A/N: This marks the first chapter that has been edited by my new beta, the meticulous and encouraging OnceSnow who has graciously offered her time to help this story be the best it can be. Thanks! Check out some of her favorite stories. She's got great taste.
I will be out of town Tuesday until next Sunday, so while I expect to have internet access, I may not be able to get back to anyone who reviews or leaves me a message in as timely a manner as I usually do. Thanks for your patience. Coming up? It's not a pleasant thing, being under a sleeping spell...
Ironically, it's hitting something soft that jolts him back into consciousness, his body still not quite used to cushioning. His bed, and not his bed at Granny's, but his bunk, Milah's pillows and the firm mattress reviving him. With a cough and a shiver, his brain realizes he's wet, that Ursula overpowered him, that—gods, the shell. Wait, he's here...blinking sea water out of his eyes, he can focus on Ariel standing over him. Marvelous. He should really stop being surprised altogether by now.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
"Aye," he answers, recoiling at the sheets scraping his side when he attempts to move. That had to have been where he hit the water.
"Good." And now it will match the slap across his face...same side the tentacle smacked, too.
"That's for tossing Blackbeard overboard before he could tell me where Eric was!" Ariel screeches at him. "I had to rescue that awful man to find him."
"Then why are you here? I thought you and your prince were living happily ever after." She's not come to kill him, not after finding her prince, but he can't quite quell the notion that, of all the ways to go, at Ariel's hand would be among the most humiliating. He's heard the little song this world gave her, Snow singing it once or twice to the baby, a dismissive, "It's a Little Mermaid song," all he apparently needed to know. Oh, gods, his lower back throbs, probably not meant to bend the way it did upon being hurled overboard. Or maybe Ursula had coiled him too tightly. Or maybe it had hit part of the ship on his way down.
"I was, until I got trapped in that bottle." He wipes his cheek with the back of his hand and looks up at her. "After you traded the Jolly Roger to Blackbeard, he used your ship to terrorize a lot of people, including some royals from Arendelle. The queen trapped your ship as punishment."
"Elsa did that?" Of course. Why not? That's the world's answer to any question: why not. He'd throw his hand up in the air and give up on surprise completely if he were any less exhausted.
"And I accidentally got swept up in the magic, so thanks for getting me out." Yes, yes, it's bloody awful to owe your life to a pirate, and he hadn't even known she'd been in there. What's wrong with you, he bellows at himself, savoring the headache it gives him. Pointing a pistol at someone and not even noticing another trapped?
"Was that the real Ursula?" Ariel asks him, a wary look coming over her. "Why was she throwing you overboard?"
"Because I was so focused on getting what I want, I made a promise to her I couldn't deliver." She tightens her lips in a frown at him, expecting such an answer. He'd wanted—he'd wanted to believe he wouldn't earn those looks anymore, that all the villainy could be cancelled out if he just stayed on his path from now on, if he always took care to remember how hard it had been to even come this far. "Maybe she was right. Maybe villains can't get their happy endings."
"Maybe that's because villains always go about getting them the wrong way," she counters. So matter-of-factly. That's what had turned the day into a free-for-all. He'd started out intent on finding someone their happy ending and he'd gone about it all wrong, no regard for Ursula at all. Just like in the past. Her singing voice had been what she wanted, not her happy ending. If anyone knew the two could differ, he did. He, he needs to go back and help her from the point when he'd first betrayed her, with her father. If only—he loves Storybrooke. The cars and phones of this world on one side and an actual portal-diving mermaid on the other, right in front of him.
"I'm going to need your help," he tells her. Balking, it's almost comical how her jaw drops.
"Why? Why would I ever, ever, in a thousand years, help you? I had come to you for help, if you remember."
"Because, Ariel, this isn't about me at all. It's about Ursula, and how she's here when she should be with her family, someone she loves. You understand that, the separation? How it eats away at you?" He's reached her, her head drooping down in consideration. "Now, surely her father's been searching for her all this time with nothing of her but the hole she's left in his heart, and now we know exactly where he can find her."
"Poseidon?" she scoffs. "You want me to go find Poseidon and convince him to come back with me on a whim? He's a deity! I'm, well, I'm kind of a rebel." He can't help but smile.
"He'll believe you." Staggering to his feet, he about rolls onto the floor on his way to the safe, where he'd placed the piece of the rigging that he'd saved. "Here. Take this with you and tell him it's part of my ship. Tell him I'm the one who knows where she is. That should get his attention."
"Sh—she does want to see her father?" she asks.
"Happy endings come from love, lass. No one can be happy until they get that." Until they get it and stand the chance to lose it, he thinks, swallowing.
The sun sits lower in the sky, the pinks and oranges reflecting off the water in such a way it takes a scrutinizing eye to tell where the sky ends and the sea begins. Pacing on the pier, he wonders how much time has gone by; he can't even estimate at this point. Fortunately, he knows Ariel wouldn't just agree to help him and then choose to forget about him and go about her way. Either everything in this new plan is going on schedule, or Poseidon has chosen not to come.
The notion forces his jaw to clench.
A stream of water shoots up into the air like a geyser with Poseidon emerging out of it, the seaweed adorning his shoulders changing so that once he steps onto the deck, he's wrapped in furs. Furs, armor, trident—too much dignity to slip on the deck. With squared shoulders, he approaches him, looking as though he could claim the land as his next kingdom without opposition.
"Hook. I wouldn't have cared to listen to anything you had to say, except that one of my subjects insisted I would find it interesting."
"We don't have much time. I know where your daughter is."
"Ursula?" Instantly, the facade gives way just enough for him to see the worried father behind the bravado. His eyebrows narrow, his lips curling back into a sneer. "Where is she? What have you done to her?"
"She suffocated whole whales just because they swam by her while she was in a foul mood and you wonder what I've done with her?" he scoffs. Love is blind, indeed. Gritting his teeth, he starts for town. "I know you don't care for humans, but no one wants to see their offspring murder in cold blood. You need to come with me before it's too late."
He runs backward for a distance, not turning around until he sees the sea king hustle after him.
"I can't have him leave with you," he hears Ursula explain with a deadly somberness when he reaches the door. "Not when the Author is the only one who can give me what I want."
"That's not true," he says. He takes his time entering, keeping the corner of his eye on the tentacle coiled around Snow's throat, tightening even as Ursula watches him. He tries to edge closer to Swan.
"How are you still breathing?" Ursula cries.
"I'm good at surviving...or you're bad at killing. Either way, you don't need the Author to get what you want. I know why you couldn't release your voice from that shell. Only the one who enchanted it can do that." He supposes he ought to at least gesture at the door, send her outside so she can release Swan's mother. He feels Swan clutch the sleeve of his jacket, and he'd like nothing more than to be able to pull her closer, but he won't make a sudden move now.
"Wait, you don't mean..."
"Aye." Her eyes dart from him to the door where Poseidon now stands, still astonishingly more stoic than he'd be in the given situation, but pride swells in the deity's chest.
"Father," she breathes.
"Ursula."
At once, the tentacle retracts and Snow almost spins down to the floor, David catching her before she can fall.
"How are you here? In this land?"
"A young mermaid found me and brought me through a portal. I need to say something." He pauses, at last saying out loud what he must have rehearsed in his head countless times over. "I'm sorry, Ursula. I never should have forced you to use your voice as a weapon. It was just—every time I heard you sing, I heard your mother, and it was too painful."
Ursula glances down at the shell in her hand, sniffling.
"I let that pain fuel my desire for vengeance, but it shouldn't have. It should have reminded me that I still had a piece of her. You." Every attempt at impassivity disappears in an instant, replaced with the most tentative smile. "Let me return your voice so I can hear it one last time."
Swan's hand braces his chest at the sound of the faint voice, growing stronger as Poseidon waves his hand over the shell. The green wisps fly out again, this time carrying the swelling melody right up to her throat, where at last the voice comes from Ursula herself, her eyes brimming with tears.
Her fingers stroke her throat in disbelief, and then joy.
"Now that you are whole again, I'll leave you in peace," Poseidon whispers to her.
"Wait." He watches him turn, hope attached to every movement. "My voice is all we have left of Mother. You took it from me once. I don't want to do the same thing to you."
"What are you saying?"
Ursula can't contain herself any longer, whimpering how much she's missed her father into his neck as she embraces him. It's what he should have encouraged her to do so many years ago, he thinks, try one more time to speak to her father and mend their relationship. Swan's hand slides around to rub his back. She's trying to make eye contact with him, but he can't just yet. He'd caused this father and daughter so many years of misery and couldn't even bring himself to admit it to her. If he doesn't watch, it would feel as though they hadn't reconciled at all. The way they hold one another, how they murmur things meant only for the other to hear—now it's real.
"Where's Cruella?" Snow asks suddenly.
"She must have slipped away, most likely to warn Gold," David guesses. "We should clear out before they get back."
The party fans out and Ursula clasps his hand on her way out the door as Swan checks up on the one stranger in the room, dark-haired and scruffy, obvious exhaustion the only sign the crocodile and the others had accosted him at all. August. A grown man again with another chance to live his life, while he nearly reverted back into the dark, empty world he'd plunged into before. Ursula had said he hadn't changed at all, the Dark One so sure of the same. He'd caught himself today, but...
"Hook." That name on Swan's lips draws his head back. "What's wrong? You gave Ursula everything she wanted."
"But I almost didn't, love." He doesn't mean to whisper it. "I was so desperate to figure out what the crocodile was up to, I almost became the man I used to be. You have no idea how easy it is to fall back into the darkness." He'll fall back into it the longer this goes on. He can't lose her; she can't lose him, and he promised her, promised, he'd survive, that letting her down was the last thing he wanted. So used to promising people whatever and then not being capable of seeing it through...
She comes closer to him, so close she obscures everything else, and interlocks her fingers in his.
"Whatever mistakes you made with Ursula, you fixed."
"Aye, but it's a stark reminder of something."
"What?"
It's nipped and clawed at the back of his mind ever since Regina had told them of her plan, and every failure—the old man, the fairies, the secrecy, clamped down on his brain even harder. The secrecy he can amend now, because he can't hold it in any longer, and she's standing so close to him, worrying. He trusts her, more than any other person, so she needs to know.
"With all this talk of Authors, and the book, we've never discussed one fact—I was a villain."
He's never seen her shake her head so gently, try so hard to soften her voice even more.
"But you're not anymore."
"Neither is Regina, but she still lost her happy ending," he argues. The Author, and there is no more pretending there is no Author anymore, must be unforgiving. Regina and the man she loves can never be together. He'd take separation from Rumpelstiltskin as cause to celebrate, but Belle was punished for giving him a chance, showing some compassion. Now her life consisted of her own husband inspiring nothing but fear and betrayal in her. Emma Swan is the Savior. If anyone would fit the Author's criteria of a hero, it would be her, and so she can't be with a villain. That's not the fate either one of them deserve, and that failure he knows he couldn't survive.
"If we're to believe the rules of the book, then it's only a matter of time before I lose mine," he continues, staring at her, her face fixed in deep concentration. He knows she's deep in thought, already trying to piece together what his happy ending is and how she should go about making sure he gets it, just like she does for everyone. That's his Swan, so busy working on everyone's behalf it doesn't hit her that she's enough for anyone. He'd smile at how her eyes suddenly jerk up to his in shock, but it just illustrates his point more. Someone so selfless can't be with someone who could turn self-serving in less than one second.
"Wait. If you're afraid of losing your happy ending, that means you found it." It's not terror, thank the gods, not like in Neverland where he terrified her the closer they became. One might still call it fear, but she's his open book, and it's nothing other than being completely overwhelmed. "What is it?"
He loves her, loves everything about her, even this selfless take on her very being. So logic dictates he will lose her.
"Don't you know, Emma? It's you," he whispers, feeling his voice quiver. Tears fall down her cheeks, so he doesn't expect a word; he can scarcely say more himself. The solace he feels as he drops his forehead onto hers, their noses brushing just before she captures his lips, showing him everything she can't put into words. She releases his hand so hers can reach up to cup his face, so he holds her waist. Each kiss is short, affirming, healing.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Ursula," his voice wobbles into her jaw. "I offered to help her. I never would have taken her voice. I promised I wouldn't..." he trails off as her hands clasp the back of his neck. "But her father dangled revenge in front of my face and then drew it back, and I, I wanted to hurt him. I hurt him the deepest way I could."
"Hey. Hey, you don't have to do this right now," she breathes into him, her tears streaking his face. "You don't have to tell me if you're not ready to."
But she's his happy ending, his love, the one thing he knows he can do right if given the chance, and he'll not squander it. Inhaling, he feels a tear force his eyelashes to clamp down.
"She was young. She trusted me, and I had wanted to help her. You heard it, her song. It—the night I heard it for the first time, it was like, like being touched for the first time in decades, like nature itself was embracing me and telling me it was going to be all right, that I could be happy again. Everything goes warm when a siren song hits your senses, and you smell the scents of honey, and cinnamon, and spring. I had just wanted to give her that same peace, and I ended up only thinking about myself."
He shakes his head against hers, realizing he's only half-aware of what's spilling out of him. Sensing her smile, he opens his eyes and looks down at her. Sure enough, Swan smiles at him, a closed-lip one too sweet to be a smirk, her eyes finally drying.
"I think everyone experiences that kind of thing a little differently," is all she says, pulling away just far enough for her to run her fingers through his hair.
"Why?" he can't help but ask. Even as his breath still shakes, he finds the mystery intriguing—what the song does to Emma Swan.
"Not yet." Kissing him one more time, she musters a smile and wipes his eyes before her own. "Your, um, business with Ursula's not finished, is it?"
"No. No, our deal was that she tell me more of Gold's plan."
"Okay." She takes a deep breath and pulls away so only their hands touch. "I need to call Henry and let him know we're bringing August back with us before we get in touch with his dad. Maybe you should walk our friends to the door. In the water. You know what I mean." She runs her fingers through his hair one more time, and this time he smiles back at her, feeling her hesitation at leaving.
"Killian?" He waits, watching her bite her bottom lip. Her eyes flash and then she looks down at the floor. "Be careful? And, come back when you've got the information?"
I love you too, Swan, he thinks, stroking her hairline as they step out of the cabin together.
