It's a Tale of Woe and Revenge
Chapter Four
Emma stared at the stranger before them in shock as Killian faltered when he stuttered the last words out of his mouth, then fell silent and turned away from him while he struggled to come to terms with seeing his father again after their last confrontation had led to him killing him. Though it was just as much of a surprise for the man to be somewhere other than in the Underworld, he seemed to smile upon seeing his son's discomfort and then reached out his hand to introduce himself to the beautiful woman standing beside Killian.
Emma refused to take his hand as she kept her arms around the man she loved, then while she glared at him, the stranger lowered his arm and said calmly, "Mademoiselle, I'm Brennan Jones. As you obviously know now, Killian's father. Killian… I realize that my arrival is a bit of a shock to you, son. I'm not exactly sure how it is I've come to be here myself. I was trapped in that terrible world of the dead for many years until…"
Without back turning around, Hook interrupted worryingly, "The only way you could have been freed from that place is if someone here reopened the portal and summoned the boatman in order to bring you here."
"Which means the only person who could've done it… Gold," Emma finished for him and looked over at Brennan once again. "Why did he do it? You must have seen him when you first arrived here. What does he want with you? Whose body do you plan to steal so that you can live again?"
"Please, I can only imagine how difficult and confusing this must be for you, for both of you, but if we could possibly go somewhere where we can talk," Brennan responded.
Killian finally turned back around as he replied steadily, "I think here is as good a place as any to talk. Please, just answer Emma's questions. What is Gold after?"
The man sighed and then answered, "I assure you both, I don't know of this man you speak of. And I wasn't brought here to this world by anyone else either. After word spread in the Underworld that Hades was destroyed by a group of heroes from a magical world called Storybrooke, things down there began to change. A King by the name of Arthur Pendragon has taken up Hades' reign and has made it possible for so many of us souls to be able to move onward, to wherever we are meant to go rather than remain trapped. However, I couldn't just move on, at least not without seeing you again, Killian. I wanted to…"
"You're not telling us what we need to know," Hook responded more sternly. "If you didn't move on, how did you wind up here?"
"With Hades gone, it appears that the rules down there are different now," he replied in frustration.
Emma shook her head and answered, "If that's really true, then a lot more souls who were trapped down there would have risen up and returned to our world, but the only person who's done it, is you. I certainly know of at least a few others who would love to return here to Storybrooke to get revenge on a few of us."
Killian looked over at Emma as he responded, "If my father does speak the truth, then we should talk to your parents and Regina and get her to place a different protection spell over our town around the pond in order to prevent anymore from coming back for, well as you said. Or perhaps try to find a way to close the portal permanently so that no one can escape into the rest of the world either."
"Killian, he's lying," she whispered as they both turned away from the newcomer so that he couldn't hear what they were talking about. "I don't know if he's lying about everything or what part of his story might be true, but he is definitely lying about something."
"Gold has to have something to do with this," Killian replied angrily. "He's made some kind of deal with Hyde, who now believes that Storybrooke belongs to him. Just because we haven't seen that Crocodile since he disappeared in New York, it doesn't mean he's not back."
When Killian rubbed his hand over his face in distress while trying to hide the tear that slipped down his cheek, then ran his hand through his hair, Emma tightened her grip on him as she turned his head up to get him to look at her and asked out of concern, "Are you all right? I don't really know what to say about your father's arrival, but…"
Killian glanced over at him, then turned back to the woman he loved and answered miserably, "I don't know what to say either. The last words he ever said to me were, 'It's never too late. You can change and be a different man.' Just after I plunged a dagger into his chest to kill him. I watched as he lay on the ground dying and felt nothing, but anger for all the pain he caused me. However, my father was right. I was able to change and became a better man because of you, Emma. But it doesn't change what I did to him. I can't… I'm sorry, Swan. I need some time alone. Be careful."
"Killian, please!" Brennan called out to him when his son walked away and attempted to go after him, but Emma quickly moved to stand in his way to stop him as she placed her hand out to hold him back until her hand phased right through his chest, having forgotten that here in Storybrooke the man was only just a spirit even if down in the Underworld the living could feel the dead.
"You're not going to go near him, not now and not ever if that's what he wants," the Savior spoke up again coldly as she glared back at the man still standing in front of her. "Killian hates himself for what he did to you, however long ago it was. And he's lived with that guilt all this time, but he isn't that man anymore. He's not a pirate, or at least… he's not the Captain Hook that everyone who knows his reputation fears. Killian is a good man and I swear if you do anything to hurt him, I will find a way to send you right back down to the Underworld and into the fire that leads to Hell."
Brennan stared at her with surprise on his face until his eyes softened and then he responded, "I can see that he isn't the same man anymore, Miss. Swan is it? And I can also see from the way you look at him, that you love him very much, as he loves you."
Emma stepped back and replied, "You're right. Killian died not that long ago when he sacrificed himself to save me and my family, as well as the rest of the people here in this town. I travelled down into the Underworld to find him and bring him back home. My family and I, we fought against Hades and risked our lives in doing so. We lost one of our friends, but we defeated the God, all for your son. So yeah, I do love him. And I will protect him."
"I only want to make things right if I can," the man answered honestly, though she suddenly felt an uneasy sense that there was something more hidden behind those words as he said them. "So what now?"
"Now, we're going into town and having a talk with my parents and Regina just like Killian suggested we do," she responded as she pulled out her phone and quickly sent off a text to David and the Queen, asking them to meet her at Granny's in the ten minutes it will take for her and Brennan to walk there. "And by the way, I just realized Killian must have told you why he had done what he did to you."
He nodded as he replied, "You mean, why he killed me? Yes he did. He said it was because the Queen had enlisted him to do so, though I'm not sure what I ever did to make her want me dead. He only said he agreed to do it so that she would give him a way to get his revenge on Rumpelstiltskin. Did he succeed?"
The Savior answered steadfastly, "He found it in his heart to give up his thirst for revenge against that monster because Killian is a good man. But that isn't why I brought up Regina. I'm trying to warn you, the Queen lives here amongst us and she's no longer the evil woman she was back then either. She's a friend, a very good friend."
Brennan looked at her in confusion for a moment until he lowered his head to keep his eyes on the ground while he followed behind her as she began to walk. The truth was, most of what he told the Savior and his son in the beginning about how he had escaped the Underworld was a lie. The Evil Queen had been the one to pull him out, but he didn't know that she had been split from the good part of her, that there were now two very different women who were both Regina.
"I see," the man stated. "I will try to keep my mind open when I see her. Although, you know that I can't actually do anything to hurt her if I wanted to, seeing as I'm still no more than a ghost who simply wants to understand why he's here, the same as you. You can't actually say it, can you?"
"Say what?" Emma asked curtly as she turned her head to glance at him before turning back to the ground ahead of her.
He shook his head as he responded, "You can't actually use the words that show you understand that my son actually killed me. Since we've started talking, you've said each time something along the lines of, 'what he did to you,' or 'why he did what he did to you,' but you've never actually used the words, 'why he killed you.' Why is that?"
She immediately stopped walking, then turned around to face him and replied angrily, "I know that Killian did kill you, Mr. Jones. I really do. Killian made a lot of mistakes and was a villain for a long time. I've seen his dark side. Just as I've seen Regina's too. However, I've forgiven both of them because they've changed. Killian has been fighting darkness for his entire life, words that your other son, Liam said to me when we met him down in the Underworld, but he's worked very hard to become the man he is now. It's one of the things that I admire most about him. Yet it's only a small reason why I love him so much."
"You really are an amazing woman," Brennan answered sincerely. "I'm glad to see that Killian's found someone like you."
"Coming from you, that doesn't mean very much," Emma responded coldly as she started walking again.
The man scoffed and replied, "So, he has told you why he hates me and why it was so easy for him to kill me."
She shook her head, then answered, "He's told me enough. I know you abandoned him and that you sold him and his brother into servitude, to a vile pirate. I used to think my parents were cruel for abandoning me. But it turns out they did what they did to save me and so that I could return to them one day to save them. They actually love me. We're at Granny's now. We'll talk more inside with the others. Come on."