Dead Reckoning

Chapter Twenty

"So, you're the villain my brother calls the Crocodile?" Liam continued as though he hadn't heard Emma's plea to come with her now. "The reason Killian allowed himself to give into the darkness?"

"Look, I realize that Rumple caused Killian a great deal of pain which led to your brother becoming… well becoming Captain Hook, but Killian wasn't innocent the either," Belle said crossly in her husband's defense before Gold could speak. "I don't mean anything against Killian. He's become a very dear friend to me. But you have to understand that both your brother and Rumple are to blame for all the pain they've suffered back then. Killian was already a pirate by the time they met. The darkness was already inside of him."

Gold laid his hand gently over the small of his wife's back while he glared at the older Jones, who continued to keep his eyes trained coldly on him as well, then the darkness within him reared its head when Gold suddenly allowed it to overpower him as he sneered, "In case Hook didn't tell you of all the horrible things he's done… Liam, was it? Allow me to enlighten you. He was a worthless, vile human being who stole from me my first wife and attempted to steal the affections of my own son all those years ago too, because I wasn't much of a father myself back then. That was my fault. But when I made your brother regret trying to challenge me, he devoted two hundred years to revenge against me in an effort to kill me. His hate consumed him. His problems… including what's happening now, is of his own doing. He's still weak."

The vision of Rumplestiltskin laughed and grinned from behind Gold as Liam shoved the Dark One back against one of the display cases, then answered, "He's a better man than you could ever…"

"Enough!" Emma suddenly shouted angrily and shoved herself in between both men in order to force them apart, while David rushed forward and pulled Liam away from the smaller man. "What the hell are you doing?! Killian's life is at stake and right now all you both care about is this pissing match."

"Liam, your brother made mistakes, but he's not that man Mr. Gold sometimes still sees him as any longer," she continued in frustration as she turned to confront the older Jones. "He's a good man whom I love very much and right now he needs you as much as he needs me. But he also needs the man you're only seeing as his enemy too. So you need to let go of this sudden rage your feeling for the Dark One, and see him as the man he's tried very hard to become. For Killian's sake."

The older Jones bowed his head in shame, then the Savior turned to Gold and spoke to him as well saying, "And you… I don't know where this sudden hate for Killian came from again, but you need to reign it right back in and remember what you're trying to accomplish now. You need to remember you're the man whom your wife and son love very much and truly need you to be. You wanted to help Killian this morning. Now you can."

Gold looked back at the devil on his shoulder, who was grinning at him like the Cheshire Cat, then turned to his wife as she simply nodded, and finally turned to Emma as he somberly replied, "You're right, Miss. Swan. Lead the way."

A few minutes later, Emma ran again through the hospital's corridors so she could get back to Killian, followed closely by Liam and her father, while Gold walked behind them a bit slower. When she came to the room where her mother, Regina, Liam's men, and now Henry, as well as Violet and her father were all nearby standing guard to protect her husband for her while she was out, Dr. Whale was fastening a tube across the lower half of his face so that he would be able to breathe with more ease. However, he paused when his patient's wife entered the room and turned his head, looking at her as if waiting for permission to keep working.

"It's okay," she stated quietly as she made her way to Killian's side, then leaned over him while she ran her hand over his face and her fingers through his hair. "I take it there's been no change?"

"Not since you left twenty minutes ago," the doctor responded as he finished, then reached over to the machine measuring the pirate's vitals and turned it on. "Try not to worry too much. All I'm doing right now is being cautious. The tube beneath his nose is just to help him a little easier. The drugs I gave him are for the pain and the machines…"

Emma finished for him, "Are for exactly what they're meant to do. Gold's right behind me. He might be able to do more than we could."

Rumple walked in the room, as did Liam, Snow, and David, then the Dark One raised one of his hands over his former enemy and waved it over Killian just as Emma and Regina had done earlier. Before he said anything to those in the room waiting for answers, he carefully pulled up the hospital gown Hook was now dressed down in so that he could get a better look at the brand over Killian's chest and as he did so, both Emma and Snow gasped upon seeing the green sears appeared to have grown outward beyond the brand burned into his skin and into striations.

The Savior tightened her grip over her husband's hand as she sat down in the chair beside his bed, then she looked up at Gold as she asked curtly, "What's happening to him? Clearly not even your own magic can heal him and now these strange striations are growing and getting worse."

"Is it some kind of poison?" David questioned as he looked over at the man currently trying to heal his son-in-law. "Other than them being green in color and giving off a luminescent like glow, they look like the striations that come from dreamshade."

"Indeed they do," Liam uttered in concern, carefully sitting down on the end of the bed beside his brother's legs and then glanced up at the Dark One once more. "What are they? Emma said you know about Neverland almost as well as Killian. Can't you do something to help him?"

Gold looked around at those in the room, then kept his focus between Emma and Liam as he answered, "I barely spent any time in Neverland, but because Pan did what he did… I studied the island in books, maps, and everything else I could get my hands on with the intent of returning there one day to kill my father. Strangely enough, it turns out that all of that hard work was for nothing seeing I wound up killing him right here instead, then again down in the Underworld."

Emma sighed in frustration and then replied, "That doesn't help us any. What are you trying to get at?"

"What I'm trying to tell you, Miss. Swan, is that I'm afraid no magic from this world will be able to help your husband," Gold responded sternly as he summoned a book into his hand and used his powers to turn the pages until he found the one he was looking for, then handed the book down to the Savior to show her a sketching and description of the weapon causing Hook's pain. "And I sense blindness is the least of his problems, a mere side effect. This brute you said was Hook's attacker used an ancient brand made of steel containing magical properties only found on the island. These striations may look somewhat like the effects that come from dreamshade, but I assure you, it's much worse. This brand has restorative powers and anyone who wields it, using it against their enemies, will once again become young as my father became."

"What does that mean for Killian?" Liam asked. "What will it do to him?"

Before he could continue, David suddenly cut in as he told his daughter to look down at Killian upon seeing small streaks of white slowly begin to appear within his hair above his left ear while the black strands faded, then Rumple answered, "I'm afraid the youth being exerted into the assailant's body is slowly and painfully being drained from Hook's as we speak. In time his age will finally catch up to him."

Emma shook her head as she struggled to process what they were being told and then replied quietly, "But Killian is over two hundred years old."

"Precisely," he responded almost callously, though he didn't intend to sound as such. "By the time his youth fades and the years he spent in Neverland finally do catch up to his body, I fear the Captain will become nothing more than shriveled skin and brittle bones, which will break and turn to dust at even the slightest touch. And then… he'll die."

"No, there has to be something you can do to stop this… to save him!" the Savior answered angrily and then laid down over her husband gently as she reached her hand up to tenderly caress Killian's cheek, crying silently as she did so. "Please…"

Gold looked between the others again, including Liam, then he replied, "Unfortunately what little known about this ancient brand, doesn't include a way to cure the one suffering from its dark magic. I will do all I can and hopefully I can come up with a way to help him. But you should prepare yourselves to return to Neverland. Like I said, no magic in this world will cure him, if there's even a way."

Liam took his brother's hand and then responded steadfastly, "My ship can get us there if that's where we need to go. I hoped I would never again have to return to Neverland, but if doing so will save Killian… It isn't like I can die of dreamshade all over again. I don't care what it takes, even if I'm condemning my soul to do so. I did so once for my brother and yet I was saved because of our bond. I was saved because Killian helped me to forgive myself for being arrogant enough to believe I was the man who did no wrong as you told me Killian believed of me that night down in the Underworld, Emma. Sacrificing myself for him was the best thing I ever did and it took dying and centuries of being trapped down there to do it. I won't let him down."