Chapter 19
Enchanted Forest, present day
Emma awoke on that most fateful day utterly unaware that anything was wrong. True, Killian wasn't beside her, but that wasn't anything unusual. The crazy man liked the early mornings. In the six weeks or so they'd been married, Emma had learned that Killian was the earliest of early birds. He'd told her he liked the brisk morning air, the sight of the sun just beginning to peek over the horizon, the hope and promise an early morning brought. It was the time of day when he felt most alive.
Personally, she thought he was insane. Sleep was good. Sleep was very good. Yeah, she could appreciate a good sunrise as well as anyone else, but come on! If it was a question of watching the sunrise or catching another hour of sleep, well there was no contest.
It was kind of weird Killian hadn't come back to their room, though. Normally, he got up, did whatever crazy pirates did at the crack of dawn, and then he came back to their room, full of energy and raring to go for the day ahead. Sometimes he tried to let her sleep in, but usually he just couldn't help himself. He'd make noise or open the curtains so that the light fell directly on her face, or—her personal favorite—occasionally he'd kiss her awake. Of course those mornings he usually ended up back in bed with her rather than pulling her out.
Emma laughed as she pulled her clothes on. He was such an adorable idiot sometimes. She remembered taking him and Henry to see Frozen last year, and some mornings she half expected Killian to jump on the bed and ask "Do you want to build a snowman?"
But this morning he'd done nothing of the sort. Maybe he'd wanted to let her sleep. The baby was making her so tired all the time she often felt like a walking zombie. Staying away and letting her sleep was the kind of thoughtful thing Killian would do. When she found him, she'd make sure to let him see just how grateful she was for his kindness.
As Emma walked down the dimly-lit hallway toward the stairs, something nagged at her, some sort of half-forgotten dream. Killian had been upset about something; she heard pain in his voice. What had he said? Something about not wanting to leave her? It left a bad taste in her mouth. It was the kind of dream she'd get when she was PMSing and the slightly sick feeling would stick with her all day. Of course, PMS wasn't the problem now; maybe it was just the pregnancy hormones.
Anyway, she'd find Killian, see that he was not in pain—either physically or emotionally, get a good-morning kiss, and know that all was right with the world. Well, except that Blackbeard had kidnapped Roland, and Ursula was apparently trying to take over the world or something. But, honestly, ever since she'd first come to Storybrooke, that was pretty much just a normal day in her life.
Emma found her mother, Regina and Belle seated at the far end of the dining room table, but Killian was nowhere in sight. Well, that was weird. Normally, even when he didn't wake her up in the morning, she could find him at the table waiting to "dine with the fairest lass in all the realms" as he liked to say.
"Morning Emma," Snow called cheerfully, " have a good night's sleep?"
"Yeah," Emma said, seating herself next to her mother and nodding her thanks to the servant who brought her a heaping plate of breakfast. "Like a baby. How about you."
"Ugh!" Snow said, caressing her belly, "whoever coined the phrase 'sleeping like a baby' clearly was never pregnant. I don't think your little brother stopped moving around all night!"
"He's just preparing you for motherhood," Regina said listlessly. "Trust me. That first year with Henry, I felt like I barely slept a wink."
"It does get easier, though, doesn't it?" Belle asked anxiously, pushing around her mostly-full plate of food. "You do get used to less sleep?"
"Yeah," Regina shrugged. "You get used to it. Why?"
"Well," Belle said with a little blush, "it turns out Rumple and I have some news. We just found out our first baby's on the way!"
"Congratulations!" Snow got slowly to her feet and hugged Belle.
"Must be something in the water around here," Emma said under her breath.
Snow gave her a penetrating look. "What was that, Emma?"
"Oh nothing," Emma said with a wave of her hand, "just trying to imagine Gold as a father. That ought to be interesting."
"He's over the moon," Belle gushed. "You know how much he loved Bae; how hard he fought to get back to him. Now he gets to start over with a new baby."
"I'm glad for you," Emma said with a smile, thinking about how ironic it would be if Hook's child and Rumple's child became playmates. "I know you'll make a wonderful mother."
"So will you," Belle said, taking Emma's hand. "You and Killian will be amazing parents when it comes time for you to start thinking about becoming pregnant."
"Speaking of my husband, anybody know where he is today?"
Snow shot her a startled glance. "No. I haven't seen him all morning; I assumed he was still in bed."
"No," Emma said, fighting against the worry. "He was gone when I got up. Maybe he's hanging with dad."
Snow shrugged. "You can go check. Your father's with Robin in the stables. Said he thought Robin's leg was healed well enough to start riding again. I doubt it, personally; he still looked pretty pale and he grimaced with every step he took. Maybe Killian joined them."
….
He wasn't with her dad and Robin. They suggested she try the lists where the Camelot knights were honing their swordsmanship skills. No luck there either.
"It is but odd, my lady," Sir Lancelot said. "Your husband was to meet us just after breaking his fast this morning. We were to train together so as to be prepared for the battles that no doubt await us."
"What about you, Gawain?" Emma asked, turning toward Killian's father. "Did he say anything to you about where he was going?"
Her father-in-law wiped his brow with a massive hand, his eyes perplexed. "Not a word. I can't account for it, daughter. Since we've returned to this kingdom, there's not been a morning my son hasn't sought me out."
The worry inside began to morph into full blown fear. Something was wrong. Something was definitely wrong. What would make Killian disappear without a trace, without a word to anyone?
"I hate to even mention the possibility, Buttercup," her foster father, Sir Galahad, said, "but might he have met with foul play?"
Emma's heart pounded and she tried desperately to keep the panic at bay. Finally she shook her head. "I don't think so. I would have heard if anyone attacked him in our room, and no one else seems to have seen or heard anything from or about him. I think if he'd been accosted or something someone would know about it."
"Isn't it obvious, Dearie?" Rumple said with a wave of his hand. It was positively freaky how quickly and quietly that imp could materialize in Fairy Tale Land!
"Isn't what obvious?"
"He's not here," Rumple said, holding up one finger, "he didn't tell anyone where he was going," two fingers, "and he didn't meet with any foul play," three fingers. "What does that all add up to?"
"Look, Gold," Emma said, crossing her arms and giving him the evil eye, "I'm not in the mood for riddles. My husband could be in trouble, so if you know something, tell me. Otherwise stop wasting my time."
Rumple giggled. "Testy this morning aren't we?"
"We are going to feel a lot better after we plant our fist in your face!" Emma said menacingly.
"I see the good captain's been teaching you his peculiar lack of manners."
Emma growled, and Rumple sighed.
"Very well," he said finally. "If Hook isn't here, didn't tell anyone where he went, and didn't meet with foul play, than he obviously left of his own accord. I knew married life wouldn't fill his fancy for long. It was only a matter of time before he left you, dearie."
For a split second, Emma's heart dropped to her very toes. Was it possible? Had Hook left her? Was he like everyone else in her life; throwing her away?
And then reality descended, and she shook her head. "No," she said firmly. "Look, I know you two are probably going to hate each other until the day you die, and I know you're always going to think the worst of him, but no. If there's one think I'm absolutely sure of in this life, it's Killian. He'd never leave me, so whatever the explanation for his absence, that's not it."
"Are you sure about that?" Rumple asked with an infuriating smile.
"One-hundred percent," Emma said with a decisive nod. She knew he'd never leave her…especially now, especially with the baby.
The three knights from Camelot crowded around her. "If there's anything we can do to be of assistance to you, please tell us, my lady."
"Thanks, Lancelot," Emma said, "but right now, I don't even know where to start. I have this terrible feeling that my husband is in some kind of serious trouble, but I don't even know what it is, let alone where to find him."
"Don't fear, Emma," Gawain said with a comforting hand on her shoulder, "we'll get him back. All will be well."
….
By the time night descended Emma was beginning to doubt it. Killian had never showed up, never left word. It was as though he'd disappeared from the face of the earth. What could have happened to him?
She paced her bedchamber. Everyone else had gone to bed for the night, but she couldn't sleep, not knowing something terrible might have happened. As she walked past the bed for the hundredth time that night, something caught her eye. Something metal shoved behind the headboard. Emma stooped down to investigate. His hook and his sword! For a moment absolute panic took hold. He left without any weapons with which to defend himself? Something was terribly wrong.
And then she saw it, a single sheet of paper lying negligently just beside the nightstand. She picked it up and began to read. As the words began to sink in, she fell to the bed in shock. He'd gone to Blackbeard. He'd gone alone and unarmed. Oh God, he was offering himself up for slaughter to protect her!
She surged to her feet. She had to stop this! She couldn't let him die for her; she didn't want to live without him. Emma buckled Killian's scabbard around her waist and stuck the sword inside, then she ran for her bedroom door.
Should she wake someone? No, she decided finally. There wasn't time to explain the situation. She'd leave the note on the dining room table. Someone would find it in the morning if they weren't back. That would have to be good enough.
Pushing aside the fear that was clawing at her throat, Emma pulled open the great hall door, and ran into the waiting darkness.
….
Blackbeard paced the deck of the ship's ruin docked in an out-of-the way cove along the shore. This was it. After so many years of planning it, so many years of dreaming about it, he was finally going to get his vengeance. Hook would come; Blackbeard knew it. He would do anything to protect that wife of his.
He was about to get exactly what he wanted. Why wasn't he more elated? As he waited, watching the brilliant sunrise, a tiny kernel of doubt crept in. Was he really doing the right thing? Pirate though he was, he'd never before killed a man in cold blood. Aye, there'd been the occasional enemy he'd slain, but it was always in the context of a fair fight, and it only occurred when Blackbeard's life was on the line.
But to meet with a man with the express purpose of killing him? No, that had never happened. It sounded dishonorable, evil even.
And then came the doubts. Once he'd killed Hook, what would he have gained? It wouldn't bring Anne back. When all was said and done she'd still be dead.
The vision of his sister reduced to skin and bones, pale and weak with fever came back to him, and with it the rage returned. Yes revenge was worth it! Yes he needed to do this. His carefree, fun loving sister deserved her brother to avenge her death. What manner of man would he be if he let the miscreant who had ruined his sister's life go free?
Blackbeard retrieved the scroll from his breast pocket. Unrolling it, he read the words, and then sprinkled the liquid from the small bottle to which it was attached. An orange shimmer surrounded the ship for a second before it disappeared. Good. He'd just ensured he and Hook would not be disturbed…at least by anyone magical. Even if Hook's wife did follow him, her magic would be ineffective against the anti-magic shield he'd just cast over the ship.
"It would seem you've gone down a bit in the world, Blackbeard, if all you can find to captain is a dried out shipwreck."
Blackbeard spun around, heart pounding. There he was, Captain Hook, his mortal enemy.
"The level of my prosperity should be the least of your concerns, ye scurvy snake!" Blackbeard snarled.
Hook crossed his arms and smirked. "Now, now, captain, is the name calling really necessary?"
Blackbeard glared but did not acknowledge his question. "You came alone? Unarmed?"
Hook spread his arms wide, and Blackbeard noticed the lack of scabbard, the stump at the end of the left arm. He'd followed directions. Good. That would make this that much easier.
"Let's get on with it, then," he growled.
"A moment," Hook said, and Blackbeard noticed a steely glint in his eye. "If I'm to offer myself up to you, I have a few demands of my own."
"I hardly see where you are in any position to make demands," Blackbeard sneered.
"Nevertheless, I intend to make them. You will leave my wife and her family alone and unmolested."
Blackbeard nodded. "I will grant this request. It's not your wife I have a quarrel with."
"Secondly," Hook said, "I wish to know what quarrel you have with me. What have I done to offend you to such an extent you would return from the grave to attack me?"
"You pretend ignorance?" Blackbeard scoffed. "After what you did to Anne, you really deign to ask me what my quarrel is with you?"
Hook looked genuinely puzzled. "Anne? Who is Anne? I don't know anyone by that name."
"Maybe not," Blackbeard said angrily, "maybe you remember her as Tiger Lily."
Hook paled and took a step back.
"Ah," Blackbeard said with a grim smile, "I see you do remember her."
"Aye," Hook said in a firm voice, "she was a bar wench that I…knew…long ago."
Blackbeard growled. "Anne Teach was no bar wench! She was a respectable woman. My sister deserved far, far better than a low account scoundrel bedding her and then treating her like a common whore!"
"Your sister?" Hook asked. "Tiger Lily is your sister?"
"Was," Blackbeard said roughly. "Tiger Lily was my sister. Because of your dishonorable, unmanly treatment of her she is dead!"
"Dead?" Hook asked, distress entering his eyes. "What do you mean, dead? What happened to her?"
"Weeks after your taking of her virtue, she found herself with child."
Hook gasped. "I have a child?"
Blackbeard glared malevolently at him. "No, you do not! Six months after being tossed out on her ear for being a 'loose woman,' I found my beautiful sister dying of pneumonia. She passed away only hours after I found her; her and her babe."
….
Killian stepped back, reeling from the blow, as sharp as a physical blow would have been. He'd gotten a young woman pregnant! He'd taken her virtue, destroyed her life, left her to be abandoned by her caretakers to such a degree that she died of neglect—she and his tiny son or daughter. Waves of sorrow and guilt crashed over him.
"I…I'm sorry," Killian said lamely, so stunned, so distressed he hardly knew what he spoke.
Blackbeard laughed harshly. He stepped forward, balled up his fist, and punched Killian so hard that for a moment he saw stars. "You think I can be mollified by a simple 'I'm sorry'? You killed her! My beautiful vibrant sister! You utterly destroyed her."
Killian could hardly breathe. Many times in the years since he'd met Emma, he'd taken a look in the mirror and regretted the man he used to be, but never did he regret his action more than now. God above, he'd been such a cad! He'd known the girl was a virgin. He'd known she wasn't who she claimed to be. He knew she had little idea of what she was really doing, what kind of fire she was really playing with back in that tavern. Yet he, consumed with his own misery, his own selfish urges, had ignored the honorable voice in the back of his head screaming at him to leave her alone.
And because of that she was dead. Not just her, but his baby. Oh, God, he'd had a child, and the child had died because of his negligence!
"I would have aided her," Killian said in a strangled voice. "I was a cad, a scoundrel, but if I'd known about the child, I'd have done whatever was necessary to make sure your sister had all that she needed."
"She needed an honorable man that wouldn't use her like his own personal plaything!" Blackbeard shouted.
Killian dropped his head and nodded silently.
"Enough of this!" Blackbeard thundered. "The time has come for vengeance. I will avenge my sister!"
Blackbeard grabbed Killian's arm with an iron grip. Too shocked to protest, Killian followed the other man below deck where a large glass box stood.
"What do you intend to do to me?" Killian asked.
"I intend to kill you in the best way possible for a pirate, the way you intended to kill me," Blackbeard said, opening the door in the box and shoving Killian inside. "I intend to drown you."
Blackbeard attached a long hose to the top of the box, and slowly sea water dripped in. "It's quite fitting, really. It'll be hours before the box has filled. You'll have plenty of time to think about what you've done; plenty of time to let the regret eat you alive before the water covers you and slowly takes your rotten, miserable life."
Blackbeard stepped away. "I'd love to stay and watch, but alas, my employer has need of me. Never fear. I'll be back later this evening to enjoy your last gasping breaths."
And with that, the pirate left, and Killian began his escape attempt. He pounded at the glass, kicked at the latch on the door, but it was to no avail. His small, glass prison was unbreakable. Finally giving up, Killian let his head drop back against the back wall and watched bleakly as the water continued to pour in.
….
Emma combed the beach for what felt like hours before she finally found the shipwreck. The night was so dark she'd almost missed it entirely.
"Please, Killian," she muttered under her breath, "please be here! Please be alright."
It had been hours since her husband had received the note, hours since he'd stolen from the castle to meet with Blackbeard's demands. Panic threatened to overwhelm her. Whatever Blackbeard had planned to do to Killian, surely he'd long since done it. Oh God! What if she hadn't made it in time? What if she went on board only to find her husband's bloody corpse? She couldn't lose him, not yet, not so soon. This would kill her!
Emma realized she'd been standing still, merely staring at the ship for ten minutes, and she mentally shook herself. This was no time to get hysterical. Her husband needed her help, and she was damn well going to give it to him, not stand around like some stupid damsel in distress and lament about her lot in life!
Emma carefully climbed aboard, and looked around. The deck looked deserted, and there was no sign of a struggle. Had she found the right ship?"
"Killian!" she yelled, "Killian, are you here? Can you hear me?"
She heard a muffled sound coming from somewhere below decks. She rushed forward, carefully descended the ladder, and the sight that met her eyes nearly made her heart stop. There he was, standing in some sort of glass box… a glass box that was quickly filling with water. Already the water had reached his chin. He was tipping his head up so as to keep as much of his face as possible out of the water.
Emma saw the moment Killian noticed her. His eyes widened in shock and distress. "No, Emma!" he shouted. His voice was muffled by the thick glass, but he shouted so loudly she could hear him clearly. "Lass, you must flee! He'll be back any moment. He mustn't catch you here!"
Emma shot him an annoyed look. "You're crazy if you think I'm just going to turn around and let my husband be drowned to death."
"Please love!" he said intently. "Please! He'll kill you. My worthless life isn't worth risking yours!"
Emma turned her back, not even bothering to respond to the idiot man. She scanned the small cabin, looking for something, anything that she could use to break the glass of Killian's prison. At first glance, she didn't see anything, but then she noticed a loose timber along the far wall.
Running forward, she grabbed the timber and pulled, ignoring the splinters that dug into her palms from the rough, old wood. After several tugs, the long beam came loose. Feeling victory, Emma rushed forward as quickly as she could, given the awkwardness of the heavy beam she carried. She'd just reached Killian's prison, when he shouted her name in panic.
She looked up to see stark fear in his eyes just before she realized they were no longer alone.
"I think not, my dear," an angry voice growled just behind her left ear.
Emma spun around, and found herself face to face with Blackbeard himself. She didn't think, just reacted. She swung the beam with all her might, connecting with his head. Connecting, but then passing straight through, apparently doing nothing to harm him. What the hell?
She closed her eyes, focused on her emotions, tried to drown out her husband screaming at her to run, and sent a blast of magic in Blackbeard's direction….but nothing happened. For the first time fear began to coil deep in her stomach.
She should be concerned for her safety, but in the moment, all she could think of was her husband, slowly drowning behind her. Emma turned her back on Blackbeard, and swung the beam toward the glass tank, but the pirate grabbed the rough plank of wood before it could connect.
Emma was beyond thought, beyond reason. She had only minutes to save Killian. No chance in hell she was going to let an undead pirate stop her! She fought back, swinging her fists, kicking her feet, reaching for the beam.
The pirate seemed unsure just what to make of her. He didn't actively attack her, merely parried her blows in the way someone might swat at an annoying gnat buzzing around his face.
It happened so fast, she didn't even see it coming. Somehow, in the struggle, Blackbeard swung the beam around and caught her at the waist. She went flying backwards and crashed through the rotting boards of the wall.
Emma vaguely heard Killian screaming her name just before everything faded to black.
Notes:
-Probably not the smartest thing Emma ever did to go after Killian on her own. Now both she and Killian are in a world of hurt. Sorry for leaving you on such a suspenseful note, but I promise to get to chapter 20 as soon as possible.
-Not that you care, but a small piece of personal trivia: I identify much more with Killian than with Emma when it comes to early mornings. If I sleep until 8:00, I feel like I've REALLY slept in.
-Up next: Not quite a year before the first curse, we meet back up with Hook, who's just left the pub and been knocked out by a very angry red-headed mermaid. In the present day section, the rest of the gang at the castle find Blackbeard's note where Emma left it. Can they make it in time to save the Joneses?