A/N: Here is the week's update a bit early in light of Christmas. After this, it will be back to weekly updates. Enjoy!
"In case you were wondering," he says, catching his breath and snapping his eyes shut at the blinding light sticks shining at him. "It goes the whole way round."
Swan's focus...and light stick...returns to the wall, but David's shoulders tense. He takes his sweet time lowering the light, too.
"Hook," he sighs. "I didn't know you were joining us."
He edges closer to them, the shadow of a grin burgeoning at the chance to rile up both of them.
"I get a distress call from a fair maiden and I'm on the spot." Ah, Swan rolling her eyes at him once again. David places his hands on his hips and shifts his weight, more determined to look at the ice wall than ever.
"I was not distressed, and you're saying this wall goes around, what, the whole town?" she asks, but more with the tone of hoping he'll some something to contradict that assumption. She knows all too well the wall doesn't end. David shifts again, leaving only one hand on his hip, his other arm flexing and twitching every which way.
"Aye, that it does."
"So once again we can't leave Storybrooke," he concludes, on the edge of both snapping and sighing.
"Doing more than keeping us inside by the looks of that," Killian notes, a fallen pole with wires and metallic barrels all around it. It looks familiar...because they line up along the perimeters of the streets, joined together by the lines, he remembers, swelling with pride at solving it. Power lines. He knows it's a small triumph, but he'll take it. "I guess that's what caused the loss of power?"
She blinks and flinches, her torso turning toward him with a subdued look of pride on her face. "Look at you becoming a twenty-first century man. Yeah, it looks to me like whoever was putting up the wall wasn't trying to take out the lights. They were just putting up the wall."
Stands to reason, he thinks with a slight nod of his head. He may not know much about magic, but he knows well enough someone like Regina or Rumpelstiltskin could snuff out every light with a wave of a hand, a towering wall completely unnecessary.
"To keep us all in. Why?" David wonders out loud.
Because the only reason you keep someone in is to keep them from getting out, he thinks.
"Kill us all one by one," he answers, well aware he's chosen the most theatrical phrasing possible. David recoils. "It's what I'd do."
He moans out a sound of disgust, the chatter coming from something in the car they came in the perfect excuse to step away from the pirate for a few moments. Smirking, he glances over at Swan, still trying to form her own conclusions in regards to the whole thing. Well, if he can unnerve one member of the family so easily, he knows exactly how to unnerve the other.
"Oh! I should have brought the champagne!" He gestures into the air and sways a bit, mirroring the intrigued smile she doesn't even know she's giving him.
"What?"
"To celebrate our second date, and because we've got the world's biggest ice bucket." Had she not perpetuated using Regina as an excuse, they could have explored this Netflix thing, maybe have been dining and conducting other activities before this newest crisis. He's all for a well-lit room to allow him to see every facet of her, every twinge of change in her face, but even he will acknowledge there are situations in which pitch darkness can be romantic rather than sinister.
She might as well be able to hear his thoughts with the speed in which her face falls. She knows where he's going with this.
"Second date? Did I miss the first?"
"Aye, the snow monster's the first; ice wall's the second. After all, if I only counted quiet dinners, we wouldn't even get one." He wants to go on, reiterate again how pointless it is to put off and put off some more until everything's back to normal. Gods, this is Storybrooke. This is normal. For a moment, she flusters, her mouth setting in a way that he knows she agrees but...
"I think I see something behind the wall." Still flustered, her eyes dart as best they can to him while still never leaving the wall. "You wait here with the ice bucket while I check that out."
Well, never a dull moment. He can say that much.
David returns, the corner of Killian's eye catching something like reluctance in him.
"I think it's time you and I have a little talk about your intentions with my daughter," he says. Oh, this should be rich.
"That's a little old-fashioned, even by my standards, and I still pay with doubloons."
"Oh, I remember your reputation." David heaves a sigh and follows Emma's silhouette along the ice with his light stick, meant to be avoiding eye contact, of course, he thinks, but if he's supposed to feel any discomfort from it, it's a spectacular failure since all he's achieving is making it more awkward...and rather insulting. He knows far easier ways to find, well, far easier companionship. "Emma is not some conquest."
"I wouldn't risk my life for someone I see as loot," he says, sure to add some bite to his tone. Cocking his head, he hopes to make eye contact, but David refuses to even turn his head. "Whatever we become, it's up to her as much as me."
At last he glances over at him with an embarrassed expression, one that sets a poultice over the insults. It hadn't been doubt; rather simply seeking reassurance. She is his daughter, after all, and the noble prince is still getting used to having one. He lifts his eyebrows to make certain they're all right, that they don't need to have this discussion again, and mercifully David understands and nods. Well, back to business. Ice business...Storybrooke's magical natural state...
He trudges up closer to the wall, Emma's outline disappearing behind the jagged points. At least if there is a clue to be found regarding who or what caused this, it should be easy to spot provided it isn't glacier blue.
"Emma?"
She's standing atop a small narrow ridge with a woman in a pale diaphanous gown that blends in with the ice, hair so blonde it's closer to white. There's no doubt in his mind she's responsible for the wall...her clear white appearance seems to imply she was made to create ice walls...stop, stop walking. He almost staggers to a stop as both Emma and the ice woman have their arms locked out at them in a warning.
"Stay back," Emma calls to them, fairly calm, so he focuses on the other woman. Her chest heaves, her breathing loud enough and rapid enough to tell she's fighting off panic, her face whiter than it had been just seconds ago if that's even possible. David holds his gun at the ready, only for snowflakes to fall out of nowhere around them. A howling wind prevents either of them from deciphering what Emma's trying to shout to them. Not even a second goes by before the ridge begins to rumble, more turrets of stony ice penetrating up from the ground, mounds of snow from the top of the wall toppling down, down, ever closer to them. He dodges to the ground and covers the back of his head, wet chunks of snow slicing at the back of his neck and melting once they hit his skin. Their melted remains trickle down his back.
In a rush, the biting air stings his eyes, the snow gives way for his fingertips and palm maneuvering around, and the snowflakes in front of his face freeze midair before vanishing as quickly as they came. Lifting up his head, he sees the ridge is gone. There is only more wall.
He leaps up as best he can on the ice and just stands there, swallowing. She's not there. One minute right in front of him and the next gone, behind all this. She's not there.
"The device. Call her," he orders David as soon as he too realizes Emma's nowhere. Gone. Behind the ice. In the wall.
"Emma? Are you in there?" David cries into the metal block. Nothing but a crackle.
"I'm getting her out."
There's enough of a path left to climb onto the spot where she was, and for an absurd second, he believes he should be able to see her if he just stays right there on it. No. No, she's behind the ice. In the wall. His hook digs into the ice, flecks of it chipped away, but no more. It's as thick as it looks and she's behind it.
"What if we lift?" David tries, already stooping down to search for a weakness, a gap in the ice boulders. He braces against it to give him leverage, but to no avail. He goes back to chipping away at it. Fleck by fleck, he has to! Has to get in there, get her away from that woman before she freezes her...
Damn it, David, breaking his concentration and his task, grabbing his arm, keeping his hook away from the ice.
"Don't! I'm not giving up!"
"We won't, but this is not getting us anywhere!" he shouts back, his voice already hoarse.
"Well I'm open to suggestions!" He'll give him a few seconds. Please, David. Some idea.
"Magic made this thing," David thinks out loud. "I think we're going to need magic to unmake it, and I'm not going to stop fighting until we do." His features light up, maybe an idea coming. Hopefully an idea coming. He brings the brick up to his mouth again. "Emma, do you hear me? Emma, are you okay? Say something!"
Nothing answers his pleading barks, just a few nonsensical sounds.
"Dad? Can you hear me?"
Longest two seconds of his life...he snatches the brick and speaks into it.
"Emma. Say again."
"I'm...in here with this woman. She's looking for her sister, Anna." She's cold. She's freezing cold because she's behind the bloody ice. Listening to her shaky words, like she's speaking quicker than she can think, it's too easy to picture each shiver that interrupts her train of thought. "She thinks Anna is in town because..." she hisses at the ice around her. "...she found a necklace of hers in Gold's shop. She wants us to try to find her before..."
"Before I freeze this town and everyone in it," the stronger voice of the other woman finishes for her.
Ordinarily, he would avoid this place. Ordinarily he would be more inclined to seek out Regina, whether she was making herself scarce or not. But with Emma's life on the line, the only image that comes to mind upon considering Regina is that look of pure unadulterated hatred she shot at her last night in front of the diner.
So here they are in front of the pawn shop, and he has to close his eyes and grit his teeth and hope, hope, Rumpelstiltskin is in a generous mood.
He tells himself it will be all right as he closes the car door and bursts into the main room with David, the bell heralding their arrival. "Ambivalent" is the first word he can think of when he tries to gauge just how the Dark One and the Savior get on, which leaves room for the hope he will be inclined to help her.
It also leaves room for the thought that he would let her die without so much as an eye blink, but he pushes that notion out of his head.
"It appears our honeymoon is over," Rumpelstiltskin sighs to Belle. The two of them stand behind the counter, binders and books and cards splayed out everywhere, an inventory of some kind.
"Yeah, there's an emergency. Emma's trapped under ice by a woman with some kind of ice magic," David says.
"And this involves me because...?"
Bloody selfish coward... "Ambivalence," his ass...
"You're the bloody Dark One! Do something!" he blurts out. All the power in the world wasted...
"Well I could melt the ice and destroy it with a thought, but that would also destroy your girlfriend. Is that what you want?" Rumpelstiltskin counters, and he clenches his fist. His arm draws back just an inch.
David throws out an arm between the two of them. Killian's seen it before under many different circumstances, how one person's panic inspires another's calm, and a fortunate thing, too, since he is this close to coming apart at the seams. They shouldn't waste their time with someone of his caliber. They should nab some locator spell or the like wedged in some corner of this shop and just go recruit Regina into this, promising her anything in return for a shot of practical, non-lethal magic.
"Now the woman who has Emma trapped is in there with her, and she's looking for her sister. Name of Anna," he hears David explaining as he attempts to control his breathing. "She thinks she's in town because of something of hers she found in your shop, a necklace."
"Is that it?" Belle thrusts one of the cards out at them so quickly he blinks. So that explains taking inventory on one's honeymoon; naturally the ice woman would take the necklace after seeing it. He stares at the small square picture of it, a snowflake. Of course. He skims over the descriptor in small blocked letters next to it, but no clues leap out at him.
"Wait," David murmurs, staring at it even harder than he is. He releases his grasp and lets David take it, his brow furrowed in thought. "I know this. I know exactly who Anna is."
"Anna?" Belle repeats, squinting at the name.
"No time to explain. Thank you." There's no time to even glance back at them, for he has to follow David out. He's broken into a run even though the car is right in front of the shop.
"Get in! I know where to go!"
Killian won't ask questions until they're well on their way, the sooner the better as there seems to be a silent agreement between the two of them not to use the talking brick until they are able to provide the ice woman some answers, although the temptation to ask her to put Emma on, to just check on her for a second, grows by the minute.
"What are we doing?" he mutters at the glass in front of him.
"Anna's an old friend. Long story," David adds, gesturing with his hand. "And in the short time I knew her, she was branded by someone."
"Branded? You know we can't return this woman worse for wear."
"No, no...it's this magic thing."
"You know it's easy to see where Emma gets her communication skills..."
"Just...follow my lead."
He stops several streets over at a dank shop, its dirty glass windows apparent even in the dark. Leaning forward in his seat, he sets his jaw at the torn papers peeling off the front door.
"She's a butcher here, but she was, she was someone who lorded her power over everyone where I come from, and one of the ways she did that was by being able to keep tabs on everyone she branded, or marked with her magic."
"And she branded Anna a long time ago," he concludes. Taking into account the hushed way David speaks about her, he glances down at his sword. "I take it this woman's not the type who appreciates negotiation."
David shakes his head. "I'll try it. Cursed identities can do a number on people, but..." he trails off, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. "How do you feel about taking the back entrance?"
At this point he's prepared to slit her throat, but he'll keep that to himself. Opening his door and stepping out as quietly as he can, he spends an eternity closing it with the same delicacy. The street lights and windows still black, he raises an eyebrow.
"If the power's out, mate, wouldn't it be more likely she's at her house?"
David half-whistles, half-exhales before words form. "She took particular joy out of what she did then. Trust me, chopping up flesh in the dark sounds like her thing."
Slitting her throat sounds better and better all the time. Yet he scurries around to the back of the building, past an overloaded dumpster that even in the middle of the night has a host of flies buzzing around it. He steps around a puddle too dark for him to tell if it's water or blood, the spillage from a butcher's shop slightly different from the guts and fluids on the deck of a ship. He tries the handle on the door and, clucks his tongue at the fact it's unlocked. Confident war lord-turned-butcher or whatever she was.
He steps through a short dark corridor that comes out right where David and the woman are talking, surrounded by cleavers.
"You don't have your helpers here with you anymore, Peep."
"Right. I just have one," her sharp unpleasant voice gloats as she picks up one of the cleavers. "Say hello."
He rushes out and takes hold of her wrist with his hook, shifting to the side to avoid the blade hitting him in the head. David leaps over the counter and backs her into one of her lockers.
"Now, my daughter's in trouble and I need to find the person that can help her, someone you branded."
"I branded a lot of people," she says with an almost erotic satisfaction in her smugness. Not two minutes have gone by and already he believes without a shadow of a doubt David's assertions regarding how terrible she was.
"Her name was Anna. She went by Joan back then."
"Do I look like I keep a record book?" she snaps at him. "'Cause I don't."
"Then you know what I need. Hook, back room!" he calls to him. It's what they should have done in the first place, just broken in and taken it. He only half-listens to the instructions being shouted at him. Something tells him he'll know a conspicuous out-of-place item when he sees it. His eyes lock in on a shepherd's crook propped up on the wall of the desk.
"You're looking for a shepherd's crook!"
Was able to glean that for myself, mate, he thinks, unable to resist catching a glimpse of the woman's rage at it in his hand.
"Hey! Hey! That's my personal property! Give it up!"
"Sorry," he hears David say. The two of them are engaged in some sort of heated argument, probably something having to do with the old days, but the brick sends out a deep piercing sound like rushing wind.
"Hello? Hello? This is Elsa. You need to bring Anna here now. Please. Emma's losing consciousness. I'm, I'm afraid she'll freeze to death. Please. Please, I can't control it."
He should answer. He should do something, anything, besides stand frozen himself.