Find My Way Back To You

Chapter 5

--- EMMA'S POV ---

I can feel Killian's eyes on me as I leave his ship behind me. I know he doesn't have his memories and true loves kiss obviously won't break this curse, but I couldn't help not giving him that cheek kiss before I left. It might be confusing to him now, but he'll get it as soon as he has his memories back, which hopefully will be the case very soon. I can't say, that I didn't need this kiss right now, either. It would have been too weird for me to just walk away without a real goodbye since I've kissed Killian whenever I went somewhere without him for years now. Also, this was kind of a symbol to me. A small message of hope, that makes me believe that everything will be okay. It has to be. I won't give up. That wouldn't be fair to myself or to Hope. She deserves to have both of her parents at their best and we're at our best, when we're together without anything in our way.

Speaking of my adorable daughter, I momentarily stop on the middle of main street to look at her. I checked on her multiple times during our walk, but now is the only time I stop walking since my baby is awake. She looks up at me with sleepy eyes, that kind of seem sad to me.

She might have realized, that something bad happened. She really is a smart kid.

I softly stroke her head. "Don't worry, sweetie. We'll find a way to save your dad. Soon. I promise." I whisper in a soft voice, trying to sound confident for Hope's sake, but I don't think it worked out too well. I'm not even sure, if I was trying to convince her or myself.

"Let's go get some help."

I'm going to search for my parents now and they'll help me figure this out. My dad mentioned, that he had some work to do at the station today, so that's where I'll check for him first. If he's not there, I'll check at the school since my mother should be there, unless she went to get lunch. But that wouldn't be too bad either since I know, she always eats at Granny's.

Luckily, I don't have to search for long though, so making plans was pretty unnecessary, I realize that as I walk into the station. I hear their voices as soon as I'm inside.

"Emma, is that you? Are you back already?" I hear my mum ask me.

"Yeah." I answer, while closing the door behind me and Hope.

I walk inside the main room, where my parents are, too. My dad is working through some paperwork and my mum just watches him. She is probably visiting him during her lunch break. I'm sure Killian would do the same every day, if he wasn't working with me and my dad. That's also why I miss him a lot. This is the longest we've been apart for as long as I can remember. It's honestly a wonder we never get tired of each other, but I guess that's what true love is all about. Anyway, that proves how much I need my parents help with the whole memory loss problem.

"I'm glad you're here. There's been a problem. Killian's memories are kind of messed up and I need your help retrieving them."

Both their heads swing in my direction instantly and they look at me as if I'm a crazy person, who should be locked into a mental hospital. Then their eyes narrow on Hope as if they don't know her at all.

"Emma, who is Killian? And whose baby is that?" My dad walks over to me cautiously and puts his hand on my forehead, checking for a fever, probably. When he realizes, that my temperature isn't too high, he looks relieved, but there's still a weird kind of worry hidden in his eyes.

"Killian? Do you mean Hook? Why would you care about his memories? He took Belle's memories, so he deserves it."

What the hell?! That was so long ago. Belle isn't even alive anymore and they were friends before she died. All this can only mean one thing. My parents don't remember the last few years either. What the hell is this curse doing? Is the whole town affected?

"The curse messed up your memories, too." I say and they both look at me with even more pity and worry.

"Emma, I think you should go home and rest a little. You're not well. There is no curse anymore. You broke it a few weeks ago. Everything is fine. This is all probably just the stress talking – I mean no one could blame you. So much is happening – Cora being here, Hook trying to kill Rumpelstiltskin and having injured Belle because of it..." My dad says, while he puts his hand protectively on my shoulder.

"I'm well, everyone else just isn't."

It's that moment that I realize, that something is incredibly off about this situation. All of this can't be connected to the curse. There's no way the whole town could be affected a few days after the curse happened. This can't be it.

"We're fine, Emma. Did Cora do something to you? To confuse you or anything?" My mother says.

Cora.

Killian's memories went back to that time, too. Does that mean what I think it means?

I look down at my daughter and her tiny hands. She's so small, that you wouldn't think of her as extremely powerful, but she is. I'm the product of true love, which gives me strong light magic already, but Hope obviously has even stronger light magic. She is the product of the Savior's true love with her pirate. I was wrong to assume she only brought us to the docks because she missed her daddy. It might be what she intended to do, but no one has taught her how to control her magic yet. So, it's no surprise, that something went incredibly wrong. Killian has been telling her the story of how we met and fell in love almost every night before she went to sleep. She probably thought of those stories, when she wanted to travel us to the docks, so instead, she brought us back to the docks in the past.

I should've realized this all sooner. No wonder true loves kiss with Killian didn't work. True love can break any curse, so I should've seen, that this isn't caused by a curse.

I shouldn't have underestimated my daughter. But who would think, that a baby is capable of travelling back into the past. When Zelena tried to open a time portal with her dark magic, she needed many ingredients and she had to die to activate the portal, but Hope can open a time portal with the flick of her hand? That's insane and if I wouldn't be so worried about how we'll get back home, I'd be very proud of my baby. I once before had to find my way back to the future, but I doubt the wand will work again since we didn't really travel here through a portal. One second, we were home and the next we were at the docks. Travelling through a time portal is different. I know that for sure since Killian and I fell through one the last time – well I fell, he jumped after me.

"I know this is going to sound crazy, but you don't happen to know how to time travel, do you?"

My parents looked even more confused now and as if they didn't have enough on their plates already, my past self just walked into the station with takeout from Granny's. As soon as she sees me, she lets those bags drop to the floor though and stares at me with an open mouth.

"Who- What- Why?"

She obviously doesn't manage to get a full sentence out and I'm not surprised. I might have travelled to the past before, but it's still weird for me to see myself. And another problem is that this time I changed the past far too much already. There's no way I can fix this without taking everyone's memories. So, I don't only have to find a way back home, I also have to find a forgetting potion that works on the whole town. That's just great.