that it's because she feels toomuch, and it's safer to lock it all away where no one can hurt her. But right now her heart aches forhim. The man she's seen glimpses of all along, the man he keeps buried beneath the smooth-talking veneer of a cutthroat pirate, Killian Jones —who is as lost and as hurt and lonely as she has ever been, if not more — he is worth saving. Worth more than this cold, empty netherworld.

She's supposed to be the savior, right? Well, she decides, she's going to save him or die trying.

Dying, unfortunately, seems to be most likely outcome.

He spins, his coat flaring out dramatically, almost distracting her as his cutlass comes crashing down onto the blade of her hurriedly upthrust dagger. The force of it staggers her slightly, but she's been expecting that move, he'd used it before.

What she hadn't been expecting was for him to bring his hook around and slash it down, through the thick leather of her jacket, to embed the sharp tip in her unprotected shoulder. Emma cries out, her arm going numb, and wrenches herself free, stumbling backward. She touches the wound in disbelief, then meets his gaze. He waits several feet away, twirling his sword idly. He holds up his hook and twists his arm so the blood on it gleams dully in the not-light.

"What the hell was that?" she demands, her eyes wide with shock.

Hook gives her a one-shouldered shrug and a mocking smirk. "Well, I am a pirate."

"What happened to liking a fair fight?"

"Oh, I do," he says, utterly unrepentant. "My not killing you just then? That was me being a gentleman."

There's an awful feeling in the pit of her stomach, as Emma realizes just how much he'd let her win before. Her shoulder hurts like a bitch, but she grits her teeth and tries to ignore it. She really hopes he hasn't had time to poison it.

"Two weapons against one hardly seems fair," she says, staying out of his reach.

"Ah, well, you see you're not real. That's not exactly good form either, is it? Taunting a man with ... well, you."

"There's no taunting!"

His eyes drift over her, his lids heavy—not with the light flirtation he usually displays, but something deeper, darker, and hungry. "Isn't there?" he asks, voice quietly intense. "I had thought ..." His voice deepens, roughens. "I had thought it would be Milah."

Emma swallows hard, her heart sinking. Of course, she thinks. Of course he wanted it to be Milah who came for him.

Then he gives a bitter, mocking laugh. "But no. This is worse. 'Tis far better to torment me with my greatest failure." His expression is bleak and haunted. "I've betrayed my own heart. I deserve my fate."

"Killian—"

She realizes her mistake half a second too late. Hook growls and launches himself at her so quickly that Emma has no time to think. All she can do is run. Ignoring the pain in her shoulder and the burning of her lungs, she whirls and takes off back the way she came. The void swallows the sound of their footsteps, the harsh panting of her breath fills her ears, and he is a silent fury behind her. She has no idea how close he might be, so she runs as if she has hell on her heels.

His hook snags the back of her jacket, tears into the thick fabric, and yanks. Emma falls backward. Her legs skid out from beneath her and she hits the frozen ground so hard that her tailbone probably isn't going to thank her, later. Instinct kicks in, however, and she rolls blindly away from him.

Sensing how close he still is, she lashes out wildly with her dagger, only to have him kick her wrist hard enough to send it flying out of her clumsy grip. There's a flash of metal in her peripheral vision, so she rolls again, frantic to get out of his reach—

—and plunges into the dark water.

Notes: First, I massively apologize for the lateness of this chapter. When I wrote earlier and said that the story was finished, I really wasn't lying. It is finished. However, as I was editing chapter 9, I realized that it was pretty skeletal, and that it needed some major work for it to really accomplish what I needed it to.

So I started editing. Then I started rewriting sections. What STARTED as a seven page chapter became EIGHTEEN pages. Then I realized I needed to cut it up and rearrange how the chapters flowed for it to work.

The long and short of this is, this story is now an extra chapter longer than I'd originally thought. I don't *think* you'll complain.

Anyway, the rewrites and the editing are the reason why this is later than it should have been. I'm sorry about that, though I think the story will be much better for it.