Light fell across Emma's face and she opened her eyes. At the other end of the room, the closet door was ajar, a fluorescent glow illuminating the empty space on the bed where Killian wasn't sleeping. Emma sat up and called his name in a raspy voice.
No answer.
She threw the covers off and walked toward the light, unable to shake off images as she did of a dreamy afterlife. She'd watched too many movies, she now realized, wherein the main character did exactly as she was doing now, only to discover an untimely end on the other side of their curiosity.
Emma pinched her arm, and the flash of pain let her know she was awake. She called Killian's name again as she pushed the closet door fully open. He stood under a soft halo, staring down at an upward-facing palm, nothing inside.
He didn't look over, didn't seem to register her presence, until she took his hand. "Hey," she said, "you okay?"
Killian blinked her into focus, his attention drifting slowly to where their hands met, as if in obedience to an automatic impulse—still functioning beneath the haze of his confusion. "Yeah, only I…," he swallowed, turning back to one of the leather jackets hanging innocuously in front of him. One in half a dozen, set apart by a few scrapes along each sleeve, "…had a strange dream."
"Come back to bed."
Killian nodded absently and followed Emma out. But he didn't relinquish the furrow in his brow even as they tucked themselves back under the covers. Emma massaged the crease from between his eyes and he laughed quietly to himself.
"Apologies, Love. Go back to sleep."
"You first."
—
"What kind of training?"
"I won't be shooting fireballs at your head if that's what you're worried about." Alistair spoke around a mouthful of the soft pretzel Emma had bought off a street vendor—for herself, but when had that ever mattered? Judging by the way he couldn't seem to cram it into his mouth fast enough, he'd just discovered the second thing this world had going for it. "But we can't exactly stroll into town with nothing but Jones' good looks to defend us."
Emma grinned at her guide.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Don't tell me that man wouldn't beat both of us in a beauty contest."
Emma laughed. "So does this mean you've given up your vendetta against him?"
"Temporarily, perhaps." Alistair used the last bite of pretzel to scrape the container of cheese clean, then popped it into his mouth. "Once the curse is lifted, all bets are off."
"Is that supposed to be incentive for me to help you?"
Alistair frowned, even as his cheeks puffed out. "What are you saying, Miss Swan? You want me to completely abandon my revenge on your boyfriend?" Emma looked at him until he threw his hands in the air and said, "Fine! Happy? We'll break the bloody curse and then you and Jones can go off and live your bloody happy ending in some forsaken…bloody…bland Land Without Magic locale." He looked down at his empty cheese cup and tossed it on the sidewalk.
"What're you, five?" Emma bent down to pick it up and deposited it into the nearest trash receptacle, deciding that once Alistair had gotten his own happy ending, he wouldn't be so bent on sabotaging Killian's.
"Let's get this over with." Alistair stomped toward the stoplight, hit the button, and waited to cross.
Emma was about to remind him that that was usually her line when something flashed in her periphery. A figure with dark curls and a brown leather jacket.
She heard her name as a whisper. Or an echo.
A memory amplified, as the passing crowd obscured her view.
She turned to follow that figure, hurrying away in the opposite direction of where she'd been headed.
The figure faced Emma just as the crowd started to thin and break apart, and her next step faltered. She came to a stop and stood, eyes wide and mouth open, without a single coherent sentence to string together.
"How—?" Was all she managed to get out before the figure disappeared.
Vanished before her eyes like smoke in the wind.
"Well?" Came Alistair's voice, harsh and cranky and just what Emma needed to snap out of her stupor. "What's the hold-up? Sooner the better—isn't that what you mortals are always saying? Miss Swan?" Emma flinched away, only realizing after she'd done so that the pressure on her shoulder had been from Alistair's hand. "Are you all right, Emma?"
"Fine. Yeah, good. I'm…good." Emma smiled a fake smile, knowing Alistair would see right through it. "Let's go."
—
Emma ran to the window, holding her breath. The latch fought back against her efforts to undo it, but Emma persisted. When she was finally able to gain the advantage, she stuck her head outside and gulped fresh air like a drowning woman upon breaking the surface.
"That one may have gotten—" Alistair coughed. Emma turned back to see him waving his arms through the wall of fog he'd created in her living room. "—a touch out of hand."
"You think?" Emma remained half hanging out the window a few more minutes before moving on to open others. "What's with all the potions, anyway? Killian always just snapped his fingers or willed things to happen."
"Well, we can't all have Jones' unearned talent, now can we?" Alistair said bitterly before his eyes shot to Emma's. "Sorry. Old habits." He shrugged, hands on hips as he surveyed the damage his experiment had done. "Every guide has his preference, Darling."
Despite what he'd promised to the contrary, Alistair had indeed shot fireballs at Emma's head. Not willing to bet her life on them being illusions, Emma had ducked and rolled and done all manner of instinctual things to avoid them, and they'd soared right past to whatever lay behind her.
"So much for my security deposit," Emma grumbled as her fingers traced the black spot on her wall where a decorative clock had previously hung.
Alistair rolled his eyes, took another glass bottle from his coat pocket, and threw it on the floor.
"N—" Emma held out her hand too late, and once again, her living room filled with smoke. Thick and gray and suffocating. But when it cleared, every scorch mark was gone, every broken shard cleared away. Emma slouched. "I think I prefer storytime."
"It's less destructive, I'll grant you that."
"You're still sure about part three? You were so insistent before…"
Alistair coughed into his hand and Emma prepared herself for an evasive maneuver. "It was just a bit of backstory, anyway. Nothing you'd be interested in—difficult enough to hold your attention with your own history, was it not?"
He wasn't wrong about that. She'd been content to avoid them at the start, deeming them little more than exercises in nostalgia, meant to sway her toward his side of things through emotional manipulation. But the way he dodged her questions about the part of the story he insisted wasn't needed anymore had Emma all the more curious as to what he didn't want her to know.
Before she could pester him any further, Alistair said, "Are you going to answer that?" And Emma felt the vibrations in her back pocket.
Reading Killian's name on screen, she answered immediately. "Hey, we're just finishing up here—"
"Emma Swan?" Came a voice over the line she didn't recognize.
"Who's this? Why do you have Killian's phone?"
"This is Ian down at Rolling Hills Cemetery. Found your guy when I was out doing my rounds."
"Okay?" Emma looked to Alistair, hoping for once that his supernatural hearing might provide an advantage. "Is there a problem?"
"That depends," said Ian. "Would you consider defacing private property a problem?"
—
Gravel crunched under the Bug's tires as the iron gates of Rolling Hills Cemetery came into view. Each bar rose to a sharpened point, and perched at the top of each gate post was a gargoyle, cast into sharp relief by Emma's headlights.
"I'll wait in the car, if it's all the same to you," said Alistair.
"That would be a first."
He stared straight ahead, unblinking, as a strange expression turned down his mouth. "I've never done well in places like this."
Emma didn't want to know what that meant. She climbed out of the driver's seat without asking, and felt a chill as the winds picked up, carrying a slight whistle as they passed. Clouds moved fast overhead, casting shadows in the moonlight and then erasing them. Emma stole another glance at the cemetery's guardians and thought it somehow in keeping with her life up to this point that Alistair would choose now to stay in the car.
She followed a dirt path toward one of the few constant spots of light on the horizon, her hands clenching with each sound that tempted her to turn back—the screech of nocturnal birds, the rustling of leaves, the whine of something the many horror movies running through her thoughts told her wasn't the wind.
The nearer she got to the main office, the darker the world around her became. If any sort of fog started to roll in, she was out of there. How did she know Killian was even nearby? All this talk of curses and magic—
She wasn't sure what to believe anymore. What to trust.
A man waited in the open doorway—a silhouette against the incandescent lamp inside. What Emma's mind twisted into something fearsome as she reimagined his hands into claws, his hair into the mane of a starved beast. Was that really a lantern in his grasp or the gutted remains of a seasonal gourd to replace what had been lost?
"Miss Swan?" It was the same voice she'd heard over the phone—what sounded no less human than her own. Emma took a beat and continued forward. "Thanks for coming."
"Thanks for calling," she said as the man—Ian—stepped into clear view. No fangs that she could make out. No talons or hooves or horns. Only a man with shaggy brown hair and apologetic eyes. "Where is he?"
"Left him where I found him. Didn't want to disturb him, case he got aggressive."
Aggressive? Emma's first instinct was to go on the defensive—Killian isn't aggressive. But this guy couldn't know that. Couldn't know the gentleman Killian Jones prided himself on being.
Ian led her down another path, one that winded itself between the dips and inclines for which the cemetery had surely been named. They'd walked a good two minutes in silence with nothing but the gentle sway of the lantern's light to draw them forward, when Ian hooked a sharp left and came to a halt in front of a modest gravestone. No adornments, no gifts left behind. Emma took a quick survey of the surrounding graves to see that each of them had something to speak of the living world. Something to signify a connection to loved ones who'd not forgotten. Flowers and stuffed animals and picture frames.
At Ian's urging, Emma read the epitaph. Arthur Pasternak. 1921-1979. Beloved Husband and Father.
Nothing about the scene suggested any sort of foul play. Emma saw no signs of the defacement Ian had mentioned. She had the sudden impulse to reach for the weapon she'd slid into the waistband of her jeans and make a break for it. Alistair was right—it'd all been a trap.
Then Ian gestured to the back of the stone marker, where another name had been carved. Inexpertly, and in haste. Something flashed in Emma's periphery as Ian held up another object for her inspection. Its curved edges glinted in the low light of the lantern, reflected a distant moon peeking through the clouds.
"Used this to do it."
Emma reached toward it shakily, wondering where Killian had gotten such a thing.
"He's been sitting there since I called you."
She followed Ian's gaze to a park bench situated under the protective canopy of a swaying tree. What must've been a shady reprieve during the daylight hours, when the sun was highest in the sky.
A dark figure sat there now, head bowed.
Emma thanked Ian and walked the sloping hill toward Killian.
She took his hand as she sat beside him. He didn't look up, even as she stroked his hair. "Hey. You okay?"
Killian didn't answer.
"Guy says he'll talk to the family about not pressing charges if we pay for a replacement."
"Good of him."
"Wanna talk about it?"
"I'm not sure you'd believe me." Killian's free hand clenched into a fist atop his lap. "I'm not sure I believe me."
"Why don't you start with the name you carved into Mr. Pasternak's tombstone?" Killian looked at her and then away—a moment so fleeting, it scarcely registered in the dark. And yet, something about it broke her heart. "Who's Milah?"
"I don't know." Killian shook his head. "I don't remember doing it. I don't even remember coming here—Swan, I…" He stared out at the rows of graves that stretched on endlessly in each direction.
"What do you remember?"
"I remember saying goodbye to you before your trip. You said you didn't know when you'd be back, but there was something you had to put to rest once and for all."
"Killian, that was weeks ago." Emma tried for a soft tone, free of the judgment that made vulnerable people seek solace in silence. But the shock was apparent even to her own ears. "So, everything I told you about Storybrooke? And Alistair…?"
He turned to her, eyes alight with alarm. "What about Alistair?"
—
He shined the pocket-sized light into Killian's right eye and then his left, impersonating one of the medical professionals he'd seen on TV, Emma had no doubt. He held up an index finger and told Killian to follow it back and forth, up and down, then placed the handheld light into his breast pocket and locked his hands behind his back, his lips pulled into a deep frown.
Killian, meanwhile, looked like the embodiment of murderous rage. Emma was proud of him for holding his tongue, given that Alistair wasn't trying all that hard to mask the fact that he was taking more than a modicum of pleasure from the situation.
"Hm…," he looked Killian over from head to toe. Once, twice. Then said in a grave tone, "I'm afraid the situation is most dire. Rest assured, old friend—Emma and I shall remain by your side during this most harrowing time." Alistair placed a hand over his heart as both Killian and Emma held their breath. "You have, indeed, sprouted your first grey hair. I can tell you from experience, it's all downhill from here. But I've no doubt a man with your bone structure can pull it off—are you familiar with the expression 'silver fox'?"
Alistair winked at him.
Killian got up from the passenger seat and stomped across the gravel road, going nowhere in particular except away from Alistair.
"Was that necessary?"
"Was rather fun." Emma rolled her eyes and went to follow Killian when Alistair said, "Wait, Emma." She got a sinking feeling in her stomach. Alistair only ever used her first name when he wanted to be taken seriously. "I'm sorry—I had thought a bit of humor might soften the blow."
Emma remained rooted in place, even as every part of her ached to run. Fast and far away. To another realm or dimension or parallel universe. Somewhere every step forward wasn't followed by ten steps back. "What's wrong with him?"
Alistair averted his eyes. "I'm reluctant to say for sure at this point, but…"
"You have a theory."
He sighed, casting his eyes toward a starless sky and mouthing something soundless. A word she'd never heard but got the sense was an expletive in at least one world. "Deactivating Jones may have had an adverse effect on him. Rewired him, after a fashion."
"Can you fix it?"
Alistair got that look again. The one he usually adopted right before he claimed certain laws were in place for a reason. That some things were outside his authority. Same dismissive bullshit Emma had heard a thousand times. So she took the opportunity to remind him that she'd agreed to help him find his daughter even though it went against the same rules he only saw fit to heed when it was beneficial to his own ends.
"Killian is my person and you will make this right—especially considering it's probably a side effect of something you did to him in the first place."
Alistair scoffed. "Is that a threat, Miss Swan?"
"A request," she said. "From a friend."
Alistair took a step back like he'd been physically struck. His mouth hung open for half a minute before he spoke again. "You and I are…friends?" Whatever reservations he'd had disappeared as his features took on a steadfast expression. He squared his shoulders and gave her a single, determined nod. "I'll help in any way I can. You have my word."