Chapter Text
|| Killian’s POV ||
We all just stared at the seemingly sleeping form of the young girl laying on a cot in the back of Gold’s shop. I still don't think we should have brought her here, more like the hospital- she looked injured. But Regina had insisted, this girl fell through a portal and both her and Emma could feel some sort of strange power emanating from her. Once Emma agreed bringing her to Gold was the safest option for us and the town I knew that any argument I had wasn't going to mean anything.
“Look, I think she's waking up,” Emma said, breaking me from my thoughts and getting Regina and Gold’s attention back on the teenager laying there.
She groaned and threw one of her arms over her face as though trying to block out any light, though there wasn't much in the room as it was.
“Are you sure you want to let her wake up still?” Gold asked the women, waving his hand dangerously, “None of us know what she is, wouldn't it be so much easier if we just killed her now?”
“We're not murdering a kid!” Emma snapped at him, Regina actually nodding her head in agreement.
“Besides, I'm sure all of us have some questions for the lass,” I said, fingering the necklace I had taken off of the girl that was currently in my pocket. “What makes you so sure she dangerous anyways?”
“A female pirate with unknown magic falls through a portal into the heart of Storybrooke isn't reason enough?” he asked as though it was obvious.
“I may have agreed with you once, Gold, but as much as I hate to agree with them- they're right. We have no proof that she's actually dangerous. Either way, her magic is neutralized and she rather of small side. She's not hurting anybody now.” Regina said, not looking at the man but at the girl as she pulled her arm away from her face and gasped in pain as it fell against her stomach.
“Oh bloody fuck!” She gasped hoarsely.
“Well she certainly has the mouth of a pirate, Gold may have actually been right about that.” Regina said, looking over at Emma and I.
I was just watching her, her eyes finally fluttering open- fear evident in them when she looked around and saw the four of us nearly surrounding her. “Where the hell am I?” she asked us, moving to push herself to sit up, gasping in pain again as she tried and only got as far as leaning up on her elbows.
“Dearie, I don't believe you're in the position to be asking any questions,” Gold told her, his threatening tone evident.
“Because of a cuff? Really? I don't have a right to know where I am because you put Pan’s cuff on me?” She asked him, her fear seeming to have dissipated some now. Or at least she was hiding it for the time being. “If you were going to kill me, you would have tried already. Not use this damn thing.” She raised her arm a little with the black leather cuff attached to her wrist.
“Look kid, don't listen to him,” Emma said calmly, walking over to the girl from my side and smiling down at her. I saw her mother in her at that point, trying to earn the girls trust rather than scare her. I didn't think scaring her would work very well anyways. “You tell us your name, and we’ll tell you where you are. Seems like a fair trade to me.”
“How about we alter that deal? Give me back my necklace, tell me where I am, and then I'll tell you my name,” she countered, finally forcing herself to sit up all the way. The strength it was taking her to do such a simple thing was evident on her face, but she wasn't giving in.
“I would give it back to you, lass, but the thing is, I'm not quite sure it's yours at all,” I said, pulling the necklace from my pocket and holding it up for her to see, “You're going to have to give us a lot more then your name to get this back.”
She glared at me, I got the distinct feeling if she wasn't hurt she would have lunged at me for the jewelry back. “I can just take it back,” she threatened me, “But I really don't feel like doing that, Pirate. Now give it back to me.”
“Woah, kid! Kid, calm down. No one is saying you can't have it back, but trust me, getting up right now is really not in your best interest.” Emma put her hands on the girls shoulders and her eyes flashed to the blond instead of me.
“No one said I would be getting up at all,” she said, quickly moving her hands and pulling the leather cuff off her wrist and throwing it to the ground. “If that thing could block my magic Pan would have used it on me himself forever ago. Not that he didn't try.”
“Pan? You were in Neverland?” Regina asked this time, obviously surprising the girl with her question. She surprised us too, I would have thought she would have mentioned the fact that the girl actually had her magic before Neverland.
“Wait… I'm not in Neverland?” She asked now, her voice holding what sounded like hope. “You mean it actually worked? I'm not in that cursed land anymore? And Pan’s not here?” She let out of a breath of relief and actually laughed, wincing in pain when she did so.
“No, he's not. Pan is dead, kid,” Emma tried assuring her.
“Yeah, I thought that too for awhile. I mean, she,” he raised a hand to Regina, “Ripped out that kids heart from Pan’s chest and then I didn't see him or Tink or any of the lost boys for… a long while. Then one day he just, came back. Strong as ever only he was trapped now. He couldn't leave Neverland. And me being the only other person on the island and having magic he doesn't, he turned his attention to me. I never thought I'd miss those bloody lost boys, but fuck being the only person on Pan’s radar really fucking sucks.” She wrapped an arm around her stomach, looking at all of else- except for Gold, “So… if I'm really not there anymore, then where am I?”
“You're in Storybrooke, dearie,” She finally looked at Gold when he was the one to answer her question, “Now would you like to explain how you got here if you thought you were still in Neverland? If any of what your saying is true.”
“Because I have no reason to lie about it?” She offered, “If there's no Pan around, there's no reason for me to lie. Not tell you things, sure, but no reason to lie,” she said with a small shrug. “I have been trying to escape Neverland since he came back. Trying to create a portal to get away. I mean fuck, this is only like the twelfth time he's broken my ribs since he got back. He may not have been able to kill me in the time we were fighting. Or rather, him fighting and me trying to escape, but fuck he tried. I made a potion, using things I could find in the forest mostly… that's when he attacked me again. I dropped the vial when I was hit, the last thing I actually remember though is blasting him back with my own magic to stop him from choking me before I woke up here.”
“If your potion worked to make a portal, how did you end up in Storybrooke?” Emma asked her and she sighed.
“I don’t know. Maybe because some of the ingredients I used were things left behind by you lot when you left Neverland on that blasted ship I had hoped to never see again.” She looked at me again, glaring a little as she held out her hand, “There, that enough information. Will you give me my necklace back now?”
“Killian, maybe you should just give it back to her, she's hasn't lied to us,” Emma said, obviously trying to make some sort of connection with the girl. Establish some sort of trust. I knew Emma would know if she had lied to us, but I didn't want to give it back to her.
“How did she end up with an exact copy of my Pirates Luck with my initials on the back of it? She's not telling us something.” I was being stubborn about this, I know. But there was something this little lass wasn't telling us and I needed to know what it was.
“What the hell are you talking about, Hook? You're initials aren't on the back of that, mine are. My mum gave me that and it's all I have from her!” She sounded exasperated, her hands clenching into fists as the rest of us looked at her in confusion.
We had all seen the necklace. We all saw the K.J. carved into the back of the skull. Emma and I had compared the two necklaces extensively, they really were exactly the same down the same scuffs on the charms- except for my initials carved into the back of the one that was around her neck.
“Kid… what's your name?” Emma asked her seriously.
“It’s Kai, okay? Kai Lee Jones. Can I please have it back now? I'm trying really hard here not to just take it.” She was serious too, I could see it in her eyes that she was fighting the urge to use her magic to take the necklace away from me. Blue eyes…. Actually they looked just like, no. No that wasn't possible.
“Is there something you've forgotten to tell us about, Guyliner?” Regina asked me as I slowly walked over to the girl and put the necklace in her outstretched hand.
“Not that I know of….” I said honestly, watching the small smile appear on the girl's face as he ran her fingers over the charms before putting the necklace back around her neck.
“What now?” Kai asked us, looking at me since that's where the other three people in the room were looking. “Do we really have the same initials? That's weird.”
“Kid… you don't just have the same initials… you have the same last name,” Emma told her, frowning deeply at me.
“Seriously! I don't know anything!” I said, holding my hand and hook up in my defense, “I'm as confused as the rest of you.
“Are you guys thinking that this guy is my dad or something?” Kai asked them, looking at everyone again as our attentions all turned back to her, “No… no. That's just not possible. My mom would've told me. She wouldn't have told me to stay away from the bloody pirate ship and it's captain if said captain was my father. I asked her who my dad was a million times, she would've told me if he was literally in my backyard my entire life.”
“Well then who is your father?” Regina asked her, “Because that's a big coincidence if the one handed wonder over here isn't him.”
Kai frowned this time, looking over at me and actually staring this time. Like she was actually seeing me rather then just glaring or glancing. “I… I don’t know… she never told me…”
“H-how old are you?” I asked her this time, she didn't look much older than Henry. And I couldn't remember anyone that looked anything like her from that time. Hell, I was frozen in time in the Enchanted Forest at that time!
“Well… that's kind of a tricky question. I guess by normal standards I'm like, sixteen. But, I was born in Neverland. Time doesn't work the same there. I was there probably like… two hundred years…”
“Time in Neverland stands still. If you were actually born there you shouldn't have aged at all,” Emma said, looking at her again, “You would still be… well, an infant.”
“You know anyone else who was born there, love?” She asked, her fingers curling around the pirates luck around her neck. “Likely not. Because I'm the only one. Time works differently for me there, because time works different for me completely since I was born there. Do you have any idea how frustrating puberty is when it lasts for decades ? I don't know what my mums reasons for having me there were, but it certainly sucked for me.”
“You hook up with anyone in Neverland, Guyliner?”
I shook my head at them, “No. I had more pressing matters to attend too while I was there.”
“Not that any of you have cared much for opinions since you've brought her to me, but it is entirely possible for the pirates memory to have been erased. If he is her father, she obviously got her magic from her mother. And whatever she is, I'm sure she had the power to do something as simple as that.” We were all looking at Gold now, with the exception of Kai. She was leaning back on one of her hands and staring at her Pirate's Luck she played with in the other. “There's an easy way to find out, just pluck a hair from each of their heads. Emma, I'm sure you can figure out the rest.”
“DNA tests can take quite awhile to come back,” Emma pointed out, “I think we would all like to figure out the answer now.”
“Don't know what a DNA test is, but I highly doubt that is what he's talking about,” Kai said, looking up at us again, “Magic. Four of the five of us have it, if you're that desperate to know if your boyfriend here is my dad I'm pretty sure you can figure it out that way.”
“And you're not curious at all to know?” Regina asked her, “You just said you asked your mother all the time who your dad is.”
“Yeah well, things change. I gave up on that a century ago, after my mum left me to go back to her land. I was, well, technically like a hundred, but with the mind and knowledge of an eight year old. I only grow up a year about every twelve years. So since I only turned sixteen last week, I guess technically I've been alive a hundred and ninety-two years, not two hundred.” She dropped her necklace and reached up, plucking a long blond hair from her head and holding it out to Emma since she was the closest to her. “Here, take it. Do with it whatever you want. Can I go now? I'm out of Neverland, I would really like to go and find a normal life now.”
Emma took the hair from the girl, but she looked at her like she was crazy for asking. “You may have been alive a ridiculously long time, but you're still only sixteen years old, kid. There's no way I can consciously let a sixteen year old with no knowledge of this land run around on her own.”
“Well then what do you suggest we do with her?” I asked, honestly curious what Emma expected to do with this girl who could possibly be my… gods that was just weird to think.
“Regina?” Emma looked at the other woman, “Would you mind looking after her? We can't trust Gold, and I have to figure this out. You can take her to your place… heal her… and you're probably the only other person who can handle themselves if she decides to use her magic.”
Kai’s mouth fell open in shock and Regina pierced her lips, not liking the idea of playing babysitter to our new visitor. “Fine,” she finally agreed, “But you better hurry up with that. I barely get to have my own son in my house, I'm not exactly fond of the idea of having your boyfriends love child there,” she said before waving her hand, her and Kai disappearing in a large cloud of purple smoke.
“Alright Killian, let's go find out if we have another kid we need to take care of,” Emma said, meaning Henry and Kai. If this was my child, she planned on staying with me still? More then that, she planned on
helping
me with her? Damn, the woman I love is full of surprises. And makes me love her more each and every day.