Rays of light slip in between the window panes, casting shapes of pure light over the bed and across the floor. They'd started out a fiery pink and just now take on that whiteness that people usually associate with morning. He'd watched the transformation, the remains of the night spent fretting over fears he'd been too tired to properly label and listening to the baby mark the hours in a random pattern.
Part of him must have still been asleep, though, for a rush of air hits his hand, reminding him how numb it had been overnight. Swan springs up out of bed in such a hurried fashion that he would have read it as scandalized if not for the serene look on her face. He watches her trace the perimeter of the bed on her way to her closet, pulling out a shirt and a jacket.
"Where are we off to, love?" he asks, his voice as groggy as hers had been last night.
"Town line. Melt the ice wall," she says in the midst of her brisk walk back past the bed the other way toward the tiny powder room off to the side.
"Right."
"Actually, I think it would be better for Elsa if there were fewer people around. She might still be a little gun-shy without her sister around," she says from behind the closed door. Sitting up, he rubs his eye and sees Elsa still asleep on the mattress on the floor, her head off her pillow and kinked down the edge of the mattress.
"We'll swing by and pick you up when it's time to go interrogate Gold about Anna. Guy has a whole vault that includes people in urns? Seems really unlikely Elsa went into that willingly." She emerges from the powder room fully dressed, frowning over at the corner of the loft. "Elsa, Elsa, come on. It's time to go."
"That can't be comfortable," he notes, tilting his head at the ice queen's position.
"Elsa," she tries again. Elsa stirs, so he stretches and fumbles his legs around the floor for his boots. Anna may be alive, but if the crocodile has anything to do with it, she's probably stuck in a painting in his shop or trapped in the crawlspaces as a mouse.
"Sorry," Elsa says, cracking her neck. "I was dreaming I was trapped again. You would have thought I'd have woken up." She cranes around at her surroundings for a moment before standing, graceful even at...six in the morning... It prompts him to muse her snaring the Dark One in a block of ice should he gets testy with them.
"We'll make a quick stop at the wall and then we will be tracking down Anna," Swan assures her, straightening the lapels on her jacket and stepping over to where he's just started to stand for his coat. She runs her fingers through his hair in her rough way, bringing him to full alertness as it always does. "We shouldn't be long."
"Who else can do what you can do?" he asks from the back seat of the car. He refuses to call it the "bug" until he finds out if that is truly what little yellow vessels here are called or if it's some term of endearment Swan gave it. She and Elsa had returned from the wall confused, angry, and suspicious—fantastic combination, although it was more than justified. Elsa's powers had failed to melt the wall. They'd tried together, and nothing. He had waited patiently for them to elaborate, wondering if it was, as Swan called it, her being gun-shy without her loved one around to give her some confidence. They'd concluded that the only explanation was that someone else had added enchantments to it. Marvelous. Now someone else in the town felt like causing trouble. He'd much prefer they all come out of their shops and cars and voice their intentions all together in one collective villain song...less beating around the bush that way.
"No one. As far as I know, my powers are unique," Elsa says from the passenger seat, clutching the sides of it for dear life and cringing every time Emma so much as applied the brake. Ah, go easy on her, he tells himself. A year ago, that was you.
"We'll worry about that later. One thing at a time," she chides them, turning onto the main street, the pawn shop's sign in clear view.
"Not too much later, Swan. Whoever's responsible for keeping up the wall sees it as an opportunity. Quite likely they've been planning, or wanting to plan the same sort of thing for a long time and just needed a way to do it." He makes eye contact with Elsa, averting her eyes from the front glass. "They may see you as their ticket to start any number of things."
"Then they may be involving Anna in all this," Elsa groans to herself. "If only I could remember."
The three of them say nothing as the car stops in front of the shop. Swan doesn't wait for either of them, marching straight into the shop, the bell banging against the door.
"This was the woman in your urn, Elsa," she says, pointing to Elsa, still behind her.
"Always a befuddled pleasure, Miss Swan." Rumpelstiltskin finishes setting a few vases back on the jam-packed shelves behind him and slithers out from behind the counter. The whole place would seem disorderly if there was anyone else running it.
"When we went back in time, an urn fell through the time portal and she came out of it. From your vault. Now she's here and her sister's missing. You had to have known she was in there, so you have to know who she is and where she came from."
"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I've never seen her before in my life," he says.
"So how'd she end up inside your urn, inside your secret vault of terror?" Swan scoffs.
"Look, if you really want to know how she wound up there, she's standing right beside you, Miss Swan. Why don't you simply ask her?" He pauses so much between his words, wanting everything out of his mouth to have some gravitas to it, even when he's saying he has no knowledge of something whatsoever. Killian rolls his eyes at the condescending gestures that accompany it, always using his hands to bloody illustrate simple transitions.
"She did, but I can't remember," Elsa says, unfazed. "Something happened to my memories."
"An all-too-common affliction around these parts. Pity." He sneers with a smile, apparently finding his little observation funny. "Urns, necklaces, all manner of things. I can't know the history behind all of them."
"Only if there's something in it for you," he counters. Does he really find them that naive? That stupid? The Dark One immersed himself in magic the way an artist might delve into clays or colors. There would be no way he would acquire something without studying it, dissecting it and taking a sick enjoyment out of doing so. "Right, mate?"
"Yeah, well, that may have been true once, but recently, my life has been turned upside down. I've lost a son, gained a wife." He pauses, looking over at Belle. "So you might say I've decided to turn over a new leaf."
"Don't forget about my superpower. I'll be able to tell if you're lying," Swan warns. She should just go ahead and do it, frankly, he thinks. He's in no mood to hear a testimonial and he's pretty certain Anna would find the whole thing a waste of time, too.
"How about I do you one better? Let's simply have Belle use the dagger on me."
What?
"No, no! Rumple, you don't, you don't have to do that!" Belle takes hold of his arm, so proud and protective, her wedding ring digging into his fingers.
"Miss Swan wants proof, and I'm happy to cooperate," Rumpelstiltskin assures her, holding up a hand. A Rumpelstiltskin entrusting his dagger to someone? Not making life difficult for everyone else just because he can? The words are objective enough, but there is something that burns his ears for hearing them, something that makes all of Belle's resigned sighs and movements retrieving the dagger from her purse...her purse, the dagger of the Dark One...appear slower.
"I command you, Dark One, to tell them the truth," she says, all too apparently finding the whole thing ridiculous, but not for the same reason he is.
He did die for her, he tells himself.
Yes, but now he's back, now he's back in a world with no son to care about the abuse of power and a woman who inexplicably believes it to be a non-issue. Gods, Zelena had kept him from his own son's burial with that wretched dagger just a few days ago! To think of him handing it off to anyone, even Belle, stretches his imagination a little too far.
"The truth is just as I said. I had no idea there was someone inside there. I know nothing about Elsa—or her sister." There is a flinch that rips Killian's attention from him, Belle lowering the dagger, her face unreadable. "But I wish you the best of luck finding her."
"There. That, that should be good enough, right?" Belle asks Emma, her face bright pink. She keeps looking back at her...he cringes...husband. No. None of this makes sense at all.
"If you really want to cooperate, you won't mind coming out to where the portal was then," Emma says, not placated, which gives him a very validating feeling, he must say.
"You're sure you don't want more tea?"
His lips dry at how close the little girl is standing next to him, the tea tray's rim pushing on his chest. It's a sitting room that's seen better days, the cracked corners of the ceilings and the crooked shutters only a couple of signs the place has fallen into disrepair.
"Grace, can you take your things up to your room, please? The Captain will still be here when we're done talking."
They say Jefferson Hatter had teetered on the edge of madness after the debacle that had happened with his wife. The expert portal jumper sported more patches in his clothes than Killian had imagined, more sadness in his eyes than before. He'd given his small lass a loving pat on the back as she gathered up a doll and toy cat and ran down a dusty corridor with them.
"She, she doesn't like me to be out of her sight for long periods of time," he apologizes, his tone sounding as though he wished he could accompany the words with a shrug. Instead, he takes a seat across from him, wide-legged with interlocked fingers. "You know I don't travel through the realms anymore."
"This is the only realm that interests me," he says. Jefferson lifts his palms into the air, still an air of drama about him.
"Forgive me for wanting to give a pirate a disclaimer ahead of time. So...there's some other way I can assist you?"
Killian sets the teacup down on the tray, which sits on a wobbly table between them. "I've heard you were an associate of the Dark One, employed, as it were."
"That's true, but I'm sure you can appreciate a certain level of confidentiality as far as my old clientele is concerned," he says with a grin meant to be disarming...and never expects its intended victim to grin right back. Clearing his throat, Jefferson elaborates. "If you made a deal with him in the past, I'm afraid I can't help you."
"There was no deal," he snarls at the word. "And there never will be. What I want to know concerns the Queen's latest prisoner."
"You're out of luck then," Jefferson says, obscuring his face with a prolonged sip of tea. Killian raises an eyebrow at the assumption. "She's completely besotted with the Dark One."
Oh.
"Well, rest assured, portal jumper, I'm not seeking out a lover. What I want from her is information, unless I can get it from you first. His dagger. There is a dagger that controls him, and if I can get it, it would assuage a long-kept...grudge. You worked for him, frequented the Dark Castle."
"And you think he'd have been idiot enough to just leave it out where I could see it?" he scoffs, almost snorts.
"No, but your reputation as an opportunist precedes you. It's entirely possible you might have snooped or eavesdropped on something," he says, draping his arm over the arm of the chair to play with the tassels of the blanket strewn over it. "However it's far more likely that she knows something, isn't it? She was a maid, wasn't she? That's what I had heard."
"Likelier than you may think," Jefferson grunts after a moment's hesitation. "I'm fairly sure the feeling was mutual, or as mutual as it could be."
It's been so long since Killian's laughed while sober that it unleashes itself as a hoarse cackle.
"It's true!" Jefferson insists. "This Belle has gotten closer to Rumpelstiltskin than anyone. Some are even saying he fell in love with her."
"If he loved her, he would have gone after her."
"Perhaps, but he ended the relationship. The dwarf she ran into...he likes to talk. Presumably, she scared him."
"He ended it...and let her go?" There may have been no snooping at all. In some loose-tongued fit of passion, he could have let slip information about the dagger, but Killian would rather not try to picture the circumstances.
"You're looking at this a bit too naively, Hook." Jefferson leans forward so his arms rest on his knees. "When it came down to it, all it was was a choice between love and power. He chose power. But somehow I don't quite see you grasping the fundamentals of a relationship."
If he hadn't just seen the man's sweet little daughter, there would have been blood. A quick blow to the face first, and then a strong solid beating. His heel bounces off the floor. Setting his jaw, he holds his breath for a short count.
"Don't tell me what I do or don't understand," he says, curling his hand into a fist as he stands. "Thank you for your time. I'm sure I can handle an ex-maid." He takes a hearty swig from his flask to burn away the taste of tea. Taking his time, swishing the rum around in his mouth, he remembers in which pocket he'd placed the bag of coins and conjured up his grin. "Grace!" he calls down the corridor.
"What are you doing?" Jefferson demands. Too late. The lass bounds back into the sitting room, clutching the same two toys to her chest. There's something in how small she is, this skinny little child so eager to play hostess, that makes him suppress a burgeoning smile. Opening his face up, he entices her over to him with a sweeping bow. Her jaw drops at the presentation of the sack.
"Thank you for your hospitality, lass. I don't believe I can repay you for your kindness, but let's consider this a try, shall we?" In a conspiratorial slouch, he hunches down and holds the sack over her hand, waiting until she opens it up to drop it into it. She mumbles an awed thanks and dashes over to her father to show him.
"Good day then," he tells them, letting himself out into the forest, a few miles from the main road. Choosing power over love—damned fool deserved nothing but a swift and solid kick into the next life. The bloody Dark One had dismissed Milah's precious love, Bae's, and now someone else's. One day, one day he would pay for how callous he'd been with other people's hearts.
They meet Rumpelstiltskin and Belle back at the farmhouse, quiet, unassuming—the clock-like trenches dug in the earth nothing more than moved soil. A strong burned smell still permeates the air, more and more eye-watering the closer they approach the spot that had once been a flaming portal.
"I came out of it right there. Then I...just destroyed it," Elsa says, her hand helping her retrace her steps.
"Well we shall see about that," Rumpelstiltskin says in a knowing way, albeit a little more invested in the situation. He steps around the tracts of dirt. "Belle, may I borrow the dagger, please?"
Killian leans his head back, his tongue running over his teeth behind closed lips. It's almost funny, Belle reaching into her purse and handing him the dagger as if it were a snack or spare coins a couple might hand off to each other on a trip. The Witch, well, gods only knew where she had kept it, but Belle didn't even try to keep its location a secret. Even if she had, if the Dark One took on a specific itch, he could simply take some item from his shop that would lead him right to it. There is no way she would be able to separate him from his power, no matter how much she believed she could.
"Funny thing about magic," he says, walking over to some ash. "It can never be destroyed completely. It simply lives on in other forms."
Taking a knee, he tilts the dagger and sifts the dirt into a bottle, seeming to separate the ash from it, a meticulous...and rather arduous...task, he has to admit...unless one is so practiced in this sort of thing it comes as second nature. Another reason Rumpelstiltskin would never truly part with his dagger—less access to even more power.
"Magic survives," he says heavily, appreciatively.
"As what? Dirt?" Swan asks.
"It's much more than dirt, dearie." Waving his hand while smirking at her, the contents of the bottle develop a greenish yellow, not a shade that far from the wet straw still scattered all around. "That urn could neutralize any magic placed inside it. That's why Elsa remained trapped, and even though the urn appears destroyed, the dust from it contains the very same power, only in a weakened form."
Already standing, he holds out the bottle and his hand as if it were a lecture, so reverent about contained dust. Perhaps he is being too harsh there, he thinks to himself. Cora had known the same thing about magic, gathering the ash from the wardrobe so long ago. But even she wanted it for a purpose; he couldn't in good conscience call Cora someone who wanted for the sake of wanting, someone who just couldn't help themselves when magic was involved.
"The next time you want to destroy something like that," the Dark One continues, stalking towards Elsa like she deserves a scolding. "Be a bit more careful. One sprinkle of this, and all your magic would temporarily vanish." He won't take his eyes off Rumpelstiltskin, but he still manages to see both Swan and Elsa recoil just a bit at the information, although perhaps for different reasons.
"Ready, Belle?"
"Yes, quite," she murmurs, her smile plastered on her face, the smile he's seen on Emma's face countless times when she wanted to conceal the fact she was building her inner walls higher than ever. He watches them go, arm in arm, making sure he returns the dagger to her. He doesn't know if it would be better or worse if she got it back, but she does, and it doesn't comfort him in the least.
It's not real. He'd bet his life on it. There can be no other explanation.
"So that's it," he hears Elsa trying to subdue her disappointment. She tentatively starts to follow Rumpelstiltskin and Belle back to the cars but gravitates to Swan instead. "We have nothing. We don't know how I got in the urn or where Anna is."
"No. We're just starting." Swan should try reassuring others more often. She's not that bad at it. "I promise you we're going to find your sister."
A/N: The scene back at the farmhouse is an actual deleted scene you could look up after the airing of 4x2, so I can't take credit for creating that one. Coming up? Willofthewisp wonders what's wrong with her as getting inside the mind of a three hundred-year-old pirate comes a lot easier to her than writing Elsa does.
