Belle paced the room as Rumplestiltskin worked his magic. Her eyes watched as he placed the silver chain onto a map and hovered over it. She was so proud of him. Her Rumple, helping people- even his mortal enemies! He really had changed. Suddenly, the necklace melted into ink, which he poured onto a map of Storybrooke. The ink pooled, and then slowly travelled, creating a circle round the docks.

"You get Ruby and Emma, I'll get Aurelia" he said "He's in his ship"

"Rumple, wait" Belle said "How do you know they don't think you've set this up to play the hero?"

"I don't. But you know the truth, and that's all I need" he said, kissing her. "Now let's go, we have a damn pirate to save"

They searched everywhere, but couldn't find Aurelia.

"She said she had something she needed to do?" Ruby fretted.

"Well we'll have to find her later- maybe she's found Killian. The location is the docks somewhere- I'm guessing it must be on his ship" Rumple said.

"Okay, then let's go" Belle said, grabbing his hand, Ruby and Emma following.

Aurelia opened her eyes, her brain hazy and foggy. Slowly, she awoke to her surroundings. She was still on the ship, the slow rocking movement was almost soothing, but in her foggy state she felt uneasy.

"Remember me, my little creature?" a female voice said. The scent of that perfume was s strong it made her feel sick. Aurelia squinted up. It was the evil queen- Regina. Aurelia could barely comprehend what was before her. SO much had happened since she last saw the queen.

"Wh- what are you doing here?"

"oh, visiting the family, getting revenge, doing work, you know, the usual" she grinned.

"Listen- Regina. I met your son. Henry. He's brilliant. And he likes me. If you hurt me, he'll never forgive you" she said, trying to move her hands. There was a rattling of chains.

"Oh, save it. Henry hates me. He won't forgive me anyway. He didn't even care that I left! He has her now, his new mum. The perfect hero, Emma Swan"

"That's not true- he told me he worries and still cares for you" Aurelia began, before Regina cut her off with a slap.

"Lies!" she hissed. "I tried, okay. I tried to be the good mum, the hero, the mayor, but no one buys it. They know I'm evil. And I am. I love it. I love winning. I love revenge. If I hurt people, they won't hurt me. The one thing you have to learn by becoming queen- rule with fear, and everything goes your way. Snow white ruled with love, peace, and happiness. And look how easy it was for me to ruin her life" she sneered.

"If this is part of your plan- to turn me evil- then it's not going to work" Aurelia said defiantly.

"Oh, that's not my plan" Regina laughed "No, I'm going to be rather cliché and simple here, darling. I'm just going to kill you."

"Why?" Aurelia said "I served you- I was loyal, and good to you-"

"And then you left, and ran away. I don't take betrayers lightly. I grew to be fond of you, my little beauty. But yet again you made me realise how everybody in life lets you down. That's why I have to kill you- to prove to myself that after all, I am invincible. I am winning"

"If this is your idea of winning you're a deluded, sad old spinster with no idea of anything good or happy. I feel sorry for you" Aurelia laughed back.

"You'll be begging in a few minutes" Regina said.

"Actually, that's where you're wrong, doll. I'm immortal. One of the pros of being turned into a mermaid. So, you can hurt me, punish me, but you can't kill me"

"Oh. How naïve you still think that. You see, I already knew that, my darling. Upon my troubles in a little corner of the earth, I bumped into a very talented magician. I did a few favours for him, and in return, he gave me a reversing spell. To sum it up, little fish, you can die now" Regina said. She held up a small vial containing a brown liquid. It did not look appetizing at all.

"Open your mouth" The queen demanded

"Say please" Aurelia said sarcastically.

"I can't wait to kill you" Regina spat.

"Do you know what? Go on, kill me. See if that makes you 'win'. Because it won't. Go on then" she stared into her eyes, her green eyes flaring with heat. "Do it"

"See, I know you Aurelia. I know how brave you are. That's why I need to break your spirit. You made it so easy. You made one of the biggest mistakes- to fall in love. Before I kill you, I'm going to kill your pirate lover. Then we'll see how brave you are then- you won't ask for death, you'll beg for it" she spat.

"Where is he?" Aurelia shouted "Where's Killian?"

Regina waved her hand, and he appeared, also tied up, blood running from his head.

"I sent my men to take him, but he's a strong one- your man. Killed all of them. However, everyone is a slave to magic. One wave and he dropped like a pin" Regina said in a mock-sad voice.

"Now open your mouth" Regina repeated. Aurelia followed her orders, her eyes never leaving Killian. She didn't even taste the liquid as it ran down her throat, felt no change inside, just panic, and defeat.

Regina looked round the ship. "It really is a beautiful thing" she said "Shame the weathers so bad tonight" raising her hand.

Suddenly, the pour of rain was heard, starting off as a gentle drumming on the woodwork but getting harder, more furious. The winds started howling, and Aurelia could heard distant rumbling of thunder getting closer.

"Yes, dying together is more… fitting, more tragic. I wish I could stay, but it seems to be getting a bit chilly. Well, goodnight!" she said, and disappeared. Aurelia crawled over her Killian, but her ankle was chained. His too.

"Killian. Wake up, Killian, please, please" Aurelia said, shouting over the arising storm.

His beautiful eyes opened, and looked at her.

"Aurelia?" he moved towards her, but they could only hold hands, not being able to get any closer.

"Oh God, Killian" she wept, as they felt the ship shudder and creak.

"What's going on?" he said "Regina, she has men attack me then use magic and brought me here"

"It's to get revenge on me" Aurelia said bitterly "This is my fault"

"no, no, it's not your fault" he said soothingly "hush, we'll be fine love"

A beam crashed down by Aurelia's leg, and unable to pull away, she felt the ship slowly jolt and turn south.

"We're going to sink" she said slowly "You do understand that, right? We're going to die in here"

"but you can't die. Especially by the sea, right? Won't you turn back into a mermaid?"

"I don't think it works that way" Aurelia said sadly. "I'm sorry- this is all my fault. The queen wanted revenge- so she stripped my immortality, and now she's going to make us die together." For the first time, she saw true fear and panic in Killian's eyes.

Killian pulled at the chains, straining with the effort.

"It's no use" Aurelia said "It's magic"

"I'm not giving up" he said, his eyes angry. He pulled again, but it only dragged a little bit closer to her, on the floor.

"Let's face it, we were never going to win, were we?" her eyes, filled with tears "I was doomed from the start"

"Don't say that, Aurelia. You know it's not your fault. If anyone's, it was mine. The first night we met, you were innocent and happy and I couldn't help myself but ruin it. I was selfish, I saw you and wanted you and I didn't think about the consequences"

"Killian, it was the queen that killed my family, that's put us here. You've saved me again and again, and I wouldn't change anything if it meant I hadn't of met you"

The water, which was fairly cold and dark, started to rise up. Aurelia's clothes began getting wet, and she couldn't even stand properly but had to sit, leaning towards Killian, holding his hand tighter than anything in her life.

For a few minutes they both tried grabbing items around them to break the chains and wood around it but it was no use. The water slowly rose, and Aurelia felt like she was facing the axe, or the rope, her untimely death approaching. Luckily, they managed to drag the chains so they were closer to each other, but couldn't escape as the ship started to sink.

"The others might find us. Gold is helping them"
"Aurelia, how do you know Gold isn't working with Regina? That they'd planned this since your escape? We can't trust Gold, and we can't place false hope in him"

"Killian, I don't really want to spend our last minutes of life arguing about some man that's caused us a lot of trouble" she said. "Oh, I never got to tell you- I found a way we could've been together forever" and explained about Henry's Neverland idea.

Killian smiled. "That would've been perfect" he smiled, stroking her hair gently, then said softly "I don't think we're going to make it to Neverland Aurelia"

She looked down, a tear falling. The water had risen to their shoulders now.

"Well, there's no point anyway. Regina gave me a potion so I can die too, I'm not immortal so at least we don't have our age issue anymore"

"no, we just have a certain death one" he said, looking around.

"Killian, I don't want to die" she whispered "I don't want you to die. I want to see you every day for the rest of my life. I want to get married, have children, live in Neverland and be with you always"

"Aurelia, we don't know what happens after death. No matter what, we will always be together. You're my true love, my soulmate, and I will never be parted from you again, in life or death"

She sat back into his arms slightly, and looked up into his eyes, only their head above the water. Suddenly he kissed her, fiercely, passionately, and she knew it was his way of hoping, praying. Then, with one soft, gentle kiss, the water rose over their heads as they took deep breaths.

Aurelia felt it was slightly ironic that, having been a mermaid, she was going to die by drowning. She looked at Killian, their eyes linked underwater until suddenly, her lungs began to burn and everything got fuzzy. She swore she saw a tail swimming around her, but it must've been a hallucination.

After a minute or so, the burning got worse, and she clutched Killian's hand tightly. She let out her breath finally, ready to die a second time.