Killian walked along the dock breathing in deep the salty sea air as the fishing ships returned to shore. It had been too long since he'd been on the water and his feet ached to stand on a deck again, especially if the Jolly's deck. He'd been trapped in this godforsaken realm for almost 30 years, not aging, watching this strange, uncaring world pass by him. Dusk fell when the last of the ships docked and Killian watched the fisherman bring in their catches.

"Are you a sailor?" One of the fishermen address Killian out of the blue.

Killian snapped out of the reverie and answered, "I was. Haven't been on the water in a long time, though."

While his coworkers finished the job, the fisherman approached Killian with a smile and remarked, "Once a sailor, always a sailor." He extended his hand, "Teddy Mishra."

"Please to meet you. Killian Jones," he replied as he accepted Teddy's handshake.

"Don't mind me asking, but what brings you to Storybrooke?" Teddy asked. Behind then, the sun set the sea shimmering like citrine and the fishermen put away their equipment away.

"Mishra!" one of the other man bellowed from the deck of his ship, The King's Crown, "Don't you have a job to do?"

Teddy grimaced, "Sorry, I gotta go."

A feeling he had no name for seized Killian and without think he offered, "Let me help out; like you said, once a sailor, always a sailor."


"Papa!" Killian pulled his hand from his mother's hand and ran down the front lawn of the palace as quickly as his four-year-old legs could carry him, stumbling and nearly tripping every few yards, but remaining determined nonetheless. On the other side of the lawn, his father exit a carriage with the seal of the royal navy engrave on the side. When he saw his younger son barreling toward him, Admiral Brennan Jones smiled, shrugged off his coat with its heavy, metal badges and waited for Killian to leap into his arms. The force of the impact shook Brennan off balance and he felt onto the lush, damp grass, not caring for the stains that would cover his linen shift.

"There's my boy," Brennan laughed in his deep, salt-roughened voice as Killian giggled from atop his chest, "Dear me, you've gotten so big since I saw you last!"

"I'm gonna be as big you someday!" the child boasted, laughing even more loudly as Brennan gentle nudged him off his chest. "Even bigger! Twice as big!"

Brennan made an expression of exaggerated surprise. "Twice as big! How are you going to that when you refuse to eat your vegetables?" he teased his younger son.

Killian made a face.

"Welcome back, Admiral." Delfina Jones smirked at the sight of her son and husband sitting in the grass. She wore a light muslin dress the color of beach sand that stood out against her russet skin and her thick black hair hung loose to her waist with ocean waves.

Brennan lifted himself to his feet and kissed his wife, while Killian to make an annoyed gagging sound. Brennan playfully rolled his eyes at his son's antics and asked Delfina, "Where's Liam?"

"While you were at sea," Delfina explained, "Baron Gylsey asked for my permission to take Liam under his wing. They left for the Gylsey estate two weeks ago."

Brennan's jovial mood dissipated. "You sent him away?"

"Don't say it like that," Delfina crossed her arms, "It'll be good for Liam to have more role models that help him grow into a man."

"He has me," Brennan scoffed, "And his uncles, my men, even King William for God's sake. You agreed without waiting to consult me."

"There wasn't time!" Delfina took a deep breath, "Let's not fight when you've barely returned home, my love. What's done is done and I promise you, Liam is in good hands. Come inside, wash up, and let's eat breakfast as a family."

Brennan's shoulders come down in acquiescence. "As you say, my love."


"You haven't answered my question yet," Teddy pointed out as he and Killian walked from the docks to Teddy's truck, a rusting green monstrosity that everyone know by the sputtering of its ancient engine. Killian squinted, trying to remember which question his new acquiescence was referring to until Teddy repeated, "What you doing in Storybrooke? It's not that I don't like seeing new faces, but this place is pretty off-the-map and there's not much going on; at least not until recently."

"To be honesty, Storybrooke wasn't a destination I had in mind. I sort of just ended up here. Maybe fate brought me here."

Teddy laughed, "You did give off a bit of an "emotionally-tortured nomad" kind of vibe."

Part of Killian wanted to be annoyed, but at the same time he couldn't help but laugh as well. "Did I?"

"I'm just saying, I haven't seen anyone new come to Storybrooke in my life, then in the past two months you and Deputy Swan show up out of the blue. It makes a guy wonder." Teddy shrugged.

Killian looked confused, "The blonde woman? I thought she was local."

"Only moved here a few weeks before you showed up," Teddy explained. "But she does fit in pretty well, doesn't she? Do you know how long you're staying in town?"

"Longer than I initially planned, mostly likely," Killian replied cryptically.

Teddy since that Killian wouldn't appreciate going further with this line of questioning, so he decided to change the topic. "You said you haven't been in a ship in a while; what are you doing now?"

"Little bit of this, little bit of that; whatever pays the bills."

Teddy accepted the non-answer and smiled, "Well, if you miss being on the water, my crew's always looking for an extra set of hands."

"Is just one acceptable?" Killian raised an eyebrow and held out his arms.

For the first time Teddy noticed that Killian's left hand was actually flesh-colored prosthetic and he felt like a complete idiot for not realizing it sooner. Still, he joked, "Help bring in the fish and stay out of the boss's way, and you might get to keep the other one."

For a heartbeat, Teddy worried his sense of humor might have been in poor taste, but Killian just reared his head back and let out a genuine laugh. "I'll keep that in mind. Thank you."


Killian stood straight and tried to keep still as the court proceedings took place, trying his best not to embarrass himself or his family in front of all these important people. His father was the admiral of His Majesty's Navy, his mother was the king's warlock, and his older brother was the apprentice of Baron Gylsey, which meant he had a lot to live a difficult task for a six year old who was bored out of his mind. The king and his officials droned on and on about the customs and laws young Killian barely understood. His parents, normally indulgent of his whims, focused only on the king.

A long line of people, courtiers and nobles and peasants and foreigners alike, pleaded their cases to the king's one at a time, until their voices all blended together in Killian's head. His eyes darted around the room for something interesting to place his attention on, but everyone in the room seemed determined to be as dull as possible. Ladies in the stiff-collared gowns and painted faces, daintily fanning themselves; their husbands besides them stroking their beards contemplatively; even the other children in the throne room sat with the glass-eyed expressions of finely made dolls.

Just as he feared he might begin to fall asleep, the doors of the throne room flew open with a loud, sharp slam that almost knocked Killian off his seat. Soldiers and sailors hurried to the king's side with their swords drawn and Killian's mother summoned two balls of fire to hands as a warning to the intruder. Killian's heart raced and he tried to make himself seem as small as possible.

A writhing black mass crept into the throne room, a shape like boiling black tar sliding across the polished marble floors. The foul smell made Killian and others gag out loud, even from across the massive chamber. Everyone moved out of the way of the... Creature? Object? Spell? It stopped halfway between the front entrance and the throne, where the king sat glaring at it in disgust, before retreating. It left a trail of black slime in its place...and a little girl.

A slimy grey film covered her from head to toe, dripping from her shaggy brown hair and filthy rags. She shivered as her wide blue eyes searched the room for help, for pity. Delfina put out her flames and cautiously approached the child.

Only, it wasn't a child at all. She stretched unnaturally and her face morphed into that a large-mouthed cat with bright red eyes. The creature lunged at her, pinning her to ground as it opened it's huge, gaping mouth to tear into her with knife-like teeth. Only the quick-thinking of a young soldier, a boy who barely looked old enough to shave, saved the royal warlock. On instinct he plunged his sword into the creature's back, stopping just short of cutting into Delfina's stomach. The creature let out a ghastly howl as it's blood burst onto everyone in the vicinity, and it collapsed dead on top of it's intended victim.

It all happened so fast, it was over before Killian realized his mother had almost been killed right before his eyes. When that fact caught up with him, he fell to his knees in horror and relief. Forgetting his place, he ran to her side as two more soldiers lifted the creature from on top of her and hugged her tightly despite the black blood covering her from chin to knee.

It took a moment for the shock to wear off, then she hugged him back.

"A ghoul," people became to whisper. Somehow a ghoul had gotten into the king's palace and attacked his warlock.

"What should be done with her, your Grace?" one of the generals asked the king.

The king stoke his short, white beard. As the shock of what just happened wore off, he glared at Delfina without empathy, "How did you allow this intrusion to happen? Your duty is to protect this court from the magic of outsiders? How did the ghoul enter under your watch? It could have killed me!"

Delfina let go out Killian and stood up in her bloodstained garments, "Magic is not an exact science, your Grace. Other successors are constantly trying to find ways to get past each other's defenses."

"I've had enough of your excuses!" King William barked, and Delfina flinched. "Remove this...remove her from my castle immediately. And do not return here."

"Your Grace, I beg your pardon!" Delfina gasped, "My husband, my sons-"

King William held up his hand to signal her to stop speaking, his face stony and unforgiving. "You've disappointed me once too often, Lady Jones. I cannot trust you to keep me and the royal court safe. Your family may remain here, and you are not banished from my realm, but you are no longer welcome in this palace. Court is dismissed."

The king rose from the throne and left through the west wing, courtier falling behind him and leaving the stands like snow melting in sun, and the Jones family was left alone with the strange girl. Delfina looked at the girl with pure hatred before she turned her gaze back to Brennan and Killian. She met their shocked, devastated faces with silence and tears. When Killian ran up to her to embrace her, she stopped him and said, "I...I have do what King William ordered."

Under the cold gaze of the palace guards, Delfina said goodbye to her family and began her final task as a royal warlock.


The sun beat down on the back of Killian's neck as he and Liam stood at the docks beyond the royal palace, watching the members of the royal navy board the ship. Their father had declined to say goodbye to them the night before, sending his manservant to dismiss them when they came to his chambers in the middle of night. They wouldn't get another chance to speak with him before he set sail. Sometimes Killian wondered if he'd done something to make Father angry at him and Liam, but he couldn't think of anything he'd done that would make Father this cold toward them.

"Witchson!" someone shouted, and Killian felt a small rock hit him in the back of his head. He spun around in an instant, but his harasser had already fled.

Since his mother's banishment from the castle, he and Liam had been hearing that word thrown at them almost everyday. As a royal warlock, Mother had been the most respected sorcerer in the realm, but now she sold her services to anyone who needed a luck charm or to removed a painful curse. Just another witch, an outcast. To spare Father the shame of her company, she had moved to a town in the far south of the kingdom, where nobody knew her, under a different name. She wrote to them frequently, but each letter was shorter and less coherent than the one before. Father never spoke of her name. Once the news the Jones family's fall from the king's favor reached Gylsey, he sent Liam back, saying they're weren't a good fit together after all.

Killian had not seen his mother's face since the night the palace guards escorted her from castle grounds, almost a year ago. And now Father was leaving too.

"Ignore them," Liam said as he wrapped his around Killian. "People will call you whatever they want, that doesn't mean it's who you are. Don't ever let someone else tell you who you are."


Killian had never had an easy time fitting in, nor had he ever been particularly interested in doing so, but he fell in easily with the other fisherman; the sea had a way of bringing people together. He quietly slipped into the ritual of meeting at Storybrooke's only bar, The Rabbit Hole, and people treated him as though he'd been there his whole life. It was a odd feeling, but not an unwelcome one. By his first full month in town, half of the crews had learned not to bet against him in poker and the other half had learned not to try to tease out his life story.

One night, in the aftermath of a brutal autumn storm and the repairs that needed to be made to their boats and the docks themselves, Killian noticed that Teddy had less of a spring in his step that normal. Teddy drank his beer quietly while sitting practically in the corned, and nothing, not even the usual petty bickering of their crew-mates, seemed to interest him. His friend's - Killian realized he hadn't had one of those in a while - grey mood poke the edge of his attention all night, until Killian couldn't stand seeing Teddy so miserable and dragged himself.

"What?!" Teddy snapped when they were standing under the moon, with no company but the glowing eyes of stray cats.

It then occurred to Killian that he didn't have much practice in helping someone going through a difficult time, and wasn't that depressing?

"You seen upset," he said.

Teddy rolled his eyes, "Yeah, 'cause you dragged me out here."

Killian tightened his jaw, then loosened it - Teddy had never been this snappish before. "This isn't like you. What's eating at you, mate?"

"It's nothing you can help with, so just leave it," Teddy tried to leave, but Killian grabbed him by the elbow.

"You're not getting away from me that easily," Killian warned. "I'm just trying to be friend."

Teddy awkwardly put his hands in his pockets and hung his head, "You're gonna think I'm stupid."

"Maybe, maybe not, but you'll have to tell me before I can make that call."

Surprisingly, Teddy cracked a brief smile before his uncomfortable demeanor returned. "It's Ashley Boyd. You know she's got that custody thing, right?"

"Oh. You mean, it's yours?" Killian asked.

"No," Teddy shook his in way that made Killian suspect he wished it was. "I...have feelings for Ashley. It started a few weeks ago and I got kind of a crush on her, but now she's all I think about. And it's so stupid because the last thing she needs right now is me hovering over her shoulder trying to ask her when she's court dates coming up. And if she wins, she'll have a newborn around. And I kind of feel like an absolute asshole watching her go through all this and not doing anything; just standing to the side thinking of how pretty she looks while her life's falling about." The self-disgust was evident in his tone and expression. "I feel like I'm...frozen."

"Nothing is stopping you from being with Ashley, if she wants to be with you." Killian answered. Teddy like at him like he were speaking an entirely different language. "And nothing's stopping you if you want to help her. Just go out and do it."

Teddy ran a hand through his hair, "Just go out and do it?"

"If she rejects you, she rejects you, but if you keep moping like that you'll never be with her anyway. Give yourself a chance to be happy, even if it might be awkward or painful at first."

"Was one of your past jobs a motivation speaking?" Teddy joked, the barest of smiles appearing on his face.

"Oh, it was that obvious?" Killian grinned.

After a moment's silence, Teddy admitted, "It felt good to talk about it, for once. I haven't even told my mom or aunt how I feel?"

"What about your dad?"

"Let's just say we're not close," Teddy shrugged. "I guess this talk is what I needed to clear my head."

Killian slung an arm around Teddy's shoulder, "Let's go rejoin the fun."

Just as he as said those words, a loud thud echoed from inside the bar and shouting rang through the night. Killian and Teddy jogged up to the front door and threw it open, where inside a roaring crowd formed around three men in the back of the bar, near the pool tables.

"Damn it," Killian hissed under his breath. "Good thing you were so moody tonight."

Teddy ignored the cut and called the police to break it up before someone got hurt. "I'm going home," he told Killian as he slipped his phone back into his jean pockets. "You need a ride?"

"I'm good. Actually, I think I'll stay here and keep an eye on things."

"Suit yourself," Teddy shrugged. He pursed his lips for a second, then added, "And, uh, thanks. For what you said before."

Killian smiled at him, "Anytime."

The police - Deputy Swan to be exact - arrived just as Teddy got into his truck and drove off. Her big, brown eyes zoomed in on Killian immediately, "You called?"

"My friend did, actually, but he had to leave. We were outside talking when the fight broke out," Killian explained, hoping she'd believe him and not assume he had started the fight

She nodded, accepting his word without question, and stormed inside to get everything under control. Killian followed after, watching with amusement, and a even a little admiration, at how she got a bunch of drunk, angry men - some of whom were twice her size - to shut the hell up and stop fighting. She ended up arresting the three guys at the center of the conflict and had to called Graham for back-up, since they all couldn't fit in the back of her squad car.

"Nice job handling that crowd," Killian noted after he finished giving his official statement.

"Uh, thanks." Emma grimace. When Killian gave her a pointed look, she looked down and scoffed, "This isn't where I imagined I'd be. Sometimes I still can't believe I'm here."

"In Storybrooke, or in law enforcement?" Killian asked. He quickly explained, "I had heard you were recent transplant, like me."

"Either," she shrugged. "When Henry came to get me, I just thought I'd be dropping him home, but now..." She gestured vaguely to the immediate surroundings.

"Who's Henry? Boyfriend?"

Emma scoffed, "God, no. He's the mayor's son and he's, like, ten."

"I don't follow," Killian blinked. "The mayor's ten year old son came to get you from...wherever you were-"

"Boston."

"From Boston. Why he'd go from Boston to get you?"

"It's, uh, hard to believe. Henry thinks - I'm mean, he's 110% convinced - that the town is under a curse."

Killian's skin chilled by a few degrees, but he pretended not to be bothered. "As in magic? Actual magic?"

Emma looked over her shoulder, as if afraid Henry would walk in and hear her, "It's so freaking bizarre. He got his hands on the storybook that says the Evil Queen, Snow White's mother, cast a curse on the whole Enchanted Forest. According to him, everyone in town is a character from his book - Sleeping Beauty, The Snake Prince, Goldilocks, Rumpelstiltskin. That sort of thing. Anyway, he got the idea in his head that I was Snow White's missing daughter and that I could break the curse and save everyone."

Killian almost vomited.

God-fucking-damn, that would explain a lot wouldn't it? Had the Evil Queen been responsible for his condition? Waking up in the streets of New York with no clue how he got there or how to get back? Realizing that he was in a realm with no magic? His inability to age, which forced him to move from place to place before anyone got suspicious? He would have guessed the Dark One had orchestrated his exile, but the Evil Queen seemed just as likely. She may not have been after him specifically; his last 28 years of misfortune may have just been a welcome bonus.

He forced himself out of his thoughts when he noticed that Emma appeared to become concerned. "Wow," he coughed, "That's, uh, that's..."

"Yeah, I know," Emma chuckled. "I mean, obviously none of that stuff's real, but it's a big deal to him."

Killian raised an eyebrow, "You don't believe in magic."

"Not since I was, like, four," Emma replied, "Do you?"

"I guess you could say that." Killian muttered.

Emma narrowed her eyes at him, trying to look upset, but a small smile played on her lips. "Do I have to worry about you, Jones? Not gonna put some nasty potion in my drink, are you?"

"Not at all, Swan." Killian replied as he raised a glass of beer to his lips.