Chapter Fifty-Five—"And All This Trouble Did Not Pass"

Sidney wasn't a fool. He knew that Regina would only let him speak against her for so long. As much as she'd claimed to change, Sidney had seen the real woman behind the nice smile and newly light magic; she'd sentenced him to eternity in that mirror when she'd promised to free him, and it had taken the Snow Queen to set him free. There was no way in hell that Sidney was going to get so lucky again, so he needed powerful friends if he was going to take Regina on.

Of course, the people who should have supported him, like Snow White's widower, were on Regina's side, which really disgusted Sidney. Not a one of the town's damned heroes, even Emma Swan—back before she'd embraced her bit of darkness—had ever given a damn about him. They hadn't even noticed that he was in the asylum after the curse broke, which certainly told Sidney how high he was in their esteem. So, he saw no reason whatsoever to feel any loyalty towards them in return. They had never helped him, after all, not even when he was locked up in the asylum, tucked away until Regina wanted him again and expected to be loyal all that time.

No more. Sidney wasn't knuckling under to these Enchanted Forest monarchs any longer; they were all the same type. There was no guarantee that Camelot's rulers would be any different, of course. But that was why Sidney was never going to put himself in their power the way he'd placed himself in Regina's. Never again. No, he was going to depend upon Storybrooke's increasingly angry citizenry to keep him safe. The heroes were enamored with staying on the public's good side, which meant that as long as the under-educated mob sided with Sidney, they'd never go after him.

What he did behind the scenes, however, was another matter.

"All we ask is that you call for new elections," Arthur told him, wearing a politician's easy smile.

"I'm not going to support you automatically." Sidney squared his shoulders. "If you're the best candidate, I certainly will, but I make no promises."

"I don't ask for any. Of course you'll do what you think is right."

Sidney wasn't blind, and he knew that Arthur Pendragon was no one's fool, and he would certainly expect something in exchange for the protection that he was promising Sidney. Nor was Guinevere, who sat silently off to the side, her green eyes watching everything and missing nothing. Her opinion was one that Sidney would have loved to hear, because he was fairly sure that she was the brains of this outfit. Arthur was far from stupid, but his wife seemed to be the brilliant one.

"This town has faced enough instability, and enough 'heroes' who are really villains when you scratch past the surface. I want what's best for the people of Storybrooke." He met Arthur's eyes, but didn't miss Guinevere's thin smile.

"We all do. I may be a newcomer, but"—Arthur smiled at Guinevere—"my wife is not. She has told me the many challenges that this town has faced, and I believe that a change in leadership is what's needed."

Sidney nodded. "Then we have an agreement."

This would do. This would do nicely, and Sidney was ready to begin.

{**********}

Emma had been trying to be more social, trying not to be the scary Dark One hiding in her house. She didn't want to threaten people, didn't want to be the demon that haunted Storybrooke in the night, but pushing aside those temptations was hard. It wasn't that she wanted to be like that, but the darkness inside her kept pushing her, pressing her, whispering and tempting her. There were times when telling that damned voice—soft and natural as it could seem—apart from her own thoughts was almost impossible. Emma had thought that her victory at the Vault would mean more than that; she'd forced the darkness to her will and been ready to sacrifice herself to save her son, no matter what the cost. She'd never expected it to be a daily battle.

How did he do this every damned day? She wanted to scream at the universe. How in the hell had Merlin thought it was a good idea to shove this mess of darkness, broken souls, and bare-knuckled revenge into a person? Granted, the darkness hadn't picked up several dozen darkened personalities along the way when Merlin stuffed it into Nimue, but he should have had an idea what would happen. He hadn't, though, and now the price was Emma's to pay.

Sometimes, it gave her a raging headache that no amount of magic or migraine pills would cure.

Today, however, she was determined not to be just the Dark One. She'd looked in on Archie—she'd even talked to him a little, and in his horrible loneliness, Archie had chatted with her for a long time about how she used to be, and how holding onto that portion of her soul was important. Emma knew that, but hearing Archie believe in her actually helped a little, and she left his flat with a slightly lighter heart. She wasn't sure any day when she was the Dark One would truly be a good day, but this one was shaping up to be better than most.

At least until she ran into Killian, anyway.

Part of Emma felt horrendously guilty for what she had done to him. She'd used him, plain and simple, trying to counter the fear Guinevere—the Black Fairy—inspired in her with good, old-fashioned, lust. Then, to make matters worse, she'd tried to sneak out. But the horrible truth of the matter was that she just couldn't trust him…and she couldn't trust herself, either. Killian had stood by her, on the surface, when she'd been in some of her darkest moments, but he'd also lied to her. He'd disregarded her judgment as flawed simply because she was the Dark One. It had taken far too long, but Emma had finally come to understand the fact that, for all Killian said that he didn't fear the darkness, he didn't understand. He looked at being the Dark One as a temporary malady, as something that overwrote who you really were and simply had to be gotten rid of.

Emma knew better. She knew that the darkness had its claws into her, but she was still Emma. For all that her decision making process was faulty, they were still her decisions. Yes, the darkness could cloud that. Yes, it could whisper and sometimes shout so deafeningly that she could hardly hear anything else. But the person making the choices was still Emma Swan. Killian didn't want that to be true, and she knew in her heart that he couldn't accept that.

"Emma," he said as she stopped, his voice low and throaty, the voice of a lover and not the man who had tried so hard and so long to kill the darkness inside her—without ever stopping to think of what its host was actually like. He's only ever blamed one of us, and sometimes I think I'm the only one who understands how unfair that is.

Emma brought her chin up, letting out a breath to calm herself. "Yeah. Hi."

I will not be weak, she told herself and the darkness that always tried to push her closer and closer to Killian. Why would it do that, when he'd almost gotten her trapped in the Vault? It had hated him then, and yet now it tried to propel her towards him. That made no sense at all.

"I…I was hoping we might talk."

"All right. Talk."

He frowned, gesturing awkwardly north, in the direction of the house they'd once shared. "Perhaps somewhere private?" Killian's next smile was more natural. "Not that I have any untoward intentions towards you—unless you'd like me to, of course—but what I have to say ought not be said in public."

"I don't think we can trust each other." Was that roaring in her ears the sound of her heart breaking? Emma had wanted to love so badly, and then Killian had died for her in that damned alternate world. He'd given up so much in the name of their love, and she'd wanted to throw herself into that as wholly and freely as he had. But she knew she had to stop. Maybe even forever. "I know I can't trust myself."

"If you want me so bad, Swan, you don't have to stay away. We can work this out." He stepped towards her, and once, not too long ago, Emma would have met him halfway, pushing their boundaries aside and reveling in his sheer sex appeal. Reveling in the danger. Danger could be so sweet, and Emma knew that siren's call far too well. "You know how much I love you. I won't deny it isn't easy, with you as the Dark One. But I do love you."

"I know." Emma bit her lip hard, forcing the words out. "And I've loved you. I've loved the idea of being in love with you, of looking at future—however terrifying—that isn't me alone. But I've made myself realize a lot of things over the last few days, truths I didn't want to admit to before."

"Truths? Such as the fact that you're in love with a dashing troubadour who would lay his life down for your happiness?"

She had to swallow. Why did he have to be so earnest, just when she was trying to be strong? You know you want him. You can do the right thing later. Isn't it so much easier to fight when the loneliness isn't howling so strongly that you can hear nothing else? With an effort, Emma pushed those thoughts aside. "Such as the fact that you bring out the worst in me."

"I don't—you're—"

She held up a hand. "Hear me out, please. This isn't easy to admit, and it has nothing to do with the fact that I'm the Dark One. It started before this. Everything I've become since then is my fault, not yours."

"Then how do I bring out the worst in you? All I've done is bring your walls down, encourage you to be open to love. If that's the 'worst of you', Swan, I think your moral compass is less calibrated than you think."

"It actually is, but not because I was open. You made me lower my defenses, not just against love, but also against wrong. When I'm with you, I turn my back on things. I ignore things because it's easier. I get so focused on you, on being happy, that I ignore the questionable things you do instead of calling you on them. And when I chose to 'see the best in you', I didn't want to care about what evil things you'd done in your past. I ignored everything: the blackmail, the attempted murders, and even how you tried to kidnap my son, and that isn't me."

Killian's face was white with shock. "You've always known what I was. And I told you that I just needed a reason to remember that I could be—"

"That's just it. As long as you're depending on me to make you better, I'm making excuses for you." Emma bit her lip hard, trying to hold tears back. "I will probably always love you, Killian, but it isn't a healthy love. And it makes me into someone I'm not. Someone I don't want to be."

"Am I so very evil, then?" He sounded so utterly broken that Emma had to stop herself from reaching out to him.

"No. No, of course you aren't." She tried to smile, but her eyes were wet. "But if there's anything being the Dark One has taught me, it's that you can't be better for someone else. Rumplestiltskin tried for Belle and failed. You tried for me. I tried for you and for Henry. It never works. You have to do it for yourself."

"And on the other side of that? If I redeem myself, if I do this right, what then? What about when you're you?"

"You may not even want me if I'm not your guiding light." That thought hurt so much that it burned, but Emma forced herself to smile. "And maybe I'm better alone. I don't know. I wanted love so badly, wanted not to lose someone else…" And you were there. A survivor who'd survived more than anyone, a rock to cling to in a storm. She didn't say the last part, because Killian deserved better than to hear that.

Somehow, however, Emma got the feeling he still understood. His broken smile turned crooked. "It's funny you should mention that, actually. I…I wanted to talk to you about backing off. About giving you space to decide between Baelfire and I, now that he's back."

"This isn't about him."

He shook his head. "I don't think it is. But you never really got a choice, love. I was the last man standing when he died, and you were lonely, even though you were never going to admit that. I didn't mean to take advantage of that, but perhaps I did." He stepped forward again, but this time his motions were slow and weren't seductive. Killian only laid his hand on her arm. "If you are going to choose me, I want to do this right. I want to be the man you deserve, and I want you—Dark One or not—to choose me. All of me."

"What if I choose no one?" she had to ask.

"Then I will treasure the time we had." Killian lifted her hand and kissed the back gently. "You're right, by the way. I leaned on you too hard to make me better. You have been my light, the stars I navigate by, but if I want to be the man I once was, I need to do that for myself."

"Thank you for understanding." Emma hated herself. She did. She had the love of this man, and she'd thrown it away—and for what?

We always lose the ones we love, a voice inside her whispered. Love is fickle. Power is not.

She pushed the voice aside, watching in silence as Killian turned and walked away. Much to Emma's surprise, he didn't look back.

{**********}

Today's lesson was on revelation, or untangling magical spells to discover what lay hidden behind them. The other side of the coin was translation, which Belle had taken to extremely quickly. Rumplestiltskin had always wondered if Belle had a touch of magic that enhanced her impressive linguistic ability (she spoke and read more languages than he did, and he'd had three centuries to learn!). He'd also thought, even back in the Dark Castle, that there was a touch of something that always allowed her to find the right book at the right time, but he'd never followed that thread to its logical conclusion. Now, however, they both understood why she'd been so talented in that regard; her natural intelligence and vociferous appetite for knowledge allied with her inborn magic to make Belle the best researcher that Rumplestiltskin had ever met. She was also, of course, a fantastic solver of puzzles.

"I didn't expect you to be so good at this right away." Leaning on the counter, Rumplestiltskin tried to keep his voice casual—it didn't do for the teacher to fawn too much over his student, even if she was his wife and the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. But that was harder than he cared to admit to, particularly when Belle turned away from the (formerly) tangled ball of magic she was working on and stuck her tongue out at him. "This exercise took Regina four days the first time I gave it to her."

"I've always liked mysteries." Her smile was utterly cheeky. "I like you, don't I?"

"'Love is a mystery to be uncovered'?" His quote jerked Belle up short, and she turned to face him fully, her smile softening.

"You remember what I said that day?"

"Every word."

Belle walked into his arms at that, leaving the blue and gold ball of magic shimmering in the air. Rumplestiltskin paid it no mind as she kissed him, simply allowing his eyes to close as he marveled at the fact that this woman loved him. That she had, even when he'd been scaly, scary, and horrible to her.

He'd know that he loved her when he'd given her the rose, but he'd never expected her to blush when he'd handed it—or Gaston, he supposed, another atrocity of his as the Dark One that he'd never be able to correct—to Belle. The way she'd smiled at him that day, the tolerant and happy look she'd given him, had never left Rumplestiltskin's memory. Back then, he'd been utterly certain that his would only ever be an unrequited love; it was the best a monster like him deserved. Yet monster no more, or at least not one that isn't of my choosing, he knew. He could still turn into a monster, one greater and more dangerous than even he had been as the Dark One, but Rumplestiltskin had a choice. One he'd never thought he had until Belle waltzed into his life, and by then, he'd been too foolish to take the love she offered and free himself of the darkness once and for all.

He truly didn't deserve the second, third, or tenth chances she had given him, but he loved her too much to turn them down. "I love you," he whispered in her ear, holding her tightly. "I did even then."

"I know." She pulled back to look at him. "At first, I thought you were just being kind, and that it had to just be me. But then I knew. I only wish that I hadn't been so reckless in how I kissed you, that I'd talked to you instead of jumping right in."

"That wasn't your fault, sweetheart. I wasn't going to let go of that power for anything." He grimaced. "I didn't know what I'd be without it."

Now, he did. Little though he'd liked it, Rumplestiltskin had learned who he was without magic, and he'd learned a little courage, too. And he was better for that experience.

"Now you know," Belle echoed his thoughts all too well. "And now you're teaching me magic. Did you ever imagine that?"

He snorted. "More often than you might think."

"Oh?"

"I…I love learning about it. I always thought you might, too." Admitting the next part was hard. "But I was afraid you'd think it was me trying to corrupt you."

"Well, I know better now." Belle leaned in to kiss his nose, and that chased his old fears away. Rumplestiltskin smiled.

"We both do."

"Yeah." Her smile didn't falter, though he could see a little wariness enter her eyes. "Speaking of magic, I've been thinking a lot about family lately."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. We still can't find Lancelot, but there's someone else who probably knows the truth about my grandmother, and I, well, I don't know if I should ask her."

This hadn't been the angle Rumplestiltskin was expecting, not after they'd started talking about the possibility of children just two weeks earlier. But he knew exactly who Belle meant, regardless. "Reul Ghorm."

"Yeah. I know David said that she wouldn't volunteer much, but maybe she'd talk to me?" Belle turned hopeful eyes on him, and Rumplestiltskin hated the idea of saying that he thought Blue would try to bamboozle her, too. She tries that with all of us, though. We mere humans. She offered me more, but how long would she respect me for before she decided that a human shouldn't have power like Merlin's?

Blue thought he was unworthy solely because he was human. Rumplestiltskin felt his own opinion was significantly less biased: he just thought she was a narrow-minded bitch because she'd proved herself to be one.

"I don't think she'll want to help you," he said as gently as he could. "You're human, at least mostly. And you've chosen to side with the rest of us."

The thought of his wife being—biologically speaking—part faery was still enough to boggle his mind, and truth be told, Rumplestiltskin didn't like that. Had he known it in the beginning, that would have probably made him stay far away from Belle in the first place. Hell, he would probably have demanded Gaston as his price if he'd known she was part faery! But he hadn't known, and he was glad he hadn't. No matter how much Rumplestiltskin despised fae and fairies alike, he loved Belle because she was Belle. And that was what mattered. Not her lineage.

"There's got to be someone who knows more." She grimaced. "If not Blue, then who? I keep trying not to ask them outright, but I won't be able to stop myself forever."

"I know, sweetheart." Pulling her close, Rumplestiltskin wished he had a perfect answer to her problem. He was a chess master, yes. And he was moving pieces so very carefully now, taking advantage of every moment they had with the Black Fairy not knowing that they realized who she was. But Belle was reckless and impulsive by nature, and sooner or later, despite her best intentions, she would let something slip.

He just had to plan for what would happen when she did.

{**********}

Perhaps she had grown overconfident because too much had gone right so far.

Arthur was off watching the former mirror wreak public havoc, a hobby of his that Danns' had always frowned upon but did nothing to interfere with. He enjoyed the feeling of moral superiority that came with being the man with the answers, and, well, if he hadn't been so egotistical, Arthur wouldn't have suited her purposes very well at all. So, Danns' left him to play while she got to work, attempting to track her people down.

Yet Reul had done her work far too well. Finding the fae was not the problem; getting there was. Her darling sister had made sure that Danns' could not get there herself, and no amount of careful magic would break through that barrier. Nor could her magic even tell her for certain if the fae were where she believed, because Reul had left at least two false trails for Danns' to follow. She was fairly certain that this was the right one…but there was no way to tell until she could send someone through the maelstrom of magic guarding the pocket world her people had been shoved into.

That fact, of course, brought her back around to the Dark One. She had hoped that Belle's husband would prove amendable, but he seemed determined to listen to Morgan. Damn her. So, since she would not be able to send the Sorcerer to free her people, she needed the Dark One more than ever. Emma Swan was functionally immortal, and Danns' didn't care how much the journey hurt her, provided the Dark One was able to free the fae. To do that, however, she needed the dagger. Fortunately, acquiring that was the easier mission.

She already had Nimue's blood, after all. All she needed to summon the dagger was the current Dark One's blood—or blood belonging to someone of Emma Swan's line. A slow smile blossomed on her face, and Danns' turned to look at the small crystal box on her dining room table. Archie Hopper's heart beat inside, and his contribution was exactly what she needed.

{**********}

Henry had been planning on getting his dad to put together a movie night or something, just a night where it could be just him, his dad, and his granddad. He'd thought about inviting Gramps, too, because David seemed so lonely these days and it would be a really cool chance for all the guys in his family to get together, but this was almost as good. In some ways, it was even more cool, because now Grandpa was there to help get Isaac to open his annoying mouth. Bringing Rumplestiltskin had been his dad's idea, and Henry did have to admit that he was really excited to see how funny Isaac's reaction was to the news that Rumplestiltskin was the new Sorcerer.

"What are you doing here?" Isaac was on his feet the moment Rumplestiltskin came through the door after Baelfire, and Henry struggled to hold back a smirk.

"My son and my grandson asked me to come along." His grandfather's unreadable face quirked into a slight smile. "They thought I could help convince you to start sharing what you know."

"I wrote what you wanted for that world. It's not my fault that you didn't think it through—and how are you alive, anyway? When I last saw you, you looked like that old ticker of yours was about to give out. Permanently."

He knew it was happening and left Grandpa there? Henry thought, staring at Isaac. Sure, they hadn't really been on the best terms with Rumplestiltskin at the time—mostly because none of them had understood what was happening—but Isaac should have known more, and he'd run away. Henry remembered that Gramps and Grandma Snow had found the former Author trying to escape town in Cruella's car. Apparently, that was how Isaac dealt with problems. He ran away.

"It did, in a way." Rumplestiltskin spread his hands innocently. "I'm not the Dark One anymore."

Isaac relaxed immediately, and Henry exchanged a look of anticipatory glee with his father, who looked almost as amused as he felt. "Oh. That's good. Are congratulations in order, or are you—?"

"I am, however, the Sorcerer."

Isaac's expression did not disappoint. His jaw dropped open, his eyes went wide, and he made a small sound that resembled that of a weakly objecting turtle. The former author scrambled back until his back hit the wall, staring at Rumplestiltskin like he was sure that the former Dark One had come to kill him.

"Fortunately for you, I'm not here to harm you," Rumplestiltskin continued as if he couldn't see Isaac's fear. "Nor am I here to discuss the way you manipulated me into preserving your perverted little world by trying to force me to kill my grandson." His smile was cold, and it suddenly hit Henry that his grandfather was a thousand times more dangerous now—the only difference was that Rumplestiltskin now had a conscience.

"If you're the Sorcerer—I mean, you're not a villain by nature. You weren't before you became the Dark One, and that means that you can't hurt me." Isaac spoke quickly, like he was trying to convince everyone. "The Sorcerer is supposed to be a hero, not a villain."

"Buddy, in case you haven't noticed, we left the Enchanted Forest a lot time ago," Baelfire put in. "This is the real world. There might be magic here, but those hero and villain labels are crap. People are people."

Isaac swallowed hard, looking back at Rumplestiltskin. "You're here to make sure I talk."

"I'm here to make a deal with you, dearie." Now the smile was a little more playful. "I'm sure that sounds familiar."

"What kind of deal?"

"You asked for guarantees of a home, income, a nice life, things like that, yes?"

"Yes…"

"Well, you made the mistake of asking Regina for that. She's wealthy enough, particularly by Storybrooke's standards, but she's not the one who owns most of the town." Rumplestiltskin shrugged. "I am. So, here's the deal: you'll provide my grandson with the information he wants. All of it. I'll guarantee you a home and all the necessities, an income enough to live in moderate comfort. But how comfortable that is depends on how hard you work for it. Understood?"

Isaac's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean 'work for it'?"

"I mean that you're not going to hold anything back. I know a silver-tongued manipulator when I see one. Being one myself makes it easy to spot. If you're helpful, if you don't leave things out, you'll have a good life."

"Sure. I can do that." But they could all tell that Isaac was counting on the fact that they didn't know what they didn't know, which meant he could lie to his heart's content.

Bae beat Henry to the punch, but only barely. "You should tell him whose memories you've got, Pop."

"Oh, those would be Merlin's." His grandfather's patently not-innocent look made Henry snicker. "I inherited more than his powers, and he knew quite a bit. So don't try lying. You won't like the consequences of doing so."

"You won't kill me. Not if you're working with them." Isaac jerked a thumb at Henry like having heroes for family was a disease.

"Why would I bother killing you? Part of the Sorcerer package includes the ability to draw portals." Rumplestiltskin chuckled dryly as Isaac blanched. "I'll just draw one to the most miserable world I can think of and leave you there.

"One without modern plumbing." Henry couldn't help adding that, and Isaac's grimace made it more than worth it.

Leave me to be an ogre's dinner, will you? Not this time!

{**********}

Killian rolled his eyes. "I know what a steering wheel is, mate."

"Sorry." Mentally, David smacked himself. Of course Killian knew what a steering wheel was—even if he hadn't lived in Storybrooke since shortly after the first curse, Killian had a wheel to steer his ship by. "I've never done this before, all right?"

"I seem to remember you teaching young Henry a thing or two not so very long ago." Amusement glittered in the pirate's eyes, and David bit back a groan.

"Don't remind me. Regina is still after me for the property damage."

"Well, I'm a bit older than him, so I don't think we'll have so many problems. In fact—"

"Just tell me you aren't senile after living for three hundred years or so." David couldn't help ribbing the other man at least a little. He generally liked Killian rather well—for what Killian was, anyway—and he found he liked the other man a lot more when he wasn't romancing Emma. It wasn't that he didn't trust Killian, or didn't trust Emma to look after herself, but there had always been something off about the way Emma was around Killian, like she was letting things slip even as she told herself she wasn't. He'd always respected Emma's wishes and hadn't said a word on the subject, but saying he wasn't glad to see them split would have been lying.

Fortunately, Killian laughed at his jape. "I'm a very well preserved three centuries old, I'll have you know. As many ladies can attest."

Now that one of those ladies wasn't his daughter, David could laugh in return. "Well, those bedroom skills won't do you any good in the car, so buckle up."

"Buckle up?" Blue eyes crinkled up in disgust as Killian pulled the seat belt forward and back. "Aren't these stretchy bindings reserved for the young and the feeble?"

"No, they're here to keep you from flying through the windshield." He's worse than Henry. "And they're called seat belts."

"I can think of other uses for them that would be far more—"

"Please don't. Just don't." David didn't want to listen to innuendos in his own truck, for crying out loud! If Killian said anything else, he'd probably never get the mental image out of his head, and that was not what he needed when driving his truck around town. Or his squad car.

Killian just shrugged. "Your loss." He glanced down at the offending seat belt again. "Do I really have to wear this seat binding?"

"It's the law."

"In case you haven't noticed, the law and I have nothing more than a very brief passing acquaintance with one another."

"You know, now that you mention it, that has occurred to me." David couldn't help grinning back. Teaching Killian to drive might be a bit of a challenge, but he could use the fun distraction. Whatever happened today was definitely going to be more amusing than their fruitless search to find Lancelot or their frantic preparations to deal with the fact that the Black Fairy was in town and already plotting world domination. And this is way better than agonizing over the fact that my daughter remains the Dark One with no end in sight, too. "You've still got to use it, though."

Killian heaved a sigh. "You're the teacher." It still took him two tries to buckle his seatbelt, but David would be the first to admit that his old truck was a little ornery in that respect. If you didn't click it in just right, the damn thing had a habit of coming right out and smacking you in the face. "Now what?"

"Now, you put your foot on the brake—that's the middle pedal—while keeping your foot on the clutch, and then put the truck in first gear using the shift."

Rather predictably, Killian reached for the turn signal instead of the shift, which made the pirate swear and snarl. "Why are there so many damned pedals?"

David had thought the same thing himself more than once, but at least he had cursed memories of how to drive a stick shift. "If you'd wanted to learn on an automatic, you shouldn't have asked me."

"What's an automatic? A car that drives itself?"

"Not really, but that's a lesson for another day." Slowly, David walked Killian through putting the truck into first gear, and then eased him through second gear. Pretty soon, they were heading down Storybrooke's back roads fairly comfortably, because David had learned a thing or two from teaching Henry. Killian still seemed a little uncertain when it came to using his left hand in addition to his right, but overall, he was doing pretty well. Much better than Henry had, even though he kept murmuring to the truck like it was a woman who needed encouraging.

"Do you talk to your ship like that?" he couldn't help asking.

Killian gave him an odd look. "Like what?"

"Like it's a woman you're trying to seduce."

"Aye. Any good sailor does, and every ship is a sailor's first love."

David supposed that made sense, in a strangely old-fashioned way. "Oh. Okay, um, let's try turning down there."

He pointed at the intersection they were approaching, and then coached the pirate through slowing down for the stop sign and then getting the truck moving again without stalling out. All in all, things were going much better than he'd expected. This isn't going to be bad at all!

{**********}

"What do you think?" August asked Lily, but she just shrugged, gesturing none-too-politely in Sidney Glass's direction.

"I don't really care what he's got to say. It's all a load of hot air. Next you know, he'll be calling to be elected himself."

He snorted. "No way. I wasn't here yet when he ran for sheriff, but I've heard how ridiculous that was. This town's got long memories. No one'll vote for a man who wished himself into a mirror because he was an idiot."

"They're all the same, anyway." She shrugged again, but didn't say what she was thinking. Even the windbag married to Guinevere. She's got real power and brains, but Arthur's just a politician. Makes me wonder why she puts up with him. It was obvious to anyone with half a brain cell that Arthur had put Sidney up to this, but Lily was willing to bet that no one in the enraptured crowd realized that.

Sidney had been talking for a half an hour so far, and people were actually listening to him. One of the dwarves—Grumpy, Frumpy, or Lumpy; something like that—had tried to shout him down, but no one had let him. The stupid dwarf had tried to point out that Regina had done a lot of good for the town, but that only got him booed. People were angry, which Lily found really interesting. She also couldn't wait to see how Guinevere manipulated that anger. Angry people were stupid, in Lily's opinion, and she should know. Every time she lost her temper, she knew damned well that her I.Q. decreased by at least two dozen points, and even if most of these lucky bastards didn't have a double dose of darkness coursing through their veins, they still got dumber when they were mad. That was just how humans worked.

"So, I say that it's high time that the people of Storybrooke got to decide for themselves!"

Sidney did make a pretty good speech; he kept things simple and got people riled up before presenting his ideas as the only logical solution to their angst. He was also really good at ignoring the tires screeching from around the corner. Lily couldn't see who the idiot driver was, but again, people were stupid.

Several of the aforementioned fools shouted in agreement, and Sidney's grin only widened.

"We don't live in the Enchanted Forest anymore, do we?" he asked rhetorically.

"No!" Either he'd planted people or several rabble-rousers really enjoyed playing along, because the answer was surprisingly enthusiastic.

"Do we want to live like people in some medieval fairy tale?"

"No!"

"Then why are we letting these so-called royals rule us? Regina only made herself mayor with a curse that hurt all of us. None of us actually voted for her—we all know those memories are false! Don't we?"

"Yes!"

Another screech of tires almost drowned Sidney's voice out, but he managed somehow to shout over the sound.

"I say that we have elections. Real elections! And when we do, I know that—"

Screech!

"Look out!"

Someone shouted from Lily's right, and her head snapped around just in time to see an old and beat-up truck careening down Main Street. There were people inside, but the stupid driver seemed to be sawing the wheel back and forth instead of braking. Screaming and shouting, people dove out of the truck's path like their lives depended on it, and Lily could hardly blame them. She grabbed August and hauled him to the other side of the street, ready to rush into Standard Clocks if need be. There was no way to know where the truck was going next; it was weaving wildly, like a drunk moron was—

Sidney threw himself out of the truck's path when it suddenly jerked to the left, hitting the ground hard enough to ruin his pretty blue suit. Lily would have snickered at that if the truck hadn't looked ready to shish kebab her and August, and she'd already started dragging him into the store behind them when the truck abruptly served right and crashed into the fence around Granny's outdoor seating area. That, at least, finally made it stop.

"I should have turned into a dragon and lit it on fire," Lily muttered. She stalked outside just in time to watch David Nolan—the wonderful and honorable Prince Charming—half-fall out of the vehicle. Killian Jones stumbled out of the driver's seat next, though, which at least made her a little less angry and more appreciative of the view.

"Yeah, that's a great idea." August snorted. "Then we'd need the fire department and the police."

She rolled her eyes. "I could have carried it away."

"Sure, but would you have bothered?"

{**********}

Killian had never been so mortified in his life.

Scratch that. He had been equally mortified a time or two in his three centuries of life, but certainly not in the last hundred years. And never over something so foolish as his inability to control any type of vehicle. He'd proven himself the master of any type of sailing vessel, and he'd even managed to use a motor boat here in Storybrooke! After that, he'd figured driving a car couldn't be so bloody different. After all, cars were on dry land, where there was traction and friction, both of which made it easier to slow down.

So why the hell had tacking the damned thing not worked?

"Well, that was unpleasant," David commented from his side. "Guess I'm glad we were both wearing our seatbelts."

Killian wanted to glare at the man, but given that he'd just crashed David's truck into the fence around Granny's, he didn't think he had much of a leg to stand on. "Damn it. I'm sorry, David. I just…it just wouldn't listen. I kept turning the bloody wheel to bleed speed off, but—"

"Is that what you were doing?"

"Of course. You can tack to take speed off, and the equivalent to tacking is turning the wheel here. Isn't it?"

"That's what the brake is for!"

"I thought you said that stopped the car!"

"Stopping would have been great back there!" David gestured back at First Avenue, his motions a little wild. "We would have hit someone and killed them!"

"Ah, we weren't going that fast." He tried to shrug like it didn't matter, but Killian knew that he'd panicked. He was no stranger to killing, but he only wanted to kill on purpose, not by accident! And certainly not while piloting an out-of-control motor vehicle that ignored his commands like it has been possessed by some demon. His voice turned much quieter. "We didn't hit anyone, did we—I mean, did I hit anyone?"

David glanced back at Main Street, where dark skid marks were visible. "I don't think so." He heaved a sigh. "Just the fence here. It's going to need some serious repair."

Killian followed his eyes and groaned. Two sections of the fence had been torn off by the impact—made less bad, he thought, by the fact that David had managed to somehow put the truck into what he called "neutral" at the last minute. Another section seemed attached to the big metal band on the front of the truck, and the pretty little front gate had been torn up off the ground and twisted around like a tornado had got at it. Great. I really made a mess of this, didn't I? And just when David said I was doing well enough to drive in town, I had to mess up changing gears and panic.

It had been centuries since Killian had really had to face a situation he wasn't at least partially familiar with, and when he did, he always resorted to what he knew best. In this case, he'd tried to turn the car into a sailing ship, and since he couldn't take sail off, he'd tried to tack.

"I'll take care of it," he promised, just as an irate Ruby came striding out of the diner, her hair flying behind her like a wild red beast. "And your truck, if it needs repair."

Killian didn't know enough about automobiles to know if the truck needed help or not, but David just shook his head.

"Nah, Henry did worse. Don't worry about the truck. You're going to have your hands full with Ruby."

And wasn't that the truth, Killian knew as he turned to face the angry diner owner. A charming smile definitely wasn't going to get him out of this one.

{**********}

A/N: Stay tuned for Chapter Fifty-Six—"Ready to Spring, Waiting a Chance", in which the family gets together for another meeting, Emma has a heart to heart with her predecessor, Robin and Regina make a startling discovery, Henry continues to visit Archie, Astrid tries to talk Blue into helping more, and Killian offers to help with catching Zelena.