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Chapter Text

Storybrooke sits, squat and sleepy, on the coast of Maine. For its inhabitants it’s the ideal place to hide away from the stresses and strains of the world. Peaceful. Perfect, in fact.

It’s a real chocolate box town with a chocolate box town clock, and a chocolate box library sitting beneath it, where Belle French, town librarian, sees to her duties.

The doors are locked and the sun is beginning to set as Belle rolls her book cart through the aisles, carefully setting her beloved books back where they belong. This is her favourite time of the day. It’s just her, her books, and the serene silence so beloved of all librarians.

Fwupt.

Belle pauses, her hand resting on the spine of one of her favourites, and tilts her head a little. Perhaps one of the patrons has left a computer running?

Fwupt. Fwupt.

It’s coming from the back of the library, the dusty, unused part where the town records linger on microfiche nobody remembers how to use, and great, heavy books that even Belle has yet to read lie in piles. She leaves her cart behind her, worried now that somebody has managed to stay in past lockdown, and turns the last corner.

Fwupt.

Belle stops. Her eyes grow rounder; her face pales. In the centre of the walkway is a large, brown leather-bound tome. Its pages turn as if somebody is searching through it.

It floats, quite happily, in mid-air.

Belle, showcasing a level of either unutterable terror or quite astonishing restraint, lets out a small squeak.

The great book slams shut and drops to the floor with a ground-shaking thump. The movement doesn’t stop at the ground; it reverberates up Belle’s legs and through the library’s stacks until books seem to be flying willy-nilly from their shelves and the lights swinging freely from their chains. Belle turns on her heel and flees.

Books seems to chase her as she trips over her own cart, the bank of computers flash static screens at her as she barrels past them, and just as the door is in sight and the keys tight in her fist, it appears.

It hangs in the doorway, great willowy arms reaching out, Belle’s chance at freedom framed by the billowing of its not-quite coat. It draws its thin, blue lips back over its teeth in a horrible, spectral scowl, and Belle does the only thing she can. She screams blue murder.

She watches, open-mouthed and breathless, as it lifts its skeletal finger to its mouth to hush her, and then she sees nothing at all.

Emma Swan half lies on her desk, spinning her apple in pointless circles and watching it rock gently before coming to a rest.

“Any reports?” she asks their front desk clerk, the miniscule Sheriff’s office allowing her to do so without having to lift her head. “Phone calls?”

“Nope,” Mary Margaret replies, nose buried in one of her ridiculous magazines, “not a sausage, not a sniff.”

“Ugh.” Emma sits up just long enough to roll her shoulders extravagantly before slumping back onto her desk, “This sucks.”

“You know, most town sheriffs are delighted when they haven’t got a crime wave to worry about.”

Deputy David Nolan, strong of morals and stronger still of chin, is sitting bolt upright at his desk across the way, his arms folded across his chest as he fixes Emma with an almost fatherly look of disapproval. Emma launches her apple vaguely in the direction of his head.

“Well, I’m clearly not most town sheriffs, because I am bored out of my damned mind. Bored, bored, bored.”

“Don’t hold back,” Mary Margaret drawls from behind her magazine, “tell us how you really feel.”

Emma scowls.

“Don’t you have something to type up or file or whatever? We are paying you after all.”

“Actually,” Mary Margaret sniffs, “the State of Maine is paying me, and I am at least broadening my mind.”

“With what,” Emma tilts her head so that she can squint at Mary Margaret’s reading material,  “ The Fortean Times ?” She wrinkles her nose in distaste. “Isn’t that all ghouls and ghosts and ‘an alien made me do it?”

Mary Margaret raises her eyebrows. “So?”

“Mary Margaret’s always been very interested in that sort of thing,” David says, the hint of mooniness in his tone pointing to his long-standing and poorly hidden crush. “Last summer she took me dowsing out in the woods.”

Mary Margaret smiles sweetly at David, who returns it with a goofy grin that makes Emma wonder how far she’d have to shove a pen up her nose before she could tug her brain out of a nostril.

“Aren’t you a believer in the spirit world, Emma?”

Emma snorts. “Only if by the spirit world you mean like a really massive liquor store.”

The truth of the matter is that Emma doesn’t really believe in anything. She’d done the ‘interesting’ runaway youth, spent her young adulthood spent tracking down the dead beats and scum of a big city, had her heart broken by a man who swore he never would. She’d probably seen more interesting (read: miserable, grim, terrible) things than most people did in a lifetime, and all she’d gained from it was a healthy disregard for the supposed decency of human nature, and utter contempt for the idea of happy endings. That might have been why she’d eventually dragged up here, in the world’s least interesting town, where nothing ever happened and therefore nothing could ever go wrong. No risk, no harm.

It had seemed like a good plan, at the time. Now it’s just a really, really boring one.

The shrill of the station phone snaps her out of her brood, shocking her from her resting spot and sending her chair spinning several feet across the room. David answers the phone on the third ring, his expression the cautious sort of a man who hasn’t had to do this all too often.

“Storybrooke Sheriff’s office. Deputy Nolan speaking.”

He reaches for an untouched notebook and starts scribbling notes, Emma watching with interest as his eyebrows creep further and further towards his hairline the longer the call continues.

“Uh… huh. Yes, I see. Try to keep her calm. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

He hangs up and lets out a long, disbelieving breath.

“Well?” says Emma, “For the first time ever you’ve got me on the edge of my seat here. What’s going on?”

“Somebody found the librarian in the library.”

“You don’t say,” scoffs Emma. “What, are you playing telephone Clue again?”

“No,” David shakes his head, “ locked in the library. She’s a jibbering wreck, apparently”

“Oh, the poor thing,” sighs Mary Margaret.

David nods, “and you’re going to love this bit – ”

“She forgot her keys?” interrupts Emma.

“Not exactly,” he looks to Mary Margaret, his eyes sparkling with the triumph of a caveman who knows he’s found the right wildebeest to woo his girl. “She’s saying she saw a ghost.”

Mary Margaret lets out a squeal of pure delight; Emma lets her head fall back to the desk with a loud and painful thunk .

“Can I come?” Mary Margaret pleads, “I might be able to help!”

“No,” says Emma, “firstly, because ghosts aren’t real. Secondly, whatever did traumatise the librarian is subject to a sheriff’s investigation. No ride-a-longs, no hangers-on, and no ghost hunters.”

“But – ”

Emma holds up a hand to silence the other woman and stands, her badge glinting on her belt and declaring her to be the final authority on the matter.

“And that,” she says in the voice she uses to subdue the town drunk and the odd miscreant schoolchild, “is final.”

Mary Margaret beats both Emma and David to the library’s front door, despite the fact that she’d had to run back to her apartment to fetch her ‘equipment’.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re here!” The door is flung open by a tall, red-headed man with a pair of round spectacles perched owlishly on the end of his nose. Nerd , Emma thinks to herself, figures .

“I’m Archie,” he says, beckoning for them to follow him towards the library’s counter, “Archibald Hopper. I always drop by first thing in the morning, just to see how things are, if there’s anything new I fancy, you know, and this morning I found her… well, you can see for yourselves.”

Tucked beneath the counter, her knees pulled up under her chin, sits a small brunette woman. Her face is white and drawn, and she’s systematically shredding a tissue into tiny, confetti-like pieces.

“Belle,” says Archie, “Belle, the sheriff is here. You’re quite safe now.”

Belle mumbles something Emma can’t quite make out. With only a little bit of hefting, she and David manage to lift the woman out from her under-counter prison and onto a nearby swivel chair. David, who has always been the more sensitive of the two of them, hands her a fresh tissue.

“I’m Sheriff Swan, this is Deputy Nolan, and that,” Emma waves vaguely toward Mary Margaret who is already wandering away, her dousing rods quivering enthusiastically in her clenched fists, “is Mary Margaret.”

The librarian gives Emma and David a watery smile. “I’m Belle. Belle French.”

“Alright,” David sits on top of the counter, “Belle, I’m going to need you to tell me what happened, okay?”

Belle sniffs weakly, and nods. Emma bites her lip to cover a smile at the way Mary Margaret swiftly sidles back to hear the details.

“It was after I’d locked up for the night,” the librarian says, “I generally stay behind for a little while to tidy things up, and I, well, I like being alone with the books.” She looks up at David who smiles encouragingly. “Everything was fine, and then I heard this noise.”

Mary Margaret more or less elbows Archie out of the way in her eagerness to hear more.

“What kind of noise? Was it a growl or a hiss or a – ”

Emma shoots her a death glare, and Mary Margaret backs off slightly, her hands and rods up in apology. Belle shakes her head.

“Oh no, no it was a sort of… whispery sound, I guess. I followed it because I was worried that somebody might have accidentally been locked in, and that’s when, that’s when…” she dabs at her eyes, her breathing unsteady.

“It’s alright, take your time,” David soothes.

“I saw the book,” she says, and Emma fights the urge to roll her eyes, “this great big book, and it was just… floating.”

“Floating.” Emma deadpans; Mary Margaret, bless her heart, gasps out loud.

Belle nods fervently. “Yes but not just, not just that. The pages were turning – that was the sound I’d heard – they were turning just as if somebody were stood there reading it. And then, they, it dropped it, and I ran. There were books just – just flying around me, and I was trying to get to the door, but she stopped me.”

Belle starts fretting at the tissue again. Emma raises an eyebrow.

“She?”

“I – I think I was a she? There were definitely arms, because she sort of… reached out towards me.”

Belle’s eyes go a little glassy, and Emma is about to fish for more details when Mary Margaret starts tugging at her sleeve like an over-excited Labrador presented with a barrel full of tennis balls.

“Poltergeists,” Mary Margaret murmurs, her face alight with joy, “full torso apparitions! Oh it’s amazing, isn’t it amazing, Emma?”

Emma lets out a non-committal sort of grunt and turns back to the librarian.

“So, tell me, Belle. Are you a habitual drug user?”

“What?” the librarian drops her tissue, whether in shock or protest, Emma can’t tell, “No, of course not!”

“Mmm hmm,” says Emma, “what about your health? Have you or anybody in your extended family ever been diagnosed with schizophrenia, for example?”

“Is this entirely necessary?” Archie says with a little sniff of distaste, “I am a psychologist myself and I can assure you – ”

David pats him on the shoulder a little harder than he was expecting, and he rocks forward into the desk. “Just covering all our bases, sir.”

“What are you going to do?” Belle asks.

Emma looks to David and then to Mary Margaret. The former shrugs. The latter is apparently too busy running her fingers along the book shelves and sniffing the residue to acknowledge her.

“Well,” Emma tries a friendly smile, “I can’t exactly arrest a ghost. But if you like, we can stake the place out for you tonight? In the far more likely event that somebody is playing tricks on you I’m sure we can catch them out.”

“Oh,” says Belle, “yes please. Thank you for coming. I – I didn’t think anybody would listen.”

“Your local sheriff’s department is always here to listen,” Emma quotes, deadpan, from the dog-eared poster taped to the station’s front desk, “and we’re always happy to help.”

Emma lets her body slide down the shelving until she’s sitting, slumped, on the floor. She’s a long way from being happy to help.

It’s past 11pm, she was up at five this morning, and she hasn’t had anything to eat since lunch because she threw her spare apple at David hours ago. The library’s main lights are off, Mary Margaret having insisted on only having the emergency lighting’s sickly green glow for atmospheric reasons, so she can’t read a book, and her phone ran out of battery an hour ago.

This is bullshit , she thinks.

“This is bullshit,” she says.

“Emma!” Mary Margaret manages to look scandalised even whilst pressing a stethoscope to the wall, “How can you say that! There are more things in Heaven and Earth – ”

“Okay, okay, save the Shakespeare. You’re the expert here, what are we supposed to do? And where did you get that thing from anyway?”

Mary Margaret blushes fuchsia, “No- nowhere in particular.”

Emma gives her the ‘Sheriff’ glare.

“Alright,” Mary Margaret mumbles, “I got it from Whale, okay?”

“Oh I bet you did,” says Emma slyly, but then she catches a glimpse of David’s pinched face and cringes.

“Whale?” he asks, the picture of wounded male pride.

Mary Margaret twists the stethoscope between her hands before dropping it on the desk as if it’s burnt her.  “It was just a… stethoscope thing?” she tries (she fails).

“Wow,” Emma grumbles to herself, “there really is porn for everything nowadays.”

Mary Margaret cuts her eyes sharply at her before clapping her hands like an over enthusiastic elementary school teacher, “Okay!” she trills, “shall we get on with it? The spirits won’t seek themselves!”

“I can’t believe this is actually how I’m spending my Friday night,” Emma moans as she forces herself to her feet.

David is still staring, horror-struck, at the stethoscope, “I can’t believe – you and Whale ?”

Mary Margaret puts her hands on her hips and draws herself up to her full five foot four. Compared to willowy Emma and broad, tall David she looks like a particularly imposing pixie.

“You,” she waggles a finger at Emma, “haven’t been out on a Friday night in at least six months, maybe ever for all I know, you can deal with one night away from Cheetos and Netflix. And you,” the finger is redirected towards David, “if you’re so bothered about what I do and who I do it with, maybe you should have asked me out before he did, but since you didn’t, it’s none of your business, okay? Okay.”

She doesn’t wait for a reply, stalking off towards the rear of the library, and leaving a slightly kowtowed Sheriff and deputy to follow in her righteously indignant wake.

“She’s right, you know,” Emma says under her breath, “you should have asked her first.”

David says nothing, only watches Mary Margaret as she stalks ahead of them, his lips pressed into a thin line.

“Look!” Mary Margaret flings an arm out to stop them as they reach the end of the final aisle, her irritation replaced by the sort of glee only possessed by a true fanatic, “This must be where it started. Just look at all this evidence of telekinetic activity!”

Emma peers around her. There are books scattered across the floor, loose pages strewn about the place as if a very contained hurricane has swept through. David squeezes past the two of them to wave his torch across the destruction.

“You say evidence,” says Emma as David kneels to pick something up off of the floor, “I say a damn mess. How do we know it wasn’t just some kids messing about?”

Mary Margaret lifts her eyebrows, “ Invisible kids?”

“Well, there could be wires or – ”

“Hey!” David calls as he heads back over with something cradled in his arms, “I think I got something! Didn’t Belle say there had been a big book sort of floating about here?” He holds out a large, brown leather-bound volume for Emma to take. “I think this is it.”

Emma runs her fingertips over the golden embossed title. “ Once Upon a Time ,” she reads, opening the first page, “it’s a book of fairy tales.” She closes it with a snap, “Figures.”

The emergency lights flicker as she speaks, and even David’s torch seems to grow dimmer. An odd groaning fills the air, almost as if the building itself is struggling to take a deep breath.

David whips his failing torch up to head height, “That your stomach, Emma?”

Emma swallows hard, “Nope.”

“I was afraid you would say that.”

An eerie white light begins to pervade the aisle where they’re standing, creeping along the floor and reaching tendrils along the shelving towards them. It’s almost within touching distance, no more than six feet away, when it coalesces into the vague, ragged-edged shape of a woman with long curling hair and empty sockets where her eyes should be.

Without thinking all that hard about it, Emma silently drags a dumbstruck David and Mary Margaret around the corner and into the next aisle.

“That,” Emma hisses, “is a goddamn ghost .”

“Yeah,” says David, sheet-white and a little unsteady, “so it would appear.”

Emma turns to Mary Margaret, “Has this happened to you before?”

Mary Margaret looks at Emma with eyes like saucers and shakes her head.

“Well,” David says, “shit.”

Emma bites her lip against the stupidity of her next words. “Should we try to, I dunno, talk to it?”

“Great idea!” Mary Margaret squeaks, beginning to push Emma bodily back around the corner.

“Hey!” Emma spits back, “I didn’t mean me! You’re the one who’s into all this… stuff.”

“You’re the sheriff,” Mary Margaret whispers, “so you’ve got seniority.”

Emma sends a pleading look over Mary Margaret’s shoulder to David, but he just shrugs apologetically.

“You did say you were bored.”

“Yeah,” Emma says through clenched teeth as she is forced out of the stacks and back into the ghost’s no-eye line, “yeah, I guess I did.”

The woman, ghost, whatever, is just sort of hovering in the aisle, its face (or whatever passes for its face) turned away as if it’s examining the spines of the books.

“Umm,” Emma clears her throat as best she can, and tries for a friendly-but-firm, “my name is Emma Swan, and I’m the Sheriff here… do you – do you have a name, at all?”

The ghost continues perusing the shelves as if Emma hasn’t even spoken.

“Can you hear me? If you can hear me,” Emma closes her eyes briefly in disbelief that these words are actually about to pass her lips, “give me a sign.”

The ghost turns its sightless eyes towards her, “Shh,” it says firmly.

Emma bolts with alacrity back around the corner to where Mary Margaret and David wait with distinctly wobbly knees.

“You know what?” she manages to gasp out past her heart which has lodged firmly in her throat, “I think we should probably just leave her to her business, yeah? Mary Margaret, would you be offended if we ran now?”

Mary Margaret makes a high-pitched little humming sound that Emma chooses to take as meaning no, not at all, let’s run for our lives .

“Okay,” she takes a deep breath, “on three. One, two – ”        

As if bored with the reading material in the other aisle, the ghost, or spirit (or god, whatever ) appears in the small space between them and the microfiche machine, but now it’s moving with determination towards them, the blank empty holes fixed on Emma, the face itself seeming to twist and change until its hideous visage is bubbling and dripping like a corpse set on fire.

None of them wait for Emma to get to three.

They pull up, gasping for breath and shaking in a way that the local hoodlums would definitely get a kick out of, under the welcoming beam of a streetlight three blocks away. Emma leans over with her hands on her knees and tries not to throw up.

“That,” Mary Margaret heaves out, “was amazing .”

“I know, right!” David leans against the streetlight gulping down air, “I can’t believe we actually saw a ghost!”

“Did you miss the part where we ran for our lives?” Emma shudders, “We are the worst Sheriff’s team. Maybe ever. I didn’t even lock the door.”

“Well, you’re welcome to go back,” David says brightly.

Emma just glares at him.

“It was just the shock of the first time,” Mary Margaret says, apparently already recovered and beginning to pace around them in a tight circle, “I think with practice, and the right equipment, we could really make a go of it.”

“Make a go of what, exactly?” Emma’s heartbeat, which had just begun to return to a less dangerous speed, picks up pace again, “We’re law enforcement, not ghost hunters.”

“We make really lousy ghost hunters,” David agrees, “but it isn’t like there’s a whole lot else to do around here.”

“Are you seriously suggesting that we use Sheriff’s department resources to hunt the dead? David, I hate to break it to you, but this isn’t Buffy.”

“Of course not,” Mary Margaret huffs, “but would it hurt, as a side-line? Come on, Emma, you’re always complaining how nothing ever happens here! Well, now something has happened! Aren’t you even a bit interested in seeing what else is out there?”

She practically bats her eyelashes, and Emma knows way better than to look to David for support when Mary Margaret’s on the opposing team.

“For the record,” she says, “I think this is a horrible idea.”

Mary Margaret leaps for joy, David beaming as she jumps into his arms in celebration. “You won’t regret this!” she calls after Emma, who is already dragging her tired, hungry, scared-half-to-death self away from the sanctuary of the streetlight towards home.

Sheriff Swan, accidental Ghost Hunter, waves a defeated hand in reply.

Killian Jones, captain, miscreant, and general ne’er-do-well, has worked hard over his years of travelling to cultivate an air of danger and mystery that suited his work well. It would be faintly ridiculous, after all, for the captain of a historic ship once crewed by pirates to set down roots and coach little league or volunteer with the elderly. No, he much preferred to keep to himself, anchored in whatever harbour he chooses on his beloved Jolly Roger , and allowing the pirate out to play on one of the many coastal tourist tours he takes out in the summer.

Which he supposes does make the sight of him traipsing back to the docks carrying an over-stuffed grocery bag (a box of Fruit Loops prominently perched on top), whilst wearing leather trousers and thickly applied eyeliner a little incongruous, to say the least, but a man has to eat.

“Killian!”

He pauses, letting his eyes close for a moment before straightening up and fixing his face what he hopes is an appropriately severe expression.

“Killian! Killian, wait up!”

William Smee skitters over the slippery wooden dock, his wool cap in his hands and a broad smile on his round face. He’s the harbourmaster here, whatever that entails, and only Killian’s determination to fly under the town’s radar has prevented him booting the obnoxious man into the sea.

“Mr Smee,” sighs Killian, “to what do I owe the honour?”

“The mayor’s regatta! It’s in ten days and I still haven’t had your RSVP! You haven’t forgotten have you?”

Killian lifts his eyes briefly heavenward, “God forbid, Mr Smee. How could I forget such a thrilling upcoming event, particularly when you are so committed to reminding me?”

“So you’ll take part?” Smee says excitably, “It wouldn’t be the same without the Jolly, and it’ll be a really fun community event, don’t you think? Do you need any help with décor? I’ve got some crepe paper flowers that would – ”

“Mr Smee,” Killian grinds out, “the Jolly Roger is a lady of great beauty.  It wouldn’t do to despoil such lovely lines with the contents of an elementary school craft drawer, would it now?”

“Well,” Smee sniffs, “I do see what you mean, but you must try to fit in with the theme. You wouldn’t want to be the odd man out.”

“No indeed,” Killian offers the man his fakest smile. “And now I must be going. Chilled goods to see to, you know how it is.”

“Okay!” Smee calls after him as he makes his way up the gangplank to the safety of his ship,

“So that means you’ll take part, right?”

Killian heads below deck, and lets the slam of the hatch answer that.

He drops the grocery bag on his table-cum-desk, fishing out the milk and cheese and stuffing them into the battery powered cool box that is the closest thing to an icebox the Jolly supports. It’s not ideal, this life, but it’s a hell of a lot better than some alternatives he could think of.

For a start , he thinks, catching a glimpse of the front page of the Storybrooke Mirror as he pulls it from the bag, he could be the sort of person who believes in ghosts .

OPUS POCUS , the headline blares, ahead of an article about some ridiculous shenanigans down at the town library. It’s written in a click-bait style better suited to Buzzfeed than a published paper, being as it is the frankly ridiculous tale of the town librarian being traumatised half out of her wits by some ghostly apparition and calling in the law, only for the lawmen themselves to run for their lives like so many teenagers playing with a Ouija board after smoking a little too much pot.

Funny, but he remembers seeing the Sheriff on one of his few forays out onto the town when he’d first arrived. She’d been blonde, and gorgeous, and capable of subduing a bar fight with little more than a swiftly placed elbow and a baring of teeth. He wouldn’t have pegged her as the sort to fall for this kind of nonsense.

There’s some silly statement from the department at the end, something along the lines of their being open to hearing of any further paranormal experiences the townsfolk may wish to report. Killian covers the paper with a bag of apples and makes a mental note not to bother buying it again. He turns away to hang up his jacket, paying little attention to the way a cool breeze is playing at the hairs at the back of his neck. She’s an old ship, the Jolly . Drafty. He shivers slightly, rubbing his arms as he goes to return to his groceries.

He stops dead.

Above the discarded newspaper five apples float in a slowly rotating circle, like small red planets orbiting an invisible sun.

He steps towards them, almost against his will, running his hands underneath and above them while they continue their gentle rotations. He’s going mad, he’s fallen asleep, the gas canister has split and he’s hallucinating his way to a slow suffocating death, he’s…

Someone – some thing – laughs.

The laughter is high-pitched, child-like almost, but with something underlying it that makes every hair on his body stand to attention. There’s something evil about it. Something evil is laughing at him, and it’s in his bloody cabin. Killian forces himself to look away from the apples, over towards his bed and the large cabin window that normally looks out onto the open ocean. Now instead of the soothing waves there is a new vision. It’s like a hole has been ripped into reality, one that’s almost ragged at the edges, as if photoshopped into place by somebody with more enthusiasm than skill, flames licking up to the sides and threatening his bedsheets. Beyond the flames lies a door of some sorts, round and covered in writing he can’t begin to make out. It’s interesting, almost tempting, and he feels himself take a step closer. There’s a shriek of laughter and a face appears, but not like any face Killian has ever seen, not human, not mortal, not right .

For the first time in a long, long time Killian Jones, Captain, miscreant and ne’re-do-well, takes a leaf out of the Sheriff’s book, turns on his heel, and runs for it.

“So you’re saying you saw some sort of… portal, on your boat?”

Emma sits, flanked by David and Mary Margaret, opposite their newest, well, client, for lack of a better word. He’s not quite what she had expected, truth be told. For a start he’s completely, mind-bogglingly, ridiculously pretty. Then there’s the fact that he’s British, with the sort of accent that sets her toes curling in her boots. The downside is that he is, quite obviously, totally mad. He looks mortally offended at her summation of his experiences, which might have made her feel bad if he didn’t think he’d seen a portal to another realm in his bedroom. Entirely bananas , she thinks. What a crying shame .

“Ship ,” he says in a wounded voice.

Emma bites the inside of her cheek and tries to keep her expression professional. “Okay, ship . What was it like, exactly?”

“Well she’s mainly wooden with – ”

“The portal, funny guy.”

He arches an eyebrow at her like he thinks that’s a genuine compliment, which he probably does, obnoxious pretty guys normally aren’t the brightest in her experience. Mary Margaret reaches for her notebook and picks up a pen eagerly. Captain Jones fiddles with the neck of his hip flask.

“It was like the bloody entrance to hell, flames, strange beasts, this glowing… door of sorts. Honestly,” he shakes his head, “I didn’t want to spend any more time looking at it than I absolutely had to.”

“I see,” Emma looks meaningfully at the flask, “and had you been drinking much when this portal appeared?”

“Not at all,” he says, all seriousness, “I had just returned from grocery shopping. As for drinking, well, I defy anybody to discover the hell mouth has opened above their bed and not at least consider heading for the drinks cabinet.”

His eyes meet Emma’s then, and for a long moment they just hold each other’s gaze. Emma can read the truth behind the blue of his irises, the fear that he’s manfully trying to keep hidden. It’s a skill she’s developed – her secret superpower, if you will – one that comes in handy with villains and victims alike. Captain Jones quirks his lips at her in a little smile and something flashes behind his eyes that sends Emma looking anywhere but at him, her pulse a sudden throb in her ears.

This one is trouble.

“Maybe you’re anchored over intersecting ley lines,” Mary Margaret chirps as she scrawls into her notebook, “oh, or maybe it’s personal! Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

“Ah, no, thankfully,” he scratches the back of his neck, “I’m not generally one for this sort of thing.”

Mary Margaret pouts. Emma stands, rolling her eyes to try and cover the fact that she’s still slightly discombobulated, and thumbs towards the door.

“That’s alright, neither am I. Mary Margaret, David, I’ll take Captain Jones back to the ship and check him out.”

Mary Margaret looks up at her with an open mouth that quickly closes and shifts into an evil little smile. Emma feels her face turning the colour of a fire hydrant, and prays for the damned hell mouth to open up underneath her feet.

“The – the ship,” she stutters and Mary Margaret’s expression shifts into vindictive glee. David groans. Emma doesn’t dare look at the Captain, she doesn’t need to, frankly.  She can practically feel the way his ego is expanding as it sucks all of the air out of the room.

“You’re going to check out his ship are you?” Mary Margaret says slyly, like it’s a goddamn euphemism or something.

“That’s what I said .” If she goes any redder she’ll explode, and then Mary Margaret will have her very own vengeful ghost to worry about. “So Captain, are you coming or not?”

“As the lady wishes,” Captain Jones replies, standing with a sweep of the arm and a ludicrously sexy smirk that makes her regret pretty much everything she’s ever done, from moving to this town in the first place, to listening to his stupid ghost stories, to not shaving her legs for maybe three months.

(It’s Maine, it’s cold, so sue her.)

She stalks off towards the docks a little more quickly than necessary, and tries to use the few seconds alone to calm her fluorescent skin and raging hormones. It’s stupid, so he’s pretty, so what? Emma’s seen plenty of pretty guys, and she’s turned her fair share down too. There’s no reason she should be getting so het up over this guy she literally just met.

Maybe she’ll blame it on the ghosts, if they find any.

He jogs to catch her up, leather trousers and all, not that she’s looking of course. No, instead she keeps her stare fixed in the direction of the docks even as he falls into step alongside her, blathering cheerfully about the weather or some other such nonsense that she doesn’t have time for.

“Forgive me, but you don’t seem the spiritualist type,” he says cheerfully, “since when have town Sheriffs taken up the pursuit of the paranormal?”

“Since people like you started seeing things.”

“Oh, and you’ve never seen anything yourself, have you?”

It’s not really a question, and Emma cuts her eyes at him. He shrugs in what she can tell is a fake apology.

“Open book, love.”

“Really? Nothing to do with the front page article Mary Margaret managed to leak to the paper, then?”

Captain Jones smiles, and hold up his hands, “You got me. That helped.”

Emma sighs, “Some very weird things have happened recently.”

“Tell me about it,” he tugs on her elbow to stop her as they reach the docks. Her skin tingles even under her jacket and sweater and she bites at the inside of her cheek to distract herself – whether from a desire to break his hand or something much more worrying she’s not totally sure.

Very weird things indeed.

“There she is,” he says, all breathy admiration, “the Jolly Roger .”

 Emma squints up, sun in her eyes, to take in the great hulk of the old ship at rest in the harbour. She’s brightly painted, her sails rolled up and neatly away, a cartoonish skull and crossbones flying beneath the American flag.

“You’re the pirate guy!” she says, “Mary Margaret has been going on and on about going out on one of your tours ever since she saw the flyer!”

“Well, you’ll just have to beat her to it, won’t you?” He mounts the gangplank and beckons her forward with another ridiculous sweep of his arm. She has to admit the leather, eyeliner and roguish smirk make a bit more sense in context. Although now she has to add ‘thinks he’s a pirate’ to her list of reasons getting hung up on this guy’s a no good, very bad idea.

She follows him up the gangplank and onto the deck, refusing his offer of a hand down and pulling out her sidearm. Captain Jones looks at the gun and then at her, one eyebrow lifting in question.

“I don’t know why you’re looking at me like that. You’re the one saying there could be demons chilling out here.”

He leads her over to a hatchway built into the deck, still outwardly cool, but Emma can see the hesitancy in his steps. In all honesty, she’s not that keen to see what’s under that hatch herself.

“And if demons do appear, what are you planning to do, shoot them?”

He opens the hatch and she knocks off the safety. “If necessary.”

It’s… not entirely what she was expecting. A large table takes up most of the space with a cool box humming away on top of it. The contents of a paper grocery bag have spilled out into the floor. Individual apples appear to have made their way into the four corners of the room, with a fifth balanced unnaturally on top of a coat rack. A packet of grapes appear to have combusted, and their jellified corpses decorate the wooden walls. Emma runs her finger through the residue on a carved paperweight and touches it lightly to the tip of her tongue.

“Some party,” Emma says. “Your demons are seriously into fruit.”

Captain Jones rolls his eyes. “It appears that I missed the festivities.” He gestures towards the bed. “It must have happened after the netherworld made its appearance.”

Emma gives the neatly made sheets a quick, and entirely professional, once over, before turning back to the captain with a wry smile. “So you made yourself scarce real quickly, Captain?”

He grins back, and it makes little crinkles appear at the corners of his eyes. “I do have a healthy sense of self-preservation, love.”

She doesn’t like him calling her that. Doesn’t like it in the least. Not the way he rolls it over his tongue or the way that it sends shivers shooting along her skin. Nope, not a damn bit.

Big, big trouble .

“Yeah, well,” Emma gives herself a mental shake, relocks her weapon, and tucks it away, “I’d say you can relax. There’s nothing to see here.”

“Oh,” he says, his tongue doing something really quite illegal and his eyebrows wiggling in a way that’s pleading for her to arrest him for public indecency, “I don’t know about that.”

Emma snorts. “Yeah, no. You’re not the only one into self-preservation around here, buddy.”

He has the gall to look wounded. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“That I don’t fall for come-ons from strange guys on boats.”

“I’m not all that strange,” he insists as she climbs back up to the hatchway, “and I’ve told you, she’s a ship .”

It doesn’t escape Emma’s notice that he doesn’t deny the come-on. A little part of her that has been quiet for literally years preens slightly.

“Goodbye, Captain Jones,” she calls back into the darkness as she emerges onto the deck.

His answering shout of “It’s Killian!” drifts along in her wake as she leaves.

Mary Margaret tuts at her and calls her prickly, much to Emma’s displeasure, but prickly or not it doesn’t seem to deter Captain Jones, and the best (worst) part is that she isn't sure she wants it to. Two days later he’s waiting for her outside of the station holding out a takeaway coffee cup and a bear claw in a paper bag.

“What brought this on?” she asks, eyeing the pastry with a mixture of hunger and suspicion. “You got Blackbeard’s ghost making fruit salad again?”

Killi-- Captain Jones laughs, “No, all is peaceful on that front, thank you. I just wanted to… apologise, I suppose.”

Emma stares at him. “What for?”

He winces and scratches at a spot beneath his ear. “I’m afraid I might have given you the wrong impression on our last acquaintance. Truth be told it has been a depressingly long time since I’ve been in the company of a beautiful woman. It may have, ah, muddled my manners.”

Emma tucks the beautiful woman comment away for later consideration, along with the flush on his cheekbones and the way he runs his tongue over his lower lip.

“So you brought me a bear claw?”

He fidgets slightly, looking down at the bag as if he’s wondering if this was really a good idea. “As a peace offering, yes.”

Emma narrows her eyes at him. “How did you know they were my favourites?”

“I didn’t. Just a lucky guess, I suppose.” He shrugs, and gives her that crinkly eyed smile again.

Something unwelcome and fluttery starts up in Emma’s stomach. Abort, shouts the sensible part of her, abort, abort. Run away. The butterflies pay no attention whatsoever, flocking together in her ribcage and then swooping lower, a dangerous warmth in her belly as that tongue makes another appearance and his eyes flick down to her mouth. She reaches for the bag and take out cup, and her fingers tingle where they brush his skin.

What is she, a teenager? Goddammit, abort!

“Okay, well, thank you, Captain Jones.” He smiles again, warm and genuine, and she shuffles on the spot, boots toeing shapes into the dirt, and nods her head backwards towards the station door. “But I’d better get in before David sends out a search party.”

Captain Jones looks over her shoulder, and the genuine smile turns a little cheeky. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that.”

Emma looks back towards the station. David is standing behind the closed door with his nose practically pressed to the glass panel, and his arms folded over his chest like a bouncer about to refuse a drunk kid entry.

“Ugh, how long has he been there?” Emma groans. “I swear to… I’m sorry.” Captain Jones tilts his head in question. “About him. He’s weirdly protective. Who needs parents, right?”

There’s a flash of something in his eyes then, something painful and awful that Emma immediately recognises. It’s the look she sees in her mirror every morning. It’s the expression on every face in every foster home she ever stepped foot in, and god help her but it calls to her. He's like her, lost and a bit broken, and her breath catches in her throat.

“Right. Well he needn’t worry about me, as I said. I am sorry for anything I may have said that was… untoward.” Captain Jones looks down, hiding those eyes that can’t seem to keep a secret. “Goodbye, Sheriff Swan.”

He turns to leave, and without even thinking about it she finds herself chasing after him for a couple of steps, tugging on his jacket to get him to face her. He looks a bit lost and rather bemused to find her hand at his waist. Emma bites her lip, rubbing the leather of his jacket between her fingers rather longer than she needs to.

“It’s uh… it’s Emma. Just… so you know. In case you need… to know.”

He smiles again, and this one isn’t just butterfly-inducing crinkles, this is a full on beam, as if the sun has just come out from behind a particularly grey and long-lived cloud. It’s so bright, so beautiful, that she blinks helplessly in the face of it.

“Okay. Goodbye, Emma.”

She can’t catch her breath properly. This is stupid, this is insane, this is not at all in the plan.

“Goodbye, Captain Jones,” she manages, struggling to speak without sounding too much like a teenager with a crush. Annoyed, both at Captain Jones’ ridiculous pretty, smiling face, and at her own stupid reaction to it, she slams the station door open a little harder than necessary taking inordinate pleasure at the way David is forced to jump out of the way.

“You,” she says. “If I catch you spying on me again you won’t be investigating the dearly departed, you’ll be joining them. Understood?”

David scowls.

Mary Margaret sits at the front desk from where she must have had an unobstructed view of proceedings outside, her face the picture of delighted anticipation. “Tell. Me. Everything.”

“Tell you what? There’s nothing to say.” Emma scoots round to sit at her own desk, taking a bite from the bear claw as she does so. “A friend brought me a delicious pastry, that’s all.”

“You say that like that happens all the time,” Mary Margaret scoffs, “or, you know, ever. You look at all your friends like you want to take a bite out of them, do you?”

“I can fire you both,” Emma sips her drink (hot chocolate with cinnamon, Jesus Christ she’s so screwed), “so I suggest you change the subject.”

“Well,” Mary Margaret rubs her hands together, “I do have something to show you.”

“Oh, do you now.” Emma finishes off the Bear Claw and wipes her hands on her pants. “I don’t suppose it has anything to do with legitimate police work?”

Mary Margaret screws up her nose in distaste. “God, no.” She scuffles about under her desk before retrieving a rather battered looking cardboard box from which she pulls a smallish brown wooden box with a filigree lid and a large, ornate, silver clasp.

“It’s called a Pandora’s Box,” she says in the sort of hushed tones usually reserved for funerals and golf. “It’s guaranteed to contain any and all spirits, spectres, or ghouls that you trap in it.”

Emma closes her eyes briefly. “You brought it off the internet, didn’t you.”

“I certainly did, and that’s not all!” Mary Margaret nods to David, who opens the walk-in stationery cupboard with a flourish. Where previously there had been boxes of pens and old files nobody knew what to do with, there is now a perfect stack of smallish brown boxes. “They had an offer on when you buy in bulk!”

“Here’s the thing, Mary Margaret,” Emma says as she tries to stop her eyes rolling out of her head, “and, let me tell you, I am by no means insulting your bargain hunting skills here, but let’s say that we do get called upon to deal with something else paranormal. What are we going to do? Just ask the ghost nicely if they wouldn’t mind climbing into this lovely box for – oh – ever?”

Mary Margaret shrugs, “It’s a theory. I could google it?”

“Well, we might get the chance to test that theory,” says David with rather more relish than Emma would like.

Emma sighs into her beverage. “Oh, joy of joys, what now?”

“I was chatting to Granny Lucas over my bacon this morning, and it would seem that she has been having some trouble with some non-paying guests.”

Emma spits cocoa over the old paperwork on her desk, and frantically tries to mop it up with her sleeve. “Granny? You’re telling me Granny believes in ghosts?”

Old Mrs Lucas, known to all and sundry as Granny, is the town’s resident diner owner, advice columnist, and has been the reigning regional archery champion for fifty straight years. Emma cannot begin to imagine anybody less likely to request their help getting rid of a ghost. She can’t figure out why a ghost would want to haunt Granny in the first place, unless their preferences in the afterlife ran to reheated lasagne and well-meant meddling. And weaponry.

David lifts his hands in a little don’t-ask-me gesture. “Granny believes something is chomping its way through her walk-in fridge every night.”

“The lasagne?” Mary Margaret asks, wide eyed.

“The lasagne.” David replies grimly.

Emma suppresses a shudder. “Well, whatever it is, if it was human before it started on a Granny’s lasagne-based diet, it sure as hell isn’t now.”

“Emma?” Mary Margaret is looking hopefully between her Sheriff and the little wooden box on her desk. Emma looks to David, who shrugs. It’s your call, boss.

Emma rolls her shoulders, knocks back the last of her drink, and looks to the heavens for strength.

“Alright Mary Margaret. Grab the box.”

Granny doesn’t look terribly pleased to see them when they rock up after closing time with Pandora’s Box in tow. She’s viciously wiping down the counter whilst casting disparaging looks at Leroy, the town drunk, who is passed out and drooling in a corner booth. “I’m not saying it’s a ghost ,” she huffs, as if daring them to suggest that she is, “I’m just saying that something is eating all my pre-prep. I don’t care if it’s a person, a ghost, or a goddamned raccoon; it’s eating my profits and it needs to go!”

“Right you are.” David nods to where Leroy is snoring. “Do you want us to sort him out too?”

“No, no,” Granny leans down and hefts Betsy, her startlingly impressive crossbow, onto her shoulder, “the old girl and I can handle Leroy.”

Emma and her team watch in awe as she escorts the grumbling, swaying man from the premises at the point of an arrow.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” says David, “but I really hope it is a ghost. I don’t fancy going head to head with the guy who dares take on Granny.”

“Only an unnatural being would dare,” agrees Mary Margaret.

“All right,” Emma tosses a CB radio to Mary Margaret, she and David already having theirs tucked firmly into their belts, “this is official business. You are on a stake out. No Ouija boards, no stethoscopes, no knocking on walls, no funny business. Got it?”

“Got it,” David and Mary Margaret say in unison.

“Okay, so the thief, who – or what – ever they are, is targeting the fridges. Mary Margaret, you take the front here. If anybody even looks like they’re thinking about breaking in here you radio for back-up, okay?”

“Okay, Sheriff,” Mary Margaret says, patting her radio and standing a little straighter.

“David,” Emma turns to her deputy, “you keep an eye on the back staircase. This could be an inside job.”

“Sheriff,” David nods.

“I’ll sit out by the fridges. For all we know, they’re already here.”

Mary Margaret looks up at the ceiling vents, perturbed.

“You both got fresh batteries for your flashlights?” Emma checks, not fancying a repeat of the library fiasco in a kitchen full of vats of oil and sharp implements. David and Mary Margaret lift their spares in sync, and Emma nods, determined. “Let’s do this.”

The industrial fridges mark time in a series of clicks and creaks that keep Emma on edge. Every sound seems amplified until she can hear shuffling coming from the floor above where one of Granny’s occasional B&B guests must be having a late night and the squeak of Mary Margaret’s shoes out in the dining room.

She hopes it’s a guest. She hopes it’s Mary Margaret.

“Get a grip,” she berates herself under her breath, but she can’t help the way she tightens her hold on her flashlight, her other hand firmly on her radio. The fridges whirr in what she takes to be agreement.

Clang .

She spins, sending an arc of light out to land on the door of the closest fridge.

Clang .

Her flashlight flickers and dies, leaving her with only the neon blue glow of the exit sign.

Super.

Still, she’s taken down men twice her size without blinking. She’s not going to be defeated by a refrigerator. One hand whips out her radio, thumb already on the call button, the other throws open the door, just in time to see a tray of pre-made lasagnes wobble threateningly towards the edge of a shelf. Emma grins.

“Gotcha.”

The poor light casts heavy shadows in the corners, and Emma is about to step inside to check for living lawbreakers, when something about the darkness under the shelving makes her pause.

“Hello?”

Clang .

The entire shelving unit shakes, the darkness swelling and rising until it begins to form into something not-quite-human, tendrils of shadow wrapping around each other to form a solid mass that lifts the tray as it reaches out towards her.

She figures out what’s going to happen half a second before it does.

She tries to duck, but the shadow creature’s aim is surprisingly good and the tray catches her hard in the right temple. She hits the deck, bits of pasta and chunks of crockery flying everywhere, and manages to lose her grip on her radio which slides away on a slick of tomato sauce.

“Man down!” she yells as best she can, her ears ringing, “Mary Margaret, bring the thing! Mary !”

The shadow leers over her, wisps of dark smoke reaching out and curling around her ankles. Its touch is icy cold, strangely heavy for such an indistinct thing, and Emma can feel it weighing her down, stopping her from reaching her spluttering radio, stopping her from reaching her gun. The tendrils reach her chest, and it gets harder to breathe, fear clawing at her throat, her vision fuzzing out at the edges. She wonders if this is what it’s like to drown.

Golden light bursts from the end of the corridor, sending the shadow creature skittering away from Emma and allowing her to sit up and gulp down deep, deep breaths. She watches open-mouthed as the light hits the creature and begins to suck it backwards towards where Mary Margaret stands at the end of the corridor, face screwed up in determination, with her internet-bought ghost trap open and, to Emma’s intense disbelief, working .

The light reaches a crescendo so blinding that Emma hides her face in the crook of her elbow, the creature lets out a terrible screeching sound, until a slam and a click heralds Mary Margaret’s swift locking of the box.

David skids to a halt at Emma’s side, slipping over pieces of pasta and crockery, “Emma! Emma, are you okay?”

Mary Margaret is practically vibrating with excitement. “This is great! Actual physical contact!”

Emma stares at her, aghast. “It threw a lasagne. At my face . And then it tried to kill me!”

“Oh,” Mary Margaret looks down at her, “I’m sorry, are you okay?”

“Just wonderful.” Emma heaves herself to her feet and tries to ineffectually wipe the sauce from her sweater. “How’s our prisoner?”

The filigree on the box’s lid glows with a red light that seems to throb in time with Emma’s heightened heart rate.

“Safely tucked up,” Mary Margaret says with just a hint of smugness. “I can’t believe that worked!”

“You can’t believe it,” David rubs his forehead with his sleeve. “Nobody would believe it. The people who sold it to you won’t believe it.”

“I beg to differ,” Mary Margaret sniffs primly, “It came with a money back guarantee.”

“Well, I’m glad you’d have got a refund if I’d died, at least,” Emma grumbles, wiping her sweating palms on her jeans. She takes the box from Mary Margaret and tucks it under her arm, “Now let’s tell Granny that at least supernatural creatures are into her terrible cooking. She’ll be pleased.

“And then we can tell her that we trapped her biggest fan in a box for all eternity,” smirks David. “No thanks. I think I’ll let you take this one, boss.”

After that, it doesn’t stop.

Call after call, night after night, they are out chasing shadows or, more often, the shadows are chasing them. Mary Margaret has had to begin stacking boxes of copier paper between the desks since the stationery cupboard is full to almost bursting point with glowing, thrumming Pandora’s boxes.

She hasn’t been sleeping well, either, and she can’t tell if that’s because she’s constantly afraid something’s about to come floating out of her closet, or whether it’s because when she does doze off she dreams about a particular pirate, waking damp with sweat, her covers twisted round her knees and her heart pounding in her ears. Either way, it’s fair to say that it’s fear of the unknown that’s been keeping her awake.

Emma carefully places the station telephone off the hook, and rubs at her throbbing temples. “How can it be that I have literally never heard anybody mention anything even slightly paranormal happening in all the time that I’ve lived here, and yet now it’s all that anyone can go on about?”

“Maybe it’s always happened, and by investigating it we’ve given people permission to talk about it?”

Emma scoffs at him, “Really? You grew up in this town, David, do you really think anybody round here would keep their mouths shut about stuff like this?”

“Fair point,” he accepts, dropping a stack of reports on her desk. “At least they’re keeping us busy.”

“But busy with what? I feel like I’m going insane.” She lays her head on her arms and groans, “When did my life get so weird?”

David nods in agreement and points to the map. “It’s odd alright. Look at this. I plotted out where the events are taking place. A lot of them are centred on certain locations.”

The little red crosses he’s marked on the map run from the forestry on the outskirts of town, through many of the buildings along Main Street, and then spread out to the docks and coastal homes, like a blood-red boundary splitting the town asunder.

Emma runs her finger along the line and feels her headache intensify. “That’s strange, there does seem to be a sort of a pattern to it. What’s here?”

She taps her finger against a cluster of crosses within the forest. David leans down for a closer look.  “I think that’s near the old town well.”

Emma hums, squinting at the map. “Where does the water from the well end up?”

“In the harbour – there’s a culvert underneath Main Street.”

“Under the library and Granny’s?” she taps the relevant crosses.

David looks at her with wide eyes. “I’d have to check but I think it’s possible.”

“Look it up,” she demands.

“You think there’s a connection?”

Emma shrugs, but it’s with more confidence than she’s felt for a while. “Better ask Mary Margaret, that’s her area of expertise. I think it’s worth investigating, though, what about you?”

“Hey, if the Sheriff says it’s worth looking into,” David grins, “it’s worth looking into.”

“I don’t know about that.”

They look up sharply. Emma swallows an oath. In the doorway lounges the Gucci-clad figure of Regina Mills, who holds the title of both Mayor of Storybrooke and Emma Swan’s very own personal nemesis. For reasons Emma’s never really grasped, the mayor has hated her from the moment she drove over the town line. She’s efficient, brutal, and two gallons of bitterness in a two pint jug. Mary Margaret hovers behind her, casting apologetic looks at Emma and David.

“Sheriff Swan,” she drawls, and Emma straightens up instinctively, “what’s all this I’ve heard about your team moonlighting around town, frightening the residents?”

“No idea,” Emma bites out. “I expect you’re here to enlighten me?”

“Don’t test me, Miss Swan,” warns the Mayor, “particularly not in an election year. Do you know what happens when towns get these sorts of reputations? Tourists, Miss Swan. Ghoulish, loud, obnoxious tourists turn up, tramping over the flowerbeds and peering through windows.”

“Ah, yes,” mutters David, “and we don’t want them coming here and spending their dollars all over the place.”

“No,” says the Mayor firmly, “we don’t. We don’t like outsiders in this town, they only bring trouble.” She smiles nastily at Emma, “Present company included, of course. I’m warning you, let this go or you won’t like the consequences.”

“Is that some sort of threat?” Emma asks levelly.

The Mayor flashes her too-white teeth again. “Dear, I don’t make threats. I take action.” She turns her beady eyes to David and Mary Margaret. “I hope you two at least can inform your Sheriff what happens to people who don’t listen to me?”

Neither of them say a word, but Emma can see the way that Mary Margaret’s hands are trembling and how David has subconsciously shifted his stance to stand protectively in front of her.

“Ah,” the Mayor smirks, satisfied, “I appears I have made my point. Good day, Miss Swan.” She sweeps out of the station in a billowing cloud of perfume and confidence, and lets the door close behind her with a glass-rattling slam.

“Good day ,” Emma mocks, “Ugh. I wonder what came first, the Mayoral chain or the asshole attitude.”

“Oh, definitely the attitude. She’s been bullying me since junior high,” Mary Margaret lifts her chin, “well, not any more. This is happening whether she likes it or not, and we’re the only ones willing to do something about it.”

Emma looks to David.

“With all due respect to Regina,” David tells her, not sounding like he means any respect at all, “she’s not my boss. You are. What you say goes.”

Emma nods at them both, her small smile a little tremulous, nervous pride bubbling in her chest. The bell above the door tinkles, and Emma turns with a ready retort on the tip of her tongue. This is her station and her team and if Regina Mills has a problem with that she can just…

Blue eyes and a lilting accent stop her in her tracks.

“I couldn’t agree more. Who was that charming personage?”

Emma’s face seems to have a mind of its own when Captain Jones is concerned, at least going by the delighted smile she can feel spreading across it.

“The Mayor. She’s not our biggest fan, apparently.”

“Well, it’s a good job I’m here then to redress the balance,” he winks. Emma feels her cheeks grow warm. David clears his throat.

“Captain Jones.”

Killian turns to David with a raised eyebrow.

"Deputy Nolan.”

“Entrance to Asgard reappeared has it?”

Killian laughs, the tips of his ears turning slightly pink. “Ah, fortunately not. This is a social call.”

David grumbles something under his breath, and Emma might not be able to make out the words but the tone is unmistakable. Normally David’s protective, almost fatherly, instincts work to her benefit, keeping away the creeps and losers and the odd lovelorn one-nighter, but this one – this one she can handle on her own, thanks.

“You can go, David,” she says in her firmest Sheriff voice.

David looks at her in half-horror, half-confusion, “But – ”

She waves her hands at the door in case he’s missing her point. “Don’t you have some deputising to do?”

“But – ”

“Good bye David.” This last, said through clenched teeth, finally seems to get through to him.

Killian even gives him a little wave to back it up.

David finally grumbles his way out the door, map in hand, and Mary Margaret trots after him, although not before shooting Emma a meaningful look and a double thumbs up. Emma scowls at the back of the clerk’s head, but she can’t quite mask the brightness of her smile when she turns to face her visitor.

“So how can I help you, Captain?”

“Well,” there’s the ear scratch again, “you could start with calling me Killian… Emma.”

There’s a little thrill travels down her spine at the way he says her name.

“All right. Killian, it is.” She presses her lips together and raises her eyebrows. “Will that be all?”

“Well, actually, no, that is – ”

“Do you want to get lunch?” she blurts out without even realising the thought had crossed her mind, her fingers twitch with the desire to grab the words and stuff them back where they came from, and yet at the same time she doesn’t want him to go. “With – with me? Do you want to come for lunch with me?” Killian just stares at her for a moment, and she’s so out of practice at this (she’s never even had practice at this) that, worried that he’s got the wrong end of the stick, she tacks on a nervous, “As a date?”

Killian’s eyes grow wide, and the he quirks a little lop-sided smile at her, “Shouldn’t that be my line?” he teases.

Emma grabs her jacket before she loses her nerve.

“It’s the twenty-first century, pirate guy, so are you coming or not?”

The little smile morphs into a ridiculous, puppyish grin that makes him look younger and impossibly more handsome, “As you wish,” he agrees, sweeping out an arm to hold the door open for her, “but may I choose the venue?”

Chapter Text

They end up at Granny’s, mostly because there’s not really anywhere else to go, and anyway the grilled cheese is genuinely good. Emma does warn Killian away from the lasagne though, just to be safe.

To Emma’s intense surprise it’s actually, really, really nice .

He makes her laugh, makes her feel young and flirty, makes her want to bat her eyelashes and play coy like the girls she saw in high school. It’s a weird feeling, maybe even a bit uncomfortable, but she’s mostly shocked by how much she likes it. By how much she likes him .

(She still tucks a twenty in his jacket pocket when he goes to pay the bill. There are some things she doesn’t compromise on, and one is being able to buy her own damn lunch.)

He holds the door for her when they leave the diner, and there’s a little pause where neither of them are quite able to meet the other’s eyes. Emma, already amazed at her gumption for asking him out in the first place, figures that she might as well go all out.

“Fancy a walk?”

Killian blinks at her in disbelief, but his lips quirk up. “Won’t David be looking for you?”

“David had better be doing his job,” she snorts, “and I mean his actual job, not his bodyguard act.”

They head out along Main Street towards the woods at the edge of town, Emma being careful to lead them in the opposite direction to the Sheriff’s station just in case.

“So what do you do on that ship all day, anyway?” she asks “You don’t seem to be doing a lot of, well, pirating.”

He winks at her. “Well, I’d hardly be announcing such habits to the Sheriff now would I?”

“Oh, go on,” Emma teases, pretending to sigh, “it’s been ages since I’ve handcuffed anyone.”

Killian runs his tongue over his teeth in a way that’s positively lewd. “Risky talk for a first date, love.”

“Not like that .” She can feel the blush rising up her neck, although if she’d being honest she hasn’t had any of that sort of action in a while either and the prospect is more tempting than it ought to be. “I just mean proper investigating. Not whatever it is we seem to be doing at the moment.”

“It seems to me that you’re in the midst of a proper investigation, as you call it.”

“You think?” Emma asks skeptically. “The Mayor doesn’t seem to agree.”

Killian tsks, “Yes, the delightful Mayor Mills. And quite a piece of work she is too, it would seem. Why would you concern yourself with her opinions?”

“Well,” Emma finds herself smiling almost against her will, “there’s the fact she could fire us and makes all of our lives miserable forever?”

“Hmm, that would be unfortunate,” Killian says. “She is already on thin ice with me, since the harbourmaster is arranging some dreadful regatta in her honour, and I am expected to festoon my ship with poorly made bunting. Causing you any kind of unhappiness would surely be enough to earn my enmity forever.”

“Forever? You sure know how to hold a grudge,” Emma laughs.

Killian looks thoughtful, “Yes, I do. Not my greatest quality, perhaps.”

“Hey,” she elbows him lightly, “nobody’s perfect.”

“Aren’t they?” he asks, his face perfectly serious.

Emma bites her lip. “Trust me, I am a long way from perfect. I’m a screw up with a badge, that’s all.”

“I don’t believe that for a second. I’m sure your family are very proud of you.”

Emma cringes, the old wound might have scabbed over years previously but it still stings when poked. “No family to feel anything at all I’m afraid, unless you mean David’s fake brother act. I’m a system kid.”

Killian is quick to lay his hand on her elbow. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“No, it’s fine, really, it was a long time ago.” Emma remembers that flash of recognition she’d seen that day on his ship. “What about your family? Proud of the pirate, are they?

He laughs, but it sounds a bit hollow. “Well, I am ahead of you in that there was one, once. Then it was just my father, brother and I, then just my brother and I, and finally, just me. If you’re looking for a good luck charm I’m afraid I’m not your man.”

He says it as if it’s not a big deal, which in Emma’s experience means not only that it is a big deal, but it’s also a subject he’d rather shy away from. She bumps him lightly with her shoulder. “I haven’t said if I’m in the market for either.”

Killian hums in agreement. “No, I suppose you haven’t, but you have let me buy you lunch. I’ll take victories where I can.”

Emma grins, thinking of the twenty he hasn’t found yet. “How do you know I don’t let just any guy buy me lunch?”

“Because even though our acquaintance has been limited, I do think that you’re rather like me.”

She laughs then, full-bodied in a way she hasn’t for oh such a long time. “Right,” she teases, “and you never turn a cute guy down?”

Killian snorts, but then he’s caught hold of her wrist and gently turns her to face him. “You’re very funny, Swan,” he says with a serious little furrow in his brow, “but I think you know what I mean. I think you find happiness more difficult to believe in than ghosts.”

She looks at him, really looks at him in a way that she hasn’t looked at anyone in a very, very long time. He’s not entirely wrong, there, after all. Her throat feels terribly dry, and she has to lick her lips to get her words out. “If that’s the case, then you know what I’m going to do now.”

He smiles, a tad wanly, his eyes flickering over her face, lingering on her hair and the curve of her cheek before settling oh so briefly on her lips. “Aye,” he murmurs, resigned, “I expect I do.”

She realises that he expects her to leave, and she almost does, almost turns tail and runs from him and from whatever havoc he’s playing with her emotions, when his eyes flit back down to her lips.

Fuck this.

She might swear out loud, she can’t be sure, because in the next moment she’s launched herself forward so that her lips are pressed tightly to his and her hands are clutching at his collar. He sways back, stiff and unyielding under her assault, and she’s about to pull away because she’s clearly terribly misjudged the situation when his hand lands on the small of her back and he tugs her firmly against him, his other hand tangling in her ponytail. There’s a moment of awkwardness, where the angle isn't quite right and there’s a squashing of noses and a clashing of teeth and then – oh.

Oh .

It’s been years since a kiss has made her feel like this, made the heat unfurl in her belly until her skin is itching with the need to get closer, to get more . He tastes like coffee and rum, and she flings her arms around his neck, standing on her tiptoes to chase his lips with her own when they inevitably have to break for air.

His eyes are blown wide and dark, and he sways back towards her as if he can’t bear to let her go just yet (she knows the feeling, she really does). “That was…” he manages before swallowing hard and leaving Emma with a desperate urge to follow the bob of his adam’s apple with her tongue.

“Poorly timed,” she manages breathily. She pulls back, her hands sliding down to rest on his chest. “I should, uh… I should get back to work.”

“Right.” He allows his own hands to drop until they’re awkwardly hanging at his sides, fingers fidgeting. “Right, yes. I suppose that would be best.”

She looks up at him through her eyelashes, proud of the blush that has spread across his cheekbones and to the tops of his ears. “You could… walk me back?”

She doubts he could look more delighted if she’d presented him with one of those giant comedy cheques for a million dollars. He holds out his hand and wriggles his fingers, and she grabs hold without even really thinking about it, the soreness in her cheeks makes her wonder if her smile is as big as his own.

“It would be my pleasure.”

David is pacing when they arrive back at the station, not even the sight of Emma holding a man’s hand when she’s not dragging him in after being handcuffed seems to sway him from his determination to wear a hole in the carpet tiles.

“Oh, Emma, thank goodness you’re back.” Mary Margaret drops a familiar looking book onto the desk. “We have a serious problem.”

Emma looks down at the fairy tale book they must have lifted from the library, then back to Mary Margaret with a questioning eyebrow. “More than usual, or...?”

David finally stops pacing to stand behind Mary Margaret; he doesn’t even spare Killian a scowl. “Much, much more than usual. Tell her, Mary Margaret.”

“Should I – ” Killian asks Emma, gesturing to the door.

“No,” Mary Margaret states, so firmly that Killian and Emma both turn to her in shock, “No, I really think you ought to hear this, since it involves you.”

Emma squeezes his fingers a little tighter before letting go to cross her arms over her chest, her Sheriff mask firmly in place.

“Well, okay then, we’re all ears. Shoot.”

“You remember what we said about the water?” David unrolls a large yellowed piece of paper on the desktop. “Well, I looked into it like you suggested, and it turns out there is a culvert that runs right under the library and Granny’s, as we suspected.”

“Okay…” Emma starts, but she’s interrupted by Mary Margaret forcibly jabbing at the map.

“But that’s not all. I went out, spoke to some of the older people in town. I asked them if they remember any stories from their youth that might shed some light on things. Turns out there were a lot of stories about witchcraft being performed out in the woods.”

“Specifically,” David breaks in, “tales of Dark Magic rituals being carried out around the well.”

“This is all very… interesting,” Killian says patiently, “but what does I have to do with me?”

Mary Margaret shushes him sharply, “ Apparently , these rituals used a book. A big book, bound in brown leather.”

She gestures at the storybook that lies between them.

“ Once Upon a Time ,” Emma whistles. “Now that’s a crazy coincidence.”

“Isn’t it just,” says David as he flips the book open, “so then I thought, maybe the book itself contains some clues.”

“And does it?” asks Emma, watching intently as David whips past page after page of beautiful illustrations and illuminated text.

“Oh, better than that,” Mary Margaret says, “it’s got the answer,” she settles the book on her lap, “Once upon a time,” she begins, “in a land far, far away – ”

Killian groans, “Oh wonderful, a fairy story. How exceedingly helpful that would be, if we were trying to calm a group of over-excited four year olds rather than, oh I don’t know, the dead .”

Mary Margaret shushes Killian harshly; Emma wonders if she might really have been a schoolmistress in a previous life.

It’s a dark tale, alright. Emma finds herself strangely engrossed. The fairy tales of her youth had been the gentle, pastel shaded cartoons she’d half-watched on a VCR, stories where everybody sang and mice sewed clothes. Stories where everybody had a fairy godmother, and they all lived happily ever after.

This is not that sort of fairy tale.

She listens as Mary Margaret weaves the tale of a weak man who embraced magic to make him brave, until the magic took him over entirely and there was nothing left but a lust for power and the pleasure taken in destruction. He becomes the immortal, terrible, Dark One, an evil wizard bent on (as evil wizards always are) world domination until a band of motley heroes defeat him, trapping his power in a dagger and banishing him to a realm between realms for all eternity.

Mary Margaret looks up from the book to meet Emma’s disbelieving eyes.

“Magic. Actual magic. You’ve got to be kidding me. Magic isn’t real.”

“Funny,” says David, “but I could have sworn you said that about ghosts.”

“Maybe it wasn’t, it could just be a story,” Mary Margaret admits, “but I’ve told you about those rituals that were held at the well…”

“A strange coincidence, indeed. You think they’re connected then?” Killian asks, having sat in unusual silence while Mary Margaret read.

“We suspect that if somebody really was performing rituals out at the well that it may have, for lack of a better word, worked,” Mary Margaret says, “and that things have started to, well, crop up. Like, do you know how spider plants make baby spider plants?”

“They send out runners?” If she’s honest, Emma is becoming more bemused by the second.

“Right! And the little baby plants grow from there, but they’re connected to the mother plant even though they might be quite a way away.”

Killian shakes his head sharply. “Have you discovered anything concrete? Other than an ability to come up with convoluted horticultural analogies?”

David sends him a dirty look, but Mary Margaret just sighs. “The rituals may have been performed at the well, but the problems aren’t contained there. Instead they’re turning up in town, in places where the water passes beneath, like so many baby spider plants.”

“So if our ghostly friends are the babies,” Emma asks, “where’s mom? Who’s causing this?”

“We have a hypothesis,” says David, looking to Mary Margaret for confirmation, “that this magic is being drawn on by someone or something, and that if it’s being carried through town by the well water…”

“That it will be stronger where there’s the most water. In the harbour,” Killian’s eyes are wide, “well I’ll be damned.”

“That might be more accurate than you think,” Mary Margaret lays her hand on the book, “How long have you been in Storybrooke, Captain Jones?”

Killian looks confused. “About two months? Though I only moved to that berth two weeks ago.”

Emma snaps her fingers, “Just before we started playing Ghost Hunters.”

“And are you aware,” David asks, “that that particular berth is directly above where the culvert enters the main harbour?”

Killian’s expression darkens. “Is that an accusation, mate?”

“No!” Emma lays a hand on his bicep and stares at David, “It isn’t, is it David?”

David folds his arms and says nothing.

“It’s not an accusation,” Mary Margaret says delicately, “but you might want to look at this. We were confused as to why there would be so many years between the rituals being performed and the events happening now, so we went back to the book. Remember the story about the Dark One? Well, we also found a prequel.”

She opens the book to another bookmarked page, with a beautiful illustration on the right hand side of two men facing each other, one tall and dark and wielding a sword, the other fairer and stooped. They stand on a very familiar deck.

“No way,” Emma breathes, “is that – ”

“The Jolly Roger. ” Killian gently runs his finger over the lines of the picture “Of all the unbelievable things I’ve seen, this takes the biscuit.”

“Oh, that’s not even the best part,” continues Mary Margaret, “ this ,” she points to the fair man, “according to the story anyway, is the Dark One before he gained his powers, and this ,” the taller man this time, “is one Captain Jones.”

“He’s coming back,” David states with considerable conviction. “All those rituals weren’t enough on their own to set him free, but then you turned up and it’s like setting a match to a powderkeg. The Dark One is tearing his way back into this realm, because of you .”

There’s a moment of silence that Killian breaks with a harsh laugh.

“So you’re telling me that my, what, great-great-great-great grandfather made a deal with the actual devil and now he’s coming to collect?”

“I don’t think he’s the devil, persay – ” Mary Margaret begins, but David interrupts her.

“Actually, in the story, your ancestor steals his wife.”

Killian looks mildly impressed by this, but Emma’s starting to feel her heart rate spike. This is why she spends all her time either working or sitting on her couch. This is why she knew Killian Jones would be trouble from the off. Emma Swan doesn’t get nice things. She doesn’t get romance, or dinner dates, or kisses that set her alight. Oh no, she gets evil wizards rising from the dead bent on a path of vengeance and ultimate destruction. Sure, it makes a change from the usual betrayal and abandonment, but the endgame is the same. Emma always ends up alone.

“And what does this mean for Killian, exactly?” she asks, her fingers reaching for Killian’s wrist to ground herself, trying to keep her voice light as if she hasn’t already figured it out, as if she’s going to get a different answer from David than the one she gets.

“Apart from possibly getting a thank you for acting as Caspar’s invitation to town?” David shrugs, “I figure the Dark One probably isn’t going to be too impressed with him. In fact, he’ll probably kill him, I expect.”

“Thank you for your concern, Deputy,” Killian snarls. “It’s deeply appreciated.”

Emma tightens her grip on his arm. “You can’t stay on the ship. If things keep escalating at this rate, we don’t know what could happen. You shouldn’t be anywhere near it.”

“I’m not bloody running away.” He’s firm but won’t meet her eyes. “I know my ship and I’ve got my wits about me.”

“Your wits won’t be any good to you if you’re dead ,” Emma snaps back. “Go back, pack your things as quickly as you can. I’ll sort out a room at Granny’s for you and meet you at the docks.”

“Emma – ” he growls, annoyed, but then he stops. He must be able to read the fear she can feel bubbling up in her chest on her face, because his expression softens and he sighs. “All right. If it pleases you, perhaps discretion can be the better part of valour this time.”

“Thank you,” she breathes, and he smiles gently at her obvious relief. She manages to grapple with her emotions long enough to turn to David and Mary Margaret with an approximation of professionalism. “You guys hold the fort here, I’ll be back as soon as I can. Keep looking at the book, see if we can figure out how to stop this stuff escalating any further.”

‘’You got it,” says Mary Margaret firmly. “You can count on us.”

Killian swings down the ladder to his cabin, taking his frustrations out on the boards as he bangs around the small space, throwing open cupboards and stuffing his few portable belongings into a duffle bag. He’d managed to keep his frustrations hidden from Swan, in the main at least, long enough for her to leave him to collect his ‘essentials’ as she called them, but as soon as her squad car disappeared from the harbour side they’d risen up to consume him. He ought to be scared, any sane man would be scared, but right now all he is, is pissed .

“Of all the ridiculous,” he grumbles, “ stupid things to get involved in. Travel the world, Killian! Follow the winds, Killian! Be beholden to no man, Killian! Get stalked by an actual demon, Killian! You would laugh yourself sick at this, brother,” he tells the dog-eared photograph in his hand. “You wouldn’t believe a word of –”

He’s interrupted by a long scrape of wood on wood. From the corner of his eye he can see the replica cutlass he uses to scare the young ones on his tours.

“Ah ah,” he says, taking a careful step sideways towards the sword, “I let this pass the first time, but I should warn you,” another subtle shift and it’s almost in reach of his fingertips, “that sneaking up on a man on his own ship,” he stretches out slowly and wraps his fingers around the guard, “is really terribly bad form !”

He spins on the last, cutlass outstretched and chest heaving, only to be faced with… nothing. Killian grins. This demon is about to learn a lesson regarding picking fights with Killian Jones that many a man has learned before.

“Now, don’t be shy!” Killian taps at the edge of the table with the point of his sword, moving around it to ensure that the exit is at his back. “Come out and introduce yourself!”

Silence, again, and Killian is almost convinced that he’s started hearing things when something warm and wet runs down the back of his neck. Keeping his narrowed eyes on the table, he reaches round to rub at it. His hand comes away slick and red, and he risks a brief glance upwards to the dark, wet stain spreading over the cabin ceiling.

“Oh, very clever, very horror movie. That a party trick, is it?” he asks with mock joviality. “You’ll have to do better than that.” Something seems to vibrate in the air around him, a change in the atmosphere as if the invisible enemy is contemplating its next move. “What’s the matter,” Killian taunts, “scared?”

His paperweight, a little carved wooden thing that’s lived on the ship for as long as he can remember, lifts into the air and begins to float towards him. He laughs, a dark, bitter thing.

“Didn’t anybody tell you not to try and steal from a pirate?”

He reaches out to snatch the trinket from whatever forces are holding it, only for it to shoot ninety degrees away from his outstretched hand. “Oh, you are playing a game!”

Something giggles. The paperweight hovers closer until it’s just under his nose before zig-zagging away again.

“Come on then,” Killian grinds out from between his teeth. “I’m waiting.”

The giggling intensifies, louder and louder until the glasses rattle on his shelves and his ears start to throb, but he keeps his gaze fixed on the little paperweight. That’s how he misses it, at first, the way the shadows have intensified and crept closer. The darker darkness that has gathered at the edges of his vision.

“Come on ,” he roars, irritation overtaking sense, overtaking the self-preservation he’s always been so proud of. The darkness presses closer until it becomes hard to breathe, tentacles of shadow wrap round his ribs, squeezing rage into his bones. Somehow, through the blood pulsing in his ears, he hears footsteps up on deck.

Emma , some panicked part of his conscious yells, Emma is coming .

It’s harder than it should be, his muscles don’t seem to want to obey, but he manages to slash his cutlass through the black fog that’s surrounding him. It splits, and for a moment he can see clearly, can see how his whole cabin has filled with what looks like thick black smoke, and the way it moves back to swirl up his legs, holding him in place and making the bile rise in his throat.

With a shout and another swing of the blade, he manages to free himself enough to clamber up the ladder to the deck above, dropping the hatch to amputate the groping tentacles that are trying to follow. It works, for a moment, and then the hatch flies open, a great dark kraken reaching out to the sky.

“Captain Jones! Are you ready! Are you – Captain Jones?”

Not Emma, then, thank god. Killian tears through a rope holding a barrel in place, it rolls towards the creature and then straight through to fall overboard with a pitiful splash. “Smee!” he yells, “Will you –” he ducks another grasping tentacle, “go away .”

The harbourmaster stands on the entrance to the gangplank, mouth agape, his trademark hat covered in a colourful array of crepe paper roses.

“Captain Jones? What’s going on?”

Killian rips at another knot, allowing the boom to swing round. It splits the shadow in two but it takes only moments to regain its momentum. Killian curses.

“Never mind, man!” he spits, “Get out of here!”

“But,” Smee half whispers, “but the regatta…”

“Do I look,” Killian launches a barrel at the grasping limbs, just barely slipping away from them, “like I care about your fucking regatta ?”

The wind picks up, sending the bunting decorating the dockside flapping wildly and forcing Smee to grab hold of his hat. The Jolly Roger lurches, tugging at her lines, as an unusually large wave breaks over the harbour wall and crashes into her hull.

“Ca-Captain, look .”

Lightning unlike anything Killian has ever seen splits the horizon, leaving a ragged tear in its wake, the blue of the sky scarred by a black, sparking wound. Smee hasn’t moved, his eyes fixed on the hole, and it’s that hesitation that’s his downfall.

The beast’s tentacles reach out for Killian again, but he has the home advantage and flings himself behind a coil of rope, the creature’s momentum carrying it past him and towards the gangplank. Smee squeals, and, still clutching his hat, he turns to run, but it’s too little too late. The darkness grabs hold of his ankles, crawls up his body, and finally engulfs him.

Another crack of lightning and the portal tears open as if huge invisible hands are pulling at its edges. Killian watches, gobsmacked into silence, as the darkness is sucked up into it, swirling away, and releasing Smee who falls to his knees with glazed eyes. In the centre of the portal reappears the door he’d seen back in his cabin, but bigger, bigger on a scale he can barely comprehend, every inch of its surface covered in intricate carvings.

“Oh,” he breathes, dropping his cutlass with a clunk, “oh shit .”

There’s a beat while he stares, wide-eyed, up into the portal’s silent depths, and then the moment is broken. Smee seems to recover himself, standing and making to run across the deck towards the portal. Killian manages to catch him around his plump stomach, holding him back with some difficulty as he reaches his arms out towards it.

“I’m the key master!” Smee cries. “I am the key master!”

A strange low-pitched hum comes from the portal. To Killian’s hysterical mind it seems like it’s considering Smee’s words, weighing up its options before –

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Killian looks over his shoulder to see the matriarch of the local diner standing on the dockside with her mouth agape and a large ‘Granny’s Takeout’ bag in her hand. She shakes her head slightly as if trying to clear it before looking down to where Killian still half-wrestling with Smee. “I don’t suppose he still wants his take out?”

With a screech of tyres and a wail of sirens, Emma’s squad car skids to a stop, the sheriff almost falling over herself in her hurry to get out.

“What,” she spits out, her taser in one hand and her gun in the other, “is that?”

Killian laughs, breathless and frightened.

“I told you I wasn’t making it up!”

She leaps onto the deck, her feet missing the gangplank entirely, stuffing her taser away and pulling out a pair of handcuffs so quickly it gives Killian whiplash. She wrests Smee’s hands behind his back and keeps them there with a click, her eyes never leaving the sky.

“Tell me I handcuffed the right guy, Killian.”

He has just enough sense left to look offended. “Oh ye of little faith. Of course you handcuffed the right man. I don’t know what that beast did to him but,” Killian’s waves his hand in front of Smee’s eyes, “I suggest we get him out of here. He seems to want to get hold of… whatever that is.”

The portal grumbles threateningly.

“And we can presume that would be bad?”

“I should say that’s a safe bet.”

“Hey, Granny,” Emma calls without turning around, “you able to take this guy down to the station?”

Granny looks at Smee, and then back at the portal. “Sure, Sheriff. Think I’ve seen all I need to see here for today. Or forever.”

“Great.” Emma tosses her keys down to Granny before tugging Smee backwards down the gangplank. “You can drive. Tell David not to let him leave, you got that?”

“Got it.” Granny stuffs Smee into the back of the cruiser. “What are you going to do?”

The portal shifts again like a giant eye adjusting its focus. Emma bites her lip.

“I have absolutely no idea.”

Killian stands by her side, both of them staring up into the portal as Granny makes her escape in the cruiser. Emma feels like her brain is full of static, a fizzing, hissing blankness where her plan ought to be. She needs a plan, she needs an idea, she needs…

She snaps her head towards Killian, her voice frantic.

“What happened? How did it… do that?”

“It’s made of something dreadful, Swan.” He shakes his head slightly. “Something that wanted hold of me. I felt so angry, I don’t - ” He shudders, and Emma remembers the way the darkness had held her down in Granny’s, and filled her with a dreadful, blinding terror. “All I know is, whatever it is, we don’t want it on the rampage around Storybrooke.” Killian doesn’t look at her, his attention remains on the door within the portal, his face the picture of concentration as if he’s trying to will it out of existence. “But alas, the physics of the thing are beyond me. Your friend would say magic, I expect.”

“Well, I’m all out of that,” Emma huffs. She looks back to the door, tilting her head slightly as she considers it. A magic door.

She’s always been good with doors. She’d been picking locks for as long as she could remember when circumstances had led her towards a life on the right side of the law. Maybe this isn’t hopeless after all. If she can figure out what unlocked this portal, maybe she can close it back up.

“I need some specifics,” she says, all business. “Exactly what happened to create this thing?”

Killian scratches his neck.

“Well, firstly, there was a bit of a to-do with some evil shadows, and there was some lightning? Quite a lot of lightning actually.”

Emma grins, an idea sparking to life. It might be a stupid idea, but hey, evil magic door here. She’ll work with what she’s got.

“Okay. Lightning I can do.”

She pats the butt of her taser. Killian doesn’t look entirely convinced.

“Not that I’m doubting you, Swan, but what’s the plan exactly?”

“Lightning opened it, maybe lightning can close it. Reverse the… magic door. Thing. Doors swing both ways.”

She shrugs. It’s not the most complete plan in the world, admittedly. Killian lifts one eyebrow, a small lopsided smirk making its way across his face.

“I feel like this is the plot of a film I vaguely remember from the eighties.”

Emma bites back a smile, and instead lifts her own brows in reply. “Got any better ideas?”

He waves chivalrously towards the portal, stepping to one side so that she stands alone beneath the portal. “Not a one, have at it.”

Emma lifts her taser and takes aim, huffing out one last irritated breath at how ridiculous her life has become. “Alright, whoever you are. You are under arrest.”

The air shifts around them, the wind picking up strands of her hair and whistling through the ship’s sails. It sounds like laughter. Emma doesn’t care for being laughed at.

She fires the taser with a growl, the wires shooting out to catch on the portals lip. She grins, something a little feral in her joy as the sparks seem to fly from her fingertips. This is her type of magic.

For a moment it seems to be working. The portal spits purple smoke as the edges frazzle under the tasers assault, and the door within blinks in and out of focus, seemingly struggling to retain its solid form.

“You’ve got it,” Killian yells. “You’re doing it, it’s…”

There’s a great crack and the taser’s wires fall limp onto the ship’s deck. The portal twists like a man in pain, releasing an enormous cloud of purple smoke before with a roar and a blast of hot wind it belches streaks of lightning back into the sky. One of them catches at the mainsail and orange flames begin to lick along the edges of the cloth. The sudden gust hits her in the chest sets her off balance, so that she stumbles backwards into Killian’s arms and drops the taser as she struggles to steady herself. A sinuous black tentacle reaches out of the portal and pulls the taser up into its depths.

They don’t speak - couldn’t over the shriek of the wind, even if they wanted to - only stagger backwards towards the gangplank, their descent to the docks slowed by their inability to look away from the portal’s malevolent black eye. As soon as their feet hit solid ground they do the only thing they can. They run.

The harbourmaster struggles in between Granny Lucas and Leroy, each of whom have hold of an arm and bodily drag him over the threshold of the Sheriff’s station.

“This one’s for you, special delivery from the Sheriff,” Granny says. “He keeps gabbling nonsense, something about the key master or some such thing.”

David and Mary Margaret exchange a look.

“I think he’s high,” says Leroy conversationally.

Granny hums, but then lifts a brow at David. “Between you and me, there’s something very weird going on down at the docks.”

“Oh,” David laughs uncomfortably. “I’m sure Emma has it in hand.”

Granny looks unconvinced. “I hope so. There’s supposed to be a regatta in an hour and I’ve made forty two blackberry pies. I’d hate for them to go to waste.”

She makes it sound alarmingly like a threat, one which he’d probably take seriously if the fate of the entire world wasn’t up in the air right now.

“Alright.” He looks to Mary Margaret, who doesn’t seem to have any idea what to say to that either. “Do you… want to go and see to those?”

Granny harrumphs, heading back to her pies with Leroy slouching behind her.

“I am the key master,” says Smee.

“Oh brother,” says Mary Margaret.

“I am the deputy.” David gives Smee a calculating look. “Can you tell me what happened to you?”

Smee blinks, his gaze fixed on something over David’s right shoulder.

“Looks like we were right, things are building up out there.” Mary Margaret chews on her lip and looks out of the window. “Do you think Emma will be able to handle it?”

“Emma,” David scoffs, “I’ve never seen anything she can’t handle.”

Mary Margaret sighs.

“I suppose… but we’ve never seen anything like this, have we?”

“Hey.” David gives her a reassuring smile. “Have a little hope.”

Mary Margaret returns the smile, though hers wobbles a little at the corners.

“Hope, of course, I just--” Something outside of the window catches her attention. “--oh damn it!”

“What is it?”

Mary Margaret groans and rubs her hand over her forehead.

“We’ve got company. Regina’s timing is as spectacular as ever.” She gestures at Smee. “What the heck are we going to do with him? Should we lock him up?”

Smee hums a jaunty tune under his breath as his eyes track the movements of dust motes. “I am the keymaster,” he tells the air.

“I can’t put him in the cell! Can you imagine her reaction?” David shakes his head. “We need to hide him.”

“Okay, okay, fine. Here.”

Mary Margaret opens the stationery cupboard door, stuffs Smee unceremoniously inside, and bolts the door.

“I am the keymaster!” shouts Smee, barely muffled by the door.

“Hang on,” says Mary Margaret, scrabbling through her desk drawer. “Here.”

She hands David a roll of duct tape. David looks from the duct tape to her face in confusion.

“Oh, come on,” Mary Margaret hisses, “do you want her to hear that?”

“You’re not as sweet as you make out, are you?”

Mary Margaret grins. “It’s about time you noticed.”

David unlocks the door, catching Smee as he falls forward, and slapping a piece of tape over his mouth. Smee’s eyes go wide.

“Sorry about this,” David says with real apology. “Sheriff’s business, you know how it is.”

He shoves him back in, slamming the bolt into place just as Regina Mills storms into the office in a black cape and a blacker mood.

She prowls around the station with narrowed eyes and pursed lips. David scuffles over slightly to try and block her view of the stationery cupboard door. Mary Margaret clasps her hands tightly in front of her and smiles brightly.

“Mayor Mills! How nice to see you again! Can I get you a drink? Water, coffee, maybe a scotch?”

“No.” The Mayor tilts her head to read the title of the storybook on Emma’s desk. “What’s this?”

“Oh,” David pretends to laugh, “that’s nothing. Just a little light reading that I picked up at lunch.”

“Hmmm,” she taps her manicured nails rhythmically on the cover, “do you get lunch breaks, Deputy?”

Mary Margaret and David exchange a look.

“Only as mandated by state law, ma’am.”

“Ah, yes.” She looks up at them, her smile all teeth and no kindness. “Speaking of the law, I came to speak to the Sheriff.”

“I’m afraid she’s out on a call,” Mary Margaret stammers, “but if you’d like – ”

The Mayor stands abruptly making Mary Margaret jump, “Do you know what I’d like?” she sneers, “I’d like to know why, after I expressly forbade it, the Sheriff’s department is still wasting time, resources and my money pretending to investigate a bunch of made-up nonsense!”

“Now, really, Madam Mayor.” David holds his hands out in a placating gesture. “I really think that you…”

“ Mmmmmphhh !”

The Mayor turns to the stationery cupboard. David schools his expression into a mask of perfect blankness.

“What,” she hisses, “was that?”

“What was what?” David asks. “I didn’t hear anything, did you, Mary Margaret?”

“Not a thing!” Mary Margaret manages with a straight face. “Are you sure about that drink – ”

“ Mmmmmmpphhhh hhhhh!”

Mayor Mills unceremoniously shoves David out of the way and rips the cupboard door open. Smee looks up at her pitifully from under his flowery hat. She peels the duct tape from his mouth rather too slowly to be painless.

“I am the keymaster!” he tells her with surprising jollity.

She recoils in horror as he goes to reach for her. “Why do you have this strange little man locked in a cupboard?” she hisses. “And what is all--” She gestures at the wall of gently pulsating boxes. “-- that. ”

Mary Margaret winces. “A… um… science experiment?”

“Are you the Dark One?” Smee asks cheerfully.

Regina sneers at him. “I’ll show you ‘dark one’ in a minute. Why are you still here? Go! Get out!” She cuts her eyes at David. “I have some restructuring to do.”

“Oh,” Mary Margaret throws herself forward, “oh, Regina, I don’t think that’s – ”

“What did you call me?” Mayor Mills turns on Mary Margaret with a snarl, and Smee takes the moment to bolt for the exit. David looks after him, torn, but stands his ground.

“Regina,” Mary Margaret tries again, “we’ve known each other a long time and I know if you’d just listen – ”

The station door flies open, Emma and Killian almost tripping over each other in their haste to get inside.

“Oh my gosh, Emma!” Mary Margaret cries, “Are you okay?”

Emma waves her off, sucking sharp breaths in between her teeth, her attention entirely on the Mayor.

“It’s happening,” she gasps, bent almost double. “Whatever the hell is coming, it’s on its way.”

Killian is in only slightly better shape, but still manages to splutter a warning, “You need to cancel that regatta. Anybody who steps foot on those docks is facing something more terrible than you can even begin to imagine.”

Mayor Mills looks at them both as if they are something particularly disgusting she’d found on the bottom of her shoe. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“That’s a very apt choice of words, my lady.”

“I know you think we’re crazy,” Emma pleads, “I think we’re crazy. This is crazy stuff. But you’ve got to listen, there is a – a demon or a spirit or god only knows what down in the harbour and it is trying to open a portal to another realm, it has opened a portal –”

“You’re right, I do think you’re crazy.” She turns as if to leave, but it’s Killian who jumps forward and grabs hold of her arm. The Mayor looks down at his hand, incredulous.

“There is a creature aboard my ship that has tried to kill me, attacked the harbourmaster, and appears to have powers I cannot even begin to explain. The walls of my cabin are bleeding, Mayor. How do you explain that?”

Mayor Mills sets her lips in a thin line. “This is total nonsense, and if you’re wrong – ”

“If I’m wrong, nothing happens!” Emma shouts. “Fire me, throw me over the town line, whatever! But if I’m right,” an idea occurs to her and her lips twist conspiratorially, “if I’m right, you will have saved the lives of hundreds of registered voters.”

The Mayor appears to consider that prospect for a moment, then grimaces. “The costs are coming out of your paychecks. I don’t care who’s right; you’re paying.”

“Delightful.” Killian doesn’t give her a moment more of his attention, instead nodding encouragingly at Mary Margaret. “Where’s Smee? We mustn’t allow him anywhere near the docks for all of our safety.”

Mary Margaret nods at the Mayor, a hint of satisfaction on her pale face, “ She let him out.”

Mayor Mills does at least have the grace to look slightly uncomfortable. Emma’s last strand of patience creaks and then snaps along with the thud of the Mayor’s back hitting the wall, Emma’s hands mere inches from her throat.

“ You ,” she snarls, “you come here, you insult my team, you belittle our work, you run this town as your own personal fiefdom, and now, now , you’re telling me you’ve released a highly dangerous prisoner who is, right now, about to go and assist with bringing about the resurrection of an evil wizard bent on world domination ?”

Mayor Mills splutters. “You have to admit, Miss Swan, it doesn’t sound very likely.”

Emma releases her with a frustrated scream, only for Mary Margaret to grab her by the shoulders.

“Fighting her won’t help anyone, Emma, we’ve got to get back out there and stop this before it gets any worse.”

“We should call the army,” Emma looks around her frantically, “or the navy, or someone .”

“And get them to believe us, love?” Killian scoffs, “I think we’ve just seen how that turns out.”

“It’s down to us,” states Mary Margaret fiercely. “We’re the only people who know what’s happening. We’re the only ones who can stop it.”

“With what?” to Emma’s horror she can feel tears starting to burn behind her eyes. She was happy , damn it, or nearly so.

David clears his throat, and opens the stationery cupboard door. The boxes glow, looking out at them like so many red eyes.

“We did buy them in bulk. It would be a shame not to get our monies worth.”

They march through town like desperados in an old western, Emma in the lead, her nails digging into the edges of her Pandora’s box.

“What are we facing here exactly?” David fingers at the holster of his gun. “I’d like to be prepared.”

“Some things you can’t prepare for, mate.” Killian shakes his head.

“Try me,” David deadpans.

“There’s a hole in the sky containing a door to god only knows where, and god only knows what’s about to come through it,” Emma says. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“Did you try talking to it?” Mary Margaret asks. “Maybe it will just leave if we – ”

“Seriously?” Emma stares at Mary Margaret, aghast. “You think if I ask the portal to another realm nicely it’ll just go away? Mary Margaret, I tasered the thing and it ate my taser . Polite requests are not going to cut it!”

“And this is why I am the Mayor, and you are--” The Mayor looks at Mary Margaret with disdain. “--whatever it is that you are.”

“You’ve got a suggestion then?” David asks. Regina screws her face up.

“I suggest that I wait out here to prevent those people heading for the regatta from getting to the docks, and that, in the meantime, you get rid of that thing by whatever means necessary. And I do mean by whatever means necessary , is that clear?”

“You’re going to cordon off the docks by yourself?” David looks doubtful.

“Oddly enough, Deputy Nolan, most people in this town listen to me because they know what’s good for them. I did tell you to leave these things well enough alone, and you ignored me, and where has that got you? About to be fried by magical aliens, by all accounts.”

She doesn’t look particularly distressed by the prospect. There’s a moment of awkward shuffling amongst Emma’s team. Not that any of them fancy agreeing with her, but the Mayor is not entirely wrong.

“Well?” she shoos them away as if they’re a pack of recalcitrant dogs. “Don’t you have some spirits to exorcise?”

“Actually – ” Mary Margaret says, ready to explain in great detail the differences between exorcism and whatever-the-fuck they're planning to do to an ancient evil wizard.

“School later,” Emma grits out, dragging her away. “Ghostbusting now.”

The portal glowers down at them as the four of them arrive at the docks, the air thick with a strange sense of anticipation. If this really was a spaghetti western this would be the point a tumbleweed rolled across the dusty road, but this is Storybrooke and the dramatics are left to a couple of paper flyers and an old beer can. Emma swallows.

She’s starting to lose it a bit, Regina Mills’ smug words playing on repeat in her mind, the guilt rising up and threatening to drown her. She’s brought them into this, she’s brought them in, and she can’t be sure she’ll get them out. Her breathing is becoming faster and shallower, her heart hammering somewhere near her throat, “I can’t do this,” she mutters. “I can’t do this.”

“Don’t give up, Emma,” Mary Margaret chides, her own box held tightly in front of her. “There’s always hope.”

“Good always beats evil, remember?” David adds. “We’re going to get rid of this thing.”

“You say that like we’re big damn heroes or something, David! We are two small-town cops, a pretend pirate and a woman who believes in fairies. We’re not heroes. We’re not some mythical force for good. We don’t live in a fairy tale! We’re just people . Barely adequate people at that.”

“All heroes are just people first, Emma. If we don’t fight with all that we’ve got, well...” Killian twines his fingers around her shaking ones. “I won’t need to worry about that. You won’t fail, Swan.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Don’t I?” His raised eyebrow is just the wrong side of cheeky, the little scoff she can feel rising up in reply just enough to still the tremors.

“You can sit around saying nice things about me all day when we manage to defeat this thing, okay?”

“That is something I will take great pleasure in taking you up on, I assure you.” He grins at her, almost obnoxiously confident for a man who’s probably about to walk to his death. “So shall we?”

The portal still hovers over the Jolly Roger, so they make for her gangplank. The wind has died down. Nothing appears to have changed on deck as far as Emma can see – the gently smouldering edge of the topsail is the only evidence of her ill-advised attempt to taser the un-taserable. They are almost to the ship when there’s a loud bang followed by the sound of skittering footsteps on her deck.

“What the bloody hell is that?” Killian growls, pulling Emma behind him so that he can mount the gangplank first, the others crowding up behind him. “Oi!” he yells. “What are you doing on my ship!”

Smee stands on the deck, his hands clasped around something small, with an empty smile on his face.

“I am the key master,” he says.

“Yes,” says David, “so you’ve mentioned.”

“I am the servant of the darkness,” Smee adds, sounding alarmingly chipper about it.

“Is that so?” Emma steps delicately to the front of the group, her hand on her gun. “That sounds great. Why don’t you just come with us and we can talk about it?”

Smee tilts his head, very slowly, to one side. He lifts his clasped hands towards them.

David looks at Emma. Emma looks at David. They whip out their guns in unison.

“Put your weapon down!” Emma barks.

Smee opens his hands to reveal what looks like a small piece of wood.

“Uh, Emma,” Killian stage-whispers, “That is, in fact, a paperweight.”

Emma rolls her eyes.

“Put your paperweight down!”

“Mr Smee…” Killian tries.

“I am the key master,” Smee says.

“Can I just shoot him?” Emma asks the universe.

Smee turns his back on them to face the portal, lifting the paperweight high above his head.

“I AM THE SERVANT OF THE DARKNESS.”

His voice booms out around the docks, echoing back over and over again. It’s not his voice at all though, but instead something deep and dark that makes Emma’s bones shake. She watches, dumbfounded, as Smee clambers up onto the guardrail and reaches into the portal. It’s only when she sees the little paperweight tucking neatly into the centre of the door that she realises what’s happening.

“Oh, fucking hell,” she manages. “He’s the fucking key master.”

“And that,” Killian sounds as blown away as she feels, “is the bloody key.”

The portal door begins to swirl, the carvings around its edges blurring into nothing as it spins itself into nothing at all, the darkness around it tears apart, ripping it further open with a whine like nails on a chalkboard. Purple clouds spill out onto the deck of the Jolly and lie like unnatural fog on the surface of the water.

Somebody laughs.

The Jolly Roger begins to pitch and roll as the sea becomes rougher and rougher, the portal ripping open until it’s touching the horizon, black as a starless night but cut through with bolts of lightning that send the sea heaving into a maelstrom wherever they touch down. A hot wind begins to howl around them, picking up strength until Smee is sent flying from the guard rail and David and Killian have to grab Mary Margaret by the arms to keep her upright.

“And the seas boiled and the skies fell,” Emma hears David say, his voice full of awe.

“I didn’t know you were religious,” she yells above the screaming wind.

“I’m about to be.”

The solid darkness above them begins to break up, the edges rolling back in on themselves, until, like water going down a plughole, it swirls inwards towards a central spot above their heads. The wind seems to change too, moving back and away from the ship itself until it’s a wall of sound and destruction that surrounds them on all sides. They watch as the final tendrils of darkness fixate and solidify into a solid ball of dark matter that floats above them like a black hole at the centre of a hurricane.

“Is it done?” asks Mary Margaret.

There’s a flash of blinding light, a crack of thunder, and a high-pitched, creaking voice answers.

“No, dearie, it’s only just begun.”

The man, if he could be called a man, who stands before them offers a theatrical little bow. His clothes are dark, his skin scaled and golden, his eyes are too large to be natural, and glint, luminous and cruel, from his pinched, sharp face.

“The Dark One,” Mary Margaret breathes.

“In the flesh,” says the demon with ill-concealed relish.

Killian looks unimpressed. “He’s shorter than I expected.”

“Well, well, well!” the Dark One croons, unmoved by Killian’s disdain, “If it isn’t team hero! Come to entrap me for eternity again? That doesn’t seem to have worked the first time, and you know dearies, the sequel is never as good as the original.”

Emma sneers. “Wanna bet?” She adjusts her stance and brings her box out in front of her.

“Now!”

They open their boxes in unison, the four beams of golden light hitting the Dark One simultaneously. He screams – an inhuman, awful sound – and Mary Margaret laughs breathlessly.

“It’s working! Emma, it’s working!”

Emma grunts, her box is starting to shake in her hands, all her effort going into just holding on. The Dark One struggles within the ropes of light, wisps of darkness appearing to come from his flesh as he twists and turns. Emma half turns away, not wanting to watch a man – any man – be torn apart. Her momentary distraction is all he needs.

He breaks free with a roar, the golden light shattering as if it’s made of glass.

“That--” He lifts his hands, and Emma sees that he’s holding a strange curved sort of dagger. “---was a mistake.”

His arms rise, and with them the wind – that has so far been keeping its distance – swoops back towards him. With a malicious grin and fire in his fingertips, he sends an incredible gust billowing towards them.

The blast flings them across the deck. Emma just manages to grab at the mast as she slides, but the others aren’t so lucky. They fly past her in a tangle of limbs, hitting the guardrail on the far side with a sickening crack . Smee, who had been unconscious on deck, is sent flying right off the deck to land in a heap on the dock.

“Guys?” she cries, struggling to be heard over the screaming wind. “Guys, are you okay?”

If anybody replies, it’s blown away before it reaches her. Emma grits her teeth and uses the mast as leverage to drag herself to her feet. “Hey!” she yells. “ Hey ! Over here!”

The wind stills, an eerie silence falling over the tilting deck. Emma manages to regain more solid footing, until eventually she’s able to throw her shoulders back and stare straight into the Dark One’s reptilian, malevolent eyes.

“I know who you are,” she growls, “and I know what you want. And I’m here to tell you this is my town, and you can’t have it.”

“Let’s play a game,” sniggers the golden skinned creature. “Winner takes all.”

“This isn’t a negotiation,” David calls out breathlessly as he struggles to his feet, Mary Margaret and Killian attempting to follow suit. “Storybrooke will never be yours. Surrender now and no one gets hurt!”

The Dark One taps his fingers against his scaly lips.

“But what fun would that be? I’m not unreasonable. I’ll even let you choose!” he giggles, gesturing to Emma. “Go ahead, Sheriff Swan. Choose and perish!”

It takes her a second, but then she’s spinning to face the others, arms outstretched, “Don’t think of anything!” she yells, “Empty your minds!”

“Emma, wha – ”

“Just do it! Don’t think of anything! Whatever you think of he’ll use to destroy us!” It’s a game, all right, and their only chance now is to win it. She squeezes her eyes tight shut and tries not to think. White noise , she tells herself, white noise .

The laughter crescendos, “The choice is made!”

“No!” Emma shouts into the empty air, “No, no, no!”

She can hear David and Killian, breathless and panicked.

“It wasn’t me.”

“Nor I.”

“I couldn’t help it!” Mary Margaret frantically wrings her hands. “I just… it was my favourite movie as a kid. How dangerous can it be?”

“Mary Margaret,” says Emma, in the slow, calm voice of someone who is about to lose their mind, “what is it .”

“Uh,” says Killian, still half draped across the guard rail, “I think you ought to take a look at this, Swan.”

The roiling waters beneath the ship foam and spit until a swirling vortex appears, leaving the Jolly Roger clinging on to its outer edge. The vortex deepens into a vast blackness. Tendrils of the dark matter they’ve been chasing reach up to blacken the sky and send crackling magic up into the clouds. From within the depths of the vortex, like a great horrifying infant born from the womb of the sea, rises…

“Dopey,” says David blankly. “I’m going to be killed by a murderous mute dwarf.”

“I’m sorry!” Mary Margaret practically wails.

The Dark One cackles in glee, twisting his dagger between his skeletal hands, and Dopey turns his cold, dinner plate eyes onto the listing Jolly .

“Oh, this is going to be so much fun!” squeals the imp. “I love it when they put on a show!” He disappears in a plume of smoke, only to reappear moments later, leaning casually against the mast in the crow’s nest with an expression not unlike that of a man with front seat tickets to his favourite Broadway production.

“He is not going to fit in a box,” moans Mary Margaret. “I’m sorry, I’m so – ”

“Stop,” Killian barks, his eyes not on their forthcoming doom-by-dwarf but fixed on the shimmering figure in the crow’s nest. “Dopey here’s not the problem. He’s the weapon. We don’t need to do anything to the gun; we need to get the one holding it.”

“The Dark One,” Emma agrees, but then looks down, stricken. “The boxes don’t work on him Killian, what are we supposed to do?”

“Leave that to me,” he turns to her then, smiling widely and genuinely, and she feels her breath catch. “And let me just say, that even if it ends in my inglorious death, I am very glad to have met you, Emma Swan.”

He leans down, and, very gently, presses his lips to hers.

David makes a sound of protest, but before she can do anything – kiss him back, punch David in the chest, anything – he’s gone, throwing himself at the ragged ends of his ship’s rigging and launching himself up towards the crow’s nest like a monkey with a death wish.

“Are you insane ?” Emma shrieks.

“Apparently!” Killian calls back.

“Oh, ho ho!” The Dark One raises his dagger, looking down on Killian as he struggles up the frayed ropes, “Now this is more like it, eh, Captain. Just like old times!”

“I think you have me confused with someone else, mate,” Killian puffs out. “Captain Killian Jones. I’m here to kill you.”

“Not,” sneers the Dark One, “if I get you first.”

A streak of lightning shoots from his fingertips, and Dopey reaches one great hand out to tug at the ropes and fixtures holding the main mast in place, his other resting on the bow of the ship and sending water flooding over the battered deck. Emma and David fall to their knees, only Mary Margaret managing to stay upright still clinging, horrified, to her useless Pandora’s Box. Killian swings precariously twenty feet up as Dopey begins to bat away at the sails and rigging as easily as if they were spider webs.

This is how it ends . Emma thinks, calmly, as if considering what to have for dinner , I’m going to watch the only friends I’ve ever had drown, and then I’m going to be murdered. By a cartoon character.

She looks at Killian – feet from his goal but inches from certain death – at David – still trying to protect her with his body even as the waters rise around them – at Mary Margaret – fierce and hopeful and scared out of her wits – and she smiles. For the first time ever, she thinks she might have found a family.

There are worse ways to die.

Mary Margaret’s expression suddenly clears, the terror gone and replaced by furious concentration.

“Emma, David! I’ve got an idea! Grab the boxes!”

They stagger to their feet, the water swirling around their calves and making it difficult to stand, both looking at Mary Margaret with something like pity.

“It won’t work, Mary Margaret,” David soothes. “We tried our best but…”

“No!” She shakes her head, pointing to where Killian is still valiantly struggling to keep his grip. “No, we can’t capture him, we just have to hold him! All at once! Come on!”

David shrugs, pulling his box from his jacket. “It’s worth a try.”

Emma too tugs her box free from the ropes it had been tied in. She looks up at Killian, and swallows hard.

“Okay, guys. On three. One, two, three .”

The three blasts of golden light hit Dopey squarely in the face, blinding him so that he releases the suffering Jolly to claw at his eyes, his mouth twisted in a silent scream. The Dark One howls his displeasure, spinning to launch a bolt of magic down at the deck. Emma leaps out of the way, dropping her box as she does so, but it doesn’t matter.

David and Mary Margaret have kept Dopey at bay just long enough for Killian to swing his leg over the rail of the crow’s nest, the distracted Dark One unable to realise the danger in time to turn his magic against him. Emma watches, her heart in her mouth, as Killian wrests the dagger from the demon’s hand. There’s a beat. A moment where the ocean itself seems to be holding its breath, and then Killian lunges.

An unholy screech rends the air, a billowing purple cloud pours out of the crow’s nest and engulfs the deck, blinding Emma to anything except for the swaying silhouette of the stricken Dopey. He grabs at the mast in a last desperate attempt to right himself, dragging the ship over with him and sending Emma skidding hard against the guardrail, until the overstretched wood of the mast gives up, splintering in half and sending him backwards into the ocean.

The ship rides the ripples till they still, then settles, groaning terribly, with a severe list to port. Emma lifts her head, blinking salt and dust from her eyes, just in time to see something in tattered dark leather hit the deck with a sickening crack .

“Killian!” She scrabbles across the deck on her knees, splinters digging into her palms. “Killian, are you alright?” She reaches out for him, her hands fluttering over his still form, half scared to touch him in case she hurts him, half scared in case she doesn’t . “Killian, wake up! Killian .”

“Careful, love,” he groans. “A man might start to think you like him.”

Emma falls back on her haunches, a hysterical laugh bubbling up until she’s tossing her head back and belly-laughing at the sky. “Oh my god. Oh my god. We actually did it.”

Killian tries to sit up, but falls, wincing, to lie on his back. “My poor ship,” he groans.

“We’re alive!” Mary Margaret sings out. “I can’t believe we’re all alive!” David looks like he’s about to say something in reply, but then she’s swinging around to throw her arms around her neck and kissing him for all she’s worth.

“Really?” Emma grinds out. “Now?”

Mary Margaret pulls away, gives Emma a thousand watt smile, and then throws herself so enthusiastically back into the kiss that David almost stumbles overboard.

There’s a commotion back on land – the would-be regatta guests have breached Regina’s cordon and are spilling out onto the dockside in a cacophony of gasps and screams. Smee, who had landed in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the Jolly ’s gangplank, stirs awake as the frazzled remnants of his crepe paper roses flutter to rest around him.

“Would you look at that,” Killian declares cheerfully but in a slightly strained voice, “nobody died! Now I do hate to spoil the moment, but would somebody mind terribly calling me an ambulance?”

The joy of small towns where nothing ever happens is that on the rare occasion that something does the whole population gather round to lend a friendly hand and quench their neighbourly thirst for gossip. The restoration of the Jolly Roger has been overrun with well wishers. Killian’s cool box is stuffed to bursting with more of Granny’s lasagne than any man could reasonably hope to eat and still survive. Mary Margaret and David have delivered loads of timber and sailcloth sourced from who knows where, though in terms of practical help they could have been better. David in particular only ever seemed to surface from another public display of affection if he sensed Killian was within ten feet of Emma. He'd stop, glare, and then return to a thorough examination of Mary Margaret's tonsils. (She didn't seem to mind, but it was making Emma nauseous.)

Even Regina appeared with an army of scaffolders and carpenters in tow, determined to fix the disaster that is the mainmast. She may have had a face like sour milk, insisting that the work had to be done properly if Killian were to ever earn enough money to pay for her  ruined regatta, but she came all the same. They’re not friends, exactly, but it's a start.

Despite all their enthusiasm though, most days Emma is working alone on the patchwork deck. Today is one of those days.

Seabirds wheel in the clear sky, the harbour mill pond still, as Emma takes a tack out from between her teeth and lines it up with her hammer. Sweat is running into her eyes and cramp burns across her shoulder blades.

“You’re doing an excellent job.”

She narrows her eyes, concentrating on the board and the tack so that she doesn’t smack her thumb. “You know, when I said you could sit around and say nice things to me, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind. Can’t you get on with cleaning or something?”

She gets up from her knees with a grunt, pushing her hair out of her eyes so that she can squint at him in the bright sun. Logically, she knows it’s the sun that’s dazzling her, but some silly romantic part wonders if really it’s him – he’s lost his leathers (too hard to get on, he’d told her with a wink), so he’s sitting in a beach chair in shorts and a t-shirt, the white of his cast dull next to the white of his smile.

“I’m injured,” he pouts.

“Ah yes,” Emma hums, “the wounded hero. I still don’t think you need two hands to wield a mop.”

“I don’t need two hands to do a lot of things,” Killian says, tongue between his teeth. “Come here and I’ll prove it.”

She sashays over, leaning over him with her hands on his armrests, taking a moment just to enjoy the way his eyes darken and the cords of his neck stretch as he looks up at her. She lowers her voice and licks her lips. “Prove it with a mop.”

He blinks then laughs, tugging her down with his good hand so that she lands in his lap with an ‘oof’. “I can think of much better things to be doing than swabbing the decks, Swan.”

She tilts her head and sighs. “So can I. The scaffolding still needs to come down from the mast and there’s a pile of sails to restitch and – ”

“ Swan ,” he groans pathetically, and she can’t keep it up, giggling as she drops kisses on his scruffy cheek.

“You know you’re very forward.” He shifts his hips beneath her and she bites back a gasp. “We’ve been on one date, and I’m not that type of girl.”

“Nonsense, Swan.” He noses at the crook of her neck. “we have been on half a dozen dates.”

“Oh,” Emma raises her eyebrows, trying to concentrate as he does something sinful to her collarbone, “they must have been very forgettable.”

“Ghost hunting was one, lunch was two,” each recollection is interspersed with another kiss, another nip at the skin of her throat that makes her very, very aware that they’re out in the open, “defeating a demon was three,  and then there was the very lovely hospital canteen…”

“Okay,” she breathes out as his lips meet her jaw, “okay, if we use your very loose interpretation of the word. But we need to get things shipsha-”

The crush of his lips to hers makes her moan greedily, but he’s pulling away all too quickly. “Why Swan, was that a ship pun? I think I'm rubbing off on you.”

(She doesn't know what's more lewd, the wriggle of his eyebrows or his hips.)

Emma screws up her nose and sticks her tongue out briefly before he’s descended on her again. She could kiss him forever, she’d learned pretty quickly. Too quickly, really.

From the moment he’d been discharged from hospital with a cast on his left arm and a hang-dog expression she’d struggled to be apart from him for any more time than she really had to be. So she’d volunteered to spend hours supervising and assisting with the reconstruction of his ship, where he helps when he can and watches her with predatory eyes when he can’t. Emma from a month ago would be horrified that she’s let some guy get under her skin so quickly, but then Emma from a month ago didn’t believe in magic. She didn’t know what it was like to melt under his gaze and burn at his touch. Emma from a month ago didn’t know how to grasp a moment and run with it, but she likes to think she’s learning.

His good hand slips under her t-shirt, his fingers walking up her spine towards the clasp of her bra and, really, the decking can wait. She can’t.

From somewhere in the direction of land she’s sure she hears a wolf-whistle, and that settles it.

She manages to extradite herself from his lap without breaking the kiss, the little whimper he lets out as she brushes her hands down his sides and over his thighs enough to make her mind up if she hadn’t already.

“You know,” she says against his mouth, “I’m sure there’s work to be done down in the cabin. Want to come prove your,” she can’t help smiling against him, “ skills in private?”

He can’t carry her off to his cabin, his arm is in plaster (and this isn’t a romance movie, after all), but it hardly matters. The ship rocks gently at anchor, the tattered flags flap in the breeze, and Emma Swan? Believes.