They all stand transfixed on Ruby's unconscious form, wrapped in her red cloak, for much longer than four adults should. Killian knows they're all wondering the same thing—if she's dead. Emma, miraculously recovered from the fear that had led them to the vault, grabs his hand and Snow's. She motions for Regina to huddle with them.

"Keep a hand on her, okay, Regina?" she asks. He doesn't close his eyes until she does, noting how tightly she's snapped them shut. All touching, the familiar warm cinnamon scent fills the air.

When he opens his eyes, they're in the apartment, all shifting to keep Ruby from toppling over all of them.

"Th-that's Ruby!" David shouts, running over to them.

Lifting her off the floor, Killian slides Ruby onto Snow and David's bed. Surely she wouldn't still be unconscious from her transport if magic wasn't involved. Is she dead? He hadn't seen much of her lately, but he'd chalked it up to her changing shifts at Granny's or dating or just something occupying most of her time, not...not her finding her way down here.

"Is she okay?" Snow gasps, climbing onto the bed and sitting close be her friend's side.

"Why is she down here?" David demands of them. Henry hurries down the stairs, and something about the stricken, wide-eyed expression on his face urges Killian to run toward him. The lad catches up to him, however, not the other way around, looking green around the gills with dread.

"She's not..." he starts.

"No," Killian assures him. She can't be dead. Even if she had died, she would be the first one he knew of to arrive in the Underworld via cyclone. "She's still breathing."

"How long do you think she'll be out?" Snow asks, looking over at Emma and Regina.

"I don't know. We hit her with some strong stuff," Regina says, looking just as concerned.

"Where has she been since she left Storybrooke?" he hears David ask Snow, beginning their session of trying to "talk out" the problem. That she left comes as a bit of a shock to him, though. When had she left?

"She went to find her pack," Snow explains.

"Unless they're dead, I'd say she's sniffing in the wrong place," Regina says. She's missing the point, Killian thinks. Going off in search of a pack doesn't explain anything.

"Any explanation for what she's doing here?" he asks the group.

"Just this." Emma bends down and pulls up a grimy gingham strip of fabric, like it had been torn off of a dress of tablecloth or something of that nature. She eyes it and turns it over in her hands a couple of times, but it doesn't seem as though it's telling her anything.

Ruby, however, stirs, as if she sensed she and the fabric had been parted. With a loud gasp, she sits straight up in the bed, her eyes flashing gold.

"Ruby, Ruby, it's okay. It's okay. You're with us," Snow soothes her, holding her by the shoulders, trying to make eye contact with her.

"Snow?"

"Here." David leans forward and extends his arm, his hand pressing on her back to keep her from collapsing. "You're safe."

That's up for debate, Killian thinks, but best not alarm the she-wolf seconds after waking up.

"Everything's...weird," Ruby murmurs, looking around the apartment. That's an understatement. "Why's everything red?"

"Ruby," Snow begins, holding her friend's hand. "You've missed a lot."

"I know. I thought I could come and go between the worlds now that Anton was growing the beans, but...Snow, I was so close! I was on their trail, and then Mulan and I kept going, and I...just...I guess I had left Storybrooke altogether without looking back. This..." she trails off, her eyes darting up at their surroundings. "This isn't right."

"No, it's not. You—us—we're all in the Underworld," Snow explains.

"The Underworld?" Ruby's eyes widen. "I don't understand. I used a tracking spell so the cyclone would bring me to Zelena."

Wonderful. Zelena had done damage in multiple worlds and perhaps Ruby is only the first of several avengers on their way down here hungry for her blood.

"Ruby, she's down here, too," Emma corrects her. Aye, but they need to work backwards a little more.

"Wait, love, you came down here looking for Zelena?" he asks.

"Why am I not surprised?" Regina sighs. "What did my sister do now?"

"It's my friend Dorothy. Zelena wanted her magic slippers so that she could get back to her baby," she says with such bite, such distaste, that Killian can hardly blame her. It is one of the most repellent things that's happened lately. They just haven't had time to dwell on it. It's for the best Robin's taken her out to the woods.

"Ruby, what did Zelena do to your friend?" Snow asks.

"That's why I'm here. I don't know! Dorothy went to face her and just disappeared! Mulan and I looked everywhere, but we couldn't find her." The terror in her eyes, the tremors in her voice—it's always what the villains could do that ravages the mind. Zelena being Zelena...Dorothy could be nothing more than a pile of ash right now. Closing his eyes, he tries to visualize the pages of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, but it's been months since he'd read it, researching the Wicked Witch of the West. No clue of where Dorothy might have gone or what could have happened to her comes to mind.

"Snow, this is all my fault," Ruby groans. "None of this would have happened if I hadn't shown up in Oz. It's just one more life that I have destroyed because of what I am!"

"That is not true, and you know it. Ruby, we'll find out what happened to Dorothy. I promise."

He's never loved Snow more than now. Ruby was usually so cheerful, so upbeat and ready to take care of everyone else that to see her this way actually wounds him. He would never wish Granny to be here as well, but if she had come along, at least Ruby could have also found comfort in her grandmother. Snow may be the only other person, aside from this Dorothy, who could incite that smile creeping up on Ruby's face.

"There's only one way we're going to do that. It's time to talk to Zelena," Emma says. They've been avoiding it, honestly. If the Witch had resigned herself to staying away from her child and keeping out of the way, neither he nor Emma were inclined to rock the boat. Killian walks over to the counter and loads the finished pages into Henry's backpack, looking up to see Snow keeping David back. They speak in hushed voices, so he won't eavesdrop.

"Hook," David calls to him with his arms crossed.

Perhaps in this case eavesdropping would have been the prudent thing to do.

"Side mission. You're with me."

"Where are you guys going?" Henry asks, grabbing a bottle of water out of the refrigerator. Emma and Regina hang back by the door, letting Snow and Ruby pass them.

"We need to send another message to Neal, make sure he knows we're all right. Not a good place to go alone." David's cocked head tells Killian he's meant to be backup for the day. He shoots his own look over at Emma, but he knows not to expect her to intervene.

"You two can take Henry with you," she says.

"Swan, Zelena's never one to tackle by yourself," he tries. The chin jutting out just a little, the slight nod, mouth ajar—she's trying to convey she understands his point of view. That doesn't mean she'll acquiesce to it.

"It might not hurt for you to avoid Zelena right now."

"She'll hold a greater grudge against you than me," he reminds her, loathing that he needs to bring up that horrid rushed pregnancy.

"But I can use magic to defend myself; you can't." Sighing, she cocks her head, gesturing for him to come closer. He does so, and once she checks with the corner of her eye that her father isn't listening, she looks back up at him.

"Also, Dad's brother is still out there," she whispers, holding herself. "I can handle the magic fights. You might have a non-magic one sooner than later. Everything I've read and heard about James—I don't want him to go alone."

"Then he won't," Killian says, leaning down and pecking her lips. Smiling at him, she slowly heads out the door.

"All three of you had better come back in one piece," she mock-warns.


He'll never forget it. Nor, he supposes, will he be forgiving Cruella any time in the near future. The long line of one crushed face after another pulled at his heart, but when she'd ordered that man to rip out the phone...David. He'd watched David's face flash from terror to fighting back tears to a deep fury. That—that couldn't stand.

"Grandpa, don't!" he hears Henry yell. It's instinct that makes him follow the boy's lead and grab onto David's arm, restraining him as Cruella and her lackey drive off.

"David," he tries to say as calmly as he can. "David."

"It's all right," Henry adds, shifting to turn his hold into a simple tight hug, one any child might give a grandparent. "Neal heard you and Grandma. He's okay."

There is a pause, David's nostrils flaring, tears welling that Killian knows firsthand are hot with rage. Relaxing a little, David hunches his back and lets out a breath.

"You guys don't get it. It's not...it's not just Neal." It's almost too much to watch the disappointed crowd disperse at the same time David utters his son's name with such longing. "This was the only way to get a hold of anyone in Storybrooke. If something happens to Neal, we can't reach Blue. We can't reach Archie, the dwarves...Hades was already able to put a portal up there that got Belle, Zelena, and the baby here in the first place. What else can he do?" He throws up his arms.

"We don't know Storybrooke's in any danger," Killian begins, although with less confidence than he would like. David paces in a tight circle with his hands on his hips, lost in his own fears, far worse for wear than he'd been the day Neal was even born.

"Oh, we don't?" David bellows. A few pedestrians going by look over at them and then promptly pretend they're not there. "The powerful god that rules an entire realm—who tortured you just for being here—that god wouldn't want to see Storybrooke burn just to spite the rest of us? Are you sure about that?"

"We need to get my moms," Henry says. Good thinking, lad. No use trying to calm David if they don't have a solution in the works.

"No. Not you." David wags his finger at Henry as he thinks. "You'll...you'll go back to the loft. Bolt the door. Don't try to write anything right now. Hook, are you ready?"

He opens his mouth, but he catches Henry's face out of the corner of his eye, searching. He...he's waiting for him to tell him it's okay, Killian thinks, melting at the notion. This boy is standing there looking up at him, looking to him to tell him what to do... Gods, he loves his boy. That's only one of a thousand reasons why they need to fix this mess, and they won't do it separated.

"He might as well come along. No use in losing another member of the team," he says, catching Henry's smile in the corner of his eye.

"Come on," David urges him, taking off. "We need to meet up with the others."

"Where are they?" Henry asks before breaking into a run. Killian has to remind himself the boy isn't as well-educated in making a mad dashes for certain places—the woods, the loft, the cemetery—as the rest of them are.

About to answer, David instead dips his head down to avoid a branch and they continue their sprint. At least running will keep Cruella at bay...although he'd pay good money to see that woman try to keep up in her expensive shoes and heavy furs.


At last, upon entering the cemetery, he sees the rest of their party, gathered around their own gravestones. Blasted Hades, knowing full well how unnerving seeing one's own grave could be. He would pull Emma away from hers under less dire circumstances. If Storybrooke truly is in danger of Hades' wrath...

"Snow! We've been looking everywhere for you!" David calls to her, skidding to a stop with Killian and Henry close behind him. Killian can see Snow's face pale at her husband's sudden appearance.

"What is it? Did you talk to Neal?"

"Hades ripped out the phone. He's cut us off from Storybrooke," Killian says, his stomach turning at being the one to give her the news. He can't imagine the nightmarish thoughts that can plague a fearful parent's mind. Or maybe he can...

"What? Why?" she gasps.

"Snow, Neal's fine," David begins.

"Wait, no, we don't know that! I mean, maybe Hades did this for a reason. Maybe he's going to make a move on Storybrooke now that we're trapped down here."

Well, that was his train of thought. Perhaps he really can think like a parent. Or a villain. Gods, that's what he would do in Hades' position, leave this wretched place and start a new life in a place full of everyone your enemies hold dear. It's the perfect revenge.

"This is exactly what he wants, for us all to lose hope," he hears David trying to reassure her, maybe add some rationale to the discussion, but, as much as he admires the Prince, guessing villains' tactics is not his strong suit.

"Well, it's hard not to when our child's life might be in danger!"

"Mom," Swan finally speaks up, her voice calm, expectant, even. "I think it's time."

"For what?" Snow demands without even looking at her, her eyes still fixated on David. Swan waits, though, waits for her mother to slowly veer her gaze at her.

"For you to go home. Both of you."

David and Snow exchange a look, and Killian wonders if it's the same look they would share had they raised Swan as a child and suddenly heard a smaller version of her utter some profanity. Completely flabbergasted.

"We haven't completed our mission. We haven't defeated Hades," Snow says. Killian glances over at David and watches the man's eyes dart to and fro, how brow furrowed in thought.

"You've done more for me than you know and so many down here," Swan says.

"And I meant what I said—we came because we wanted to." She steals a glance at Killian. He'd shiver if he didn't know she had come down here to rescue him.

"Because I needed you," Swan argues, still so calm. Maybe this had been in the back of her mind all this time, not that Hades would do this, but that there would come a time when she would have to carry out the rest of their "mission" on her own, or at least without some of the people she'd so hesitantly come to rely on as time passed. Perhaps she'd also had dreams of her brother in addition to her mother's death. Perhaps she'd taken as much comfort as her parents had that he was safe and sound back in Storybrooke without them. How long would it be before they would all be able to sit around the same table, walk down the same street?

"Now your other kid needs you more, and Storybrooke might, too," she continues, showing the slightest trace of fear. It could still work, he considers telling them. They could fight Hades on two fronts, united in purpose.

"What about Hades? We don't even know how to begin to fight him yet," David counters.

"Well, we'll just have to find a way to wage our way without the Charmings," Killian counters back, feeling Swan breathe a sigh of relief that someone else agrees with her. Regina, Ruby, and Henry remain quiet, but he takes that as a sign they don't see much of a reason to argue. If Storybrooke and Neal are in danger, than so is Roland and all their friends...not to mention the friends they have down here. What happens to the dead if Hades leaves? Would they just linger here, never crossing over, just caught up in an undead civil uprising that lasts all of eternity? Not that the god of the dead took care of them now, but the only way the Underworld could become any worse is if anarchy worms its way in.

"But this is the Underworld," David says in such a tone that seems to illustrate Killian's silent point. "We can't just walk out."

"You can with the slippers." Swan looks to Ruby, who shrugs, but gives an affirmative nod. "Once you help Dorothy, you can click your way back to Storybrooke."

She clasps their hands with both of hers.

"Mom, Dad, you've done enough. Go take care of the rest of our family. I'm going to be okay."

Ah. That's the reason for the calm. Some faith in herself...at long last.

"You're all forgetting something," Regina interrupts, but with a somber enough tone he can't accuse her of simply wanting to end the sentimentality. "Hades carved Snow's name on a tombstone. Emma, you couldn't take it off. Even with the slippers, she can't leave."

"I can't," Snow breathes, jerking her head up at David. "But you can!"

"Snow..."

"It would work! You can go with Ruby and then use the slippers, just like Emma said! You can get back to Storybrooke and rally everyone together to prepare for the worst. And maybe you're right—maybe this is just Hades' way of making us lose hope, so best-case scenario, Storybrooke has its prince to make sure everything is ready for the rest of us to come home, just like when Emma and I went to the Enchanted Forest."

David stands with his hands on his hips, biting his lip.

"Snow, the last time I did that, everyone was caught in a traffic jam on their way out of town. I could barely keep them in, and if they hear that an actual god is targeting the town..."

"Hey, I know what this is really about." Snow steps forward, her umbrella covering David as she holds his hand, juts out her head, and looks him square in the eye. "You don't want to change diapers."

David laughs in spite of himself, even as his chin falls and he shakes his head.

"You're the one who's good with crowd control. You delegate better, you don't need to ask the dwarves a hundred times to do something..."

Dropping the umbrella to the ground, Snow cups his face, closing her eyes when David's forehead dips down to hers. It's almost too intimate a moment for the rest of them to be here, but Killian refuses to move, not until they both agree to the decision.

"David, you're so good at giving me hope. You can do that for an entire town. I know it."

"But you want it more," he whispers.

"Sometimes life doesn't really care about what we want, so we can either give up and change what we want, or we can work around it, plow through, and earn what we want, and I want that moment where I step into our home with Emma and our friends by our side, and I throw myself around you and Neal."

When she kisses him, Killian knows the decision's been made.


This Auntie Em of Dorothy's must have been a spy or secret assassin or something back in Kansas. Gods, even a simple farmer's wife should have garnered some attention in the storybook. He tries to remember The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and, aside from the first couple of paragraphs...not a bloody thing.

Sitting at the table in the apartment, Killian flips through pages that have already threatened to cross his eyes for him should he attempt to read any faster. With his elbow on the table, he runs his fingers through his hair, feeling sweat—actual sweat. From reading. He hears water running in the bathroom, David about to return and resume the search, but it doesn't take an expert on stories to conclude it will be fruitless. Apparently, a "movie" already existed that was based on the book. According to David, it revealed very little about Auntie Em or what she might have been up to after her niece or great-niece or great-great niece twice removed by her uncle's second cousin visited Oz the first time.

He has to slam the book shut before he really does go cross-eyed.

"Anything?" David asks him just as Killian rubs the bridge of his nose, fighting the oncoming headache. Yes, David. This is the pose of someone who has answers.

"Just that Auntie Em died in Kansas. No details. Not a clue."

"I can't believe it has to be me," David fumes, throwing off his jacket and hanging it on the chair. He looms over it, staring past the book at the exposed brick on the opposite wall. Raising an eyebrow, Killian looks over at him. David and Snow had decided, and, whether their son needed them or not, what actually mattered was this Auntie Em leaving, or finding someone who loved this Dorothy enough to save her. But...

"Snow should be home. She should be with our boy. She should be going. She missed this time with Emma, and now it's happening all over again. We shouldn't be here!"

He said it all in one breath, too. Killian's stomach clenches, heart pounding faster. The guilt he'd thought he'd shed about them all coming must have been just simmering inside him, waiting for some trigger to churn up again. He can't even feel betrayed. Of course they would choose their own child over him, of course it would be better for Storybrooke and their family had they just let him wallow around doing gods-know-what here. David's eyes suddenly dart over in his direction.

"I didn't..."

"No, no, no, you're right," he says. He'd only thanked Emma for coming down here, in spite of the fact he knew all too well what every single one of them had risked—even the Crocodile—coming here, and now, once again, magic and circumstance had dictated the man next to him can't be with the woman he loves.

"You shouldn't be here," he continues. "I realized that I haven't said it yet, but thank you. I didn't want Emma to do this, let alone drag everyone along."

"Hey, we made our own choices," David assures him.

"Really? I didn't know you cared," he snorts. He'll be the first to admit that he and Prince Charming don't necessarily hate each other, and, if he were to sit and think about it, it might just alarm him that a man born centuries after him could be something akin to an older brother to him... But take away Emma and would they have ever sat down and had a real conversation? Would he be as tolerated as he is now?

"All right, I did it for Emma," David admits, and rather begrudgingly.

"Ah. Figured."

"And I...guess you've grown on me a bit," David sighs, looking a bit uneasy in his chair. He does love David, Killian thinks, although he'd be loathe to confess that out loud, and especially not to the man himself, and that he's at least earned his respect is quite the boon. But expecting to be considered one of the family is a stretch.

But David is fond of him. Friends. A pirate and a prince fond of one another as they sit researching a storybook in the Underworld. He'll say this for meeting Swan and her family—he'll never be bored again. Grinning, he leans forward and cups his ear.

"Hmm?" he chuckles. "Well, I tend to have that effect on people."

"All right, don't push it," David mumbles. Clearly, it still troubled him that he was leaving his wife in the Underworld, and, as his friend, the time seems apt for Killian to help him see it from a more logical perspective.

"Look, your name's not on the headstone, mate. You can go. Ruby is your ticket out of here. You have to take it."

"I wish it didn't have to be like this," David sighs. "But you're right. I just hope we can help Ruby."

"They'll find Auntie Em down here somewhere, and then Dorothy's as good as wakened."

Shaking his head, David leans forward, his forearms resting on the table, angled out so he can interlock his fingers in thought.

"I've never seen Ruby like this. She's had to go through a lot, but she's always taken it in stride. To be this panicky...it reminds me of when I found out Snow was under a sleeping curse. You know they're not dead, but in some ways, it's so much worse, and to see them just lying there, so still...if I couldn't help her, all I wanted to do was take her place."

"Just as she would be willing to take yours," Killian says, nodding. They would take each other's place in a heartbeat. Take each other's place... He glances down at his hook and twists his wrist, looking it over. "She would take your place. She can take your place."

"What are you talking about? We went over this. Her name is on the headstone."

"It's not the chisel that was meant to do what Hades said; it was me! I'm the one who determines who can leave and who can't." He stands up, tucking the book under his arm. "Don't you see? If I scratch out her name and write in yours, you'll be trapped here with the rest of us, but Snow can go back to Storybrooke. She can help Ruby, and then, when she returns home, she can set up guards, raid the pawn shop, do whatever she has to do until the rest of us are back."

David springs up, nearly knocking over the chair. "Let's try it."


Digging the tip of his hook into the headstone, he presses into it and scratches across the letters. Cringing, he expects a few magical sparks or something to try to stop him, but nothing does.

"Hand me a stone, would you?" he asks, holding his hand behind him, waiting for David's help. Feeling the weight of a stone, he grips it with his hand and scrapes it against the headstone.

"You can't even see Snow's name on there," David remarks. "Hurry. Write my name in there before it just reappears or something."

This would require the hook and only the hook. Setting down the stone, Killian holds his brace and guides the hook to keep the tip from jumping around. It won't work if he can't get a straight line out of the thing. Letting out a grunt as he makes the curve, he exhales and inspects the "D" he's carved into the headstone. Smirking at it, he spells out David's name.

"Good thing penmanship's not being graded, right?" David quips behind him.

"I have exquisite penmanship, thank you. Just with a pen or a quill."

"I mean, what's to stop Hades from thinking a first grader came along and committed vandalism?"

"Well, sit down, hold out your hand, let me cut it off, you try on the hook, and we'll compare, shall we?" he grunts again, the hook not wanting to widen the "O." The magic will have to content itself with boxy letters.

"Why? All the effort you're putting into it and this is the finished product—it's cute."

Laughing, Killian shakes out his wrist and stands back up to survey his work. No, it won't earn any awards, but he's certain it will get the job done. David's eyes twinkle at the sight of it, his head nodding in satisfaction.

"You think she'll like it?" Killian asks.

"She'll love it."


There isn't time to miss Snow. Of course it had worked, and Snow had looked at them all with tears in her eyes, but with resolute in them as well, and she would be in Storybrooke soon, tending to the baby, looking in on the others, and doing whatever it took to ensure they all had a home to go back to. Far more pressing than feeling her absence, however, is just how the ladies' meeting with the sought-after Auntie Em had gone.

"You're saying he...melted her?" he asks, possibly a stupid question, but the situation requires some clarification.

"She was fine one minute, and the next, she was a puddle," Swan says, pacing around, glancing up at the staircase when she passes it. With so very little to go on, they'd sent Henry up to try to write more.

"I've never seen anything like it," Regina adds. "She's one of those Lost Souls now."

Damned Hades and his rule of this place, he thinks. Anyone with a pinch more sensitivity could improve this place by leaps and bounds.

"Shouldn't we be rounding everyone up? Rallying everyone together?" David asks, his back against the counter, arms folded. "We'll have to do that anyway when the time comes to leave. We have way too many people running around."

"Yeah, but Gold's not a team player," Swan counters.

"No, but Belle and Robin are, and Zelena could be if we just reminded her of what all her baby stands to lose if we're stuck here."

"In my experience, going to Zelena for help just makes things worse," Killian says. "What about the townspeople? Surely most of them aren't happy with the way things are?" He and Regina sit down, and he wonders if she's hoping the little grains of wood in the table will whisper an idea to them, too.

"Hades liquidated Auntie Em right in front of them. They won't help. They're too afraid," Regina reminds him. So they are back to having no plan? They'll just have to wait for Hades to make the first move? Towards Storybrooke?

"After what Hades did, we have to hit back and hard," Swan says, joining them.

"Aye, love, but how?"

"Grandpa!" Henry almost flies down the stairs, pages in his hand. "I thought you'd like to see the latest."

Please be good news, Killian hopes, watching the two of them. David and Henry both look excited as David takes in what look to be illustrations more so than text. He murmurs something to Henry, patting him, and then they both circle around the table.

"What is it?" Swan asks.

"Snow. She made it." David lays the pages out, handing one of them to Swan. Craning his neck, Killian sees Ruby and Dorothy holding each other, and then he sees Snow holding Neal. Well, not a battle plan, but more proof the impossible can actually happen. They'll think of a plan. They have to.


A/N: Hi! So sorry for the delay. It's been busy around here. But I'm back, enjoyed the premiere, and am back on a writing schedule. A big thank-you to OnceSnow for editing, and of course to everyone who has left a review. Coming up? Hook and Emma go on a baby run (fun) and the last time Hook will ever talk to Robin (not so fun).