Hello hello, everyone. As mentioned in my other fic, I'm back in grad school, so updates will continue to be sporadic. As to those of you who have expressed concern about my sister, thanks again. She's supposed to come home tomorrow, but then, she was supposed to get out a week ago, and then that didn't happen. She's better in terms of the infection being gone, but has a looooong recovery ahead and basically no immune system, so further complications are entirely likely. . . your good thoughts are much appreciated. Now, to a quick few notes:

LunarBasket: I am honored that I was worthy of causing you to de-lurk! Yeah, I'm terrible at writing one-shots; my stories all have to be multi-chapter and character development and plot and etc. And the beauty of Captain Swan is how hard they both have to work at it, so yes, the story in terms of their romance is quite non-rushed. But hopefully still worth it.

Saint: I am a fandom newbie myself (about two months) thanks to these two life-ruiners. They were the entire reason I started watching the show, and now I'm done for.

J.L. Hay: I do take pride in Hook being as dark and multidimensional and sometimes as flat bad as he is on the show, so I'm glad you noticed! He's much more fun to write, for me at least, when he remains utterly morally ambiguous. Not that I don't love me some fluffy and/or domestic!Hook, because I do, but he's obviously nowhere near that stage yet.

jeweliux: KILLIAN YOU WITH FEELS, YO. . . between this and TNR /cackles

Everyone else: Another feature of my writing, as you've probably noticed, is that I do love me the cliffhangers. :) Thanks, your encouragement is definitely instrumental in my choice to continue the story! To atone for my general lack of updating prowess, this chapter is nice and long. Enjoy!

Chapter 14: This Present Darkness

In those first shattered instants after the crash, before the car had even come to a halt, while it was spinning out on the side of the road and brakes were burning and glass was crunching and Belle's terrified screaming rang out over both, as David was already on his cell phone bellowing for an ambulance and Mary Margaret apparently couldn't decide whether to throttle Gold or take over for him so he could get on with what he had been interrupted so decisively from –

– That, then, was when Emma Swan realized just how bad her problem was.

Because she didn't see any of that. Well, she did, even through the Locker's veil of evil black murky stuff, but it flashed through her head in an instant and was gone again, without leaving even the faintest ghost of meaning behind. All she could stare at was the dark figure who had been violently thrown into the muddy ditch, head over heels over the car roof by the force of the impact, and who hadn't moved since. Could see Belle sobbing and shoving at Gold as he hovered frantically over her, and then, as Mary Margaret got hold of the distraught girl and tried in vain to comfort her, saw the pawnbroker spin around and stride across the dark road, hand flaring with fire, directly toward where Hook's broken body lay.

Emma's heart stopped. She swore she could actually feel it. She had a distant, half-crazed memory of him telling her that there were two things that could get them out of their current predicament: blood and true love. The latter was out of the question (she couldn't believe it had been a question in the first place) and when she tried to hurl herself against the enveloping black cobwebs as Hook had done, it threw her back so hard that her teeth jangled in her head. But even as she hit the ground, she was twisting around, fumbling for a rock and gashing it so savagely against her arm that she bit her lip on a cry. The savior's blood. . . she didn't want to use magic against this stuff, not until she knew what it was, not until she knew what she was, she didn't even know how she had gotten it to work in time to save Hook after he was shot, but this. . . he'd tried to convince her to let him die. . . had he thrown himself in front of the car as it looked –

Her battered forearm finally produced a slow leak of blood, and Emma flung the drops into the dark smoke still trying vigorously to suck her back down to the underworld. It hissed and parted, and – boots slipping in the wet leaves, bare head pelted with the rain that had started to fall as portentously as a funeral shroud – she ran harder than she ever had in her life.

"Gold!" She got there just in time. He had both hands – one more than he'd left the man he was currently intent on murdering – around Hook's throat. "Are you insane?!"

"Yes!" he roared. "And you'd best let me finish! Otherwise your darling parents are going to pay the price!"

Emma jerked. She stared wildly over Gold's shoulder at David and Mary Margaret, both of whom were staring just as wildly back at her – to their eyes, she had, after all, materialized from the middle of nowhere. In the commotion of falling into Davy Jones' Locker via tornado via crazy evil witch, in close embrace with a badly wounded, unfairly gorgeous, and overly dramatic suicidal pirate, she had almost forgotten how her parents, already gun-shy due to her previous disappearance, would react. Oh God, no, no, don't tell me they made a deal! With her own broken bargain foremost in Emma's mind as she tried to wrestle Gold away from his renewed assault on Hook, the last thing she needed was another weapon for him to hold against her.

Hook himself was clawing to his knees, snarling something about Milah – reeling like a drunkard, blood down half his face, trying like a wild animal to get at his enemy. Emma's horrendous relief – fine, call it what it was – at seeing him still kicking was immediately subsumed as Gold swung around for a new attack. Hook crashed back to the ground with a scream of agony, and she couldn't get between the two of them fast enough. The strange car was still smoking and crumpled on the side of the road, that car and everything it could possibly –

Then her father was there, dragging Gold away. "No! What would Belle think? Murder is a bad first impression!"

"She doesn't even know me!" Gold struggled to get loose, but David had him in an iron grip. Emma looked frantically down the dark road for flashing lights – she could already hear the sirens. She was the sheriff, she really needed to start handling this, but instead, she found herself falling to her knees at Hook's side.

"Hey, beautiful." Of all the ludicrous things, the stupid man was grinning at her. A moment ago he'd been crazed with his death wish, not to mention getting his clock cleaned (ha ha, he was Captain Hook and he'd gotten his clock cleaned) by the car, but he was grinning at her. What even the actual fuck. "And here I didn't think you'd – ah –"

She wanted to tell him that he'd left her behind and she wasn't going to trust him, that he'd blown it. That she was done with him. Instead she almost couldn't breathe, desperate to reach the magic that had saved him last time. Her hand groped at his torso, and his good hand rose up and pressed it to his stomach. She could feel the wrongness immediately. "Your ribs are broken."

"Ah," he wheezed. "Must be why it hurts when I laugh."

Why are you even laughing? She bit her lip, tears stinging her eyes. "Buddy, you are cutting it awful fine here. What, getting shot wasn't enough?"

Hook started into some answer, probably one far more sassy than someone lying crumpled in a ditch with shattered ribs had any right to make, but at that moment, the flashing lights finally rounded the corner and the ambulance hove into view. Mary Margaret was shouting something about the man in the car, and it took every drop of Emma's willpower to jump up as Hook's hand was still clutching at hers, to walk away from him and go to meet the paramedics. To instruct them to see to the stranger first, who was clearly in bad shape, and then wave them over to Hook.

As the paramedics knelt and unfolded their gurney, one of them unreeling an IV and approaching his arm with it – Hook being even more of a drama queen than usual about the needle, funny for a guy who'd spent the last forty-eight hours in some kind of horribly life-threatening trauma – Emma felt a hand close on her shoulder. As welcoming as a viper, Gold breathed in her ear, "It's so good to see you home safe already, dearie."

"Emma!" Mary Margaret screamed, shoving past the cordon of medical personnel to reach her daughter. "What are you – oh my God, you're here – "

"Yes, she is," Gold remarked. "And your dear husband just pulled me off of Hook. As if the entire lot of you have forgotten a deal, again."

"The deal doesn't have anything to do with this, Gold." David was breathing heavily as he moved to get between the Dark One and his wife and daughter. "It's null. We would stand aside to let you kill Hook if you got Emma back for us. But she came back on her own."

"Technicalities. Always the last recourse, isn't it?" Gold hadn't blinked, still transfixing them with that pale, intent snake stare. "In my shop, Your Highness, you were so eager to assist in the good captain's demise. Where did that go wrong? Was it seeing that I wasn't lying when I mentioned your daughter's fixation on him? What do I have to do to get you to keep your promises? Remind you that your boy is in that truck, right there?" He pointed.

Emma blanched. "Henry's here?!" She stared at them in betrayed horror. "What did you do?"

"Emma, I'm so sorry, please." Mary Margaret clutched at her hand. "You – we were – we were desperate, we didn't know what to – "

"You made a deal with him?" Emma's voice cracked. "You promised to let him kill Hook if he got me back safely?" For the first time since she'd learned that her parents were her parents, she almost couldn't speak for the anger and agony crushing her gut. Ordinary kids went through this in their teenage years, when they realized that their parents were no longer the adored figures they'd been in childhood. Even those lucky kids whose parents weren't Snow White and Prince Charming, the fairytale embodiment of true love and perfection and moral rectitude. Mary Margaret Blanchard and David Nolan weren't those people, not exactly, not here, but –

"You. . ." The tears that had been threatening earlier were now about to spill down Emma's cheeks in full force, and that was just utterly mortifying. "You brought my son into danger, you made a deal with Gold, even after everything that just happened. . . you told me I was a good person and made the right choices since I didn't order the giant to kill Hook, and now you've just decided that doesn't matter as much? How could you?"

"Sweetheart," Mary Margaret begged. "I am so, so sorry. We couldn't stand the thought of losing you again, we would have done anything. Please, tell us how to make it okay."

"You can't." It sounded harsh, too harsh, and even as it was coming out of her mouth, Emma wanted to take it back, but it was too late. "You can't make this okay. Not right now. Please, just get out of my way and let me do my job."

Mary Margaret looked as if someone had swung a ton of bricks into her face. David was almost as stunned. They reached out for each other, as the paramedics loaded Hook and the stranger into the ambulance, as Belle kept on sobbing and trying to shove them away as they tried to take her too, and Gold stood there like an avenging angel – or demon. The rainy night was split apart by sirens, lights, shouts, smoke, shattered glass, and the scorched afterglare of magic.

Emma turned her back and walked away.

(8888888)

It was twenty minutes later when she arrived at Storybrooke General Hospital, having flat-out sprinted most of the way and given a ride by Ruby, who had apparently received notice of the catastrophe unfolding at the boundary line, the rest. When they pulled up with a screech, Emma jumped out, managed to thank Ruby for the lift, and thought about apologizing for her bad behavior several nights ago, but now was not the time. Instead, she ran inside.

She wasn't alone. David and Mary Margaret were there as well, with Leroy, Henry, a hysterical Belle, a flood of official-looking people – and the two stretchers, Hook's and the stranger's, being wheeled through the whole mess. Neither of them looked very compos mentis at all, and Hook's eyes were closed, blood drying on his face.

In that moment, as she looked at him, Emma felt like she had been torn in half like a piece of cheap cloth. She jerked a hand out to snag the sleeve of a passing nurse, pointing her desperately at the pirate as he rolled by. "Hide him!" she screamed. "Find a private room and hide him!"

The nurse looked at her in confusion and consternation, but didn't get a chance to answer. Someone was paging Dr. Whale, who did not appear to be in evidence, and Ruby ducked in at that moment and would have been fully justified in turning tail (so to speak) and exiting again immediately. Instead, she plunged into the mess. "Whoa! What – what's going on? Belle! Are you all right? What – "

"Why does everyone keep calling me that?" Belle gasped, eyes wild. "Who are you? What's going on – please, will everyone – please – "

Ruby flinched, stared at Mary Margaret, and started to ask, likely in vain, what was going on. Emma turned from her parents again, more tears starting in her eyes, and was just under the delusion that she should do something else, when the doors swung open and Gold stormed in.

This. Is so utterly. Not what I need. Emma missed almost all of the ensuing conversation, until Whale finally appeared and said something about the stranger being badly hurt, bleeding into his chest cavity, and asking Gold something, something about using his magic to heal him, and Gold answering how he was glad he didn't give a damn. And then, even through her panic, she understood the full gravity of what had now happened.

Someone had come to Storybrooke. Someone from the outside world. According to the phone Dr. Whale proffered, his name was Greg Mendel, he liked to tweet pictures of his filet mignon, and he was a small-time executive who spent his weekends, probably from his boring life in a Connecticut bedroom suburb, knocking through quaint New England fishing villages. Someone who, if he found out about this place, was going to have a lot more to tweet about.

"Save him," Emma ordered Whale. "You have to save him."

The doctor shot another queasy look at Gold, who was staring fixedly down the hall where Belle had been led off. He didn't answer. Finally he said, "It would be easier just to let him die."

"No. That is not even an option. People will want to know where he is. And there is no way we're just letting him die because he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"But our lives," Leroy said behind her, clearly shocked. "If we're discovered – "

"Yeah? What about his life? How about how I'm the sheriff, and it is not a committee?"

"He's going to need surgery," Whale said, avoiding her eye. "Complicated stuff."

"Surgery," David prompted. "So aren't you supposed to be scrubbing in?"

"Yeah, I'm going to. . . do that." Whale turned and stumbled away.

"Does anyone else notice he's drunk off his ass?" Mary Margaret asked. She shot an imploring glance at Emma. "What if someone comes looking for this Greg before he can – "

She never finished that sentence. Instead, at that very moment, the phone still in Emma's hand began to warble a triumphant, tinny version of the Star Wars theme.

"Too late," she said grimly. "Someone is looking for him."

(8888888)

They practically had to have the Malta Conference after that. Talk strategy, then realize in horror that Whale, instead of going into the operating room, had gone missing. Send Ruby out to hunt for him, argue more about the relative merits and ethics of saving the stranger's life, and God knew what else. But Emma was still not interested in forgiving her parents right now, and her business remained unfinished. Leaving curt instructions at the nurse's station that she was to be notified immediately in her professional capacity if anything happened at all, she turned away and hurried down the corridor at an Olympic medal-worthy clip.

It didn't take long to find where they'd stashed him. She closed the door behind her and wished she could lock it, then turned around.

The difference was striking. They'd already gotten him out of his torn, bloodstained black leathers and into a white fluffy bathrobe-thing, so incongruously domestic that it made Emma bite her lip on an unhinged giggle. He was hooked up (again, side-splitting) to IV bags and monitors and suchlike, and as for the notorious appendage itself, it was MIA. Of course. They weren't going to leave him with that thing attached. As for his other hand, they'd also taken the smart precaution. He was handcuffed to the bed. With broken ribs. After being shot. And thrown (albeit by his own volition) into a tornado and paying a brief visit to Hades. Rough day?

Emma moved quietly across the room and sat down on the bed. She listened to his shallow, stertorous breathing, wondered just how many painkillers they had jacked him up on, and had to fight a crazy urge to reach for his hand that lay battered and dirty on the white sheets, still wearing its rings. This place was no sanctuary. Belle was here, so Gold was going to be haunting it, and if he considered her and her family doubly in debt to him –

Another helpless surge of anger at her parents welled up in Emma's throat, even though she knew that it was badly misplaced. She shouldn't be angry at them for trying to protect her. She'd done some dumb stuff in her time – plenty of dumb stuff – and a lot of it to try to protect Henry. But hearing this, after her mother had told her that her goodness had been what stopped her from killing Hook, and then finding out they had turned around and bartered that off to Gold. . . Who was already unstable to say the least, and that even before Hook's shot – which must have only grazed Belle if at all, the worst damage by far was in her mind – had taken his girl's memory.

Emma sucked in a deep breath, trying to get herself under control. There were about a thousand and one questions she needed answered, and the clusterfuck with Whale and the stranger and her parents and Belle and Gold. She had to be a professional about this. Pronto.

Hook was stirring. A faint cry of pain bubbled up between his bloody lips, and a slit of blue showed beneath his long dark lashes. He opened them further, glanced down the bed, saw her, and froze.

They stared at each other for a long, lightheaded moment. Then he tried to move toward her, and was checked smartly by the handcuff. "Again? Fancy this, do you?"

"It's no one's fault but your own if you're tied up a lot." Despite all her efforts, Emma sounded too much like she'd been crying, and she didn't want him to think it was for him. "You're a pirate. I thought it would be par for the course."

He smirked. "Is it? I thought it was something on your part. No worries, I don't mind a lass who knows her way around a silk scarf and a handcuff. Especially not a lass as blonde and lovely and forward as you."

"You're awfully chipper for a guy who failed to kill his enemy, then got hit by a car."

"Well, my ribs may be broken, but. . ." One of those horrible, god-awful, no-good very bad stomach-turning smoldering looks again. "Everything else is still intact. Which is more than I can say for other bad days. And I've done some quality damage to my foe."

"You hurt Belle."

"I hurt his heart. Belle's just where he keeps it." His eyes fluttered half shut again. "He killed my love, I know how it feels. Oh, and speaking of which. My hook. I want it back."

"No."

"Is there another attachment you'd prefer?"

He's been in this world for what, a little over a week? Knowing Hook, however, it was entirely possible that he'd already learned about vibrators – but that thought had to be killed with fire. "No, I said. Forget it. If you ever want to see it again, in fact, you are going to tell me right now anything and everything that you know about Cora's heart and any other weakness of hers."

"Oh, you do look so good when you do that. Commanding tone. Chills."

"You have a lot of sore places. I can make you hurt. And you don't seem too surprised to see me, when you left me in your cousin's damp little underworld. Tricked me into staying there, so you could go after – "

"Did I lie?" He tried to cock his head, and grunted with pain again. "No. In fact, may I remind you that I was most excruciatingly honest. You were never in any doubt about my intentions to do exactly what I did, and you had every choice to go onto Oz. Instead, you couldn't tear yourself away from me, and thus came with me back here."

"It's not that simple."

"Is it not? Keep telling yourself that, darling. And it seems you found the way out."

"Yeah!" She jerked up her jacket sleeve to show him the scraped mess of her arm. "You fucking jackass! I found the way out! All right!"

Hook stared at it, genuinely taken aback. He made an abortive motion with the stump of his left wrist, as if trying to reach for her. "Oh, lass," he said softly. "I didn't – "

"Yeah, I bet you've got something witty and inappropriate for that too. Save it." Emma got to her feet, cheeks burning. "I can see I'm not going to get anything out of you, not even an apology, much less anything about Cora. You're hurt. Probably hopped out of your mind on morphine, though I have to say you're just as much a perv as you are when not hopped out of your mind on morphine. So I'm just going to go and – " She spun on her heel.

"Lass," he said. "Swan. Emma."

Unwillingly, she stopped.

Hook jerked the handcuff again, with transparent irritation. "I don't know for certain where Cora's heart is," he said, "otherwise I'd have done the world a bloody favor and squashed it long since. But if it is where I think it is, it will be a bastard of a time getting there on your own. I, plainly, am unavailable to assist, so you'll have to think of a new plan."

"I'll. . . just go back to the border. Go through. Like I meant to in the first place."

"Will you? With the stranger come to town and the boundary the only thing stopping the tornado from destroying it? What happens now if you break that, love? Are you really willing to take that chance?" His voice was very serious. "I wouldn't. We could also go back to the woods and try to return to the Locker, but that's undesirable for varied reasons."

"So. . . what, then?"

Hook hesitated. Then he said, "Cora and I didn't come through entirely alone."

"Oh God." Emma finally turned back. "What are you talking about?"

"There's someone aboard the Jolly Roger, love." He coughed. "I could show you. If you were willing to trust me."

"Someone. . ." Emma narrowed her eyes. "Is this some kind of. . .?"

"My darling, darling girl, but you do make me slave and sweat for every little inch I get, don't you?" He coughed again, a disturbingly aqueous sound. "No, you wouldn't have seen it earlier during our. . . ah. . . whirlwind tour, forgive the figure of speech. Enchantment. But if you'll think about this logically, you'll realize that we couldn't have come straight to Storybrooke from Lake Nostros. We had to stop off and get my ship. And. . ."

"And?"

He looked like he was trying valiantly to keep smiling, but was still in horrible pain. "And its passenger."

"Who is?"

He managed to keep the smile, faint and agonized. "Magic beans ring any bells, lass?"

"What. . . I don't. . . magic beans? Are you. . . no, seriously, are you telling me. . ."

"He's shrunk, drugged, shut in a cage, and not much bloody use to anyone right now. In fact, I can't fathom why Cora brought him along, though I'll hazard a wild guess that it was to commit something terrible. Not that I like the chap much meself, but he is our only shot of getting back to Oz now."

"Oh God. . . the giant, you brought the fucking giant?" Emma couldn't fathom if he'd be happy to see her or not. She wouldn't be happy to see her, if she was him. "But all the beans, weren't they dried up or gone or. . ."

Hook shrugged and stopped halfway through with a gargoyle expression. "Worth a shot, innit?"

"Yeah, we just had someone called Greg Mendel come to town, too," Emma said sarcastically. "I'm sure he's magically a total expert on bean cultivation, right?"

Hook looked baffled. "Who?"

"Greg Mendel. . . there was this scientist called Gregor Mendel in the nineteenth century, he did a lot of experiments with beans and finding their traits. . . never mind. He's going to cause us all kinds of trouble, even if he didn't see you and Gold going at it like gangbusters." Emma rubbed a hand across her eyes. "I don't know what I'm saying. I'm dead on my feet. I haven't eaten or slept since before your little tornado stunt."

"Kip here with me. There's plenty of room." He tapped the bed with his stump, grinning.

"In your dreams," she told him, and startled as she reached for her cell phone, which was buzzing in her back pocket. "Oh. Shit. Someone's calling. Look, don't get into any more. . ."

"Trouble?" he finished wryly. "What? Do I look like I attract it?"

"Attract it? Yeah. Just a little. Just a very, very little. In fact, so much that if I had to pick Dead Guy of the Year. . ." She still couldn't quite take her eyes off him, couldn't stop her lips from quirking into a sad, tender smile. "I'd pick you."

And with that, she ducked out into the antiseptic hospital corridor beyond, and fled.

(8888888)

The call was from the nurse's station. They wanted to tell her that Whale had been located by Ruby, that Greg was in surgery, and that someone wanted to see her.

"Someone. . .?" Emma repeated, startled. "Is it Gold?"

"It's not. I don't know him." The nurse frowned. "He's in the waiting room over there, if you want. He said it was important."

Greg? Emma's heart lurched. It was entirely possible that his family had turned on the find-a-phone feature, that one of them had driven up here in a panic, and now it was going to blow up into a giant mushroom cloud unless firmly tamped down. In that case, she did have to deal with it. Had to put on her Sheriff Swan face and get this under control. Now. She'd already wasted too much time just sitting and waiting for Hook to wake up. She hadn't had the heart to do it herself.

"Yeah," she said absently. "Yeah, all right. Just. . . keep me posted, all right?"

"Of course, Sheriff." The nurse turned back to attend a call coming through her walkie-talkie. Something about Belle. Something about her flipping out. Backup needed.

Emma grimaced, wondered how on earth that was going to go over, and turned, straightening her back and clearing her throat. Put on her big-girl panties, strode into the waiting room, empty but for one man –

– and stopped dead.

This time she didn't scream, which was a marked improvement from last time. Instead, after about a minute of stunned staring, her voice came out hard and cold and hollow. "You."

"Me." Neal Cassady held out his hands. "I. . . please, Emma, let me explain, just let me explain, all right? I heard there was shit going down tonight, I wanted to come here and support you, I'm not trying to ambush you, okay? Just – I didn't even get a chance to say anything before, I scared you, I know I should have called or something, but – "

"What makes you think you have the right to say anything?"Emma hissed. All of her previous resolve to handle this situation like an adult was shriveling up like – like, well, a dead magic bean. "That you have the right to stand here and look me in the eye and talk to me like you didn't abandon me and bust me like a low-down coward for your crime?"

"Emma, please!" He cut in over her. "Please listen. Do you know a guy named August Booth?"

That threw her so utterly for a loop that she fell silent. Yes, of course. She did. Even though he hadn't been seen around town in ages, since as far as she knew – Marco was resolutely close-mouthed about it – he had turned entirely to wood and hadn't turned back when the curse broke. Thanks to me. But this – how could fucking Neal – how could –

"All right," she said tightly. "You have two minutes. Start talking."

"Okay. Look, on the night I turned you in, after I left you in the car, he chased me down and jumped me and told me that he'd been looking for you for two years. That you'd been in the same home together as kids and he thought you'd be safe in the system, but now you'd aged out and were robbing convenience stores with. . . with me." His unshaven throat moved as he swallowed. "He said you had a destiny to break the curse on this place, here, and that if I really loved you, I'd let you go."

"He told you to leave me?" Emma repeated, numb. Assuming this wasn't just some horribly sadistic lie. . . but how would Neal know about August otherwise? Supposedly he was a writer, maybe Neal had seen his name on some airport paperback or book review or something and concocted a preposterous extortion plot for quick cash. . . but to know who August was, how he was related to her. . . "He actually said, all right Neal, call the cops and turn her in?" If August wasn't wood, she was going to kill him with her bare hands.

"He said. . . he just said it had to be dealt with, he wouldn't let me go back and get the watches and take the fall myself. I offered, Emma, I swear I offered. I don't know why he wouldn't let me. I guess he was afraid you'd know something was up, he. . ."

"And you agreed to this?" Emma sounded, she knew, exactly like the broken, abandoned little girl she used to be. Her voice was a wreck, her knees were shaking, she wanted to crawl into a hole and die. "You said okay, this sounds like a great plan?"

"He. . . he showed me something. I. . . had to."

"You left me alone! You could have told him to go fuck himself, and – "

"And then what?" He moved closer. "The curse would never have been broken?"

"That is beside the point, Neal. It is fucking beside the point."

"No, it's not. I would have done anything, I swear, to – "

"You gave me up." The agony inside her was shattering. "You could have fought for me. You could have said, we'll do this together. You could have done a thousand other things beside what you did. You knew who I was, you knew where I was from, you knew about my issues and my neuroses and my deepest fear of being abandoned again, and you gave me away."

"I. . . yeah." He blew out a breath. "Nothing is ever going to make that right. I know. That's why I came here. I would have come earlier, honest. But stuff with the parole officers and making sure they think I'm not trying to do a bunk. . . I've been living squeaky clean in Manhattan, nine years now. I have a nice place. An actual job. I want to show you that I've changed. I want to make it up to you."

Emma laughed. Laughed so she wouldn't start to sob uncontrollably. Drown herself in tears, like a real fairytale princess. "Look, Neal. We already have one outsider here, who's going to cause us an assload of trouble. We don't need another. I don't need another. Thanks for having the guts to finally explain yourself, but after ten years, there's no goddamn gold star for you. I want you to pack up your stuff, and I want you to leave. Tonight."

He looked at her helplessly. "Is that what you want? Emma, you told me never to contact you again, that letter you wrote from jail, when you said. . ."

Oh God. She'd just realized how this could get even worse. And worse again was the fact that she had told him to stay out of her life for good. If he really honestly thought that he was respecting her wishes. . . I want to show you that I've changed. Everyone in her life wanted to prove that right now, in varying measures. Her parents, Regina. . . for chrissakes, Regina, her pretty much mortal enemy the entire time until the curse broke. . . if she was willing to admit that it was possible for Regina Effing Mills to change. . .

"Baby?" Neal said tentatively, seeing her hesitation.

"Don't you dare call me that." What was she going to do? She could order him to leave, but she couldn't really arrest him if he didn't. Just like she couldn't arrest Greg for driving unwittingly into the middle of this, however much she wanted to. Toss them both in the clank and throw away the key. She started to turn, to go.

At that moment, however, she heard hastening footsteps. Coming toward the waiting room, and she thought it was the nurse. Please God let it be the nurse. Coming to tell her –

"Mom?" Henry poked his head around the door. "Mom, are you okay? They're all looking for you, Greg is out of surgery and Gramma really wants you to come and hear – "

"Mom?" Neal looked like he was about to have a heart attack and die. "Oh my God. . . Emma. . . I thought you wanted to give the kid away forever. . . Jesus Christ, is that. . .?"

Emma Swan felt her world turning black around her. She thought she was going to faint.

"Who are you?" Henry cocked his head. "Mom, who's that? Excuse me, mister, do I know you?"

Neal kept staring as if someone had poleaxed him across the skull. It was a miracle he was still upright. "Yeah," he wheezed. "Yeah, you know me, I guess."

"I don't. . ." A frown raced like a stormcloud over Henry's face. Then, with that horrible perception of his, it clicked. He whirled on her.

"You told me that my dad was a firefighter!" he cried. "You told me that he was dead! That he died a hero! I asked you and you lied to me!"

"No," Emma croaked. "Henry – please, listen to me, I didn't want to hurt you, I didn't think you needed to know. . . it was so hard, I was eighteen and scared shitless, I just wanted to give you your best chance, you know that – " Heart breaking anew, she reached out for him.

Her son backed away. "You lied to me," he said again, sounding simultaneously much older and younger than eleven. "Did you tell me the truth about anything? Why? Did you even want me?"

"Henry, sweetheart – " The first time she'd ever called him that, not kid or buddy or any of the other casual ways she addressed him, like a cool big sister instead of a dorky mom. "Please, please, let me explain – " The irony crashed on her, hard as a hammer, that just minutes ago, she was the one furious and determined not to let Neal explain himself. That just hours ago, she was the one who told her parents that there was no way to make this okay. "It's complicated – "

Henry didn't say anything else. He just stood staring at her like he had never seen her before in his life. Then he turned and ran.

(8888888)

Killian Jones hurt. A whole bloody pissing lot. Not the worst he'd hurt, not even the worst his chest had hurt, but enough that he kept banging the little witchery that was supposed to make it stop hurting. The morphine, he thought his Swan girl had called it, yet it wasn't working. He was drifting in a half-doze, in too much pain to sleep again, and hoping that she would come back. Not a whole hell of a lot else to pass the time.

He'd been briefly excited when the door opened, but his spirits were immediately deflated when it was a dowdy nurse with a tray of something that she was audacious enough to call food. After poking through the almost unidentifiable substance, including the red jiggling stuff that looked like some sort of poison or explosive, he concluded that they must be trying to kill him again on the sly, and he had no intention of indulging their nefarious schemes. Even though a few hours ago, he'd been trying to goad the Dark One into just that. Never thought I would die by goo, though. For a dread pirate like himself, there was a reputation at stake.

His wrist was starting to chafe. He jerked hard on his handcuff and snarled in frustration when it failed to give. His ribs ached sorely with every breath, and his infirmity annoyed him further. You didn't live for three hundred years, even in Neverland, by being a fainting pansy, and on the infrequent occasions he did get sick, he'd been a terrible patient. Especially now, the thought that he was flat on his back while the world went on. . . up in flames, more like. . .

Killian shifted with another grunt. It had not escaped his attention that instead of turning back to the Locker or anywhere else, the lass had come after him. Even after he had, so far as she knew, left her behind. He hadn't meant to. But when he'd seen the Dark One and his woman standing right at the edge. . it was too good to pass up, he couldn't, everything fled but the memory of Milah dying in his arms and he had to, he had to do what he said, and finish his revenge. He hadn't lied to Emma, he was no liar to her. But still. . .

It was as dark and jumbled as if everything inside him had been thrown to the floor and smashed, like when he'd shot the mirror on his ship. Miserable and fragile and fucking furious. That had driven him to the moment when he'd pulled the trigger on Belle. The fact he'd explained, patiently as a schoolmarm, to any number of people over the centuries. I am a bad man.

He closed his eyes again. Gods, he wanted to bloody sleep, but fire was still scorching up his sides. Magic in this world was sorely ill-advanced, so he was really going to have to hope Emma came back and patched him up. Strange that he'd been so dead-set on dying, now was confessing to her about the giant and hatching madcap schemes, going to all sorts of lengths he shouldn't. . . but he was happy when he was with her, he knew that now, and she'd protected him when she should have cut his throat. It was strange. So strange.

He was still lying like that when he heard the door open again, and he felt his wounded heart upturn. "Come to tell me what the hell this stuff is, lass?" he called. "I can't imagine they actually want me to eat it."

"They do, in fact." The voice was not Emma's. Nor even a woman's. "It's called Jell-O, in fact. Delicacy of this world. A pity if you never tried it."

Killian's eyes bolted open. He yanked at his handcuff one more time, madly, uselessly.

"No luck, dearie," Rumplestiltskin said, soft as a blade through the ribs. "I've just been in to see Belle. She doesn't know me. Nothing works. Not true love's kiss, not her cup, nothing. If her memory had come back, even now, I might have been induced to spare your miserable life. Which, so far as I can tell, you don't even want to have anymore. But no. It's irreversible."

"So was what you did to Milah," Killian breathed. "You fucking bastard."

Gold smiled. It was no smile. "It seems I can't count on the Charmings for anything these days," he said, and rolled up his sleeves. "One deal after another, broken. All for you. Well, dearie. That's about to change. I'm terribly sorry, but now I'm going to kill you. We can get this over with. Cleanly. Like gentlemen."

The worst thing was, Killian couldn't exactly refute that. So far as it went, the bloody crocodile was right. He did want to die. Be reunited with Milah. End this jape of a life.

So why not just let him do it?

Easy thing. Easiest thing.

And yet as the Dark One took a step, readying the murderous magic –

Killian filled his bruised, cracked, trampled-on lungs, and bellowed, "SWAN!"