It feels different walking the streets of Storybrooke at night knowing the crocodile lurks close by. Killian can't quite call it fear, escorting Ursula and her father back to the harbor, the two of them arm in arm and speaking in hushed tones to each other. He supposes it's like the grazing animals he's seen on his room's television late at night, with the narrator informing the audience the beasts remain oblivious to the predators stalking them. He's no expert, but they can't be oblivious. Animals know when their enemies are near and have to carry on anyway, maybe even preferring a straight fight to all the sneaking around in the shadows. Oh, the coward won't show his face now. He won't do that until he has everything arranged exactly how he wants it.
"I suppose this is farewell," he says, suddenly eager for them to leave. Enviable, that they can return to a realm that holds no interest for the Dark One.
"It is, but first I have to hold up my end of the deal," Ursula says. Well, at least he doesn't have to risk being the rude one and bringing it up. He does watch Poseidon slink away out of earshot, however, probably as much as to avoid hearing his daughter's villainy as to give them some privacy.
"Gold's plan—I'm afraid it involves Emma."
He wants to feel surprised, horrified. But it wouldn't be the first time the bloody scourge had tried to diminish her into a tool for his sole use.
"She's the only way he can secure happy endings for the villains," she continues.
"Well, I thought he was going to get the Author to rewrite everyone's stories." That's what Regina had said, what would make the most sense. Why use Emma when, he's guessing, the Author could just write out a new story? Emma had promised Regina to help her find happiness months ago despite her best efforts, and as patient as Rumpelstiltskin is, he wouldn't trade the speediness of a pen for less magical methods.
"It's not that simple. The Author can't just change things in this world because he didn't give everyone their happy endings here," she elaborates.
"Emma did." He closes his eyes. So she's not the crux of his plan so much as the obstacle. He'll try something, the hat, perhaps, to keep her out of the way.
"She's the Savior, and as long as there's a Savior, the Author can't give the villains what they really want. And the Dark One knows this."
"The Dark One's going to try to kill Emma."
"Worse." Worse? What could be worse than attempting to kill her? She's the Savior, the product of True Love...maybe even a dozen other titles she's not even aware of, but magic isn't yet second nature to her. Nor is she immune to the damage it can do. If the Dark One has already hatched a plan to do something to her...
"He plans to fill her heart with darkness. Forever," Ursula whispers, shaking her head. For a moment, they both just stand there.
"He used the Chernabog to make sure she was the one standing in his way...and he told us we all had the potential to corrupt her in our own way. You know what all that could mean as well as I do. The Savior...the Savior throws a big magical wrench into any grandscale plans. Her very presence in Storybrooke restarted time, even before she broke the curse. As long as she's here doing what she always does, protecting the town, working on making people's lives better, she, well, hinders progress. Once she goes dark, though, the Author will have everything needed to do whatever we, whatever Gold, wants."
"The Author. Does he know who it is? Did he say anything about how to find him?"
"August mentioned a door," she says, eyes flickering. "We—we tortured him, and he gave us the description of a door. Behind it, the Author is trapped, put there under the Sorcerer's orders. I don't know why, and the puppet said he didn't know anymore, which..." she trails off and snorts, placing a hand on her hip. "They always know more."
"What, what do you mean by the Author having everything he needs?" he asks. Evil lightning bolts shooting out of her hands instead of her white light? It can't be as harmless as the Savior's seal of approval, and there is no reason to assume Rumpelstiltskin cares about anyone's physical state anymore, not when the Chernabog had come so close to simply killing her.
"That's all I know," she says, casting her eyes down. "I was his pawn once, and I walked right into letting myself be one again. I'm sorry."
He won't take an apology from her, not when he'd been the one to wrong her in the first place.
"Thank you, Ursula. We already stand a much better chance by knowing what's going on." It's as calm as he can force himself to be, shaking hands with her and her father as he returns, a twirl of the trident sending golden light spinning around their legs. They hurl themselves off the pier and into the sea, the greenish silhouettes of fins barely visible under the starlight. In a matter of seconds, they're gone, to a place free of the Dark One's presence and interest.
She has to know right away. He won't waste precious time the way he did when Zelena had cursed him. The Author will have everything only after her heart is darkened, he repeats in his head on the familiar walk to the apartment. Then these witches are nothing more than a means to an end, in typical crocodile fashion. Corrupt Emma, somehow, and then that supplies the Author with what? Motive? If the Author has already written out their lives as they are now, why should he be inclined to change them just because Rumpelstiltskin desires it? He'd be nothing more than a character, an ant asking a boot to walk around rather than stomp. But with a Dark One and a Savior against him, the Author could feel in danger.
Does it matter now anyway, he asks himself as he opens the door, bounding up the stairs, balling his hand into a fist. All that matters now is letting her know what Gold has planned, so she can be on her guard, so she won't fall for any of his tricks. Biting down on a yawn, he pounds on the door.
"Is Emma here?" he asks David. Gestured in, he surveys the apartment and finds Snow and the baby are the only other occupants, the former leaning over the counter with a tea bag hanging out of a cup.
"No, she's not. August took a turn for the worst. She took Henry and Regina with her to see if Mother Superior could help him. It..." he trails off, shaking his head. "It might not have gone so well. We haven't heard from her and they've been there all night."
Of course. Of course when he has information of the utmost importance to pass on, this August requires more of her attention, perhaps lying on his deathbed, perhaps coming clean that he's never had the chance to tell her he's secretly loved her after all this time...
That's how they'll do it, he realizes, his eyes going wide. Broken hearts don't see the light anymore, only the dark. Avenging—such a dubious notion in the first place; he should know. But he's sure it's what the crocodile has planned. They'll take her friends from her, threaten her parents, Henry...Ursula had nearly killed him mere hours ago. He remembers too well what it's like to be alone, with the only image to keep him going the one of his enemy drowning in his own blood.
"You're welcome to stay here until they get back, Killian," Snow offers, weaving around the counter to go to the table, a second cup in her hand. She sets it across from her, indicating he can have at it if he wishes.
"How did things go with Ursula?" David asks with his hands on his hips, a little too abruptly in his face. "What—what all did she tell you?" He glances back at Snow to make sure her attention is on them.
"I'd rather wait for Emma; it isn't good news, in case you were wondering."
"Did she offer to help?" Snow wonders.
"No, milady. I'm afraid we're on our own."
He awakens on the sofa to the whistling sound of a tea kettle and shoes tiptoing in an effort to be quiet. For him. Lifting only his shoulder blade, he flops his arm over to the table where he's laid his phone. Three new messages.
How are you doing? Terrible, love.
August has passed out. On my way to the convent.
The Author is behind the door in the book. Don't do anything until I get back. His breath hitches at the rest of the message. Your happy ending's not going anywhere.
"What's the meaning of this 'in the door' message?" he asks, sitting up. Snow pauses from stirring what smells like some kind of porridge, and David reaches back for his phone, having to rest the baby on his other arm. As he squints into his phone, Snow stifles a small laugh.
"What?"
"Nice bedhead. You look like a little boy," she giggles with her hand over her mouth.
"That's not the usual commentary I get after being seen in this state," he retorts with a suggestive eyebrow lift as he smooths it back down. It flusters her enough to cross back to the table to read over David's shoulder. He knows how Emma speaks and her messages are no different. Frank, to the point, nothing until she's sure what she's saying is true, so he doesn't take it to mean the Author's just suddenly strolled into the convent and is catching up with the fairies as if they were all old friends.
"Does that mean he's in the book?" David wonders.
"Henry and I studied that entire book. Every picture matches exactly what's going on in the story. No one's unaccounted for," he answers. They'd examined every inch of those illustrations, looking for any line or brush stroke that could be out of place. To overlook a person...
"Well, she says 'behind the door.'" Snow points to the spot on David's phone. "It sounds like she means literally." Looking over at him, she almost gasps. "Was that what you found out?"
He shakes his head, ignoring David rolling his eyes at him and sweeping over to the closet to pull her coat out for her, sensing a need for action, most likely. Hearty prince.
"Hey," comes a calmer voice. Swan lets herself in and slips her gloves off onto the table, Henry right behind her.
"Killian, what's wrong?"
She's already bracing herself for the worst. If they know, they can stay one step ahead, he reminds himself, inhaling.
"Before Ursula left, she told me what the villains have planned. To get their happy endings, they intend to darken your heart, love, to turn you into a villain so you'll no longer be the Savior." There's not much of a reaction, he notices, staring into her face. Shock, a given, but not much other than that, not the look of terror on her mother's face or the incensed one on Henry's.
"What? You can't just un-Savior the Savior!" he argues.
"Ursula said Gold has a way," he says. "He can use the Author to do it."
"That's insane!" she snorts, almost smirking at the words. "If that's what their plan is, stop worrying. It's ridiculous. Author or no Author, I am not going dark."
People never think they will. People become so obsessed with what they want that they consider it justice, that getting it should follow every rule of logic there is, so blind to how accomplishing it will affect anyone else. Other people no longer matter. You'll hand over their hearts just for being across from you, backhand them into unconsciousness just for spilling out words unpleasant to hear...other people are distractions or, worse, collateral. He wouldn't wish that brokenness on anyone, especially not her. She'd start out so convinced she was helping, saving, and by the time she'd realize how far down she'd slid it would feel like a hopeless cause to try to climb back up.
"But darkness is a funny thing," he whispers. "It creeps up on you."
She walks right up to him and places her hand on his shoulder. It takes its time veering upward to let him know it will stroke his face soon enough.
"Hey, no one, not Rumpelstiltskin, or some Author, gets to decide who I am."
He believes her. Even if he hadn't, as soon as he feels her palm on his cheek he embraces her into a hold meant to convey all the regret on the tip of his tongue, that she will once again have to go up against a villain who would rather mold her into something that serves his purpose rather than hers. He'd thought the Snow Queen would be the end of that. She rubs his back, so he nestles into the crook of her neck and releases just the ghost of a kiss onto the skin just above her collar.
Movement catches his eye, instinct jolting her out of his arms and alerting him to a threat already near, but it's Snow, hustling out the door with her arms folded. Purposeful.
"She'll be fine," David assures them, racing after her. His hand still grips her forearm as they watch them leave.
"Okay," she sighs. "Not enough time to let us in on it." She turns back to him and interlocks their fingers. "Ursula letting you know is a good sign, okay? It means these witches don't really have any loyalty to Gold. They just want to get what they want, and if Regina starts planting some seeds of doubt, like telling them this isn't going fast enough or all the times Gold said he was helping her when really he just screwed her over, they could turn on him."
"I'm not sure unpredictability is something that will work out in our favor," he counters, but musters a smile.
"Mom," Henry calls to her from the table. "If the Author's in the book, maybe the key is, too. We need to look for it."
"Wait. Wait!" She nabs him by the back of his coat before he bounds up the stairs. "We have to get that out of here! This will be the first place they come looking for it once they figure out the decoy. We should get it to the convent. They don't know where August is hiding and he'll still be a resource when he wakes up." Nodding to herself, she spins around for her gloves.
"Mom, no one's going to come here right now. Mom would have just gotten to the cabin to show them the page. Wherever Grandma and Grandpa have gone, they look like they've got something going on...do we have to leave just yet? I'm hungry."
"And dirty," she sighs with a short laugh, tousling his hair. "Wash first. Then grab something we can take on the way."
She takes a seat on the sofa by the window where he'd spent the night and taps the cushion next to her without looking up from her phone. She's beckoning him to come sit with her, but her full attention is on the upcoming conversation.
"Hi. Could I speak to the B—Mother Superior, please?" she says into the phone. "Hi, this is Emma Swan. I wanted to check up on August. Still? No, no, I can't now, but I'm hoping I can swing by there later today, whether he's awake or not."
He tunes her out by honing in on the water in the powder room upstairs shutting off and footsteps walking across the loft.
"Okay. Yeah. Thanks. Bye." She ends her conversation and hunches forward, just staring at her phone. Weeks of relative calm, of sharing details of each other's lives—some of which he knows no one else in the world is privy to—and yet never any indication this man or boy made of wood had meant anything to her?
"How was he?" he asks, and her looking back at him suddenly leaves the name August with such a revolting taste in his mouth he can't utter it. "The wooden man-child. How was he?"
"Not great," she says with eyes that fit the very definition of gloomy.
"You care for him."
"Yeah."
"Hmm."
"Oh, Killian." Leaning back in the sofa, she cocks her head and gives him the same look she often gives Henry...or her brother. Gods, she thinks this is cute. "Now's not the time to be jealous."
Ha! How, how wrong she is. Jealous. If he were jealous, he'd be worried. He wouldn't trust her. It's the puppet he distrusts, maybe all too willing to point out how being with a centuries' old pirate from another realm and of questionable repute makes precious little sense. Then again, being with a wooden puppet wouldn't make much sense, either...he's definitely not worried. He just...wonders.
"Why would I be jealous? Though I do know you're partial to men in leather jackets..." Her hand drapes over his shoulder as she plays with the creases in his jacket. He wants to make a fist...to not make a fist and act jealous in any way...the fist is bloody well happening anyway.
"He's just a friend," she says, giving him that lovely smile. One she doesn't give just anyone.
"Yeah, of course."
"See...well, you remember that video I showed you from the foster home?" she asks. The Snow Queen's face on it he would prefer to forget, but the laughing, happy lass just enjoying herself is seared into his fantasies now, ones of them taking their little girl out to the beach, for a walk in the woods, up the rigging of the Jolly Roger.
"With your friend when you were a girl?"
"Lily. Her name was Lily. She was my first and best friend, and I pushed her away forever." The latter part of the story he knows, Swan telling in her detached way about the girl who had lied to her about being alone...the secret being that she wouldn't have decided to tell him about it if it hadn't meant anything. But that she had loved the girl, that was new. "And after that, I just...wasn't great at making friends. August was the rare exception. That's why this is so important to me. There's nothing else going on, really." Her hand lowers a little to squeeze his arm. That's all he needs, after all, her word. She should have more friends than what she has, and it's rather nice that at least one of them isn't an inherited friend from her parents. Slowly, he returns her smile and shifts, waiting for Henry to hurry up so they can go back out...to where there is purple smoke in the air.
"What?"
"Emma, look." It's more a mist, thin streaks of light that one might miss if looking from the wrong angle, and he feels drained just seeing them. They dance over the rooftops, appearing slower the closer they come, so it comes as something of a shock when they spring right into his face.
Or at least it would have had he not blacked out.
He's in Neverland. Again. Bloody hell. Encased in perpetual twilight, the soft purple light still clings to all the foliage, hoping to keep the island from sinking into complete blackness. And yet, his shirt still sticks to him, sweat already dripping down and stinging his eyes. Drawing his sword, he glances up at the first couple of stars peeking out, enough so he can direct himself to the coastline.
His footsteps don't crunch the leaves and twigs underneath his boots. Using his sword to sweep the low branches out of his way doesn't rustle anything.
"Hello?" he huffs to the vacant space in front of him just to make sure he can hear his own voice. THAT he manages to hear, along with the snapping of a stick to his right. Low. Blasted Lost Boys out playing tricks. It's how they play, pretending he's a hog or a leopard. It's not the oncoming ambush that bothers him; it's that they never know when to stop pretending. A few leaves rustle in an enormous bush. His face as dry as he can make it, flat and not at all interested in playing with their spears and clubs today, he bends down and pokes his hand through the leaves. A pair of long-lashed green eyes stare back at him.
"Swan?"
She emerges out from the brush and shakes a few leaves out of her hair, which is wilder and wavier than the last time they were here. She juts out a long naked leg, allowing him to see her in nothing but a short black shift with a black satin robe over it, so thin it might as well not exist.
"Why are you hiding from me?" he asks, cocking his head.
"Why shouldn't I?" she shoots back, edging closer to him, and it's not until his back hits a tree trunk that he sees just how predatory her gaze has become. Inches from his lips, her hand slides back to scratch along the nape of his neck. He swallows and wedges his leg out to gain some leverage, but she straddles it, positioning herself to make it all too clear she's not wearing anything under her shift. He grows dizzy at the idea of her climbing up onto him...but he's not one to deny her anything. He lowers his head, ready to catch her lips.
"No."
"No one likes a tease, love," he chokes out, his voice cracking near the end. She edges back so only her hands rest on him, pressing. Digging. So close to clawing.
"Exactly. So when does all this hero role-playing stop?"
He's not sure he's heard her correctly, and the way Neverland obscures most of the light gives him cause to doubt the smirk she's giving him. So much heat radiates out of her hands onto his chest he gasps for air, wondering if they'll fuse together.
"Emma, we have to get out of here-"
"No. No, we don't. This is a land more suited for us. We don't have to be heroes here. We can just be. Never to feel our bones ache, never having to be burdened with being the Savior, never having to bleed...unless we want to." She smiles almost giddily at the prospect and sinks onto him once again. This time he can feel it, her magic, pulsating, thrumming its way into him so he has to strain to understand her words.
"Come on, Hook. You changed for me once," she purrs into his throat, giggling when his body shivers violently in response.
"I didn't change for you. I changed because of you. I wanted to be good," he says in a voice he knows grows weaker by the second. She raises a skeptical eyebrow and clucks her tongue. It darts out of her mouth and lingers on her bottom lip. Whatever the island's done to her, it will consume them both if they stay. "We need to go, Emma. You have no idea how hard it is to show some bloody restraint right now."
"Funny how what heroes call restraint, villains call impotence." It would have been like being showered in ice water, except that she rolls her shoulders so the satin slips down her back and onto the ground. She angles her head to let her lips run along his neck, never puckering, never opening. Just a tight pressure on every pore they pass over.
"What have you really done as a hero, Hook? How did being good save your brother? How did being good save Milah?" She leaves her lips on his neck when one of her hands reaches down and cups the bulge she's stimulating in him before he can even react to the name. "It's ironic, isn't it, that as long as you were a villain, Neal was safe aboard your ship, but just when you tried being good, he was killed? And you think changing your clothes and showing your stupid restraint is going to protect me and my son?"
"Emma..."
Her face springs up so close to his that all he can see are green orbs, blackening with lust and something he'd rather not name. It's not reading, what she's searching for in his face. It's as though she's already done her reading and decided it was all in a foreign language.
"Should I take a chance and salvage what's left of you?" she whispers into him, her gaze lowering to his lips.
"Yes." He can't breathe. He can't even think. His blood's turned to quicksilver, a fever taking over him with so much violence he's not sure how he's still standing, how his arm hasn't yet curled around her waist and guided her down to the ground.
"Do I really have all your heart?" she whispers again.
"Yes!"
With a smile, she rips into his chest, the smell of burning flesh invading all his senses. He can hear it, his heart, beating and glowing in the palm of her hand. He feels the numbness begin to take over.
"Then you won't care what I do with it," she says. Without even an eye blink, she tightens her fingers around his heart, forcing his eyes to snap shut, for every single muscle in his body to seize. It hurts too much to scream is his last coherent thought, dust sifting through her fingers his last sight.
Something guttural, not a scream and not a grunt, pours out of him as his eyes jolt open. Shuddering, gooseflesh instantly prickles along his arms when he shifts. The apartment—he's in the apartment with Emma asleep on his chest, still, except for a sharp inhale. Sitting up, he looms over her and watches her eyes dart here and there behind closed lids, her jaw tightening, her mouth contorting like she wants to let out a shriek...
"Emma. Emma, wake up."
A shaky breath answers him. Stirring, he notices the side of her face that had been burrowed in him has reddened, strands of hair wet and sticking to her face. With tears in her eyes, she scans the apartment the same way he had.
"Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it?"
"No!" she pants with a sudden force, so alert that if he hadn't snapped out of...whatever that was, he would have now. Her hands pull her cheeks back as she stands up and starts for the stairs. "Henry?"
"He won't be there," he says, realizing it a split second after he says it.
"What? What the hell do you mean he won't be there?"
"You said he'd been under a sleeping curse, what led to you breaking the curse over the town. This was a sleeping spell...not as tortuous as its big brother, but rather, er, attention-grabbing in its own way." To say the least, he thinks, scratching behind his ear, still having to take in the apartment's surroundings to remind himself where he is.
"So, what, Maleficent cast a spell over everyone except Henry?" It would be hard for anyone to spot that wasn't searching her over, but in spite of her jacket and her concentration on her son, she's quivering, on the verge of her knees giving out.
"They say if you've been under the sleeping curse, you're at least spared from sleeping spells afterward. Henry probably fled the moment he realized what had happened." He takes a wobbly sidestep around the table to hold her arm and steady her. She holds his jacket in a death grip.
"So he and my parents have been on their own all day. What time is it? Oh shit," she breathes, answering her own question with a sudden, jerky look at the clock. "Regina's plan didn't work. They must have found out and now they're pissed! They're going to do everything they can to find that page!"
How—regardless of whether or not the spell had forced the dream on him—how could he have feared that this woman, the one about to submit to the throes of a panic attack, would choose darkness when it went against her very nature to give herself more than a moment's thought? She'd gone to hell and back so many times for this town, so full of people she didn't know, would never know. Whether it startles or not, he wraps his arms around her and nestles into the top of her head.
"Whatever you saw, it didn't really happen," he assures her...and himself. Best forget it all, he tells himself, hoping he can. "Do you want to talk about it?" he tries again.
"Not yet." Almost childlike in the firm way she shakes her head, she lets out a deep breath. It doesn't surprise him how his heart doesn't slow down until he hears that sound. It beats for her, will never be burned or crushed by her. She's stronger than that. Stronger than him.
A/N: Coming up? What in-laws don't have skeletons in their closet?
