For twenty-one days, optimism prevailed. Then, Killian had...more or less...broken into the Apprentice's car. The keys still hanging from their slot next to the wheel, he had sat in both front seats and ran his hand over each crevice until two spots opened up, one across from the passenger seat and the other in between it and the driver's. A journal. The cover was a veritable painting, a corner view of a diner, a little similar to Granny's, in which a pitiful number of customers, three to be exact, were being served by a man in white garb, but none of them looked like they were interacting. In fact, he would wager any amount all four of them were lonely, sitting there with the empty street behind them. The painting personified loneliness, isolation. Shaking his head, he had opened the journal and found endless blank yellow pages.
He had eliminated the possibility of its blankness serving the same purpose as the blank books in the mansion. Every single one of those covers matched the design of Henry's, minus the lettering. This journal had sported all the signs of a store-bought purchase, down to the sticky price tag stuck to the back.
The man had just wanted to record his own thoughts, or perhaps invent a story of his own to escape the involved, solitary life a sorcerer's apprentice must have. Everything from the rows of tulips to the beach towels draped over the front porch to dry indicated a kindly sort, probably a gracious and good-humored host in spite of his power...residing, maybe even dead, in a hat.
He'd reported it back to Belle, who had given him a silent nod when he said he'd returned it to its original location.
A second chance he might have, but this life hinged on being the best version of himself, and that started with undoing every sin the Dark One had commanded of him. The thin eyebrows and curls on the Blue Fairy's wide open face haunt him even when he's not looking at her likeness on the information board. It haunts him when he and Swan take their morning walk down the main street in the mornings. It stays with him when, in increments, she starts bringing up more of her past, Lily the only name she mentions from her childhood, occasionally Ingrid's. It stays with him thirty days into this new life when he finally shows her Liam's medal and lets her trace the archaic word for "valor" across the top of it. It stays with him at nights after he's kissed her goodnight and retires hoping to at last start Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone or flip through some random fishing "magazine" someone's left downstairs in the diner.
What if his best is not enough?
If spending all this time with Belle has shown him anything, it's how kind she really is.
Compassion and consideration for others come second nature to her, and yet she'd had her heart broken by the man she loved. Not exactly a happy ending. What if the Author hadn't found her worthy of one? He'd have thought the whole thing nonsense, of course, except that Henry had found all the blank books. Someone had written them. Maybe Regina had been onto something with wanting her happy ending granted to her. She was working so thoroughly on bettering herself and still lost it. What would make him any different? Belle had exhibited nothing but courage the day she saved him and it hadn't been enough. Regina had gone against every fiber in her nature to put Henry first and start being a better person and it hadn't been enough. He knows he's working for the fairies' freedom without expecting a reward, but...was it so much to want to keep whatever he already had?
Today, he needs a change in scenery. Swan accepted his offer to take a walk with him, so he bounds up the familiar steps to the third story of the apartment building.
"You're sure that's what you want?" he hears her voice echoing up the building just as he's about to knock. Oh. She's not home yet, but returning.
"Oh yeah. If there's any sign my life needs simplifying," Snow answers, their footsteps clicking up the stairs. He should go down and meet her halfway, but they seem deep in conversation. "Plus, Regina's got this, or at least I hope she does."
"She'll be fine!" Killian blurts a silent chuckle at how sure Swan sounds.
"Listen to how positive you sound!" Snow all but squeals. The baby voices his own pleasant surprise, which, in his case, may just be gas, but the sound elicits a little coo out of Swan.
"I just think Regina's got it in her," Swan says, and he can picture her shrugging. "I mean, look at Killian. I've never seen someone who just sets his mind to being a better person and follows through with it the way he does."
It steals his breath, the, the pride gushing out of her mouth. He plants his feet into the floor to keep from running down to her and swinging her around the stairwell shouting that she's the reason for all of it. Shuffling, he scratches his ear and should alert them to his presence, but Snow disrupts his conscience.
"Have you told him that? I think it would mean the world to him."
"Oh, well, uh, I...I'm sure he knows," she stammers, just when he thought his grin couldn't grow any wider. "It's nothing. Mom, stop looking at me like that!"
"It's cute! The way you blush. It's okay, you know. It's okay to be happy and all smitten and in—"
"Hi, Killian," she says, extra loudly for her mother's benefit, and nothing more than an eyebrow raise lets her know he did hear every word.
"Apologies, love. I had thought you were at home when we agreed to meet up." He avoids Snow's ear-to-ear grin as she turns the baby around so he can see him. She steps around them with a shy smile and carries the baby into the apartment. Still scrunching her mouth in embarrassment, Swan links her arm through his and all but drags him back down the stairs.
"Looks like Regina will be stepping back into the mayor's position here soon," she says, more than a hint she will reject any other subject, so he responds with a careless "Oh?"
"My mom was saying she wants to go back into teaching. You know, I think she likes this life a lot more than the Snow White one. Anyway, how are things going at the library?"
He knows what she's asking.
"Abysmally."
Without any words, she curls her arm tighter around him, her other reaching around and stroking his hand. He'll let in the solace he's beginning to feel, knowing all too well he can't fight anything she brings out of him, but, even as his head nudges hers as they step out the door, he wonders how long it will last.
He studies the information board so often he's become an expert on Apprentice-House-Trivia. The number of steps to the front door, the half-moon window near the roof, which hedges need trimming—all of it useless. For thirty-seven days, he's been staring at their board and turned up nothing.
"So...I have an idea," Belle calls to him, a dozen books on magic splayed on the tables between them. He'd found through his unpolished knowledge of Elvish a reference to the hat yesterday, the breakthrough he'd been waiting for until they'd found no one in town could understand the incantation. The winding, spidery script couldn't be matched in any of the other books, Regina had never come across it, and the fairies and the Apprentice still languished in the hat, possibly dead.
"Yes?"
"What do you think about scanning the page and sending it out into the rest of the world?"
Turning around, he raises an eyebrow, trying to decide what part of the question he understands the least. She nods at him with a hint of amusement and gestures for him to come up to one of the boxes on the desks. They remind him of a television, but sleeker, smaller.
"I can take a scan of the page, which means it would be able to show up on the computer screen here, and I could send it out for other people to look at with a way to get back to me if they understand it," she explains, clasping her hands together in triumph as if she's already done it.
"No one would understand it, would they? This is the Land Without Magic."
"That doesn't mean there aren't people here who study it. Think about it—we're all stories to the rest of the world. What if this is, too?"
"Who would you send it to?" He folds his arms and stares at the computer. A plausible idea, but it harbors more than its share of risk. He watches her unfold a piece of paper to reveal a list of names. Well, some of them he recognizes as names, Professor So-and-so of This Place, but a few others seem more fantastical.
"Well, folklore experts, firstly, ones who teach stories for a living. That must be wonderful...and then linguistics professors, ones with specializations in ancient languages, and then there are a few, uh, passionate fans of fictional mainstream media who go the extra mile and do quite an extensive amount of research on expanding upon the media and write essays on the subject, or create their own derivative works..."
"They analyze and write fiction about other works of fiction?" he blurts out. "That doesn't strike you as a bit dodgy?"
"All I'm saying is that I think it would be worth reaching out into the rest of the world. We don't have to tell them what it is. I've already come up with a cover story. I'm a rare book dealer who's discovered a manuscript and would like to know if anyone understands what it says on this page so I can make an educated guess at its value."
The odds of it succeeding, well, he'd thought he could define a long shot before. And as far as he knows, any time the rest of the world has interacted with Storybrooke, no good came of it.
"Would the people you contact be able to trace you to Storybrooke?" he asks, peering into the opaque screen of the computer, not even trying to hazard a guess as to what all it can do.
"No. I would invent a new email account...it's like an address, and the messages would come back to that. Everything stays in the computer." She narrows her eyebrows at what has to be a lost expression on his face and sighs. "I would have to show you."
"No need. Start sending the message out. They've been in there far too long." The plausibility overrules the riskiness of it, and, since apparently Belle knows more than he does on how these things function, it's a calculated risk. The rest of the world will be confined to the computer and not Storybrooke itself, which means this normality can continue. And she's right; just because real magic may be hard to come by in the rest of this world doesn't mean its people aren't interested in it. Perhaps they even study it, and with the gadgets and machines they invent, it's downright silly to assume a few lines on a piece of paper would stump all of them.
"Belle, the derivative works of fiction you mentioned—are any of them Star Wars related?" He'd wanted to save Episode Six for a special occasion, the continuing adventures of Princess Leia, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and the Yoda creature he can't decide if it's a flightless bird or some kind of rodent beckoning to him, but there is some astonishing degree of appeal in reading about them as well. Perhaps Henry would agree.
The sheriff's station is as neat and orderly as he's ever seen it, the boxes of records from the Anna investigation gone. Swan never really struck him as being preoccupied with organization, but the more he opens the drawers, the more he sifts through files and inspects shelves, the more he finds they've changed to suit her purposes.
She and David had started a census project, adding in how long each resident had been in town, from those brought over from the original Dark Curse to those still pretty much newcomers.
"The good news is that I finally have everyone accounted for," she breathes to the desk even though she's addressing him.
"That implies there is also bad news," he says.
"The bad news is that I think the body count here when you take everything into account could give some major international cities a run for their money. Did you want anything to eat? Dad's run over to Granny's to get us some lunch. I can call him real quick to have him pick up something for you, too."
He's already eaten, so he instead relays to her everything Belle had told him about "scanning" the page and using "email" to find a solution. She asks all the same questions he did, easing his mind that he wasn't just paranoid. Leaning back in her chair, she crosses her arms and tucks her lips into her mouth in thought.
"I guess she's covered all her bases," she says after a moment's hesitation. "You guys are getting close to cracking it."
"No, no, that sounds more like wishful thinking than anything else," he sighs, taking a seat next to her, watching her toss back her hair and frown.
"Why?"
"It's been a long time," he says, shrugging, suddenly aware of how impatient he sounds. Swan takes notice. Standing up, she approaches him and draws ever closer until her hands rest on his shoulders. She lifts one of them up, possibly considering playing with his hair, but it nestles back down onto its original spot.
"I thought you love a challenge," she teases, her fingertips gliding up his neck so he looks straight up at her. Oh, he does. Madly. His arm wraps around her waist to help her into his lap. Without waiting, he claims her mouth, pushing past her lips. So warm. She cups his face, ever eager to partake in the plunder, he thinks, ravenous pirate that she is. He doesn't know what to touch first, his hand trembling so much he just holds the back of her neck, leaving the hot taste of her mouth to trail kisses down her neck into her collarbone. It's the perfect angle, her heaving breaths batting against his ear and her heart beating against his face, pulsing.
If any intelligible thoughts still cling to his brain, they involve wondering how to pick her up and sweep the desk next to them clean to lay her down on it. The next moan from her sends such a strong jolt into him his hips thrust upward, starting a vicious, dangerous game as she gasps at the action.
To hell with restraint. Not when she's writhing in his arms and chasing his lips. He tugs blindly at the first few buttons on her shirt, moving downward until he sees only the tip of something red, lacy, and confoundedly in the way...
"Hey, I stopped them from blackening the grilled cheese, but I might have been a little too late," they hear in the hallway accompanied by ever-nearing footsteps. Swan leaps off of him as if he were a hot stove...not that poor a comparison, he thinks, swiveling back around in the chair and crossing his legs to cover the protruding space between them. His hand covers his mouth to control his ragged breaths. Glancing over at her, she makes a furious series of clicks on the little thing with the cord attached that guides the computer to this and that, "rat," he thinks it's called? Gods, no one had better ask him right now.
"Oh. Hey, Hook. If I had known you would be stopping by, I would have gotten you something," David says, hanging up his coat. Damn if this isn't strange, he muses, the corner of his eye catching Swan's watching him—stealing moments right from under her father's nose like schoolchildren.
"Thanks, Dad. You can set it there. I'll get it in a second." Words spill out of her, she's that breathless. Her face almost as red as her undergarment, she smiles over at him when she finally stands and crosses over to the sack. David raises an eyebrow, but doesn't say anything. Rather, he saunters over to him with his arms folded.
"David." Bloody hell, he doesn't care if the prince is onto them or not—he lets out a laugh.
"Sure you don't have an appetite?" David asks him. Swan stops midstep to giggle and, well...she's too much of a lady for him to call it a snort. Scratching his ear, he returns her smile.
"Can't say anything in that bag's going to assuage it."
A/N: The painting on the cover of the Apprentice's journal is "Nighthawks" by Edward Hopper. Coming up? We never find out where Regina's kale salad comes from because it's FREE THE FAIRIES DAY!
