Ok I kind of get what you are saying but to me when Hook decides to return to NL has no relevance to when bae returned to our world because Bae thought he was figuring out how to leave NL on his own but when he left NL was dependent on Pan, no one else. Pan was never going to let him leave until it was the right time for him to meet Emma and have Henry. Noone knew that Pan wanted Henry or for what reason except Pan. So the only reason that Bae would end up in any AU based on a what-if scenario before Emma was even born would almost definitely have to involve Pan, and since without Rumple there would not be a connection between them or most likely an evil queen because she probably would have ended up with Robin by that point otherwise, I think it has to be a Rumple decision but that is just my opinion and I do like things to be logical. Thus far the timeline has been fairly logical. Hook’s presence would also be explained if Rumple sacrificed himself to Pan because then Hook could move on out of revenge mode earlier and would probably want to try to be a father to Bae. Again this just makes a lot more sense to me if they are doing a what-if AU. Who knows tho?