There was an awkward kind of hostility in the room, an uncomfortable tension borne of many a question left unanswered, and far too many suspicions having formed. Especially where she and one pirate were concerned, Emma well aware of the sight that they both made. Hook bereft of much of his leather, save for the low slung trousers hugging his hips to keep in place. His dark hair was wild in its tousled state, a blatant stirring done by a groping of fingers that had been bold and demanding. He didn't bear any of the other marks though, his tanned skin healed of the scratch marks, and wounds that Emma had given him not even hours earlier.

The same couldn't be said about HER, Emma well aware and brought to nearly an embarrassed pink fluster. It wasn't just that her long, blond hair was as equally tangled as Hook's, or that practically every inch of her that wasn't covered by the shirt that she had borrowed, was in fact marked in some way. By the imprint of teeth, by the grip of a hand and fingers that had been bruising, to even the invisible but no less tangible memory of a sensual mouth caressing a blatant worship into her flesh. She was hot from the memory, made exhausted from the reality, her trembling legs actually shaking from the effort of the woman remaining upright, Emma's every muscle seeming sore, and made that way from an overabundance of pleasure.

The very picture of a well ravished woman, it was no wonder that her father was looking ever so much more murderous by the second. With his eyes narrowed and glaring, with his jaw clenched and teeth grinding, David had taken one look at Emma, and had guessed at what had happened. They all had, every last one, from her mother, to the fairy, not a word had been needed to be spoken. The picture that the pirate and the savior both painted, brought to vivid life the sordid, but what they weren't privy to was the how and the why of it, or the many muddled feelings that had sprouted as a result of it.

Emma was sure that she was turning redder by the second, that shock of vivid color so unlike her to express. The heat in her cheeks was only matched by the burn of her thighs, the savior's sacrifice one that she had ultimately enjoyed, and one she couldn't truly bring herself to regret. It was a secret meant to be kept, Emma intent on not revealing to a single soul a certain truth that she herself found startling. That of the connection she had experienced, and the fact that if such a choice was presented before her a second time, that the young woman would gladly do it all over again.

There was nearly not a second she'd take back. Not a thing she would change, not even the reason behind Emma taking the pirate to bed. The murderous command, that compulsion inside him to do as the two evil queens had commanded, Hook resigned to the family he was bid to hunt down and kill, without it, he and the Savior might never have joined together. It wasn't that he had ever been reluctant to flirt, to try and seduce her right out of her tight jeans, or that Emma had never before been tempted by Hook. It was that all the temptation in the world wouldn't have been enough for the Savior to give in, to the man, and to herself, Emma's walls this insurmountable defense that few if any man would have had the patience to attempt.

She had in fact given herself permission this night. To take, and to give in, her surrender born of an absolutely necessity. It had resulted in the most mind blowing and best sex of her entire short life, and with it came a whole lot of unwanted feelings that Emma wasn't sure she would ever be ready to explore. Even now she tried to mentally shrug it off, to insist that such things weren't real, and instead were born of a desperation of the situation. It haunted her all the same, those feelings that pulsed a beat within her heart, while the memory of an equally conflicted storm colored gaze, taunted her with questions that had no easy answers.

It was fitting, this night one of parts pain and confusion for all. Emma had a million questions, not just for herself, but for her parents, a story there just waiting to be told. That David kept being distracted by his raging at Hook, wouldn't stave off the asking for long.

"Let's all make ourselves comfortable, shall we?" It was her mother, the fabled Snow White, one Mary Margaret who had just made that suggestion. Emma could only flash her a grateful look, her still trembling legs causing her to sway an unsteady step towards the loft's couch. That ungraceful stumble was the final push needed for even David to agree, he, his wife and his daughter, and the fairy who Emma knew as the Mother Superior, all making themselves comfortable by taking a seat.

All save for Hook, the pirate just remaining in spot as though frozen. There was a noticeable tic in his cheek, and the fingers of his one and only hand, were curling and flexing in a betrayal of his own agitation.

"Ho….Hook…?" Emma started to say, drawing the dark blue intensity of his gaze to hers. Sitting between her parents, the Savior couldn't help but notice the way her father had tensed up, or the fact that her mother had quickly reached out a hand, to touch his knee as though to temper the worst of David's intended reaction.

"It…It wasn't his fault." She said at last, and it was enough to make her father explode, David rising up out of his seat. Mary Margaret went with him, as though she could soothe and control the storm that was brewing inside the man.

"It wasn't!" Emma repeated. "The queens..."

"The queens may have painted a target on OUR backs, but no one was in control of the pirate when he went after Rumpelstiltskin!"

She drew up short at that, her lips pressing together in a thin line. Hook has always been about his revenge, though the details around the reason behind it had always been murky at best. He had been good at keeping his secrets that way, the pirate driven and made determined through a mysterious motivating force that not even Emma was fully privy too.

David was still raging, Mary Margaret speaking over him, as though she would drown out the words before the man said something that could not be taken back. Emma found that curious, wondering what drove the woman so. To protect their daughter? Or was it something more than that…?

"If he hadn't been so selfish, none of this would have happened!" continued David, getting louder and louder by the second. "None of it...not the lives lost, not the people hurt, not my daughter violated...":

"David!" Hissed his wife, Mary Margaret.

"Hardly violated." Emma couldn't keep from blurting that out with a blush. She expected to see Hook smirk and voice a ready acknowledgment, while boasting a knowing twinkle in that sapphire gaze that would have set David off to violence. That Hook had none of the expected reaction was as puzzling as it was surprising, but then everyone was turning to her, David looking furious.

"Don't defend what has happened!"

"I am NOT." Emma assured him. "I am OWNING it. I made my choice when I did what I had to, to buy my family time..."

"Some choice..." scoffed her father, and again Mary Margaret tried to shush the worst of his upset.

"David!"

"Agree or not with what has happened, I would like to know just what went down while the pirate and I were otherwise occupied." Emma continued. "I deserve that much at least..."

This time it was David's jaw that clenched, the man not sitting back down next to Emma. Instead he perched on the edge of the couch's arm rest, primed and ready to jump up at the slightest provocation of the pirate. Mary Margaret sat as a buffer between him and their daughter, her hands on her husband, while Emma pulled an afghan knitted blanket over her mostly bare legs. She couldn't help sinking back into the cushions, her tiredness not all just physical strain, but also that of mental. She was rapidly running low of the high her earlier adrenaline had been giving her.

Feeling like it might be days before she regained enough energy to want to move off the couch, Emma cast an expectant look at her parents, while trying not to crackle with an awareness of the pirate.

"First how about we all have a nice calming tea." With a wave of her blue tipped wand, the Mother Superior, had a set of mugs appear, complete with the steaming hot tea inside them. Emma gratefully took the offered tea, though no one else did. Not Hook, not her parents, the Mother Superior fixing her with a knowing little smile, as she offered another tidbit of information to the Savior. "There's a pinch of magic in that tea."

"Magic!? But..."

"Now now…." The fairy held up a hand as though to stave off the worst of Emma's alarm and protests. "Nothing bad, it's just a bit of healing herbs. It will work wonders towards soothing and mending your many aches and pains." It was a knowing look that the woman gave her, which didn't help with the feverish heat flooding to the forefront of her skin. She was in sore need of the healing, but didn't like that fact that everyone knew it too. Knew and were making vivid assumptions about the type of injuries that could be born, in the wake of her sacrifice.

"Er...thank you." Emma quickly began sipping the tea, to avoid saying much of anything. She was suddenly made fascinated by the swirls of the liquid in the mug in order to keep from having to look at any one person in the room. But there was no denying her level of hyper awareness, from her parents to the left of her, and the fairy to the right, and how Hook was still standing some distance away, an outsider to the gathered friends and family intimacy. Was it done out of respect, or out of a wariness of an angry father who was ready to attack at the slightest of reasons? She didn't think Hook the type to normally CARE what an overprotective father would think or feel, and it was just one more thing that marked him as an outsider to the kind of life she had been trying to create for herself here.

An ill fitting match, there was no room in her life for a man, a pirate, like Hook. Her parents would never approve, her father could never even pretend to be civil, and what of her son? What kind of influence would a pirate be towards a boy that age? It was just another in the many reasons Emma was trying to use to hide from the feelings she had felt when embraced in Hook's arms.

Troubled by those complex feelings, Emma almost didn't quite catch when her mother began talking. Mary Margaret was bubbling with a nervous energy, her finger playing a pattern on her husband's thigh, as she spoke about the relief she had felt to discover David had survived the fall, and the tree that he had slammed into. With a guilty start, Emma realized her mother had thought she had nearly lost both husband and daughter in a span of minutes apart.

Mary Margaret for her part, found just the memory bringing a wetness to her eyes. She had been so, so scared, for Emma, and for her prince charming, David laying so deathly still on the ground before the tree. Holding in her sobs, the woman had run to her husband's side, frantic to rouse him and almost too scared to try. So pale in the moonlight had the man looked, with a stark crimson coloring over one eye. Trembling fingers had touched to the blood, Mary Margaret beyond horrified, and almost shrieking with fear, when his eyes had abruptly snapped open.

"David!" She had gasped, falling into his arms' embrace with a sob. He had almost forgotten the night's earlier events, which had been understandable, considering he had been slammed into a tree! The broken utterances of his wife had left his confused head aching further, his mind struggling to process and more importantly make sense of the memories that had been slow to come back.

"Emma…?" He had said, casting a wild glance around for his daughter. "Emma!?" He too had grown panicked, a fear to match his wife's, birthing inside him at neither hide nor hair of his child. "Where….where is she!? Where is Emma!?"

Mary Margaret had grown quiet then, an awful, awful look of despair in her eyes. David had fed off of it, his growing alarm making him shake his wife, in an attempt to get a concrete answer to the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Where is she!? Where's Hook!? What happened….!?"

Mary Margaret had actually flinched in response, and that might have been enough of an answer to some, but not to the concerned father. "Don't tell me she..."

"Gone!" gasped out his wife at long last. "She's off buying us enough time to do what we MUST." She hadn't gone into details on just what that time buying entailed, but David had imagined the worst almost near immediately.

"He'll kill her." He had said in a grim tone of voice, struggling to stand up. He had nearly fallenl back down, his wife's arms going around him for a much needed support. "He'll take what she's offering, and then he'll kill her!" Frantic eyes met Mary Margaret's. "We have to find her...find them, and we have to do it fast!"

His wife had hesitated. "We...what could WE do against the powers of a Dark One!? A Dark One ordered to kill us..."

"He's going to kill Emma, you understand that right!?"

Again that hesitation. "Not right away." Mary Margaret had hedged in answer.

"Not right away!?" repeated David in disbelief. "What does that even mean!?"

"Emma's got him well in hand, and distracted." His wife had said. "If we're quick enough...we might just be able to do something to turn the tide in this battle, so that NONE of us have to die this eve."

It had been a deliberate choice of words, David having eyed his wife in disbelief. "None?" It had been more accusation than anything. "After what they've done?! The people hurt, even killed, the daughter taken from us!?"

"It is not our way." Mary Margaret had insisted. "Whatever Regina and Cora have done...it can't result in our souls being darkened." David's jaw had set to hear that, the woman, his wife, then trying to drag him along with her. "Now come on! It'll take magic if we're to stand a true chance of winning!"

Frankly, it had been nothing short of amazing, Mary Margaret had reflected out loud. "To have the time needed to seek out the only help left available to us? That Regina and her mother had grown cocky, so sure in their victory, and the power of the Dark One that they had commanded." The little smile then, it was almost a smirk, though the woman still shivered with it.

"We were lucky." David murmured. "We ALL were." A meaningful glance was cast his daughter's way, Emma fidgeting fingers around the mug of still steaming tea. She didn't much believe in luck, not so much the chance of it, as in the idea of making her own.

"So uh…? What did you do then?" It was meant for the room, but muttered against the mug by her lips, Emma trying to focus on the healing warmth of the liquid working its magic, and not that of the fever brought on by her embarrassment.

"They came to me." The mother superior had spoken up. "Desperate and in need of magic as well as a miracle, my fairies and I were just about the only creatures powerful enough to stand a chance against such dark magic." There was an odd smile on her face, one that the fey gave to Emma now. For some reason, the knowing look in those eyes made the Savior uncomfortable, as though the dark haired woman in the nun's habit, was acknowledging some secret. A secret even Emma herself had not made peace with.

"Er...right..." An unsettled Emma looked away, from that smile, her gaze instead landing on Hook. The pirate was still firmly rooted in spot, his gazed fixed and unwavering, but not on the Savior, but on the fairy. On what else she had, beyond her blue tipped wand, that dagger an almost unconcerned after thought on the diminutive woman's lap.

"Are you…?" Emma's brows had drawn together, an awful suspicion birthing to life inside her.

"Of course, fairy dust alone was not enough. Not the amount we had left stored in our wands." The fairy continued as though Emma hadn't tried to speak just then. "Not for the war that was literally bearing down on us..."

"Fortunate however, that there was an untapped resource...an abundance of it found in the mines, enough STOLEN magic from our realm, to give a considerable boost to the chance given to us." It was an almost musical titter of a laugh then, the fairy not so much malicious as amused. "Regina and her mother, made confidant in their acquisition of the dagger, had never dared dream there stood ANY chance of defying its command."

"They got cocky." breathed out Emma in realization. "Did they even bother to come check and see how their...dirty work was progressing? Or were they content to wait around on the victory they were sure they had been handed?"

"Why get their hands any dirtier..." Mary Margaret mused out loud. "Certainly Cora wouldn't have minded much, and Lord knows Regina would have loved to personally deal that finishing a touch. But.." She hedged in hesitation. "Would Henry forgive any worse?"

Emma's eyes snapped open wider, the mug not so much dropped, as set down with a resounding thud. "Henry!?" She was both scared witless on his behalf, and made furious at both the queens and herself, Emma realizing she hadn't spent enough time this eve worrying about her son. About his fate, and about whatever ordeal the boy had surely gone through as a result.

"He's fine." Mary Margaret was quick to reassure her daughter. A touch accompanied that smile, the woman trying to soothe the worst of her fears. "Ruby made sure Regina never got close enough."

It wasn't enough, maybe nothing would ever be, Emma unable to fully relax. It was fear thrumming in her heart, and a guilt, her eyes seeking out the pirate, then quickly looking away again. That he, that anything, could have made her forget about Henry for even a split second? It bothered her greatly, Emma left shaken and made to realize Hook was a far greater distraction that she had ever first realized. One she, and one Henry, could not afford. Not now, not ever, the boy needing a mother devoted in mind and in heart to his care and well being.

The life and the death of it aside, it bothered Emma immensely, that power the pirate had proven. A sexual attraction that had been so all consuming, it had taken a woman who for the past year and a half, had been driven by one single motivation, that of her son and HIS well being, the Savior had forgotten everything to live so selfishly in the moment.

That upset inside her, it left Emma unable to truly focus on the tale being told to her. The words came and went, in one ear and out the other, a dizzying array of details about a fight that had actually lasted for hours, and the details that had gone into planning out the offensive, and the steps needed to put a much needed fail safe in place.

Deaf to so much of it, Emma still came back to herself, as the sound of the pirate's voice, and the barely repressed menace of his growl.

"Just where are you keeping those two bitches now?"

"Why?" David challenged Hook. "So you can go kill them? I don't think so!"

"I am OWED." Hook insisted. "After what they did to me..."

"You did it to yourself!" His anger was almost a match to the dark one, to the pirate, David again standing, with Mary Margaret hanging onto his arm. "Don't you get it, Hook? Everything that happened this night, it is ALL your fault!"

"Not all of it." Emma allowed, and both her father and the pirate's jaws set even more stubbornly, her words acknowledged but not replied to. She sighed at that, and glanced at the Blue Fairy, who was still harboring that knowing expression.

"Not all bad resulted of the night's horror." She said. "Darkest though the night be, the light of dawn always ushers in a chance."

"A chance for what?" Emma couldn't help asking.

"That is an answer that each and every last one of us, must look deep inside to find." The Blue Fairy stated. "Different for each and every last one of us, what we do with that chance, is ultimately up to the individual." Her eyes seemed to bore into Emma, though the intensity of her gaze wasn't malicious. It still made the Savior uncomfortable, the woman having to turn away from the Mother Superior.

"Even Regina and Cora have that chance…though what they ultimately decide to do with theirs, remains to be seen."

"What?!"

"If they're smart, they'll stay banished." David grumbled and growled.

"Their greed for power and the pain that they can cause as a result..." began Hook whose voice was more snarl than anything else. "Supersedes any wisdom they might have. It is madness to let them live to plot another day!"

"Madness it may be, but it was still the right choice to make." Mary Margaret told the pirate. "Besides..." Her lips quirked. "The collars strip them of their powers, while crossing the boundary will take care of their memories. Without magic, and any knowledge of WHO they really are, I don't see HOW we can live to regret this."

"You'd be surprised." muttered Hook darkly. Was it just the pirate being pessimistic, or was he right to worry? Emma didn't know, a shiver going through her as she hoped his words weren't somehow a dark forewarning of things to ultimately come.

"Whatever might come, we're ready and we'll face it together. As family." David retorted.

"Family..." repeated his wife, her arms going around his waist.

Emma glanced at her parents, then looked to Hook, the pirate this dark and glowering menace that was the opposite of the warmth of the family her parents took strength in. He just didn't fit in, with them, or with her life, Hook a mess that would send the rest of her neatly compartmentalized components spiraling out of control. So then why…why couldn't she stop looking at him? Feeling for him? WANTING him? The attraction was still there, might even be made stronger after all they had shared, the physicality of their bodies, nothing compared to the feelings their connection had made the Savior experience.

It was silly, Emma told herself. Silly to think there was any genuine kernel of emotion in a lust that had been born out of necessity. It was just desperation at work, nothing more, or so the woman tried to lie to herself, insisting it had just been sex, an itch scratched, and now that it had been, desire and the confusion of feelings that had resulted from it, would soon fade away. It HAD to, for ALL their sake. She knew that, and yet she couldn't entirely turn away from it. From HIM, soft sentiments and a real concern bringing her to speak out loud once more.

"What will you do with THAT?" Emma asked the fairy, and there was no need to clarify what the that was. Everyone knew, and everyone turned to look at the dagger on the woman's lap. The Mother Superior would actually caress fingernails across the name that was carved into the metal of the blade.

"I think that should be up to you." The fairy had decided, rising up from her seat with the dagger in hand.

"Me!?" Emma all but yelped in surprise, for this was an answer she hadn't been expecting, and was in no way ready for. "Why?" Cautioned Emma, the Savior making no move towards reaching for the dagger the Blue Fairy was trying to hand her. "Because I'm the Savior?"

"No." Came the answer. "Because you did so much."

"We ALL did." Emma insisted. "Every one had a part to play in defeating Regina and Cora."

"True."A nod of agreement from the fairy. "But such a sacrifice on your part, deserves a special recognition." The words had the embarrassed heat flooding through Emma harder than before, the young woman not liking the misconception that everyone was having. For it hadn't been that much of a sacrifice, or even a hardship, Emma having enjoyed herself immensely but unable to admit to it out loud.

The shameful admission bit back, Emma could only stare at the Blue Fairy. Her eyes were so intense, so focused on Emma, as though she was privy to the young woman's darkest secrets.

"Emma..." That quiet murmur was voiced by her mother, Mary Margaret shining with warmth and with how proud she was of her daughter.

"Take the dagger." The Mother Superior then encouraged, stopping just short of forcing it into Emma's unresistant hand. "It is YOURS." And the man and the responsibility that went with it, Emma shivering, feeling as though the fairy was staring into her soul. Or maybe it was just her exposed heart's secrets that the woman lay privy too.

The pirate was staring just as hard, but it was not to Emma that he looked to, but the dagger. His gaze was unwavering in a hyper kind of focus, the dagger a representation of all his sins, the murder and the mischief, the power and the pride.

It was also a mark of his enslavement, and fact of how easily his will could and had been stripped from him.

"Can you give US a moment?" Emma asked. No one seemed to need to question just who the US was, or even LIKE the idea of it, Mary Margaret frowning, while her father shook his head no.

"That is not a good idea…." His protest was what gave Emma the final push, the exasperated woman snatching the dagger from the fairy's hand.

"I will be fine!" She snapped, practically waving the dagger with her agitation. "He can't hurt the one who holds this, right?" Her parents still looked as though they wanted to argue, and it took a cajoling from the Blue Fairy to get them to leave with a stipulation of ten, and only ten minutes.

"What are you even doing?" Flustered, Emma was sure she colored in response to the pirate's question. She had never blushed this much in her entire life, and now it seemed this night's events, this man in question, was forcing her to make up for a lifetime of calm composure. The things they had done, together and to each other, the things her parents suspected, the things the fairy hinted at knowing, it was all so mortifying and utterly confusing.

"Time is a wasting." Hook reminded her, and Emma found she could do nothing but fidget in place, the dagger in her possession, played with as a result, her neatly trimmed nails doing an agitated caress over the metal. It brought a sharp hiss out of the pirate, the man seeming to shiver in reaction. Emma looked at him then, realizing he hadn't had quite that big a reaction to the Blue Fairy's touch upon the blade.

"Does it hurt?" She asked curiously, her fingers still moving over the inscription etched on the blade.

"No..." It was a gritted out answer. "It doesn't hurt..." His dark gaze met hers, something in its depth making Emma gasp, and abruptly stop. It was like there was sin looking at her, sin and a blatant seduction, and she realized that the pirate, already a very beautiful man, had been made even more so by his transformation. She couldn't quite put her finger on just what had been changed, was it his lips made even more sensual? Were his eyes always this dark and so knowing? She couldn't say, Hook somehow enhanced to be made into a man no woman would be able to resist. Not even the Savior…

Now she was the one shivering, and it took all of her self control to not play with the dagger. She still looked down at it, at the inscription on the metal, the pirate's actual name, engraved there.

"Killian Jones..." She read it out loud with no real intention behind the saying, and still the magic took hold. The dark, enigmatic pirate, so frozen in place, became this wounded thing, a frantic man made desperate, with a world of hurt coloring his blue eyes.

"Emma, DON'T..."

She couldn't heed his plea, the power too tempting, her own need too great. There was so much she didn't know, so much she couldn't understand without his help, and the dagger might be the only way to ever get the answers she needed, the truth that she so craved.

"Tell me why...": Soft though her voice was, it was still a command, one backed by the power of the dagger. "Why you did what did...Going after Gold and his power like that..."

"It was never about his power!" The pirate snarled. "I just needed him to suffer, and to die!" Emma flinched at the words, at the way the pirate had shouted out at her.

"Why?"

He tried to hesitate, to hold back the truth, but the dagger wouldn't let him. "Why do you think?" The terse tone asked. "For revenge. For Milah...and for myself."

"Milah?" What was the feeling that hit her, to hear him speak another woman's name, to see the softening the memory of her brought to Hook's fierce expression.

"The love of my life..." He continued. "And my greatest regret."

"Regret?"

"Loving Milah killed her...loving her painted a target on her back." The stark pain in his eyes, a wound that had nothing to do with Emma, and everything to do with this other woman, it staggered the Savior in place. Her lips parted on a trembling gasp, the dagger clutched in her hand, as the pirate announced how Rumpelstiltskin had murdered in cold, cruel blood the woman that Hook so loved.

"It's my fault as much as it is his." Hook admitted. "Running off with a woman as married as she..."

"Married..." Emma hesitated. "To Rumpelstiltskin I take it?"

"Aye." There was more to the tale, and every word gritted out was like digging finger deep into an open wound that had clearly never healed. She tore him open with every question, made volatile emotion erupt and in it's devastating path, there was only a tiredness left behind.

"I never went after the dagger thinking it would give me any power but one. The magic needed to end Rumpelstiltskin's miserable life."

He hadn't known, Emma realized. The pirate hadn't known just what he was getting into, or what it would cost him, the dagger a power that came with a steep price. One he had paid for in spades, becoming a slave to it, and the people that had held it.

"I was a fool..." He whispered. "Letting my hate blind me so..."

"Yes...yes you were a fool" Emma agreed. "But I can't entirely fault you for it...not with so negative a force motivating you...Vengeance isn't an easy calling to resist...and love lost hurt, no matter the circumstance that saw it taken from a person…"

The gaze that met hers was surprised, as though Hook was made startled by her understanding. She stared back at him, taking in all the hurt and the pain, and with the knowledge she now had cementing the truth in her heart, it had become the deciding factor in what she would then do next.

"Take it." Emma said, in a clear and confidant voice. "It is yours."

He was suddenly there before her, right in her personal space, a hand on the dagger, his hook curving round the back of her neck. His eyes so hurt one second, were so dark and unfathomable now, the pirate staring at her, whisper close, lips almost touching hers as he asked, "Why?"

"We all have a chance in us..." Was her answer, Emma fighting not to lick at her own lips. "A choice. What we do with it, what YOU do with YOURS, should be ultimately up to you, Hook. Take the dagger...take it and be free."

Hand on hers, dark eyes boring down on her, Emma wasn't sure entirely what he was wanting. Or what she was expecting, her breath going still, Emma actually trembling, waiting, waiting for the pirate to make his move. His own lips parted, and Emma would never know if it was to kiss her, or to merely thank her, the man's fingers closing around the dagger. At that touch, he then shimmered with magic, Emma having to blink close her eyes from the blinding sight of it.

He was gone by the time she had dared open her eyes, not so much as a thank you or goodbye to be had. She almost understood, almost forgave him for the hasty exit, but what she couldn't abide by was the disappointment in her, Emma longing for the pirate's kiss.

"What is wrong with me!?"" She demanded out loud, and fell back against the couch. But she didn't want the answer, Emma slapping a hand against a cheek, as though to knock some sense into her, as she fought against the confusing feelings inside her. It would take a harder slap then that if the woman wanted to forget the feelings and the memories that had been made this past night, Emma sighing, as she realized that the time was almost up. She wasn't looking forward to her parent's return, distracting though they might prove to be. David would predictably be angry, and the Savior would have a hard time explaining her actions, and the choice she had made to set Hook free. But the one thing she wouldn't do is regret it, not the night, not the pirate, and not her father's anger, for even that was a gift to cherish and marvel at, after everything she had nearly lost this night.

The End of the first story in the series...

Though I feel like series is the wrong word for it. More like duo-logy? Since it's only supposed to be two connecting stories. (unless something really goes wrong, and a third one ends up happening.) hi...it's 6/8/2020, roughly seven years after I first wrote and completed Light Grasping Darkness. I found during my recent reread and tweaking, that I really, really HATED six. It was too much of the telling instead of showing thing, like too much recap without real feeling or depth to it, and it felt like an inferior quality to the previous five chapters. I couldn't leave it alone. I had to try and fix it, and what ended up happening is a complete overhaul and rewrite of the chapter. I don't know if I succeeded in making it better, but I do like this version best, even if I couldn't fit in the thing about the birds and how Disney didn't get everything wrong. XD

I've been trying to find my notes, and so far haven't had any luck. I did find an almost three page wip for the sequel, but I am not sure I should...well I am thinking I should start the wip over...the wip in question starts with Emma trying to learn how to use her magic and reflecting on some things. But yeah...really don't like it…

I do remember from the notes I can't find, that I intended to have the queens return, though they are not meant to be the focal point of the second story. In fact I think I was gonna have Dark One Hook kill them, so they couldn't cause any more trouble...but now I sorta think the killing would be the wrong choice to have him do….Hmm….ah well I suppose I'll figure it out eventually. X_X

Man I think the rewrite made the chapter even longer. :o Also wondering if I can delete the previous version of the chapter and NOT lose my comments for said chapter….Argh!

-Michelle