When Killian opened his eyes, an eerie, flickering blue light threw shadows on the walls around him. He jerked in surprise, surprise at seeing anything at all, and discovered his arms shackled to the wall and his hook missing.
"Good, you're awake. Things are much more interesting that way."
A glace to the right found the source of the blue light. They were flames. Blue flames dancing on the head of an imposing man, broad-shouldered; his angular-face was lined with age and battle scars. His attire looked Roman, and his smile gave no comfort.
"Hades, I presume? I figured you for a myth."
"I'd say the same about you, Captain Hook." Hades grinned, a wide, toothy smile that promised pain. "But I knew you were real. You see, I've been watching you your whole life. I quite admired you for some centuries, thought of you as a kindred spirit of sorts."
Killian felt sick. A kindred spirit of the devil himself. How fitting. Hades came closer, crossed his arms as he studied Hook. When his smile widened, Killian felt cold. "But about three years ago, you became even more interesting to me."
The math was easy enough. Dread coiled in Killian's gut.
"Three years ago, you met Emma Swan. You see, I have been paying close attention to Miss Swan since her birth. She had a rough life, you know. It was lovely to watch, very entertaining. Abandoned by her parents, misunderstood by family after family, abandoned by the father of her child. Yet for some reason, this damaged girl is the savior and harbinger of happy endings? I do love irony, you know, Hook. It speaks to me."
He opened his hand, and a spray of blue flames burst from it, burning until a mirror of fire floated before them. Killian froze, riveted as images of Emma appeared in the flames. Emma kissing Henry awake. Emma abandoning Hook to the giant. Emma harnessing her power to best the Snow Queen. Emma sacrificing herself to the Darkness. Emma, weeping as she turned Hook into a Dark One to save his life.
"Two people, both lost and abandoned as children, both who watched people they loved die and determined to close off their hearts to the world- how interesting that they would decide to give their hearts to one another? So many wounds healed, for both of you, am I right? True Love, they say, conquers all."
The fire mirror changed, tinged bloody red. Killian clenched his jaw as he watched, trying to block out Hades' amused narration. Dark Emma watching Granny's outside alone, staring at Ex Caliber in the stone, weeping alone in her house.
"You fought so hard for her, to bring her back. And she resisted that darkness in a way that no one before her ever had. Every day, she fought it; every thought she had was consumed with saving you from the Darkness and keeping her son safe. She's a miracle, honestly. She barely gave in at all. So much of it was an act, obssessed as she was with freeing you. Everything she did was for you, or for her boy."
" But you...as soon as you remembered what she had done- as soon as you realized that darkness was in you- you embraced it, didn't you, Captain?"
The fire zoomed on Emma's face, and suddenly Killian's own words filled the dungeon. "Job well done, Emma!" he'd spat at her. "A blond distraction," he'd called her. The words echoed off the cold walls. "If you didn't want me to change, you should have let me die."
Killian refuse to answer. He hated that face in the mirror, hated the voice bouncing off the dungeon around him. How he'd spat on her choice to save him, no matter what. Her belief that he could be strong and overcome the Darkness, a belief no one else had ever had in him... he'd failed to live up to it. The churning cold in Killian's chest threatened to choke him.
Hades' narration continued. "She planned to sacrifice herself again, you know. Permanently this time. You seemed to realize it."
"Of course I realized it!" he shouted, jerking against the chains, gaze locked on the image of Emma's tear-streaked face in the fire mirror.
Unperterbed, Hades continued. He walked a slow circle around the flaming mirror, studying Emma's image there. "You stole the sword from her. Why?"
"You know why, demon." Killian pushed the words through his teeth.
"Of course I know. But do you?"
"She would have died. I had to stop her."
Hades sucked his teeth, shaking his head. "Perhaps that impulse still existed," he contemplated. "Yes. I think so. But we both know that was not your primary motivation. Change is so hard, after all, isn't it? Emma, she was always good. Snarky, stubborn as hell... but good. Even being the Dark One couldn't rid her of it. You, though. You had to work at it every day. And it was hard. But you did it for her. But-and here's the irony again- she's the one that made you a Dark One. She's the one that made it suddenly a million times harder for you to be who you wanted to be...for her."
Killian clenched his eyes shut. "She did it to save me. I'd have done the same thing to her. I know that now."
Hades stroked his chin. "Yes, I think you would have." Unceremoniously, the god of the underworld plopped down on the ground, tugged Killian down too. Killian tried to flinch away, but the shackles on his arms and ankles were short. Hades waved a hand, and the mirror floated down to their eye level. "But you didn't steal the sword to stop her from dying. You stole it to stop her from ruining your revenge."
Killian opened his mouth to protest, found no words to do so. He sagged against his chains. "That wasn't bloody me. That was the Darkness talking."
Hades ignored him. "At first, I was perturbed with you. If the Savior killed herself, it would certainly speed up her arrival to my realm. But this... this is actually better. Let's watch the final act, again shall we? It is my favorite."
Killian yearned to shut his eyes, block out the images, but he couldn't. He watched that final scene unfold. Watched his Dark self stand still while Nimue choked Emma.
"This part, especially. What can have been going through your mind, Captain? Relishing her suffering yet comforted, knowing she couldn't die? Then, uncertainty, when watching her choke started to pull at you, cut at you."
Killian watced himself move, watced himself draw all the darkness into Ex Caliber. Watched Emma's agonized face as he begged her to kill him and let him die a hero.
"That was her idea, first," Hades whispered to him, sing-song. "To die a hero. She's a bit reckless with her own life, isn't she? But you realized the truth then, didn't you? That you could never be a hero in life... only in death."
Were there tears on his face? Killian hardly knew, knew nothing but the agony on Emma's face in the flaming mirror, the sound of her weeping squeezing his throat.
"Could you have done this thing, Killian Jones, if she'd asked it of you? Killed her, to save the world? To make her a hero?"
No. He knew it immediately. No, he could never do it. Bugger the world. Let the world burn, if only she would live. But Emma... Emma saw more. "It doesn't matter," Killian whispered. "She was already a hero."
In the mirror, Emma stabbed him with Ex Calibur, and they both fell to the ground. Her sobs seemed to fill the dungeon, echoing and stabbing at his ears.
"Yes," Hades said. "And you were not. She gave it to you, just like you asked." He stood, studied the mirror. The flames went blank for a moment.
"I do love irony," Hades said. He waved a hand, and the flames burned green. Inside, Killian saw himself.
"I don't plan to let you down. I won't abandon you." His face said. Another promise he'd failed to keep, but at least she would live. Then, with a flash of flames, the face was not his. It was Emma's, back to the present. She shoved her parents away, weeping over his body.
"Just like every other man she's ever loved, Killian Jones... you left her. She had to watch you die, just like she always feared."
The image froze on Emma's face, a mask of despair. Killian could hardly bear to look at her, yet had no power to look away.
"It was easier to die, wasn't it, than face life knowing that you could never be the man she needed. The man you wanted to be could only exist in death." Hades elbowed Hook, and at his touch, Killian's arm seared cold. "And hey, Cap, I know it might seem otherwise, but you are actually dead now."
Killian blinked, and the fire mirror was gone. Emma's face was gone.
"But you're going to be very useful to me now that you are."
Awareness gained ground on grief in Killian's mind. He forced himself to focus on Hades, felt his eyes narrow almost against his will.
"If you plan on torturing me to entertain yourself, get on with it then. As it were, you're off to a grand start."
Hades hopped up, tapping the pads of his fingers together as he paced, his grin manic. "You?" The dark god actually laughed. "My dear Captain. This is not about you. Not about you at all. But you're my means to an end."
With a wave of his hands, the walls of the dungeon dissolved away, and the whirling vortex of the underworld spun before Killian's eyes. Suddenly, he realized how truly small his dungeon was compared to the massive sprawl of the Underworld. Beyond the spinning vortex of floating souls spanned miles and miles of land. Barren desert to the east, dank swamps to the west, arctic tundra to the north, and an eternally burning forest to the south. Screams and moans and horrific crackling of fire filled the air, and finally, Killian Jones felt fear.
"This is my world," Hades said, deadly serious now. "I am bound to it, and so Emma Swan has been safe from me." Here he turned to Killian, his lips spreading into a frightening smile. "You might wonder why so many people Emma Swan loved ended up here. Well. I made certain of it. I orchestrated events so that I could claim their souls. Bait, I hoped. I cannot leave my world, and so I must lure her here. I grew tired of waiting for her to die; she has proven herself to be annoyingly resilent. And in fact, I need her alive. I need her heart still beating."
"No," Killian whispered, beginning to see.
"The savior's heart is well-protected, as you well know, Captain. Despite her despair at their deaths, it was not touched by the other men in her life." Hades met Hook's gaze now, satisfied with the horror he found there.
"But you, Killian Jones... you are different. You touched the heart that no one else could. You got past her walls, the magical and emotional alike. Even now, she is looking for a way here, to the Underworld, to find you. She wonders if she will have to die, if she should give into her own despair and simply take her own life. It would get her here fast enough."
"No!" Killian stormed to his feet, grabbed at his chest, as if to reach for his heart, the heart that belonged to Emma. But it was still now. "No! She would never do that to Henry."
"The boy has stayed her hand so far, true. But she is not afraid to die, and she despairs enough to consider it. But death- just to be reunited with you- that is not her plan, which suits me fine. Our Emma aims higher than that. She wonders if she can get here physically, if Charon will give her passage. What she doesn't know is I have ordered the ferryman to allow it, if she chooses to try. She is working on a plan even now."
Hades noticed Hook's despair. "You should be flattered, my dear Captain. Even after watching the Queen crush the Huntsman's heart, she never wondered if it was permanent. Even after watching Baelfire die twice, she never considered storming the Underworld to bring him back to life. She never considered death as a better alternative. You have done what no one else could. Thanks to you, I don't have to wait for her to die to get her heart. I don't need a way to leave my realm to get into her world. And, you stopped her from ruining that pretty heart with Ex Caliber like she planned."
Hades waved his hands, and the dungeon walls reformed, leaving Killian in the dim, eerie glow of Hades's flaming blue hair once again. Everything in him was cold.
"No, thanks to you, Captain Hook-one way or the other-she's going to bring it right to me."