A/N: I've said it before, but I feel the need to point it out again-Hook's thoughts are not always in conjunction with my own.


He's not dead. It's dark. It's empty. But he's not dead. Caked in dust and dripping with sweat, he shivers his way to his feet off a freezing bare floor. No, not bare, Killian realizes, blinking his eyes back into concentration. His feet shuffle him into a half-circle, but the design on the floor offers no clue as to where he is. He only knows he's not dead.

Which means Emma...

The oily tentacles that swallowed her up in Storybrooke sweep across the floor, emerging from some black corner, and curl around his legs; then, from all directions, the rope-like mass binds him. As each moment the tar burrows under his skin, flashes of memory play across his mind with muffled voices.

"Milah!"

"You're no less a coward."

"I want you to suffer."

"Just do it."

"I promised we'd have some fun first."

"Emma, please!"

A fleeting second aboard the deck of his ship, the scents of salty wind and fresh paint giving way to blood—his—and the skittering of ashes before a strong breeze sends them away from arm's reach, the remnants of Milah's heart. He sees his own, held in the Crocodile's hand as the demon bares his teeth at him. That lurch, that singular moment of realization his heart has been pulled right out of his body. Then, he watches the black tentacles spirit Emma away, leaving him on the dark street with nothing but a dagger with her name written across it. All of it his fault, of course, his weaknesses leading to his own demise as well as those around him. He hadn't protected Milah enough. He hadn't loved Emma enough. Impulsive, vindictive, undeserving little rotter!

He can no longer scream or even breathe. Just as he longs to open his mouth and unleash a wild cry, the Darkness makes way. Encased in a black cloak, black glove—almost as shapeless as the Darkness itself, he stares at open forest.

"Hi!"

And Rumpelstiltskin.

"Bloody Crocodile." Of course he would be here, he thinks. If Emma saw him, he's bound to as well.

"Not exactly, but I understand the confusion!" Rum—the hallucination sings. Cursed thing, he'll get rid of it. Lunging at him with a roar, he sees the futility of the thing before he can skid to a stop.

"That's not going to work," it scoffs at him. "I'm not out here. I'm in there. I am your guide, the voice in your head."

"Save your speech. I know who you are: all the Dark Ones in my head. But it doesn't matter. I won't listen to you." Get away. Aye, get away from this vault of evil and find Em—and say what? The woman he loves, his Swan, wouldn't be the kind to deny a man his last wishes and smother him in this wretched Darkness. And yet she did. Because she loves him.

All the more reason to find her. He always finds her.

"What if I told you that, together, I could get you the one thing you've wanted for hundreds of years? Your revenge." Giggling, it edges closer to him. "That's right. I saw what you saw, dearie. I saw your pain. And I can ease it. Stick with me, and you will finally do what you never could before."

"And what's that?" he asks under his breath. Maybe if he'll be damned for asking the question, but he's been damned so many times over. What's one more?

"Why kill me, of course."

He likes the sound of that. Even now, Rumpelstiltskin evades justice. He's back in Storybrooke resting comfortably on the sofa in his own shop rather than rotting in the grave. He'd rewritten everyone's lives, most of which would have been over before some fool of a reader even finished the book and yet he'd paid no price. Magic always comes with a price, but not in his case. What had been the price of using magic to kill Milah? What had been the price of taking his heart and using him the sordid way he had? Bloody hell, here it is thirty years later and only Regina's paid a price for unleashing the Dark Curse in the first place and tearing everyone from their loved ones, their memories, their birthrights—all of it gone in a haze of purple smoke and still the Crocodile can run away to his comforts and his luxuries.

Maybe it shouldn't bother him. They called truce, after all, on the very deck of his ship, both so enamored with ideas of redemption and honor that they dove through a portal into the worst realm of all. Revenge cannot be conducted long-distance. His nemesis lies in limbo back in Storybrooke, proving the Darkness a consummate liar.

The sun sets behind him, but he hears no voices calling out for him, wondering what's happened to him. It feels like being left behind all over again.

He traded you and your brother into my service.

I can't take the chance that I'm wrong about you.

Always so bloody afraid he'll leave her when all she's ever done is leave him. She made him this, so why isn't she here to admire her handiwork? Because she's left him to fend for himself, always so skittish, leaving the beanstalk without him, jumping into the portal without him, always walking away when he's done everything but rip his own heart out and leave it in a box at her door.

Unable to breathe, he stops and squats, his elbows on his knees, wrist and hand pressed against the sides of his head. If he loves her and wants to be with her, he has to forgive her, no choice there. Much like how she had been with her parents not long ago...or eons ago, he would perhaps just have to overlook this well-meaning miscalculation and go about his life with her, the two of them, the only Dark One who sacrificed herself to the Darkness and the only Dark One made one against his will. Quite the pair. The stories written about them will be most entertaining...and just as likely violent.

Find her and talk to her first, he thinks, taking a deep breath. It's not as though she'd wanted them to stay Dark Ones forever—Dark One and Dark Two, funny—but she'd wanted them to help each other. Maybe Merlin will have a plan. Maybe he'll have something in his wizard's bag of tricks. All Killian needs to do is meet up with him and everyone else. It shouldn't take all night.

And yet he's already gasping for breath. Well, it's no wonder. How heavy is this, this...

"What the devil am I wearing? Why must Dark Ones dress like monks?" He wants something sleeker, more functional, more Captain Hook. Then, in a puff of red smoke, it is so. A coat, doublet, and a set of trousers not all that removed from his normal stock. So that's magic.

"Yes, much better." The imp. The imp's returned! Well, no matter. He ignored him earlier and he'll ignore him now.

"Get out of here," he says, prepared to walk through the image, but it's a wily one, that, and reappears a short distance away.

"Try to ignore me. Bet you can't."

"Talk all you want, spirit. I know you're lying. There's no way I can get my revenge when Gold's in Storybrooke and I'm trapped here in Camelot." Trapped. Lifting his head, he wonders why he hadn't realized before in these last several weeks just how trapped he was.

"Well, that's where we come in, dearie. Might I suggest a Dark Curse?"

A Dark Curse—whisked to Storybrooke in a matter of seconds, filled with magic to exact revenge when the cur can't defend himself—it would be perfect, but all magic comes with a price, and he can't live an eternity without Emma Swan, much less the rest of one lifetime.

"And crush the heart of the one I love most to enact it? No, no, no, I won't kill Emma."

"Yeah, but there's always a loophole."

"Killian!" Emma, running toward him clad completely in leather and an overjoyed expression on her face. Her hair is tied tightly behind her, but it doesn't make her face look more open than usual. "It worked! You're alive!"

"Aye, it did. After spending centuries quelling my bloodlust, you threw me right back into that Darkness! Job well done, Emma!"

"Binding you to Excalibur was the only way to save you."

Save him. Ha.

"Right! Excalibur! And where is my shiny new tether?" he demands. For all the trouble she went through, she might as well show off her work, show him his own name written across it.

"I don't know. It disappeared right after you did," she says, and quickly, too, like she'd rather talk about him being alive than this new state he's in.

"Ah, isn't that convenient?" Rumpelstiltskin chides.

"How long has he been with you?" Emma asks him, her eyes fixating on the hallucination next to him with complete disdain. Killian blinks. Seeing Rumpelstiltskin had nearly driven her mad—or maybe it had, considering her latest choices—but the labored steps, the sleepless nights spent weaving dreamcatchers... She truly hadn't reunited the blades, then, and saved herself. She remains a Dark One.

For him.

"You can still see him?"

"Sadly, yes," Rumpelstiltskin sighs right into his ear. The spirit may not actually be there, but the hot, rancid breaths feel as real as the busy, twirling fingers gesturing. "I mean, she's still a Dark One, no matter how ineffectual she may be."

"Don't listen to him. He's not real. But I am. I'm right here. Look at me." Swan's voice sounds so much heavier than before, the burden she'd carried these last several weeks still not lifted off of her. The pale, made-up face gazing up at him exudes none of the warmth it once had. Is this Emma? This twisted-up, stiff version of her with feathery strands frosted into her hair can only mean she's given in to the Darkness.

"That future you told me not to be afraid of? We can have it! The house in Storybrooke. I'm not afraid anymore." Flashing him a desperate smile, her hand holds the back of his head, her fingers combing through his hair. "I want it. With you. It's ours. You just have to want it, too."

Perhaps they really can help each other through this, for he must be as disjointed a version of himself as she is, both of them afflicted, infected. He'd told himself that trust and faith would be the only things that would keep their future from becoming overwhelming, hadn't he? Hadn't he believed that? Oh, he had, and he still does. They'll just have to keep an eye on one another and fight the urge to channel this magic coursing through their veins until they find a solution.

"Aye, love, I do. More than anything," he murmurs to her, pulling her closer, wanting nothing more than to drop his forehead onto hers and kiss her until they both wake up in that house with this moment seeming like nothing more than a bad dream.

"Killian," she whispers, not in ecstasy, but in urgency. "Look."

Look at what, for he only has eyes for her, he thinks, afraid to hope she means what he suspects she does. Daring to glance over his shoulder, he finds only the moonlight and the shadows of the trees in their company. She did it. She had done for him what he had done for her in their meadow, and the realization leaves him gasping.

"The demon is gone."

"We can do this," she says, giving him a firm nod. "We can get the Darkness out of both of us for good."

"How?"

"By doing what I just did with you, by going to those we love."

Yes. Yes, it will work. When's he ever known Emma Swan to be wrong? Just as it was when there was only one Dark One, Merlin will help them. Hell, now that they have the Promethean Flame, the hard work was already done! Whatever Merlin had intended to do with Excalibur to save her, now it will save both of them. She feels his optimism, her arms tightening around his. All the encouragement he needs, he bends down and catches her lips, tasting the magic in her. Her kisses had always left him panting for more, but now he could actually feel every surge of magic on those wet, rose-petal lips and on her tongue, lumbering and graceful at the same time. It creates an aura around them, spicier than the cinnamon aroma she had before with far more bite. Moaning at the sensation, he reaches for more, finding her soft giggle an intoxicating incentive.

"All right, enough distractions," she sings, cutting off her laughter. "I am going to go scout our path."

Damn, but that look of pride she gives him causes his chest to swell...among other things. She's right, as usual. They need to go back and end this so they can start their life together.

"I'll go replenish our water supply." Yes, sound plan, he thinks, walking away from her as she heads off into the trees. Technically, they don't need it, but he's certain just "poofing" to the diner would be the lazier, far less hard-earned course of action someone like the Crocodile would take. No strangers to trekking through forest, he and Swan will just muster up some patience and willpower and, to quote his love, bam. No more Darkness.

Killian Jones.

Pausing, he listens for it again. What might have been his name sounds more like gusts of whistling wind coming at him from all directions. It hisses into one cacophonous mess, just hints of words rendering that first whisper of his name unrecognizable. Maybe it hadn't even been his name, but he can't bloody think for all the racket.

"Oh, what the devil is that noise?" he wonders out loud, suddenly exhausted, suddenly feeling like he's already hiked miles in the woods and needs to fall to his knees.

"That's the sound of the dagger singing to the sword, and if you can hear it, that means Excalibur is quite close." Rumpelstiltskin stares at him, merely a short distance away. Killian never thought he would be thinking it, but he welcomes the Crocodile's closeness. His voice not only drowns out the tingling siren's song, but reenergizes Killian, raising his alertness. Still a liar, though.

"No, it's impossible. Emma said it disappeared."

"Wake up, dearie! Your lover's lying! She has the sword." The nonsensical whispering returns with a vengeance, like their source is edging ever nearer. But...Emma had left...so he shouldn't be hearing it... Right?

"Why would she lie to me?"

"So she can control you. Not that she needs Excalibur. She's quite good at doing that all on her own," it sings to him with a spiteful tongue.

"What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?" Emma does not control him. No one controls him. Rumpelstiltskin had, briefly, but that was over. He'd survived servitude, Pan's slavery, Cora's magic, Regina's bloodlust, Greg and Tamara's deals—villains tried to control other people, not Saviors. No, too many people over the years had tried to control him, so of course he'd recognize when someone else was trying to, and Emma had always been truthful with him. She'd never flattered him with insincere praise or toyed with his heart. If she didn't like what he had to say, she wouldn't plot against him; she'd simply walk away. Again and again and again...

"You! Get out of here!" Emma's presence stings his ears, the whispering louder than before, a million hisses.

"Oh, we were just talking about you!" Rumpelstiltskin simpers. "Why don't you ask her yourself?"

"Ask me what? Hook, what the hell's going on?"

Hook. Hook.

"Emma, do you know where Excalibur is?" He feels like a strict parent demanding the truth out of a frightened child—a little guilty, a little frustrated...but also righteous. It couldn't possibly be growing louder if she didn't have it.

"Killian, Rumple is manipulating you. That's what he does," she starts, but a screeching whisper leaves him wincing.

"Are you lying to me? I can hear it calling to the dagger, Emma! Do you have Excalibur?"

She bows her head in shame, and he knows the truth even before she materializes it in her grasp.

"Yes."

Did you use it on me?" It should chill his blood that, if she did, he'd have no real way of knowing, but instead, something boils in him, scalding everything in him.

"What? No, of course not. I was never-"

"Then why not tell me the truth?" He watches her face fall, her mouth make a few pathetic attempts at movement. An open book, his Swan. And yet she always seems surprised when he can see right through those useless walls of hers.

"Are you afraid I was going to ask you for it? You never planned on giving it to me, did you?"

"I did it to protect you," she says after a beat, choosing her words with care. As if that will make any difference. "You told me yourself you were not strong enough to resist the Darkness."

"Which is why I begged you not to turn me into the bloody Dark One in the first place! But you went and did it anyway!"

"You were dying!" she whimpers.

"You know the worst part, Swan? When your own mother wanted to use the dagger to stop you from crushing Merida's heart, I'm the one that convinced her that you needed to make that decision yourself!" Tears prickle his eyes and he loathes himself for it. After all they'd been through together, she didn't even trust him enough to let him make his own decisions. And here he'd thought they were ready to live together, to be married...when she still sees him as just a selfish pirate, just a one-handed man with a drinking problem, just another person who will take from her and then leave without looking back when he's had his fill. Bloody hell, he'd been more open with her than he'd ever been with anyone. It had taken years to be able to talk about Liam with Milah. But at least Milah had listened with her arms around him and granted him the courtesy of letting his head lie on her breast as he'd talked. Emma—she knew him better than anyone and believed he'd only succumb to the Darkness. He ignores the tears streaming down her face.

"There's never been a moment where I didn't believe in you, where I didn't trust you. But you clearly don't believe in me anymore, so how am I supposed to fight this?"

"Killian-"

"Don't!" He lifts his hand and wishes to be away from her, and the magic makes it so.


Being the Dark One does grant him some comforts, the ability to see in the dark, for one. He can tromp through the woods and avoid every twig and divot. He could cover miles if he wanted to go somewhere the rigorous way...if only he had somewhere to go. His mind sorting through various locations keeps him from shedding any tears over Swan right now. What had he really lost if she had never believed in him in the first place, other than time, precious time he'd dwindled away on her.


When next he opens his eyes, the clock blinks to six minutes past noon. He's slept in this bed countless times already, but his body really seems to have sunken into it this time. Shaking his head as he lifts it off the pillow, his trembling hand wedges its way down to his heart, still in his body. After Belle's dreamless sleep potion and Swan's dexterous fingers playing in his hair, the awful experience at the clocktower with the Crocodile almost seems like a nightmare. Almost.

But his heart thumps in his chest, warm and relaxed like it had never been anywhere else. Turning over, he knows Swan's not on the bed—he would have sensed if she was—so he listens for any sounds behind the bathroom door. No cabinet closing, no water running. Sighing, he sits up and spies the small snippet of paper on the bedside table:

Picking up lunch downstairs. If you're awake, got to keep up your strength. If not, more for me.-E

Grinning, he sits up straighter and wonders if he should toy with her and jump into the shower, just to see what she would do upon her return—gawk at him and then roll her eyes and insist she was doing nothing of the sort while continuing to ogle him, probably. But then he had no idea how long she'd been down there waiting for food in the first place, and then if her sheriff duties demanded she suddenly run out, he'd be standing naked letting cold water splatter onto him like a bloody idiot, so he stays put.

"Granny officially stops making breakfast food at noon, but I guess you got on her good side because she wouldn't let me leave until she'd given you an extra serving of pancakes. She juggles two "styrofoam" containers, two cups, and a sack with her forearm through the handles, shuffling all the way to the table where she unloads it all. "It's a massive clusterfuck down there. Good thing I took today off."

He visualizes kicking himself in the arse for not hopping into the shower. Peering into one of the containers as she opens it, he smiles at a stack of steaming pancakes with a healthy portion of eggs and potatoes next to them. About to shift and at least take his drink, he raises an eyebrow as she picks up the little knife and fork and starts cutting the pancakes into small triangular pieces.

"Are-are you cutting my food?" he asks, just to be sure the potion isn't playing games with his mind.

"Oh!" Staring down at the food with her mouth agape, Swan's bottom lip twitches in search of words. "Well, I-I've...seen people do this when other people are sick on TV and...pretty sure what happened to you is a kind of sick." Blushing, she sets the silverware down.

Bloody idiot, he chides himself. Here she is trying to take care of him and he critiques her method.

"Actually, Swan, that flat fried potato...thing looks too intimidating for comfort. Would you be so kind?"

Sighing, she tucks her lips into her mouth while curling up the corners and cuts the—what's the bloody thing called—a "hashbrown?"

"Granny didn't cheap out on you, that's for sure," she grunts only once before finishing her work and setting the container in his lap. They eat in silence for a few minutes, Killian looking up at her after every swallow. She'd taken the day off and brought him food, and the notion itself was enough to have him take a break from his meal and rub the side of his face, suddenly nauseated.

"Emma, there's something I need to tell you. It's about the situation with Gold."

"We already talked about it last night," she says quickly, taking a swig of whatever's in her cup. "He's a douche and we want to make this work."

"No, it's...the fairies, love. He didn't suck them up into that wretched hat. I did, under his command."

There. He's a bastard, she knows it, and now things are honest. She isn't speaking, just looking at him with her head cocked, waiting for him to say more.

"You needed to know what kind of man you were with, Swan. That I've killed...people in the past, I'm sure you know..." he trails off. Is it secrecy if he doesn't feel like talking about any of them at this moment? Is the very fact he has to ask that question proof he deserves nothing of her love, much less her generosity? "I've been trying to change..."

"You have changed."

"I fail to see it. I still hate the Dark One, couldn't wait to see him brought down a peg, and am still doing things I can't be proud of."

"Well, no, being controlled can't really make you proud," she says, raising an eyebrow. Leaning forward, she cups his knee. "If Gold had put me through what he did with you, I'd want him dead, too, and I'm not just talking about recently. Come on, if I thought only a monster would ever want that guy dead, do you really think I would have untied you from that tree?" Pausing, she inhales. "You've wanted Gold dead longer than anybody, and yet he's actually alive, just banished. Whatever things you've done in the past, you decided not to repeat them."


Astonishing faith she'd shown him before, but now? Now, there's none.

"I couldn't agree more."

A hooded figure appears next to him, the moon shining on just a fragment of her face, revealing a greenish pointed chin and a cruel mouth. It pouts at him slightly, as if at one time it was used to being beautiful. A tad smaller frame than Rumpelstiltskin, the figure pulls back its hood and Killian finds himself staring at a green slab of a face, speckled in gold with familiar-looking fish bowl eyes. Her hair pulled tight from her face in rows of braids, she doesn't seem willing to flex even enough muscles to smirk at him.

"The imp's a little too manic for the both of us," she says. "And for what you want, I thought it might be best if you spoke to someone a little more pragmatic."

"You're a former Dark One."

"Not 'former,'" she says, shaking her head in such a way that her entire body seems to move with it. "I am Nimue. The original Dark One, and I too couldn't rest until I'd had my revenge. I once thought love could replace it, as you did, but we both know no matter how happy we think we are, the one who wronged us is still out there, unpunished."

"Who are you?"

"Merlin didn't mention me?" Genuine surprise fills the shadowy woman's tone, but she composes herself, straightening her shoulders. "How like him not to give someone the full story."

Killian raises an eyebrow. Unlike the Crocodile, this Dark One seems to know what she's talking about.

"Rumpelstiltskin did mention a loophole to you, though, didn't he? About casting the Dark Curse?"

Did he? Wait, Killian wants to say, stumbling about when he starts off walking again. He needs to get his bearings. To enact the Dark Curse, a person must crush the heart of the one he or she loves the most...and he is no longer only himself.

"Through you. I could cast it through you." That could work, but... "But you love him."

"I know the betrayal that you feel," Nimue says, ignoring the statement. "Merlin created the dagger to control me. He didn't believe in me, either. If Emma really loved you, she would have helped you exact your revenge. But you're always the one helping her. You dropped your revenge just like that to help her and go save a boy you didn't even know! Tell me, Captain Hook, if the circumstances had been reversed, these people you call your family—would any of them have gone after you?"

He'd offered his ship and his services and wound up on Pan's godforsaken island all over again.

He'd opened his heart and watched her be held in another man's arms.

He'd lost her to the magical rules of space and time and lost his own ship to be with her.

He'd lost his own heart and free will to his enemy, had his very life rewritten and ended, watched her disappear and deteriorate and, the one time he begged for something in return, she'd refused him.

Nimue gives him a tight-lipped smiling, her reptilian pupils dilating.

"No. They aren't willing to fight for you. Your own father wasn't, and anyone who was willing has lain dead for hundreds of years. There's only revenge, Hook. Everything else is a distraction."

Everything else is a distraction. He remembers telling himself that, and often, since the moment Emma Swan burst in and rerouted his entire life. Well, no more. He'll have his revenge. One way or another. About to answer, he feels the air around him yanking him away, red smoke writhing around him.

"Dark One, I summon thee!" pounds in his head until he vanishes.


A/N: I did not originally intend to give Nimue original dialogue, so I am a little nervous about her. It's hard when your only real self-instruction is, "Make her Satan." The chapter title is from 1 Peter 5:8, in which Satan is described as a roaring lion seeking souls to devour. Fitting description for the Darkness. I do not own OUAT and I owe a great deal of thanks to my beta OnceSnow for sending this back to me, like, three times. Coming up? Merlin, we hardly knew ye.