A/N: I lied to you guys before. This takes place post-Neverland, but the Missing Year never happened. When Rumple killed Pan, that was the end of it and there was no need to go back to the Enchanted Forest. It'll make sense why later.

Also, filmyfurry, this chapter is 100% for you. You have no idea how much your review on the last chapter cheered me up. Honestly, that's the nicest and longest review I've ever gotten, so thank you so so much for that! I think you'll like that a certain thief pops up in this one!

Ruby is trying to keep up, she really is, but the cut on her right calf is making it awfully difficult to maintain such a hurried pace. They need to stop, catch their breath, think for a moment. Process what had happened. She doesn't want to, god, she doesn't want to think about anything that had happened today, but good Lord if they don't just stop for one goddamn second-

"Leroy," she pants, bending over and putting her hands on her knees. "Can we… I need a minute."

The dwarf is a good ten paces in front of her, and he seems extremely reluctant to stop, but stop he does. Turning, he looks back at her, one hand holding his axe and the other cradling the baby prince against his shoulder. Snow and David's child is, unbelievably, sleeping peacefully, barely a scratch or mark on him. Leroy shifts the child up higher on his side and glances around, his face tight and suspicious. "We can't stop here, sister," he grumbles. "Can't get a good view on anything."

Ruby rights herself and limps toward him, still panting but nodding. "I know, I know, it's just- my leg is killing me. I can't run as fast you can right now."

Leroy looks down at her leg and grimaces. "I'm surprised you got this far without needing to stop." He slings his axe through his belt loop and holds out the little prince toward her. "Here, take the kid. I'll bandage your leg."

"I thought we couldn't stop here," Ruby half-teases, realizing they really can't stop so close to the prison, not with all the walkers nearby and who knows if any of the Governor's people are still out here… but she takes the baby all the same, cradling him against her chest. He gurgles in his sleep, tiny fists opening and closing again, but his eyes stay closed, blissfully unaware of the horrors that have just befallen his family. Poor little thing, Ruby thinks sadly, letting his tiny mouth suck on her knuckle. The infant prince had once been a sign of so much hope, so much joy, but now he just reminds her of his parents and his sister and his nephew and how life is so much more precious now than it had been before. All life is precious, including the tiny one she now holds in her arms. If only the little prince's life wasn't doomed to be so short.

Leroy sets his bag on the ground, crouching to search through it before he miraculously pulls out a roll of clean gauze. Ruby blinks in surprise. "How the hell do you have that?"

The dwarf shrugs. "I've had this bag packed since our first clash with ol' One Eye. Got some gauze, a few bullets, bottle of water, a knife-" He pulls an empty baby bottle out from the bottom. "Even thought of the pint-sized prince."

Ruby cocks her head at him curiously. "You've had all this ready for two months?"

Leroy stuffs the bottle back into the bag and snaps it closed. "Everyone else mighta been fooling themselves into thinking that son of a bitch wasn't coming back, but I wasn't going to get caught with my pants around my ankles."

Ruby huffs a laugh at that, starting to sway from side to side to keep the baby from waking. "Well, I wouldn't say none of us thought he wasn't coming back, but we sure were hoping."

"Hope doesn't get you far these days," Leroy mutters, unraveling the gauze in his hands. "Snow is proof of that."

Ruby pinches her eyes shut, pain lacing her features as his words cut at her skin. The thought of her friend hurts too much, too soon and she takes a steadying breath so she doesn't drop the baby from her sudden lack of strength.

"Sorry," Leroy mumbles after a moment passes. There's pain in his voice, an unspoken admittance that the thought of Snow hurts him just as much.

Ruby swallows thickly and shakes her head. They're both on edge, both raw. Filters don't really seem to fit anymore. "It's fine," she chokes, absently rubbing her palm over the prince's stomach.

Leroy chews on his lip, staring at the ground for another moment, the silence between them lengthening before he exhales and sits properly on the forest floor. "Come here," he sighs, gesturing for her to sit beside him. It's a struggle, with a baby in her arms, but she manages, stretching her injured leg out before him. He begins to gingerly dress her wound, clearing away dirt and grime with a clean swatch of his shirt before carefully and attentively wrapping the gauze.

Ruby runs her fingers through the wispy strands of the youngest (only remaining) Charming's hair and glances around as Leroy works. She guesses the air doesn't actually smell like sulfur, but the scent still fills her nostrils from the explosions and gunfire of the hour before. She had been trying to get the sick people on the bus, trying to corral as many souls as possible when the walkers had begun to infiltrate the courtyard. She's not sure when Leroy had made it to her side, but soon they were neck-deep in the undead together, swinging knives and axes at any decaying brain that lunged their way. They had been pushed back toward the administration building where the children were being quarantined when the wail of a baby had caught their ears. The poor little prince had been left on the ground in his carrier, abandoned by whoever had been carelessly entrusted with his well-being. Leroy had been the one to grab him, the one to discard of the walker trudging toward the infant and keeping him safe against his chest. How they made it out of there, with a baby nonetheless, Ruby didn't know, but somehow- by some miracle- they did. If only the others had experienced the same miracle-

"How'd you get this, anyway?" Leroy asks, drawing her out of the past and back into the here and now.

Ruby shakes her head. "A piece of debris caught me when the cellblock exploded. Another piece almost got my head, but I was able to duck in time." She winces when he pulls the gauze tight.

He doesn't apologize, just keeps wrapping until he reaches the top of her wound and ties it off, still having a decent amount of unused cloth leftover. "There," he declares. "Hopefully that'll keep you from falling apart for a little while."

Ruby rolls her eyes, but half-smiles anyway. She looks down at the prince and suddenly her vision goes blurry with tears she didn't realize were forming. The baby yawns as she sniffs and tilts her head back, blinking furiously. "How are we going to do this, Leroy?" she whispers, keeping her eyes on the leaves above them. "Just the two of us with a baby? It's nearly impossible."

Leroy huffs and stuffs the gauze back into his bag. "Never counted you as quitter, sister."

"I'm not quitting, I'm being realistic," Ruby counters. "If the lot of us couldn't make it all together, how can you possibly think just us will be able to make it?"

Leroy shrugs. "As far as I see it, there is no 'making it' and 'not making it' anymore. You keep surviving until you don't. Everyone has to die at some point; people just seem to be doing it at a much quicker rate these days."

"That's not much of a comfort," Ruby mutters, shifting her eyes down to the baby.

The dwarf exhales and unhooks his axe from his belt. He digs the tip of it into the dirt, creating a tiny trench and hill. "Well, that's not to say we have to give up. I've got you now and you've got me and we've both got the kid, so maybe, if we just keep surviving, we'll get to a point where we can live again." He goes quiet for a moment, still digging shallowly in the dirt. "We were living at the prison, not just surviving. It felt like home, like we belonged there." He pauses again. "Living is being able to just be. Surviving is different because you don't know if you'll still be the next week, next day, next hour." He looks at the young Charming and shakes his head. "He should be able to just be. We gotta get to a point where we can let him just be," Leroy sighs, eyes shifting up to meet Ruby's.

She nods, swallowing at the weight of the moment. It's not about her anymore. It's not about Leroy, either, it's about the prince, the innocent life who deserves to have whatever grim chance the world holds for him. She wonders if this is what being a parent feels like. "Okay," she breathes, nodding still minutely. "We'll keep going. For him."

Leroy returns her nod before huffing out a laugh. "Kinda makes you wish they had gotten around to naming the kid."

"Hook had wanted Little Asskicker, remember?"

"This is why everyone should just be a dwarf. Your name is given to you the moment you pick up your axe," Leroy muses, giving his weapon a good shake.

"Should we pick a name?" Ruby asks, eyebrows quirking out of uncertainty. They might be in charge of protecting the child now, but he's still Snow and David's son. Would it be wrong?

"You got one in mind?"

Ruby shakes her head. "No, not really. Snow and David shot down all the ones I liked."

"Hmm," Leroy hums, using the back end of his axe to scratch his chin. "What about-"

He's cut off by the sound of a distant scream and suddenly both he and Ruby are lurching to their feet. "What was that?" Ruby whispers, clutching the child closer to her chest.

Leroy looks around quickly before picking his axe up from where he had dropped it on the ground. "Stay here," he commands, adjusting his hat and starting off in the general direction of the scream.

"Are you crazy? We can't split up now!" Ruby protests, grabbing his bicep to stop him.

He shakes her off him and gives her a withering look. "Listen, sister, we don't know what that was and I am not having you walking into something nasty with a bad leg and a baby in your arms."

"So don't go at all! For all we know, there could be a thousand walkers over there!" Ruby insists. "It's not worth the risk."

Leroy gives her a pointed, slightly surprised look. "For all we know, that scream could have been Snow. Or Emma. Or Regina. I'm pretty sure they're worth the risk."

"But what if it's not one of them?"

The dwarf shrugs. "Still could help someone who needs it. I think that's worth it too." He reaches into his bag and pulls out his knife. "Stay here. If I'm not back in fifteen minutes, don't come looking for me," he orders, handing her the knife. He doesn't give her another chance to protest and begins to march toward the sound of the noise. Ten minutes later, he thinks maybe he should have stayed with them after all when he hears a scream that sounds unmistakably like Ruby.

Henry. Everything is Henry and nothing is Henry and Henry is everywhere and Henry is nowhere and Henry, Henry, Henry. Regina feels as if she's stumbling and tripping through the woods and she probably is, but she can't tell because her mind is so far away from anything around her because nothing around her matters and the only thing that matters is Henry and he is not around her and probably never will be again.

How can she go on without the only reason she had been pushing on in this hell of a world in the first place? She can't. She can't, not without him. He's either dead, exploded into a million pieces by the shells of the rocket launcher, or he's undead, brought back to the land of the living without being alive and she doesn't want to think about either option but she can't stop, won't stop thinking about Henry. He only lives in her memory now and she'll be damned if he'll fade from that existence as well.

She is, indeed, stumbling and tripping through the woods, though she is mostly unaware of where she is going or how she places her feet. When she had left the spot David had deemed safe enough to rest, her mind had plunged into the wallowing depths of childless despair, chased by bitter denial that this was her reality now. As they ran from the prison, she had been too worried about sprinting and stabbing and slicing their way out of certain death to think fully about the debilitating notion that Henry was gone, but the very edges of her mind had been shouting that she had lost her son. Again.

And then it had gotten quiet. There had been no more walkers or Governor minions and she had been left alone with Snow and David and suddenly she couldn't breathe. Her body had quieted and then her mind had screamed and her lungs had collapsed and the world had gone blurry. Slipping away from the Charmings had been easy. They had been so consumed by their own grief of lost children that she doubted they even gave her a second thought, though surely they had realized she was not in a stable frame of mind. She doesn't know where she is going or what she is doing but she can't stop because stopping allows the anguish crowning her heart to sink in deeper and she doesn't think she could survive pain like that.

Except she does stop because suddenly she hears twigs snapping and leaves crunching and the unmistakable gurgling moan of the undead. Whipping around, Regina sees one lone walker stumbling through the brush and when its eyes meet hers, an overwhelming urge strikes her. She has her gun, not her machine gun-she had left that back with the Charmings, useless without ammo- but her handgun still has a few rounds left in it and she reaches to pull it from her waist. She holds it up, aims to send brain matter flying, only one walker is hardly a threat these days, but she hesitates, the pitch of its gurgling increasing in intensity as it hobbles over to her. She narrows her eyes in thought and drops her gun to the forest floor beside her. She isn't going to deposit this walker so easily. She is angry. Furious at life and herself and the Governor and the hoards of the undead that had turned her life to shit. This walker is going to suffer the consequences of screwing with Regina Mills, a punishment she hadn't yet been able to dole out upon this forsaken world.

Squaring her shoulders and clenching her fists, she holds her arms out wide toward the creature, beckoning it to come for her. "Fucking try me," she baits, setting her feet as the walker quickens its lurching. It lunges and she kicks, her foot landing squarely at its gut, knocking it backwards a few paces. Oh, that felt good. That was for Henry. When the walker comes at her again, she grabs hold of an arm and twists, the sound of bones snapping incredibly satisfying. That was for Emma. With a hard yank, the arm comes free and the walker is off-kilter, stumbling as she whacks it over the head with its own detached limb. That was for Snow, and that- kicking the creature in the knees to force it to the ground- that was for David. She throws the broken arm to the side and kneels on the walker's hollowed chest, grabbing at its one remaining hand and snapping it at the elbow. She unsheaths her knife and plunges it into its shoulder, slashing across to its neck and up, toward its jaw. She yanks the blade free and sends it plummeting into the thing's face, stabbing and stabbing and that's for Hook and for Henry and for Leroy and for Ruby and for Henry and for Snow's son and for Henry and for Neal and for Henry and for Henry and for Henry. She doesn't stop until the face is only a mess of flesh and blood and she herself is covered in a fair amount of brain matter and guts.

She's breathing heavily when she finally stops, the sudden silence a stark contrast to the noise of the violent encounter that had just occurred and she supposes, in hindsight, that she's rather lucky she stopped when she did because otherwise she wouldn't have heard the second walker come up behind her just before it reaches for her and she wouldn't have turned around just in time to push it off her, her knife flying away from her in her defense. She twists, trying to stand so she can retrieve her gun from where she had dropped it earlier, but her legs get tangled in the torso and arm of the first walker and she falls back on her ass on the ground with an oof.

The second walker has righted itself by now and it lurches toward her again, causing her to scoot backwards, still in a sprawled sitting position. It falls on top of her, all biting teeth and scratching nails, and she has to fall completely on her back now as she uses both hands to try to hold it off her. Her heart is pounding, teeth clenched tight, but her mind is thinking of course this is how she goes. After feeling slightly victorious for a split second, only to realize her folly a moment later and to see death staring her in the face in the form of yellow teeth, sunken eyes, and decaying flesh.

She struggles, trying to hold off this hungry death with whatever strength she has left, but slowly its face is getting closer to hers despite her efforts and she wriggles, she writhes, she squirms, she fights against this monster trying to claim her as its own, but somewhere in the back of mind, she hears a tiny voice that whispers stop fighting, embrace it, Henry will be waiting for you. It's almost what she does, gives in to that small suicidal thought that flickers through her brain, but suddenly, a fresh coat of brain matter splatters against her right cheek and she opens her eyes fully to see an arrow sticking out of the side of the walker's head, its face now sagging against her chest. The Charmings have impeccable timing.

She takes a few deep breaths, blinking hard in an attempt to forget her life flashing before her eyes, when her brain catches up with what happened and suddenly she realizes. Neither Snow nor David had crossbows when they fled the prison. Who then-

"M'lady," an unfamiliar, accented voice addresses her.

She shoves the walker off her and scrambles to her feet, reaching instinctively for her gun at her waist only to remember stupidly she had tossed it aside. Idiot. She whips around in the direction from which the arrow and voice had come, eyes wide with uncertainty, tension flowing through her tired muscles.

She's greeted by the sight of a man standing a few feet from her, a crossbow slung over one shoulder. She's certainly never seen him before, of that she is positive. She'd definitely remember meeting someone who looked like him- all dark blonde hair, blue eyes, and dimples winking at her. He's regarding her curiously, brow furrowed slightly. She's still breathing heavily, she realizes, and she looks like hell- brain, blood, and flesh covering most of her torso and face. She's surprised he doesn't have his weapon pointed at her.

"Are you injured?" he asks, the lilt of his accent reminding her vaguely of the pirate, but different somehow. If she wasn't so on edge, she'd probably find it strangely soothing.

She doesn't answer, tries to calm her breathing instead. His apparent concern is unnerving. What's it to him if she's injured or not? People don't act this way anymore; what is wrong with this guy? He's probably crazy, she thinks, and whether or not that's a reasonable assumption, she's not willing to take the chance she's right. She glances sideways toward the general area where she dropped her gun before chancing a look at his face. His eyes are trained on the same spot. A split second passes and then they're both lunging for the gun at the same time. Regina grabs it first, but he manages to free it from her grasp and she straightens immediately, stare now fixed on her stolen weapon in his hands. He's holding it, but he's not pointing it at her which is… strange, to say the least.

"That's mine," she seethes, brow quirking dangerously. Stealing weapons is what people do these days. At least he has that part correct.

The man looks down at the gun and then back at her. "That it is," he agrees, a smirk coming to his lips. "And while I'm loathe to take it from you, I'd appreciate not having any errant holes poked through my body." He looks at her expectantly, as if he's waiting for a reply or an explanation, but she remains obstinately quiet, and if looks could kill, he'd be a dead man. "You know, a simple thank you would suffice for saving your life."

Her eyes narrow further. "I didn't need saving."

His eyebrows shoot up in mock disbelief and he gestures toward the recently disposed walker behind her. "Didn't you? Because I'm pretty sure you were about to be that son of a bitch's dinner."

She doesn't look back, doesn't dare break her gaze from this strange and oddly infuriating man or his weapons. Saving her life once doesn't mean he wouldn't be willing to take it himself. Where has her knife gotten to…

"I had the situation under control," she snaps, realizing that he was once again waiting for her to respond. What, does he want to have an actual conversation with her? Did he not get the memo that the world has ended and people don't do this stuff anymore?

He smirks again and her ire flames up higher, but she's caught off guard suddenly when he flips the gun around in his hand and holds it out toward her. He looks from the weapon to her flabbergasted expression and shakes it slightly. "Here," he insists as if he's surprised at her surprise. "Take it. You said it's yours and it is."

She doesn't need to be told twice before she grabs it out of his hand, turning it promptly around on him, finger hovering above the trigger. His expression doesn't change, merely looks from the end of the barrel to her, unphased. What is with this guy, Regina wonders. She wants a reaction, damnit. "If you're smart, you'll put the crossbow down," she warns, eyeing the weapon suspiciously.

The man glances vaguely over his shoulder. "You think I'd use this on you?" he asks, a note of incredulity to his voice. Regina's face remains stern, warning, daring him to test her. He sighs a tad bit dramatically and shrugs the crossbow off his shoulder and tosses it gently to the side. He puts his hands up casually in the air. "You don't have to be afraid of me, you know. I'm not going to hurt you."

"Who said I was afraid?" Regina murmurs dangerously, her pounding heart betraying her words. "I'm thinking you're the one who should be scared."

The man cocks his head at her, the curiosity returning to his gaze. "Are you out here by yourself?"

Well, technically, yes she is, but also technically no, she's not because Snow and David are probably not that far away, but she can't really be sure because how long had she even been walking? "Got a camp within shouting distance," she lies, finger remaining just above the trigger despite the ache growing in her arms.

The man's eyebrows quirk just slightly. "Really? And just how long has your camp been 'within shouting distance?'" he asks, sounding more curious than patronizing, but it irritates Regina all the same.

"Probably a month or so, can't really remember. You get established pretty quickly when there's a lot of you," she fibs, wishing she didn't feel as if he could see straight through her. No one gets past her walls when she builds them. Well, Henry certainly did, but-

"Well that's curious since my own camp has been around here for much longer than a month and yet we haven't crossed paths with yours until just now," the man leads, his tone shifting to slightly playful, not mocking, but definitely as if he's cottoned on to her lie. "Makes you wonder how that could be."

"We don't venture out much," Regina covers, feeling the straws she was grasping at falling away and he is smirking again, damnit, why is he always smirking?

He chuckles and the back of Regina's mind thinks it likes that particular sound, but he's a stranger who likes to make conversation in the middle of the woods and gives back weapons after stealing them and kills walkers for people he doesn't know and why hasn't she just shot him and moved on yet?

"You're a pretty good liar, you know," he tells her after his chuckling dies down. "But I'm a pretty good lie detector and I know you don't have a camp around here because my group has covered these woods countless times in the past month and we've never encountered such a settlement. So tell me, are you really out here all by yourself?"

"What's it to you?" Regina demands, a hint of indignation in her voice. Because really, it's not his problem. She's not his problem and he is most certainly not hers.

He looks surprised again, curious once more at her anger over his concern. "Because it's not safe to be alone anymore. No one can make it on their own out here. And if you truly are by yourself, I was going to ask if you'd like to come back to my camp with me," he explains, the sincerity in his voice undeniable.

Well that certainly catches her off-guard, but then again, everything about this guy is catching her off-guard. "And just why do you think I'd want to go anywhere with you?" she asks, subconsciously lowering her gun between them.

He shrugs. "Mutual want for you to stay alive?"

She scoffs at that, a ghost of a smile pulling at her lips. "I don't need you to keep me alive."

"Yes, as I see you were doing just fine on your own," he replies, one eyebrow raising as he glances again toward the walker his arrow is currently still sticking out of.

"Isolated incident. Won't happen again," she answers stiffly.

"Oh, of that I'm certain," he agrees, his tone unreadable. He looks her up and down and she suddenly is hyperaware of the blood and guts drying on her torso and arms. He sticks his hand out between them suddenly, palm open toward her. "Name's Robin, by the way."

She looks at his hand as if it belonged to a walker. He wants a handshake. It's the goddamn apocalypse and he wants a flipping handshake. He also, apparently, wants her name and she'll be damned if she ever-

"Regina!"

Snow should be given an award for her impeccable timing, Regina thinks angrily, gritting her teeth at the sound of her stepdaughter's approaching footsteps. She glares at Robin's triumphant look.

"Regina!" Snow says again breathlessly, coming up beside her and placing a hand on Regina's bicep. "Are you alright? David and I were so wor-"

"I'm fine, clearly," she snaps, shoving her gun into her waistband.

Snow gives her a once-over, regarding the state of her clothing and limbs before turning her attention to the man standing in front of them. "Who's this?" she asks, caution and tension entering her voice.

The man smiles- goddamn dimples- and extends his hand toward Snow, apparently assuming she'll be more willing to engage in such pleasantries than her stepmother. "Robin Locksley at your service."

Snow looks from his hand to Regina's annoyed expression before cautiously extending her own hand. "Mary Margaret… Nolan," she greets, a smile suddenly blossoming on her face. The use of her alias reminds Regina that they must be careful now. They aren't with their people anymore. "Did you have a hand in taking down these two suckers?" Snow asks, gesturing toward the disposed walkers behind them.

"Well, I did handle the one, however, Regina-" he smirks at the use of her name, "-took out the first one by herself," Robin explains, reaching down to pick up his crossbow from where Regina had made him drop it earlier. His action makes Regina's fingers twitch instinctively toward her own weapon, but she forces herself to stop. He hasn't done anything to warrant her suspicion, she thinks begrudgingly. He's annoying, that's for sure, but so far not dangerous.

"This is why you shouldn't venture out without letting me or David know," Snow admonishes, irritating Regina even more.

"Of course, Mom, how incredibly thoughtless of me," she seethes, patience and temper just about spent for the day. "Maybe next time you can come with me and we can both get eaten by walkers."

Snow gives her a look, one that says now is not the time to behaving like a petulant child, but damn it, today has been just about the longest and worst of her life. Being pleasant isn't high on her list of priorities anymore.
Snow looks back to Robin and offers an apologetic smile. "Thank you for helping," she says graciously, earning an indignant eye roll and scoff from Regina.

"It was no problem," Robin assures with a slight nod. He looks from one woman to the other. "So it's just you two, then? Well, you two and this David fellow?"

"My husband," Snow explains. Her demeanor significantly changes as she swallows. She blinks rapidly, eyes falling to the ground. "And yes, it's just the three of us. Now, anyway. There… there were more of us."

Regina closes her own eyes and turns her head away, the reminder of her loss feeling like a punch in the gut. She had forgotten, for a moment, but just a moment, that Henry was gone and how could she ever forget her sweet boy? How could she ever stop thinking about him? The thought makes her want to vomit.

Robin exhales heavily. "I'm terribly sorry," he sympathizes and he sounds incredibly genuine, empathetic. "For whatever losses you suffered, I gather, quite recently."

"Just this morning," Snow whispers, her voice thick with emotion. She sniffs and jerks her head, either to move her hair out of the way or shake away tears. "There had been about forty of us. But we were attacked by another group and…" She shakes her head. "It's just the three of us now."

"My condolences," Robin apologizes again. "I know the pain of experiencing such a loss. There are no words to make it better." Snow shakes her head in agreement and a silence settles over the trio for a moment before Robin speaks again.

"Seeing as it is just the three of you, I was just telling Regina that my camp is less than a mile from here. You'd be more than welcome there."

Snow opens her mouth in surprise as if she was going to speak before looking toward Regina. "Oh, well, um, that's very kind of you, but I'm not entirely sure that's a good idea."

"Well, at least we agree on that," Regina snips, crossing her arms.

"I'm not asking you to join us, but night will be falling soon and pardon me for saying so, but you don't seem too prepared to weather it," Robin explains. "We have food and fire and space for you to sleep. I'm sure everyone would be most welcoming."

Snow looks at Regina again, a tentative smile on her face. "Well, that does sound nice…"

Regina whips her head around to look at her stepdaughter. "You want to go with a complete stranger into the woods to a place that might not actually exist? Did the cellblock exploding rattle your brain?"

"Regina, I don't think we have much of a choice at this point," Snow counters. "Robin is right, we are completely unprepared for the night. Finding numbers might be our best chance."

"And like I said, staying the night doesn't mean you have to stay forever. Just take the night. Be safe, get some well-needed rest and food in your stomachs and then come morning, if you still wish to leave, no one will stop you," Robin assures with a nonchalant shrug.

Snow chews her lip in thought and Regina rolls her eyes with a grumble. They are woefully unprepared for the terrors of the night, but why, why did their saving grace have to come in the form of blue eyes and dimples? And annoying smirks on top of it all. She shoots Robin a glare for good measure because she knows Snow is a second away from agreeing and he grins in response, victory sparkling in his eyes. So that is how she ends up trekking through the woods with her stepdaughter, stepson-in-law, and a complete stranger, heading toward the unknown to spend the night when all she really wants to do is lie down right there on the forest floor and let the walkers take her to Henry.

Machine gun, riot gear, machete. Every single weapon and defense mechanism Hook could round up from whatever was abandoned in the cellblock now covers his person. He's going to need all of it if he's to make it out of this prison alive with all those walkers waiting just outside. He shrugs his backpack on, grunting slightly at the added weight pulling on his sore muscles and wishes, not for the first time, that he could just lay down and sleep for hours. But he can't, not when Emma and Henry and the Charmings and everyone else could still be alive somewhere. They could still be alive now, but in a few hours they might not be so there is no time for luxuries such as sleeping.

He closes the cell door behind himself out of habit, ready to face the corpses waiting for him beyond the walls, but the sound of glass clicking with metal stops him. He looks down by his foot and sees a bottle lulling back and forth by the corner of the door. The bottle of rum David had snagged for him while on a run a few weeks back. It's still half-full. He hadn't drunk it with as much gusto has he had in the past. Going so long without alcohol had significantly decreased his tolerance for the stuff and being drunk these days doesn't really bode too well for survival. He's about to leave it, not really having a use for the mind-numbing swill anymore, but then an idea strikes him and he picks the bottle up, notching it in a pocket on his backpack.

Right, then. To outside and hopefully, not entirely certain death. He climbs the steps to the bridge door and pulls the cover on his helmet down. He probably looks ridiculous, but that doesn't exactly matter right now. One final, steeling deep breath and then he's pushing open the door, blinking in the sunlight and gritting his teeth against the unpleasant sounds now assaulting his ears. Stepping out onto the broken concrete bridge that once connected this cellblock with the administration building, his appearance does not go unnoticed and soon a dozen walkers are reaching up for him, snarling and snapping from below the ledge. Well, here goes nothing.

He jumps down into the middle of the group, his limbs and chest protected by the padding of the riot gear, but he can feel the undead fingers scratching and pulling against his armor. He elbows and shoves and knees his way forward, slowly and with the added weight of corpses hanging on to his backpack. One walker in particular gets right in his face, hanging skin and sunken eyes filling Hook's vision and blocking his view until he takes his machete and shoves it upward through its neck out the back of its head. He pushes the body of the deposited walker to the side, yanking his knife free and pushing the body into several other walkers, clearing a path and allowing him to break free from the pack.

Sprinting forward, he leaves the group behind to stagger after him and he can see the gate he needs to run through, just past the abandoned tank and a handful of walkers feasting on what Hook hopes to be the bodies of the Governor's forces. He's home free, he thinks, sprinting toward the fence. Once he gets through that gate, he just needs to navigate the field without running into a group of walkers and then he'll be able to make it to the cover of the woods.

He knifes one walker coming up on his left and yanks his machete free, the red of the blood mixing with a shock of orange just a few yards away. Wild orange curls, a pale face, light blue shirt, and a pair of very alive lungs sit behind the locked fence of the garden. So one of the Governor's people survived the battle. At least, he thinks it's one of the Governor's people as he's never seen her before, but he can't really see her face. She's sitting, hugging her knees to her chest, gun held loosely in hand and her eyes are blank, cast downward. She looks shellshocked. Don't worry about her, she's not your concern, she was with that asshole, he thinks as he turns to move past the garden and leave the fleeting thought of her behind.

We can all come back from this. We are not too far gone.

Emma's words suddenly shout in his mind and fuck, why does she have to remind him of his conscience even when she's not here? He can't go back for that girl, he has to keep moving, he needs to find Emma…

Then he's turning and climbing the three steps to the garden and throwing open the fence and yanking the gun easily from her hand. Damn it, Swan, he curses as he discharges the mag from the handgun and raises an eyebrow when he sees it's fully loaded.

"It's full," he says, looking down at the girl with an air of authority and suspicion. "You didn't fire a shot."

She shakes her head, keeping eyes focused on the ground in front of her. She looks to be maybe nineteen, twenty? Her face is pale and empty, eyes glassed over. "I… I couldn't," she murmurs, voice barely audible above the growing gurgle of the mass of walkers coming in their direction. They're catching up to him, he needs to get out of here.

If she didn't fire a shot, then she isn't technically directly responsible for the blood of any of his friends or Emma and she seems remorseful enough and he really does need to get a move on… "Alright. Come on," he says, holding out the gun for her to take.

She looks up at him for the first time, brow furrowed and blue eyes wide in confusion. "But I… I was with them." He registers her accent for the first time and the back of his mind places it in one of those lands across the sea Emma had told him about. Scotland, was it? That's unimportant, this is all unimportant.

Hook chews his lip in order to keep his patience. "Yeah. Yeah, you were, but unless you want to sit here and just wait for death to meet you at this fence, then you'll probably want to come with me."

She looks from her gun in his hand to his face before tentatively reaching out and taking the weapon back.

"Good lass. Now, you need to do exactly as I say, got it?" Hook orders, reaching around to pull the bottle of rum from the pocket in his backpack. The girl nods as she stands, brushing dirt from her jeans. "Right. Rip me a piece of your shirt."

The girl cocks an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

Hook uses all his willpower to refrain from rolling his eyes. "I need a bit of fabric and I can't exactly reach my shirt under all this gear. So rip me the hem of yours." His logic apparently makes sense because she obeys (a little too slowly for Hook's liking, the group of walkers is only a few yards from their perch by now) and he stuffs the strip of fabric into the half-full bottle of rum, letting a tail stick out the neck. He reaches in his pocket and finds the lighter he had taken from Leroy's cell.

"Get ready," he instructs, flicking open the lighter and setting flame to the end of the piece of fabric. He steps back with his right foot and then hurls the bottle over top of the fence and right through the broken windshield of an abandoned car a few yards away. As soon as the main cabin of the car ignites, the walkers filling their nearby surroundings start lurching toward it, all interest in the breathing pair forgotten.

Hook throws open the gate and runs down the steps, hearing the girl's footsteps behind him. He deposits a walker a few feet in front of them and hears the bang of the girl's gun as she does the same to a biter coming up beside them. Well, at least she's a decent shot, he thinks as they make a break for the open gate leading to the field. They each take care of another walker on the way and then they run toward the cover of the woods, keeping the road to their left as they go.

They're going blind, he realizes, as they stumble through the brush. He has absolutely no idea where Emma could be or even in which direction she might have gone. There was the bus, he remembers, but Emma had been in the cellblock during the explosion and surely she hadn't made it to the bus before it left? She'd stick close to the road, he thinks. Not right near it because then she'd be a walking target, but close enough that she'd be able to keep her bearings and circle back to the prison if she needed to. So that's a plan, at least, he thinks, nearly tripping over a root in his haste.

"Whoa, careful," the girl says, reaching a hand out and grabbing his bicep to keep him upright.

The world spins for a moment and he pinches his eyes closed to regain his balance. You nearly just died this morning from that bloody sickness, he reminds himself. This is the first time he's been back on his feet in three days. It'd probably be wise to take it easy, he thinks. But Emma-

"You alright?" the girl asks, out of breath and panting as they stop for a moment after his stumble. "You look right pale and shaky."

He swallows, his mouth suddenly like sandpaper. "Getting over a cold," he dismisses, taking a deep breath, trying to find some strength from the fresh air in his lungs.

"We can rest for a second if ya need to," she suggests, looking around to see if any walkers had followed from their prison break.

"No… no we gotta keep moving," he insists, turning to keep going in the direction they had been headed, along the road.

"Why? There aren't any biters about, we can take a breather for a few minutes," the girl argues, belting her gun in her waistband.

A few minutes? No, they don't have a few minutes, they need to keep going, Emma- well, how the hell would she know about Emma? She wouldn't, he supposes and takes a breath to keep his head straight. He needs to hold it together, even as the edges of his vision start to swirl again. "We have to keep going. I have to keep going," he says, bracing a hand on the trunk of a tree nearby to keep himself from swaying. "I need to find Emma."

"Who's Emma?" she asks, tossing her wild curls over her shoulder.

Flashes of blonde hair and bright smiles and melodic laughter run through his mind and he thinks of her sharp wit and clever mind and her unfailing faith in him. Her knack for leading and her care for others and her selflessness all come to mind as ways to answer what should be an easy question- who's Emma? "Everything," he answers, voice soft and slightly choked. "She's everything."

A look of understanding comes across the girl's face and she smiles. "Well then, by all means, let's find the lass," she insists, pulling her gun free again. "That is, if you really feel if you can. It'd be no use to try and find her only to die along the way because you're not one hundred percent."

"No, no, I'm-"

The sound of gurgling cuts him off and he drops his hand from the tree, pulling his gun to the ready. They both turn and see a few walkers emerging from the depths of the woods, stumbling toward them. "It's only a few," Hook reasons, lowering his gun. "Save your bullets." He reaches for the machete at his belt and steps toward the closest corpse. Normally, one walker would pose no challenge, but his balance is off and his vision hasn't stopped swirling yet and so his swing misses, landing in the thing's shoulder instead of its skull. Hook tries again, swings again, and manages to hit the mark, but then he's seeing black dots dance across his vision and a pounding erupts behind his right eye. Another walker comes up beside him and he goes for its head out of instinct, but hits its neck and then it falls to the ground, the redhead girl standing behind it, bloody knife in hand.

"You are not well," she tells him, stepping over the deposited walker to steady him just as he sways backward against a tree.

They're at the side of the road now- how the bloody hell did that happen? The walkers must've pushed them back and he hadn't noticed, he reasons somewhere in his mind- but that doesn't matter.

"I'm fine," he manages, but when did the sky turn green and did the girl always have six eyes? Emma doesn't have six eyes, right? Or maybe she does, he can't really remember because all of a sudden the pounding in his head and the nausea swirling in his stomach are the only things he can focus on and he wonders if the ground has always been this hard as he collapses, head meeting asphalt on the edge of the road. His eyes close as unconsciousness takes over, blocking out the swirling world around him. He didn't know before then that losing consciousness sounds an awful lot like squealing brakes.

I'd love to hear what you guys think! Thanks so much for reading!