To the Ends of the World

by OptimisticGirl

[Days of Future's Past sequel] All is eerily calm for the heroes - until Maleficent finds a way to circumvent the prophecy that foretells her demise. Emma and Killian must now race against the clock to save one of their children from a fate worse than death while battling their own internal demons. Can they finally defeat Maleficent before she becomes an unstoppable evil?

6. Chapter 5: Ghosts of Times Long Past

A/N: HELLO. HI! Yes, I am not dead, and yes, this is actually an update!

I fell into a little (see: major) writing funk around January of this year, and it's been a very difficult time for me creatively. There were legit tears shed over my inability to put words down that I didn't absolutely hate. I had the support of some amazing friends though, and their love and encouragement got me through that very dark tunnel. 3 Updates will still take time (thought hopefully not another 8 months), so just bear with me! Many thanks to spartanguard and always-been-a-pirate for their beta reading services! I also want to thank wellhellotragic, xpumpkindumplingx, phiralovesloki, and distant-rose for being sound boards for all manner of things when it came to not only this chapter, but the story as a whole.

As always, enjoy, and reviews feed a muse who just came out of a writing funk. Justttttt saying!

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Chapter 5: Ghosts of Times Long Past

---

Adjusting the collar of his formal jacket, Eric made his way through the nearly deserted corridors of the Charming castle with only the ever present guards who stood watch as witness to the pirate captain's hurried and nearly frantic pace.

After leaving Erin with a clearly unamused Snow, he'd went straight to his own bedchamber that lay a few doors down from hers to get ready. While he still felt awkward at times with having been given a permanent room within the castle—in the family wing, no less—his initial resistance to Erin's idea had slowly dissolved over the last five months. After a decade at sea, he'd forgotten just how wonderful it was to have ample walking space that wasn't hindered by the length of a ship, as well as a proper sized bed that allowed him to roll over without fear of falling off it. Being able to stay warm without relying on dozens of blankets or a coal oven that barely worked had been another welcome upside to his move inside the castle. The main reason his resolve against the idea had crumbled, however, was Erin. He'd been shocked when Emma revealed Erin's need to protect him after their Agrabah trip, but more than that, Eric had finally understood why she suggested he take Elizabeth's old room to begin with.

If having him inthe family wing was what lessened her fear in any way, then Eric was willing to live with the tendrils of awkwardness that still persisted to give her that peace of mind.

Upon entering his room, he'd seen an outfit already laying on the four poster bed as well as a tub filled with still steaming water, and Eric had only been able to shake his head at the sight. It had to be Snow's handy work. She had more than likely instructed a maid or two to ready the bath and his clothes after Smee told her about the arrival of his ship in the harbor. He normally balked at the idea of the staff waiting on him like a member of the family—it was a constant disagreement he had with both Snow and David—but in that instance he had been thankful they had done it. Running back and forth to draw himself a bath would have taken time Eric didn't have, especially since he was already late for the ball.

Not that having a bath pre-drawn had mattered in the end. He was running twenty minutes behind where he should have been, and Eric groaned at the thought before quickening his pace.

It was all Merlin's fault…

---

Taking off his sweat-soaked clothes and tossing them into a far corner, Eric had just placed one leg into the blessedly hot bath water when he heard the unmistakable sound of someone translocating inside his room. A quick glance over his shoulder showed him the familiar sight of dark blue smoke appearing by the door that led to his sitting room, and he cursed as he scrambled to extract his leg while reaching for a towel to cover his lower region.

"Bloody hell, Merlin!"

Once the smoke cleared, the centuries-old wizard blinked in surprise at the sight of an annoyed and practically naked Eric standing less than ten feet in front of him.

"My apologies, Captain. I didn't mean to intrude during such a… inconvenient moment."

"Well, you did," Eric muttered irritably. "What are you doing here, anyway? I thought you were stopping a war of some sort over seashells in Atlantica."

Clasping his hands together in front of his gray robe and actively looking at everything but Eric, Merlin replied, "Technically I still am. I just translocated here long enough to have a conversation with you and then I will be returning."

"A conversation?"

"Yes."

"Could this conversation not wait until, I don't know, I'm bathed and dressed?"

"That depends," Merlin replied while rocking on his heels. "Are you unclothed because you're getting ready for the ball?"

"That's generally what one does before taking a bath," Eric dead panned. What God had he displeased to have to endure this? Was this his punishment for going along with Erin's failed plan to deceive her grandmother?

"Then no, it can't wait. What we need to discuss centers heavily around the celebration of Liam and Elizabeth's impending nuptials."

Closing his eyes, Eric pinched the bridge of his nose with the hand that wasn't holding the towel and breathed deeply through his nose. He knew from years of personal experience that Merlin liked to talk in riddles and in a non-linear way sometimes, but he really wasn't in the mood for the wizard's conversational style right now—especially since he was naked and running late.

"What in the seven hells are you talking—"

"King Septimus."

The air left Eric's lungs as if he had been punched at that name, and the world began to take a sickening turn behind his closed eyes. Images of a blood-soaked nightgown flashed through his mind, the red color a vibrant hue against the white linen it had seeped into, and Eric swore he could feel the slippery wetness of it rubbing against his bare legs just as he had on that summer night twenty-four years ago. He could hear the sound of bare feet slapping against stone echoing sharply in his ears, and his own breathing began to pick up with the memory of someone else's frantic and labored breaths…

"Eric?"

Snapping his eyes open, the pirate captain blinked a few times to orientate himself. He'd somehow ended up sitting on the floor of his bedchamber, the towel still barely covering his modesty and the cold stone beneath his bare ass slowly seeping into his bones. Merlin was on one knee in front of him, the wizard's blue gaze filled with a mixture of understanding and guilt. He was the only person in any realm of existence who knew why that name would affect Eric, as well as the horrible memories that had just overtaken him.

"I'm fine," Eric whispered, trying to force his breathing to return to normal despite the way his heart still raced within his chest.

"I'm sorry. I was trying to find a less jarring way to start the conversation—"

Interrupting the wizard's apology with a wave of his hand, Eric sighed not in agitation, but in resignment. "I'm fine, really. When it comes to him and what he represents, there is no delicate way to bring it up."

Merlin nodded, but remained in his kneeling position. "Memories?"

"Just flashes. Bits and pieces, like a puzzle that hasn't been completed though I know the final image." Running a hand through his hair, Eric murmured, "It's been years since that's happened."

"Names hold power, Captain, especially when they are responsible for what he did. Do you need help up?"

Eric shook his head. "No, I'll be fine right here. I will, however, need a drink to get through this discussion."

A cloud of blue smoke immediately appeared next to him, and once it cleared a bottle of Killian's finest rum sat on the floor of his bedchamber. Eric's quirked eyebrow was met with a sympathetic shrug from the wizard.

"I figured it was the least I could do."

Not arguing the matter, Eric pulled the cork out of the bottle and took a large gulp, willing the amber colored liquid to give him the courage to voice the question he already knew the answer to.

"He's going to be there, isn't he?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Merlin replied, finally moving to stand to his full height. "I tried talking Snow and David into not inviting him before l had to leave for Atlantica, but—"

"He's a reigning monarch," Eric finished, doing nothing to hide the bitterness in his tone. "It would be seen as a slap in the face if he weren't invited to a royal affair, and could have repercussions for both Misthaven and Wonderland." Laughingly humorless, he added, "It would seem over a decade at sea didn't fully erase my early years of political schooling."

A sad smile pulled at the corners of Merlin's lips. "David and Snow may not have had a choice, but you do. You don't have to attend the ball with him there."

Eric was shaking his head before the wizard had even finished his sentence. "No, I do. Liam and Elizabeth are… they're my friends, and I want to celebrate their engagement with them. Besides, Erin will be there, and you know how much she hates these types of things."

"Are you sure that is a wise decision?"

"It's the only decision. It wouldn't be the first time I had to deal with something concerning my homeland, remember?"

"This is different." Taking a step towards Eric, Merlin waited until the captain's eyes met his own before continuing. "Three years ago, you dealt with his council, Eric - not him. No one that was in the room with you during those talks was responsible for the greatest tragedy of your life. Are you really going to be able to stand in the same room as the man who killed your parents and not run him through with your sword, considering the reaction you just had to his name alone?"

Eric's jaw clenched at the mention of Septimus' crime. He would rather jump into mermaid-infested waters than breath one particle of air with the man who had made him an orphan when he was eight, but if he didn't show up, Septimus won again—and that was something Eric couldn't stomach. Not that the King of Stormhold would even remember him. Why would he? Septimus thought he was dead, and Eric had taken every precaution in hiding his real identity from the moment his mother had closed the faux door behind him.

Moreover, if Eric didn't attend the ball, it would draw the attention of the entire Charming clan, and the last thing he needed was to set off the Savior's lie detector. The Charming's ballroom was the largest of any castle, anyway—he could spend hours mingling with the royal guests and never once run into or even see the murdering tyrant. Taking another pull from the rum bottle, Eric studied the concerned face of the only person who knew his real past for a long moment before taking a deep breath.

"I'll be fine, old friend."

---

That should have been the end of the conversation, but of course it wasn't.

Merlin had spent another fifteen minutes making sure Eric was certain about his decision to still attend the ball before translocating back to Atlantica, despite Eric's unwavering conviction. Not that he couldn't understand or even respect why Merlin questioned his resolve. The wizard knew that Eric had spent his adult life actively taking every opportunity he could to undermine Septimus from afar, so it was only natural that Merlin would be worried about what Eric would do when he was finally in the same room as the King of Stormhold. It wasn't just regarding the political fallout that would occur if Eric killed Septimus, though. Merlin hadn't said the words out loud, but Eric knew the wizard well enough to know he was also worried about what seeing Septimus for the first time in twenty-four years would do to Eric emotionally.

He just wished Merlin's paternal instincts had come after his bath so he wouldn't be running so unbelievably late.

Finally reaching the ballroom at a near run, Eric nodded in greeting towards the heavily armored guards who stood on either side of the ornate double doors before making his way inside. He'd barely taken three steps into the crowded room when he heard a familiar, accented voice boom above even in the low hum of hundreds of individual conversations and lively music.

"The prodigal pirate has returned!"

Looking to his left, he saw Will standing off to the side of the ballroom with David and Killian, the three men momentarily sequestering themselves away from the other guests in a corner. They were all dressed in their finest attire—David in a cream colored doublet that no doubt matched Snow's dress, Will in a lavender jacket very similar to Eric's own, and Killian in a more formal version of his great coat—and each held a goblet in their right hand. Eric would have bet every doubloon he owned, plus a thousand more that he didn't, that Will and Killian's goblets were filled with rum instead of the standard wine Snow served at events like this.

Chuckling at Will's overly loud exclamation, Eric made his way toward the men. "I don't know about prodigal, but it is good to be back," he remarked as he reached them. "One more day in that frozen wasteland and I would have turned to ice."

David nodded in understanding. "Narnia is a beautiful kingdom, but not one I want to spend more than a few hours in." Turning to his son-in-law, he added, "How long were we there when the kids were little? A month?"

"Two weeks. It just felt like a month between the cold and wrangling five children under the age of five."

"Gods, don't remind me of that trip," Will groaned. "I can still hear Elizabeth's cries of indignation as I dragged her kicking and screaming from those bloody penguins we stumbled upon."

Eric joined David and Killian as they laughed at Will's grimace, the young pirate captain able to perfectly picture what an outraged three-year-old Elizabeth must have looked like as her father took her away from something she was interested in.

"What took so long on the retrieval, anyway?"

Swiping a goblet from a passing butler's tray, Eric sighed at the King of Misthaven's question. "A whole host of reasons. It took us twelve hours more than we had planned to get to the damn castle as we arrived in the middle of a snow storm. Then we discovered the wizard had increased the number of guards since Erin's previous visit. We spent two days observing their routine, plus another to even locate where in the castle he might have hidden the scepter. By the time we actually made our move to get it, Erin was speaking in nothing but expletives—in multiple languages, I might add."

Killian chuckled. "Sounds like my daughter."

"At least you were able to retrieve it without incident."

Eric's stomach clenched at Will's words. The memory of free falling through freezing air with Erin quickly flashed through his mind, and he fought to keep his facial expression from giving that away. It hadn't exactly been without incident, but just as he hadn't sold Erin out to her grandmother on why they were entering her bedchamber via the balcony, Eric wasn't going to tell the three most protective men in Erin's life about their near death experience. When, or if she told them, was her decision alone to make.

"Without incident," he stated, nodding to further cement the lie before taking a large gulp of wine.

"What was without incident?"

Turning his head at the familiar voice, Eric found himself choking on the red liquid mid-swallow as his eyes landed on Erin.

Gone were the travel clothes he had last seen her in, the leather garments replaced with an off the shoulder dress that had lace sleeves covering her arms from wrist to mid-bicep. It fit tightly to her upper body and flared out at the waist into a voluminous yet still manageable sized skirt, with only the hint of a train trailing behind her. The color—a dark jade that reminded him of the rolling hills of his homeland—perfectly complemented the slight tan she still retained from their visit to Agrabah nearly four months ago, and her hair that had been hastily braided for their climb into her bedchamber now hung in soft waves around her exposed shoulders. The only adornments she wore were a simple pair of emerald earrings and the tiara that had been specially crafted for her when she passed her great-grandmother's down to Hope—the rows of diamonds and sapphires shaped like cresting waves glittering in the ballroom's light.

She looks absolutely breathtaking, he thought—an accurate description, really, considering he was having trouble finding his breath after inhaling wine at the mere sight of her. Coming to a stop on his left side, Erin looked at him in bewilderment while giving his back a few hard thumps.

"Can you not hold your wine either, D'Harper?"

"I just didn't expect you to appear from out of nowhere," he answered, voice slightly rough from the strain he'd put on his throat muscles. Will made an aborted sound that sounded a lot like, "Sure," and Eric subtly shot the White King of Wonderland a glare.

Seemingly missing the exchange, Erin laughed. "If either of us appeared out of nowhere, it was you. I've been here for twenty minutes even with having to get into this rib crusher of a dress."

"Well, crushed ribs aside, it looks lovely on you."

"You have to say that, you're my godfather," Erin teased before turning her attention to her grandfather and father. "So what incidents were you discussing when I scared Eric and made him inhale his wine?"

"Oh, the incidents with your retrieval."

He felt Erin's entire body go rigid next to him, and Eric cursed internally. When he had decided to let her reveal the particulars of how they had escaped, he hadn't planned on her doing so while under the assumption he had already done it, thus making her feel betrayed and like she had been backed into a corner. A quick glance told him Erin had managed to keep the fear and surprise off her face at her grandfather's simple reply, which meant he could save the situation before she inadvertently revealed more than she might want to.

"Just how it went off without them," he remarked, imploring her to catch on with a raised eyebrow when she turned her head towards him. "Except for us getting lost in a snowstorm and having to decode guard patrols, of course."

Understanding flickered within her eyes instantly, and he felt the tension leave her body from where their arms were pressed against one another.

"Oh, yes. We retrieved it without a single problem—aside from those," she corrected, smiling at the three paternal figures in her life as if she wasn't hiding something from them. "So, has anything new developed in regards to Maleficent since we've been gone?"

It was clearly a change in topic, and as David started to fill them in on what had been discussed at the latest War Council, Eric breathed an internal sigh of relief. They'd at least managed to fumble through that conversation without letting on to the others that something else had happened on the retrieval. Which, considering Erin's ever perceptive father, was a down right miracle.

Now he just had to get through the rest of the night without encountering Septimus.

---

It's time.

The stiff, bristle brush stopped moving along the horse's chestnut coat, and the young prince turned his head towards the east where the voice had come from. Rolling hills that were dotted with the whitest daisies stretched out beyond the stables into the far distance, their gentle curves only halted by the forest that lay like a faint ink dot on the horizon. It should have been impossible for him to see anything from this distance, but he caught the unmistakable white light moving amid the trees, the ethereal glow brighter than even the sun that hung high above his head.

After all, a God's light could be seen from any distance.

Tossing the brush aside, he quickly mounted his horse and headed towards the light at a full gallop with a smile on his face and his heart swelling with anticipation. The young prince had been waiting for the summons since the first night of the blue moon, his eyes and ears trained to the distant forest where his eternal reward would be given. He was granted it only once a year, but that was all he needed. One fleeting glance before every Spring to know they were alive and well was enough to put him at ease. It was impossible for him to be with them, the choice ripped from the young prince in a moment he would do over and over again for all of eternity if it ensured their protection. Everyone who resided here felt the same about a loved one they had left behind, and it was the entire reason the Goddess that co-ruled this realm saw fit to reward them once a year.

Reaching the forest, he dismounted his horse and left the magnificent steed to graze freely on the lush grass. There was no fear of someone stealing him—not in this tranquil place—and he wouldn't wander far, the horse somehow attuned to his every need and whereabouts as a creature of this realm. With a friendly pat to the horse's hind quarter, the young prince made his into the trees, following the path he had only walked six times. There was no rule against the realm's inhabitants entering the forest outside their yearly reward, but they stayed away from the sacred ground as an unspoken sign of respect and gratitude, each of them knowing the Goddess didn't have to give them what she did. The deeper he went the more the forest came alive around him. Birds heralded his approach, and all manner of forest creatures from rabbits to deers scurried to watch his journey while the very trees, eternal beings themselves, seemed to sway in greeting.

After no more than a few minutes, the path emptied into a small clearing. The trees that surrounded it stood like silent, ancient guardians, and his eyes landed on the object he had spent the last year waiting to see again.

Finally.

The young prince had been in the clearing six times, and every time he stood on the sacred ground the beauty of what lay at its center took his breath away.

It was an intricately carved fountain, crafted of the purest ivory and with runes in a long dead language etched into the surface of its bowl. The same white daisies that dotted the hillsides of this realm surrounded its base, as if their delicate petals could somehow protect the magical water that lay within. It looked to have been there since the dawn of time and he was certain it had—at least since the Goddesshad made the world above them her home for half the year.

She stood next to the fountain, the divine light that had marked her presence to him back at the stables now gone so as not to blind him. Her features were delicate and soft, the porcelain skin that covered the divine being glowing in the sunlight that filtered in through the treetops. She was clothed in a sleeveless green gown that was almost too simple for the power she wielded, both literally and figuratively, and her hair fell in gentle waves around her shoulders. There were white daisies sporadically woven into the red locks like floral gemstones, and eyes the color of the clearest sapphire looked upon him with a kindness no mortal could possibly possess.

It was no wonder the Lord of this realm had fallen madly in love with her eons before.

"Come," she bade him with a wave of her hand, pink lips pulling into a soft smile that radiated warmth and divinity all at once.

With anticipation pounding in his veins, the young prince moved towards the fountain and gripped the edge of the ivory bowl. How much had they changed in the last year? Would sorrow still color his wife's emerald gaze? Had the child he never held grown even more? Were they still happy and safe? The litany of questions flying through his mind vanished as the tips of the Goddess's fingers touched the water within the fountain. A ripple extended out from the divine touch, distorting his reflection momentarily before the clear liquid glowed a brilliant golden color.

When the light dissipated the water was gone, replaced with a mirror-like substance that showed him not his own face, but a world he hadn't been a part of for six years.

---

A few hours later, Eric was in yet another corner of the ballroom—this time conversing and laughing with Liam—when he spotted the very person Merlin had translocated from Atlantica to forewarn him about.

The King of Stormhold, while approaching half a century in age, physically looked like he was still in his mid-30's. His physique was as slim and well built as it had been when he was younger—the sedentary lifestyle of ruling a kingdom for two decades having not impacted the king who was known for, above all else, his vanity. Raven colored hair with the faintest hints of gray at the temples fell to his shoulders, and hazel eyes that brimmed with deviousness were set above a hawk-like nose. Standing less than twenty feet away from Eric, Septimus was surrounded by a gaggle of women whose tiaras and finely stitched dresses declared them royalty of some kingdom or another—none of them aware of the calculating nature or the blood that stained the hands of the man they were currently flirting with.

Eric's jaw clenched as Septimus laughed, the sound going straight to the deep rooted hatred that was still anchored to Eric's soul, even after all these years. The ferocity with which it rose within him nearly choked him, and the hand that wasn't holding a goblet twitched at his side. Four years ago nothing would have stopped him from marching over and plunging his sword into the tyrant's stomach, but now he knew that if he did, he wouldn't be the only one involved in the fallout from that action. The Charmings, along with Will and Ana, would be dragged into war when Stormhold's corrupt council undoubtedly called for his execution. He had grown close to Erin's entire family, and Eric couldn't allow the people he had come to respect and look at as friends to die for a brief moment of satisfaction.

So while every instinct was screaming at him to attack, to avenge the deaths of his parents, he remained rooted to where he stood—reminding himself of the repercussions and what he would lose over and over again until the hammering of his own heart faded from his ears.

"Eric?"

Pulled from this thoughts, Eric moved his eyes away from Septimus and back to the man standing in front of him.

"I'm sorry, Liam. What were you saying?"

An amused look crossed the Lieutenant's face. "I was asking you something about the retrieval but it would seem something, or someone, behind me has caught your attention. They wouldn't happen to be a blonde princess whose wearing a green dress, now would they?"

Despite the anger still coursing through his veins, Eric found his cheeks warming at Liam's insinuation. Almost all of the Charming and Jones clan knew about his feelings for Erin, and had for some time, but it never ceased to make him feel like a little boy whose crush had just been announced to a room full of people whenever those feelings were directly pointed out. Particularly when it was also not a secret that Erin had yet to voice her own feelings about him.

"No, it's not Erin."

Liam tried, and failed, to keep the surprise from his face. "Who is it then?"

"It's—" Pausing for the span of a heart beat, Eric contemplated lying but decided honesty was the best way to go. After all, his dislike of Septimus was well known to Erin's family, even if they weren't aware of the real reason behind it. "I just spotted King Septimus in the crowd and it… caught me off guard."

Humming in understanding, Liam replied, "Well that makes sense. You've never liked him."

"Does anyone like him?"

"Touche, but your dislike has always seemed… personal."

Knowing he had to tread lightly so as not to give anything away, Eric shrugged. "It would be personal to you too if you had to sit in those meetings when Wonderland and Stormhold were ironing out a peace treaty and listen to his corrupt council."

"I suppose it would. Uncle Will mentioned earlier that King Septimus has been pushing him and Ana to renegotiate the terms of the treaty over the last few months."

"Of course he has," Eric muttered in disdain.

Peace between Wonderland and Stormhold, the only other kingdom within their shared realm, had only been struck three years ago after a decade of unrest. Septimus viewed himself and his kingdom as superior to that of Wonderland and her rulers, even if Stormhold had fallen from its pinnacle of greatness the moment he assumed the throne. Strife and civil wars had broken out when Ana reclaimed her throne fourteen years prior and brought an end to Septimus' hold on Wonderland—an act the vain King of Stormhold couldn't tolerate. Eric wasn't surprised in the slightest that Septimus was already trying to undermine the delicate peace treaty to further his own agenda.

"I hope Will told him to fall into a deep pit of vipers with his renegotiations."

Liam chuckled. "It was more diplomatic, but yes."

"Good." Needing to talk about something that wasn't Septimus, Eric added, "What was it you were trying to ask me about the retrieval before I spotted him?"

"Oh, I was just wondering if my sister hit you with a snowball."

Caught off guard by the random inquiry, Eric blinked in surprise. "I beg your pardon?"

"When you were in Narnia did Erin hit you, at any time, with a snowball? Particularly to the face?"

The mischief glint in Liam's blue eyes told him there was a reason behind the question, but for the life of him Eric couldn't fathom what that reason might be. "Uh… she did, yeah."

"At what point in the trip did it happen?"

More confused than ever, Eric replied, "About three hours after we landed in Narnia. Why?"

The grin that had slowly been spreading across Liam's face since he asked the first question disappeared instantly at Eric's response. "Seriously?"

At Eric's nod, Liam groaned as if he'd just been asked to trek six hours through the forest. He was about to ask why Erin hitting him at an exact time with a snowball mattered when Liam grumbled, "Bloody hell. I suppose I owe Grandpa a hundred dubloons then."

And then it all made sense. If there was one thing Eric had learned about the male members of the Jones and Charming families in his four years with them, it was that they liked to make bets on the oddest of things—normally in regards to how one of them would react to a certain thing.

"Liam… did you really place a bet about when in the trip Erin would hit me with a snowball?"

"It was an uneventful week!" Liam defended, crossing his arms. "We had to do something to pass the time, and betting on when you would annoy Erin enough to warrant a snowball to the face seemed like an appropriate way to do that. Besides… we needed to distract ourselves from Grandma's tyrannical delegations when it came to planning my wedding."

"To which you lost—clearly."

"Everyone but Grandpa did."

"Everyone?"

"Dad, Henry, Uncle Will and Robin were in on it too. Uncle Will even placed his bet via Jefferson since he wasn't going to arrive here until today."

Despite his initial surprise over the situation, Eric couldn't help but chuckle. Once upon a time, he might have felt ostracised or even picked on by their actions, but there had been a definite shift in his relationship with the members of Erin's family over the last six months. While they had never outright shunned him, he had very much been kept at arm's length by most of them— particularly Killian, David, and Will. He was an outsider, after all. Just a simple stranger that had become connected by chance to a woman they were all protective of. He was never part of the sporadic nights when the men gathered in David's study to drink and talk, or had a one-on-one conversation with Snow and Emma that didn't revolve around whatever was threatening the Charmings at that moment. Most of his interactions until the last few months had been with Erin and Liam, or Elizabeth. The warm welcome he had received when he entered the ballroom hours ago definitely wouldn't have happened before Maleficent's attack. Now, he not only did all those things, but had developed strong enough friendships with the men to be a part of a good-natured bet.

Things like this were exactly why he couldn't go after Septimus.

"I can't believe you had me annoying your sister over three hours after our arrival. That was bad gambling on your part, Lieutenant."

Huffing, Liam replied, "Yes, well… I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. Though to be fair, I did have it happening between eighteen and twenty-four hours."

"You forgot to factor in that your sister hates the cold almost as much as you hate foliage, didn't you?" Eric asked, unable to keep a smile from pulling at his own lips.

"Clearly." Liam started to say something else but paused, a thoughtful expression on his face as he glanced around at the guests that were within earshot of them. "What if you were to… fudge the details of when it happened?"

"You mean say it happened during your time table so you win the bet and not your grandfather?"

"Aye. I'll split the reward with you."

Eric hummed thoughtfully, the index finger of his right hand rhythmically tapping the goblet in his hand as he contemplated the pros and cons of Liam's proposition. While he didn't need the 300 dubloons he'd acquire if he accepted, Eric couldn't pass up such a golden opportunity to one-up Erin's father, grandfather, and godfather.

Extending his hand towards Liam, he smiled. "Deal."

They had no sooner shaken hands and laughed over the entire matter when a flash of emerald caught Eric's attention. Turning his head in the direction of it, he saw Erin quickly making her way out of the ballroom and into the main part of the castle. It was odd for her to be leaving the ball, particularly since they were late in arriving, but what caused unease to settle low in his gut was the brief glance of her profile he caught as she glanced around to make sure her exit wasn't being observed.

Something had upset her.

Excusing himself to Liam with a half thought out reason as to why he was suddenly leaving, Eric made a beeline for the entrance to the ballroom, barely remembering to discard his half empty goblet on a butler's tray before leaving the room.

If he had looked back at any point, he would have seen Liam sharing a knowing look with Elizabeth before the couple followed him.

---

Leaving the crowded ballroom for the more secluded hallways of her home, it took every ounce of self control that Erin had not to wince with each step she took.

Normally she wore boots beneath her ball gowns—an act of childhood defiance that had carried over into adulthood—but she'd been unable to get away with it this time since her grandmother helped her get ready. Instead, she'd been forced to wear a pair of black heels that, while elegant and perfectly befitting her station, were absolutely uncomfortable. Her feet ached fiercely after hours of standing and dancing in them, and she wouldn't be one bit surprised to find a mark across both ankles from where the straps fastened. Erin didn't care if it broke every etiquette rule she'd been taught as a child—the torture devices were coming off and she refused to but them back on.

When she was certain she was far enough away from the ballroom so as not to be spotted by anyone, she quickly toed off the offending footwear. A sound of absolute bliss left her lips when her aching feet touched the cold marble flooring of the castle, and she mentally swore to every deity she could remember that she would never again allow her grandmother to be present when she was getting ready for a ball. Maneuvering the voluminous skirt of her dress out of the way, Erin picked up her heels and, ignoring the smirking guards who'd bore witness to her etiquette breaking antics, made her way to an area of the castle that only members of the royal family had access to.

Of all the wondrous and majestic designs that made up the place she had called home for her entire life, nothing compared to the cloister. Laying on the western side of the Charming castle, the courtyard garden was a breathtaking floral realm amidst a sea of stone—lush, green grass, towering willow trees, and dozens of snow belle bushes that always bloomed a perfectly white shade as spring turned to summer. Encircled by a covered walkway that had sweeping arches and a waist-high railing, its length was the size of three of her father's ships, and the absence of a roof only added to the sense that one was in a completely different world when they stepped into it. It was her favorite place to go within the confined space of the castle whenever she needed to get away from human interaction, or shut the outside world out, and after an evening of dancing and socializing, Erin desperately needed to do just that before she put Hope to bed.

She hummed in contentment as her bare feet moved across the cloister's soft grass. Her aching feet aside, the ball was going better than she had ever expected. The music was lively, Granny's cooking was spectacular—as it always was—and there hadn't been a single moment of drama to distract the guests from celebrating Liam and Elizabeth's engagement. Which, considering the number of royals that were in one room, was more than a little surprising to Erin. Not that she was going to question a lack of petty squabbling over treaties and whatever slight one crown felt another had done to it fifty years ago. The only thing that mattered was Liam and Elizabeth's happiness, and from what she had been able to tell, her brother and best friend were enjoying themselves.

Passing beneath the low-hanging strands of one of the willow trees, she couldn't help but chuckle. She really had to hand it to the former bandit. They may joke about her tendency to go overboard when it came to things like this, but no one could throw a fully fledged royal event with more heads of state than the last coronation Erin had attended and make it feel intimate like Snow White could. She'd certainly managed to do the same thing with Erin and Matthew's engagement ball…

What mirth she had been feeling vanished in an instant with that thought, and Erin paused for the briefest of moments beside a snow belle bush that was just beginning to sprout buds before continuing on to her destination.

It wasn't the first time Matthew had crossed her mind that night…

---

"Did you know Edwina hand stitched each of these buttons onto the back of your dress?"

"That's nice," Erin huffed, the reply more than likely muffled to her grandmother's ears considering Erin's body was inside her wardrobe from the waist up. The Queen of Misthaven just had to insist that she wear the black heels with emeralds running along the top part, citing that they matched her dress perfectly and were more appropriate footwear for a ball than the leather boots Erin had tried to sneak on. Not that Erin completely understood her grandmother's logic. What did it matter if her shoes matched her dress when no one was going to even see the bloody things beneath it?

"Are you sure you didn't 'accidentally' lose them?"

"They were a gift from you and Grandpa. No matter how much I detested them, I wouldn't have thrown them away or given them to someone else."

Erin could hear the playfulness in her grandmother's reply even from her position inside the wardrobe. "You would have just buried them at the bottom of your wardrobe until the end of time instead, right?"

"Well… yes." Moving yet another pair of boots out of her way, she continued, "I've never hidden my dislike for heels and you know that."

Snow White's quiet 'hmmmm' had Erin rolling her eyes and thanking the god of fortune that her grandmother couldn't see the action. The truth was she wasn't completely sure they were still in the bloody wardrobe. She hadn't laid eyes on the footwear in nearly five years—not since that winter ball the family had attended in Camelot—and though she knew she wouldn't have given them away, that didn't mean they were still where she had last seen them. She did have a six year old who liked to borrow her things to play dress up.

Leaning further into the wardrobe, Erin huffed in annoyance. This endeavor would be going a lot quicker if she weren't wearing her ballgown. It was a beautiful dress, as all the royal seamstress' creations were, but it was rather cumbersome for hunting a lone pair of heels down in a large wardrobe. The voluminous skirt kept her from going too far into the wardrobe, and the off the shoulder style sleeves limited what movement she could make with her arms. Not to mention the corset she had to wear with it that dug into her every organ because of her kneeling position.

Maybe they are hidden somewhere in Hope's bedchamber, she thought as she tossed a pair of riding pants she hadn't worn in ten years to the other side of the wardrobe. Surely she would have stumbled upon them by now…

As her right hand went to move an item of clothing out of the way, she was suddenly assaulted by the scent of freshly bloomed roses mixed with morning dew and honeysuckle. Erin instantly stilled when it overpowered her senses, and the running commentary her grandmother was giving behind her about the newly created dress faded beneath the sound of her own heartbeat. That was impossible. It was a scent as familiar to her as her father's, but one she hadn't smelled in a very long time. How could she? The man associated with it had been dead for six years.

Sitting back on her haunches, and ignoring her grandmother's chastisement about wrinkling her dress, Erin pulled the piece of linen out of the wardrobe with trembling hands. It was a simple shirt; the neckline low but modest, with long sleeves that ended in ruffles. The cloth that had once been a vibrant white was now colored with age from where it had sat unused at the bottom of her wardrobe for almost a decade. Even without the scent still attached to it she would have immediately known it belonged to him, and tears filled Erin's eyes as she gently cradled the fabric to her chest.

"Erin?"

At her grandmother's worried tone, Erin looked up at the other woman and sniffled.

"It's—it's Matthew's shirt."

---

Coming to the center of the cloister, Erin sat on the single stone bench that marked the otherwise perfect floral scenery and took a deep, cleansing breath.

After her grandmother comforted her—and found the sought after heels at the very back of the wardrobe beneath another pair of riding pants—Erin had composed herself and went down to the ball. She'd adamantly told herself from the moment she left her bedchamber that she wouldn't let finding one of Matthew's shirts affect her. It wasn't the first time, nor would it be the last, that she came across something of his, and celebrating Liam and Elizabeth's engagement was more important than allowing herself to wallow in a grief she had been dealing with for six years.

Grief and the peculiar way it worked, however, was a funny thing.

From the moment she stepped into the ballroom Erin had been reminded of her husband. They were small things—like a duke's jacket that was cut similarly to a style Matthew use to favor, his favorite appetizer, the waltz he use to hum to himself while getting ready in the morning—but they were as glaring to her as a lit candle in an otherwise dark room. No matter where she turned, or how hard she tried to ignore them, they were there. Random and mundane reminders that kept the grief she had quickly shoved down bubbling just beneath an already turbulent surface. Even now, sat in the seclusion of the cloister and surrounded by its beauty, she was reminded of him. It had been in another courtyard garden, that one filled with roses and dogwood trees, and on a night very similar to this one that Matthew had proposed to her. She could perfectly picture his nervous smile as he went down to one knee, and the way the moonlight had glinted off his grandmother's ring.

Sighing, Erin closed her eyes against the onslaught of memories. She should have known this would happen. Her father had told her shortly after Matthew's death that grief was not a linear process. It wasn't a road one traveled and then never walked down again—it was a winding, neverending path that doubled back on itself frequently, much like a maze. For every movement forward there was something laying somewhere along the way that would unexpectedly cause you to fall ten steps backward, and that's exactly what finding Matthew's shirt had done to her. Without his scent so fresh in her memory, she never would have picked up on the ordinary things that had reminded her of him all night long, or felt such a profound sense of loss when observing her father and Hope.

She always loved to watch them dance together. There was something about seeing her father effortlessly glide through the complicated steps of a waltz with her daughter in his arms that never failed to bring a smile to her lips. It reminded Erin of when he use to do the same thing with her—be it in a grand ballroom or on the deck of the Jolly Roger—and it made her love the unique bond between grandfather and granddaughter all the more.

Tonight, however, all she could see was what was missing.

It wasn't the first time she had ever thought about what Matthew wouldn't be a part of, but it was certainly the first time in a very long time that those thoughts had haunted her. He should have been there. He should have been standing beside Erin and watched as Hope's laughter filled the ballroom. More importantly, he should have been the one dancing with her. There was something special about having moments like that with a grandfather—Erin had had hundreds of similar ones with her own grandfather growing up—but there was something infinitely precious about having the memory of experiencing it with a father. Hope could never have that. She would never know what it was like to simply be twirled around a dance floor by her own father...

Just as she was about to become overwhelmed and break into tears for the second time in one night, a cool breeze blew through the cloister and brought with it a familiar scent that wasn't from the barely bloomed snow belles or willow trees. Her turbulent thoughts immediately ceased as she inhaled it, letting the welcoming fragrance wrap around her like a warm blanket and momentarily dull the sadness that had been eating at her all night. The distinctive sound of boots treading across grass reached Erin's ears as they got closer to where she sat, and without opening her eyes she spoke the name of the person who the scent belonged to.

"D'Harper."

The footsteps immediately came to a stuttered halt. "How did you know it was me?"

Opening her eyes, Erin turned her head to find Eric standing just a few feet away from her with a quizzical expression on his face.

"I've been on an untold number of retrievals with you over the last four years—I know how you walk," she lied. "What are you doing out here?"

"I saw you leave the ball early and just wanted to make sure everything was okay."

"Oh." She had left the festivities rather abruptly when she could longer bear wearing her heels or seeing the reminders of Matthew. "No, everything's fine. I just needed to get away from people for a little while after rubbing elbows with them for so long… and give my poor feet a rest."

Chuckling, Eric nodded towards the heels she was still holding. "Not the most sensible form of footwear, are they?"

"Not in the slightest. Grandma insisted I wear them because they matched my dress, even though no one saw the bloody things all night. Now my feet feel like I've done a week's worth of ship duties in four hours."

Eric winced in sympathy. "That sounds… awful."

"Perks of being a princess," she replied, the mock cheerfulness of her tone clearly indicating it was anything but a perk.

"Well, if it will help, I can rub your feet. I have it on good authority from a princess of Misthaven that I give excellent foot massages."

Despite the sadness that was still lingering around her heart, Erin couldn't help but laugh at the memory his words evoked. The family had attended a day long ball in Camelot a few months prior that was in celebration of Arthur and Guinevere's daughter turning sixteen, and she had complained to Eric the entire time about her feet hurting thanks to another pair of torturous devices she had to wear. At the end of the night they had found their way to one of Arthur's drawing rooms—with more than one bottle of wine procured—and Eric had preceded to give her a foot massage at his insistence. It had been excellent, and she might have drunkenly proclaimed him Knight of Massages with his own sword once they had worked their way through the four bottles of wine.

Not that her power to knight someone had any legal standing, thankfully.

"The princess of Misthaven most definitely sings your praises in that area, and would not object to another one. That is, if you're sure."

Eric smiled as he moved to sit next to her. "I wouldn't have offered if I wasn't, Jones."

Needing no further encouragement, Erin dropped her heels onto the grass and turned on the stone bench so that she was facing him. She'd barely placed her right foot in his lap when his thumb ran along its arch, causing her to moan in appreciation.

"Gods, you are good at that."

Eric chuckled but said nothing in return; instead focusing entirely on the task at hand. A comfortable silence fell between them, broken only by the nocturnal creatures that resided within the cloister and her own appreciative sounds, and Erin took the unguarded moment to study him. Light from the lanterns that lit the cloister's natural pathways around them danced across his sharp features, tinting the dark hair that fell across his forehead with auburn streaks and highlighting his cheekbones even as his jawline was thrown into shadows. The facial hair that he had left unattended during their retrieval was now neatly trimmed, and at some point—between coming after her and the last time she had seen him at the ball—he'd shed the formal jacket he'd been wearing, leaving him in a white shirt and the light gray vest that had initially distracted her.

It wasn't the first time Erin had ever seen him dressed for a ball, but there was something about that particular vest that had caused her breath to catch when Eric turned around after she had interrupted his conversation with her paternal figures. Even with his jacket on at the time she had been able to tell how well it fit—practically hugging his muscular torso and broad shoulders, while accentuating his trim waist in a way that had caused her to feel something she hadn't felt in a very long time. It even complimented his eyes, making their green color more vivid than normal. She had never outwardly admitted it to him, and had rarely let herself internally say it, but Eric was a handsome man. Anyone with a pair of eyes could see that, and tonight he had looked exceptionally striking. He'd often remarked about how well she cleaned up for events like this, but the truth was he could throw off the mantle of pirate and look the part of a wealthy royal just as nicely as she could.

"Jones?"

Pulled from her thoughts, Erin focused her attention on Eric's face to find him smiling at her. "Hm?"

"I've asked you a question twice now and you've continued to just stare at me."

"Oh." Her cheeks warmed at having been so caught up in studying him that she missed him speaking. At least the darkness hides how red my face is, she thought. "I was just thinking about… things."

"Clearly."

Lightly digging her heel into his thigh at the playfully remark, she said, "What were you saying?"

"I asked if being done with people and needing to rest your feet were the real reasons you had come to your favorite spot."

She could hear the underlying remark in his tone—"Only if you want to talk about it, Jones,"—and she couldn't help but smile. It didn't surprise her that Eric would offer his ear while at the same time assure her she didn't have to talk about it if she didn't want to. What did surprise her was that she wanted to tell him. Normally she only talked about her grief over Matthew's death with her father but, sitting in her favorite place within the castle with Eric and his scent still tickling her, the guard she normally had herself cloaked in was lowered.

"They really were part of it," she admitted. Leaning backwards so she could brace her hands on the edges of the bench, she continued, "But the larger reason was because I had been chased by a ghost all night."

"Matthew."

She should have been surprised that he had so easily guessed the answer behind her rather odd remark, but she wasn't.

"Yeah. I found one of his shirts when I was getting ready and it… it still smelled like him. I'm sure to the average person there wouldn't have been any scent remaining on it considering how long he's been gone, but—"

"—Because of your superpower, it hit you as if he'd just been wearing it."

Erin nodded. "I tried not to let it bother me, but the gods were working against me. All I saw tonight, wherever I looked, were things that reminded me of him."

Releasing the foot he had been working on, Eric tapped the knee of her left leg in a silent command. Erin wordlessly raised her leg from where it had been hanging off the side of the bench, and it wasn't until her left foot was in his lap that he spoke.

"When we're hit with the memory of someone or something that we lost, especially in such a vivid way like you were, it opens our subconscious to pick up on details we might have otherwise not noticed. It's perfectly natural that it happened."

"I know. It's not the first time I had to walk down that path, but it was still as emotionally draining as it was years ago when it happened right after his death. Especially since I was trying to hide the grief while being genuinely happy for Liam and Elizabeth."

Squeezing her foot in sympathy rather than to alleviate a physical pain, Eric replied, "I can only imagine. You know your brother and Elizabeth would have understood if you had forgone the ball and sequestered yourself in your bedchamber."

"They would have, but I wanted to be there for them." Erin made another sound of appreciation as his nimble fingers found a particularly sore spot on the ball of her foot. "Being reminded of Matthew so much tonight did cause an old fear that hasn't plagued me in years to rise back to the surface."

"How so?"

"When Matthew died, there were two things I constantly thought about: the fact that he would never meet Hope or be able to watch her grow up—which destroyed me because he had been so excited for her arrival—and how not having a father would impact her. For the first year of her life, there were nights that the latter thought kept me awake more than my nightmares did. What kind of woman would she turn out to be without such a central figure? Would she feel like there was a hole in her life that I, no matter how hard I might try, could never fill? Was there going to be moments where she needed her father but all she had was me? Those thoughts still trouble me, but not as often as they once did. Then tonight... I was watching my dad and Hope dance, and it came back. All I could think about was what she was missing out on—how she'd never be able to experience dancing at a ball with her father, having him give her away when she gets married, or even the simple act of being comforted by him…"

Before she could say another word, Eric was sliding closer to her on the bench until her feet were resting on the other side of his right thigh with the cradle of her knees directly over his lap. Reaching towards her with his left hand, he gently swiped along her cheek with his thumb, and it wasn't until he did so that Erin realised she was crying.

"That's a natural fear for anyone in your position to have," he murmured, his tone as reassuring as the continued movement of his thumb on her cheek was. "But—and I say this knowing full well it does nothing to truly quiet a mother's worry—she won't miss out on any of that. Hope will never want for father figures between Killian, David, Will, and even your brothers. They will be there for the dances, to comfort her when she's scared or sick, and your father and grandfather will very likely have a duel to decide which one of them gets to walk her down the aisle."

A watery chuckle escaped Erin at that mental image. "I know they will be there for her, and that they love her unconditionally and would do anything in the world for her," she whispered, "But it… it's not the same. There are moments in my own life that I couldn't imagine having gone through with anyone except Dad. It—it just wouldn't hold the same weight. Will she cherish the memory of dancing with my father? Of course, but there are certain things a person should experience with their father—not a grandfather, an uncle, or a family friend—and there's nothing I can do to change it."

There was a flash of sadness in Eric's eyes at her words, and he seemed to be battling with something internally for a long moment before he finally spoke.

"No, having someone else in the place of where a parent should be isn't the same as having the parent there. I can tell you from personal experience, however, that as long as there is someone standing next to Hope in those moments, she won't look back on them with pure sadness. A part of her will always wish her father could have been there, but at the end of the day, it won't take away from the happiness the memory brings her."

Erin's brow wrinkled in confusion. "Personal experience?"

"Aye." Dropping his hand from her cheek, Eric moved back to an upright sitting position. "My parents were murdered when I was eight."

She didn't know what she had been expecting, but that certainly wasn't it. At the shocked expression on her face, he smiled sadly. "Bit of a bombshell to drop on you, isn't it?"

"A little."

It was true she knew very little about Eric's life before he became a pirate, but she respected the fact that some people had things happen to them that wasn't easy to divulge to others. Erin certainly kept things close to her vest. It had taken a long time for her to even hint about Matthew to him, and there were still things—like her need to protect him and the way her nightmares had changed—that Eric wasn't aware of. He had told her that he'd began pirating when he was sixteen, and that he had done so as a means to survive, but she had just assumed he never talked about his parents because he'd ran away for some reason. Not that they had been murdered...

Genuinely at a loss for words for only the fifth time in her twenty-seven years, Erin said the only thing that came to mind. "I'm so sorry, Eric."

"It's alright, Jones. It happened a long time ago."

"Wounds that are made when you're young tend to linger," she murmured, reciting the very words her father had once said to her and Liam when trying to explain why the crack of a whip unnerved him. Leaning forward, she swung her legs out of his lap so they were sitting side by side, the size of the bench leaving almost no space between them.

"How did it—what happened?"

"Thieves. They broke into our home one night and… Well, they may have entered as simple thieves looking for a quick haul, but they left as cold-blooded murderers." Eric's gaze fell to the grass that lay beneath their feet, and she watched him swallow thickly in the lanterns' flickering light. "They were stabbed to death. No one was spared—not my parents, my aunt, or my grandmother. I was the only one who escaped that fate."

"Because you weren't there?"

Erin's stomach took a sickening turn when he shook his head. "No, I was. I was sound asleep when they entered, and would have likely slept through my own death if it weren't for my mother. She somehow fought off one of the attackers and, despite being mortally wounded in the tussle, made it to my bedchamber where she helped me escape. An old friend of the family who lived close by happened to be returning home from traveling and intercepted me mere moments after I fled, but Gods… It felt like an eternity passed between the last time I saw my mother and when I ran into him."

As Eric fell silent, Erin found herself blinking back tears. She couldn't even begin to imagine what that ordeal must have been like for him. She had certainly felt despair and loss when her mother was trapped beneath the physical mingling of the Savior and Ingrid's magic, but Erin had at least known she was still alive within the icy tomb. Having to say goodbye to the woman who loved you most in the world, and knowing it was final… It was unfathomable to her, and it made her heart ache all the more at the image of a young Eric running through the darkened streets of some unknown city—the lone survivor of senseless massacre.

"What happened afterward? Were the thieves ever caught?"

"Those responsible were never brought to justice, no. Once the dust settled, that same friend took me in and raised me as his own until I was sixteen."

The mention of that particular age made Erin's brows furrow in thought. "Sixteen… when you went into pirating?" At his nod, the furrow only deepend. "I thought you had to do that in order to survive. Did something happen to the family friend?"

"Not in the way you're thinking. What I neglected to mention was the fact that my needing to survive was my own doing." Eric chuckled humorlessly. "I thought I knew everything at that age, and with what had happened to me when I was younger, I had a fairly large chip on my shoulder. The family friend did his best to help me but I was having none of it at that point in time. We fought constantly in the year proceeding my sixteenth birthday, and I eventually ran away with nothing more than a hastily thrown together pack. Which, as I'm sure you can imagine, was not the best of plans. A week after barely having any food, and no prospects to earn money for it, I joined the first ship that would take me. The rest is history."

"Did you ever see him again?"

"Eventually. Time—along with the wisdom that naturally comes with age—fixed that chip on my shoulder, and I mended the bridge between us." Grasping her right hand in his left, Eric smiled softly. "I wanted to tell you this so that you could believe me when I said that, while there were many, many things my parents weren't able to be there for while I was growing up, their absence in those moments isn't what I remember. I remember the man who raised me being there. I remember him tucking me in, treating my scrapes and cuts, and beaming with pride when I accomplished something. No one can ever truly replace the hole that is Matthew's absence in Hope's life, but when she looks back on nights like tonight, she's not going to remember him being absent for a dance, Erin. All she's going to remember is the pure joy she felt at having the experience with her grandfather."

Nodding, Erin took a deep breath. Worrying about how Hope's life would be shaped by not having her father around would never fully go away. That was evident by the events over the last few hours, but knowing someone else had experienced a similar situation to her daughter, and that they didn't feel like they had missed out anything, momentarily eased the fear that had resurfaced.

"Thank you for telling me, Eric. I know that couldn't have been easy for you."

"If it eased your fears even the slightest bit, it was worth it."

"Would you—if Hope ever voices the need to talk about it, or I feel like she should, would you mind being the one I send her to?"

Eric's eyes widened in surprise at the question. "I'd be honored to, but wouldn't you prefer for her to see your brother instead?"

"My brother?"

"Henry. Surely you've made the connection before now, Jones."

At her blank stare, his eyebrows rose nearly to his hairline. "Erin… your brother has experienced the same thing. He lost his father at a young age, and Killian has been there for some very crucial moments in his life where Neal should have been. Have you never realised this?"

Erin opened her mouth to offer a rebuttal but found herself at a loss for words for the second time in one evening. She had never made the connection between her older brother and daughter's similar experiences because to Erin, Henry still had a father. Two, in fact: Robin and her own father. Logically she knew her dad and Henry didn't share the same blood—and had known that since she was four—but emotionally she saw him no differently than she did Liam, and that stemmed from how her father treated him. In almost twenty-eight years, Erin had never once heard her father use the term 'half-brother' when it came to him. Henry Mills had always been nothing less than a full blooded son to Killian Jones. She'd watched her dad worry about him, celebrate his achievements, love him unconditionally, and discipline him with the same level of intensity that he had for Erin and Liam. Whenever he talked about his children, it was the three of them—never just two—and her father was always the first person to point out the birth order of his grandchildren.

"Hope is my first granddaughter, aye, but my third grandchild. Bae and Jefferson made me a grandfather long before she did."

"I honestly didn't realize it," she murmured, her head spinning as she tried to sort this new knowledge into her worldview. "He's… Henry has always been Dad's son as much as Liam is."

"Which lends even more weight to what I was saying. Do you believe your brother feels like he's missed out by having Killian in certain memories instead of his biological father?"

"No, of course not."

"Then why would you think Hope would, considering Killian is fulfilling the same role in her life?"

That was definitely a question she would spend more than a few nights pondering. "Fair point. I'd still like Hope to talk with you, as well as Henry, if she needs to though."

"I'll be of service if the occasion ever arises," Eric promised, giving her right hand another supportive squeeze before releasing it. "How are your feet feeling?"

It was a rather odd question to ask after their deep conversation, but it was very much an Eric thing to do. Since the day they had met in that little seaside tavern, he'd always had an uncanny knack for knowing how to make her feel less exposed after an emotional outpouring.

"Much better, actually. I think I may survive the trip back to the ballroom and the ensuing wrestling match that will occur when I try to drag Hope to bed. Thank you, by the way, for the foot rub."

"My pleasure as always, Jones."

Throwing him a grateful smile, Erin picked up her discarded heels and stood, plans on how she was going to get Hope away from the festivities without inducing a meltdown already running through her mind. She'd only taken a few steps, however, when Eric spoke again.

"Jones?

Turning back towards him, she saw that he had stood from the bench and seemed torn between staying where he was and moving closer to her.

"Yeah?"

"I've wanted to ask you something all night and I—well..." Trailing off, Eric seemed to be working up the courage to finish his sentence. Just as Erin was about to ask him what it was—and tease him about being so nervous to ask her about anything—he squared his shoulders and closed the gap between them until he was no more than a few feet in front of her. Holding out his left hand, he continued, "I was wondering if you'd dance with me."

Oh. Of all the things he could have asked her, she certainly hadn't been expecting that.

"A… dance?"

"Aye."

Swallowing thickly, Erin's eyes darted down to his outstretched hand. To anyone else it would be such a simple request, but to her it was as if he had just asked her to take a blind leap of faith over a yawning chasm. While she loved to dance, Erin hadn't done so with a non-family member since Matthew's passing. It was too intimate of an activity to do with anyone that didn't share her blood or some form of familial tie. While her first instinct was to decline and run as far away from the situation as she could, Erin was surprised to find herself ignoring that voice for the second time in less than an hour.

Yes, it would be intimate… but so what? It wouldn't exactly be the first intimate thing they had done together. He had just given her a foot massage, and it wasn't even the first time that had happened. How often had he carried her to her bedchamber or whatever room she was staying in at an inn when she had imbibed far too much rum? How many times had they sat on the deck of one of their ships, the stars twinkling above them and a flask of rum passed between them as she told him about Matthew? Even on the retrieval they just returned from, there had been an intimate moment. After the second day of observing the guard patrols, they had huddled on Eric's small bed beneath a mountain of blankets and their winter cloaks—trying desperately to get warm as the coal stove sputtered to life with a flick of her wrist.

Would dancing with him really be all that different than those other moments?

Taking a deep breath, she made her decision.

---

"Damn these insufferable monsters to the nine hells!"

"Liam, it's the branches of a willow tree. I don't think they're trying to attack you, kid."

"Ow! Dad, you stepped on my foot!"

"Sorry, Liz."

"Scarlet, there is an entire bloody walkway that you can stand on. Shove over."

"This is the only place where those damnable trees don't obscure the view! You bugger over."

"I will not! She's my daughter."

"Oi! She's my goddaughter!"

"Will the two of you lower your voices?" Emma hissed as she attempted to disentangle a willow branch from Liam's uniform jacket before her son could draw his sword against the innocent tree. "If you keep that up Erin is going to hear you!"

The thought of Erin discovering them spying on her immediately silenced Killian and Will's bickering, though it didn't stop them from good naturedly shoving each other which earned the two men an exasperated eye roll from Elizabeth. It wasn't like they had intended to spy on Erin and Eric, Killian thought, though he knew his daughter well enough to know the semantics of the situation wouldn't matter to her. Spying was spying, after all.

He had been talking to Princess Jasmine—a feat made much easier this time around since he wasn't a bloody cat—when he saw Erin leave the ballroom. There was something about her hurried pace and the way she was holding herself that screamed at his paternal instincts, and after quickly excusing himself from the conversation, Killian had left via the courtyard door so as to not draw attention to their abrupt departures. He didn't even have to think about what direction to walk in. He knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Erin would go to the cloister if something was troubling her. Upon reaching the courtyard garden through its western entrance, he had come to a surprised halt at finding Will already there. Apparently the White King had been in the process of returning to the ball from a trip to the privy when he'd seen Erin making her way outside rather than towards the family wing. Ever the dutiful godfather, he had followed her to make sure everything was alright. Before either man could move to check on her, however, Eric had appeared.

That was when Emma had shown up, only a few minutes behind Killian. She had seen her husband's hasty departure from across the ballroom and, worried that something had happened, followed him. Using the darkness of the covered walkway to hide their movements as they made their way around to where everyone else was, Liam and Elizabeth had arrived right as Eric began rubbing Erin's foot. The couple, curious as to what had made Eric exit his conversation with Liam so suddenly, had trailed the young pirate without knowing that he was doing the same to Erin. The group had been about to disperse back to the ball, leaving the princess and Eric to their privacy, when they had heard Eric say Matthew's name.

That alone hadn't given them pause. What had frozen them in place was Erin's response as she explained about finding Matthew's shirt earlier in the evening.

Sharing similar looks of surprise, they had abandoned going back to the ball without a word spoken between any of them and crowded around the small opening in the pathway that wasn't obscured by a giant willow tree. They shouldn't have, of course, but Erin opening up to Eric about her late husband was a monumental moment. She never talked about the grief that had followed Matthew's death to anyone but Killian. Although, he had no idea about her fear of Hope one day looking back on memories with sadness because Matthew wasn't a part of them. So there was clearly things she hadn't voiced even to him…

There had been surprising moments with Eric as well. Killian was certain none of them had even breathed as the young pirate revealed what had happened to his parents…

"Guys… they're dancing."

Pulled from his thoughts, Killian's head snapped up along with everyone else's in comical unison at Elizabeth's comment, and they all stared in amazement at the sight of Erin and Eric moving through the unmistakable steps of a waltz.

"Well, I'll be damned," Will murmured, and Killian nodded in wordless agreement.

Erin dancing wasn't an abnormal sight by any means. She loved to dance, and had been doing it from the time she was a toddler—her unsteady feet resting atop Killian's boots, and her small fingers gripping his hand and hook with absolute trust as he carefully moved them around a room. But Erin hadn't danced with anyone except a family member since Matthew's death… until now.

"Stupid willow tree blocking my view," Emma muttered as the waltz—which Killian was certain was a Glowerhaven variation—took Erin and Eric further down the cloister. Still able to perfectly see the couple without an obstruction, and not wanting his wife to miss a single moment of this momentous occasion, Killian stepped backwards and gently pulled Emma into the vacated space in front of him.

Resting his hand and hook at her waist, he kissed the side of her head. "Better, Swan?"

"Perfect," she replied, throwing him a grateful smile over her shoulder before turning her attention back to their daughter.

"I can't believe she's finally let her walls down."

"Not quite, Scarlet."

Furrowing his brow in confusion, Liam turned his head towards his father. "She's dancing with him, Dad. Alone, I might add, in an extremely romantic setting. Coupled with what we heard, how is this not Erin lowering her walls?"

"You sister has most certainly lowered a wall, but that doesn't mean she's lowered every one that she has." Inclining his head to indicate the woman standing in front of him, Killian added, "Not all of your mother's walls came down at once."

"Your father's right. It didn't happen with me over night, and it certainly won't with Erin. Talking to Eric about Matthew and dancing with him is a huge step for her. Though, in the grand picture of their relationship, it's only a baby step."

Straightening up from where he had been leaning over the railing to still see, Will sighed heavily. "She's going to pull away emotionally, isn't she?"

"Aye." Eric suddenly dipped Erin beneath the branches of a willow tree, and Killian smiled as Erin's carefree laughter filled the night air. "The important thing is that she let it happen to begin with. She'll try to move backwards, but the destruction of one wall always leads to the destruction of another, and one day there won't be any more walls that Eric has to break through."

"What do you suppose made her lower them enough to allow this?"

Elizabeth's question had Killian tilting his head in thought as his eyes tracked the dancing couple. Even though this was something he had been praying for since Maleficent crushed Matthew's heart and made Erin a guarded individual, it was a rather abrupt development. A week ago he would have been certain his daughter would rather walk the plank than willingly allow a moment like this to pass between her and Eric, and nothing that he was aware of had happened in that time frame to warrant Erin lowering one of her walls. So when could something have possibly occurred….

And then it hit him like a piece of rigging coming loose in a storm—the retrieval.

He had noticed the look on Erin's face earlier in the evening when David mentioned the men talking about the incidents on the retrieval. It was brief, a blink and you'd miss it widening of the eyes and stillness of her body, but Killian had caught it. Something actually had happened on the retrieval that his daughter didn't want them to know about. Eric's own body language, and the way he had interjected a response so Erin didn't unknowingly reveal something, had only confirmed Killian's suspicion at the time.

"The retrieval." He felt rather than heard Emma's quick intake of breath with her back pressed against his front, and his hand flexed where it lay on her hip. He'd told her about his suspicion the first free moment they had together at the ball, and she had clearly put that piece together with the current subject matter at his words. "Earlier… I was certain they were hiding an incident that had happened on the retrieval because of the way they reacted to something David said."

"I noticed that as well," Will admitted. "Erin recovered well, but it was plain as day to anyone who knows her."

Frowning, Liam glanced between his parents. "But what could have happened? Are we saying something… romantic occurred between them while they were going after the scepter?"

Killian tried to not imagine what kind of romantic moment could have passed between his daughter and Eric as Emma hummed in thought. "Well, that's definitely something she wouldn't want your father, Uncle Will, or grandpa to know about… even though their days of threatening Eric with bodily harm are over."

"They are?" Killian and Will asked in unison, and Killian knew without even having to see her face that it had caused Emma to roll her eyes.

"I don't think it was anything romantic."

Four pairs of eyes turned to Elizabeth. "What makes you say that?"

"Because that's not how it was with your parents," she replied before looking at Emma. "When you allowed yourself to admit there was something between you and Uncle Killian, what was it after?"

"Our time travel adventure."

"What happened that made you more receptive to not rebuking his affection for you?"

"I—" Glancing at Killian over her right shoulder, Emma's brow furrowed. "I suppose it was the ice wall incident."

"And what was it that eventually gave you the push to admit you loved him?"

Will chuckled. "I'm sensing a pattern here."

Ignoring the former knave's remark, Emma replied, "Maleficent putting him under a sleeping curse."

"Exactly." Gesturing to where her best-friend and Eric were still dancing, Elizabeth said, "Lowering long standing, emotional walls doesn't happen during a joyous event. It comes after you've been confronted with a traumatic event."

"I wouldn't exactly call our time travel adventure traumatic, lass."

"Well, no, but it was life threatening. If you and Aunt Emma hadn't fixed her parents' timeline, she would have ceased to exist."

Liam shook his head in confusion. "Are you saying that… something life-threatening happened to Erin and that's what made her allow this moment to happen?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

Sighing, Killian let his forehead rest on the back of Emma's head next to her ponytail. Of course it was that. What Elizabeth was saying made perfect sense not only because it was human nature, but because he knew putting herself in dangerous situations wasn't a far-flung reality for his daughter. Erin was fearless, had been since she was a little girl, and that had unfortunately carried over into adulthood. She was very much an act then think person—a trait he would proclaim until his dying breath that she got from her mother. Most, if not all, all of the gray in his hair was due to Erin's impulsive, life threatening ideas in the heat of a moment.

"The fact that that confirms the fears I had of something happening to her aside, why would she try to hide that from Dad?" Liam asked his fiance. "Or Uncle Will and Grandpa? She knows that they are more than aware of her tendency to not think an action through first. That was, after all, one of the reasons Dad had me go with her on our time travel adventure."

Elizabeth shrugged. "Sometimes the last person that we want to talk to about something that's happened to us is the person that knows us the best, even if we know they already are aware of it."

While Liam, Elizabeth, and Will went back and forth debating that subject matter, none of them noticed the fact that Emma and Killian had fallen silent, too lost in their own thoughts to contribute to the conversation yet hyper aware of each other's presence. Elizabeth's words, while meant for their daughter, touched perfectly on the situation they found themselves in because of Emma's nightmares. He knew she was having them, and she knew that he knew, yet neither were admitting to the other the knowledge they had. It was an endless cycle of worried glances and guilt-ridden smiles, both of which were poorly concealed from the other party.

Long ago, before he had accepted that she trusted and loved him, the act of Emma keeping her nightmares a secret would have sent him down a dark path of self-loathing and made him question if she truly trusted him. Thirty years of marriage, however, ensured that those thoughts never entered his head. He knew Emma loved him, and that she trusted him—he just wished she'd accept the fact this wasn't something she could work out on her own. Pressing his nose into her hair and inhaling the familiar scent of cinnamon, Killian sighed. It would all be fine. When the excitement over Liam's engagement ball died down, and Erin had settled back in after being on an extended retrieval, he'd gather their three children together and talk to them.

He may not be the person Emma needed to confide in but surely one, if not all of their children, were what she needed to overcome this hurdle.

"Mom? Dad?"

Raising his head, Killian looked to find Liam watching him closely. "Sorry, lad. What were you saying?"

"Uncle Will suggested we go back to the ball since being away for too long—particularly me and Elizabeth—might cause people to ask questions. Do you want to walk back with us or stay here?"

Before he could respond, Emma turned in his arms, resting her hands along the labels of his formal greatcoat as she spoke to their son. "Actually, I think I'm going to call it a night. Hope sleeping in our bed for the past few days hasn't been the most conductive to restful nights. If that's okay with you, kid."

Liam nodded. "Of course, Mom. I've had Hope climb into my bed before when Erin and the two of you were gone—she's an all elbows and knees octopus, so I know the pain."

"More like a tiny kraken," Killian muttered, which caused his son to chuckle.

"That too."

After saying good-night to everyone, Killian waited until the other three had left before raising an eyebrow at his wife.

"Is that truly the reason you want to retire, Swan, or are your feet protesting what you and our daughter term those torture devices?"

Emma laughed, the sound just quiet enough to keep their presence in the cloister hidden from their still dancing daughter. "I mean, Hope isn't exactly the easiest person to share a sleeping space with, but you know me all too well, Captain. My feet are, in fact, protesting being in these heels."

"Would a bath help ease them? I believe we still have that scented oil we procured on our last trip to Rivendale that aids in aching muscles."

"I think that's a wonderful idea, so long as my handsome husband promises to join me in said bath."

Pulling her forward until their chests were flush, he grinned. "Far be it for me to deny a request like that from a beautiful woman."

Ignoring her eye roll at his flowery language, Killian captured her lips in a quick kiss that held the promise of more before offering his arm to her. As they turned to leave, Killian took one last look at his daughter and Eric still dancing in the moonlight, and smiled.

---

Looking into the water that had been turned into a mirror, the young prince saw women and men dressed in formal attire, their brightly colored gowns and finely pressed coats reminding him of how he had spent most of his childhood. The view shifted among the couples, and he caught sight of the floor they were waltzing on—the gold and black checkered floor as familiar to him as the ornate flower design that covered the ballroom floor of his ancestral home. It was clearly a ball of some sort and he quickly scanned the faces of those in attendance. He recognized a lot of the neighboring royals, some he had known personally and others he had only met once or twice, but none of the family he had married into.

The mirror shifted focus then, moving from the view of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere happily dancing to a lone man, and tears instantly sprang to his eyes.

It wasn't the unmistakable figure dressed in a black greatcoat that had him leaning further over the fountain, but the little girl in his arms that looked every inch the princess she was born to be. She was dressed in a light pink gown and her raven locks, adorned with her great-grandmother's tiara, fell in gentle curls around her cherubic face. They were dancing to a tune he couldn't hear, the man whose left arm the little girl rested on expertly maneuvering them around the dancing couples in a waltz he himself hadn't done in years. Unbridled excitement shone from her blue eyes, and his heart swelled with contentment at the sight.

She was healthy, and more importantly, happy. Her familial features were also even more undeniable than they were the previous year—her mother's chin, her great-grandmother's nose, his own mother's smile, and the slightly pointed ears of the man she danced with. She was beautiful, the perfect combination of their families, and a lone tear fell down his cheek. He would never be able to meet her or play a part in the woman she would become, nor would he ever hold her and share in her laughter.

That was the cost of ensuring she lived, however, and he'd rather mourn those losses than live in a world where she didn't exist.

The image of his smiling daughter blurred momentarily, and when it cleared he saw the inside of a cloister that was as familiar to him as the ballroom had been. At first there was only the image of willow trees and snowbelle bushes just beginning to bloom, and then she came into view—all blonde hair and clothed in a green dress that made her eyes shine all the brighter. She was dancing with someone he didn't know, or had never met before his abrupt departure, but was someone he had seen in the background the last three times he had been given his yearly reward. His focus was only her, though. Her features were delicate and sharp, much like he envisioned the little girl's would be in twenty years, and the young prince noted the woman looked like her own mother's twin now more than she ever had before. She had always been gorgeous to him, of course. Even when they were nothing more than children running through the halls of each other's homes he had thought her beautiful, and time away from her hadn't dulled that.

This was what he waited every year in this eternal place for, the brief glimpse of his wife and child that the Goddess beside him had decreed he deserved to see. In paradise this was his peace, seeing with his own eyes that they were still alive and living their lives even if he was no longer a part of it. The young prince's first look at them six years ago had been shortly after the little girl's birth, sadness and joy filling him as he watched his wife cradle their newborn daughter in the nursery they had spent months preparing, the lullaby she sung the very one his own mother use to sing to him and his brother. He had missed so much of his child's life, only able to look upon her once a year to chart her growth, and his wife… For six years he hadn't been there—to hold her, to see her smile, hear her laughter, or tell her he loved her—but they were both alive, and that was all that mattered to him.

The dark haired man suddenly dipped her and, although no sound came from the fountain, he could hear her unbridled laughter echoing in his mind. They resumed dancing, and as he watched them expertly move about the cloister, his wife's eyes told the young prince everything he needed to know. She was in love with him. Whether she had verbalized that fact remained to be seen, but he had been on the receiving end of that look more times than he could count and knew it when he saw it. Jealousy never flared within his chest at the realization, though, even when it was clear his wife's feelings were reciprocated by the way he looked at her. He had been gone for six years and could never return to them—his place was here now, and hers was in a world he couldn't reach, even with all the wishes he could make. This was what he wanted. He wanted them to live, to find happiness even if he wasn't a part of it, and for the woman he would love for all eternity to find love again. If the man could make her smile and laugh like that, how could he ever be jealous of him?

The image of his wife suddenly disappeared, the mirror-like surface returning to the still water that showed him nothing but his own reflection. Blinking rapidly, he looked to the Goddess that still stood beside the fountain.

"Thank you, Persephone," he whispered gratefully to the Queen of the Underworld.

"They are well, young prince," the Goddess assured him. "They are full of life and the endless possibility to love. I hope this continues to bring you peace."

"It does. Thank you, as always."

Bowing his head, the young prince turned and made his way from the clearing. Following the path back to the edge of the forest, he was not surprised to find a brunette man waiting for him, his own horse grazing beside the one he had left. As the young prince stepped from the forest and into his view, the other man jogged to him.

"Are they okay?" he asked, worry evident in his tone. While their yearly rewards were seen as a blessing, an unspoken fear of what they'd see, or not see, was never far from any of their minds.

"They're happy," he reported, smiling despite the flicker of sadness that always ran through him after he had seen his loved ones. The man clapped him on the back enthusiastically at the news, a grin spreading on his own face and brown eyes bright with happiness for the young prince.

"Is your wife still as beautiful as you remember her to be?"

"More beautiful than Aphrodite herself."

The man chuckled. "And your daughter? How is she?"

"As beautiful as her mother, and seemingly healthy, which is the best thing I could ask for."

Before he could ask another question, the man looked towards the forest that the young prince had just come from.

"It's my turn."

"I'll await your return," the young prince promised, watching as the other man made his way down the same path he had went. Like everyone in this realm, he was given this reward before Persephone made her yearly trip back to the world of Man, and he knew it gave him even more peace than it did him. The other man had been here far longer than he had, and those six years felt like an eternity—he couldn't imagine what thirty years was like. Once he had disappeared into the forest, the young prince turned and looked out over the rolling hills of Elysium, the images he had seen in the fountain bringing a smile to his face.

Erin and their child were alive and happy, and that was the only peace Matthew needed within the blessed realm of the Underworld.