He didn't help them. Watching the wife he and his son had believed to be dead support her injured lover through the streets didn't exactly inspire an urge to help. In fact, the knowledge that he could send the pirate anywhere with only a wave of his hand was not only tempting but satisfying. He had thought, once or twice, that he certainly could separate them, which would still be in keeping with their deal, but watching the pair of them struggle was so much better. When she stumbled, when he fell, when their breath grew ragged with effort; he ignored it all and simply followed after them, leering like a shadow, hoping they felt every bit as uncomfortable as they should for their deception and crimes, crimes that got worse by the second.

As they arrived at the docks and he spotted the ship that he'd once been so hideously humiliated on, it dawned on him that the last time he'd been here, he had asked not just for his wife back but for his son's mother. Milah had spent the last thirty minutes in his company. Not once did she ask about her son. His old friend, who told him to be wary of her before they'd married, had been right all along. And if he'd seen that and listened, he wondered what kind of trajectory his life would have taken. "Another place, another time..." his former bedmate, Margery, had once suggested. Now he wondered what that other life would have looked like if Milah had never been in it.

"Milah, what happened?" someone asked as they boarded the boat. She tossed the red hat at the man before he stepped forward to help her get Jones safely on deck.

"Fetch some water. And get me that prisoner below deck, along with the goods that he carried. Now!"

"Bring up the prisoner!" he called, rushing off.

She ordered, he obeyed. They all followed her commands, and she gave them with authority and confidence, the kind that came from knowing her orders would be obeyed. Obviously, sleeping with the Captain of the ship had its benefits that went beyond the physical. She was comfortable here, that much was obvious. What disturbed him was that she seemed more comfortable here than she ever had at the Hovel…with her child, her own flesh and blood.

"Well, well. Seems like you finally found a family…you could never have with me," he taunted, wondering if she'd take the bait and finally take the opportunity to ask about her only child. Unless of course she'd had another, but he didn't see any children running along the deck. Of course, that proved nothing. He knew now it wouldn't have exactly been out of character for Milah to have the child and set sail, leaving it behind. He pitied any creature that might call her "mother".

But Milah was a clever wench, it appeared. She didn't take the bait. Her face remained stoic and unreadable as she glared at him as if knowing what he was trying to do. But a heartbeat later, it didn't matter because Baelfire did have one parent who cared about him and wasn't about to let him go through life alone. And now, the way back to his son was possibly right in front of him.

"Alright, get your sorry arse up there!" He watched as the crew dragged William Smee up from a lower deck, his hands bound, a gag in his mouth and…oh, he saw why he needed the hat. If he hadn't seen him without it, he never would have thought that it was an improvement.

He watched as Milah took a satchel brought by one of the crewmen and strode over to him. There it was. Held in fingers that matched their boy's, a clear bean of magic that he'd seen only twice before in his life. The pathetic tradesman had been telling the truth! Better yet, he'd come through! Or would have, if not for…

Before he could reach out and take it to join Bae, Milah pulled it away from him and tossed it somewhere behind him. He looked to see it was Jones who had caught it and a fire he hadn't had since Rolf was alive lit up in his chest once more, it was a monster that had nothing to do with the creature he'd become and everything to do with what he'd once been, or rather hadn't been, in Milah's eyes. She and the pirate shared synchronicity that they'd never had, even after they'd managed to make a child together. And it made him angry. It made him so furious that the magic he bore now pulsed beneath his skin, itching to do something for him even if he hadn't summoned it. But their deal…

"You asked to see it, and now, you have," Jones commented.

"Do we have a deal?" Milah finished. "Can we go our separate ways?"

He let out a snort. Foolish mortals, they already had a deal in place, but they weren't the first to be fooled by the fact that deals were made in more than one very formal way. It didn't require those words; the second he'd told them he wanted to see the bean and had seen it, he'd felt the binding chords of their agreement. Fools. He'd rest easier knowing that he was the brightest of all three of them. But as for her request, to go their separate ways…

"Do you mean, do I forgive you?" he questioned as he began to circle. "Can I move on? Perhaps. Perhaps, I can see you are twooly in love," he mocked, looking back at her. Moving on…well there was a comfort. He'd moved on from Milah long ago, so had Bae. They'd done wonderfully together without her, and she may never know. Just as she'd never know that he'd moved on well before this point with the wife of the man she'd cheated on him with. What a reassuring thought to know that he and Margery had well and truly gotten back against their tormentors.

"Thank you," Milah smiled before turning to head back to her pirate.

"Just one question!" he shouted before she could make it to him.

She looked a little more nervous when she turned back, but eventually faced him with her back just as straight and a hand on her hip, hiding her nerves behind annoyance. "What do you want to know."

It wasn't about what he wanted to know. Their lives and her crimes against him were one thing, that was for him, he could move on from that. But there was a second who deserved answers he'd never get now.

"How could you leave Bae?" he accused, stepping forward. Suddenly the magic that he felt quivering beneath the surface made its way out, and he was aware of several ropes that had been tied became unbound and snapped free violently. Yes. That was the look on her face that he wanted. Fear. His son would want to know, would need to know just why his mother had chosen this cur, this family, over their own! Over her own flesh and blood! He couldn't think of a more cowardly act than leaving a child. He couldn't think of a more cowardly act than making your child believe you had suffered and died! Except, perhaps, making the one person who had tried harder than he ever had in his life to please deliver the news! She'd never suffered like that. It was unfair.

"Do you know what it's like, walking home that night-"

"-Rumple-"

"Knowing I had to tell our son-"

"-Please!-"

"That his mother was dead?"

"I was wrong to lie to you," she said with too much control for it to be genuine. "I was the coward, I know-"

"You left him!" he screamed at her. This wasn't about him! This wasn't about the crimes that she had committed against him, it wasn't the lies or all the times she'd accused him of being the coward it was about their son! "You abandoned him!"

"And there's not a day that goes by that I don't feel sorry for that," she cried.

Sorry? Sorry was all she had to offer? Feeling a little sorry every day?! People who were sorry, truly sorry, did what they had to do to try and fix it! If she was sorry, she would have shown up at their doorstep, begging for forgiveness a decade ago!

"Well, sorry isn't enough! You let him go."

"I let my misery cloud my judgment."

He sneered. She'd had everything that she ever wanted, everything that she asked for when she'd lived with him, everything he could provide. She had a doting husband and a loving son, and yet even he'd been able to see the misery she spoke of, and he never understood it. What more could she have wanted that they didn't give, and the pirate had?

"Why were you so miserable?" he demanded.

"Because I never loved you," she declared easily through gritted teeth.

Ah...there was the viper he remembered. He knew she was in there somewhere buried under all the false emotion and pathetic begging! He just had to push a bit, and sure enough, she'd shown herself. The miserable snake that accused and detracted and fought and shouted and screamed and called him a coward and pretended to love him all the while she and Rolf had…

His hand shot out from his body and into her chest without a second thought, and she seized up so that the look of resentment he knew so well was replaced with shock and pain.

"Milah!" the pirate cried, charging, but a wave of his hand sent him spinning into the mast held there by hooks and ropes as he pulled Milah's heart from her chest and held it in his hand.

Anything in the world…he could make her feel, say, and do anything in the world with this heart in his hands. He could make her suffer. He could overwhelm her with guilt so that she truly felt misery. He could make her tell the pirate all manner of things. He could force her to say the words he'd always wanted to hear. He could make her feel Bae's distress at her death.

He could make her die!

"No!" The pirate broke free just in time to catch her, so she didn't fall to the ground. He watched as he lay her in his lap, and Milah caressed his cheek.

"I love you," he heard her mutter with resolution and fear as the pirate held her. They were words that she'd said to him before but never with that passion.

Jones may as well have been Rolf!

He could make her die...

And so he did. Milah gave a sudden jerk as he squeezed his hand and felt her heart crack and crumble and turn to dust within his palm. The light in her eyes went dark as the life in her body went still and he dropped the ashes onto the deck for someone to mop up. His old friend was right. Milah was never any good for him or for anyone, except those who possessed cruel hearts as she did. Well, now she was gone! Truly dead as she should have been so long ago! Maybe now Jones would know and understand the pain he'd inflicted on his family by removing an essential element of it.

"You may be more powerful now, demon, but you're no lesser coward!" the Captain cried out as he lay the body of his wife on the deck of the ship.

He could scream and rant and rage all he liked. What was done was done. The true demon was gone from the world, dead on the ship, just as he'd always assumed, just as he'd told Baelfire all those years ago. There would be no need to tell him more when they finally met again. And they would meet again. For what he needed to make that happen was right in front of him. Deal be damned. If Milah could break a deal as strong as wedding vows, so could he!

"I'll have what I came for now," he stated, stepping up to the pirate as he rose, his temper simmering just beneath the surface.

"You'll have to kill me first," he shouted as he fist clenched tighter over the bean he still held.

Oh no. That would defeat the purpose of all this. Death was too easy and fair for someone who had been so unfair and taken so much from him. Now the tides had turned. He was powerful and no longer a coward, and he would leave this ship with that bean and with the Captain alive to suffer as he had.

"I'm afraid that's not in the cards for you, sonny boy." Without warning, he drew the sword he'd belted when they'd come onto this ship and in one fell stroke separated Jones's hand from the rest of his body. The pirate cried out, doubled over in pain, and fell to the deck of the ship, breathing just as heavily as the stump at the end of his arm bled. He felt nothing for his suffering. It was just more for the debt that he owed to him as far as he was concerned. And as he reached down to pick up the severed hand still holding tight to the bean, he happily laid his sword against his neck. "I want you alive," he explained. "Because I want you to suffer like I did."

And he wished him luck in that endeavor. As for his own endeavor, with the sword back in his belt and the bean in…well, the hand in his hand, he was ready to be off this boat once and for all.

Suddenly from behind him, he heard a scream, loud and growing closer. When he turned to identify the reason he caught a glance of Jones charging him before-

Now it was his turn to double in pain as a sharp radiating heat filled his chest and pushed into his heart. A hook. Some tool used for something or other had been forced into his chest through his scaly vest and skin. Now he felt it there against his heart, moving, tapping in rhythm to its beating.

But he was the Dark One, and he was a lot harder to kill now that his skin was tougher. He easily directed some of his magic to the injury against his chest, and the pain relieved instantly so that he could laugh while he picked his head up to smile at the unsuspecting man. He was certain that he thought this would alleviate some of the pain he felt over the tramp behind him, perhaps avenge her in some way. He hoped that seeing him happy and alive just cut deeper into that wound he'd never be able to fill.

"Killing me's going to take a lot more than that, dearie!"

"Even demons can be killed. I will find a way," he vowed.

It was funny, really. For hundreds of years, Dark Ones had been searching for ways to do just that to save themselves from that fate, and no one had ever been successful. He highly doubted someone who would only live a few brief decades on this earth compared to what he could live would ever succeed where they had failed. And then there was simply the fact that he had the bean, and would soon enough be far away from this Earth with no way for the pirate to follow after him. How tragic.

"Well, good luck living long enough!" he challenged. He held on tight to the pirate's hand as he let his magic envelop and then consume him to drag him away from this place. But for good measure, he let the hook drop from his chest to remain with Jones as one last parting gift.

I know there is a lot happening in this chapter, but this is a really good place to talk about something that will happen through this fiction and one place that it failed. When creating the timeline for this fiction, I did the exact same thing that I did for both Before the Curse and Descent into Darkness, only I did it like it was on steroids. I used ages. I put together a timeline based on the years we knew about and how old an individual looks. Now, sometimes this meant finding the youngest they could possibly pass for and sometimes that meant finding the oldest they could pass for. Just like before the name of the game was "plausible" and I was quite pleased with how it turned out. It was very effective and the result is that at any point in this fiction if you want to know how old someone is I can give you their age and you'll probably say "okay I can see that." The one and only exception to this...is Hook. Rumple, Milah, Bae, Emma, Belle, Granny, all of them fit well into their ages, but Hook just doesn't. I tried everything to make him conform but the truth is that unless I make him about 18 when he meets Milah and leaves with her (which we know he's not because of his back story), he just never fits. All because of one scene, one episode! He's shown returning in time to have an encounter with David's dad. From there we assume he stays in the Enchanted Forest until the curse is cast but since David is six, according to my timeline he's got roughly 16-20 years in the Enchanted Forest to wait for that to happen and doesn't age! The writers just brought him back too early. Without that little storyline, it would have worked beautifully. So how am I going to handle that? I'm not. I'm going to say I'm writing a story about Rumple and it's not my job to figure out how Hook keeps his looks. That is the job for whoever chooses to do the Hook version of this. I suppose we can just pretend like he stole some fruit from Neverland and it keeps him looking young. But for us, if at any time in this fiction you need an age check or want to know where we are in the storyline, just give a little holler! I kept track not only of the years going by but how old everyone looked despite it.

Thank you MerlockVonBaron, Grace5231973, Jennifer Baratta, and Fox24 for your reviews on the last chapter! Coming up we have one more chapter before we finish out this storyline and give Rumple a bit of direction as well before we move into the story for Jiminy Cricket! Not my favorite of the storylines, I'll admit. But I really liked what I got to add to it, I love what comes after, and I just loved coming up with a way to use those dolls in a really important way because we all know we wondered what he wanted them for. Peace and Happy Reading!