5x13 – Labor of Love
First he saw nothing and then suddenly there were the eyes, red glowing eyes. Three pair of them. He had no idea what he could use to defeat the hellhound; his hook would probably not take him very far with the three-headed monster. But he had to try.
Emma was here. She was searching for him.
He could feel her now. The flame of their love flickering bright and hot inside his chest. He had to hold on to that. Their love would make him strong enough to come out of this battle alive.
A growl rumbled through the hallway and he concentrated his one functioning eye on the beast, lifting his hooked arm to do everything in his power to protect himself.
And then Cerberus launched.
-/-
Her heart seemed to pick up speed with each second that ticked by without a hint where Killian might be. They were running out of time. She could feel it. He was suffering, and she needed to find him.
But the trails were all cold; Henry was right. They were running around in circles. It was a good idea to send Robin and Henry for the maps, if they excited. But she wouldn't stop looking for a sign of Killian until they did come back with them. She couldn't. She couldn't just sit around and wait, it'd drive her insane to do nothing while she knew Killian was hurting. Badly.
And then her eyes fell on the red smears on the leaves a few feet away and a surge of hope rushed through her, smothered by finding a woman at the end of the trail not Killian. But at least now they had somewhere to start, Megara could lead them to the underground prison in which Killian was held, and her mother knew of someone down here who could help them defeat the three-headed beast guarding him. Figures that her mother was friends with a demigod when she was a teenager, another one of those facts that made Emma want to shake her head. There were still times that she couldn't quite grasp that the fairy tales were real and that she was actually a part of them.
But she should be grateful for that. Because if she hadn't been the product of True Love, if she hadn't been the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, she would have never met Hook, and without her magic she might have never been able to go to the Underworld and bring him back.
And she would bring him back. She would not leave this place without him.
-/-
He didn't think that his body could hurt even worse, but the claw marks that the beast left behind burned like fire. He wouldn't be surprised if they'd been coated with a slow-working poison, something that would make him suffer even more.
He'd been certain that the beast would finish him off, or at least tear some limbs off his body, but before it could actually do him real harm he'd heard a whistle and the monster backed off. He'd been picked off the floor and dragged into the shadows the beast had come from – he'd been too weak to try to escape - until they'd entered a big cave and he'd been dropped to the ground.
Pure hate sizzled through him as he looked up and saw Hades standing in front of him, if he'd just be a little stronger he would bury his hook in the man's body, even if it'd probably not affect him in the slightest.
But Emma was out there searching for him, and he wouldn't stop fighting with every fiber of his being - no matter how much he was hurting - until she was able to find him.
-/-
She would not be afraid of Hades, she wouldn't let herself even waver for one millisecond. She didn't give a fuck that the Lord of the Underworld was standing before her, threatening her family. He had Killian, he was torturing him and if she had a way to kill Hades she would, but she didn't think there was a way. She had to trick him somehow into revealing Killian's location.
Though when Hades held up Killian's bloody hook her heart did skip a beat and her fingers itched to wrap themselves around Hades's throat and choke the life out of him. She could hardly keep herself back, and when Hades disappeared in a cloud of blue smoke his words were still ringing in her ears.
It's not what I've already done you should worry about now. It's what I'm about to do.
They needed to find Killian as fast as possible, before Hades could do something to him that he might never come back from.
-/-
This had to be a bloody trick, another of Hades's mind games. He couldn't expect from him that he'd decide who stayed in the Underworld forever. Because there was nothing to decide. He wouldn't carve even one name into the stones. He wouldn't succumb to the God's bloody games.
His body might be bloodied and bruised, every single bone might scream with agony, but his mind was still whole, and he'd make bloody sure that Hades wouldn't break it.
Emma would find him. He knew she would. He just hoped it wouldn't be too late.