You Can't Leave Me

(Day 36: Sunday Evening)

When they seat at dinner there's a staggering silence, before they begin to pack their plates and Belle breaks the ice, "So. Mal. How was your day?"

"Crappy." Ben gives his mother a brief look of disbelief, and Mal looks up to glance between the three hosts as the silence continues. "Not to be overly blunt of anything."

"Ah-um," Ben interjects. "I don't suppose you saw the news coverage of Audrey today?"

Mal pours the milk into her glass as she mutters, "My friends and I really need to start watching more TV."

"So. That's a no, then." he assumes.

Mal takes a sip of her drink, "What did she say?"

"Well," Ben begins, but he has a hard time getting the rest out. "Um. She and her grandmother claim they're going to sue you."

"As in court," Mal guesses.

"Yes."

"For assault," she finishes as she stares down at the table.

"We don't know what they're charging you with," he denies before trailing off. "However..." He looks at her, "Magic is considered a weapon if used to harm another, and it probably won't matter that your hypnotism is a part of you. By using it against Audrey that means that the assault could be considered aggravated." He watches her continue to stare down without a word, and it takes a moment for him to hesitantly mention, "There's a video of what you did posted online. Anyone could have seen it by now." She still fails to speak. "I'm going to ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me." Mal glances at him for a second. "If I hadn't shown up when I did… were you going to kiss her?"

Mal inwardly chuckles, "If the objective was to take as much heat as I could from her, then I have no doubt I would have." before she looks up at him.

He looks down and picks up a clump of smashed potatoes with his fork, "Let's just hope no one else figured that out." before he takes the bite.

"Because that makes things worse," Mal evenly comments.

Ben looks back up at her and loudly responds, "Yes. It would." He shakes his head. "I know it was just an accident and that you hardly even remember it, but there was that whole part where you incapacitated her with your hypnotism. She couldn't even move."

Mal blankly stares at him, "I know."

"That means that you attempted to kiss when she was defenseless. You might has well have drugged her." She doesn't respond, so he stresses, "If you get charged with sexual assault, that would be two to six years in prison. If aggravated, then you could get up to twenty years and be put on the registry." but Mal continues to frown in silence.

"Ben." When he turns he finds his mother shaking her head at him. "She gets it."

He takes a deep breath and releases it slowly, "I'm sorry." before he turns back to Mal. "It's just… I want you to care, you know. Several years of freedom that you've only just gotten are on the line here." Mal looks down at her empty plate, knowing that it hardly feels as though she's free at all, but she doesn't say anything. "It's your life… and you're a part of mine. I don't want to spend the next five years looking at you through a piece of glass or talking to you in a room where we won't even be allowed to shake hands."

Mal looks back up at him, "Is it really that bad?" a glimpse of fear escaping her voice.

"Don't worry." Belle assures, "We're going to help you."

"We are?" Adam asks, but then he sees his wife give him a look. "Ah! Yes. Of course, we're going to help. Anything we can do, we will."

Belle smiles at Mal, "I'll contact our lawyer tomorrow to see what our options are." Mal merely nods, and then Belle eyes the empty plate. "You didn't take anything to eat."

"Oh," Mal glances down for a moment. "I'm not very hungry."

"Really?" Ben asks as he looks over her. "Because your stomach does seem to be growling quite a bit."

"We've discussed this." Mal looks at him, "It always does that. It doesn't matter how much I eat. It's always going to do that."

He's quiet for a second, "Even so, we did invite you for dinner." before he shrugs. "Maybe you could just humor me and pick something out."

Mal looks over the assortment of items and eventually complies, taking a big slice of ham and placing it on her plate; however, when she reaches for the utensils she sighs in annoyance, "What? Did I lose my knife privileges too?"

"Do you need me to cut it for you?" Ben offers.

She nods her head down at him, "You took my knife?"

He smiles, "My knife." before he shakes his head. "Ah. No. We just didn't give you one. Would you like me to cut it for you?"

She pushes her plate closer to him before crossing her arms, "You think it's funny."

"Well, yeah," Ben picks up his knife and Mal's fork, before he looks up into her eyes. "It's just so adorable, the way that you're so possessive and protective over everything."

Mal laughs, "Oh, shut up. It is not."

"No. It is," he insists as he drops the utensils and places a hand to her face. "It's as adorable as you are." His hand brushes her cheek, as he moves it to her beautifully dark purple, wavy hair; however, when he slides his fingers down a strand of it he finds himself examining the color longer than necessary.

Mal's smile falters, "What is it?"

Ben shakes his head and drops the strand, returning to the previous task of cutting the ham for her, "Nothing." He rests the knife for a mere second. "It's just that the jury is going to assume that you dye your hair."

"Which is bad?" Mal questions.

It takes a moment for him to inform, "There have been studies that people who have dyed hair, piercings, or tattoos are usually seen as more problematic to authority figures."

"What should I do?" Mal mumbles. "Dye my hair blond or something?"

"But then you would just be doing what you don't want them to think you're doing," Ben shakes his head. "That may just make things even worse." Mal watches as he slices the meat into vertical lines, and she notices that it isn't very different from the lines she has cut upon her own skin. "It's probably best to keep your natural color and just explain it if, for some reason, they feel the need to bring it up." The juice even escapes the cuts as the blood had done with hers. Except that it's deeper, a lot deeper, and the meat is completely torn apart. Is that how it would look like if she'd gone deeper? Would her flesh part just as easily? Would the bone be shown, just as the white plate is shown beneath the ham?

"Mal?"

She looks back up at him, "Yeah."

He pauses for a moment, "I asked you if there's anything else we should know."

"Know fooor what, exactly?"

She can hear him make a noise, as though he's displeased or has given up on something. "We were talking about how Audrey's lawyer is going to try to dig up as much as they can about you. We wanted to know if there was anything we should know, so that there's less likelihood of being any surprises."

Mal eyes the table for a moment, "Right." before she opens her mouth to answer the question; however, there's so much about her that she doesn't know where to start. "Um. Well… I'm not sure if I mentioned this or not before, but back on the Isle a few years ago I was sort of part of this gang."

"A gang?" Belle widens her eyes in surprise.

"That guy I mentioned before… the one I was with before Ben—" She glances around and watches them stare at her intently. "He introduced me to it. I was a part of it for a couple years." She takes a breath in remembrance, "My main job was to find people to sell to, lure them in… give them the good old hospitality, which I was already kind of doing anyway."

"Sell?" Belle uneasily comments. "As in… drugs."

"As in a lot of things," Mal informs, before she remembers how she'd met Hook. After she had turned ten and had her growth spurt she just became so desperate for heat, and that eventually led her to going to that building. The building was dark, usually only lit by broken neon signs, and the hallways were small with sharp corners, the entire thing made of grey brick. It had been nearly a full year of paying those prostitutes for heat when she'd met him. He knew her by name, except that he didn't. She was called Purple, the girl with the purple hair who came to that brothel at least three times every single week. I was his best customer. She slowly moves her head down, as she eyes the table, her mouth slightly agape as she indistinctly mouths, "Their best customer."

"And how long exactly is a couple years?" the gruff voice sternly inquires.

Mal looks up to find Adam's glasses folded in his hands, and she hesitates to say, "I was with him for almost half a year before I was brought in." She looks back down at the table, both because she has to do the math and because she really doesn't want to see their expressions. "I would have been eleven when I joined, and I left when I was fourteen."

"So three years," Ben answers, before his expression turns to concern. "You were with him for three years?"

Mal rolls her eyes, "It didn't mean anything. Everything I did with him…" She gestures as she tries to reason, "It was only ever for heat. That's all."

"It was three years," Ben brings up again. "I doubt those three years of your life meant absolutely nothing to you."

"You know," Mal irritably responds, "I've been friends with Evie for nearly three years now— a relationship that does actually mean something to me, by the way." She slightly shakes her head, "Sooo, what? Are you going to start getting all worried over her too?"

Ben releases a breath before calmly answering, "No. Of course, not."

"Okay, then." She notices the forgotten plate, "Are you done cutting that?"

He looks down and remembers it, "No… sorry." before he picks up the knife and fork again. "Let me just make a couple cuts across." It's quiet for a minute as she watches him slide the knife over twice to turn each slice into thirds, and soon enough the plate and fork is given back to her. "Here you go." Mal moves the plate in front of her and stabs the fork into one of the rectangles, before she brings the piece to her mouth and eats it.

"So," Belle continues the previous subject, "is there anything else we should know?"

Mal uses her fork to flip one of the rectangles on its side, "There isn't enough time in the world to list every little thing I've done that could jeopardize this court thing."

"What about more recent things?" she asks. "Is there anything you've done in the last couple years that could make the jury believe you're a threat?"

"You mean like stealing Fairy Godmother's wand during a royal coronation to break every villain out of the island prison and take over the kingdom?" Mal looks up at her, "No. I can't say I have." before she shakes her head and stares back down at her plate. "A very nice thing I almost did there, having something like that happen seconds after Ben is crowned king and probably end up having everyone blame it on him and say he's just that bad of a ruler." She sets her fork down, "Maybe you shouldn't help me."

"Why?" Ben asks. "Just because of what happened at coronation?" She doesn't speak. "If they bring it up, then we can just tell them that you were threatened into doing it. I mean, because I know you were threatened. I know I didn't just imagine how terrified you all looked, and if I saw it then others must have too."

"It still doesn't change what I did," Mal refutes.

"But you were forgiven," Ben reminds her. "When you chose good, we forgave you."

"That's not what I'm talking about," she seethes as she shuts her eyes. "I meant Audrey." She shakes her head, "Whatever we do or say, it's not going to change what I did."

"No. It won't," Ben acknowledges. "But you're not some threat to society that needs to be separated from people. This trial isn't going to save anyone. All it will do is hurt more people. All it's going to do is hurt you. You can't honestly think surrendering to this is a good idea."

"You want to know what I think?" Mal looks up at him, and there's silence for a moment. "What I think is that whether it was an accident or not— that whether I meant to hurt her or not— that since it did hurt her I still deserve to be punished. In some way. In some form."

"Like how you were going to jump off that cliff into the lake," Ben mentions, and Mal stares down again. "You don't deserve a punishment. The regret you feel is punishment enough."

"But what about how she felt?" Mal denies as she remembers her encounter with Hook and trails off into a whisper. "How she must still feel?" She remembers the cold metal against her wrists, "She couldn't move." and how when he'd moved in between her legs that she lost her chance to kick him. "She was helpless." She remembers how she had tried to use her hypnotism after he had undone his own pants and how it had fritzed out, "She was powerless." before she looks back up at Ben. "And I made her feel that way."

"Okay. Yes," Ben admits. "You hurt someone, but that doesn't mean you should be hurt too. It doesn't mean that you go off and kill yourself." She looks away from him. "No one deserves to die, no matter what they've done." Mal stares blankly, feeling as though she disagrees and that if she had to die in order for Hook to die, then she'd gladly take that sacrifice. "You hear me?" Ben stresses. "No one deserves to die."

She meets his eyes again and calmly states, "I disagree."

"Why?" he questions in hysteria. "Why would you do that? How could you believe you deserve a kind of punishment like that?"

"Because." Mal shouts back, "If I were assaulted, I'd want him dead." before she hears her words and slowly moves her head and eyes down towards the table. "I guess, I just thought that maybe… she'd feel the same way."

It takes a moment for Ben to respond, more calmly this time, but the worry is still apparent in his tone, "I know Audrey. She wouldn't want you to die. If you killed yourself and she found out that it was because you thought she wanted it, then she'd feel the same guilt and regret that you do right now." Mal stays silent, still staring at the empty part of the table. "Do you understand? You can't kill yourself." She finally looks back up at him. "I can't lose you— You can't leave me."

Mal is quiet for a moment, before she moves to rest her head on his shoulder, "I don't want to." and then Ben places a hand over her shoulders as he glances at his parents.

- The nickname Hook has for her in the movie actually makes sense now, doesn't it... I mean, not that it didn't make sense before, but I think this backstory makes it all the more impactful. What do you guys think?