A/N- pretty sure you are all going to hate me for this chapter, but it is probably the most intense thing I've written yet. But first, a little bit of explanation. Count Rumple, who appears later in this story, is not in anyway the same person as Mr. Gold. In my world they are two separate entities. Rumple is essentially 'the dark one' without the magic and Gold is just Gold. Hopefully that will clear up any confusion.

Also, I'm sorry for how this ends. But it has to get worse before it gets better, right?

Right?

Feel free to leave me your tears in a review or a comment. Promise goodness and CS fluff coming soon!

Reckoning

The house was quiet. The kind of quiet where all you can hear is your own blood pumping in your ears. It was setting Emma's teeth on edge. Fidgeting uncomfortably at the table, she looked at her son who was hurriedly gulping his cereal, and wondered why she was feeling so out of sorts.

Her chest felt empty, like there was a gaping hole. Several times, Emma even caught herself looking down to see if maybe there was some sort of explanation, but the only thing there was the smooth line of her white blouse. It felt like a piece of something was missing.

Or maybe it was just someone.

Henry ran ahead towards the little brick and glass building, grabbing the hand of a small, curly-haired boy with a smile cute enough to rival Henry's own, and waving back at Emma. Looking up, she saw the boy was holding onto her realtor, Regina, with his other hand. The smartly-dressed woman raised a brow and nodded in greeting. As Emma approached, the boys ran towards the school in a peal of laughter and silliness.

Emma smiled wistfully in their direction. Beside her, Regina made a noise half-way between a scoff and a chuckle. "Where do they find the energy?" She said.

"I'm pretty sure they slip something into the cereal," Emma replied. It was slightly cooler out than yesterday, and standing here in the parking lot of the school was making her regret her decision to wear such a lightweight top. Running her hands up and down her arms, she cursed herself for not grabbing her leather jacket.

Regina cocked a brow at her distress, but said nothing. She crossed her arms and tilted her chin. "Well, Ms. Swan. You've lasted longer at Misthaven than anyone before you. I must admit, I'm a little bit upset."

Emma frowned, hugging her own arms across her body. "I upset you? How?"

"I had a bet with my husband, Robin. I lost."

Rolling her eyes, Emma let her smug smile play on her face. "What did you lose?"

Her eyes narrowed dangerously at Emma. "I have to sit and watch Roland's favorite movie every night with him for a week straight. Let me tell you, Ms. Swan, a person can only take so much of Snow White before they go crazy and want to shoot something with a bow and arrow."

"Wait? The movie Snow White? Isn't that a little…?"

Regina rolled her eyes in disgust. "I know, I know. But he loves those stupid dwarves. Don't ask me why. Personally, I was always more fond of the Evil Queen. She had a better fashion sense." She waved her hand dismissively, turning to meet her eye. "Anyway, how is the house restoration going?"

Emma pulled herself up proudly, eager to have someone to share her accomplishment. "Really good. Not nearly as much to be done as I thought there would be, luckily."

Regina nodded, mollified. "And the other problem? Have you heard any strange bumps in the night, Ms. Swan?"

"Everything's been…quiet." Too quiet, damn it. Why do I miss him? NO! No thinking about that man, Emma! Bad Emma! Do not think about his stupid innuendos, or about the way he says 'Swan' in that unbelievably sexy accent. And you are really not allowed to think about the way his dark lashes frame out those gorgeous blue eyes. Eyes like the water on a cloudless day. No, no, no. Nope. Reluctantly, she forced herself back to the conversation at hand.

Regina relaxed her shoulders and sighed. "That's good. I'm glad everything has worked out."

"Yes," Emma agreed. "It really is a great house."

There was a moment of silent awkwardness when both ladies seemed unsure what to say to each other. Just as Emma was about to bid Regina farewell, the woman shook back her hair and said, "There's this thing I belong to. A book club. Well, basically it's just an excuse to meet up at the Rabbit Hole and have some drinks, just us ladies. Anyway, your name came up. I wondered if you might be interested."

"In joining a book club?" Emma asked skeptically.

Regina shrugged. "In lady's night with me and some of the other women in town. But please, keep referring to it as a book club so our husband's don't suspect. It's every Thursday at 7."

Emma chewed her lip nervously. "I'll think about it. I don't really have anyone to watch Henry, though."

"Don't worry, Robin and some of the other men watch the kids. Although I'm not entirely certain there is a lot of actual supervision involved. But the kids seem to have fun." Regina smiled tightly.

Emma laughed, her head thrown back and her curls tickling her face. "I bet they do! So who's all in this club of yours anyway?"

Clearing her throat, Regina met her eyes, a slight blush of embarrassment creeping up her cheeks. "Just me, Ruby Lucas, Belle French, and a couple of others. Actually it was Ruby and Belle who wanted me to invite you."

A shiver ran through Emma's body. "You guys talk about me?" She asked bitterly.

Looking indignant, Regina rolled her eyes and sighed. "I asked them if they had met you and they said yes. Then, Ruby said to see if you would like to join us in order to get to know some more people here in Storybrooke. Belle agreed. That's all."

Emma couldn't sense any lie in her words, but it still made her uncomfortable that people she barely knew were talking about her.

Before Emma could reply with her answer, though, her phone went off, putting an end to their conversation. As Regina waved goodbye and returned to her car, Emma answered the unfamiliar number. "Hello?"

"Is this Emma?" A vaguely familiar voice asked, belonging to a woman who seemed nervous and a little bit jittery.

"Yes. Who's this?" She said icily, tucking her hair behind her ear so she could better hear the phone.

"Oh, it's Belle."

Emma sighed internally. Speak of the devil. I bet her ears were burning.

"I wasn't sure how to get a hold of you," she continued, "so I asked Regina for your number last night. I hope that's alright. I wanted to call and let you know that I found that information you were looking for."

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Emma distantly recalled asking Belle for help with something. "Okay," she answered slowly.

"Are you in town? Could you stop by the library? I mean, you don't have to, or anything. I don't want you to have to-"

"Belle, it's fine," Emma interrupted, unable to help herself from smiling at how politely flustered the lady sounded. "I'm actually at the school. I can be over there in a few minutes."

"Oh. Okay. Great!" Belle finished chipperly, hanging up.

Emma groaned and walked to her car. She drove the short distance to the library in just under ten minutes, wondering just what Belle had dug up.

"Emma, here is everything I could find on the HMS Jolly Roger," Belle called out the second Emma opened the door. She waved a small stack of papers back and forth over her head. I thought people weren't supposed to make noise in a library, Emma thought, but inwardly sharing Belle's nervousness.

With a tightly controlled 'thanks,' she took the papers from Belle and stalked off to locate an isolated corner of the library. It wasn't long before she was engrossed in the history of the ship that comprised her house.

The first was a Wikipedia article that was woefully short:

HMS Jolly Roger, was a frigate class warship commission by the Royal Navy in 1714 for the sole purpose of relaying wartime messages from Britain's colony to the motherland. Therefore it was designed to be exceptionally fast and hard to destroy. It was a popular saying among its crew that the HMS Jolly Roger was the "fastest ship in all the realm," a reputation that held true until its eventual decommissioning in 1778.

The ship was essentially the same as many other three-masted ships of the day, only notable because it was also rumored to be imbued with the most extraordinary properties. Sailors often remarked that the ship was made of "enchanted wood," due to the extreme rarity of the wood from which it was crafted and also due to a number of strange circumstances in which the ship should have perished but did not.

Its first Captain, Eric Northgate, sailed her through 15 hurricanes with only slight surface damage and no loss of lives, a feet unparalleled in its time. After that, she became the envy of many of the sailors who believed the ship was unsinkable and touched by fate.

By 1740, the luck of the ship began to change. Captain Liam Jones was struck by a mysterious ailment while running messages for King Henry II, and died in his captain shortly thereafter. The Lieutenant on board and brother to the Captain, Killian Jones, took over the post of Captain in 1740 upon his brother's death, until his own controversial death for treason and piracy in 1750.

After that, the Jolly suffered a reputation as being cursed. Some sailors refused to sail upon her, going so far as to face prison time, claiming the ship was haunted. Nevertheless, the Royal Navy still employed the ship as a message runner until it took significant damage during the War of Independence. The HMS Jolly Roger was decommissioned in 1778 and sent to salvage yard where it remained until bought by a private collector in 1880.

The accompanying photo showed a proud, three-masted ship, painted in vivid blues, yellows, and whites. Suddenly, Emma felt the strangest sensation of dampness on her cheek, and she lifted her hand up to it in wonder.

There were tears running down her cheek and all she could do was stare at the water on her fingertips in stunned silence. Emma Swan, who never cried, was sitting there reading about people long dead and a ship long forgotten and she was fucking crying. What the hell?

Furiously rubbing her hands over her eyes, she placed all the papers in a neatly stacked pile before going off in search of the librarian.

Emma found her standing on a step-stool, trying to put back a hard-back copy of La Belle et la Bête on the top shelf, her heels making her wobble precariously.

Coughing lightly so as not to frighten her, Emma asked, "Um, Belle, is there a computer I could use to look something up?"

Belle's bright blue eyes sparkled and she hopped down off the stool like a well-practiced ballerina. "No internet at home, yet? That's okay. Leroy's at work today, so he's not hogging the only computer." She motioned with her head to a side room. "Come on. I'll get you set up."

Emma followed Belle into a small office with a surprisingly new model computer, a printer on a stand, and a large copy machine. She let Belle log her in and set up an account for library access. Then, with a friendly smile, Belle squeezed her arm and departed, leaving Emma to stare at the blank Google screen alone.

The pages Belle had found were helpful, but not nearly what she needed to know.

Furiously, she typed Killian Jones into the search bar and was rewarded with a plethora of hits all pertaining to people who were not the person she was looking for.

This time, she typed Captain Killian Jones + HMS Jolly Roger, and got a solitary article to show up.

She opened the document, skimming down its contents briefly before printing it out. For some reason she couldn't explain, reading about the man haunting her house in a public place where anyone could see felt wrong. What she wanted, if she was honest with herself, was to snuggle up under her covers, the balcony doors flung wide letting in the tangy ocean breeze and the thunderous crash of waves, and to read about Killian Jones in the privacy of her bed.

It would almost be like having him there next to her.

…..

Her dream started out the same way it had all the previous nights:

She's standing on the wood-plank floor of a large ship. She's barefoot and the timber is warm beneath her toes. Off to the side, many other boats similar to hers are docked in a harbor, the swell of the water making them tumble lightly back and forth. A now familiar scent of briny water, tar, and wood fills her lungs as she breathes deeply in. Above, the sky is turning into the colors of dawn, all pink and yellow.

And for all that beauty, she feels unreasonably afraid. Something terrible is coming. She is certain of it. It is coming and it will be awful and the fear of it makes her want to collapse to the deck and cover her head in her hands.

A sound of footsteps marching up the gangway startles her and she spins around to see three men boarding the ship. The first two are dressed in a loose black shirts, a silver vest, and black breeches and boots. They each hold aloft a sharp-edged sword as they scan the deck. Behind them, the third man, a richly-attired older gent with wavy grey hair and a dark, malicious glint in his eye, surveys the area with a sneer. None of them take any notice of her, and for that she is grateful. But only for a second.

For it's not a moment later that a fourth man joins the party, arising from a stairway in the deck floor and eating an apple casually like he doesn't notice the men on board his ship. Emma is positive it was his ship, because the man eating an apple with a bemused expression is none other than Killian Jones. Dressed as he is in her time in his navy coat, vest, and breeches, he gives off an air of idle contemplation, completely unfazed by the two men holding their swords out towards his chest.

Everything in her wants to run to him, to beg him to get away from these men by any means possible, because the one with the sharp eyes is staring at Killian with a look of something resembling murder. But try as she might, her feet won't move, her voice won't call out. She is stuck, an invisible witness to events that have long since transpired.

"Morning to you, good sirs. What, pray tell, brings such nobility to my humble ship?" Killian intones, flicking the apple into the harbor with a small twist of his left wrist.

One of the men in black gestures with his sword and barks, "Are you Captain Jones?"

"Aye, that I am. May I have the honor of knowing who seeks for me?" For the first time, his eyes flickers to that of the unarmed man and the barest hint of fear lightnings across his features. It's gone by the time he turns back to the man with the sword.

"Count Rumple requests an audience."

Killian's whole body seems to snap to attention and once more, he turns to look at the older man. The man in question takes this as his cue to step forward. "Greetings, Captain," he says with a cold sneer. "I have come to bring you a message."

Dropping all pretense of frivolity, the Captain growls, "A message from whom?" There was a note in his voice that clearly implied he already knew the identity of the sender, but he is asking just to keep up the pretense.

"Ah, ah, dearie," the man mocks, smiling, and in her mind, Emma begins to call him Crocodile, because his mouth is filled with razor sharp lies, and his eyes narrow into reptilian slits. "Today, I shall be the one asking the questions."

Killian's lips press into a tight line. "What's the message, then." All of his usual courteous manners are gone, leaving only a raw anger in their wake .

Suddenly, the man to his right slams his fist into Killian's gut, doubling him over. "The Count told you to keep quiet, maggot."

Slowly, Killian pulls himself up, breathing hard and staring into the face of the man who hit him. There's a wide grin on his lips, but only icy fury in his eyes.

Emma wants to scream, she wants to wake up. Hot, thick tears are streaming down her face and there is nothing she can do to stop any of this. All she can do is clench her fists at her side and think: PleasenopleasenopleasenopleasenoKillian

Count Rumple strides across the deck as if he were the captain here and pauses to swipe a finger across a ledge, checking for dirt. His lips curl in disgust, and he shakes his head. "Tsk, Tsk. I would have thought a man like you would have taken better care of his things."

Killian growls, but keeps his mouth shut, his jaw clenching with the effort. The Count swings back around, stepping between both of his guardsmen. "I believe it is time to get down to business, dearie. Your message." From the inside of his brocade coat, he pulls out of heavy parchment sealed in red wax with a dramatic flourish of his hand. He passes it over to Killian, careful not to make contact with any part of his body. He then gives Killian the opportunity to open the letter and read it while he paces the deck of the ship.

From her position opposite Killian, she can read every single emotion that crosses his face as he reads the letter. He goes from a kind of confused wistfulness, to anger, to denial, to boiling rage in the course of about five minutes. When he is done, his fist crushes the letter tightly and in a voice barely above a whisper, he says, "This is a lie. Milah would never do this."

Rumple chuckles at first, before he outright laughs. "Oh, but Captain. That's just it, she did. Your precious Milah sold you out because she couldn't live with herself for abandoning her husband for all this time. She came to me, she told me where to find you. You have the proof in your hand do you not?"

And the absolute worst thing is, Emma can tell that whatever Count Rumple is saying is the cold, hard truth. And Killian knows it as well.

In a blink, Killian roars and lungs forward at the nearest guard, knocking him to the deck and snatching away his sword. Immediately, he goes for the Count's chest, but apparently, the Count was anticipating this because in a movement little more than a blur, he pulls a wire thin blade from the folds of his coat and simply slices off Killian's hand.

Both the sword and the hand fall to the deck before Emma can draw breath enough to scream. Instead, she squeezes her eyes shut, trying to block the image from burning itself into her retinas.

When she dares to look again, Killian is on his knees, his right hand clutched around the bleeding stump of his left, his teeth bared in pain. Rumple is leaning over him, the tip of his sword pressed lightly to Killian's chest. "That," he whispers, "is for the theft of my wife."

Killian lifts his chin, sweeping aside the pain momentarily and meets the man's eye. "You can't steal what was offered freely."

Fury, jealousy, and just plain evil fight for dominance on the Count's face. A cold, sick dread settles deep into Emma's bones at the sight. She tries to look away from what is coming, but she is held steady by the force of Killian's eyes. He knows, too, but he is not afraid. He will fight until the end, never giving an inch. And the Count recoils from it.

That's when he plunges the blade forward, straight and deep, into Killian's heart. "And that, is because she choose you." He withdraws the blade and Killian slowly slumps to the deck, his breath laboring as his life spills out, staining the boards.

But the Count is not done yet. No. There is still one more knife to plunge in. "At least in the end, she came to her senses. And chose me and the life I can provide for her. Her and her unborn child."

Killian's breath stills, but his eyes widen in shock. There is no denying the realization in the Count's words. Milah was pregnant, the baby was Killian's, and up until that moment, he had no clue. And Emma rocks back on her heals, willing to make it all stop, wanting so badly to run to him and hold him in his arms so that he will have someone, anyone, who gives a shit there to comfort him as he breathes his last.

But it is all too late, and his mouth moves soundlessly, slowly, and the blue of his eyes fades to grey and still the blood seeps further into the deck. Little rivers of red running between the planks. Soon, she will be wading in it.

Rumple stands, cleans his sword on Killian's coat and re-sheaths it. He turns to his men and pulls yet another letter from his pocket. "Deliver this to the King. It details how I have discovered that the man responsible for the sinking of my ship a fortnight ago was this captain turned pirate. Feel free to spread the news as you go."

The men bow to the order, one of them pocketing the letter and the other rolling Killian over with the toe of his boot. "And this scum?"

Rumple shrugs as if Killian is nothing more than a squashed bug. "Bury him in the mud, like all the other pirates." So finished, he casually strolls down the gangway, smiling and humming to himself as he goes.

It's only then that Emma screams.

Emma awakened in a panic, covered in sweat and tears, and shaking. For the first time, she remembered the dreams she's been having every night since moving in, and that scared her to death. Immediately, she was struck by a desperate, powerful need, one that pounded deep into her heart like a sledge hammer. She had to see Killian, to make sure he was still here. She needed to see the awful truth in his eyes and finally be able to offer him comfort, if only to assure herself that this is all real.

Oh, god. This is real. He is real. There would be no more ignoring this weird connection they shared. It was too necessary to her sanity.

Even thought it was the middle of the night, she ran from the bed and out the door. Her feet carried her up the attic stairs in a flurry, calling out his name in broken whispers. She could only pray that he was listening. And that he had stayed.