Be forewarned: I'm with Captain Swan. This is something I could just not get out of my head, so I took a quick break from NaNo to jot it down. I may or may not continue it...depending on how Into the Deep goes.

Please, please, please review! I love it all: good, bad and ugly :)

"Cora," Snow spat.

A soft woman's laugh rang through the clearing, and the devil herself appeared in front of them.

"Perceptive as always, Snow," she said, with her falsely-sweet smile.

Killian drew his sword and stepped out from behind the tree, pointing its sharp, gleaming tip in their direction.

Mulan and Snow put their hands on their sword-hilts and Aurora and Emma reached for their daggers. In answer, Cora waved a hand and dozens of glowing purple weapons appeared in midair, poised at the four maid warriors.

"Hook, dear," said Cora. "Kindly relieve these girls of their weapons."

"As you wish."

He stepped over to Mulan and Snow, thrust his own blade into the ground beside him, drew Mulan's blade from her belt, turned and flung it away. It spun, glittering in the moonlight, and buried itself in the trunk of a tree where it stuck, quivering. He likewise disposed of Snow and Aurora's weapons, and when he came to Emma he gave her a dark smile with no mirth in it.

"Fortune is a cruel mistress, isn't she, love?"

He stated it, he didn't ask it. Coldly. Each word dripping with acid.

Emma set her jaw, and there was something accusing in her eyes, something that said he had just confirmed her opinion of him. But he didn't care. He took her dagger from her hand, threw it away into its own tree-trunk, withdrew his own sword from the earth and returned to stand at Cora's side.

"The compass, please, Emma dear," said Cora.

She raised her chin defiantly. "I don't have it anymore. And even if I did, I wouldn't give it to you."

Cora twitched a finger, and the dozens of hovering, glowing purple weapons pointed themselves at each of the women in turn. "Who has it, then?"

"None of us," said Emma. "We lost it. Unfortunately."

She's bluffing. The foolish girl is bluffing Cora.

Some of floating weapons clattered against each other as Cora's hand shook. "Where?'"

Emma cocked her head to the side, clearly mocking Cora as she pretended to think. "Not exactly sure where."

"Emma…" Snow said, quietly, warningly.

Cora's eyes were daggers as she glared at Emma. "Something tells me you're not being truthful, Emma." She stopped, and her expression changed. "Very well. I shall search for it elsewhere. We shall not meet again, my dears."

She drew back her hand, as if she were preparing to hurl a weapon, and Killian knew what was going to happen next.

"Cora, stop!"

She paused and looked at him, raising an eyebrow in surprise. "Is something wrong, Hook?"

"It appears to me that negotiations with these four lovelies might be smoother without—" he glanced up at Cora's glowing magical weapons— "Swords hanging over our heads."

Mulan glared fiercely at Cora, and Aurora had drawn herself up stiffly and haughtily. It was clear that none of them were going to negotiate to Cora's satisfaction.

She spared him the smallest of patronizing smiles. "You heard them. They lost the compass and they don't know where. They are no longer of any use to me."

"Wait!"

He withdrew the small brown pouch from beneath the flowing folds of his long black captain's coat.

Cora's eyes widened in anger and surprise, and her hand went to her own belt. "How dare you—"

"Pirate," he said, as if reminding a child of something she should have already known. "Put away the weapons, Cora. I am certain these princesses might be more cooperative if we are not quite so…blatant in our measures."

Cora looked like a cat preparing to pounce. "And if I do not agree with you, Hook?"

He tightened his grip around the bottle inside the pouch. "Then I break the bottle and you lose its contents forever."

The intensity in the clearing could have been cut with a knife. Something glinted in Cora's eye, and all the hovering weapons slowly shifted, clattering against each other as they sighted in on a new target: Emma.

A dark smile twitched the corners of Cora's lips. "It seems to me that only one of these princesses holds any true interest for you. So I make the choice clear."

All the glowing weapons jerked an inch closer to Emma, and Killian's heart missed a beat.

"Give me the ashes, and I will not harm Emma."

He gave her a small, ironic smile. "Cora…I don't have to possess a special gift to tell that you are lying."

The next moment all the tension in the clearing exploded. Mulan broke away for the tree that held her weapon. All Cora's glowing purple weapons shot toward Emma.

Instinct, rather than conscious thought moved Killian in that instant. Both he and Snow dove for Emma, but he reached her first. The pouch fell from his hand as he desperately tried to tackle her out of the path of danger. He felt sharp searing pain pierce his right shoulder from behind, all the way through to his chest, and he and Emma crashed to the ground together.

Mulan's shout came to his ears as if through cotton. "Cora!"

The clearing lit up almost as bright as day for a single split second, and then everything went dark.

"Not that I don't appreciate it, Hook," said Emma through gritted teeth. "D'you mind getting off me?"

He pushed himself away from her, and promptly collapsed back to the grass, groaning as the pain flared in his chest. It felt like he had been stabbed through with a sword or a dagger. His fingers went to the spot and came away dripping red. Colors swam and blurred before his eyes.

God, Jones! What were you thinking? The woman betrayed you at the top of that beanstalk! She turned on you and left you up there—maybe not to die, but…and you take a sword to the bloody chest for her! Are you mad?

"Emma!" came Snow's voice. "Emma, are you okay? Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine, but—Hook?"

Someone knelt by his side, and the moonlight glinted off golden hair.

"Hook, you're hurt—there's blood on your hand! Where's the blood coming from?"

Killian's drunken vision cleared enough to see Snow kneel by her daughter on his right. "Mulan! Hook's wounded!"

Emma produced something from her pocket, and he saw that it was the scarf he had bandaged her hand with. She pressed it to his wound, and he gasped as the pain stabbed through it again.

Mulan's voice sounded at his other side. "What ails him?"

"Cora got him," said Emma, and there was a tremor in her voice. "He knocked me out of the way."

"He's losing a lot of blood, Mulan," said Snow. "What have we got?"

Aurora's voice came from somewhere above and to his left. "Cora's gone! She took the ashes with her!"

"No, she didn't," Killian gasped. His fingers were shaking badly, and it didn't help that they were slick with his own blood, but he managed to untie the pouch from his belt and held it out to Emma.

"What—" Mulan started.

"How…" Snow demanded.

"Cora has a fake," he said. Something tickled somewhere in his lungs, and a coughing fit seized him. The pain burned even more brightly as it faded, and he clenched his teeth against it, breathing hard.

Emma held the pouch in one hand, staring at it. "How did you manage that?"

"Pirate," he rasped. "Congratulations, darling. You get to go see your son."

"Emma," said Mulan. "Move your hand."

The pressure lifted from his wound; he felt hands opening his coat and leather vest, and there was the sound of ripping fabric as Mulan tore the hole in his shirt wider. He felt something splashing onto his chest, and he cried out as intense pain burned through his wound.

"Waste of good dwarf wine, if you ask me," Mulan said dryly.

"Mulan," Snow chided. "Hook just saved my daughter's life. If nothing else he has earned our respect."

Gentle hands pressed the wadded-up scarf to his wound, and Emma's face was unreadable as she closed his leather vest over it.

"I don't think we should make camp here," said Mulan.

"I agree," said Aurora. "There's a chance Cora will come back once she realizes Hook tricked her, right?"

"Yes," Snow said. "Hook, do you think you'll be able to walk?"

"It'll hurt like the bloody devil, milady, but thankfully Cora spared me my legs."

To his surprise, Emma spoke up. "I'll help him."

"Here," Mulan said. She handed her a small object. "Have him take this. It won't help the pain, but it will help the flesh to knit faster."

With Emma and Snow's help, Killian got to his feet, and Emma drew his left arm around her own shoulders.

"Let's move," said Snow.

They headed east out of the clearing, sea-ward; Snow and Mulan leading, the former with an arrow nocked to her bow, Aurora next, and Emma and Killian bringing up the rear. Emma wasn't trying to rush him; instead she let him set the pace, matching him step for step.

"Here," she said, placing something in his hand. "Mulan said to take it."

It felt like a piece of tree-bark, but Killian put it in his mouth anyway and chewed.

"Ugh—God, I hate elf-ash root."

"That sounds like the voice of experience."

He swallowed and coughed as it went down. "Let's say it's something I've tasted one too many times. I honestly didn't expect you to be the one to volunteer to help me, love."

"I owe you one."

He laughed, and there was a little mirth in it this time. "One? I daresay you owe me at least two, darling."

"Right." She sounded awkward. "Two."

Hmm. She didn't argue that one.

They walked on in silence. Killian tried to ignore the burning knife in his chest and focus on putting one foot in front of the other, instead.

"Why'd you do it?" Emma said suddenly.

He knew what she was talking about. "Well, I could not care less what Cora wants to do with her daughter, but there's something in my personal code that balks at the idea of involving that little boy you say is both your son and her daughter's."

Emma clearly wasn't going to be swayed from her point. "I left you up there, Hook. What little I know of your character tells me that it's not something you would forget. So what did your personal code tell you back there in the clearing?"

He was silent for a moment. "That it was the honorable thing to do."