A/N: Hey there folks. So this chapter is up on a Wednesday and it comes with an apology. Next Wednesday I will be in the Netherlands (you know, like you do), and the Wednesday following that, I have an exam and I also need to pack, since I'm moving to a different country the following Friday. The earliest you should expect the next chapter is June 10th. Again, I'm terribly sorry. I don't mean to keep doing this, I really don't. But after that, I should be un-busy until September 20-something, so hopefully I can finish this story then. I'm so sorry about all the random delays. Thanks for reading anyways, and also, I have a new place for updates and questions regarding my fics, found now at mouse-and-stupid-productions . tumblr . com.

Chapter Five - An Apple a Day

There was something wrong. Emma knew that much. It wasn't just that the Evil Queen Regina had saved her from Rumpelstiltskin or that she'd fed her from her own stores and hadn't tried to kill her or leverage her over her parents in order to extort their unconditional surrender or something. It was that the Merry Man she'd sent to tell her parents she was still alive had been gone for three weeks, much longer than it took to get to the palace in the north, and there was no word.

"I know as much as you do," Regina assured her while they sat at the breakfast table. Emma found it hard to believe she was sitting at a breakfast table with the same woman who'd once put her mother under a sleeping curse, but there she was, the same way she'd been for the past three weeks. She was strong enough now to leave on her own volition, and Regina seemed ready to encourage her to do so, but the last time she'd tried, she'd come down with a horrible flu and had been confined to bed until the fever broke. Cora had sat by her bedside until it passed, refreshing the washcloths doused in cold water and bringing her broth. Emma wasn't quite ready to say that Cora had poisoned her to make her sick enough that she couldn't leave, but the way Regina glared at her mother when she thought no one was looking made her pretty sure it was the case.

"Even if they want to give me up as a sacrifice to appease the Evil Queen, they should at least let me know," Emma said, picking at her poached eggs. She missed the breakfasts she'd had in Arendelle with Elsa and Anna, and Kai and Gerda, and the one breakfast she'd shared with the Merry Men.

"You're right," Regina said. "It's not like Snow and Charming to leave anyone uncertain of their fate. The time they tried to execute me, they were very clear about it."

Emma frowned. Her parents had never mentioned having Regina in custody long enough to try and execute her. Her confusion must have shown on her face, because Regina smiled into her goblet of a wonderful beverage her kingdom imported from the southern continents. Regina called it "coffee" and Emma was pretty sure it was her favourite drink, maybe even more so than whiskey.

"They never told you that, did they?" she asked. Emma shook her head. "I bet they never told you why I hate them either."

Emma searched her memory for some long-lost explanation, but she came up blank.

"I tried to run away from home," Regina said. "To be with the man I loved."

Emma started. She didn't think she loved Neal, but she could definitely sympathise.

"I told your mother about it," Regina said. "And she told my mother, and she ripped his heart out and crushed it in front of me."

Emma felt her own heart constrict in her chest. She'd never expected to feel sympathy for Regina of all people, but she thought she might.

"Your mother was terrible at keeping secrets when she was a child," Regina said. "If she'd just kept her mouth shut, Daniel and I would be somewhere far away."

Emma frowned at her. "It sounds to me like your mother was the one who actually killed him."

Regina grimaced. "My mother can't be helped," Regina said. "She's irredeemable and her actions were practically expected. It was your mother's intervention that ruined our escape."

Emma almost asked why Regina let her mother wander around in her life if the woman was capable of such things, but she stopped herself. She had no right to criticise anyone's relationship with their mother, not only because her relationship with her own mother was strained, but because she herself was a terrible one.

"Your highness?" one of the servants asked, approaching the table. For a minute, Emma thought he was talking to Regina, then he stared at her imploringly.

"Yes?" Emma asked.

"We – we received word," he said, addressing his toes. "A-Alan Adale was seen leaving the King and Queen's palace four days ago."

"So he told them?" Regina asked. The servant nodded. Emma felt a little relieved. Cora's meddling couldn't directly affect her parents. They might not have the necessary magic, but Emma was pretty sure they were more powerful than her.

"This was posted in the village this morning," the servant said, handing them a sheet of paper. Emma scanned it quickly and felt her stomach plummet through her body.

"Excuse me," she said, barely managing to get the words out before she ran out of the room. She wasn't sure where she was going, and the castle was confusing enough that it was easy to get lost. She felt herself start to cry as she stumbled into a higher level of the dungeons. In her three week stay at the castle, she'd come to know that Regina only used dungeons for prisoners she intended to execute, and she wasn't planning any public events at the moment, so she figured it would be empty. Emma dropped to the floor and leaned against one of the cells, trying to dry her tears. When they splashed onto the stone floors, they swelled, creating small puddles. She seriously needed to get a better handle on her magic.

"Cheer up, Swan, you could be locked in here," a familiar voice said from behind her.

Emma sniffed and turned to discover Hook leaning against the wall of the cell. He had one knee popped up with his good hand resting on it, his other leg stretched out in front of him. He was a little worse for the wear than he had been when Emma had last seen him, but then she remembered that had been almost two months ago at the Merry Men's camp the day she left.

"Hook?" she asked. "Regina's going to execute you?"

"I hope not," he said. "It'd be a waste of someone so dashingly handsome."

Emma frowned at him and he sighed, resting his head against the wall with his eyes closed.

"If you want the truth, love, I don't think Regina knows I'm in here," he said. "Cora's the one who locked me up."

"When you tried to steal back whatever it was she took from you, right?" Emma asked.

"Aye," Hook agreed, running his hand over his heavily stubbled jaw. Emma wondered if whatever magic kept him from aging also kept his hair from growing at a standard rate.

"You never told me what she took," Emma said.

Hook's mouth curved upwards in a humourless smile, but he didn't open his eyes. "If you really want to know, Swan, she hired me to find you for her and bring you here and she stole my heart as insurance and promised to help me kill the Crocodile, but I decided to deal with the Crocodile myself and ask Robin Hood to get my heart back since he was the best thief around, and that all went to hell and you're here anyway."

Emma considered the information that Cora had actually hired someone to find her. She'd taken Hook's heart, sure, but Emma was pretty sure she or Regina – if she felt inclined to help – would be easily capable of getting it back before any damage could be done. Overall, nothing truly horrible had happened, and Hook was fine, even if he was imprisoned.

"At least Cora wants me," Emma said, turning away from him and leaning back against the cell wall. She imagined that Hook had opened his eyes and was staring at the back of her head in concern.

"That's not a good thing, Swan," he said.

"Well it's nice to know that someone does," Emma said, feeling the salt water start to run down her face again. She brushed it away angrily.

"What happened, Swan?" Hook asked.

Emma sniffed and tried to will the crying to stop with magic. It didn't work.

"I told you I was shipwrecked," she said. "Which was how King George and then you found me, except someone told my parents I died in the shipwreck."

"And they believed that even when the two Merry Men, Mulan and the twitchy one, Scarlet, brought you back to their palace?" Hook asked.

"No," Emma said. "We never made it. And then I sent another Merry Man to go tell them, and he did, and then this was in the village this morning."

She shoved the paper through the bars of Hook's cell and heard leather on stone while he moved forward to get it.

"By order of the High King and Queen, the entire kingdom of the Enchanted Forest is to be in mourning for the tragic loss of Princess Emma at sea in the month of November," Hook read. She heard him lower the notice. "I'm not sure I understand."

"Yeah, well, I do," Emma said, reaching through the bars of the cell and taking the notice back. She took a shaky breath. "I was the screw up princess. Now they've got a prince to take over the throne because it's more convenient for everyone if I'm dead."

"Two princes, technically, and running away once doesn't make you a screw-up," Hook said.

Emma laughed, intending it to be bitter, but it transitioned halfway through into a sob. "They've got one prince, and a grandson they're pretending is their son."

Hook was silent while he did the math he needed to do.

"Baelfire?" he asked. Emma nodded. "So you ran away once and got pregnant with the Dark One's grandson. They're still your parents, right?"

"There's also this," Emma said, holding her hands up and letting fire pool in her palms. She felt Hook take a step back. "And saying they're my parents is awfully hollow coming from you. I've met your father, remember?"

Hook didn't have a rebuttal to that, and Emma sniffed again, letting the fire fade away from her hands.

"What are you going to do then?" Hook asked. "Aside from break your favourite dashing pirate companion out of jail."

Emma snorted and waved her hand. The lock on Hook's jail cell shattered. She expected him to leave immediately, but he dithered, shifting his weight on either foot and then, to her shock, he sat down next to her.

"What are you going to do?" Hook asked.

"I don't know," Emma said, wrapping her arms around her knees. Henry was going to be two in May, only four months away. He was going to grow up thinking Leo was his twin brother, inexplicably the less-preferred child with no way of ever figuring out why. The people who knew – Doc, Red – would be banned from sharing the knowledge that the elder sister his parents never talked about was really his mother. If he ever did find out, all he would really know about her were the choices she made. She made the choice to run away and get pregnant in the first place, then she made the choice to let him believe she was his sister, then she made the choice to leave for Arendelle, and as far as he ever knew, that would be the last choice she ever made.

"I offered you passage on a ship once," Hook said. "I'd be willing to extend the offer again."

"And go where?" Emma asked, resting her forehead against her knees.

"Back to the palace, maybe," Hook suggested. "Maybe they didn't get the message."

Emma thought he sounded unconvinced with his own argument. "Yeah, the last time I tried that, the guard didn't recognise me, realised I was a magic user, accused me of being one of the Evil Queen's tricks, and then I got kidnapped by Rumpelstiltskin."

"So don't go home," Hook said. "Use the occasion of your death to forge a new identity for yourself. Whatever you want to be. Just…don't stay here. Cora's not to be trifled with."

"You don't think you're a little biased?" Emma asked, raising her eyebrow at him. He pursed his lips like he was thinking about it.

Anything he might want to say was interrupted by Regina's footsteps echoing off the walls of the dungeon. She looked slightly windswept like she'd been searching the whole castle and she patted her hair back into place while she looked down at Emma's tearstained face and Hook's ill-kempt appearance.

"What are you doing here?" she asked him, her voice sharp.

"Your mother locked me up," Hook said. "I've been here about six weeks."

Regina grimaced at him like he was something foul she had to clean up and turned her attention to Emma. "What was on that notice?"

"My parents confirmed my death," Emma explained, handing her the paper. She watched Regina's mouth move as she read the words, and then her head tilted sideways in obvious confusion.

"They – your parents took the news you were alive and ignored it?" Regina asked, looking from the notice to Emma and back.

"Why wouldn't they?" Emma asked. "It's a perfect opportunity to start over."

"Even my mother wouldn't go so far as to abandon a child in favour of a fresh start," Regina said, sounding disturbed.

"I suppose she also wouldn't sell her soul for the devil in exchange for magical powers?" Hook suggested.

Regina considered. "No, she did that," she said. Hook nodded and Regina sighed before she picked Emma up by the elbows and dusted the dungeon off her. "Well whatever you do, you can't stay in the dungeon."

"You mean I can stay here?" Emma asked. At the very least, Regina had been hospitable. Apparently that was more than her parents were good for.

"You're a young girl, you can't go running off into the wilderness alone, especially when your parents have given you up for dead and there's no one who would come after you," Regina said. "Terrible things happen to girls like that."

"I know," Emma muttered. If Regina heard her, she didn't say anything.

"I honestly can't believe your parents did that," Regina said. "I didn't think they had it in them."

Emma swallowed and tried not to start crying again. She could vividly remember the disappointment in her mother's eyes when she told her she was pregnant. She could remember how quickly Snow had a plan ready to send her off with the fairies as soon as her magic caused problems in the palace. She'd been planning to send her off. She'd already planned it with the fairies well before she brought it up.

"But you did, didn't you?" Regina asked, staring at Emma curiously.

Emma sniffed and nodded once.

"You can stay here as long as you'd like," Regina said.

Emma nodded again and tried to thank her, but her voice didn't work properly. The tears that insisted on falling kept making giant puddles on the floor.

"Will you teach me to work magic?" she asked. "Properly?"

"Yes," Regina said, and they walked out of the dungeon together.

OOooOOooOOooOO

Killian stared after Emma and Regina while they walked out of the dungeon. He could leave. Regina wouldn't care or notice that he was gone, but then he'd be right back where he started. The Crocodile would be alive, and Cora would have his heart. Plus there was the problem of Robin being locked up somewhere else in the castle, and Robin's son being used as a serving boy. And now Cora had Emma for whatever nefarious purpose she wanted with her. Killian honestly couldn't say whether he hated to see Emma in Cora's or Rumpelstiltskin's clutches more. Well, no, it was definitely worse if she was in the Crocodile's grasp, but he'd never thought he'd see Emma cry or be particularly vulnerable, aside from Baelfire abandoning her – apparently while she was pregnant, but that train of thought just sent an unbidden enquiry about what Emma looked like naked through his head, and that was counterproductive.

He had three options really. Option one was to leave and take his chances with Cora killing him remotely by squishing his heart. The advantages to that plan were limited to the fact it might give him time to kill the Crocodile. Option two was to stay long enough to free Robin and his son and attempt to steal his heart back and/or convince Emma to leave. That option most likely ended in his death, with a very low chance of any sort of success. Option three was to find a way to stay – safely and not in a dungeon – so that he could keep an eye on Emma. It was the least practical option, with very little opportunity to kill the Crocodile, but there was potential to get Robin and Roland out at some point, if not immediately, and maybe get his heart back.

He stood in the dungeon corridor deliberating for all of ten seconds before running after Emma and Regina.

"You're still here?" Regina asked, managing to look dismissive without looking at him.

"I thought I might stay for tea," Killian replied, smiling at the two women.

Regina waved her hand as if to say she didn't care what he did, and he was no more than an annoying fly. He could work with that.

"I may not be good for killing people like you hired me to do, or for kidnapping princesses like your mother hired me to do, but I'm certain you could find some use for me," he said.

"We are shy a court jester," Regina said, still not looking at him. Killian thought he saw Emma start to smile, but it was gone just as soon as it appeared. "But bathe, would you? Being in the dungeon didn't agree with your leather clothing."

Killian brushed off her slight against his person and then suddenly a servant was showing him to a room and filling up a tub with fairly warm water. Killian's main experiences with full body immersion were falling into the ocean, but Regina didn't exactly have a waterfall that could be used for bathing. He was entirely naked and in the tub when the door opened and Cora strode in.

"If you wanted to get me alone, there are better ways than interrupting a man's bath," he said.

"Who let you out of your cell, Captain?" Cora asked. She had a small, evil smile upon her face that Killian did not like the look of.

"Emma," he said. "The one you want to keep around for some dark purpose or other. Somehow, I don't think she'd take it very well if you murdered me, what with us being friends and all."

'Friend' was almost certainly a stronger term than Emma would use for their acquaintance, but Killian could hope that Cora wouldn't be too inquisitive about the label.

"So you're going to stay in my castle and eat my food and…seduce…my charge?" Cora asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

"No, I'm going to stay in Regina's castle and eat Regina's food and seduce Regina's charge," Killian replied. Then he realised what he'd said and grumbled to himself. "Not 'seduce.' Look out for."

Cora considered him for a long moment, scanning his face quickly. She reached into a pouch hanging from her skirts and removed his heart. Killian swallowed nervously, wishing he could do at least a little bit of magic so he could overpower her and take it back.

"You will not tell Emma or Regina about the outlaw in the dungeons, nor about the child belonging to him," Cora instructed, speaking directly against his externalised internal organ. Killian could feel the force of her words rattling around his skull. "If you do, I'll kill them quickly. And you, but much more slowly. Do we understand each other?"

"Yes," Killian grudgingly admitted. Well, it wasn't as though he needed Regina or Emma's help to get Robin and Roland out of the castle. It was something he was fairly well capable of.

"Good," Cora said. "Enjoy your bath, Hook."

She spun on her heel and strode out of the room, tucking his heart back into the pouch at her waist. He was willing to bet she slept with it.

OOooOOooOOooOO

Regina started Emma on small magic. The smallest, simplest magic. Conjuring an apple from nothing. It turned out the girl was good at some things, like heat and fire, but when it came to conjuring, she was useless. Regina only lost her patience once or twice in the first few weeks of their magic training. The problem with Emma learning to do magic was that she was full up to the brim of light magic and Regina had no idea how that worked. It would be easier if Emma was dark, like Cora wanted. Regina wasn't sure how to turn Emma to dark magic, though. She'd never had a choice, since the magic she wanted was for revenge against her mother, which was dark in purpose and therefore in character.

"No, like this," Regina said, holding out her hand. In a puff of purple smoke, an apple appeared. Regina took a bite. It was perfectly crisp and tangy the way an apple should be.

Emma frowned at the fruit and closed her eyes to concentrate. Someday, Regina would have to break her of the habit, since closing one's eyes while trying to cast a spell was usually a recipe for disaster. It took away one of your observation skills and dulled the rest of the senses, which made reaction time slower and in the event one was trying to cast spells in a high pressure circumstance, it would never do to have one's eyes closed.

Emma's brow furrowed and scrunched while she tried to conjure the apple. It was taking so long that Regina dropped to her lounge and finished eating her apple. She glanced at the wall clock and then finally, with a forced popping sound and a swirl of white smoke, a green apple appeared in Emma's hand. She opened her eyes wide and stared at the apple in awe. If she was this excited about a simple conjure, Regina shuddered to think how overjoyed she'd be if she conjured something massive.

"I did it," she said, holding the green apple like it was something precious. Regina didn't care for green apples. They were too bitter.

"How's the quality?" Regina asked.

Emma frowned like she'd never considered it and took a tentative bite. She made a face at the sourness of the apple and Regina smirked.

"Try for a red one next time," she said. "They taste better."

"They do?" Emma asked.

Regina raised her eyebrow. "You sound like you've never had an apple before."

When Emma didn't deny the accusation, Regina stared at her. Then she realised, of course Snow White's daughter had never had an apple before. Why would she? Her mother had been poisoned by one that Regina herself had provided.

"Here, try this one instead," Regina said, conjuring a second red apple and tossing it to Emma. Emma caught it and looked at it uncertainly for a moment before she took a bite. As she watched Snow White's daughter eat an apple given to her by Regina, she realised that perhaps her mother's plan wasn't as farfetched as she'd first thought.

OOooOOooOOooOO

Killian had to try to find Robin. He couldn't tell Regina or Emma about his being there, since Cora had forbidden him on pain of death, but he had to do something. As he searched the castle, he idly wondered what had become of him and how he'd managed to arrive at a point in his life where he was trying to do something nice for someone he barely knew. It was how he'd been before everything, he supposed. Before his father became Davy Jones, before Liam died, before Milah, before he'd spent two centuries in Neverland. He grumbled to himself and went back to searching for Robin.

He wasn't in any of the dungeons, which was a bit concerning to say the least. Killian puzzled over Cora's unaccountable knowledge of the man's tattoo, which seemed to indicate she had use for him. And the fact she'd forbidden Killian to tell Regina and Emma about his presence was a pretty clear indicator that he was alive.

He stopped in the lowest of the dungeons to think. Trying to think like Cora was not a particularly pleasant proposition, and it wasn't even something he was sure he was capable of. Well, he'd have to think like someone else then, because thinking like himself wasn't getting him very far. There was the one pirate legend he knew of, back before his father had become Davy Jones. To avoid capture he was the sort of man who'd sail very close to the king's ships. If he were trying to hide someone, perhaps he'd hide them in the obvious spot. Regina didn't like dungeons, so maybe Cora had put Robin in the tower prisons Regina tended to use.

Killian started to make his way there when he was waylaid by Emma.

"Where are you going?" she asked. The two months she'd been with the Evil Queen and her even worse mother had actually been good for her. Her skin glowed and he thought he could see a ghost of a smile on her face almost all the time.

"Looking for the view," Killian said. "I thought I'd try to find the sea."

"Oh," Emma said, nodding slowly. She concentrated for a second and a shiny red apple appeared in her hand. She tossed it to him. "It's a while until dinner and you missed breakfast."

"Thanks," Killian said, inspecting the apple.

Emma nodded at him and started to sweep away, her long dark blue dress trailing on the ground. She paused halfway down the corridor.

"Why are you still here?" she asked, turning her head sideways. She didn't sound accusatory or like she wanted him to leave, but she did sound curious.

"Thought I'd try my hand at staying on land for a while," Killian said. He shrugged and took a bite of the apple. It was mealy and a little bruised, which he guessed meant her magic wasn't exactly perfect yet.

Emma considered him, eyes narrowed. The first time he'd met her, and the second time, there had been shadows under her eyes like she hadn't slept well for a while. They were gone now.

"I can take care of myself, Captain Hook," she said.

"I'm sure you can, Swan," he said. He didn't add that she was mostly lost and had fallen in with a bad crowd that seemed to be growing on her. He didn't add that he considered himself as part of that bad crowd.

"I suppose I'll see you at dinner," she said, turning and retreating down the hall.

Killian nodded even though she couldn't see him and continued up the tower stairs. Despite its texture, the apple did taste quite good.

The first thing that was wrong with the top of the tower was the lack of guards. He looked around, expecting one of the black guards to come running from a hidden hallway to bother him, but none did. He frowned and unlocked the cell with his hook. Three people stared at him in bewildered shock. None of them were Robin, that much was readily obvious. But he recognised two as the Merry Men sent with Emma to her parents' castle months ago.

"Hook?" Mulan asked, jumping to her feet and staring at him like he might be some kind of illusion.

"Afternoon," he said, nodding in her direction and looking at the third person in the cell. She was a lovely young woman with impressively turquoise eyes. After a second of staring, she started to look familiar. "I tried to kill you once."

"Yes, you did, and it wasn't that long ago," she said, staring between his hook – pointed at her – and his face. She had her face set like she was going to take him head on if he attacked.

"It was twenty-odd years ago, love, sorry there was a sleeping curse," Hook said.

"Twenty years?" the girl – Belle if he remembered correctly – exclaimed. She stared at Will and Mulan like they might have some explanation for her.

"We didn't know how long it'd been," Will mumbled, rubbing his ear uncomfortably.

"We were under the same sleeping curse after all," Mulan said.

"What happened to our yaoguai friend then?" Belle asked, staring at Mulan with big eyes.

"We found his princess, he woke her, apparently they married and they've got a son who looks like he's about our age," Mulan said, shaking off the strangeness of her statement.

Killian looked between the three of them for some explanation, but none of them offered him one.

"Have the three of you seen Robin?" he asked.

"No," Will said, letting the women continue their in depth conversation about everything that'd happened to the people they used to know before the sleeping curse. "Is he here? I've got to tell him that his wife's alive."

"Erm, he is somewhere, but I haven't been able to find him," Killian explained. He looked them over again and let his confusion show on his face. "I know why Belle's here, but what are you two doing here?"

"The Dark One grabbed us when he grabbed Emma," Mulan explained. "And then when the Evil Queen broke us out, she put the two of us in here with Belle. Is Emma okay?"

Killian considered the question. As unsettling as the answer was considering the circumstances, she most certainly…was.

"Yeah, she's fine," Killian said. "The three of you should…I dunno…escape."

"I'll help you find Robin," Will offered.

"Don't be daft," Killian scolded. Physically, he was sure he was only four or five years older than him, but every so often, Killian felt the need to use his actual age to scold people like Will for their juvenile notions of good and right. "The Queen of Hearts lives here."

Will's expression of fool-hearty bravery didn't disappear, but it went hollow like the fight had gone out of him.

"You're not going to try to kill me this time?" Belle asked, lifting her chin in defiance.

"Are you going to go running back to the Dark One to try and save his soul again?" Killian asked.

Belle's chin lowered while Will and Mulan gaped at her in obvious reproach. Whatever else they'd talked about in their imprisonment, it clearly had not been Belle's past. Killian rolled his eyes.

"You can all swap stories about poor choices while you're running far away from here," he said, ushering them out of the cell.

The three followed him down the hall and through the most roundabout way to the kitchens. Killian was fairly confident he could secret them out of the place if they could make it to the kitchen, and if they weren't interrupted by Cora, or Regina, or possibly even Emma. To his relief, they reached the kitchen unimpaired and Killian forced them out through the same grating he and Robin had used to break into the castle months before.

"What about Robin?" Will asked.

Killian started to answer but he was interrupted by Mulan.

"What about you?" she asked.

"I'll find Robin," he promised. "I was looking for him when I found the three of you."

They exchanged looks and seemed to take all this as acceptable, because they shimmied down the grating and vanished from sight. Once they were gone, Killian released a breath he hadn't known he was holding and turned to find himself face to face with Cora.

"Who were you freeing, Captain?" she asked, with that small, obviously dangerous smile on her face. Killian forced himself not to recoil.

"No one you care about," he said.

"Not the bandit with the lion tattoo?" Cora asked.

"Can't find him," Killian replied, moving to brush past her. She put a hand on his chest to stop him.

"You're not going to find him," she said. "He's going to stay exactly where he is."

"What do you want with him anyway?" Killian asked, trying to subtly shift her hand off him. The last time she'd touched his chest it had been to rip his heart out.

"Let's call it insurance," Cora said. Killian almost asked "insurance for what" but decided she either wouldn't tell him, or if she did, it would be a lie, or something horrible that he would be better off not knowing. And it wasn't as though he could tell anyone who could do anything about it. He was stuck.

OOooOOooOOooOO

The royal family wore black. The royalty from Arendelle came for the funeral, as did all the regional kings and queens from around the kingdom. Lost at sea meant there wasn't a body to view, and the court sculptor only had outdated portraits to work with. David thought he'd captured the likeness well for the memorial. Someday, he and Snow would have to tell Leo about his elder sister and Henry about his mother. But at the present, he had to deal with Snow. He'd never seen her lose hope before, but there was no other explanation for what could've happened.

"I've seen her like this before," Grumpy grumbled, watching as Snow, clad entirely in black, swept down the hall with Henry and Leo clinging to either hand. Even the young princes were dressed in black. It had been almost seven months since Emma died and technically, they ought to have been in half-mourning but no one in the palace had the heart for it.

"You have?" David asked, frowning at the captain of the guard.

Grumpy nodded. "When she thought you were going to marry Abigail," he said. "She was so depressed she drank a potion to forget you."

David watched as the two boys pulled on Snow's hands. She crouched down to let Henry cup his hand around her ear and whisper something. She smiled, but her eyes were glistening like she was about to start crying. David recognised that it was the common expression she wore ever since the pink fairy, Nova, had come to tell them of Emma's ship being lost at sea.

"C-captain?" a young guard asked, stepping forward with his helmet clutched in his hands. "Your majesty?"

"What is it?" Grumpy asked.

The guard eyed the queen and the young princes. Whatever it was he had to say clearly wasn't fit for public consumption. David beckoned the guard and Grumpy into the great hall.

"What is it?" David asked. He thought he could remember the guard being named Samson or something similar. He didn't want to make a mistake, however.

"I – there was an incident, about six months ago," the guard said. He fidgeted like he was going to start wringing his helmet, and therefore slice his hands to ribbons.

"What kind of incident?" Grumpy asked.

The guard looked nervous. "A – there was a – a trio of people who came to the gates. They got snatched away by the Dark One but…"

"But what?" David asked, trying to be patient with the man.

"But…one of them said she was the – the princess," the guard said. "But she was already supposed to be d-gone, and the Evil Queen's kingdom had just woken up so I thought it must've been one of her tricks."

"A woman claiming to be the princess showed up at the castle gates after Emma-" David started. He couldn't make himself finish the sentence, but everyone knew what he meant.

The guard nodded, his head shaky. "But she was a sorceress. She stopped a dagger in mid-air!"

David and Grumpy stared at the young man and David came to the realisation he must've been hired after Emma left for Arendelle. He would have never met her before, or known she could do magic.

"The princess was a sorceress, numbskull," Grumpy growled.

The guard's eyes widened in clear horror as he realised the enormity of his mistake.

"And you said the three people who came to the gates, they were taken by the Dark One?" David asked, trying very hard not to let the small spark in his chest turn to a full blown fire. But if there was even the slightest chance Emma was still alive, he had to investigate it.

The guard nodded.

"Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Sam-your name is Samson, isn't it?" David asked.

"G-Gregory, sir," the guard said. David nodded his apology.

"Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Gregory," he said. "If you'll excuse me."

He made his way back to his chambers and found Snow already there in her black nightgown, brushing her hair. He opened his mouth to tell her about Gregory's news, about the potential Emma was still alive, but the glistening in her eyes stopped him. If he was wrong, if he got her hopes up, if he let her think Emma was alive, and then found it wasn't the case, she would be even more devastated than she already was.

"I think I was too hard on her," Snow said without looking up from the mirror.

"No," David said.

"I chased her out of the castle, David," Snow said. "I was so disappointed in her for being pregnant, I was terrified that she could use magic, and I tried to force her to be something she wasn't and-"

David stopped her by putting his arms around her and letting her rest her head against his chest. The Dark One had taken Emma, had he? But why?

"I have to go into the kingdom," he heard himself say. "There's an issue with the taxes in one of the mountain kingdoms, some lord won't pay unless a royal comes to collect it, that sort of thing."

"Do you want me to come with you?" Snow offered.

"I think the boys would be a handful if they didn't have their mother to keep an eye on them, don't you?" he replied.

Henry. That had to be why the Dark One had taken Emma. Because Henry was his grandson. But how on earth did he find out?

"No, of course," Snow said, swallowing back tears. "Just be safe?"

"Always," he promised, kissing the top of her head. He would be perfectly safe. But whether the Dark One would be was another question entirely.

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