Busy with work, hence the lack of regular chapter postings, so now I'm going to post three at once again ;) enjoy!
Killian sighed and scratched the back of his head as he waited for Emma to finish changing. Wolfgang and Clarissa had done it reasonably fast, but Emma had not been too happy about shedding her red leather jacket, or her trousers for that matter.
"Come on, Swan", he called. "Let's get a look."
Emma grunted and walked out from behind the bushes the girls had used for cover, trying to get the heavy cloak into a good position. However, Killian found that his eyes were drawn to something entirely different; the corset.
"Oh", he said and cleared his throat, forcing his gaze up into her face, "well, now that's much better."
"Emma, you look perfect", Clarissa complimented. "Exactly like you should look here."
"Is this really necessary?" Emma asked and pleadingly looked at Killian. He swallowed and tried to find his voice again.
"What would you have done if Regina had spotted you back there?" Wolfgang answered instead.
"My guess; run", Emma replied and put on a pair of old, elbow-high gloves.
"And even if you had, she'd seen you", Wolfgang responded.
"Exactly", Killian said, finding his voice again but also struggling with keeping his gaze at her face and not at what the dress and the corset now showed off, "and she might have remembered you when you first came to Storybrooke."
Emma huffed.
"You think she'd remember a glimpse of a face thirty years from now?"
"The point is to minimize you making a lasting impression", Killian replied, while silently noting that this woman was doing quite the opposite to him. "Sadly, red leather jackets don't come into vogue here. Ever."
"Apparently, however, black leather coats do", Clarissa mused. Emma smirked in amusement, then grimaced and tried to make the corset a bit more comfortable.
"The only lasting impression I'm concerned about right now is what this corset is making on my spleen."
"Your discomfort is a cross I'm willing to bear", Killian said, then quickly forced his eyes up from her breasts and gave her an embarrassed smile. Emma rolled her eyes at him, but did not seem to be that annoyed with the fact that he enjoyed her new clothing style.
"Nothing compared to what might happen if we affect the timeline", Wolfgang said.
"Which means proceeding with caution", Clarissa continued, "and lots of it."
Killian nodded in agreement and walked forward, gently pulling up the hood of Emma's cloak to conceal her appearance even more.
"You're not from a world of magic", he told her, "I am. Even the smallest of changes could have catastrophic consequences. Things must happen as they always did."
Emma sighed and nodded.
"Right. Do you know the way to Rumplestiltskin's castle?"
"As a matter of fact, I do", Killian said with a smile. "Let's go."
They had walked for a few hours when they came upon a fallen tree on the road. In the same moment they heard the familiar sound of approaching horses; hooves hammering the ground and the sound of a carriage rolling towards them.
"Could be the Queen again", Hook said and pulled them aside. They hid as close to the road as they dared to, cowering behind some stubs and bushes. The sound of the approaching horses and carriage came closer until it finally came into view.
It was not the Queen's carriage or the Queen's knights, however. These knights wore silver armour and clothes, along with white cloaks. They all rode white horses and the carriage they were escorting was white with golden details. On the carriage's door was a painted emblem; golden roses on a white shield. The lead knight called out to signal a stop when they approached the fallen tree. The door on the other side of the carriage opened, but it was so far impossible for the watchers to tell who it was that had appeared as they could only see the person's shoes beneath the carriage.
"My lord", the lead knight called back. The feet behind the carriage moved forward.
"Worry not", a familiar voice called, most likely to someone still sitting inside the carriage. "It's but a fallen tree."
The owner of the voice appeared and Emma's jaw dropped. The man was in his twenties and dressed in a princely attire, with a sword hanging from his hip.
"Is that..." Emma begun.
"Your father", Hook agreed. "We should go."
Emma did not move; she was watching Prince Charming as he strode up to the tree blocking the road with a gleeful smile on her face. Then, slowly, she turned and looked up into the trees around them, smiling even wider when she spotted the cloaked figure on a sturdy branch half-way up a pine. Snow White.
This was the moment that Henry had been reading about at Granny's; this was when her parents first met.
Emma turned back towards the road, looking very much like a kid on Christmas day who had received the greatest gift of all from Santa.
Snap.
The branch sticking out of the old, murky stump, which she had used as leverage when turning to spot Snow White, broke beneath her hand. She quickly looked up at the bandit in the tree, who in turn now had spotted them. She moved to take cover, but up in a tree that is a difficult thing to do, considering you have a very limited area to move on. This caused her to drop back and fall down on the forest floor. Emma's eyes widened and she quickly looked back at the knights on the road. Prince Charming was studying the tree intently.
"Look at these markings", he told the lead knight. "This tree didn't fall; it's been cut. It's an ambush."
He and the other knights quickly drew their swords, facing out towards the woods.
"Get this log moved, now!" he ordered as he hurried back towards the carriage. Emma glanced back and saw how Snow White fled among the trees; once the knights had been alerted of the purpose of the log there was nothing she could do.
"You almost gave me a heart attack", a female voice said from inside the carriage.
"The tree was cut", Prince Charming's voice responded. "It was planned; someone wanted to rob us."
"Who would dare attack a royal carriage?" the female voice asked. Charming's answer was too quiet to hear, but they could all see his boots disappear inside the carriage just as the knights finished pushing the log aside.
As the carriage slowly disappeared down the road, Hook and Wolfgang walked out of their hiding place. Clarissa rose as well, but turned when she saw that Emma was still seated.
"What's wrong?" she asked. The blonde looked up.
"You know that thing about small changes having consequences?"
"Yeah, what about it?" Clarissa asked. "We didn't interfere here, did we?"
"You didn't", Emma replied and rose. "I did."
"What?"
They walked out to the road and joined up with Wolfgang and Hook.
"What did you do?" Clarissa asked, alerting the two guys that something was wrong.
"That bandit, up in the tree?" Emma said, nodding at the bandit's old hiding place. "That was Snow White."
"Wait", Wolfgang said, frowning slightly, "if that was your father out on the road, and your mother up in the tree, then..."
Emma nodded.
"This was the moment when my parents first met. And because of me, they now didn't."
"But..."
Clarissa did not have time to finish her sentence before both she and Wolfgang vanished into thin air.
"We're in trouble, aren't we?" Emma said with a grimace.
"You have no idea", Hook replied.