A/N: Hi! I'm back! Due to the way 5A is structured (which I LOVE), I am still going to have to watch a lot of episodes before I start posting regularly. Consider this chapter a taste of what all will come. I am diligently working, but, like I've said before, regular posts probably won't start up until we're about six or seven episodes in.

As for this chapter, you guys are going to hate me. Good thing there is some Captain Sass vs. Queen Sass in the next one!

Disclaimer: Again, I do not own the show or the characters, special thanks to my beta OnceSnow, and another fic recommendation for you: "Nodus Tollens" by Ereshkigalgirl. Lovely, epic CS fic with strong doses of Captain Cobra.


He's tempted to ask if driving with one hand is as awkward as it looks, but knowing Swan, she'll have a comeback at the ready. Not that he really has much reason to complain; in fact, his eyes keep darting from her to his hip, where her fingers are curled around his hook. She'd thrown her arms around his waist and shuffled down the stairs of the apartment building with him. After she'd unlocked her car, with the exception of unlocking and sliding into the driver's seat, she hadn't let go of him. Rolling just a tad, the side of his arm against the back of the seat, he watched her. Her expression would change from tired relief to something a little more pensive to something downright ashamed and back again.

"Are you sure you're okay? Believe me, I'm not chomping at the bit to go to Granny's," she says for the dozenth time since they'd entered the car.

"Why, love? Afraid Leroy's going to hold a grudge against you for knocking him down?"

"Or sue me for making him eat cobblestone," she huffs, swallowing. She rolls her grip on the steering wheel, knuckles shaking.

"Is it your parents?" he asks. They'd truly been the stuff of nightmares, feared throughout the realm. Manufactured tales of slaughtered peasants, orphans wandering the Infinite Forest, crushing the heart of a groom on his wedding day in front of the entire party—he'd been grateful to have spent most of his time at sea, away from it all, for so long as the Evil Queen obsessed over the bandit Regina, piracy remained but an after-thought at court.

"No," she says, rather quickly. He raises an eyebrow. "No. They weren't themselves. No one was. The things they did..." Biting her lip, she summons an uneven shrug. She sighs as they pull up to the diner. "I'll tell you in a little bit."

Nodding, he licks his lips as he pokes his head out and takes in the sight of the diner—his lodging for a time. The Jolly Roger docked at the harbor, Henry, Snow, and David on their way to meet them, Swan at his side—he shivers with pleasure and immediately laughs at himself. At some point, mate, he admonishes himself, you have to get used to having a family.

His hand tingles at the sensation of Swan slipping her fingers through his and squeezing, determined for her touch to be a constant companion tonight. Smiling, he considers drawing back his elbow to pull her into his arms, but a burst of red and a slower, plumper flash of violet come speeding toward them.

"Oh, thank God, Emma!" Ruby's long pointy heels force her to skid before she throws her arms around Swan, Granny close behind her. "Oh, it was horrible! Snow had taken my cloak from me, and everything I'd ever learned about being able to control myself when I wolf out—gone! I-I was a monster, a guard dog she had patrolling around her castle. But even then I heard whispers about them locking you away and killing their subordinates and last I heard anything of where you were, you were on the run!"

"Well, things are okay now," Swan grunts, writhing a fraction in Ruby's tight hug.

"And you!"

He should have expected it. Practically predictable, and yet Ruby's hug still knocks the wind out of him.

"We were so worried about you!" He winces at her voice booming in his ear. "That Isaac. What was he thinking? Everyone knows Snow and Charming are too nice to ever really harm anyone."

He pauses, choosing to just nod a response, but, behind Ruby, Granny glares at him, her spectacles a good ways down her nose.

"Granny, tell Emma and Hook how worried we were when we woke up back inside," Ruby ordered through a clenched-teeth smile.

"There's a blueberry pie in there with your name on it," she finally says, her expression softening.

"Oh. I'm..." he trails off. It's not worth the effort. Granny's already hustling back in to cut them each a slice.

"Don't bother." Swan sneaks around him and wedges herself into him so his arm wraps around her. "I'd just eat that pie if I were you."


Two slices of pie later—one as a courtesy, the other at Granny's insistence that while a slice of pie might not be the cure to being literally stabbed in the back, it certainly couldn't hurt—he spins around on his stool and cocks his head at the party that's at last unfolded around them. At first, people had arrived in small groups of twos and threes, the dwarves the only exception, all huddled together and scanning every inch of the diner as they entered. Then the groups veered closer and closer to each other, the air humming with countless murmured conversations. Apologies and reassurances of trust, if Killian hazarded a guess. Shaking off the last remnants of the Author and Rumpelstiltskin's little role-playing exercise, the hushed discussions gave way to laughter, singing, sounds of pleasure at the food and drink. Party noises. Storybrooke noises.

"Mom and Dad still aren't here," Swan notes, licking the last bit of blueberry filling off one of the tines of her fork.

"They're probably locking that Author up wherever he needs to go," he says, deciding to nudge her. "I have a feeling your parents are done being secretive for a while."

It elicits a smile, her coy one, and he flings his paper plate into the trash can at the same time her hand clasps his thigh.

"Killian? About why I was uneasy in the car..."

Leaning forward, he strokes her hand, tracing the veins up to her wrist, taking extra care not to irritate the two small, blister-like burn scars on the back of her hand—left by one of a long string of idiots who had convinced her over the years she didn't matter, never be someone's priority. And yet, to his amazement, Swan shared more of her life with him than with anyone else. Being sure to look right at her should she want to read his face, he remembers when this very scenario—together, touching, loving, surrounded by people—was nothing but a dream.

"What is it?"

She scrunches her smile into a pouty smirk, eyes gleaming at him. She licks her lips and takes a breath.

"It, uh, has to do with...what you said earlier. What you promised? What you promised you would do one day?"

One day, Swan. One day I'll have you, and we'll see how many times I can make you scream.

Shy eagerness becomes Emma Swan, he thinks, his heart beginning to race, the rest of the room beginning to darken and then fade from view. Nearing her, his breath catches at how dilated her pupils have become, her eyes darker than he'd ever seen them. He's sure his match them, just as he tilts his head at the same time she tilts hers. Heel bouncing, he raises an eyebrow at her.

"What's put you in a quandary about it, Swan? Do you require an explanation of the mechanics?" He can hardly speak with a straight face; he's stunned he is holding himself together enough to attempt flirtation. Gulping, he balls his hand into a fist and lodges the tip of his tongue between two teeth to keep from being rendered a stammering, drooling mess.

"Or you could, you know, show me the mechanics," she sang in a voice a little huskier than usual, leaning so forward on her stool it's a bloody wonder she hasn't toppled right out of her seat and taken him with her.

"Where?" he rasps, his mind already running through potential locations. If he still had the key to his old room, they could simply bound up the stairs. Back to the apartment? If David and Snow were on their way here, surely they had the baby with them, leaving the loft empty for once, the bed upstairs inviting, already conformed to their bodies, thrusting, blonde locks spread out like a halo, no one around to overhear unbridled, restless, ridiculously overdue cries...

She's taking his hand and motioning for them to stand.

"I was thinking your ship. It's off on its own, and I know how to do this thing where I can put a barrier over it so no one would see it or, uh, hear...anything that might be going on..."

For one eternal moment, they just gaze at one another, and he doesn't bother to mask what he's imagining. She's doing the same thing and it nearly sends him into a frenzy. He'll have to form a plan on the way there—as he's running, of course. He won't be able to sit still in the car, even if the harbor lies only a few blocks away. He needs to plan what he'll peel off of her first, where he'll kiss her first, if he'll carry her or let her back him up into his bunk...how he'll last long enough to leave her a boneless wreck afterwards.

"Emma! Emma, you're not leaving, are you?" Snow calls to them from the front door, holding it open so David can push the baby's pram inside. Swan inhales and slides around him, nestling herself under his arm. With a sigh only he can hear, she waves back to them. From the corner of his eye, Killian watches Regina and Robin leave their booth rather quickly and head for the door.

Lucky bastards.

"What's up, guys?" Swan asks them, rocking her body back and forth and resting her head on him, bobbing it back up once they're across from them.

"Actually, it's Killian we need to talk to," Snow says, taking hold of David's hand. Her bottom lip quivers, her head jerking from him to David and back to him. "The thing is..."

"I didn't mean to kill you," David blurts. Really, he rivals Swan in terms of frankness. How the two of them discuss anything for longer than five minutes boggles the mind. "Though, to be fair, I didn't have a heart."

"So it's my fault?" Snow returns the smirk her husband shoots at her. Sensing eyes on him, he gazes down at the amused, knowing...gods, loving look on his Swan's face. Patience, she seems to be feeding into his mind. The very least you deserve is an apology.

Or we could skip that for more enjoyable activities, he tries to send back to her while keeping a portion of his focus on her parents.

"What I think he means to say is...we are sorry." Snow's playfulness disappears, a slightly haunted look overcoming her. To be the Evil Queen, he thinks. Even temporarily—your entire being flooded with darkness, turning off certain switches in your mind, turning on others...at least none of it was real.

"Well, you don't need to be sorry," he assures her, feeling the weight of Swan's head against him again. "Although I do intend to hold it over your heads for a very long time."

"I think we both know what happened in that world wasn't real," Swan says. She pulls away from him for a second. "Although...seeing you guys as real villains made me sorry for holding a grudge against you for so long."

She meets her mother in a long overdue embrace, and time slows to a crawl. It's surreal now, when everything is fine. And everything is, he reminds himself. No need to look over his shoulder or anything like that for the time being. No ice queens popping out of urns, no shadows of Lost Boys lurking in the jungle, not even a wily old Crocodile planning where he will snap his jaws next.

There is Lily.

He pretends to not notice the bitter, envious look Lily has aimed at Swan and her mother, but mostly because it peters out into something more wistful and hesitant.

"Give me a second," Swan says, patting Snow's back and taking a quick glance over at him before hurrying over to her. He watches their body language, Swan's not tensing into a defensive position, Lily's not conveying any aggression. Just talking, like old friends.

"You're sure you're okay?" David asks. He sets a heavy hand on his shoulder.

"If you're hinting at a rematch..."

"I was hinting at maybe buying you a beer."

"Well..." Scratching his ear and shuffling, he tries to see over David's shoulder. Swan's back is to him, Lily's face still too unknown to read. Are they wrapping things up? If it's the launching of some new quest, surely it can wait until morning. Late morning, perhaps, since he plans on them both being a little sore.

He feels eyes on him again, the bell at the front door smacking the glass as Belle enters, panting and scanning the room. The crowd parts for her, too familiar with the panic-stricken look on her face as she runs to Swan.

"Rumple—his heart. He said it's almost gone!" she heaves, her attempts to catch her breath barely working. "And he said we're in danger."

"Okay. Tell us on the way." She rallies them all together with lightning speed—him, her parents, and Henry. The pawn shop is just down the street. Regina's words about the goodness of the Crocodile's heart slipping away or something akin to that echoes in his brain as he tries to remember her exact words.

"Wait, I'll get the Apprentice. He'll know what to do!" Henry cries, sprinting around to Granny's sitting room and bolting up the stairs. They wait, Belle constantly turning her head in the direction of the shop.

"What did he tell you?" he asks her, placing his hand on her arm.

"I-I'd gone to make sure he didn't have a way of sending us all back to that, that place," she sobs. "And he just collapsed. There isn't much time. If all of that magic—all of that power—in him gets out, I don't know..." He follows her eyes to where the Apprentice hurries down on Henry's heels, the creases in his forehead sharp.

"We haven't much time," he says in a grave voice without stopping.

They follow his lead, as before, the main street a tranquil sanctuary compared to the party behind them and whatever lies ahead of them. The Apprentice flings open the door and they march through one at a time, gathering around a stiff Mr. Gold, unconscious on the floor, his whole body rigid, as if trying to hold onto something with his last ounces of strength, so unnatural that Killian can't take his eyes off it. He'd expected to find him sprawled out or behind the counter, anything but the wooden, funereal sight laid out before them.

It doesn't jar the Apprentice, however. A stalwart man as always, he went straight to work, setting the Sorcerer's Hat down on the floor next to the Crocodile. He kneels down with his hands on his thighs, leaning over Gold's head, Belle the only one mimicking the pose.

"He tried to use the Hat to free himself from the dagger," Killian notes out loud.

"This is not unlike that. We're pulling the Darkness from him and containing it." The Darkness. He'd read that term countless times in the more ancient texts, chalking it up to some antiquated way of describing the Dark One with some veneration. They say the Dark One can always hear when one summons him or her—which is true, he knows—but his imagination had run wild and he'd pictured all the fearful clerics deciding on a phrase in case the Dark One could hear them scratching out his or her name in a book.

"Does that mean that his heart will be healed?" Belle pleads with him.

"Perhaps. If the strength is there. This is more dark power than the Hat has ever been asked to contain." He sounds doubtful. Killian wonders if Belle sensed that, too, but the Apprentice doesn't dwell on what-ifs. His arm dives straight down onto Gold's chest.

"Do what you need to do," Swan urges him.

"Purest evil, blackest bloom," the Apprentice chants. "Darkness, too, can find its doom." The nauseating squishing sound that still haunts Killian's nightmares heralds a heart-pulling ritual. In his hand, the Apprentice contains a charred, coal-like heart with only the smallest orbs of violet to be seen. The Apprentice yet again doesn't react, instead activating the Hat with his free hand. Standing, he braces himself. "Never dying, but contained/Bound inside the falcon's chamber/Shorn of anger/Thornless danger/There forever to remain."

The golden light from the Hat and its unsheathing sound tug at the air around the heart first. Then, the sucking sound. Black waves too thick to be vines and too weightless to be tentacles strip off the heart, the shapeless inky substance vanishing into the Hat. The dagger glows as well, its light rivaling the Hat's in brightness. And then, without any ceremony at all, the lights fade. The sucking stops. There is no name on the dagger. Killian can't be sure if the heartbeat he hears is his own or the one reverberating off the silvery, transluscent heart the Apprentice now holds.

Stuffing it back into the Crocodile's chest, nothing else changes. Tempted to ask if it even worked, he watches Belle bend over his body.

"He's barely breathing," she tells him.

"Rumpelstiltskin was the Dark One for centuries. His return to the man he used to be will not be easy."

Man he used to be, Killian scoffs once Belle turns away. Whatever that tar-like substance was that had encased Gold's heart had had nothing to do with the cowardice already inside him. It had just given it a new face.

"This will preserve him until we discern if we can help him," the Apprentice explains, waving magic over Gold's still-unconscious form.

"If?"

They barely hear Belle's anxious question. The Hat, coiled back up, glows. It pulsates, rattling around in its own earthquake.

"Everybody step back!" Swan tenses and backs away, as they all do. Smoke wafts up from the Hat, the purple, velvety texture melting away into a gooey blackness. Suddenly, the inky strands shoot out of it, darting about the room, frenzied and calculating all at once. It descends upon the Apprentice, whirling around him until Killian can't see anything else as it plunges down the man's throat, washing over even the whites of his eyes.

Swan dashes over to him and flashes her hands at it, the white light of her magic freezing the Apprentice in place. She must be trying to drain him of it, and it does encase the man's entire form, but he falls in a heap, eyes still dark.

She didn't kill the Darkness; she just angered it.

The tar explodes out of the Apprentice's chest and curls like ribbons for a brief second before squeezing itself through the mail slot in the door.

"Mom! Dad! Go after it! Go. I'll be right here," Swan directs her parents. She hurries to the Apprentice. "Help me make him comfortable," she instructs him.

That, he can do, but where the bloody hell the Darkness had gone, he has no way of knowing. They prop the Apprentice up and start for the back room.

"Henry! Henry, you stay right by me! At least until Mom and Dad get back," she orders Henry. He runs into the back room with them. Grunting, he and Swan heave the old man onto the sofa, Swan swooping down to grab the dagger. Killian steps back, but Swan sits on the edge of the sofa and places her hand on the Apprentice's chest, worry written all across her face.

"What was that?" she whispers to him.

The Apprentice takes in a weak breath. "Long before your stories began, the Sorcerer battled the Darkness."

He and Henry step forward, almost forming a line with Swan as they listen. He knew the names of most of the previous Dark Ones. He could sketch out the designs on the dagger from memory. But an origin? Not the most revered holy book or feared spellbook made mention of such a thing.

"He was able to keep it from consuming the realms," the Apprentice continues. "He tethered it to a human soul that could be controlled with a dagger."

"The Dark One," Swan breathes, inspecting the dagger she held in her hands, fixated on it as if she'd never seen it before.

The Sorcerer couldn't possibly be that benevolent an enchanter, he thinks. Darkness? If true Darkness was what he spoke of, light could keep it at bay, a natural order of things. Anyone creating the Dark One would be a dodgy character at the very least, maybe an ally, maybe not. And of course the Sorcerer would give his Apprentice the most watered-down story possible.

"The Sorcerer is the only one with the power to destroy the Darkness once and for all. Before it destroys everything." He coughs, no—chokes.

"Where is he? Who is he?" Swan demands. Bloody hell, now they need him, this foolhardy wizard. If he could destroy the Darkness, why hadn't he done it centuries ago and spared the realms Rumpelstiltskin and his ilk?

"He's far, far from here. Find him," the Apprentice instructs, his voice lowering even more. "His name is Merlin."

Swan looks up at him, asking with her eyes if he's heard of him. Aye, in passing. And never connected to Dark One legend. It was an ancient name, whispered in some circles as an expletive, others a prayer.

Ah, but he shouldn't doubt anything is real anymore, he chides himself. He can't let disbelief in anything hold him back now, not when it appears they'll be traveling again. Together.

"You must stop the Darkness." The Apprentice speaks slower, his eyes no longer focusing. Swan tries to hold his hand, but she just barely grazes his arm as his eyes close. "Find Merlin."

He, Swan, and Henry just stand there, stunned, taking a moment of silence literally. Merlin.

"Camelot," Henry says. His and Swan's heads snap in the lad's direction immediately. "Merlin should be in Camelot."

"Is it in your book?" she asks, eyes more and more frantic.

"I don't know. I'll run home and get it?"

"No!" she all but screams at him. "Don't go out there. That...thing isn't something you can handle." She looks back at him with blankness, and he doesn't conceal the fact he's reading her face. She might have thought she had hidden it from him, but he saw it—the wheels in her head turning, an idea coming to mind, but a terrifying one. For less than a second, she'd been the picture of utter horror and for the life of him, he couldn't discern why.

"Swan." Come back to me.

"What?" She snaps out of it with a shudder. "Merlin. You know of him?"

Before he can answer, something zooms over the shop's roof, then dead silence.

"We have to go," she says. "Henry, stay with Belle."

The two of them race out into the street, the serenity from before now tainted, the silence eerie. What was it going to do, just fly around wreaking havoc until it claimed something? Why weren't her parents back?

"There!" she cries, running toward two figures up ahead scouring the street for any hint of the tar.

"Where is it?" she shouts to them, stopping at the crossroads.

"We don't know. It just disappeared into the night," Snow answers. They couldn't be breathing it in. They would feel it. Something like that doesn't pass by you without making its presence known. The air is cold, but not wintry. There's an emptiness to it, like the whole street is nothing but a void.

"Hey, what's going on?"

Regina and Robin come up the side street, already alarmed.

"The Dark One. It's no longer tethered to the Crocodile," he says. He doesn't even care if he's got the logistics of it correct. Where the hell is it?

"What? Where the hell is it?" Regina snaps. His sentiments exactly.

So heavy. And yet so empty. He's chilled, but not cold. The others seem to sense it too, but what is it they're sensing?

"It hasn't gone anywhere. The Darkness...it's surrounding us," Swan breathes, her eyes wide and looking into the night.

Next to him, Regina gasps. Tentacle-like waves stream in from all directions and pull her into them, wrapping themselves around her. As soon as one of the tendrils seems to get too close, it jerks away. More and more of it descends upon her, cycling around her tighter and tighter. It's not devouring her. It's tasting her.

"Regina! What's it doing?" Robin cries to Emma.

"What darkness does. Snuffing out the light."

Better Regina than him, he thinks. She's been evil before, and they stopped her. Well, he didn't, but Emma, Henry, Snow, and David had. He'd seen the woman wield light magic, not as strong as Emma's, but potent nevertheless. Redeemed. A hero despite the layers and layers of sass and bitterness. They could save her. Him...Emma could, but not if he hurt her first. He'd locked her in Rumpelstiltskin's cell and left her for dead, a sliver of him hoping she'd find a way out, a sliver he'd tried to snuff out for too long. Regina's a stubborn sort. They could save her.

"I'm not going to let it!" Robin bellows, his voice barely rising over the howling winds and cracking sounds from the Darkness. Before he can leap out to grab him, Robin dives in after her, only for it to spit him out.

It should not be able to spit things out.

"That's not going to work on this thing! The Apprentice told me we have to do what the Sorcerer did! We have to tether it to a person to contain it!" Emma shouts at him, her eyes...her whole face reeling in terror as it had before.

No. No, no, no. He'll take it. He'll die before he lets her take it. But she's got a running start on him and the dagger is already in her hand. She reaches Regina and he's not far enough behind to see the latter hunching over as the tar beats down on her back.

"Emma, no! There has to be another way!" Regina's voice is so constrained. The coils around her are tightening. Squeezing every drop of goodness right out of her.

"There isn't! You've worked too hard to have your happiness destroyed!"

"No!" David screeches at her.

No, no, gods, he'll take it. In his mind's eye, he sees it—hurling himself into her, prying the dagger from her hands, and crossing into oblivion. But something holds him back. She turns toward them, her eyes brimming with tears.

"You figured out how to take the darkness out of me once." Her voice cracks and his heart breaks. "You need to do it again as heroes!"

"Emma!" He doesn't know how he ran from his spot to her, but he has, hand on her shoulder. She clenches it, almost interlocking their fingers and places their hands over her heart. "Emma, please! No. Don't do this." Let me. Let me take it for you.

"I love you."

His heart skips a beat. Regardless of everything around them, it skips a beat to the words anyway. It's not supposed to be this way. It's supposed to be when the two of them are alone together, happy. When all the disasters have ceased for just a few quiet moments. After they've taken a breath and smiled at each other yet again. When they were safer than they've ever been. And the traitorous thing skipped a beat anyway.

His forehead falls onto hers, eyes closing, memorizing. This is how their hands feel gripping one another tightly. This is how it feels to have a wind whipping her hair around them. He opens his mouth, the cusp of an echo of her confession on his tongue, but her forehead pushes him back out of the way. In one motion, she lifts the dagger into the air.

The Darkness closes in on her, every second an eternity, each wisp of blackness whooshing around her so quickly they seem to slice at his eyes. But he still catches a glint of green...her eyes. They're fixed on him, as if he's the last thing she'll ever see. They grow dizzy from the constant spinning around her, the whirling tarry mass obscuring her completely. Growing. Rising. And then silence, except for the clang of the dagger as it crashes to the ground. The streetlights shine down on it, new markings upon it. Tilting his chin just a fraction, the markings comes into focus, the light illuminating each new letter with a striking clarity.

Emma Swan.