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"Watch out!"
Emma barely hears her father's voice over the noise of the attacking beasts. She ducks under a massive paw sweeping past way too close for comfort. Huge fangs scrape along her jacket, drawing blood. She yells out in pain, rolls to the side, and discharges her firearm at the monstrosity in one swift motion. The beast yelps and tries to retreat, but David is quicker, striking it down with a well-placed slash of his sword.
Emma gets up and tries to inspect the wound, but it's on her back, out of her reach. It feels like a shallow scratch, although there is a strange burning sensation in her back. She feels weak, and her vision suddenly goes black. Her knees give and she slumps to the ground. She forces her eyes open and sees her father kneeling in front of her, his eyes wide. He is taking to her intently but his voice is fading and she cannot focus. Then darkness claims her.
The first thing she becomes aware of after the darkness is pain. Not just physical pain, but a pain deep in her gut, gnawing at her soul. It is accompanied by a heart-wrenching sensation of loss, and loneliness. Emma tries to detach herself from these emotions, tries to bring her walls back up, but it is useless. Her mind is flooded by memories.
She is in a cabin, looking at a total stranger and a feeling of abandonment, of not being wanted, cuts her to her core. She is familiar with this feeling. Her first response is denial, surely her father would not do this her. In the back of her mind, a small voice speaks up, telling her that she didn't have a father growing up and she certainly never was on a ship like this. She pays it no mind, she is too shocked by what has just happened. The world suddenly fades and she is somewhere else.
She cradles her dead brother in her arms and sobs. There is a small part of her mind telling her that she never had a brother, but that part is drowned out by the overwhelming sense of grief and loss and anger. Anger at herself for not being able to prevent this, anger at the king, anger at her brother for leaving her alone...
The image fades again, but the emotions stay with her, drumming in the back of her mind. She crumbles on the deck of the Jolly Roger, the woman she loves dying in her arms. Again, a separate part of her brain pipes up that this is not right, this never happened, but once more it disappears in the roaring storm of terror enveloping her mind. When she loses her hand, there is almost no pain, she only feels numb, devoid of sensation, devoid of feeling, devoid of life.
The pain comes later, when she fights against the fever for weeks, when almost every last ounce of life drains out of her. It is only her iron will, only her determination to take revenge that keeps her alive, holding on by a hair's breadth. She remembers waking up screaming, hallucinating, terror engulfing her heart.
Decades sweep past in a blur. Milah's death lessens to a dull ache in her heart, but never completely leaves her. Life is monotonous and the years stretch and bend and she remembers clearly waking up one day afraid that this was it. This was hell and she would be here forever, hunting for something she could never have, cursed to carry her pain and her hatred to the end of times.
These images fade, too, until she sees nothing. In the end, there is only one sensation left. It isn't anger, or the lust for revenge or pain. All of these would be easier to deal with. It is loneliness. A despairing, gut-wrenching loneliness, unlike anything she has ever felt before in her life. She is all alone and she wants to reach out to somebody, to touch something, to be able to feel anything else but this.
She awakes suddenly, a cry of terror spilling from her lips. Immediately, she is enveloped in a tight embrace. She holds on to the other person for dear life, sobbing. She is dimly aware of a second pair of arms drawing around her. She hears her mother's soothing voice, whispering close to her ear that everything is alright, she is save, she is loved, there is no reason to be afraid.
It takes a long time before her tears dry and she is able to pull back. She looks at her parents sheepishly, her eyes red and puffy. When she speaks, her voice is a hoarse whisper.
"What happened?"
David sighs. "One of the Eloiy was able to infect you with his poisonousness magic." He shakes his head, clearly ashamed. "I'm sorry, Emma. I wasn't fast enough. I should have-"
"It wasn't your fault. Don't beat yourself up about it." She tries to smile at him reassuringly, but she knows it doesn't reach her eyes.
"I feel better now. Were you able to counteract the poison?"
She hears the sound of somebody clearing their throat from the corner of the room. She hadn't even realized that Regina was there. A blush creeps up her cheeks. It was bad enough to break down like this in front of her parents, let alone the Evil Queen.
"The Eloiy feed on negative human emotion. They don't intend to kill their prey, they just try to infect it and gorge themselves on the resulting terror. I used to keep some of the beasts in my dungeons. They are quite useful when it comes to torturing prisoners."
Mary Margaret shots her a look and Regina has the decency to look chagrined.
"I don't understand." Emma shakes her head slowly, trying to get her bearings. "Where do the emotions come from? It all seemed so real."
"It's different from person to person. Some just hallucinate, others relive memories from their past. Some even report to have lived through other people's memories. But one thing is always the same, the experiences are always painful and terrible, making the victim feel alone and useless, unable to ever come back from the misery."
"Oh Emma", Mary Margaret says and embraces her again.
Emma pats her shoulder, feeling very self-conscious in front of Regina.
"I'm fine now."
Mary Margaret pulls back reluctantly, giving her an appraising look. Emma turns to Regina.
"Where do the memories come from? I mean, if you live through somebody else's memories, how does it pick the person?"
She sees Regina is about to ask her something but stops herself.
"I always assumed that it finds the person with the most terrible history in the vicinity, to maximize the negative emotions."
Emma closes her eyes. She can still feel a ghost of the emotions from her dream. They are fading slowly, but their outline is still sharp in her memory. Fear. Anger. Betrayal. Hatred. Loss. And above all, a heart-wrenching loneliness.
She takes a deep breath and opens her eyes again.
"I need some air", she mumbles and gets up quickly, practically fleeing from her parent's apartment. From the corner of her eye, she sees Mary Margaret getting up as if to follow her, but David puts his hand on her arm, holding her back.
She is already standing at the docks by the time she realizes where her feet have taken her.
It was easier to think of him as a character from a story. Captain Hook. A pirate. A villain. Definitely not a real person. Now that she actually witnessed so much of his life first-hand, it is difficult to think of him as anything but a human being. A human being that endured unbelievable hardship and somehow lived through it.
She shifts her weight from foot to foot, unsure how to proceed. There is no way she can vocalize her experiences. She is not ready to think about them yet, let alone tell somebody about them. Yet, she is filled by a strong, almost overwhelming desire to soothe some of the pain she endured, any way she can.
She hears the sound of quickly approaching footsteps behind her and turns around.
"Swan? Are you unharmed? I heard that you got injured in the last attack but nobody would give me any further information."
He sounds on edge, possibly scared for her well-being, but also frustrated. Probably because the town's residents still don't trust him enough to even give him a little piece of information.
"It was just a scratch. I'm fine now."
He reaches for her arm, or her shoulder, she can't tell because he aborts the gesture and draws his hand back.
"Good", he says simply.
He nervously scratches behind his right ear. "May I be so bold as to inquire what you are doing here?"
She has to smile at his roundabout way of phrasing a simple question.
She meets his eyes and the new memories suddenly slam back to the forefront of her mind, knocking the air from her lungs. She makes a surprised oomph noise and Hook is by her side in a flash, supporting her.
She sees the concern, the fear, in his eyes and she wants to tell him what she experienced, but she doesn't have the words. So instead she draws her arms around him and envelops him in a tight embrace. He's clearly taken aback by her actions, freezing on the spot before his arms slowly come up around her.
They stand like this for some long minutes. Emma can feel his confusion, he's tense and fidgety. To be fair, she might have been giving him some mixed signals.
She turns her head and whispers, close to his ear, "Relax. I don't bite."
Emma feels his chuckle more than she hears it, but he relaxes a little, some of the tension drawing out of him.
The painful memories are still cursing through the surface of her mind and she wonders dazedly how long it has been since somebody held him like this. God knows, she didn't have an easy life, but the horror and loss he experienced are truly staggering.
Almost unconsciously, she lifts up her hand and starts to slowly draw it through his hair in a soothing gesture. She hears his sharp intake of breath and wonders what he is thinking at this moment. She isn't sure who she's trying to comfort here, him or herself.
It's getting dark and there's a cold breeze coming from the open water, but neither of them moves. After what feels like a long time, he slowly moves his head, his forehead coming to rest on her shoulder. He shifts and his hand fists in her jacket and suddenly he's all tense again, clearly struggling.
She draws him impossibly closer and makes a soothing noise. Something snaps in him then, and she feels him shudder. He's crying, trying to hide it by burying his face on her shoulder. He's still tense, still fighting with his emotions, clearly intent on not breaking down in front of her.
Her hand is still drawing slow patterns in his hair and she starts to whisper soothing words into his ear.
"I've got you", she tells him and he breaks down, finally and spectacularly, sobbing in her arms, in the cold evening air at the docks, for all the world to see.
She's glad that he trusts her enough to let this happen. It doesn't change the memories in the back of her mind, but now, at least, she's doing something about them. Emma knows herself well enough to realize that the one thing that drives her crazy is not to be able to take action, to not be in control of what's happening. This feels like taking the control back.
She cannot change the things she experienced, but she can change her behaviour towards this man, stop keeping him at arm's length, try, for once, to let her walls down and leave herself exposed.