The Present
Silence fell as the musical voice of her companion drifted away. Emma glanced at him, waiting for him to continue, only to see that his eyes were glassy with unshed tears. It was not a sight she'd been expecting, and perhaps she wouldn't have noticed at all if the sun hadn't risen enough to finally give her a view of his face.
Emma looked at her hands, unsure of what to say. She wasn't entirely sure that she should say anything. Killian had known this woman for only seven of more than two hundred years of life; if recounting her death was still so painful, she doubted that anything she could say would make it even remotely better.
"Are you still bleeding?" She asked instead, deciding to pretend that she hadn't noticed anything.
"Pardon me?" If Killian's voice was slightly thick with emotion, Emma didn't let on.
"You know, that hole in your side?"
"Oh, that." Killian sounded genuinely surprised, as though he'd forgotten about it entirely. Perhaps he had.
He felt along his side with his still bloodstained hand. "Nothing. That's fortunate."
Emma frowned and moved to look at it herself.
"You know, if you want to put your hands on me, Swan, no excuse is necessary," he teased, although it lacked some of his usual enthusiasm.
She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that he'd been telling the truth. While she wasn't exactly squeamish, the thought of helping a one-handed pirate sew himself up with a needle and thread was definitely not on her bucket list.
"Perhaps we ought to stop with that, Swan," Killian commented with a small smile that didn't reach his eyes. "I imagine that you could use some sleep, and I imagine that's enough backstory for a lifetime."
"You're not getting out of it that easily," Emma said pointedly. "You barely even talked about yourself at all."
Killian groaned dramatically. "You asked about my parents, Swan, not me."
"And I don't seem to remember you saying what happened to your dad," Emma retorted. "You didn't finish."
"He died. Finished," Killian smirked.
"Did you ever see him again?"
Killian rolled his eyes. "Yes."
Emma frowned. "Fine, then, I'll change my question. Tell me about what happened to you and your family next."
"As much as I hate to fault a lady on her verbiage, that is not a question."
"Killian!" Emma snapped.
The Past
Killian lost track of time after that. He lay curled against his mother, crying into her shoulder. He could almost pretend that she was still alive that way. When Liam regained consciousness, that was how he found his brother.
"Is she dead?" He asked in a choked voice, although he must have known just from looking at the blood and the vacant eyes.
Killian nodded. "She said that she loves you," he gasped between sobs that shook his small body.
After a moment's hesitation, Liam knelt down and gently closed his mother's unseeing eyes.
"We should go in case they come back," he said brokenly, rubbing at his wet eyes.
"Mightn't we bury her first? We should get Uncle Gavin-"
"I don't think that's possible," Liam replied tightly. "Go pack a change of clothes and whatever else you may need. We won't be able to come back."
Killian only burrowed deeper into his mother.
Liam sighed and knelt down beside him. "She's gone, Killian. There's nothing we can do for her now, but we can do what she'd want us to do; leave as quickly as possible."
"I don't want to," Killian whimpered. "I want her to come back."
"I know," Liam said, gently extracting Killian from Christine's body and pulling him into a tight hug. When he pulled away, he saw Killian's face fully for the first time and gasped in horror. "What did they do to you?!"
"Cut my face open," he replied dully.
"We'll have to get Sari to look at that," Liam muttered, before dropping down before their mother. Carefully, he started to pull her rings off of her fingers and unclasp her locket.
"What are you doing?" Killian demanded, starting to push his brother away.
"They'll only be stolen, otherwise," Liam explained. "Go pack, alright?"
Ten minutes later, Killian carefully gave his mother a last kiss on her now cold forehead and left his childhood home forever. With him, he had his mother's diary, a change of clothes, his composition book with some loose compositions tucked in it, a pencil, and his violin. The instrument was bulky, but he couldn't leave it behind. Liam had food, clothes, a few of his mother's personal items, and the remaining family money supply. Liam half-ran to his Aunt's house, pulling along a much slower Killian by the hand.
They knew something was wrong the second that they reached the front door. It was hanging off of its hinges as though it had been bashed in. Hearts pounding, the boys tiptoed into the house and let out mutual cries of horror.
The entire room was pervaded by the coppery stench of blood, and, just barely detectable, the earthy smell of soil. Bodies littered the floor of their Aunt and Uncle's home, both of friend and foe. Scanning the chaos quickly, Killian realized that Christine had managed to kill as many soldiers on her own as her sister and her husband had together. Maybe the thought should have filled Killian with pride, but, instead, he felt a strange numbness settling in.
His Aunt and Uncle were dead.
Uncle Gavin was underneath Aunt Sari, as though he'd been struck down first and she'd died trying to shield her wounded husband. She lay sprawled across him with what looked like the body of a scent-hound beside her. The bodies of soldiers littered the rest of the room. The rats were gone, and, noticeably, Ciarra also appeared to be absent. Perhaps, the strangest part of the whole scene was the hole in the floor, as though a giant had take a huge bite out of the living room.
"They were looking for the soldiers," Killian realized. "The ones that they buried under the floor..."
Liam nodded grimly.
"Ciarra!" He shouted.
The house echoed in a way that made Killian feel incredibly lonely. He inched closer to Liam, shivering.
"Maybe she ran away too?" Killian suggested timidly.
"Let's hope so," Liam agreed, looking absolutely horrified. "At least Mama and Aunt Sari never... I guess the good part is that..."
"They never had to live without each other," Killian finished, wiping at the tears falling rapidly down his face and stinging his cut cheek.
"We should go," Liam said abruptly, turning around and leaving. As soon as he was out of the house, he dropped to all fours and started vomiting. Killian just watched, still feeling strangely numb.
Once his brother had finished, Killian asked the question that was now flooding his mind. "Where do we go?"
"We just have to wait for Papa to come back. When he can't reach us and he knows there's a problem, he'll come find us," Liam said confidently.
"Okay," Killian agreed dully. "So... to Uncle Connor?"
Liam blanched. "No. I don't even know where he lives, and I'm not going to live with him. He's worse than the soldiers. We'll be fine on our own."
Killian nodded, shivering lightly in the chill January air.
That night, he and Liam found a back alleyway to sleep in near the closest graveyard. Liam said he wanted to be there to see their family members buried. Killian thought it was a stupid idea, but he was too sad to say so, so he just curled around Liam and tried his best to sleep in spite of the wind and the cold
The next day, the funerals took place. Apparently Connor had heard the news, because he and Helena were there. Beyond that, no one was. No one wanted to be associated with someone the king wanted dead. There were three tombstones, which the two boys found odd, because they had no idea who would have paid for them. Their questions were answered that evening when a solitary figure came to visit the fresh graves.
"The dog-man!" Killian whispered, shocked.
He stood at each grave for a moment, but paused the longest at his mother's. After a few minutes of what looked like quiet monologuing, he saluted the headstone solemnly and left.
The Present
"That's just creepy!" Emma exclaimed, shivering at the thought.
"Well, my mother was the best opponent he ever had," Killian said with a shrug. "He wanted to acknowledge the loss of a worthy foe."
"Still creepy," Emma replied.
"I fully agree," Killian acknowledged with a tilt of his head.
The Past
After the dog-man left, Killian and Liam wandered over to pay their respects. Killian had a strong urge to plunge his hands into the dirt and dig until he could get his mother out. Everything seemed so surreal and wrong. Maybe she would come back if she wasn't stuck underneath all of that earth.
Instead, he stubbornly planted himself on the freshly turned soil, curled up against the gravestone, and slept there. He slept there the next night, too, even though it snowed. No matter what Liam said, he couldn't get Killian to move from that spot until the food ran out a few days later.
"Killian, I'm going to buy something to eat. Will you come?" He asked tiredly.
Killian only curled more tightly into himself and listened as Liam walked reluctantly away.
He came back far more quickly with angry tears running down his face, an impressive assortment of bruises, and a rapidly swelling right eye. He pulled Killian to his feet in spite of his protests, grabbed their few belongings, and continued to sprint. When he finally stopped, they were in a narrow alleyway in a part of the city that Killian didn't even recognize. Then Liam collapsed against the wall and cried.
Killian figured that his brother would explain when he felt like it, so he collapsed against the wall too and waited.
"They took our money. I was so stupid, Killian, I should have left half with you, but they stole it," he cried into his hands.
"Who?" He asked. He was still feeling peculiarly numb and was finding it hard to care about the money.
"A few boys in an alley," his brother mumbled in defeat. "What are we going to do now?"
Killian shrugged and curled up into a ball again. It didn't really matter whether he froze to death in a graveyard or an alleyway, or whether he did it on a full stomach or an empty one.
"Hey! Get lost!" Liam shouted suddenly.
Killian lifted his head to see a shadow duck behind a doorway.
"Is it one of the boys that attacked you?" He whispered.
Liam frowned. "I don't care; whoever it is will likely rob us as soon as look at us."
The shadow shifted again, and Liam threw a rock towards him. He missed by enough that Killian knew he wasn't really trying to hit him, but it still made Killian jump.
"Stay away, or I won't miss next time," Liam threatened.
The shadow didn't move again. Night fell, and with it came fat, wet snowflakes blown down onto the children by a harsh winter wind. Killian huddled against Liam, who began to snore softly as he slept. Sleep didn't come as easily to Killian now that he was away from his mother. The alleyway smelled like piss, smoke, and cold. He missed the smell of cinnamon and even the smell of soil. He felt oddly distant from his mother here.
He was lying awake when he saw the shadow move. Even from a distance, he could determine several things; the figure was shivering violently, the figure must have been around his age, and he had no shoes.
"Liam?"
His brother woke up with a grunt. "Mmm?"
"I'm worried that he's going to freeze," Killian muttered.
Liam sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Killian-"
"He doesn't have shoes. And there's two of us but only one of him."
Liam groaned disbelievingly.
"Fine, you can invite him to join us, but only because that's the most I've heard you say all week," he mumbled, turning over towards the wall.
Killian pulled himself to his feet and approached the doorway. The shadow seemed to shrink further into the other shadows as he came closer.
"If you're cold, you can come with us. My brother can be bossy and annoying, but he won't hurt you," Killian promised.
The figure emerged from the shadows, and Killian was surprised to see that it wasn't a boy at all. It was a skinny girl with long, unmanageable dark curls and piercing grey eyes, who Killian would guess was maybe a year or two older than him. Her dress was filthy and several inches too short, exposing filthy bare feet.
"Where are your shoes?" He blurted curiously.
"Someone stole them," the girl replied with a shrug, wiggling her toes in rhythm with her words.
"Why would someone steal shoes?" Killian scoffed.
"Because they needed some. If I found someone with shoes available for me to take, I'd take them," she said in the same bossy way that Killian was used to hearing from Liam.
She peered at him curiously. "What happened to your face?"
Killian scowled. "I cut it myself to scare away annoying girls."
The girl looked impressed. "Really? You cut your own face?"
"No. A soldier did it when he murdered my mother," he admitted.
"Oh. That's even more interesting," she said with approval. "I'm Milah. What's your name?"
"Killian," he replied. "And my brother is Liam. Where are your parents?"
"They were burned alive," Milah said with relish. "I could fit through the window, so I wasn't. All that was left afterwards was a pile of ash and bones and a horrible smell. The king burned down my whole village because our neighbours hid a criminal."
"Honestly?" Killian furrowed his eyebrows.
"Yes, indeed," Milah confirmed dreamily. "You should have heard the screaming. How about your parents?"
"My mother was stabbed. We're waiting for my father to find us," Killian explained.
Milah looked at him pityingly.
"He will," Killian repeated, somewhat doubtfully.
"I'm waiting for my uncle to die so he can never find me," Milah told him cheerfully.
"Why?" Killian asked in confusion.
"Because he'll sell me into prostitution or, worse, force me to get married," Milah said, wrinkling her nose in disgust.
"You're not old enough to get married, are you?"
"Well, no. I'm nine. But that wouldn't stop him," she said darkly. She interrupted herself to let her teeth chatter.
"We have extra clothes," Killian offered, leading her over to his brother, who was asleep once again.
He dug through his small bag and found socks first. He tossed them to Milah, who fumbled them with cold fingers but put them on gratefully.
"What's that?" She was peering into his bag with interest.
Killian followed her gaze. "A violin."
"Can I touch it?" Milah asked curiously.
"No."
Killian tossed her his one extra shirt next, which Milah wrapped around her shoulders like a shawl.
"Thank you," she said seriously.
"You're welcome," Killian said with a shrug.
Then, the two children curled up next to Liam. Killian lifted his brother's arm and put it over them for extra warmth.
"He sleeps like the dead," Milah commented sleepily.
Killian grinned. He fell asleep soon afterwards and slept the best he had since his mother's death.
"You're going to have to learn to steal sooner or later," Milah reasoned.
Liam scowled down at her. "Absolutely not. It's wrong. I'll just have to find a job."
"Looking like that?" Milah retorted skeptically.
Killian barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. The number of times he'd had to listen to Milah and Liam have this conversation were becoming uncountable. They had now been homeless for a total of two weeks. Killian was feeling sick from the general lack of food and even from what little they had eaten. Over the past week, they'd found half of a fish that someone had dropped on the way home from the docks (the other half had been eaten by the dog that got there first), a burnt loaf of bread outside of a house (the birds had gotten to that one first), and a dead rat-
The Present
Emma choked.
"A dead rat?"
Killian shrugged. "Hardly ideal, but one becomes far less picky when one is starving."
The Past
-which was hardly enough to sustain three growing children. They were all thin and pale, and both Liam and Killian had old blood dripped onto their clothes. Beyond that, they were all filthy. Killian couldn't imagine them being hired to clean a chimney in their current state. However, he also knew his brother well enough to know that Liam was stuck on his annoying overly-righteous morals. In other words, Milah was wasting her breath.
"We're not stealing," Liam said flatly.
Killian sighed. His brother could be irritatingly stubborn sometimes.
That was why he later snuck off with Milah to take matters into his own hands.
"Alright. Here's the plan. You're smaller, but your face makes you look like a serial killer and you're a boy. That means that I'm cuter, so I'll be a better distraction. All you have to do is take advantage of it and take as much food as you can carry," Milah muttered under her breath.
They were huddled at the edge of the marketplace together, waiting in the shadows and watching the busy square packed with soldiers, stands, and shoppers.
"Should we have a meeting place in case something goes wrong?" Killian whispered.
"Good idea. That street with the church behind the alley where we left Liam," Milah decided.
Then she stepped out with a bright smile to the nearest stall, which happened to be stuffed with bread and pastries. The vendor immediately narrowed his gaze on the girl. Killian imagined that they were probably very skilled at determining who was actually there to buy their wares and who was there for trouble. Milah was sadly thin and filthy, with her curls matted to her head. She still had no shoes, only soaked and greying socks. You didn't have to be genius to know that she was penniless.
With a deep, shuddering breath, Killian slipped over to the other side of the stand. With a quick look around to make sure that the vendor's back was still turned, he grabbed a loaf of bread and several pastries and stuffed them down his shirt. He was just turning to leave when a well-dressed man grabbed his arm.
"Thief!" He yelled loudly, his face turning purple.
Killian looked up at the man and screwed up his face, trying to force tears out of his eyes.
"Crying won't help you," the man said sternly as some soldiers started to move towards them.
Killian scowled and stomped the man's foot as hard as he could. With a yelp, the man let go and Killian sprinted away. Soldiers were attempting to follow, but Killian was small which meant that he could slip more easily between the members of the confused crowd in the marketplace. He slipped into an alleyway as soon as he could and continued to run. Now that the terror had started to fade, it was being replaced by exhilaration. He was going to get to eat, and he'd also made several soldiers look like idiots; really, what could be better?
He reached the meeting place before Milah did, but Milah arrived only a few minutes later with a smirk on her face.
"I thought that the man you stomped on was going to cry," Milah commented with a wicked glint in her eye.
"Good," Killian grinned. "He was a prat."
Liam was furious about the stealing incident, but he found himself unable to stop his brother from doing it again. At first, he refused to eat the stolen food, but then Killian made up elaborate stories about how he'd found whatever food he happened to bring to his brother. He knew that Liam didn't believe his stories, but he also knew that Liam was relieved to be able to eat without having to directly betray his morals. He didn't really understand his brother's ridiculous stubbornness and Milah certainly didn't, but he was willing to cater to him. After all, he could acknowledge that Liam really took very good care of him under the circumstances.
Killian got better and better at stealing, until he almost never got caught. If it ever crossed his mind to wonder what his parents might say if they could see him now, he pushed it away. Surely they would want him to survive, wouldn't they?
Months passed, and, while neither brother voiced it, both were beginning to doubt whether there father was actually coming back for them. In fact, perhaps it was optimistic of them to assume that their father had made it to the Southern Isles alive at all. Besides, while Killian knew that Liam was sad to give up his dream of becoming a naval officer, he also knew that they were quite capable of surviving on their own. It certainly may not have been an ideal situation, and it was true that they were always a little bit hungry, but they had each other and they hadn't died yet. Killian was quite proud of that.
As a result, it was a bit of a shock when Edward did come back.
The Present
"You look surprised," Killian commented drily.
Feeling oddly guilty at being called out on it, Emma struggled for words.
"Well, it's just... you don't seem to... well, like him very much."
Killian snorted. "Is it that obvious? Well, I assure you that the reasons for that will become very plain. Unless you wish for me to stop?"
Emma just glared at him.
"I suppose it was too much to hope for," Killian sighed.