Part One: Rising

A/N: Something i should clear up: Grace and August are the same age. Because no curse= same age.

"You're sure you'll be alright?" Killian rubbed his hand and hook up and down Emma's arms, more concerned than she'd ever seen him.

"I'll be fine, Kill, I'll have you, remember?" Emma smiled sadly, catching his hook and running a thumb over the tip.

"Not the way I am now," he whispered, looking down in guilt. She gripped his hook more tightly and lifted her other hand to his face, tilting it so he looked into her eyes.

"You'll still be you," Emma said, smiling at him in an inside joke, "and I think we've established that I can handle you."

"I know. I know," he leaned in to press a kiss to her forehead, arm reaching more tightly around her waist,"and I know I'd never hurt you, but this is me before... Before many things and I'm- I'm a bit afraid of how you'll see me," he pressed his face into her hair, mumbling his last words, "after this."

Emma pulled back, hands on his shoulders.

"You idiot. I love you, but oh my god, you're an idiot." Emma raised an eyebrow and smacked the side of Killian's head. "Kill. I know who you were. I know who you are. I know you." Emma smiled wryly down at his hook. "And I thought you knew me. Do you really think I'd give up on you so easily?Though I'm a little afraid," she confessed.

"What of?" He asked.

"I'm afraid I won't be able to convince you to help me." Emma took a deep breath. "I mean, we've never met, and you're 300 years younger and I just-" Killian cut her off with a kiss.

"True love, Emma," he breathed when he broke away. "I would do anything for you, and the fact that we've never met won't change that. Nothing can." Emma rolled her eyes.

"You do realize that sounds ridiculous, right?"

"It's true," he shrugged."I have faith that my undying love for you will be able to cross time and space and make me fall in love with another woman." He was teasing, yet there was a thread of truth in his words.

This had to work. Nothing else had, and if this didn't nothing would.

Henry ran forward, crashing into Emma's waist.

"You're coming back, right? You're not staying over there as long as last time?" Emma hugged him closer, smiling sadly.

"No. No, Henry, I should be gone less than a week. I'll be back soon. I promise." Emma ran her hands through Henry's hair and looked back up at Killian. "I promise."

Snow and David each hugged Emma, teary-eyed and despairing.

"You can do this," Snow whispereed to Emma. "Only you."

Regina cleared her throat, and they all busily managed to make themselves look hopeful.

"It's time." Regina, beneath her steel, looked nervous. Even the Evil Queen was threatened by time.

Even the fairest of them all would have to fall.

Emma took the necklace from Regina. Killian stepped behind her to clasp it around her neck. As soon as the chain touched her skin, golden strands of mist began sizzling up like smoke. Cool and soft, it wove up around her, strands coalescing until they formed a golden curtain separating Emma from the world. Soon enough she couldn't even feel Killian's hands against the back of her neck.

Then all feeling faded into smoke.

When she woke up, later, she was curled up in the corner of what appeared to be a tavern. Or maybe they were called pubs? Emma didn't really care. She was a little busy saving the world at the moment.

"Hi," she began, walking up to the counter. "Seen any pirate ships lately?"

When Emma reached the docks, she faltered. She knew Killian would help her eventually. He had to. But it was a horrible thing she was asking him to do, and she had no clue how he'd react to her asking. Well she did. In her world, he'd have done it in an instant. But in this one, this time... She really had no idea.

"I'm looking for killian Jones," she called up to the men on the ship. They leered at her, clearly thinking a blonde in a leather jacket could only be there for one reason. She smiled back mockingly, adjusting her stance so the sunlight would flash on the sword at her waist.

"And why, Milady, might you be looking for me?" He waltzed over the gangplank, coat swirling and grin brilliant, and for a moment Emma couldn't breathe.

Because this was Killian, her Killian, younger and more innnocent and if not happy then at least not unhappy. And she was going to change every word in that sentence by the end of this.

"Well I'm in need of your help," Emma began, crossing her arms and playing along and cringing because this was how it would have been before. The two of them arguing and bickering and bantering and loving every second.

"Oh? What sort of... Help might you be in need of?" He smirked, stepping closer. His eyes flicked from her face to her sword and back.

"Not that sort," she snorted, pushing him back with a hand on his chest. "I need you to come with me."

"Come with you where?" He raised an eyebrow. "You see, I'm not used to following... More of a leader, myself, love." Emma smirked back, and with one hand on his left wrist, she pulled him forward with her, directly through the jagged crack in the wall behind her. They emerged exactly three hundred years later, the building in front of her more dilapidated, falling apart. Rotten to the core.

"What the bloody hell was that?!" Killian shouted, thumping his hand ineffectively against the crack. The whole building shuddered, and Emma caught his hand before he began a second assault on the poor shack.

"Time travel. Given to me by an old friend of yours." The distaste in Emma's voice wasn't harsh or ice cold so much as it was the dead of Russian winter. Killian tilted his head.

"No friend of mine uses magic. And certainly no magic like that!" He cursed, turning in a circle to slam his fist again against teh wall. It cracked further and Emma rolled her eyes.

"That's not helping anyone, Jones." It was hard not to call him Hook when she was this annoyed with him. Shame he hadn't gotten to that part yet.

"Well where the hell are we?" He asked, spinning to look at her.

"Look around you."

"Gods," he breathed, taking in the empty sea, the rotting wooden platform that used to be the dock. He visibly flinched once he saw the ships. "What happened here?"

Emma stepped up next to him.

"They burned the ships. Or tried to, anyway. Some wouldn't take the fire, so they just killed everyone onboard." She spoke emotionlessly, pitiless for this man whose whole world had just changed.

"Who did?" he demanded, "Who are you? What am I doing here?"

Emma sighed.

"Those aren't all questions I can answer right now." She frowned thoughtfully. "I'll tell you what you're doing here when I'm able." He opened his mouth to argue and hse cut him off. "My name is Emma Swan, and this land used to belong to a man named Dominic. Where I took you from... now it belongs to King Allen." Her frown deepened.

"What do you mean 'where you took me from'? And when you said time travel..." he was breathing heavily, angry and confused and shocked. "When is this?"

"Three hundred years in your future." He scoffed, disbelieving and believing immediately all at once. "Come with me," Emma called, turning to walk away from the broken docks.

He followed.

Emma found an inn somewhere in town. The occupants were silent, suspicious. The owners were steely and cautious. Nobody smiled, nobody talked, nobody made eye contact. Killian was suddenly reminded of the taverns and inns in his time. He was abruptly quite grateful for the rulers he stole from, glad that at least they never did this to their subjects.

Glad they had never done this to him.

Sequestered in a room, he sat opposite Emma, each on one side, claiming their own of the two beds. He eyed her warily, an ice-cold tigress upon her throne, while she watched him like some curious bird that had landed in front of her with a broken wing.

"Why did this happen?" he finally asked, folding his hands in front of himself. Emma drew in a breath, letting it out with a resigned expression.

"Rumplestiltskin. The Dark One. Only he never was, now. I mean..." She moved her mouth, trying to form the words. "There's a woman, Cora. He trained her in magic. he needed someone to cast a curse for him. Her daughter, Regina, cast the curse to punish my mother. It sent entire kingdoms to a different world. Rumplestiltskin wanted to find his son there, but... They had no memory, no inkling of who they were. They couldn't even leave the town. I was sent ahead. In an enchanted wardrobe. I never knew, not until I was twenty-eight." She folded, unfolded her hands. Tense and sad, she fidgeted with her fingers. "I broke the curse, because of my son. And then... Then Cora told Ruplestiltskin he could have a normal life. A life with his son and..." She looked at Killian. "His wife." Emma swallowed, looking back down at her hands. "The entire timeline unraveled. Without Rumplestiltskin as the Dark One, my parents never met, Cora never had a daughter, and... So many things that were supposed to happen... never happened." She took a deep breath. "And so many that were never supposed to happen did."

"What do I have to do with any of this?" Killian asked, and Emma immediately retreated back into her icy shell.

"I can't tell you yet." She got up off the bed and stood up, straightening her jacket. "All I can say is that he won't fix it and you can." She turned, about to leave the room.

"What's so bad, anyway?" He asked, baiting her. "The world looks fine to me." She practically threw herself at him, pinning him to the wall with trembling hands.

"Don't you dare!" She hissed, "You have no idea what he's done!" He could feel her breath across his cheeks, almost nose-to-nose with her. Then she pulled away, pushing him back into the wall as she did. "Don't you dare." She repeated angrily, though much more calmly than before.

He let himself slide down to slump against the wall as she left, leaning his head back to rest.

"What've I gotten myself into?" he asked the world at large. "Or don't you care?"

No reply.

"Of course not," he sighed.

The next morning he woke to find her in the bed across the room, golden hair spilling over the pillow in lazy curls and eyes shut in a far more relaxed expression than any he'd seen on her face before.

He dressed and ate before she woke up, and when she came downstairs it was to find him leaning against the doorframe.

"Hello again," she said.

"I suppose so." He pushed away to follow her, still miffed from their little fight the night before. "You never did tell me what I had to do," he hinted, hoping she'd slip up.

But not so, he soon found.

"I said I wouldn't. And I won't until you promise to help me." She turned a corner and he had to walk a bit faster to catch up to her.

"Why do you need me to help you?" he called after her.

"Because only you can." she called back.

"But why?" He caught up to her and she turned around.

"Why do you even care?" She spat.

"I have a soft spot for pretty girls." He whispered mockingly, trying to ignore how quickly they had gotten closer. They were hardly three inches apart. Hearing his reply, she scoffed and stepped away.

"If that's the only reason, then go waste your time on someone else." Emma said acidically.

"I'm not leaving!" he said in exasperation. "I can't! Three hundred years, remember? And besides, I'm curious now." He smiled, tilting his head. "I can never turn down a challenge."

"I'd despair if you did," Emma smirked, continuing down the street. "Come along then!"

He followed.

"So where are we going?" He asked her, "I mean, we are going somewhere, right?" She stopped, letting him come level with her before pushing him through an open door.

"I am." She closed and locked the door. "You're staying here. Sorry, but I have to do something." He stood at the window, agape, until she was out of sight.

Then he methodically picked the lock, climbed onto the roof, and followed her.

She followed a winding path to a large house that looked more like it belonged in the victorian era than a fairy tale. Killian grumbled but clung to the shingles anyway, hanging over the second-story window.

"Grace, hi," Emma hugged the woman in greeting, then the man next to her.

"So?" The woman, Grace, crossed her arms and bit her lip. "Is he going to help us?"

"Probably." Emma sat down. "He's curious. Challenged. But I don't think he believes me."

"He might. Who knows? I mean, if he is who you say he is... The others won't like it, but as long as he'll help the rebellion I don't think they'll mind too much." The man entered the conversation, pacing the length of the room. The redhead who'd opened the door put a hand out to touch the man's.

"August. Pacing." She smiled fondly, and he grinned ruefully back.

"Sorry." August sat down as Grace stood up. "Grace?" He asked, following her concernedly with his eyes.

"Shhhhh..." She crossed to the window, pushing it up and letting the curtains flow out on either side of her. She hopped up on the windowsill, Emma and August watching in silent curiosity. She reached up with one arm, steadying herself on the windowframe, and then quickly threw herself backward, gripping Killian's coat lapels in her fists.

"Killian?" Emma asked, equal parts shocked and angry.

"Eavesdropper," August scoffed as Grace shut and bolted the window.

"And proudly so!" Killian laughed, slumped against the wall.

"Oh my g- Can we not do this? Please?" Emma huffed, smacking Killian's shoulder with the back of her hand.

"I promise I'll help you do whatever it is you want me to do to save you." Killian swore, only half-serious, "Now please, can you just tell em what I'm supposed to do?"

"Not yet." Emma shook her head and left the room, Grace following her. August hoisted him up by the arm and promptly tied him to a chair.

"This seems oddly familiar," Killian mused later, as Emma stood disapprovingly in front of him. "Have we done this before?"

"The tied-up thing?" Emma smirked. "I couldn't possibly say." Grace snickered behind her, biting her lip and smiling. August shook his head.

"Anyway, can you let me go now? My hands are losing their feeling." Killian said petulanty, "Especially the left one."

Emma eyed the aforementioned hand critically.

"Losing feeling in your left hand?" Grace grinned. "You have no idea." Killian scowled at her and she made a face at him.

"Come on," August drawled. "Can we just get this done?"

"The last time I heard that, I had a really fantastic time." Killian said to nobody in particular. When nobody said anything, he added, "I mean sex. I had really fantastic sex." Emma buried her face in her hands and August rolled his eyes. Grace looked down at Killian's crotch for a second, then back up at his face, raising an eyebrow.

"Just untie him, Grace." Emma rested her head against the wall.

Grace shrugged shamelessly.

Downstairs, August was showing them the headquarters of the rebellion.

"So this is your grand hideaway?" Killian asked, rubbing at his wrists. Grace scowled at him and he made a face at her.

"It's kind of all we can do at the moment," She said icily, stalking past him to the painting. "What with the whole bloody world being ruled by King Allen."

"You never did explain that to me. How'd one king gain so much land? And beyond that, how'd he last three hundred years?" Killian asked, bewildered.

"He found a genie," Grace explained. "On a beach. Gave himself unlimited wishes, eternal life, and an unbeatable champion."

"Unbeatable? Unlimited? Eternal?" Killian snickered. "Making up for something, is he?"

Grace cracked a smile. Emma, who'd been silent thus far, let out a chuckle.

"Who knows? There are so many rumors nobody actually knows the truth. Last one I heard said he was a shoemaker's son, shamed by a bunch of elves for being ungrateful." Grace picked up a knife and shoved it into a crack in the wall. "But I don't think that one's true."

The crack widened, light pouring out for a moment, the wider it got the brighter the light. They all shielded their eyes except Grace, who stared unblinking into it's depths. When the light faded, they found themselves looking at a large hole in the wall.

Grace and August were already climbing through, so Emma just sent a look to Killian and followed her.

He tilted his head, wondered once more what the hell he was doing, and crawled through.

On the other side was a cave, about as big as one of the larger ballrooms he'd snuck into as a child, hiding behind potted plants and under ladies' skirts. It was not nearly as clean, though.

There were outcroppings and dips all over, and most held books or people. The rebellion seemed to consist mainly of books and their readers. Though the weapons neatly stacked throughtout wouldn't quite hurt their cause, either...

"Grace! August!" An older woman strode over to them. White hair, spectacles, crossbow... She was formidable, and Killian knew instinctally, in charge.

"Granny," Grace nodded, "What news of the North?" The two walked off purposefully, discussing tactics and formations and battle plans, while August gravitated towards a cricket that seemed to hold his particular attention.

"So, this is their mighty rebellion?" Killian asked Emma, looking up at the ceiling of the cave. She followed his eyes, staring in wonderment at the books dangling from strings nailed into the stone. He, meanwhile, dropped his gaze to more earthly creatures. He traced her throat with his eyes, the fine line of her jaw and the way she smiled when she caught sight of a flying horse hidden in a corner.

The way she suddenly tensed and grew somber the moment a young man walked into the cave.

"Who's that?" the man asked, nodding to Killian.

"Killian Jones," Emma replied, "Friend of mine." The man nodded, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder before walking past. "I'm going to see Ruth later," she added, turning.

"I'll be sure to tell her!" he called back. Emma smiled sadly.

"He's my uncle, you know." She said quietly to Killian. "My dad's twin brother." Killian looked at her for a moment.

"What happened to your father, here?" He asked softly.

"He died." And the walls came back up. "He died in a fire set by Allen's men."

Killian opened his mouth to apologize.

"I have a son you know." Emma said abruptly. "Henry. I had to give him up when i had him. I've only just got him back." She pressed her fingers to her lips. "I can't lose him again." This said, she took a breath and walked away.

Killian watched her leave and thought he wanted to make her happy.