a/n: a somewhat crappy attempt to get over my writer's block

When the green smoke cleared, the first thing Emma looked for was Zelena. She was nowhere to be seen.

The second thing she looked for was Hook.

The two of them had been closest to the mysterious explosion that had occurred when they raced to try and stop Zelena from whatever she was cooking up smack-bang in the middle of Storybrooke's main road. She turned to find him clambering to his feet to her left, looking none the worse for wear.

Mary Margaret, David and the others were already hurrying towards them, looking concerned.

"We're alright!" Emma called out, brushing down her jeans as she stood up. "I don't know what the hell just happened, but it doesn't seem to have done-" she broke off as she heard a loud groan from behind her, turning slowly.

"...anything," she finished, and took a step back as she struggled to process what she could see in front of her.

Lying in the middle of the road were a man and a woman. The man in some sort of Renaissancey looking naval uniform, which, okay, weird.

The woman...

Emma recognised that leather jacket, that blonde ponytail, those glasses. It can't be. She vaguely realised that she was gaping, her mouth hanging open, struck speechless as she could do little more than stare as the woman – the girl – scrambled to her feet, looking a bit dazed, before she finally turned to Emma.

It was like staring into a mirror.

A mirror back in time to 10 years ago, because that was her – that was her from 10 years ago, and Zelena had been trying to go back in time but obviously something had gone horribly wrong and-

it's not possible –

it's not possible –

it can't be possible –

"Oh, bloody hell, no, no, no," she heard Hook mutter behind her, and managed to wrench her gaze away from herself for a moment. The colour had drained from his face as he stared at the young uniformed man in abject horror, and when Emma turned back around it hit her.

That was Hook. Young Hook, somewhere in his early twenties probably, and God, he looked different – hair longer, tied in a slightly dishevelled ponytail; he didn't have the hardness about him that Hook had, that look like there was something horribly heavy weighing down on his shoulders, the condensed pain of 300 years of bottled up anger in his eyes.

"What's going on?" And that was the teenaged Emma speaking. "Where am I, what's-" Her gaze latched onto Emma and she stared at her for a moment before her eyes began to widen. "What is going on?!"

"Don't panic!" David and the others had reached them now, Mary Margaret stepping forward to take control of the situation. She'd obviously recognised the younger versions of Emma and Hook, and was managing to control her surprise and confusion admirably, forcing a bright smile. "Please don't panic!"

The sight of a heavily pregnant woman waddling towards them really did not seem to reassure the two. At least for the moment the younger Hook seemed confused enough by his suddenly modern surroundings that he was doing little more than stare around and rub his eyes as though he was trying to work out if he was dreaming.

Young Emma was not so compliant.

"What the fuck is going on?" she demanded. "Who are you and why do you look exactly like me?!"

She was striding towards Emma now, who could do little more than stand there, her thoughts a confusing whirl of shit shit shit this is messed up what am I meant to say and do I really look like that and is this pre-Neal or post-Neal?

This last thought she could work out fairly quickly. Pre-Neal. The keychain wasn't there yet.

"I am you from the future," she replied immediately, and her counterpart stopped in her tracks.

"What."

"Look, a second ago you were, what, in Portland?" Emma spoke quickly, the words tumbling out over each other as she fought to gain some control over the situation. "This probably sounds crazy, but I'm you from the future. You've fallen through a time portal. I can prove it. Smith, two years three months, Weber, six months, Ramsay, three months, Ascott, one year five months..."

She continued, rattling off the names she'd committed to memory – the names of every foster family she had passed through. The younger Emma stared at her with wide eyes and growing confusion.

"-so you see," she finished finally, "I'm not lying, okay. You've fallen ten years into your future. There's a whole bunch of magical shit going down here. I know you probably still don't believe me, but just bear with it for now, okay? We'll try send you back as soon as possible-"

Before she could get a reply, there was a commotion from behind her, and both she and her counterpart turned to find that young Hook had apparently come to his senses and was now rather confused and more than a little distressed.

"I demand to know where I am," he said, and apparently having decided that David looked sufficiently authoritative, strode up to him.

David look equal parts amused and concerned. Emma didn't blame him; the ponytail was a little bit funny.

"An act of sorcery has sent you to an alternate realm," he replied.

To Emma's great relief, young Hook actually seemed to accept this. Apparently world-jumping was a much bigger thing wherever he was from in his younger days.

"Then how shall I return?" he asked. "And where, pray tell, am I?"

"The land without magic," David explained, "Actually, you're in the future..." he turned towards Hook, obviously with the intention of explaining the full situation, only to find that the pirate had slunk back towards the middle of the group of onlookers – Regina, Belle, Tink, Ruby et al – and was all but hiding behind them.

"Uh," David said, but young Hook had already followed his gaze. It took him a few moments of staring before a frown began descending over his features.

"That man looks very much like me," he said, slowly.

"Oh, for God's sake." Regina had lost patience by now. They may have stopped Zelena from enacting her plan presently, but the witch was still out there. "That's because he is you. He's you from the future. And that is Emma from the future. Magic exists, la la la, here is your proof," she summoned a fireball into her hand and young Emma flinched back, eyes wide. "So can we please stop lollygagging and actually return to doing something halfway productive?"

With that speech, she turned and marched her way off down the street, taking Robin with her. Most of the others dispersed, to Emma's relief – it would be much easier explaining things without an audience – until only she, Hook and her parents remained, staring at their two past selves.

"...well," young Emma said, looking a little winded. "I would normally say this is a prank, but no one knows enough about me to prank me with such detail. So maybe I'm dreaming, or maybe I've been abducted by aliens or time travelled or whatever. Either way, send me the hell back as soon as possible?"

Emma let out a huff of relief. "Trust me, we will," she replied. She knew the younger version or herself was more likely than not still incredibly confused, definitely still didn't believe them, and was probably internally freaking out – but as long as she was at least pretending to be outwardly calm, they could try and deal with this and then forget it had ever happened.

Hook, however, was not so lucky.

"I don't understand," his past self insisted. He was still addressing David, seemingly having latched onto the man as his source of all information and guidance.

Hook himself finally stepped forward with a look of weary resignation.

"Like it or not, mate, it's happening," he said grimly. "I am you, you am I, etcetera."

"Where is your hand," was the first thing the other said upon looking him over and being very concerned by what he found.

"No longer existent," Hook replied, with the fakest smile Emma had ever seen.

"But why should I become a pirate?"

"For very good reasons that you really do not need to know right now. Shall we take this out of the street?" he added, glancing at Emma, who nodded.

"Yeah – yeah. Back to the loft?" she suggested, and Mary Margaret nodded, clapping her hands together briskly.

They began trudging their way there in a somewhat awkward silence. Emma still couldn't quite believe that this was happening. As she watched the eyes of her own younger self dart about from person to person, sizing them up and obviously trying to work out exactly who they all were and what was going on, she realised exactly how messy this situation could get.

"Fairytales," the young Emma Swan said flatly.

For the sake of convenience, they had decided to refer to the time-travelled incarnations of Emma and Hook as Swan and Jones respectively. And then attempted to explain exactly what Storybrooke was to them, whereupon they realised that it sounded much more confusing out loud than it did after having lived through it.

"Yes," Emma replied.

Swan glanced at Mary Margaret and David. "You're telling me these are my parents." Her tone was flat but Emma could detect the underlying pain. She felt a pang – it had been hard enough accepting things when she was twenty-eight and had been living in the town for nigh on a year. She couldn't imagine how it must sound at seventeen, fresh out of the foster system, living on the streets as a thief.

"Yes," she added. Then, "Like I said before. You don't have to believe it. Just... sit tight until we find a way to send you back."

Swan threw her hands up. "Fine with me! I'll just sit here and let you sort things out." She glanced at Jones, sitting beside her with his head lowered, apparently still processing. "What about Commodore Norrington over there?"

"You said everyone from our world had been sent to this town," Jones said slowly. He glanced up, eyes fixing on David. Since they arrived in the loft, and for the entire trip there, he had seemed entirely unable to look at Hook for more than a few seconds. The feeling went both ways. "Is my brother here?"

Hook, lurking in the corner with arms folded, jerked upright at this. Emma glanced at him in concern, but his face had shuttered over with a carefully blank expression.

"Liam is not here," Hook said flatly.

Jones finally looked at him, staring at him challengingly. "Why?"

Oh, God. Emma could barely watch. She didn't know the exact details of what had gone down with Liam Jones, but she knew enough that it was messy, and she couldn't even imagine what Hook must be thinking. What he could even say to explain things without completely shattering his younger self?

He eventually settled on, "Not everybody from our land is here. Some travelled to other realms. Some were out of the reach of the curse."

This seemed to satisfy Jones, as he leaned back in his seat and proceeded to stare at every modern appliance in the room, trying to work out what they all did.

"...I'll go visit Belle," Mary Margaret said then. "Regina too. See if they can work out exactly how to fix this. You other should stay here with them, try keep them calm."

"I'll go with you," Emma said, but Mary Margaret shook her head.

"Emma," she said, stepping forward and dropping her voice to avoid the others hearing. "You're the only person here who remotely knows where that... where Swan is at. She's probably terrified."

She is definitely terrified, Emma thought.

"She needs you here," Mary Margaret said softly. "I know it's weird, but..."

"I get it," Emma replied. "You go then. Be careful."

Mary Margaret smiled. She waved at Swan, who gave her a jaunty wave back, and then swept out of the room. Emma wasn't sure if she should laugh or cry at the memory that at that age she had been a walking facade of confidence with very little to back it up.

"I think now's the part where you show me new Nickelback albums to convince me that I'm in the future," Swan piped up, in the silence that followed Mary Margaret's departure.

"...actually can do," Emma replied, pushing her chair back and standing.

Her younger self looked surprised for a moment, then frowned, then seemed to think fuck it, just roll with it, and followed her to her bedroom.

They were three steps into the room when Emma realised what a terrible idea it had been to bring her in here.

"Who's this?" Swan asked, making a beeline for the bedside table. There was a photograph of Emma and Henry on there. One of Neal, too – she'd placed it there after his death. If there was one thing she regretted, it was that she didn't have a proper picture of Graham. There was one grainy phone photo she'd had as his caller ID, but apart from that... she didn't like the thought of forgetting what he'd looked like.

"That's Henry," Emma began slowly. Should I tell her?

"He Mary Margaret and David's kid?" Swan asked, picking up the photo with a frown.

"Uh, no." Damn it. "He's actually mine. Yours."

An awkward silence.

"...ours," Emma finished a touch lamely.

Swan's frown deepened. "He looks kind of old. What is he, eight, nine?"

"Eleven this year," Emma replied, and ran her hands over her face, suddenly feeling very old and very tired."

The horror that flashed across Swan's face physically hurt her. "That means...?" She slammed the photo down on the table. "I'm what, eighteen when I get pregnant?"

"Don't freak out!" Emma sat on the bed and gestured for her to sit down too. She wasn't surprised when the girl didn't obey, instead pacing the room, looking at her books, her photos, even the clothes in her wardrobe.

"This is messed up," Swan muttered. "Who's the father?"

"You haven't met him yet."

"Can you at least tell me his name?"

Emma bit her lip.

"Neal," she choked out finally. "His name was Neal."

"Was?"

This is getting worse and worse, Emma thought. She rubbed her face again.

She had always hated those questions, 'if you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be'. And now she was in a living, breathing scenario of it. The past should stay in the past, she'd learned that the hard way. And having an abrupt callback to what she'd been like as a teenager was starting to stir up unwanted memories.

She forced herself to sit up straight. I'm the saviour now. I'm a proud mother. This broken girl – she's not me any more.

"You don't need to know about him. I'm pretty sure messing about with that sort of thing will, I don't know, cause some sort of paradox that might destroy the universe. So please sit down," she said, voice just authoritative enough that Swan startled for a moment, then obeyed.

"This is very weird, just so you know," the girl muttered.

Emma rolled her eyes. "Tell me about it." She pulled her laptop over from the bedside table and opened google. "Okay, Nickelback."

Swan was very quiet as Emma showed her proof and more proof that she was, indeed, a decade into the future. Emma was overly aware of her presence beside her on the bed; she didn't even need to look at her to tell how uncomfortable she was, how confused and lost and alone. It dredged up Neverland, things she thought she had confronted and put behind her but was suddenly facing all over again.

"Don't suppose you can tell me the lottery numbers for 2004?" Swan piped up finally.

Emma scoffed out a laugh. "I think that counts as messing with the time-space continuum."

"Worth a shot." A pause. "So, they're my – our – parents, then?"

Emma closed the laptop and ran a hand over her hair. "Yeah."

"Was it... weird?"

"Finding out that the people I'd been building up in my mind my whole life were Snow White and Prince Charming? Of course it was weird. But I got... used to it, I suppose." She bit her lip. The girl beside her wasn't a stranger, it was herself. She couldn't bring herself to lie or hold back. "I still don't... sometimes it still feels strange. More so with Mary Margaret than with David, because we knew each other as friends first. I still don't see them as my parents in the way I always pictured they would be. But we're still... we're a family."

Swan was very silent. Emma could tell she was still hesitant to believe it – couldn't quite comprehend the fact that she might ever end up with a family in the future; with something loving and stable and constant.

It broke her heart.

Before she could say any more, there was a knock on the doorframe and she glanced up to see David. For a horrible moment she thought he had overheard what she just said, but quickly realised he hadn't; he seemed distracted more than anything else.

"Need to talk to you," he said. The urgently was implied.

"I'll be back in a sec," Emma said. She slid the laptop over to Swan. "Google away!"

David ushered her out of the room to the corridor.

"Hook skipped out," he said, voice low.

Emma blinked. "What do you mean, skipped out?"

"I mean he left," David said. "And I have no idea what to do with Jones out there."

"What? Start from the beginning, why'd he leave?"

David ran a hand through his hair, looking frazzled. "He got into a fight with his younger self. Well, not a fight, exactly. We broke out the rum, because God knows we all need a drink right now, only it turns out Lieutenant Jones has one mighty stick up the backside when it comes to alcohol. He kept poking Hook with questions about why exactly he would end up as a pirate and he got annoyed and walked out."

Emma bit her lip.

"And now," David said, throwing his hands up in frustration, "I've spent the last half hour trying to explain the concept of a television to Jones, and I'm pretty sure not a word of it sunk in. He's panicking internally, and I don't blame him. I need something to work with."

"In terms of what?"

"In terms of at least beginning to explain to him what he's like in this future," David said. "Think about it. If you met yourself in ten years time and they were a completely different person to what you were now, you'd be... well, a bit alarmed, I should say."

Emma pressed her lips together. She wondered what Swan thought of her. She got the impression that beyond the suspension of disbelief at the whole magical fairytale part of it, the girl was disappointed that her parents weren't 'normal', that she was running around caught in the middle of a town crisis involving the Wicked Witch of the West. Emma couldn't blame her; from the outside it hardly seemed like she had her life put together.

Do I have my life put together?

For the longest time she had felt like she was more desperately holding things in place than actually enjoying what she was living. The rude shock of finding out that eleven years of her life had been false implanted memories hadn't helped her feel any better about it recently.

But now, settling back into the routine of Storybrooke and family and being the saviour...

She shook her head. Now wasn't the time to go all existential crisis.

Whatever young Emma was feeling, Lieutenant Jones was probably in an even worse state, considering part of his job most likely consisted of hunting down pirates.

"I'll go fetch him," she said with a sigh.

David caught her arm as she headed for the door.

"Sure you don't want me to go?" he asked.

She shook him off. "Nah – I think young me is pretty occupied by the internet right now. You stay here. Hook's..." she trailed off, unsure, but David smiled encouragingly and she continued. "I think Hook's more likely to listen to me. No offence," she added with a small grin, trying to hide the slightly awkward flush saying it aloud gave her.

David nodded. "No, you're right. Hurry back."