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"Emma? What the hell are you doing out here? It's barely past dawn. And why are you in flannels and Hook's old coat?" Regina's disbelief was overshadowed only by her fear that something else had happened, Emma could see that clearly in the other woman's face, but she didn't have time to ease any worries. Killian was in danger and she needed him back.
"It's Killian! He's still out there!" Emma's cries were breathless as she heaved air into her desperate lungs. Running from the docks to Regina's house was, in hindsight, not the smartest move after being bedridden for a little over a day, but time was probably of the essence and Emma wasn't going to waste any more of it.
Regina's expression immediately softened into one of pity and condolence at Emma's distress. "Oh, Emma… This can't be easy but he's gone and you have to-"
"You have to listen to me Regina! This is serious. I can still save Killian," Emma tried to explain, failing spectacularly. She could see the words of rejection and condolence on Regina's lips and Emma spoke up before she could be interrupted. "You put a preservation spell on Daniel, and you fought like hell to bring him back! Don't you fucking dare take this from me or tell me not to fight for him!" It was a low blow, Emma knew, but one she thought needed to be played to make her point. "Killian's not even gone yet, he's just, I don't know, in transit or whatever you want to call it. But I can bring him back!"
Regina took an unsteady step forward out her front door, the unevenness of her movement the only sign Emma's words about Daniel had landed. She laid a soothing hand on each of Emma's shoulders, trying to calm her with soft words. "Emma, I'm telling you this as your friend, so please listen to me. Killian Jones is gone. He can't come back. Now please, let me call Mary Margaret and David and they can-"
"No!" Emma shoved Regina's hands aside, startling the other woman. One hand flew to the ring around her neck, the ring Killian had given her a lifetime ago, and she drew strength from it. "You have to believe me! It's the Dutchman! Killian's on the Flying Dutchman and I need to go after him!" Emma knew how she sounded in that moment, knew how insane she probably seemed. Regina probably thought she had turned into a full on basket case since having the darkness expelled from her only a day or so before, but Emma didn't care. She needed Regina to see what she saw, to believe in her. "This morning I was on the Jolly Roger and I saw a green flash at dawn. It's the sign of the Flying Dutchman taking a soul to the afterlife. Killian said so himself!"
"Emma…"
Emma pushed forward. "And when Killian was taken there was a flash of green light and his body went missing right from the deck! You have to remember seeing that! Why would his body just disappear like that unless he'd been deliberately taken?"
"You disappeared after taking in the darkness all those weeks ago, to the forest outside Camelot. Or do you not remember that?" Regina snapped back, losing patience with Emma's feverish ravings.
Inspiration suddenly hit Emma and hope raced through her, lighting her with a fiery passion. "The dagger," She realized. "I mean, the sword, Excalibur, it had my name on it until the other day, right? It doesn't anymore!"
"Because you're not the Dark One anymore," Regina said, her dark eyes narrowed worriedly. "What about it?"
"Back with the sword, when I… Um…" Emma struggled to speak, her prior zeal stopping cold in memory. Just thinking about what had happened on the ship only a day before, between her and Henry and Killian, it was already too much. Actively saying it out loud, acknowledging what she had done and the consequences of it, was painful beyond compare. "When I tried to put the sword through Henry and it went through Killian instead… The whole point was to make Henry dark too, so we could be together," She managed to mumble, not daring to meet Regina's likely furious and well-placed glare. "But instead of just part of the darkness it felt like all of the darkness was being pulled out of me and into the sword. And it didn't stay in the sword. It kept going and I think it all ended up in Killian. I think he's technically the new Dark One."
Emma swore she saw Regina shiver a little, but that may have been the chill in the early morning air. "I'm not sure I see where you're going with this, with a connection between the darkness and the Flying Dutchman…" Regina admitted.
Emma's zeal came back in a flash and she cried out. "Dark One's are immortal! They can't die! If Killian's the new Dark One then he's not dead and I can find him and save him! We have Excalibur now, and it has Killian's name on it! Merlin told us how to use the sword properly back in Camelot. We can find Killian on the Flying Dutchman and pull the darkness from him and bring him home!" Emma knew her eyes were wide and crazed, face tear streaked and full of unaccepted grief. Killian would have probably compared the overall effect to a siren gone mad. Emma shivered at that. Even the thought of Killian's less than happy hypothetical thoughts were enough to set her on edge.
"Even if he did turn into the new Dark One… I'm sorry but who's to say he's even alive? You stabbed him in the heart, Emma, with the very blade that can kill a Dark One. That's not a wound someone can just walk away from," Regina tried to tell her.
"Show me Excalibur," Emma insisted, eyes diamond hard and resolute. "I need the sword. I know you hid it somewhere protected. Show me the sword and I'll show you Killian's name is still on it. He's the new Dark One but he's still alive."
Regina looked at her steadily for several moments, deep in thought and arms crossed in worry and chill. "If this will give you closure," She heard Regina mutter with a sigh. "Fine, we'll look at the sword, but I'm still calling your parents and I'm still not buying the whole Flying Dutchman theory yet."
"Thank you!" Emma breathed in relief, clutching Killian's long overcoat tighter around her and the ring harder in her fist. "Thank you, thank you."
Regina walked back into her house briefly to grab her cell phone and jacket, and Emma waited anxiously for her, fidgeting on the front step the entire time. The process took several minutes longer than it should have so she assumed that Regina had taken the time to also tell Robin or Henry where she was going. Emma cast a wary and longing glance at the window to Henry's room, but saw no movement.
The half-run, half-walk to Regina's vault was quiet and tense. Emma felt Regina's eyes on her the entire way, a narrowed and suspicious glare mixed together with sympathy and worry. She tried not to let it bother her, but the distrust and pity stung, even if it was well earned. After everything she had done in the past few months as the Dark One it was only fair that she have to re-earn the trust of everyone in her life. And Emma had every intention of doing that, no matter how long it took to rebuild that trust. But right now she had her priorities, and that meant finding Killian first.
"Is there a reason we're essentially running instead of just using magic to transport ourselves to my vault?" Regina questioned, a little breathless from the quick pace Emma was setting.
"I'm not using magic," Emma answered, adamant. "Magic has brought me nothing but pain. I won't use it if that's all it'll ever do."
Regina watched her for a moment. "I understand you not wanting to use magic, but what if I bring us to the vault? Not that I don't appreciate our chats but a pre-dawn jog wasn't what I had in mind this morning, and if you're trying to move this quickly then time is probably something to consider, right?"
Emma stopped short and turned to Regina, who stared at her with the insistent eyes of a mother reprimanding her child for missing something obvious. Emma bit her lip nervously. Already her imagination was moving at lightning speed envisioning every worst-case scenario of even being near magic, and she did her best to force those thoughts aside. She wouldn't go dark side again just because Regina was using magic. Emma would be fine.
Emma closed her eyes and nodded at Regina, who raised her hand in a practiced flick of her wrist. A whirl of smoke engulfed them and Emma fought back the panic and déjà vu of the same cloud transporting her places as the Dark One. When she opened her eyes again she saw the outside of Regina's vault. She tightened her grip on Killian's jacket, running forward and colliding with the sealed stone door. She turned back to Regina quickly, silently willing her to hurry. Regina seemed to understand her haste and opened the doors, leading the way down the stairs and into the chilled vault. As they passed beneath one archway Regina cast a wary glance at Emma, as if she were expecting something to happen, but nothing did, and Emma's impatience bled through to annoyance.
"What?" She demanded.
"Nothing," Regina replied, surprised eyes glancing over Emma in perusal. "Nothing at all…"
Emma didn't have much time for confusion before Regina stopped in front of a nondescript stone in the floor. She knelt in front of it and looked up at Emma expectantly. "Help me move the stone," She asked.
"No!" Emma's eyes blew open in outrage and fear. "I told you I'm not using magic!"
"You can't use magic anyway," Regina interrupted. A chill ran through Emma at her words and she flinched. Regina rolled her eyes and clarified, "It's warded against magic. You have to physically pull the stone away. Now are you going to help or just stand there scared?"
Emma let out an unsteady breath and knelt too. Her fingers could barely find an edge along the corners of the stone, but together she and Regina managed to lift the heavy slab and move it to one side, revealing a shallow but empty hole. Emma's heart pounded as she stared into the dark abyss, fear gripping her.
Where was the sword? Where was Excalibur?
Her breathing quickened and hope fled from her heart, leaving Emma cold and fearful. No, no, no… She needed the sword. She would never get Killian back without it, so where the hell was it?
Regina watched closely as Emma stood up in a flash, the world tilting to one side for a moment before she righted herself and started moving to the doorway they came through. Excalibur wasn't there. She had to find it, and that meant leaving the damn vault. It was the only way to prove Killian was alive. Emma took several steps away from the hopeless pit and toward the door, her thoughts a chaotic storm of rage and fear and grief, but she was stopped short and forced back. She looked up and saw nothing, but when Emma raised her hand in front of her she felt it, an invisible barrier blocking her path.
"You can't leave, Emma." Regina's voice was deathly calm from the other side of the stone room and Emma whirled on her friend in anger.
"Regina, what the hell?! Where's the sword? I need it!" Emma turned back to the invisible wall blocking her path, uselessly pounding her fists against it.
Regina stood slowly and kept her distance as she addressed Emma. "Emma, do you want the sword?"
"Don't screw around Regina! Just tell me where it is!" She demanded.
Regina's eyes narrowed. "Answer me, do you want the sword or not?"
"The fuck? The sword isn't the point! The point is Killian!" Emma cried, her anger giving way to sobs of desperation.
"Then why do you need it? Tell me why you need Excalibur," Regina urged.
Emma fought back the tears that threatened to fall from her eyes but her voice was already well on it's way to breaking. "Because I know his name is on that sword and if you could just see it then you'd believe me! He's still out there and I can save him! I have to save him and I need that sword to make you believe me!"
"Why do you need me to believe you, Emma? Why not just do it all yourself?"
"I can't," Emma sobbed.
Regina's voice was insistent. "You can't what? Talk to me, Emma. Say it! You have to say it!"
"I-I can't do this alone," Emma finally revealed, sinking to her knees and clutching the leather coat around her like a shield. "I can't. I was alone for so long but I found my family here and now they're gone. I killed the man I love and I pushed everyone else away. I don't want to be alone again; I can't go back to that. Please, don't make me go back to that."
Emma's choked sobs were the only sound in the room until Regina's quiet footfalls joined in. Emma barely noticed Regina approaching her until the other woman knelt down beside her and pulled her close in a hug. Emma willingly ducked her head into the other woman's shoulder and shook. They were both quiet for several moments before Regina spoke up, her voice apologetic and soft.
"I'm sorry I made you go through that," Regina quietly apologized. "I needed to be sure you were really you and not… 'Other' you."
"Regina…" Emma's voice was still choked and broken.
"It's a special protection and cloaking spell I developed," Regina explained, quickly trying to move past the emotional moment. "I got the idea from Mary Margaret's explanation of echo cave back in Neverland."
"Her explanation? What was there to explain? We told secrets that were supposed to tear us all apart," Emma spat out tiredly, emotionally drained.
"And they were all things that helped you and everyone else move forward once they were said," Regina insisted quietly. "Take another look in the hole."
Emma stared at her in nervous confusion but soon moved toward the empty hole in the floor. When she reached it, her breath caught in her throat. Lying at the bottom of the hole was Excalibur, wrapped carefully in a velvety cloth and looking as though it had always been there. She turned to Regina, panic creeping into her psyche at the sight of the sword that had caused so much trouble and pain.
"Go ahead," Regina urged her. "It can't hurt you if you don't let it."
Emma reached down with slow and unsteady hands until she met the cloth-covered blade. Her fingers refused to grasp the sword, and could only twitch helplessly against it for several moments before her mind finally took control and she held the sword in both hands. The weapon still felt too powerful, and far too dangerous. It tempted Emma's thoughts with whispers of nothing and her hands shook horribly as she pulled the blade from the hole. Once it was free of it's prison, Emma tossed it to the ground between her and Regina and scooted away as if she had been burned. Her hand flew to the ring on her necklace and she let the memories it brought forth flood her with relief.
Regina moved forward and reached for the sword, but Emma moved faster, eager to peel back the layers and prove to Regina that she was right and Killian was alive. Emma's hands trembled as she pulled aside the cloth and then removed the weapon from its sheath to lay it between them. She let her eyes roam quickly over the glistening metal of the sword, taking in the intricate patterns etched into the curved tip and the deadly sharp edges that had struck down countless people throughout the centuries.
A crazed and hopeful smile spread across Emma's face as she took in the newest addition to the sword, the newly etched name emblazoned on the end. "You see? I told you! Killian's name is on the sword so he's the new Dark One! He can't be dead!" The words were as much to show up Regina, as they were to restore hope in Emma's heart, and so far they were working.
"How is that possible," Regina said under her breath, eyes running over the letters. "How can he have survived taking Excalibur to the heart? And why wouldn't the darkness just stay contained to the sword? It doesn't make any sense."
"It doesn't matter how! The point is he's alive and I can save him! I'm not letting him go without a fight!" Emma exclaimed, fingers pointing excitedly at the letters. "Maybe we can use this to track him to the Flying Dutchman, like a reverse tracking beacon or something? Or we could use a piece of the Jolly Roger or-"
"Emma, breathe." Regina's interruption couldn't stop Emma's renewed hope, but it did quiet her for a heartbeat. "The darkness being inside Hook is one thing, we have evidence for that, but the Flying Dutchman is a fairytale even in our world. We have no proof that he's there. For all we know he's been taken to the same forest outside of Camelot that you were and it just so happened to be a green light that did it instead of a tornado of smoke."
"I know it's the Dutchman, Regina. I know what I saw and I know what Killian told me." Emma couldn't let herself start to doubt now, not when she had Regina's help and could actually start to find a way to Killian.
Regina heaved a sigh. "Wherever he is, Dutchman or not, we'll still need a way to track him and get to him. Let's go, your parents should be outside waiting for us by now." She collected the sword and it's coverings and stood up smoothly, waiting for Emma to stand on shaky legs before making her way toward the door.
Emma stopped short of the door, remembering the barrier that stopped her before. Regina raised an eyebrow at her hesitance. "It's fine, you made it through the cloaking spell to Excalibur. You should be able to walk through the doorway now."
Emma's fingers traced over the ring again and she steeled herself, moving forward through the door and up the stairs behind Regina. Her shoulders dropped in relief when nothing stopped her this time, and her breathing eased as they both made their way out of the vault and into the early morning air where her parents were waiting.
"Emma!" Mary Margaret's concerned voice called out. She raced forward toward her daughter, followed closely by David, and pulled her into an embrace. "We were so scared something had happened! Are you ok?"
David had one arm tucked around his wife and daughter and the other hand curled behind Emma's head. "Is that Hook's old coat? Were you on his ship? Emma, if you had only told us then we could have… We thought we'd lost you again, that we'd failed you again." His words ended in a pained whisper but Emma heard every bit, guilt pouring into her once more at the pain she caused, however unintentional this time.
"I'm sorry," Emma stammered into her parent's shoulders. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She repeated her apologies over and over, hoping they would stick.
Meanwhile, Regina had set to reexamining the sword, a quizzical expression coming over her. "Wait a minute…" Regina approached them with the sword, her eyes still glued to the blade. "Look at this."
Emma only barely pulled away from her parents' embrace to look at the sword, but what she saw had her pulling away entirely and reaching to hold the blade, fear and confusion overcoming her. Killian's name was still on the blade, but all of the letters appeared and disappeared in uneven intervals, etching and fading from the metal intermittently.
"His is name is disappearing. What the hell does that mean? Regina?" Emma looked to her friend for an answer, but was met with a mirror image of her own confusion.
"I don't know, but it can't be good. I'm calling Belle and Gold too," Regina decided, phone already in hand and fingers flying over the digits.
"Emma?" Mary Margaret approached her daughter, slowly placing a hand on her shoulder. "Hook's name is on the sword, does that mean he's…"
"The new Dark One, yeah. And Dark One's are immortal so Killian can't be dead; he's just been taken somewhere like I was. So I can save him and bring him back." Emma knew her voice was growing desperate again, but saying everything out loud made it real. And if there were a chance for Killian to be alive, then she would sing it from the damn clock tower if that made it real enough to save him.
"So he's really alive… Do you think he was taken to Camelot's forest too?" Mary Margaret asked. "Maybe we could use the apprentice's wand to take us there again?"
"No, he's on the Flying Dutchman," Emma insisted.
David looked crestfallen at the mention of the ship. He must not have believed in the legend of the Flying Dutchman either. "Emma, the Dutchman isn't real. What if Hook-"
"It's real!" Emma whirled on her father. "I know you saw the green flash before and I know I saw it again this morning! Killian's alive because he became the new Dark One and Dark One's can't die!"
"Dark One's may not be able to die easily, but it would seem that wherever Hook is, he's in danger," Regina informed them all, shoving her cell phone into her pocket as she rejoined the group. "Belle said that when Gold was still the Dark One and dying his name started to disappear from the dagger one letter at a time. But there was never any reappearance of those letters once they vanished and they certainly didn't fade all at once. Belle wants us to bring the sword to the shop so she and Gold can have a look."
"Sounds like a plan!" Mary Margaret chimed in. "I'm sure Granny can watch Neal for a little longer and no matter where Killian is, Dutchman or Camelot or somewhere else, we'll need to figure out what's going on with the sword anyway, right?"
"Right," David agreed.
"Well, let's go then," Emma said, already walking away from the vault with the sword in hand.
It honestly infuriated Emma that David didn't believe her about the Flying Dutchman, or that no one seemed to believe her about the ship's existence. But at the very least they believed her when she showed them the evidence that Killian was still alive. She had their support in that, if nothing else.
She didn't check to see if anyone was following her, only raced through the town and toward the antiques shop clutching the sword to her chest. When the old shop came into view she broke into a run and burst through the front door, the bell over the frame nearly flying off from the force of her entrance.
Gold was there to greet her from behind the counter. He was still clearly wary of her presence and did a terrible job of hiding the tense line of his shoulders, but his willingness to step out to see Emma first and alone was a credit to how far he was coming in his ongoing efforts toward heroism. "Ah, Miss Swan, lovely of you to drop by-"
"Shove it, and just tell me what this means," Emma snapped, tossing Excalibur unceremoniously onto the glass countertop and pointing furiously at the still fading and reappearing letters of Killian's name.
Gold flinched but recovered quickly. "Hostile this morning, aren't we?"
"I'm not the Dark One any more and neither are you, but you still know more about being the Dark One than anyone else in this town. So tell me what you know, now," Emma seethed, fingers clenched into fists and eyes blazing.
Belle was quick to come racing out of the back room with several books already in hand. She dropped them next to the sword and put a hand on top of her husband's. Gold's posture immediately straightened and Emma could practically see his resolve building again at Belle's nearness. The sight made Emma ache even more to see Killian again.
"Killian's name really is on the sword," Belle started, half in awe. "So he's alive, and he's the Dark One now."
Emma silently thanked Belle's quickness; glad she wouldn't have to spell it all out once again. Regina, David, and Mary Margaret entered the shop moments later, breathless and apologetic for the early morning arrival.
"Belle, what I told you on the phone… Do you two have any idea what's going on with the sword?" Regina asked.
"I have a few ideas, and I grabbed a couple of books that might help," Belle started, gesturing to the small pile next to her on the counter. "We know a lot about how the Dark One dagger works, but now that Excalibur is whole again, that just brings in even more things to consider. This could change everything we know about it."
"More things are probably the same than they are different, but Belle's right, Excalibur being whole again could have changed the important things," Gold admitted, although he sounded less confident than Emma was used to hearing him when he talked about magic. Belle squeezed his hand in reassurance. "Perhaps if we start with what we know for certain it will help us understand more about the sword and the condition of our missing pirate?"
"We know Killian's the new Dark One," Mary Margaret supplied. "His name is on the sword and that's where Dark One's names go. And we know that Dark One's are essentially immortal so he's probably alive too, wherever he is."
David chimed in next. "Which also means that Emma really is free of the Dark One's curse." He shot Emma a hopeful look that she tried and failed to return. "The curse hasn't come back in Gold after all this time, and so far as we knew before, the only way to end the curse was death. Now Gold can't use dark magic, so neither can Emma."
Emma didn't miss the way Regina's eyes narrowed and flitted between her and Gold. Whatever she was thinking, Emma knew better than to push before she had sorted her thoughts out.
"We know Killian was taken on the Flying Dutchman," Emma added, not letting the groans and disbelief of her parents or Regina stop her from sharing what she knew in her heart to be true.
To her great relief, Belle and Gold didn't look at her with the same skepticism. They looked at her in genuine, if confused, curiosity; as if she had just told them that two plus two was fish and simply wanted to know how she had come to such a wild conclusion. "And how do you know that, Miss Swan?" Gold asked.
Emma pulled the leather coat tighter around her in defense. "The green flash. When Killian's body went missing off the deck of the Jolly Roger it was right after a green flash of light at sunset. And this morning at dawn there was another flash of green on the horizon over the ocean. Killian told me once that it was the sign of the Flying Dutchman transporting a soul to the afterlife."
"His body was taken too?" Gold asked, incredulous. "And here I thought I just missed the funeral."
Emma scowled at the man, who flinched only slightly under her gaze. Gold no longer being the Dark One didn't change the long and hard history between him and Killian.
"But the Dutchman is just a legend, it's not real," David insisted, shaking his head.
Belle coughed lightly, grabbing everyone's attention. "Actually, there are stories from nearly from every realm of people tasked with the job of ferrying souls to the afterlife," She started to explain. "The Valkyries of Norse myth, Chiron on the river Sytx. Regina, you remember when Robin's soul was being taken from him a few weeks ago? You mentioned seeing a hooded figure in a boat that had come for him. Those stories exist in every realm I've studied, and we've seen first hand that the reapers of the afterlife can also collect someone in this realm. Maybe it's not too much of a stretch to think the Flying Dutchman is real too, or at least some variant of it?"
Gold nodded in agreement. "Belle's right. The Dutchman may be a legend, but that's no reason it can't be real. If we combine those two elements, the immortality of the Dark One and the supposed occupation of the Flying Dutchman as a carrier of the dead…"
Belle's face brightened in excitement and realization. "Oh! They're contradictory! You can't be immortal and go to the afterlife at the same time! That must by why Killian's name is flickering like that. Excalibur knows he's alive but it also thinks he's somewhere dead."
"He's alive, but he's gone somewhere he shouldn't have," Gold concluded. "The Flying Dutchman en route to the afterlife."
The realization sank in and silence filled the room. Shock was painted on the faces of her parents and Regina, but all Emma could feel in that moment was relief. Relief that they now knew what she knew, and that she wouldn't have to face it alone.
"So about this ship, the Flying Dutchman," David asked, recovering first. "Where do we start?"
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Just to be clear, this is NOT SwanQueen. This is most definitely a Captain Swan fic. I just think the friendship between Emma and Regina is vital for both of their characters and it made the most sense to me to have Regina be the first person Emma went to for help in this story.
Reviews feed the muse (Can we pretend that rhymes? 'Cause it kinda does in my head…)