Chapter Thirteen
Blackbeard's ship
"Ahoy the ship!" Maggie yells up from their longboat. A face looks down over the side of Blackbeard's ship and scrutinizes the women in the boat through the darkness for a moment before grinning widely.
"What can we do for you ladies? The Cap'n is gone ashore."
Maggie smiles seductively at the leering man.
"Good thing we ain't here to see the Cap'n now innit?" she replies, dumbing down her speech convincingly.
The man disappears for a minute before a rope ladder is thrown down to the longboat.
Regina rolls her eyes and motions forward.
"Let's get this over with before our luck runs out, then."
Maggie climbs the ladder, followed by Emma, Regina and Ruby.
On the deck of the ship, a few dirty looking sailors had gathered to inspect the ladies as they smiled beguilingly at them. Maggie and Ruby stand back slightly as Emma and Regina step forward and suddenly throw their arms out towards the men, dousing them with magic.
All the sailors fall to the deck, sound asleep.
Regina and Emma turn back to Maggie and Ruby.
"That won't keep them out for long. We need to hurry. Which way?" Emma asks Maggie quickly.
Maggie walks by them and leads the way to the ladder leading below deck.
Emma and Regina follow Maggie closely, magicking a few straggling sailors to sleep, as they search the hold. Ruby brings up the rear, watching for ambushers.
Finally, they find a makeshift prison with one prisoner collapsed in a dirty heap of rags on the floor.
Maggie runs to the bars and loudly whispers to the man.
"John! John, wake up! We are here to rescue you, love!"
She reaches through the bars to clutch him and the man moves to sit up.
Maggie rears back and stares at the man.
"You are not my John." She says, eyes widened in disbelief. Emma crouches down beside Maggie and looks at the old, wrinkled man behind the bars.
"So where is John Silver?" she asks.
Maggie opens her mouth to reply but cannot seem to form words for a moment. Then in a small, broken voice, she says,
"He was meant to be here…"
The old man collapses back to the floor and snores loudly as Regina crouches down on the other side of Maggie.
"Well, he's obviously not here. So, can we get out of here now before the entire ship wakes up and throws us in there with the drunken crypt-keeper?"
Emma nods at Regina and hauls Maggie to her feet before propelling her forward.
The woman hurry above deck and down the ladder to their longboat and start paddling away.
"Take me to shore, please." Maggie says quietly to the others.
Docking their boat at the wooden pier, the woman rush to tie off the boat and catch up to Maggie who immediately started walking into town.
"Where are we going now? This wasn't part of the plan." Regina says, looking at Maggie and then Emma. Emma shrugs at Regina as Ruby quickens her pace to walk beside Maggie.
"Are you alright?" she asks Maggie, studying her face.
Maggie doesn't answer but turns to throw open the door of a run-down looking tavern. The Storybrooke women follow Maggie inside, looking around as Maggie walks to the bar and gruffly says
"Rum. Bottle." Slamming gold coins down on the bar.
The bartender takes the coins and hands her a bottle with a bored expression. Maggie walks over, kicks out a chair from a table as she rips the top off the bottle of rum and falls into the chair, swinging her feet up onto the table.
Emma, Regina and Ruby stare at her from the bar. Regina draws in a breath, ready to complain but Emma cuts her off with a couple words to the bartender.
"Four glasses please."
The bartender raises an eye at her 'please' but hands over the glasses and Emma leads the other two to sit at the table with Maggie. Emma gives Regina a look that says 'leave it alone' and slides a glass over to Maggie before grabbing the bottle from her and pouring them all a drink.
They all sit drinking in silence; Maggie staring despondently at her drink and the others looking around at the tavern or sidelong at Maggie. Finally, Maggie speaks while a barmaid walks by collecting empty glasses.
"John wasn't there." She says in shock.
"No. He wasn't." Emma says with finality and Ruby reaches across the table to touch Maggie's hand in comfort.
"Any clue as to where else we can look to find your 'John Silver'?" Regina asks as she swirls her glass of untouched rum.
Maggie's eyes go unfocused again and Emma glares at Regina. She is about to tell off Regina for being insensitive when the barmaid leans towards them.
"You lookin' for John Silver, darlin's?" he asks and all four women look at her with surprise. Emma looks at Maggie's confused face and asks, cautiously.
"Yes… Do you know where we can find him?"
The busty barmaid grins at Emma and sticks a hand on her hip.
"Sure, he's in here almost every night. He went upstairs with Darcy bout an hour ago." She says with a laugh. Maggie's gaze zeroes in on the barmaid's face as she pulls her boots off the table and lets them fall with a 'thud' to the floor.
"Where?" she says in a low voice.
Emma glances at Maggie with concern.
The oblivious barmaid starts to turn away but shrugs and motions up the stairs.
"Third room on the right." And she walks away with arms full of dirty glasses.
There is a stalemate at the table as Emma, Regina and Ruby stare at Maggie with nervousness. Maggie slowly stands and the others nervously follow suit, falling in behind her as she walks to the stairs of the tavern and purposefully strides up to the second floor, stopping in front of the third door to the right.
Maggie lightly knocks on the door as she stares at the floor. They can hear a woman giggling on the other side of the door but no one answers. Maggie's strange calmness is starting to unnerve the other three as she raises her hand and knocks again.
This time a man's voice answers from behind the door.
"Bugger off! We're busy!" he shouts and Maggie's eyes shoot up to the door in a deadly glare.
Before Emma can stop her, Maggie kicks the door open and walks forward, raising her pistol at the couple in the bed before them.
"Maggie!" Ruby cries, reaching out to her.
The woman in the bed squeals and cowers to the side of the bed as the man jumps out, holding a crumpled bed sheet to cover his naked body.
"Shit! What the fuck?" he splutters, looking only at the gun pointed at him.
Rage rolls off Maggie and she says his name between gritted teeth.
"John…"
Regina rolls her eyes and lets out a huff of exasperation.
"You've got to be kidding me…"
Emma and Ruby are slowly inching towards Maggie, hands raised.
John squints at Maggie and then a look of recognition crosses his face and he pales.
"Mags? You look… different, love."
Maggie narrows her eyes and steps forward to shove her pistol under John's jaw and her voice starts taking on a manic edge.
"Do I, love? Ten years of searching for someone will do that, won't it?"
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
Storybrooke Hospital
Killian squeals the tires of the yellow bug as he rounds the corner to the emergency entrance of the hospital and bumps into a post before coming to a complete stop at the double doors. Doctor Whale and some nurses come running out, obviously alerted to the situation by Henry.
Doctor Whale rips the passenger side door open and starts firing questions at Killian as he picks up Belle a places her on a stretcher.
"What happened? The boy just said something about blood."
Killian rounds the front of the bug to follow Doctor Whale inside the hospital.
"I don't know. We just found her lifeless on the bathroom floor." He gestures to Belle as she is wheeled away.
"Mate, she's pregnant and I think she's bleeding from her… lady parts." He says awkwardly.
Doctor Whale stops for a moment to face Killian as the nurses stop the stretcher in the ER and start buzzing around attaching tubes and pressing buttons.
"Okay. Anything else I should know?" he asks quickly.
Killian shakes his head.
"That's all I know, mate."
With a terse nod, Doctor Whale signals a nurse and Killian is shoved backwards out of the way and a curtain is slid across his view of Belle.
Killian stumbles backwards in shock and looks down at his arms and shirt, covered in Belle's blood.
A few minutes later, Snow, Henry and David holding Neal, come running into the ER and towards Killian. Snow's eyes widen as she takes in the blood covering Killian.
"Oh my god! Is Belle alright?" she asks frantically, as they come to a stop in front of Killian.
"I don't know. They're still working on her." He says shaking his head. Snow turns to press her face into David's shoulder with a sob. David leads her to the chairs in the waiting area and leaves her with Henry and Neal before walking back to Killian.
"What do you think?" he asks after a deep breath and crossing his arms.
"I don't know, mate. I've seen my share of blood but I don't think I've ever felt that frightened of it." He says, staring intently at the curtain in front of him.
David rubs a hand over his jaw, not knowing how to respond.
Doctor Whale suddenly moves the curtain aside and steps towards Killian and David. The men straighten instantly and wait for the doctor to speak.
"Okay, we've stabilized Belle and we did an ultrasound to check the baby and it seems fine but we will be doing a bit more extensive testing to make certain and to find out exactly what happened."
Killian nods and David thanks the doctor before he disappears again behind the curtain. They both sigh loudly with relief before walking over to Snow and Henry to tell them the news.
Killian collapses into a chair across from the curtain and rests his elbows on his knees as he hangs his head.
A few minutes later, a plume of dark red smoke appears in the waiting room and a very agitated Gold looks over at him. Killian silently points to the curtain as Gold strides towards him.
"The good doctor says that she's stable now." He says in an exhausted voice.
Gold regards Killian for a moment before turning to push aside the curtain and see Belle. No one dares tell Gold that he shouldn't be there as he walks up to caress Belle's face.
"Our child?" he asks softly to the doctor, not taking his eyes from Belle.
Doctor Whale looks anxiously at Gold.
"The baby seems to be fine. We are doing more testing to figure out what happened."
Gold nods once and goes back to tucking a strand of Belle's hair behind her ear as people scurry around them.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
Tavern, Tortuga
Maggie's gun is pressing against the underside of John Silver's chin and she is starting to shake with rage. Emma and Ruby are almost close enough to touch her but Regina stands back to keep a wary eye on all of them.
"Honestly, Mags. I thought you would just forget about me after a while…" John is saying, making Maggie's disposition even worse but he continues.
"What we had was fun but I never thought you'd look for me for this long…"
The more he speaks, the closer Maggie gets to squeezing the trigger.
Emma clenches her jaw and glares at John.
"Dude, just shut the fuck up!" she spits out for his own good.
Ruby tentatively touches Maggie's shoulder and softly says,
"You don't need him, Maggie. You don't need him in your life." Repeating Maggie's own words back to her.
Maggie slowly stops shaking and loosens her grip on the gun slightly. Ruby takes an encouraging step closer and wraps a supportive hand around Maggie's arm, slowly pushing her arm down. Still murmuring soft words, Ruby turns Maggie completely towards her and offers a minute smile to the blank look on Maggie's face.
Emma watches John glance at the lowered gun in Maggie's hand and takes a menacing step toward him.
"I wouldn't…" she threatens as Ruby guides an almost catatonic Maggie from the room. Emma backs out and then follows Ruby and Maggie down the steps.
Regina looks in the room at John and smiles cruelly for a moment before flicking her wrist in his direction and then closing the door and following her friends down the stairs. The other three walking to the tavern door, Regina detours to grab the bottle of rum off their table and then rushes to catch up.
The women climb into their longboat in silence and row back to the Jolly Roger.
Ruby helps Maggie down to the captain's quarters while Emma and Regina sit down on the steps leading up to the helm.
"Well that was a big waste of time." Regina says finally.
Emma sighs and shakes her head.
"I don't think that turned out like anyone thought it would."
Regina smirks furtively.
"Even John Silver."
Emma looks up at Regina questioningly.
With a smug smile, Regina says,
"I may have left John with a small reminder of his infidelity." And Emma looks at her with more confusion.
Regina clarifies as she grins proudly.
"Let's just say, he may have a bit of trouble in the bedroom from now on."
Emma looks at Regina with bugged eyes before bursting out laughing.
"You can be one scary lady sometimes, Regina." She says between bouts of laughter.