With The Tide - Chapter 3 - From Her Bed
Rating: M
Characters/Pairing: Emma Swan/Regina Mills, Emma Swan/Captain Hook, Emma Swan/OFC, Snow White/Prince Charming, Belle/Rumplestiltskin, assorted other characters.
Warnings: (this chapter) -none.
Authors Notes: Many millions of thanks to my beta reader youngmachines. This is the last chapter to be without Regina's shining grace!
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time does not belong to me, nor their characters or plots. The plot of this fanfiction belongs to shikabane-mai, and the artwork she drew can be found: post/46770603575/captain-emma-swan-and-her-former- bounty-mark
Chapter 3
From Her Bed
"Of all the delectable islands the Neverland is the snuggest and most compact, not large and sprawly, you know, with tedious distances between one adventure and another, but nicely crammed. When you play at it by day with the chairs and table-cloth, it is not in the least alarming, but in the two minutes before you go to sleep it becomes very nearly real. That is why there are night-lights. "
Captain Swan oversaw the final loading of the supplies into the hold of The Bloody Blade with something approaching adrenaline; which was odd as she had never before experienced such a kick from watching salted bacon being heaved on board a ship.
Much to her surprise, Hook had come to see her off. He was definitely not the sentimental type from anybody's perspective, but once in a while he displayed a rare soft spot. Emma appreciated and admired her old Captain, but often missed the emotionally raw and affectionate man she had first met two and a half centuries ago, four months pregnant and desperate to escape her miserable life. These rare moments of sentimentality were all that was left of the man who had been stolen by Rumplestiltskin.
Then of course, he ruined her reminiscence with a typically perverse remark. "Try not to die on your little quest Swan; I don't know anybody else who's willing to wager oral sex instead of money."
"That's because nobody else is quite as willing to put up with your shit as I am," Emma commented, trying to do a mental roster of her crew. Charming and Snow... present. Granny… yep. Red… still pulling her shirt on and rubbing her eyes blearily but definitely present. The last of the cargo was rolled onto the ship by Charming and the Dwarves and Emma watched as the final preparations for setting sail were completed.
"See you in a couple of months then, Killian," Emma offered him her forearm for clasping.
Killian grasped it. "Silly wench," he muttered, sneaking an arm around her waist and gathering her up for a perfunctory kiss on the lips. "I won't miss you."
The blonde Captain doffed her hat at him. "I won't miss you either."
And with that farewell and his distant salute, Emma boarded her ship, ready to set sail on her new adventure, veins piping adrenaline all around her body.
Red, her Master Gunner, caught up to her the second her well-polished boot stepped on to the wooden deck. "We've got a problem, Captain." Emma's heart sank through her previously-mentioned, well-polished boot and into the water below. A 'problem' by Red's standards was the last thing she needed on the dawn of a voyage as great as this one.
"What's the problem?" Emma asked her Master Gunner, mentally preparing herself for the worst. Damage to the ship from the battle yesterday? Maybe after two hundred years of Emma's ambitious schemes, the crew had thrown in the towel and organised a mutiny?
Red bit her lip. "It's Grumpy. He's refusing to leave port without Nova."
A long relieved sigh escaped Emma's lips. Grumpy, she could deal with. "Nova? As in the whore, Nova? She wants to join the crew?"
Red contained her own smile at Emma's incredulous tone. The relationship between Grumpy and his whore, Nova, was a long-standing joke on board The Bloody Blade. In the last decade, from the moment the ship docked in the harbour at Tortuga until the moment the anchor was raised, Grumpy would be in the company of Nova. Emma, being the sensitive sort of soul she was, assumed that the girl was merely a fantastic lay. But if Grumpy wanted to bring her with him on board… well, that could only lead to trouble.
"Can you send him into my quarters when you find him, please Red?" Emma asked distractedly, already halfway down the stairs. "And tell the crew we'll set sail as soon as I've dealt with this… issue."
"Absolutely, Capt-" But the rest of the girl's words were lost as Emma slipped into the relative peace and sanctity of her Quarters. Her bedspread was still rumpled from her activities with Hook the previous day and Emma set about fixing that first; smoothing the sheets and straightening the thin covers. She was more or less impervious to the cold but in the dead of winter in the truest of northern seas, blankets did tend to come in handy.
As Emma finished her small relapse into past domesticity, there was a knock at the door. Grumpy, she guessed. "Come in!" The blonde yelled loudly, seating herself with a thump on her desk, the transaction records from Gold making a curiously comfortable cushion.
Grumpy entered. From a single analytical glance at his face, Emma could tell that she was in trouble. Any pirate worth their salt could tell the willingness to take no prisoners in someone's features and that was what she was looking at now. Mind you, taking no prisoners was how this particular pirate approached life in general, so perhaps she shouldn't be so concerned.
"I want Nova to join our crew," the dwarf said determinedly, with no preamble whatsoever.
Emma wiggled a little. It felt like she was sitting on something very uncomfortable. "And is that what Nova wants?" She asked, sliding off the desk and turning her back to Grumpy in order to rifle through the paperwork.
"She wants to be with me," Grumpy said, sounding insulted at her insinuation that he was forcing her on board. "And if that means joining a pirate ship, she'll do it."
Emma finally located the uncomfortable object - her grindstone. Clambering back on to the table, she flipped it over in her hands. "You know, despite their general respectability, there are eleven other men on this crew and out of all of them, only Charming is immune to whores."
"You're the Captain!" Grumpy stated indignantly. "Isn't stopping them taking advantage your job?"
"It's impossible to take advantage of whores," Emma pointed out, drawing her dagger from its sheath. She ran the grindstone along its length, sharpening the blade. "Does Nova know how to fight? Does she have her own weapon?"
Grumpy glared at her. "Nova doesn't want that life anymore!"
Emma sighed, stilling the movement of the grindstone over her blade in order to fix her most disorderly pirate with a glare. "I'm going to assume that the sum of Nova's experiences with weaponry begins and ends with dicks. So I'm not going to be paying her any fresh wages. You can either split yours with her or she goes without. But I'm happy to provide basic necessities like food as long as she pulls her weight on the ship." Sensing an argument about to arise, Emma held up her hand. "That's more than fair, Grumpy. Take it or leave it."
His voice was grudging, but accepting. "Thank you," he murmured as though it pained him. Then a clash of door on wood signalled his hasty exit.
Captain Swan had just resumed sharpening her blade, the consistent up and down movements soothing her inflamed irritation, when yet another knock came at the door. "It's open," she yelled, finishing the tip of the blade with a flick of the grindstone.
Snow and Red entered, the former looking reasonably cheerful and the latter downright miserly. "We've accounted for everybody, plus one," Snow informed her. "I hear Grumpy has decided to escort his escort on board."
"You heard right," Emma said. "Bloody fools both of them. It's only a matter of time before the less respectable members of our crew decide that having a whore on board is too much of a temptation to resist and then where will we be?"
Red shuddered. "God forbid we have to get the plank out of storage. Last I heard, the termites got at it."
Emma hopped off the table and stretched out her back, hearing the kinks in her spine pop in satisfaction. Snow winced and spoke her mind. "The plank is a death sentence. It shouldn't come to that."
Their Captain shook her head, re-sheathing her dagger in her belt. "The death sentence is reserved for pirates who kill their fellows or arrange a mutiny. If the former happens over a whore, well, I will not be happy." Emma sighed at the displeasing hypothetical situation, and then changed the subject. "Are we ready to set sail?"
"Aye aye, Captain," Red saluted.
Emma grabbed an old tankard of rum from her desk, taking a long swig and smacking her lips in satisfaction. "Alrighty, then." She jammed the tankard in the large overcoat pockets specifically designed for such purposes.
Coming up on deck was always a breath of fresh air, quite literally, but the blonde Captain was so accustomed to it she didn't blink twice. Instead, she made her way to the wheel of the ship, fingering the wooden spokes that were so old and so familiar. "Hoist the anchor!" She yelled, pitching her voice so it carried across from the quarterdeck where she was standing all the way to the bow. "Lower the sails!"
The flurry of activity that followed her commands spread across the ship just like her voice. The seven Dwarves each pushing hard on round spokes used to hoist the anchor free of the sea bed. Red and Snow were releasing the sails from the main mast and the third mast respectively, while Nova assisted Belle in lowering the sails of the foremast. The wind caught and with her usual creaking groan (the Blade wasn't as young as she used to be), Emma's precious ship moved out of the harbour.
Emma had the wheel and was chasing the horizon with the usual manic grin that accompanied being allowed to sail the open sea once more. She beckoned Snow closer to her while keeping both hands on the wheel. Her Quartermaster approached and the blonde threw her the pouch containing the bean which Hook had given her. Snow caught it with deft hands.
"Lob it into the sea, as far as you can," Emma instructed, passing the Tortugan harbour walls and finding, to her joy, that other than The Bloody Blade, the sea was all but deserted. She watched with a careful eye as Snow followed her instructions, her powerful arm muscles which had been built through decades of archery, setting the bean on a long trajectory. It landed with a splash at least thirty metres away.
Emma waited in tense anticipation, smiling only when the portal was formed and refracting green light everywhere. "Here we go!" She yelled, containing a squeak as the ship tumbled over the edge of the portal and the entire pirate crew plunged down into the darkness.
Travelling through a portal was not for the weak-hearted. Nauseating. Blinding. Lightning fast. Scary as hell. Pitch-black.
No matter how many times she did jump from Neverland to Evermore and back again, Emma could never quite quell the feeling of her stomach in her mouth. Mercifully, her throwing up had stopped after the first few times. And she was glad to see, that despite half a decade having passed since her last portal jump, she hadn't lost the knack of holding down her breakfast.
Suddenly light re-entered her world. The sea was greener than it was before and Emma turned around to look back across the sea. The portal was just closing and beyond that was a shimmering translucent barrier. Neverland's version of a border. Within it, magic worked. Outside, it was extremely limited.
"Welcome to Neverland!" Emma yelled out.
"CAPTAIN! MAN OVERBOARD!" Came a roar from down on deck. The blonde quickly surrendered control of the wheel to Charming, who now boasted green-tinged skin but took it anyway. Emma raced down the steps, jumping the last three to join a gathering crowd at the port side of the ship.
"Out of the fucking way," Emma snarled, pushing her crew aside until she broke through. Grumpy looked at her, still pale and shaky from the portal hop, and pointed towards the water. Emma craned her neck over the side, shuddering with horror when she realised who he had yelled about.
An unconscious girl lay flat on her back on a piece of driftwood, floating aimlessly over the bow waves that The Bloody Blade was giving out. But the horrified expressions surrounding her were for the unmistakeably round curve of her belly. She was pregnant.
"Grumpy, Bashful," Emma ordered. "Take Doc and haul her aboard. Check her breathing and make sure there's no lasting harm. Now!"
The three Dwarves she'd mentioned hurried off to launch a dinghy on their little rescue mission. "Dopey, run and get Bug in case she needs more skilled medical care." The Dwarf jogged towards the hull to retrieve their surgeon, who spent most of his time below deck working on papers. "Sneezy and Gus - we need towels and blankets. We're got to get this girl warmed up. Get Snow to unlock the hold for you. Red, if you can ask Granny to knock up something warm. Soup, perhaps."
Emma looked around at the sailors she hadn't deployed to do tasks. "The rest of you, keep the sails full of wind and the course true. I want to get the missing Princess and go as quickly as possible, you understand." She received affirmative nods, then leaned back out over the side to check the progress of the rescue. The boat was almost at the driftwood which the pregnant girl had been floating on now.
"Nova," the Captain spotted the girl, looking out of sorts in a ratty old dress. We need to find her something a little more suitable, she thought to herself, but turned her attention back to the current matter. "A word in my cabin, please."
The girl almost tripped over herself. "Yes, Captain."
Emma descended the steps below the quarterdeck into her cabin, hearing the unsteady and uncertain footsteps of the ex-whore following behind her. Once they were encased in the familiar walls, Emma rounded on her, causing a gasp of surprise to fall from Nova's lips.
"Please understand I have nothing against whores," Emma began. "But I do object to having one aboard my ship. So a few ground rules. Firstly, I don't give a damn about who you fuck as long as you don't charge them for the privilege. Secondly, you will obey all direct orders myself, Snow, Charming or Red gives you, as we are in command on this ship. Thirdly, in exchange for our feeding and clothing you, you have to pull your weight on this ship. That means chores, mostly, as I've been led to believe you have no experience with weapons. Understood?"
"Yes, Captain." The poor girl was practically quaking in her boots and Emma rolled her eyes. No guts at all. How did someone like her go into whoring? Emma had known hundreds of whores in her time, had even worked in a brothel for a year, and she'd never met one so terrified of authority.
"Glad we got that settled," Emma murmured to herself. "You may have to wait a few hours for more suitable clothes, as our Quartermaster is currently occupied, but as soon as she's available she'll sort you out."
"Thank you," Nova spoke, with a voice like a mouse. Her Captain couldn't even bring herself to imagine her relationship with Grumpy. It was like chalk and cheese.
"Captain!" Grumpy burst through her door. "The pregnant girl! She's awake!"
Emma followed him back out the door, eager to speak to her. Pregnancy in Neverland was avoided at all costs, because nobody here ever aged, due to the same immortality spell that was on The Bloody Blade and The Jolly Roger, and which was responsible for Emma's very long lifespan of two hundred and seventy five years.
If you got pregnant in Neverland, you had to send the baby into Evermore to be sponsored by a family there. There were no children in Neverland, asides from the Lost Boys, children who had found their way back here before they had grown into adults and were colonised together on the west coast. That was where Emma's son had been living, frozen as a five-year-old, for the past 255 years.
"Captain?" Grumpy questioned from beside her. Emma shook her head and returned to reality, where the pregnant girl, still coughing and spluttering, was awake. "She says that her name is Ella."
"Hey Ella," Emma crouched down by the girl's form, using a soft voice that was seldom needed. "How are you feeling?"
"Cold and wet," the girl replied and Sneezy wrapped another blanket around her already swaddled form. "Where am I?"
Emma smiled at her, reaching out to clasp a pale, damp hand. "You're on board my ship, Ella. The Bloody Blade. My name's Captain Swan."
"Oh! I'm sorry to trouble you officer!" Ella scrambled up onto her knees, but swayed in the air as though completely unbalanced. "I didn't mean to cause you any bother -"
"Ella, Ella," Emma soothed her, pressing her back downwards so the girl didn't strain herself. "We're not the navy. We're pirates."
Usually this announcement was followed by a gasp of fear, shock or horror. Sometimes it was also followed by pleas to spare lives and offers of gold. However, Ella merely sighed and closed her eyes, as though almost relieved.
This strange reaction was interrupted by Red pushing through the crowd, holding a tankard. "Hot soup!" She said triumphantly, holding it aloft and nudging several onlookers out of the way with her hips alone. Red uncorked the concoction and held it to Ella's lips. The young girl drank it down greedily, looking less pale and windswept with each gulp.
"How far along are you?" Doc asked from his position by Ella's side.
"Nearly all the way," Ella said, choking on the soup. Sneezy patted her back carefully while she regained her breath. "Thank you… it's kind of hard to keep track in Neverland." The young girl drained the last of the soup from the tankard, still shivering. But her eyes became abruptly wide. "You won't leave me back in Port Lost, will you?" Her frightened eyes searched each person, and when none would meet her eyes, she wailed and bucked frantically.
Emma was alarmed. "Ella! Calm down!" She pinned her hands on each of the girl's shoulders and pushed down hard. "Why do you want to stay with pirates rather than go back to Port Lost?"
"The father!" Ella gasped out, still bucking hard against Emma's hands and decorating her cheeks with tear stains. "He's the Navy admiral. He sent assassins out after me. He'd rather kill me and his child than have it known that he was unfaithful to his wife."
Sneezy helped Ella to sit up, carefully rubbing her shoulders to get the warmth back into her. "That explains why she was so terrified we were from the navy."
Emma ran a hand through her long, golden locks. "We're going to be returning to Evermore at some point, Ella, but I don't know how soon that'll be. You're welcome to stay with us until we go back there."
"Thank you," she breathed, leaning back into the pirate rubbing the warmth into her shoulders.
The Captain caught the eye of her Quartermaster and signalled to move away so that they could talk. She weaved her way through the crowd on deck to a deserted spot on the empty starboard. Snow joined her, leaning out, with her eyes on the horizon. The sea always had a more indigo tint to it in Neverland than it did in Evermore and it was beautiful to those who had yet to be accustomed.
"What are we going to do with her?" Snow said quietly. "She'll just be a drain on our resources."
Emma sighed. "I know, but we can't just leave her here to die. I want you to clothe her and put her in the kitchen with Granny. She'll be useful enough there."
"Aye, Captain," Snow saluted. "We're not too far from Port Lost and it's close to nightfall. Charming wants to know who you're taking with you to search for the Princess."
Emma deliberated; watching swirls of indigo silt permeate the ocean. Who to take with her? The obvious choice was Red. She was a great tracker, attractive - which helped when coercing information out of people and a feral fighter. But who would be their third? A trio of women was asking for trouble so she needed someone masculine; a typical broadsword-wielding hunk of testosterone that could overpower the Princess should it be needed. Essentially - her father. And it helped that both had lived in Neverland for long periods of time, so they spoke the language well.
"Red and Charming," Emma stated to Snow. "Which means you'll be in sole command of the Blade. Think you can handle it?"
"I'd be a piss-poor First Mate and Quartermaster if I couldn't, Captain," Snow pointed out. "What are your orders in your absence?"
"Fucking hell," Emma sighed. "I haven't given up command as long as I've been Captain of this ship... two centuries! Where do I begin?"
"Not entirely true," Snow pointed out. "You came down with green fever a couple of decades back. Charming and Red shared command."
"Yeah, but I was always on board to veto them," Emma replied. "Okay, disguise the ship so it's more merchant than pirate. That should keep the navy off your back. Send out a small, trustworthy group each day for supplies, but nobody that doesn't speak the language or is likely to be recognised in Port Lost. If anybody gets cabin fever, get them scrubbing the decks for a few hours."
Snow absorbed it all, nodding as Emma went along. "Worst case scenarios?"
"I'll send Red back every other day while we're still in Port Lost to reassure you. If we have to move further into Neverland, though I don't think we will, I'll send a messenger bird in the same time period." Emma squinted out at the horizon, trying to remember anything else that might be of importance. "I'm going to ask Granny to be our temporary Boatswain whilst Charming's with me - you're going to need somebody by your side that's fluent in the language. And if Grumpy petitions to be allowed a cabin rather than a hammock now that's he's shacked up with a female; stop him in his tracks."
Her piece said and done, Emma bestowed a short, perfunctory hug on her step-mother. "Take care, Emma," Snow told her. "Look after my husband."
"Look after my ship!" Emma exclaimed in reply and they both laughed before the Captain turned to walk away. She needed to make her final arrangements before disembarking.
An hour or so later, Emma descended the gangplank from her beautiful ship to the docks of Port Lost, Neverland. Despite having been away for half a decade, it still felt oddly like home. That could have been because she had been conceived here, or because technically she was a Princess of Neverland, although illegitimate. But Emma chose to believe she called Neverland home it was where she and Hook had started to become the most feared pirates in all the lands.
"So where do we start looking?" Red asked, pulling a satchel of food over her slim shoulders.
"A tavern?" Charming suggested, a hint of teasing in his voice. "Maybe a pint or two of ale will inspire us."
Emma tried not to roll her eyes and failed. "Pull your cloak up, Charming. The last thing we want is someone recognising you as King George's long lost son. And we'll start with the most likely places - estates, guilds, even nunneries; anywhere that might have taken in a runaway Princess." She spoke her instructions in Nevic, the local language, silently telling the other two to follow her example.
Mercifully her father followed her suggestion, and their search began. The fortress that oversaw Port Lost was their first call. Red showed many of the soldiers the drawing of the Princess, claiming to be searching for her 'missing sister', whilst Emma and Charming wheedled their way into the kitchen with gold coins and false claims of being missionaries from the capital of Neverland - Anise. Their search there was fruitless. None of the maids or servants bore any resemblance to the missing Princess, nor did any of the occupants of the rooms Emma and Charming invaded with unconvincing spiels about religion.
However, when they returned to the gate, they found Red in a state of frustrated excitement. "Two different soldiers recognised her, but neither could remember where from." She reported. "But I think that means we were right - the Princess is definitely here in Port Lost."
"So it would seem," Emma took the picture and studied it again, hard, though she already knew every carefully stroked pencil line. "What we really need to know is if she's still going by Regina."
"It's almost dark," Charming pointed out. "That little exercise with the fortress took us most of the afternoon and the evening. We really need to find a tavern and regroup. Shoot some ideas. That kind of thing."
"I agree," Red ran a hand through her hair. "All three of us are great at finding people, but that's generally when we have a clearer idea about who we're looking for. Let's reread that journal Cora gave you; it might give us some ideas."
"A tavern it is," Emma smiled regretfully. She'd known this would take a great deal of time, but she was here now. And she was impatient. It was past time to bring that erstwhile little Princess Regina back home again. And Emma Swan was going to take the greatest of pleasures in doing so.
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