Chapter 2
AN: Sorry for the long wait. I've been very busy lately. I will also be busier in the New Year for, I'm starting my bachelor's degree, so don't freak with the long waits. I'm going to try and make sure that the newest chapter is worth it. So, enjoy Chapter 2.
On the top of the beanstalk, where the clouds touch the sky, they went through a small opening of where the beanstalk ends. When they got out, they looked around the landscape where the giants live. Everything was giant that quadrupled their human size. Easily they found the giants castle and saw what was left of it. Emma didn't know what to expect, seeing the ruins around the castle, seeing what was left, she didn't know the story of what happened, but clearly something horrible did happen. She couldn't help to wonder, who would destroy a place where the giants were at peace, their place that they called home?
While Killian looked around the place, he noticed Emma's hand were bleeding. "Let me see your hand, love?" he asks.
"What?" she says, confused.
"Your hand, love." He softly says with a half-smile. Then she looks and notices the cut on her hand, the blood still coming out. She held it out to him as he investigates the wound. He holds her wrist, taking care of her hand, by retrieving a flask from his possessions and biting off the lid, pours some of the contents on Emma's cut as she cries out in pain, asking him what it is, "It's rum, darling." he tells her, inspecting her cut before removing a scarf and wrapping it around the wound by using his mouth.
As he does this, Emma can't stop looking at him. As she watches him by putting a scarf on her hand, which he is doing rather sensually,and all she wanted to do was kiss him. There was a part of her that wants to end this pull towards him, but she knows she can't. She's not ready and even she knows that he knows that she's not ready. As she feels contact between her hand and his mouth on it, her thoughts go stir crazy. The pull between them gets to a point that it feels like its intoxicated. She wants to end it. She wants to give in with all of emotions she's going through now more than ever. If one of the things that she'd learned as they were climbing on the beanstalk was that she couldn't trust herself as there's a part of her deep down that she believes him which is crazy. The voice of him in her head and the images she's getting, she knows that maybe he is right. Being together with him is going to be impossible she learnt as she can't ignore the pull that's driving him to her. She couldn't do it. She can't be next to him, or she'll give in soon. He tears part of the scarf off. They then realize that they were close, too close in Emma's opinion as she feels her heart racing, being so close to him, breathing him in was overwhelmingly intoxicating. However, sounds of the castle shattered when reality comes pitching in rapidly.
She pulls away and focuses the reason why she's here. "What's the plan," she says looking back to the direction of the castle.
"We wait for the giant to fall asleep, when he does, we're going to sneak past him and go into the cave where the treasures are, and the compass lies. And then we run like hell." He pauses for a moment, "unless you got a plan," he replies. Emma then tells him that "yeah I don't like that plan. We don't have time to wait for a giant to fall asleep," saying that they use the powder Mulan gave her to knock him out. He says it's riskier, but Emma points out that it's not as risky as waiting for a giant to fall asleep when they need him to do so, he agrees.
Emma's plan works and Killian couldn't help to be happy for her, proud of what he and his wife did. He couldn't help but say "we always make quite a good team", he points out. However, when he looked at Emma, she looks at him, giving him a nod and then shrugs this off with the task at hand - "Let's go steal a compass."
As they walk inside the castle, passing from room to room, they ended up in the treasury room, instantly they start searching. She rushes having no idea how long the powder lasts. He asked why she was rushing, understanding that he doesn't know how long the powder will to the giant. He doesn't say anything as he watches Emma who is obviously ignoring him, trying to keep her distance from him, all he could do was sigh. He thought that on their talk, she would be open and that it would break a barrier. He thought the effect would be different however he was wrong and tries to figure out what went wrong. He didn't get to think about it much unfortunately.
Then they hear the giant clearly now being awoken up as the hear rumble coming from afar coming closer and closer. Killian shouts to tell her to hide however once they try to, the giant arrives. The giant finds Emma and starts blaming her for the things that the humans done however she is here for a reason and starts to convince the giant that's she doing it to get back home, back to where her son is. She bit him and found release. When she was back on the ground, she grabs the sword, slices the sword through the air, chopping through the tripwire as she does so. The cage on the ceiling tumbles down, landing on the giant, trapping him beneath it. She looks at the giant that's trapped and persuades him to give her the compass with the reason why. At first, he wasn't compiling until after a few minutes later he gives her the compass. That was when the giant decides to get up. At first, she was afraid and realizes that the giant was helping her to get away, he clears a path for her and before she leaves, she mentions she doesn't get one favor but two as she could've killed him when he was unconscious. The giant asks what she wants, and it went without a doubt knowing what she wants to do.
After helping Hook out of the rubble, she handcuffs around him and left him while hearing shouts of her name. She then jogs as she couldn't hear that voice that's calling her name. A voice that was filled of hurt and shock. When she reaches the beanstalk, she could still hear him as she starts the descent and in a matter of seconds the shout is gone as she descends the beanstalk.
As she left him, Hook was indeed shocked. He thought he was getting through to her after she revealed her darkest moments. Then he questions himself, did he force her to open up to him? Or was it something else. He can't help but to feel slightly ashamed if he did. How he is now sad. He goes back to the conversation he started on the beanstalk. He finally admits that when finally going back on the conversation that he's dealing with a different Emma. While the Emma he knows is still in there, although it's very hard to find, and you know where to look, he knows he a saw little bit of his Emma in this Emma no matter how infuriately small it is. All he knows is that this Emma he's encountering is more broken thanks to this Neal bloke however he knows that can break her barriers. That's all he needs for the moment, hope.
When Emma arrived back on the ground, the ten hours were up, and she had to jump from the beanstalk to the ground once she felt the beanstalk shake a bit thanks to Mulan who is keeping her word. She thanked God that she was closer to the ground when she had to jump and didn't suffer any injuries if she was a little bit higher up. She then ran to Mary Margaret and Mulan to settle things down and promising Mary Margaret that she will not be doing this again. Shortly after that they all left, and Aurora mentioned of what happened to the captain. Emma only glanced at her and told them that they're better off without him, which is true, especially for her.
When nightfall came hours later Emma and Mary Margaret talked a bit about how they were doing, nothing special although Mary Margaret knew better as she wanted to talk more about Captain Hook. However, Aurora called to Snow asking her to come to her. Emma follows and listens to Aurora's nightmare that she encountered however it wasn't a nightmare when she mentioned seeing a boy there named Henry. That's when Snow looks at her daughter before explaining to Aurora that she's in the Netherworld and encountered Emma's son, her grandson. Suddenly an idea comes to both Emma and Mary Margaret, they could get help from the outside the realm. Even though Mulan didn't like it one bit she relented after Aurora gave her insight that she would be doing something useful after Philips' death.
With a plan in place, Aurora goes back to sleep enabling herself going to the Netherworld. However, it was for naught, as a twig was heard and suddenly a zombie attack was happening. Mulan woke her up and run away from the fight as Emma and Mary Margaret stayed behind and started to right. When a zombie dives towards Emma, she realizes that they're here for the compass and that this was Cora's way of trying to get the compass. While Mulan and Aurora run, Aurora trips on a rock when two zombies got ahold of her and take her away.
When Mulan realizes that Aurora has been kidnapped, she saw Emma and Mary Margaret were catching up to her in the forest. As they trekked the forest a raven comes and sits on Mary Margaret's shoulder as the raven crowed and then left. Mary Margaret relays the message, "Cora...We have until sundown to give her the compass, if we don't, she'll kill Aurora." Then they make another plan to save Aurora while keeping the compass at the same time. Mulan tries to start a scuffle as she tries to get the compass, playing Cora's game as she tries to maintain the promise she'd made to Phillip before his unfortunate demise. As Mulan points at the facts and almost leaving them to their own devices, Mary Margaret persuades her that they still can do their plan. Unrelentingly Mulan leaves with them they are still going to do their original plan just without Aurora. So, the three went to the Woods of the Dead as Mulan helps Mary Margaret to crush the poppy plant and blow it on her face as she then becomes unconscious for an hour or less.
When Snow wakes up, she jumps up hyperventilating. In her rasp of breaths, she says that Henry wasn't there but her husband, David and with a quick revelation she learned that he's in the curse himself. Making herself wanting to go back to Storybrooke right away, so that she can kiss him with true love's kiss. Then she takes a breath, as she digested that down, she did tell Emma that she knows what to do. She indicated they must go to the cell where Rumpelstiltskin stayed at. However, when Emma looks around trying to see where Mulan is, she found the compass gone, and well now she and Mary Margaret must catch up to Mulan now, to get the compass back.
With Mary Margaret leading the way, as she is an expert in tracking in the woods, they managed to find Mulan fast while she gave a warning shot from her bow and arrow, indicating their presence. Then she pinned Mulan underneath her with an arrow right above her neck, demanding to have the compass and talking about another plan at which Mulan gets frustrated at because it's another journey that's going to be wasted. With Mary Margaret mad at Mulan, she was about to end her life if it weren't for the shout of stop from Aurora, it would've happened but since Aurora is now here, she explains of what happened to her. Though surprising of what she said about Hook, Emma accepts the answer. Then with the four acquainted once again, they all head to Rumpelstiltskin's cell.
When they arrived at the cell, they ignited the torches first and start looking around the cell. Mary Margaret reminisces the last time she was there while Mulan found the ink bottle only for it to be empty, however Aurora finds parchment that was scribbled by Rumpelstiltskin that only said Emma's name. As they try to figure out why Rumpelstiltskin was so fixated at Emma, Aurora takes the empty bottle and threw it to a mechanism that drops the bars down, leaving them trapped.
It didn't take a minute when they found out the truth as which Cora comes out with Captain Hook. They found out that Cora has Aurora's heart, and everything becomes clearer. Cora and Hook weren't there long and before they left Hook went closer to the bars towards Emma as he shows her the necklace with the dried-up bean. Emma wanted to get the bean however something stops her as if she knows that she won't be able to. Then there was silence. Emma sits down gazing at the parchment while also wondering how to get out of there. Mary Margaret then talks to her daughter about a memory from her youth with Cora and realizes as she tells the story about how they'll getting out of here. She blows onto the page and the words literally fly off it, the many "Emma's forming a cloud of ink, which Emma suddenly realizes came from the squid that made the ink for the quill that trapped Rumple, the ink that they went there to find. Snow gives the cloud a blow and it disperses, clashing with the bars of the cell, a hole is made in them. "You see Emma, good always wins. There is always hope." Then the three of them left with their weapons, leaving Aurora behind.
When the three of them made it to Lake Nostos, a portal rages on just as Cora and Hook were about to go in the portal, with them almost touching the compass, an arrow rushes through with the compass now on the sandy floor. It is with shock that Cora finds herself in while Hook knew something was going to happen, wasn't that shocked as Snow White, Emma Swan, and Mulan were there.
Mary Margaret tells Cora that she's not going anywhere and that the portal's taking them home, she instructs Emma to get the compass and obeys, running beside the portal and towards Cora and Hook. Cora tells Hook, who has the compass, to hide it as she takes care of the girls. Hook runs away and, as Emma advances on Cora, Cora creates a stream of flames with a wave of her hand. She fires the flames at Mulan who blocks them with her sword. Emma then stumbles to a sword and advances Hook. When she battles, he only shakes his head, "love, this is not a good idea." As they start to battle each other. "Why not?" Emma asks. A few minutes later Emma gets her answer. Each blow that he or she hits they dodge, parried. For Emma this was starting to feel more like a dance than a fight. Then she can feel it, the tension between them, the sensual tension. Something that she doesn't need right now as she struggles between resisting the pull and kissing him. "I don't even know how I'm doing this," Emma says, "this doesn't make sense." Swords keep on clashing as Killian says, "It's because you still don't believe love, you don't believe in yourself and me, although you want to."
In the midst as Emma and Hook fight each other the fight stops with Cora, Mulan, and Mary Margaret as they all look at them as they not only fight each other they also seem to be having a conversation as well. They were all confused and yet impressed at the same time. However, because of all of them were distracted, Mulan wakes up and finds an opening to get Aurora's heart from Cora, she quietly moves as she sees the bag and then quickly snatches it and quietly runs away.
"I don't want to hurt you Emma, love." Killian says as he and Emma are still fighting with such ease. Their blows are getting a bit weaker, as the fight slows down. Even though they're fighting Emma knows that in seeing a glance of his eyes, that he's telling the truth. Then she gets a feeling that he's going to do something. They somehow get closer and when their eyes met each other Killian drops the sword. "I can't hurt you." He simply says as she looks from the sword that he dropped on the floor then to him. It shouldn't have meant anything for Emma, but it did and suddenly she knew that she does believe in him. At that moment everything changed. She dropped the sword as well this time as she sees it falling, she sees a speck of gold and gasps as she looks closer at the object and discovers it was the compass.
With the portal still swiveling, Emma goes toward to her mom Mary Margaret with compass in tow as she says, "we're going home." Cora then fumes lividly as she sees this. So, she goes to Emma to take her heart out, as she tells the savior that love is weakness, however Emma knows fully by now that love isn't weakness as she then states that it's strength. As Emma acknowledges this, the hand that was stuck in her, suddenly comes out with a flash of light, leaving the witch unconscious.
With Cora unconscious Emma looks at Hook and was thinking to invite him however he shakes his head, she was about to ask him why when suddenly Mary Margaret hold the compass with her and drags her to the approaching portal. In a matter of seconds, they jumped into the portal. The last thing on Emma's mind was Killian Jones.