She stands in front of his cell, looking down at him. He does not even look up at her as she approaches him, sitting in the far corner of the cell, his knees pulled up to his chest with his forehead resting on his good arm, crossed over his legs. She stands there for a few moments, taking him in, and it hurts her to the core.
"Killian," she says, resting her forehead against the cool bars, and his head snaps up, not even realizing she was there before. He pushes himself off the floor, having more control over his stump than he did just that morning.
"Emma, what are you doing here?"
"I came to give my statement, but Graham told me I could come down here and talk to you alone for a minute."
His eyes light up, just the smallest bit, but she sees it anyway, and she reaches through the bars to touch his arm. "You came here for me?"
"Of course I did. I know you didn't kill Milah, and I'm going to make sure Graham knows it, too."
"But, why? I've never done anything for you, Emma. I almost threw a chair at you, I've done nothing to deserve your help."
"I can't give you a chance to prove yourself if you're locked in a cell."
He smiles up at her, his bright eyes still full of pain, but she is getting through to him.
Suddenly, everything stops, like someone pressed a large pause button on the world. The footsteps from the station above, any movement from Killian or the other prisoners. The only sound she hears is the fierce pounding of her own heart, heavy in her ears - until there is an odd, bone-chilling laugh from behind her. She whips towards it, knowing she has heard it before, but not realizing who it was until she was face-to-face with his reptilian face: the Dark One.
"Hello again, Miss Swan," he says, smiling at her.
"What do you want, Dark One?"
"You can call me by the name I was given, Rumplestiltskin."
"You - what?"
"Yes, dearie!" He laughs again. "You may also know me by my, uh, more regular name, Mister Gold."
"But Belle told me - "
"Yes, Belle said that I do not know of my future as Mr. Gold. But I had to keep up my facade with everyone, even my wife. I know of everything I have ever done, and all I will ever do. See, Miss Swan, that is why I brought you here."
"You - you knew! You knew David would send me with Robin, you took the protection off the house so I would find the basement, and you -" She raises her eyes to him, coming to her final realization. "You opened the rift, so I would be sent here? Does that mean you can send me home, too?"
He laughs again, smiling at her with his weird, pointy teeth. "Well, well, well, isn't that the question we would all like the answer to?"
"But can you send me home?" she repeats.
"Is that what you really want?"
"Why wouldn't I want to go home?"
"The question you should ask yourself, dearie, is if that is what you want most."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"If going home is what you want most in this world, then of course I will grant your wish and send you home. But, if there is something in your heart that you desire more, than I am afraid my magic would be useless, and I would not be able to send you home."
She turns around to face Killian, still frozen in his cell, and worry for him floods over her. "What about him?" she asks, not taking her eyes off him.
"All magic comes with a price, dearie! If you decide that what you want most is to return back home, then you must leave this pirate to pay for his crimes."
Emma takes a deep breath, her eyes locked on Killian. "And what if going home is not what I want the most?" she asks, her voice barely a whisper.
"If you find that there is something you want more in your heart and I do not have to send you home, then I will make sure that all charges against our Captain Jones here are dropped."
She turns back to the Dark One, her eyes wide. "You would do that for him?"
"No, Miss Swan, I would do it for you."
Before she has a chance to even think of a response, he claps his hands and disappears in a cloud of smoke. She has just a moment to herself before the world begins to play again.
"What's the matter, Emma?" Killian asks, the spell broken, and he must see the change in her face, but she just smiles at him.
"Nothing. The opposite, actually. I may have just discovered the answer to all our questions." She reaches through the bars again and presses her palm against his stubbly cheek. "Just give me some time."
"Well, love, I'm certainly not going anywhere."
She needs to talk it out, but she has no one to go to. She assumes that Gold hid the truth from Belle to protect her, so she cannot go talk to her; anyone else would think she was insane. She is fresh out of options.
Her mind is wandering with her feet, going nowhere in particular.
What does she want most?
Why shouldn't she go home? David must be worried sick. He has lost everything else - Mary Margaret, and now Emma.
There must be something else calling her home, other than her father. What did Robin tell him happened at Gold's house?
But what is keeping her here? She may have only been here for a few weeks, but something is begging her to stay. Ruby, Belle, Graham, and, of course, Killian. Something is calling them together, and that is not something she can just ignore.
She looks up, wrapped up in her mind, to see where her feet have taken her, and finds herself outside of the tavern, the very place she met her pirate in the first place. Of course, she must go in, and she finds that much of the regular crowd returned, the collection of pirates in the far corner, and she cannot help but smile. One of them sees her and calls her over, but she only waves back, taking a seat at the bar, behind which stands Ruby.
There must be a look of worry plastered on her face, because Ruby is in front of her before she even sits down.
"What's the matter, Emma?" she asks, already pouring her the regular glass of whiskey.
What's the harm?, she asks herself. If nothing else, Ruby will be able to help send her heart in the right direction.
"I have a decision to make. One that's turning out to be extremely difficult, actually."
"Well then you're in luck, because there are people lining up at the door for my problem solving skills. Let it out, darling."
"I've been given the opportunity to return home, but it would prohibit me from helping someone I've come to care about, someone who, without my help, may find himself on the wrong end of the rope. But if I decide to stay here and free him, I may never be able to return home again."
Ruby is taken aback for a moment. "This is a dire choice, well, isn't it? All I can say is that only you know the right decision to make. Follow your heart, Emma. That's what I would always do. What does your heart want you to do?"
She knows that it is Ruby talking to her, but her question reminds her of someone more prevalent in her life, someone else that always swore by following your heart to make every decision: her mother.
This just makes her think of her mother, and all the things she used to say about her relationship with her father: that they were meant to be together, brought together through tough, unreasonable circumstances - if her mother could only see her now, brought to the man she wants to be with by time-travel. But her mother always said that she would have done anything to be with David, however crazy those choices may be.
And now she is faced with just that: a crazy, unreasonable circumstance. She does not even know if Killian returns her affections - he just lost the woman he loved, had her die in his arms less than 24 hours ago.
Would it be crazy for her to decide to stay, not knowing what the outcome would be?
Yes. Of course that's crazy.
But does that change the decision she has already made in her mind, the decision to stay here to be with him, to save him?
Of course not.
She downs the rest of her whiskey, thanks Ruby, and leaves to find the Dark One. Once again, she allows her mind to take over, to take her to where she thinks she will find him - and when she looks up, she is standing on the dock, looking up at the sails of the Jolly Roger.
"You have decided then, dearie?" he says, standing behind her, though when she turns around to face him, he is not the weird, reptilian Dark One, but the Mr. Gold that she remembers from back home, in a black pinstripe suit with normal human skin. "What's it going to be?"
"If you know of everything that is to ever happen, then don't you already know my decision?"
"Well, yes, of course, but I still need to hear you say it for it to come true."
"Oh." She takes a deep breath, stepping onto the dock of the Roger. "Then yes. I choose to stay here. I choose Killian."
He claps his hands together and changes back to the Dark One, laughing in a cloud of black smoke.
"And so you will have it, dearie. I will go speak to the sheriff, and bring your beloved pirate back to you, here, on the ship."
And, just like that, he is gone again, in another cloud of smoke, leaving her alone on the dock.
Slowly walking onto the deck of the Roger, she takes very careful steps to the beginning of her future. Unaware of what to do, she finds herself wandering around the deck, trying to get to know it better. She goes below-deck, where she has never been before, though it does not really help her, because she still is not sure what everything is, where on the ship she is. So she heads back to somewhere she knows, somewhere she feels comfortable, peaceful: the captain's cabin.
Here, she softly runs her fingers around the wall: the door of his small closet, his shelves, full of books and trinkets, the maps hanging on the wall. But once she gets to the window, she stops, her eyes fixed on the horizon.
It is familiar to her, the horizon that she remembers from all the hours she spent on the beach, on fishing boats, just sitting on the docks with her father.
Her father.
She needs to talk to the Dark One again - what are they going to tell her father? Obviously not the truth. Are they going to tell him that she is dead?
And, more importantly, is he going to be okay?
She must have lost track of time, because when she comes back to reality, it is because of the footsteps she hears above her.
She cannot even imagine the awkwardness that had to have happened on the walk back from the station, between Killian and the Dark One. Not only did the Dark One rip out Milah's heart in front of Killian, and then chop off his hand, but he also then imprisoned him for just those crimes.
They are right above her, no doubt finding the same thing she found behind the helm earlier that day - a sight she has no interest in encountering, the two of them stumbling across the body of their dead wife.
In the silence of the cabin, she hears them talking, merely mutterings through the floorboards. Part of her wants to know what they say, but she is still glued in place by her own thoughts, of her decision to save a man whose intentions she is unaware of, to give up everything she knows in her life for someone she barely knows.
And then, she hears something that draws her back to reality again: shouting, from above-deck. Whatever went on above her, their conversation has become heated. She tries to strain her ears to hear some of what they are saying. And then, too late, she realizes the footsteps have disappeared above her, having instead gone down the steps and to the door to the very room she is currently standing in.
The door slams open, and she snaps her head towards it. They are just as surprised to see each other, she and Killian, and for a moment, everything stops, the only thing either of them seeing is the eyes of the other.
She can see the pain in his shocking blues, the emotion leftover from whatever happened above-deck between him and the Dark One; he can sense her surprise, her timidness for the future, her fear.
Finally, he says, "What are you doing here, Swan?"
"Do you not know? Did he not tell you?"
"Tell me what?" He looks down to his feet, clenching his jaw as he takes a deep breath. He just wants to be alone, only with his ship.
"I saved you, Killian. I made a deal with him, with the Dark One, to let you go, drop his charges against you."
His head snaps back up, his eyes wide. "You - you made a deal with him? Don't you know, all of his deals come with a price? I am not worth it, worth whatever he offered you."
She has no response to this, simply trying to find some sort of answer in his eyes - but it is Killian that finds something in hers.
"No," he whispers, shaking his head, beginning to close the space between them, though he stops after only one step. "Tell me you didn't, Swan. Tell me you did not give up something for me, when I should have just rotted in jail."
"But you have done nothing wrong, there's no reason - "
Furious, he takes another step towards her. "Do you really believe that? I am a pirate. I have done many things wrong in my life. I couldn't save Milah from him, just like I couldn't save Liam all those years ago."
"Not being able to save someone is not the same as killing them," she says softly, filling the rest of the space between them.
"It might as well be. I should have saved her. I could have saved her."
His eyes leave hers, shooting to the desk, and she sees what he is looking at: a large silver hook, which he picks up and eyes in his hand.
"I stabbed him, you know," he says, his voice barely a whisper. "I struck him right in the heart with this hook, but he laughed at me, disappeared, and left it on the deck of the ship."
He turns his attention towards what's left of his arm, where a doctor seems to have added a cap for attachments. He slides the back end of the hook into the attachment, twisting it in place; it is almost as if the cap was made for the hook.
"I'm going to kill him, Emma, you know that, right?"
"Killian, not everything has to be about revenge," she says softly, her hand pressed against his vest.
When he turns his face down to her, his eyes are wide with rage. "I have nothing left to do. He has taken everything from me."
"You still have your crew, your ship." She searches his eyes for some sort of sign, for something to tell her how he will react to her next words. "You still have me."
Something passes through his eyes, but she does not know quite what it was. "Emma, I cannot ask you to stay here, cannot ask you to stay with me."
She feels her voice begin to falter, coming to the reality of her decision once again. "I have nothing else." As much as she tries to hold it back, her voice cracks, but she manages to hold herself together.
"Aye, we seem to have that in common." She can hear the sadness in his voice, but she does not fail to see the slight smile he flashes her. "We make quite a team, you know, Swan," he says after a moment. "So what should we do? Two people with nothing left but each other? We have the whole world in front of us."
She laughs with him for a moment, the warmest moment either of them have felt in almost a day, and leans up to kiss the pirate's cheek, completely unaware of how he is going to react. She does not shy away from him, instead standing her ground just inches away from him, and when he smiles down at her again, she feels her face begin to redden.
"I knew you were warming up to me," he jokes, but then his expression grows grim. "You really are something, Emma," he mumbles, his voice more serious than last time. "But I'm going to need some time before I am ready to move on, before I can forget my Milah."
"Of course, Killian, I would expect nothing less," she whispers, giving him some space. "That's not why I saved you."
"But you'll tell me one day why you did it, then?" he asks, joking again - he really is all over the place.
"Aye," she says, smiling. "But for now, I am just a friend to this lonely pirate."