AN: The penultimate chapter! It's massive and angsty af. Also melodrama because my mind is a soap opera. Eeek! Hope you enjoy, anyway! Thanks again for the follows/faves/reviews, I love you all xoxo.
I listened to The Gaslight Anthem's Keepsake A LOT when writing this chapter. It may have influenced some things…
Chapter Seven
Darkest Before
"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." – Galatians VI KJV
Lights flicker on, their dim glow reminding Emma of the emergency lighting you sometimes get in offices after dark. They reveal a grey, narrow room without windows or any obvious way to escape. The bonds of light that Hades had used to tie them together back in the apprentice's house have been replaced with ropes the thickness of Emma's finger that pull tightly between them all and drag them close in the centre of the room.
David appraises their situation with a raised brow and a sarcastic look.
"Okay. Now what. Do we just stand around and wait for our worst nightmares to pop out of the walls?"
Regina attempts to cross her arms, fails thanks to the thick ropes, and huffs irritably.
"Well that would be the easy option, as that is more or less what an ordinary week in Storybrooke consists of."
"Is Hades' approximation a fair reflection of this Storybrooke then?" Liam asks, directing his question to Henry with a smile.
"Eh." Henry shrugs.
"Mostly." Sighs David, just loud enough to be heard.
Killian laughs, more brightly than Emma can remember hearing, well, ever if she's honest.
"There are somewhat fewer conflagrations, and slightly better lasagne. But you will become fond of the place in time. It tends to have that effect."
He smiles at her and squeezes her hand, and god if she doesn't just feel so ridiculously happy she could fly. No demon can touch this. No demon can touch them. No way, no how.
Snow clears her throat.
"Uh, guys?"
There's a strange mist that appearing at one end of the corridor, swirling and thickening until it suddenly fades and reveals a long darkened staircase, topped with an old oak door.
Spotlights click on with an audible thump, illuminating each stair in a sickly green glow.
"Is this some sort of joke?"
Regina turns on Rumplestiltskin, who shrugs lightly.
"His idea of dinner theatre, I expect."
"You know," Henry says, still somehow cheerful despite the fact that demons are pretty much guaranteed to rip them limb from limb at any moment, "if this was a horror movie, they'd totally be playing the dramatic tension music right now."
Emma manages a smile.
"So are we going to wait for these 'demons' to make their presence known, or are we taking the fight to them?"
"Oh, I think we can handle it." Regina smirks, "Emma?"
Emma forces her shoulders back and head for the stairs.
They mount them in a huddle, partly because there's comfort in closeness, but mostly because the ropes binding them don't allow too much distance. Emma mentally counts the weapons at their disposal; her magic, the two pistols (though she can't remember how many rounds are left – not enough, even if they were any use). Neither the bows nor Liam's crowbar will be much use in such close quarters.
Well, she's faced worse odds. Probably.
Regina, who has ended up at the front of the group, heaves the door open. It groans as if it knows they're in a nightmare and this is its moment to shine.
"I think I prefer the movies. More popcorn, less…" Henry runs a hand over the pitted wood and shudders, "whatever this is."
"It's worse than I thought," Regina drawls from within, "we're in the circle of hell devoted to pastels."
Emma shuffles in on Robin's heels, hands thrumming slightly as she prepares to channel her power at a moment's notice. Her jaw drops as she takes in her surroundings, something hot and raw roiling through her stomach.
It's a bright room. Pale pink walls and butterfly bedsheets. There are toys and teddy bears scattered about, a white dresser and wardrobe. It's the perfect little girl's room.
She feels ill.
The gingham curtains flutter lightly in a summer breeze, and she knows for a fact that if she were to look out of the window she'd see miles of mid-Western farmland laid out before the little blue mailbox at the end of the drive that says 'Swan.'
"Is this some sort of joke?" She chokes out past the bile in her throat, grabbing fistfuls of their bindings and tugging blindly.
"Come on. Come on. Let's get out of here."
"Not so fast, Swan. What's the problem?"
"Indeed, no brimstone, no fiery creatures trying to eat us? It's nice." Robin gives her a little smile.
Emma can't return it, not with the way her whole body is trembling with the urge to run. Fuck Hades and his tests and his deals, she'll think of something else, they've got to go. She pulls at the ropes again, but it's like all her strength has left her.
"It's a lie, that's what it is. Now come on!"
There's a sob n her voice, and then there isn't. It's in the air instead. Snow, who had been about to lift a hand in comfort, stops dead.
"Wait. Wait, is someone crying?"
Emma feels the blood drain from her face.
"No," she lies.
"Yes, yes they are. It's coming from the wardrobe."
Snow heads towards the source of the sound, forcing everybody to follow.
"Don't open the wardrobe," Emma pleads.
"Can't you hear it, Emma?"
Snow lays her hand on the wardrobe handle, brow furrowed in concern.
"Mom, please! Don't open the door!"
She opens the door.
Emma feels all her breath leave her body in a rush. It might even be a whimper. It's hard to tell over the sobs emanating from the wardrobe and its small, blonde occupant. She staggers backwards, only Killian's firm body behind her keeping her upright.
"Emma," her dad's voice wavers, "Emma, is that you?"
She nods blindly, unable to tear her eyes away from the way her younger self is curled up in a quivering ball. The way her mother has fallen to her knees at the wardrobe door, hand outstretched.
"Emma?" Snow uses the soothing voice that's usually reserved for injured birds and baby Neal's very worst fits of temper, "Emma, honey, it's okay. I'm here."
Emma – real, adult, not-a-figment-or-a-memory, Emma – shivers at the cold flash of dread that runs down the back of her neck and settles in her bones. She wants to drag her mother away from this imposter child, scream at the unfair unreality of it all, but she gags on the words.
It isn't real. It isn't real. Except for the way that it is.
"What's wrong," Snow croons, "What's wrong, baby?"
Emma's weeping doppelganger snuffles into her raised knees.
"My mama doesn't want me," she sobs.
Snow jolts, and Emma can feel the way it reverberates in the rope that connects them.
"She does, darling. So much. You'll see."
"No she doesn't. She said she wanted me, she said she'd been waiting and waiting. But now she's got me she doesn't want me, she's having a baby of her own. A real baby."
Her angry little voice subsides into more sobs, and Emma feels the world tilt and blur and – and they're not in Kansas anymore.
The delicate prettiness of the little girl's room has morphed into the dank, green, suffocating familiarity of a cave. A cave back on Neverland, with a bridge made of secrets and hope ground to dust. Neal's prison, the cage they'd come here to free him from, sits at the other end of the bridge. Little Emma sits inside it, pale and drawn and breaking her heart, the sound of her tears magnified in stereo.
"I want to have another baby!" Snow cries, but her lips don't move, and the cave seems to make each echo louder than the one before
Another baby – another baby – another baby.
Little Emma wails.
The bridge shudders and begins to crumble, pieces dropping down into the chasm below, leaving little Emma stranded.
"Mama!" she wails, "Mama!"
Emma doesn't know why she looks down. Maybe it's because this is cutting too close to the bone. Maybe it's because she's too close to tears to catch anyone's eye. Maybe it's a sixth sense. She does, though, just in time to see the way that the bonds around Snow's wrists are fraying and loosening, to catch her mother's intent in the way her back straightens and her muscles clench, the way she moves for the edge of the crevasse as the ropes begin to ping apart.
"Mom, no!"
She's sort of semi-aware that her wild leap pulls everybody else with her, grunts and thumps behind her giving it away, but she doesn't much care. Her only concern is grabbing onto the back of Snow's coat with both hands for dear life.
Snow struggles in her grip, and the demon wails even more loudly. The very ground seems to be quaking under their feet.
"Dad!" Emma spits out, as tiny as she is Snow is strong as hell, "A little help here!"
David is too far back though, twisted up in knots with Robin and Henry. It's Regina who takes hold of Snow's middle and helps Emma to bodily haul her back.
"Thanks," Emma gasps out, leaning down slightly to take her mother's tear stained face in her hands.
Regina mumbles something non-committal about the foolishness of spelunking whilst tied to a lunatic.
"Emma," Snow sobs, "Oh Emma, I'm so sorry. All I ever do is fail you. I'm – "
Emma shushes her, feeling a bit too emotionally fraught for much else, and reaches down to re-tie the frayed ends of their connections. As she does so she hears the sobs fade away. The dankness of the cave lifts.
"I love you, Mom, okay? It's just Hades messing with your head. It's not real."
Snow nods, wiping her eyes with the back of their joined hands, and when Emma looks back up she realises that they are once again in the empty hall, staircase, door and all.
"I'm sorry to say it is, at least to you," says Rumple, not terribly apologetically at all, "Hades has no power over the land of the living, but he is able to see the story of any soul he comes into contact with. It's how he sets his terms, for those seeking to pay penance, and how he chooses his price."
"I'm surprised you ever wanted to leave this place, seems like you two are kindred spirits." Grunts David, finally unknotting himself enough to draw closer to his wife.
Rumple grimaces at him.
"Have you, at any point in our acquaintance, known me to be a fan of sharing?"
Without dropping Snow's hands, Emma turns to Liam; though she has to speak to him over Killian's shoulder thanks to their bonds.
"Is that what Milah meant, when she said he'd show you things?"
Liam nods.
"Aye. He can reward those who please him and torture those who don't."
"Like… watching your own funeral?"
Liam scrunches his face up in distaste.
"I suppose, if one were so morbidly inclined. Mostly he preferred to demonstrate your abject failings, which is, I strongly suspect, what he is attempting to achieve here."
Emma feels Snow shudder. Attempting, she thinks, might not quite be the word.
"Our worst fears, the worst parts of ourselves."
Emma sighs. This is going to be great fun.
Henry is looking around the empty room in confusion.
"I thought we were going to fight demons? Like those monsters?"
Killian smiles at him, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes.
"There are far more disagreeable things than monsters, lad, and they are mainly to be found in our own minds."
Regina brushes invisible dust off of her coat, glaring at the returned staircase.
"And if there's one thing I hate more than literal demons, it's figurative ones."
"Shall we?" Liam gestures towards the staircase, and Emma notices for the first time that only one of his wrists is bound, "We will achieve little by standing around bemoaning Hades' tricks."
They repeat themselves, shuffling up the stairs again. Even the creak of the door is the same cadence. Emma manages to get through first this time, though. Killian and Liam close on her heels.
("You first Killian, if you insist on being the elder we will go age before beauty!"
"Liam!"
"Tell me, do all you pirates blush so?"
"Liam, shut up!")
It's a graveyard. Zero points for originality, Hades.
Then she sees the single occupant and balks, throwing her hands back to prevent any of the others coming through.
"Henry," she whispers through clenched teeth, "Henry remember, it's not real."
"What is going on?" Regina huffs.
Emma finds herself propelled forwards by the motion of those behind her, until they are all in the room, and she's barely six feet from–
"Neal."
Neal, or at least the demon wearing his face, looks up from his position sitting cross-legged on a grave and gives a little wave.
"Em! Long time no see!"
Almost unconsciously, she finds herself reaching back for Killian, just to check he's still there. Her eyes searching out Henry, who is watching this approximation of his father with a disquieting combination of trepidation and hope.
"Bae?" Rumplestiltskin forces his way through them with no heed for their bonds, his jaw slack, "Bae is that you?"
"Were you not paying attention?" David says, "It's not really him."
"That would suit you, wouldn't it Papa?" Neal smiles, but it's not Neal's smile, "After what you did."
"I told you," Rumple lifts his hands, "I am sorry, Bae. I made a mistake."
"Oh!" Neal laughs, and all the hairs on the back of Emma's neck stand on end, "Yes, when you abandoned me to the land without magic. I remember. But do you know what else I remember?"
Rumple winces as Neal attempts a crude impersonation.
"I'm going to be a better man, son! I'm going to make your sacrifice worthwhile, son! I'm going to murder Zelena for you, son!"
(Emma feels Regina's reaction to that travel down their bond like electricity.)
Neal snarls.
"You didn't manage any of it did you, Papa? You fail me over, and over, and over."
Rumple wrings his hands together.
"I tried, Bae. I did try. But everything I've done, it's been for the best. You can see that can't you Bae?"
Neal shakes his head and gradually gets to his feet.
"I believed you once, Papa. Look where it got me. Where do you think it's gonna get her, hmm?"
He stands to one side, and gestures theatrically to the headstone he's been leaning against.
Belle Gold
Rumple lets out a roar of indignation and launches himself at the grave, just as a small earthquake seems to rock them and the graves around them begin to sink and open. The bonds around Rumple's wrists fraying as he begins to scrabble in the dirt.
Emma is at the front. Emma is closest. Emma should grab him and pull him back.
She doesn't. God help her she can't.
"I cannot believe I am doing this."
Killian forces himself past her, grabbing Rumple by the scruff of the neck and dragging him back to the group.
"No," he spits in Rumple's face, "No, you're not getting away with it this easily. You don't get to be the martyr here, you get to come home with us and tell your wife why she still isn't enough. That's my gift to you Dark One, your worthless, pitiless life."
He shoves Rumple away from him as the hallway room returns, another staircase beckoning them on.
"Well," Robin sighs, "we march on."
Regina audibly groans when she realises that they have been deposited in her crypt.
"I really thought he'd have run out of things to throw at me back in the woods."
Emma raises her brows at Robin, but he just shakes his head. Whatever story there is there won't be shared.
"There are a lot of things in that head of yours, Regina," says a disembodied male voice, "More than in your heart, anyway."
"You're wasting your time with me," she calls, I won't be convinced by one of your parlour tricks!"
There's a husky laugh from behind one of the cabinets, followed by the appearance of a white-haired man who ducks out into the crypt with his arms open in greeting.
Regina's mouth twists unhappily, but otherwise she makes no move to acknowledge him.
"That's what I said, sweetheart! I told him – of all the hundreds of people Regina's killed, she probably doesn't even remember me."
"Of course I remember you," Regina snaps, "but you're not real. My father would never speak to me in this manner."
Regina's not-father sneers and shows his teeth.
"No, I'm not him. I couldn't be him could I? Because he was the thing you loved most and you, you crushed his heart as he begged for mercy."
"It was the price I had to pay," she hisses through clenched teeth.
"So why was it he who paid it, hmmm? How many people have paid with their lives, sacrificed their happiness, so that Regina Mills can get her own way?"
"I've changed."
"Regina…" Robin lays a cautioning hand on her shoulder, but she shrugs it off.
"And when was that? After you killed your husband? Your father? After you almost killed the son you profess to love so dearly? After you tortured and broke the heart of the girl you should have loved as a daughter?"
He tugs on the rope that binds her to Robin.
"I wish you luck. She will betray you, she always does. She enjoys the darkness too much to ever give it up. It's all she's ever had, you see. It's faithful."
"No. You're wrong. I believe in her."
The demon's eyes are dark and sinister.
"She'll never change. She'll always be the Evil Queen. Tell me Regina, how are you finding being a step-mother this time around?"
Regina shakes her head, confused.
"Wh-what?"
"Yes, those sweet little children." He smiles a nasty little smile and turns away, his words echoing behind him as he fades into blackness, "I hope they can keep a secret."
"That's not fair! I've changed! I've…"
The crypt warps, and the tomb that has always held her father's body cracks and divides until it's reformed into two tiny white coffins. Emma feels suddenly, violently ill.
"Have you?" Echoes his voice.
Robin and Regina move as one, bolting towards the coffins, but Snow and David manage to be quicker – Snow grabbing Regina by her elbow and David having Robin in a very uncomfortable looking headlock.
"It's not real," Snow grunts into Regina's ear, "it's not real and it won't ever be real."
David releases Robin (looking slightly the worse for wear, apparently the thief had not taken well to the headlock), who turns his back on the coffins with evident difficulty to take Regina's hand in his.
"You're not the Evil Queen. I trust you, I will always trust you."
Regina's lip wobbles, and she gives Snow a less-than-impressive glare as she brushes off her hand.
"It's all right," Robins moves to stroke her back, and the crypt fades away, "It'll be fine. We just have to stick together and get through it, he's bound to run out of traumas to throw in our faces eventually."
Regina looks unconvinced; Killian actually laughs.
Rumple rolls his eyes, hard.
"Your confidence is impressive, but misplaced. Hades has no intention of allowing any of us to leave."
Emma glares at him, disbelief raging through her. There's got to be an end to it, they just have to defeat the right demons, enough demons.
"But he said..."
They had a deal.
"Miss Swan," Rumple is almost gentle, "Take it from a man who is something of an expert in these matters. Hades will never make a deal in which he does not come out on top."
"By keeping Emma." David says, pulling Snow close.
"By keeping all of us. Don't put yourself down Dearie, I'm sure Hades can find something of use in even your tedious soul."
Emma shakes her head, sets her shoulders. Sets her nerve.
"No. No, I'm not giving in. We've got this far and we're all going home."
None of them seem to want to meet her eyes, and she realises with a sort of sick finality that they think she's failed. That her parents, that Henry, don't think she can save them anymore, and even though they've yet to make another attempt on the stairs she wonders if this is Hades' test for her anyway. If he wants to know if the girl who was never enough can face failure.
Killian steps closer, lifting his hand to stroke her cheek but is stymied by the elaborate knots he's managed to tie his bonds into.
"Emma…"
She narrows her eyes.
"Don't you dare. You always believe in me, don't you dare doubt me now."
What she doesn't say: If you don't believe in me I know that I'll fail.
Killian must see it written all over her face regardless – open book after all – and just shakes his head gently with a soft smile and softer eyes.
"I could never doubt you, my love. I am merely wondering what I could have done to deserve you."
The lost girl in Emma understands that feeling – that idea of how can I possibly be worth all this – but the Emma who lit the promethean flame, the Emma that is open to love and a future, kind of wants to laugh at the idea of Killian Jones ever needing to deserve her.
"You probably don't, on paper" she mumbles as she leans in and buries her face in his jacket, "but that's okay. I'm not a reward for heroics. I choose you, and you choose me."
"Aye," he whispers into her hair, "I see that now."
Suddenly aware that they are in very close proximity to lots of other people and this is about to take a turn for the emotional again she pulls back and lightly smacks at his arm, making his eyebrow jump and his mouth twist into a smirk.
"So if some misguided sense of having to earn me is why you keep playing the noble-sacrifice card, you can stop. You're no use to me dead, no matter how heroically you go about it."
Killian mock bows, but she can hear sincerity in his reply.
"I shall venture to keep that in mind in future."
"Yeah. Do."
They swing the door open almost nonchalantly this time – after Hades' previous imaginative efforts Emma's expecting maybe a battlefield or a burning ship or sixth grade algebra – only to be met with something rather more surreal.
They're in a cabin, rather small and built in a style that Emma might charitably describe as 'rustic', but every wall, the ceiling, hell every available surface is draped with cloth. Sailcloth, silks, leathers – there's barely a surface uncovered except for a small area of floor where there kneels a young woman with reddish hair, elbow deep in a wash barrel.
She's humming to herself, something jaunty and vaguely familiar, and isn't paying them any attention whatsoever.
"Well," says Killian with resignation, "it could have been worse."
Emma turns to give him a questioning look, but is distracted by the way all the colour has drained out of Liam's face. (He looks like a dead man, she thinks, and ice trickles through her veins.)
The woman stops humming at the sound of Killian's voice, lifting her head with a start as if they are the ones surprising her. She looks up at them with blue, blue eyes and Emma feels her heart actually stop for two or three beats.
"Ah! I'd been wondering when you boys would show yourselves!"
Killian sighs, and it's not angry or traumatised, just resigned and a little bit sad.
"Hello, Mam."
Liam says nothing.
The woman, their mother – except not, obviously not – quirks her lips into a familiar look of displeasure.
"Nowt to say to your own mother, Liam lad? And after I spent my days scrubbing on my knees to feed you! Ingratitude is bad form, boy."
She huffs, and forces her arms down into the barrel again. The contents splash slightly, scattering dark red spots over her chest and face.
Killian recoils in horror.
"What – what are you doing?"
His mother lifts an eyebrow, the blood on her cheek glistening and becoming cracked freckles as it dries.
"Why just what it looks like lad! I'm trying to get the blood out!"
She gives whatever she's holding a firm scrub and the liquid sloshes, red and viscous, over the sides of the barrel. She lifts out a shirt. It might have been white once, but now it's stained brown with old blood, the fresh stuff dripping from the hems.
"Mam, that won't work."
Killian seems more bemused than distressed, unlike Liam who is looking more and more like he may throw up at any moment. Their mother tuts and shakes the shirt in his direction, splattering the floor with fat, red globules.
"It best had! What have you been doing lad, to soil your uniform so?"
Killian cringes then, and Emma's heart twinges because haven't they just been through this? Hasn't he promised her, promised Liam that he's going to believe in himself?
"Mam – Mam I…"
"T'was me Mam. I wasn't watching him."
Liam speaks up, but his voice is quieter, the accent more broken. He sounds like a little boy admitting to some terrible sin, but as he steps forward and shields Killian his spine is as straight and his gait as sure as ever.
His mother narrows her eyes and shakes a bloodstained finger at him.
"You must always watch your brother Liam Jones, did I teach you nothing? Did you not promise me on my very deathbed?" She stands and approaches them, the shirt held out in front of her, "It gets in all the stitching, see? Blood gets in all your stitching and it won't come out."
She tries to get around Liam, seemingly wanting to show Killian the way that gore has congealed in the seams of the shirt, but he keeps his body between them. She scowls, clearly frustrated.
"This is his fault. Terrible man. Heartless man. Not cold in my grave before he's selling my children. And the blood will out, I swear it the blood will out." She rubs a hand across her brow leaving an angry red smear in its wake, then narrows her eyes at Killian, "You look like him you know."
Killian swallows hard.
"Aye, I know."
"You always were trouble, even as a babe. Never could keep yourself from some adventure that ended in disaster."
She tuts, her head tilting to one side, and turns to Liam.
"But you, I expected better from you."
Liam cringes, his voice struggling to stay level as he replies.
"With the greatest of respect, you are not, in truth, my mother. I can handle being the cause of vexation to a demon."
The corner of the woman's mouth ticks up, and she almost seems to float as she moves closer, inserting herself into the gap between the brothers rather more easily than she should have been able to.
"You failed her, your mother. You promised her you would protect your brother, and you failed."
Killian growls, his hand flying out to grab at the demon.
"He failed no-one! He is a hero! I was the one who failed. I won't fail again."
The demon looks up at Killian, her face the picture of satisfaction. He sounds sure, and angry, but Emma feels her heart clench and sees her own fear reflected in Liam's eyes.
"That's what your father said," says the demon, voice teetering on smug, "and we all know where that got him."
There's another world-altering shudder, and the bloodied wash house is replaced with the grass outside of a small cottage. A man lies bleeding from a wound at his side, a small boy puling pitifully at his clothes.
"Papa? Papa wake up. Papa!"
The little boy starts to weep, and Emma watches as the self-loathing Killian has tried so hard to set aside re-engulfs him.
"Don't you see, my boy, this is what happens when you try to change. You never can. The blood will out."
She smiles, a vicious victorious smile, plucking at Killian's bound wrists with wild eyes as he pales, and the blood pours from his father's stab wound, more blood than Emma could ever have imagined, and laps at their feet, then their ankles, then –
Smack.
Henry stands over the fallen demon as the world flickers and starts to fade. He's holding Liam's crowbar in both hands and looking slightly sheepish.
"Sorry I knocked out your demon mom, Killian."
Killian, still a bit shell-shocked, simply nods.
"Aye, well, it's not the most peculiar event I've witnessed recently."
"This is ridiculous," Regina practically vibrates with frustrated fury, "are we just going to continue with this twisted version of family therapy until we collapse?"
"I'm starting to think that was his plan all along, I mean, look at us. We will be here centuries fighting off all of our demons."
Snow shuffles on the spot, biting her lip and looking down awkwardly.
"I have an idea. You won't like it."
Emma leans back with a sigh, and gestures for her mother to go ahead.
"Hit me," she grouses, "I'm pretty used to not liking things right now."
"Hades wants a soul, right? I mean, he wants yours, but it's always been a life for a life here, and he's not even tried to take you yet. He says he's a business man, maybe he just wants, you know, payment."
"What are you saying?"
Emma knows what she's saying, and Snow knows she knows, giving her a sad half smile.
"I'm saying that I think the only way we're going to get out of here is to give him what he wants."
"Mom, no. I am not leaving anybody behind."
"What if someone were to choose to stay?"
Emma stares at Liam, slack-jawed.
"What?"
"I have been dead a very long time Emma, the world of the living holds nothing for me except for the satisfaction of seeing my brother happy, which he shall only be if you go. So go."
Liam's tone is firm, he doesn't break eye-contact with Killian even as the later physically balks.
"Go? What, and leave you here? Are you mad?"
Liam's expression doesn't change.
"This is me asking nicely, Killian. Do not make me order you."
"I'm not your subordinate. I'm your brother!" Killian flings himself round to face Emma, eyes wild. "There's got to be another way. There is always another way."
Emma bites down on her lip, hard, and closes her eyes. What can she say? There's nothing to say.
"It might not even work," he pleads and she's not sure if it's with her or Liam or himself.
Liam shrugs lightly.
"Then I shall have kept my promise to our mother, and tried my very best to protect you regardless. Besides, I am already dead. It is barely a sacrifice."
Emma looks at him then, brave, strong, noble Liam who was the hero of all Killian's stories, and tries to ignore the way her eyes are filling up.
"I want you to know," she says huskily, "that if I could – if I could bring you home too, I would. In a heartbeat."
Killian almost crumbles at her tacit admission that this is the only way she can see out, but Liam nods at her, a little prideful smile playing around his mouth.
"Aye, I know your Highness. I bear you no ill will. Only gratitude, for doing what I could not."
She tilts her head at him, and he reaches up with his free hand to ruffle Killian's hair (it's just like Killian does to Henry and she can't she can't).
"Why saving this one from himself, of course. It is a rather continuous task, but one I am sure you will perform magnificently at."
Killian snorts tearily. Liam winks at her.
"You might want to consider giving him that ring back. Just in case."
Emma blushes hard, the weight of the ring between her breasts has been a talisman since Killian gave it to her – she has no intentions of letting it shed its meaning when they get home. She wonders if she should tell Liam, or god, ask permission like Killian almost certainly would, but then he smiles at her – a big, beaming, joyous smile, and she figures he already knows.
Liam turns his full attention back to Killian, and Emma tries to melt into the shadows with the others as they try very hard to pretend they're not watching. Henry snuggles in to her side; the comfort is welcome to both of them.
"I'm not going to ask you not to do anything stupid, because we both know that that is a physical impossibility, but there are two things you can do for me."
"Anything. Anything at all."
"The other boy – find him. It won't be easy, he may despise you, and the gods all know no man needs to tell me how contrary baby brothers are, but he is one of ours Killian. Don't abandon him."
Killian's face is pale and conflicted, but the nod he gives Liam is sure.
"I will. I'll do you proud."
Liam's brave face shifts slightly into something soft and a little bit sad.
"You know, when I first met Milah, I could not abide her. I tried to blame her for all the things that had gone wrong in your life, accused her of being a bad influence if you can believe it! So when she came to me, pleading with me to just look and see the man you were becoming, I would not hear of it. I sent her away, told her that my brother was dead – murdered by a pirate. She still used to come. Look what a hero he's become, she'd tell me. I didn't believe her." The skin of his cheeks is wet now, "I believe her now. It is easy to be noble and good when the seas are calm, but it takes great courage to embrace the storm and ride it out to clear waters. I am so proud, Killian, to be your brother."
Killian's reply is muffled as he throws himself into his brother's embrace with such force that the rope binding his wrist to Emma's pulls taut. The strength of Liam's return of it is obvious in the way his knuckles turn white as they clutch his brother's leather jacket.
"I can't leave you," Killian is outright crying now and Emma hates – hates – that Rumplestiltskin of all people is here to witness it, "I can't lose you again, Liam. I can't."
"It's not forever," Liam soothes, "Not even so long as we have already been separated. You are a mortal man, Killian. I shall wait for you until we meet again." He laughs a little bit, "Though I imagine we both hope it shall not be all too soon."
Killian snorts into his shoulder.
"The other thing, the other and most imperative thing that I need you to do for me, is this," Liam pulls back, takes Killian's hand and hook in his own hands and smiles, "believe Milah. Believe me. Believe Emma. You are a hero, Killian Jones. Now go."
Quickly, as if ripping off a band-aid, Liam tucks the edge of Killian's hook under the rope around his wrist, and pulls it apart.
The effect is instantaneous – a great gaping hole appears above their heads, spinning with the blue-green portal magic and pulling the bound group up towards it. Emma heaves on the rope that connects her to Killian, pulling him tight to her side and interlocking his fingers with hers. As the portal lifts her off her feet, she spares a last glance for the man who has saved her happy ending.
Liam stands serenely just outside of the portal's wake, a small smile on his face and his skin already beginning to glow with golden light. He gives her a familiar cheeky lop-sided grin, and as the portal sucks her away, she sees him snap into a salute, and shimmer away.
Traveling by portal is never smooth, not when you're on a ship, not when you're in a well, and definitely not when you are tied to seven other people, all of whom seem to be spinning in opposite directions, so it takes her a moment to realise that she's landed.
There's cool grass under her back, the air is fresh and the sky that grey-blue that follows rain. They're back, she sits up, a sob escaping before she can swallow it back, they're back. Henry beams at her as he helps Regina pull Robin to his feet, his eyes sparkling with the restraint of not telling her I told you so. Her parents are in each others arms, faces pressed close in relief and Killian –
She looks down, brushes the loose ends of the ropes from her wrist, and stares blindly.
Her hand is empty.
Killian is gone.
*Twiddles thumbs* *whistles nonchalantly*
One more chapter still to go folks :D
