The first thing Killian becomes aware of is Emma's voice. Even though he cannot make out the words, she sounds panicked and he wants nothing more than to comfort her. But everything is black and he can't find her.
The second thing Killian becomes aware of is a pounding headache the likes of which he has never experienced before. Well, maybe that one time in Arendelle when Long John insinuated that he could drink him under the table.
The third thing he becomes aware of is the iron taste of blood in his mouth. The fog in his head clears a little and he starts to make out some of Emma's words.
"Killian. Wake up. Please, wake up. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Killian, please." She's definitely panicked now and he wants to reach out and soothe her, but he's not sure he can. He opts for something easier and tries to open his eyes.
He's greeted with a blurry vision of Emma leaning above him, filling his entire field of vision. Relief flashes over her features.
"Killian! Thank God. Can you hear me?"
He groans and tries to lift his head, which results in the pain increasing tenfold.
"Ow", he says and carefully puts his head back down and closes his eyes again. He notices for the first time that Emma's hand is on his face, her thumb slowly stroking over his cheek. It feels nice. When the pain in his head has thundered down to a bearable level, he opens his eyes once more, to find Emma still hovering anxiously above him.
He reaches out his hand to touch his forehead because there's something wet there. He brings his hand in front of his eyes and stares at it in confusion. He thought it was blood, but it's colourless. He looks up and realizes that it's a tear drop. Emma is crying.
Things become sharper around the edges again and he lifts up his hand to stroke a tear drop on her cheek away with his thumb. Emma is crying.
She makes a relieved half-sob half-chuckle sound at his gesture, then carefully helps him to sit up and lean against the wall. His head protests against the movement but he ignores it. There's still the matter of the strange taste in his mouth. He brings his hand to his lips, touching the side of his index finger to his tongue. Much like he expected, it comes away bloody. Emma stares at it, her eyes widening in shock.
"Hey", he croaks, his voice a little hoarse. Emma doesn't react but continues to stare at the small spot of blood on his hand. He moves his hand to her face again and gently lifts up her chin, so that their eyes meet.
"It's fine, l- love. I think I just bit my tongue on the way down. N- Nothing to worry about. I'm fine." And he means it. He's fine. Apart from the pounding headache and the feeling that he might throw up if he tried to stand, he's just dandy.
Emma scrutinizes him, her gaze flitting over his body as if to check for any other hidden injuries. He lifts up his hooked left arm. "Well, apart from the missing hand, but that could be a pre-existing condition." It's a poor attempt at humour, but he is rewarded with another teary half-chuckle from Emma.
"Hey", he says again, softly, moving his hand from her face down to her neck, drawing her closer, inviting her to rest her head on his shoulder. She follows easily, her head a warm and solid weight on his shoulder. Her arms sneak around him, enveloping him in a tight embrace. She's practically sitting in his lap at this point. He draws his arms around her as well. He can feel the tension running through her, in spite of everything, she's still fighting to contain her emotions.
"Hey", he whispers a third time, unsure what else to say.
Emma draws in a shuddering breath. "I thought I'd lost you. I'm sorry. I love you." The last words are barely audible, mumbled into his neck. He might suspect that he imagined them, were it not for the thunderous noise following the declaration. It's so loud that for a moment he thinks the house will come down around them, but then there's silence once more.
The first thing they do, after they've confirmed that the barrier is indeed down, is to call Henry. The second call goes to Emma's parents. They have a heartfelt reunion in front of the house, because both of them needed some fresh air, badly. Emma is adamant about carting him off to the hospital to have him checked out and the whole party insists on coming along. Whale raises an eyebrow at the group of four people accompanying one patient but doesn't comment.
Killian is diagnosed with a mild concussion. Whale tells him with a humourless grin that he really should cut down on getting knocked unconscious in the future if he doesn't want to risk permanent damage. Killian thanks him for his sound medial advice, sarcasm oozing from every word. As if it were his fault that people keep knocking him out.
After Whale makes his exit, grumbling something unintelligible, Emma enters the hospital room, alone, looking chagrined. She's much more composed. Her slightly puffy eyes are the only give-away of her emotional state. She takes a deep breath as if to brace herself for what comes next.
"I'm really sorry about what happened earlier. I hurt you and it could have ended far worse than it did. We got lucky. I lost control and as much as I'd like to say it's never going to happen again, that's not a promise I can make-"
"Emma", he interrupts, not liking at all where this is going. A bad feeling settles in his stomach. He jumps up from the bed he was sitting on. Too quickly, as it turns out, because he suddenly feels dizzy and has to take a moment to collect himself.
"This has brought home to me again how dangerous magic really is. I can't risk hurting somebody I love ever again. Outside of the town line there's no magic and that's where I need to be, for everybody's safety."
He takes a step towards her and she takes a step backwards. He looks at her helplessly. "Emma, please, listen to me-"
"But first I'm going to find this spellcaster and end her reign over this town." Her tone is icy. He can literally see her demeanour change before his eyes, her shoulders square up, her stance changes and the fire returns to her eyes. It's not directed at him, but it's a little scary nonetheless. She looked guilty and slightly sad a moment ago, but now she's back to the safer territory of anger-fuelled action.
He sighs. "Let me at least come with you. That woman is dangerous."
Emma shakes her head vehemently. "You need to rest. I'll take my parents as back-up."
"How do you even plan to find her? She's eluded us so far."
"I'll figure something out. This ends today." There's steel in her voice and body language he's come to know very well. It's part of what he loves about her, her will, her strength, her unbreakable spirit. Although he may sometimes wish for it to be just a tiny bit bendable.
She turns around and storms out of the room. Killian stares after her, unsure if they again took one step forward just to take two steps back, I can't risk hurting somebody I love ever again replaying in his head.
Regina leans over her desk, glaring at the stack of paperwork in front of her. She's pretty sure by now that 'world without magic' is a misnomer. There's some dark magic at work here, creating a never-ending stack of papers for her to look at and mindless problems demanding her attention. How did this even happen? She created this town, for crying out loud. She's pretty sure the dark curse didn't include any mention of mind-numbingly boring bureaucracy.
Emma bursts through the door to her office, radiating righteous anger, and Regina immediately regrets wishing for a distraction from her current task. This is not what she had in mind.
"It's good to see you out and about", she greets the saviour, only the slightest hint of sarcasm in her voice. She is, indeed, happy that Emma made it out of the house, but she would have preferred if one of the countless things she had tried during the last days had freed her. All that work was for nothing now. And who knows, probably Emma and her parents think that she didn't actually try.
"I need your help." Emma has that tone in her voice that promises bad things to come for anybody standing in her way. Regina raises an eyebrow, unimpressed by her shenanigans.
"The time for games is over. I need to locate this spellcaster." The set of her jaw alone tells Regina that Emma will not be argued with. Luckily, she can actually be of assistance in this case.
"I think I've found something that can help you. It's a type of locator spell used to find magical beings. All you have to do is focus on the person you want to find and the feelings they evoke in you. Naturally, this kind of touchy-feely spell can only be cast by a wielder of light magic, which is why I needed to wait for you before trying it out."
"Let's do it", Emma agrees eagerly.
"Well, it's not that easy-"
"Let me guess", Emma interrupts her, exasperated, "We need some weird ingredient we don't have, like dragon tears or gorilla feathers."
Regina narrows her eyes, her train of thought momentarily derailed. "Gorillas don't have feathers."
"Exactly."
Regina sighs, already reconsidering her earlier assessment that she's happy that Emma has left her confinement. "Right. The spell doesn't require any ingredients as such. It requires the caster to relinquish all negative emotion for the span of a day."
"What?", Emma says, sounding genuinely shocked, "What kind of a price is that?"
"Indeed. Light magic. It's revolting", Regina agrees.
"So, what? This can help me find her, but when I do I'll just-", Emma's face scrunches up adorably as a look of disgust passes over it, "want to give her a hug?"
Regina raises an eyebrow, her tone just a little gleeful. "That's what you get when you dabble in light magic, I'm afraid."
Emma glares at her in response. "Fine. Let's do it. David and Mary Margaret will just have to be the ones to take her down."
A short phone call later, they're all assembled in Regina's office. All, except for Hook, who is still in the hospital, and Henry, who decided to stay with him. Emma isn't sure how she feels about that. There are other things she needs to focus on, anyway. First and foremost, this locator spell that will apparently turn her into a happy-go-lucky version of herself. She's definitely having second thoughts about that.
Regina walked her through the motions of the spell and it seems easy enough. The main part is focussing on the way the person you are seeking makes you feel at the moment. She has some pretty strong feelings in regards to that damnable woman, so that shouldn't be a problem. She's more concerned about what will happen afterwards. Will she still be herself? Will she act as if under the influence of a drug? Will she tell people things she should better keep to herself? What if the effects don't disappear after a day as suggested by Regina's research?
She takes a deep breath and decides to go through with it anyway. That woman has wreaked enough havoc as it is, there is no telling what she will come up with next. She has to be stopped. Emma turns to Mary Margaret, who has regarded her with worried eyes ever since she laid out her plan.
"Listen, I understand completely if you don't want to be involved in this, considering your -um- condition." There's another thing she hasn't given much thought to. She's going to be a big sister. "David and I have this under control." David nods, but Mary Margaret just glares the both of them down.
"Nonsense. You need our help and we will be there for you. Always. Both of us." David opens his mouth as if to argue, but Mary Margaret narrows her eyes and he wisely shuts it again.
Mary Margaret's expression turns soft as she addresses Emma. "You don't have to do this, you know. We will find another way. There's no telling what this spell will do to you."
Emma nods. She isn't very convinced herself either, but she doesn't really see an alternative. "We've been trying to find her by other means for days and what do we have to show for it? No, I need to do this. It'll be fine. I'll be fine.
She turns to Regina, resolve masking her doubts. "Let's do this." Regina nods once in response, making a hand movement indicating get on with it, then.
Emma closes her eyes as instructed and focusses. She thinks about how happy she was under the spell. How she had everything, everything she could ever have wished for. And how it had all been taken away from her again, as usual. She focusses on the betrayal she felt, the anger, the hurt. She thinks about how she wants nothing more than to find that woman and yell to her face until she feels better.
She opens her eyes again, a smile on her face. "I know exactly where she is." She looks at the others, triumph in her eyes. Mary Margaret steps forward hesitantly.
"How do feel, Emma?"
Emma gives her a dazzling smile. "Never been better." She steps forward and envelops Mary Margaret in a tight embrace. After a moment, she steps back again and looks at her mother, adoration in her eyes. "I love you, mom", she states as if this is something she tells her every day, then turns around and walks out of Regina's office.
Mary Margaret just stands there, blinking. Regina walks past her, smirking. "Well, this should be interesting to watch." She follows Emma out the door, the Charmings close on her heels.