OS 2 : The things he took away from me.

Pairings : Past Killian Jones/Milah & Past Rumplestiltskin/Milah. DarlingFire, TinkerRed & a special "CaptainSwan".

Inspired by chapter 38.

2. AU [Role reversal] :

Milah put the hook which would soon give her her nickname at the place where her hand used to be, and she tried with difficulty not to cry, not to vomit, not to be too angry.

Between Rumple and her, there is a war, now.

Part 1 : Prepare yourself to suffer.

Everything was her fault.

It was her who had left after all, her who had ran away, Killian had just offered her a refuge far from her husband and her bleak life (but not far from her son, no, he was not the one she was trying to flee from, no, it never was him...), it was her and her only who had been cowardly and selfish.

She had once reproached Rumplestiltskin for his cowardice on the battlefield.

But now, she was the coward of the story...

And she had absolutely no excuse.

But, at this precise moment, as she was facing him, with his hand being deeply buried in Killian Jones' chest, the man she loved more than anything else in the world, she was beginning to really understand what kind of terrible fear must have possessed him that day, against the Ogres.

Even if, it was not really the fear of dying that she was feeling right now, but the fear of losing someone she cared for.

She should have understood immediately that something was wrong, after Killian had met this stranger.

Generally, people from this place tried not to come across them...

She should have known that this strange man was not one of them...

She should have known that their good luck couldn't last forever.

Soon, she would pay the price for abandoning her little boy, and she found that so ironic, to know that Rumple had done the same thing years after she did it.

In a sense, maybe that, beyond the idea of going back for him later, in reality, she had let him to her husband because she was sure that with him, Baelfire was in good hands.

Oh, now she was realizing how much wrong she had been.

"You abandoned our son ?

- You did the same thing too, so please, don't you dare being a know-it-all, not about that subject, will you ?

- And what, do you think I don't care ? Rumple, I carry the weight of my guilt since eight long years ! I love our son, and I left him behind me only with a heavy heart !

- You should have stayed with Baelfire and me, the wizard answered. You would have had an easier life, more simple, wiser.

Milah began to smile.

- Maybe I just wanted to be a fool then. Or maybe you're the fool of the story... And simpler in which way ? If I am not wrong, there was a new war which began years later, a new time !

- Yes, a war I had to stop, and because of which I became the Dark One !

- If you had accepted to let our family move to another country, like I proposed, you wouldn't have to endure that, we wouldn't have endured this, and I would have stayed with you, I swear it !

- Except that you left... And I had to come back home, alone, and explain to our son that his mom would never come back !

- And that was because you didn't fight for me !

- How could I do that ? The wizard protested. I was a cripple, I was terrified and I had never hold a sword in my entire life, and you would have wanted me to fight against a man at least ten years younger than me and who was obviously a great swordsman ? Do you want to know what would have happened if I had fought against him Milah ? I would have lost, and I would be dead ! And Baelfire would have become a complete orphan !

- I wouldn't have killed you, Crocodile, the pirate said, from the other side of the deck. I would have let you go, alone, or with you wife, if she wanted to follow you..."

Milah then looked like she was really devastated, her fist clenched on the magic bean that she was holding in her right hand, and that Killian had gave her some minutes earlier, and which was still in her left hand some seconds before.

Her only protection against the dark wizard, and she knew how much her situation was precarious.

"Rumple... it was not about you winning this fight, you just had to prove that you loved me enough to at least try to fight for me !

- But you didn't love enough Baelfire to accept to stay with him, the wizard insinuated.

Milah's face turned into a cold expression.

- I made my choice. And so did you. Apparently, you didn't love enough Baelfire either...

- I made a mistake ! One single little mistake, that cost me a lot ! But you... you decided to let our little boy down in order to go to sail on the oceans with your dear pirate ! What a great mother you are, he said, ironic, and she couldn't deny the fact that he was totally right.

- How many times do you expect me to apologize ? Milah asked him.

- To apologize doesn't mean anything if you're not really sorry, the Dark One said.

- What do you know about that ? What do you know about my pain, my remorse, my suffering ?

- What about mine ? For years, I thought you were a prisoner, I suffered thinking that you were suffering terribly in the hands of a monster, I lied to Baelfire in order to protect him by making him believe that you were dead, do you think that I didn't suffer hell too during these last eight years ? I thought I had lost you for forever, I mourned you ! And you... you didn't care at all, did you ?

- What if it was the case ? She asked him, provoking, not thinking a single word."

Her former husband's face twisted into an expression of pure rage, and he came closer to her.

"Give me one reason not to kill you, Rumplestiltskin whistled.

- I possess the only object that can make you find our son, she answered with a false swaggering air."

He froze, and then looked at the captain of the ship, and, in only some seconds, everything changed.

Milah instantly understood what he had in mind, but, before she had the time to take in her hand her sabre, in a vain trial to stop him, he used his magic in order to send her against the mast, clasping her in the cordages which were around her.

And then he teleported himself, arriving in front of the pirate the second after, and, under the horrified look of his former spouse, he ripped out his heart.

Killian began to scream, and the Dark One smiled to Milah.

"You broke my heart once by running away with him, and by giving up Baelfire, as if he didn't matter for you... It's my turn to break yours, he said before crushing what he had in his hand, mercilessly.

- No Rumple, please, don't do this, I beg you, he is not the responsible in this story..."

Too late...

Milah began to scream as well, succeeded finally to free herself from her shackles some seconds later, and fell at the feet of her lover, who had just passed away.

The young woman looked up, and anger and hatred rapidly replaced sadness in her eyes.

Taking in her hand the hook that had fallen next to her, she stand up, and tried to stab Rumplestiltskin with it, but it only made him laugh.

"Oh, deary, you're insulting me... Did you suddenly forget that I am immortal now ?

- I will kill you Rumplestiltskin... She said, her face completely twisted by the rage. Oh this, I swear it by all the gods that exist and by the magic, one day, I will kill you !

The sorcerer smiled at her with amusement.

- We will see that... Now, if you excuse me, he added, using Milah's own sword, I have something to collect."

And, in a precise and quick gesture, he cut her hand.

Milah screamed a new time, feeling the pain of the mutilation in her flesh, with probably as much intensity as Rumple felt it himself in the past when he had made his own leg live something quite similar.

Tears in her eyes, her heart into pieces and her hand on the ground, Milah had to contain herself with all her forces in order not to scream, and Rumplestiltskin then said at her ear :

"I won't kill you... I want you to live, so you can feel the sadness and the pain I endured during all these years because of you, I want you to live by knowing that I will find back our son, and by being aware of the fact that I broke your live like you broke mine..."

I didn't… she wanted to say, but pain stopped her from saying anything.

He smiled at her one last time, before fading away in a cloud of purple smoke.

And it was at this precise moment that Milah fully allowed herself to scream her pain, the one she was feeling in her body as well as the one she felt in her heart and in her soul.

She swore it to herself already.

She would never have any respite before she would get revenge on her hated husband.

§§§§

Captain Hook.

It was how she was called now.

And she didn't care at all.

Rumplestiltskin may thought he had won on her, but the magic bean she had succeeded to steal from him told her the contrary.

She had been completely lost during the first minutes that had followed his atrocious crime, between the dead body of her lover just under her eyes, the pain of her cut hand, and the general confusion inside the crew after their captain's death, before she finally took control of all of this.

It was only natural after all, more than just the pirate's companion, she was his right-hand-woman, and this, since eight years, the fact that she took his place didn't surprise anybody.

With now only a hand and a revenge in her mind, she decided where to go now.

Killian had talked to her about an island, a cursed place where he had been once, where his brother had died, where magic ruled, and where time... didn't exist, never passed.

Neverland.

If there was one place where she could find a way to kill Rumplestiltskin, it was this world.

(She had already lost hope of finding Baelfire, in the immensity of the world without magic, how could she know where he was ?

And well, it was not as if he wanted to see her again, not after what she had done to him.

Even though he didn't know it yet.)

Rumplestiltskin may thought he had the advantage of time against her, being immortal, well, she would show him he was wrong.

With determination, she threw the bean in the ocean, and, as the portal opened itself in front of her, she closed her eyes, allowing herself to cry the one she had loved so much.

Oh yes, she swore it.

She would have her revenge.

§§§§

The first days (sort of) in Neverland were... complicated.

It was a place full of magic too, quite similar to the Enchanted Forest, except with one detail : it was far more dark.

Milah already knew it, she hated this place.

Between Peter Pan, the Lost Boys, the evil magic of the island, and the fact that she was constantly pondering her revenge, the young woman couldn't succeed to feel well in this world, which was the case of the rest of the crew too.

No one was happy to be in Neverland anyway...

Some months then passed (sort of, again), still the same, dull, monotonous, without any change, while the pirate slowly got used to their new environment, and that Milah also realized that she was in an impasse.

She was trapped here, without any way to leave, and she still didn't find a way to kill Rumplestiltskin.

The truth was that she didn't move an inch since her arrival.

And her anger was far from disappearing, that was quite the contrary.

Dead, dead, dead, Killian was dead, and she had the sad feeling that her heart too was dead now.

Rumple had absolutely taken everything from her, he had killed her lover, had cut her hand, he had also abandoned their son to an unknown fate and maybe terrible (who knows, maybe that he was already dead for all she knew, and it was his fault), and because she didn't want to hate herself, she had preferred to hate her husband.

She wanted to kill him.

She swore it to herself, again and again, yes, she would kill him.

Nothing else mattered.

Her son and the pirate weren't here anymore to stop her from falling anyway.

§§§§

It was a dark and so cold night when Milah saw again her son.

It was a bad night, and she was in a bad mood as well, and not really in a charitable mood when one of the members of her crew came to tell her that they had fished out a young boy who had fallen into water and who had been clearly brought here by Pan's shadow, she had almost thought about not going to see him.

Then, she had briefly thought about her son, and her heart had squeezed.

He was just a child after all, and he had just arrived on a boat full of unknown pirates (and he was still unconscious apparently), being probably ripped out from his family as hundreds of children had been before him, the fact that he had fallen on their ship and not on the island was a true blessing.

She had went where the child had been brought, and where he was sleeping, and she had frozen.

Time had passed, she hadn't seen him since eight years, he had grown up, he had changed, and the little boy aged of six years old had turned into a teenager of fourteen years old (almost fifteenth), he was definitely not the same anymore, indeed, but...

But she had immediately recognized him.

She had completely frozen, astonished, unable to move or even to say any word, she couldn't even breath at all, the situation seemed to be so unreal.

It was her son, her little boy, he was alive, and he was here.

"Baelfire ? She had whispered, just not able to say anything else."

Now completely mute because of the emotion, tears in her eyes, these one threatening to fall at any moment, she let herself fall next to him, without any forces.

Putting her hand through his hair, she then finally cracked at this moment, bursting into tears, and she hold him against her, while he was still sleeping, ignoring for now what was happening.

"I am sorry, she whispered between two sobs, apologizing for abandoning him, asking forgiveness for their broken family, for all the things that had been taken from him, and that he would never get back, excuse-me please, I am sorry, I am so sorry..."

§§§§

Baelfire, as he opened his eyes the morning after, expected not to be in London anymore.

But he certainly didn't expect to see a woman he knew too well.

"Mom ?

Milah forced herself to smile, her eyes still reddened by the tears.

- Yes... it's me, it's really me."

In other circumstances, maybe that the young man would have threw himself into her arms, happy to finally find her again.

But, paradoxically, what tarnished that, it was the fact that she was still alive.

And Baelfire didn't understand how it could be possible.

He looked at her, incredulous.

"You're dead... A pirate killed you, and you died ! This is what dad told me.

She shook her head.

- No. I don't know what exactly you father told you when I... disappeared, but it was a lie. I know that he had good intentions, but nothing he told you was true. I didn't die, I just... left. Far away from you. From the two of you. And I am sorry."

His son completely froze a new time as he heard her words, and looked at her with horror, as if it was the first time he was seeing her.

A light of understanding appeared in his eyes.

"You, Baelfire then hiccupped, replacing the pieces of the puzzle in his head. You didn't die, you weren't taken away, you ran away. You abandoned me. Since the beginning, it was you.

- Baelfire, please...

- You... why ? Why did you leave ? Why did you let us ? Then, his look darkened again. You... you became a pirate, right ? That's the reason why you left ? Because you wanted to sail ? And... what about me then ? What about our family ?"

She wanted so bad to take him in her arms, tell him that she loved him, that she was sorry, but she knew that he wouldn't let her do that.

"When you were born... your father was supposed to fight on the battlefield during the Ogres war. I was... I was still pregnant with you then, and I loved sincerely your father at that time, I assure you. But... he was afraid and didn't fight, he ran away from the fight... He mutilated his own leg and fled from the battlefield... He is a coward.

Her son looked at her with horror.

- So... That's why you left ? He... he survived; he came back home, what did you prefer ? Him to die at war ?

- I..."

Maybe that she wanted this once, or maybe that it was only anger and shame which were talking when she had said to her husband that she would have preferred him to fight, to die instead of coming back.

It was better to be the wife of a dead hero than the wife of a living coward.

She had thought this at that moment, but there, facing her son, she was beginning to tell herself that she had been wrong.

That she had been unfairly cruel.

She was asking herself if she would have done better than him.

If she would have been more courageous than him, and succeeded not to be afraid.

The fact that she had fled eight years before showed her the contrary, so yes, she could only admit that she didn't have the right to give any lessons to her former husband about cowardice.

"I am sorry... It was not the only problem, our wedding was a true disaster, your father refused to leave the village so we could start a new life somewhere else, and I... I was suffocating in this life, I wanted to leave, see the world, be free... And Killian was here, he offered me to run away with him, to be a part of his crew, and... I accepted. I left.

- So... does that mean that... I wasn't enough, right ? Not enough for you or to make you want to stay with us ?

She looked at her son right in the eyes.

- Don't. Ever. Say. It. Again. You're my son, and I love you. Baelfire, I forbid you to think one second that this is your fault, I didn't leave because of you... I left because I was unhappy, and selfish, and cowardly, and I... I was in love, I was stupid, and I wanted to flee from your father, it's true but... It never was because I wanted to flee from you, is that clear ? I would have stayed, had your father fought for me, but he didn't, and I wanted... I wanted so bad to come back to take you with me, I swear it.

- But you never did ! Baelfire exclaimed with rancour. You left, and papa told me you were dead ! I believe that you're dead since eight years, lost for forever, and you... You abandoned me !

- I am sorry Bae... I am so sorry it ended this way.

- You weren't here, when the war began again, he said with rage, and when they wanted to make me fight... You weren't here either, when dad became the Dark One, began to fall into darkness, and you weren't here either when he abandoned me... During all these years... the young boy whispered, tears in his eyes, you weren't here ! Why are you here anyway ? And where is your dear pirate ?

- He is dead... the pirate said with pain, and your father killed him. He ripped out his heart, crushed it, and cut my hand... I came here because I want to get revenge on him and find a way to kill him.

When Baelfire began to laugh, it felt like it was anything but joyous.

- So, in the end, it seems like you're not better than him... You too... you also finally began a monster.

- Baelfire, please, listen to me...

- No ! Go away... Leave me alone."

The captain sighed, before nodding her head, and leaving the room, while her son was curling up on himself, crying again.

She sincerely hoped that her little boy would one day find the strength in his heart to forgive her.

After all, she had all the time in the world to convince him to do so, didn't she ?

§§§§

Pan and his Lost Boys would burn in hell before she would accept to give them her son.

§§§§

"You're not my family... Not anymore. I want to go back to my real family... The Darling.

- Baelfire... You can't. No one can leave this place. Not if Pan doesn't let you do it.

- Then, let me leave your ship.

- You're still my son, whether you want it or not... I won't let you go and risk to fall into Peter Pan's hands."

§§§§

Felix and his henchmen had came back on the Jolly Roger, looking for the boy.

She had lied, obviously, she was good at that game now...

When she had entered into her son's cabin, she had found it completely empty.

He had ran away.

The only person she could have blamed, it was herself, again.

§§§§

"Wendy ?

- Baelfire ?"

He was not alone.

Not anymore.

And he was clearly not letting her to Peter Pan, she was the prisoner of this island because of him, he could at least free her from this prison.

§§§§

Some years and centuries had passed, Milah trying by all the means possible to find her son (sometimes not even thinking anymore about revenge) this one living now with Wendy and Tinker Bell, far from Peter Pan's group, but the pirate's efforts had been vain for a long time.

He didn't want to see her...

Until a certain moment, and, after she made a deal with Pan so he would let them go, her and her crew, she had came to see her son, proposed to him and the two other to come with them, in the Enchanted Forest, assuring him that he would be able to leave far from her if he wanted to, hoping despite that that he would accept to stay for a time with her.

And he had accepted.

It was his only way to leave so...

But, as they came back in this world they once fled, Milah, seeing a certain purple smoke surround them, realized suddenly that she probably wouldn't have the time to only try to reconnect with her son...

To be continued...