Formidable bat wings spread on either side of the clocktower like storm clouds, cloaking the building in shadow. Its blazing eyes scan the street, for what, Killian doesn't know; nor does he have time to ponder it. The creature flaps upward at a surreal snail's pace before lunging down right toward them. Get down lower, he orders himself, and stop gaping at the thing like a fish. Crouching behind a car, he sees Swan's instincts must have kicked in a split second before his own as she's hunched down by the wheel. No good. No good at all. The creature swerves right above the electricity lines and zooms for them again.
Everyone's got the same plan—better cover. Their party follows Regina to the nearest alleyway.
"Did that thing come out of the hat?" Regina shrieks at Belle. "I thought the spell was only supposed to release the fairies!"
"Well, maybe it is some kind of fairy," Snow suggests...over the blood-curdling screams of terrified townspeople. Marvelous.
"Why don't we just put it back in the hat—and figure out the rest later?" Swan offers.
"Because we can't. Once something's freed, it can never be re-trapped." Belle paraphrasing the latter portions of her email doesn't seem to be helping, but he can't look back at anyone. His head craning out of the alleyway, he narrows his eyes at how the creature's movements follow a pattern, up and down the street. The thing could carry off any number of panicked passersby if it were hungry. Likewise the street would resemble the feeding frenzy of a shark if it were startled. There, it swerves and spirals back up...searching.
"Great," he hears Swan mumble. "So our best defense against magical beasts follows the same rules as chickenpox?"
"Surely the Savior and Evil Queen can defeat a simple hellbeast." They can shoot out their...fire-and-light...beams or rays or magical essence or what-have-you as it turns back around for another sweep.
"Can we drop the 'E' word already?" Regina groans, nodding over at Swan. The creature roars to life as they march out onto the street, too late to dispatch it as it turns, but surely it's no match for them. White light streams out of her hands and hits the beast right in the chest, Regina's fire creating a blinding inferno framed by black wings. The familiar scents fill the air, cinnamon and sunlight—normally inappropriate for a fight but rather effective in this case, the light literally banishing the thing out of sight. Retreat. And retreating often leads to regrouping.
"Well that was easy," Swan remarks as she lets her arms drop, and one would have to be a keen listener to detect the masked unease in her voice.
"Don't get excited. We only stunned it, and a blast like that should've destroyed it." Regina's unease could easily slip into something more frantic.
"I was just getting used to things being relaxing around here," she says out loud. "Belle."
"I'll see if I can find anything about this thing in the library."
"And, Mary Margaret..."
"I'll get everyone to safety. I'm on that," she says, stepping back and ready to take off right away.
"Wow. You guys really have this down," Swan notes, her head reeling back in awe. Only in Storybrooke...
"Well, this isn't our first monster bash," he quips and waits to ensure she exhales, and smiles, before running to catch up to Belle.
He shuffles into the library and almost doesn't see Belle. A quick scan reveals she's kneeling behind one of the shelves, squinting at the spines. Her fingers tap the number sequences on each book, the fairytale books. They'd scoured them, poring over the enormous section in hopes of learning about the hat only to delve into dragons and their ilk. Methodical it might have been, but that didn't necessarily mean the creature possessed more than an animal's intelligence or understanding...which would mean it had been unleashed with a goal in mind, and he'd much prefer a clumsy, haphazard villain if there was going to be one.
"Any clue as to what it might be?" he asks.
"Actually, I think I know exactly what it is," she mutters into the volumes, grunting as she hauls out a giant of a tome with a thick leather binding. He kneels down next to her and supports the manuscript while she flips through the pages. "Rumple made it a point to know the more demonic creatures. They live, or lived, in the mountains or underground, each with its own name and purpose. There." Pausing, she points to the hellbeast, looming over a mountain peak with flames all around it. Peering deeper into the illustration, he shivers at tiny silhouettes of arms and bodies in the fire, either dancing or writhing in the flames. Perhaps both.
"'The Chernabog, the dark sentinel of Bald Mountain,'" he reads, scratching his ear. "Look here. It says it finds and devours the heart of the one with the greatest potential for darkness. It was looking for someone."
"It dove down right in front of us outside Granny's," Belle mutters, more to herself than to him. "Regina."
"You sound so certain."
"You and I have both seen how much damage she can do when, when she's in a mood. She's on a better path, of course, but it wants potential, which means it's irrelevant whether the person's actually done anything evil or not."
There's a logic to it, he knows, and it was Regina's doing that cursed most of them to this place after all, the curse that took the sweet, brave young woman next to him and locked her in a cell without light, without her name, without a past. But he finds himself shaking his head, not realizing how dry his lips had gone until he attempts to lick them. Regina's changed, maybe not to "hero" status, which, to him, sounds more and more unattainable, but she's stopped wasting her life. So much talk of putting one's past where it belongs, and yet no one around can manage to outrun it. Not even himself.
"What's it say about defeating it?" he asks, folding his arms.
"It's just an identification book, demonology." She closes the book with a sharp, "hmph." "You would think the big black wings would give it away and they wouldn't need a guidebook."
Helping her up, he crosses back to the window, too many absurd moments spent wondering if he could spot it, if it still flew over the streets in search of someone who can be corrupted. It should be him, he thinks, the unfocused reflection of himself in the glass giving way to the recovering people out on the street. He'd caved to the darkness more than once and had shut off the voice that nagged him for centuries that he needed to stop, that if he kept on the path he would die alone with nothing but an empty blackened heart to show for it. He'd ignored it, had chosen to believe he couldn't love anymore and that he was too far gone for anyone to consider him worth anything. If the darkness preferred creeping up on him to anyone else, surely the beast would be back to claim him.
"Belle, maybe you ought to get yourself to the pawn shop, you know, for something to destroy it." As well as her own safety.
"Where will you be?"
"Eaten alive, maybe." He shoots her a grin, but he knows it doesn't reach his eyes. Puffing out her lips, she edges to the window and gazes out of it with him. He flinches at the brush of fingers at his knuckles.
"I was wrong. About your heart being rotten."
"You said it was after potential, someone susceptible to darkness. I've lived a life longer than anyone else giving in to it over and over again," he says, bristling.
"Killian, I, I'm not always right about these kinds of things, but I do know people are worth finding and worth saving if there's a shred of goodness in them, and so maybe you're looking at this all wrong. Maybe your heart has the greatest potential for goodness. It's hard to really appreciate things like heroism or hope if you've never been hopeless. Whoever it's after, you might understand them better than anyone."
He hasn't heard from Emma. He left a message, "voicemail," with rattling off Belle's findings with the sinking suspicion they won't be radically helpful this time. He roams the streets, but never catches a glimpse of her or her car, and he refuses to call Henry about it. A child receiving a "your mother's gone missing" message in an ordinary town would be cause enough for alarm and here they are in Storybrooke where his mother is the Savior.
He holds his breath at the sound his phone makes when someone has sent him a message. Burning holes into the small screen with his eyes, he cocks his head at a random series of numbers rather than her name.
Killian, it's Mary Margaret. Call the numbers above this message.
Cryptic, but that could be a good thing. If the hellbeast had done something to Emma, Snow would have told him. Pressing in the correct number series, he waits.
"Killian. Have you heard anything from Emma?" she pants at his ear. Bloody hell...
"I had thought you had when I called you," he says, gritting his teeth. "If you knew how to get a hold of me, why didn't you just call?"
"I was afraid you wouldn't answer a strange number. It's okay. Emma's okay. She called me to let me know she and Regina know how to stop the creature. We're on our way to the town line to meet her. I was just, just w-wondering if she had gone into any more detail about it with you."
There's a question in her tone, a worried one.
"No. If you're going to the town line, come pick me up."
"We're about there already, and, and there's no need for anyone else to come," she stammers.
"Why are you being secretive about it? It's not as if the massive flying hellbeast was bothering to be discreet," he half-hisses into the phone, tempted to cut off any stuttering explanation she offers up with a "put David on," but he bites his lip. She won't tell him what's going on but wondered if Emma had said anything to him? Closing his eyes, he steps backward against the exterior of one of the shops and takes a breath. "You're sure Emma's fine?"
"Yes, promise. We're only going out there to..." she trails off, apparently not having bothered to put together a complete sentence for him. He rolls his eyes. As his tongue runs over his teeth, he sneers into the phone.
"To what?"
"Damage control," she blurts out. "In fact, David and I wanted to know if you wanted to have dinner with us tonight. We wanted to treat you, you know, for all your hard work, and now that the fairies are safe, it seems like the right thing to do. Don't you think?"
"Have you been drinking?" he asks. It's enough to make one wish for another hand to slap his forehead with. The transition's pulled the discussion so off-course his head doesn't even know where to look. "Snow, what is happening at the town line?"
"We're pulling up now. Emma and Regina are fine, just like I said she would be, and there's no sign of the beast," she sighs, adopting an airiness to her voice. "Will we see you tonight? Seven?"
"Aye." Certainly. Why the hell not? It seems to be the only communication he'll receive from them, so why not? No checking up to find out what he and Belle might have found, no request to watch Henry, nothing.
Would you have rathered she call to tell you something happened to Emma, he asks himself, and the agitation flicking his heart to pump harder ebbs. It has been a while since the town's faced a crisis, he tells himself. It would be easy to feel a little shaken, and if Emma has indeed been busy ridding the town of the Chernabog, that would account for her not calling him or relaying extra information to her parents. So here he is standing out in the street with nothing to do but gawk at his phone, he realizes with a snort. Becoming quite the inhabitant of this world, it would appear.
Emma Swan with a mug of beer and a bottle of wine is a sight for sore eyes, he thinks with a grin. Stepping into the diner, empty except for her and Henry at a corner table, he plops into the chair next to her and reaches across with his hand to trace a line down her arm, just to make sure...just to make sure.
"I didn't know whether you'd be in a beer mood or a wine mood, so I got both," she says, shrugging, her glass filled to the brim with red wine.
"What's the lad having?" he asks Henry, who returns the grin.
"Doctor Pepper, and I'm not going to be the fifth wheel here, so I'm just going to move to where the light's better." Picking up his book, he moves over to the counter and hops up onto one of the stools.
"According to the Blue Fairy, the Author left clues in the book about his or her whereabouts," Swan clarifies, nudging the beer mug closer to him. "I got your message, but I had something I had to take care of."
"Thwarting magical creatures will do that," he says. He leans back in his chair and takes a swig, seeing her shake her head from the corner of his eye.
"The thing wrecked the car."
"Are you all right?" He sets the mug down harder than he'd intended, spilling some foam onto the table. She flinches at the sound, but smiles at him.
"Yeah, yeah, it's the windshield. Stupid thing punched a hole right through it." Far be it from him to accuse her of not being able to put up a front, but she's succeeding at resembling a small child whose goldfish has just died.
"Is there no chance of fixing it?" It's just glass, isn't it? Surely it wouldn't be too difficult to size some correctly and then fit it into the space of the car...somehow.
"Oh, yeah. Mechanics'll be done with it in a day," she scoffs at herself and sips her wine. It darkens her lips a fraction. "So...that thing ended up paying for it in the end. We threw it over the town line."
"So it got its comeuppance. It was after Regina then?" Maybe he shouldn't have doubted it. Anyone who starts slaughtering whole villages definitely has a great potential for darkness.
"Yeah, and, with some outside help, it's not going to bother her or any of us again."
They sit in silence, but not an awkward one, merely taking in the taste of their drinks and the barely audible music Ruby plays...the occasional brush of her hair on the sleeve of his jacket. He won't bother right now with worries as to how long it will all last, not when it seems like these sorts of moments will become rarer now that disaster has found its way back to town. A demon seeking out a heart to devour trumps an albatross as far as harbingers of doom go.
His eyes drift over to Henry, head buried in the book with a magnifying glass. He'd never had that kind of patience or dilligence when he was twelve, his mind never on where he was or what he was doing. That had come from a steady combination of survival depending on attention to detail and Liam's constant harping.
"What do you suppose the boy is up to now?" He'd have been afraid to break the silence before, but now the initiation of words feels as natural as the silence.
"Being Henry," she sighs with her chin in her hand, a soft look of pride coming over her face. "If anyone's going to get that Author out of the book, it's him."
Snow'd been right that day on the stairs about her. Openness becomes her. Not that she'd ever shied away from it when it came to Henry in the time he's known her, but he's sorrier now than he was before that all the magical mayhem and tomfoolery will commence again. Here she'd had a snippet of a normal life, much richer than the one her fake New York life had given her, maybe even the beginning of a happy ending...
"Hmm. You've become quite the optimist, Swan," he remarks.
"Have I?" It pulls her gaze from Henry to him, causing her to blink and run her fingers up her arm. For a split second, he fears the walls will come back up, but they don't. She knows they don't need to. "Guess I couldn't really help it, between him and my parents."
"That reminds me—aren't they supposed to be here?" Half an hour late, if the clock on the wall is anything to go by. Unlike them.
"You're right. I wonder what's keeping them." She prepares to call them on her phone while his feet shuffle under the table at how an entire half hour passed of just sitting with her, mostly in a comfortable silence. Sipping the beer, he continues watching Henry and, oddly, wishing Robin and his little son would come strolling into the diner. They would bring Regina here, she'd at last have her happiness, and that would be the end of this search for the Author. Then nothing could take this away from him, this peace of sitting here next to her, next to his, his...he swallows...family.
"Hey. Sorry we're late." David skids into the diner, juggling the baby and the overly-sized bag with all the baby supplies in it with Snow on his heels. Out of breath, they smooth their hair and dust off their jackets, plastered smiles on their faces.
"I was just about to call. What kept you?" Swan asks. He raises an eyebrow at—the two of them sharing a look? He glances down at his mug, only about half a glass finished.
"Oh, well, had to go back and get Neal ready and, you know, town stuff," Snow blusters, twisting around to take the baby and pry his lips open with a prepared bottle.
"Town stuff?" Swan laughs. "Nothing the sheriff or the mayor needs to know." Leaning back in her chair, she stares past him at the window. "You drove?"
"We wanted to go to a movie afterwards," David says before picking up the menu to skim. He wants to open his mouth and ask how, or, more appropriately, why a person would need to go to a movie when Netflixing has arranged things so the film movies can be viewed at home, but he quells it. Perhaps he can glean something from the context.
"You're taking Baby Bro to a movie? That's a surefire way to get kicked out."
"Well." Shifting in his seat, David's face reddens. "This may be a bit presumptuous, but we were kind of hoping you would babysit tonight. Unless you have plans."
Swan laughs and reaches over the table to tap her brother on the nose. He'll adore her once he's more aware of his surroundings, a burgeoning smile spreading across the babe's face once his eyes focus on her. It's an unspoken agreement, he knows, and so maybe tonight is the night to finally open that book about Harry Potter and discover why his story spans seven heavy books...he frowns. His hand balls up into a fist a fraction of a second before he realizes why. Henry spends the night at Regina's house this day, leaving the apartment with Swan the sole occupant if her parents go out...alone in the privacy of the apartment...where she could have nothing on but moonlight and a smile and no one would be the wiser.
"Stop it." She whispers, nudging into him.
"Stop what?"
"Glowering. You look like they just cancelled Christmas for you."
He won't ask what that is, not when she's scooting even closer to him so her head rests on his shoulder for only a moment, one of the countless, wordless ways she reminds him she knows what's on his mind and quite possibly shares the sentiment. Every bone in the side of his face nestles into her hair as he watches her parents scan the menus, their postures relaxing, breathing evening itself out. Closing the book, Henry sits down at the table and eyes Killian's beer with the inquisitive, not-quite-jealous look that might be on any twelve-year-old's face. Aye, this is his family, and no Author will rip this away from him.
A/N: Coming up? So much damage a magic seashell enchanted by a vengeful god of the sea can do...