Killian had expected Henry to display his usual curiosity and talkativeness, what with being in a new land, one inhabited by those who have died, no less. Now with a clear head and every intention of leaving the Underworld far behind, he knows the place's existence raises a plethora of questions in his own mind. But Henry dawdles behind him, Swan, and Regina on the way back to the apartment, his face betraying something more methodical than his slow steps would lead one to believe. Recoiling every time his mothers reach out to him, Killian can't make sense of the boy's moodiness.

"Sure you don't want to see if the drugstore has any X-Men comics down here?" Swan tries.

"We're on a rescue mission," Henry half-snaps, half-bemoans.

"Well, provisions, then," Regina suggests. "First-aid kits, bottles of water...shotgun shells."

"This is Operation Firebird, not The Walking Dead." Giving all three of them a sour look, Henry adjusts his backpack with his shoulders and marches on ahead of them, determined to keep twenty paces between them, judging by his speed.

"It kind of is like..." Regina stops short when she looks over at Killian. "I'll refrain."

"I don't know," Swan says in a hushed voice when Regina looks over at her.

"Hey!" they hear from a distance. A flash of green and waving arms indicates Robin running up to meet them. Fortunately, no walking dead are following them at the moment, so no need for a shotgun. Smiling and giving Killian a quick nod, Robin inhales and places his hands on his hips.

"So no sign of the book at the library."

"That's all right. We found it. We were just trying to find some torn-out pages," Regina summarizes, meeting Robin's hand halfway with hers and letting their fingers interlock.

"That's wonderful...or at least I would think it was if Henry didn't look like he was in prison. What's he so glum about?"

"Well, it is the Underworld," Killian quips under his breath, answering Robin's expression of feigned-offense with one of his own. Then the thief gazes off in the lad's direction for a moment.

"Actually, he was acting a little strange earlier."

"What do you mean?" Swan asks, folding her arms and leaning in closer.

"Well, he and I went to search your office," he says, looking at Regina. "We didn't have anything magical with us to get through the door, so he had the idea to fit into the vent while I kept watch. Normally, I would have gone, but, well, we were in a pinch and short on time. Things were going fine—no one around at all—but when he came out, he was just a little quieter than usual. It was very slight; I didn't even think it was worth mentioning until now."

"Let's just give him some space," Swan says, nodding for them to continue.


"Maybe there's something else in here that can help us." Swan's hand brushes the pages of the book, but she doesn't turn to another story. Liam did a thorough job, Killian thinks, having just apologized for his brother's betrayal. He'd like to have him here in this little circle, brainstorming...no. Liam's done plenty of that. Now is his time to be at peace. He blinks a couple of times, wondering if he'll ever get used to truly knowing that. That can't be bothered with now. Swan mentions their Storybrooke holding all manner of secrets within its woods and town line, ever the optimist now. That there's another way, he agrees with, and that the book will be key, he agrees with even more. But they're going to have to go about this differently.

"Well, Henry's kind of the expert on storybooks. Where is he?" David asks.

"He's upstairs going full emo teenager," Swan sighs.

"And doesn't want to talk to anyone right now," Regina adds with a tone of resignation.

"Maybe he just doesn't want to talk to his mothers," David says, heading up the stairs to the loft. Henry had gone up the stairs like a ghost when they'd returned, taking his backpack with him. If one craned his neck and stood on his tiptoes, he could spy the boy sitting on Emma's bed staring off into space, but Killian's not one to invade an "emo" teenager's privacy.

"Good luck," Regina mumbles.

"While David's seeing to that, I guess I should get dinner started," Snow says. Weaving through them back to the kitchen, she stops and gives all of them a glare. "What?"

"Dinner? Because the Underworld has actual food?" Swan challenges.

"Yeah! Did you think I was going to go to the Underworld and let my daughter starve?"

This is getting awkward. Perhaps he should volunteer to go back with Robin and see if they could retrieve those pages from the well outside the mansion.

"No." Swan blushes, oddly touched at the remark and trying so hard not to look touched. "It's more the fact that you were able to find food at all..."

"Not saying it's going to be good, but you're talking to the bandit who's eaten squirrel guts. I think Underworld-tainted spaghetti will be a little better than that."

"And with that promising preamble, perhaps Emma and I should continue searching the grounds for the pages," he suggests right at the same time Henry comes down the stairs with David close behind him, his hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Before you do that, I-I have something to tell everyone," Henry announces. He looks so nervous, so small right now, a far cry from moments before.

"We're listening, Henry," Snow says gently, coming back from around the counter. She eases back into the circle they've all unintentionally formed around the coffee table where Henry shuffles back and forth.

"I'm sorry. I should know by now not asking for help isn't a good idea," Henry says. "Thing is, I-I've seen the Apprentice. I don't know if he's here because he has unfinished business, or if it was a vision, or what, but I saw Cruella here, too."

"Sorry to hear that," Regina says, her trademark snark somehow managing to comfort Henry. He shares a smile with her.

"Well, she brought it to my attention that something of mine was here." He sets a pen on the coffee table with a shaking arm. It's not just any pen. It's the one he earned. The one he snapped in half.

"The Author's pen? I thought you destroyed it," Regina almost gasps.

"I did, but that just brought it here. The Apprentice told me where it was. I thought if I used its power, I could be a hero."

"Henry, what made you think you needed to do this?" Regina asks.

"At first, it was Cruella. She wanted me to use it to bring her back to life."

Killian's eyes snap to Emma, who has paled, eyes filled with terror, mind filled with images of that vile woman holding her son at the edge of a cliff.

"Why would you help her?" she whispers.

"To help you," Henry insists. "She said you have all this guilt about killing her, and that's when I realized—I have all this power, and I ignore it. I just live in everyone's shadow! I want to be the hero instead of the one the heroes rescue!"

Emma stands up, her pain matching Henry's. "I understand that. But that's not the way to do it."

"I know. And that's why I'm telling you now. I finally understand what the Apprentice meant. I'm going to write the stories as they are, and I'll start with Hades. I'm going to use this pen the correct way. To recreate his story."

They all know so little about the pen and its magic. But its purpose is to document actual events. Maybe, maybe the pen knows something Henry and the rest of them don't. Maybe stories can come to an Author, and not just the other way around. If that works, what a boon.

"Hades went to a lot of trouble to keep us from learning his story," Snow notes.

"Which means we're onto something," Regina finishes.

"Question is, what is Hades trying to hide from us?" David wonders.


The question hangs on the tip of everyone's tongue during dinner, lingers in the air. They eat without much conversation, feeling the heat of an upcoming battle. After the dishes are cleared, David offers to watch over Henry while he sleeps, in hopes that Hades' past will come to the lad in a dream. The rest scatter to claim territory for the night. Regina and Robin secure the library as best they can. If Regina's barrier spells can keep the Savior out, perhaps they will keep out Hades. He, Swan, and Snow stake out the grocery for practical purposes with old-fashioned methods...bows and arrows, swords, and blinding light magic. The norm now.

He takes the watch that will end with daybreak, reclined on the sofa with his eye locked on the door. Only the domestic sounds of a running refrigerator and sleeping bodies disturb the silence. Well, those and Swan occasionally pacing up in the loft. He's hoped she would come down and keep him company, but he supposes in her mind that would mean she'd completely given up on the idea of sleep. Not that he wouldn't mind staying awake and letting her sleep on his shoulder, but he's certain she would view that as a personal defeat.

"We're going to pick up breakfast," Snow announces to him quietly after she and David have finished getting ready.

"Be careful, milady. Hades might have approached anyone about spying on you," he warns, rubbing his eyes.

"That's what this is for," David says, loading the—blast, what's the bloody thing called—magazine into his gun with a threatening click.

"They're already dead, mate."

"I know. Nobody likes to be shot, though," he calls back as he heads out the door.

Alone again. His head n rfalls back and hits the top of the sofa. Well, he can at least hear other people moving. Maybe he should just go on up and try to sleep for an hour or so.

Swan descends from the upstairs, brushing her hair as she does so. Keeping it a decent distance from the kitchen, she places the brush in the bathroom and turns on the stove.

"Morning, love."

"Hey. If you want any chance to sleep, you might want to go now. Henry's starting to get...physical."

"Physical?"

"Coffee?" she offers, holding up a mug, blatantly ignoring his confusion. Raising an eyebrow at her, his eyes veer up to the loft. He tiptoes to the bottom of the stairs and cocks his head. Grunts and the sounds of someone thrashing on the bed are even worse when one can't see what's happening.

"What's happening to him?" he asks, wide-eyed.

"Offhand, I'd guess nightmares, but...if he's trying to use the pen, this might be the way it's done." Shaking her head as she glances worriedly at the top of the stairs, she manages to shrug. "It's not as bad as it sounds. He's a kicker, though." Flexing, she emphasizes a spot on her back that wouldn't be so delightful a place to be kicked.

"I'm surprised you even lay down," he says, sauntering over to her, pressing his body against her back as she fills the teapot with water from the sink. Slowly planting a kiss on the side of her neck, he reaches up and pulls down another mug. "Apparently, I will be taking you up on that offer for coffee."

"I tried to sleep, but..." she trails off, and in the way that suggests she has no intention of discussing the problem just yet. Not with Regina and Robin coming down the stairs, probably having shared Henry's folding bed that used to be the only piece of furniture up there besides a small chest containing Emma's paltry possessions.

"How goes the writing?" Robin asks, nodding up at the loft where Henry is.

He opens his mouth to answer, but the sudden sound of the bed spring's creaking incites everyone to pause. Footsteps, an audible sigh...shouldn't he be running down eager to share something?

"He must be writing," Swan whispers to everyone, trying once again to busy herself with making coffee. They all move in slow, disjointed movements to avoid snapping Henry out of his trance or dream or however it works. Killian waits at the steps, his heel bouncing as he debates whether or not he should go up to check. At last, he hears the normal sounds of someone starting their day and heads back to the sink.

"No one act too anxious," Swan warns. "We don't want to put more pressure on him."

"Right, just act like it's a normal day," Regina adds. Ah. Normal. He almost laughs, but clamps his mouth shut once Henry comes down holding a few pages in his hands.

"Hi, guys," he says, eyeing all of them. "I, uh, wrote something. I mean, I guess I wrote something. I don't really remember doing it."

As they grow closer to Henry, the boy gulps and takes a deep breath. Well, if the Apprentice had bothered to appear to Henry, he might as well have appeared to all of them to explain just how this worked and what to expect. He's heard of people who simply sit down with a pen and just start writing, just start moving their wrist without any attempt at conscious thought, often with the goal of channeling the deceased. If this is anything akin to that, who knows what will actually be written down on the pages?

There is an illustration of Snow and David at the diner, possibly a few minutes ago, possibly right at this moment. Henry narrates a short anecdote of the two of them lamenting that the Blind Witch at the diner has come to expect their presence...without any mentioning of Hades at all.

"...and so a thought struck Snow at that instant. She and her husband, so geared toward action most of the time, were languishing."

Because of him. He rubs his eye and traces his temple. That's not self-loathing talking, either; that's a cold fact. They're all currently trapped here, away from their infant and all their friends, wondering if they will get their lives back.

"Riveting tale. Snow likes oatmeal. Is my morning breakfast in there, too?" He's probably spoken out of turn, he thinks with a set jaw, but it's too late to shut his mouth now. "Henry, I thought you were going to use your Author powers to get us to defeat Hades."

"I don't even remember writing this. I just woke up and had it done," he retorts.

"Okay. It's really well-written," Swan tries.

"Yes, and the illustrations are lovely," Regina says.

"Maybe if you focus harder..." Swan tries again.

"Oh." And there is something more than a little shrill about that "oh." "So you're all Authors now? Everyone's a writer. Everyone's got an idea. I'm doing my best! Maybe if you just laid off for a little bit." Backing away, he rolls his eyes at all of them and storms back towards the loft. Don't laugh, don't laugh, don't laugh, Killian attempts to steel himself, but it's hard to do what with Robin also attempting to hold it in. Ah, this brings back memories.

"Henry, where are you going?" Regina calls after him.

"Upstairs."

Some—and he won't say who—lads would storm below decks and find a soiled-but-otherwise-unoccupied hammock to find refuge from meddling parent/brothers and well-meaning old salts and think they were victorious even though they were all alone sitting in the dark on a dirty hammock.

"Well, we officially have a teenager on our hands," Swan sighs, about to turn around and probably give him a look for showing amusement, but a knock stops her.

"And a visitor in our Underworld apartment," Regina notes, walking towards the door as Robin stands up.

It won't be Snow and David, and Killian has the feeling it isn't Rumpelstiltskin with some earth-shattering discovery that will get them all home. Anyone else will be, at best, a distraction, and at worst, a new adversary. With just a brief second of hesitation, hand pressed against the door, Swan opens it.

"Zelena?" Robin blurts. Ordinarily, he imagines he wouldn't be able to stop grinning upon hearing news of the Wicked Witch's demise, but considering that circumstances now dictate she's stuck right along with the rest of them, the mood's a touch soured.

"So...someone finally did you in," Regina says, sounding angry and relieved at the same time.

"Sorry to disappoint, but I'm very much alive."

"Then how did you get here?" Robin demands. She couldn't have come the same way the rest of them did.

"Through a portal, and I didn't come alone." Zelena's face turns somber, flecks of fear in her eyes. For a moment, she looks almost human.

"Who else is here?" Regina asks.

"Our baby. And she's in danger."

The baby? The little newborn that was supposed to be back in Storybrooke with Neal and Roland, safe?

"What the hell did you do?" Robin barks at her, stalking toward her with his fists out, like he intends to grab the Witch by the cloak and slam her into the wall. That should be the cue for her to work her magic and freeze him or choke him or something, but she doesn't. The only thing that changes is the level of shame and concern on her face.

"I didn't do a damn thing! I went to see her, only for Belle to overreact and, well, I know the bookworm wasn't responsible for the portal that appeared, but she used it! She took the baby and used it and I have no idea where they are and we need to find them! Now, are we all just going to stand here looking stupid, or are you heroes going to help me form a search party and help a baby in distress?"

"You'll have to take us right back to where the portal dropped you off," Swan begins, rushing back to pull her jacket off the arm of the couch.

"Hold on. Someone has to stay here with Henry," Regina says, stopping her with a touch on the arm.

"Henry's our ticket out of this place. I'll go, you stay with him," Robin suggests, readying his bow.

"With no magical backup that's on your side? I don't think so. The two of us will find the baby. She'll be in our custody," she says, jerking her head back in Zelena's direction. "And you two can hold down the fort and watch Henry."

They say little else, and Killian can't honestly blame them, what with a missing child, but one would think the slamming of the door was some kind of personal offense to Swan. She stands in front of it, staring, holding herself, like all of a sudden she's an adolescent again with no idea how to stand or what to do with her arms.

"I'm not usually the one who 'holds down the fort.'"

"Well, what can we do from here?" he asks. "If you put some sort of spell on the door, you can go and I'm capable of supervising Henry myself. His attitude as of late doesn't bother me as much as it does you, anyway."

"No." She shakes her head and tosses her hair. "Being on 'guard duty' sounds better than 'holding down the fort.' What do you think happened? Why would a portal just appear like that? Someone had to have caused it."

"Remember that's just what Zelena is telling us. There's no way right now to truly gauge what happened." Plopping down into the sofa, he taps on the arm with his fingers. "If the phones worked here, we could simply try calling Belle."

"She'll turn up here. She's smart, and if she's not, there's no way Gold's not going to know she's here." She collapses onto the sofa next to him, swinging her legs over so they're on his lap. Still huffing, she leans her head back. "And there's nothing of the baby's here for us to do a locator spell. I guess we just wait here and tell Mom and Dad what's going on when they get back. You wouldn't think getting breakfast would take so long. Do you think something's wrong?"

"No. I think the storybook implied they needed to have some time alone before they came back into the fray." Her worried expression sends a surge of sympathy throughout his entire system, so he curls his arm around her and pulls her into his lap. Situating the two of them so her back is against his chest and he's against the arm of the sofa, he kisses her cheek. She nestles into him, a soft sound of contentment emitting from her. He has yet to return the favor from the mansion...

"Now," he whispers into her ear, trailing his lips against her skin. "I have an idea as to how to wait things out until your parents return."

She's already breathless as his hand slides between her trousers and her skin. The undergarment is soft and stretches enough so as not to be a hindrance. She wiggles out of her trousers just enough, and he takes his time, massaging her thighs as he continues to kiss her.

"Henry's upstairs," she murmurs, gasping and stifling a squeal when his fingers begin to move. He's dreamed of doing this to her for longer than she knows, and one time in Camelot just isn't enough.

"Then let's hope you can be quiet," he murmurs back.


Now he begins to wonder where David and Snow are. Long past breakfast, he and Swan wash dishes, toy with removing more of the shrouds, but agree that they didn't want to grow too comfortable while they were here, and take turns asking the other if they should go interrupt Henry's thought process. Killian's attempt to lighten the mood with a wry, "If I wanted a shark to bite my head off, I would be out on the water" actually earned a smile...although not as blissful a one as before. Grinning to himself, he opens the front door and listens for echoing footsteps.

"Nothing?" Swan calls to him.

"Nothing," he sighs. He settles back onto the sofa with her. "I believe we've reached that point where guard duty feels like wasting away."

They sit up at a clattering on the stairwell outside, someone running up the stairs. The door flies open, and David and Snow come sprinting in with wide eyes.

"Emma, Emma, you won't believe where we've been!" Snow cries. If Killian didn't know better, he would be at a loss to determine who was the mother and who was the child. When they come closer, he expects to see a grown woman trying not to clap her hands together, but Snow stands perfectly straight, with her head held high even though she's panting. It's less like a child coming in to tell Mum they saw a turtle, he decides. It's more like a religious experience.

"We haunted Neal!"

Or...they haunted Neal?

"What?" Swan blurts, echoing his confusion.

"We were standing in a line all this time, sorry," David says without an ounce of true apology in his tone. "The Blind Witch was telling us about this payphone we could use so Neal could hear us."

"You...can do that? You can talk to the real world?" Swan asks with a guarded optimism. He's about to scoff. If the Blind Witch said it, and that "payphone" is here, in a land where Hades himself called hope contraband, it sounds too good to be true. Missing baby, story-less Author, and his family being garnered with false hope.

"Yes. Or...well, no. I don't know," Snow fumbles.

"Well, at least we tried," David reassures her, patting her back.

"I just need him to hear our voices."

That nauseating feeling of being responsible for all this begins to crawl back up his throat, dragging his stomach along with it. They're new parents. Neal is helpless. How long will it be before he too is down here in danger of winding up in Hades' clutches? Robin's small daughter being in the arms of Zelena isn't the worst fate that could be afforded to the little one, and that alone should prove just how terrible a place the Underworld is. He recalls their argument in the woods that he and Elsa overheard when they were searching for Emma. One child of theirs is a grown woman with a tremendous burden placed on her, needing their support more than she lets on...and the other is an infant with a far different—but even longer—list of needs, and there just doesn't seem to be a way for Snow White and Prince Charming to balance time between them. If only they were all at home, gathered at the real apartment.

"He will!" Emma asserts, standing up with all the conviction of a knight ready to slay this dragon made of false hope. "As soon as we make it back home."

"Emma, when will that be?" Taking her daughter's hand, Snow looks her right in the eye in that motherly way his Swan can never resist. Mercifully, said motherly insight is nearly always correct. "We went through this with you. For all those years, if you had just heard our voices, would that have made a difference, knowing someone out there loved you?"

It makes all the difference in the world when someone loves you, he thinks.


"Killian!"

Belle throws her arms around him. There's too much of a height difference for him to touch the top of her head with his cheek to reassure her, so he decides on a pat on the shoulder.

"I'm so glad to see you," she says, pulling away from him and sitting at the table. He takes his spot back on the sofa with Emma, waiting for Belle to say more. She'd opened her mouth like she had news.

"What's wrong?" he asks her, following her gaze behind him to where she seems to be inspecting Emma, like she's seeing her for the first time. Something passes between the two of them that he can't grasp, but he identifies the guilt on Emma's face all too well.

"Belle, we-we should talk."


"So does she have a name yet?" Belle asks Robin after cups of tea have been passed around. Whatever private aside she and Emma had...well, everything appears to be fine, so he'll not give it much thought. He has wondered, though, how Robin has been able to last so long not knowing what to call his own child. Not that he's an expert on the subject, but Killian always imagined he would be running name after name through some invisible filter in his brain to busy itself in anticipation of the birth of his own offspring, have a name all picked out and ready to go. He looks over at Robin at the same time everyone else does.

"No. Not yet. I can't. Hades can do things with names."

Fair point, he thinks, stepping further into the dining area of the apartment with everyone else.

"Like put them on tombstones to keep people from leaving here," Regina notes.

"I don't even think it's wise to keep her in this apartment. I mean, what if Zelena changes her mind?" he asks anyone with an answer. That was yet another bizarre twist occurring at this place—Zelena with a heart. She'd actually given the baby back to Robin and Regina, and not just for safe-keeping, possibly for all time, Hades wanting the little one for one heinous reason or another. He'd have never expected it, for the Wicked Witch to do something selfless, but love weaves its own magic.

"I hate to be the one to offer optimism," he says with some hesitation to Robin. "But it sounds like she was sincere."

"She was," Regina states. He raises an eyebrow. He'd offered optimism, not certainty. "But that doesn't mean what she knows can't come back to bite us. Robin's taking her to the forest."

"Honestly, it's the only place I've ever felt really at home," he says with a shrug. That...that may take some logistical mathematics, Killian thinks, craning his neck to watch the baby yawn. Yes, being decked out in so much pink could wear anyone out. Perhaps Hades won't even think to look for someone so fragile in the forest.

Before he can even nod in support of such a desperate plan, Henry bounds down the stairs. This time, he exudes pride in his work, carrying a few papers as if they weighed more than a brick of gold.

"It happened! It happened again!" Taking a breath, he turns the pages over to his grandfather and hovers over them. David's forehead wrinkles.

"Snow, look at this."

"It's Neal!" she gasps, holding out the full-page illustration of Neal lying peacefully in his crib back in Storybrooke.

"Why did you write this?" David whispers, choking on his own voice.

"It's like before. I didn't. Or I just don't remember. It just...wrote itself. Like it does."

They're shocked, not worried, at what chose to pour out of Henry's pen. That in itself is a relief, but then Emma puts her arm around her mother and begins to actually read the story accompanying it in a quiet, confident voice one might take on while reading a bedtime story to a child right before bed.

"'The infant son of Snow White and Prince Charming looked up at the tiny glass unicorns as they stirred by the wind. But on this night, he didn't hear the chime of the crystal. Instead, he heard the voices of his mother, Snow White, and his father, Prince Charming.'" Unable to take their eyes off Emma, Snow and David's hands manage to find one another and interlock fingers, their eyes shimmering with tears as Emma continued.

"'They sang a lullaby until he fell asleep as soundly as if he were in their arms.'" Astonished, proud, relieved...he smiles at the adoring look Emma gives the picture of her brother, then her parents, and then him.

"He heard us!" Snow gasps, letting the tears fall as David holds Henry's arm. "He heard us."

"Thanks, Henry."

After taking a deep breath and caressing Emma's hand, still on her shoulder, Snow looks up at all of them. "I don't know about anyone else, but I am really ready to get back to my family. My whole family, no more waiting. We can save ourselves. We're going to take down Hades, and we're going to do it now."


A/N: I don't own The Walking Dead. Nor do I own this show. Coming up? We find out what Emma and Belle talked about, and no, this is not the beginning of a love triangle. Also? Well, I didn't think these later episodes of the story arc did much in the way of being all that engaging as far as Team Major Characters Minus Zelena went, so if you want to know how they got to the library, what they were doing on the roof of the library, and why, read on.