Chapter 11

Betrayal

enchanted forest- many years before

Milah slapped Morgana across the face and Morgana reeled backwards, tasting blood in her mouth from a cut on her lip which Milah had administered with her ring adorned hand. Morgana stumbled before she regained her balance and stood upright again. Baelfire was crying in the corner near the fire.

"Mama! Stop it! Auntie Morga meant no harm!" The young boy shouted as his father walked in.

"What's going on?" Rumple chorused, his gait emphasised by his bad limp.

"Morgana was just leaving." Milah said simply.

"No, she's not. She is my sister and welcome when she likes in my home," Rumple said sternly. Bae hugged his father tightly in fear. "Bae, go fetch a chair from my workshop for your aunt."

Bae did as he was told not wanting to be there when his parents started arguing about his beloved aunt. Bae felt he had betrayed his mother and ultimately his father by telling his Aunt Morgana about his mother's indiscretions that he had noticed weeks before. His mother, the witch, he had seen kissing another man, a pirate others called Hook. She had kissed the pirate in a way that he had never witnessed his parents doing. Their kisses had been chaste ones of friendly and kind lovers, hers and Hook's... Well they had looked like they were eating each others faces off in the middle of the market place.

Bae had told his aunt Morgana what he had seen on one of his weekly visits to his aunts apothecary in the market place of the city when he and Milah had gone to town for shopping.

Morgana had been horrified but confessed to Bae about the secrets of true love and how she had known for many years that Milah had not been Rumple's- she had added at his saddened expression that she was glad they had him- her doting little assistant. She had also told him not to be afraid of betraying the ones you loved if you thought it was good for them... But that was only to be done in the most dangerous of situations.

Bae returned to find his mother gone, his aunt weeping as she nursed a cut lip and his father fuming. Bae put down his father's stool and walked slowly towards his aunt who wrapped a tender arm around him and hauled him into her lap. Rumple calmed his temper and turned to Bae.

"Why didn't you tell me, son? About your mother?" He asked, voice breaking with emotion.

"I didn't know how to, papa. I didn't want to see you fight each other or the pirate. I was afraid." Bae replied in a small voice. His dark eyes meeting his father's.

Rumple nodded. "So you told Morga?"

"Yes."

"Rumple don't be angry with the boy, he told me because he didn't know where to turn. I am your sister remember." Morgana said just as quietly as Bae's admittance.

"Bae, go to your room. Morgana outside. Now." Rumple said and Bae scarpered, fearful of his father's temper.

Morgana followed her brother outside and he grabbed her wrist tightly in his grasp, raising it up to his face. He whipped her honesty ring he had forged for her from her finger, with a grunt of anger. Morgana's eyes widened and she gasped in fear as her brother grew in temper.

"Rumple?" She tested momentarily, pain shooting through her hand and wrist as his hold tightened. "Rum? You're hurting me."

He let her go, but kept her ring tightly in his fist. "You knew of my wife's betrayal and didn't tell me?!" He roared still facing away from her.

"I tried to, ever since you married her. I told you she wasn't the one for you and yet you didn't listen. I agree we both wouldn't be without Baelfire for the world, but... Milah doesn't love you and you don't love her, not in the same way as you once did." Morgana said sadly, her eyes closing in acknowledgement of her own misconduct concerning her brother.

"His name."

"Whose?"

"The pirate's. the pirate Milah has been cavorting with. Tell me his name!" The last words he shouted as he turned to face his sister, a face full of anger he could have resembled the devil himself glared at her. She took a step or two back in fear.

"Jones. Killian Jones. Some call him... Captain Hook." Morgana admitted.

"Stay with Bae." Rumple answered, a look of determination crossing his face as he snatched up his staff and a sword from the workshop. He pulled his cloak tighter around him. "I'll be back in the morning. With or without Milah. But most certainly with a dead pirate."

With that he turned and hobbled away. Baelfire appeared in the open doorway to the house and he hugged himself to his aunt as his father walked away, angry at both of them for lying to him. For betraying him.