Chapter 32

As she watched the police car trundle up the street, as she could see Killian still staring at her from the backseat until it disappeared around a corner, the only thought in Emma Swan's head was her overwhelming, heart-stopping need to get away. She had never been so desperate to flee, heedless of any and all responsibilities – whether it was going back to interview Tamara or in to shout at Gold, nothing could get past the ice-cold animal terror crashing on her like a tidal wave. No. This couldn't be happening. Not after so long. Not after almost seven years of absolute, utter nonexistence, no word, no sound, no indication at all that he was even still alive – only for him to turn up from the blue, dressed in his fucking pirate Halloween costume, and once more go straight back to trying to kill Gold and tear this place apart. No. Not him. Not here. Not like this.

Not like this.

After a moment, Emma turned and began to blunder away, each foot feeling like a thousand tons of lead. David would be okay at the hospital, and she couldn't stand for him to see her like this, about to come to pieces. David, please, just let me see him, even just once, please, please, please – ! Even hearing it in her memory was enough to make her cringe. No. Like hell. Like she'd give Regina and Gold that weapon, like she'd give Killian that reward, like she'd allow herself that broken, trampled-on shred of desperate, girlish hope for parents and partner and family, as if she would be able to live, to breathe, if her walls came down for even a moment. . .

But right now, she was drowning.

Emma walked without stopping, head down, until she looked up and realized that she was just across from the elementary school, currently cold and empty for the Thanksgiving break. She hesitated, then jogged over, scaled the fence, and dropped down on the other side, heading to the swings. She brushed the snow off the seat and wedged herself in, kicking aimlessly at the ground. The dull, repetitive motion soothed her somewhat. Her hands were trembling as they clutched the chains, the cold seeping through her gloves. Back and forth, back and forth. She'd stay out here until she froze, the only way to keep herself together. Either that or –

"Emma? What are you doing here?"

Startled, she jerked up. Mary Margaret Blanchard was standing in the archway, carrying a stack of book reports, art projects, and other such things that she must have dropped by to pick up. Her expression was confused and concerned, as well it might be upon seeing her upstairs neighbor attempting to freeze herself solid on a deserted playground. "There must be a foot of snow out here, we're definitely getting a nor'easter – what's going on? Are you – "

Emma turned her face away. "Yeah. Fine. All fine. Good. Yeah. See you for Thanksgiving."

After that, she sat very still, hoping that Mary Margaret would get the anvil-sized hint and leave. The other woman, however, did no such thing. Forcing her armload of paper into her shoulder bag, she hurried over to the swing set. "It's freezing," she said, in a very motherly tone, "and you look terrible. Oh my God, is everything all right? Is David – "

"David's fine." Emma barely recognized her own voice. "I just needed. . . to think some stuff through. That's all."

"Out in the middle of a blizzard?" Mary Margaret's skepticism was plain. "Emma. . . I don't have the right to snoop on you, but you look like you've seen a ghost. If you're sure that you – "

She was interrupted by a high, scraping laugh, verging on the hairy edge of hysteria. "Maybe I have, all right? Fine. If you really have to know, David's. . . David's dad just turned up in town. About an hour ago. And I've already arrested him for breaking, entering, and attempted murder."

"David's. . . dad?" Mary Margaret stared. "But I thought he was missing!"

"Yeah," Emma snapped. "Yeah, I thought so too."

"Oh, Emma." Mary Margaret's shock had already turned to sympathy, her dark eyes very soft and gentle. "That must be awful. I totally understand why you're out here by yourself, but. . . come on. I'm going to take you to Granny's and buy you something. It's the least I can do."

"What makes you think I want to talk about it?"

"I don't think that at all, actually. If you just want to sit and not say a word, I'll completely understand. But I'm not letting you freeze." Mary Margaret put her hand under Emma's elbow, levered her off the swing, and kept hold of her across the playground. They crunched through the snow to Mary Margaret's car, tacky retro wood paneling and all, and got in, Emma trying to restore feeling to her fingers without it being obvious. There was a clunk and a roar as the engine started up, and Mary Margaret switched on the heat and the four-wheel drive, downshifting the manual transmission and setting off slowly along the iced-up street.

"Guess you get used to winter around here, huh?" Emma managed. She was trying to say something, anything, that would make her sound functional, not the kind of sad-sack mental case who had to be rescued from derelict schoolyards and fed hot meals for their own safety. It wasn't easy, when she still felt as if she had been punched very hard in the stomach. "Normally in Boston it just sleets and looks crummy from November to March. Not really, you know. Picturesque."

Mary Margaret nodded, steering into the alley by Granny's Diner and coasting to a halt in the only plowed-out space. Then she hopped out, and Emma followed her reluctantly, up the steps into the warm restaurant. It was mostly empty, on the break between the breakfast and lunch hours, and Ruby, the waitress, came zooming up. "Guess what? We have avocado today!"

"That's great," Mary Margaret said, somewhat nonplussed. "Emma, Ruby, have you met?"

"Yeah," Emma mumbled. "Briefly."

They ducked into a booth along the far wall, where Emma sat staring at her hands until the menu arrived, then remembered that she should get in touch with the hospital and make sure her son was still there. A quick phone call later, David had been instructed via the receptionist to play quietly in the pediatric waiting area until she came to pick him up, which Emma knew would be greatly displeasing to a rambunctious six-year-old, but she couldn't spare a single damn. She hung up, ordered lunch, and sat back with a shaky breath. Her resolve not to say a word, to shut everyone out and fucking deal with it, was rapidly disintegrating.

Mary Margaret gave her a gentle look. "I promise," she said. "Nobody will hear it from me."

Emma let out another unsteady breath. Still, she couldn't bring herself to say anything until their food arrived. Even though she was starving, she unenthusiastically chased her fries around the plate, over and over. Then, as suddenly as a dam breaking, it came up. Everything. How she'd first met Killian Jones when she was in college, how he'd briefly taught at BC before vanishing, how she'd run into him in Oxford, their kiss in the Wadham gardens, the sense of danger and desertion – and desire – that had made her flee. Their paths crossing again two years later, when she was working for the Boston ATF and he was a wanted criminal. How she'd almost trapped him at the Renaissance Hotel, and he had gotten away. How she'd been kidnapped by Greg and Tamara and taken to Storybrooke, and so had he. How he'd shot Belle, and fled, and she'd tracked him to London, where all their secrets and all their lies and all their need came crashing to the fore. That one night and day of passion, everything he'd told her at dinner, how little she believed it and then, how much, she wished she could. Him stolen away in a twinkling, as she shouted and pounded helplessly on the hotel room door. How she'd gone to Wendy Darling in fruitless search of answers, then home, stunned and alone. And realizing, about a month later, that while he may be gone, he had left one vital part of himself behind.

"And so," Emma finished, feeling completely drained, "yeah. He's back here, and I. . . I don't know what to do about it. David. . . do you think I want to tell David that this is his dad, let them get to know each other, and then risk that Killian's going to disappear again? I can't. I can't."

Mary Margaret's look remained thoughtful. Then the other woman said, "Have you asked him?"

"Asked him what?"

"Where he's been. What he's done. All that."

"No." Emma's hackles raised defensively. "I was too busy trying to stop him from murdering the pawnbroker, thanks very much."

Mary Margaret sighed. After a sip of coffee, she asked very gently, "Do you want to have him back in your life?"

"What?" Emma was caught on the hop. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Exactly what it sounds like," Mary Margaret repeated patiently. "I know you're upset, you're angry, you're betrayed, you're hurt, you're scared, and you have every right to be. He's left you in the lurch for almost seven years, you've been raising his son alone, and your life has been far from easy. But Emma. . . do you think it could be that you're terrified of letting him in again, because you know it would be out of your control? That if you did, you'd open yourself to being hurt again, and with him, how it felt with him, you couldn't stand it?"

Emma's mouth opened in shock. "I – that's – completely beside the point," she spluttered. "If all this time – if he just couldn't give a fuck to find out where – "

"You don't know that," Mary Margaret pointed out reasonably. "And from what you told me of his reaction, it doesn't sound like that was the case."

"So what?" Emma said bitterly. "He should have just returned for his son and paid me some child support every now and then? Or we're obligated to get back together because we have a kid? No thank you. I've run into that sexist bullshit all the time, I'm not going to – "

"That's not what I said." Mary Margaret's expression remained patient. "It has to be your choice in any case. That was why I was asking if you wanted him back. If, putting aside everything else and just focusing on you, you were willing to offer him a second chance."

"I've given him about a dozen." Emma stabbed her dill pickle so violently that her fork clattered against the plate. "And all this time – "

"Please, Emma. It will help. Just answer. Do you want him back?"

Emma stared at her, aghast that her walls were being breached like this, that someone was actually demanding her to talk directly about her feelings – she wasn't used to this, it wasn't safe. "You know, I don't think this is the right time to – "

"Look," Mary Margaret said quietly. "I understand what it's like to want someone you can't have, or think you can't. I understand what's it's like to tell yourself that what you feel doesn't matter, or why should you waste your time like this, and to be convinced that he's just playing you and he's a jerk who doesn't deserve what you have to give. Trust me. I do."

Once again, Emma didn't have a ready rebuttal for that. She wanted to say something, but was unsure whether to let on to Mary Margaret that she knew about her clandestine relationship with David Nolan. She squirmed uncomfortably instead, forced to confront the unassailable truth that lay at the heart of this whole disaster, even as she'd been dragging Killian out of the pawnshop in handcuffs, as he'd been pleading on his knees before her. Every moment since we left each other – I have been fighting like bloody hellfire to get back to you, passing through places and people I never wanted to see again, losing this – But the fact that he'd been prepared yet again to value his vengeance over everything else, that he'd tried to lie to her about it, to kill Gold and damn the torpedoes, to choose that, to choose –

Not me. It was cold and hollow in the pit of her stomach. That was what terrified her the most, what she had been trying to flee from, what this came down to. If she was being utterly honest, if she'd known that Killian Jones was back, she would have expected him to try to find her first and foremost. Would have wanted him to. Would have wanted him.

Wanted him so much she could barely endure it. So much that she could not remember how to dress herself, what day it was, how to write her own name. That as angrily as she'd lashed out at him, trying to wound him, it was to mask a pain that hurt her a thousand times worse. Every night since he'd gone. Every day. Wondering at least once. Oh God, where are you?

And that was when the son of a bitch finally came back, and broke her heart all over again.

"I don't know," Emma said numbly. "I can't tell if I do or not."

There was no condemnation in the look Mary Margaret returned to her, only a deep, deep compassion. "I know you want me to tell you that it's all right if you just stay away from him for good and never work out the answer to that question," she said gently. "But I'm not sure you can. Your son does deserve a chance to get to know his father, and as for you. . . well, it's not my place to tell you how to live your life. I do think you need to at least talk to him."

"In jail?" Emma polished off the last of her croque-monsieur, licking the salt from her fingers. "Because that's where I put him, and if you think that I'm just going to bust him out and bring him back to my place for a nice little – "

"Maybe not," Mary Margaret said. "But you need to be on equal footing, and you can't do that if one of you is behind bars. I'll swing by the hospital and pick David up, so you don't have to worry about it. Take all the time you need."

Emma narrowed her eyes. "Well, look who's the little matchmaker."

Mary Margaret shrugged. "Not necessarily. I just. . . Emma, I know it's hard. It's difficult and it's unwelcome and it's painful. But if this is something you want, even the barest bit, you have to fight for it. You have to take a chance. I think you'll know pretty quickly. If you really can't stand the sight of him and want him out of your life forever, you'll feel it. If not. . ."

For a moment longer, Emma was silent. Then she said abruptly, "You're not. . . I don't know, living vicariously through me, are you?"

Mary Margaret was startled. "What?"

"It's just. . . I saw you and David Nolan together the other day, all right? And I. . . I kind of get the impression that since you two can't be together for different reasons than mine, you want to help me out with my own troubled love life. Be, you know, Miss Fix-It. And that's sweet and you mean well, but I don't think that's a good reason for trying to step in and – "

Mary Margaret looked appalled. "Emma," she whispered. "No. That's not what this is about at all. Please. Is it really so hard to believe that someone – that I – could truly want you to be happy, not because I think I'm getting something out of it, but because I care about you?"

Emma sank back into the squashy diner booth. "Okay. That was unfair. I'm sorry. I just. . . I'm just so scared of this. So scared. If it doesn't work, I just. . ."

"I know." Mary Margaret leaned forward and squeezed her hand. "But I also know that you're brave, you're strong, and that you've always done whatever you had to before, regardless of how hard it was. So it's all right." She released her grip. "Go on. Jump."

For the last several hours, Captain Killian Jones had been enjoying the dubious hospitality of the Storybrooke jail, studiously not thinking of how easily he could escape from it, and likewise doing his damndest to avoid anything to make his captor think that he had anything less than his complete destruction at heart. But knowing that to concuss Emma's partner – work partner, it had better bloody be – and go on the run again would utterly end his already faint hopes of being let (har fucking har) off the hook, he had thus far managed, barely, to restrain his homicidal impulses. He just sat on the narrow cot, staring a hole through Humbert's head as the sheriff sat at his desk, doing paperwork.

At last, even Graham could no longer pretend not to know that there was a furious pirate mentally assassinating him from twenty feet away. He glanced up. "You know, mate, it's not my fault you got yourself thrown in the clink. Looks as if you've made a career of it, to be frank."

"Very funny." Killian stalked closer, clanking his stump against the bars in what he hoped was a threatening sort of way. It would have been far more effective if he still had his hook, but Emma, of course, had confiscated it prior to delivering him into the custody of this spectacular idiot, this turd-eating marsh weasel, this fluffy-faced, knock-kneed, one-balled, shit-witted half-arsed excuse for a sheriff. There was no part of him that Killian did not instinctively and completely loathe on sight. Part of it was for how the bastard looked at Emma with his mooning puppy-dog eyes, so eager to run and do her bidding and smarm up to her like the interfering imbecile he was. Part of it – most of it – was for Killian himself. That he'd been gone so long, leaving her in such wretched circumstances, that she'd been completely justified in knocking the stuffing out of him, shouting at him, shutting him away. Indeed, it was as if the scales had fallen from his eyes, and what he gazed upon was strange and terrible. How bloody stupid had he been, thinking he could get away with trying to kill Gold? Of putting that above the reason he'd fought so hard to return at all? No, no. He had it all wrong. If there was any man in this town that he should murder without delay, it was Graham.

"I don't suppose you have any idea who you're dealing with," the pirate went on. "I surely didn't come so far and suffer so much to listen to the japes of a man who is, surely, proof positive of reincarnation."

That caught Graham off guard. "What – if this is about the wolf, I don't – "

Killian smiled sleekly. "Oh no, not about that at all. It's simply that I fail to see how you could get quite this stupid in one lifetime alone."

"You really think you're amusing, don't you?" Graham's face darkened. "I will have you know, I am nobody's fool, I'm not going to stand here and – "

"Nobody's fool? That's very sad. Perhaps someone will be kind enough to take you home one day. But don't worry, you'll always have your inferiority complex."

"If I were you," Graham said through gritted teeth, "I'd take care about talking this way to someone who can let you out either later this day or later this decade."

"Ah, a man who sticks by his convictions. You'll remain an idiot no matter how much you're ridiculed for it. I hear that you are quite the one for animals, so please do give that face back to the gorilla. But if you really think that – "

"Hey!"

Killian and Graham jerked apart as if they'd been electrocuted, then pointed to each other, as the door of the sheriff's station flew open and the last person either of them had expected to see, though really the only one it could be, came storming in. They both cleared their throats and papered on bright smiles, but Emma barely seemed to notice. Her jaw was clenched, head lowered as if she was about to charge, and her movements were tight, clipped, terse. She paced across the station floor, turned, then paced back, coming to a halt before the cell as abruptly as if she was about to dive from a cliff. "You," she snapped at Killian. "I need to talk to you."

He was most surprised, and suddenly, unwarrantedly hopeful. Changing in an instant from the sneering, sardonic tone he had employed on Graham, his voice was gentle. "I'm all ears, love."

She grimaced, looking very much as if she had just swallowed something horrible, and his stomach sank. Oh, bugger. It was just to conclude whatever well-deserved epithets she had forgotten to heap on him earlier, doubtless with gormless Graham Humbert listening to every word, lowering the collective intelligence and good looks of the room by his mere presence. Still, Killian hadn't been sure that Emma would be willing to be in the same place with him ever again. It was a sacrifice he'd be willing to make, even if –

"And," Emma added, choking slightly, "I think it's better if it was somewhere else than here."

Killian's jaw dropped. So did Graham's. For a moment they both looked like idiots, but at least Killian could remedy that by closing his mouth. Graham, alas, was stuck that way for good. "Emma – are you serious, you really want to let him out of jail, when you were the one who – "

"I need to talk to him," Emma repeated. "We. . . know each other from the past. Believe me, I'm probably going to be bringing him right back."

Graham looked as if this was the worst idea he had ever heard in his life, but nonetheless, he stepped back as Emma took a ring of keys from the desk and twisted them in the lock. She opened the cell door and escorted Killian out, her fingers digging into his arm so tightly that he could feel it going numb. He would have been perfectly happy for her to hold twice as hard. It reminded him that she was here, that she was real, that she had come back at least for this, and it made him so ludicrously happy that a grin spread across his face. It lingered as she marched him past the speechless Graham (such a pity that that state of affairs wouldn't last) and out into the swirling snow, to her car idling at the curb. Still the yellow Bug, which gave him a bit of a turn. She shoved him into the passenger seat and slammed the door.

"Who do I call if the police are the ones kidnapping me, darling?" He grinned again. "And please don't tell me it's Humbert. I'll never forget the first time I met him, though I'll keep trying."

"Somebody's in an annoyingly chipper mood." Emma started the car and steered away down the street. "When I met you, you were obnoxious and arrogant. Now you're just the opposite."

"Am I?" He brightened.

"Yes. Arrogant and obnoxious."

Killian shut his mouth with a snap, having the uncomfortable sensation that he had just been gotten the better of, and refrained from offering any further witticisms as they drove. He peered out the window, trying to make out where they might be going, but as his experience of Storybrooke was limited to those parts having to do with Gold, he couldn't be sure. He did notice that the snow was getting heavier, everything veiled in a soft shapeless white, and thought about asking if they were planning to get back. Then he decided that he had no interest in ruining a good thing for himself. He had no objection to being stranded together in a storm.

At last, when they were out of town, somewhere in the forest on an old logging road, Emma pulled in – with a skid making her knuckles go white on the wheel – in front of an abandoned cabin. Evidently, she had taken him as far out of the way as she could, avoiding both his territory and hers, which surprised him – he had expected her to go somewhere that she was clearly in charge. But she merely got out and began to flounder toward the door. He hurried after her and offered her his hand through the knee-high drifts, but she stubbornly ignored it. They scrambled up onto the sagging porch, and she did something to the lock. A moment later, the door yawned open, into the small, woodsy-smelling space. It was dim, cluttered, and cold.

"Not the most – ah – comfortable of hideaways, is it?" Killian bowed her ceremoniously through and shut it behind them, blocking out the freezing wind. Still, it could be worse. There was a table, chairs, fireplace, kitchen, and a narrow, pine-paneled hallway that must lead to a bedroom. Not that his thoughts had already strayed in that direction. Even if he was cross-eyed with how much he wanted to be with her, to break through her armor, to bring them back together, to hold her, for her to hold him. To smell her, taste her, touch her, drown. Not at all.

Emma, unsurprisingly, ignored him. She was on her hands and knees before the hearth, heaping old sticks of split firewood into the rusty grate, and dousing it liberally in lighter fluid before striking a match. Flames leapt up at once, leaving him to stand there and admire her brusque, competent skill (and the rest of it, of course). Gods, she was so beautiful. He had comforted himself with fantasies a thousand times, but they were nothing before the real woman: the long, thick pale-blonde hair, the perfect arch of her brows, the straight bridge of her nose, fine traceries of cheekbone, firm full mouth, merest suggestion of a dimple on her chin. The clean, slender lines of her body, the snow still melting on her jacket, the sharp and purposeful quality of her movements. The way she could, if she cared to, tear him apart in heart and mind, body and soul.

The sparks felt hotter than the fire. He couldn't take his eyes off her as she sat across from him. "So," she said. "Talk."

"Not even going to offer me a drink first?"

He thought her mouth twitched. Then she got up, strode to the small kitchen, and clattered around, boiling water and whipping up two mugs of black coffee from the can of instant stuff that some summer vacationer had left behind. "Cream?" she asked, almost politely. "Sugar?"

"Gods, no. I take it straight."

One of her eyebrows cocked, in near perfect imitation of his own habit. She gave it a final stir, then returned and handed a mug to him, her eyes flicking to the stump of his left wrist. He briefly thought that he might have surprised curiosity and pity in that flinty green gaze, but he accepted the coffee and took a deep, bracing slug. The windows were already fogging up, giving him the not disagreeable sensation that they were floating in their own cocoon, far away from the rest of the world. He wanted to ask where David was, but didn't know if she'd let him speak the name. Couldn't know what was behind this sudden jailbreak, and was afraid that if he pushed it too far, she'd take him straight back. Captain Hook never tempered his words for anyone, but here, with her, Killian Jones was hesitant, almost afraid.

"Where should I even begin?" he said, when the silence had become nearly alive. "Likely you still want my head, and I can't say you're wrong for it."

Emma sipped her own coffee, face stony. "Just talk."

He leaned back. "Very well."

And so, talk he did. He told her everything he could think of: his capture and exportation to Neverland, losing his hand at the blade of Pan (he glimpsed deep distress on her face, and hurried on) his long, feverish exile in the ruins of the Roger, his recovery and attempted escape, going slowly mad, sailing in endless circles, until at last Smee came and took him away. Here was where things got tricky. He didn't tell her about the mermaids' curse, or Cora, or Home Office – made it sound as if it was merely a lucky coincidence that he happened to shimmy up a beanstalk and find a world-navigating compass. He couldn't tell how much she believed, if she really thought that he had been off in some alternate magical realm, or if he was throwing mounds of shit at the wall in an attempt to see how much of it stuck. Her face, recovered from its moment of agony at the mention of Pan – of Henry – was smooth and imperturbable.

At last, he started to go hoarse, and stopped, coughing. He downed the last of his now-lukewarm coffee, trying to catch her eye. "Lass?"

Emma was quiet. At the bare minimum, she hadn't rushed to accuse him of flagrantly lying to her, which he took as a hopeful sign. But she had set aside her own mug, and her hands were clenched into fists on her lap. The fire crackled, throwing shadows long and strange and twisted.

"Lass?" he ventured again. "Emma?"

She looked up. "So what you're trying to tell me. . ." Her voice sounded thick, choked, almost cracking. "You'd have actually come back for me if you could?"

"Isn't that bloody obvious?" He barked a hollow laugh. "Emma. . . if you believe nothing else that I've told you, believe this. I have barely lived since the moment I lost you. I've become what I never wanted to be again, what I never hoped for, all the worst parts of me, the ruin and the wreckage and the darkness. It's my fault. I've fallen. I've failed. I've hurt you, and I've betrayed you, and I don't deserve another chance. I won't even ask you for one. It's just that if you're going to tell me to go, I wanted you to know why."

Her shoulders shook. "I. . ." she whispered. "I just stopped believing that any hope could ever find me, that it would ever stop hurting, that it would ever be easier, that I would ever have anything. . ."

"Emma." At last, with a soft, gentle click, he felt his heart break.

She looked up at him, the tears in her eyes shining in the firelight. "Killian." It seemed to be the only word she could manage, torn from her like she'd been stabbed in the gut.

There was one final moment where they stared at each other, frozen, and then, at once, they moved. They lurched to their feet, staggered across the cabin floor, and collided halfway, clawing at each other, his arms going around her so hard that he heard the breath leave her, as hers clutched him back just as hard and just as strong, as he brought his good hand up to her face, his thumb stroking her cheek as he fell into her eyes and drowned. And then, before the dream could end, before she could come to her senses and push him away, he kissed her.

It absolutely destroyed him. He couldn't breathe. He could barely stand. He had missed her so badly that it was like a physical pain – the scent of her hair, the taste of sunshine on her mouth, the way she trembled faintly, then jerked him closer, her fist bunched in the lapel of his long black leather jacket, her lips opening, her body enmeshed with his. He had never more savagely rued the lack of his left hand, would have fought any monster and paid any price to have it back, to touch her, hold her with both. As if in a dream he remembered when he had finally kissed her on that night in London, when they'd let themselves go and slipped away. This was like it, but a hundred times and a hundred more, an end and a beginning. I love you. I love you.

He barely remembered getting her against the wall, but they must have arrived there at some point, for her back was up against it, her legs tangling around his waist, as he worshiped her face and throat and neck with kisses, under the jaw, at the pulse point, at the collarbone, between her breasts as he fumbled the button of her shirt away. She made no move to stop him, small whimpering noises issuing from her parted lips, as her hand caressed his dark hair and the back of his neck, across his shoulders, as if barely believing what it found. As if once upon another time, they had known each other perfectly, and there was still some small secret sweet part of them that did. It was unbearable. It was grief and glory and sheer, stars-blazing madness.

"Emma," he mumbled again, a prayer, an incantation, unable to stop now, terrified that she would. But she kept pulling him closer as violently as if their lives depended on it – which, for all he knew, they very well might. Mouths open and wet and gasping, as his hand slid down her back and beneath her shirt, curving around the warm flesh of her side, up across the smooth swell of her breasts, not knowing what he was doing except that he'd lifted her off her feet and was carrying her down the hall to the bedroom, whereupon he kicked the door in.

It was much darker and colder here, away from the heat of the fire, but they soon rendered that entirely irrelevant. Killian's heart had turned so fragile that he could feel it trembling in his chest, a coin someone had flicked with a thumb and sent spinning. They crashed down together on the quilts, shedding clothes haphazardly, unwilling to stop touching long enough to do it properly, until there was nothing left, him half on top of her and then her half on top of him, rolling, wrestling, hitting each other, until Emma whispered his name in a voice that made it sound like a curse. But he kissed it from her lips and hoisted her up, so hard that it hurt, as she straddled him like some dark firelit goddess, hair casting shifting shadows on her alabaster skin, taking him inside her a slick wet inch at first and then all at once, as if she could no longer stand it.

He swore out loud and wrapped his arms around her, whirled them around, and bore her down beneath him, as her spine arched and he slid so deep into her warm wet heat that he never wanted to surface, as he drowned again. There beneath the long eaves of eternity and death, as the snow fell and fell and fell, he took her with tenderness and thoroughness and care, as neither of them said a word, as when he lost himself in her, he lost his mind as well.

I love you.

I love you.

I'm sorry.

Greg Mendel stepped stealthily out of the hospital and into the vicious, gusting night, the eye-watering wind making him squint and pull his hood tighter. Technically, he wasn't supposed to be out; the nurses still thought he was much more fragile than he was, and would be certain to report to the sheriff if they thought he was up to anything squirrelly. But with the weather like this, most of them had gone home early, leaving only a skeleton staff, and it hadn't been all that hard to sneak past them. He'd just have to get back before they noticed he was gone.

Fine. Better him than Tamara, who still had a broken ankle and wasn't up for clandestine nighttime missions. He started to walk quickly, as much to keep himself warm as in the interest of time. The little boy – David, he thought his name was, David Swan – hadn't even known Greg was listening. Babbling on happily about some pirate ship he'd seen in the harbor, which everyone else had been quite certain he was inventing, but Greg knew he wasn't. It was with difficulty that he kept his face straight, pretended that it was just a six-year-old kid letting his imagination run away with him. But no. This might be it. Their ticket out of here. Unless –

There.

Greg stood quite still, gazing down at the harbor. The fog was so thick that it nearly was invisible, but he wasn't from this horrible cursed place – thank God. The townsfolk's eyes would skate right over it, but he wasn't blind. He saw. The two-masted ship, anchored sedately at the quay, looking as out of place as if it had dropped in from Mars. It was rocking gently on the gunmetal-grey water, sails furled, lanterns quenched, ropes glazed in ice. Dark and deserted.

It was. It was his. The Jolly Roger.

Greg permitted himself a moment of smug triumph, then broke into a jog, descending the maze of wharves and clambering aboard. Seeing that Jones had resumed both his alter ego and his old method of transportation, which decidedly had not been on this side of the dimension last time anyone looked, there had to be something which had permitted him to sail from one realm to another. Tamara had told Greg all about Jones' real identity, just why they'd kidnapped him, why he would be so useful at going after Gold and seeking to destroy the curse and everything it had created. Captain Hook, huh? Sometimes Greg thought it was funny. But only sometimes.

Still more, Jones must have been certain that nobody would find his ship – at which he was moderately correct. The townspeople couldn't see it, after all. Therefore, he would have thought that whatever he had aboard was safe. But Greg, Tamara, and the rest of Home Office had waited too long to complete this little job. Tonight. Endgame began tonight. And he would find –

This.

It had to be this.

Greg had been searching the ship from top to bottom – which didn't take long, it was small, and he had a hunch that what he was looking for would be located in the captain's cabin anyway. It was. A heavy golden compass with a crystal face, the needle still pointing at the Storybrooke shore like a sniper's sight. So it guided people here, even through the protective barricade of the Dark Curse? How interesting. How very, very interesting.

Greg pocketed the compass, cast a furtive glance around to make sure that the deck above had not creaked with footsteps, then hurried out. He'd half expected the pirate to come barging to the rescue, but he must be otherwise occupied tonight. Hopefully for a while. Greg didn't think he'd disturbed anything else, had taken care to make it look as it had when he'd entered, but Hook was a pirate. He'd know, in that special sort of hypocritical outrage that only those who stole from others for a living could possess, that he'd been stolen from.

Greg didn't slow his pace until, huffing and puffing, he labored up the hospital drive and darted in a side entrance. He took the service stairs, checked for nurses, then dove back into his room, hastily shucking the outerwear and putting back on his hospital gown and bathrobe to make it look as if he hadn't been anywhere. Then he tiptoed over to his sleeping girlfriend and gently shook her. "Hey, babe," he whispered. "Hey. Look what I got."

Tamara's eyelashes fluttered, then went wide as she stared at the object in his hand. "Is that. . .?"

"You betcha." Greg's grin got broader. "The compass. So one of us can sneak out of town tomorrow, make contact with our guy in Boston – James, that's his name, right? – and he can put out the word to the rest of H.O. They can get the full court press ready. Then they can use a magic bean to travel here, to this world, and we can use the compass to guide them straight to Storybrooke. It's almost over. I'll finally find my father."

"That's great!" An answering grin, cool and devious, broke out on Tamara's face. "Yes. You'll have to do that. As for us. . . well, we were kept under the library. It's the place where Regina puts things that she doesn't want found. So. . ."

"So you think. . ." It suddenly hit. "The self-destruct trigger for the curse. It's gotta be under there too. That's what the monster's guarding."

"Yes," Tamara breathed. "Has to be."

"Then we can blow this godforsaken place sky-high and go home? Finally?"

"Yes." Her eyes held his. "After so long being captive, I'd say it deserves it."

"Boy, does it ever. But we can't just go down there again and start feeling around. We need a way to find the self-destruct faster. And Regina's not exactly going to roll out the welcome mat."

"Maybe not." Tamara shrugged. "But there's someone else who knows the library. Or rather, she used to. I'm sure there's a way to get her to remember. Even better, she used to work for us."

"Ah." Greg felt it, felt it finally, saw it, knew that now, it was going to happen. "Belle."

"Yes," Tamara said for a third time, and smiled. "Belle."