A/N: This is the final chapter for a little while. Our move is coming up and there isn't much time to sit and analyze the clips and write with the care I usually try to give this fic. But it isn't the end, and as soon as we are a little settled and start into a routine, H&M will be back in full swing, ending at the end of Season 5 (or the last happiest moment because after all this angst, I am not ending this fic on a horrible cliffhanger). Thank you for your patience.


They watch one another, Hades smiling in such a way Killian isn't sure if the god is mocking benevolence or truly believes he's done him a favor. This time, however, he hasn't left Killian to his own devices. Hades has stayed put, leaning forward like a child waiting for his favorite part of a story.

"Oh, come on," he sighs with a bit of growl thrown in for good measure. He weaves around the blank tombstones, passing his hand over each one. "All you need to do is choose three of your friends to stay here. Carve their name. What's the problem? Is it the chisel? So unwieldy for the one-handed? Or writer's block?"

Killian finally lets out a little snort and smirks. It hurts his face, and it hurts to lift his wrist, but he flings the chisel forward. It hits the ground with a deafening clang.

"I'm not doing it."

"I must say...I'm not angry. I'm disappointed," Hades says, shaking his head. Killian suppresses a shiver, too attuned to Hades' inflections already, the pacing of his words, the slow, methodical walk he adopts. Leaning down, he purses his lips into a whisper. "And on second thought...I'm angry. I guess it's off to solitary."

Not by the hair again. Screaming as Hades yanks a handful of hair, he staggers to a standing position and almost collapses right back down to the floor. His knee won't bend right. The soles of his feet feel as though they're scraping over burning coals even through his boots. Something inside his body creaks when he twists his hips. Pulling him along as if he weighed nothing, Hades leads him to the edge of his little lair, to the green river, a darker, murkier shade than the emeralds in this little trove. A few feet away from them, a small boat is docked, wafting in the current.

"Now, listen carefully. This is the River of Lost Souls. Touch it, and it will make you lost, reducing you to a mindless, tormented husk. So please, keep all arms and hand inside the boat."


They all look so lost. One lost soul drifting in the river looks no different from any of the others. No identity, maybe no memories, only able to register anguish... He's dreaded the inevitable splashing that comes with a longboat on its way to shore, but this boat glides on top of the water, and the waves couldn't be less choppy. Deprived of even the sensation of riding the wake from a ship, Killian struggles to imagine such a limited, hellish existence.

They all float through stone ruins, paying no mind to the "abandon all hope, ye who enter here" sign bridging the river. There's no need—being lost equates to being without hope. The boat hits the edge of the stone floor with nothing more than a steel spike for a dock.

"Well, we're here," Hades announces to himself, stepping off the boat without sending it rollicking. Tying it off, he cranes his neck and stares back at Killian with pursed lips, as if deep in thought. His tongue taps at the roof of his mouth a few times as he considers this or that until, finally, with a shrug, he heaves Killian out of the boat by his jacket and belt and dumps him onto the floor. A wall of blue flames engulf them. When they clear, Killian finds himself on his forearms and knees, just a roll's length away from the edge of a platform, the moans of the Lost Souls below them a macabre greeting.

"You're not going to want to struggle for this. It makes it worse," Hades warns from over his shoulder. "Ah, but this is you we're talking about. You'd struggle if I didn't take any precautions."

It feels like shards of glass being driven into his back. Screaming, Killian tries to blink away tears as he can feel his blood running hot and wet down his back. Throwing himself further into the center of the platform, he rolls onto his back and wishes he could untuck his shirt and cool his bare skin against the stone. A tiger might as well have dug its claws into him.

"Here we go," Hades mumbles to himself, letting a coil of heavy chains drop down onto Killian's chest. No matter how he bucks, it's too heavy to heave off of himself. Hades kneels down and loops them around Killian's torso, creating a makeshift harness.

"Didn't think I had any mechanical knowledge, did you?" the god laughs. "I actually happen to like machinery quite a lot. Cars, bikes—even ships. Not ancient tugboats like yours, but the big steamships, everything past the paddle wheel era. These chains—ooh, that part's really digging into your back there, huh—are attached to a hook not that different from your own. It's an intricate little pulley system. You'd see it if you were able to turn around. Anyway, I'm proud of it. I rigged it up myself. All we need to do is get you lifted..."

Of course the contraption lifts him up. In his chains, he hangs several feet above the platform, the jerky movements nauseating him. He'd thought being on the floor had made him dizzy. This could only compare to a night of hard drinking when you think you have to hit two identical foes instead of just one.

"And I'll just step off to safety," Hades murmurs, jolting Killian out of a rapidly-approaching stupor. Snapping his fingers, Hades transforms the stone into a grid or catwalk, the thicker beams aligned to form a star. With a hole in the middle. For falling. Trembling, Killian curses at himself for causing the chains to rattle.

"Now I want you to think about why you're here," Hades scolds him as he paces around the grid in a circle. "You tried to escape, you freed another prisoner, you refuse to do what I ask, and do you know the most important reason?"

"I couldn't...begin to guess," he strains to answer, coughing the last word.

"Hope! You and your colleagues brought contraband, hope, into my world, and this is strictly forbidden, and despite some...creative beatings, I still see hope in your eyes."

It would appear he really is a changed man, then, he thinks, lacking the ability to speak more than he already had. It wasn't that long ago that hope seemed too sumptuous to afford. Now, even on the brink of losing himself, he can't seem to rid himself of it. That prisoner crossed over. That prisoner found Emma, and she and her family are so stubborn they create hope when there is none to be found.

"Now, I would like that to be gone before you reach the water." Hades lowers the chain with his magic, and even that slight movement, the slight constricting of the chains harnessing him, elicits a deep groan. They're at eye-level, himself and Hades. An inch closer, and he could bite off the loathsome fiend's nose if he only had the strength. Leaning in, Hades grimaces at him as his lips curl back into a menacing whisper.

"You have interfered with my carefully cultivated existence, so...I am going to hurt you. Then I'm going to collect your friends and hurt them. So there's going to be no one left to save you." The notion of him doing this to Emma, to Henry, to Snow and David and whoever else has come down here must border on the erotic for such a depraved god, his hair twisting into a curvaceous blue fire with sparks dancing on top of it. "Feel free to go mad."

With his one good eye, Killian watches him walk away out of sight. It hurts to think, especially about the prospect of joining the spindly, wraith-like figures that pass by below him now and then, so he won't. He should maintain some sense of hope, if only to spite this monster, who, if fate was just, should be the most sympathizing of all the gods. Death should come like an old friend, with a held-out hand and a few gentle words of praise. He attempts to raise his shoulder to his ear. The chains refuse to budge. Even at his most hale, he wouldn't be able to wrangle his way out of these.

It could have been minutes. It could have been hours. If he stopped replaying happy memory after happy memory in his head, it would be too easy to forget he'd had a life before the chains. The suspension, the winding, sinuous lines of the water and lost souls beneath him, the smothering scent of sulfur—he didn't want to lose consciousness again, but that looked to be a losing battle.

"Killian!"

Emma. Her voice shatters the dizzying spell. He can't see her, the angle all wrong and his body too spent to swing himself in her direction. He should shout for her to go, but the way she'd shrieked his name steals his breath.

"Hang on! I'm coming for you!" The chains lower him further. He doesn't mean to gasp when it jerks to a stop, so he gulps it back down, concentrating on how heavily she's breathing, only a few shuffles and footsteps any indication she's coming closer. A blurred version of her, gold and red, comes into view, like a lioness after a hunt.

She's right in front of him, gripping the chains before he can sink even lower, pulling him to the side.

"I got you!" she pants, trying to set him onto the grid. Everywhere throbs at this sudden change in movement, his legs dangling helplessly over the hole in the center of the grid. She pulls him into a sitting position as fluidly as she can.

And now she's no longer a blur.

The pain from moving him evaporates the second his lays eyes on her—or eye, rather, but it doesn't detract from the sight before him—Emma Swan looking so angelic in her relief, Emma Swan here. For him.

"Oh, Killian," she murmurs, her hand reaching out for his neck, but stopping. She can't use magic here. It would alert Hades to the both of them. Instead, her forehead falls onto his, one hand pressed against his chest in the space where she would normally feel a heartbeat.

"I told you to let me go," he means to murmur back, but he grunts as he speaks still, rendering it a soft growl. "You shouldn't be here. Nobody should."

"I never listen," she laughs with tears in her eyes. It brings a smile to his face in spite of himself.

"You're impossible."

"And you love me for it," she whispers. He means to nod, but she doesn't seem to mind that his head droops down onto her shoulder, nuzzling into her, for she does the same, her hair almost wrapped like a cloak around them. She's warm, without a trace of the Darkness in her. At least he'd managed that before he died.

"I know it hurts, but can you walk? We've got to get out of here." She rises to a lunged position and grips his arms. Looking past her, he inhales at the narrow beam she'd strode across to reach him.

"Swan, even if I can, I don't think I could balance myself on that." He nods over at it.

"It's wider than it looks. The further I went on it, the easier it became. I think that's intentional, too," she says, positioning his arm around her and slowly helping both of them to their feet. "It's only doable if you have enough hope to try. I think Hades gets his kicks out of that kind of thing."

"Where are we going?" he asks, trying to stop his head from plopping right down on top of hers. She steps onto the beam first, not even turning to the side first, so he follows suit. Indeed, it is wider than it looks. A few hesitant slides of his feet, and he can limp across it with her still guiding him.

"There's a boat. We can get on it, meet up with the others, and get home today if everything goes according to plan," she huffs, controlling her breath as they step off the beam onto the other side, the grid nothing more than the past now. He looks back at it, then at her, sighing that he hasn't forgotten any feature he spent so much time memorizing. "Killian, Gold's here, too. See, after you-"

"Hades was all too keen on filling me in about how I failed to kill the Darkness," he almost snaps. Unfazed, Emma takes hold of his hand.

"I needed his help to come here. I needed the blood of someone who had died. At least this way he's not using all his Dark One 2.0-ness to wreak havoc on Storybrooke while Mom, Dad, Henry-"

"You brought Henry here?" He'd had his suspicions, but he'd also entertained the idea that if Emma hadn't had the common sense to forbid the lad from coming here that at least one of the other many adults in his life had.

"Regina and Robin were determined to come here, too, and I couldn't very well leave him on his own, especially since he said he would just find another way to get to you." Smiling, she leaned her head on his. "You've got a lot of people who care about you. Just follow me."

She quickens her speed faster than he can, so she weaves around him until she's almost trotting in a half-turned stance in front of him, tugging on his arms. It won't be long before Hades will be wise to her rescue attempt—and until they're all back in Storybrooke with their hearts beating inside them, it is an attempt—and unleash whatever horror is waiting in line since he hasn't seen or heard any more of the hound.

"Hades!" he hears a hoarse, startled scream echo. Emma pauses, as does he, craning his head so he can see over hers. The Crocodile gnashes his teeth and holds his quivering arm, backing away from the River of Lost Souls.

"I tried to stop him. He blew my magic right back at me. Milah...I couldn't stop it. She's gone."

"Milah," Emma breathes, eyes widening at the river. They'd found her, or perhaps she had found them, and after all these years...she'd wanted to help him. A few seconds sooner and he could have seen her, maybe even could have said goodbye properly. He stares at Emma, always so full of surprises. What had they thought of each other? What all had they talked about? How...how can he make it up to both of them?

"Milah was here?" he whispers, half-hoping she'll correct him. "Milah?"

"She helped us get to you," Emma whispers back, her hand cupping his wrist, caressing it in sympathy. Luck never did seem to favor Milah for long, and now that Hades has flung her into the River of Lost Souls—a veritable worse fate than death—how long will it be before the same fate befalls Emma? Or someone else in their family? They can't stay here, and yet he's unsure he can even stagger his way out of this cavern without help.

"Hades has much to answer for," is all he says to her glistening eyes.

"Indeed he does," Rumpelstiltskin growls, facing the water once more.

"The boat," Emma begins, waiting for Rumpelstiltskin to focus on her. "Do we have a Plan B?"

Sniffing, Rumpelstiltskin straightens his back and stands tall, nodding in such a way a stranger might mistake it for absent-mindedness.

"Hold onto him and stay close," he warns, lifting his hand. "No need to retrace our steps."

Purple smoke obscures his vision, not that there's much to see. All he can make out are plain white walls with a reddish tint over everything. The vapors fade away, and he finds himself standing next to Emma and Rumpelstiltskin in the house he'd picked out in Storybrooke, the white cabinets and kitchen table staring right at him in a rather bold-faced manner, as if they're about to ask what took him so long.

"Are you all right?" Emma asks. Clinging to his arm, she rubs his back and surveys their surroundings. Without any planning or conscious thought, their gaze drifts back to each other, and he can tell it's not over yet.

"We're not back."

"No." Shaking her head, she sighs, leaning back and frowning at the staircase that has at least one toy animal on every step.

"The Underworld is modeled after Storybrooke," Rumpelstiltskin explains. "And it seems the Lord of the Dead values preparedness, as he's reserved dwellings for all of us. At least this place isn't as dusty as your parents' apartment here, Miss Swan. Although I'm sure Hades didn't decide to grace you both with a housekeeper."

The house is littered with toys, blocks lined up along the edge of the countertops, soldiers and puppets stuffed into a foreign-looking hutch that hadn't been there before, bears, tigers, rabbits... He spins around and almost stumbles down onto his tailbone, Emma holding onto him tighter than before. He's seen that crib in the pawn shop before, or at least its mobile with glittering glass unicorns catching the light and reflecting an array of rainbows. Emma's. His bottom lip falls open at the realization, a memory of him once bumping into it when he'd raided the shop what feels like ages ago. This is either the past she never got to have or the future they'll never have together. Or both.

She must feel him tensing, for she's loosened her grip, now just gently rubbing his wrist and brace when the door opens, letting even more of the red light. Henry dashes in and Snow nearly topples over him, bow in hand.

"Killian!" she gasps.

"Good job, Mom!" They crowd around him, David inspecting him for wounds, Regina and Robin pretending to keep a polite distance.

"Oh, look at you." Snow pauses right in front of him with the same look she'd give a hobbling dog on the side of the road.

"I'll be all right," he assures her, casting his eyes downward. If not for this blasted soreness all throughout his body, he would be hunching his shoulders, making himself as small as he could.

"How'd you do it?" David asks.

"Gold got us in, he got us help, he poofed us back here. He even had a boat to get us all back home. But...it's gone," Emma answers, still holding onto him, but inching away just a little, letting him breathe.

"What happened?" Snow asks Rumpelstiltskin. No. He can speak for his own rescue party. The least he can do right now is say something.

"Hades attacked," he says, the flatness of his tone surprising even himself. "We lost the boat and..." Glancing at Emma, he reads complete understanding in her face, the understanding of losing a loved one after you'd already lost them. "We lost a friend."

Which brings them back to Rumpelstiltskin...he wouldn't be opposed to ripping him apart if his beaten body and sense of good form allowed it.

"I hear you took away my sacrifice." He turns on his own and faces the Crocodile, who is as unflinching and unflappable as always. "Everything I did to save my friends all went to give you back your power. I should kill you."

Nodding and raising both eyebrows in what must be mock wonderment, Rumpelstiltskin only answers with a murmured, "Acknowledged."

"But...you helped me get out of there, so I should say..."

"Thank you? No need."

"Stay of execution," Killian corrects him. "We're even. For now." They'd both lost their lives, lost Bae, lost Milah...again. He'd like nothing more than to believe the man would have nothing left in him that would lead to betraying the rest of them and gaining nothing but glory and benefits from it, but the Darkness doesn't like to stay dormant for long, the knowledge of that another tragedy they both now share.

"I just wanted to get home. And, yes, you're welcome, Captain." There's something raw in his voice, and Killian hopes it's loss.

"We're sorry you lost her," Robin finally says.

"She made me who I am."

It boils his blood, and it always has, the ownership he takes of Milah. As if he's the only one who could have been affected by her. The last thing she ever made him was a murderer. Quelling the temptation to punch him in the face, he turns back toward the rest of the group, his friends. His family. Here for him.

"Okay, we don't have a way out, but we didn't have one before anyway," Regina says with a shrug, bringing some much-appreciated common sense and pragmatism to the conversation. Thank you, love, he wills her to hear. "My magic's working now, so...let's do this heart split. That way, when we find an exit, we can get through it."

Heart split? Heart? Split? Snapping back in Emma's direction, she flashes him nothing but a calm smile. Heart split like her parents had done? That could have killed them both?

"Heart split?"

"It's a good plan. It'll work. Trust me," she murmurs to him, taking his hand and hook in hers. Swallowing, it comes again, this feeling of wanting to shrink to nothing more than a pinprick. Emma Swan the Savior had rallied her family together, left Storybrooke behind, and ventured to the Underworld with the intention of taking her own priceless heart out of her body and tearing it in half? For him? Captain Hook? Him?

Breaking away from him, she clears her throat and stands in front of Regina. "Do it."

Regina forms a fist and inhales, bracing herself for...a wave of white light. At first, he likens it to the light that had protected her heart from Cora. The kind of magic she carries in her of course wouldn't allow her heart to be taken, but...he doesn't smell it. He doesn't smell the warm cinnamon that permeates the air when she uses her light magic, but rather the smoky, sulfur that's become quite the staple around here.

"What was that?"

"Interesting."

"What the hell?"

"What is this?" Emma doesn't seem to want to ask, her hand hovering in front of her chest, afraid to press her fingertips against it. "Why didn't it work?"

Killian sighs, letting out a shaking breath. But something's tainted her magic, and it's not the Darkness. That will never enter her again, not if he or, apparently, Rumpelstiltskin, have anything to say about it.

"What's wrong?" he demands of the Dark One, whipping around and stepping between him and Emma. "That's not her magic's doing."

"No, I daresay it's not." Widening his stance, Rumpelstiltskin brings his hand to his chin and ponders a moment. "Tell me, Miss Swan, have you been playing around with the gravemarkers?"


She's trapped here. Emma, Snow, and Regina's names chiseled into tombstones, indicating their occupancy in the Underworld, no different than if they'd truly died with unfinished business.

He blames himself. No other person, not even Rumpelstiltskin, can claim responsibility. Hades himself told him that it had been his family's very presence that angered him so much, interfering with the little setup he had going here. He'd done nothing but stared at her tombstone with her name on it with a dull expression until Emma had linked her arm through his and poofed them back to the house.

"Killian, let's clean you up," Snow urges. She takes his hand and guides him over to the kitchen sink where she has to push a colorful assortment of balls onto the floor to be able to reach the knobs. They bounce away while she searches the drawers, producing a cloth.

"Meg got her happy ending," Henry tells him, but the running water muffles everything else. Leaning over the counter until he rests his weight on his forearms, Killian closes his eye, the other one still swollen shut, and just lets the words the lad rambles out string together, washing over him in one low, incoherent muttering. He jolts at the sensation of someone behind him and shivers at David's attempt to take his jacket off of him. He can't hear Snow's instructions, or even the water now, both drowned out by his own voice, occasionally accompanied by Liam's, bellowing at him.

This is your fault.

You don't deserve this.

They'll all die because of you.

"Mom? Mom, let's give him some space, okay?" Emma breaks the spell, wedging herself between him and her mother to turn off the sink. The two women share a look, and then Snow looks up at him, cocking her head and giving him something less pitiful and more motherly in her eyes.

"David, let's go see about some supplies for the baby and...and pick up some...oh my gosh, I don't even know if it's breakfast time, lunch time, dinner... We'll, uh, j-just meet up back at the loft...what do you think? An hour?"

"Yeah, sounds good." He lets Emma usher them out alone while he remains at the sink, his eye unable to focus on even the contrast between the white counter and his black sleeves.

She nears him, but only enough to give his back a light rub before she busies herself with the cabinets, opening them up one by one until she finds two mugs. That seems to placate her, a soft sight escaping her lips as she fills the tea kettle and sets it on the stove. He's watched her make hot chocolate countless times, so the soft sounds of two spoons tinkling together, the shifting of cocoa from the box to the mugs...it's an attempt to soothe herself as well as him.

As she works, he finds the strength to stand straight again and wander through the downstairs. He won't follow the trail of fluffy animals up to the bedrooms, or at least not yet. He stops in front of her crib and notes the delicate cream-colored bows on the posts. The care put into it, the love that just seems to radiate out of it...

"While that's cooling..." she mumbles to herself, walking past him and removing the sheet that covers the sofa. Turning back to him, she holds out her arm to help him to it. "Come sit down. Let me take a look at you."

"Are you sure you want to?" he asks after a pause. "Hades sort of knocked the handsome out of me." Groaning, he slowly lowers himself into the sofa on his own and lets his head fall back so he can stare at the ceiling. He can't help but wince as the change in movement pangs his ribs, his legs, his back—bloody hell, even his face.

"No one's that powerful," Emma counters, running her hand up and down his arm, and then waving the air around him. She shouldn't be here in this quite-possibly-literal hell hole, giving him a gentle, loving look like nothing's happened. Oh gods, the things he said to her, that she'd always be an orphan...as the crib she never had a chance to sleep in sits right in front of them. She'd tried too hard to control her impulses, had a twisted sense of consideration for others while the Darkness had played with her mind and her soul, but he'd been just the opposite; someone with a carte blanche to say and do whatever struck his fancy...which seemed to be only vengeance.

Her magic's warm, fresh scent fills the air, almost pulling his hand off his rib. Because it doesn't need to hold his torso together anymore. He can open both eyes now, tense the muscles in his legs without a hint of pain. She's healed him and leans into him, her lips inches away from his jaw. He'll go mad and keep her here with him if he indulges her, so he pulls away.

"What's wrong?"

"It's just, uh...a lot has happened between us," he starts, but she shakes her head, still smiling at him.

"Then what's the problem?" It seems simple to her. They hurt each other, but he died, she's here—one might fall into the trap of calling them square now. It's a veritable pattern now, isn't it, he asks himself. Since she's known him she's sailed to Neverland, had her very existence put in danger, filled herself with Darkness, and now awaits Hades' torments without even dying first.

"I'm the problem," he says. "Emma, you were the Dark One for six weeks and only gave in to the Darkness out of love. I plunged in headfirst in a second for revenge! I was weak!" He must really be healed since he can snap to his feet and pace about the room, he thinks, wondering why it feels like a cage. She's not denying him, Rumpelstiltskin's not controlling him, the Darkness isn't whispering into his ear, and yet nothing is how it should be.

"Not in the end," she argues.

"You raised the bar very high, Swan. The fact is..." Shrugging, he realizes there is no other way to say it. "I don't measure up."

"Let me be the judge of that," she argues, standing up. There's a bite in her voice. Rushing over to him, he can't decide if she looks more offended or horrified. "If you didn't, would I have come all the way down here to try to save you?"

"That's my point. I'm not sure I deserve saving."

"What are you saying, that you want to stay down here?" she asks, incredulous. He supposes that is the only alternative at this point, staying here, starting some new path toward redemption. Again. A path where he won't run into her. But he would have had that anyway, had she not followed him here, fate choosing to stop toying with them and separate them for good.

But, on the other hand, fate seemed to have gone out of its way to bring them together in the first place. Gazing at her aghast expression, he ponders all the decades between them, the distances between their worlds, the countless events—both planned and sheer happenstance—that led to setting eyes on her.

Opening his mouth, he's about to wonder out loud if they should have taken his death as a sign that their relationship had always been on borrowed time, given all its maddening twists and turns, but a knock at the door startles her. Looking back at him, she opens the door to a man finally letting go of the breath he'd been holding.

"Hi, can I..." Emma trails off, sensing Killian's face matches the one of their visitor, even though he stands behind her. It's been centuries, years and years of worrying that someone he loved was reduced to just a fading memory, but he can't forget those serious, intelligent eyes or the tips of ears that flop out ever so slightly...Killian used to tease him mercilessly about them.

"Killian?"

"Liam?"

Stunned, Liam's face freezes mid-grin as he enters the house. With a guarded optimism, he watches his brother fight the urge to laugh. "So the rumors are true. After all these years, my little brother is finally here."