Someone Loved

Summary: Emma and Gold have a discussion about going to the Underworld, and their reasons.

"What do you want, Miss Swan?"

Emma swallowed back her rage at Gold. The man had gone behind their backs, betrayed them all. Betrayed Killian to his death. She knew they'd been enemies, but the cold-bloodedness of it...any other time, she'd have tried to rip him limb from limb. But now…now she had something else in mind. And she had leverage.

She drew herself up. "I want you to open the path to the Underworld, and I want you to help me find Killian and bring him back."

She wasn't expecting the low chuckle that emanated from him. "Is that all? No need to threaten me for that. You're certainly welcome to come along." Gold set the dagger down. "And really, I had planned to tell Belle the truth. I'd have to tell her something before I left, anyway."

That floored her. "What?"

He looked at her, dark amusement in his eyes. "Belle. I would have told her before I summoned the ferry. Not much point in doing otherwise. I may be a monster, but I'd never leave her without telling her. Not now, at any rate." He slid the dagger back into it's sheath. "Wasn't planning on having company, but I suppose you're welcome, especially since you seem so determined."

"What the hell are you talking about?" He started to turn away, and she caught his arm. "What the hell is going on?" He turned to look at her. "What are you planning?"

"I believe I just told you. I'm planning to go to the Underworld. And I'm allowing you to join me."

"Why are you going to the Underworld?"

The laugh that clawed it's way out of him was far darker than the first. "You really have no idea? How quickly you forget. I'm rather disappointed."

Truth hit her with the force of a falling dragon. "Neal."

"My son. Yes. I intend to find him. And if I can, if the trade I've in mind works, I intend to bring him back."

Shock hit her. Neal had been dead for so long...she missed him, but she'd moved on a long time ago. Henry still mourned the missed chances to know his father, she knew that, but still… "It's been two years. And you said..."

"I know what I said. But I didn't know about the way to open the path to the Underworld. That power wasn't possible, not until the dagger was united with Excalibur once more."

She swallowed hard. "But...it's been two years since he died."

"Indeed it has." Gold's eyes met hers, and she was shocked by the roiling, twisting emotions in them. "And do you know where I was, the day you buried him? The day you laid my boy to rest?"

Of all the questions she'd expected, it wasn't that. Still, she found herself answering. "Zelena had you..."

"Yes. Zelena had me. In a cage, in a cellar, trapped and kneeling in filth." He turned away, but the hand on the counter clenched, white-knuckled as he strained to rein himself in. "I bound my son to me for over a year to keep him alive. There was enough of that binding left...I felt you bury him. Every shovel of dirt."

She felt like she'd been sucker-punched, and hard too. Gold kept speaking, the words pouring forth as if they'd been trapped behind some dam that she had accidentally breached.

"I felt you bury him. But she wouldn't let me go. While you...all of you, stood around my son's grave, I mourned him, felt it as he was buried and the last ties of magic, the last ties of his life force were buried, smothered under the soil. And I wept. I mourned. And while I did...Zelena stood over me. She made sure every tear I cried caused me physical pain to equal my grief."

Emma winced. "She..."

"Watched me grieve, tortured me for each tear shed. And when I had nothing left, when I'd no more tears to shed, she mocked me. And she asked me if he had been worth everything I'd done, everything I'd suffered. If he had been worth three hundred years of solitude, the loss of my true love, the destruction of worlds. If he'd been worth death and madness and imprisonment and torture."

Gold turned to look at her, and she read the answer in his eyes, even as he spoke the words. "And I told her: yes. He was worth every moment of it. And I still believe that."

All the things she thought she knew, all the rage she'd nurtured over his betrayal, crashed down around her and formed a new picture. "That's why you created the loophole. That's why you did this, why you became the Dark One again."

"Yes. It is." His hands caressed the sheathed dagger. "Hook's spell couldn't summon Bae, because he was never the Dark One. Only a victim of the price of resurrection. But I can go to the Underworld. And I can get him back now." He heaved a deep sigh. "Or, at the least, I can give him a proper farewell."

Emma swallowed hard. "Gold...I..."

"You have your right to be angry. I won't pretend otherwise. And if you want to come along and rescue your pirate lover, then I've no objections. Of course, managing the price is your affair, not mine." He met her eyes, calm once more. "Agreed?"

It was hard to breathe, or talk, around the lump in her throat. "Agreed." She stood a moment longer, then turned and walked away, out of the shop and down the road toward her parents loft.

She should have been filled with the hope of getting Killian back. Filled with anticipation. She should have been thinking about how to make the journey, what preparations she'd need to make. How to tell her family what she was doing.

Instead she found herself remembering Neal's funeral. The cold, wintry, overcast day they'd buried him. The short service, with Archie speaking as the minister. Each silent farewell. Killian first, the closest thing Neal had had to a father with Rumplestiltskin not there.

But he should have been there. He'd been a prisoner, and she'd never thought about how he'd felt, denied attendance at his son's funeral.

Every shovel of dirt. He'd felt Hook's goodbye, and Regina's. And Belle's. Robin Hood's. Snow and David. Henry.

Hers. The last shovel cast, the honor given to her as Neal's lover, the mother of his son.

She had loved Neal. She loved Killian too, with all her heart, and she'd never deny him, but she had loved Neal. Had he not died, she might have loved him as much or more than Killian. She had chosen Neal over the pirate several times. It didn't change how she felt now, and she was still determined to save Killian Jones from the fate he had been given. From the unfairness of his death.

But she couldn't shake the words of Gold's confession. Of what he'd told her.

He'd used Killian's death to gain the power to find his son. The son he had loved, died for, lived for, suffered for. As angry as she'd been when she stormed into his shop, she couldn't hate him for it now.

They'd both lost someone they loved. Someone who had died untimely, died as a sacrifice so they could live. Someone who had died to save the world from evil. She was willing to rip the gate open to save her love, she couldn't fault him for having had the same thought.

Even if she did think he was a bit of a bastard for trying to do it alone, for treating Killian's sacrifice so lightly. And even if she was a bit pissed that he'd been the one to think of it first. Still…

She shook her head. She needed to plan what she was going to do and how. Magic had a price, and bringing Killian back was sure to have a steep one. She needed to figure out how she was going to manage it. Gold would have to handle his own price. But if they were lucky, they'd both get their loved ones back.

She pulled out her phone and dialed to call Regina. She had a mission to plan, and she'd need the help of her family if she was going to pull it off.

Author's Note: AU. But this is what I thought should have happened.