"You took her happy ending from her?" David asks, following him back into the bowels of the shop, the others knowing enough to let him prepare in peace. A shell had to be around here somewhere, everything is, he thinks, kneeling down and rummaging through the items, moving this glass bottle here and that broken clock there.
"Kindly stand to the side, mate. Your shin happens to be in my way." Crawling to the next shelving unit over, his knees sidle up to the edge so he can reach into the farthest corner. Navigating through a few rolled-up newspapers and locked-up chess sets, his fingertip brushes the toothy edge of a conch shell.
"Ah! Just the thing." He grins, particularly in David's befuddled direction.
"You can't just take off with something in here and not give us any information!"
"Dad," Swan starts to scold at the same time Belle says, "It's all right. Take whatever you need so long as it clears up this whole mess."
Giving up, David places his hands on his hips and returns back to Snow. They can go be heroes and save the man from the crocodile's clutches. He belongs more in the role Regina had been assigned—befriending those more like them and using it to their advantage. A blurry line between heroism and villainy, to be sure.
"Can't talk you into taking some backup, can I?" Swan tugs on his arm as he nears the door, concern etched over her face. Summoning a smirk, he cocks his head at her.
"I don't know. Can you? Persuade me?"
"Would it do any good?" She cocks her head right back.
"This will work," he assures her, deciding it's not the right time to kiss her, lest she think he fears he won't come back. Nodding at him, her hand squeezes his arm before releasing him.
He's taken the shell deep into the woods, the street sounds falling by the wayside in favor of birds, squirrels, and, hopefully, scorned octopus women. He blows into it again and waits. He's heard older sailors describe it as a siren song for their kind, as unable to evade its lure as humans mesmerized by a haunting melody. In that case, she should already be here, would drop everything to find the source of the sound. Well, she's always been a willful creature.
If she refuses to meet him...his fingers drum the smooth side of the shell...what then? He's not much of a tracker when it comes to the forest, although he's improved over the last several months. Maybe he should just coax Regina into inviting him into this villain stint. It should go over well, provided he brings plenty of rum.
"Where is that infernal creature?" he wonders out loud. He'll try one more time, and then, and then he'll try again.
In an instant, he can't exhale. Thick green tentacles cinch his arms, his waist, his gut. One slimy coil feels like dozens, squeezing tighter and tighter until his elbows press into his ribs.
"Right here, Captain." He strains to even angle his head to see her, Ursula, so adept at walking on land she snuck right up on him in a forest full of twigs and leaves.
"Wait," he wheezes. "I want to offer you a deal."
"After what you did to me? I don't think so."
"Gold was wrong! You don't have to find the Author to get what you want!" It hurts to speak. Sweat drizzles its way down his neck into his back, down his chest to his stomach as even the parts free of the tentacle tense up.
If his words resonated with her in any way, he missed it...which he'll forgive himself for since his vision starts to blur. The tentacle slides against him as she unwraps him. He can't control his loud intakes of air. His hand and the side of his hook drop to his knees and support his weight; a ten-mile sprint couldn't have been more arduous.
"And why should I believe a word you say?" she challenges, walking up to him.
"Because I know what it is you desire, and I know exactly where to get it."
"You still have it?"
No, but he's rather surprised she hasn't tried to take it back herself. Ever since he first locked her voice away in his cabin, more than just his obsession for revenge kept him awake at night. With his arms up over his head, he'd let the side of his face fall into the pillow and just stare at the safe, waiting. Waiting for the bulkhead around him to be smashed into splinters, for the quiet creaking to turn into a deafening rush of water. She'd never come after it. That digusted with him, he suspected. No, no he doesn't keep a voice on him other than his own, but the Jolly Roger's more durable than any other ship he's come across in his travels. It's why Blackbeard wanted it and it's what will keep him a sputtering fool who underestimates his enemies. He'll never see Ursula coming.
"The Dark One. He's here for more than just the Author. If I return your happy ending, you're going to tell me exactly what he's doing in Storybrooke," he demands.
"You got yourself a deal," she agrees. Without much hesitation, he notes, raising an eyebrow. After all this time, perhaps she hasn't changed all that much after all. Perhaps what she wants is what she's always wanted.
"Take a walk with me. We need to be a little more in our element, if you get my meaning."
She follows him, not reaching for a phone to call her companions, not even glancing over her shoulder. Oh, she hasn't changed much at all, still the intrepid lass from before, sweet and good-natured, but without the millstone of innocence. That had been taken from her when she'd lost her mother. Sensing her eyes on him, he clears his throat and reminds himself how lethal she can be, even on land.
"I wouldn't have thought you'd lower yourself to working with such riffraff when you know none of them had a clue as to how to help you," he says.
"Having self-important dolts take away the thing that matters most to you is a pretty effective commonality," she shoots back, huddling into herself as they step over some debris.
"Aye, but you'll remember, lass, I too know how that feels." He offers his hand to help her over a log, but the "surely you jest" look curls his hand and wrist back toward himself.
"Sorry, but I didn't make a deal with you to listen to you insult my friends and act like we're the same. Because we're not. If our world or this one had any justice at all, you'd have been target practice for Pan's boys and left to give all the Neverland boars the runs."
"Picturesque image."
"Isn't it?"
"Has this world been so terrible to you, lass?" he asks, stopping. Justice. He'd been shown mercy instead. She hadn't. The others hadn't. What did they want? In all honesty, he's grown tired of realizing how long so many people have been alone, and yet, if they wanted all the same things he'd wanted, why the bloody hell had they holed themselves up in a cabin in the woods with nothing but a crocodile and a wooden man or boy for company? Ursula refuses to answer him.
"So where exactly did you bury my treasure?" she asks him when they reach the pier, an empty one. Still gray waters wait for a ship to dock, one with trim he's painted and repainted himself countless times over, patches in the sails he'd taken the time to stitch with the thinnest threads possible, little ornaments and vases here and there that Milah hadn't been able to part with upon leaving a foreign harbor.
"Oh, I didn't bury it. It's aboard the Jolly Roger." Where, since he has no reason to believe time works any differently in the Enchanted Forest, Blackbeard would be out at sea with it, spilling blood all over the deck and most likely conjuring up some pun for commentary if he were in a cheeky mood.
"So where's the Jolly Roger?"
He laughs, picking up on her impatience all too well. "Ha, back in the Enchanted Forest." And here is where he'll lose her. "Now, can you still open portals underwater, or did you give up that power when you became the monster you are?"
"The monster that you made me," she corrects him, and he deserves that. He knows he does, but the muscles in his face react as if they'd been dealt a blow and his body constricts. He took her singing voice, but he didn't crash all those ships. He didn't sweep those tentacles over the decks and blindly curl around screaming sailors...No, no he just ran people through with a sword and backhanded unarmed prisoners when they spoke of how much they loved the bloody Dark One...
"Can you open the portal or not?" His teeth grind against each other.
"Yes, I can. But I'm afraid I'll need something from the Jolly Roger to know exactly where it is."
He can't say he enjoys the pockets of this world too much, either too few or so shallow they fail to fit anything in them other than a key or a coin or two. This jacket, however, boasts zippers on the inside...much more practical and loads safer than the ones that run along the crotch of his trousers. And the space inside them can hold more treasure than anyone might think, for it's not all silver and gold a pirate cherishes.
"Piece of the rigging," he says after digging it out, grinning at her "really" expression. "Did you really think I'd trade my ship without taking a souvenir?"
He's going to see the Jolly Roger. He holds his breath as he stares out at the ocean. He knows it will be in one piece, Blackbeard too eager to take it to act callously with it, but, at the same time, it hasn't been with him, and, not to brag, but it's survived many a catastrophe with himself at the helm. She should be diving in any moment now. This is Storybrooke, he considers saying. Time is of the essence here.
"What's the matter? You don't like the ocean?"
"I haven't dipped my toe in the sea since I was banished to this world," she says, faraway, remembering. "Stand back."
A tentacle shoots out from underneath her skirt and hovers above the water for a split second before its tip graces it with just enough force to form a ripple. Another one expands out of it and another, but no portal. No diving. No damned results. If this is her idea of a trap...
"It didn't work."
Ursula's eyes hone in on the water before she breaks into a laugh.
"Yes, it did!"
There it lies, smaller. Considerably smaller. It's out of his care for a couple of months and it's, it's a soddering toy. Lodged in a bottle, the Jolly Roger and all its facets, all its memories, just sits. On display.
"Bloody hell," he breathes.
"Looks like you're not the only thing that's changed," Ursula snorts, batting it around with her tentacle.
"Bring it up here. Now!"
"Sure you don't want to start a game of water volleyball with it? I think we should take advantage of how portable it is." Her other tentacle swoops down a few feet and, oh gods, juggles his ship from one to the other.
"Stop it!"
"Oh, have a little fun, Captain," she says without even looking at him.
"Your singing voice is in my cabin and it's quite possible you've damaged it! Ursula, please! Please bring it up here, or we're both done for!"
That seems to register with her, the tentacle now lazily encircling the neck of the bottle and, with the other one hovering beneath it should it fall, she brings it up and dangles it right in front of his eyes. He cups it with his hand, closes one eye, and peers in. Yes, it's the Jolly Roger all right, right down to the one naughty plank of wood that never stays flush with the others no matter how many times he takes a look at it.
"What happened to you?" he whispers to it.
"Gun beats sword," Swan says with her arms folded. "Every time."
"You're being quite hostile, love. I wouldn't think you'd be afraid to learn how to wield a proper weapon."
They wait in the grassy area by Henry's school, adjacent to the one for the smaller children. The field sports an array of obstacles, he supposes, for the children to play on, walls and bars meant for climbing, swings and slides and tunnels—it all looks extremely fun if somewhat too small for an adult, so he's taken to poking Swan's torso with Henry's wooden sword.
"Knock it off, will you? He's going to come out any minute and you two can practice."
"Or, you can learn how to protect yourself so I don't have to defend you when someone else starts doing this to you," he suggests, waggling his eyebrow at her.
"Well, I could show you what I would do and shoot you, but you'd be too dead to have learned your lesson." And nevertheless, she saunters closer to him in an attempt to swipe the sword from his grip. Novice move. In one fluid motion, he sweeps behind her and lifts her arm with his, boosting it up until it's high enough for her to take the sword from him.
"It doesn't require as much strength as one might think," he murmurs into her hair, inhaling as he can actually hear her pulse rising. "It's more about knowing how to relax with it, keep the muscles loose."
Holding her forearm, he lifts her arm up with it, pressing into the dip of her wrist when he senses it clenching and reverting back to the clunky movements she tried on him back at Lake Nostos. No more of that.
"Slide your feet. Once you lose your balance, you've lost."
He knows she's still holding her breath and waits for her to unleash a soft exhale, her head falling back just a fraction. It comes easy to her, long limbs and natural grace coveted advantages. Like a dance, she glides with it a few steps, never wiggling out from him. His hooked arm latches around her waist...for no instructional reason. It's just to breathe her in deeper, pull her back into his chest, feel what it would be like for every curve to touch him...
"Oy! That is a place for children, you know?" shouts a stuffed-mouth accent from across the street where the thief, Will, he thinks, waves to them with an obnoxious grin.
"That guy," she sighs with a venom that it might as well be a growl. His sentiments exactly.
"Ya know, in Wonderland, they've got swords that bend, some what sing. I saw one once that told riddles, but once ya know "Brothers and sister have I none/but this man's father is my father's son" it gets a little repetitive," Will says. He pops a sweet of some kind into his mouth, mumbles a quick "cheers" and goes about his business. If one can call it that.
"He likes it so much in Wonderland, he can bloody stay there," he whispers into Swan's ear. Her giggle reflects an agreement, so he kisses the top of her head and turns them around, their backs to the rest of the world.
"Well...stopping now would just be giving him what he wants." So coy. "Keep teaching."
The thief had been to Wonderland, knew more about it than he did, anyway, having spent a grand total of less than one hour in the topsy-turvy place Cora had ruled. He would have pegged Will as one of the last people in town who might be obliged to help him, but, then again, if he still courted Belle after news of the Dark One's return reaching him, common sense had fled that mind a long time ago in favor of sentiment.
"Are you sure he'll help us?" Ursula gasps for breath, trying to make longer strides to keep up with him.
"No, but it's nearly always a sure thing when both parties realize they want the same thing," he calls back to her when he reaches the door. Heaving a heavy sigh, he waits for her to catch up, not opening the door for her until she's composed herself. Ah, Will's present and wondering what the bloody hell they're doing there.
"Do hope we're not interrupting, but we need the thief's assistance," he informs Belle. She flinches, her hands flying off her thief's arms.
"And how do I know that you're really Killian?" she challenges him, a spark of anger in her eyes. He'd like to think it holds her steady, readies her for putting her bravery to use.
"Oh now you decide to question my identity?" he challenges back, smirking that she opens her mouth to form a retort, seemingly already convinced he's exactly who he says he is.
"If he were the Dark One, lover boy here would already be dead," Ursula points out.
"Yeah, she's got a point there," Will agrees, looking rather embarassed about it, not afraid. "But why should I help you?"
Petulant twerp, because it's in everyone's best interest the object of your affection's vindictive ex-husband doesn't come barging in here with magical fireballs hovering above one hand and sack of human hearts in the other.
"Because for once we want the same thing, the Dark One gone. The key to making that happen is in here." Reaching into his satchel, he pulls out the bottle. Still intact, on his very person and yet impossible to really reach.
"Right," Will drawls, hunching over to tap the glass. "That your ship, is it? Bit small, in't?"
"Careful, mate. It's unwise to insult the size of a pirate's ship." He ought to advise Belle to do a little better at pursing her lips to hold back the laughter. Making eye contact with her, she lowers her head and shakes it a fraction like she's just cleared her throat. The things he tolerates...
"And you've spent more time in Wonderland than anyone I know. You must have something that can restore it."
"You're in luck." He stands straighter now, more chipper than at the start. "I think I might have just what you need."
Back at the harbor, the clouds gather again, the sun nothing more than yellow outlines against a jigsaw puzzle of gray. He hadn't planned on extending this out into the night, not when Regina's still in such a precarious situation and the crocodile's collected a new victim. Such a fondness for his walking stick, it sends a shiver down his spine wondering if Rumpelstiltskin's tired of using it by now, and what he may try next.
"Shall we?" Ursula huffs at him, waving the vial Will gave them around in her impatient hand. She stops long enough to suck up some of it in a dropper.
"Be careful, love. That's distilled from Wonderland's finest mushrooms. Spill one drop and, well, Storybrooke will have a giant squid in its harbor." A distraction they most certaintly don't need right now. She rolls her eyes at him and releases the drop right onto the bottle. There. That glow of magic. Hurling it out into the water, he watches golden ripples fan out larger and larger until it churns and bubbles to make way for the hull. The keel. The deck. The sails. As magnificent as the day he'd first laid eyes on it, the Jolly Roger, the "jewel of the realm," indeed.
"Now that's a ship fit for a pirate." Grinning, he breaks into a run to where the lines float like spilled ribbons in the water. Crouching down, he has to lay flat against the deck to reach the end of one of the lines with his hook, snagging it just right the first time in order to tie it down. You remember stepping aboard, lass, he almost blurts out, stepping around Ursula instead so he can climb up onto the main deck. Unfortunately, she is the only one in close proximity who could possibly revel with him at the sight of it again and she's the least likely person to do just that. No matter. He knows the prize that awaits him, passing his hand over the rail as he paces the deck once again. It emits a heat only he can feel. One day, one day he'll bring Swan and Henry out here on it, show them a proper sailing excursion, all the piss-poor boats Henry had worked on pale imitations, and Swan? Had she ever even had a pleasant memory of being on it?
Without reintroducing it to Ursula, he swings open the door to his cabin. Blackbeard left a multi-course meal on the table, breads and fruits from end to end, and he would file the combination of baked bread and sea salt away as one of the most enticing aromas he's ever known.
"I never thought I'd walk this sweet vessel again," he mumbles to himself, caressing the bulkhead that leads around to the shelves. So unaltered, so mercifully void of Blackbeard's influence. He can pretend the violation never happened if he should be so inclined, that he'd merely docked it somewhere for safekeeping...it's a sign. It's a sign all the disaster the Dark One will wreak will be fixed. He'd given the ship up with tears in his eyes, but without a sliver of regret, and here it was no worse for wear. Whatever the crocodile had planned, he and Emma and everyone else will walk away from it unscathed...ready for the next catastrophe, he thinks with a smile.
"Yes, well, you can ogle your ship after you return my singing voice," Ursula interrupts the warm fictions plodding through in his head...none of which will actually happen if he tears himself away from the present much longer. Right then. Twisting off his hook, he turns the flattened end of it into the lock of his safe, the resounding click a sound he's sure Blackbeard never got to hear. He relishes that. The whiteness of the shell sticks out in the shadowy safe, the rest of the trinkets best left where they've rested for so long Killian would have to concentrate to remember what all they are.
He holds it up for her to see, and she's instantly the eager lass who'd strolled his deck singing.
"Now, you know the deal," he reminds her. "I hand this over, you tell me every detail of the Dark One's plan."
She doesn't need to reply, trembling with excitement. The voice trapped inside the shell seems to respond to it, wordless notes fighting beneath its surface.
"Oh, you hear that?" she breathes.
"Aye." Even if he lived three hundred more years, he wouldn't forget the song of a siren. He smiles, watching the green waves stroke the air on the way to her throat. She leans her head back to welcome it. Just then, the shell snatches it all back.
"It didn't work."
"Why the devil not?" he asks. It should have. It should have left the shell and gone back down her windpipe the moment her magic touched it. Her eyes bulge, horror and desperation beginning to fill them, and he's heard what all the sea witch can do in such a state.
"Because you're wrong, Hook. Villains can't get their happy endings!"
He's so damned sick of hearing that. Every syllable cuts away at him, cloying as she turns her back to him. No. No one will be walking away from him and leaving him empty-handed today, not today!
"I never should have believed you when you said we could do this without the Author," she scolds herself.
Well, march right up the steps and leave him hanging, why doesn't she? Shell in hand for good measure! Blasted sea witch walking away from him one step closer to her happy ending while he's spent the day chasing magic with nothing to show for it but his and Emma's hearts still beating in their chests, and it was only a matter of time before Rumpelstiltskin would be doing every nefarious thing he could think of to remedy that.
"I delivered your voice. It's not my fault if your magic can't get it out of the bloody shell. Now tell me what Gold has planned!"
"Our deal is over. You get nothing!"
Oh no. She won't sob to him about being left with nothing. He's been left with nothing more than anyone, and this time, this time he knows he won't survive it. It's second nature, reaching for the pistol and aiming it square at the back of her head. He knows she'll hear it cock. And he knows she's lived in this world long enough to fear it.
"Our deal is not over." He'll wait, watch her pivot and stare up at him in terror. She wouldn't be the first. "I have to stop the Dark One. He's taken too much from me already."
"You haven't changed one bit, still the same selfish pirate as always!" she shouts back, her tentacle smacking the barrel of the pistol so hard it flies out of his hand, too quick for him to catch. "Never go up against a woman with eight hands, especially when you only have one!"
Something cold and musky hits his face before everything goes black.
A/N: Coming up? A scene I've really been looking forward to.
