DISCLAIMER:: do not own. just borrowing for purpose of creative expression. no profit obtained.

A/N:: just a stream of consciousness story about who i think henry's dad is. i would say it's pretty canon, except it's swan queen so that kinda rules that out. this isn't as well executed as my other one shots, but i've had a super busy day moving and my brain wasn't working properly and i wanted to get it posted before tonight's new episode, an episode that has captain hook in it and will therefore probably bust this theory to pieces, but oh well. enjoy.

WARNING:: this is a sad one. you all know me.

SWAN QUEEN SWAN QUEEN SWAN QUEEN

HENRY MILLS

The point of his hook is pressed into the skin of my neck and I know one false move and I'm dead. Emma is keeping my mom from doing something she'd regret. We were just beginning to be a family. After Prince Charming had found his own way to the Enchanted Forest and gotten trapped there, my mom and I had worked together to bring them all back. We did. We made the portal that pulled them back to our world. In that moment, my mom had fallen to the ground and pulled Emma into her arms, crying. I'm able to count the number of times I've seen my mom cry on my hands, with fingers to spare.

I hadn't seen the change between them before the curse. Emma told me it had been something they'd been denying, even to themselves, but their time apart had just made them realise a few things about what, and who, was important in their lives. Now Emma and I live in the mayoral mansion and my mom is nicer to her. Things had actually fallen into a normal rhythm. Until Captain Hook took me hostage. Until I was captured. We had all thought it was to get at my mothers. But it wasn't. It was to get at my father.

CAPTAIN HOOK

I knew the little brat would lure him here. He always had been sentimental about those he felt were under his protection, the Lost Boys, that little tart Wendy and her brothers. Of course that protectiveness would pass to his little concubine and their spawn. I had, however, been surprised to find the Evil Queen involved in this. How interesting that it was her who had adopted the little brat. But it does complicate things for me. If I kill the child, she will not stop until my demise or hers, and while I am confident in my abilities to defeat the man before me, I do not bear the same certainty in my abilities against her and her arcane ways. So the child must be traded for the man, one life for another. I can see in her eyes that she has no love for him. Even the concubine, the mother of his spawn and the daughter of royals, looks at him with something between fear and contempt in her eyes. Maybe there was someone the elusive Peter Pan hadn't been able to protect after all…

PETER PAN

It is inevitable, I suppose I've always known it would come to this. Hook and I. I had known from the moment that postcard had dropped onto my windowsill. Broken. That one word was all it took for me to know that the curse had finally been broken, which meant he had regained his memories and he'd be looking for me. He would stop at nothing to find me; he had stopped at nothing to bring me back here.

The only thing I've ever wished for is to never grow up. I was happy there. In Neverland. But when the curse swept across the land, I knew my only chance was to fly back to the other world, to Wendy's world, to the world without magic, without fairy dust, the world I was born into but left to be free. I couldn't take the Lost Boys with me, or Tink. Only I could outrun the curse because only I was not of the magical world. I had imposed myself upon that world, so I was granted an escape, my freedom. So I had come back to the world that had long forgotten me, and I had tried to start over.

Life had been hard for a long time. Mentally, I still wasn't growing up, though in this world, unlike the other, it's expected of you. You age and you're supposed to mature. But I refused to conform. Until Emma. Emma changed everything.

I felt the draw, the pull, like a brief taste of a long forgotten addiction. I never meant to hurt her. She blames me for the arrest, calls it my fault, and maybe it was, though not for the reasons she believes. I never sold her out. I loved her. Might be that a part of me still does. But that hardly matters now. I see it in the way her arms are wrapped firmly around the brunette that she belongs to the Evil Queen.

Henry, not what I would have named him had it been my choice. John Michael, after Wendy's brothers. Wendy would have liked that. And if it had been a girl, Molly, after Wendy's mother, the first girl I'd ever loved. John Michael Pan… but he's not, he's Henry Mills. I like to think he looks more like me than Emma, but I see both of us in him, in his defiant glare even in the face of danger. He definitely is our child, we always were ones to walk on the wild side; it's how we met after all, in Portland so long ago.

If only it hadn't been for that stupid timepiece.

But now she's no longer mine. In a way, Henry isn't either. But I brought him into this world and I'm damn well going to protect him.

REGINA MILLS

If not for her arms holding me close, her lips pressed against my temple, my forehead, my hair, I'm sure I would be tearing this place apart with my magic. She is my gravity, grounding me, reminding me that our son still stands in the thick of it all. He is the bait, and that man, Emma, and I are the animals here, meant to be drawn like lambs to the slaughter. And we all came running. What other choice was left us?

I can tell by the look in the Captain's eyes that this man, who claimed to have been the other chromosome contributing half of my son's biological parentage, had been his intended target. Captain Hook had barely wasted a glance in my and Emma's direction since we arrived. His eyes had only been for the man he called Peter, not for me or Emma Swan.

Emma Swan. Just the thought of her makes my heart speed up in my chest as if it's running the one hundred meter dash in the Olympics. I have never felt anything quite like what I feel for Emma. I love her. And though I have yet to admit that out loud, I feel safe uttering those words in the confines of my head. I love Emma Swan, saviour of fairytale kind. The woman destined to take my heart has done so, just not in the way I always expected she would. She wasn't meant to destroy it; she was meant to keep it and protect it.

I look up into her wide green eyes and I know that she is just as afraid as I am. We were happy. For a moment, we were happy. It was just us, no angry townspeople at our door, no mob calling for my head, her parents had even agreed to give us our space. It was just us, and our son. But then Henry had disappeared one night, the screen sliced open so finely it looked as if it had been slit open with a sword. But it had been a hook, the hook now pressing into our son's throat.

I know I shouldn't be afraid. First of all Emma still has me in her arms, the safest place in my existence, and furthermore, Henry is the only thing keeping Hook alive. I know it. Emma knows it. Henry knows it. And Captain Hook certainly knows it. That's why he's waiting for one of us to make the move. He knows to kill our son is suicide. Despite the danger of our son's current position, I know Henry will not be harmed.

This leads me to believe my fear comes from his presence. Peter. Henry's father. To find my son had been born with one fairytale parent had been shock enough, especially considering she's the daughter of my sworn enemy, as well as the woman who broke my curse. But she's also the woman I love. Then to find out he has two, in a way, has been staggering.

Peter was not of our world, but this one. Yet somehow he managed to be able to travel between the two; it was the only thing that had saved him from the curse. I can't hate him, not completely, considering he gave me Henry. But I do loathe that he is here now, his very presence a reminder that he has touched my Emma. Before, he was just some nameless lowlife who I could deem an error in judgment on Emma's part. But now I could put a name and face to this man from Emma's past, a man who has a part of her history that I never will, a man who has a part of my son that I never will.

EMMA SWAN

I'm holding her. She's trembling and I clutch tighter, as if somehow that will hold her pieces together. She's torn, looking between the two men, wondering which one is her bigger threat, the one who wants to take her family away from her or the one who's using our son to bait us here, to this final stand off. I'm wondering the same myself.

It's been over a decade since I saw the man last and he never would have re-entered my mind had it not been for Henry, our son, showing up at my door. Henry had changed so many things about my life. Not the least of which was my family, the parents I never knew. To think, they were so close to me, all along. I know what they'd look like if they were here right now, Snow with a look of rage, James with his hand on her arm in caution. He would know than no one can go off half-cocked when Henry's life hangs in the balance.

And Henry also gave me the woman currently gripping my upper arms as if she might fall without the support. I love her. The realisation of it, the first time the thought crossed my mind, had made me sick to my stomach. I am Emma Swan, daughter of the Charmings and she is Regina Mills, their sworn enemy. How in the fuck do I love the Evil Queen? But I do, love her. I don't know if I can ever tell her that, but I do.

And then I see it, my chance. He's loosened his grip on Henry, too focused on the man approaching him, pleading to be traded for Henry. At least, now, he's doing something unselfish for once in his life. It's about time.

I kiss the top of her head, the closest I can come to a goodbye, because this could go wrong if I don't do things just right. I let go of her and race forward while Hook's eyes are still glued on him. I am just able to get to Henry and get a hold of him before the Captain notices my presence. He tries to grasp for Henry, but I've already pulled him free and tossed him back towards Regina.

I turn back, to run to them, seeing Regina already sending her magic towards the man behind me, vulnerable now without his human shield. She releases her magic and something sharp hits my back. For a moment, I wonder if her spell hit the wrong person, but then I feel the hook slide out of my flesh as the man it's connected to falls in an unconscious heap. I feel something hot and sticky rolling down the skin of my back as I fall forward.

It's funny… I always thought it would hurt more than this, dying. I actually don't feel much of anything. Maybe the hook hit my spine, maybe that's why I don't feel anything. Should I be afraid? Yes, I should. But, surprisingly, I'm not. I think a part of me always knew that this would end in sacrifice.

She's here now, pulling me into her lap, crying. I want to tell her to put me back down, she'll get blood on her clothes, but I can't seem to make the words leave my lips. So instead I just lift a hand and wipe what I can of her tears, though more come despite my efforts. She grabs my hand and brings it to her lips, kissing it. I can't feel much, but I feel that kiss like fire dancing across my skin. She's muttering something, a spell of some sort, her attempt to prevent what's coming.

I see him holding Henry back, shielding his eyes. Our boy is only eleven, so young. He shouldn't see this, and for the first time, I'm thankful that he's here to keep Henry from looking.

My eyes are so heavy now; I can't seem to keep them open. And when did it get so cold? Slowly, I turn my head back to look at her. Regina. There's so many things I need to tell her. I need to remind her to be good, careful with her magic. She's still on thin ice with the people of Storybrooke, and now I won't be here to keep them at bay. I need to tell her that Henry's out of that shampoo that he likes so much; she needs to get some more before his next bath. I need to tell her to be nice about it when she tells my parents what happened to me, and to let them see Henry on the weekends, no exceptions. I need to tell her that my life didn't mean anything until the day her and our son came into it.

There are so many things I need to say. I open my mouth, but only three words come out. "I love you." Somehow, that says everything.

SWAN QUEEN SWAN QUEEN SWAN QUEEN

A/N2:: almost forgot to mention that i've never actually seen the disney version of peter pan, so if any details were amiss, i apologise.