X Marks the Spot
Chapter Twelve
Inside Killian's mind again…
"How do you keep doing that?" he heard Anna ask a man he watched just board his ship with surprise in her voice, seeing the Princess from Arendelle onboard the Jolly Roger when she and her fiancé looked all around them while pirates surrounded them.
"You didn't exactly leave inconspicuously," the newcomer answered smugly as he moved to stand beside the ship's Captain, only Killian saw Hans move to stand beside him as he continued seeing through Black Beard's eyes. "A paid informant on the docks in Arendelle and the swiftest ship in the Navy got us here just in time."
While two of the men who arrived with the other leader worked to tie Anna's and Kristoff's wrists together behind their backs, Anna looked to him as she spoke in disbelief, "This was a trap? We have a deal! Something about... What, well over 200 pounds of gold."
Out of Black Beard's mouth, he heard himself laugh at her for being so naïve and then respond, "You know, when you're angry, you look so much like your mother."
"Wait," she stated with confusion while he reached out to touch her chin until Anna pulled away from him. "You met my mother?"
"And your dear Papa as well," he replied. "A very regal couple. The fact they thought I wouldn't recognize royalty was charmingly naive of them. Honestly, I liked them. Sold them the star at cost, actually."
Kristoff looked at the pirate Captain to verify what he meant as he questioned, "The Wishing Star?"
Anna immediately turned back to the man she loved as she continued, "That doesn't make sense. If they had it, they would've used it to take away Elsa's magic."
"Oh, well, perhaps they didn't know that the Wishing Star can only be used by those with... pure hearts," Killian heard himself answer again.
"Well, if there's another one, we're still interested," the Princess responded when the Captain turned his back to her. "And we can pay just as much as he can."
Hans retorted, "Can you? Because my brothers and I spent Wednesday rolling around on the money in the royal treasury."
He and his brothers all began to laugh until Anna replied, "You rolled around in gold bars? Weird. And ouch."
"Figure of speech," the Prince said again irritably as he glared back at her, "We reveled in it. The point is, it's now in my control, not yours. You're what they call penniless. But, uh, that doesn't matter, because where you're going, you don't need money."
"Where is that?" she asked curtly.
Hans stood directly in front of the woman he was taunting and answered her with one word as he stated, "Death."
Kristoff moved in closer to her while he glared at their enemy and answered, "I'm not sure that's a place."
"Well, you're both about to find out," the man from the Southern Isles responded, looking between them both when more of his brothers pulled their swords and put them to their prisoners' throats, as Anna and Kristoff turned their heads to look at one another in worry.
A short time later, while still onboard the Jolly Roger…
"This is the treacherous area known as Poseidon's Bone Yard..." Prince Hans spoke again while he pointed out at the ocean in front of them. "The exact spot where your parents' ship went down. How fitting that mother and daughter will have their last regrets in the same place. Will you both die, wishing you'd never tried to help your freak sister? Well... Maybe your bones will mingle with your mother's on the bottom of the sea."
The pirate called to his men as he shouted, "Bring forward the trunk!"
As he motioned for the other pirates to open the trunk's lid, Hans looked to the Captain and questioned in confusion, "There's a trunk? How... How will their bones mingle if she's in a trunk?"
"I once had a rival who made me walk the plank," Killian heard while he listened to Black Beard talk of the last time the two of them fought. "And much to my surprise, I was saved by a mermaid. I applied the lesson. This trunk will make sure you die without 'finterference."
"Elsa's gonna get out of that urn, and when she does, she's gonna take back the kingdom and kick you and your brothers back to the Southern Isles, which sounds lovelier than I bet it actually is," Anna steadfastly retorted through the pirates' and the Princes' laughter while a few of the men forced her and Kristoff into the trunk where there was hardly enough room for them both. "Uhh!"
Prince Hans continued to goad her, staring down at her within the chest as he replied, "I doubt that. I control the Royal Navy, the Vast Armies, and even this Enchanted Ship you're about to be thrown off... The Jolly Roger. And if Elsa hasn't found a way to escape an urn in the last thirty years, I doubt she ever will."
The Princess and the Kingdom's Ice Master looked at one another as they became confused, and she cried out, "Wait. What? Thirty years?"
"The spell that froze Arendelle, it had us all frozen for thirty years," he answered.
"My aunt kept us like that for decades?" Anna questioned in disbelief as she turned to Kristoff beside her. "Elsa. My poor sister. She was stuck in an urn all that time!"
The man who loved her spoke again while they continued to struggle working through all of the new information, then he asked, "Why would Ingrid unfreeze us all right now?"
She quickly responded, "Because she wants to do something worse. We have to get to Elsa. We have to stop whatever it is Ingrid... aah!"
"She's so talky," Hans stated in annoyance.
"Men!" the pirate Captain shouted, by way of ordering the men with him to throw the trunk overboard while the Prince of the Southern Isles and his brothers watched on with pleasure and then they all broke out into laughter once more.
Killian finally broke free from Black Beard's memory and Emma could see that he was even more disoriented and terrified than he had been before while he struggled to reply to her pleas, then he stammered faintly, "Anna… and Kristoff… I kill… I killed them."
It was then David returned to their home and immediately rushed over to his daughter and friend while the Savior immediately placed her hand on the side of Killian's face to try to get him to focus on hers as she replied worryingly, "Just try to calm down. It's all right. I'm right here. Just look at me and tell me what you mean. What did you see?"
"Our friends from Arendelle, Elsa's sister and her fiancé…" he answered weakly before Emma and August helped him to lay back down so he could be as comfortable as possible, which was also when both Leroy and Belle entered the room and looked upon the frightening scene in silence. "I killed them. I mean… He killed them. I'm not sure…"
"Everything's hazy," Killian continued while he closed his eyes to try to think about exactly what it was he really saw. "I saw myself there, but a part of me… a part of me knew I was only speaking through Black Beard. Seeing… through his eyes. It was his memory… like before. It just felt as though…"
When Hook cut himself off upon feeling the ache in his head worsen even more than before, David responded, "Don't try to think about how you felt yourself being there, only Black Beard. Help us to understand what he did. You can do this, Hook."
Killian sighed in frustration as he laid his head deeper into the pillows behind him and kept his eyes closed to try to recall the memory even more than he could moments ago while Emma took his hand again, then he replied quietly, "We were… Black Beard, I mean. And Anna and Kristoff, along with several pirates and other royals… I think. They were all onboard the Jolly Roger, in the middle of the ocean. They spoke of Elsa being trapped… in some urn, frozen for three… no, thirty years. They forced them into a trunk and tossed them overboard to drown them."
"Killian, they're not dead," Emma said again sadly upon realizing that he must have seen the moments that led up to Anna and Kristoff arriving here in Storybrooke thanks to Elsa's wish on the Wishing Star in her possession. "This memory was back when Ingrid was about to cast her Shattered Sight curse on us. Black Beard obviously trapped them within that trunk which they washed up onshore in when Elsa wished for her sister to be here. And Elsa was freed from the urn when we accidently brought it back here with us from the past, through Zelena's time portal. Now they're all back home in Arendelle and they're safe. Anna and Kristoff are probably married and Elsa's taken back her Kingdom from I'm assuming were the royals you saw in the memory with Black Beard."
"What the hell is happening to me?" Killian asked despondently as he turned and pulled away from everyone surrounding him, then released the hand holding his so that he could massage his brow in effort to lessen his pain rising within him.
Emma wiped away the tears that slipped down her cheeks and then she whispered, "I don't know. But we're going to find out. We're going to help you. Just please don't give up on yourself."
When she saw that Killian wasn't able to continue talking any longer, the woman who loved him leaned down to kiss the top of his head and stood up with help from August, then she motioned to her family and friends to follow her into the dining room where they could talk quietly without worrying about him hearing them.
She looked at her father as she quickly stated, "I'm glad you're back. This second memory came on just as sudden as the first one did. But it hit him a lot harder."
"Wait, you mean whatever this was happened to Hook once already?" Grumpy questioned with more callousness than he had intended while the dwarf stared at the Savior and the others who have been with her since it all began. "Is he the only one who's been affected, or do we have to worry about it happening to someone else?"
"Leroy, now's not the time to go running around to start a panic," David answered sternly as he took the bags of food from his friend and set them down on the dining room table. "And no. You don't have to worry about this spreading around to anyone else. Hook's been cursed by Black Beard and another villain somehow."
Emma asked again, "Black Beard told you that? Are you sure?"
David shrugged while he responded, "It makes sense. He doesn't have magic of his own and so he didn't create whatever's hurting Hook. But Black Beard isn't talking except to take complete credit for it. He's proud to take all the credit. Regina tried reading his thoughts, but whoever is helping him, is blocking her to keep her from doing so. She suspects that the Evil Queen might be involved and that's why she didn't come with me. She's gone to speak with her and Zelena."
"Is there anything I can do to help Killian?" Belle asked with sincerity as she looked over at him still lying on the couch. "Whatever you need, I want to help."
"I appreciate that," Emma replied sadly and then let out a nervous sigh. "But until we figure out who's responsible for hurting him, I'm not sure if we can do anything for him. He's becoming more and more confused. A part of him believes he's the one doing the terrible things Black Beard's done."
August looked over at her while he questioned, "You think, because he's seeing Black Beard's memories through his own eyes?"
She nodded as she also looked over at the man she loved in fear, then answered, "Killian is also falling ill. He's burning up. I could feel heat rising within him as I held him and kissed his head. I'm going to try using my powers to heal him again, but… I doubt my magic can be of much help to him. He's only going to continue to get worse and another memory could hit him again at any time. We can't just wait!"
"What if Black Beard is connected to Killian in some way," Henry said when another idea came to him. "I mean, obviously he is because they're sharing memories, but… What if Black Beard is controlling what memories Killian has been forced to see because of that connection and when they come?"
"What are you saying, Henry?" his grandfather asked upon being confused by what he was trying to get at.
The sixteen year old looked between everyone while he responded, "What if we were to put him under a spell of our own? We can keep Black Beard unconscious until we figure out what's going on and maybe that way we'll be able to protect Killian from being bombarded by his memories. If Black Beard's not awake to control what happens…"
Emma walked back over to Killian and knelt down beside him again, then she looked at her son as she replied, "I say we give it a try. I'll try anything to help him."
Upon seeing that Hook appeared to have fallen asleep and that his daughter probably wanted time alone while she remained with him as she laid her head down on his chest and held him, David ushered Henry and their friends into the kitchen. He and Henry opened the bags of food and they, as well as August began to eat while Belle and Grumpy stood by with them. They all waited together for word from Emma on what she wanted to do next when she was ready.
A memory of her own entered her thoughts while she rested beside the man she loved with her whole heart and she heard Killian's voice in her head as he told her she was his happy ending. But she also saw the sadness in his eyes as he had become reminded of how he might lose her because he had been a villain.
Emma knew that a big part of him still believed he could lose her at any moment because of the things he had done and when she looked at him again, she also feared she might lose him too as she had when he had pleaded with her to kill him to save them all. She wasn't going to let that happen again. Not because of a real villain like Black Beard.