For the first time since his heart was changed, since he'd been transformed by True Love, since the woman he still had trouble believing ever saw goodness lurking behind his arrogant facade had returned him to the best version of himself, Killian Jones was driven by pure, unadulterated bloodlust.

The witch had separated him from his wife, but worse than this, she'd separated Emma from another child. She'd made Emma's greatest fear come true. The one that still plagued her with every glance upon Henry's face. It was a cunning terror that started small, masking itself in the simplest of phrases: If only...

If only I'd kept him. If only I'd stayed.

It grew and it changed its shape until all a person knew were sleepless nights steeped in the shadows of an unwritten age.

Things could've been different. We could've been together. We could've been happy.

She didn't like sharing these things with Killian—she didn't want him to think she'd trade the life they'd built for one in which they'd never met. Indeed, she'd hold out telling him until she could no longer bear the nightmares on her own. And by the time she did share, she was a wreck of sobs and trembling limbs and incoherent speech.

Beth had been her second chance. A child she wouldn't disappoint. And the witch had stolen it from her, as surely as she'd stolen Emma's magic, her memories—to what end, Killian couldn't guess. But one thing he knew with absolute certainty: she'd be made to suffer for her interference in their lives.

Killian looked over at Emma, trudging through the mud alongside him, and though it might break his heart to hear, he needed to know the full extent of her amnesic state.

"If you don't remember Neal, who is it you think left you in jail?"

Emma frowned. "I've never been in jail."

Killian touched her arm before stopping in his tracks, and she turned to face his inquiry. "Back at the mausoleum, you said…"

"What?" Her face was free of all expression.

"How long were you in the foster system?"

"I don't know where you've been getting your information, but I was never in the foster system."

"You weren't abandoned as an infant?"

"No."

"What do you remember about your past? Where you grew up, who your parents are—anything."

"Why do you want to know about my parents? Why are you asking me so many questions when we're…we were…" she looked at their surroundings. "Weren't we going…somewhere?"

Killian decided on a different tack, seeing as his present course was getting him nowhere except nearer the vengeful nature he'd fought so hard to overcome. "I know you can't remember your life, Emma, but I can help you. If you trust me."

She waited with hands on hips, in the fashion to which her father was prone when delivering a lecture.

"I've told you my wife was stubborn, but it wasn't without cause. She had rather a difficult upbringing, to say the least. Abandonment as a child, years in a system meant to protect her but one that only worsened the loneliness characteristic of many a lost child. She had a son, Henry, when she was eighteen." Killian searched Emma's eyes for any hint of recognition. When nothing sparked, he continued, "Believing herself unfit to raise him on her own, having been betrayed by everyone she'd loved or ever could have loved, she gave him away."

Emma swallowed thickly. "What does this have to do with me?"

"You're a lot like her, Swan. She saw me at my darkest, and even then, she recognized a part of herself. No matter my misdeeds, she chose to see the best in me, always. There's no telling where I'd be without her."

To think, all the years he'd spent searching for the Dark One's dagger, knowing it to be the only weapon capable of killing him—had Killian obtained it, had he used it as he'd planned…

A shudder passed through him at the thought.

"She gave me a daughter, Beth." Again, he braced himself for even the smallest indication that this name meant anything to her. "But in doing so, she was taken from me—complications from childbirth, we'd been told." He stepped closer to Emma and took it as a good sign that she didn't back away. "Only it wasn't true. She was taken, yes, but not by death. By someone who intended her harm. For seven years, she was the captive of a madwoman bent on torture."

"I don't want to talk about this." Emma turned away and began ascending the hill just shy of the sorceress' mansion.

Killian followed after her. "Does it upset you?"

"Yes."

"Good."

"You're trying to upset me?"

"I'm trying to help you hold on."

"To what?"

"Emma…" Killian came to a halt, and Emma faced him.

The look in her eyes made his struggle seem pointless. Like he was fighting a losing battle and no matter his efforts, he couldn't keep her from slipping away. Soon she would forget him too, more than she'd already done. So he took a final leap of faith and pulled her forward.

She didn't protest—on the contrary, she melted against him with a satisfied sigh.

When Killian broke contact, Emma wore a familiar expression—the tilt of her head, the subtle narrowing of her eyes. He was taken back in time, to the moment he'd shown up at her door in New York after a year spent apart. Her hand moved through his hair, along his jaw, resting finally at his chin. She smiled sweetly and said, "Do I know you?"

"Aren't you two adorable?" A third voice encroached upon the moment; callus and cold, it sent a shiver down Killian's spine. She was dressed entirely in black with dark makeup around her eyes and a snarl at her mouth, looking every bit the pirate Killian once had been. "What's the matter, Daddy? Don't you like my outfit?"

A figure appeared at Beth's side to drape an arm around her shoulder. "Let's show your parents a warm welcome, shall we?"

"With pleasure," said Beth as a fistful of fire formed in each hand.

—

"Swan!"

She landed at Killian's side behind a broad-trunked tree—not that Killian expected much in the way of protection, given the relationship between fire and wood.

"I don't understand what's happening. Why is that little girl so angry?"

"It's a long story." Killian covered Emma's head when a line of trees to their left erupted in a cloud of ash. "Have you got your phone, Love?"

Emma reached into her back pocket and handed the device to Killian before clutching onto him for dear life.

She answered on the third ring. "Is this Regina Mills?" With the forest being turned to kindling around them, Killian couldn't help shouting. "You don't know me, but—"

"Killian?"

"You're awake."

"The whole town is—and they're none too pleased with being cursed. Again. What number are we up to now?"

"There's no time for that—I need you to find the Dark One and the fairies, anyone with a modicum of magic, and meet us outside the witch's lair straightaway."

"You've got the bitch cornered?"

"The other way around, I'm afraid. Regina, she's got Beth and, I'm assuming, Henry."

"We'll be right there."

The line went dead and it was then that Killian noticed Emma shaking like a leaf, holding fast to his lapels.

"Did you say…magic?" Her voice was as unsteady as the rest of her.

"Aye, Love. It's a long story."

"You keep saying that."

Killian ran his hand in a soothing motion along her arm, knowing her panic would only grow with every memory lost. "Stay with me, Love."

The assault came to a sudden stop and Killian stilled, waited, listened. But it was without warning and without sound that his daughter—some version of his daughter—appeared in front of the place he and Emma huddled together.

"You're not having any fun, are you?" The child frowned, looking them over. "Hm. Let's see if we can't fix that." With a twist of her wrist, she held her hand up to her lips and blew a haze of shimmering mist at Emma, whose grip on Killian came undone, her head falling back, eyes closed.

"No," Killian shook her, "Emma? Emma, Love, wake up." He tapped her cheek, finding it cold as ice, the color all but drained completely. "What have you done?"

Beth smiled sweetly, the very portrait of innocence. "I've taken care of her, Daddy. After all, she's the reason for all our trouble. She's the reason the town was cursed, the reason we were separated. But now we can be together. You want to be a family again, don't you, Daddy?"

"What you've done…" he blinked back tears, cradling Emma's head in his hand, "it can't be undone."

"Well, I'd say, now you're finding out how it feels."

"What…" he narrowed his eyes at Beth, "…what did you say?"

"Your one True Love gone in an instant—that is what you said to Rumpelstiltskin, isn't it? Now you're even."

"How do you know that?"

"I made a new friend. You'd be so proud of me."

"What…friend, Love?"

"Well, I don't know her name, but she showed me things. Like how you were dreadfully mean to poor old Rumple."

In that moment, Killian was struck by revelation, and he saw the past through fresh eyes.

"What I've just given you should ensure your survival during the pregnancy."

"And after?" Asked Killian.

"That…" he paused, his face creasing with a wicked grin, "…is up to fate, now isn't it?"

"Don't you see, Daddy? The curse was the perfect reset. Everyone was returned to their most blissful selves, before they made the decisions that forced a divergence from their intended paths. Except you. And Mom, of course." Beth looked at Emma without a shred of remorse, or affection—surely he'd seen greater sympathy in the eyes of strangers. "But she's no longer an issue."

The demon was on his back and Killian crouching over him, lining up his next assault, before awareness caught up with him. It was Emma's grip on his arm, anchoring him, her voice in his ear, calling on his humanity.

Killian leaned forward to growl in his ear. "This isn't over, Crocodile."

"I'd tread carefully, if I were you, Captain."

"Must be the girl." She purred with satisfaction. "Yes, I know about your little stowaway—quite the scintillating twist, if you ask me. Tread carefully there, Captain. Wouldn't want her to get caught in the crossfire."

"You know, I've been thinking, maybe my new friend did us a favor by taking Emma away—I mean, what sort of mother would she have been? Always chasing after monsters and attracting the worst kinds of villains. Her lifestyle was hardly conducive to a healthy home life. I doubt she'd even let me get a Dalmatian—and you know how much I've always wanted one."

Killian studied his daughter in an attempt to deduce whether he'd heard correctly, or if wishful thinking had gotten the better of him. Then, as though to relieve him of his confusion, Beth winked.

Bloody brilliant lass.

It was a code they'd developed a few months back. Their family being what it was, there were few secrets that existed at the loft, and sometimes Killian and Beth grew weary of the constant openness. Sometimes they wanted things that stayed just between them. And so they decided upon a seemingly innocuous term to signify the need for a private rendezvous.

"What about Pegasus?" Killian frowned before he could stop himself, and Beth's cheeks flushed. "Oh, Daddy, I'm sorry—I forgot."

"Not to worry, Love. What about…codfish? You've an affinity for that word, haven't you?"

Beth laughed the sort of laugh that showed a person's every tooth.

"Perhaps not. It should, of course, be something serious." Killian mock frowned at Beth, whose giggle rang out once more.

"It has to sound normal. Like if I said Albuquerque in front of Grandpa, he'd know something was up."

The two of them fell silent, each conducting a survey of words that wouldn't sound out-of-place amidst casual conversation.

"I know." Beth sat up straight. "Dalmatian. I could say, 'I saw the prettiest Dalmatian in the park today,' or, 'Daddy, what was Pongo again?'"

Killian smiled. "I think that's a perfect code word, Love." He held up his hand, littlest finger extended, and Beth curled hers around it in a binding pact.

So it was a warning, then? Alerting him to Gold's involvement?

Or had the lass truly wanted a dog all this time?

"What's the Crocodile's part in this?"

"Well, he couldn't just sit idly by while you had your happy ending, now could he? Not after you'd stolen from him."

The sodding imp. Still thinking that a wife can be stolen.

This time, Killian wouldn't make the mistake of letting him live.

"I see he's as much a coward as ever." Killian clenched his jaw. "Show yourself, demon, and let's end this! Or will you continue communicating through a child?"

When nothing happened, not even a whip of wind to disturb the quiet of a newly decimated wood, Beth advanced upon him. "He isn't here, silly. Not really."

"But he is well represented." The witch emerged from what was left of the thicket, inspecting her nails as she walked—indeed, she couldn't have appeared more bored if she'd tried. "Elizabeth, darling, it's getting late. Do wrap up your monologuing, adorable as it is, and put Daddy to sleep."

With a wicked grin that had Killian questioning which side Beth intended to trick, the child repeated the action that'd produced the dust used on Emma, and held her hand up to her mouth. Killian braced himself when she took a deep breath, but at the last moment, she turned, unleashing the spell on the sorceress standing by.

The witch didn't faint. She waved away the particles, a fit of coughing being the worst of its effects. When the fog cleared, the witch bounded forward and sank her hand deep inside the child's chest.

"No!" Killian was on his feet in an instant, but the witch blasted him back, suspending him against the broad-trunked tree by invisible force.

"You sly little viper." She hissed at Beth. Then her eyes widened and she removed her hand, devoid of the heart she'd expected to find. Expected to crush. Her second attempt yielded the same result, and she howled unto a sky blanketed by smoke. "I'm going to gut your entire family like a school of fish. And you're going to watch, helpless, as every last one of them begs for mer—" The witch gasped, clutching her own chest with both hands, wincing and panting and falling to her knees.

Her hold on Killian now broken, he tumbled to the Earth, in a similar if less aggressive struggle for breath. "Are you doing that?"

Beth shook her head, not taking her eyes from the sorceress.

"Help…me…" she clawed at her throat, at her garments, at the air itself, overtaken by panic the likes of which Killian had never seen.

What was once only a pale flesh tone turned gray, trenches spread across her features like cracks in a mirror, and her skin, once taut, began to sag, first under her eyes and then along her neck and hands. Hair turned white, eyes streaked with red, the witch appeared to have aged a hundred years in a matter of moments. Then she crumpled like a withered branch. The branch became dust, and the dust scattered itself to the wind, come solely for this moment, and then it too was gone.

"What just happened?" Said Beth.

"That is an excellent question." The Crocodile's approach was unhurried as he wiped the remnants of what Killian could only guess was the witch's heart from his hands. His gaze locked on Beth and his cavalier grin fell away. "I'd say, by the looks of things, someone just couldn't leave well enough alone."