They had fought as one.

The boy had found her many years later.

When Emma had already given up. She'd had given up on many things, on love, on family, on the hope that they could ever win this fight. The monsters kept coming and the pilots were now fewr than ever. Emma didn't care, she had stopped thinking about that long ago. She'd been a good pilot, long ago, so long ago. When Graham was still alive and they fought together. The good ol' times.

When there were casualties on the fight usually both pilots died. Emma sometimes wishes she'd been that lucky. He was forever in his head, his thoughts from when they drifted. And she'd had enough. She was supposed to be retired for good, but for some reason she couldn't say no to this boy. Maybe because it was the age the boy she had would have, or did, wherever he was living. She'd given up the boy shortly after he was born and never knew what became of him. And this boy did look a bit like Neal, didn't he?

NO.

This was just her imagination.

She had agreed because she knew that they were very short handed, specially after the royal couple had died. (Mary Margaret and David, they were the most popular of pilots, so nice and married and charming. And they were gone now, they who had been the leaders of all). It had been a terrible blow, after so many others in the past (Mulan and Aurora, Ashley and Thomas, so many people...) and the spirits were quite low. It felt like they were very few people and they weren't strong enough to fight all the monsters. What they did have were Jaegers, so the next days there were going to test everyone to see if they could prepare some more pilots to stand in the place of those who had died. That's where Emma came in.

"You ready for your welcome tour?" The kid, Henry, said.

Emma nodded as she entered the huge place where the resistance worked and lived. A big place with giant robots, rooms, research places, offices and so much more.

"I'm going to go introducing you to the people, ok? They are the most important thing that we have stored here." Emma smiled. She liked the spirit of this kid. "And besides, I guess that the rest

"The main moneymaker of this place, our means of financial support is that guy in the picture, Mr. Gold. The lady next to him is our main researcher, Belle. She used to work for him before they got involved. And behind them is the Beauty and the beast, their Jaeger."

The robot from the picture, was Golden, too. So bright. Then Henry pointed at a young brunette with bright blue eyes sipping tea.

"That guy there with the colourful clothes, that's Jefferson. He helps with the Jaegers and makes hats."

"Why?" Henry just shrugged.

"I don't know. We stopped questioning the hats long ago, you get used to it. Thing is, he's fought a couple of times on a Jaeger called Top Hat with his daughter Grace and they were crazy good."

"His daughter? When did we have her, when he was fifteen?"

"Something like that, I guess. We don't know much about their life before here, or where's the mother. Grace's my age, really cool girl to have around. But that's the main problem, she's too young and Jefferson is looking for someone else, to avoid putting her in all that danger."

The man held out his cup of tea to them as a greeting. He seemed nice, if a little...eccentric, at least. They kept walking until they arrived at a big metal door.

"This is the lab, we have parts of Jaegers, parts of monsters, lots of research...If you're into science, this is the place. Also the land of our resident scientist and medical doctor, Victor Frankenstein."

That sounded familiar.

"Wasn't there a Jaeger called… something of Frankenstein?" Back in her day. Long ago. European condescending stuck-ups.

"You knew them? That was Victor's dad and younger brother, in the Pride of Frankenstein. But don't mention them in front of him." Weird.

"Why not?"

"It ended badly. Gerhardt, that was his brother, nearly died in a mission and Victor brought him back with some experimental medical stuff… but he had some brain damage, became erratic... Something bad. Thing is, the father called him a disgrace, disowned him and then died. So now the father's dead, the brother is locked up in some asylum and Victor blames himself for everything."

"Sounds though."

"Yeah, there was a suicide attempt and all. But, luckily for him and us, Ruby saved him."

"Another pilot?" Henry drew an enigmatic smile. Ruby was too complicated to explain in one word, even one sentence.

"Not exactly. She works in the canteen but wanted more and did all the tests and preparation to become pilot. Everything was prepared for the first drift but then, her boyfriend, who was going to pilot with her, disappeared. Just vanished, no trace. It's been years and we still don't know what happened."

"Mysterious."

Henry smiled while they kept walking. It was a very big place that, even bigger than Emma's old Headquarters in Boston. She'd grown used to it, the big rooms, the giant robots, the pilots alking about. Big grey place to eat, standard small room to sleep. Maybe she could go back to it, to the life of a pilot, even if it had been many years since she stopped fighting. But maybe this was the perfect chance to start over, forget the pain from the past and make some good.

Even if it didn't work out, this changed her routine a bit, helped her get out of her head. A change of scenery always helped see things from a different perspective, sort out one's priorities. Yes, this could be good. The Saviour, back in the field. Although she probably didn't get as far as "the field" because finding someone that was drift compatible sounded almost impossible. Nah, completely impossible.

Henry took showed her how the things worked, where were the main facilities and where was her room. It was fairly similar to her old HQ so she found her way pretty easily around.
After having a light dinner when it was dark and everybody was sleeping, Emma took a night stroll, to become more familiar with the place. It was kind of beautiful, all dark and deserted. And these people, these weird people were doing a lot of good. And they all had tragedies, like her, they all knew pain.

Emma found herself in front of an enormous black Jaeger with an anachronic look about it. It looked old and some parts even made like they were made of wood. But it was dashing, too, in its outdated style.

"Beautiful."

"Thank you." A low whispering voice said to her. "A bit of a marvel, isn't it?"

Emma looked and saw a tall man, dark hair and blue eyes, all dressed in black.

"You made this?" Emma asked, surprised." What's its name?"

"The Jolly Roger. It used to be The Jewel of the realm, but..."

There was grief written in the man's blue eyes. A grief she knew perfectly well.

"Someone died?"

"Aye." The stranger said. "My brother Liam. I haven't piloted ever since."

"Me neither." Emma admitted. She wasn't usually this open with strangers, but...

"Who did you lose?"

"His name was Graham. He was a good man, taken too soon."

There was a small companionable silence while they stared at the giant robot in front of them. The Jolly Roger. There was something different about this Jaeger, unlike the gold one she'd seen that morning, unlike the rest. It was darker, it seemed to even be on another side of the fight.

The stranger offered Emma some rum and she gladly took it. All of this brought back many memories, some good, some not so good. The rum was strong, but good. When returning the flask Emma suddenly noticed that the man only had one hand. Odd. Had he done all this with just one hand? Had he lost his hand the same day he lost his brother? She wanted to ask, but she didn't know this man. He just kept quiet, sipping his rum.

After a little while, the stranger started to leave.

"Hey, I never caught your name." Emma asked.

"Killian, Killian Jones. And you, love?"

"Emma Swan."

"Pleasure to meet you, Miss Swan. Hope to see you around."