#but humbert is the one with the power. no matter what she did she still suffered at the hands of this man

[studebakerhearse]

i just reread lolita for the first time since high school too and something i think is interesting is how untrustworthy humbert is as a narrator. it makes dolores's 'consent' or even 'initiation' of the relationship seem questionable given everything else hes said and done and how hes framed everything. she treated him a lot like a fatherly figure in the first segment of the book and even her 'flirtations' were like super juvenile or teasing. like, humberts entire backstory is ripped off of edgar alan poes poem annabelle lee. he says he wasnt an offender and then details all of his offenses. he says he didnt kill dolores's mom and then when he visits the cemetery goes 'i killed her more cleanly'. even if she was kind of messing with him because she realized he was looking at her funny i doubt it was as intense or purposefully leading him on as he was making it out to be, especially given the stuff she says in the car after he hurts her the first time.

sorry for rambling lol i just reread it and its such a fascinating multilayered novel

Oh yeah I definitely think there's a case to be made for that, and Delores later recalls the time to Humbert as "when you first raped me", and my read on it is that Humbert is telling half a truth on what happened, I think on Lo's point it's that distinctive thing where you agree to something that you're almost immediately regretful and horrified by, but I also don't think she did it without coercion. The book is written in a distinctive way where there's a clouded sense of what's real, almost otherworldly, and you can debate a lot of points of what actually happened but I feel like some parts are meant to be approached as slivers of truth where the ugliness is buried. I think another thing to consider is that Humbert switches between frankly expressing his guilty conscience and defending himself before this imaginary court, it's undoubtedly a show to garner sympathy but I similarly think sprinkled throughout there are expressions of both truth and defense, whatever that may look like

#I also like reading lo as not being a perfect victim so to speak #like people really fucking struggle with complexities like this and obviously that's the legacy of this novel #but humbert is the one with the power. no matter what she did she still suffered at the hands of this man #answered #csa mention

[weaselbeaselpants]

This post isn't about She-Ra and the princesses of Power

Ngl, without seeing it, it seems like half of everyone's takes on She-Ra stems from ppl being lead to believe thru the fandom that Catdora was #relationshipgoals when really it was always supposed to be a romance that grew out of toxicity. And then you all didn't like that outcome/how it written/how it was STILL being touted as relationship goals by the fandom despite the intention of the writing.

Just a guess. I have bad news for everybody though: you really do need to coexist with people who feel kinned to characters you hate or you're never gonna get through the day. And no, not kinned in a SnapeWives sorta way and no not kinned to shit like Humbert Humbert god nojesusCHRIST. I mean characters ppl enjoy and relate to and maybe even want better writing for because they just like angsty, problematic characters and see themselves in. blorbos. I've heard read up on this Catra betch and it seems like a similar problem to be had with the Crystal Gems or even the Diamonds; being a fan of them isn't a problem unless you just straight up stan them like they're real people and they actually never did anything wrong. I'm gonna wager a lot of fans/ex fans/whoever did NOT have any chill about this and that really exaserbated ur already dislike of her and the Catdora pairing, at least a little.

Why someone attaches themselves to certain characters could be an indicator of character, or, more often then not, it just means they like an aspect of said character but have a bad means of handling their emotions over their blorbos.

I for one know, as a fan of my own blorbos and a 'hater' of other people's, that even nuanced-read fan readings can be annoying and ur just not in the mood w it comes to a character you REALLY dislike. It's not a "wrong" take it's just....god do I not wanna hear you spout your love for something that just makes me feel pissy.

Still- you gotta not read every person who likes a bad/badly written character as an immediate threat to you, anymore than the otherside shouldn't see someone who dislikes their blorbo as being "against" them. That's what leads to these nasty fanwars and pro vs anti fandom bs in the first place.

I have a mutual who loves Mysterious Woman from Centaurworld but hates Elktaur/NWK for personal+aesthetic+petty reasons. We get along even if we don't see eye to eye there because, you know, it's FANDOM not an actual indicator of our morals. They know I don't approve of real-life relationships anything like Mysterious Woman and NWKs and I still have merch she made of both characters on my bag at all times.

No one ever said you have to be buddy-buddys with everyone, but as long as it's not serious political disagreements or a matter of shit's that illegal or hate speech, you have to coexist. This is a fandom. You share a fandom. You can have ur anti-tag nooks where you complain about glubshito and you can have ur pro-glubshito tags. Just seriously learn to stop flinging mud and serious accusations/asertations on people's personal lives you don't know.

Suffering just makes you hurt. It doesn't make you smarter or better than anyone else.

#fandumb #media analysis #she ra spop #inb4 someone @s me w another example

[eirian-houpe]

Modern Wonders - Chapter 2

Fandom: Once Upon a Time (TV), Alice (TV 2009)

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Relationships: Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold

Characters: Belle (Once Upon a Time), Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold, Mad Hatter | Jefferson, Jiminy Cricket | Archie Hopper, Evil Queen | Regina Mills, Snow White | Mary Margaret Blanchard, Prince Charming | David Nolan, Red Riding Hood | Ruby, Grumpy | Leroy, Hatter (Alice TV 2009), Dodo (Alice TV 2009), Queen of Hearts (Alice TV 2009), Carpenter (Alice TV 2009), Mad March (Alice TV 2009), The White Rabbit | Agent White (Alice TV 2009), Doormouse (Alice TV 2009), Widow Lucas | Granny, Captain Hook | Killian Jones, Henry Mills (Once Upon a Time)

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - In Storybrooke | Cursed (Once Upon a Time), Wonderland, Drug Use, Recreational Drug Use, Pining, UST, Violence, Psychological Torture, Torture, Exploitation, Revenge, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Reconciliation

Summary: Revenge, they say, is a dish best served cold, and when Regina casts Rumple's Dark Curse, just a few words here and there creates Storybrooke in a very different place, with a very different atmosphere, and very different issues to deal with. Alliances and enmity permeate the lives of the citizens of Storybrooke, (and beyond), as they tiptoe around the various dangers they face every day. Who is awake? How can they break the curse within a curse? And what of the power struggles rife both within, and outside of Storybrooke itself.

Read previous chapters on AO3

Chapter 2 - Storybrooke

The gold handled cane did him little good in the surroundings outside, the broken terrain, but within the confines of the shanty town that was Storybrooke Gold’s stride was long, and confident, more like a lord measuring out his demesne than a poor crippled pawn broker living on the deals and heartbreak of others. He smiled wickedly to himself to think of the impression he gave to others, and the thrall he kept them under in spite of appearances.

Oh, if only they knew.

Storybrooke was not as ‘dead’ as they thought - or rather, as Regina thought - because Storybrooke was a tiny little bubble within the larger cesspit that was Wonderland, and he had the advantage. He had been here before… with Jefferson - and he frowned.

Since their arrival he couldn’t remember having seen Jefferson, not even lurking in the mansion that Regina had meant as his prison… his torment, to be shut away from his Grace. He made a mental note to pay the man a visit, determined to unlock the conundrum. Of course no one else cared. No one else was awake… and he wasn’t meant to be, he was sure of it - another conundrum for him to unravel.

“Um… Mi— Mister Gold, I ah… that is…”

Gold halted on the paved sidewalk, and turned his head to watch as Archie Hopper, umbrella in hand - in preparation for what rain, Gold wondered - cross the deserted street toward him.

“Doctor Hopper,” he greeted the man with false cheer. “A pleasure, but out with it, man, I haven’t got all day.”

“Oh, I… um…” Hopper pushed his glasses up along his nose, back into place, “I wondered if you’d had a chance to consider my… ah… proposition?”

“Ah, yes,” Gold purred.  “Walk with me, won’t you?”

Gold turned without waiting for the good doctor’s agreement or otherwise, and set a slower pace toward Granny’s diner. With the library still closed, it was the one place left open for informal, communal gatherings. Of all of Storybrooke’s other, cursed, inhabitants, the proprietor was someone for whom he had a good deal of respect. Tough as nails, no nonsense, Widow Lucas was as upstanding a pillar of the community that Storybrooke possessed.

All the rest were crumbling; as crumbling as the buildings and the streets of Storybrooke itself. Gold wondered if anyone else had noticed.

It was subtle. The odd crack in a sidewalk here, the tendril of a vine there, a wall, beginning to crumble and weeds reclaiming a spot or two in the well manicured gardens. Subtle, but unmistakable. Wonderland was reclaiming its own.

“I’ve give it a good deal of thought, as a matter of fact,” Gold told Hopper before he allowed his observations to run away with him. “And while, obviously, as an upstanding member of our town council, I can’t condone what you’re suggesting…” he left a long pause as they reached the diner’s doorstep, whereupon, lowering his voice to a dangerous growl, he blocked Doctor Hoppers path with his arm, stretched across the doorway, and said, “I think it might be just what some people in this town need.”

**

Whale growled softly and turned away from the window. It wasn’t the paint, peeling, that was the cause of his frustration, but the fact that he couldn’t reconcile the feeling that was flowing through him, and the sky outside of the hospital. It was almost cloudless.

He was, he tried to tell Sheriff Humbert when the man called in to find out about his latest patient who had been found wandering - raving by all accounts - about some kind of ‘door,’ a doctor and not an investigator. The sheriff however, refused to help him get to the truth about his patient’s ramblings.

“This isn’t Narnia,” he said in a somewhat poor display of bedside manner, “there are no doors to other, magical kingdoms. No witches, no wizards, no—”

“Yeah?” the citizen interrupted. “How do you explain this then?” Whereupon he pulled back the sleeve of his jacket to reveal the strange, abstract shape standing out raw and painful looking on his arm.

“A uh… tattoo?” Doctor Whale suggested in an overly patient tone. “And a somewhat fresh one from what I can tell.”

“Uh-huh,” the patient argued, “And you get em just like that,” he snapped his fingers somewhat inexpertly, “do ya?” He jerked his head toward the window. “When the sun shines on ya?”

“Sheriff Humbert, please,” Whale turned his attention to the man hovering uncomfortably in the doorway, looking as guilty as sin and extremely distracted. “You see?  You can at least tell me where you picked this man up, and if there were, indeed, a door there?”

“I’m sorry, Doctor, but… there’s nothing I can tell you,” Humbert answered. “I’d like to tell you I saw a door, but the truth is, I was far too worried about your patient here to pay too much attention. His safety was my priority.”  He took a breath and added far too hurriedly in Whale’s opinion, “Anyway, I just called round to see how he was getting along. Can’t stay though,” he said. “I’ve a council meeting, that I have to get to in,” he glanced at his watch, “ten minutes. And the mayor doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

Then he left, and Whale remained, alone and without explanation standing beside the hospital window staring at the wrongly colored sky.

**

Gold sighed softly as the bell over the shop door tinkled to announce an unwanted caller. He wasn’t sure why he expected that simply displaying a ‘closed’ sign would discourage random visitors, and mused to himself that perhaps locking the door might be a more effective deterrent.

Taking his time, he picked up the cloth from the workbench and carefully began wiping his fingers clean of the gear oil which he had been using on the innards of a delicate clock, even as he made his way out of the back room, and into the shop, limping as he went.

“Madam Mayor,” he said as he set eyes on Regina standing practically tapping her foot with annoyance at having to wait. He kept his tone light, appreciative, as if to imply he respected that someone so important was going out of their way to be in his presence. “What a pleasant surprise.”

“Cut the crap, Gold,” Regina snapped, by way of a return to his greeting. “What did you do!”

So she has noticed.

“I’m… sorry,” he said slowly, “I don’t follow.”

“It’s a simple question,” she growled. “What. Did. You. Do? Everything’s coming unraveled.”

“Unraveled?” he echoed, deciding that he would continue to feign ignorance for as long as he were able; see what he could find out - what she would let slip. “I’m afraid I haven’t done anything, and I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” He put the slightest hint of pique into his voice at the end of his assertion, to make it convincing, then for good measure, added, “If it’s something woven, or a knitted blanket, I’d be happy to take a look at it. It wouldn’t be the first time that—”

Regina’s hand slammed down onto the top of one of the glass cased, rattling the contents within as she snarled, “Drop it, Gold. I know you’re awake. Not that you’re supposed to be. Jefferson was the only one I—”

So, my old friend is in Wonderland too. He’s not going to be happy with that.

“Awake?” Gold interrupted, then with a confused laugh in his voice he added, “Regina, you’re not making any sense. Of course I’m awake. I’m standing here, talking to you - was just fixing a clock out back, so unless I fell asleep while I was working and this is all a dream—”

He made a mental note to take another walk around Storybrooke some time very soon, to check on Grace, and hoped with all his heart that she was safe; almost that she wasn’t here - that whatever had diverted the curse to Wonderland had spared her.

Regina growled, cutting off his words, and his train of thought. He raised an eyebrow, undecided whether to reveal himself in that moment, or to play the game a little longer. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“The borders are failing,” she said harshly. “This wretched realm is encroaching on my town. So if you had anything to do with that, Gold, so help me…”

It was the threat that broke his resolve to pretend he was not awake. No one, least of all Regina threatened Gold on his own turf, and the shop was his turf in more ways than one.

“Well, well, well…” his voice was more of a low rumble in his chest, and he took his cane in hand and walked toward, and then around Regina until he was barely behind her, and purred in her ear, “…Dearie…” Even so, confessing he was awake was one thing, revealing he had magic, that was quite something else. “Things not going quite how you planned?”

“I know you have something to do with this,” she accused.

He circled around the rest of the way to come and lean against one of the display cases, looking far more casual than he felt as he looked her up and down, before he said, “Now, what makes you think,” he pointed at her, “that even if I had the power to - what was it you said - ‘unravel’ this little town of yours, that I’d even waste my time trying.” As he spoke of himself, he jabbed his thumb against his own chest, the grandeur of the gesture far more reminiscent of his Enchanted Forest form than the upright, uptight Mister Gold of Storybrooke.

“What you should be asking, dearie,” he rumbled, “is who would have the kind of magic necessary to mess with my Dark Curse?”

#rumbelle #au. #cursed storybrooke #wonderland #drug use #recreational drug use #pining #ust #psychological torture #violence #torture #exploitation #revenge #eventual romance #eventual smut #reconciliation #Modern Wonders #i will always write jefferson

[intothewickedwood]

hiiii! top 5 ouat characters + top 5 ouat seasons :) 💫✨🧡🤗

Thank you for the asks! I’m not sure if you got my last ask about your fave seasons and episodes but let me know if you didn’t recieve it and I can send again if you would like :D!

Top 20 Ouat Characters 

Did this recently, so gonna do top 10 for funsies xD! And also I got very carried away. Explanations for top 5: https://intothewickedwood.tumblr.com/post/634530746567180288/13-who-are-your-top-five-favorite-characters

1. Alice Jones / Tilly

2. Zelena

3. Snow White / Mary Margaret Blanchard

4. Prince Charming / David Nolan

5. Emma Swan

6. Henry Mills

He’s an awesome kid. I especially likes him in season one where he had a bit of a cheeky side and I loved his boundless belief and felt so sorry for him. I love his relationships with all his family

7. Princess Abigail / Kathryn Nolan

I just love her to bits. She deserved so much better and I just want her to be happy dammit! She’s so sweet and went out of her way to help David find his true love in the EF and to try to let them know that they had her blessing in SB. Loved her friendship with David and Regina/ It still breaks my heart that Regina betrayed her! I wish we got more of her!

8. The Mad Hatter / Jefferson

I love how creepy and twisted he is in his introductory episode. He gave me the shivers and I felt so scared for Emma and MM. He’s a unique take on the Mad Hatter and I have to say my favourite. I love that he’s a single dad who’s primary motivations are to be back with and care for his daughter. Warms my heart! 

9. Princess Anna

What can I say? I love Frozen and surprisingly I prefer Anna to Elsa in Ouat, which is strange because it’s the opposite for the Frozen movies. I just love her quirkiness. I love that she just blurts out whatever’s on her mind. I love how much she loves and cares for her sister and I think she’s adorable.

10. Robin Mills / Margot

I love her. She’s one half of my second favourite ship and I think she’s awesome. I love how much she loves and cares for Alice /Tilly and I love her relationships with her mum and auntie. I only wish we got more of her

11. Red Riding Hood / Ruby Lucas

The twist in Red-Handed will forever be my favourite of the show! I love that she’s a wolf person/ werewolf?/ lycan? I think it’s so cool learning about the lore of her people and I love stories in which a character can’t control their powers. You can than X-Men for that. I just love her in general! Her friendship with Sow is so great! They would do anything for eachother! She has a big heart and just wants the best for her family and friends that she sees as family

12. Cora Mills

I love her messed up relationships with her daughters. I think she’s a great villain both in the past and present. She’s so wonderfully manipulative. I think she’s amazing and I’m glad she’s not my mum.

13. Peter Pan

He was such a great, unique take on the character. He was creepy as hell and evil for the sake of being evil. Loved the twist that he was Rumple’s Dad. It was a great arc. He was terrifying. I would not want to be in his presence.

14. Pinocchio / August W. Booth

I love him. I know he has shady ways and has done some bad things but I love how mysterious he is, especially in season one. I love his friendship with Emma and I think he’s very wise. Wooden Swan battles to be my otp for Emma.

15. Graham Humbert

Okay, I have a huge crush but also I love how much of a dork he is. He was so important to Emma’s story. I miss him. Gremma is probably my otp. I wish we got more of him.

16. Jiminy Cricket / Archie Hopper

He’s just so kind and caring. I want him to be my therapist! He always wants the best for people, no matter what they’ve done. I love his friendship with Henry and I just wanna wrap Archie up and put him in my bag. Basically I wanna kidnap him.

17. Aurora

I love her development. I’m a big fan of the movie ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and was so happy when she joined the show. Her relationships with Mulan and Phillip were amazing and they will forever be my number one ot3! She became so brave and was so unbelievably helpful to complete strangers! She has a great heart.

18. Wish Realm Captain Hook / Rogers

He’s a freaking great father and deserved so much better. He deserved to be their to watch his daughter, who is his entire world, grow up. He would do anything, even die for her and it makes my wanna cry. Knightrook is my favourite familial relationship on the show. Even when cursed, he knew he had to protect her. 

19. Mother Gothel / Eloise Gardener

I’m gonna get killed for this but I just think she’s a great villain. She makes me genuinely hate her, which I can’t say for many other villains in the show. But she is so irredemably evil in the show and an amazing villain in fics. She hurt my favourite character Alice so deeply but it makes for amazing angst. And I love a character who plays mind games.

20. Elsa

Again, big fan of Frozen. I love how gay she is for Emma and I love her sisterly bond with Anna so freaking much. They would do anthing for eachother. Her magic is so cool to watch! I love her!

Top 5 Ouat Seasons

1. Season One

2. Season Three

3. Season Seven

4. Season Four

5. Season Two

Explanations here: https://intothewickedwood.tumblr.com/post/627077185253048320/ouat-40-day-challenge

#ouat #once upon a time #henry mills #jefferson #elsa #peter pan #princess anna #ruby lucas #asks #emmaswcns #long post #flash warning #ask game #am*

[capnjay21]

A House is Never Still Epilogue

Five years ago, Emma Swan disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Killian Jones’ disappearance, well, not so mysterious – given the denizens of Storybrooke all but blamed him for her murder. Drawn back to town by a series of strange events, he soon realises the story of what really happened the night she vanished is beginning to unravel, and what’s more: it isn’t over.

A/N: and there it ends! thank you all so much for jumping on this crazy train with me. I hope I might see some of you on some other fics in future, but for now peace & love, thank you to every SINGLE one of you that decided to click on this little piece of weirdness, I have had so so so much fun bringing @hollyethecurious​ art to life <3 over and out!

Rating: T

Warnings: mentions of suicide, canonical character death, and some Spooky Business™.

Last go of the teeny tiny taglist, thank you squad! <3

@snowbellewells​ @carpedzem​ @kmomof4​ @optomisticgirl​ @lfh1226-linda​

AO3 | one | two | three | four | five | six

-/-

epilogue

“A house is never still in darkness to those who listen intently; there is a whispering in distant chambers, an unearthly hand presses the snib of the window, the latch rises. Ghosts were created when the first man awoke in the night.”

– J.M. Barrie

Present Day

Emma had expected it to be more difficult to return to the place Brooke House had once stood.

The last few days had passed in a rapid flurry of everyone telling her how much Brooke House had taken from her – the last five years of her life, for one. Her high school graduation. Her own funeral, apparently, her bus ticket to Augusta. Her last chance to thank Archie Hopper for everything he had done for her before he moved away. Five Super Bowls, David had added, rattling off Patriots, Broncos, Patriots, Eagles, Patriots – seriously, Pats again? – before she had a chance to let him know a five year stint as a permanent haunted house resident hadn’t made her any less indifferent to football.

Tom Brady is the GOAT, was all Killian had offered when she looked to him for backup, much to her exasperation.

But it was more than that. Those first few hours out of Brooke House had made her feel like a child, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from clinging to Killian, to David, to Ruth; she had to be touching something, holding something, just to remind herself it was all real and not another cruel trick. The darkness had dangled the tantalizing notion of a rescue before her so many times that she was sure her imagination was strong enough to conjure up one so tangible all on its own.

But this was it. This was real. She was home.

“What else did you see?” Killian had asked her once, quietly, while they sat on the steps leading out into Regina’s backyard.

It had overgrown into something wild and crooked, another marker for the passage of time, with large tufts of grass and weeds growing in all directions, some even reaching as far as her hip. The apple tree at the centre was the only tended for and trimmed element amongst the unruly greenery, but the untamed nature of the rest of it comforted Emma. It made her feel like she was in the forest again.

When Emma had not immediately replied, Killian had elaborated. “In the – storm. Other than your parents, I mean. What else did you see?”

The storm, they had taken to calling it, as if it were just a passing, temporary weather event. Emma knew what it really was. Sometimes it was like she could still feel it breathing within her, sinking into the marrow of her bones, and in a way, she supposed it was.

Demons you could vanquish, but darkness stayed with you. It was born with you and it died with you and sometimes in the middle it reminded you from time to time that it was there.

She had smiled at Killian tightly and shaken her head. He looked troubled, but like he understood. She couldn’t think about it anymore; she wanted to move forwards, not backwards.

Which was why she had insisted they return to where the house had been.

“I don’t want to always be thinking about it,” she said, looking around at their reluctant faces. “I want to see it and know that it’s over.”

She had thought it would be more difficult to head back there – but with Killian’s hand in hers and the others following close behind, she had felt herself grow in confidence with every step along the White Pine trail, and further still once they stepped off of it. Her pulse raced, but it wasn’t for the same reckless, debilitating fear that it had thumped with that first night, when everything looked too vivid to be anything but a dream and she was waiting for the ground to crumble underneath her, to send her shattering back into the walls of Brooke House.

Killian had come for her. Even after five years, he refused to give up.

He had spent so much time apologising for not coming sooner, but she didn’t care about all that. It had taken her that amount of time to master herself enough to start to slip through the cracks, to try and show him something of her after she felt him cross the town line, and not just the demon.

As expected, the clearing was empty when they got there.

She felt the barest tingle, the skim of something other brush across her arms and down her neck, but it wasn’t strong enough to be anything but a whisper against her skin.

“Look,” David said, pointing into the centre.

There, where they had left it buried into the earth, stood the dagger.

Emma felt a shot of rage and a thrill of something greedy which frightened her; it wasn’t whispering to her like it used to, but it felt like it was trying to. Clearing its throat over and over and searching for sound.

“Are you alright?” Killian asked, and she realised he was peering closely at her.

She offered him a quick smile, willing it to be anything but as brittle as she felt. “I – yeah.”

Five years. Five years of her life.

Storybrooke had been amazed to see her return. She was due to go back down to the Sheriff station for yet another interview with Graham Humbert, where she was sure he would try and grill her again for details about what she remembered – and she was speaking truthfully when she told him she remembered very little. Like a strange, distant dream, the more she tried to clutch at her experiences in Brooke House, the more they seemed to vanish like smoke.

The only clear picture left was the image of her mother, lifting a baby Emma out of the car, and placing her on the side of the freeway.

She had no idea if it was even real. It still made her want to cry.

The only positive about the process of closing the missing persons case was that it lifted Killian off the hook – in the eyes of the law, at least. Not in the eyes of the town. She was surprised by the vitriol with which he was still met with, and while he could no longer be punished with a murder charge, no doubt most of Storybrooke still believed he had kidnapped her and only recently released her. No matter how angry it made her, he begged her to let it go. After everything that had happened he told her he couldn’t care less, that everybody who mattered knew the truth and he bore no ill will to any of the residents who still looked at him like he was still a stain on their otherwise perfect town. None of that mattered to him.

Sometimes, he had said, with the sort of smile that made him look like he was letting her in on a secret, the best books have the dustiest jackets.

Killian was her favourite chapter of every novel she had ever read. He was the feeling of curling your toes under a warm rug in front of a fire, he was the splash of cool water in the heat of summer. He was her favourite song, her best fitting jacket, that moment you could finally take off your boots at the end of a long day. To her, he would always be twelve and kind and sad, and seventeen and strong and yearning, but now he was something else too – he was twenty-two and scarred but still hoping, loving, and knowing there was something better out there for them. He was so confident that now they had fought so hard for their happiness, their freedom, that the universe would naturally bend, compensate, and let them have it for as long as they wanted it.

Only sky for miles, and miles, and miles.  

She had to match that confidence. She had to.

So, because he wanted her to, she didn’t try to take on the town and their ill feeling. She did, however, make sure Ruth Nolan, at the very least, understood the situation perfectly, and insisted she apologise for any wrongful blame she might have cast on Killian in the wake of her disappearance. And at Emma’s request she had done so, emphatically. In fact, she had cried when she thought of any additional pain she might have caused him, but Killian had dismissed her worry and forgiven her immediately. This, at least, was a victory that they could have.

In the clearing, Killian’s hand tightened on hers. Maybe he sensed her thoughts had wandered elsewhere.

The others were also stood, staring pensively at the dagger. Only two inches or so were buried into the soil, so the flat edge of the curved blade could still be seen, and so could the fact that there wasn’t a single name on it. No more names of those stolen in the middle of the night or sent crashing over clifftops; no more victims for the demon to want to keep score of.

But Emma did not want to be a victim.

She squeezed Killian’s hand, once, and then let go.

Feeling the others’ eyes on her, Emma stepped forward and crouched in front of the dagger, feeling that hiss of something other reaching out for her. It cajoled, it pleaded, it invited her to take another look, to give it one last chance, but it was easy to brush the tendrils of its hunger away now. There was no heat behind it. It was just metal in the earth; it held no power over her now.

Emma reached forward, clasping a hand around its hilt, and tugging it out of the soil. Dirt crumbled from the edge of the blade and dribbled onto the ground underneath.

Five years. Five years of her life.

“This will not define me,” she vowed.

In the end, they had taken it to the ravine. She could feel the dagger heating up against her palm the nearer they got, it knew, she could tell, but she hadn’t let that stop her from hurling it out into the air. It had arced neatly across the gorge before disappearing down below, the distant ripple of its landing in the river just barely visible from where they stood.

It was gone. It was over.

And she was home.

They all watched as the current continued to flow, the harsh purl of the river against the banks of the ravine a distant roar. This was near to where Liam had driven over, that much she knew. They all had ghosts they wanted buried down below.

“There’s still one thing I don’t understand,” Killian said, finally.

Mary Margaret let out an amused sound. “Only one?”

Her hand was curled around David’s arm, and she was leaning in close to him. They had spent the entire night talking when they had come back from Brooke House, and much of the following day. What they discussed David had kept close to his chest, even from Emma, but something about looking at them now made her heart want to burst. This was something they had all earnt.

Killian hummed in reply, but he was smiling. He quickly mastered it and tried to school his features into something a little more serious.

The hard line of his jaw, the beard she most definitely approved of, the barely visible scar on his right cheek. She loved him. She loved all of it.

“It’s just… it’s Liam. How did he know all that stuff about how to banish a demon? Or better yet, why didn’t he just hightail it out of town immediately after being threatened by a malevolent spirit?” Killian shook his head, a flicker of sadness crossing his features and Emma stepped a little closer to him. “He stayed, he made all those notes on the ritual, he went to talk to Belle, on his own… I was always only ever following in his footsteps. So how did he know to do all this by himself?”

They were all silent for a moment, eyes fixed on where the dagger had disappeared beneath the surface down below.

“Magic is… it’s real,” David said, almost disbelievingly, but Emma knew he didn’t doubt anymore.

Her fingertips tingled with possibility. Oh, how it changed the world.

“I guess it isn’t so farfetched to assume he was somebody that knew that.”

Killian looked distressed at the notion. “But why wouldn’t he tell me?”

“You were just a kid,” Regina offered, with almost uncharacteristic gentleness. “Maybe he would have, later.”

There was so much they still didn’t know, and perhaps they never would – Killian had told her that Liam had never really wanted to talk about their parents. Maybe there was something in that. Maybe there wasn’t. Maybe, in the end, Liam Jones had been just as scared as they all were, and had improvised as best he could.

Liam Jones. Five whole years – lost not just to her, but to all of them.

Brooke House would not, could not, take anything else from them now.

Regina turned to go, with Mary Margaret and David following close behind.

Killian and Emma hung back just a little, staring out into the gorge and down into the frothy waters below. It had been there for a couple of days now, that heaviness that hung around Killian’s shoulders like reluctance or trepidation, so finite you could miss it if you didn’t know the curve of his smile as intimately as Emma knew it.

And she knew what it had to mean, too.

She let out a long breath through her mouth. “You’re not staying, are you?”

Killian closed his eyes. After a few thinly stretched moments, he spoke.

“I always thought that once we got you back, everything would just… right itself. Storybrooke would feel like home again. Everything would be as it was before.”

Before, when they were teenagers and invincible and they could do anything just because anything was what they had always been told they could do. When the town could look at them all with fondness because that was how you looked at the promising next generation of likeminded neighbours; when there had been a bus waiting to take them to Augusta still fresh-faced, wide eyed, and about to get their lives started.

“But it can’t be like before,” Emma said, slipping her hand into his. “You know that.”

Oh, how it changed the world.

Killian sighed, like he knew this but did not want to be told it. He squeezed her hand.

“You know I’m coming too, right?” she informed him.

He instantly tried to pull away, shaking his head. “Emma, I couldn’t ask you to –”

“Then it’s a good thing you’re not asking,” she said firmly. “I’m telling you. You go, I go.”

Killian swallowed. “But… Ruth, David –”

“Going away doesn’t mean never coming back,” she pointed out. “You should know that better than anyone.”

This, he conceded.

“I love you,” he said.

Emma was surprised to see something like apprehension lingering in his expression as he said it, and when she thought on it she was startled to realise that might be the first time he had said it out loud. No conditions, no threats to life or limb or worse. It astonished her, but only because she felt like she had been hearing him say he loved her since she was twelve, in every deed or action that he had shaped tenderly and perfectly just for her.

Saying words, she decided, did not make them magic. It was everything else that made them so spellbinding.

She lifted a hand to his cheek and kissed him slowly, on the spot where it all began.

“I love you too.”

Hand in hand, they began their slow walk back to the treeline.

“So, where are we going?”

Killian rubbed a hand on the back of his neck. “I hate to admit it, but Augusta really blew. Too damp. I was there for three months and it rained basically the entire time.”

“No way, it sucked? After all that build up?” she laughed. Killian nodded regretfully, but he was smiling.

“I was actually thinking – well. I went back to the group home a little while ago, and they said Archie moved to Portland. I have no idea if he’d still be there, but,” he lifted his shoulder in a half shrug, “I have some stuff I’d like to say to him. If – if there’s an opportunity to do so.”

Emma hummed a little in agreement. “That’s something else we have in common.”

Portland, then. She remembered that summer they spent the day traipsing around looking for a particular lobster restaurant that had turned up nothing besides one perfect, happy day with Killian. Maybe this time they’d have better luck. It filled her with immeasurable warmth to think on their lives together extending out in front of them, the red carpet to the show of her life, just now beginning again but ready to soar.

Killian was speaking, but Emma’s attention was suddenly drawn elsewhere; something had almost imperceptibly changed in the air, like a sound she had been hearing in her subconscious had dropped out without warning. She tensed. It was somehow a lot colder than it had been a moment ago, and gooseflesh erupted up her arms and down the back of her neck.

Subtly, so Killian wouldn’t notice, she turned her head to look over her shoulder.

There, at the edge of the ravine, stood the scaled man, his mouth wide to reveal a set of crooked, sharp teeth. His basket of spun gold twine stood proudly at his feet. He raised a hand to her in greeting, nails pointy and black –

She blinked and he was gone.

Her heart hammered one terrible thump against her ribcage.

Nothing could ever be like it was before.

Not now she carried the truth so tacitly; the truth that everyone knew but refused to speak aloud, keeping it hidden in the most desperate, sacred corner of their hearts.

Darkness never left you.

It was born with you, it died with you, and sometimes, in the middle, it liked to remind you that it was there.

-/-

Coda – Date Unknown

Mom had always told him not to play out by the creek, but he couldn’t help it. It was by far the most interesting part about visiting Grandma, since they had to spend the whole weekend there and the town always seemed to him like it would rather be fast asleep.  There was nothing to do; no arcade, no park, and only one diner that served the same six meals over and over without fail. Mom hated it when he complained, but he was eleven, not four, and Grandma was snoring half the time anyway. He needed to find entertainment somewhere.

But the creek was different. It was vivid where everything else was lazy, a sapphire current of fast but shallow water, with a tide that rose and fell so unpredictably that he had returned home with soaking wet sneakers more times than he could count. His favourite game was leaping from stone to stone as far out as he dared, until the water got deeper, so deep he couldn’t see to the bottom anymore, and tried to keep his balance and stop himself toppling in.

Today he was determined to make it a few stones farther than yesterday. There was a particularly sturdy looking one shaped like a tooth that stuck out in the centre, and he was sure if he could make it as far as the large, flat rock next to it, then he’d be able to balance on Tooth for a few moments and really feel like the King of the river.

He heard someone call his name and his heart leapt into his mouth – Dad. Shoot. Mom always sent Dad out looking for him when she thought he was by the creek. He still sounded a long way off, though. If he started now, there was a chance he could make it all the way out to Tooth and back before he was seen, and pretend he was just skimming the woods looking for rabbits.

He shirked his jacket and rolled it up into a ball, leaving it on the bank like a marker of where he needed to return to, and began hopping across his usual route. For a fleeting moment he almost lost his balance on the fourth rock, and paused to steady himself before starting out again. After a minute or so he made it to the stone he’d gotten to yesterday, something blocky but wide enough to hold him without concern.

Yesterday, Tooth had looked so far away, like something far beyond his reach. He was sure it was closer today.

Or, he decided eagerly, he was just bigger than he was yesterday.

Gathering his courage, he aimed for the large rock beside tooth and pushed off with a fierce leap – before landing in an unsteady huff exactly where he meant to. Elated, he couldn’t help it – he let out a crow of success, a loud and wild thing that echoed out into the walls of the cliff faces around him.

When Dad’s shouts started to grow louder and nearer, he realised that was probably not the best idea.

He hurriedly turned his attention to Tooth, jutting out from the fast current like the ancient fang of a mountain lion, or – or the end of the tusk of a woolly mammoth. Its tip was sharp and narrow, and he realised now, up close, that he would probably only be able to get one foot up onto it, which meant he wouldn’t be able to balance there for very long.

Before he could take the final step and make it there, something caught his eye under the surface of the water. Out here the river was deep and quick, and he wasn’t stupid enough to just stick his arm in and reach blindly, but something was definitely – there. It had to be something shiny, it kept reflecting the light of the sun back at him.

It was probably buried treasure! Gold or real sapphires, emeralds, something that would make Mom and Dad so pleased they wouldn’t even care that he’d been out by the creek.

Kneeling down, he examined it a little closer. It must be wedged into the side of Tooth, which was why it hadn’t been carried away by the current or sunk down to the waterbed. He reached into the water and wrapped his hand around it – it was surprisingly narrow, heavy and wedged tight.

He had to wiggle it about for a minute or two, slowly edging out from where it had gotten stuck, and after a final heave it suddenly came loose and his momentum almost sent him stumbling back into the water.

After regaining his balance, he paused to examine his prize.

With a surge of disappointment, he realised it wasn’t gold or jewels, but it was beautifully made – it made him think of the knights in his storybook or soldiers ready to fight a forever war. It was some kind of knife, but the blade was beautifully curved in a way he’d never seen in any picture book, like the long tail of a snake curling into a sharp, deadly point.

It looked like it could really do some damage. It filled him with a special kind of thrill when he considered it. It made him feel – powerful.

And it… it whispered, almost.

The sound of someone calling his name, from incredibly nearby, jerked him from his reverie.

There stood Dad, arms folded sternly beside his discarded jacket on the riverbank, looking cross.

Crap.

He wasn’t sure why, but something made him want to conceal his new discovery from his father, so he tucked it behind him while he yelled an apology. Dad looked annoyed, but in that relaxed, almost-fun sort of way that told him if he played his cards right, he might just call him rascal, ruffle his hair a little and not tell Mom about it all.

When Dad bent to pick up the rolled up jacket left on the riverbank, the boy used that half a second to spare another glance at the knife, resting temptingly in his palm.

“Come on, kid,” Dad called.

Yes, he heard someone say. Come. Listen.

The boy tightened his hand around the knife – no, dagger, the word suddenly came to him, fascinated by its curve.

“Henry!”

Henry stood quickly, stuffing the dagger hurriedly underneath his shirt to keep it from view.

“Yeah, yeah!” he called back, readying himself to hop back onto the next rock.

His heart quivered with the hum of a new adventure.

#jay writes #a house is never still #cs role reversal #cs fic #cs ff #captain swan #cs au #cs halloweek #killian jones #emma swan #here it ends!

[ohmightydevviepuu]

our little life (rounded with a sleep) / chapter 10

our little life (rounded with a sleep) chapter ten [10/12] AO3

--

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful detective. She had blonde hair, green eyes, no family, and she was good at finding people; in fact, she proclaimed this on her office door. “Swan and Humbert,” it said. “Private investigations, missing persons, and bail bonds.”

Only lately, she’s been thinking that maybe it should say “Emma Swan: Loner, Loser, Complicated wreck.”

Her partner’s been killed on a case after she made a deal with her landlord to find what had been taken from him. But when she tracks a possible perp to a bar on the outskirts of town, Emma will find out exactly how deep the rabbit hole goes.

--

a/n:  okay, we’re getting near to the end!  in the spirit of that, just a note to say that following this chapter, the last two chapters will both post next week:  chapter 11 on monday and chapter 12 as scheduled on thursday. 

for @thisonesatellite​ who, honestly, i cannot even remember how many times i rewrote this chapter--but i only made her read it once. (twice)  

and to @profdanglaisstuff​ and @katie-dub, because this was the product of another weekend of frenzied group sprints and VERY loud emo music.

to @captainswanbigbang for all of the things and the awesome.

i love this chapter, am very proud of it, and i hope that you also enjoy it.  (also, i think you will understand why the posting schedule change seemed like a good idea when you read it) 😇

--

cw: canonical character death rating: T/M (implied violence, language) word count:  ~5k AO3 chapter one | chapter two | chapter three | chapter four | chapter five | chapter six | chapter seven | chapter eight | chapter nine

--

chapter summary: Ding, dong.  The witch is dead. But our tale is not nearly over. 

What better place than a jail cell for a family reunion?

--

Betamax.

The CCTV in the station was fucking Betamax, because of course it was.

How was that even plausible? How did a person even wire CCTV into a Betamax and then keep it running, for twenty-eight years?

How had no one ever noticed how completely ridiculous that was?

Magic.

And that might have been it, might have been the factor that finally pushed Emma over the edge, laughing somewhere on the knife blade between humor and hysteria as she watched the footage from her holding cell, her same one, the one where David had locked her back up the instant he walked in and saw a woman dying on the ground of his station and a man with a weapon and obvious intent standing over her.

Well, he locked Killian in first--then Emma--then there was the issue of Mary Margaret.

Emma still wasn’t sure why Mary Margaret was even in the station, not when Regina was too busy screaming--or as close to it as she ever came--which seemed to be, just, really fucking angry. Her eyes were doing that thing, where she looked like she might shoot fire out of them, and for the first time Emma wondered if maybe she could, if that was actually possible, because someone had just tried to pull her fucking heart from her fucking body.

And Hook--Killian--had--

“What did you do?” Regina demanded.

Which--it was a good question, and Emma kind of wanted to know, too, not the why of it, exactly, but the how, that and why Mary Margaret was in the holding cell next to her and if she could ever help Henry lose that look he had in his eyes now, watching Cora try to kill her on Betamax in all of its black-and-white glory.

Emma’s breathing still hadn’t completely recovered from--that. Her head was still spinning.

It had been one hell of a night.

“It’s dreamshade,” Killian said.

“That’s just a myth,” Regina said, and if Killian’s expression had been dark before--well. Maybe his eyes would shoot fire, because he sure as shit looked like he wanted to lay Regina out right alongside her mother.

Henry spoke up, almost indignant on Killian’s behalf. “It’s not,” he said, “it’s in the book. It’s the deadliest poison in--” He stopped suddenly, as though he only just realized who he was talking to; the look he gave Killian was almost apologetic. There was a part of Emma that wanted to smile, at the protective instincts of this kid who was somehow hers, and how fiercely he believed. Emma remembered the story, too, the one in the book where Hook’s brother had been killed by a poisonous plant from Neverland--which was a place, a real place, where dreamshade grew. The deadliest poison in all of ‘the realms.’ Plural. How many were there, exactly?

Captain Hook had just killed the Queen of Hearts with a plant from Neverland after they had used a magic curse to travel from an Enchanted Forest, so at least three, Emma decided, only because it was easier than contemplating the fact that the Queen of Hearts had tried to steal Emma’s heart out of her body, and been repelled by actual magic powers. That Emma had.

Fuck. This really was her life.

read the rest on AO3

(full chapter below the break)

chapter ten

Betamax.

The CCTV in the station was fucking Betamax, because of course it was.

How was that even plausible? How did a person even wire CCTV into a Betamax and then keep it running, for twenty-eight years?

How had no one ever noticed how completely ridiculous that was?

Magic.

And that might have been it, might have been the factor that finally pushed Emma over the edge, laughing somewhere on the knife blade between humor and hysteria as she watched the footage from her holding cell, her same one, the one where David had locked her back up the instant he walked in and saw a woman dying on the ground of his station and a man with a weapon and obvious intent standing over her.

Well, he locked Killian in first--then Emma--then there was the issue of Mary Margaret.

Emma still wasn’t sure why Mary Margaret was even in the station, not when Regina was too busy screaming--or as close to it as she ever came--which seemed to be, just, really fucking angry. Her eyes were doing that thing, where she looked like she might shoot fire out of them, and for the first time Emma wondered if maybe she could, if that was actually possible, because someone had just tried to pull her fucking heart from her fucking body.

And Hook--Killian--had--

“What did you do?” Regina demanded.

Which--it was a good question, and Emma kind of wanted to know, too, not the why of it, exactly, but the how, that and why Mary Margaret was in the holding cell next to her and if she could ever help Henry lose that look he had in his eyes now, watching Cora try to kill her on Betamax in all of its black-and-white glory.

Emma’s breathing still hadn’t completely recovered from--that. Her head was still spinning.

It had been one hell of a night.

“It’s dreamshade,” Killian said.

“That’s just a myth,” Regina said, and if Killian’s expression had been dark before--well. Maybe his eyes would shoot fire, because he sure as shit looked like he wanted to lay Regina out right alongside her mother.

Henry spoke up, almost indignant on Killian’s behalf. “It’s not,” he said, “it’s in the book. It’s the deadliest poison in--” He stopped suddenly, as though he only just realized who he was talking to; the look he gave Killian was almost apologetic. There was a part of Emma that wanted to smile, at the protective instincts of this kid who was somehow hers, and how fiercely he believed. Emma remembered the story, too, the one in the book where Hook’s brother had been killed by a poisonous plant from Neverland--which was a place, a real place, where dreamshade grew. The deadliest poison in all of ‘the realms.’ Plural. How many were there, exactly?

Killian had just killed the Queen of Hearts with a plant from Neverland after they had used a magic curse to travel from an Enchanted Forest, so at least three, Emma decided, only because it was easier than contemplating the fact that the Queen of Hearts had tried to steal Emma’s heart out of her body, and been repelled by actual magic powers. That Emma had.

Fuck. This really was her life.

“The book?” Regina asked, but Henry just glared at her, refusing to answer, refusing to let Regina even touch him as he edged himself closer to Emma, and to Killian.

They watched the video three times.

“Is she--” Mary Margaret interjected, looking pale and gesturing at Cora, who was breathing heavily and barely conscious where Regina still held her. “Is she--going to be okay?”

“No,” Killian said. “She’s not.” He sounded satisfied, and Emma couldn’t find it within herself to be upset about it, either.

“Are you okay?” Mary Margaret asked, directing her question at Emma that time. Emma allowed herself one more long breath before she nodded.

Killian hadn’t asked. He’d barely looked at her. He looked--unsettled. Confused, even. When they did make eye contact, his expression was a cipher. It was the first time, Emma realized, that she literally had no idea what he was thinking. It wasn’t a mask. He just looked--lost.

“Sheriff Nolan,” Henry was insistent, literally tugging on the man’s shirt, “Grandpa, you have to let Emma go, so she can break the curse.”

There was a second of silence, and then David and Regina spoke at the same time.

“Why would you call me ‘grandpa’?”

“What curse?”

David sounded curious, as well he might.

Regina did not sound curious. She was suspicious, and angry.

“Ah,” a voice, accented and sounding pleased, came from the doorway. “What a delightful family reunion.”

Killian snorted.

Mr. Gold--Rumplestiltskin, the Dark One, whatever, leaned on his walking stick as he took in the scene around him with a small smile and an obvious air of pure satisfaction.

“You,” Regina snarled, standing up. “You did this. You stole her life, cast some spell--”

“I?” It was one letter. Emma didn’t know one letter could carry so much malice. “I did nothing.”

“Somebody should call an ambulance,” Mary Margaret said, and it had to be the fourth or fifth time she had said it, if Emma’d had the presence of mind to keep count. It didn’t matter; no one was listening.

There was nothing they could do, anyway. Not against the deadliest poison in all the realms.

“You should be thanking me, crocodile,” Killian said bitterly. “I did your dirty work for you. But I sense that somehow you are not surprised.”

“On the contrary, Hook,” Gold was cheerful. “Believe me when I tell you that I am quite pleased at the level of your devotion to Miss Swan. More than you could possibly know.”

Killian’s silence spoke volumes, and Emma inhaled.

“For more years than you can imagine, I offered a black heart or an ugly death to everyone that I met, and I did it with a song in my heart--without conscience, and without remorse, because I had been done wrong.”

Because of Milah--his True Love. And Emma knew, suddenly, that the poison he’d so conveniently had with him--had been meant for Gold.

Not Cora.

Not initially.

But he’d brought it to the station, armed himself with it, because he thought Emma might need the protection.

“If you do not succeed in breaking the curse on your own, killing you breaks the curse just as well as anything else.”

But it had been the same expression on his face, Emma realized, the lost one, the one he wore now.

“Milah wouldn’t have wanted this,” he’d said. “I would have done anything for her.”

“You’ve changed,” Emma had said. “You’ve helped me when you didn’t need to, and whatever your reasons are--”

“My reasons are my own.”

And it wasn’t the expression she was so used to seeing in her own mirror. It was the look of someone who had found something they hadn’t even been searching for.

“You,” he’d said.

Gold smirked; in the space between his lips, his tooth glinted. “Do my eyes deceive me, or is that the look of a believer, Miss Swan?”

“I know what you did to your wife,” Emma said. “I know that you did all of this.”

“Do you,” Gold said, giggling.

“Emma?” Henry said, pushing his small hand through the bars. “Is that true? Do you believe?”

“Yes,” Emma whispered. But it wasn’t Henry she watched as she said it.

It wasn’t Killian, either, though she could feel his eyes on her.

It was Regina. “And I know,” Emma continued, “that Cora helped you.”

Cora laughed. It was a strange, strangled sound.

“Mother?” Regina said. “What’s wrong?”

“Your mother did you no favors, Your Majesty,” Gold said. “Not after she broke our deal.” He stepped, finally, into the room, and toward Cora. “A vision told me about you,” he said, “told me that this day would come. But it didn’t tell me what I really wanted to know.” With some difficulty, he maneuvered himself down to the floor, and whispered something into Cora’s ear.

She stroked the side of his face, and whispered back, and all Emma could see was the color draining from Regina’s skin, and Emma knew.

“Cora and the crocodile are old allies; Regina and Cora are old foes.” “They want the curse broken and will likely take any means that present themselves in order to affect that result.”

Gold and Cora. A broken deal. Gold’s curse, which Cora knew all about--and the way they had clearly not been working together on its enactment.

Regina, who cast the curse.

“You’re only a pawn if you don’t know you’re being played.”

Regina hadn’t known.

--

David let Hook out of the cell long enough to help him move the body, and to cover it up with a spare deputy’s jacket.

Emma still wasn’t upset about it, if she was being honest.

But she did tell Henry not to look.

(Too late.)

--

Regina tried to leave, but David wouldn’t let her. “You’re here to make a statement against Mary Margaret,” he said.

“Well, get him out of here, at least,” Regina ordered, gesturing imperiously at Gold.

“I can’t,” David said, and Emma was surprised by the flash of impatience in his normally passive expression.

“You can’t,” Regina repeated, and Emma could tell that Regina was surprised, too.

“He’s Mary Margaret’s legal representation,” David said.

“You’re what?” Regina and Emma exclaimed.

“What did she do, anyway?” Emma asked.

Her mother. Her father. Her parents.

She had parents.

“She killed Kathryn Nolan,” Regina said, and Emma had to imagine that in other circumstances, this would have been a major victory--but for the body under the jacket, at least.

Prince Charming was arresting Snow White, his mistress, for the murder of his wife. It did have a certain irony to it.

Killian snorted again, apparently sharing Emma’s train of thought. “Well done, Your Majesty,” he said.

“A weapon was found in your apartment,” David said to Emma. “There was blood on it that matched Kathryn’s. Mary Margaret had no alibi.”

Emma looked from Mary Margaret, to Regina, to David. “You asshole,” she said, pointing her finger at him. “You believe it, don’t you?”

David hesitated. “Look, it’s this situation,” he said. “It’s been confusing and horrible for everyone. But, Emma, I don’t think she’s guilty.”

He wasn’t lying--that much Emma could tell. But there was something there. Emma thought back to the other morning; his vacant expression and his aimless wandering, “I’m looking,” he’d said.

“She’s missing, but I will find her." "I will always find her.”

The curse.

It was the curse.

Something in David was fighting against it, pushing back against the magic.

“Your curse is weakening." “All curses can be broken.”

“She doesn’t need your words of encouragement right now, Sheriff,” Regina said.

“She needs her attorney,” Gold said, his smile widening when Regina glared at him.

“What did I ever do to you, anyway,” Mary Margaret said, “that you would take so much pleasure in this? Why do you hate me so much?”

Henry walked right up against the bars, wrapping each hand around one, and leveling Mary Margaret with a very serious look. “Grandma,” he said, “I need you to listen to me.”

If everything wasn’t so fucked up, it would have been funny, the earnest frustration in Henry’s small, childish voice.

“Grandma?” Mary Margaret whispered.

“You’re Snow White,” he said seriously. “She blames you for the death of her True Love. It’s all because she wanted to take away your happiness. That’s why you’re here.”

“Henry,” Mary Margaret said, something pleading in her tone. “Emma and I--we’re the same age--”

She looked at David, who couldn’t quite meet her eyes, and then at Emma, who smiled. Or tried to.

“Because she made time stop,” Henry insisted. “It was part of the curse.”

Mary Margaret sighed, shaking her head, and looked at Emma again. Emma shrugged.

“Hook has owned The Rabbit Hole for twenty-eight years,” Emma said. “Graham looked it up. I have the records.”

Mary Margaret opened her mouth, as if she was going to say something, and then closed it again. “Emma?” she said. Something in her voice had changed; it was like something was struggling to break through.

Just like David.

Emma reached a hand through the bars toward her friend--toward her mother--and Mary Margaret gasped.

She was looking at Emma’s tattoo.

Maybe--maybe if Emma could get them to remember--

Emma took a deep breath. “Magic is real,” she said, gesturing at the television screen, still paused with Cora’s hand deep within her chest. “Cora used it to try and kill me. To try and break the curse.” She could see Mary Margaret struggling to process it--wanting to trust her friend and roommate, her daughter, but she didn’t know how.

“The stories in Henry’s book are true,” Emma said. “All of them.”

That was the first time Emma had said that out loud.

“The stories,” Mary Margaret repeated. “Like the story that Hook told us in the bar?”

“What stories?” Regina said. “What were you telling my son?”

“Merely the truth, Regina,” Killian said.

“Henry?” Regina asked. “Do you think I’m some kind of...Evil Queen?”

Henry was silent, his eyes defiant.

“I’m your mother,” Regina said.

“No,” Henry said. “You’re not. Emma’s my mom.”

Mom. The word hit Emma as though her car had swerved off the road all over again. Mom.

That was the first time Henry had ever called her that.

“She’s the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming,” Henry said stubbornly. “And the product of True Love. And she is going to break the curse.”

And that was when Emma realized--

“Who said anything about an Evil Queen, Your Majesty?” Emma said, eyebrows raised.

Regina’s eyes widened.

But only for a second.

“This is ridiculous,” she snapped, turning away. “Henry, you’re coming home with me. You should know, Sheriff, that I am going to phone District Attorney Spencer about your handling of this issue. I’m not going to sit here and listen to Jones, a known murderer, spout tales about magic in front of my son--”

Killian laughed. It was a singularly unpleasant sound.

“Who’s ‘Jones’?” Mary Margaret asked tentatively.

Killian smiled--the tight, small kind that didn’t show any teeth. “Killian Jones, milady,” he said. “At your service.”

When Emma looked at him, she could still see the blood on the tip of his hook, but his eyes were clear and his anger was focused.

On Regina.

“Which murder would that be, Regina? The one you hired me for twenty-eight years ago? The one that bought my passage to this world?”

He moved to stand, to walk toward her as if he could make the bars disappear, and Emma put her hand on his arm, letting it fall down to his wrist. She felt him, she felt his reaction to the contact, the way his breathing hitched, and she didn’t--

She didn’t know, exactly, what she was trying to tell him.

Any port in a storm.

Maybe this time, there didn’t have to be a storm. Maybe, if her parents remembered, they could all--

Be a part of something.

Gold smiled again, and giggled, and Emma froze at the sound, that fucking sound that had haunted her dreams since Graham had died. “Oooooh,” he said, and it was very nearly a song. It made Emma’s stomach flip, the sheer glee in his voice, and she pulled her hand back. “I had no idea, pirate, that keeping you alive all of these years would prove not only useful, but entertaining as well.”

“How many years, exactly?” Mary Margaret said.

“Several hundred,” Killian said succinctly, keeping his attention on Gold.

“One might go so far as to say that he’s my oldest friend,” Gold said, and giggled at Killian’s scowl.

Emma couldn’t help but feel that they were having an entirely different conversation, the two men. There was a lot of history there, after all.

“The crocodile ripped her heart out while he made me watch.” “This man has an unfortunate habit of taking what is mine.”

“I’m flattered, crocodile,” Killian said finally, “but I could just as easily say the same about you. Or hadn’t you realized that the boy is your grandson, every bit as much as Snow’s?”

It hung in the air like an accusation rather than a fact, taking on shape and weight as it enveloped the room. Perhaps predictably, Henry was the first to speak up.

“Wait,” he said, and he was somehow so damn hopeful that Emma’s already-full, recently-stolen heart wanted to burst into a different kind of white light. “You knew my dad?” His eyes were round and bright and he had a kind of half-smile on his face--

Emma heard the change in his breathing; she knew the instant Gold saw it, too.

“You could have just asked me for the keys.”

Neal’s smile.

“Yes, lad,” Killian said gently. “I knew your father.”

“One day, we were going to go back for him.” “The boy who would have been my son, if I had had the strength to let him in.”

“Several hundred years,” Mary Margaret repeated. “That’s not--it isn’t--”

“That’s not possible,” David said.

Every trace of amusement was gone from Gold’s expression. “Baelfire?”

Emma didn’t answer.

“You knew Baelfire?”

“Mom?”

Mom. She knelt down in the cell, and smiled at her son through the bars.

“I can make you tell me, Miss Swan,” Gold said.

“You don’t have magic here,” Emma said.

Gold sucked in a breath and glared at her.

“I thought all of this was part of your big, elaborate plan, Gold,” Emma said. “The one to use Regina to cast your curse, and now you’re telling me this is all some kind of coincidence?”

“There are no coincidences,” Gold said. “Everything that happens, happens by design.”

“He can see the future,” Henry explained.

“Maybe,” Emma said. “But I don’t think he saw this coming, kid.” She stood up just as Gold and Henry spoke, their words coming on top of one another’s.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know, kid,” Emma said, focusing only on Henry. “I really don’t. Things got--complicated. He left me, and I had you, and I--”

“I know,” Henry said. “You wanted to give me my best chance.”

“Yeah,” Emma said.

“You had him in prison, Miss Swan,” Regina said, cutting in.

“Is that true, Emma?” Mary Margaret’s voice held only sympathy, and Emma shut her eyes, just for a minute, at the pure motherly concern. She nodded, and felt the brush of Killian’s hand on her shoulder.

“But you found each other,” David said, speaking so quietly that Emma almost didn’t hear him.

“I’ll find you. I will always find you.” “You’re so much like her, you know.”

The question ran through her mind before Emma could even process it--did David mean she and Killian had found each other, like in the book?

True Love is the rarest magic of all.

But then she realized what he’d meant.

Henry.

“Henry is my son,” Regina said, looking only at Gold. “You’re the one that brought him to me. You arranged his adoption.”

“I needed the Savior to come,” Gold said.

“Yeah,” Emma said, “but that’s not what happened, is it? I came here on my own. I found a job on my own. I had a life, on my own, at least until you killed my partner.”

“You’re the Savior because it was all part of the plan.” "Rumplestiltskin mapped out your life before you were even born.”

Only--Gold arranged the adoption.

And finding Graham--and Ruby and Mary Margaret--her job and her life, it had been like coming home.

“And look at what you’ve accomplished since then, Miss Swan,” Gold said. “You’ve found your son, and your parents, and a pirate who pines for you. You might even say that I did you a favor.”

“You killed Graham?” Regina said.

“You killed him, Your Majesty,” Gold sneered. “I just saw to it that he finally died.”

Regina’s face, already pale with grief and contorted with anger, was nearly white. The look in her eyes, Emma realized, was fear--fear mixed with impatience as she looked at her watch, looked up at the scene before her, and checked it again.

“I’m sorry,” Emma said, “are we taking longer than you accounted for when you decided to railroad my best friend?”

My mother, Emma didn’t say.

“Is Kathryn even missing, by the way,” she continued, “or did you do that, too?”

Killian chuckled. “Got it in one, Swan,” he said. “Regina’s not going to let all of her hard work burn, is she?”

There was a knock at the door, and Emma jumped.

“Calm down,” David said. “It’s just the lunch I had sent up.”

--

It felt like it happened in a second.

Maybe less.

But in retrospect, as she stood there staring at Killian’s lifeless body on the floor of the station, it was more like a slow-motion trainwreck.

(Killian would have had a Shakespearean reference on the tip of his tongue, something sad and depressing but also beautiful. He would quote it, and she would roll her eyes, and he would explain it and wink and she thought it annoyed her but really--she kind of liked it.) (She liked him.)

--

@kmomof4​ @shireness-says​ @optomisticgirl​ @scientificapricot​ @captainsjedi​ @carpedzem​ @mariakov81​ @stahlop​ @eirabach​ @snowbellewells​ @searchingwardrobes​ @spartanguard​

#cs fic #csrt #captain swan rewrite a thon #our little life (rounded with a sleep) #canon divergence #s1 divergence #cursed!killian #an alternate theory of the curse

[theonceoverthinker]

Reimagining Ferdibert’s A-Support

You know what I love? Ferdibert.

You know what I don’t love? Their A-Support.

Follow me here for a minute.

Ferdinand and Hubert have three stellar Supports. Their C, B, and A+-Supports (Especially the former two in relation to each other) build so well on the odd relationship Ferdinand and Hubert have.

But their A-Support? It’s cute to listen to and relates well to the A+-Support, but beyond that, it’s honestly not very good. 

It doesn’t connect the nuanced and tense conversation in their C and B-Support to the romantic and gentle tone of their A+-Support, and since all three of the latter supports can only be accessed following the time skip, it just makes the A-Support look clunky. We basically go from their B-Support, a terse argument over what is the best way for them to act as advisors to Edelgard when they disagree with her -- pitting Hubert and Ferdinand’s very ideologies against each other and not leaving that conflict with a true resolution, to their A-Support, a calm and tranquil discussion over Ferdinand’s optimism and Hubert’s impartiality. That would be all well and good, but (1) it doesn’t get the benefit of having the time skip placed between them, and (2) it is not related in the conversation to how Hubert and Ferdinand view their roles as advisors, making it (And unfortunately, by extension, the A+-Support) seem unnecessarily cut off from the former support conversations. Hubert and Ferdinand just start getting along for seemingly no reason. It’s clunky.

So I’m going to reimagine the A-Support, aiming to keep to the spirit of the original version, but tweaking it as to better connect to the C and B-Supports. If you’re still following me, I hope you’ll join me under the cut!

Ferdinand enters the dining hall, a cup of tea in hand, and notices Hubert sitting alone at the end of the tables with a cup of coffee beside him. As always, Hubert’s in a gloomy state, but Ferdinand can tell that it’s worse than his typical brand of gloominess. It Ferdinand gives pause. Ferdinand approaches Hubert.

Ferdinand: Hubert, what’s wrong? You look moodier than usual, something I never thought possible before.

Humbert: *scoffs* Nothing a fool like you could understand.

Ferdinand: *lightly scowls as he sits down* Try me.

Hubert: *Takes a deep breath* Do you remember that letter we discussed some time ago?

Ferdinand: The one you sent without Edelgard’s permission? Of course. 

Hubert: Complications recently arose with the noble it addressed, and the noble made the letter and the threats that accompanied it public. Lady Edelgard...is rather upset with me for sending it after she expressly forbade me from doing so. She has not only barred me from any further interference with the matter, but has now seen it fit to insist upon personally inspecting any and all of my future correspondences for the foreseeable future.

Ferdinand: *nods, taking the story in* I won’t say that the punishment doesn’t fit the crime.

Hubert: *scowling* You must be enjoying this.

Ferdinand: *shakes head* I’m really not, if you can believe it. This is why I told you to discuss matters like these with Edelgard before taking matters into your own hands.

Hubert: I can’t believe you turned out to be right…

Ferdinand: Hubert, it’s not about being right or wrong -- it’s about making sure Edelgard doesn’t make a decision without true guidance. She’s the Empress, and as evidenced by her conflict with that noble, not without good reason. Her decisions are made with the best of intentions and are often right. But with the kind of power she yields, it’s up to us -- both of us -- to make absolutely sure that she steers that power she knowingly yields in the right direction by challenging her stances when need be. And we will -- together.

Hubert: *face softens* Hmm. 

*A moment of comfortable silence passes, with light sips of beverages accompanying the music*

()()()()()()()()()()

From here, the rest of the support plays out as it did in the original version.

...But do you see what I mean here? Doesn’t that make for a richer conversation? It not only provides closure to the conversation in their B-support, but gives Hubert tangible reason from within their support to compliment Ferdinand’s optimism.

#fe3h #fire emblem three houses #ferdibert #ferdinand von aegir #hubert von vestra #crimson flower

[anastpaul]

Saint of the Day – 18 January – St Margaret of Hungary O.P. (1242-1270) – Nun and Virgin – born in 1242 and died on 18 January 1271 at Budapest, Hungary.   Her relics were given to the Poor Clares at Pozsony (modern Bratislava, Slovak Republic) when the Dominican Order in the area was dissolved, however, most of her relics were destroyed in 1789 though what remains are still preserved at Gran, Gyor, Pannonhalma, Hungary.   Patronage – against flood.   Attributes – Dominican holding a lily and a book, a princess with a lily,  Dominican in prayer with a globe of fire over her head.    Princess Margaret was a Dominican nun and the daughter of King Béla IV of Hungary and Maria Laskarina.   

Margaret, the daughter of King Bela IV, champion of Christendom and Queen Mary Lascaris of Hungary, was offered to God before her birth, in petition that the country would be delivered from the terrible scourge of the Tartars.   The prayer having been answered, the king and queen made good their promise by placing the rich and beautiful three-year-old in the Dominican convent at Vesprim.   Here, in company with other children of nobility, she was trained in the arts thought fitting for royalty.

Margaret was not content with simply living in the house of God, she demanded the religious habit–and received it–at the age of four.   Furthermore, she took upon herself the austerities practised by the other sisters–fasting, hairshirts, the discipline (scourge), and night vigils.   She soon learned the Divine Office by heart and chanted it happily to herself as she went about her play.   She chose the least attractive duties of the nuns for herself.   She would starve herself to keep her spirit humble.   No one but Margaret seemed to take seriously the idea that she would one day make profession and remain as a sister, for it would be of great advantage to her father if she were to make a wise marriage.

This question arose seriously when Margaret was 12.   She responded in surprise.   She said that she had been dedicated to God, even before her birth and that she intended to remain faithful to that promise.   Some years later her father built for her a convent on the island in the Danube between Buda and Pest.   To settle the matter of her vocation, here she pronounced her vows to the master general of the order, Blessed Humbert of the Romans, in 1255 and took the veil in 1261.

Again, when Margaret was 18, her father made an attempt to sway her from her purpose, because King Ottokar of Bohemia, hearing of her beauty, had come seeking her hand.   He even obtained a dispensation from the pope and approached Margaret with the permission.   Margaret replied as she had previously, “I esteem infinitely more the King of Heaven and the inconceivable happiness of possessing Jesus Christ than the crown offered me by the King of Bohemia.”   Having established that she was not interested in any throne but a heavenly one, she proceeded with great joy to live an even more fervent religious life than she had before.

Margaret’s royal parentage was, of course, a matter of discussion in the convent.   But the princess managed to turn such conversation away from herself to the holy lives of the saints who were related to her by blood–King Saint Stephen, Saint Hedwig, Saint Elizabeth of Hungary and several others.   She did not glory in her wealth or parentage, but strove to imitate the saints in their holiness.   She took her turn in the kitchen and laundry, seeking by choice much heavy work that her rank might have excused her from doing.   She was especially welcome in the infirmary, which proves that she was not a sad-faced saint and she made it her special duty to care for those who were too disagreeable for anyone else to tend.

Simone Martini – St Elisabeth, St Margaret and Henry of Hungary and below the detail of St Margaret which is often mistaken for St Clare of Assisi.

A number of miracles were performed during Margaret’s lifetime and many more after her death because Margaret had an implicit faith in the power and efficacy of prayer. The princess nun was only 28 when she died.   Most of the particulars of her life are recorded in existing depositions of witnesses taken in 1277.   Her friends and acquaintances petitioned for her to be acclaimed a saint almost immediately after her death.   Among them was her own servant, Agnes, who rightly observed that this daughter of a monarch showed far more humility than any of the monastery’s maids. Although their testimony expressed Margaret’s overpowering desire to allow nothing to stand between her and God, the process of canonisation was not complete until 1943, when she was canonised on 19 November by Venerable Pope Pius XII.

(via AnaStpaul – Breathing Catholic)

#stmargaretofhungary #january18stmargaretofhungary #catholic #catholicism

[nemossubmarine]

DA RP Write-up #14.7

Things are coming to a close today, and what a show it was! Get ready for it folks, we have drama, action, adventure!! Romance?! Stakes have never been higher! 

We start where we left off last time, that is the carta’s jail cell. We’ve some time to spend while we’re there, so Cahair gets back to talking with the miners.

There appears to be some Legion of the Dead members in the cells as well, presumably ones that have never been with the carta.

Boshara continues to be impatient and gets no food for her trouble-making. Alf shares some of his so she won’t have to go completely without.

Our heroes are locked up for two days, and on the morning of the second day, Cahair realizes that he can’t see out of his left eye.

Boshara checks it over again, and realizes that it is blighted. 

Both Cahair and Elspet aren’t doing super-well, they’re shivering and sleeping poorly. The jail isn’t helping.

Luckily, it seems that Hedda has woken up and Bobin Bood comes to pick us up to go meet her.

She still doesn’t look well, nothing’s going to bring back the eye that she gauged out, but she seems less completely bonkers, so it seems like a good time to make some deals.

Hedda isn’t as giving as we might have hoped. She is willing to take us and our ship as part of her lyrium operation. This would mean that some of her men would come to the ship, but we’d get all the lyrium we’d need with no cost.

She does want us to prove to her our loyalty somehow. One of her offers is for us to deal with Lord Mandulfr, which we aren’t willing to work with at all. In fact, we’d very much like for her to leave Randy alone.

She speaks of Randy as a greedy asshole and heavily implies he was the one who arranged his own father’s murder, but that’s not a situation we want to poke at with Hedda present.

That leaves us with two tasks: Assasinate Saelac and assassinate King Aeducan, and we’re like, sure thing, we can work with that.

Before we get our heroes back to Orzammar, we’ll take a short look at what Humbert has been up to, while we have been away.

Merle, which we had put up to relaying our intents to Humbert, has gotten the nerves over the bomb-threat, so that’s pretty much all the thing Humbert gathers from him.

He goes to the Dusttown and picks up Trin, who he arranges to stay at Randy’s house.

Now it’s time to get worried about the others, as the Provings are long over, and there are no sign of them. So Humbert starts arranging a search-party. 

He goes for Saelac personally for help, and somehow, proving once again that his reputation as a convincing fellow is well-earned, he convinces Saelac to help.

The search party searches over the city first and then turns to Deep Roads.

And in the Deep Roads is where Humbert & co find the others. Boshara rushes to hug him and then hug Saelac. (Humbert also gives hugs to everyone else, though Cahair declines on the basis of being Blighted)

Boshara starts rambling about how we had noticed that Cahair and Elspet were Blighted and we went to the Deep Roads to find some Wardens. Having found none, and gotten in quite a bit of trouble, we decided to return.

This story is bought by Saelac who arranges a fine dinner in celebration of having bravely rescued Boshara, which he totally did. Yep. 

Before we can get to any assassinating, Boshara wants to try heal Cahair and Elspet, as their conditions are surely not getting any better.

Boshara asks Saelac for some quarters to do the procedures in, and is granted some rooms in the Warriors’ Quarters.

Boshara goes to talk with Randy about the situation. Randy offers himself and several people from his house as blood-letters. 

There’s something off with Randy, but Boshara is too concerned with the fact that both Cahair’s and Elspet’s life hang on her shoulders to really pay much attention to this.

All the people have gathered, Randy and dwarves from his house will give blood, as will Alf, Boshara, Humbert, Merle, Breck and Kaino. This should be enough.

Cahair will be operated on first, as his condition seems much worse, possibly because Elspet has not done the elven healing spell on him that she did to herself. Also this leaves Elspet the chance to watch over the procedure and assist if needed.

Before starting the operation, Cahair makes Alf promise to take care of Richard, in case Cahair doesn’t make it, and tell Richard that Cahair is sorry he couldn’t make it to say goodbyes.

Then it’s under the metaphorical knife for Cahair. The operation goes well, possibly because Boshara has done this before, and possibly because the Blight is not yet as bad as it was with Hedda and Harrowmont.

The Blight clings to the eye however, so Elspet has no choice but to remove it.

Boshara decides to leave Elspet’s operation for the next day, as she is tired. Before the end of the day, she visits Kivi-Jaakko and asks if he could make a glass eye for her. Inside the eye Boshara copies some of the elven symbols that decorate Cahair’s face.

Then it’s next day and Elspet’s turn. Kaino will watch over her operation as the healer, though being primarily a primal mage, his healing skills are limited.

Luckily Elspet’s operation goes just as well, leaving only a nasty scar above her left breast where the Blight was the worst.

Both sleep for few days and wake up in good health. 

Boshara presents Cahair with the glass eye she ordered, which he is very glad to receive.

Both of our Blighted friends are now saved, at least temporarily. It’s time to get to assassinating.

Boshara has been working double duty, healing and flirting up a storm with Saelac. It’s still Boshara flirting, so it’s not the best flirting, but Saelac seems charmed none-the-less.

He also seems to be interested in Elspet as well, so maybe he’s just slimy.

Boshara manages to convince Saelac to take her out on a date to the Provings Ring, with only two dwarves as guards, and even those are left outside.

They are having a lovely dinner date, when Saelac presents Boshara with a ring.

Boshara agrees to this sudden proposal, and they are just exchanging a deep loving(?) kiss, when an arrow pierces the air and hits Saelac in the head, killing him instantly.

The next arrow hits Boshara in the shoulder. 

Boshara cuts Saelac’s tongue off, leaves it on his chest, sprays blood everywhere, hurts herself a bit more, and lays down next to him, just when the guards come in to check.

In the audience’s stands Alf gets up and starts to sneak out of the building, after a job well done. One of the guards catches a sight of him, but can’t really tell who the sneaking figure is.

So Saelac is dead. Boshara plays the part of grieving bride-to-be, though she makes sure to let everyone know, she wants no claim to Saelac’s political power.

Orzammar is quite in turmoil, as there is no one to obviously name as a successor. 

Randy seems troubled during this time as well, as two of his friends, Anselmi and Berengrad seem to follow him everywhere. There’s really no time to talk with him about this, as there is an investigation on Saelac’s killing.

Carta is named to be the guilty party.

After few weeks, as the dust has somehow settled in Orzammar, our heroes head off, past the templars at the front gate.

At the front gate is also Dominique and the Tevinter mage that got Blighted in a previous adventure. They are Wardens now, so Dominique has come to say her goodbyes and resign from the ship.

They also tell that the glass statue of the little girl has been left at Anderfels; the Wardens wish to study it.

We pick up some carta members and some lyrium on our way, but there’s still a second assassination to do. Alf, Boshara, Cahair and Elspet convince Humbert and Randy to go the ship, while they themselves will go to Denerim, where they heard from Hedda the King was.

They get to Denerim with some speedy horses and use all kinds of old friends to help locate the King. Once they have done so, it’s time for Elspet to get her assassin’s creed on.

On our way to Denerim, Elspet had practiced a new form, so those are the skills she’d use. 

First as a bird, she sneaks in and locates King Aeducan and his wife. 

Then she transforms into a poisonous snake and bites the King. 

The King is dead. Long live the King.

We get back on the ship, only to find out that an Antivan-looking dwarf by the name of Carla has joined the crew, a friend of Randy it’s claimed, and she does seem awful fond of not leaving Randy alone for a moment.

We might be in some deep trouble further down the line, be it with the carta, with the Crows or with Orzammar, but we have our lyrium, and that’s all that matters. And all it took was two political assassinations. Worth it?

And that’s all folks! What a crazy morally ambiguous time we had deep down in the dark down deep down. This just goes to show that our party isn’t made for politics. 

I’ll be taking the rears next with probably two campaigns if not back-to-back only mini-sessions in between. I am very excited for the both of them, and maybe for the next one, we’ll manage to keep the body count slightly lower, perhaps.

#nemo roleplays #da rp writeup #campaign tag: cuddling with carta #long post #guess who's character just lost their eye!! #- me at stef immediately after i got home #good thing he's not an archer anymore #what a fantastic end to a fantastic campaign #very satisfying #i cant help but wonder if we had managed to get a different end result had humbert been with us #at the carta hideout #maybe he could have seduced hedda :DD #ah well it happens #now the four of us have a secret from humbert and randy #as they have secret they're keeping from us #ours might be a bit worse tho #woopsie #77

[swanslieutenant]

If the Stars Align - Chapter XIII

Summary: The Musketeers AU. Danger lurks around every corner in the French court and as a Musketeer in service of the royal family, Killian’s duty is to protect them from any and all threats. As his relationship with Queen Emma develops into something more than just friendship, threats against the queen escalate and put everything they hold dear into jeopardy.

Rating: M

Content warning for the story: violence, mature themes, minor character death.

Chapter warning: Some more violence in this one.

Art by @hook-and-star-ink​ , @acaptainswaneternity and @seastarved. Follow this to check all the pieces currently published and give them some love!  

Catch Up on tumblr: ch1, ch2, ch3,  ch4, ch5, ch6, ch7, ch8, ch9, ch10, ch11, ch12

AO3: ch13

The funeral takes place three days later. It’s a quiet affair, hosted in a local church with few guests. When the king learned of Captain Humbert’s death, he wanted to host a lavish funeral, with full military honours, but that wasn’t something the captain would have wanted. He was a simple man, honourable and loyal, and he would have wanted a quiet, dignified service instead of one full of people he’d never met.

At the church, squashed between a sniffling Will and a stony David in one of the pews, Killian is numb to everything around him. Lancelot’s eulogy and the priest’s words wash over him, an incoherent hum drowned out by the words on repeat in his mind.

This is my fault.

None of the other Musketeers have said anything of the sort, but he knows they’re thinking it. In the three days since Captain Humbert’s death, Killian can count on one hand the amount of times someone has made eye contact with him or said anything not related to their work duties. And, honestly, he can’t blame them – the words the Musketeers aren’t saying are the same words he’s been asking himself for three days.

Why didn’t you let Robin kill Regina?

Captain Humbert would be alive if you did.

Robin blames you.

Killian hasn’t seen Robin since Captain Humbert’s death, but he knows that one is the truest of them all. Will mentioned briefly that he’s staying at La Lune, too upset to be anywhere near the barracks right now, not with Captain Humbert’s belongings still there, not when three days ago, he was alive and well.

David and Will suddenly get to their feet beside him, others rising behind them, and the small church fills with a low, conversational hum. The priest must’ve finished the sermon, dismissing the mourners, and Killian gets to his feet too. Though the other Musketeers remain at the front of the church, talking quietly to the priest, Killian follows the crowd as they all shuffle to the back of the church, desperately needing some fresh air.

In the last row of pews, three women remain seated as the rest of the church files out. They are all dressed the same, black veils over their heads, simple black gowns with not a drop of ornamentation. No one pays them any attention, thinking them other mourners, but Killian pauses beside them – he would recognize that golden hair anywhere, even hidden under veil.

“You didn’t have to come, Your Majesty.”   

“Of course I did,” Emma replies, gaze over his shoulder on the closed casket at the front of the church, her voice solemn and quiet. “Captain Humbert was a loyal soldier, one who died in my service. I had to come and pay my respects.”

She glances to him, and though Killian thinks he’s kept his emotions pretty well hidden under a stony face, he knows instantly he hasn’t fooled her. She leans forward, resting a hand on his arm, squeezing his arm.

“Are you alright?”

“’Course.”

She frowns, unconvinced, but Killian is spared a further lie because Lancelot arrives at his side, bowing slightly at Emma when he realizes it’s her.

“We’re going out to the gravesite now.”

Killian and Lancelot return to the front of the church to help David and Will carry out the casket while Emma and her two ladies exit the church. The weight of the coffin is heavy, but nothing compared to the weight of the guilt, and he relishes the ache he feels in his just-healed chest wound as he shifts his weight.

He almost falters as he steps out of the church, his gaze focusing in on the freshly dug grave across the small cemetery. There’s a small crowd there, and they part as they bring the casket down the slope, lowering it with ropes into the ground.

The priest steps forward to speak once more, but his words are meaningless; Captain Humbert can’t hear the praises and compliments, can’t chuckle at the funny anecdotes, can’t do anything anymore.

And it’s all Killian’s fault.

The crowd starts to shift away, murmuring quietly to each other, but Killian doesn’t move. David notices, and claps him on the back, squeezing his shoulder.

“We’ll be at the barracks. When you’re ready.”

He nods numbly, staring at the gave and wishing, wishing he’d been the one shot by Regina instead, if only to not feel this enormous guilt and regret weighing him down like an anchor.

“He was a good man.”

The voice startles him out of his daze and he realizes Emma is there beside him, staring sadly at the grave. They’re the only two remaining in the cemetery now, even Emma’s ladies gone, their only company the sweetly singing robins in the nearby willow trees.

Killian nods and swallows deeply. “Aye. He was.”

He allows her to turn him away from the grave a few minutes later, and with no one else around and her veil still covering her features, she links her arm with his, leaning her head on his shoulder.

“Let’s go for a walk.”

She leads them away from the grave, the pair of them walking in silence. It’s not until they’ve reached the small path on the outskirts of the cemetery that Killian speaks, the words spilling out of him like wind forced from his lungs from a sucker punch.

“It’s my fault.”

“It is not your fault –” Emma counters immediately, but now that he’s started talking, the words keep coming, a relentless downpour.  

“It is. I stopped Robin from killing Regina and she turned right around and shot Captain Humbert. If I hadn’t stopped Robin, if I had just let him shoot her, then the captain would still be alive.”

Emma moves to stand opposite him, bracing her hands on his arms. “That’s because you are a good man too, Killian. Captain Humbert would be proud of you. You showed her mercy by not letting Robin kill her. It’s not your fault she’s a monster.”

“I didn’t do it for her,” he grinds out, shaking his head; he won’t let her try and talk him out of this. “I did it – I did it because we needed answers, and because ... because as much as he hates her, Robin couldn’t have lived with himself if he killed her. And now because of that, Captain Humbert is lying in the cold ground and it’s my fault.”

Emma rests her hand on his upper arm, squeezing his arm tightly. “Then you did it for your friend, Killian. And that is what good men do.”

He just shakes his head. He’s not a good man, not at all. He’s standing there, feet from the fresh grave with Emma, the Queen of France, who could die just like Captain Humbert because of him.

In the chaos and mind-numbing pain of the last week, Cardinal Gold’s dark comment and darker eyes had drifted to the back of his mind, ever present but lurking on the edge of his conscious. And now, with a moment of privacy and silence, he tells Emma what he heard.

She listens with narrowed eyes, and doesn’t say anything for a few moments when he’s done talking. Then she shakes her head, her grip tightening on his arm, and she tosses her hair over her shoulder.

“I don’t know if Gold does suspect something from what you’ve said, but he doesn’t scare me. He’s never scared me. We’ll just have to be more careful when he’s around from now on, okay?”

“Emma, it’s becoming too dangerous –”

Her eyes flash, and she barrels right over him. “I don’t care what Gold thinks he knows or doesn’t. I’m not losing you, Killian. My whole life has been one of order and performing the wishes of everyone else, and I haven’t felt like myself in a long time … not until a good man treated me like I was just a normal woman.”

She steps forward, pulling the veil up and over her head, and cups his face in her hands. He wonders if he’s ever noticed how green her eyes really are, how they sparkle like gems in the sunlight.

“I love you, Killian.”

He stares back at her, stunned. Then he surges forward, capturing her lips with his, and she wraps her arms around his neck. He can taste salt on her lips, and he’s not sure if its her tears or his. He holds her around the waist, pulling her closer, both of them holding each as close as possible, as if they’re each the others’ lifeline, as if no one else in the world matters. Gold, the king, Death himself – they and their threats fall away, and it’s just Emma and Killian, time standing still around them.

He closes his eyes again when they break apart finally, leaning his forehead against hers and savouring this precious moment.

“I love you too.”

In light of Captain Humbert’s death, Lancelot is named the new captain of the Musketeers. There’s normally a ceremony of great pomp and circumstance, held at the Louvre itself, but this time the transition of power is quiet, the mantle passed on too soon and no cause for celebration.

A week after the funeral, Lancelot summons Killian, David, Will, and Robin to the office. Robin finally returned to the barracks a few days ago, eyes bloodshot and face thin, and he’s been quiet since, keeping to himself and talking to no one. In fact, the Musketeers have hardly said anything to each other at all, each grieving in their own way, and when Lancelot summons them, Killian assumes this meeting is going to be about how they’ll all have to move forward and leave their grief behind.

He and David are the last to arrive to the office, and Killian pauses in the doorway, taking in the room, feeling like he’s been punched in the gut. The office is full of Captain Humbert’s things – his jacket, his boots, his personal effects – and the sight of all of it, abandoned and left behind, makes Killian want to run in the opposite direction.

David nudges him forward and into the room, and Killian swallows those feelings away. Robin and Will are already seated, staring at the floor, and once they’re all seated, Lancelot begins. With seriousness dripping from his voice, he explains that everyone needs to trust each other, especially in the light of what has happened. Everyone needs to stop blaming themselves – here he glances pointedly to Robin and Killian – and focus on who really is responsible.

Regina.

The door to the office edges open, revealing a nervous recruit, and he steps into the room.

“Sir –”

“Not now,” Lancelot says shortly, frowning at the interruption. “I asked not to be interrupted.”

The young man doesn’t move. “I know, but sir – this is an emergency. It’s – it’s her. She’s here.” 

Killian has no idea who he means, but he takes in the young man’s clenched fists, teeth gritted together in anger, and he realizes only one person could cause such a reaction.

The others all come to the same conclusion, and everyone shoots to their feet, out the door in seconds and clambering over each other to look down into the courtyard from their place on the second level of the barracks.

Standing there, the recruits giving her a wide berth, with a sublime smile and dressed as if she should be attending a royal ball instead of a grieving soldiers’ barracks, is Regina.

Will lets out a roar of anger, and shoves the others out of his way.

“What the bloody hell are you doing here?”

He jumps down the steps two at a time, hand already drawing his pistol. Killian is the closest behind him, and sees Will raise the pistol, but he doesn’t move to stop him – he saved this woman once already, and look where that got them.

David must sense Killian’s inaction, because he leaps ahead, grabbing Will’s arms and pulling him backs.

“Don’t kill her, Will,” he says, shooting Regina a deadly glare as he holds Will back. “We’re not murderers like her.”

Lancelot and Robin join them in the courtyard, the Musketeers fanning out in a line to face her. Robin stands stiffly, his eyes betraying nothing but a cold hatred as he surveys his estranged wife.

On her part, Regina surveys them all with a smirk, but Killian notices she’s missing her usual oomph. She lifts her hands up in surrender, and says, coolly, “There’s no need for violence, gentlemen. I come in peace.”

“You don’t know the meaning of peace,” Will snarls, pulling hard at David’s arms.

Regina levels a cold glare at him, and lifts her chin with a touch of defiance. “I know you all hate me, and you have every right to. But you’re going to want to hear what I have to say.”

“There’s nothing you can say,” Killian says, starting to feeling sick at her casual entrance into their barracks, as if she has no care in the world the man she killed used to live upstairs. “You’ve done enough.”

Her jaw tightens. “Be that as it may, you’ll want to hear this.”

Lancelot crosses his arms over his chest, narrowing his eyes. “What is it?”

She shakes her head, eyes flickering over Killian for a moment, and he really feels sick now.

“In private.”

It’s a tense walk back up to the office, and this time it’s almost harder for Killian to enter, to see Regina where Captain Humbert once lived. The others don’t seem to notice, and Will snaps, “Get on with it” the moment the door swings shut behind Robin.

Regina levels another cool, unimpressed glance at Will before her eyes flick to Killian. The bad feeling magnifies, cold and terrible and –

“The Cardinal knows there is something between you and the queen.”

The floor drops out from under him.

No, no –

He leans against the doorframe, winded. Robin’s eyes burn a hole through him, while the other three Musketeers stare at Killian, totally bewildered.

“What are you on about?” David demands. “The Cardinal knows about what?”

Killian doesn’t say anything. He can’t focus on thinking of a way to explain this to them, when all he can think about now is what he’s done, what he’s done to Emma, what this will do to the both of them.

Robin sighs angrily when it becomes apparent Killian won’t be saying anything. He too ignores the others, and glares at Regina.

“How do you know that?”

But before she can answer, Lancelot holds up a hand. “Wait – wait, there – there is something between you and the queen?”

Killian manages a nod, and the Musketeers gape at him. Lancelot looks like he’s been stunned after a brutal blow, David’s eyes are wide, and Will’s jaw drops open.

“You and the queen? The queen? Mate –”

“Now’s not the time to worry about your comrade’s bedroom affairs,” Regina snaps. “The cardinal knows and he’s going to use it against her. He’s going to arrest Jones and try to execute Queen Emma because of the affair.”

Execute.

Oh God –

“But how do you know that?” Robin asks again. He straightens abruptly then, realization dawning in his eyes. “It was him, wasn’t it? He’s the one who hired you to try to kill Queen Emma.”

The Musketeers turn their attention away from Killian, the room falling deathly quiet as they stare at Regina. She sighs, looking uncomfortable, and nods.

“Yes, it was him.”

“Why?” Lancelot demands. “Why would Cardinal Gold want her dead?”

Regina shrugs, as if it’s obvious. “He wants to be the pope.”

No one says anything, confusion settling over them, and Will lets out a barked laugh.

“Am I the only one not seeing any logic here? How is killing our queen gonna make Gold the pope?”

Regina waves her hand impatiently. “I know you lot are soldiers, but think for a moment about politics, okay? The Italians have their candidate for the next pope already, so to become pope, Gold would need the support of the Spanish cardinals. They won’t support him while the French queen is a Protestant, and well, they want one of their princesses as queen instead. If Queen Emma wasn’t around anymore ...”

“I don’t understand,” David says into the silence lingering after Regina’s sentence. “If Gold needs Queen Emma out of the way to be pope, why not make the king divorce her? Kings have done that before, and Emma wouldn’t have to die.”

“You’ve been hit around the head too much, haven’t you?” Regina says, rolling her eyes as if David is the biggest fool alive. “Catholics can’t divorce, remember? Last time a king tried that, all of England left the Church. Just ask your friend Jones here.”

His heart skips a beat as the Musketeers all look over to him again. The last thing he needs right now is his English heritage dumped out in front of him too, something he doesn’t know how Regina could possibly know about either.

“What?”

Regina sighs, and shakes her head. “Forget about that for now. We’ve got more pressing matters, yes?”

Though their eyes linger on Killian for a moment, they look away and back to Regina.

“Even if what you’re saying is true, that this – this affair with Killian is true, the king will never kill the queen,” Lancelot says, stubbornly.

“The cardinal has more influence than you think,” Regina replies darkly. “Why do you think you lot weren’t allowed near the Louvre for weeks after my bandits failed at St. Meissa? And now this – he’ll say it will be an embarrassment to let her live or for the king to allow her crime to be so lightly punished. He’ll manipulate the king into killing her, no matter what that idiot of a monarch actually wants. He’ll tell him it’ll be more secure for the Dauphin’s future if his mother is gone and no longer able to influence him, or something of the sort. Trust me. He’s got it sorted out.”

The room is starting to feel overwhelmingly hot, and Killian sinks against the doorframe even more heavily.

He needs to talk to Emma right now.

“Why the bloody hell should we trust you?” Will snarls. “You’re the reason our captain is dead. What’s to say this ain’t a ploy to get us all and the queen to boot?”

She straightens, her eyes turning icy. “You can either believe me, or not, but if you don’t, both your queen and your friend will die.”

No one says anything for a long while. Killian’s about to just leave them all here, turn on his heel and head straight to the Louvre, when Robin speaks again, voice wary.

“If you’re wrong –”

“I’m not.”

“Why tell us?” Lancelot demands. “This seems out of character for you.”

She shifts, now looking distinctly uncomfortable, and she glances over to Killian, eyes unreadable. “You saved me at Saint-Eustache. Warning you about this makes us equal.”

Killian stares at her for a long moment, arms crossed and eyes dark. She meets his gaze evenly, and though revulsion rises in him – this woman has tried to kill Emma multiple times, succeeded in killing Captain Humbert and Monsieur Gillert, she didn’t have to warn him about this. And yet, here she is.

Forgiveness or anything of the sort is nowhere in sight, but he nods tightly, accepting her word; he can recognize good form when he sees it.

He pulls away from the doorway, hand dropping to the sword at his belt, and regards his fellow Musketeers with a tight jaw, determination etching itself into his posture.

“I have to tell Emma.”

Emma takes the news as well as can be expected. She listens in silence to Robin’s explanation of the events, eyes dark and serious, and when he’s done, looks over to Killian. He’s sure she must see the fear in his eyes before he can mask it, and she turns back to the others.

“Can you give us a moment, please?”

The Musketeers don’t move, David crossing his arms over his chest, Will and Lancelot raising their eyebrows and looking between Emma and Killian with pointed stares.

Emma’s eyes flash, and she drops her hands to hips. “A minute please, gentlemen.”

Her voice offers no chances for arguments, and they shoot Killian dark looks as they skulk reluctantly through the west doors. As soon as the door shuts, leaving Emma and Killian alone and with the sound echoing up through the large hall, words spill out from Killian, unbidden.

“I’m so sorry, Emma, I never meant for this to happen. I’ll send in my resignation before he does anything, get out of Paris as quick as I can.”

Emma shakes her head vehemently. “You’re not going to resign. If you leave in a rush, it’ll tell Gold he’s right.” She takes his hands, holding them tightly. “This – this is the worst-case scenario, but we’ll figure something out, together. Okay?”

She stands on her tip toes to wrap her arms around him, pulling him tightly against her and pressing a kiss against his cheek.

The east doors fling open, so suddenly that they spring apart as if jolted by lightning. Cardinal Gold strides into the hall, spreading his arms wide in exclamation, with a cohort of Red Guards filing in behind him.

“Well, isn’t this precious. Caught in the act.”

Emma steps in front of Killian, twisting to push him slightly behind her, but doesn’t release his hand.

“What do you want, Cardinal?”

“I’m not here for you, dearie,” he says loudly, and his eyes slide to Killian, dark and triumphant. “You, Killian Jones, are an English spy, sent here by the English king to undermine the stability of the French court, and as such, you are hereby charged with adultery and high treason, and are ordered executed three days hence.” He flicks his head to the Red Guards, and they step forward automatically. “Seize him.”

His heart stops, and Emma fully in front of now, raising one hand and standing to her full height as the Red Guards advance.

“I forbid you to touch him. Do so, and you yourself disobey your monarch and I will have you charged with treason.”

Even though these are Red Guards, loyal to no one but Gold, they do hesitate, staring uncertainly between her and Gold.

The cardinal sighs, annoyed. “I had hoped to avoid any unpleasantries, but you leave me no choice.” He withdraws a scroll from his cloak, unrolling it and reading aloud: “By order of His Majesty, the King of France, you, madame, are to be confined to your chambers until such time the king has determined what a suitable punishment for your crimes of adultery and treason.”

The floor drops out from Killian the second time that day, and Emma’s shoulders stiffen. Her grip on his hand tightens, and she doesn’t move from Killian’s side.

“Did you know your lover was an English spy, Your Majesty?” Gold asks, voice quiet. “No doubt your whispered pillow conversations are already the daily dinner talk of the English court. Or perhaps you’re a spy with him too? After all, heretics tend to group together.”

Emma doesn’t even flinch. “You are a liar, Cardinal. This is an order from you, not the king.”

Gold laughs a demented giggle, sending chills up the back of Killian’s neck at the sound. “You can look at the warrant, dearie. But I assure you the royal seal is there. Let’s not waste our time with any more stall tactics you have up your sleeves. I have been authorized to use any sort of force necessary to comply with the king’s wishes; shall we move up the traitor’s execution date to right now, or will you both come quietly?”

Again, neither Emma or Killian move. Killian looks around the room, judging how long it would take for him to grab Emma and run to the west doors across the hall before the Red Guards could shoot them, and almost as if Gold senses Killian’s thoughts, the cardinal stiffens and gestures his guards forward.

“Arrest them.”

This time, the guards obey, marching forward and grab them both by their arms. Killian is pulled roughly away, his hand ripped from Emma’s, and he thrashes against their grasp. Two more descend upon him, pulling him back so roughly he nearly falls to the ground.

Emma tries to break free of her guards too, stomping on their feet and twisting her body out of their hands, but they pull her back, holding her still as Gold steps forward.

“This is what happens to people who get in my way,” he says softly, his voice is as cold as if the Devil himself was speaking. “I’d stop fighting if I were you, Your Majesty. Lest you want him tortured before I kill him.”

Emma’s eyes turn hard and stony, and Gold’s lips edge up into a mockery of a smile as she stops pulling at the guards. Smirking he turns around and flicks his hand at the Red Guards.

“Get the rest of the Musketeers when they come in. None of them leave here except in chains, understood?”

Guards head towards the west doors, and by chance one of the doors opens a crack, David sticking his head into the room to see what is going on.

“Get out of here!” Killian screams; he can’t take everyone down with him too.

The guards holding him punch him hard in the stomach, and he buckles over in pain. When he looks up again, gasping and panting, the Red Guards are just wrenching the door open again, exiting the room to chase after the Musketeers.

“Now, now,” Gold says, anger flashing in his eyes. “That’s enough of that. Take these traitors away, him to the Bastille, the queen to her rooms. Now!”

Killian is winded from the punch, but he still pulls furiously at the guards holding him as they wrench him upright. One of them punches him again, this time across the face, and his head snaps backwards, his cheek exploding in pain.

“Stop!” Emma shouts.

She’s struggling with her own guards, but there’s no chance for either of them. Her guards pull her out towards one set of doors, Killian’s to another, and her shout of anger and his shout of her name are the last thing Killian hears before the guard punches him across the face again, the world going black and silent in an instant.

#cs ff #csbb #captain swan #captain swan big bang #cs mc ff #fic: if the stars align #sorry in advance but also not sorry because pain and angst are my middle names

[catsafarithewriter]

Secret Santa: I Dreamt of the Faces of the People I Loved

Hey, hey, hey @headphonescinderella, guess who your Secret Santa was this year! (It me.) So one of your requests was whatever this freaky, freaky video inspired, and after several sleepless nights, I ended up drawing ideas from Koh the Face Stealer from Avatar the Last Airbender. One sleepless night deserves another. 

The first face she saw it wearing was Humbert’s.

Her step faltered at the cavern’s opening then, a sound in her throat threatening to dissolve into a sob. Only faint sunlight found its way into these depths, weaving past the tree roots above, but there was no mistaking that face.

That face that she had fallen in love with; that smile, those eyes, that laugh…

All stolen now.

“It’s not safe for someone like you to wander these woods alone.”

That voice - Humbert’s voice - resonated through the cavern, so familiar that it took all of her willpower to remember Louise’s fatal warning before she had embarked on this mission.

“Show no fear. Show no emotion at all or it will steal your face also.”

She tightened her grip around the old battered cane and continued her steady descent. “Someone like me?” she echoed.

“Human.”

As she reached the bottom of the cavern, the monster passed by a beam of light and she caught a glance of a tailored suit and silk top hat. Light grey, almost white gloves that spoke of human hands, but furred wrists that betrayed a more feline origin.

Haru watched her breath escape from her lips in misty spirals, anything to detract from the monster that had stolen Baron’s face, but even as it approached her, her mind noted how even its movements were reminiscent of Humbert.

Its heels clicked with the same precision he had always taken, each step that slow, smart pace. The steps of someone who had always been so sure of his path.

“Do you know who I am?” Humbert’s voice asked.

“Do you think I would have come all this way if I didn’t?”

“Then you are a fool.” The monster paced, a smile playing on familiar lips as it waited for her to err. “Let me guess: you come to avenge a loved one. Who did I take? A sister? A father? A lover?”

Faces flashed across its visage, shifting from victim to victim with heartless carelessness. She saw the faces of other missing people from her village; the baker, the teacher’s daughter, the blacksmith’s apprentice. Faces she knew. Faces she had mourned.

She swallowed, the only betrayal of emotion past indifference that she allowed herself. Slow breaths.

“My fiancé.”

“Ah. The young baron.”

Humbert’s face returned in full force and, as braced as Haru had been for the inevitable, she felt her breath hitch.

“Yes.”

Humbert’s face split into a smile, his smile, and Haru felt sick.

“A foolish fellow, if ever there was one. To think he could talk sense into something like me.”

“I told him it was useless.” Her voice thickened, fingers clutched, knuckle-white around the cane. “I told him that he couldn’t reason with something like you, but he wouldn’t listen. He wanted to believe there was good in everyone. Even you.”

“And you?”

“What about me?” she asked.

“Do you believe there’s good in everyone?”

“I believe it’s a person’s actions that define them, and yours paint a very dark picture indeed.”

The monster laughed, eyes crinkling in that same manner Humbert’s always had. “So you don’t come to try to reason with me.”

“If such a thing were possible, Humbert would have succeeded long before I tried.”

“That’ll be a no.” The monster continued to circle Haru, hands tucked at the small of his back. “You come to kill me, then?”

“I come to stop you.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Difference enough,” Haru said.

“And how do you intend to stop me? With the flimsy blade hidden in that cane?” There came a chuckle when Haru’s grip shifted around the cane’s hook. “Oh, did you think I wouldn’t know about that when I have all of your fiancé’s memories? It would take more than a pitiful toothpick to leave any lasting damage, I’m afraid.”

Haru released the breath she had been holding and forced her grip to loosen. She feigned a calm she did not feel. “I know. In fact, I know all about you.” She stared straight ahead, concentrating on not meeting the monster’s gaze. “You’re the spirit that steals the faces of its victims—“

“Any mother’s child knows of such stories,” it said. “You are no different.”

“—but only of those who show emotion,” Haru finished. She looked to it now, noting the almost imperceptible pause in its step. “Why is that? What’s so potent about emotion? That seems such a petty limitation, don’t you think?”

“Is that why you came? To satisfy a curiosity? I have taken people for less.”

“I think it’s because you don’t have any emotions of your own,” she continued, “so you have to steal those of others’. But they don’t last, do they? So it’s onto the next victim, the next meal, the next face. Just to feel the merest echo of what it is to be human.” Her breathing was accelerating, her voice veering dangerously towards ire. “But it’s not enough, is it? You can dress up all you like, but the truth is you’re still nothing but a beast. That’s all you’ll ever be.”

It smiled, but the smile didn’t reach its narrowed eyes. Human irises flickered and then were swallowed up by feline eyes. “Do you think that knowing that protects you?” Humbert’s voice dissolved into an inhuman growl. “Do you think that knowing to hide your emotions are enough? You are human; you are made of emotion and sooner or later you will slip. And when that happens, nothing will save you.”

“Maybe. But until then, you will listen to me.” Haru watched as the animal eyes narrowed, ire at being denied its victim playing clearly across its stolen face. Her heart was hammering as if attempting to break free from her rib cage, but she fought back the vicious, bittersweet smile. “I came here to see if Humbert had been right - to see if there was even a scrap of morality in your miserable being. I see now that, the one time that it mattered, he was mistaken. I don’t see anything in you that deserves mercy.”

Humbert’s face smiled thinly back, revelling in the emotions it would not allow others. “You speak as if you have me at your mercy, human. Warriors have tried to kill me; I took their faces. Scholars have tried to study me; I took their faces. Foolish do-gooders have tried to reason with me; I took their faces. What could you possibly do that has not been tried before?”

“This,” Haru said, and she unsheathed the cane’s blade and stabbed it into its side. She backed off, her face impassive but her chest heaving.

The monster looked to her, and then down to the sword impaling it’s jacket. “Well, I am disappointed,” it said. With a gloved hand, it pulled the cane out and dropped it to the cavern floor. “I told you that a toothpick like that would never—“

As it took a step forward, its leg gave way. Its hands jumped to the ruined jacket. There was no blood, but it’s hands shook. “What… what have you done to me?!”

Haru fell a step back, a smile flickering at the edge of her lips, hardly daring to believe it’d worked. “You should think twice before taking someone’s face,” she said. “They might have family who know how to undo you.”

“What have—“

“Humbert’s father is a sorcerer,” Haru continued, taking grim delight in talking over the face stealer. “He doesn’t have a lot of magic, but he has a whole library on the theory. His mother is a herbalist. May not sound like much, but she knows the magical properties of anything green that grows. And they found a way to stop you, monster.”

A laugh trickled at the edge of her voice, relief spreading through into her eyes and forming tears. “You’ll never take another person. I promise you that.”

“No,” it growled. “I’ll have one more face yet. You forget your emotions, human!”

The monster lunged, hands gripping her jaw and claws breaking through the gloves. Haru felt her skin break. Blood dripped down her chin.

Its face - Humbert’s face - looked over hers, its mouth splitting impossibly wide with far too many teeth. A guttural, animal roar tore from its throat.

And then it released her.

It stumbled back, its hands moving to cradle its head, that roar dwindling to a whine. Tears flooded those feline eyes.

“What have I done?” Haru echoed back. She straightened, wiping away the blood at her chin. “I’ve given you what you wanted. I’ve given you emotion.”

“This...”

“Is everything your victims felt. All the fear and sorrow and anger. It’s not so much fun when it’s real, is it? Real emotions have power. Real emotions hurt. And now they’re all yours.”

She picked up the discarded sword and slotted it back into the cane sheath, the blade glittering with the potion coating it. She started up the stone steps to the cavern’s opening. 

“You’re... you’re just going to leave?” the monster hissed. “You’re not even going to finish me off?”

“And deprive you of your realised dream?” Haru called back. “I think not. But don’t worry; when word spreads of your state, people will come to finish the job soon enough. Until then, though, I think you have several lifetimes of emotions to catch up on. Enjoy.” 

Gripping the cane ever tighter, she left the cavern and its wailing occupant behind, and stepped out into the evening sunlight. For the first time in a long time, she smiled. 

#tcr secret santa 2017 #headphonescinderella #cat writes #the cat returns #warning this hit like 1600 words #I have a few other presents to finish #but until then enjoy this nightmare #the cat with hands #baron is a cat with hands #that was my initial thought #reined it back to a monster instead of baron tho #had enough of that for a while

[winterbaby89]

Dark Hook Comes to Storybrooke - Chapter Two

A Captain Swan, Season 1 Canon Divergence Collaboration by: @hollyethecurious, and @winterbaby89 

Beta’d by: @ilovemesomekillianjones

Amazing Artwork by: @xhookswenchx

Rated M for language and dark themes (and maybe (probably) some sexy times… later ;o)

Summary: Moments before the Evil Queen’s Dark Curse whisks our beloved fairytale characters to Storybrooke, Captain Hook finally gets his revenge on the Crocodile. Twenty-eight years later, Killian Jones awakes in Storybrooke expecting just another ordinary day, that is until a number of abnormal occurrences disrupts his otherwise scheduled life. The greatest of which is a new face in town. A young woman by the name of Emma. Emma. What a lovely name…

Disclaimer: Canon dialogue and scenes from various episodes will appear within this fic. To Adam, Eddie, and the OUAT writers goes all the credit.

Line breaks indicate change in POV or Scene.

Also available on ao3, my fic page, and Hollye′s fic page And if you want to catch up on the last chapter. 

This work is no longer available on FF.net. Unfortunately the site does not allow authors to co-publish collaborative works.

Chapter Two

His hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Hands. Plural. As in, he had two of them again. How?

Was it a side effect of Regina’s curse or from his being...

The Dark One.

The bloody Dark One.

I’m the bloody Dark One!

It had all come back in a rush. Fast and sporadic flashes of memories - his memories - that told the story of his long life. A life that spanned centuries, and yet the truth of it had hit him in an instant. The truth of who he truly was.

Killian Jones.

Orphan.

Slave.

Lieutenant.

Pirate.

Captain Hook.

Dark One.

Killian shuddered at that final memory, and then panic seized him once again. He spun around surveying the room, expecting the Crocodile to manifest himself at any moment with his mocking and jeering. But he hadn’t appeared. Not in the bar. Not on the long walk home. Not even now as Killian paced the length of his manor.

Why?

‘This new realm is a land without magic’, he remembered suddenly. Regina’s words, just before she’d solicited him to kill her mother, echoing in his ear.

A Land Without Magic.

‘Where The Dark One will be stripped of his power.’

For the first time in what seemed like hours Killian took a deep, steadying breath. The Dark One had no power in this land. He had no power in this land. Even still, Killian could feel the rage, the anguish, and the all encompassing darkness he’d felt in that clearing. The memory of their collective presence haunting him more severely than any of his other demons ever had.

And even if they now lay dormant within him, it didn’t change one other fact… he was still Captain Hook. A villain in his own right. A scourge and a scoundrel out for only one thing. Revenge.

Killian pressed his fingers onto the now vacant space on his forearm. Milah.

Revenge had been his, but at what cost?

He’d become the very thing he hated the most. The very thing she hated most. Rumplestiltskin may not have been The Dark One when they’d been together, but Killian had seen it in her eyes when he’d told her of his run in with her husband turned Dark One on the docks; the loathing at what he’d become coursing through her.

For centuries Killian had justified his own depravity and darkness because it was all in pursuit of avenging her. He believed that she’d understand, would offer him absolution for his actions because the ends would justify the means. But now…

Now all he felt was shame. Shame at what he’d become, and thankful to all the gods that she had not lived to see how far he’d fallen in his quest for vengeance. And not just Milah, but Liam as well.

Liam.

Killian clasped at the chain hanging from his neck, but knew it would not hold what he sought. Liam’s ring. What had become of it? What had become of all his possessions? His hook, his coat, his sword, his…

Dagger.

The Dark One dagger.

It had been in his hand when the curse hit, and even though he knew it no longer had the power to control him (at least, that is, as long as Regina’s curse and the lack of magic in this land kept The Dark Ones at bay) he in no way wanted it in anyone else’s possession other than his own.

Killian tore the manor apart in his search, upending rooms he had no memory of ever even entering before. Memories of his cursed life interspersed with his real life. Bloody hell, leave it to Regina to over complicate matters. As if three hundred years of his own memories weren’t enough for his mind to contend with, now he had twenty-eight years of practically the same day recurring over and over again in his head. The only detail making the days distinct from one another was Henry.

Henry. He knew.

The lad knew about the curse. He’d mentioned it before, his suspicions that the stories in the book his teacher had given him were true. Killian had recognized it as a coping mechanism, a way for the lad to try and escape the reality of his unhappy life. A way to ground himself to something more hopeful.

Killian now understood why Henry Mills had come to mean so much to him. He was a lost boy, just like Killian.

On some level Killian had recognized that trait in Henry, even as he had forgotten his true self. It’s probably what had prompted him to suggest that the boy seek out information about his birth parents in the first place. Of course, he never considered that Henry would actually run off in search of the woman who’d given birth to him. But seek her out, the lad had, and her presence in Storybrooke had already begun to change things.

The mystery of why her name broke the spell he had been under notwithstanding, Killian knew he’d only just scratched the surface of the intrigue Emma Swan possessed. But he couldn’t focus on that now. On her. He had a dagger to find and a secret to keep.

As Emma dressed the next morning, and thought about stopping at the diner for breakfast, she heard a knock on the door. Answering it revealed Regina with a basket of apples in hand, and a fake smile plastered on her face. Great, I have to deal with her crap before I’ve even had the chance to drink my first cup of coffee? Just great. Before Emma could manage a polite hello, Regina thrust an apple toward her and started in on some random spiel.

“Did you know the honeycrisp tree is the most vigorous and hardy of all apple trees? It can survive temperatures as low as 40 below and keep growing. It can weather any storm. I have one that I've tended to since I was a little girl, and to this day I have yet to taste anything more delicious than the fruit it offers.”

“Thanks,” Emma responded dubiously as she took the proffered apple Regina extended to her, still clutching her cup in her right hand.

“I'm sure you'll enjoy them on your drive home.” Regina tried to hand over the full basket of apples, but Emma took a half step backward, refusing to reach out for it.

“Actually, I'm gonna stay for a while.”

A brief flicker of anger and agitation crossed Regina’s face at Emma’s declaration and refusal before she schooled her features into a mask of pleasant nonchalance. “I'm not sure that's such a good idea. Henry has enough issues. He doesn't need you confusing him.”

“All due respect, Madam Mayor, the fact that you have now threatened me twice in the last twelve hours makes me want to stay more.”

“Since when were apples a threat?”

“I can read between the lines. Sorry. I just want to make sure Henry's okay.”

“He's fine, dear. Any problems he has are being taken care of.”

A concern for Henry’s well being swelled within her chest at Regina’s words, prompting her to ask, “What does that mean?”

“It means I have him in therapy. It's all under control. Take my advice, Ms. Swan, only one of us knows what's best for Henry.”

That’s right, Emma thought. She remembered meeting Henry’s therapist the other night when she brought him back to Storybrooke, he was the kind man that had given her directions to Regina’s place. She remembered as a sense of relief flooded through her that Regina wasn’t referring to something more sinister. Great I’m starting to think like Henry, she’s not the Evil Queen, just a concerned parent, most likely a bad parent, but concerned nonetheless.

“Yeah, I'm starting to think you're right about that.” Emma didn’t miss the glare Regina sent her way at that comment.

“It's time for you to go.”

“Or what?” Emma challenged.

“Don't underestimate me, Ms. Swan. You have no idea what I'm capable of.” Considering that the end of the disturbing conversation, Emma shut the door without another word to Regina, and locked it before going back to getting ready for the day.

Thirty minutes later, Emma found herself perched at the counter in Granny’s diner. Perusing the menu, she debated what to order, when Ruby set down a hot chocolate with cinnamon and whipped cream in front of her.

“Here you go.”

“Thank you, but I didn’t order that.”

“Yeah, I know. You have an admirer.” At that comment, Emma turned and tried to tamp down the hope that it might be from a certain blue eyed gentleman who had haunted her dreams the night before, only to see Sheriff Humbert. Her disappointment swelled within her as she picked up the cocoa and approached his table, intending to let the poor man down gently.

“Ah, so you decided to stay.”

Was it really that much of a surprise to him? “Observant, important for a cop.”

“It's good news for our tourist business. It's bad for our local signage.” Graham looked a little uncomfortable with the awkward pause as his joke fell flat. “It's... it's a joke. Because you ran over our sign.”

The only immediate response she can muster is to roll her eyes at his terrible attempt at a joke. “Look, the cocoa was a nice gesture, and I am impressed that you guessed that I like cinnamon on my chocolate, 'cause most people don't, but I am not here to flirt, so thank you, but, no thank you.” Gently placing the cup on the table, she considers whether or not she would have accepted it from a different, accented man.

“I didn't send it.”

“I did. I like cinnamon, too.”

Her head shot towards the front table by the window at the sound of Henry’s voice. How did I not see him there earlier? “Don't you have school?”

“Duh. I'm ten. Walk me.”

He’s definitely my kid with that eyeroll. Without so much as another look at the sheriff, Emma placed a hand on Henry’s shoulder and began steering him out the door towards the bus stop.

Killian stopped abruptly in the back hallway of the diner as he watched the Swan girl and Henry make their way out of the diner and along the sidewalk that led to the bus stop. He was going to have to come up with some sort of excuse for avoiding Henry, as he was not quite ready to bring himself to lie to the boy by keeping up with his cursed facade in the lad’s presence. For now, he had a more pressing issue at hand; one he hoped the good Sheriff might be able to assist him with.

Killian prided himself on possessing a stealth that served him well in keeping people on their toes, or catching them off guard with his approach, but he’d never been able to get a jump on the Sheriff. The man somehow always knew when Killian, or anyone else, was approaching him, he seemed to have a sixth sense about him. In light of Killian’s regained memories he wondered just who Graham was back in their realm, and what the man would say if he knew that it was the infamous Captain Hook, or The Dark One for that matter, that was making himself welcome in his booth.

“Good morning, Mr. Jones. Something I can assist you with?” the Sheriff questioned, his disdain only slightly veiled in his tone.

“Actually, Sheriff. I’ve come to do my civic duty as a responsible citizen and business owner,” Killian replied as he placed a hand gun on the table between them, causing the Sheriff to tense momentarily before Killian could add, “I found it at the docks. Thought it best to turn it in to the proper authorities.”

The truth was Killian had found it during the search of his home overnight. Guns, knives, legal documents, and all manner of possessions had been uncovered. While not completely inconsistent with his nature, the items weren’t altogether authentic to who he was, cursed or otherwise, either, and no dagger had been found among them. It was only after he’d felt certain that no location within his home had been overlooked that Killian began to consider where within the town he might continue his search.  

The stash of weapons he’d found concealed in various rooms had led him to the idea that the dagger may lay unclaimed within the Sheriff’s station. Not wanting to tip the lawman’s suspicions any further than they would be prone to, Killian had devised the ruse of turning over the firearm in hopes of naturally opening up the opportunity to question Graham about unclaimed blades.

“You found it?” Graham questioned suspiciously.

“Aye.”

“At the docks?”

“Aye.”

“And you’re just turning it in?”

“Would you rather I not?” Killian quipped inquiringly. “Too much paperwork involved, or are you running out of room to store unclaimed weapons at the Sheriff’s station?”

“We don’t have any unclaimed weapons at the station,” Graham admitted, unaware that he’d just provided the pirate with the very information he sought.

Damn! Killian cursed to himself. He’d have to continue his search elsewhere.

“Right. Well, first time for everything I suppose. I’ll leave you to it then, Sheriff.”

Killian exited the booth and took purposeful strides toward the door. He ran through his mental list of potential locations the dagger could be hiding, as he made his way to the sidewalk a flash of blonde curls and red leather caught his eye. He watched Emma make her way through the door that led up to Dr. Hopper’s office, or according to Henry, Jiminy Cricket’s office, and was once again struck by the urgent pull he felt toward the beguiling woman.

Shaking off such fanciful notions he turned himself towards the docks. He had a dagger to find and a day of searching through warehouses, offices, and his beloved Jolly Roger ahead of him.

Emma lounged on her bed at the B&B as she scoured the files that Dr. Hopper had given her about Henry. So far nothing was jumping out at her, but she wasn’t completely sure what she was looking for. She wasn’t a therapist, and until about three days ago she hadn’t considered herself a parent either. Not that she did even now that Henry was in her life.

A sharp knock at the door added to her current disgruntled state. When she found Sheriff Humbert on the other side she couldn’t help the sarcastic greeting that fell from her lips.

“Hey there. If you're concerned about the Do not disturb signs, don't worry, I've left them alone.”

“Actually, I'm here about Dr. Archibald Hopper. He mentioned you got into a bit of a row with him earlier?”

“No,” Emma clipped firmly as she placed her hands on her hips in annoyance.

“I was shocked, too, given your shy, delicate sensibilities,” Graham mocked, earning him an eyeroll. “He says you demanded to see Henry's files and when he refused, you came back and stole them.”

“He gave them to me.”

“Alas, he's telling a different tale. May I check your room, or must I get a search warrant?”

Unbelievable. Emma turned and allowed Graham to enter. There was no point in delaying the inevitable.

“Is this what you're looking for?” she asked, gesturing to the numerous papers scattered across the bed.

“Well, you're very accommodating,” Graham needled as he picked up a few papers before delivering the news Emma had been waiting for, even as she reeled at the outrageousness of it all. “I'm afraid, Ms. Swan, you're under arrest. Again.”

“You know I'm being set up, don't you?” It was more a statement than a question as Graham affixed cuffs to her wrists.

“And who, may I ask, is setting you up?”

Emma continued to proclaim her innocence, casting accusations at Regina all the way from the B&B to the Sheriff Station. She questioned Graham about Regina’s hold and influence on the town even as he booked her.

“Regina may be a touch intimidating, but I don't think she'd go as far as a frame job,” Graham argued.

“How far would she go? What does she have her hands in?”

“Well, she's the Mayor. She has her hands in everything.”

“Including the police force?” Emma accused.

“Hey,” an excited voice echoed from the hallway.

“Henry, what are you doing here?” Graham asked.

“His mother told him what happened,” Mary Margaret supplied, having accompanied Henry to the station from school.

“Of course she did,” Emma exasperated as she stared pointedly at Graham before addressing her son with a bit of trepidation. “Henry, I don't know what she said-”

“You're a genius,” Henry interrupted.

“What?”

“I know what you were up to. You were gathering intel for Operation Cobra,” Henry speculated with hushed excitement.

“I'm sorry. I'm a bit lost,” Graham confessed.

“It's need-to-know, sheriff,” Henry said dismissively, “and all you need to know is that Ms. Blanchard's gonna bail her out.”

“You are? Why?” Emma questioned incredulously.

“I, uh, trust you,” the petite woman stated skittishly.

Looking between Henry’s smug face and Mary Margaret’s quiet understanding Emma felt her need for retribution spike as she turned to Graham with her hands out in front of her.

“Well, if you would uncuff me, I have something to do.”

Killian aimlessly wandered along the streets of Storybrooke, having had no success in locating the dagger. Though, he had uncovered more intriguing items that would require his attention and focus once the bloody damned blade was back in his possession.

He was starting to wonder if the infernal thing had come over in the curse at all. For all he knew, it remained in the Enchanted Forest sealed away in the vault he had emerged from after the Crocodile’s death. The only way Killian could be truly sure was to either keep searching and find the bloody thing or march into the Mayor’s office and ask Her Majesty. The latter option was not one he was willing to entertain, so he continued his trek as he ticked off all the locations he’d already explored.

Not in the manor, not at the Sheriff’s station, no sign of it in any of my usual hiding places within the Jolly. The warehouses and dock offices were a bust as well. Perhaps I should… what is that blasted noise!

The sound of a motor cut through Killian’s internal mutterings as he realized he was just across the street from the Town Hall. His curiosity piqued at the unusual sound, Killian made his way towards the building’s courtyard to investigate, but then quickly had to find a place to tuck himself away as he saw the Evil Queen exit the building.

“What the hell are you doing?!” the mayor exclaimed as she rushed across the courtyard towards the racket that continued to permeate the area.

A racket, that Killian could now see was being caused by the lovely Emma. She was wielding a chainsaw, ruthlessly plundering the Mayor’s prized apple tree as she made a quip about picking apples. Now, more than just Killian’s curiosity was piqued at the sight before him.

“You're out of your mind.”

“No, you are, if you think a shoddy frame job's enough to scare me off.”

Frame job? What else have I missed? Killian wondered.

“You're gonna have to do better than that. You come after me one more time, I'm coming back for the rest of this tree. Because, sister, you have no idea what I'm capable of.”

Killian watched as Swan violently tossed the chainsaw aside and challenged, “Your move,” before stomping away. A fresh appreciation for the tough lass washed over him. So, she and the Queen are at odds, then? Not surprising, he supposed, Regina’s at odds with everyone in this accursed town.

Just as Killian was preparing to extricate himself from the dark cluster of shrubbery he’d hidden away in, Sheriff Humbert pulled up in his police cruiser, no doubt having received a complaint about the noise of the chainsaw. Killian decided to remain tucked away for their exchange. Treasure and priceless commodities came in many forms, none more valuable in his experience than good, old fashioned gossip. Information that one could use against one’s enemies was a prize worth harboring in the bushes for.

Killian patiently listened as Regina expressed her desire to once again have Swan arrested, only to have the Sheriff question the effectiveness of such an action, even as he inferred his suspicions that Emma had, indeed, been set-up for her earlier transgressions.

“I think your schoolboy crush is clouding your judgment,” Regina barbed accusingly at the Sheriff.

The accusation caused a spark of rage to ignite in Killian’s chest, he bit back a growl that threatened to reverberate from within. Taken aback by having such a fierce response to the implication that Graham may harbor feelings for the same woman who had so ensnared him, Killian nearly missed the remainder of their exchange.  

“You want me to arrest her again, I will,” Graham complied.

“Good.”

“But she's gonna keep coming at you, and I know you, you're gonna keep going at her, and you will do whatever it takes to get her out of here and you may succeed-”

“No, I will succeed. He's my son. It's what's best for him.”

Killian could barely contain the scathing retort that burned his throat, knowing now just how manipulative and cruel the woman had been in regards to the boy.

“I know that's what you believe,” Graham stated sympathetically, “but if this escalates, it seems to me the only one who will get hurt is Henry.”

Killian watched as Graham departed, leaving both he and Regina to stew in their thoughts of how the repercussions of Emma’s presence in Storybrooke would ultimately affect the boy. Even with the gut-wrenching realization of his true self, and the knowledge of what lay dormant just beneath his surface, Killian could not bring himself to resent Henry for bringing his birth mother there, and ultimately waking him from his cursed state. She was changing things, and Killian believed that such changes would only benefit Henry. It was apparent, however, that Her Majesty did not share this sentiment.

“There has got to be a way of getting rid of that woman without Henry blaming me,” Regina muttered to herself, as she passed Killian’s hiding spot. “If ever there was a time I needed my powers… wait-”

Killian’s attention sharpened at Regina’s mention of her powers. I thought this was a land without magic?

“Perhaps that little imp had something stashed away. Somehow my curse failed to bring him over, but perhaps there is something in the pawn shop that could be of use.” Regina’s speculations prompted her to abandon her immediate concerns for the mangled tree, and Killian watched as she rushed back into her office building - presumably to grab her purse and keys.

The Crocodile. Regina didn’t realize the truth of just why the curse had failed to deliver Rumplestiltskin to this land. But she believed something useful of his might be hidden away within the abandoned pawn shop?

Killian began to wonder whether or not a certain item he’d been in search of might be located there as well. He was at a disadvantage, seeing as he was on foot and Regina would have her car to get her there ahead of him, so Killian wasted no time in making his way back towards Main Street, hoping against hope that her search would not lead to the dagger before he arrived.

Chapter Three

Tagging some lovelies that have asked to be tagged, as well as some we believe might enjoy. Please let us know if you do, or don’t wish to be tagged.

@abeylin1982 @aprilqueen84 @artistic-writer @ashar663 @captain-k-jones @captain-swan-coffee @downeystarkjr @florenzu @freakassbuthunter @gingerchangeling @golfgirld @greenleaf777 @ilovemesomekillianjones @jennjenn615 @kmomof4 @laschatzi @leiaswanjoneskid @like-waves-on-the-beach @rookiehookie @seriouslyhooked @teamhook @ultraluckycatnd @xhookswenchx @yayimallamaagain

#cs ff #cs canon divergence #cursed killian #dark hook #season 1 #cs fanfic #Captain Swan #dark hook comes to storybrooke #winterbaby89writes #words by hollye #cs fan fic #cs fan fiction #captain swan fic #cs #captain swan fanfiction

[unfolded73]

This Graceful Path (7/19)

Summary: Emma has just moved in with Mary Margaret and started working as a deputy in the Storybrooke sheriff’s department when she meets Killian Jones, the town’s introverted harbormaster. When a prominent Storybrooke resident is found murdered, Emma tries to juggle solving the case with new friendships, parenthood, and romance. A Season 1 Cursed!Killian AU.

Rating: Explicit per CSBB guidelines (violence, sex); more of an M on unfolded73’s scale. The sex, when we get there, is not extremely graphic in nature. Same with the violence.

Content Warning: This fic contains two major character deaths, one canon and one not. (You’re already past them.) Content warning for depiction of alcoholism in this chapter.

Total word count: ~ 75,000

Acknowledgements: Thank you to @j-philly-b for betaing this monstrosity. Thank you to @caprelloidea for all of the read-throughs and cheerleading; not sure I could have written it without your excitement early on. Thank you to @teruel-a-witch for the original prompt on tumblr which sparked this fic. Thank you to @pompeiiablaze for the wonderful art which accompanies Chapter 3 and also will accompany later chapters. Thanks to the CSBB mods (@sambethe in particular, who had to look at my check-ins) for your support and for enduring my neuroses.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 – AO3 Link

Chapter 7

As soon as Emma arrived at the sheriff’s station the following morning, she regretted that she’d asked David to work an early shift. The last thing she wanted was him seeing her powered by little more than booze-soaked regret. The night with Mary Margaret, Ruby, and Ashley had been fun, and a much-needed break, but now she had to face the morning hungover.

“Whoa,” he said when he saw her, her face still pale and haggard, she assumed. “You okay this morning?”

“Um… to be honest, I drank too much last night, so no.” She felt vaguely ashamed, as if it was her own father seeing her in her sorry, hungover state. Which was ridiculous; she’d never even had a father.

“Oh, yeah? Sorry about that.”

“I’ll live. It’s my own fault.” She flopped down in her desk chair, hoping she could find something mindless and quiet to do until she was feeling a little more human.

“Hey, you know Killian Jones, right?” David said, walking over and hovering in the doorway to her office.

Why did everyone keep talking to her about Killian? “Yeah. I mean, I don’t know him well…”

“He helped me corral a stray dog down by the docks once, and he seemed like a good guy. Figured I should make an effort to make more friends, so I was going to invite him over to watch hockey or something. If you think he’d be interested.”

It was endearing, she had to admit, the way David was seeking her advice on how to woo a new friend. “I have no idea if he’s interested in sports at all, but sure, ask him.”

“Yeah, okay. I think I will.” He started to walk away, then paused. “Was… uh, was Mary Margaret with you last night?” David asked, his attempt to be nonchalant painfully transparent.

Not for the first time, Emma wondered if he just assumed that she knew about his and Mary Margaret’s affair. As always, it made her feel extremely awkward, so much so that she almost regretted hiring David as her deputy. Almost being the operative word; he was, as she expected, a natural at the job. “Yeah, she was.”

“I hope she’s not feeling too bad this morning,” he said, and the yearning was written so plainly on his face that Emma almost had to laugh. She couldn’t think of any two people less suited to carrying on a clandestine love affair than David Nolan and Mary Margaret Blanchard.

She cleared her throat. She felt the need to say something, something that would set things between Mary Margaret and David to rights, something that would prevent her roommate from getting her heart broken. but she knew such a thing did not exist.

“Look,” he said softly, “I know you probably think I’m a bad guy, and I can’t really blame you—”

“I don’t think you’re a bad guy,” Emma responded quickly, uncomfortable with the idea of David continuing to talk to her about this. “But I do think that a person I’ve come to care about is going to end up getting hurt, and I don’t want that to happen. If that makes it seem like I don’t like you, or don’t… I don’t know, approve of you, then I’m sorry. My only interest in this is her heart not getting broken.”

“Mine too,” David said. “I swear it.”

“I’m sure you think that’s true. But love is like a drug. You get addicted to it, and all you care about is the high, and it doesn’t matter what lies in your way of getting it. That’s how people get hurt.”

“That’s a very cynical attitude.”

Emma shrugged. “That’s life.”

~*~

She didn’t go back to the Rabbit Hole several days later because she knew Killian went there. She went because it had been a hard week, and she had very little to show for it, and she needed a drink. Still, she couldn’t help but notice the little thrill that ran up her spine when she saw him at the bar, any more than she could stop her feet from walking over to him.

“Swan,” he said in greeting, lifting a glass of dark liquid in her direction. “Off duty, I hope?”

Emma pulled herself up onto the barstool next to him and nodded. “Finally.” She flagged down the bartender and ordered a whiskey, because that’s the kind of night it was.

They sat in companionable silence for a while, nursing their drinks. Emma cast sidelong glances at Killian, relishing the burn of the liquor in her chest. Killian’s prosthetic hand rested on his knee, and she could see that there were zippers on the sleeves of the leather jacket he wore, and she wondered if it was more difficult for him to get the prosthesis through a sleeve. She wondered what kind of sailing accident could result in the loss of a hand. She wondered a lot of things.

“I see you’re no more interested in wearing a sheriff’s uniform than Humbert was,” he said, giving her a sidelong glance.

“They aren’t very flattering. And it’s not like people don’t know who I am; I don’t need a uniform to let people know I’m the law.”

“While that red leather jacket is quite fetching,” he said, and she could practically feel his eyes on her, raking up and down her body. She should have hated it. She really, really didn’t. “I’ve always thought so.”

“Given a lot of thought to me in my leather jacket, have you?”

“Oh, you have no idea.” He grinned at her, but the grin didn’t quite reach his dark-shadowed eyes.

“No offense, Killian, but you don’t look so great. You feeling okay?”

He took a swig from his glass, which she could now smell was rum. It fit with his whole tortured seafarer vibe, she thought. “I don’t sleep well.”

“Ever, or lately?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Still investigating me, Swan?” He raised his hand to the bartender, signaling for a refill.

“Why do you call me by my last name all the time?”

“I don’t know. ‘Swan’ suits you.”

“Because I have an abnormally long neck?”

“Because you’re pale and graceful. And you have a lovely neck.” His tongue darted out, licking his bottom lip.

“Okay, weirdo.” She took a drink from her whiskey and hoped that the dim lighting of the bar hid her blush.

Once Killian had downed a large swallow of his refreshed drink (and once she had averted her eyes from the way his neck muscles worked), he said, “I get nightmares.”

“What?” she said, feeling hazy and a little mesmerized. By the atmosphere, by his voice. By the way his neck looked when he drank rum.

“The reason I’m not sleeping well. I have nightmares,” he explained.

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

They sat in silence for some time, Killian continuing to drink like it was his job. “Does the drinking make the nightmares better or worse?” she asked him.

He chuckled, his jaw clenched. “Worse at first, but then I continue to drink until it makes them better.”

“Until you pass out, you mean? That doesn’t sound like a healthy lifestyle.”

“Oh, it definitely is not,” he said. “So, I suppose you’re settled in Storybrooke for the foreseeable future, eh?” It was a clumsy attempt to change the subject, but she allowed it.

“I guess I am.” Emma sighed heavily. His confessions about his nightmares and his drinking made her want to be straight with him. To let her walls down a little. “Now that I’ve gotten to know Henry, I don’t know if I can be away from him again. I already lost so much time.”

He turned and looked at her for a quiet moment, a small smile on his lips, one that this time reached his eyes. “He’s a good lad. I never really understood how Regina managed to raise a boy so full of hope and optimism, but now I know.” He raised his glass to her. “It’s you, Swan.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with his upbringing.”

“Must be something in your genetics, then.”

Emma snorted. “If there’s a gene for hope and optimism, then it skipped a generation.”

Killian laughed at that. “Are you saying we’re a black hole of despair and hopelessness, sitting here at this bar and sucking in all the light around us?”

“Something like that,” she said after another sip of whiskey.

Killian levered himself up from his bar stool, swaying slightly. “Well, this hopeless bloke needs a trip to the lavatory.” He dropped into a bow, and Emma was afraid for a moment that he might lose his balance and topple over. “Begging your pardon, love.”

Emma rolled her eyes, watching him weave an unsteady path to the bathrooms. It occurred to her for the first time to wonder how many hours he’d been sitting here drinking.

When Killian didn’t return after what seemed like more than a reasonable amount of time for a man to pee, she put enough cash on the bar for her own drinks and got up and to go looking for him. She didn’t particularly want to see what the men’s room of the Rabbit Hole looked like, but if Killian had passed out and clocked his head on a urinal, she probably should help him.

Rounding the corner to the short hallway that led to the bathrooms, she almost collided with him where he was leaning against the wall.

“Hey, you okay?”

He looked at her with a glazed expression. It seemed that his last few drinks were hitting him all at once. “‘M fine.”

“Did you pee?”

“Aye.” He was too drunk to be embarrassed at her inquiry after his bathroom activities.

“Okay, let’s get you home then.” Emma put an arm around him, guiding him out of the hallway.

“You goin’ to take me home and take advantage of me, love?” he said as he willingly went along with her. He wasn’t so drunk that he couldn’t move under his own power, but she kept her arm around him just in case.

“Not a chance,” she said, glancing at the bartender with a raised eyebrow.

The bartender waved her away. “He’s good for it,” he said.

Together, they left the bar, the wind whipping into them and stinging their cheeks with its icy fingers, a few desultory snowflakes falling from the sky. Emma looked longingly at her car, but unfortunately, she’d had just enough to drink that she doubted she was sober enough to drive.

“All right, we’re walking,” she said. “You up for it?”

Killian held up his prosthetic hand. “I don’t drive; I walk everywhere.”

Emma led them in the direction of the beach and his apartment. “There are plenty of people with a missing hand who drive,” she said. “You’d probably just need something on the steering wheel that would be compatible with your prosthesis. Not that you’d be driving right now; if you did, I’d have to arrest you.”

“I’d never endanger the populace that way, love.”

“Whatever. I’m just saying you could drive if you wanted to.” They trudged along the poorly lit sidewalk, and Emma was very aware of the way her arm was still slung around him. He felt warm and solid under his leather jacket. She couldn’t help but think about the fact that her best working theory for Gold’s murder right now was that someone had followed Gold in a car. If Killian didn’t drive, that was one more reason that he couldn’t have done it.

“You really don’t have to see me home,” he said after a while. The cold air seemed to have sobered him a bit.

“Yeah, I’m not gonna take the chance of you ending up dead in a ditch somewhere.”

“Why Swan, I didn’t know you cared.”

“It’s either I walk you home or I throw you in the drunk tank; your choice.”

“Believe me, I’ll take any excuse to have you see me to my bed.” He stumbled (God, his feet are really big, she thought, staring down at them), but managed to right himself before he pulled them both to the ground. Emma focused on getting them to his apartment and ignored his clumsy innuendo.

Finally, they made it to his front door. Killian was sober enough to pull his keys out and unlock the door, saving her the discomfort of rooting through his pockets. Still, she followed him through the dark space and watched as he shucked his jacket and kicked his shoes off before collapsing onto his bed fully clothed. “Sure you don’t want to join me?” His voice was muffled by the pillow.

“Yeah, I’m fairly sure,” she responded, rolling her eyes and turning to go. “Sleep well, Killian.”

“Emma,” he called, and she turned back, surprised at his use of her first name and at how suddenly clear his voice sounded.

“What?”

“Thanks for escorting me home.”

“Goodnight, Killian.” With a last long look at him stretched out on his bed, she left the apartment.

On the front steps, she collided with another person. “Oof, sorry,” she muttered.

“It was my fault.” The man wore coveralls and an easy smile and smelled faintly of engine grease. “Got called out on a late tow job.” Billy was emblazoned on his uniform, and Emma remembered Killian mentioning his neighbor. Billy finally seemed to register her face. “Hope there’s no trouble, Sheriff.”

“No, just making sure Killian got home from the bar,” she said with a thumb pointing back at his door.

“Ah. Well, I’m sure he appreciated it.”

“Hey, can I ask you something?” Billy nodded. “You’re probably not going to remember this so many weeks later, but November fifteenth; do you remember seeing Killian come home that night?”

Billy’s eyebrows went up. “The night Gold was killed?” Reluctantly, she nodded. “Yeah, actually I do. I was sitting near my front window when he walked up to the porch.”

She arched an eyebrow. “How do you remember it being that particular night two months ago, and not some other night?”

“Because my friend Mikey was over here hanging out. He’s a paramedic, and it wasn’t that long after I saw Jones get home that he got called out on a job. He told me later, it was to get Gold’s body.”

“Did Killian look normal?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Were his clothes dirty? Was he carrying anything unusual? Did he seem upset?”

Billy blinked at her. “Is he a suspect?”

“Just answer the question.”

“No, I didn’t notice anything. He looked normal.”

Emma watched for any sign of a lie but saw none. “Okay, thanks. I’ll see you around.”

It wasn’t exactly an alibi, but the whole picture pointed to Killian being an innocent man. As she walked back to the Rabbit Hole and her car, which she was now sober enough to drive, she realized she was only now really and truly crossing Killian off her list of murder suspects. Which meant she’d been halfway lusting after him while still thinking there was an outside shot he’d killed somebody. “How fucked up are you, Emma?” she muttered to herself as she trudged down the sidewalk, her hands jammed in her pockets and ears going numb from the cold.

The rumble of an engine made Emma stop and turn around. A motorcycle pulled up beside her, slowing to a stop. She watched, wary, as the driver pulled his helmet off, revealing a handsome man with wavy brown hair, perhaps a few years older than she was.

“Evening. I was wondering if there are any hotels in town?”

She gaped at him for a second. She couldn’t remember any other tourists coming through (other than herself) since she’d arrived in Storybrooke. And wasn’t that a little bit odd for a seaside town in Maine, even with the weather getting colder?

“Granny’s has rooms to rent,” she finally said. “Go straight here, and then take a right at the light.”

“Thanks.” He reached out a gloved hand for her to shake. “I’m August Booth.”

His grip was solid, almost too tight on her smaller hand. “I’m Emma.”

~*~

She saw the stranger again the following morning when she stopped into Granny’s for a coffee. He was seated at one of the tables, enjoying a very large breakfast.

“I see you found the place last night,” she commented, stopping at his side. His leg was jiggling with pent-up energy.

“I did; thank you.” He gestured for her to take the other seat, but she shook her head.

“Just stopping in for a coffee, thanks.”

“Suit yourself, Sheriff.”

Emma raised an eyebrow. “You know who I am?”

August smiled an easy smile at her. “I mentioned to Granny that an Emma had directed me here, and she said you were the sheriff.”

“Ah. So what brings you to town, Mr. Booth? Vacation?”

“Not exactly.” He took a bite of his pancakes and gestured to the other chair again. “As it happens, I could use your help.”

With a sigh, Emma sat. Ruby, who had been watching and seemed to suss out the situation, brought Emma a cup of coffee in a to-go cup. She met Emma’s gaze and surreptitiously rolled her eyes at the stranger across from her before slinking away again.

“What do you need my help with?” Emma asked, reaching for the container of sugar and working the lid off of her cup.

“I’m a writer. And when I read that the mysterious and wealthy Mr. Gold had been murdered, I couldn’t pass up the possibility that there might be a story here.”

Emma shook her head as she added sugar to her coffee. “I’m not going to discuss an open murder investigation with you, Mr. Booth.”

“Call me August,” he said with a wink. “And I’m not asking for you to show me all of your case files. Maybe simply a small nudge in the right direction. You and I might be able to help each other.”

“Anything I’d be willing to tell you is in the local paper. I’m sure if you stop by their offices, they can help you.” She stood up from the table. “Enjoy your stay, August.”

~*~

“You got my message!” Henry shouted, running toward the bench Emma was sitting on.

It was a chilly and bright Sunday afternoon, and Emma had been lying around the loft in her pajamas, debating the wisdom of taking an afternoon nap, when she heard the crackle of a walkie-talkie from up in her bedroom. She’d found an old set in the sheriff’s station, and had given one of them to Henry. He’d been over the moon with excitement about the idea but had been surprisingly restrained in using the walkie-talkie, probably assuming that if he abused it, Regina would figure out that something was up.

Henry had summoned her to this particular bench along Main Street, near the old library, and so here she sat. She wasn’t sure how he’d gotten out of the house on a Sunday without Regina noticing, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Even so, she couldn’t help but be glad to see him.

“Yeah, I got your message. Did you eat lunch already? We could get something at Granny’s if you want.”

“I’m not hungry,” Henry responded, which made Emma raise her eyebrows in surprise. He almost never turned down the opportunity for some pancakes and hot cocoa, no matter the time of day. “But if you want to eat—”

“No, I’m good. Mary Margaret made a huge breakfast this morning, so I’m still recovering from that.”

“It’s funny how even though she doesn’t remember that she’s your mom, she still treats you like her daughter.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “She likes to cook, kid. Since I’m her roommate, I’m the beneficiary, that’s all.” She pushed aside the thought that she did feel mothered by Mary Margaret sometimes. And she didn’t hate it.

“If you say so,” Henry said, shrugging off her denials.

“Anyway, you said you had information critical to Operation Cobra,” she said indulgently. Sometimes she could almost pretend that Operation Cobra was just a game they played and was not seated in Henry’s genuine delusion that the residents of the town were all fairy tale characters.

“I do. I was thinking about how all this started with my storybook, and that made me start to wonder if there are others. Books, I mean. We already know that everyone in Storybrooke isn’t in the book, but there could be other books! We don’t know.”

“Okay, sure,” she agreed, worried where this was going, worried that she wasn’t handling it right. She’d felt the instinct several times to grab Henry and whisk him into her car and run off to Boston or New York, somewhere that he was away from Regina and where she could maybe get a second opinion on his psychological problems. But that would turn both of them into fugitives, and she doubted that would be an improvement for Henry. More fundamentally, she wasn’t sure if she was capable of being his mother, but a part of her wanted to find out.

“So haven’t you always wondered why the library in town is locked and boarded up?” He pointed to the building behind them. She had wondered that, and moreover, she’d thought it was a weird place for a library, that big building in the center of town with a clock tower on top of it.

Emma shrugged. “I guess I assumed there wasn’t any budget to maintain it?”

“My mom must have sealed it up to protect something. Or hide something. It’s the only explanation.”

“I don’t think it’s the only explanation,” she said.

“Okay fine, but it’s worth investigating. You must have a way to get in there as sheriff. We need to have a look around, see what the Evil Queen is hiding.”

“No, we don’t need to do any such thing. I don’t even know if that building is safe, or if it’s likely to come crashing down on your head.” She thought about how Henry had gotten himself trapped in the old mines and shuddered. “And even if that’s not an issue, there’s no better way to attract your mother’s attention to Operation Cobra than to break into buildings together.”

“But it could be important.” His expression was thunderous, which was kind of shocking on Henry’s sweet little face.

“And I promise that I’ll look into it, but I need to do it delicately and try not to incur Regina’s wrath any more than I have to. I’m the sheriff now, I have responsibilities—”

Henry stood up and stomped his foot, of all things. “You don’t even care about Operation Cobra, you just care about your stupid job now.”

“Henry, I do care, I promise—”

“You’ll never break the curse if you don’t do something to help me!” he shouted, swiping at angry tears that had suddenly fallen onto his cheeks. Without warning, he turned and ran away from her at full speed.

Emma registered several things at once, helpless, too far away to act: Henry running into the street, his tears blinding him. The large car barreling toward him. Other people turning at her shout (because she must have shouted) and gaping at the scene unfolding. A blur of black as someone ran toward Henry, so fast (too fast), shoving him out of the way. A sickening thump as Henry’s savior was hit by the car instead. The squeal of brakes as the car stopped.

She was running then, or maybe she’d been running the whole time. Henry was on the ground, half in the street and half on the sidewalk, and she dropped to her knees where he was trying to sit up.

“Oh my God, Henry, are you okay?” Her heart was pounding like a jackhammer. The thought he’d been so close to being hit by a car, and it would have been her fault—

“I think so.” He was looking at the palms of his hands, which were scraped and starting to bleed. “Somebody pushed me out of the way…”

Emma turned and half-stumbled, half-crawled over to the person in the street that the car had actually hit. “Somebody call 911!” she shouted to the gathering crowd.

“Already done,” a voice responded as she looked down and saw for the first time who it was that had saved Henry.

“Killian,” she gasped.

He winced as his eyes fluttered open. “Hey, beautiful.”

“Stay still; there’s an ambulance on the way.” She pulled Killian’s jacket aside, looking for injuries. “How did you get to Henry so fast?” In her memory, it had seemed almost inhuman. But she knew enough to understand that the shock made her memory unreliable.

“I don’t know; I saw Henry, and I just—”

“I couldn’t stop in time, Sheriff; they both came out of nowhere,” the nervous driver said, shifting from foot to foot.

She glanced up at him. “Yeah, it wasn’t your fault.” She pressed gently along Killian’s right side and he groaned in pain. “I think you’ve got some broken ribs.”

“Is Henry okay?” he gasped.

She looked up and saw Henry standing on the sidewalk now, rubbing his palms on his jeans. “Yeah. You saved him.”

Before either of them could say more, the scream of sirens interrupted as an ambulance pulled up.

Once Killian’s neck had been braced and he was on a stretcher, Emma went back over to Henry. “Let’s walk over the loft and get those hands cleaned up, and then I’ll drive you home, okay, kid?” She put an arm around Henry’s shoulders and felt him trembling.

“That was my fault. Killian wouldn’t be hurt right now if I hadn’t—”

She bent down so that she was eye level with him, her hands clasping his upper arms tightly. “Look, don’t get me wrong, I’m furious with you for running away from me and almost getting hit by a car. But the adults in your life are here to protect you, and that’s the way it’s supposed to work.” She felt a swell of emotion in her chest that Killian was one of those adults, that his instinct had been to save Henry in spite of the danger to his own body. “So you aren’t allowed to feel guilty for what happened to Killian. You’re only allowed to feel guilty for scaring all of us so badly. Okay?”

He took a shaky breath. “Okay.”

“And don’t ever, ever do anything like that again.” She pulled him into a tight hug. “I don’t know how I would live if something happened to you.”

Chapter 8

#csbb #cs ff #captain swan ff #this graceful path fic #my fic #cw: alcoholism

[ohmightydevviepuu]

our little life (rounded with a sleep) / chapter 11

our little life (rounded with a sleep) chapter eleven [11/12] AO3

--

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful detective. She had blonde hair, green eyes, no family, and she was good at finding people; in fact, she proclaimed this on her office door. “Swan and Humbert,” it said. “Private investigations, missing persons, and bail bonds.”

Only lately, she’s been thinking that maybe it should say “Emma Swan: Loner, Loser, Complicated wreck.”

Her partner’s been killed on a case after she made a deal with her landlord to find what had been taken from him. But when she tracks a possible perp to a bar on the outskirts of town, Emma will find out exactly how deep the rabbit hole goes.

--

major, major shoutout here to @distant-rose​​ and especially to @justanotherwannabeclassic​ who shared with me something they were working on that S was writing while i was struggling with this part.  i felt so inspired by what they had done and by S’s words that i knew immediately how i wanted to write this bit of the story.

to @thisonesatellite​​, @profdanglaisstuff​​ and @katie-dub​ who were all treated to MULTIPLE drafts of this chapter, with extra gratitude to poor katie who hadn’t even read any of it before having this shoved under her nose ❤️

to @captainswanbigbang​​, who made all of this possible

to all of you screaming at me after the last chapter, i hope i prove worthy of your time and patience and attention today--particularly @carpedzem​ who is trusting me 💕

--

cw: canonical character death rating: T/M (implied violence, language) word count:  ~5k AO3 chapter one | chapter two | chapter three | chapter four | chapter five | chapter six | chapter seven | chapter eight | chapter nine | chapter ten

--

It felt like it happened in a second.

Maybe less.

But in retrospect, as she stood there staring at Killian’s lifeless body on the floor of the station, it was more like a slow-motion trainwreck.

(Killian would have had a Shakespearean reference on the tip of his tongue, something sad and depressing but also beautiful. He would quote it, and she would roll her eyes, and he would explain it and wink and she thought it annoyed her but really--she kind of liked it.) 

(She liked him.)

read the full chapter on AO3

chapter eleven

“Hey, Leroy,” David called, “I didn’t order this apple turnover.”

“Do I look like I care?”

--

It’s not that she hadn’t noticed Gold’s comment.

A pirate who pines for you.

Or Cora’s.

Love is weakness.

It’s just--there was a lot going on, and Emma thought--maybe if she could just get her parents to remember, somehow, that would help her figure out the whole curse situation.

(She hadn’t noticed.) (She hadn’t noticed.)

--

Henry said: “Wait, Grandpa, did you say apple?”

And looked at Killian.

And then at Emma.

And then back at Killian.

--

“It’s a trick,” Henry said. “As long as she’s alive, Emma is a threat to the curse.”

“Henry,” Regina said, “You’ve got to stop thinking like this. I’m your mother and I love you.”

“It’s my usual order from Granny’s, Henry. Nothing sinister.” David’s smile was persuasive and warm.

Charming, even.

“I’m very grateful to you, mate,” Killian said, “that you left off the bologna this time.”

--

Emma couldn’t see the future.

But Gold could, he claimed, and this, this--it was impossible, but he had somehow planned for exactly this.

“I’m quite pleased at the level of your devotion to Miss Swan. More than you could possibly know.”

--

It had been there, buried in the layers of conversation between the two men; in the history that they were excavating with each word.

“She’s the mother to your grandson.”

“I need Miss Swan. Surely you understand that.”

“You get what you wanted either way, don’t you, crocodile?”

“I’m a man who likes to plan for any contingency.”

“And when it doesn’t work?”

“It matters not. It might even add a little fuel to the fire.”

(Emma had missed it.) (Emma had missed all of it.)

--

Henry said: “You can’t eat that. It’s poison.”

It was pastry, Emma thought, but Killian--

He just looked at Henry, and she didn’t know she knew it, knew that Killian was looking at her kid and seeing the boy he had loved two hundred years ago when he said: “It’s going to be fine, lad. Your mother is going to be safe.”

(She knew it because she knew him.) (Open book.)

--

His eyes were on the chain.

Emma hadn’t even realized she was clutching it. Again.

“I think it might be the reason I’m still alive,” he’d said.

“Get Lacey,” he said. Killian’s lips were barely moving, his voice so low that only she could hear it. “Bring her here.”

“What?” Emma said. “When--?”

“For once, please,” he said, “just do as I ask, Swan. Promise me.”

--

Apples.

The apple tree was dying.

“If you do not succeed in breaking the curse on your own, killing you breaks the curse just as well as anything else.”

But Regina didn’t want the curse broken.

“I’ve found a solution to my Emma Swan problem.” “An old, reliable solution.”

--

Henry was up against the bars of the cell door, agitated and angry.

“Swan,” Killian said. “You weren’t wrong about me.”

(Henry had known.) (Emma should have known.)

--

She should have known.

It was there, in his expression, in the tilt of his head. It was the lost look in his eyes again, buttressed by something determined. And angry. And--

--hopeful.

--

“There’s hope, Swan.” "All you have to do is believe.”

--

Killian reached for the pastry, picking it up off the tray.

Regina twitched--started to say something, opening her mouth and closing it again.

Gold giggled.

Something stirred in Mary Margaret. “It must be taken willingly,” she said.

Which was pretty fucking creepy.

And then--

Oh.

Oh.

--

“Regina’s not going to let all of her hard work burn.”

--

It was just one bite. One. Bite.

--

Hook was on the floor, his eyes closed and his body unresponsive.

(And her dreams, her goddamned dreams, she’d known this was coming, and yet--) (She hadn’t known.) (Not until it was too late.)

--

Emma’s knees hit the ground almost before he did.

“KILLIAN!”

--

Hello, beautiful.

I find I quite fancy you.

I love a challenge.

I haven’t lived a good life.

I’m not much for loyalty.

I was hoping it would be you.

I believe in good form.

I’m going to tell you a story.

Everything you think you believe is wrong.

Did I tell you a lie?

That’s the thing about revenge, you see: it’s an end, not a beginning.

I don’t dance, anyway.

We make quite the team.

You should know as well as anyone that Lost Ones recognize their own.

I am a man of honor.

Milah wouldn’t have wanted this.

My reasons are my own.

A reminder to both of us.

Don’t you know, Emma? It’s all for you.

You weren’t wrong about me.

--

The tray and its contents clattered to the floor, a mess all around her as David and Mary Margaret--her parents--startled at the noise, as Regina pulled Henry away.

“Killian,” Emma said. “Killian, can you hear me? Come on, Killian, come back to me.”

(He didn’t answer.) (Somehow, she had known that he wouldn’t.)

--

David unlocked the cell doors.

Fucking finally.

Mary Margaret came rushing in, her fingers jabbing uselessly at Killian’s wrists and neck for any indication of a pulse.

“He’s not dead,” Henry said, but he didn’t sound too certain, her son the Believer. “It’s just--”

“It’s a curse,” Emma said. She almost couldn’t make herself say the words, as she looked up at David, at her father, and forced him to look her in the eyes.

“Help me get him up,” David muttered.

“Aren’t you a real Prince Charming,” Mary Margaret said, putting an arm around Emma’s shoulder.

--

It was impossible to tell if he was breathing.

“I’m sorry it had to come to this, Miss Swan,” Gold said.

Liar.

--

Emma pushed Regina up against the wall, desperately wishing she had her gun. Or a pair of cuffs. “You did this,” she said.

“It was meant for you,” Regina said. But her smile, the sickening smile, suggested that she wasn’t entirely disappointed with the outcome.

“Wake. Him. Up.” Emma punctuated each word with a shove against the wall, only--

Regina laughed. “That’s not how the magic works, Miss Swan.”

--

Emma was on the floor.

Her back up against the bars, her feet flat against the floor, and it kept her eyes level with his, and Henry was there, just--

“It’s going to be okay, Mom.”

Mary Margaret was holding her hand, stroking her thumb soothingly against Emma’s palm.

(Emma did not get emotional over men.)

--

“What--” Henry gulped. “What’s going to happen to him?”

But Emma remembered this part, the story where Snow White had eaten the apple. His body would be like a tomb, and he would be in there with nothing, nothing but--

“Dreams formed of your own regrets,” Mary Margaret said, and Emma nodded.

(God, Killian had so many regrets.)

--

“Wait,” Emma said, blinking away tears. “What did you just say?”

“Nothing,” Mary Margaret said, but she had that look in her eyes, that far-away look, that haunted, cursed look--

--

“Just look at me,” he’d said, “and believe.”

--

It was under the bed.

Emma was sure it hadn’t been there before.

Oversized brown leather binding with old-timey script.

Once Upon A Time.

--

When Emma reached for the book she felt the power rushing through her, and she stood up.

It was time to end this.

“Henry,” she said. “I need you to go to The Rabbit Hole. Bring Lacey. Run.”

--

All curses can be broken. Think therefore on revenge and cease to weep.

--

“He’s not dead.”

That’s what Emma said when Liam rushed into the room and looked around, his face pale and his eyes wide as they landed upon his brother.

“He’s not dead.”

Emma said it again as Lacey, resplendent as ever in her t-shirt-micromini-stilettoes combo, rushed in two steps behind Liam. She was saying it for them, but she was reminding herself, too.

She was reminding Henry, as well; Henry, who had refused to leave her. “I’m not leaving you.” That’s what he’d said when she told him to go, this small person she had helped create, who was somehow stronger than both of his parents combined. “I’m not leaving you here with them,” he’d said, biting back tears and pulling an old flip phone out of his pocket.

“Who are you calling, Henry” in Gold’s smoothed-over accent overlapped with “That phone is for emergencies only” in Regina’s acidic tone and Emma had snapped.

“I think this counts as a fucking emergency,” she said, somehow still clutching the storybook to her chest. Once Upon a Time. The rush of power, she could feel it on the edge of her consciousness, but it was something just out of her reach. She had no idea how to wake him up. How to wake any of them up. Mary Margaret and David--it was as if they were on the precipice of something, only Emma couldn’t push them the rest of the way.

“Mom,” Henry had said, “give me the book,” and then pulled it from her hands and gone to sit next to Mary Margaret.

He’d read her a story.

...they didn’t need words to express what they felt in their hearts, for it was here, in the shadow of the troll bridge, where their love was born--where they knew, no matter how they were separated, they would always…

Emma should have thought--should have realized--that Liam would come running just as quickly as Lacey would. In fact, it was probably Liam whom Henry had phoned; after all, they were friends. Liam was Hook’s brother.

“Liam is not the first brother of mine to bear that name.”

It was getting difficult to look at him, to look at Killian and to imagine what it must be like, to be trapped in a prison formed of his own regrets. But Emma also couldn’t look at Gold, who was watching Henry with something in his eyes that frightened her.

Neal was Gold’s son. Gold was Henry’s grandfather. Neal had known Hook, hundreds of years ago. Somehow, they had all ended up here--in a Land Without Magic.

Graham was dead. Gold had killed him over a dagger.

“Baelfire saw it as the source of all of his problems and I saw in it the solution to all of mine.”

It was Gold’s curse, and yet he had used Regina to cast it.

Had Gold--had he been looking for Neal?

It made a twisted kind of sense, Emma decided, watching Gold watch her son. As for her own family tree, well--

No one spoke as Henry’s words bounced around the station, through the bars and off the concrete brick walls. “Whatever she did to you,” Henry said, “I know Snow White is in there somewhere.”

Something stirred in Emma at the words, and in David, too, and then--

Liam. And Lacey.

And Gold’s cane clattered as it hit the floor.

--

Emma was shocked when Lacey came straight up to her and gave her a hug. “Is Jamie okay?”

Jamie--who the fuck was--oh. Right. But also, why was this woman hugging her?

“Belle?” Gold’s words were breathy, broken and disbelieving in a way Emma had never heard from him before. In that brief moment, there was nothing reptilian about him; nothing that glinted or leered, nothing powerful or all-knowing. He was just a man, and he was looking at Lacey as though he had been in a desert and she was water, half-afraid that she was an hallucination, but even more afraid that she wasn’t.

“You think the maid is some kind of chess piece?” “Given the circumstances, it seemed wise to acquire some leverage.” “She’s the only thing that can break him.” “She’s my friend.”

“You’re real,” Gold said. “You’re alive.” It was practically a whisper, one that Lacey acknowledged with a smile--the small, tight kind that showed no teeth as she stepped forward, bending to pick up the fallen cane.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Do I know you?”

“No,” Gold said, accepting the cane from her. “But you will.”

Lacey cocked her head, looking at him, managing somehow not to look terrified at the prospect as the moment ended and Gold’s expression turned murderous and he growled, “Which of them?” His accent thickened as he glanced first at Regina, and then at Emma. “Which of them did this to her?”

Emma instinctively put herself between her landlord--her son’s grandfather, Rumplestiltskin, the fucking Dark One--and Hook. “Hook rescued her, you asshole. From an asylum. Where Regina had her locked up for the past twenty-eight years.”

Regina hissed as Gold stiffened, and something like a shudder overcame Lacey. Belle. “Regina,” she said faintly. “Regina locked me up.” Her eyes--

Shit. She had that far-away cursed look, too. “I was told to find you, and tell you that Regina locked me up. Does that--does that mean anything to you?”

Gold moved, his arms outstretched, only something about the movement triggered the curse again as Belle--Lacey--snapped out of it.

“Lacey,” Liam called softly from inside the cell. Emma wanted to yell, to scream, there was no reason to be quiet--Killian couldn’t hear any of them, or any of this, trapped in a tomb of his own regrets--but she couldn’t. Not when Liam was all long limbs and uncertainty as he hovered over his brother’s body, looking for the same signs of life Emma had tried--and failed--to find. Lacey gave Emma’s shoulder a squeeze, running her hand down Emma’s arm and gently pulling her into the cell with the brothers, and with Henry, who left the storybook on the floor as he stared up at Liam.

“I’m so sorry this happened,” Lacey said, also keeping her voice low in a way that made Emma want to scream. “Are you okay?”

Emma blinked. Lacey’s smile was sad but genuine. “I saw the two of you together,” she reminded Emma, “and Jamie told me about you. He said to bring you this if anything happened to him.” She dropped Emma’s arm and twisted, pulling the crossbody bag slung over her shoulder from her back to her front.

“He’s not dead,” Lacey muttered.

“He’s not,” Emma echoed. Then, “Do you even understand what is happening?”

“Emma,” Lacey said, “Do you?” She was holding something in her hand, about the length of her forearm, wrapped in paper. “But he trusts you. So I trust you.”

Emma took the parcel. She could feel the twisted blade inside, crinkling the paper as she gripped the handle. She turned so that Mary Margaret and David--her parents--couldn’t see it. They sat on the other side of the bars, almost frozen as they watched her with Henry, and with Liam, and with Lacey, the storybook still open in front of them on the concrete floor, an illustration of a minutes-old baby girl tucked into a hand-knitted blanket with purple trim covering both pages as a man shoved her into a wardrobe with the last breath in his body.

“How did this happen?” Liam asked.

Of course, that he said loud enough to carry.

Regina smirked. “Miss Swan,” she said, “why don’t you explain to this young man why his brother is comatose and possibly dying, all because you put him in harm’s way?”

Because apparently, reading people at their worst was a family trait. But Cora was gone, dead by Killian’s hand in her defense, and Emma was not responsible for his choices.

She kept telling herself that, too.

Even though she should have known.

Even though her dreams had warned her.

Liam’s face fell, and Emma braced herself, wondering if anger was a family trait for the Jones men the same way it was for the Mills women. “You’re the one,” Liam said, “who got him--and got me--involved in all of this.”

“And if you had listened to me,” Regina said, “he might not be in this position. Miss Swan would have been long taken care of.”

“Listened to you?” And there it was, the flash of his elder brother, in the harshness of his consonants and the icy coolness of his rage. “You wanted me to spy on him, to tell you about her. But I know, Regina, what you did to him, and what you did me, and--”

Emma put her hand on his shoulder, an echo of Lacey’s gesture, in an attempt to give him comfort. “Liam,” she said, “you didn’t do this. As for you--” she directed her glare at Regina, grateful for anything to focus on beside the unmoving body mere feet away “--I’m locking you up.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Regina spat.

“Let’s see,” Emma said, pretending to think. “The sheriff is literally standing right next to you, so we could start with whatever the hell your game is with Kathryn Nolan. But we have so many other choices: you’ve committed false imprisonment, theft, and, of course, attempted murder--”

That’s when her voice caught.

Because Killian was there, unmoving, mere feet away.

Emma closed her eyes, so she heard instead of saw David push Regina into Mary Margaret’s cell; she didn’t open her eyes again until she also heard the door close and the lock click.

“I’m going to fix this,” Emma said. She said it for herself as much as for Liam, or for Lacey, or for Henry. She said it because she needed to hear it, too.

“It happened,” Henry said, “because your brother is a hero.” There was so much conviction in his voice--Emma could hear how much he wanted Liam to believe. “It happened because he didn’t want me to lose my mom, the way you lost your dad. He didn’t want to see another family broken up.” Lacey nodded, but Liam just shook his head and looked mournfully at Henry. “My mom is going to fix this,” he said. “I promise, Liam.”

Gold cleared his throat. His gold tooth was glinting again as he grinned, all traces of the human man with human emotions gone as he was every inch Hook’s crocodile once more.

“I wonder, Miss Swan,” he said. “What exactly do you intend to do about the magical ailment that has befallen my old friend? To fix it, as you say.”

Slowly, Emma advanced on him, emerging from the cell. The dagger--the Dark One’s dagger, the thing that Graham had fucking died for--was still in its wrappings, and his eyes followed her, and it, with speculation.

“All magic comes with a price, dearie,” Gold said.

“He shouldn’t have had to pay it,” Emma said. “Not this time.”

“That’s debatable,” Gold said, “but let’s agree to disagree, shall we?”

“Cut the bullshit, Gold,” Emma said. “You obviously think you still have a plan here, so what is it?”

“I, Miss Swan,” he said, “always have a plan.” Emma’s hand clenched around the dagger so tightly that she could feel the curved edges of the blade and wondered that she hadn’t cut herself yet. “If you had listened to me prior to the Captain’s unfortunate incident--” he gestured with the cane “--we might not have been in this position.”

Emma stared, waiting.

Finally, he said, “True Love. The only magic powerful enough to transcend realms and break any curse.”

Emma very carefully did not look at Killian, but was still rewarded with another one of Gold’s giggles. “Luckily for you,” he said, “I happen to have bottled some.”

Regina stirred. “You did?” Her surprise was evident.

“Oh, yes,” Gold purred. “From strands of her parents’ hair, I made the most powerful potion in all the realms. So powerful, that when I created the Dark Curse, I placed a single drop on the parchment.” For the first time since Lacey had entered the station, Gold moved. Two slow, deliberate steps until he was standing directly in front of Regina, and he leaned forward. “Just a little safety valve,” he said. His cane tapped the bars for emphasis.

“You twisted little imp,” Regina said. “You--”

But Emma was finished with her--with all of it. “You still don’t get it, do you?” Emma said impatiently. “He planned all of this, he and Cora, and it’s not about you at all, or me, or any of us. We’re here because he wanted us to be here. I’m the Savior so that I can break the curse--so that he can leave Storybrooke and go find his son.”

Emma tore the paper from the dagger and held it up by the handle, brandishing it at Gold. “Stop me if I’ve got this wrong,” Emma said. “But I’m not, am I? Neal ended up in Neverland because of you. He left me, pregnant and alone and in jail, because of you. He abandoned his son, your grandson. Because he was afraid of you. Because he hated you.”

“Tell me something, love. If a woman begs you to take her away, is that theft?”

“She left you,” Emma whispered, “because she hated you.”

“Emma,” Lacey said, trying to pull at her arm. Emma shrugged her off, keeping her eyes on Gold. She wasn’t sure if it was the sound of Lacey’s voice or the sight of his precious object, but a change had come over him. He looked--older, suddenly. Angry, and defiant, and--for the first time--scared.

He hadn’t planned for this.

The anger Emma felt bubbling up within her, the hatred, it was like nothing she had ever felt before. Not even when Neal had left--not even when she’d gone to prison--not even when she’d had to give up Henry. She pushed forward, walking toward him, crowding him, continuing her recitation: “And this? Your magical, mystical dagger. The source of all of your power, that you thought was hidden. The reason you killed Graham--but he was smarter than you gave him credit for. Both of them were.”

Emma took the last step toward him, forcing him against the bars and holding the dagger almost against his neck. “And you?” she said. “You’re just a coward.”

There was nothing powerful about Gold, not then. Not with his own dagger pressed almost into his skin, the tip of it very nearly piercing his flesh--there was only fear. The thing might be a paperweight in this realm, in this Land Without Magic, but it was sharp as fuck and ready to cut.

“So tell me, crocodile,” Emma said, “what do you know of True Love?”

True Love is the rarest magic of all.

And all Emma felt was fury--and how easy it would be to push the knife farther into his throat.

He was struggling against her as he spoke, but Emma had him completely pinned. Letters Emma hadn’t even noticed made themselves visible, spelling a name: Rumplestiltskin. It flashed for a second and then just as quickly began to fade away, one letter at a time beginning to disappear.

“You--” Lacey said. “You loved someone?”

Gold licked his lips. “It was a brief flicker of light amidst an ocean of darkness.”

That’s when Emma noticed the blood. He was bleeding from a wound she had made--

“All magic comes with a price." "The price of this magic is--unspeakable.”

Emma’s grip faltered; her shoulders sagged and her head felt suddenly heavy.

“Mom,” Henry said, looking at her with pleading eyes. “Don’t. Please--don’t.”

“Vengeance is tempting." "The darkness always is.”

Emma turned, and she could feel them--the tears--burning at the edges of her eyes.

“It creeps up in you. Resist it.”

“Emma,” Mary Margaret said. “You can’t give in, or your life will be just like his. Bleak, and empty, and full of darkness. I gave Henry that book to give him hope.”

“Heroes do what’s right,” Henry said. “Not what’s easy.”

Something in Emma broke, as she suddenly felt everything, all of it--the grief, the anger, the helplessness, the sadness--all at once. She fell backward on unsteady feet, taking one step after another until her hands felt the wall behind her, and she sank to the floor.

Sobbing.

“Why couldn’t you?” she’d asked in her dream. “I didn’t have anything to live for,” he said, “to keep me on my path. Use whatever it takes to stay on yours."

But what did Emma know about True Love? Nothing--less than nothing--less than the goddamn Dark One. She had been abandoned by her parents, or sent through a magical wardrobe; either way she had grown up alone. She had been abandoned by Neal and she, in turn, had given up her kid--afraid to let herself love Graham, afraid to love Mary Margaret, afraid to love Kil--

“Mom.” Henry was barely taller than her shoulder because of the way she was sitting. “You can do this, Mom. I believe in you.” Emma reached for him with the hand not still clutching the dagger, wrapping him in a hug and pulling him down to the floor next to her. Henry nestled into her side as if he had done it every day of his life and Emma instinctively shifted so that her head lay atop his.

Even after everything, his hair still smelled sweet and clean. It was the first time Emma had smelled it.

“Emma,” Mary Margaret said. Her friend--her mother--was kneeling on the floor in front of her, one hand on Emma’s knee, looking as though she was actually trying to restrain herself from pulling Emma into her arms.

“Mom,” Emma whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I let you down.”

She hadn’t broken the curse. She had been attacked, kidnapped by a madman who had vanished into a magic hat and imprisoned by the fucking Queen of fucking Hearts. Graham was still dead. Killian was--gone.

What was she going to tell Liam?

What had any of it even been for?

Emma Swan wasn’t a savior.

Emma Swan wasn’t some fairy tale princess.

There were no fairy godmothers in this world.

“You didn’t, Emma, shhh,” Mary Margaret said. “I don’t care what you do or say, I will never stop trying to protect you, and you could never let me down.”

For the first time in her life, Emma let herself be gathered up and held by someone, by her best friend, by her mother.

“I love you, Emma,” Mary Margaret whispered, and Emma felt her mother’s kiss on the crown of her head.

...And, yes, she was beyond hope. Beyond saving. This was her end. When Prince Charming saw his beloved Snow White in her glass coffin, he knew all that was left was to say goodbye. He had to give her one last kiss. And when he did, True Love proved more powerful than any curse. A pulse of pure love shuddered out and engulfed the land, waking up Snow White and bringing light to the darkness.

--

@kmomof4​ @shireness-says​ @optomisticgirl​ @scientificapricot​ @captainsjedi​ @carpedzem​ @mariakov81​ @stahlop​ @eirabach​ @snowbellewells​ @searchingwardrobes​ @spartanguard​

#cs fic #cs ff #captain swan rewrite a thon #our little life (rounded with a sleep) #canon divergence #s1 divergence #cursed!killian #an alternate theory of the curse

[masha-russia]

hey there! Saw the Lolita post and i LOVED your tag about Jorah and Daenerys and that's exactly what I think about this relationship too. That's not normal at all. Of course that aunt and nephew isn't a normal thing too but at least they DON'T know that hahahaha anyway, thank you for this magnificent tag

Hi :) Jorah’s feelings of lust towards Daenerys are not acceptable and GRRM does not condone them - the reader is meant to see them as negative. And thankfully Daenerys understood his behavior and even called him out on his predatory conduct:

“I honor and respect and cherish you — but I do not desire you, Jorah Mormont, and I am weary of your trying to push every other man in the world away from me, so I must needs rely on you and you alone. It will not serve, and it will not make me love you any better.”

Though she did that only after he forced himself on her and kissed her:

Ser Jorah slid his arms around her.

"Oh," was all Dany had time to say as he pulled her close and pressed his lips down on hers. He smelled of sweat and salt and leather, and the iron studs on his jerkin dug into her naked breasts as he crushed her hard against him. One hand held her by the shoulder while the other slid down her spine to the small of her back.

Daenerys gained agency and power when she hatched her dragons, and was able to escape the worst of Jorah’s Humbert Humbert side - he tried to persuade her to run away with him and place her in a situation where she would have been reliant on him alone.

“I am only a knight, and I have nothing to offer you but exile, but I beg you, hear me. Let Khal Drogo go. You shall not be alone. I promise you, no man shall take you to Vaes Dothrak unless you wish to go. You need not join the dosh khaleen. Come east with me. Yi Ti, Qarth, the JadeSea, Asshai by the Shadow. We will see all the wonders yet unseen, and drink what wines the gods see fit to serve us. Please, Khaleesi.”

If she didn’t have her dragons ... I imagine her life after Khal Drogo’s death would have been similar to Lolita’s life after her mother died. She would have been dependent on him for a while, and he would have taken advantage of her, as Humbert took advantage of Dolores.

I do wonder if GRRM ever commented on, or was asked about, the influence of Nabokov’s story on ASOIAF? He explores the dynamic in which a teenage girl is sexually preyed on by an adult man with two of his main female characters (though all his female characters faced sexual abuse in one way or another)- Daenerys and Sansa. Daenerys has power and escapes her sexual predator, but Sansa is still in the clutches of hers.

Daenerys’ relation with Jorah is not at all comparable to her future relation (or current relation if you talk about the show) with Jon though. Incest in ASOIAF does not work the same way as real life incest (and real life incest is not as terrible as everyone seems to think it is either), and I do not object to it. The most important in relationships is that they are based on mutual genuine consent and on love. I do not care about their alleles in common - I only care about their happiness. Daenerys’ and Jon’ future love story (or current love story if you talk about the show) will be based (is based) on love and consent, on mutual attraction. It won’t be (isn’t) a predatory relationship, or a coerced one. And that is the only aspect that matters to me.

Besides, sexual relations between uncle/niece and aunt/nephew are normal in ASOIAF. Apart from Valyrians, House Stark has at least two instances of marriage between a niece and an uncle in recent times.

#asoiaf meta #jon snow #daenerys targaryen #jorah mormont #jonerys #text post #lolita #asoiaf #starladyquill

[ohmightydevviepuu]

our little life (rounded with a sleep) / chapter 5

our little life (rounded with a sleep) chapter five

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful detective. She had blonde hair, green eyes, no family, and she was good at finding people; in fact, she proclaimed this on her office door. “Swan and Humbert,” it said. “Private investigations, missing persons, and bail bonds.”

Only lately, she’s been thinking that maybe it should say “Emma Swan: Loner, Loser, Complicated wreck.”

Her partner’s been killed on a case after she made a deal with her landlord to find what had been taken from him. But when she tracks a possible perp to a bar on the outskirts of town, Emma will find out exactly how deep the rabbit hole goes.

--

thank you as ever to my support team of mythical beauties, without whom this fic would not exist in its present form:  @thisonesatellite​ for her many, many rereads; @profdanglaisstuff​ for swooping in to save the day (no cape necessary); @katie-dub​ just for being there, and being awesome.

SPEAKING OF AWESOME there are not enough good things to be said about the team @captainswanbigbang​, and the amazing crew in the CSRT discord for cheers and comeraderie and so many late nights of sprinting and bad decisions.

--

cw: canonical character death rating: T/M (implied violence, language) word count:  ~4.5k  AO3  chapter one | chapter two | chapter three | chapter four

chapter summary:   Hook spends the night in jail, and Emma spends the night dealing with her shit. (It’s not a particularly pleasant way to spend the time, but what the hell--Emma Swan is not a believer.  She is, however, a thief.)

--

Emma had a parking space that was legal, had sightlines into the Mills Organization building, and was far enough back from the entrance that the bright yellow car would not be too memorable. There was even a nearby streetlight that gave enough light to see without destroying her night vision.

It was almost enough to make a person believe in magic.

No cars went by as she sat and waited; no late-night pedestrians passing by in activities either savory or unsavory.

But she sat, and waited, because Hook was right and this was her best chance of making progress. Because she believed him when he said he hadn’t stolen Gold’s “valuable object”, no matter how much it went against her better judgement.

She believed him, about that and--

Her fingers traced over the soft, pebbled leather of Henry’s book as she waited, turning open to a page at random: a cartoonish drawing of a wedding, the bride in white and the groom in plate armor complete with sword belt. It was True Love and Happily Ever After, all of it Mary Margaret down to the core.

Once Upon a Time.

Only the longer Emma stared at the illustration, the more the image began to seem like a photograph, like she could almost see their faces and the stained glass and the way the princess’s skirt fluttered not from fabric but from feathers dancing in the air.

The lights in the window flickered, pulling Emma’s focus fully back toward the building and there was a tall woman--blonde--she was dressed out of time in a voluminous brown skirt embroidered all over in roses and it looked like the curtain-clothing from The Sound of Music. She walked through the front door and vanished in a single flash of hard white light; a scream carried through the air and Emma was out of her car before the echo had faded.

That was when she saw the man in the animal coat, the one with the skin that seemed to glitter. In his hand was something small and white and he carried it as though it were both delicate and valuable.

“Hey!” Emma called out.

His expression, was she could see of it, registered surprise. The object vanished as he held his hands at right angles to each other and he giggled.

“Who are you?” Emma called, trying to walk forward and finding herself unable to do so.

“Not yet, dearie,” he said. “Not yet.”

He vanished; Emma felt a hand brush against her shoulder and jumped.

It wasn’t a hand--it was a silver hook where the prosthetic left hand of James Hook’s had been.

“Tick-tock, Swan,” he said.

The fingers of his right hand rubbed against her wrist and when Emma woke it was with her own hand wrapped around her tattoo and her head leaning against the steering wheel.

--

The thing about stakeouts was that you needed actually to stay awake in order to execute one, so Emma gave up the game and turned the Bug back home when she saw the lights in Regina’s office were out. She parked the car in the first open spot within spitting distance of the of and found herself running inside, nearly banging the door into the wall when she came through. She called out an apology to Mary Margaret before remembering that it was well after midnight and only sort-of noticed that her roommate wasn’t even home as she started pulling drawers and cabinets open, looking for the one box that she never unpacked, never once in the seven different addresses. For most of her life, its contents had been in her backpack, squished up and neglected but never left behind, leaving just enough room for a toothbrush and a change of clothes and a few pairs of socks, maybe a hat if she was living someplace cold.

The blanket was soft, the knitted wool somehow still fluffy under her fingers in spite of its ignominious storage conditions. Emma pulled it out slowly, running her fingers across the smooth purple ribbon woven through, feeling the simple running stitch across the upper corner that spelled out her name. She sat cross-legged on the floor and draped the blanket over her legs and told herself it was just for a minute.

Emma’s life was full of nightmares. Sometimes, on her worst days, her entire existence actually felt like one; a waking hell from which there was no escape except for her own determination to keep going and to keep running.

But none of those nightmares had ever felt like this, like something true and just on the edge of her consciousness, like a memory.

Milah. The crocodile.

Emma could still see his face as he died in her dream, and she wasn’t sure if she meant Graham’s or Hook’s or both, so she sat on the floor with her blanket.

Enjoy the quiet moment.

The blanket didn’t offer much in terms of real warmth when she sat on the floor, but Emma didn’t notice. She rubbed her hand across her wrist as though she could feel the motif inked there--remembered a time and a girl and a friend, her only friend, scribbling on that wrist and saying now we can both be special. Neal and how he had made her feel special; prison and the tattoo to remind herself that she was special without anyone’s help; the buttercup because once upon a time there had been a girl in a storybook that no one thought was special and she became a princess, the True Love to end all True Loves.

Henry’s book had fallen open and Emma slammed it shut almost exactly at the moment when the door banged open again, a slightly disheveled and fully distracted Mary Margaret walking in and nearly tripping over her.

“Oh!” Mary Margaret futtered around her, reaching a hand down toward the floor, apparently changing her mind, and then covering her mouth with it. “Emma! I didn’t expect you.” She paused. “On the floor, I mean.” Her hands were rubbing against each other anxiously as she played with the peridot ring on her middle finger.

“Mary Margaret,” Emma said, rubbing unshed tears from her eyes before her friend had enough focus to notice them. She really did not want a post-coital Mary Margaret going all mother-hen after the night she’d had. “Sorry. Got caught up in...a case.”

“Hmmm?” Mary Margaret said, still distracted. “Oh, that’s good.”

Emma looked at her friend, really looked at her: the woman was a wreck. Tear streaks on her face, the kind that came from ugly crying--and Sheriff Nolan had been the one to pull Hook into custody. So--

“Where have you been?”

“Out,” Mary Margaret said, dully. “Walking. By the water?”

“Is that a question?” Emma said.

“What?” And there was that famous Mary Margaret focus, looking at her as if she had just noticed the two of them were standing in their dining area in the middle of the night. “Emma, what’s going on with you?”

“Nothing,” Emma said.

“‘Nothing’ with you always means something,” Mary Margaret sighed, “because if it were nothing, you wouldn’t be sitting on our floor in the middle of the night.”

“We were talking about you,” Emma said, a little desperate.

“Yeah,” Mary Margaret said. “But talking about you is easier right now. Remember how you told me to stay away from David and I didn’t?”

“Yeah,” Emma said, pushing herself upright and going for the Scotch. Mary Margaret didn’t drink that often, but they kept a bottle of it in the same cupboard where Emma had hidden her blanket. Mary Margaret bent over and picked the book up off the floor.

“Where did you find this?” she asked. “Did Henry Mills give this to you?”

“What?” Emma said, startled. “Why?” She poured herself a shot and then another one for her friend, handing it over.

“I lent it to him,” Mary Margaret said wistfully. “It used to be my favorite book, you know.”

Emma took her drink and poured another. “Fairy tales?” Emma laughed, and it was harsh--slightly hysterical, even. “Seems about right for you.” She finished the second shot and put the glass down.

“No,” Mary Margaret said, running her fingers across the gilded lettering. “It was more than that. It was hope. Like--believing in even the possibility of a happy ending.”

“Hope,” Emma repeated dubiously.

“And belief,” Mary Margaret said. “It’s a very powerful thing, you know.”

“Whatever,” Emma said, summoning a smile for her friend. She walked toward the ladder to her loft before turning back in an attempt to offer Mary Margaret some kind of reassurance, but Mary Margaret was no longer there. Or maybe she was, only her hair--long now instead of the short pixie cut she typically favored--her hair piled on her head, her waist confined in a dress with a white silk corseted bodice.

The skirt had feathers.

“Mary Margaret?” Emma said.

“Yes?” The woman in white answered her.

“Good night,” Emma said.

--

Sleep was a challenge and beginning daylight was making the sky go grey; Emma was already dressed and out the door by the time five o’clock came and went. She had gone to bed full of whiskey and frustration and fear, chasing a vision of a woman in white through the pages of the storybook she’d gone downstairs for as soon as she’d heard her roommate’s sobbing go quiet and still.

She hadn’t slept.

The fairy tales were--unexpected. To begin with, they were not in any sort of chronological order, meandering through a series of origin stories and follow-ups seemingly based on whatever interested the author most at that particular moment; an increasingly hard-to-follow series of circumlocutions as if they had been paid by the plot twist to churn out the craziest content they could think of. Snow White was a bandit; Prince Charming a shepherd; Red Riding Hood was the Big Bad Wolf and True Love’s Kiss could conquer anything.

Including The Dark Curse, product of the darkest magic and the most malign intent, unleashed upon the world by an Evil Queen manipulated by a man known as the Dark One, and then Snow White and Prince Charming had wrapped their newborn daughter in a hand-knitted blanket trimmed with purple ribbon and hoped that someday, she would find them.

All of it, he’d said, is because of Regina Mills and Robert Gold.

That was when Emma left a note for her friend, promising breakfast, and went back to The Rabbit Hole.

The rear entrance was locked but the office wasn’t, and anyway Emma had come prepared for both, the tension wrench going straight in and exactly the right amount of pressure on the pins popping the back door open in a matter of seconds. The room was exactly as they had left it, even down to Emma’s unfinished tumbler of rum sitting on the far side of Hook’s desk. This time, though, Emma sat on his side, in his chair, bending to examine the drawers.

In the third drawer down she found the locked box. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the lock on this offered more of a challenge than the back door had done, but it was still open in less than a minute, its contents spread across the desk for Emma’s examination. Emma’s hands fidgeted with the smallest treasure pulled from the trove--a ring on a chain--as she contemplated the curved, silver metal that would not have looked out of place in the collection on the wall in the main bar. The hook was nestled in with a scrap of worn leather embossed with a sigil, a foreign crest stamped atop the name ‘JONES’; what stopped Emma in her tracks was the pen-and-ink drawing of a woman and another of a boy, both with creases so sharply worn from folding and unfolding that she was almost surprised the paper--the parchment--didn’t fall apart in her hands.

The boy could almost have been a twin for Henry Mills.

But Henry didn’t have a twin--that much, at least, Emma knew for sure. She’d only given birth the once.

The ring went around her neck before Emma could ask herself why.

The parchment went into her pocket.

Everything else went back into the lockbox and then back into the drawer.

Everything you think you believe is wrong, he’d said.

But Emma Swan was not a believer.

--

Granny’s at seven in the morning was another challenge. Not just because the neighborhood’s best coffee shop and diner would naturally be bustling during the morning rush but because Emma’s head was still pounding from the Scotch. Almost before she sat down, Granny had sent Ruby over with a cup of steaming hot chocolate, whipped cream on top and a cinnamon stick instead of a spoon to stir it. Ruby pulled a face at being dragged back into her old waitressing gig, then gave Emma a wink and sat down, brandishing a bear claw.

Emma closed her eyes and tried to remember why Ruby had quit working at her grandmother’s diner instead of imagining a werewolf serving a breakfast pastry. Something about a row between Granny and Ruby that ended up with Ruby at the bus stop, threatening to leave town, and Emma finding her and mentioning that she and Graham could use the extra help.

“You look like shit,” Ruby commented, taking a bite of an apple that matched her lipstick.

“Are you sure Granny didn’t just fire your ass?” Emma retorted. “Because that is now how you speak to paying customers.”

Ruby laughed. “I’m a people person,” she said. “One that you pay to speak to your customers.”

“Good point,” Emma said, offering a small smile. “How long did you work here, anyway?”

“As long as I can remember,” Ruby said, rolling her eyes. “Too long, that’s for sure.”

As long as I can remember.

“I’m sorry my heart attack interfered with your plans to sleep your way down the eastern seaboard,” Granny said, coming up behind them. “Eat your bear claw or I won’t save you one next time.” That last was directed at Emma, who hastened to comply.

Ruby laughed. “What’s up with you this morning, Em? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bear claw last long enough for you to put it on a plate before.”

Emma shrugged. “It was a long night,” she said, because that was easier than saying she’d stayed up too late reading fairy tales and drinking, or explaining that she’d already committed a felony and been to the office before seven. She’d sat at Graham’s desk, with his things--added another reminder to her collection when she’d pulled the laces from his work boots and tied them around her wrist to cover her tattoo. Hook’s ring bumped up against the swan pendant around her neck that might as well have been an albatross for how much it had weighed her down in the years since Neal had stolen it for her and then bequeathed it to her, a parting gift she’d received in prison as she served the sentence he’d set her up to take.

It came in the mail the same day she’d taken the pregnancy test.

Emma Swan did not get emotional about men and she carried the reasons--the reminders--why everywhere she went.

It’s always nice to leave an impression.

The ring was leaving an impression in her skin from where she’d wrapped her hand around it, Emma realized as she tried to focus on what Ruby was saying to her, and then the bell over the entrance rang and Mary Margaret came in, looking nervously around her before sliding into their booth. Emma ordered her a tea by gesturing for Ruby to go get it, which got her another fake snarl before Mary Margaret said, in a voice barely above a whisper: “I broke up with David.”

“Ah,” Emma said. She leaned in closer, wanting to offer comfort but not totally sure how to do it. She reached her hand out to her roommate’s in an unfamiliar gesture, then let it fall to the table when her eye caught the peridot ring Mary Margaret wore on her third finger.

"I’m not the jewelry type," said Snow White. "I can tell," said the prince."

“Kathryn,” Mary Margaret said, “his wife, I mean, she got into law school.” She paused. “In Boston.”

And it was then, when he saw his mother’s ring on her finger, that he knew in his heart there was no other woman he would ever love.

Emma pulled at the ring on the chain around her neck.

Consider it a reminder.

“So David is moving with her?”

Ruby laughed. “David, outside of Storybrooke? I’m not sure if he would survive.”

“No,” Mary Margaret said, on the verge of tears. “We talked about it--we agreed--to take the opportunity to start over from a real place. He was going to tell her the truth. We were going to be honest.”

Emma did not fail to notice the repeated use of the past tense.

“He didn’t tell her,” Emma said, not needing to ask. “But she found out, didn’t she?”

“While you were out last night on your case I was with David,” Mary Margaret said. “And then his wife called looking for him. She thought he was on duty at the station but he didn’t answer there so she--” Mary Margaret was wiping away tears. “He was supposed to tell her. He told me that he did.”

“That would have been the honorable thing to do,” Emma muttered.

“And I realized,” Mary Margaret said, “that what we have, it isn’t love. It’s something else, something destructive. We shouldn’t be together. It’s like we’re cursed.”

"Show me you feel the same, and we can be together forever." “They had their happy endings stolen from them,” Hook had said.

Ruby came back with the tea and sat down, looking between Emma and Mary Margaret before enveloping Mary Margaret in a hug.

“I always thought,” Mary Margaret said, “that if two people were meant to be together, they find a way. They--find each other, no matter what. I really believed that.”

“If you need anything--” “You’ll find me?” Snow said, looking at him thoughtfully. "Always,” Charming confirmed. “I almost believe that.”

Emma shook her head, trying to wake herself up, trying not to picture the story she’d read the night before, trying not to see the woman in white and a red-cloaked werewolf where her friends were sitting. She took a sip of her cocoa and looked at the clock: 7:15.

“I’m so sorry, sweetie,” Ruby was saying, an arm still wrapped around Mary Margaret’s shoulder as the bell over the door rang again and Sheriff David Nolan walked in.

“You made a mistake with David,” Emma said. “It happens. Hang in there. If there’s anything I can do to help, I will.”

“Thank you,” Mary Margaret said softly, wiping under her eyes, though her mascara was already a lost cause.

So much for True Love.

But Emma still had a job to do, even if she wasn’t completely sure what it was any more. She finished her cocoa and got up, a quick “see you at the office” to Ruby and a hand on the shoulder, which seemed like the right thing to do, for Mary Margaret. She walked toward David and resisted the urge to hit him when she got in front of him and asked, “What happened with Hook last night?”

David’s head moved but he wasn’t looking at her. He was almost looking through her as he said, “I’m looking,” which didn’t seem like an answer to her question.

“What the fuck, Nolan? You really want to dick around right now?” Emma gestured impatiently at the sobbing woman behind both of them.

“I’m looking,” he repeated, and it still wasn’t an answer.

“Whatever,” Emma muttered, moving toward the way out. David Nolan looked like a man possessed.

Or cursed.

Fuck literally all of that, Emma thought as the door closed behind her, nearly walking into someone on the sidewalk. She sidestepped him at the last minute, turning behind her just to double-check, and he was staring at her. The man was tall, with messy hair and wide eyes, something frantic in his gaze. He wore a cravat and a top coat as if that was a thing people did, and turned away when she met his eyes, walking quickly in the other direction.

Emma buried her hands in her pockets, twisting her fingers in the fabric of the pocket bags, and walked to the sheriff’s station.

--

She should have been expecting to find him already gone, if Nolan was out and about getting coffee, but finding the cell empty was still something of a shock. Judging by the charge sheet David had left on his desk--without locking the door, making it easy to snoop--Hook had been bailed out by a woman named Cora Hart. David had left no other notes or thoughts, at least none that Emma could see, so she walked back to the door and came face-to-face with Regina Mills, who was walking in and looking, as usual, angry.

“Seriously?”

“I should be the one asking you that,” Regina said, apparently exasperated in addition to angry. “What game are you playing at, Miss Swan?”

“I could say the same to you,” Emma retorted. “It was you, wasn’t it, who phoned the Sheriff last night?”

Regina did not condescend to answer. “The way the two of you were making eyes at each other,” Regina said with a sneer, “constituted a crime.”

“We do not,” Emma objected, “‘make eyes’.” Emma realized her mistake only when Regina snorted--it felt like an admission, of sorts, and definitely one that Regina could not be trusted with.

“I’ve come to see to him, at any rate,” Regina said expectantly. “What have you done with him?”

Emma gestured at the empty cell with a flourish, suppressing the urge to make a mocking little bow. “He’s gone,” she said. “Bailed out this morning by Cora Hart.”

There was a beat of silence and then Regina’s face went completely white, as if all of the blood had drained from her face at once--except for her lips, which remained so red they looked bloodstained.

“Who is she, Regina?”

“It’s not possible,” Regina whispered.

“You seem to be saying that a lot lately,” Emma said. “It never seems to be true.”

Regina’s perfectly painted lips formed a moue. “She’s my mother,” Regina admitted.

“I thought your mother was dead,” Emma said.

“So did I,” Regina said.

--

Watching Henry Mills on the playground was like staring into the past.

A group of kids crowded around the swingset; another took turns using a slide; and Henry sat, resplendent in his solitude, in the tower of a play structure.

“He calls it his castle,” Mary Margaret explained when Emma had shown up at the school looking for Henry. “That’s where he spends most of his time.”

Emma had always been, at best, at the fringes of childhood socializing. More often, she found herself alone and apart, considered temporary--too aloof, too prickly, too much effort to be worth it.

“You left this in my office,” Emma said, coming up behind him and settling herself next to him. The book she left on the ground in between them.

“Oh,” Henry says, looking sheepish. “Yeah, thanks...Emma.”

“You know who I am, don’t you?” Emma said.

His expression brightened. “You read it?” he asked, excited. “You know?”

“Did I read what?” she said. “Do I know what?”

“The story about you,” Henry tapped the book. “That you’re the Savior.”

“Oh, kid,” Emma said. “You’ve got problems.” Then: “What is it, anyway?”

Henry considered her. “I’m not sure you’re ready, Emma,” he said seriously.

“I’m not ready for fairy tales?”

“They’re not fairy tales,” he said with complete sincerity. “They’re true. Every story in this book actually happened.”

Every story you’ve read, Hook had said, some version of it has actually happened.

“I’ve kind of had enough of the book crap,” Emma said, then winced. “Sorry, I guess I should watch my language or something. But, yeah, I read some of the stories in your book.”

Henry was quiet for a minute, waiting.

“What I meant,” Emma said, “was that I’m your--your birth mother.”

That was the first time she said it out loud.

“I know,” Henry said.

She had never even let herself hold him.

“It’s okay, Emma,” Henry said, his eyes as wide as saucers and his voice gentle and older than his years. “I know why you gave me away. You wanted to give me my best chance.”

“How do you know that?” Emma asked.

“Because,” he said, “it’s the same reason Snow White gave you away.”

Your parents’ entire kingdom was cursed. They sent you here to break it.

“What matters is that you’re here now,” Henry said happily. “You’re going to bring back the happy endings. It says so in the book.”

A place where all of their happy endings had been stolen.

“Did Hook tell you that?”

“Hook?” Henry repeated. “Like, Captain Hook?”

“No,” Emma said, shaking her head. “No, like Hook from The Rabbit Hole.”

Henry was nodding. “Yeah, Liam’s brother. Hook. Captain Hook, Emma. He’s in the book, too.”

“Listen to me: I’m not in any book, I’m a real person. I’m no savior,” she said. “But you’re right about one thing--I wanted you to have your best chance, and it wasn’t with me.”

“But it could be,” Henry said quietly. “You don’t know what it’s like here. With her. It’s not--it really sucks, Emma.”

Emma was surprised to hear that kind of language from a ten-year-old and she wanted to grab him, to soothe him. She didn’t know if she was allowed to, though, so she rubbed her hand against his shoulder and quickly pulled it away.

“You could be,” Hook had said.

She couldn’t do this.

She was not parent material.

How could she be a parent when she never was one? When she never had one?

“Believe me, kid,” Emma said, “I know what ‘sucking’ is. I was left on the side of a freeway--my parents didn’t even bother to drive me to a hospital. But I’m sure, in her way, your mom is trying her best.”

“Emma,” Henry said, “you’ve met her. You’ve seen her. Do you really believe that?”

She didn’t--she really didn’t. But she couldn’t say that to a ten-year-old kid who wasn’t legally hers.

“I want to, kid,” Emma said.

“You know she’s the Evil Queen,” Henry said. “She’s the one who made it so your parents had to send you away--they didn’t leave you on the side of the freeway. That’s just where you came through.”

“What?”

“When you went through the wardrobe,” Henry said, “your parents were just trying to save you from the curse--so you could find them, and break it.”

“You found me,” Snow said. “Did you ever doubt that I would?”

“Sure they were, kid,” Emma said. “So, you spend a lot of time with Hook?”

“Liam’s my friend,” he said, shrugging. “His brother is always really nice to me.”

“And you told him about your storybook? That’s why you think he’s Captain Hook?”

Henry looked shocked. “Of course not, Emma,” he said. “They don’t know they’re cursed. That’s the whole point.”

But Hook--he knew.

“And you think I’m here to break this curse? That’s why you stole Mary Margaret’s credit card to find me? Why you left the book in my office?”

“Yeah,” he said with certainty. “Because you’re the product of True Love. That’s what makes you the Savior.”

“True Love,” he’d said. “That’s the most powerful magic of all, or so they say.” He’d said that, as if magic were real and it was just that simple, and then he’d looked at her with the kind of look you get in your eyes when you’ve been left alone. The kind of look a man might have after growing up under an indenture and losing the brother who had protected him--the kind of look he might have after watching the woman he loved die while he was helpless to stop it--the kind of look that might drive a man to chase his vengeance through worlds and time and finally give himself over to a curse in the hope of finally finding his revenge.

“You really believe,” Emma said, “that everyone in this world is a fairy tale character?”

Everything you think you believe is wrong.

But Emma Swan was not a believer.

“No,” Henry said.

Emma smiled, relieved.

“Just the ones in this part of town, in Storybrooke,” he said. “Time’s been frozen, only, I think it started moving again when you got here.”

“And no one noticed that time just, like, didn’t move?”

“They don’t know,” Henry insisted. “It’s a haze to them, ask anyone anything about their pasts.”

“As long as I can remember,” Ruby said. "As long as I can remember,” Hook said. He’s older than he looks.

“So let me get this straight,” Emma said. “For decades, people have been wandering around, not aging, with screwed-up memories, stuck in a curse?”

“Yeah, exactly!” Henry said. “I knew you’d get it--that’s why we need you. You’re the only one who can stop my mom.”

“Because I’m the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming,” Emma said.

“Yes,” Henry said. “But my mom doesn’t know that--we have the advantage.”

“The child got away,” Hook had said.

“Riiiight,” Emma said, drawing out the word. “And who--who do you think Snow White is, exactly?”

“Miss Blanchard,” Henry said. “Definitely. And I’m pretty sure that Sheriff Nolan is Prince Charming.”

“It’s like we’re cursed,” Mary Margaret had said.

“Oh, kid,” Emma said again.

“I have a name, you know,” he said. “It’s Henry.”

“Yeah,” Emma whispered.

Henry put his hand on her arm. “I know you like me, Emma. And I know the hero never believes at first. If they did, it wouldn’t be a very good story.” He held the book out to her, barely balancing it in both hands.

Emma took the book.

She was not a believer.

--

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#csrt #our little life (rounded with a sleep) #captain swan rewrite a thon #cs fic #canon divergence #S1 divergence #cursed!killian #an alternate theory of the curse