Like Whiskey (This Double Life) - Part B
Pairing: Emma Swan/Killian Jones | Captain Hook
Genre: AU
Word Count: 6,515
Summary: AU - Hook came along with the curse and has been living in Storybrooke all this time.
PREVIOUSLY IN LIKE WHISKEY...
She cut him off. “Killian. The book.”
He finally looked down, and then he saw what she had seen: the slow scrawl of black ink spreading across the pages as they watched; words bleeding onto thick-pressed paper in an all too familiar hand.
“Is that-?“
“Yeah,” Emma breathed. “It’s Regina’s.”
---------
With careful hands, she bent low to pick up the book, but it did not shock her a second time. What might have once been a protection spell had clearly faded over the years and though it could have meant to incapacitate her, all Emma suffered from the discovery were faint burns on her fingertips. She pulled the dustcover free - History’s Greatest Women - and scoffed.
The book it had been obscuring, though bound and hardcovered, wasn’t truly a book at all - it was a diary. Emma flipped through the pages, careful not to touch the ink, noting the neat scrawl of dates in the upper right hand corner of several pages.
“It’s Regina’s diary,” she said.
“Regina’s?” Killian asked. “Or the Queen’s?”
Emma stopped on a page near the middle and began to read.
“...my studies are growing more frequent. The constant use of magic is taking its toll on my body - but though my exhaustion continues to grow…”
Emma swallowed.
“…I am overcome. The thrill of magic is something I can no longer live without. Rumplestiltskin was right...”
Those were the last of the words written on the page, but whether it was the end of the entry she didn’t know; Emma couldn’t bring herself to turn the page. Rumplestiltskin was right. Never had those words boded well for her, and there was something about the diary itself that unsettled her-the sense that she was holding Regina’s descent in her hands.
“Am I the only one starting to feel like we’re totally screwed?”
Killian touched the back of her hand. Then, when he was certain the spell wouldn’t take umbrage with him as well, he shut the book. “It’s a start.”
Emma was un-amused and un-placated. “Says the Not Savior,” she shot back testily. She found another book of comparative size and traded dust jackets with the one she’d removed earlier; transforming Regina’s diary into Coastal Maine: A Maritime History.
Killian stroked the back of her neck. “I have the utmost confidence in your...Savior savoir-faire.”
Emma screwed her face up, trying to shore up her nerves with annoyance. “You’re not allowed to use French right now.”
He grinned. “Distracting you from your doubts, is it?”
“Yes,” she admitted easily; still, it hardly shook her patented frown. “And it’s cheating. How do you even know French?”
“I’ve got a talented tongue, I suppose.” He never did let an opportunity pass him by; Emma supposed she should find that reassuring. As it was, she just sighed and traced the edge of the book with her fingers; she couldn’t see the circulation desk through the rows of bookcases, but her eyes drifted that direction all the same.
“Let’s finish up and get out of here.”
She shifted her gaze back to him. “What if there’s more?”
“We’re not likely to find it, unless by accident,” he reasoned. Killian tapped the diary with his index finger. “Let’s worry about what we have found.”
Emma bit the inside of her cheek. She was pretty certain there was a great deal more to be worried about now...
---
By mutual agreement, Killian’s runs into town had become much more infrequent in the weeks since the return of his memories. It made sense - to limit his exposure to the other unaware townsfolk and the odds that he’d accidentally let something slip. Often, he’d just have Emma bring by what he needed. She, in turn, had taken charge of the diary - searching its pages when she could, while Killian looked towards...alternative solutions.
He avoided Gold at all costs-not trusting himself to maintain the act that close to his crocodile. Nor could he afford for Rumpelstiltskin to see through the ruse, thereby losing his element of surprise.
Oh, he knew the beast had never lost his memories-you could see it in the way he looked at people, he and Regina both; like they could see through a person. But he thought himself safe, all his enemies - Hook included - made impotent by the curse.
Killian had no way of knowing if he would do the same if ever he were to come face to face with Gold, if he could come up against that rotting darkness and see through him. His revenge was so near at hand; yet the timing and the resources eluded him. What he wouldn’t give for his hook...
“Killian!”
He started in surprise, but it was only Henry - racing across the park towards him, his backpack thumping wildly against his back.
“Hey Henry-oof!” He found himself with an armful of miniature Swan when Henry tripped in his haste and careened into him with windmilling arms. “Easy lad!”
“Sorry,” Henry exclaimed, righting himself with a few swings of his bag until he was properly balanced again. This Killian found perplexing; when last he’d checked, fourth graders didn’t have school on Saturdays.
He gestured absently. “What’s with the, uh, bag?”
“Operation Cobra!” hissed Henry with barely contained fervor. His tiny expression was so much like Emma’s when he’d missed something obvious that Killian’s thoughts immediately went to her. She’d be at the station still; forgetting that it was Saturday, that maybe the clerical work of a small town sheriff could wait a few days.
“-have to be ready at any moment!” Henry was saying and Killian tried to catch up with the conversation.
“I think action’s a bit far off, mate,” Killian told him. “We’ve not had much luck on the curse breaking front.”
Put-out as he was, Henry’s energy was not so easily daunted, and when he looked around his next words were a question. “Why’re you walking to Mr. Gold’s shop?”
Killian’s head snapped up, and he was shocked to find Henry was correct. The pawn shop was just ahead, its windows dark behind the ‘Closed’ sign that hung there. He hadn’t realized.
“Pirate’s don’t barter,” he reprimanded with a wink; recovering quickly as Henry laughed and he roughed the boy’s hair. He’d need to be more careful. “I thought I’d risk a bit longer in town-grab some bread for lunch, eh?”
“I’ll come with you!” Henry immediately insisted and turned towards the bakery. Chuckling, Killian had no choice but to follow.
Hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, he let Henry lead the way, chattering the whole while about class and what he was learning and did Killian learn about multiplication where he was from. Killian would have answered had Henry only allowed him a moment to interject, but as with most kids - even the inordinately precocious ones like Henry - sometimes they talked just for the sake of talking. He asked questions, because it was what adults did, but he never waited for a reply and was already on another topic entirely while he picked out an appropriately crunchy baguette, and Killian paid the amused girl at the till.
Killian let him keep on. It was comforting in a way-the constant up and down of his voice. When you spent your life on a pirate ship, a town like Storybrooke was quiet in comparison. Of course, he’d never noticed before - the way silence could settle on a place - and no small part of him wondered why his cursed self had chosen the solitude of the woods, far-removed from the sea and anything that pulled.
He turned his feet there now-back to the woods-and managed not to look back; not to Gold’s, not to the bay and his anchored lady. But when they reached the library, he couldn’t help himself: he looked up.
The clock, broken for as long as the library beneath it had been boarded up now ticked steadily to time, its ornate hands tracing the circumference as easily as the tide rolling in. Twenty-eight years and not a single stuck gear or rusted bolt.
Tick tock.
“Are you coming?”
Killian’s brow furrowed and he realized Henry was still with him, albeit quieter now.
“Where are you going?”
Henry grinned, trying to look innocent. “Wherever you’re going.”
“Oh no.” Killian shook the baguette threateningly. “You’re to stay in town.”
“Come oooon,” Henry beseeched - so plaintive as to almost be pathetic. “I’ll be good I promise.”
It was hard to believe only a few months ago, Henry had been dead set against him-not to mention any sort of interaction with his mother. Now look at him. So eager-that adamant admiration that young children had for anyone bigger than themselves, regardless of whether or not they were any good at all.
He was not the first boy foolish enough to look at him that way.
“I won’t touch anything!”
Killian shook his head. Those memories had no place in this world.
“I very much doubt that,” Killian muttered - but something in his face must have told Henry he’d won, because the kid took off down the sidewalk again, calling impatiently for Killian to keep up.
“Your mum’s gonna have my head for this, kid.”
---
“You are not teaching Henry how to mix drinks.”
“And what if I am?”
Killian smirked at her over the glass-strewn bar. Emma had gone to the playground, where Henry’s old wooden castle had been replaced by plastic and soft foam, only to find a mass of kids enjoying the Saturday morning and no Henry in sight. Instead, she’d had only a sneaking suspicion as to where he’d gone and time enough to follow up; it was the reason she was now standing in a bar at a quarter to one.
“Emma!” Henry greeted. His shirt was spotted with what she hoped was grenadine, and as she approached he went back to what he’d been doing-which appeared to be rolling a small lime between his knuckles.
Killian leaned over the bar and snagged her by the half-done zip of her jacket. “Hullo.”
She kissed him briefly, mumbling “Hello” against his mouth.
“I was about to ring you,” he told her. “Swear it.”
“It’s alright. I think it’s in his job description to be difficult,” she said wryly-reaching out and snatching the lime right off Henry, who cried “hey!” and looked immediately to Killian for help.
“Sorry, mate,” Killian laughed. “It was a fairly stolen fruit.”
“Have you eaten?” Emma asked Henry, tossing the lime in one hand.
“Yup.” He nodded. “Killian made grilled cheese.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Oh?”
Killian, for his part, didn’t rise to her subtle baiting.
He caught her lime mid-toss, waggling his eyebrows when she started in surprise. Then ee threw it upwards himself, grabbing another lime from the cutting board and sending it airborne as well, as easy as you please. So he was showing off a little; it was easy enough to pin on Henry, whose eyes went wide as saucers - though he’d already seen him do the same trick an hour ago.
“Emma! Watch this!” Henry demanded, and lunged for another lime.
Killian had to strain a bit to catch the overly-excited lob, but then there were three limes in the air and he was juggling one-handed what Emma couldn’t manage with two. He cut his eyes to her for just a second, but it was enough to catch the faint curl at the corner of his mouth, the purposely held-in smirk he coveted.
“Impressive.”
Killian bit his lip against a grin. “Try not to sound so bored, love.”
“Emma,” Henry intoned; as if she were embarrassing him, and it became suddenly harder for Killian to hold his grin in check.
“At least Henry’s impressed,” he said at last, switching up the even range of motion-one lime went higher than the rest, and he circled the other two twice in succession before catching the third and lobbing another high again.
“I just wish I had a neat party trick like that,” drawled Emma, helping herself to some of Henry’s soda.
Henry apparently disagreed with this assessment because it was enough to draw his attention away from the (truly impressive) display of juggling and set on Emma with a confused frown.
“That’s not what Killian said.”
She rolled her eyes-she could only imagine what that meant.
“He says you can tie a cherry stem into a knot with your mouth.”
Emma choked on her mouthful of soda, and it made Killian laugh so abruptly that he lost his rhythm and limes hit the counter, rolling every which way-abandoned and bruised.
“Nope, no,” she spluttered, still coughing. “Can’t.”
Clearly suspicious that she was trying to pull one over on him, Henry’s eyes narrowed, and Emma worried he’d try to push the issue. But instead, he turned to his backpack occupying the barstool next to him and pulled the zip.
“How’s the research going?” he asked.
Emma and Killian caught each other’s eyes. He winked.
“Uh, not as well as we’d hoped,” Emma hedged; and for the sake of her son and not scaring him for life, she kept the high color from her cheeks by sheer force of will. Killian made an obscene gesture behind the bar and she cleared her throat with unnecessary fervor.
“Are you sure there’s nothing else in the book?” she asked. He’d already pulled it from his bag - he never went anywhere without it these days - and was flipping through pages he probably had memorized by this point.
“It’s gotta be true love,” Henry insisted-though even he sounded a little frustrated when he said it. ‘That’s the only thing that’s ever broken a curse. And this is like...the curse of all curses!”
“Again-“ Killian interjected mildly. “Kissing might not be so out of the question.”
The eye roll from Emma and Henry was simultaneous.
“Is a bit of luck too much to ask for?” she complained, flipping a few pages herself. Her expression was annoyed, but it masked the beginnings of dejection in her voice. Killian nudged her with his elbow, and she shifted her weight from one foot to the other so their bodies touched.
“Apparently,” murmured Killian gamely. He started to twist, to bring his right hand to her waist in a soothing touch or to pull taut one of her loosening curls just to watch it spring back, but Emma sighed and moved first. She did it without thinking-her eyes still on the book, the pages she was turning with her left hand-but her other hand drifted, seeking unconsciously for his touch, and the fine bones of her wrist grazed his like a cello song, bow drawing over strings.
Killian stared-at her hand; and his emptiest space-and the press of their wrists, veins to veins, their hearts synchronizing in the beat between them.
Emma had visibly relaxed; the ever-present lines of worry smoothing from her face, the tightness in her shoulder easing the longer they touched. It took him a second to unstick his tongue.
“It’s no quest if it’s easy, love.”
Emma tilted her head, a rueful smile playing on her lips. And if ever there was a “moment”-this was surely it.
Then she was stepping away, her fingers trailing away along his arm. With an exaggerated sigh, she tugged at the back of Henry’s shirt; Killian clenched the ghosts of fingers that were no longer there.
“Let’s go kid.”
Henry groaned, but began packing up all the same. Killian grabbed the kid’s coat from behind the bar.
“Leaving so soon?”
Emma looked apologetic. “He’s not even supposed to be out here. I gotta get him back to Regina’s before she burns the whole town down.”
“Oops.” Henry grabbed his coat quickly and slipped under Emma’s arm, heading for the door.
Emma leaned over the bar. “I’ll call you tonight,” she promised, and he took the invitation to kiss her, though she grinned through the entirety of it. She dropped back onto the flats of her feet, and shuffled Henry out the door.
---
Henry kicked dejectedly at a loose stone, not following it when it skittered off the sidewalk into the street. “We’re running out of time,” he told Emma, stopping when she stopped.
The blonde looked around, but they’d just entered the edges of town and there was no one else about. Still, she couldn’t keep from lowering her voice just a fraction when she answered; nothing in Storybrooke was ever as it seemed, not even an empty street.
“You say that like something terrible is going to happen.”
“Don’t you think so?”
“Well, no,” she admitted. As far as she understood it was a curse, not a time bomb. “I guess…we’d all just keep, you know, going on.”
“But they need to remember, Emma!”
In frustration she raked the hair back from her eyes, feeling suddenly obstinate. “Why do they need to remember? Why, Henry?”
“Because they’re not supposed to be here.”
Emma stiffened.
“Yeah, well...” But Emma couldn’t think of anything to say.
In fact, she wasn’t certain she could trust herself to say anything else on the subject; she’d only made it through the last couple months by resolutely ignoring what Henry had no problem vocalizing. The tiny weight she’d tied those feelings to that morning on Killian’s ship was pressing down, a constant presence in the back of every breath. It had been growing heavier with each passing day, jagged edges distorting the chambers of her heart-and it was getting harder to ignore the possibility…that this really was a ticking bomb, waiting to go off.
Breath sharpening in her throat, she sought a quick change to the conversation, and it was the clock that saved her.
“Look!” Emma said, pointing up as she bent low to meet Henry. “3:33. Make a wish.”
Henry looked at her. Deciding now to be a skeptic. “Really?”
“Oh, you believe in fairies and Snow White, but you don’t believe in wishing on a clock?”
He continued to look at her, the seconds of the wishing moment slowly ticking away. She turned him by the shoulders to face the clock tower, trying not to roll her eyes. Hunching down a little to be more at his level, she pointed again. “We need all the help we can get,” she reminded him.
“Besides. I made a birthday wish and then I got you.”
His face lifted. “Really?”
“Really.”
And when he turned back to the clock, his face screwed up tight to make sure his wish really stuck-Emma closed her eyes too. Just a little more luck. It was as much a prayer as a wish; that jagged breath held in the back of her throat.
And at that precise moment, a motorcycle rumbled across the town line.
---
All Emma wanted was a cup of coffee and to read the paper in peace.
A peace she’d long since lost at home, what with Mary Margaret and her hyperactive interest in anyone’s problems but her own. And Emma had problems aplenty - none that she could share with Snow White, for obvious reasons.
Bad dreams had made for a sleepless night. She needed coffee and quiet - in that order - but when she walked into Granny’s, there was someone already sitting in her usual booth.
Someone completely foreign to Storybrooke.
“Ruby,” she hissed, snagging the waitress as she went past. “Who the hell is that?”
Ruby followed her gaze. “Oh, him? I know, right? Says he’s a ‘writer.’ He just showed up a few days ago asking for a room.”
“And you gave him one?” Emma asked incredulously.
“Well who am I to say no to those baby blues?” the brunette countered - but Emma hadn’t been joking. After all, Ruby didn’t know what she did - that there should have been no way for anyone besides Emma to enter Storybrooke; certainly no one had been able to leave it.
“I’m gonna go talk to him.”
“Ugh, fine.” Ruby huffed, and pushed a cup of coffee on her before Emma could go. “But you’ve already got Killian, so-dibs!”
Mug in hand, Emma weaved between the other tables in the diner, heading for the stranger. He looked harmless enough - dark haired and faintly stubbled, the way Ruby seemed to prefer - but his presence in Storybrooke was enough to make Emma suspicious.
She sat down across from him, her cup of coffee matching the one at his elbow. He didn’t look at all shocked that she’d done so, and that irked her for some reason - adding it to the list of annoyances. She didn’t waste time on a preamble:
“Who the hell are you?”
The man smiled slowly, cheeks dimpling in a way she found unfair, and when he leaned forward to clasp his hands on the tabletop, the leather of his jacket creaked.
“Hello, Emma.”
If he’d meant to startle her, he’d have to do better than that. Strangers had never been her favorite people, but in a town where a fairytale curse had a stranglehold over its borders and people, well - all the more reason to assume he was on the wrong side of what she was trying to accomplish.
She continued to study him, frowning in a way that creased her brow; he returned the scrutiny with bemusement and something like condescension.
“Were you hoping for a different reaction?” she snapped.
He shook his head. “You misunderstand me, Emma-I’m a friend.”
“A friend.”
“You can call me August.”
“August,” she repeated. “Right.”
Either he didn’t notice her sarcasm, or he chose to ignore it. He had a way about him that assumed familiarity. It was annoying.
“Is there somewhere...more private we could talk?”
“No.”
August was beginning to grow frustrated, which she, admittedly, enjoyed - but even Emma knew she was being difficult. So she muttered “fine” and stood up. Gesturing to Ruby that she’d pay for the coffee later, she stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jacket and strode out of the diner, assuming August would follow.
“This way.”
He’d caught up to her, his long legs keeping pace easily enough. He grabbed her by the elbow, and she made to protest, but he didn’t give her the chance, steering her down a side street, his voice low and too close to her ear.
“I want to show you something.”
“Yeah, but just remember I’m armed,” she warned just as August stopped walking.
They were only a block away from Granny’s and standing next to a parked motorcycle; she shifted her hand to her hip. Maybe it would be in her best interest to arrest him, she considered, as she watched him unhook a helmet from the handlebars; he was clearly deranged.
August held the helmet out to her.
“Absolutely not.”
He sighed. “I knew you’d be stubborn, but it’s just a ride.”
“With a strange man who won’t tell me why or where we’re going.”
He was proving to be impressively unflappable-but as Killian was fond of reminding her, she had a way of getting under a person’s skin. She folded her arms across her chest, and waited for something more acceptable than “hop on.”
“I could tell you,” he relented finally. “But I don’t think you’d believe me.”
Now where had she heard that before...
“This town…is not what it seems.”
Emma would have burst out laughing if it weren’t so disappointing. That was why he was here-to tell her about the curse? Whoever he was, he was about half a year too late.
She tossed her hair. “Yeah. I know.”
August faltered. “What?”
“I said I know.” She shrugged. “So do you have anything useful to contribute, or is this entire conversation a waste of my time?”
“-Useful?” he only seemed capable of blankly echoing her and she sincerely hoped no one actually ever believed he was a writer.
“Let’s fast-forward here-how do we break the curse?”
August’s eyes darted frantically around, though he kept a tighter control of his face. “How do you---?”
She waved him off. “Not important.”
“It is actually.”
Emma rubbed her forehead, feeling the throb of a headache coming on. God, all she’d wanted was a cup of coffee.
“You’re a stranger here-you rode in on that motorcycle of yours with a five-o’clock shadow and a leather jacket and just expect me to trust you completely?” Emma glared at him. “Let me ask you a question-are you a complete idiot?”
“No!” August snapped. He raked his hand back through his hair; she could see by the clench of his jaw how hard he was working to maintain his composure. “I’m meant to look after you-to see to it you have what you need to save us, to save everyone!”
Emma took a step back. Regardless of what he said, what he professed to know - something in her rebelled at the very idea. Her thoughts went immediately to Killian.
“I have who and what I need. That doesn’t include you.”
“Look. I made a mistake years ago. I’ve made…many, mistakes,” August confessed-and it sounded like the first honest thing he’d said to her.
“But you’re gonna need my help.”
---
The hour was late, but Emma’s nights had been long - far beyond her ability to count - and she rubbed at her tired eyes beneath the glow of her desk lamp. Countless petty incidents had filled in her days around the hours she spent with Killian and Henry, splitting her time between the Nest and town and wearing down the soles of her boots in the process.
Just thinking about Killian made her wish she were there; not alone in the darkening sheriff’s station. Having spent the last three decades working obscene hours at the Nest, he was an expert at finding sleep when he could, and staying awake when he needed. But more than that, Emma found simply being with him relaxed her in a way she hadn’t expected; (he also owed her a backrub if she wasn’t mistaken).
Yet, there was still much to do before she would allow herself to call it a night - and even then, she feared she’d be too exhausted to walk as far as the woods. She had no one to blame but herself; unless you could place blame on an inanimate object.
Emma unlocked the bottom drawer of her desk with a small key and pulled from beneath her stored and holstered gun Regina’s diary.
For something so small, it had caused her an annoying amount of grief. Only able to read it in secret, Emma had found the going slow - the cramped, cursive script that filled in every page around complex diagrams and potion ingredients requiring a careful and deliberate reading, one she could not sustain for any long period of time. Weeks had passed without anything being gained but loss of sleep.
Rubbing fitfully at her temple, Emma flipped the pages to where she’d last left off reading and pressed her fingers to the seam.
~
Rumplestiltskin refuses to teach me any longer - all because I will not take a heart. But I cannot-I will not-do what he asks. I know what that power does to a person, what it did to my mother. If you take enough hearts...you forget how to care for one.
I have to hold to hope that there is a way to bring David back. My love for him keeps me to this path. If this traveler - Jefferson - can’t help me, then I must convince Rumplestiltskin to change his mind.
He seeks to bottle it. The most powerful of magics - the one thing he has never yet been able to craft, not through any dark powers he possesses; nor buy, not with all the gold he spins.
True love.
He says he needs it for his “collection.” I think he may truly be mad.
Such a thing is impossible.
~
Emma’s body realized what she’d read before her brain; even as she backtracked, her eyes hitching on the words, her breath shallowed and her throat tightened, holding in the very same words-as if to speak them aloud would give them an irreconcilable permanence.
He seeks to bottle it. The most powerful of magics.
True love.
She had found it. A way to break the curse on the entire town all at once. Maybe there was more in the last few pages, maybe not - it didn’t matter. Because Emma knew what the Regina of this diary had only just begun to realize-that whatever Rumplestiltskin set out to do, he invariably accomplished. He would have found a way to bottle true love, Emma was sure of it.
True love.
Something that powerful - there’s no way he would have left it behind. It was here; somewhere in Storybrooke. All they had to do was find it.
They.
Killian!
She reached for her phone, but then something stopped her. Slowly, she pulled her hand back. Killian. Who was probably now in full swing at the bar, juggling lemons and flirting with Ruby, and who would drop all that in an instant if she called, if she called and told him what she’d found.
And what then?
They’d spent months searching, looking everywhere for a way to restore everyone’s memories, but they’d never stopped to think of what would happen if they ever succeeded. What-who-would they unleash? They still had no idea who all Regina had brought with her; not even Captain Hook had seen all there was to see in the world, and there were realms out there the Jolly Roger had never sailed.
And then there were the ones they did know - like her parents. Snow White. Prince Charming.
Was she ready to deal with what it would mean to restore the memories of their true selves-the King and Queen whose last memory of their daughter was of sending her away, a baby scarcely an hour old? If Emma looked hard enough - and she had - she could see the ghost of Snow White in Mary Margaret’s eyes, in the way her hands curved like nesting sparrows when she talked; in her unfailing goodness. But she could see nothing of herself in that soft face, in what was meant to be her mother’s face.
She’d refused to think about it all this time - and having to live with Mary Margaret still, perhaps it had been for the best. But it also meant that she was unprepared for the possibility that it was true-that breaking the curse would prove what she had dreamed about for years but couldn’t see when it was right there in front of her: that she had parents who loved her.
He seeks to bottle it.
True love.
Somehow, she knew it had to do with them-Snow and Charming. The pages of Henry’s story book were filled with the saga of their relationship; it permeated every story, steeping every other fairytale romance with the transcendent power of their love.
Emma could never know what that felt like. To love someone that much.
Every time she’d tried - it had ended in disaster. And then with Killian, just when she’d started to think that maybe-
Well.
It was hard enough to love one person..let alone two.
At last, she picked up her phone-but she didn’t use it. She stuffed it deep into the pocket of her coat, shutting the book and trying not to think about Regina, still so young and righteous and desperate to save the man she loved. Killian’s face filled her mind, the backrub he owed her, the curve of his mouth - and she tried not to think about that too.
Tucking the diary under her arm, she reached over and turned out the light.
---
Emma’s coffee was growing cold between her palms, but as soon as she lifted it to her lips she remembered the book sitting closed at her elbow and longed for something stronger. Maybe some of that whiskey that had gotten her into this unbelievable position in the first place: searching for a way to break a fairytale curse and holding onto the first real relationship in ten years at the same time.
“Coastal Maine?”
“What?” Emma sat uncomprehending for a moment; not sure how long Ruby had been standing there. Then the brunette gestured and Emma looked over at the book. “Oh! Yeah, well….”
“A little light reading?” Ruby laughed. Almost self-consciously, Emma’s hand crept over the book, shielding most of its cover from view. It wasn’t the best idea to have it here, but it hadn’t felt safe leaving it at home.
Emma fumbled for words. “Well, I-you said Killian’s got a boat, so...” she shrugged, hoped she’d come across endearingly romantic enough to avoid further questioning, and gulped cold coffee. Ruby did let it go, but she didn’t leave.
The coffee was terrible, but asking for a fresh cup would only bring the girl back. Emma wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and looked up at Ruby, brow creasing.
“Was there…something else?”
Ruby’s eyes were suddenly concerned, her mouth curving in a searching sort of empathy. “Is everything...okay?”
Emma was taken aback. “What do you mean?”
“I mean---well” Ruby slid into the booth across from her, ignoring Granny’s stern look, and lowered her voice. “It’s just-we haven’t seen Killian in town as much.”
“...right?”
Ruby stared at her expectantly and only years of practice going up against bailjumpers bigger and stronger than her kept Emma from shifting uncomfortably under the intense scrutiny.
“Emma?”
“Yeah, no, it’s fine.”
Ruby shot her a pointed look. “You just said ‘yeah, no’.”
“Ruby.” Emma reached out and squeezed her hand across the table. She smiled, ducking her head to catch Ruby’s. “Everything’s fine.”
She said to the Big Bad Wolf, Emma couldn’t help thinking-but she held her reassuring smile, and after one more squeeze, Ruby smiled back.
“Just keeping all that eye candy to yourself?”
“Something like that.”
By that point Granny’s glare had escalated to night-dishes-for-a-week standing, and Ruby acknowledged it with a grimace, sliding quickly out of the booth. “I’ll let you get back to your reading,” she said. “Another coffee?”
It was obvious she’d hardly touched her first cup - a waste of perfectly good coffee she’d have thought a few days ago - but glancing down she couldn’t help but answer, “Sure. Thanks, Ruby.”
Maybe it would help clear her mind; help her sort out what it was she was supposed to do. Her eyes found the diner’s clock - hoping that by some miracle time had passed her by - but there was still an hour before she was meant to meet Henry. Emma sighed. The two people she most wanted to talk to were the same two people she wasn’t sure she should tell.
Regardless of what she’d told Ruby, things felt far from fine.
---
With Killian keeping out of town, Emma’s company - though she was most often on her own - was being kept quite often by August. She still found him obnoxious-and the fact that his alter identity was a wooden puppet seemed almost too perfect-but she was begrudgingly beginning to warm to him. Though, warming from stone cold still kept most of their interactions decidedly chilly.
When insomnia had defeated her in the early hours of one particular morning, she’d shrugged into her clothes from the night before and gone walking. It was only by chance really that she found August - who rarely seemed to need sleep the longer he was there - awake as well.
He was outside of Granny’s tinkering with his motorcycle, and when she caught sight of him, Emma turned her footsteps in that direction. He heard her coming.
“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked, tightening a bolt with a swift twist.
Emma shook her head. “You?”
August just chuckled. He looked different; maybe it was the grey light of morning evening everything out, or maybe that in his torn t-shirt with its motor oil stains he looked almost relatable. Whatever it was, it made Emma regret a little bit how she’d been treating him. After all, the poor idealist had come roaring into town in a blaze of mystery and intrigue to try and convince her of something truly unbelievable-and it wasn’t his fault the job had been done long before he’d ever arrived.
“Need any help?”
Wiping the edge of his ratchet on an old rag, August shook his head. He probably knew she had no real experience with bikes; it had been an idle offer anyways. He shifted a little to better squint up at her, shuffling the dirt beneath her boots, hands in pockets.
“You?”
After a brief hesitation (and a surreptitious look around), Emma stepped closer, running her fingers over the bike’s chrome framework; clearly displaying an interest in August’s motorcycle to anyone who happened to be peeping out their windows.
“Just been thinking. About the diary - and the bottle.”
“You still think it’s here?” he asked.
“I know it is - but how the hell do we find it?” she frowned, fiddling idly with the handles.
“There has to be a way to force Regina’s hand,” he insisted, confusing Emma.
“I thought it was Gold’s spell.”
“It was,” August agreed; he grunted a little with the effort of what he was doing, hands slipping a little on the wrench. “But just before the curse, Regina ransacked Rumplestiltskin’s castle. I remember the Prince telling my father-to make sure the wardrobe could withstand anything in his stores.”
“Regina has the true love potion?”
“Well…judging by what you’ve told me is in that diary…I think it’d be the first thing she’d go for-don’t you?”
Something went off in the back of her mind; a tiny little click - a photo flash. Emma frowned, reaching for the realization she knew was growing just beyond her awareness.
“If I’m the savior, and Regina knows it...”
August paused in his work. “What are you thinking?”
Emma chewed at the inside of her cheek, trying to voice her scattered suppositions. “She’s been trying to get me to leave. Before, I thought it was because of Henry...”
“And now?”
“What if-“ Emma folded her arms on the seat of the cycle and leaned over so she could talk to August properly. She licked her lips, and started again - more clearly this time. “What if there’s something about me being in town that threatens the curse-not just me-“
“-but you staying here. In Storybrooke.”
“Exactly.”
Her expression hardened as she gathered her resolve; she knew now what she had to do, and she could see August knew it too.
“I have to try and leave Storybrooke.”
August pushed himself out from under the bike and sat up. He looked at her intently. “And if it’s not that-if you’re a threat either way?”
Emma’s jaw tightened. “Then she’ll try and kill me.”
----
Part C
Genre: AU
Word Count: 6,515
Summary: AU - Hook came along with the curse and has been living in Storybrooke all this time.
PREVIOUSLY IN LIKE WHISKEY...
She cut him off. “Killian. The book.”
He finally looked down, and then he saw what she had seen: the slow scrawl of black ink spreading across the pages as they watched; words bleeding onto thick-pressed paper in an all too familiar hand.
“Is that-?“
“Yeah,” Emma breathed. “It’s Regina’s.”
---------
With careful hands, she bent low to pick up the book, but it did not shock her a second time. What might have once been a protection spell had clearly faded over the years and though it could have meant to incapacitate her, all Emma suffered from the discovery were faint burns on her fingertips. She pulled the dustcover free - History’s Greatest Women - and scoffed.
The book it had been obscuring, though bound and hardcovered, wasn’t truly a book at all - it was a diary. Emma flipped through the pages, careful not to touch the ink, noting the neat scrawl of dates in the upper right hand corner of several pages.
“It’s Regina’s diary,” she said.
“Regina’s?” Killian asked. “Or the Queen’s?”
Emma stopped on a page near the middle and began to read.
“...my studies are growing more frequent. The constant use of magic is taking its toll on my body - but though my exhaustion continues to grow…”
Emma swallowed.
“…I am overcome. The thrill of magic is something I can no longer live without. Rumplestiltskin was right...”
Those were the last of the words written on the page, but whether it was the end of the entry she didn’t know; Emma couldn’t bring herself to turn the page. Rumplestiltskin was right. Never had those words boded well for her, and there was something about the diary itself that unsettled her-the sense that she was holding Regina’s descent in her hands.
“Am I the only one starting to feel like we’re totally screwed?”
Killian touched the back of her hand. Then, when he was certain the spell wouldn’t take umbrage with him as well, he shut the book. “It’s a start.”
Emma was un-amused and un-placated. “Says the Not Savior,” she shot back testily. She found another book of comparative size and traded dust jackets with the one she’d removed earlier; transforming Regina’s diary into Coastal Maine: A Maritime History.
Killian stroked the back of her neck. “I have the utmost confidence in your...Savior savoir-faire.”
Emma screwed her face up, trying to shore up her nerves with annoyance. “You’re not allowed to use French right now.”
He grinned. “Distracting you from your doubts, is it?”
“Yes,” she admitted easily; still, it hardly shook her patented frown. “And it’s cheating. How do you even know French?”
“I’ve got a talented tongue, I suppose.” He never did let an opportunity pass him by; Emma supposed she should find that reassuring. As it was, she just sighed and traced the edge of the book with her fingers; she couldn’t see the circulation desk through the rows of bookcases, but her eyes drifted that direction all the same.
“Let’s finish up and get out of here.”
She shifted her gaze back to him. “What if there’s more?”
“We’re not likely to find it, unless by accident,” he reasoned. Killian tapped the diary with his index finger. “Let’s worry about what we have found.”
Emma bit the inside of her cheek. She was pretty certain there was a great deal more to be worried about now...
---
By mutual agreement, Killian’s runs into town had become much more infrequent in the weeks since the return of his memories. It made sense - to limit his exposure to the other unaware townsfolk and the odds that he’d accidentally let something slip. Often, he’d just have Emma bring by what he needed. She, in turn, had taken charge of the diary - searching its pages when she could, while Killian looked towards...alternative solutions.
He avoided Gold at all costs-not trusting himself to maintain the act that close to his crocodile. Nor could he afford for Rumpelstiltskin to see through the ruse, thereby losing his element of surprise.
Oh, he knew the beast had never lost his memories-you could see it in the way he looked at people, he and Regina both; like they could see through a person. But he thought himself safe, all his enemies - Hook included - made impotent by the curse.
Killian had no way of knowing if he would do the same if ever he were to come face to face with Gold, if he could come up against that rotting darkness and see through him. His revenge was so near at hand; yet the timing and the resources eluded him. What he wouldn’t give for his hook...
“Killian!”
He started in surprise, but it was only Henry - racing across the park towards him, his backpack thumping wildly against his back.
“Hey Henry-oof!” He found himself with an armful of miniature Swan when Henry tripped in his haste and careened into him with windmilling arms. “Easy lad!”
“Sorry,” Henry exclaimed, righting himself with a few swings of his bag until he was properly balanced again. This Killian found perplexing; when last he’d checked, fourth graders didn’t have school on Saturdays.
He gestured absently. “What’s with the, uh, bag?”
“Operation Cobra!” hissed Henry with barely contained fervor. His tiny expression was so much like Emma’s when he’d missed something obvious that Killian’s thoughts immediately went to her. She’d be at the station still; forgetting that it was Saturday, that maybe the clerical work of a small town sheriff could wait a few days.
“-have to be ready at any moment!” Henry was saying and Killian tried to catch up with the conversation.
“I think action’s a bit far off, mate,” Killian told him. “We’ve not had much luck on the curse breaking front.”
Put-out as he was, Henry’s energy was not so easily daunted, and when he looked around his next words were a question. “Why’re you walking to Mr. Gold’s shop?”
Killian’s head snapped up, and he was shocked to find Henry was correct. The pawn shop was just ahead, its windows dark behind the ‘Closed’ sign that hung there. He hadn’t realized.
“Pirate’s don’t barter,” he reprimanded with a wink; recovering quickly as Henry laughed and he roughed the boy’s hair. He’d need to be more careful. “I thought I’d risk a bit longer in town-grab some bread for lunch, eh?”
“I’ll come with you!” Henry immediately insisted and turned towards the bakery. Chuckling, Killian had no choice but to follow.
Hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, he let Henry lead the way, chattering the whole while about class and what he was learning and did Killian learn about multiplication where he was from. Killian would have answered had Henry only allowed him a moment to interject, but as with most kids - even the inordinately precocious ones like Henry - sometimes they talked just for the sake of talking. He asked questions, because it was what adults did, but he never waited for a reply and was already on another topic entirely while he picked out an appropriately crunchy baguette, and Killian paid the amused girl at the till.
Killian let him keep on. It was comforting in a way-the constant up and down of his voice. When you spent your life on a pirate ship, a town like Storybrooke was quiet in comparison. Of course, he’d never noticed before - the way silence could settle on a place - and no small part of him wondered why his cursed self had chosen the solitude of the woods, far-removed from the sea and anything that pulled.
He turned his feet there now-back to the woods-and managed not to look back; not to Gold’s, not to the bay and his anchored lady. But when they reached the library, he couldn’t help himself: he looked up.
The clock, broken for as long as the library beneath it had been boarded up now ticked steadily to time, its ornate hands tracing the circumference as easily as the tide rolling in. Twenty-eight years and not a single stuck gear or rusted bolt.
Tick tock.
“Are you coming?”
Killian’s brow furrowed and he realized Henry was still with him, albeit quieter now.
“Where are you going?”
Henry grinned, trying to look innocent. “Wherever you’re going.”
“Oh no.” Killian shook the baguette threateningly. “You’re to stay in town.”
“Come oooon,” Henry beseeched - so plaintive as to almost be pathetic. “I’ll be good I promise.”
It was hard to believe only a few months ago, Henry had been dead set against him-not to mention any sort of interaction with his mother. Now look at him. So eager-that adamant admiration that young children had for anyone bigger than themselves, regardless of whether or not they were any good at all.
He was not the first boy foolish enough to look at him that way.
“I won’t touch anything!”
Killian shook his head. Those memories had no place in this world.
“I very much doubt that,” Killian muttered - but something in his face must have told Henry he’d won, because the kid took off down the sidewalk again, calling impatiently for Killian to keep up.
“Your mum’s gonna have my head for this, kid.”
---
“You are not teaching Henry how to mix drinks.”
“And what if I am?”
Killian smirked at her over the glass-strewn bar. Emma had gone to the playground, where Henry’s old wooden castle had been replaced by plastic and soft foam, only to find a mass of kids enjoying the Saturday morning and no Henry in sight. Instead, she’d had only a sneaking suspicion as to where he’d gone and time enough to follow up; it was the reason she was now standing in a bar at a quarter to one.
“Emma!” Henry greeted. His shirt was spotted with what she hoped was grenadine, and as she approached he went back to what he’d been doing-which appeared to be rolling a small lime between his knuckles.
Killian leaned over the bar and snagged her by the half-done zip of her jacket. “Hullo.”
She kissed him briefly, mumbling “Hello” against his mouth.
“I was about to ring you,” he told her. “Swear it.”
“It’s alright. I think it’s in his job description to be difficult,” she said wryly-reaching out and snatching the lime right off Henry, who cried “hey!” and looked immediately to Killian for help.
“Sorry, mate,” Killian laughed. “It was a fairly stolen fruit.”
“Have you eaten?” Emma asked Henry, tossing the lime in one hand.
“Yup.” He nodded. “Killian made grilled cheese.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Oh?”
Killian, for his part, didn’t rise to her subtle baiting.
He caught her lime mid-toss, waggling his eyebrows when she started in surprise. Then ee threw it upwards himself, grabbing another lime from the cutting board and sending it airborne as well, as easy as you please. So he was showing off a little; it was easy enough to pin on Henry, whose eyes went wide as saucers - though he’d already seen him do the same trick an hour ago.
“Emma! Watch this!” Henry demanded, and lunged for another lime.
Killian had to strain a bit to catch the overly-excited lob, but then there were three limes in the air and he was juggling one-handed what Emma couldn’t manage with two. He cut his eyes to her for just a second, but it was enough to catch the faint curl at the corner of his mouth, the purposely held-in smirk he coveted.
“Impressive.”
Killian bit his lip against a grin. “Try not to sound so bored, love.”
“Emma,” Henry intoned; as if she were embarrassing him, and it became suddenly harder for Killian to hold his grin in check.
“At least Henry’s impressed,” he said at last, switching up the even range of motion-one lime went higher than the rest, and he circled the other two twice in succession before catching the third and lobbing another high again.
“I just wish I had a neat party trick like that,” drawled Emma, helping herself to some of Henry’s soda.
Henry apparently disagreed with this assessment because it was enough to draw his attention away from the (truly impressive) display of juggling and set on Emma with a confused frown.
“That’s not what Killian said.”
She rolled her eyes-she could only imagine what that meant.
“He says you can tie a cherry stem into a knot with your mouth.”
Emma choked on her mouthful of soda, and it made Killian laugh so abruptly that he lost his rhythm and limes hit the counter, rolling every which way-abandoned and bruised.
“Nope, no,” she spluttered, still coughing. “Can’t.”
Clearly suspicious that she was trying to pull one over on him, Henry’s eyes narrowed, and Emma worried he’d try to push the issue. But instead, he turned to his backpack occupying the barstool next to him and pulled the zip.
“How’s the research going?” he asked.
Emma and Killian caught each other’s eyes. He winked.
“Uh, not as well as we’d hoped,” Emma hedged; and for the sake of her son and not scaring him for life, she kept the high color from her cheeks by sheer force of will. Killian made an obscene gesture behind the bar and she cleared her throat with unnecessary fervor.
“Are you sure there’s nothing else in the book?” she asked. He’d already pulled it from his bag - he never went anywhere without it these days - and was flipping through pages he probably had memorized by this point.
“It’s gotta be true love,” Henry insisted-though even he sounded a little frustrated when he said it. ‘That’s the only thing that’s ever broken a curse. And this is like...the curse of all curses!”
“Again-“ Killian interjected mildly. “Kissing might not be so out of the question.”
The eye roll from Emma and Henry was simultaneous.
“Is a bit of luck too much to ask for?” she complained, flipping a few pages herself. Her expression was annoyed, but it masked the beginnings of dejection in her voice. Killian nudged her with his elbow, and she shifted her weight from one foot to the other so their bodies touched.
“Apparently,” murmured Killian gamely. He started to twist, to bring his right hand to her waist in a soothing touch or to pull taut one of her loosening curls just to watch it spring back, but Emma sighed and moved first. She did it without thinking-her eyes still on the book, the pages she was turning with her left hand-but her other hand drifted, seeking unconsciously for his touch, and the fine bones of her wrist grazed his like a cello song, bow drawing over strings.
Killian stared-at her hand; and his emptiest space-and the press of their wrists, veins to veins, their hearts synchronizing in the beat between them.
Emma had visibly relaxed; the ever-present lines of worry smoothing from her face, the tightness in her shoulder easing the longer they touched. It took him a second to unstick his tongue.
“It’s no quest if it’s easy, love.”
Emma tilted her head, a rueful smile playing on her lips. And if ever there was a “moment”-this was surely it.
Then she was stepping away, her fingers trailing away along his arm. With an exaggerated sigh, she tugged at the back of Henry’s shirt; Killian clenched the ghosts of fingers that were no longer there.
“Let’s go kid.”
Henry groaned, but began packing up all the same. Killian grabbed the kid’s coat from behind the bar.
“Leaving so soon?”
Emma looked apologetic. “He’s not even supposed to be out here. I gotta get him back to Regina’s before she burns the whole town down.”
“Oops.” Henry grabbed his coat quickly and slipped under Emma’s arm, heading for the door.
Emma leaned over the bar. “I’ll call you tonight,” she promised, and he took the invitation to kiss her, though she grinned through the entirety of it. She dropped back onto the flats of her feet, and shuffled Henry out the door.
---
Henry kicked dejectedly at a loose stone, not following it when it skittered off the sidewalk into the street. “We’re running out of time,” he told Emma, stopping when she stopped.
The blonde looked around, but they’d just entered the edges of town and there was no one else about. Still, she couldn’t keep from lowering her voice just a fraction when she answered; nothing in Storybrooke was ever as it seemed, not even an empty street.
“You say that like something terrible is going to happen.”
“Don’t you think so?”
“Well, no,” she admitted. As far as she understood it was a curse, not a time bomb. “I guess…we’d all just keep, you know, going on.”
“But they need to remember, Emma!”
In frustration she raked the hair back from her eyes, feeling suddenly obstinate. “Why do they need to remember? Why, Henry?”
“Because they’re not supposed to be here.”
Emma stiffened.
“Yeah, well...” But Emma couldn’t think of anything to say.
In fact, she wasn’t certain she could trust herself to say anything else on the subject; she’d only made it through the last couple months by resolutely ignoring what Henry had no problem vocalizing. The tiny weight she’d tied those feelings to that morning on Killian’s ship was pressing down, a constant presence in the back of every breath. It had been growing heavier with each passing day, jagged edges distorting the chambers of her heart-and it was getting harder to ignore the possibility…that this really was a ticking bomb, waiting to go off.
Breath sharpening in her throat, she sought a quick change to the conversation, and it was the clock that saved her.
“Look!” Emma said, pointing up as she bent low to meet Henry. “3:33. Make a wish.”
Henry looked at her. Deciding now to be a skeptic. “Really?”
“Oh, you believe in fairies and Snow White, but you don’t believe in wishing on a clock?”
He continued to look at her, the seconds of the wishing moment slowly ticking away. She turned him by the shoulders to face the clock tower, trying not to roll her eyes. Hunching down a little to be more at his level, she pointed again. “We need all the help we can get,” she reminded him.
“Besides. I made a birthday wish and then I got you.”
His face lifted. “Really?”
“Really.”
And when he turned back to the clock, his face screwed up tight to make sure his wish really stuck-Emma closed her eyes too. Just a little more luck. It was as much a prayer as a wish; that jagged breath held in the back of her throat.
And at that precise moment, a motorcycle rumbled across the town line.
---
All Emma wanted was a cup of coffee and to read the paper in peace.
A peace she’d long since lost at home, what with Mary Margaret and her hyperactive interest in anyone’s problems but her own. And Emma had problems aplenty - none that she could share with Snow White, for obvious reasons.
Bad dreams had made for a sleepless night. She needed coffee and quiet - in that order - but when she walked into Granny’s, there was someone already sitting in her usual booth.
Someone completely foreign to Storybrooke.
“Ruby,” she hissed, snagging the waitress as she went past. “Who the hell is that?”
Ruby followed her gaze. “Oh, him? I know, right? Says he’s a ‘writer.’ He just showed up a few days ago asking for a room.”
“And you gave him one?” Emma asked incredulously.
“Well who am I to say no to those baby blues?” the brunette countered - but Emma hadn’t been joking. After all, Ruby didn’t know what she did - that there should have been no way for anyone besides Emma to enter Storybrooke; certainly no one had been able to leave it.
“I’m gonna go talk to him.”
“Ugh, fine.” Ruby huffed, and pushed a cup of coffee on her before Emma could go. “But you’ve already got Killian, so-dibs!”
Mug in hand, Emma weaved between the other tables in the diner, heading for the stranger. He looked harmless enough - dark haired and faintly stubbled, the way Ruby seemed to prefer - but his presence in Storybrooke was enough to make Emma suspicious.
She sat down across from him, her cup of coffee matching the one at his elbow. He didn’t look at all shocked that she’d done so, and that irked her for some reason - adding it to the list of annoyances. She didn’t waste time on a preamble:
“Who the hell are you?”
The man smiled slowly, cheeks dimpling in a way she found unfair, and when he leaned forward to clasp his hands on the tabletop, the leather of his jacket creaked.
“Hello, Emma.”
If he’d meant to startle her, he’d have to do better than that. Strangers had never been her favorite people, but in a town where a fairytale curse had a stranglehold over its borders and people, well - all the more reason to assume he was on the wrong side of what she was trying to accomplish.
She continued to study him, frowning in a way that creased her brow; he returned the scrutiny with bemusement and something like condescension.
“Were you hoping for a different reaction?” she snapped.
He shook his head. “You misunderstand me, Emma-I’m a friend.”
“A friend.”
“You can call me August.”
“August,” she repeated. “Right.”
Either he didn’t notice her sarcasm, or he chose to ignore it. He had a way about him that assumed familiarity. It was annoying.
“Is there somewhere...more private we could talk?”
“No.”
August was beginning to grow frustrated, which she, admittedly, enjoyed - but even Emma knew she was being difficult. So she muttered “fine” and stood up. Gesturing to Ruby that she’d pay for the coffee later, she stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jacket and strode out of the diner, assuming August would follow.
“This way.”
He’d caught up to her, his long legs keeping pace easily enough. He grabbed her by the elbow, and she made to protest, but he didn’t give her the chance, steering her down a side street, his voice low and too close to her ear.
“I want to show you something.”
“Yeah, but just remember I’m armed,” she warned just as August stopped walking.
They were only a block away from Granny’s and standing next to a parked motorcycle; she shifted her hand to her hip. Maybe it would be in her best interest to arrest him, she considered, as she watched him unhook a helmet from the handlebars; he was clearly deranged.
August held the helmet out to her.
“Absolutely not.”
He sighed. “I knew you’d be stubborn, but it’s just a ride.”
“With a strange man who won’t tell me why or where we’re going.”
He was proving to be impressively unflappable-but as Killian was fond of reminding her, she had a way of getting under a person’s skin. She folded her arms across her chest, and waited for something more acceptable than “hop on.”
“I could tell you,” he relented finally. “But I don’t think you’d believe me.”
Now where had she heard that before...
“This town…is not what it seems.”
Emma would have burst out laughing if it weren’t so disappointing. That was why he was here-to tell her about the curse? Whoever he was, he was about half a year too late.
She tossed her hair. “Yeah. I know.”
August faltered. “What?”
“I said I know.” She shrugged. “So do you have anything useful to contribute, or is this entire conversation a waste of my time?”
“-Useful?” he only seemed capable of blankly echoing her and she sincerely hoped no one actually ever believed he was a writer.
“Let’s fast-forward here-how do we break the curse?”
August’s eyes darted frantically around, though he kept a tighter control of his face. “How do you---?”
She waved him off. “Not important.”
“It is actually.”
Emma rubbed her forehead, feeling the throb of a headache coming on. God, all she’d wanted was a cup of coffee.
“You’re a stranger here-you rode in on that motorcycle of yours with a five-o’clock shadow and a leather jacket and just expect me to trust you completely?” Emma glared at him. “Let me ask you a question-are you a complete idiot?”
“No!” August snapped. He raked his hand back through his hair; she could see by the clench of his jaw how hard he was working to maintain his composure. “I’m meant to look after you-to see to it you have what you need to save us, to save everyone!”
Emma took a step back. Regardless of what he said, what he professed to know - something in her rebelled at the very idea. Her thoughts went immediately to Killian.
“I have who and what I need. That doesn’t include you.”
“Look. I made a mistake years ago. I’ve made…many, mistakes,” August confessed-and it sounded like the first honest thing he’d said to her.
“But you’re gonna need my help.”
---
The hour was late, but Emma’s nights had been long - far beyond her ability to count - and she rubbed at her tired eyes beneath the glow of her desk lamp. Countless petty incidents had filled in her days around the hours she spent with Killian and Henry, splitting her time between the Nest and town and wearing down the soles of her boots in the process.
Just thinking about Killian made her wish she were there; not alone in the darkening sheriff’s station. Having spent the last three decades working obscene hours at the Nest, he was an expert at finding sleep when he could, and staying awake when he needed. But more than that, Emma found simply being with him relaxed her in a way she hadn’t expected; (he also owed her a backrub if she wasn’t mistaken).
Yet, there was still much to do before she would allow herself to call it a night - and even then, she feared she’d be too exhausted to walk as far as the woods. She had no one to blame but herself; unless you could place blame on an inanimate object.
Emma unlocked the bottom drawer of her desk with a small key and pulled from beneath her stored and holstered gun Regina’s diary.
For something so small, it had caused her an annoying amount of grief. Only able to read it in secret, Emma had found the going slow - the cramped, cursive script that filled in every page around complex diagrams and potion ingredients requiring a careful and deliberate reading, one she could not sustain for any long period of time. Weeks had passed without anything being gained but loss of sleep.
Rubbing fitfully at her temple, Emma flipped the pages to where she’d last left off reading and pressed her fingers to the seam.
~
Rumplestiltskin refuses to teach me any longer - all because I will not take a heart. But I cannot-I will not-do what he asks. I know what that power does to a person, what it did to my mother. If you take enough hearts...you forget how to care for one.
I have to hold to hope that there is a way to bring David back. My love for him keeps me to this path. If this traveler - Jefferson - can’t help me, then I must convince Rumplestiltskin to change his mind.
He seeks to bottle it. The most powerful of magics - the one thing he has never yet been able to craft, not through any dark powers he possesses; nor buy, not with all the gold he spins.
True love.
He says he needs it for his “collection.” I think he may truly be mad.
Such a thing is impossible.
~
Emma’s body realized what she’d read before her brain; even as she backtracked, her eyes hitching on the words, her breath shallowed and her throat tightened, holding in the very same words-as if to speak them aloud would give them an irreconcilable permanence.
He seeks to bottle it. The most powerful of magics.
True love.
She had found it. A way to break the curse on the entire town all at once. Maybe there was more in the last few pages, maybe not - it didn’t matter. Because Emma knew what the Regina of this diary had only just begun to realize-that whatever Rumplestiltskin set out to do, he invariably accomplished. He would have found a way to bottle true love, Emma was sure of it.
True love.
Something that powerful - there’s no way he would have left it behind. It was here; somewhere in Storybrooke. All they had to do was find it.
They.
Killian!
She reached for her phone, but then something stopped her. Slowly, she pulled her hand back. Killian. Who was probably now in full swing at the bar, juggling lemons and flirting with Ruby, and who would drop all that in an instant if she called, if she called and told him what she’d found.
And what then?
They’d spent months searching, looking everywhere for a way to restore everyone’s memories, but they’d never stopped to think of what would happen if they ever succeeded. What-who-would they unleash? They still had no idea who all Regina had brought with her; not even Captain Hook had seen all there was to see in the world, and there were realms out there the Jolly Roger had never sailed.
And then there were the ones they did know - like her parents. Snow White. Prince Charming.
Was she ready to deal with what it would mean to restore the memories of their true selves-the King and Queen whose last memory of their daughter was of sending her away, a baby scarcely an hour old? If Emma looked hard enough - and she had - she could see the ghost of Snow White in Mary Margaret’s eyes, in the way her hands curved like nesting sparrows when she talked; in her unfailing goodness. But she could see nothing of herself in that soft face, in what was meant to be her mother’s face.
She’d refused to think about it all this time - and having to live with Mary Margaret still, perhaps it had been for the best. But it also meant that she was unprepared for the possibility that it was true-that breaking the curse would prove what she had dreamed about for years but couldn’t see when it was right there in front of her: that she had parents who loved her.
He seeks to bottle it.
True love.
Somehow, she knew it had to do with them-Snow and Charming. The pages of Henry’s story book were filled with the saga of their relationship; it permeated every story, steeping every other fairytale romance with the transcendent power of their love.
Emma could never know what that felt like. To love someone that much.
Every time she’d tried - it had ended in disaster. And then with Killian, just when she’d started to think that maybe-
Well.
It was hard enough to love one person..let alone two.
At last, she picked up her phone-but she didn’t use it. She stuffed it deep into the pocket of her coat, shutting the book and trying not to think about Regina, still so young and righteous and desperate to save the man she loved. Killian’s face filled her mind, the backrub he owed her, the curve of his mouth - and she tried not to think about that too.
Tucking the diary under her arm, she reached over and turned out the light.
---
Emma’s coffee was growing cold between her palms, but as soon as she lifted it to her lips she remembered the book sitting closed at her elbow and longed for something stronger. Maybe some of that whiskey that had gotten her into this unbelievable position in the first place: searching for a way to break a fairytale curse and holding onto the first real relationship in ten years at the same time.
“Coastal Maine?”
“What?” Emma sat uncomprehending for a moment; not sure how long Ruby had been standing there. Then the brunette gestured and Emma looked over at the book. “Oh! Yeah, well….”
“A little light reading?” Ruby laughed. Almost self-consciously, Emma’s hand crept over the book, shielding most of its cover from view. It wasn’t the best idea to have it here, but it hadn’t felt safe leaving it at home.
Emma fumbled for words. “Well, I-you said Killian’s got a boat, so...” she shrugged, hoped she’d come across endearingly romantic enough to avoid further questioning, and gulped cold coffee. Ruby did let it go, but she didn’t leave.
The coffee was terrible, but asking for a fresh cup would only bring the girl back. Emma wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and looked up at Ruby, brow creasing.
“Was there…something else?”
Ruby’s eyes were suddenly concerned, her mouth curving in a searching sort of empathy. “Is everything...okay?”
Emma was taken aback. “What do you mean?”
“I mean---well” Ruby slid into the booth across from her, ignoring Granny’s stern look, and lowered her voice. “It’s just-we haven’t seen Killian in town as much.”
“...right?”
Ruby stared at her expectantly and only years of practice going up against bailjumpers bigger and stronger than her kept Emma from shifting uncomfortably under the intense scrutiny.
“Emma?”
“Yeah, no, it’s fine.”
Ruby shot her a pointed look. “You just said ‘yeah, no’.”
“Ruby.” Emma reached out and squeezed her hand across the table. She smiled, ducking her head to catch Ruby’s. “Everything’s fine.”
She said to the Big Bad Wolf, Emma couldn’t help thinking-but she held her reassuring smile, and after one more squeeze, Ruby smiled back.
“Just keeping all that eye candy to yourself?”
“Something like that.”
By that point Granny’s glare had escalated to night-dishes-for-a-week standing, and Ruby acknowledged it with a grimace, sliding quickly out of the booth. “I’ll let you get back to your reading,” she said. “Another coffee?”
It was obvious she’d hardly touched her first cup - a waste of perfectly good coffee she’d have thought a few days ago - but glancing down she couldn’t help but answer, “Sure. Thanks, Ruby.”
Maybe it would help clear her mind; help her sort out what it was she was supposed to do. Her eyes found the diner’s clock - hoping that by some miracle time had passed her by - but there was still an hour before she was meant to meet Henry. Emma sighed. The two people she most wanted to talk to were the same two people she wasn’t sure she should tell.
Regardless of what she’d told Ruby, things felt far from fine.
---
With Killian keeping out of town, Emma’s company - though she was most often on her own - was being kept quite often by August. She still found him obnoxious-and the fact that his alter identity was a wooden puppet seemed almost too perfect-but she was begrudgingly beginning to warm to him. Though, warming from stone cold still kept most of their interactions decidedly chilly.
When insomnia had defeated her in the early hours of one particular morning, she’d shrugged into her clothes from the night before and gone walking. It was only by chance really that she found August - who rarely seemed to need sleep the longer he was there - awake as well.
He was outside of Granny’s tinkering with his motorcycle, and when she caught sight of him, Emma turned her footsteps in that direction. He heard her coming.
“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked, tightening a bolt with a swift twist.
Emma shook her head. “You?”
August just chuckled. He looked different; maybe it was the grey light of morning evening everything out, or maybe that in his torn t-shirt with its motor oil stains he looked almost relatable. Whatever it was, it made Emma regret a little bit how she’d been treating him. After all, the poor idealist had come roaring into town in a blaze of mystery and intrigue to try and convince her of something truly unbelievable-and it wasn’t his fault the job had been done long before he’d ever arrived.
“Need any help?”
Wiping the edge of his ratchet on an old rag, August shook his head. He probably knew she had no real experience with bikes; it had been an idle offer anyways. He shifted a little to better squint up at her, shuffling the dirt beneath her boots, hands in pockets.
“You?”
After a brief hesitation (and a surreptitious look around), Emma stepped closer, running her fingers over the bike’s chrome framework; clearly displaying an interest in August’s motorcycle to anyone who happened to be peeping out their windows.
“Just been thinking. About the diary - and the bottle.”
“You still think it’s here?” he asked.
“I know it is - but how the hell do we find it?” she frowned, fiddling idly with the handles.
“There has to be a way to force Regina’s hand,” he insisted, confusing Emma.
“I thought it was Gold’s spell.”
“It was,” August agreed; he grunted a little with the effort of what he was doing, hands slipping a little on the wrench. “But just before the curse, Regina ransacked Rumplestiltskin’s castle. I remember the Prince telling my father-to make sure the wardrobe could withstand anything in his stores.”
“Regina has the true love potion?”
“Well…judging by what you’ve told me is in that diary…I think it’d be the first thing she’d go for-don’t you?”
Something went off in the back of her mind; a tiny little click - a photo flash. Emma frowned, reaching for the realization she knew was growing just beyond her awareness.
“If I’m the savior, and Regina knows it...”
August paused in his work. “What are you thinking?”
Emma chewed at the inside of her cheek, trying to voice her scattered suppositions. “She’s been trying to get me to leave. Before, I thought it was because of Henry...”
“And now?”
“What if-“ Emma folded her arms on the seat of the cycle and leaned over so she could talk to August properly. She licked her lips, and started again - more clearly this time. “What if there’s something about me being in town that threatens the curse-not just me-“
“-but you staying here. In Storybrooke.”
“Exactly.”
Her expression hardened as she gathered her resolve; she knew now what she had to do, and she could see August knew it too.
“I have to try and leave Storybrooke.”
August pushed himself out from under the bike and sat up. He looked at her intently. “And if it’s not that-if you’re a threat either way?”
Emma’s jaw tightened. “Then she’ll try and kill me.”
----
Part C