Chapter Text
A deep, shaky breath filled his lungs. They’d done it. They’d made it back. Back to New York. Back to her. Back to Henry. Back to the Land Without Magic while avoiding the newest curse. Now all they had to do was get the Saviour to do her thing. They just had to get her to remember first.
He could make her remember. He knew he could.
Reaching up, he gave three hard knocks to the door then waited with bated breath. The soft pad of footfalls resonated as she got closer to the door. When it swung open, revealing her after all this time, the air left his lungs.
“Emma.”
Her eyes went wide with recognition, and her mouth fell open in astonishment. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I-”
“How did you even find me?”
“Well-”
“You know what? No. I don’t care. You’re not welcome here.”
He couldn’t help but peer over her shoulder, wondering if a familiar flop of twelve-year-old brown hair would make an appearance.
“What are you looking for?” she hissed, closing the door to a mere sliver and obstructing his view of her apartment.
“Henry,” he answered without thinking, and her face went ghostly white.
“How did you...? Is that why you’re here? Well, you can forget it. You’re not getting anywhere near my son.”
“Emma, please. I just need you to listen. I know you don’t remember-”
“Oh, I remember perfectly well-”
“No. You don’t. Not really.” He took a beat to consider his next move before whispering, “But I can make you.”
Lunging forward, his lips met hers and for a brief moment he was sure it had worked. Until a sharp pain in his nether region doubled him over.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”
“I-” he croaked, clutching himself protectively as he attempted to suck air back into his lungs.
“I want you gone, do you understand me? You don’t come back. If I so much as see your shadow, I’m calling the cops.” She threw him one last withering look before raising a brow at him.“I’m sure you have an outstanding warrant or two out there somewhere.”
The door slammed, shaking the hallway where he lay crumpled.
Well, that didn’t go as planned, he forlorned, picking himself up off the floor and hobbling back towards the exit. “Fuck… Killian is going to kill me.”
~/~
“Bloody hell. We agreed to wait!”
Killian was furious. It would be a lie to say when he’d awoken that morning to find Neal gone he hadn’t panicked just a tad. Memories of being alone in the strange city, seeking out the crocodile before being knocked unconscious and abandoned had invaded his mind, and he’d questioned whether Neal had finally gotten his pay back for Neverland. That perhaps he’d gone and found Emma and their son and left for Storybrooke without him. Not that it wouldn’t serve him right. Despite their tenuous alliance, Killian knew he still had much to atone for with Bae… er, Neal.
“I know, I know. I’m sorry. I… I screwed up big time.”
Releasing a deep sigh, Killian pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to rein in his ire. “She didn’t remember you, I take it.”
“Oh, she remembered me, alright,” Neal gruffed with false amusement. “She remembers me as the dirt bag that stuck her with stolen watches and left her in jail. Pregnant.”
“Tell me you didn’t mention…” Killian began, fixing his stare upon the idiotic man, and willing his answer to be anything other than what he knew it would be.
“It sort of… slipped out.”
“Slipped out? How does you mentioning the son you aren’t supposed to know anything about slip out?”
“Look. I already said I screwed up, okay? Can we maybe try and find a way to salvage this?”
Killian scrubbed a hand down his face, his nostrils flaring as he remembered to breathe. “I suppose we could try going to her together, as we’d agreed to do in the first place.”
Neal winced slightly at the cut in Killian’s tone, reminding him of the agreement they’d made back in the Enchanted Forest and again after arriving back in this realm late in the night. “We can’t,” he replied defeatedly. “Emma said she’d call the cops if she saw me again, and my record isn’t exactly clean… Plus, there’s the whole kiss thing.”
“The what?” Killian’s head snapped up from where it had been propped in his hand, his fingers toying with the scruff under his bottom lip as they tended to do when he was deep in thought.
“I-I,” Neal stuttered. “I kissed Emma.” Killian’s jaw muscle clenched under the fresh strain of his teeth grinding together. “I thought, maybe…”
“That you could wake her with a kiss,” Killian finished.
Both men stood silent, considering the implications over such a revelation that Neal’s kiss had not been enough to break the curse currently afflicting the woman of their mutual desires.
“I don’t understand why it didn’t work,” Neal muttered solemnly. “She said she loved me. After I was shot, before I fell through Tamara’s portal.” Neal began to pace along the deck as Killian looked on. The same questions swirled through his mind and bubbled up from his gut, though if he were being honest, they were most likely tinged with more hope than the dismay Neal’s seemed to be colored with. “When we got back to Storybrooke, Snow told me that Emma had confessed to her that she’s always loved me, and probably always would. So why didn’t the kiss work?”
Killian had his theories, but opted to keep them to himself. “We can’t worry over that now,” he stated, bringing them back to the real issue at hand. “we have to figure out our next course of action. How do we get the Saviour back to Storybrooke.”
“What good will that do if she doesn’t remember who she is?”
“There’s magic in Storybrooke,” Killian reminded. “Surely Regina or the fairies will be able to find a way to restore her memories once we get her back there.”
Neal nodded while mulling over his words, neither of them needed to voice the addition running through both their minds. Rumplestiltskin. The crocodile might also be able to restore Swan’s memories, if he’d been able to get free of the witch before the curse hit. There was still so much neither he nor Neal knew about this new curse. Who had cast it? What was the Wicked Witch’s end game? Had it brought the entirety of the Enchanted Forest back? What other realms might have been affected by it? So many unanswered questions.
Truth be told, Killian was still reeling over the fact Baelfire - Neal - had come to him for help in the first place.
Several weeks ago, the Enchanted Forest…
Hook clenched his fist beneath the table and fought to keep his composure. “Your father is… back? How?”
“Belle and I made our way to his castle. I figured if there was a way to bring him back, the answer would be there.” Bae explained in hushed tones, scanning the tavern patrons for any signs that they were being overheard. “We came upon a man, cursed to take the form of a candlestick, who said the Dark One had transformed him. He gave us the information we needed to resurrect my father, but it was a trap.”
“A trap? Set by whom?”
“The Wicked Witch,” Neal stated bitterly. “Fortunately, Belle figured it out just in time. Turns out it takes an exchange - a life for a life.”
“If a sacrifice is required then how-”
“The witch showed up after the candlestick man confessed. She forced one her minions, a man she referred to as wizard, to resurrect my father. Belle and I tried to stop her from getting ahold of the dagger, but…”
Hook ground his teeth together and leaned in towards Bae, his hook slamming loudly against the wood of the table top separating them. “Am I to understand, that not only did you bring back the bloody Dark One, you allowed him to fall into the hands of this land’s newest villain?”
“Hey!” Bae blustered in offense. “I’m trying to get back to my family. What exactly have you been doing this past year, huh?” He threw up a hand to wave off Hook’s words before continuing, “Nevermind. You’re a pirate. I don’t need the details.”
“A pirate who you’ve sought out for help,” Hook commented with an air of smug unaffectedness, not wishing the man across from him to know how much his words and assumptions stung. “Which begs the question… help with what?”
Bae cast another wary look around before leaning forward, a fragment of parchment making its way across the expanse of the table. “I got this,” Bae whispered. “It’s from my father. He says a new curse is coming. Once it’s cast, travel between worlds will be possible again, which means-”
“Emma,” Hook exhaled reverently before his eyes snapped up to meet Bae’s as the man’s narrowed into a hardened glare. Clearing his throat, Hook schooled his features and lifted his tankard towards his lips, stating, “You’ll be able to get to Emma,” before taking a large swallow of ale.
“Only if I can manage to not get caught up in the curse myself,” Bae replied. “That’s why I need the Jolly Roger. She’s the best chance I have of outrunning this curse.”
“And you expect me to just hand her over to you?” Hook scoffed incredulously.
“To get me back to my family? Yes. Don’t you think you owe me at least that much?”
Hook dropped his gaze from Bae’s. He did owe him that, he supposed. “Aye,” he agreed heavily. “Which is why the only way you’ll be taking the Roger is with me at the helm.” Hook brought his head back up and gave Bae an earnest look. “She and I are your best chance of out running this curse, and you bloody well know it.”
“Awfully sure of yourself,” Bae grumbled.
“Well, I am a hell of a captain.”
After ditching his crew, they managed to escape to an area beyond the curse’s purview. As luck would have it, among those taking refuge in the untouched port, was none other than the giant he and Emma had encountered atop the beanstalk. The one Cora had miniaturized for them to bring back to Storybrooke; a state he’d been able to replicate with the use of a special mushroom after being returned to the Enchanted Forest. It had taken some convincing of their motives, but eventually he and Neal were able to procure a bean from the shrunken giant. Their joint focus on finding Emma as they traveled through the portal had landed them off the coast of New York. Within a few short hours, Neal had determined Swan’s address and they’d agreed to go to her apartment together in the morning. An agreement Neal had gone back on, going after Emma on his own and throwing their whole plan out the window.
Fortunately, a pirate is never without a list of contingencies for when plans go awry.
~/~
“Emma. Your four-thirty is here,” the receptionist announced over the receiver of the office phone.
“Thanks. I’ll be right out.”
Emma stood and stretched out the kinks from her shoulders. She’d gladly take the cramped quarters of her bug during a stakeout over being hunched at her desk doing paperwork for hours on end, but the backlog had gotten out of hand… again. A new case would be a welcomed relief to the carpal tunnel setting into her wrists, and a welcomed distraction to the dread that had been churning in her stomach ever since Neal had shown up at her doorstep four days ago.
A welcomed distraction, indeed, Emma mused after exiting her office and seeing who she could only assume was her four-thirty appointment sitting in the waiting room. Dark hair, leather jacket, slightly broody with an air of intrigue and trouble, the man was everything Emma usually found appealing, but knew she shouldn’t. Good thing she never mixed business with pleasure, that would help diffuse her natural attraction to…
“Mr. Jones?” she inquired with a tone of professionalism, gaining the man’s attention from the magazine he’d been idly thumbing through. Her breath caught at the vivid hue of his blue eyes, and the quick flash of something that left her feeling both restless and at perfect ease before it sank back into the depths of his stare.
“Please,” he said as he stood and made his way to her, offering his hand. “Call me Killian.”
Emma took his proffered hand and noted that they seemed to swallow simultaneously from the contact. Perhaps she wasn’t the only one having to tamp down feelings of attraction in order to stay professional. She wouldn’t deny that thought made her preen just a tiny bit. On the inside, of course. Outside, she was hard as nails Emma Swan, bail bondsperson and fledgling private investigator.
“Right this way, Killian.” After releasing his hand, and attempting to ignore the raised flesh still rippling up her arm, she led them back to her office and invited him to have a seat as she closed the door. “So, what can I help you with today?”
“I need some assistance in tracking down an old business partner of mine,” he began in an accented tone that did absolutely nothing to curb his appeal.
“Name?”
“Greg Mendell.”
“When was the last time you had any contact with him?” Emma asked as she began to make notes.
“About a year ago.”
“A year?” Emma’s head snapped up. That would make things a bit more challenging.
“Aye. We didn’t part in the most… amicable of ways.”
Emma sat her pen down and began to assess the man before her. At first glance, he was the epitome of calm, with the way he sat nonchalantly in his seat. One hand rested in his lap while he toyed with his rings on the other in a casual manner. His expression was cool and collected, charming even, but Emma could sense a tension in the set of his shoulders and in the shadows that flickered past his liner rimmed eyes. Mr. Jones might want to her to believe he was perfectly at ease with the reason he was there today, but Emma knew there was something more going on than met the eye.
“What was the nature of your business together?”
Jones shifted in his seat and took a beat before answering, as if he were weighing his words before speaking them. “Our mutual interests aligned in such a way that we formed an… understanding. An agreement of reciprocity. I help him achieve his end goal, and he would help me achieve mine.”
“And what end goals would that be?”
“Striking a blow to our competitors.”
So far nothing he’d said had registered on her internal lie detector, her super power, but he was being awfully vague. “You said things didn’t end well between the two of you?”
“I held up my end of the bargain, but realized too late the means by which he intended to uphold his. One that would have left considerable collateral damage in its wake.”
“So, why are you looking for him now? After all this time?”
Jones swallowed heavily and something equally weighty settled in his forget-me-not eyes, sending a warm current through her belly. “I believe locating him will return something quite valuable to me.”
“You think he has something that belongs to you?”
A small smile stretched over his lips and his gaze dropped to his fingers, still toying with the rings on his hand. “It doesn’t belong to me,” he stated with a tone of melancholy. “Though I wish it did.” His eyes met hers once more and Emma felt as though all the oxygen had been sucked from her office. “My goal is to return it to its rightful place, and I need your help to do that.”
Emma wet her lips, the way his eyes followed the action did not escape her attention. “Why me? Why not go to the police?”
“I, uh…” He reached up and scratched behind his ear. “My actions weren’t exactly above board during our brief partnership,” he confessed. “I’d rather not involve the authorities if we can avoid it.”
“And what happens when I find Mr. Mendell?”
“What do you mean, love?”
“I mean,” she leaned back in her chair, hands laced together as she fixed him with a serious stare, ignoring the way her heart skipped at the slip of his endearment. “I’m going to need some assurances you aren’t planning to mete out your own brand of justice when we find Mr. Mendell.”
A smirk played at his lips and his brow twitched in a cheeky fashion. “What sort of man do you take me for, Swan?”
“The kind that holds a grudge and would go to great lengths for revenge.” Emma wasn’t sure where the words had come from, but they certainly felt honest as they passed her lips.
A look of surprise flashed in Killian’s eyes and was quickly replaced with a demeanor of regret. “You’re not wrong there, love,” he muttered softly. “But revenge is not something I’m seeking. Not any longer. I only wish to make things right, and as proof of that… when you find where the man might be you can accompany me.”
“What?”
“Come with me when I go to confront him,” he offered. “Seems to me it would be in both our interests. Should he still be in the area, you can make sure I do nothing untoward, and if he isn’t, it’ll save me time in returning so you can continue your search for him.”
Emma’s superpower told her there was an ulterior motive at play with his suggestion, yet she couldn’t help but think those red flags surrounding Killian Jones weren’t really anything to worry about. The man was a mystery, and definitely trouble, but there was also something about him that resonated with Emma. Almost like she knew him, as if they had some sort of kinship or connection, a feeling of trust and…
Emma shook her head. This man, this Killian Jones, was a stranger. She didn’t know him anymore than he knew her. He was merely a client, and she had a job to do.
“We can discuss that option more after I find this guy,” she stated, picking up her pen and getting back to business.
After several more minutes of collecting any information Jones could give her about Greg Mendell, she walked him back out to the lobby only to be met by her son who was practically vibrating with excitement.
“Mom! Mom! Guess what? There’s a pirate ship at the marina!”
“Henry! Please excuse my son, Mr. J-Killian,” she implored before turning her attention to her son. “Henry, I’m not done working yet.”
“Sorry, Mom,” Henry said sheepishly, offering an apologetic expression to the man beside her. “Sorry, mister.”
“It’s alright, lad,” Killian chuckled. “A pirate ship, you say? Now that is exciting. Though, might I ask what you were doing down at the marina?”
“Henry takes a sailing class there a few times a week,” Emma explained.
Killian’s face lit up with delight. “Does he, indeed?”
“Yeah,” the boy shrugged. “I just got really into it after we moved here from Boston.”
“Well, it’s a fine endeavor - sailing,” Killian affirmed. “One I take part in myself.”
“Really?” Emma asked, incredulous.
“Aye. In fact, I do believe the vessel in question is my own.”
Henry’s eyes widened with exuberance. “You own the pirate ship?”
“Captain Killian Jones, at your service, lad.” Extending his hand, Jones offered her son a warm smile.
“Cool!” Henry took the man’s hand and shook it vigorously. “I’m Henry Swan.” Emma thought she saw a glint of amusement pass over Killian’s features before her son continued to pepper him with questions. “Is it really called the Jolly Roger? Like in Peter Pan?”
Killian reached up to scratch behind his ear again, and Emma was coming to enjoy that particular tell of his. “She is. I guess you could say, I’ve always related a bit with Captain Hook.” He lifted up his left hand and for the first time Emma realized it wasn’t his actual hand at all but some sort of stiff prosthetic. How had she missed that?
“Wasn’t he the villain?” Henry questioned pointedly.
“Oh, aye. He was a villain, to be sure, but Pan and the crocodile weren’t much better, truth be told.” The hard truth ringing from his words gave Emma pause. She saw Killian’s eyes flick over to her with prudence before he cleared his throat. “Well, I should let you get to your evening with your boy.”
“Right,” Emma replied, shaking off the odd moment. “I’ll be in touch. Talk with you soon, Killian.”
“I look forward to it, love.”
~/~
Killian ducked into a nearby alley and focused on steadying his breathing. A year had done nothing to diminish the yearning in his heart and longing in his soul for the woman he’d sworn to think of each passing day of their separation. Seeing her after all this time, holding her hand in his and hearing her say his name without any recognition sparking within her sea glass eyes had been a whole new level of torment, but one he would willingly endure if it meant getting her to remember.
The pretense he was having to carry out was fraught with complications, and he would have to keep his wits about him if he had any hope of pulling off the ruse. He couldn’t afford for the feelings he had for her to surface now. Feelings he’d desperately tried to bury this long year apart. He was a stranger to her and Henry, and he had to make sure Swan’s suspicions of him remained low.
Still. It didn’t stop him from watching the two of them as they left Emma’s office, Henry animatedly chatting away about his day and how cool it was that her newest client owned a pirate ship. The corners of Killian’s lips turned up at the sight of them, and he couldn’t help but wonder if their previous adventures on the Jolly Roger had been what spurred the boy’s sudden interest in sailing, at least on some subconscious level.
Once Swan and the lad had disappeared in the opposite direction of the docks, Killian headed back to his ship to give Neal a full report. He knew the man wasn’t a fan of this plan. They’d argued over it off and on the past four days as Killian learned all he could about this realm’s modern age, as Neal called it. The man had driven him to the point of such frustration that he’d almost insisted he return to his apartment in the city or walk the plank. They needed one another though, and Killian knew Neal would never trust him with Emma. Knew the man assumed the pirate would go back on his word to back off; a promise he’d given in Storybrooke before Pan’s curse had ripped them back to the Enchanted Forest.
He owed it to Neal to keep that promise. Owed it to Emma and Henry, too.
“Well?” Neal called out from the deck when Killian approached the gangplank. “How did it go?”
“She agreed to take the case,” Killian informed him, nodding towards his cabin so they could continue to speak in private.
“I still don’t understand why you’re having her search for Greg.” Neal slumped down into the desk chair, setting Killian’s teeth on edge as he removed his jacket and hung it on a hook next to the door. “Wouldn’t August make more sense?”
“August has ties to you,” Killian pointed out… again. “He met with you when he was in New York before coming to Storybrooke. A search for him could lead to you and we can’t risk Swan discovering our connection.” He gestured between the two of them then added, “Besides. I’ve never met August. She would have seen through that lie in an instant.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Neal scoffed, once again dismissing Emma’s gift to parse out lies. “But what if her search for Greg leads to Tamara? That’ll lead her back to me, too.”
“It didn’t the first time she looked into the two of them.”
“What?”
Killian smirked at the man. “You really think she didn’t dig up everything she could on Greg when he first came to town, and then did the same thing with Tamara when she arrived? She didn’t find a connection between them then, no reason to think she would now.”
“How do you know she investigated them?”
“Have you met her?” Killian quipped with raised brows.
“Okay, you may have a point there.”
A muffled call from above grabbed both their attentions. “Ahoy! Anyone aboard?”
“Stay here,” Killian told Neal before heading towards the deck. When he arrived it was to find an older gentleman waiting by the gangplank.
“Ahoy there!” the man greeted. “Permission to come aboard?”
Killian waved him up, his brows pulled together and his stance wary as he waited for the stranger to state his purpose.
“Sorry to bother you,” the man said, holding out his hand. “I’m Mr. Walters. I’m the sailing instructor for one of the marina’s classes for kids. I was hoping to speak to you about your ship, mister...”
“Jones. Captain Killian Jones.” He took the man’s proffered hand with a smile then asked, “What about my ship?”
“Some of my students noticed her earlier, and they all went a little nuts… as did I, if I’m being honest. She’s quite something.”
“Aye,” Killian preened with pride. “She’s a marvel.”
“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to let me bring my students over for a closer look at her? Maybe give them a tour, answer some questions about her? They’d be supervised of course,” Mr. Walters ensured him. “I’d be there, along with a few parents I can get to chaperone.”
Killian’s mind began to whirl with possibilities. Would this be the class Henry was a part of? Would Emma volunteer to accompany his class on a tour of a pirate ship, knowing it most certainly had to be his? It would give him an opportunity to spend time with her outside of their current business arrangement, and perhaps a little bit of bonding with the lad would warm her up to him. Help alleviate any trepidation she was feeling over her initial read on him.
“Mr. Walters, I’d be delighted to have your charges visit the Jolly Roger.”
~/~
“Hook!” she screamed when the dark spectre slammed him against the trunk of a nearby tree. Pained cries tore from the back of his throat, and glittering currents of magic began to spark around the man’s aura as the shadowy figure began stripping something dark and billowy from Hook’s form, which remained partly obscured by the being tormenting him.
“Swan! Run!” he shouted. “Just go!”
She couldn’t leave him. She had to do something. She couldn’t lose him. Not him. Not when she finally…
An effervescence she’d never felt before flared to life within her, allowing her to light the candle in her hand. More screams echoed through the hollow, accompanied by the sound of something being wrenched forcibly asunder, making Emma’s stomach turn with fear. Had she been too late to finally face the truth? Too late to save him?
Emma bolted upright in bed. Her breathing was labored and a sheen of cold perspiration clung to her skin. Switching on her bedside lamp, she waited out the racing of her pulse until it slowed to a more normal rhythm before getting up to fetch a glass of water.
It had been months since she’d had that nightmare. Some deranged manifestation of the Peter Pan tale her mind had inexplicably cooked up. She’d never even read the book, had only seen the Disney cartoon a handful of times, and couldn’t distinguish one version of the live action films from the other after seeing them with Henry in the theatre over the years. Why she started having nightmares about Neverland, shadows, a dark hollow, and Captain Hook after she and Henry had moved to New York, she’d never know.
Emma gulped down the water, choking back a cough when it rushed over the agitated areas of her parched throat, and went back to bed. Lying awake, the scene played itself over and over again as it always did when it haunted her dreams. No matter how many times she’d had the nightmare she’d never been able to get a good look at Hook, though she somehow knew he was not the waxed mustache and permed version Disney and Hollywood portrayed him to be. Why she was concerned over a literary villain was puzzling, as was the fact that it was more than concern she felt for him in those moments of fear.
A lot more.
Punching her pillow, Emma rolled over and closed her eyes, willing away the images. Slowly they faded into her subconscious, but before disappearing into the oblivion once more, Hook’s pleas rang through her ears one last time.
“Swan! Run!” he shouted. “Just go!”
Emma’s eyes sprang open. She recognized that voice.
No. It couldn’t be.
But it was. The voice in her dream hadn’t changed. It was the same as it had always been. The accent, the lilt, the timbre, the way it sent a shiver of want through her the exact same way it had when he’d introduced himself in the waiting room of her office. Killian Jones. Her newest client.
What the hell was he doing posing as Captain Hook in her dreams?