She'd been so afraid the moment he'd opened his hand and revealed the shell to her. Smooth, pale—the harmless trinket a child might collect off the beach. Her father might be the ruler of the sea...or bloody assumes he's the ruler of the sea, but he's no better than the crocodile, too much of a coward to see past his little vision of a world that revolves around him. A wild world, untamed—that's how it's meant to be, one discovery after another. Milah had known that, his courageous Bae had known that, and the Dark One couldn't stand it. Poseidon couldn't either. How? How could he not see past himself right into the widened, terrified eyes already brimming with tears staring up at him?
"I know what that is...why do you have that? Please don't use it!" Ursula begs.
"Don't worry. I won't. But you must know—your father gave this to me." Something in her face dulls, and then a creeping arch in her eyebrow. Ah. Expectation. "He thought you'd return home if you could no longer sing. In exchange for helping him, he offered me squid ink, a weapon that would finally let me get my revenge against the Dark One."
"And you would sacrifice that prize? For me?"
He should be used to people not trusting him—the pirate thing. Suspicion follows him wherever he goes when his company is presumably decent and, more importantly, sober. And still it hurts. Something in him balks at it, scolds him for becoming this low, feared thing that receives the same kind of looks as the sharks. First a fascination, an excitement at the danger...and all too quickly revulsion. Gods, he abhors it and deserves it all at once, and, if he stops to consider it, does it really matter? In the end, when he finally dies next to the Dark One's lifeless carcass, will it matter that a few people here and there suspected him of treachery?
Yes. Yes, the innermost part of him screams out.
"I know that voice is the only thing you have left of your mother. If I had something left of my love... Look, I may be a pirate, but I have a code, and I promise to never take that voice from you," he vows, vows because...because that ceaseless call to some foreign shore that cries out to him also cries out with promises of everything he's lost. Love. Honor. Home. Its cry weaves a spell a thousand times more tantalizing than a mermaid's song, and not knowing whether it's truth or merely a distracting false hope drives him mad. Or it would if he would succumb to it long enough. It's been over a century, a long time to rack up sins and crimes and stay submerged in the dark. He's not sure he would recognize the call if it bloody held a knife to his throat, and he sure as hell lost any chance at making it want to keep crying out to him.
"But that means you'll remain trapped as Pan's servant forever-"
"Not necessarily. You stole that bracelet from your father's vault?" Watching her clasp her hand over it, he stifles a smirk. Redemption lost, chances squandered, but at least he still has some cunning. She may too, perhaps. "I'd wager that's where he keeps the squid ink."
"You want me to steal it for you," Ursula concludes, her smug air a welcomed change from the lost, unsure little creature she'd been seconds ago.
"I'll take you to Glowerhaven and wherever else you want to go." Opening his stance, he shoots her a prompting smile. Win-win. She'd already run away, so he's not driving a wedge between a father and his daughter and, well, even if he is, they're both getting something out of the deal.
"Then we can both get what we want," she says with a nod.
"Aye. Now you're thinking like a pirate."
"You know her?"
Not anymore, is the first impulse when Swan breaks him out of his memories. He'd known an innocent, and then the stories that flooded the taverns of the sea witch heralding this storm and terrorizing that seaside village—he'd given her no choice in the matter, backed her into a corner where her father posed as a sentry. And now Ursula prowled Storybrooke's streets with her friend clad all in furs, a sadistic witch if ever he saw one. What were they doing here? What business did she have out of the water? Swan's waiting for an answer, you bloody fool.
"Aye, love. I encountered many a vile creature on my voyages," he settles on, feeling her hand tighten around his, the muscles in her arm tensing, not affection. He peers over his shoulder to where the sun beats down at just the right angle to render Ursula and the other one shadows, joined silhouettes marching down the street with a purpose while Swan's back goes rigid.
"Emma," he hears David call to her from the door. "I'm glad you're here. We have to go."
"What? Now?" she whines. "We just came to meet you for lunch. I've been dying for a grilled cheese all day."
She'd skipped breakfast, she'd told him over the phone, too excited to go check on her car and wanted him to go with her. One never would have guessed her to be famished with the "garage" noises drowning out the constant rumbling in her stomach. She'd carressed the top of the car like a beloved pet and chatted with a dark-haired worker there, a, a, "mechanic" about how his children were doing. There had been some talk of business being slow but with the arrival of a flying monster just yesterday, several people had brought in their cars for preventative maintenance Killian doubted would make any difference. But then again, he knew so little about cars and maybe it would give a person some peace of mind knowing the oils and cogs and other greasy parts were in working order. He'd laughed at how her mood hadn't worsened even as they left the garage on foot rather than in the car.
"A quick stop means an earlier lunch! Let's go!" She'd yanked on his arm and half-skipped out of the place.
"Hungry, are we?"
"Would you hurry up? If we hurry, we can still grab some brunch."
"Some what?"
He hadn't known what he'd said, but it amused her enough to block his way with her body and kiss him.
"In that case, we are blowing off brunch and having full-out lunch at ten thirty." Suddenly rolling her eyes at herself, she'd added with some sarcasm, "Good thing we don't mind walking on the wild side."
"It'll have to wait. You're aware we have two new friends in town. They're up to something. If we hurry, we can pick up the trail."
The urgency in David's voice sends a jolt up his spine. What could Ursula have gotten herself into in a day? She, like him, must have given up on herself, on a happy ending.
"Looks like duty calls," Swan sighs. She pecks his cheek before running off with her father into one of the sheriff cars.
Well then, he will just...not stand here since that would be idle and an utter waste of time. Shuffling, he heads into the diner anyway, everyone bustling about with drinks and food trays. Granny purses her lips behind the counter while slicing up tomatoes on the cutting board. She knows how to work at a speedy pace, and yet the turmoil all around her doesn't seem to reach her. Sidling in between the stools, he leans over the counter until his elbows bear his weight.
"We're taking applications, just so you know," she grunts at him.
"I'll bear that in mind...provided you sum up why Ursula and her rather frightening companion were in here just now," he says, resting his chin on his knuckles. The grimace on Granny's face could be viewed from miles away.
"'Frightening companion?' That's being kind. I would have said overblown skunk," she snorts. "And I thought Ruby wore too much makeup."
"Yes, but what were they doing here?"
"Trying to order drinks..." He loses the rest of what she's saying to someone spilling dishes in the back, a few obnoxious patrons applauding the accident from their booths and tables.
"What was that?" he asks over the noise.
"I said Mary Margaret and David were watching them like hawks, and, let me tell you, when the Evil Queen's giving someone the side eye she gave them, they're trouble. They just couldn't wait to talk smack with Henry right there. Regina didn't take too kindly to that." Shaking her head, she resumes her slicing, pausing to wipe up some droplets next to her. That doesn't reveal much, he thinks, peering out into the diner, as if he can imagine them there. What had David meant by them being up to something? If it were that looming a threat to the town, he would have wanted him along as well, wouldn't he? And yet he had only addressed Emma, which, now that he thinks about it as he cocks his head, might be for the best. She is the sheriff after all, and when she finds out what they are up to, and she will find out, then he can assist.
"What's the matter, Hook?" Granny grumbles at him, and yet her spectacles can't quite hide the twinkle in her eyes.
"Can you make up one of those 'to-go' bags for me?" he asks.
Inquiring whether she bakes or fries the onion rings had not gone over well with Granny, but it was worth it, he thinks, hearing frustrated pounding on computer letters before he even steps into the station. Swan will have her lunch, they will learn what Ursula and the other one want, and can go from there.
She breathes a sigh when he enters and he can't control the grin breaking out on his face as he presents the bagged trappings.
"Grilled cheese, just the way you like it." Granny hadn't quite enjoyed his questions about how long she lets the bread burn, either.
"Fries?" Swan thrusts her chin up to the ceiling, flicking his vest as she does so. How easily his hand reaches around to her shoulder just because it's been a little while since he's touched her...and how easily he knows when she's being coy.
"Onion rings."
"Good. I was just testing you."
So, not some earth-shattering revelation in regards to their new, or, in his case, old friends. Good. Swan continuing to smile up at him renders speech an impossibility for the moment, his concentration more on if he can hunch over enough to kiss her without taking his hand off her shoulder. The corner of his eye, however, fixates on blue bars increasing in number with a new word, "downloading."
"What's this?" he asks. Right away, she snaps back to her desk, immersed in her task.
"ATM security footage. We're trying to figure out if Ursula and Cruella stole something from Gold's shop."
"Hmm." Perhaps they're in search of her voice, he muses. Well, she'll have to take that up with Blackbeard now, won't she? And if the self-important codpiece ends up belly-up in the ocean as a result, so much the better.
"Oh! By the way, I never got the chance to ask you how exactly you knew Ursula," she says, looking up at him again, and, damn it, reading. He hasn't seen that look for so long, he tenses at the sight of it.
"I already told you, love. She's just one of the many sea monsters who crossed my path in my pirating days," he says. Truth. That should settle things, shouldn't it? It's something that can be inferred from "pirating days," can't it? That the relationship either began horribly or ended horribly?
"What exactly does that mean?" A tight laugh escapes as her eyes contine to read his face, a simultaneous message that she doesn't want to find this taciturn answer irritating...but that she finds it just that. I met her, befriended her, and ruined her life, he thinks, setting his jaw and taking his hand off her shoulder. Captain Hook's modus operandi.
"Honestly, I don't recall."
"Nuh uh."
Bloody hell—using her superpower. On him. After all the times she's been hesitant about bringing up any minuscule details about her own past...he fights an urge to just march out the door. He doesn't need to divulge the dark bits and pieces that made up most of his life on her schedule, and lying to her's not an option... Oh, fuck. He just did lie to her, Emma. Stop talking. Just stop talking.
"Swan, that's all there is to know."
"You're holding something back!" she challenges him, with that damned dead smile of hers, the one she plasters on her face when she doesn't want the rest of the world to know what's on her mind, and to hell with those unsure thoughts centering around him. Well, he has one of his own, and she'll drop it when she sees it. Gods, the door looks so far away.
"I don't know what else to say," he says, shaking his head.
For a moment, her face freezes, not reading him, but deciding, and it sobers him quicker than a splash of the iciest water. He's lied to her, evaded her—choosing the fucking door over her. Her leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms hits like a fatal blow.
"Neither do I."
He should apologize, the words on the tip of his tongue, but apologizing would mean atoning, giving her a first-hand account of how low, how, how selfish a creature he is, and his head shakes at the mere thought of it. It's his fault Ursula's here, the realization dawning on him so intensely he takes an awkward step backwards. But he won't attempt to deceive her again...precious good it did the first time.
"Well, I should get back to it," she finally says, her words uneven, something fragile about them.
"Enjoy your witch hunt," blurts out of his mouth on the way out the door, mingled in with curses directed at himself. Idiot, fool, bloody twit. Maybe this is what he's feared these last few weeks—that it, that they can't last. Defeating worlds and curses and time didn't amount to a thing, it seems, not as long as he himself is part of the equation.
Laying eyes on the squid ink should be like catching the head of a shooting star just as one's eyes adjust to the night. A weight should evaporate off his shoulders, but it doesn't. It doesn't matter, he tells himself. He still needs to find the wretched crocodile and creep up close enough to use it on him. Then, then when he's paralyzed, barely able to even widen his eyes in horror, the dreamshade. From the tip of his hook into the monster's rotten heart. Aye, that must be when the sweetness will overwhelm him, when the fog over his life will lift.
"I've waited a century for this," he says to it before glancing up at her. "I couldn't have done this without your help, Ursula."
He admires the pluck of this mermaid, allowing herself to smile the smile of satisfaction. Bae used to smile like that, when he'd finally built up enough strength to man the helm on his own. When he'd mastered every knot in the book. Now she could be free, and that thought swells his chest at the same time pangs his heart. Maybe a hundred years ago, he would have taken it as a sign, that not even Milah's death could curb this often-dormant-but-ever-present desire for children. Now, he'd have to diminish it to distant pride.
"So, tell me, where do you want to go first?"
"You're not taking her anywhere," a voice booms from the prow of the ship. Swords unsheathe around him, glinting like starlight as Poseidon inches his way forth.
"Stand down, men! This is between me and the sea king," he orders with his arm up. The trident proves a much more intimidating staff than any royal's sceptor, matching only Poseidon's red-rimmed eyes.
"No! It's about me!" Ursula argues, cocking her head at her father. "Hook told me what you asked him to do. You were trying to take away the only thing I have left of Mother."
"So I wouldn't lose you the way I lost her!" he cries. Admirable lass that she is, Ursula averts her eyes at his pleas. The action forces the sea king to glare back at him, and with one look into those eyes brimming with hate, Killian can imagine the water filling his lungs, a strong magical hand holding him under.
"You may have fooled my daughter, but I know exactly what you are. You only care about one thing—your vengeance." The trident glows, flaming streams snaking to the ink until they engulf it. Instantly, Ursula's hand is empty. And he's back to the beginning. Empty.
"You've no idea what you've just done," he growls at him, reaching for his sword. His hand almost recoils and smacks his chin as he pulls. Stuck, his sword doesn't budge no matter how hard he tugs, no matter how hard he twists.
"You dare attack a deity?" The thunderous, over-protective father voice gives way to something colder, more calculated. A quick panning of the deck shows him his crew can't draw their weapons either. Coward, he thinks with gritted teeth. And he's so tired of self-righteous cowards... The iciness in Poseidon now chills his own heart. Letting go of his sword's grip, his fingertips find something smoother, something much more effective.
"I don't have to kill you to make you suffer. I know I'm not the only one consmed by vengeance." He turns the shell in his palm and opens his hand, watching green wisps fan out and hook a ball of light right out of Ursula's throat.
For a moment, the lass just stands there, clutching her throat and flexing her mouth every which way. He's close enough to see the muscles in her throat contract...and yet no sound. She couldn't look more struck if she'd just stepped onto the ship in the heat of battle, with limbs lying in pools of blood.
"Now you'll never sink another ship with this," he says. That can save him. It was an action taken for the greater good. She might have lost something precious, but everyone has at one time or another, and, in her case, it had been used as a means to an end.
"How could you? You said you had a code! You said you'd never steal my voice?" she cries, her hands still around her throat. Bad form. Bad form, Killian—bad form trusting some wench to help achieve your revenge.
"That was before your father destroyed my one chance at revenge," he argues.
"My father is a tyrant, but you're no better! Keep it. If this is what humans are like, no one deserves to hear it!"
He knows she's plunged into the murky darkness before he even hears the splash. It must be this. It must always be this. She at least has her father to go back to when she's tired of the hopelessness. No such hope exists for him, revenge the only reason to survive.
He's lost her. No, no, he hasn't, but he doesn't know his inner voice well enough now to determine if he should trust it or not. He's paced up and down the harbor all afternoon, running his fingers through his hair, scratching the bone behind his ear, and, well, has he lost her? She loves him, and that still sends his head reeling itself into a haze, but he hasn't protected that love. No, it's all well and good for him to be there for every painfully intimate disaster she's had to endure, but when she wants to know one item about him—he'd have given anything for her to want to know him not so long ago, and he just threw it away.
We need to talk.
That's all her most recent message is. Four words. Emma Swan doesn't grant false hope to those unworthy of it, which could be an explanation for the laconic nature of the message, but Emma Swan also lacks a way with words, preferring action. Swallowing, he turns and starts back for the sheriff's station, for once not knowing what to expect.
If he didn't know any better, he'd call the way she stands over by the windows absorbed in a file staged. However, he hasn't even the foggiest notion of what she's been up to since earlier that afternoon, and he recognizes buysing one's self when he sees it. She's trying to stave off the anticipation of something...him, most likely, confronting him.
"Well, Swan, why did you summon me?" he breaks her out of her distractedness. Flustered, she spins around to return the file and faces him. She's never wittingly tortured him and this is no exception. It can be, well, it won't be painless, but it will be mercifully quick.
"Because I know there's something about your past with Ursula you're not telling me."
Not that an apology will make any difference, but he wishes for enough courage to open his mouth and let the words slip out.
"And that's okay," she adds, pausing, her face almost as stunned as his own. "What's not okay is you lying to me about it."
"Aye, love. You're right. I haven't been entirely forthright with you." He dares moving in just a little closer. Whether it earns him a slap in the face, he isn't sure, Swan a touch too unpredictable at the moment. But she deserves the truth...deserves so much more than he apparently can give her. "Truth is, I remember my history with Ursula. It was ugly."
"Did you break her heart?" she asks, stone-faced, before he can run his tongue over his bottom lip and decide how far into the story he'll dive. Broke her heart? He wishes. Ursula could have found him revolting, a cad, and been on her way. The broken heart of an adolescent girl is only a fatal situation to her. What he did was, was...
"Worse."
For two unending seconds, her eyes widen, and he knows she's wondering which of the unsavory scenarios running through her mind actually happened. It's far from the terror on her face back whenever he first started paying her any kind of heed, but it chills him.
"Look," she murmurs. "Whatever you did, you're not that person anymore. It's not going to change anything between us."
If not for her stance opening, the faintest glimmer of a smile gracing her face, he'd swear a trick of the wind had found its way through the bricks and stone. He's underestimated her if she's sincere in her words, to be sure...but she's always sincere and he's...he can barely shake his head or blink his eyes.
"That's quite a lot of faith you're putting on me, Swan," he at last says.
"I know. And there's a reason for it." With a pouted smile, she grabs hold of his hand and leads him over to the sofa, as cool and smooth as butter. He understands more than ever why words of praise had frightened her so in the past, for he's not sure he can hear any more affirmations than that. Faith in him. No one had faith in him for years; did he even know anymore how to earn it? But, but, his brain stutters as his body settles into the sofa, good. Come back to me. I can't lose you, too.
"What's that?" he asks, a notch above a whisper.
"My parents." Well, let it be said now he hopes Emma Swan never stops surprising him... "I had this moment today where I doubted them. They said they were going for a hike, and I actually thought they were lying to me."
"Were they?"
"No, no, of course not." She winces as if merely listening to the possibility equates to listening to nails on a chalkboard, never letting go of his hand. "My parents would never lie to me. But the fact that I could think they would, it reminded me that I have this tendency to...expect the worst of people. In my childhood, people were always letting me down, and I-"
"Hey," he interrupts. Never. If he's forgiven, he can prove himself this time, and when he tells himself he would do anything for her, he will. "I don't intend to let you down."
Her eyes rake over his face, not reading, just looking, just wanting to look. They fixate on his eyes with a strength that pulls out her barely audible words. Her fingers squeeze around his hand. "I know. And I know whatever happened with that sea witch, you can tell me on your own time. Because no matter what, I'm going to do what my parents always do." What did he ever do to garner this kind of luck that the finest human being he's ever known could choose him, choose them? "I'm going to choose to see the best in you."
I love you, too, Swan.
"And I with you," he says, smiling. She returns it before she leans forward, and he's all too happy to accept her kiss, bestow an adoring one on her. Deserve her, he may not, but he sure as hell will do everything to keep her. His eyes closed, a faint rustling noise and the rather noticeable absence of her lips on his prompts him to open them to Snow's squirrely dawdling against David, who looks humiliated just to be here.
"Sorry. We just didn't want to interrupt," Snow breathes.
"So you awkwardly stood there and watched? Next time interrupt," she chuckles, masking her embarrassment and irritation with a chuckle. She may stand up to greet them, but he'll take his sweet time, beginning to wonder if even if Swan does secure her own living quarters if they'll just snoop around long enough to find a spare key and invite themselves in.
"I'm afraid we have some bad news," David says, bracing himself as he faces her. "It turns out Cruella and Ursula were up to something."
"They resurreted Maleficent," Snow finishes for him.
"The dragon that I slayed under the clocktower?"
The dragon she'd killed had been Maleficent? No, the flying hands and horns he'd been pitted against down there—that elongated, wailing mouth now sure to be at the forefront of his nightmares stirs memories of fearing his mending ribs would slice right through his torso as the monster tossed him from wall to wall—Maleficent's wrath transcends death.
"Dragon? I thought she was some sort of mummified beast." But then he shrugs. Precious little it matters now if she's up and about and cavorting with some newly forged sorority of evil.
"Well, whatever she was, she's back to her old self now," David says.
"And as long as she's in town, no one is safe."
"I don't get it," Swan says, crossing her arms. "Why are these witches waging war against us?"
"Because they're villains, and we're heroes," Snow sighs.
He must be truly forgiven, he muses, grinning as she slips her arm through his and nuzzles his shoulder. A contented sigh escapes her, and with the streetlights illuminating the lingering raindrops so it appears rows of gemstones guide their path, a warm shiver courses through him.
"So, 'mummified beast.' There's a story there, I'm guessing?" she breathes into his air, then nestles back into his shoulder.
"Aye." He attempts to shrug without her interpreting it as a sign to take her arms back. "Tangling with that wretched fiend enabled Regina to retrieve the self-destruct jewel that would have wiped out this entire town."
"Aw, the two of you working together," she sings sarcastically, giggling as much as Swan can as her eyes veer toward the lighted windows of the shops next to them, something careless and damn near irresistible in her eyes. He rolls his own, smirking.
"Hardly. I was nothing more than bait."
"So how did you get out of there?" she asks, glancing back at him.
"Greg and Tamara, for all their faults, at least knew how to make timely entrances," he says, watching her hand pat his heart and swerve a few inches lower to his rib cage. "I should thank my lucky stars, then, that she wasn't a dragon by the time I encountered her?"
"Oh, well, yeah. I mean, dragons. They have to be right up there with ogres in the Enchanted Forest, right?" She shudders and goes stoic for a few steps, paying the shops' displays no mind. She's revisiting something in her mind, and while he's certain she'd like to contend with a dragon again about as much as he'd like Maleficent's banshee-like form lunging for him a second time, he decides not to distance her from the memory.
"Any other place in the world, and they'd have thought I was tripping balls, talking about dragons with magic eggs in them and poisoned apple turnovers and...it's all par for the course now." At once, she looks drained and flushed with excitement at the same time. Ahead, he spies a bold-as-lightning blue sign of a bamboo stalk with clipped, curving letters scratching "Thai Palace" on it, where she had suggested they go for dinner, just the two of them. Judging by the, well, exotic air the place is trying a little too hard to attain, it may provide enough distraction to forget about Maleficent for the night.
A/N: I am a little behind in my writing schedule, so while I have no official plans to put the story on hiatus, the next update may be a few days longer than the usual six or seven it usually takes. Thanks for your patience, looking forward to the finale, and please take the time to leave a review. Coming up? Oh, the magic of copy machines...
