In his pawn shop, Gold approaches the magic box that contains the hat and conjures the sorcerer's hat with the use of his dagger.
Emma arrives at Granny's diner with Henry and Elsa. Now, Elsa is wearing modern clothing: her hair is straight and unbraided, and she has on a blue leather jacket, a light blue shirt, jeans, and blue boots. (Inspired by Georgina Haig's character's outfit in Fringe)
Emma looks at Elsa, "Hey kid, think anyone's going to recognize her?" Henry looks at Elsa as well, "Well, they're all looking for someone out of the ordinary, right? Well now, she's just ordinary." Elsa laughs, and they make their way into the diner where Ruby is working and greets the group.
"Wow, Elsa, nice outfit. You look completely ordinary." She says, admiring her outfit. Ruby tells Emma that Hook is over there, and sees Hook throwing some darts on the dartboard and goes over to him. She leaves Elsa with Henry and Ruby, who introduces her to the many best dishes in the diner. Emma goes over to Hook and she asks him out on a date. Hook makes Emma promise to let him plan the date. She leaves and on the way to her car, she notices a puddle underneath it that was not there when she entered.
Gold arrives at his shop and finds Hook inside. The pirate tells him that he wants to make a deal. If Gold refuses, Hook threatens to reveal the truth about the Dark One's dagger to Belle. Curious, Gold asks what Hook wants from him. Hook responds, "My hand—the one you took from me. Do you have it?"
"If I do, but the most important question is why?" Gold wonders. Hook tells him that he has a date with Emma, and if things go well on the date, he wants to use both his hands. Gold goes to the back room and returns with a jar containing Hook's hand seconds later.
Gold cautions Hook regarding the consequences of rejoining his hand: "This hand has the potential to unleash your darkest traits, as it was once part of the devious and self-serving pirate you used to be. If I attach it back to your body, we can't predict the effect it may have on you."
The warning doesn't faze the pirate, and he tells the Dark One that nothing will turn him back to that pirate again. "Now give me my hand, or Belle finds out exactly who she's married to, because unlike me...You haven't changed one bit...Crocodile." Gold waves his hand around the jar and attaches the hand back to the pirate. The pirate leaves the pawn shop as Gold whispers, "Don't say I didn't warn you, Captain."
Later at night, David and Mary Margaret are helping Elsa at their apartment by going through books to see if Anna was ever in Storybrooke. Ruby is also in the apartment helping them. Emma exits a room and goes to them, asking for their opinion on the dress she is wearing for her date with Hook, and all three give their opinions on it. Hook arrives and presents Emma with a red rose from his newly restored hand. Emma is impressed by Hook's dating clothing. Hook tells Emma to refer to him as Killian. Emma and Hook leave the apartment and eat at a restaurant. They are noticed by Will Scarlet, who tries to exit without them noticing but accidentally knocks wine onto Emma's lap. Hook grabs Will and tells him to apologize to Emma in a menacing voice. When Emma realizes he is from the ice cream shop, Will runs from the couple. Hook looks at his hand and begins to wonder about Gold's warning.
Regina and Henry go through Regina's potion stores in her vault and cannot find anything that will unfreeze Marian. Henry theorizes that Robin Hood is still in love with Regina because true love's kiss did not unfreeze her. Regina says that this time, Henry may be too young to fully understand everything.
Hook walks Emma home, and at the door to the loft, they share a kiss after Emma suggests coming inside and having coffee with her parents. During the kiss Hook notices his left hand again acting aggressively. Emma walks inside and has a moment when she seems to realize Hook's hand's actions, but she shrugs it off and has a brief conversation with her parents. Hook runs into a drunk Will Scarlet trying to break into the library and punches him in the face when Will refuses to stop. Hook again is put off by his hand controlling his actions and tells Will that if he informs anyone of what happened, he will be a dead man.
As Gold gets ready to drive home with flowers, Hook enters through the passenger side and demands that Gold replace his hand with the hook. Gold declines, mentioning that Hook should have listened to his warnings. Hook threatens to tell Belle about the dagger, but Gold reveals that he has switched the daggers and that Belle possesses the true dagger. Gold states he will exchange his hand for the hook once Hook completes a task for him. He declines to specify a date or time, and Hook claims he can find a way to remove it without using magic.
"I'm afraid that's easier said than done. You see, my magic put that hand on, and only my magic can take it off." Gold explained. Enraged, Hook thrusts the hook into Gold's chest. Gold is unharmed, and is unfazed stating he would have thought Hook would have learned the first time he tried to kill Rumplestiltskin. Hook states that it wasn't him that did that.
"You're losing control, dearie. Next time, you might do something to someone who can't be so easily fixed."
Hook states he will do whatever it takes and Gold says he loves it when people say that. He tells Hook to meet him on the docks in the morning.
The next morning, Gold finds Hook sleeping on the docks and wakes him. He produces a broom and tells Hook it is going to help him find an old friend. When Gold lets go of the broom, it begins walking off, and he tells Hook to follow it. Gold and Hook arrive at a red house in the town, and they walk over to the door. As Gold knocks on the door, Hook glances over to the street, seeing a motorcyclist watching them, and they drive away, but Hook says nothing about this to Gold. The Apprentice answers the door, and Gold orders Hook to put him in another room and tries to force him into a chair. The Apprentice tries to fight back against Hook, knocking a flower vase in the process, falling onto the floor, and destroying it. The water spills, seeping into the cracks and carpet of the house.
Visual Imagery: Hook steps onto the wet floor as he waits for Gold; when Gold enters the room, he too also steps on the puddle.
Gold uses the Dark One's dagger to open the box, producing the Sorcerer's hat. The Apprentice tells Gold that no Dark One ever succeeds with the hat, stating that he will never have enough power to use it. Gold then uses the hat to pull the man into the hat and increase its power.
Meanwhile, Emma is driving through the town when her car spins out on a small patch of ice. She chases the Snow Queen and demands to know why she is following her, but the Snow Queen vanishes. Belle calls Emma and tells her to meet her at the library because there is a situation. Across from her is Will Scarlet, laying down on the floor, passed out, next to a bottle of alcohol and a book of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Later, Emma visits the jail to talk to Will Scarlet. David watches her as he and Elsa look through books, and she shows him the book he was found next to. He tries to say it has no meaning to him. She asks him he decided to take a nap on the library floor when Granny's is just across the street. Emma then looks at his bruised eye and asks what happened. Will sees Hook arrive and claims that he does not remember what happened to his eye. Emma sees Hook and asks him what happened to his hand, seeing that he has his hook back.
"It appears the dark one's magic wasn't all I'd hoped it would be." He replies.
David, going through documents with Elsa, comes over to Emma and tells her that he found something about the Snow Queen and Anna. He reveals that while he and Elsa couldn't find anything about Anna in all the files, he did find something interesting about one of them. He shows them Joan Summers' file, where the section about her during the curse is written out but is blank for after the curse. "Joan Summers... why does that name sound familiar?"
"Because that's the name of the other sheriff during the curse. The sheriff who passed everything here to you. That is also the name Anna gave to me when we met long ago." Elsa stood up, "So that means..." David nods, "She's here." Emma looks at Elsa and smiles, "Alright, we're getting somewhere. What about the Snow Queen?"
David reveals that the Snow Queen's alias, Sarah Fisher, is nowhere in any Storybrooke records, which state whether or not she came to town via curse. "Everything about her in the file before the curse is all completely blank. You're right... She didn't come here by any curse." Hook, Emma, David, and Elsa all look at each other, wondering how the Snow Queen arrived at Storybrooke, and Emma asks what she wants with her.
Meanwhile, in Regina's vault, Henry arrives and tells Regina that they need to talk to Gold about finding out who wrote the book to find the author. "Everyone knows Rumplestiltskin doesn't get a happy ending but look at him now. He just married Belle. He must have figured out how to change his story, which means he might know who wrote the book. And I'm the last person he'd ever share that with." He explains.
He visits the shop and informs Gold of his desire to take a job there. Henry mentions that since his father has passed away, Gold is the closest person to his father; Gold consents to have Henry as his apprentice but cautions him not to touch anything in his shop. Next, Gold gives him the broom he and Hook used to locate the Apprentice. Once Gold departs, Henry starts sweeping the floor.
Visual Imagery: Back at the Apprentice's house, the motorcyclist returns to the house, making their way to the front door. Their back and lower body are only shown to the audience if this were shown on TV. They check the door, checking and discovering that it's locked. They check their surroundings to make sure nobody is watching them. When they see its safe, they then turn into snowflakes, entering through the slits of the door, entering the house, and reforming back into a person. They go to the place where the hat sucked the Apprentice, and they inspect the room from top to bottom, where they see the broken flower vase and then spot the wet, stained floor. They place their hand on the stained floor, where the water evaporates from it, flying to one place, creating a memory. (Imagine the memory in the ship scene in Frozen 2)
I am taking things from Frozen 2 that actually make sense within the context of this AU. If you like the story so far, leave a review!