It is indeed a sad day when he and Swan can do nothing, only pace around in the apartment as they try to reach Henry, try to reach her parents, all the while night falling all too quickly.
"We should go by the Sorcerer's house. Henry would want to hide the book. He might have gone there to hide it in plain sight," he suggests, shuffling around the table, once more glancing down at his phone and knowing he's missed no calls.
"We could blow his cover that way," she argues, stopping mid-pace to rub a crease out of her forehead. "Besides, Regina would have been spared, too. The plan before was for her to lead them on a wild goose chase...hopefully that's still the plan."
"Gold's going to be all too aware of whom that spell affected and who it didn't," he says. Henry and the others are perhaps the ones in the most danger; another one of the crocodile's cruel jokes, that he and most of the town had been helpless, locked in nightmares, all day and yet hadn't been touched. They need to go downstairs and at least hop into the car. From that point on, he doesn't know, but surely some thought will hit one of them along the way.
Before he can even open his mouth, Snow and David enter, tight-lipped, eyes downcast.
"You're okay!" Swan gasps, running to them. She embraces them the same way she always does, but their arms just hang on her, limp. "Where's Henry?"
"He's okay. He and Neal are with Belle right now. We...we need to talk," David sighs, placing his hands on his hips. Snow twists to stroke his hand.
"Killian? Could you give us a minute?" she asks.
"No, no, maybe it would be better if he stayed," David says as soon as Killian takes a step toward the door, stopping only when Swan pulls his arm back. He can't fathom why they would send him away, having never done so in Neverland. Or with Zelena. Or with the Snow Queen. A family matter, that's for certain, but Henry's fine, as is the baby. If something had happened to Regina, there wouldn't have been cause to exclude him. He'd need to know, wouldn't he? Swan looks over at him, searching, and he can't give her anything that even resembles a knowing look. They follow her parents to the table and sit next to each other, David's interlocked fingers drumming on the table.
"Emma," Snow says, her back pressed against the chair. "Emma, these last few days—we've been on edge, and you noticed it. We've worried you and haven't..." She squeezes her eyes closed and shakes her head at herself. "We haven't been entirely honest with you."
"So something is going on. What? What's going on between you guys and these witches?"
Snow opens her mouth, but nothing comes out, just a quivering bottom lip.
"A long time ago, before you were born, they came to us with information, information about Regina planning to cast a curse," David takes over, holding Snow's hand. "They wanted to work together, and we were...suspicious, to say the least, but we went with them."
"Went with them where?" Swan asks.
"To a tree that could give us some answers to, well, as many questions as that kind of a thing could prompt. But it wouldn't tell us anything. It-it didn't answer anything for us, but we found out something very important that day anyway—we found out you were going to be part of our family."
Something in Swan changes, he notes, watching her from the corner of his eye. She doesn't sit any straighter, doesn't even lift an eyebrow, but something in her changes, like her insides flinched at the revelation. She waits for the moment in the story when everything will go horribly wrong...because they all already know it went horribly wrong anyway.
"Maleficent told us that, as a product of True Love, you could grow up to be a hero, and that is exactly what I see you as," Snow continues. "Emma, anyone who's endured everything you have should be a villain, but not you. You've stayed this wonderful, selfless person the entire time, and your father and I couldn't be more proud. But...according to her, the, the power of your magic could also set you up for failure."
"You could have ended up as heartless as them," David says quickly.
"Isn't that up to me?" Swan scoffs. She bristles at the silence. "Isn't it? Look, I've made my share of mistakes...you guys don't even know the half of it, but, I don't know...I think I've got a shred of integrity. Did you even consider where this is coming from? It's Maleficent and Gold that are saying I could be this dark villain, and that's probably because they don't even understand how someone could make the right choices."
"Emma," Snow murmurs after a beat. "It wasn't as up to you as you might think."
To hell with watching her from the corner of his eye. He shifts in his seat and doesn't take his eyes off her, as she does with her parents. They gulp, one after the other.
"A peddler directed us to a man, a wizard, who told us that what Maleficent told us was true, and, had we been wiser, we would have realized it holds true for any child, and what we feared...every parent fears. We had such high hopes for you the second we found out you would be born that...it was unthinkable to know you could be evil and not do anything about it. There was a spell that would transfer your darkness into another blank slate, someone who hadn't yet been, been..."
"Raised," Swan whispers. There isn't even her dead smile. There's only a numbness.
"Maleficent wanted to work with us because she wasn't only trying to protect herself," David chokes out, his voice cracking. "She was with child, too. She'd laid an egg in her dragon form and was waiting for it to hatch."
Gods. Killian doesn't feel like he's at the table. He feels shackled to the ceiling, watching himself listening to a horror story that just keeps going, compiling horror on top of everything else. They didn't. Snow White and Prince Charming, the love story that everyone envied, couldn't have...
"We took the egg from her, Emma. We took it...in spite of her begging, shouting after us as we went." Snow stifles a sniffle, her eyes welling with tears. The chair scrapes against the floor as she recoils from her own words. "We kidnapped a child from her, all the while telling ourselves we were doing what was best, that anything that came from her was bound to be lost anyway. We gave it to the wizard and he filled the baby with darkness and, and banished it to another world." Tears flow down her cheeks. Daring to look away from Emma for one second, he glances over at David, his own eyes shimmering as he evades Emma's eyes. Like she's the parent and he's the child.
"It was too late to do anything to fix it," he whispers.
"We're sorry, Emma. We're sorry we kept it a secret from you. We wanted Regina to follow them around and find out what they were up to, and now that we know, we have to fight for you all over again, so we don't lose you to darkness," Snow says.
For a long time, Emma doesn't speak, and he refuses to, hardly able to process everything he's just heard. A child, an innocent. The first impulse that hits him is one of absolute revulsion, of wanting nothing more than to pull Emma to the door and walk out to anywhere. Anywhere is bound to be cleaner. He fights off notions of them deserving to lose their children so many times, to curses and witches...that they dared have another child at all...and then the disgust evaporates into thin air, some physical weight lifted off his shoulders. He'd killed in the past. He'd tortured. He'd poured out his past to Emma less than twenty-four hours ago...and had almost gone villain again in order to protect her. He clears his face and stares up at them, Snow and David all over again. Just as he'd watched them fall in love and suddenly knew them, he suddenly knows them now.
"This whole time, I was right. You were lying." Her words sound so drained. "I wanted to believe you. I wanted to believe in you."
"We were just..." David closes his eyes, knowing it doesn't matter what he says now. "Trying to protect you."
"Emma, are you all right?" he finally asks, reaching over to her hand. It feels wrong to move, like they should have sat there and mourned a few moments longer.
"No." She jerks her hand away and nabs the page. "I'm not okay. I've got to go."
He can't imagine the betrayal she feels, so long since he's had parents at all, and how, how...they'd all found each other, tried to become a family...in spite of one villain after another interrupting that, and, just when she'd decided to open up to them, to stop being afraid of love, the trust was gone again. He can't get up, not yet. She has to go.
"Please stop!" Snow dashes after her. "I'm your mother!"
"I don't care," she says, and she might as well have ripped Snow's heart right out of her chest.
Snow sinks into the sofa by the window, bringing her legs up until she can wrap her arms around them and nestle her cheek on her knees. David takes her place at the door with his palm pressed into it, his head shaking to and fro, like he's arguing with himself about going after her or not.
"Now you know," he mutters, and Killian knows it's directed to him. His thumb rubs against the insides of his fingers as he searches for words.
"Know what? That you did a reprehensible thing a long time ago and have been ashamed of it ever since?" He ignores Snow's head shooting up. "Just when I thought I couldn't like you more."
"Another remark like that, pirate, and you can leave right now with a punch in the face!" he growls, prowling the chairs for a full thirty seconds before he collapses into the one he'd been in before. He exhales and rests his elbows on the table. "You're not going after her."
"She needs a little bit of time," he says, cringing at how helpless it sounds.
"I thought having you here w-would cushion the blow." So much disgust with himself, the prince.
"Look, I may not be a parent...or someone's child, for that matter, but if it's any consolation, I might have done the same thing," he tries.
"How can you still be here? How can you even look at us?" Snow asks from the sofa, her voice wobbly. He doesn't know. He just knows...oh. Bloody hell. He loves them. This night's proven he knew next to nothing about them after all they'd gone through together, and yet somewhere along the way his mind had shifted from referring to them as Snow White and the Prince to Swan's parents to Snow and David, just more steadfast tent poles holding him up.
Snow keeps speaking, mercifully, while the epiphany keeps him tongue-tied.
"We've gone through hell for her, several times over, to give her her best chance. That's all we ever wanted to do...it's one incident. One! I..." she trails off and shakes her head at herself. He swallows down the plethora of questions threatening to burst out of his mouth—if they're sorry...which it doesn't sound like they are: exactly how Ursula and Cruella fit into it, who was this wizard who agreed to perform such a repulsive ritual, if they believe Emma will ever be able to look them in the eye.
Snow's phone rings, breaking what would have been a heavy silence. He drifts toward the door, his mind already running through the various places Emma could have gone.
"Thank you," he hears Snow say over his shoulder. He turns back to catch her smiling the most self-loathing smile he's seen in a long time. "Well, that was Mother Superior. August is awake and is anxious to talk to Emma. And she's probably turned her phone off and she's not going to want to hear anything we have to say to her right now."
He and David lock eyes for a moment, the latter's still wet, still trying to stifle tears.
"Would you mind..."
"You go on and head up there," he says, nodding to them before stepping out the door.
He'd be grinning like an idiot under other circumstances—Swan somehow finding her way to the Jolly Roger. She sways in her seat on a bench, staring blankly into the page, and then the ship sways along the current, like they're talking to each other. Or not even talking...more like old friends soothing one another with each other's presence.
"Hey," he calls to her.
"I'm just going to need some time," she starts, with no irritation. All her ire is directed at her parents. Scratching behind his ear, he hesitates for just a moment, wondering if she's even ready for some good news. To hell with it.
"August is awake." She flicks her head up. "Your parents are with him."
"Is he..." She stands up and wrings her hands.
"He's going to be fine. Your friend is going to be fine." He watches her lower her hands and the exhaustion from worrying finally shows itself. He reads her face with a tiny smile, watching a thousand unfinished thoughts vying to vocalize themselves first. At last she just gives up and burrows into him. Unsure if she's ever held him tighter than right now, all he can do is embrace her right back.
"Why did my parents send you?"
He gathers his thoughts with a short kiss into the side of her head, her hair so soft, the lump in her throat so dense. He's no expert in the ways of family...has no way to guide her through this, so he holds her tighter.
"Well, they didn't think you'd listen to them," he tries to chuckle.
"They were right." She sounds so lost it about tears his heart in half. If he can hardly make sense of everything that's come to light tonight, it's a sure bet she's going through something much, much worse. Nestling into him, he feels her forehead against the crook of his neck as he rubs her back. They can figure anything out together, but not even being able to define the "anything" sends befuddled waves coursing through him.
She covers a sniffle with a short laugh and a quick, "You didn't tell me Ursula gave you back your ship."
"Oh, well, more like it contained her voice rather than some reward," he says, looking past the top of her head at the sails still billowing in their direction.
"One day, will...would you want to take me out on it? Not to other worlds this time, just a day out? Away from...all, all this shit?"
"Love, I've wanted to take you out on her longer than you know." They both laugh at the same time, maybe at the same images of a day, with any luck not in the distant future, coasting the waves, pretending the only concern they have is which way the wind is blowing. It will have to wait, like so many things wait for them, while her friend recovers with more pieces of this puzzle. "I'll go with you, you know. I can stand between you and them."
She lifts her head and gazes right into his eyes, her hands leaving his back and clasping the back of his head. Her fingers sift through his hair. Just another inch and their lips would meet.
"Gold and the Author and...all of Regina's psycho friends aren't going to stop just because I'm sick and tired of them," she says, swallowing and pulling away just enough to wipe her eyes. Her entire view of her parents and perhaps herself has changed, and not one sob. Stronger than him, indeed. "You two have a lot to catch up on." Motioning at the ship, she twists so that she faces the town.
"You'll call me, Swan?"
"I'll do you one better and come back here."
He'd considered just calling Granny, torn between staying at the harbor and veering further toward Emma, but it tasted too keenly of bad form. He squeezes through the door past a few customers with carry-out bags and hoists himself up onto one of the stools. His elbows locking, his boot knocks against the stool leg, feeling he should be somewhere else.
He draws back his head and sighs while he scans the diner for Granny or Ruby, wondering where all August's exploration of the book's origins had taken him, and if that meant they would all be going to a new land sooner rather than later.
"It'll have to be coffee. Everything else is getting turned off," Granny grunts, appearing as if out of nowhere across from him. Behind her, Ruby flashes him a smile as she gathers up utensils. Killian's ready, though. A quick stop down in the bowels of the ship for some loot, and he'd bagged enough to count as an estimate of how much he owed them in room and board.
"I'm here to check out of my room," he announces, setting the bag on the counter. "I came here to thank you for your kindness and to pay you in full for all you've done."
Ruby hurries to her grandmother's side. They share the same look at the bag, wavering between it being the enemy and being a friend, rather like wondering if the wench serving you drinks is complimenting you because she likes you or because you'll be more inclined to leave her a greater tip.
"You're leaving?" Ruby finally asks.
"Aye."
He could have envisioned endless reactions from the she-wolf, but squealing and clapping her hands together wouldn't have been one of them.
"They're moving in together! Pay up!" she giggles, holding her palm out to Granny. Oh.
"Ladies, before anyone falls into debt, I've had my ship returned to me, and after believing I'd never set eyes on it again, that's where I'll be staying until further notice." Moving in together—he and Swan. It curls the corners of his mouth up in spite of him trying to keep a stoic face. When they gain control of the dagger and banish Rumpelstiltskin for good this time with no chance of him sneaking his way back in again, they can go out and tour these places she said she'd been keeping an eye out for...for herself and Henry, of course, to start, and if he just so happens to spend the night on occasion and progressively stays there more and more with her invitation, so much the better.
It's a sweeter thought than Granny narrowing her eyes at him.
"What about when it gets cold?" she questions him.
"I've spent many a cold night on the Jolly Roger." Alone. Broken.
"I mean really cold. You're in Maine now, son, not to mention the possibility of Queen Elsa coming back and cutting summer short." Daring to not answer the scowl on her face, he waits. Pursing her lips, Granny dips her head down and stares at him above the lenses of her spectacles. "Well, can't keep you here, I guess. But first sign of a frost or even a thunderstorm, I want you back here."
"There'll always be a room for you here," Ruby adds. Bloody hell, he's not saying goodbye. What's Storybrooke done to him? He'd received more here than he'd ever deserved, but, well, he's more used to people being grateful just to get rid of him.
"You take it easy and take this with you," Granny says. She pushes the bag back toward him, but eyes it. A bit coyly, she curls her fingers into it and pulls out a coin. "Just for room upkeep." She pulls out another one. "Tax." Reaching into the bag one more time, she takes three more coins out and pushes it into him, at last letting go.
Sprawling out on his bunk, the familiar scents and textures surrounding him, he widens his eyes and grits his teeth as he opens his book about Harry Potter's adventures. A few candles light the space around him as he takes his time finding the way to the first page.
Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you ver—
"Killian?"
Swan's voice echoes as she descends down the narrow set of steps into the cabin, her hand cracking the door just a fraction. He sits up and closes the book at the sight of her in a sheen of sweat, her hair limp and tangled and falling into her face as she bends over to catch her breath. She ran here, he thinks, stupidly, springing to his feet. Crossing over to her, he extends his hand to help push some of the hair back behind her ear, but she holds it instead, with both hands, resting her cheek on his knuckles.
"I need your help."
"What happened? What did August tell you about the Author?"
"The Author is here!" she pants, her eyes bulging. "I let him out, and he took off. I-I thought he could give us some answers, but, according to August, h-he's like this rogue Author that plays around with events instead of just recording them, and I let him out, and if Gold finds him first..."
"Who is he?" he asks.
"I don't know. My parents seemed to know him. I..." Her voice fades away when her eyes veer from him to behind him, at his bunk, on the creases he'd left on the sheets, rich shadows from the candlelight softening the entire cabin. Licking her lips, she tilts her head just a bit, away from where they'd been holding hands. "This is the first time you've gotten to be in here without having to punch yourself in the face."
When she's had enough of comforting, she becomes funny, and gods if he doesn't laugh every time in spite of himself. Then again, he thinks, raising an eyebrow at how she's still looking at his bed, maybe that means the comforting works.
"The cabin's really only meant for a few select activities, and they're all more enjoyable than punching myself in the face...some more than others." She laughs right back, blushing, catching herself staring at his lips.
"One day," she whispers into his jaw as she plants a kiss on it. "One day I'll be on this ship for a fun reason. We'll go out on the water and you'll show me everything I haven't seen the Jolly Roger do yet, and I won't be the sheriff or the Savior or a princess. Just for a little while, I'll just be his mom, and your girlfriend." Shrugging, she adds, "Henry's up on the deck."
Girlfriend. He's heard it enough times in this land and it sounds so ill-fitting for what they have, downplaying it somehow. But the way she says it, with her eyes gazing up at him—the insignificant word has suddenly become everything, he thinks, following her and Henry off the ship and back into the fray.
A/N: Thanks again to the thorough OnceSnow for being my beta! Now that it's summer and I have all three kids at home, my writing schedule isn't as regimented as it usually is, so if the updates aren't as timely as they usually are, that's why. But I still plan on getting a chapter out once a week. With that being said, there will probably only be six or seven more chapters until I go on hiatus. Coming up? Guess who's back/back again...
