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Chapter Text

Killian blamed the rum.

Not that it was actually the rum's fault, but he blamed it all the same.

Sure, the rum took the edge off of his midnight walk along Storybrooke's boardwalk as his mind raced with—he still couldn't believe it—that kiss. The rum also blurred in his head the time portal and the Crocodile, Swan in tears, a burning stake, fresh memories of times long past and green eyes bright with new-found hope. But even the rum could not have explained why, sure as sober daylight, the Jolly Roger loomed above the docks, soft candlelight warming the windows of the captain's quarters.

His mind knew this wasn't likely to end well, but his legs, being attached to an idiot, took him toward the ship anyway. He justified his investigation on the basis that obviously the ship shouldn't be there, someone should find out why, and that someone should know where the ship should be, which narrowed down options significantly. That this was yet another impossible thing in a day of impossible things and impossible things tended to involve him courting doom seemed a distant technicality.

Again, probably the rum talking. Or rather, walking.

A blackbird screeched as he stood at the edge of the dock, staring at the stairs up to his former vessel. Good form dictated that he announce himself, no matter how many centuries he'd lived under the Jolly Roger's sails, but then there was the pirate thing. Piracy, he had to underline, was not just a way of life, but a surprisingly effective way of staying alive and his every black-leather-and-red-flag instinct screamed in warning almost as much as they ached with longing to feel her deck under foot again.

Another screech interrupted his thoughts and, before he could decide one way or the other, light and fire flashed around him, a great roar sounded above him, and all thought dissolved into burning heat and his own hoarse howl.

Chapter Text

The sounds of the sea gently woke Killian from a dead sleep. In that space between full sleep and full consciousness, the lap-lap of sea waves and the subtle sway of the ship beneath him made his bleary mind question whether the last year had been but a vague dream. As if he had simply slipped away for a time with his visions of a magic-less land, but the ship now called him back to open air and floating battle and salt-soaked courage.

Blue eyes opened to the first blush of a red dawn beaming through the rigging of the Jolly Roger. He sprawled face-up on the deck, feeling sore and bruised, but otherwise unharmed. Seeing no other soul from where he lay, he sat up to find his hook gone, as well as his pistol and sword. Rising, he saw the ship was out at sea, just within sight of Storybrooke, but beyond the town line; too far to swim back. Killian felt like a mouse seeing the trap only after it had sprung.

The cocking of a gun made him turn to face the helm. A young woman stood at the wheel. With one hand she held the ship steady, with the other, she pointed Killian's own pistol directly at him.

Well, at least he'd located the pistol.

Killian forced an apologetic smile. The girl didn't look past twenty and he almost felt guilty calculating which of her bones to break to get his weapon back, but then that was the occupational hazard of kidnapping a pirate. He needed only to bluff his way closer and bam!

"Apologies, lass, to intrude," he said, and took a step closer. "But when I saw the ship-"

"Save it," she cut him off. The gun barrel didn't falter for a moment. "I know how you work, Hook."

Definitely a trap, he thought. A trap, he reminded himself, he had walked straight into.

"Stand here," she ordered and motioned to a spot just a few steps from her station at the wheel. He complied, trying his best to look unconcerned about the barrel trained on his eyes. He walked as slowly as he dared, stealing the chance to study her closely. She had a roughness about her. Tanned—as if used to the outdoors. Pretty—but unkempt, her dark hair swept back in a half-unraveled braid. She was indeed young,  but even through her clothes—militaristic linens, cream-colored, with a red naval coat—Killian noted her body still clung to the last grasps of girlhood. Killian's eyes lingered on her form, not because of her figure but because her uniform was ripped through and stained with dried blood, as one who had faced a firing squad, yet survived.

Military deserter, Killian concluded. Common enough on a pirate ship.

The girl spoke as he came to a stop. "I'll say four names. If you so much as twitch a pinkie, I shoot."

"Sounds like a boring game, love," he began and tried to ease his way closer, but her next word stopped him in his tracks.

"Liam."

Killian's eyes involuntarily narrowed and the pistol inched higher in a final warning. Again, he willed himself still, focusing on the flecks of color in her steel-grey eyes. Here, he saw something he recognized: the hawkish look of desperate and untethered retribution. The same look had reflected at him in every mirror since he burned the Pegasus sail. Questions rose in his throat, but he swallowed them.

"Milah," she continued and Killian felt an anger brew deep in his gut. Not the ancient and vengeful ache that drove him across the realms to an island beyond time, but a biting and indignant wrath at the invasion into his deepest darkness. That she was trying to manipulate him, he could tell, and so resolved to avoid letting her do just that.

"Baelfire," she hissed and bolts of despair and guilt shot through his being, but he clamped them down and remained stone still. His breathing quickened with the effort of holding everything in. The girl inched forward, angled the gun upward and pressed the barrel to the underside of his chin. Eyes glinting with malice, she whispered, "Emma."

Killian's muscles strained with the tension of conscious stillness and he had to concentrate very carefully on his breathing to keep from going for the gun. If the girl had called up that inferno, she likely didn't need the gun, but that was only part of his hesitation. Blackbeard's words as he'd fought for Ariel and Eric echoed in his ears and he wondered if he really was going soft. An enemy stood in front of him, but he only saw a girl in an ill-fitting uniform with the look of the Lost Boys in her eyes.

Memories of Emma and the beanstalk flooded his mind and he stilled.

Something of his thought process must have registered in his eyes because the girl's demeanor softened. The rancor faded to a dim determination. To his surprise, she flipped the gun over in her hand and held the handle out toward him.

"That was a test. You passed," she said.

"Who the bloody hell are you?" Killian's nerves hadn't settled and the ice in his voice surprised even him. He snatched the gun, holding it at his side, but pointed away from the girl.

She waited for a beat too long before replying, "Lee."

"That's not a name, that's a lie."

Lee gave him a skeptical look, the first shade of real humanity he'd seen yet. "And you're Captain Hook with neither a ship nor a hook. You're not really in a position to judge."

"It's been a bad year."

Lee reached into her own coat, withdrew the silvery weight of his hook and held it out for him.

Cautiously, he stuffed the gun away, took his hook, and snapped it back into place. "What happened to Blackbeard?"

The girl scoffed. "This hasn't been Blackbeard's ship in quite some time."

Killian couldn't say he was sorry to hear the ship had slipped so quickly through Blackbeard's grasp. "Am I supposed to believe you're the captain now?"

"This ship has no captain left," Lee replied. "No crew left either." Her hand went to her coat and she withdrew a flask.

Killian desperately wanted to ask if the mad pirate had finally met his end, but Blackbeard wasn't of greatest importance right now.

"How did you know those names?" Killian asked.

"Your story travels farther than you know," She tipped the metal bottle in offering. "Breakfast?"

Killian only stared in reply. The realms might know the ferocity of Captain Hook, but who outside Storybrooke knew the tragedies of Killian Jones?

Lee uncapped the flask and took a swig before continuing, "I'm here to help."

"Help?" Killian spat back, "by kidnapping me, setting me on fire and holding me at gunpoint?"

"Again, you're really not in the strongest position to argue tactics, Pirate."

"Well, if it's the Witch you've come about, she's dead. Or hasn't that bit reached you yet?"

"No, it's not about the Witch," Lee replied and raised the flask to her lips again.

Killian grew impatient. "Then what other threat could be so bad that you'd have to smuggle me out of Storybrooke and imprison me on my old ship?"

Lee swallowed mid-swig. "Oh, you're not a prisoner, Hook," she capped the flask and shoved it back into her coat. "You're bait."

Chapter Text

It was Killian's turn to turn the pistol on Lee, who glanced at the gun, glanced at Killian, and turned back toward Storybrooke. "Don't worry, I'm not here to hurt anyone; at least, not anyone you care about."

"I should advise you this really isn't inspiring any groundswell of confidence, and there is a certain modicum of trust necessary, even among pirates."

Lee shot a glare back at him, offended. "I'm not a pirate."

"Kidnapping. Coercion. Arson," Killian stated her actions as matters-of-fact, "Oh, they all say that at the start, yet here you are standing on a pirate ship."

Ignoring the gun, Lee retrieved a spyglass from her pocket, eying Storybrooke through its sight. "We needed the fastest ship in the realms to save our realm. That meant the Jolly Roger. Whatever its former life, this is a warship now. We even added some upgrades," she indicated two cannon-like additions to the deck. "Not that they did any good. We failed, watched the destruction of our entire realm. Now it has come to your Storybrooke, where I mean to make an end of it."

Her story had the air of truth to Killian's ears, confirmed by a subtle vulnerability in her demeanor. "And why am I here?"

Lee glanced at Killian again. "This creature consumes the very fuel of magic: emotion. It craves old and tortured souls, hosts from which to leech," Lee paused to look for the right words, "heartache until it grows strong—strong enough to cross realms—and to be frank, you're about as old and blackened as they come."

"You don't know Storybrooke very well, then, lass. You might want to ask Rumplestiltskin, he rather has the market cornered on pain and suffering. Granted, he's usually the one dealing it out."

Lee shook her head. "The Dark One's too strong for it to overpower, certainly not after it just jumped realms. Besides," she said with a shrug, "it's already come after you once."

Pieces started to fall together in Killian's mind. "Last night… the fireball when I approached the ship?"

"That was me. You passed out when it attacked. I had to burn it off to spare you. All it needs is a scratch to infect—it seems that all that leather saved your life."

"I'll forward your compliments to my tailor."

"It's more than that," Lee paused for sincerity. "This creature, this Scourge, it infects the soul. The test I gave you, had you been infected, the emotions it stirred up would have drawn it to the surface, you would have flown into a rage, and I'd have been obliged to blow your head off." At the look of surprise in Killian's eyes, Lee looked away. "Believe me, it would've been the humane act. The fact that you could keep control told me you're safe, but if shooting me will make you feel better, please do it so I won't have to watch this realm burn as mine did. "

Killian lowered the gun and shoved it back in its place at his waist, hoping he didn't live to regret it. Lee sighted up the spyglass again and moved her head so that Killian could look through it over her shoulder. "See for yourself," she offered.

Killian had to bend slightly to get the right angle. Through the scope, he saw a blackbird flitting back and forth at the edge of the town line over the water.

"All this over a little bird?" he whispered in disbelief.

"Don't be fooled by the size. Realm jumping weakens it, but that thing has the capacity to destroy everything. Once we cross back over the town line, the only safe place for you will be within the ship, there's an enchantment-"

The bird suddenly dropped out of the glass's view and Killian wrenched it from Lee to maintain his tracking. A way out from Storybrooke, a miniscule craft tore through the waters, directly on course to meet the Jolly Roger. His heart sank when he saw long strands of blonde hair blowing in the wind.

"Swan!" he blurted.

Surprised, Lee grabbed the spyglass back to confirm. The blackbird careened away from the town line and arced back toward the speeding craft. She slammed the scope closed and shoved it into a pocket. "Take the wheel, get us to her as fast as you can," she instructed, even as she jumped down to the lower deck.

"What are you doing?" Killian called as Lee ran to the front of the ship, but whatever response she gave was snatched by the sea air and ragged waves. He caught only one nonsensical word.

Flamethrower.

-0-

Emma blinked against the wind, willing the Jet Ski closer to the imposing ship. She hadn't quite figured out how she planned to get aboard, but it didn't take a homing spell to conclude that, if Hook disappeared the second the Jolly Roger re-appeared, the two had to be related. She heard only the sound of the Jet Ski's engine and the rush of the wind in her ears as she sped through the water.

The Jolly Roger turned on a dime, heading straight for her, and fast.

Emma veered to come alongside the ship and nearly collided with a blackbird that swooped down beside her. They missed by mere inches. She looked up to see the muzzle of a cannon swing over the side of the ship, tracking on her movement. Fire burst from its lips and time slowed just for Emma. She rolled off the Jet Ski, hitting the water hard enough to knock the wind from her, and she went under. For several panicked seconds, she thrashed underwater, lungs burning for air, with no sense of up or down. Dressed as she was in street clothes, buoyancy was not in her favor. But with enough determined kicking, she broke the surface.

The bird swooped by again, this time flaming, like a phoenix in flight. It arced up into the sky and, with a great screech, burned to cinders.

The slap of a rope on water brought her attention back down and Emma grabbed at a length of thick rope that trailed back up to the ship. No sooner had she secured herself to it, but she rose into the air; sea below her, sky above her and suddenly, unmistakably, Killian's arms around her, pulling her aboard.

"Swan!? Are you alright?"

"Killian?" was all she got out before another woman's voice barked.

"Hook. Back off."

Emma stared in surprise as a young woman—a girl, really—leaned over the man and, holding a dagger to his neck, pulled him to his feet.

"Don't move a pinkie, or I slit his throat," she hissed.

Fear and anger flashed through Emma's system and, without any conscious thought, she clenched a fist. The girl yelped in pain and dropped the dagger. Emma waved a hand and envisioned the girl flying off the ship.

As if hit by gale force winds, the girl fell backward, but rather than the flying, sprawling sight Emma expected, the girl's feet gave a faint green glow and she merely slid back on her heels until she hit the ship's railing and crumpled to the deck. Emma held still, daring the girl to move. Killian's eyes darted between the two women, torn.

Grunting in pain, the girl called out, "She passed! The Scourge can't use magic!"

Killian's shoulders dropped in relief and he turned to offer Emma a hand up. Questions flooded out of her mouth faster than he could answer. "What was all that about? What's going on? Who is that? What's the ship doing here?"

He placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Take it easy. You'll have all your answers just as soon as I can find you a few stiff drinks. Trust me."

Chapter Text

Killian helped Emma while Lee guided the ship back to port. He tried to fill her in on the whole story, somewhat hampered by the fact that Lee stood wordless and withdrawn as she mechanically maneuvered the ship to rest. Unsurprisingly, a small crowd had already gathered at the dock, anxious for answers of their own. Killian only had to wave them aboard and they were nearly buried in hugs and shoulder slaps, more-so Emma than Killian—okay, mainly Emma—but it was the kind of imbalance he was more than willing to endure.

When the inevitable questions came, he turned to give credit to Lee but found the helm deserted and the girl nowhere in sight. Begging off on further answers until the Charmings could get Emma home and into a hot shower, Killian promised to explain everything over a piping hot breakfast at Granny's. The crowd respectfully ebbed like the tide and dispersed back into the town, drawing with them the still-sopping Emma and all the questions to which he still had precious few answers.

He found her in the ship's cabin, seated at the table, surrounded by several different liquid "breakfast" options.

"Contrary to popular belief, there are better ways to celebrate a victory, lass," he began. Seeing his sword laying on the end of the table, he helped himself and slid it back into its sheath.

Lee's voice came out cold and distant. "My whole world is gone. For me, this is merely the end, not a victory."

"Believe it or not, I know how you feel. Which is why I get this," he waved a hand to the table full of alcohol, "but it's not going to work. Not long-term. Come tell your story to the town, perhaps they can find a place for you here."

"You and I both know I'm hardly fit for public display right now."

Killian had to agree that showing up sloshed at Granny's wouldn't make her many friends. "You take today and mourn your lost," he conceded, taking the first few steps back up the hatch without taking his eyes off her, "but tomorrow, we're going to talk about your future."

-0-

She gave no response as Hook left, except to bring another drink to her lips. Her thoughts wandered for some time, chasing lost possibilities when the hatch creaked open again.

"I thought we had a deal," she hissed. Judging by the shift of the light outside, morning had run straight into afternoon, so she poured herself a stronger lunch.

A distinguished voice caught her off guard. "Congratulations, dearie."

She looked to the entrance, where a slight, greying man cleared the last stair. "Oh, what for?" she asked, but without any actual interest in the answer.

"Not many people can lie to Emma Swan and get away with it."

"Technically he did the lying for me."

Unimpressed, he shifted his weight. "Unfortunately for you, I'm a tougher sell."

"Are you now?" she asked, mindlessly tracing the rim of her glass with a finger. "I suppose I wouldn't know. Technically, we haven't met yet, Rumplestiltssskin."

"Oh, but I do know you," Rumplestiltskin stared icily, "I've seen you in dreams I'd rather not repeat."

"Oh," she put a hand to her mouth as if embarrassed. "Keep talking like that and you'll make my cheeks flush."

"You're always flushed." He rasped, unamused, then took a step forward. "I've seen you for some time, in the distance. Never here. You are not supposed to be here."

She grabbed her now half-empty glass off the table and lifted it in toast, "I'll drink to that."

"Go home before I have to intervene."

"Nothing for me to go back to. All the home I have is the home I have with me," she had to repeat the line to herself a few times, it was getting harder and harder to get words in the right order.

"Then if you've really done all you came for, you'd best take your ship and find some place far, far away."

Her laugh came out more like a snarl. "You threaten me like I have something to lose."

"How about your memories?" he shot back. "How about I take them and throw you out there, at the mercy of the Land Without Magic? They won't notice another little lost girl."

Her mood darkened. She put her drink down to glare at him.

Rumplestiltskin waved a hand, but stopped mid-motion, staring at her feet under the table and smiled. "Your feet," he whispered, curious, "you can't leave the ship. You're trapped here. This ship isn't your home, it's your curse," he cooed, searching her eyes. "You can't leave without your captain's orders, and your captain is dead. How tragic," a smile crept across his face, "how convenient."

In one swift move, her arm went to her coat, then flung wildly. Rumplestiltskin simply stepped aside as something sharp and heavy flew past him and hit the wall.

Rumplestiltskin smiled, this time genuinely, "It takes a lot more than that to kill me, Lillian."

Drunk and exasperated, she growled, "Oh, for once in eternity, let me be!"

Rumplestiltskin retreated, still smirking. As the hatch closed on the aged ship, she stared straight forward at the silvery steel of a hook embedded in the wall like a massive tiger's claw.

-0-

Henry hunched over and climbed the stairs slowly. He imagined himself as Solid Snake evading detection as he inched toward his goal. The sun had set some time ago and the scant lights on the docks gave him ample cover. He came flush with the deck of the Jolly Roger and, after peering ever so slyly around the dock for witnesses, half-dashed, half-dove onto the deck, keeping his head down so as not to be seen above the railing. Pausing a moment, he listened for the sounds of pursuit, but none came.

He moved forward in a crouch, only using his hands where necessary because he really was too old to be outright crawling. He walked carefully so as not to even creak a board, stopping when he saw what he came for.

Just as Killian said, two massive flamethrowers sat on the deck of the Jolly Roger.

Flamethrowers. On a pirate ship.

This was the coolest thing he had ever seen.

"It's bad form to board a ship without permission," came a weary voice from behind him.

Henry turned around. He'd only seen the woman briefly and from a distance, but he recognized her uniform and short red coat. "Miss... uh… Captain Lee?" He stammered. "I'm sorry, I didn't want anyone to know I was here. I just wanted to look at the flamethrowers. I would have come another time, but I really didn't think my mom would let me—she's not really into the whole pirate thing—so I sorta had to sneak on and I'm really, really, really sorry."

Lee just stared at him for a while with a confused look on her face and Henry started to feel a little uncomfortable. She finally spoke her confusion slowly, "Your mother… Emma?"

"No, Regina. She'd kill me if she knew I was here. Please don't tell?"

Again, Lee stared at him, as if looking through him. Henry noticed redness around her eyes as if she'd been crying. "Are you alright?" He asked.

Again, blank stare, and she started to sway a little on her feet.

And that's when it hit Henry; she was blistering drunk.

Feeling beyond awkward, Henry began to move toward the stairs again, trying not to let his discomfort show.

"Well, I should really be going."

"No, Henry, wait," she began, but whatever she was to say was drowned by a terrible screech from above. In her reduced state, shock must have overtaken her senses because Lee turned and swayed unsteadily as she searched the sky.

Henry saw the danger first and dropped. "Get down!" he shouted, pulling Lee down by the arm. Something like a hawk dove past, barely missing the two. He saw it bank for another pass. "The stairs! Get down the stairs!" he ordered, but the girl's mind seemed too sluggish to understand his words. He grabbed her arm to pull her, but the hawk-creature dove again. With a scream, Lee pushed him aside and the hawk caught her by the back of her brocade coat.

-0-

To Lillian, all was sound and motion and pressure. Like drowning in mid-air. She slid violently to the side and her head bounced off hardwood, but pain came only as an afterthought to the numbness of her mind. Screeching echoed in her ears, and screaming. A voice calling. Commanding. Captaining.

Captain.

"Get down the stairs!"

Then pulling and screeching and No-no-no.

Shoving and sliding and slamming.

And voices from fractured time all calling "Henryyyyyy!"

And fire and flash and inferno.

And a phoenix in flight, all the realms burning to ash and falling, falling, falling.

Chapter Text

Emma fidgeted with her phone as she leaned against a mast of the Jolly Roger, trying to stem the unfolding text explosion. It wasn't much past midnight, but most of the town was not only still awake, but un-apologetically freaking out over the dock attack and, between being sheriff and, well, being her, everyone seemed to be looking to her for answers.

Every. Two. Seconds.

Fifteen more text alerts popped up simultaneously before Emma sent an exasperated mass text: Meeting. Town Hall. Half an hour. Someone bring caffeine.

She jammed the phone into her pocket when she heard boots on the ship's steps. "Lee's still unconscious. Whale is minimizing contact with her until we know the damage," she informed as scruff and long coat and steel stepped on deck. "Henry is fine. It's a good thing Regina followed him and, I never thought I'd say this, is very good at killing things. What's your big idea?"

Leather creaked as Killian paused to stretch sore shoulders; neither had had much sleep in the days since they fell into the Witch's time portal and both felt the effects. Blue eyes gazed around the ship before landing on Emma. "Something the lass said to me this morning. She knew things about me, specific things about me. It got me thinking—every ship captain keeps a log, myself being no exception."

Emma dawned in a smirk of disbelief. "Are you telling me you have a diary?"

"Don't let your imagination get the best of you, Swan, a ship takes a lot of bookkeeping to keep afloat; however," ringed hands waved in mock admission, "occasional events do lend themselves to a certain air of artistic flourish." He lifted an eyebrow at Emma's soft giggle. "Believe me, if you were adrift in Neverland with nary a soul but Smee to consider your reflections, you'd prefer the conversation of inanimate objects too."

"Exactly what did you write in there?"

Killian shrugged, "Aside from the daily essentials, just bits and scraps, hidden in a code I thought only I could break."

Emma's brow furrowed, "And you think she found it and broke the code to glimpse into your personal life?"

"Is that really so hard to believe? I am a living legend, after all."

"I don't know," she paused, as if lost in thought, "I'm having a hard time picturing Captain Hook having a rabid fangirl."

The pirate leaped up to the quarter-deck with the lightness and grace of repeated experience, familiarity, and command. "Did I fail to mention, if there was even a half-decent captain aboard this ship, we would have an account of everything of significance that has happened to this ship since I left the Enchanted Forest?"

Emma followed, eyes bright, "Which will go a long way to filling in some of the blanks in Lee's story, give us a better idea of what we're dealing with."

Grinning, Killian spread his arms open in an invitation to embrace, "How much do you love me right now? Go on, be creative."

Emma rolled her eyes and knelt to test the hatch covering the captain's quarters.

Locked.

"You wouldn't happen to have keys for this?"

"I'm afraid not. Looks like one of their upgrades."

"Nevermind, I brought my own," she said, pulling a set of lock picks from her pocket, "just give me a minute." It was a heavy, unusual lock and getting at it from above proved tricky, but after a few moments of fussing, it gave with a satisfying pop. She flung the hatch open and scrambled down the stairs only to find Killian stood next to the captain's table, striking a flint to light a lamp. Sparks and hushed gold tones glinted off his smile.

Emma's shoulders slumped. "That was more pirate training, wasn't it?"

"Take it as a vote of confidence that I keep trying, Swan," Killian laughed as the flame caught and the room brightened with him. "Now, here we are," he turned to indicate a shelf behind him. A regal looking collection of hardbound journals sat on prominent display. "Ship's logs. Every detail about the ship, its cargo and its travels meticulously documented."

Emma stepped forward and took a volume; opening it carefully, she found it endlessly beautiful, its pages filled edge to edge in an exquisite, flowing hand. Emma felt a genuine smile spread across her face as she drew a hand down a smooth page. She imagined the brooding captain spending hours with a quill, listing every detail with a quiet scratch-scratch, his rugged features bathed in the flickering candlelight.

She jumped slightly when Killian cleared the whole shelf with his hook, knocking the rest of the volumes to the floor in a loud clatter.

"Complete fiction, of course. Those are the books meant for the authorities and other such nonsense. The real story is back here," Killian put hand and hook to the back of the shelf and, with a series of practiced taps, knocked out a large slat of wood. Behind sat a second set of books, these more practical and careworn, Killian handed her a volume to look at while he rummaged through the rest. She paged through it with a little more interest but registered only intricate dots and scribbles.

She looked up to find the captain watching her with a content smirk. He held up a handful of newer-looking volumes. "Here's what we came for."

He laid the small stack on the table and opened one, shoving the corner under another volume to keep the book propped open. Emma could tell these were in a different, rougher hand with different symbols, but both were equally foreign to her. She leaned closer to the journal, fascinated.

"Crude," Killian observed, leaning in as well, "Very crude, which will make it easy to crack."

"Great," Emma nodded. She hadn't noticed how close he had moved and, turning to address him, inadvertently brushed the tip of her nose against his cheek. He responded by playfully nudging his nose to hers.

He gave her a sly puppy face. She gave him an eyebrow that said down boy as she slipped a radio from her belt. "Here, take this."

Killian looked between her and the radio with confusion. "Why?"

"Because I don't have time to teach you how to use a cell phone," she pressed the device into his hand. She took a few moments to familiarize him with the technology, using her fingers to position his over the correct buttons. Killian, rather enjoying the closeness, feigned complete incompetence, making Emma repeat her demonstration a number of times before he finally admitted to having the hang of it and let her hands free.

"Let me know as soon as you have anything useful," Emma called as she took the stairs up two at a time.

"Aye," Killian replied softly. He scratched his lower lip with the back of his thumb, and then sat down to trace the voyage of his lost ship through the winds of despair.

-0-

Not so far away, Lillian laid battered and sleeping as her mind wandered in vivid dreams. She dreamed of home, and homeland, and a home away from home and, unbeknownst to the captain, set course to follow the same winds under the Storybrooke nightfall, guided by the same star—the second to the right.

Chapter Text

(Neverland: Lillian's Past)

Blood and sweat dripped into Lillian's eyes as she pulled herself up a tree branch. She braced her head against the bark, blinking until she could see straight again. Heavy rustles from below stirred her back into motion and she hefted her frame up another branch.

"Ye'd best give up, lass. It's a worse death tha' awaits ye if ye keep runnin'," a gritty voice chuckled from below. "Ye come down now, we kill ye quickly. But keep it up, an' it's Marooner's Rock for ye."

"Technically, pirate, we're climbing," she grunted as she hefted all her weight to one leg and pushed herself up through a break in the branches. Her head cleared the leafy canopy, thrusting her into dim sunlight. An early dawn unveiled a murky Neverland sprawling around her.

"But I'll grant you this, running is not a particularly brilliant plan."

A dark mass hovered between her and the rising sun, growing larger as it grew closer.

The pirate's head, scratched and muddied from his own ascent, popped up from the branches as the mass loomed overhead. The angle of light changed and the mass turned blue and yellow and breathtaking as the Jolly Roger sailed out of the sun rays, dragging a rope along the treetops. Lillian rammed her heel into his head, launched herself off the tree, grabbed the rope and swung free.

"Not when you can fly!"

The pirate, a greasy blonde with a bleeding, bulbous nose, could only hold fast to the tree and glare as the girl swooped away, brown leather coat flapping in the wind as she dangled from the side of the soaring ship.

-0-

(Storybrooke: Present)

"Did you say 'the future?'" Emma blurted. She'd expected a certain level of chaos in the town hall, but she'd arrived to find absolute bedlam and securing a private place to radio Killian basically meant bolting herself in a supply closet, while Mary Margaret and David ran interference. The whole town, still emotionally exhausted from the shadow of the Wicked Witch, wasn't dealing well with yet another imminent threat.

"Aye, love. Nigh thirty years, give or take."

"How can you be sure it's for real?"

"Because I know who wrote it, Swan. It's Henry."

"Henry!? You're reading Henry's journal from the future?"

"Aye. Fortunate for us, too, given his loquacious nature. He records that, sometime in our near future, Storybrooke comes under devastating attack. You all make it back to the Enchanted Forest, but the threat follows you. While there, he seeks out the Jolly Roger to aide in the fight. That's as far as I've made out."

"So it's possible Lee's not from another realm, she and this monster she's hunting are from our future?"

True panic began to build in Emma's gut.

"Aye. Her description matches Henry's: a shape-shifting creature which takes hosts, drives its victims into homicidal insanity, and travels realms seemingly at will."

"How do things like this even exist?" Emma sighed in exasperation.

"Just delivering the message, love."

Emma paused for a moment before radioing back. "Killian, you said 'you all make it back'. What happens to you?"

"Swan," Killian's tone warned that he'd rather not answer.

"Killian," she pressed.

"Apparently I have the audacity to die in the first round."

"How?"

"He has yet to elaborate but the lass did say I'd make a fine appetizer."

"Keep reading. I have to go figure out what to tell the town."

"I know what you're thinking, Swan, but didn't we learn a pointed lesson about changing past events?"

She clenched the radio until her knuckles turned white. "It's not the past, it's the future. There's a difference."

"It's the past to Henry."

"Just. Keep. Reading."

Emma shoved the radio back into her waistband. Heat filled her face and she found herself wiping tears. Taking a moment to steel herself, she made three quick decisions. First, she'd only tell the town the bare minimum they needed to know to stay safe. Second, this scourge ended here, if it was the last thing she did. And third, Killian Jones was, on no uncertain terms, allowed to die.

-0-

(Neverland: Future)

Henry, whose tender heart rarely expressed violent emotion, full-out shouted at Lillian, his voice deepened with the responsibility of rank, if not by age alone. Though by Neverland magic, he still appeared in his early twenties, by Enchanted Forest reckoning, he had passed 40. His cream navy uniform and red brocade coat—red coats which had trickled into military uniform code ever since Emma Swan returned to take her place among the high royalty—added a sharp edge of authority to his every movement, his every word and, at present, his very glare. Lillian, who rarely shrank from anything, stood with hands behind her back and shoulders slumped. She felt dirty and small in comparison, her own brown leather forest gear, still grimy with sweat and tree sap, clashed with the ordered cleanliness of the captain's quarters.

Reckless. Thoughtless. Dangerous. Cavalier.

She rather liked that last one, but coming from Henry, it hurt.

"Henry, I…"

"No. No, Lillian. You were sent here under my care to keep you safe. How am I supposed to do that when you disappear in the middle of the night? If we hadn't gone looking for you, where would you be right now?"

Lillian's heart sank further. She didn't believe she was here because she was in danger; everyone was in danger. No, she was here because she was a bad memory.

She burned to say as much, but she said nothing and Henry kept on with his speech. "Keeping you safe now means teaching you some discipline. This crew has rules. This family has rules."

Lillian stared at the grain of the table in front of her. Oh, this again. She was supposed to go with a team. She was supposed to run at the slightest sign of trouble. She was supposed to be a good little Charming or a brave little Swan.

But that was the material difference between her and Henry. He was a Swan, son of the Savior. She was just the little orphan Jones.

BOOM.

She braced as a pile of hardbound journals slammed on the table, snapping her back to attention. "I recognize that look in your eye, Lillian," Henry hissed, walking to a drawer close to his bed. He opened it, pulled out a few items, and shoved it closed. "You don't want to listen to me anymore. Fine. Maybe you'll listen to this," the young captain held out a folded paper. "Before Killian died, he left me a key to decoding his old logs. This war went very bad very quickly and we lost a lot of people. There are few left who remember him and, because of that, you've lost out on a lot. For that, I'm sorry, but it is no excuse. You want to keep playing the lone maverick, great. See where that gets you. But if you want to learn something about a ship, about duty, about your family—you won't find a better teacher." On top of the journals, he placed the paper and, with little ceremony, the nicked and worn hook of Killian Jones.

"Henry…"

"No," Henry straightened, his gaze lingered on the hook before returning to Lillian's. His temper had cooled, but his authority remained. "From now on, on this ship, it's not Henry. It's Captain. And unless it's an apology, you don't speak to me again until you've read all of this."

"Cap…"

"Not. One. Word."

Lips pressed tightly together, Lillian pulled a small pouch from her pocket and held it out to Henry. He let his glare sink in for another heartbeat before he took it and examined the contents. Pixie dust. Hard to find in the new Neverland, and enough to keep the ship in flight for quite some time.

Lillian raised her eyebrow.

The young captain closed the pouch tightly and nodded subtly. "Good work, Lillian. But bad form."

-0-

(Storybrooke: Present)

"Emma, it gets worse."

"Are you kidding me?" Emma leaned her head against the tile wall of the small bathroom she'd slipped into when she heard Killian click the radio for attention. She had finally talked the town off the proverbial ledge, set up a security detail with Mother Superior, and convinced at least half the residents to bed down for the night. Regina hesitantly agreed to defend the town hall, for Henry's sake, of course. Gold took watch at the hospital, being the only person they knew this thing was afraid of. Things were finally starting to settle, she didn't need more bad news.

"It's not just the Enchanted Forest, it's all the realms. Or at least all the realms future Henry knows about. They all fall except two—the Enchanted Forest and Neverland. As the Scourge grows more powerful in the Enchanted Forest, it gets faster, stronger, and harder to kill, so Henry goes to Neverland to build his secret weapon."

"The ship?"

"Lee was right, he turns it into a bloody warship. He wants to make a fleet to take back the realms."

"A fleet of magic, flame-throwing warships," Emma almost laughed, "yep, that sounds like Henry."

-0-

(Neverland: Future)

After numerous attempts, Lillian all but gave up on the first page of the pirate logs. As her head ached with the sheer extent of rules, symbols and synthetic grammar in Hook's books, she slumped face down on the open page.

"Doing a little research on the family tree?"

Lillian sat up, deftly closing the book with one hand before registering the presence of Rumplestiltskin. She idly lifted the book and tapped it on the table. "The only parents I knew are dead. All I have left are rumors," she let the book drop flat on the table with a look of irritation, "and mystery."

"I'll save you some trouble. There wasn't much mystery to your father, it's your mother that boggles me. But," he giggled, throwing a finger in the air playfully. "Never say that I was never a team player. The captain wants you to learn a little discipline, and I am happy to oblige."

"Henry sent you?"

"Of course not, dearie. He believes in you. I, however, am a bit of a skeptic. Don't take it personally. In fact, I'll teach you something even your father would approve of. Lesson number one," the green man's demeanor darkened. "You don't leave the ship without your captain's permission."

Lillian's feet tingled and, for a moment, she couldn't even lift them from the floor. She turned a dark glare of her own on the snickering man.

"Lesson two—and really this is more of an ad lib on my part—if you ever do anything to endanger Henry's life," Rumplestiltskin gritted his teeth in a humorless smile, "I will wipe you from existence."

Chapter Text

(Neverland: Future)

The next several months in Neverland passed like an uneasy dream. During daylight, Lillian worked on the ships, all flurry and scurry to build the vessels. During darker hours, her mind filled with ciphers and ship secrets and scant allusions to phantoms from the distant past. The decrypting crept along with disappointing payoff—knowing the ending made the pressed and calculating vengeance of Hook's own years in Neverland seem hollow—wasted—and she began to lose interest, but the forced diligence distracted her from the smallness of her floating cage. Most of the time.

She had now acquired a proper kit, a uniform with all the pomp befitting a royal sailor, but wearing it felt like suffocation itself. She hated red, as a matter of principle, but the uniform made Henry happy and happiness, well, that was the rarest commodity in wartime, wasn't it? He considered it the color of Emma's courage; she would rather rip it off and toss it overboard. In fact, the day Henry taught her to fly the Jolly Roger, pressing her hands to the helm and encouraging her with that boyish smile to think a lovely thought, she envisioned just that—throwing red-dyed lies to the winds to be torn far away from even faintest memory.

Lillian had no queen, and she most certainly hadn't a "savior". The ship floated with her widening smile. Neverland, it seemed, had a sick sense of humor.

"Have you figured it out yet," Henry asked, "why I made you read the journals?"

"I doubt twenty-seven variants of dreamshade poison will be terribly useful in our case," she replied.

The captain folded his arms in an attempt to evoke Charming. "So you would see that you can spend lifetimes wallowing in bitterness and rage and never find the bottom..." he leaned in for effect, "Lillian, forgive her."

Lillian's knuckles whitened against the wooden wheel and the ship started to sink in the air, "Never."

"You know the rules," Henry put a hand to the helm and the vessel righted and rose, "never say never in Neverland."

-0-

(Storybrooke: Present)

Lillian lay in bed in a private hospital room, one arm handcuffed to the bed, the other, fractured, lay in a soft cast across her stomach. She had tumbled down the dock's rough stairs in the attack, whether by accident or drunken fumbling; leaving much of her body battered and discolored. Monitors beeped regularly and her breath remained shallow and steady, showing no evidence of consciousness, nor any awareness of Gold's presence in her room.

"I warned you, dearie."

Gold walked up to Lillian's bedside, studying the sleeping girl's bruised features. It was a wonder Regina didn't incinerate the girl too and let the whole town be done with it all.

Ah, yes. Because Henry was watching. Watching the fool girl nearly end everything. Decades of careful planning and she upended the chessboard in one drunkard's swipe. But then, how could he expect less? Apples falling from trees and such. With a wave of his hand, the door sealed shut. He slowly pressed the handle of his cane to a fresh welt just below her neck. Lillian woke suddenly, with a grunt, and sucked in air.

The thin steel grey slits of her eyes met his and she croaked, "you again?"

"Your captain," Gold hissed, pulling back on the cane only slightly. "His name. Now."

The girl raised an eyebrow, but even that subtle movement seemed painful and she scrunched her eyes closed. "I think present circumstances explain themselves quite clearly, don't you?"

"I want to hear it from your lips."

"Oh, there are plenty of things I'd like to say to you-" Lillian retorted. Gold leaned his weight into the cane. The girl gasped, crumpled, and struggled against her restraint before finally crying "Henry" through gritted teeth.

Gold bent over her until their faces nearly touched, cold anger simmered in his voice, "Tell me. How does he die?"

The girl's eyes rimmed red even as her lips curled in a snarl. "In battle. We were at war."

"No, you had something to do with it, that's why you're here instead of him. It was supposed to be Henry who came back."

Lillian returned a seething glare, refusing to speak further.

"All the darkness in the known realms swirling around that one point in time, the final point in time, obscuring even my vision," Gold swung the cane up, over his head. "You've seen it, but don't think I can't pull it from you!" Gold slammed the cane down on her fractured arm and Lillian howled wishing, for anything, that it had been Henry.

-0-

(Neverland: Future)

Fog coated the Neverland waters but Lillian held her own kind of cloudiness within. She'd read through the lost year in the Enchanted Forest and the change in Hook's character was evident even in his script, rash and impatient, and she could just smack Henry sometimes, because that was where the books ended, at least for Captain Hook. Restlessly searching for Emma Swan.

Like father, like daughter. Only Lillian had long ago accepted defeat.

Again, smacking Henry came to mind.

"Careful, Lillian," Henry warned, and Lillian shook back to attention. The captain motioned over the helm at the dim, ghost-like image of a ship approaching through the fog. Masts and canvas loomed through the dismal grey. "There's another behind us."

There were only a few ships left floating in the whole of the realm, and all of them belonged to the pirates.

Henry's brow furrowed. "What are they thinking, coming after us like this? They know we can outrun anything—we can fly, they can't."

"Maybe they think we're out of dust?"

"Possible," he brooded distantly. "Get us airborne," he commanded.

Lillian obeyed and the ship lifted into the air. The two ships passed beneath them without even a shot fired.

"Something isn't right," Henry whispered, mostly to himself, "why try that when they know we can go..."

Too late, they both looked up. Out of the fog above dove another ship on a full-tilt collision course. Lillian and Henry both heaved the wheel but even the Jolly Roger couldn't avoid the inevitable. Hull met masts, the Jolly Roger lurched sideways and both ships crashed into the sea.

Only by some combination of magic and sheer force-of-will did the pirate-turned-warship avoid sinking altogether, bobbing violently as if to shake off its attacker. With a tremendous groan and a terrible shudder, the masts splintered and rigging snapped. The rigging whipped around, hauling sailors off their feet, before sliding off into the water as the enemy vessel sank. The rest of the Jolly Roger righted, but by that time, the two remaining ships flanked the damaged vessel on either side.

Lillian, who only remained planted at the helm by the aid of Rumple's curse, and Henry, who only remained by having held on to her, looked out on a deck nearly cleared of all crew. Those that weren't killed in the initial impact flailed in the waters. Dark figures lined the rails of the enemy ships, drawing bows on the thrashing sailors.

"No!" Henry screamed and a dozen arrows turned on him.

Lillian clung to the wheel and tried to will the ship back into the air, but it only cracked and moaned in reply. She hadn't time to deduce why. Strings snapped, arrows flew, and lovely thoughts vanished from her darkening sight.

Chapter Text

(Storybrooke: Present)

"It just ends," Killian explained into his radio, pulling open drawers around the cabin, but finding little of use. He had finished the journals but still yearned for more information. "The first of his ships were all but finished, he was anxious to get back to the Enchanted Forest. Whatever happened, he didn't see it coming."

"Anything else?" Emma replied.

"That depends," a near endless number of the ship's hiding spots popped into his mind, too many to search alone in any convenient amount of time. Worse, he hadn't a clue what exactly he was looking for. "Does the name Tiger Lily mean anything to you?"

Emma sounded surprised, "You mean it doesn't to you?"

His shoulders slumped and he rubbed the round of his hook over an eye to massage a vein. "No, not that ridiculous tale again!"

"Uh, let me think," Emma mumbled in thought. "She's a princess in Neverland. Almost murdered by," she paused warily, "…pirates. Why do you ask?"

"It's a code name Henry gives to one of his crew," Killian's eyes swept the room again, thinking of any hiding place on the ship big enough to hide papers, books or scrolls—anything that might give him a further peek into the fractured future.

"Do you think it's Lee?"

"Can't be sure as yet, but best keep her away from Rumplestiltskin for the time being. Apparently, they mix like oil and water."

"I have to play referee now? Who else are we going to get to stand guard if Lee turns out to have this psycho-virus..." Emma's voice trailed off. "Hold on a minute…"

"Swan?"

"Gotta go," she replied, "Whale's calling."

Frustrated, Killian stuffed the radio into his coat pocket. Still so many unanswered questions, even more possible places to hide the answers. He scratched the back of his head in thought. His best shot at finding anything quickly meant he had to stop thinking like himself—grizzled, calculating, even dubious—and think like Henry—clever, sentimental and a little naïve. The kind of person who might still use the first hiding spot he ever learned, back when they left Neverland, a lifetime ago. Back when Henry was just Emma's boy, doing his best not to cower in his presence, and he was just Captain Hook apologizing for putting him in danger.

He walked over to a set of drawers by the bed. Opening them, he pulled out a spare blanket, tossed it away, and lifted out a false bottom to reveal a stash of papers.

"Come on, Henry, my boy," he whispered, "tell me another story."

-0-

(Neverland: Future)

Hands on her chest brought bursts of pain and Lillian would have struck out if she had the strength. She only managed to rasp and gurgle, willing her eyes to open. The fog had dissolved, but her mind still drifted in a haze, slowly pulling free of the pain. She could see two arrows sticking out of her torso. She suspected more sunk into her lower limbs, but she couldn't move to confirm, her body already limp with resignation. She could only lie there, fading.

Just a bad memory, fading away.

Far above, a lone, dark cloud swirled wildly, fashioning into the unmistakable form of a portal. Almost too fast to perceive, a massive bird dove through, spreading its wings as soon as it cleared the vortex and careened away. The portal disappeared as quickly as it came.

The Scourge had found Neverland at last.

So it's finally over, then, she thought to herself, when another movement caught her attention.

Blonde hair cascaded around Lillian's vision as an aging Emma Swan peered down at her. Tears filled Lillian's eyes and everything blurred into a wash of gold and ivory and green. Lillian knew tears rolled down her face but she had no capacity to wipe them away.

Here, at the end—too weak to fight, too weak to lie, too weak to run—Lillian, dying, resigned to hated truth.

"Momma," she sobbed weakly.

"Oh, oh. Hey. Stay still," Emma warned. "You've lost a lot of blood."

Lillian thought of Charming and Snow and the prince—the noble family, now the noble dead. "So have you," she replied.

Emma continued as if the girl hadn't spoken. "I can help you, but I have to get these things out of you first," she put one hand to Lillian's chest and her pain spasms muted to a dull tingle. With the other, she began working an arrow out of her gut. When it came free, she waved a hand over the wound to heal it. "What's your name?"

"It's Lillian," she whimpered, pointless as it was. Lillian felt warmth from within at Emma's touch, like sunshine and soapy bathwater. Little by little, strength swept away suffering.

Again, Emma heard nothing. "It's okay. You're afraid. I understand, but you're going to be okay, I promise. Please, what can I call you?"

With renewed strength slowly ebbing back, Lillian sunk easily into old, steady lies.

"Tiger Lily, Milady."

"Tiger Lily?" a faint look of recognition passed over Emma's face. "Right, David's ward. I remember," Emma gave her a brief, sad smile. "It's nice to finally meet you, circumstances aside." A second arrow came free of Lillian's leg, and Emma moved her attention to the last arrow, a shallow shot just below the collarbone.

"We've met a thousand times," Lillian murmured. And they had. And every time Emma gave her that same look she gave her now—sympathy—the look of one orphan to another, but never a mother to a daughter, "you just can't remember."

Still, Emma heard only silence. The last arrow dissolved like the pop of soap bubbles. Emma patted a hand over Lillian's heart. "Looks like you owe your life to this," she said and reached into the breast pocket of Lillian's coat to pull out the hook. "Blocked the arrow from going between your ribs. Lucky."

"Yes, Milady," Lillian mechanically replied and, all pain erased, moved to sit up.

And would have gladly stood in the way of a second volley to erase the sight of Henry, lifeless, barely an arm's length away.

"How…" came tumbling from Lillian's lips as she took in the half dozen arrows sticking out of his still and broken form. Rage flared from deep within her and Lillian turned it full blast on the supposed savior. "How can you be so calm?" she spat, pushing Emma away and scrambling to her feet.

She waved a hand over the gruesome scene, eyes reddening with tears. "Because I have hope that there is still a way to save him," older eyes turned back to the younger, determination burning within them, "to save everyone."

Eyes so red with her own tears that grey steel turned piercing blue, the girl muttered, "Milady, what hope could we possibly have left?"

Emma set her jaw. "I can go back, I can change all this."

Lillian went rigid, but Emma kept on.

"I've been afraid to try, too afraid that I could make things worse, but my family is dead, my parent's kingdom is gone and now all the realms are done for. There can be no worse future than this."

"Too late for that, I'm afraid," came Rumplestiltskin's icy, cutting voice. Lillian didn't see him arrive, but he leaned against the railing just above the steps to the quarter deck. Even his green skin paled as he looked to Henry's body.

Emma whirled on him, eyes alight with conviction. "I can do it. I know I can. I have to."

"Oh, you can," Rumplestiltskin replied, holding up a hand. "But you can't. Ironically, opening the portal is the easy part. Defending it, now that's the problem. You open a time portal and you give the Scourge a straight shot into the un-expecting past. At full strength and unaffected by realm travel, it'll wipe out our very existence in the blink of an eye." Another portal opened in the distance and another dark form flew out and away. Rumplestiltskin slowly walked toward the two women. "Even if you could get through free and clear, you're singularly incapable of carrying out the task. The best chance of stopping the Scourge is to destroy it before it can make its first kill." The thin man came face to face with the queen. "Tell me, Emma, who was the first victim of the Scourge all those long years ago?"

"Regina. I was there."

"Wrong," Rumple's anger flared through his voice. "You can't do this because you can't remember Hook." He pointed a finger at the steel piece Emma still held in her hand.

"Can't remember what?" she urged, looking to Rumplestiltskin, then to the hook in her hand. She looked surprised for a moment, as if she had forgotten she was still holding it, and absently handed it back to Lillian as if it were nothing more than a stray button.

"Exactly."

Lillian looked to the ground and leaned on the helm of the ruined ship, half wishing Emma had let her die in peace.

"So that's it, then?" Emma shot back. "We just give up? We're out of options?"

"Out of good options, yes," Rumplestiltskin took a step back. "Out of all options, no."

Emma looked about ready to punch the man. "Enough with the riddles!"

"Send the girl."

Emma balked. "Send a girl I just met on a mission to reset the past that could potentially wipe out the very existence of the realms? How is that fair?"

"It's the scourge to end all realms. Did you really expect a fair fight?" Rumplestiltskin's face turned deadly serious. "Your only other option is to stay here, do nothing, and die. Even I would rather chance mostly certain doom at the hand of the pirate's spawn than certain doom at the hands of the Scourge. You and I defend the portal. She's nothing to the Scourge, a mere ant, compared to us," he glanced at Lillian again. "Or most anyone, but that's splitting hairs."

Emma opened her mouth to protest, but Lillian's voice won out. "I'll do it."

Rumplestiltskin smirked, "I thought you'd say something like that."

He waved a hand and the ship lurched and bobbed. The waters around them rose unnaturally, then crashed back down as the soaked and splintered masts rose from the depths of the sea, rigging and all. Like a massive puzzle, the ship snapped back together and, in a whirlwind of smoke, appeared as if nothing had happened. The man bowed to Emma, who then pulled a wand from her sleeve. Soberly, she aimed, it glowed, and a beam like golden fire erupted from the sea and the water began to swirl around it. Soon caught in the flow of motion, the Jolly Roger bobbed toward the light like a dog eager for exercise.

Lillian grabbed the wheel but turned her head toward the sorcerer. "Rumplestiltskin, what about the curse?"

"Don't worry, you just keep to that ship and he's sure to come to you," his smirk turned menacing again, "consider it insurance."

A screech from above cut off any further conversation. One of the massive winged Scourge banked overhead.

"Come now, Emma. Let's raise some hell."

They disappeared in a puff of smoke, taking Henry with them, and Lillian was again alone, but alive, and indeed, ready to rip apart the past.

Chapter Text

(Storybrooke: Present)

Gold stepped back, his cane clattered to the floor.

"I sent you? To save the pirate?"

"To save your grandson," Lillian corrected, her voice hoarse. Her eyes drifted shut against echoes of pain. "That was our only common ground. He was the only family I had left either."

Hands pounded at the door in spurts, but Gold's racing mind drowned out all extraneous noise. The further he looked to the future, the more fragmented the puzzle. The farthest edge, where Henry died, lay shrouded in darkness through which even the Dark One could not penetrate. Like an approaching hurricane, the darkness, the Scourge, raged across time's dim horizon, taunting him in his dreams, in the nightmares of the blackest soul. He returned in kind, harnessing the one thing, the one power at his disposal to manipulate the winds and gales of time. His mind, so long as it remained his and alive, needed only to hold to a decision, hold to one course, to return from the hidden eye of the storm the thing most apt to avert oblivion, to bring back precious knowledge.

Only now had he seen a way, Emma's chance adventure through time left her power coveted for years beyond measure. And in seeing, he had decided, and in deciding, he had acted—his will stretched forward in time to grab the one thing both he and Emma would protect above all else—Henry—but he had pulled back the wrong child.

And still the Scourge laughed. Through Lillian's every breath, it teased. The boy's death was neither accident nor negligence; thirty years planning dashed on the cusp of execution with an execution. The mystery unraveled in his mind, Gold felt haunted by the girl's words, by the message from his enemy, from the depths of the storm toward which all present time barreled.

The only family left…

The emphatic pounding stopped, replaced by a soft voice.

"Rumple?"

Belle.

Still, his enemy taunted. Whatever future he endured beyond the veil, in shrouded time, Belle would never see it. Gold leaned his full weight against the wall and let go of his hold on the room.

The door burst open. Belle and Emma fell into the room. Emma clutched her gun, as if it would make any difference. Belle clutched the dagger and trembled as if it couldn't; the fake itself could not, but at that moment, her look of deep concern, his heart broke for her, and he held still.

While Emma debated holding her ground or going to the girl, Belle's eyes fell on blood and bruises and Gold only then began to feel the impact of his rage. "Rumple, what's going on?"

At the same moment, Hook whirled through the door, cutlass drawn. At the sight of Lillian, he pointed the business end in Gold's direction. "Dear Belle, don't you know torture when you see it?"

Without hesitation, Belle pivoted, back turned toward Gold and dagger challenged blade. "I'm sure you do."

-0-

Emma chanced a glance at Killian, still trying to discern the room's greatest threat. Gold? Lee? The crazy man with the sword who was clearly not helping. "Killian, you were supposed to stay with the ship."

"Oh, believe you me, this is far more important," Killian slowly slid the flat of the cutlass against the curved dagger, letting steel hiss his anger.

Belle held firm. "I'm here now. Nothing is going to happen."

At Belle's voice, the girl stirred again. "Who…?" She rasped softly as if hearing something unexpected. Emma took that window to move to her side. She blinked several times at Belle as if trying to place her. "Who is she?"

"That's Belle, Gold's wife," Emma replied, trying to sound intimidating to mask the panic in her voice. She couldn't count all the bad ways this scenario could end, but with Gold seemingly pacified for the moment, she focused on evaluating the girl. She hoped against hope that her superpower could detect the manifestation of soul-sucking evil. "Right now, she's the only thing standing between you and Gold if you two don't start giving me answers."

Lee turned to share a look with Gold, her end a knowing question, his end a guarded nod. "Wife?"

"How about you tell us what's going on," Emma offered, trying to regain Lee's attention, "then we can get you out of here."

"Leave?" Lee tried to laugh but erupted into a coughing fit. "When I've… finally convinced… Rumplestiltskin to help me?"

Now it was Emma who looked to Gold, who put an arm to Belle's shoulders. "It's all right," he nodded. "Lower it."

Slowly, Belle lowered the dagger. Killian paused, wary, but slipped the cutlass back into its sheath. At the moment it took him to join Emma at her side, Gold waved a hand. The girl glowed briefly—her body mended, her wounds faded, and her color returned. Killian gave Gold a sideways look of cold acknowledgment.

Emma began undoing the restraint. "Lee. Tiger Lily. Whatever your name is-"

"Lillian," Killian added. "Her name's Lillian."

The girl jolted, fixating on Killian. "You know?"

"Know what?" Emma asked, pulling the restraint free, but the girl only wordlessly reached forward, grabbed Killian by the vest and pulled him to her. She wrapped her arms tightly around him and sobbed into his chest.

"Come now, Swan, can't you see it?" Killian said as he put a gentle hand to the girl's head, rings nestling among the dark strands.

Caught off guard by the girl's sudden emotion, Emma's mind blanked. It was the same girl they had met only a day before, only now she wore a hospital gown instead of her sailor garb. She looked more real, even youthful, with her dark hair loose and sprawling down her back. A few strands, dampened by tears, stuck to her cheek and Killian gently pulled them back. Lee—no, Lillian—blinked wildly as the hair pulled away from her eyes and Emma caught a glimpse of bright blue between brown lashes and something changed. Then it was a subtle movement of her brow, a familiar curl of her lip, the angle of her nose. Side by side with Killian, the similarities multiplied like constellations connecting before searching eyes.

"Killian, is she…?"

"Yes, love," he smiled, holding an arm out for her in invitation. "Come, hug your daughter. She's come a very long way to find us."

Chapter Text

(Storybrooke: Present)

Emma shifted the straps of a cooler bag higher up on her shoulder as she hurried down the dock. Despite the early afternoon hour, few but Mother Superior's finest walked the streets. With the town on lock-down, Granny's was closed, but thankfully Mary Margaret stockpiled enough leftovers from the potluck to feed a small army. Mary Margaret packed up quite the picnic while Emma updated her about the day's developments. Well, most of them. She braced at a twinge of guilt; instincts forged from her own foray through time nudged her to keep quiet about coming events, which meant not telling her parents the full truth about Lillian. As far as they and the rest of Storybrooke were concerned, the girl was just a traveler from another realm.

Still, Emma had to admit a certain element of convenient motivation to her story. She'd been running on emotion and pure adrenaline for weeks now. Suddenly meeting her own grown daughter, she sympathized with Mary Margaret on yet another unexpected level and it was like another piece of straw on the proverbial camel and she just couldn't deal with it all right now. She was tired of living in the past but neither had she planned on immediately facing what was supposed to be far off possibility, much less feeding it breakfast.

Moreover, telling Mary Margaret about Lillian pretty much meant telling Mary Margaret about Killian. It wasn't stalling if she had a legitimate reason, right?

Pushing her thoughts aside, Emma boarded the ship and descended into the captain's quarters. Lillian sat at the table, head in hands. Her own coat shredded beyond use, she instead wore Emma's coat and a spare shirt with her linen trousers. Killian sat close by, idly sorting through a pile of parchments and mementos. Gold and Belle stood at a respectful distance, speaking in heated whispers.

Emma heaved the bag onto the wooden table and unzipped the lid. "I assume they still have chicken salad in the future?" She pulled free a bagged sandwich and a thermos and handed them to Lillian. At a subtle look from Killian, she defended, "it's just sweet tea, I swear. I figure a little sugar and caffeine might do some good."

She could hear Gold's eye-roll. "Cold tea. Hardly a crime, but still a tragedy."

-0-

(Enchanted Forest: Future/Lillian's Childhood)

The hallway floor shuddered so violently beneath her as she ran that Lillian collapsed to the stone floor mid-stride. Confused, she looked around. Morning light flooded through the open archway nearby.

A roar sounded and Regina's former palace shook again. She crawled to the archway, biting back a scream of her own when she caught the sight of a thorny, dragon-like form snaking across the sky, so massive that its black wings swathed the landscape in shadow. Its wings tucked in abruptly and the great form barreled toward the castle. A blinding light flashed, magic hissed as the creature bounced off of a powerful shield. Another livid roar and Lillian felt her very soul rattle. The creature lashed at the shield with its tail. Defying the crackling and sizzling of the magic's resistance, it settled onto the invisible dome, dark wings curled around the shield until it nearly blotted out the sky. Below lay the open courtyard at the heart of the palace. Charming dashed along the defenses, strangled beams of sunlight glinted off his armor as he shouted orders. Soldiers scrambled to wheel out cannons, prototypes built in secret—no one would say where from—but it had Henry's mark to it.

The Scourge rammed its tail against the shield once more. With a flash and a crackle, the shield fizzled away.

In a blur, the black beast dove into the courtyard and rose again with bloodied claws and the king's breastplate crunched between its teeth. Below, Charming sprawled, crimson darkened his torso and Lillian's own breath stopped.

Struggling to stand, Charming stumbled, dazed, then took up his sword and, in a wild flash of steel and rage, turned it on the men around him. After a few mad swipes, several suits clattered to the ground.

A glint of white streaked from an archway below as Snow ran to him. Sword met sword—a struggle—but with a kick and a strike, she had him stunned. With her free hand, she grabbed his head and pulled him forward. A shockwave burst forth as their lips met and the courtyard brightened, but rather than expand out, it rushed back into itself, back into the couple. Snow slipped, arms still wrapped around her husband's neck, and both fell limp to the ground, dead.

A screech like laughter boomed over the castle as the Scourge made another pass, diving at the courtyard, but the cannons were ready this time. Several blasts of flame shot out, streams of fire combined, winding into coils of blazing light. The coil of a vicious, burning cobra.

Great fangs emerged from the mass of light. Snake struck dragon, flames engulfed darkness, and the land shook with the screams of the Scourge.

-0-

(Storybrooke: Present)

Lillian hadn't realized her hunger until she started eating, but between bites of cold sandwich and swigs of tea, she recapped the story of her coming to Storybrooke. Hook confirmed what bits he'd gleaned from the journals. Gold confessed, too, his decades-long plan to retrieve Henry from the future, though both Lillian and Gold mutually skipped over Emma's absent memory. It seemed tidier that way, particularly given the tongue-lashing she dished out at Gold's plot.

"You saw this coming and you didn't say anything?" Emma blurted.

"I saw disparate pieces of an intricate puzzle," Gold returned simply. "That was rather the point of the whole plan, to bring back more information."

"Using Henry?"

"Rescuing him. And, to be fair, I only fleshed out the idea in the last few days, so pardon me if I'm still playing catch-up myself. When the girl appeared, I knew why she was here and the damage she could do poking around the past any longer than necessary, but you would know that as well as I, wouldn't you?"

Unsatisfied, but picking her battles, Emma took a seat close to Lillian. "How did things get so bad?"

Lillian made a point of pouring herself another cup of tea.

"In my timeline, the Scourge took a host quietly, feeding off of them undetected until it multiplied and emerged, each new Scourge far more powerful than those you have seen so far."

She hesitated when Hook glanced at her, but if he had read anything in Henry's notes, he said nothing.

"Regina died fighting it so that the curse could be undone, dissolving Storybrooke and sending everyone back in the hopes that, without Storybrooke, without magic, the Scourge would die." Lillian slowly swirled the cup on the table, wishing it held something stronger, "perhaps it would have, but no one knew it could portal right along behind. When it did, it found a wider hunting ground that it could have hoped for, growing stronger, faster, and deadlier until it could even outrun magic."

"That's why you needed the Jolly Roger," Hook murmured, "the ship that outran the curse."

Lillian nodded. "Most were so desperate to get away that anyone who had access to a portal used it, which only spread the Scourge to other lands, making it even harder to defeat."

Emma's brow furrowed. "How so? I thought it half-killed this thing to jump realms."

"Only if it has to create its own portal. If, however, someone opens a portal, with a bean, for instance, it suffers no ill effects. That was why it was essential to kill it early before it could multiply—in my timeline, there are hundreds, probably thousands, of Scourge."

Hook lifted a brow. "No wonder it's been so bloody hard to kill."

"I thought this thing drove people crazy," Emma asked. "How did this thing fly under the radar for so long?"

"The victims can turn violent, at first, while they're still wrestling with the Scourge for control. We call it bonding or infecting, but once the Scourge fully bonds, it burrows into their deepest recesses, feeding on their last bit of strength. The lucky ones die almost instantaneously, too weak to sustain the Scourge for very long." Lillian's thoughts drifted to black wings and white light before Emma's hand on her arm brought her back. "The damned few, however, become hosts. All it needs is a bite or a scratch to feed, even a small one. Tests like the ones I gave only work in the first few days, otherwise, once the host is fully bonded, it's dark form fades, and detection is almost impossible until the host is fully consumed, which can take months, even years, all while the Scourge grows stronger and stronger inside them. Only those with magic can resist bonding, at least with the weaker Scourge. That's why it came after Hook," Lillian idly scraped at a browned bloodstain on her trousers, "and me."

"Don't take this the wrong way," Emma tilted her head, a shift in her green eyes signaled the importance of Lillian's answer, "but that thing practically gutted you, how do we know you're really in the clear?"

Hook's voice rumbled with wariness as well, his eyes held a hint of disbelief. "Someone quite explicitly told me being infected meant getting one's head blown off."

"The Scourge had no time to bond," Lillian replied, "I've never seen the Scourge so weak that it could be killed during bonding." Lillian's eyes fell to the table. How such simple information recast the past in unfamiliar light. She looked directly into her mother's gaze. Something bitter and fierce lurched in her gut, though unrelated to their screeching terror of an enemy, she pressed it down and locked it away. "Besides, if it had infected me, breakfast with my long-dead father would have drawn it out and I'd have tried to slaughter you all."

Hook shrugged. "Fair point."

Emma, though, stared a bit too long to have accepted the answer at face value. She leaned back, releasing Lillian's arm.

Belle broke the awkward silence. "So if it can multiply, as you say, and portal to other realms, can we ever know if we've killed it once and for all, or will we always be waiting for another instance to attack?"

"Oh, there is a way to know for sure," Gold replied, "but they're not going to like it."

Chapter Text

Emma turned to face Gold. "What do you mean we're 'not going to like it?'"

He lifted a finger to pause her thought. "Keep in mind you're creating a paradox here, the future reaching back on itself to slap away the hand of fate. Fundamentally rewriting destiny takes a stiff price. The magic will resolve itself like the cutting of a dead limb," he made a chopping motion with his hand, "removing one potential branch of the future in its entirety."

Parchment rustled as Killian looked up with a narrowed gaze. "When you say entirety…"

"The future as Lillian knows it will cease to exist, of course," Gold responded. "Our destinies will again be free and uncertain." Again, he lifted a hand as if to ward off an argument, "which, I might add, is where you started."

"So what happens to Lillian?" Emma directed the question at Gold but turned her attention to the young woman. Lillian studied the grain of the table, rubbing a knuckle over an eyebrow.

The older man shifted his stance in thought. "Considering there is a distinct lack of precedent for rewriting time, particularly on this magnitude, it's difficult to say."

That brought on Emma's full glare. "Take a wild guess."

Gold looked to Belle and his features softened. He, too, looked to the young time traveler. "When her timeline dissolves, so will she."

"Dissolves?" Emma stood abruptly. "She's a person, not cotton candy."

Rising slowly, Belle put a hand to Emma's shoulder. "There has to be another way, Rumple. You wouldn't have involved Henry if it meant endangering his very existence."

"Henry's birth predates the paradox," Gold replied. "He would have survived it, whatever the repercussions. That, if nothing else, is why it should have been Henry."

"It should have been, but it wasn't," Lillian added, then downed the rest of her tea. "It's me. It's my life on the line and I meant it when I said I'd end this."

Blonde hair slipped over Emma's shoulders as she leaned over the table at Lillian. "No, we're your parents. You're not supposed to sacrifice yourself for us."

"I'm not doing it for you," Lillian replied, rising, not the slightest hint of deception in her eyes. Emma caught something there, cold and defiant and disgusted. "If you're not up for this," Lillian continued, "I will find my own way if I have to take the ship to a hundred different realms."

"What, the Jolly Roger can jump realms now?" Killian drawled with a smile, trying to ease the tension, but the sincere look on the young woman's face caused him to sit forward. "Really?"

Lillian waved him off with a hand. "Mermaid magic."

"Mermaid?" Killian couldn't have looked more disgusted and perplexed if Lillian had clocked him.

Belle turned to Gold again. "What if Emma could use the wand in our time, take us further down the timeline?"

"Even if we could," Gold sighed. "Events in this timeline have already changed and, likely, will continue to change with unforeseen consequences that may overthrow the world Lillian came from, likewise her very existence. We're playing a dangerous game blindfolded. There is no anticipating the timeline now."

"What do you mean?

Lillian straightened to her full height, sighing. "There was never more than one Scourge in Storybrooke. It was the first to fall under attack and, so we assumed, it was the origin of the Scourge. For two to show up means the origin is elsewhere and not only are we no closer to destroying it than we were days ago, but I've wasted perhaps the one best shot anyone has ever had of defeating this thing."

"Could we have had something to do with it?" Emma asked, motioning between Killian and herself. "Before we traveled back to the present, we were locked in a vault of dark magic..."

The girl shook her head. "No. Believe me, the Rumplestiltskin of my time spent decades researching that very question. If it doesn't come from Storybrooke, it hails from some land we know nothing of."

"The unknown realms?" Belle offered. "A potentially infinite number of alternate lands? How are we to even begin searching them?"

Emma pushed her chair in decidedly. "We don't. Not today, anyway. This is way too big for just us now, we have to let the others in on this."

"Mmm, yes," Gold hummed. "Let's just take a dwarf's pick-axe to whatever scrap of this timeline might have been left intact, shall we?"

-0-

Exhausted in every possible meaning of the phrase, Emma crept up the steps from the captain's quarters. The haphazard war council had broken for the day—tempers too high, spirits too low and bodies too spent to do much good—they opted to rest up and hope clearer minds might later prevail. Gold and Belle had left for the shop to locate anything that might help them access, much less search, the unknown realms. Lillian left to find a change of clothes below deck and Killian followed shortly after. She'd needed a moment alone to soak in the relative quiet of the docked ship in the silent town, the closest thing to peace she'd felt in some time. But the moment ended quickly and she threw open the hatch above.

Ocean mist swept her hair around in spirals and Emma heard a faint sploosh as her boots met the top stair. With one hand, she pulled the mass of strands out of her face and looked around to find the source of the sound.

Sploosh.

Killian stood on the lower deck, facing out to the ocean and away from the late afternoon sun. With his hand, he systematically reached down into a battered crate full of liquor at his heel, pulled a bottle free and heaved it out across the water.

Sploosh.

"This is a change," Emma noted, drawing up to his side.

"One might say it's quite like old times."

Another heave and a sploosh.

Emma shoved her hands in her pockets, bracing against the whipping wind. "Speaking from experience, the whole kid-popping-out-of-nowhere thing does get easier to deal with. Just give it time."

"Oh, that part doesn't bother me in the slightest, Swan."

"Right. This is just spring cleaning?"

Killian stopped, empty-handed and squared his shoulders with Emma's. "Am I to just turn a blind eye to the fact that the Crocodile tried to torture our daughter? Lest you forget, I've been on the other end of that bloody cane too."

"No one is getting away with anything, I'm pissed too, but we can't get side-tracked with a personal feud right now. Just one attack in an unguarded moment and her future repeats itself."

"Aye," was Killian's flat reply.

"Well, that was convincing."

Wide shoulders slumped and Killian scratched the nape of his neck. "Apologies, you are right, the stakes are much too high, but even if they weren't, what recourse have I? I can do nothing to truly hurt him aside from the dagger, and getting to the dagger means going through Belle—which I'll not do—but," the sharp edge to his brilliant blues betrayed that he was at least half serious in his plot. "Let's say I could stab him like any father would, what then? Tell me, Emma, tell me how that story ends."

"I get it," Emma put a hand to his shoulder, right where it met his neck and gave it a gentle squeeze. "I get it. You're angry. I am too. But he is helping, and Belle will keep him on a short leash. We can worry about the rest afterward."

Killian put his good hand over hers. "After she's gone, you mean?" He hadn't meant it as an attack, but it hurt, and Emma withdrew her hand.

With Zelena gone and the timeline set straight, she'd just begun to allow the sliver of a hope that some semblance of a normal life—for a town of fairy tales, that is—might emerge from her ashes. But here she stood, looking at a future rife with yet more tragedy. Would this be the rest of her life? Her kid's lives? Always disjointed and out of order and falling apart just as it came together? Every gain coming only from impossible choices? Even if she changed the course of future events, stopped the scourge, would it make a difference? Would yet another wild darkness emerge?"

"Sorry, love. That came out wrong. Seems we're both exhausted."

"No, no, I get it," Emma rubbed her eyes with her hand. Her brain felt like sludge. "None of us are thinking clearly. I shouldn't have kept all this from my parents, this is way bigger than us, especially now. We can't go gallivanting across the unknown realms without a solid plan." She patted her pant pockets but felt no phone. "Crap, I left it in my coat."

Killian put his hand to her upper arm and returned her squeeze. "No arguments from me, timeline or no, but you're no use to anyone if you drop from exhaustion. Rest first. I'll take care of your parents."

"You really want to be the one to tell my father that we make a little pirate together?"

Killian's smile couldn't hide his wince. "He seems to have finally gotten over the incident with the crowbar. Besides that," he scratched his chin before shrugging, "it's the honorable thing to do."

"It's the suicidal thing to do."

"None the less…"

"Fine," Emma replied with a shrug of her own. "It's your funeral."

Chapter Text

(Storybrooke: Present)

The dim light below deck only added to Emma's sleepiness. She followed shuffling sounds to the crew quarters, catching sight of Lillian as she slid her arms into a dark leather coat. It wasn't nearly as flamboyant as Killian's, but simple, rugged, and practical. Combined with her dark hair, sun-warmed features and her own set of leather and linen garments, Emma couldn't fathom how she had missed the resemblance. She startled when she caught sight of a hook—the hook—hanging from a chain around Lillian's neck. Lillian noticed her and quickly buttoned the coat over the rounded steel.

"I've no objection to taking watch if that's what you've come about."

"No," Emma blurted but recovered quickly. "I mean, thank you, but," she glanced around the small quarters. The bloodied uniform lay balled up on a bunk close by, ripped clear through with arrow holes, and Emma's gut churned at the recollection of Henry's last hours. She looked away before she lost it. "My jacket," she asked. "Do you have it?"

The girl pulled the jacket from another bunk and handed it off. Emma gave her a soft thank you as she took it and fumbled for the pocket. She found the phone, but couldn't get it to light up. Dead battery, she deduced. On a ship. With no electricity. Perfect.

Lillian continued readying herself in front of a tiny, grubby mirror, deftly working her fingers through her hair to form a long, tight braid.

"I know things got heated earlier," Emma added, slipping her own jacket on, "but I do want to thank you for doing this. Whatever happens, it took courage to come here."

The girl paused, catching her gaze in the mirror, but seemed unable to give a response.

"Which is why," Emma continued, shoving the phone into a pocket, "I have to ask why someone that brave can't be straight with me?"

"Straight?" the girl questioned with a familiar lift of her brow.

"The host this thing took in Storybrooke. It was Killian, wasn't it?"

Lillian tied off her braid and let it drop over her shoulder. "Yes."

Emma crossed her arms, expectantly. "Why leave that out?"

"Because," Lillian looked over her shoulder. "I wasn't going to let it happen again."

"That's why you came back when you did, before it could get to him," Emma murmured, as much to herself as to Lillian. "What did this thing do to him? How did I not notice?"

Lillian eased herself down onto one of the bunks, facing Emma, but avoiding her gaze. "Many hosts were taken quietly before anyone knew what to look for. Once the Scourge settles into a host, it hides deep. In Da... Hook's case, it took years before even the first signs began to show, as Henry told it. "You see," grey eyes trailed back up to meet Emma's with misty honesty, "the spirit wastes and weakens long before the body shows any hint. The older and stronger the soul, the longer it takes, and the greater the Scourge becomes. That's why it wanted him then, that's why it wants him now."

Emma said nothing but lowered herself to an opposite bunk. The girl pulled at her knuckles as she continued.

"The scourge consumes a host in layers, it takes the darkness first; the salt and the sour and the bitterness of the heart. Only after draining all that does it touch what's left: the lightness, the sweetness, the love. Since memories are tied to emotion, as one is consumed, so is the other and each drink the scourge takes from that draught of pain brings a forgetting, a fading of one's darkness," Lillian's voice softened as her eyes again dropped away, "and he had such darkness," she paused, letting the words settle.

Emma thought of the rough heartlessness and smoldering vengeance she'd seen in Killian's—no, Hook's—character. The bitterness of his chiding lilt in Rumplestiltskin's cell before he walked away with Cora. The venom and desperation as he, soaked and broken at the town line, still taunted Gold with strained breath. The crackling malice as he crouched over the man in New York, hook dripping with blood and black poison. And who knows what else he'd done in the unspoken centuries past.

"When it faded," Lillian continued, lips wisped with brief contentment, "Henry told me that time was actually the happiest in their lives—your lives together. So many thought—so many wanted to believe—they saw a man renewed by love." The girl knit her shoulders in a shrug, grabbing her elbows with her hands. "And maybe he was, in a sense. With his—Hook's—long-held rage dissipated; irrepressible joy emerged. Only when his mind waned and his body failed did they suspect something more, but by then, no one could have guessed the truth. No one knew why, every day, there was less of him. Why every touch grew weaker. Every laugh, a little lighter. Every smile, like a little goodbye."

Lillian's grip tightened until her forearms shook subtly. "It was a gentle death, in the end. After all those centuries of vengeance, he simply faded away, softly, slowly, smiling." She chewed on her lip a moment, waiting for her trembling throat to steady. "The Scourge attacked then. I don't even think there was time to bury him. When the town disintegrated into the ethers, so did he."

Emma blinked quickly to clear the tears warbling her vision. "Why," the word caught in a raw clench of her throat. "Why, if I had the magic, why didn't I go back for him?"

Lillian hesitated before answering. "Because you couldn't remember you could. Not for a long time after you took that forgetting potion."

Emma blinked now in surprise.

"Early tactic in the Scourge war," Lillian continued. "Wipe away one's pain and the Scourge finds tastier prey. At the time, you were its number one target."

Lillian kept her gaze to the floor, seeming to find comfort in the little nooks and gashes and cracks formed from countless steps from men now nothing more than spidery scrawls in Killian's journals.

"So that's it? I took it to save myself? Screw everyone else?"

Tears dropped to the worn deck boards with Lillian's shaky reply. "You took it because you were pregnant. You took it to protect me. You forgot him and everything about him. You forgot the very reason you wanted to go back."

-0-

Emma sat silently, tears of her own sliding down her cheeks as Lillian brushed past with some excuse to attend to the ship. Her imagination retraced every word, magnified by fear and exhaustion, playing out in her mind bitter moments overshadowed by grief and separation. So lost in thought was she that she barely registered the soft creak of leather as Killian appeared at the doorway.

"I just saw the lass, she looked upset," he knelt at her side, his warm hand on her leg. "Did you two…" he started, but weariness broke her last string of restraint and her lips pressed against his, silencing further words in the need for connection beyond language. He accepted, tender brushes deepened to take in the ache no voice could adequately express. These weren't the desperate kisses of harsh need, these were salty, soft lips embracing where all reason failed and only heartache remained. Emma's cheek warmed with Killian's thumb brushing away tears, and when they fell too fast, his lips swept up the overflow. She put her head to his shoulder, breathing in his musk and warmth and steadiness as seemingly every raw nerve and broken thing exposed by fading hope tumbled out in shuddering sobs.

Which was the worse fate, losing him, or never knowing she'd had him at all?

In time, Emma pulled away, rational thought returned to her weary mind and with it some semblance of her usual stoicism. She wiped at her face with the palms of her hands. Killian pulled back her hair, something close to fear in his eyes. He opened his mouth to question her, but an all too familiar call, shrill and deadly, pierced through the deck above them.

-0-

Killian emerged from the lower deck first in time to see a winged form shoot through the ship's rigging. He watched it, trying to gauge its size until a sharp tug at his leg brought him to a knee and a second creature swooped past his head.

"Two of them?" he shouted.

A few steps away, Lillian threw her body weight onto one of the flame cannons, whirling it around to track one of the creatures. Killian lost no time in dashing for the second cannon.

"Killian, you're the last person who should be out here," Emma warned, still half-inside the hatch. "Neither of you should be, it's come after the both of you. It's taking advantage of Gold's absence, if we wait in here, we can last long enough for backup."

"Hiding out isn't your style, Swan."

"But strategy is yours, isn't it? We know they want you, we have that in our favor."

As if hearing a signal the two forms turned and swooped down toward the ship, toward Killian. Flame burst from Lillian's cannon and the two abruptly broke off, one banked straight into Killian's aim. He fired and the creature erupted in flames, shrill screeches pierced his ears. The hawkish creature shot up, and Killian realized the danger too late. It rammed straight into a mast, setting fire to the ship.

"Killian!"

He looked back down in time to see the remaining Scourge, the largest instance he'd seen yet, as it dove, talons outstretched, into Lillian's gut with enough force to knock her back against the wooden half wall. A green glow kept her feet pressed to the ground as red spread through her thick layers.

With a scream of his own, he fired again, but a hair too slowly. Lillian dropped to the ground and the scourge flitted to the air. Unsated, it turned and dove at him. Killian fired, his deadly aim tempered by countless sea battles, he lurched the heavy weapon into a direct kill shot. Only the cannon, instead of bursting forth in fire, spat out a meager lick of flame that dissipated into smoke.

"Bloody hell…"

Chapter Text

(Present)

Opening her eyes, Lillian found the deck of the ship empty. She rolled to her knees and glanced around wildly until hot pain in her gut sent her slumping back against the cannon. Her head thumped against iron, defeated. Beyond the sails lay not the Storybrooke harbor, but the near endless Neverland waters, broken only by the island itself on the distant horizon.

"As good a place as any to do this, the land of lost things," a voice spoke from above. In a swirl of pale gold and bright green, Emma Swan leaned into Lillian's vision—her Emma, the future queen, her absent mother. Her hair was lightened with age, skin creased with experience, but her glare as sharp as ever. Nobility and ferocity draped in chain mail and black leather. Every stitch of her battle gear a requiem and warning of something deadly, regal, and determined. "Only you're not lost, are you, 'Tiger Lily'? You just flat out don't belong anywhere."

Lillian's jaw clenched. "That's not my name."

Metal and leather shifted as the queen planted a foot on the cannon. "No, but it's who you are—who I made you. Sort of like your very own dark curse," she snapped a finger, as a thought caught her. "Scratch that last part, maybe you would have fit in in Storybrooke. Two names for every person, two lives in every body. Hey, your mom might have even remembered one of them this time around!"

Ire churned in her core. Lillian noticed the hook lay beside her, the chain's clasp broken, blood pooled around it. Too much blood. The Scourge needed only a scratch, yet twice now, seemed intent to bleed her dry.

The queen interrupted further thought. "Unlike the Emma Swan you know and loathe, I'm one voice you can't drink away. No, I am in here," she poked the girl's head in emphasis. "To stay."

"Rumplestiltskin's price for meddling with time wasn't a surprise to you, was it?" cooed another voice and the very same giggling man leaned over Lillian from the other side. "No, it was a fact to you."

Indeed Lillian did know the consequences of changing the past; the Rumplestiltskin of her time knew what the Mr. Gold of this time had only guessed at: saving the father meant sacrificing the daughter.

"You must have been so disappointed when you didn't disappear that morning you saved your parents," he giggled.

Beyond comprehension, Lillian thought. She had waited in the cabin of the Jolly Roger, waited to finally fade into nothing as time swept away the last shards of her shattered timeline.

Emma leaned in further, exaggerating her words. "She chose you over your father and you hated her for it. And when the slightest opportunity arose, you set your little heart on fighting the monster she should have faced."

Lillian glared at her and all the familiar passions riled up from within. She saw the Emma Swan who made the choice, the wrong choice. The Emma Swan who protected one tiny life, and in doing so, ultimately sacrificed all other life in the known realms.

"Mmm, yes," Rumplestiltskin breathed in as if smelling freshly baked bread. "Sour condemnation and resentment aged with a few decades of hindsight. A classic recipe, but with a hint of something else. Something more," he leaned down further to better read Lillian, and she felt the press of expectation, "something particularly delicious."

With the two hated faces so close that their breaths mingled, her anxieties multiplied and Lillian felt any rein over her base emotion slip. If not for me, she thought, she could have gone back. Saved Hook. Saved the realms. If not for me!

"Guilt! That we can work with," Rumplestiltskin slapped his hands together. "The savior wouldn't reset time because of you—Gold may hate your guts for it, but I could hug you!" He flung his arms wide as if to embrace, but then eyed her wound skeptically. "Except, well, you seem to be wearing the contents of yours. It'd be unsanitary, you understand."

"No," Emma put a hand to her hip, caressing the hilt of her sword, "It's more than that… something changed."

Pressure built within Lillian, soul secrets bubbled over until they burned against her pressed lips. Something had changed. One shift in her understanding and all the rage of those desolate years swept up in the air like ash. All those long years she had dreamed of her mother going back, defeating the first scourge and circumventing tragedy. Only the scourge hadn't started in Storybrooke. Had Emma gone back at the first instinct, with only a slight understanding of her enemy and without the protection of a magic warship, it might have been suicide. Thus, Lillian admitted, Emma had made the right choice. Rumplestiltskin's plan had worked; She had not only brought back knowledge to Storybrooke of the past—knowledge of the scourge, of the future, of the echoes of the Savior's dreaded choice—but the ship retrofitted to the sole purpose of chasing and cutting down the Scourge.

Her fingers curled around the hook at her side.

"Seems there are a few brain cells the alcohol didn't wash away," Emma said as she unsheathed the sword at her side and pressed the gleaming tip against the girl's neck.

Lillian knocked the blade away with a swipe of the hook, though the shock of pain in her torso pulled her to the planks in a heap.

"Oh my, is she trying to fight her personal demons literally?" Rumplestiltskin snickered. "That's not really how this works, dearie! You show a little spine, I just find a bigger demon!"

The two disappeared suddenly in swirling columns of smoke, leaving behind a third form in the dissipating haze, one she didn't recognize—a blondish-brown mop of hair, a green tunic wrapped around a teenage frame and smirk of chaotic malice.

"After all," his smirk widened as he stepped closer to the girl, "I'm literally a connoisseur of inner demons, what fun would it be if you only faced your own? Besides," he nudged her with his foot so that she rolled on her back to face him fully, "did you really think I was going to let 'Tiger Lily' come all the way to Neverland and not meet Peter Pan?"

"You're not a demon, you're a ghost."

"Cheeky little princess, you are. And just like your father when I met him," Pan crouched down. "A drunken, broken pirate. Oh, the delectable irony."

"Not a pirate," Lillian's fingers clenched around the ends of the chain, whipped the hook around like a flail and the deadly tip slashed through the air.

Pan caught the hook with one hand.

"And in denial! Four for four! Did you really think that was going to accomplish anything? You've already escaped once—twice if you count that move with the time portal—do you really think you get another chance?"

"I don't need one," she shot back. "They've been warned. It's only a matter of time before they find you and end you."

"Have you met your parents?" Pan laughed, then feigned an embarrassed look. "Oh, right, orphan. Let me explain, something, then. Your grandparents were ready to give up the rest of their lives in Neverland for the sake of your brother. Your own mother gave up her best weapon, her own magic, to save your father. And you have that little book to tell you how far he'll go. What makes you think they're just going to let you die?"

"They know what to do with a host. They'll kill me before they'll let you hurt anyone through me."

"A host?" Pan's eyebrows shot up in exaggerated surprise. "Some mommy issues and a few dead family and you think you're ready to spawn a scourge? You're a plate of vegetables to a beast craving raw meat. No, I have another use for you, Lillian. On your feet!" With a tug on the chain between them, Pan hauled her up.

Lillian did her best to remain upright but swayed unsteadily. "What, a light snack?"

Pan's face dropped into a look of false shock as if she should have anticipated his plot.

"Why, bait, of course."

-0-

A blast flew from Emma's palms, consuming the last of her strength. She dropped to her knees as Killian dove down. The creature shrieked and shot up, flapping flaming wings. Killian rolled away, sparing a glance back to Emma.

The color drained from his face and he was on his feet and dashing toward her before Emma registered the danger.

Her vision flashed as something struck the back of Emma's head. She fell forward, ears ringing as her hearing faded. A forceful kick to her shoulder knocked her on her back and she, bleary-eyed, found Lillian looming over her with chain and hook whirling in her hand. She made to strike again, but hook met hook as Killian tackled Lillian and both tumbled to the deck.

A deep sense of urgency in Emma's muddled mind pressed her to do something and she numbly felt for the gun strapped to her side. A dreaded screech announced greater danger. The Scourge-hawk circled uneasily around the ship, the flames now out but charred wings affected its flight.

Emma pulled her piece free of its holster. Hefting herself up on one elbow, she took hesitant aim with the other arm. The gun felt heavy in her hand, heavier still as she aimed at the struggling bodies.

Lillian, with inhuman strength, struck Killian across the temple and rolled on top of him. Emma had her shot, free and clear.

But she just couldn't take it. She couldn't kill her own daughter.

Another breath and Lillian had the chain wrapped around Killian's neck. The injured scourge swooped down and fluttered in his face. Emma fired, emptying the clip into the creature, but if any of the bullets hit, they had no effect. The scourge lashed out, sinking a talon into the hollow of his cheek, leaving a reddening gash behind.

Instantly, Lillian went limp beneath him, the chain loosened. Killian, coughing, pulled the chain away with his hook. Emma dropped leaden arms to her side, her gun clattered to the deck. Her head throbbed and she could feel her heartbeat in her eyes. They drifted shut, ignoring any contrary command from her brain.

-0-

Killian slowly rose to his knees, hand on his temple. He swayed for a moment, eyes closed and dazed. When he again opened them, they fell on an empty deck. He called out for Emma, but heard only the waves lapping against the ship.

The waves of a dock he remembered all too well, off a certain village in the Enchanted Forest.

No.

A hand touched his shoulder. Fearing Lillian was on the attack again, he grabbed it, twisting it as he whipped around to face her—only, instead of Lillian, he found a sight that struck him stone still. Dark hair, yes, but fairer skin and, rather than steely blue-grey, laughing grey-green.

Milah.

She put her free hand to his cheek, her gaze never broke his. Faintly, she whispered, "Your turn, my love."

Chapter Text

(Present)

Milah's wrist slipped from Killian's grip and she cupped his face with both hands. "My brave Killian."

A worn part of Killian's heart thudded, slow and somber, like the mourning chimes of a bell tower. With each strike, his mind clouded. He found himself adrift in jagged waves of loss and regret. He grasped for words but his usual smooth prose fled traitorously. All he could hold to, his anchor of reason, was the rough and brutal word clanging in his soul.

Dead... Dead... Dead...

The corners of Milah's mouth twitched down. "Of course," she said as she combed a hand through his hair, "but I don't have to be."

Her eyes twinkled in that mischievous way that said she had a plan certain to cause him a lot of trouble. That very gleam had driven him many times across dangerous seas (and treacherous paths) and its lack had left him drowning in lightless depths.

"Don't tell me you haven't thought about it, Killian. You've traveled through time now—rescued someone from certain demise. What's to stop you from doing it again?" Her unsure smile unfurled like an untested sail. Almost mechanically, he reached forward to stroke her hair except, for a moment, dark chestnut flashed golden white and he smelled grass and bark and rope and something held him back. "We can run away all over again—take Baelfire with us this time—and you could have the family you should have had."

"All of it, Killian," came a rumbling chuckle from lips long lost to the sea. Killian felt a squeeze to his shoulder and turned to take in pressed naval linens, dark curls, and dimples—Liam. "Think of it!" said Liam, "carte blanche to rewrite the past! Reclaim your honor. Undo every lie, every murder," Liam's free hand went to Killian's left wrist, to his hook, as if to shake it but instead of leather and steel Liam's hand met flesh and bone, "every regret." Warmth flooded up his arm as muscles and ligaments twitched and squeezed in Liam's embrace and Killian swore he could feel even the baby hairs on his knuckles. Liam pulled him up into a bear hug. "You couldn't ask for a more heroic adventure than to bring all of us together, brother."

Killian's heart lurched at the thought; Liam at the helm, Milah and Baelfire alive and safe, the Jolly Ro—no, the Jewel of the Realm—carrying them far away from fate and consequence. Even his sorrow-forged and battle-hardened spirit fought back tears. He stood exposed, even unto himself, at the reality long hidden beneath his layers of charisma and self-medication. Alone, he was nothing; thin strands of weak fibers until he twined around Liam's bravery and steadiness. After had Liam died, Killian had frayed to uselessness again, until unforeseen and unexpected hands had knotted him back together; the hands of an artist, who could run fingers through his threads of darkness and, somehow, weave him back into worthiness.

Milah's arms wrapped around the brothers, her nose nudging Killian's ear. She smelled of fire. "Come back for us, Killian."

A soft breeze swept through the ship and the fog in Killian's mind thinned slightly. Over the waves and his own quick breaths he heard a half-remembered, "Killian, come back to me!"

"I can't," he breathed through trembling lips. "There is no way back. I haven't the magic."

"But it's so obvious," Milah replied, "and so easy for you, my beautiful pirate." She pulled Killian away from Liam by the lapels of his coat, pulling him against her until their foreheads touched. "Kill Rumple," she breathed. "Here and now! Take his magic!" she trailed a concerned finger along the gash in his cheek, his breath hitched with slight twitches of pain. The pad of her finger felt more like the tip of a talon. The muscles in his neck tensed, but she held firm. "Take the ship. Take the wand and come back for us!"

"Hook! Come back to me."

"Aye," he whispered. Another stiff wind caressed the ship and a simple question leaped from his tongue, "but at what cost?"

Milah playfully raked a hand through his hair again, settling fingers at the base of his skull. "Cost, Killian? You've murdered and thieved to avenge me, but to save me, you question the means?"

"All magic comes with a price," Killian replied and a small beam of clarity cut through the haze. "Aye, I have killed. And stolen. And I still suffer for it. But I'm not that naive boy anymore. I'm old and stained and bitter. I could change the past to wipe clean my soul but, in doing so, also tear apart the future, destroying lives before they even come to be—it's as good as murder to me. I'll not make them pay for my grievances!"

Killian tried to pull away but Milah's caress turned into a clutch.

Liam scowled. "You'll save a woman you don't even know, but you won't help us?"

"I have lived lifetimes longer than I should have and you both have had my love for all of them. By all rights I should be ash by now. You—my brother, my Milah—are wafting ash, fires spent long ago and which I cannot reignite without burning the world that is and sacrificing others that I love."

Now Milah's expression darkened. "Love? So you'll build your own happy future on our blood? Is your 'love' that shallow?"

"No, it is that deep."

A hot pain shot through Killian's arm as if his wrist had been slashed through all over again. He doubled over in pain, but as right hand found left, it brushed hook and brace and cold reality. All the stifling fog in his mind evaporated instantly; as did Liam and Milah. When he straightened again, Neal stood before him, much as he had in Neverland; modern clothes muddied, sword and scabbard strapped across his back.

Neal's fist flew in a wild strike. Pain blossomed across Killian's face, throwing him off-balance. "You're not the only one with a mean left hook," the other man croaked.

Killian recovered quickly, touching a knuckle to his cheek to blot his angered wounds. "Hello, Neal."

"You rip apart my family and that's all you have to say?"

"Neal, I'm sorry-"

"You got more time with her than I did!"

Neal swung again. Killian's vision flashed black at the blow, but he made no attempt to retaliate.

"You are so freaking full of it!" Neal's face colored red with rage, leaning in to the taller man until they could feel each other's heat. "You wanted to be some kind of father to me? You run off with my mom, try to kill my dad—almost killed Henry and the rest of Storybrooke to do it—and then you turn right around and go after Emma. It's like your sole purpose in life was to ruin mine!"

Killian straightened his shoulders, palms out before Neal in deference. "What do you want from me?"

Offended, Neal shoved him backward. "No, you don't get to play pacifist with me." Neal pulled the cutlass free from its scabbard. He pointed the blade at Killian. "I want to finish that duel." He lunged at Killian. "Fight me, pirate."

"No."

Neal froze at Killian's command, his blade at Killian's neck.

A flourish of smoke and Rumplestiltskin frowned at Killian over Neal's frozen shoulder. "I'll give it to you, for a human, you do put up an irritating level of resistance."

"Well, I have had many a comment on my incredibly thick skull," Killian eyed the blade as he backed away from its edge, his cutting glare fell on the imp as soon as he was clear. "I've also spent centuries enduring enough nightmares to know a dream when I'm in one. Milah despised Rumplestiltskin, but even in her worst times, she'd never conspire to murder Baelfire's father. Which begs the question why do you want me to?"

Rumplestiltskin, or the mask of him the Scourge hid behind, rounded Neal's frozen body to face him. "I learned something from your daughter and her stale memories—I don't have to destroy all the realms to get what I want. In fact, it looks like no one wins in my Plan A, what with the world thrown into oblivion. But, there is a way I never have to go hungry and all your loved ones can live. Even you get to live—forever."

Killian's eyes narrowed. "It's not Rumplestiltskin you're after, it's his immortality. With the Dark One under your thumb, you could feed on limitless darkness forever." He quirked an eyebrow, "Fortunate for us, then, that you can't take him down head on."

"No, I can't. But now that I've sunk my claws into you…"

"I stab the Crocodile, you gain sway over a new Dark One uncontested."

Rumplestiltskin's lips widened, exposing rotting teeth in twisted pleasure. "Now now, don't sound so glum about it. It's really rather a win-win, isn't it? Instead of being the downfall of the realms, you can save them. Live to see your daughter born, raise her yourself, and all the generations to follow! And to top it off, you get your revenge at last for everything that whimpering, cowardly crocodile did to you, to your loved ones, and to all the realms."

"I also know a lie when I hear one."

The false imp tapped a finger to his cheek. "Mmm, you're right. My first mistake was letting the 'savior' live. Dispense with her and all my problems end—past, present and future."

"Over my dead body," Killian growled.

"Oh, dearie. It's not your body anymore," Rumplestiltskin giggled, "and that was an order."

-0-

Killian's vision flashed and he saw the ship around him as it really was—deck bloodied and mast burning. Emma and Lillian lay at his feet, Lillian motionless and Emma unconscious but breathing smoothly. After the shifting dream world, the reality of it all pressed in on him; he smelled the sea air, heard the creaking groans of the ship, tasted the dried blood on his lips, felt the cold pommel of his sword as his fingers worked over the hilt unbidden. Unbidden, his hand pulled the blade free of its scabbard, the long hiss of steel like rumbling thunder to his ears. With every bit of his willpower, Killian railed against the motion, but his body paid him no mind. He could feel his taught muscles and the full weight of the sword balanced on his arm, now aimed at Emma's sleeping form. He would have screamed in warning, but his lips would not obey.

He was about to stab her.

Cruelly, he could feel the Scourge-demon flare within, consuming his anger, his despair, his brokenness. The Scourge rising, Killian fading.

And David shouting.

Six feet of royal farmboy slammed into Killian's side and Killian would have hugged him if his own body hadn't responded with its centuries-honed reflexes, redirecting David's weight and sending the prince sprawling.

David recovered quickly, sprang back with remarkable grace, and brought his own sword against Killian's. The blades clashed, Killian advanced on David, who still showed surprise at his determination, but fought back with no less expertise.

Promising, since his only hope now lay in the man-who-would-be-king.

"Hook? Hook!" David shouted as the two slashed, parried and swung about the deck. Unused to the lurch of a ship and the slickness of blood beneath his feet, the prince lost footing more than once fending off Killian's strikes. Killian could read the man's moves too easily, could anticipate their coming even as he begged himself to stop. Killian also read the betrayal in David's eyes and it cut into his heart as deeply as his fear for Emma's life. And that was it, Killian realized. If it was heartache the Scourge craved, Killian Jones couldn't win this fight.

But maybe the heartless Captain Hook could finish it.

Mentally, Killian breathed, distancing himself from all feeling—rage, love, regret, shame. They all fell away, leaving him in the stark cold of empty indifference. Like the massive coat he shimmied into each morning, he pulled harsh practicality about him.

When David's next maneuver came uncomfortably close to his face, it wasn't just the hook but Hook to knock it out of the way. Any elation at the regained control didn't last long as the prince followed his failed swipe with a successful slug across the face.

Hook went down hard, his shoulders slammed into the deck. The Scourge still screamed inside of him and it was all he could do just to hold still. The struggle left him writhing and his sword slipped from his grasp. David, always the perceptive prince, caught the change, but kept his own weapon at the ready.

"David!" Hook cried, struggle evident even in his voice. "Kill me!"

A look of shock replaced the glare of betrayal and David took a step back.

Hook's voice grew more desperate. "I'm being controlled. I can't hold it off. You have to kill me or through me it will kill everyone else!" Confusion evident in David's eyes, the prince looked away, to Emma. Hook forced as much evenness and sincerity into his voice as he could wrest away from the rallying Scourge.

"Kill me or it kills Emma."

David's eyes shot back to his and holding off the Scourge long enough to hold that gaze cost Hook the use of his sword hand, which immediately grasped for the weapon. David's boot to his wrist stopped it and Hook was never happier to endure either the indignity or the crunching pain.

The tip of the prince's blade hesitated at Hook's neck only a moment before drawing back for the killing strike. The tell-tale screech pierced above as David threw all his weight into the grim act—only to be blown back, off of his feet. His sword dropped to the deck.

Hook, on his back, had a perfect view of the winged Scourge diving for David, and a perfect view of its eruption into a streak of flames.

Hook's own body ignited as if every blessed bit of skin was soaked in rum , then lit with a torch, though no flame touched him. His cries broke loud and harsh, but they were his, and his alone.

As the ash of the Scourge floated down over the pirate and the prince, Killian slipped into darkness, the words of Rumplestiltskin—the real Rumplestiltskin—echoed in his ears.

"Amateurs!"

Chapter Text

(Storybrooke: Present)

Heated voices woke Killian from a fitful sleep. Jumbled memories and half-remembered nightmares swirled through his mind, a whirlwind of cannon shots and slain bodies. So many bodies. He welcomed the distraction of consciousness and the familiarity of the Jolly Roger's hold, though a bit less comforting with his hand and empty wrist bound above his head. Emma stood just before him in the cramped confines. Her backside faced him—not a bad sight to wake up to—as she heaved some rather unsavory words at Rumplestiltskin, who rolled a disaffected eye. Belle stood next to the man, absently thumbing the hilt of his dagger in thought.

He curled his fingers to test his own control but regretted it immediately; his fingers obeyed stiffly, but the rub of his sleeve against his skin felt like burlap against a blistering sunburn. Belle perked up when she caught Killian's movement, causing Emma to spin on her heels. She grabbed him by the chin, her motions as rough as the day she met a certain "blacksmith". He stiffened as if she still held a dagger to his throat and he bit his lip to squelch a scream, his skin raw under her fingers. She gave him that same searching look, lips pressed in a tight grimace.

Still hunting the hidden monster, he gathered.

Killian took controlled breaths to ride out the pain. "Swan," he forced through his clutched jaw. "Are you hurt? Is Lillian alright?"

"I'll live," she shot back, her voice even and icy. "Question is: do I let you?"

He stared back. Brief flashes of the blood-spattered deck and Lillian's still form surfaced in his mind. Emma unconscious. David's harsh, hurt calls fresh in his ears. His mind slipped back to a giant's treasure room and Emma backing away.

I can't take a chance that I'm wrong about you, his memory offered so vividly that he involuntarily pulled against the rope, clenching his jaw against the sudden urge to scream her name. The dig of the rope against his wrists might as well have been the kiss of the cat o' nine tails and he grunted his discomfort.

Emma missed nothing, her tight glare burrowed deeper into his gaze. "What's wrong with you?"

Regaining himself, Killian relaxed into his restraints, the sting easing. "My arms, they're burned."

Rumplestiltskin frowned. "He's lying. The fire never touched him."

Emma put a hand to Killian's arms, drawing back the sleeve of one clear to the elbow, exposing nothing but smooth skin and toned muscle. "Looks fine to me."

"It's not a ruse, Swan. After what happened, you have every reason to doubt me. If your father hadn't been there... Just, please tell me—Lillian—tell me she's-"

Emma pulled her hand back to ball her fists at her hips. "She bled out before the others could get to her. She's dead."

Killian's head hit the wall as memories slammed into him. Milah's body in his arms, slumped to the deck, her last breath stealing her spirit away from his ship forever. Further back and younger still, he crouched in the cabin, another body, stretched across his lap. Sweat still dripped from Liam's form as he left his ship for the last time. Then, Lillian, staunched and breathless...

So many bodies.

Like a steady breath coaxing life from ashen coals, a smolder rose in Killian's depths.

"Emma, get away from me!" He nudged her away with his knees and she staggered back, startled. "Get out!"

Rumplestiltskin stepped closer, inserting himself between Killian and Belle. "Emma?"

Emma looked between Rumplestiltskin and Killian, winced, pulled a pocket knife from her coat, and sliced into the rope above Killian's head.

"Emma!" Belle snapped, her blue eyes flashed in surprise. "What are you doing?"

Rumplestiltskin waved a hand, knocking Emma away. Belle lunged after her, slipping the dagger around her neck to hold her in place. Emma let out a choking gasp that froze Killian's blood, and he simply reacted. He heaved his full weight against the weakened rope, ripping free and tumbling forward—straight into Rumplestiltskin. Muscles weak and screaming, every touch like a lick of fire, Killian could hardly fight at top form. The imp had him on his back in seconds.

Emma yanked Belle's arm from her throat, twisting it with enough force that the dagger dropped from her hand. Belle tried to slide the weapon away from Emma with a foot, but a kick from Emma sent it flying—to land at Killian's side. He snapped it up. Rumplestiltskin froze. Memories swirled. Years upon years of searching, suffering Pan and Neverland, the deals, the deaths, all of it. To get to Storybrooke. To get to him. The Crocodile. The Dark One. The path behind and between them littered with so many bodies.

Killian's heart beat thumped deep murmurs of measureless rage. Red coals and searing heat.

"Go on, then," Rumplestiltskin growled, "Do it. Destroy me."

Killian pressed the dagger's handle into Rumplestiltskin's palm.

"No," he hissed, angling the tip at his own chest. "Protect them."

Rumplestiltskin glanced at the girls. Both Emma and Belle stared on, wide-eyed.

"If you insist," Rumplestiltskin replied and, with a heavy thump at his temple, Killian's world went black.

-0-

Emma touched a tentative hand to the tender spot at the base of her skull as she pushed back into the ship's cabin. It screamed in protest. Maybe a mock wrestling match with Belle with a concussion wasn't such a great plan, in hindsight.

Inside the cabin, Lillian lay unconscious on the small bed, torso bound with clean bandages. Her tanned skin had paled considerably, dried blood still matted in her long braid. Next to her, Mary Margaret straddled backwards on a wooden chair, but looked up at Emma's entrance. David paced the length of the cabin, but stopped in his tracks as Gold and Belle filed in behind her. He had yet to calm down since Emma woke, or possibly since setting foot on the ship. Try as he might to look casual, David's hand subconsciously landed on the hilt of his sword. Emma couldn't blame him. He and Mary Margaret had come by for a simple status check, what with her phone dead, and had unwittingly walked straight into Killian's rampage.

"How'd it go?" he asked.

Emma dropped her hand back to her side. "Inconclusive."

"Inconclusive?" Mary Margaret rose from her chair, concerned. "I thought you said with the Scourge dead, they're free?"

"The details are a little vague. Unfortunately, with our only Scourge expert also incapacitated, we're pretty much flying blind. He's definitely not himself, but he could have done serious damage down there, with or without the dagger, and he didn't."

David balked. "He got the dagger?"

Emma lifted a reassuring hand. "We let him get a hold of a fake. We thought if there was anything that might stir him up, Scourge or no Scourge, it was a shot at Gold."

Mary Margaret looked to Gold. "A fake dagger? How is that possible?"

"My idea, actually," Belle volunteered, shrugging awkwardly. "I didn't like the idea of that dagger in the same room as that thing—assuming, of course, there is a thing in there."

Emma nodded. "We cuffed him back up until we know our next move."

Sighing, Gold walked toward the captain's table. "If that thing is in there, we do know our next move. As far as I'm concerned, Hook is only alive now because killing him immediately removes Lillian from the timeline, risking us never receiving a warning in the first place. Every instance of the scourge in our time must perish for this paradox to resolve. That puts us on a time limit. Kill the rest of the scourge before he dies or all of this was for naught."

Emma crossed her arms. "I'm not writing him off that easily. Let's say you're right, that still gives us months, maybe years before this thing drains what it wants out of him. We'll figure something out." She then turned her full attention on Mary Margaret, shutting off any reply. "How's Lillian?"

Mary Margaret chewed her lip, looking between Gold and Emma. "She needs a doctor."

"Or a healer," Emma squared her shoulders on Gold. "She's still a valuable part of this puzzle, Gold, you said so yourself."

"I also see if she's a Scourge-ling, healing her is pointless."

"And letting her die is out of the question."

Smirking dryly, Gold reached for a black backpack sitting on the old table. "Tell you what, I'll heal her if you can prove to me there's something to save."

"She's unconscious, how do you propose I do that?"

Carefully, Gold unzipped the bag and pulled out a circle of twisted string. Emma recognized it immediately—a dream catcher.

Emma lifted a brow. "You want me to read her memories? If it's that simple, why didn't we do that with Killian instead of that little act we pulled down there?"

Gold stepped back, offering Emma the catcher. "For one, human minds are different, far more closed off—guarded. But with Lillian, you're in a unique position. If anyone can read a child's mind, it's her mother. You should be able to identify anything that shouldn't be there."

"Shouldn't be there? How am I supposed to know that?"

Gold shrugged. "I suppose we'll just have to trust your maternal instincts."

Slowly, Emma took the fragile piece from Gold. She tried to mimic his movements in the pawn shop ages ago, tickling feathers down the length of Lillian's still body. David and Mary Margaret jostled beside her for a better view as she held the catcher up.

The dream catcher glowed, as before, showing golden, swirling fog in its circle. Her vision shot forward, as if she barreled headfirst into a cloud, into the dream catcher. Such a strange sensation. She knew, felt, her body was still standing, holding the catcher, in the cabin of the Jolly Roger with her family pressed around her. But her mind floated elsewhere, her vision flooded with this endless mist.

Gold was right, this wasn't like last time. Pongo's mind had been so eager, so full, so ready to share, but Lillian's—if this was, in fact, Lillian's mind—seemed so blank. So empty. So lonely.

"Try accessing something recent, something you both would remember," Gold instructed.

Emma tried to trace back over the moments she and Lillian shared over the last few days. She thought of their moment below deck in the crew quarters, where Lillian confessed Emma's desperate choice, but the wisps remained. Emma stepped further back in her mind, remembering the weighty meeting where Lillian outlined their dismal future. This brought up vague forms in the fog: the table, Emma holding Lillian's tea as if she was Lillian, Killian ruffling through papers at her side, yet all other figures obscured. She stepped back further, bringing up the hospital room that, in Emma's mind was full of people, but in Lillian's, empty, except for Killian, her arms—Lillian's arms—wrapped around his waist.

"Emma?"

David sounded a little annoyed.

"Her, not me, I swear… It's like everyone else has been deleted."

Deleted, or taken, Emma thought.

Shutting out the implications, Emma changed tactics, focusing in her mind on Killian, the only strong presence she sensed in Lillian's mind so far. This time the fog dissolved into a barrage of bright smiles and blue eyes, his deep-throat chuckle filled her mind. Pushing harder, the memories took stronger form. Emma felt as much as saw them. The click of his flint-lock as he pointed his pistol at her. The creaky groan and lurch of the ship as Killian spun the helm. The recognition in his eye as he took in a table of liquor.

Gaining some confidence in navigating a foreign mind, Emma thought of herself. Killian's image disappeared, the intense fog returned, but no further memory surfaced. She tried to coax out anything Lillian might associate with her—mom, Emma, savior—but the girl's mind gave no response.

Emma switched subjects again, this time focusing all her mental energy on the Scourge. The fog drifted back and she looked up at the sky through ship's rigging. Two blurry figures leaned over her but dissipated quickly.

It was the voice that froze her.

"Cheeky little princess, you are. And just like your father when I met him: a drunken, broken pirate."

"You wanted something that shouldn't be here, Gold?" Emma called as the face of Peter Pan solidified before her. "I think we found it."

"Pan?" Mary Margaret gasped.

Emma shook her head. "Not Pan. Killian was still a lieutenant when he first went to Neverland. The real Pan would know that."

She pushed further, demanding answers. She shivered at Pan's laugh. How in the world would Lillian know Pan's laugh?

"A host?" Pan continued. "Some mommy issues and a few dead family and you think you're ready to spawn a scourge? Rumple was right there too, you're a nothing."

"So it didn't take her as a host?" Emma could hear the hopeful smile in her mother's voice.

"It does seem counterproductive that the scourge should mortally wound a body it intended to draw from," Gold offered.

Belle, too, seemed to agree. "She did say it's only the unlucky few who become hosts."

The smile left Mary Margaret's tone. "What happens to the rest?"

"Consumed. Killed. On the spot," Emma supplied, watching as a picture perfect Pan hauled Lillian to her feet. "It drains the emotions dry and in doing so, destroys memory. Only it died before it finished. Leftovers, that's what we're seeing."

Sweeeek went the cabin's hatch and Emma heard footsteps clatter on the wooden stairs. Too deep into the memory magic, Emma couldn't look away from Pan's vicious smirk.

"What's going on?" came a young, unexpected voice.

Henry.

Images tore through Emma's mind. The alarm in Henry's eyes as he crouched before the flame cannons aboard the ship. The clunk of metal as Henry, twenty-something, set Killian's hook in front of her. That innocent, indomitable smile as Henry flew the Jolly Roger over misty Neverland.

She'd seen a lot of crazy things since first stepping foot in Storybrooke, but the sight of Henry as he would be—might be—grown up, a man, living adventures of his own, over there, in a world straight out of his story book, and so real she could reach out and-

"EMMA!"

Someone wrenched the catcher from her hand, breaking the connection and throwing her back to her senses. The sudden slam of reality around her sent Emma slumping into David's chest.

"Mom!" Henry scrambled for her as David helped her right herself and Regina cleared the last step of the stairs, looking none too pleased at the harried scene before her.

Emma put a hand on the boy's shoulder. Warm, soft, real beneath her fingers. Her Henry. "I'm fine, really. What are you doing here?"

"We heard there was another attack and came to see if you were okay—is that Lee? Is she going to be okay?"

"If I have anything to say about it, yes," Emma nodded to Gold. "Heal her."

"I can heal her body, but the rest is beyond my power. Depending on how much the Scourge took, she may yet die of damage deeper than mere flesh."

"What happened to trusting my maternal instincts?"

"I'm only preparing you for what is likely to come."

Emma took the girl's hand, cupping it between her own as if willing strength back into her. "It takes love last, that's what she told me, so the strongest part of her is still in there. I'd say that's more than a fighting chance."

Regina, dumbfounded, took careful steps forward, placing hands on either side of Henry's shoulders. "Wait, maternal instincts?" Brown eyes dashed back and forth between Emma and Lillian as Gold waved a hand over Lillian's bandages. Recognition dawned. "Oh hell no!"

Henry, however, looked around the cabin, worried.

"Mom, where's Killian?"

-0-

A door slammed somewhere above and Killian heard the distinct clack of heels on wood planks. He was again restrained, one arm cuffed to the wall, just enough slack that he could sleep with reasonable comfort. The little cat nap had done him some good, his previous blistering burns had calmed to a mild irritation. His angle afforded him a view up the hatch covering his compartment, where he spied the silken strands and arched brow of one very ticked Regina Mills.

"You two just don't quit, do you? Haven't you had your fill of fiddling with time?" Regina spat.

"Your Majesty! Relegated to babysitting, are we?"

"Just so you know, if you thought you were being subtle, you weren't. I called it back in Neverland." Regina turned away. Judging by a light clomp and a squeak of wood, she'd settled down in one of the cots above, likely absorbing what had to have been a very long, ludicrous story.

Neverland, he thought. Horrible place. He always lost something there. This last time, well, he'd lost his heart—so, not much of a loss really, he hadn't even known the blasted thing still beat. That second time, though, he'd lost so much more. His honor, if not his very humanity.

Oh, but the first time on that cursed island, he'd lost…

Well, he was pretty sure he'd lost someone, but the name escaped him, for the moment.

Chapter Text

Emma paced the length of the cabin alone. Mary Margaret had left with Regina to check in with the townspeople while David and Henry helped Gold analyze the ailing cannons, leaving Emma to monitor Lillian. Which was fine, she didn't want an audience; they'd try to placate her—well, her parents would—with their assurances and promises and frustrating resilience and right now, she needed to feel muscle tension and brewing revulsion and how in the hell does she become the kind of mother who sends a child to face such an enemy alone?

Like your mother sent you? She thought, and she sagged into the chair at the girl's bedside.

You are completely overreacting, she told herself. Lillian seemed more than determined in her mission. Much more than Emma had been when she first heard the "S" word. Yet, she just couldn't shake that inexplicable sense, the same that needled her when she first dropped Henry off at Regena's mansion so long ago, the recognition of underlying discontent only the mother gland knew—in Lillian's case, a distance she'd noted in the girl's tone long before she'd touched the dream catcher. Emma's fascination at seeing bandit Snow White in her element had almost shattered the timeline irreparably, but Lillian, in the same circumstance, had been far less than happy to see her. Was that why she couldn't find herself in Lillian's mind?

Emma rubbed a hand over her eyes. Her head still ached with the echoes of Lillian's blow. Why did her absence haunt her like this? This was an enemy she barely understood and a power she could hardly begin to control. How was she to know what to expect from patchwork memories of a girl she barely knew?

Because I'm her mother and I should be in there. She didn't care about life-sucking, mind-wiping villains. (Seriously?) She absolutely refused to believe the scourge could entirely wipe away a child's own mother. Emma sat forward, studying the subtle knit of Lillian's brow. There had to be enough of her left, somewhere in there. Just enough to…

Leaning over, Emma gently pressed a soft kiss to the girl's forehead—and nearly knocked skulls as Lillian startled awake.

Emma leaned back, giving the girl breathing space. Joy brought her hand to Lillian's, but as soon as their fingers met, Lillian squealed and yanked away, cowering against the wall. She panted as dull grey eyes flitted about the cabin, bouncing in random, distracted patterns, like a newborn baby taking in its newfound world. Lillian whimpered; her limbs shook until she finally collapsed weakly against the mattress and her breaths evened in unconsciousness.

Rattled, Emma rested her elbows on the edge of the bed and dropped her head into her hands.

That's how Mary Margaret found her a short time later. She dropped a small armload of bags on the table to wrap her arms around Emma. "Hey now, they're going to be fine. We will figure this out, I promise you."

Emma only wrapped her hands over her mother's and leaned into the hug.

-0-

"Careful," David warned as the boy climbed down into the dim of the ship's main hold. Muted light streamed through the hatches from the deck above, casting soft lattice-work patterns across the expanse. Not quite enough to see by, though. David ran an exploring hand along the wall, fiddling in his pocket for a lighter. "Hold on, there's bound to be lamps around here."

"I got it, Grandpa," Henry noted, feet hitting the floor. He pulled out his phone and tapped it to life, panning the beam around the hold. This compartment, significantly larger than the one confining Hook, ran most of the length and breadth of the ship and David could only imagine the manner of contraband hauled in this space over the years. "Found something."

The light illumined the back of the hold. Two massive cannons dominated the space, the bronze cascabels alone nearly larger than David's head. The mouths of the weapons faced the back of the ship. "Promising, but what are they doing down here?"

Henry snapped pictures. "Maybe they were transporting them? Delivering them somewhere?"

David knelt to examine the bases of the cannons, careful not to touch either of them. (Setting off a flamethrower below deck, magic ship or not, was probably not a good idea.) "They're bolted into the woodwork. Only that doesn't make sense; we're below the water line, what are they going to fire at?"

"Maybe those are for when the ship isn't in the water?" Henry returned.

Right. Flying ship.

Even as a prince of a fairy tale kingdom, David still found some concepts took a little getting used to. Standing, he made to respond but stopped at a strange sound. He tilted an ear toward one of the hatches. "Do you hear singing?"

"Gold! Emma!" sounded Regina's sharp command from the deck above. "Get down here!"

-0-

Emma blinked, "I don't understand."

She stood in the narrow space of the crew quarters, David at her side as Mary Margaret and Gold peered over their shoulders into the open hatch to Killian's makeshift cell. "How did he get loose?"

"Quietly," Regina flatly replied, standing just clear of the little crowd. "I thought he was still sleeping until he started with that racket."

Emma crouched for a closer look, but nothing shifted the fact that Killian Jones, nefarious pirate of lore, lay on his back, cuffs undone, waving his arms while he sang like a contestant in a pub crawl version of American Idol. She decidedly ignored the goosebumps that tickled up her arms, attributing them to the familiar tune he sang (albeit with different lyrics) and not his rumbling cadence.

On seeing her, Killian broke into a smile. "Swan, didn't you hear the order? All hands to dance and skylark!"

"Is he okay?" Henry asked as he climbed out of the hatch over the larger hold. Regin intercepted him guiding him away from Killian's compartment to sit on one of the spare bunks.

Emma pulled her gun from her waist and handed it to Mary Margaret. Worst case scenario, she didn't know if bullets would bounce off or bust through enchanted wood and, considering the confines, she'd rather not take her chances. "I guess that's what I'm going to find out."

"What we are going to find out," David insisted, unsheathing his sword. He jumped down into the compartment without further discussion. Emma followed suit. Though David kept his sword pointed at Killian as he approached, Killian didn't show the slightest concern. In fact, he snickered.

"That wasn't the kind of dancing to which I was referring."

"Someone's in a good mood," Emma quipped.

"In your glorious presence, milady, how could one not be?"

Grumbling, David tossed the sword to Emma. He grabbed Killian by the shoulders and roughly dragged him on his rear, then shoved him against the wall. Killian only continued to chuckle and slumped bonelessly into David's arms. The prince could only crouch there, shocked when Killian's head nestled contentedly on his shoulder.

"You're right," David huffed, "something is very wrong here."

Emma stepped to Killian's other side, keeping the blade where a quick turn of her wrist could crush his air supply. Far different from their exchange just hours ago, Killian, with his slackened shoulders and frat boy giggles, looked several shots into karaoke night. Yet those eyes glimmered with something completely alien: gleaming mirth softened with unguarded innocence. Killian's eyes bore no weighty disdain, no hardened guile, no winking entendre—barely recognizable, but for the hue and the definitely Killian perk of his eyebrow.

"Captain…?" she tested.

"Luff-tenant," he corrected, toying with the word in his mouth.

The sword dipped. "Killian, who am I?"

Killian beamed lazily, "My princess."

David's grip tightened and Killian's head flopped onto his own shoulder.

"And who is that?" Emma flicked the sword tip toward her father.

"The perturbed and possibly murderous father of said princess."

"And the man looking down at us?"

Killian glanced up at Gold, his mouth curled in a bemused frown. "The gingerbread man?"

"Serious answer, Killian. Do you know him?"

"Should I?" he hummed.

The sword clattered to the floor, forgotten as Emma crouched to clasp hands to either side of Killian's face. Unashamed, he gently nuzzled into her touch, looking at her with something that bordered dangerously close to absolute adoration.

The lightness, the sweetness, the love, Lillian had warned.

The death throes of the Scourge.

"No," she whispered, drawing a thumb along the rough scab at his cheek. "It was supposed to take months—years! We were supposed to have years!"

"Mom?" Henry called. Regina let him approach the hatch but still crossed her arms around him protectively. "What's wrong?"

"It's draining the life out of him. Somehow."

Henry tried to press forward, but Regina held firm. "How do we fight it?"

"I don't know…"

She meant it as a statement, but her throat closed before her lungs quite pushed it through and it came out as a choke. All their planning and striving and it all ended here? All that effort, for nothing? All that, just to lose Killian anyway? Hot tears escaped down her nose, only to pour faster as she tried to force them back because she had an audience.

"David," Killian's voice betrayed confusion, his boots slipped and slid ungracefully as he tried to squirm out of the prince's grasp. "Why is she crying? She's not allowed to cry!"

Above, Mary Margaret held back tears of her own. "Because someone she loves is dying."

Killian stilled, sensing the weight of the moment. "David, are we mates?"

David didn't need a superpower to catch the honesty in the question. "Yes," he replied, glancing at Emma, "all things considered, I suppose we are."

Emma felt her face heat with the threat of more tears and let her hair fall forward, veiling her face from the others. She pulled her hands away to wipe her eyes.

Killian seized the opening.

"Sorry, then, mate."

Emma only heard a solid thud and David's surprised grunt before arms circled around her neck. Killian pulled her to him. His kiss again found salty lips, his thumb traced trails of grief, and something surged inside her. The ship lurched violently and threw them off balance, breaking the kiss. Killian's limp arms slipped away from her shoulders as his dead weight heaved into her. She wrapped an arm around his form, cradling him, as the ship bobbed back to rest.

"What just happened…?" Emma blurted, a hand buried in soft brown strands as she covered Killian's head with her own.

Only then did she see the others. David was sprawled on the floor, staring at her slack-jawed, completely unaware of blood trickling from his nose from what must have been a world class head-butt. Mary Margaret held a hand over her mouth, eyes wide. Even Gold seemed so lost in thought that he nearly fell over as Henry wiggled out of Regina's grip and pushed past him—smiling.

"True love's kiss…" David replied, dabbing at his nose with the sleeve of his shirt. Mary Margaret nodded.

She opened her mouth to question them, but her words failed at a weak, rough croak.

"Swan?"

Emma looked down to meet sharp blue, emboldened by discipline, desperation and, just around the very edge, a subtle, familiar darkness.

"Killian?"

"Aye," Killian replied. "Just me. All of me."

Chapter Text

Distance and decks muffled Belle's voice, but her call penetrated the hold clearly enough. "Emma, she's awake."

Killian snapped his head up. "Lillian?"

At Emma's nod, he tried to push himself to his feet, but his elbow caved. He dropped to the floor with a defeated moan. No way was he making it up to the cabin under his own power.

Blonde hair and blue flannel bent over Killian as David scooped him up by the shoulders. "Go, I've got him."

Killian nodded. "Aye, go."

Emma backed up, looking him over as David leaned him back against the wall. She chewed her lip; she tried to mask her pity but failed. Miserably. At another call from Belle, she turned to the hatch where Mary Margaret's waiting arms helped her up.

As soon as blonde waves disappeared through the hatch and the clatter of footsteps thundered off toward the cabin, Killian let his head sink back with a thump. Like cool water on hot stones, Emma's kiss had doused the seething smolder, flooding him with calm and control—rather ironic considering she tended to elicit the opposite effect—but the aching sword arm and twinging wrist and bruised everything, courtesy of the prince, he suspected had to heal by the old fashioned (and decidedly less appealing) method.

"How bad is she?" he asked.

Apparently content that Killian could support himself, David leaned back on his haunches, opting for a stock non-answer. "She's a fighter. Like her parents."

Killian winced. "Ah, so you know about that, then?"

"Oh yeah," David stretched an arm behind himself to snatch up his sword.

"Is this the part where I vehemently assure you of our own shock and surprise? Well, she more than me, but details."

Metal scraped against wood as David rose, straightening as best he could in the cramped hold. Killian's weary senses flared as the sword's point rested against the underside of his chin. David had his scary side, but to Killian, spent and defenseless, the man might as well have been a raging ogre.

"Not as surprised as when I found you ready to drive a sword into my daughter's heart."

Teasing the man who tried to skewer the Evil Queen on his own wedding day. Bloody brilliant, Killian.

Killian let his limbs hang limp at his side, forcing his voice to hold calm and steady. "It was the scourge you fought, not me."

The flat of the blade tapped against Killian's rib and he cringed, sucking breath against the pain.

David tilted his head, "Looks to me like I fought you."

"I did everything I could to save her, to hold it off so you could end it! I'd go to the end of the world for her, even the end of my life!"

David leaned in so far, Killian could see the hairs of his stubble and the faint crust of blood that outlined his nostrils. "Or maybe you just don't want anyone else to know I 'bested' you."

The quirk of David's brow and the slightest ghost of a smile shattered the ogre façade.

"…You believe me?"

David pulled back with a resigned sigh. "You really expect Prince Charming to argue with true love's kiss?"

"Well, there is the small matter of the blade pointed at me."

With a completely unnecessary twirl, the prince slid the sword back into its sheath, then lowered a hand to help him up. "Maybe I just had to hear you say it again—it has been over thirty years."

-0-

Howls filled the cabin and, were it not for the young woman rolling in the small bed, Emma might have thought it was her newborn brother throwing a hissy fit. Belle stood at her bedside, trying to calm the girl, but Lillian withdrew with a yelp at every touch.

"That energy wave set her off," Belle said, stepping back as Emma and Mary Margaret approached. "What happened?"

Emma hesitated to reply, instead, she placed firm but gentle hands to Lillian's shoulders to still her rolling. Lillian only thrashed harder, outright snarling as she wrenched an arm free to shove Emma back. Mary Margaret stepped in, squeezing Emma's shoulder with a hand to steady as much to encourage.

"True love's kiss," Mary Margaret replied.

Belle's lip curled into a grin even as an eyebrow quirked in question. "You and David?"

"No," Mary Margaret began but stopped as Lillian's hand stretched out again, wrapped around Mary Margaret's wrist and tugged insistently. Harsh retaliation dissolved into timid fascination, Lillian's eyes went round, her lips parted softly and—heaven help her—if that wasn't the look of what Emma felt when she saw Snow White hiding in the branches above a forest road. Mary Margaret quieted the girl with a light, lingering shush, coaxing her to nestle back down into the bed with a pat of the mattress and a fluff of her pillow. Exhaustion evident in the very curve of Lillian's shoulders, she obediently sunk back to the bed, looking for all the world ready to snuggle down for the night—until Gold stepped into the room. Something guttural and cat-like rumbled in Lillian's throat and her whole body stiffened.

Emma held up a hand to halt him. "Gold, hold back."

"It appears she remembers me," he skirted the room to join Belle in the corner. "I'm touched."

"'Remembers', I'm not so sure. It's like she's acting on base instinct."

Belle nervously ran a hand up and down Gold's forearm. "She was fine until that energy washed over her, then she broke out in this fit."

"Residual effect of the magic," Gold replied. At a hopeful look from Emma, he added, "Not nearly enough to fix her but a jolt from the right direction."

The door to the cabin opened as Gold spoke. A hunched David entered sideways, a ringed arm slung over his shoulder as he dragged Killian through the door. Henry appeared next, supporting Killian from behind. Regina, eyeing the snug quarters, hovered at the door. Lillian hunched further down at the commotion and Emma could tell so many people in so small a space stressed whatever circuits she had left. Emma gently waved Belle and Gold away. The two, taking the hint, backed out of the door. Mary Margaret moved away from the bedside, opening a clear path for David to haul Killian over and pour him into a chair. Emma pulled the hook from her coat, handing it to Killian as he settled in and his shoulders straightened slightly as its weight dropped into his hand.

"But Mom can save her," Henry stated more than asked, "like she saved me, like she saved Killian, with true love's kiss, right?"

He looked to her with that confident smile.

His faith in her broke her sometimes.

Emma went to a knee, taking Henry's hands in her own. "Henry, this thing affected her mind, deleted a lot of her memory-"

"-But you have to try-"

"-I did, Kid, and it didn't take. Because of that thing, she doesn't remember who I am. I can't bring her back, I'm sorry."

The others looked to her. Henry's lip quivered subtly and, at that moment, looked ten years old again, begging her with unspoken words to just fix it all. Only her magic just didn't work that way. Not today.

At the edge of her vision, Killian sunk in his seat and disappointment bent his shoulders. He pushed the shaft of his hook into its empty base, the snap of its lock loud in the somber room, and the sound caught Lillian's drifting attention. She bubbled in a giddy, garbled half-language. Her splayed hands stretched toward Killian's hook. Killian held still as she wrapped fingers around the gleaming metal. She shook his arm in jerky, joyful baby motions. It hit Emma that, if fate had its way, this might be the closest he would ever come to holding his own baby girl, much as she, apart from sweetly crafted but no less falsified memories, never held baby Henry. Killian tried to ease the piece away from Lillian, but she gurgled in protest, tugging the hook back.

No, tugging Hook back.

Goosebumps again tickled her arms. Emma moved to stand behind Killian, her hands found his shoulders, feeling his muscles spasm in stress even through the leather of his waistcoat. "Killian, you try it."

More spasms.

"Swan, if your magic can't bring her back-"

"-this isn't about magic, it's about memory. Her memory. All I saw left in there was you and Henry. That has to mean something."

David put a hand to Emma's shoulder. "And if there's one woman any decent man falls for at first sight, it's his daughter."

Killian turned to look at Emma and the uncertainty she saw there betrayed his hesitation. This wasn't him clearing the way for the real hero to ride in. This wasn't him  cutting down a villain far worse than himself. No, she was asking Captain Hook—the man with the heart so bruised and darkened that the scourge to end all realms stalked him—to play not just the hero but the Savior. He turned back to Lillian and Emma leaned forward, pressed her cheek to his, and encircled his neck with her arms. If she couldn't help the girl herself, she was sure as hell going to help him. Killian lifted his arm with Lillian's fingers still curled around his hook. Testing, he ran a soft thumb over the back of her hand. She sucked in a sharp breath but did not recoil. He responded with a brief, chaste press of his lips to her knuckles.

A gentle gust blew Emma's hair off of her shoulders and the ship shifted beneath them. The gurgling quieted. Lillian's eyelashes fluttered, her lids cracked open just enough to glint as the girl looked to her two parents. Emma felt Mary Margaret's hand at her back as she joined them. Lillian's eyes widened. By the way her chin crumpled and tears pooled, no bubbling baby lay in that bed anymore. Emma knew the joy of seeing her lost mother alive and safe, the same joy spread across Lillian's face, only Lillian wasn't looking at Emma. She was looking at Mary Margaret and David.

"Lillian, are you all right?" Killian asked, his voice barely a whisper. "Give us a signal, love."

"So you're … a decent man... now…?" Lillian whispered back between breaths.

"Well, half-decent," Killian grinned, pulling the girl up into an embrace.

Warmth surrounded Emma as Henry and her parents circled arms around them, pressing her between them and Killian. They all touched hands to Lillian's back. Tears slipped down Lillian's cheek as she was eased back to the mattress, but before the first drop hit the pillow, she was asleep again.

Which was the precise moment Henry's stomach chose to gurgle loudly.

"Sorry," he sheepishly apologized.

Emma knelt again to pull him into another tight embrace. "Okay, then. Next crisis: lunch."

"That," David sighed, "I think we can handle."

Chapter Text

(Storybrooke: Present)

A call to Ruby settled lunch. Regina and Mary Margaret made the pick-up (Regina mumbling about adding courier services to her resume), returning with both a fresh round of sandwiches and the baby (the ship still technically the safest place in Storybrooke). Regina, Belle and Gold then quietly withdrew below deck to eat in mutual desire for space, leaving the royal family to their first quiet meal together in days.

Emma reveled in the moment, popping the last corner of her second egg-salad-on-white into her mouth; Henry, next to her, still nibbled through his. David sat across from her at the captain's table, watching Mary Margaret hum to the snoozing baby in her arms as she walked in slow circles about the cabin, interrupting herself to name little odds and ends. For just that moment, she wanted to forget the heavy weight of responsibility dragging her from crisis to crisis and enjoy the here and now. Circumstances aside, it seemed downright comfortable. Her food, her family, her—she looked to Killian, finding him slumped in his chair, eyes closed, chin tucked against his collarbone, chest rising in shallow rhythm.

David started to snatch up discarded paper plates and water bottles, but at a motion from her, he paused to follow her eye line to the napping captain. Catching on, he quietly set the remains of the meal aside.

"We have PB&J, if you wanted something else," David offered in a lowered voice. Emma turned back to see Henry picking at the crust of his half-eaten sandwich.

"This is fine," Henry mumbled in a tone that hinted otherwise.

"Come on, Kid," Emma replied. "An hour ago you were starving. What's up?"

"I am, it's just," Henry glanced at the bed, where Lillian still slept, "it's a lot to take in."

She drew closer to him. "I'm sorry. This was a lot to drop on you all at once, and certainly not the way I'd have wanted it to come out. I thought I was protecting the timeline by keeping all this quiet. I wasn't trying to hide anything from you, honest."

"I'm not upset that you have a future with Killian—it'll take some adjustment, but I'm not mad about it—I just," Henry stripped off another length of crust, watching the crumbs bounce off the plate as he rubbed it between his fingers, "I think I understand a little better what Regina is going through."

Mary Margaret hovered at the table now, gently swaying the little princeling, but her concern for Henry evident.

"Because of Lillian?" Emma asked. Henry hunched his shoulders to his ears, as if he could physically dodge the question.

Emma frowned. Why would Henry feel distraught over Lillian? He wasn't petty enough to see Lillian as a rival, his genuine concern for her life only confirmed it. Was it the dismal future she warned of? But she was here to change it, to save Killian, to avert—

To save Killian. To save her father.

Emma winced in realization.

"No, it's not Lillian—it's time travel. This is about Neal. "

The way Henry curled his arms around his plate, forehead dropping almost to the table, confirmed just how hard she'd hit the mark.

Despite all appearances, time travel wasn't as simple as waving a magic wand. Neal's sacrifice restored Rumplestiltskin, who'd known to send her parents on the search for light magic that ultimately brought Storybrooke back. His death was directly tied to Zelena's defeat; tampering with it would affect time as assuredly as the broken branch that surprised a bandit in the treetops. Even if they could open a portal, save Neal and stop her, they might undo creating time magic that not only made the rescue possible, but brought them Lillian, the ship and, most of all, the warning about the scourge. They all might live, only to die all the same.

At the end of the day, Neal died to stop a terrible evil, but Killian's death unleashed one. That's why she had to come back. That's why Killian had to live.

But how could she tell all that to Henry?

Turned out she didn't have to.

"We can't go back, I know," Henry stated. "But that doesn't stop it from hurting."

"Henry," she whispered and pulled him into a tight hug, not knowing what else to say.

"Magic sucks sometimes," Henry mumbled into her shoulder.

"You don't have to tell me."

-0-

Emma watched as Henry slipped out the cabin door, a wrapped sandwich in each hand. Regina hadn't seemed in any higher spirits (or, likewise, any more interested in her caloric intake) in the last few days, and the last thing they needed was their (reformed) evil queen passing out from low blood sugar. If any of them could charm her into polishing off the tuna salad, it was Henry.

Mary Margaret nudged Emma with her hip. "We're not upset either," she whispered.

"You're not?" Emma asked.

David quirked an eyebrow at his wife, "We're not?"

Mary Margaret kept her gaze on Emma, "No, not with you."

"Right, not with you," David echoed, with a nod.

Mary Margaret continued to sway in place. "Emma, back in the Enchanted Forest, after Regina saved us from Pan's curse, I had to accept that we would never see you again. I regretted that we never had a chance to breathe after Neverland, much less talk. It's like you and I were standing next to each other, but growing apart." She slipped a hand down to clasp Emma's in her own. "You're my daughter, Emma. I've already missed out on so much, I don't want to miss out on any more—good or bad. I want to be friends again. Talk, like we used to—sans the wine, perhaps."

"It's okay, I may be rethinking the drinking for a while."

The baby whimpered, soft at first, but in unmistakable prelude to a world class whine-fest. Mary Margaret couldn't hide her disappointment. "Rain check," she replied, still whispering, heading for the door before the grumblings could grow any louder. "But this is a thing we're going to do now. Don't forget!"

Mary Margaret pointed a mom finger at her as she backed out of the door. Emma made a mock eye roll because, seriously, how did this end up being her life, with a mother who fought a war to reclaim a kingdom but now just wanted to sit down and talk boys, if the world could just save itself for two seconds.

"I won't," she replied, settling back in her chair to watch over Killian and Lillian, sleeping soundly despite the deep discussion.

Not this time around.

Chapter Text

(Storybrooke: Present)

Lantern-light flickered off the dual cannons jutting from the darkened end of the ship's hold. His limbs still too weak to sustain much weight, Killian set his lantern on an upturned barrel to hide the shake of his wrist. If David noticed, he said nothing, raising his own lantern to give Rumplestiltskin better light as he slowly waved hands back and forth in the air, exploring the weapons with some unseen magic. Killian remained just below the hatch, nestling a shoulder against a rib of the ship. He'd managed to stand on his own only after shedding the cumbersome weight of both long coat and waist coat. Leaning against his old friend—his old love—separated only by the linen of his shirt, he felt something of its ageless strength seep into him, swell his lungs and bolster his flagging nerve.

"I'm sorry," Emma teased, kneeling at the hatch above, "Would you two like to be alone?"

Killian grinned and flashed her an eyebrow.

"Well?" Regina leaned over Emma expectantly, quirking a harsh brow of her own.

Rumplestiltskin crinkled his nose as if he smelled something rancid, hands dropping to his side. "Just like the ones on deck, crafted from a bastardized magic."

"Bastardized?" David repeated.

"The Scourge feeds off emotion, the source of magic; the very thing with which we try to kill it is the very thing by which it lives. The stronger it grows, the less effective any magical being will be against it. For all intents, it will grow immune to us."

"I thought Lillian said magic makes us immune to the scourge." Emma indicated herself, Regina and Rumplestiltskin, "not the other way around."

Regina straightened, crossing her arms with a huff.

"Defensive magic is harder to thwart than offensive magic, that's why it's defensive. You'd know this, Savior, if you were paying attention to your studies."

Killian was rather relieved Emma hadn't the command of her magic that Regina wished if the way Emma's fists balled indicated the ferocity of her own frustration.

"These 'flamethrowers'," Rumplestiltskin continued, "derive their power from a magical element, rather than a magical being, the scourge can't defend against it."

"Can you get them working again?" asked the prince.

"There's nothing wrong with them, they're simply out of fuel."

Rumplestiltskin slid a hand under the nearest cannon's barrel and tugged a large canister free. Turning it over, he shook it until a few scant specks glittered in his expectant palm.

"Pixie dust," Killian grumbled, "Wonderful."

Emma leaned a little further into the hatch.

"Pixie dust grows in Neverland, right? With Pan gone, how hard can harvesting it be?"

"According to Henry's log—very," he replied. "Pan was the worst, yes, but other dangers inhabit that island. Without him keeping them in check, Neverland's different, but no less perilous."

Doubting that the pinch of dust Tink carried would even be near enough, Killian let his forehead drop against smooth wood as the likelihood he'd seen the last of the accursed island dwindled before him.

He thought of Neverland looming before his ship as the Jolly Roger listed and lunged through raging waters, back when Emma thought of it a child's dreamland—thought of him as a villain, if she thought of him at all. He thought of her lips, unexpected, on his. Pulling so close, pulling away. Fierce whispers traded in the sweltering jungle. Standing soul-naked in the Echo Caves. Just a kiss. Hardly a happy beginning. Yet now, true love? Once this infernal monster burned once and for all, he'd at last have his fair shot at a happy ending with Emma. It was all he had wanted since that cavernous expanse rumbled with his words, wasn't it? Just the two of them?

No, he had to admit. Not anymore.

Once, Killian thought in twos. Then ones. Then twos again. But now? Now Killian thought in threes, and he could not go back.

"Lillian," he said, pushing away from the frame. "We'll need Lillian."

-0-

Emma waited until David pulled Killian out of the hold (her father concerned the "old man" might "break a hip" on his own) before she knocked lightly on the cabin door. Easing it open, she found Lillian already awake, a haphazard configuration of rolled up blankets propped her upright. Mary Margaret sat on the edge of the bed, dabbing a damp rag at a dried patch of blood on the girl's face. Though groggy, Lillian looked up at her young grandmother with such reverence that Emma couldn't help but feel intrusive. On seeing Emma, though, Lillian's features snapped back to neutral and Mary Margaret waved the others in. Killian made his best attempt at his usual swagger, however, Lillian followed David's movements—but only with her eyes, otherwise she remained motionless. Belle rose from her spot in a corner, making faces to the bundled baby, but happily handed him back to his father.

Emma moved to the edge of the bed, letting the rest file in.

"Hey, you okay?" she asked.

Looking away, Lillian muttered, "Only because the Scourge didn't want me." She sounded almost ashamed at the prospect.

"Can you move at all?"

Lillian's jaw clenched and her face reddened slightly with strain as she tried to sit forward, but with no result. "Apparently, no."

"It'll pass," Gold assured from the foot of her bed. "Physically, she's fine. She was under longer than Hook, the residual effects are likely more severe in her case."

"How did we… come back?" Lillian asked cautiously.

Mary Margaret absently set the rag in a bowl on the side shelf. "You don't remember? True love's kiss."

Lillian sucked in a breath, "I thought it was part of the nightmare."

"Part of the nightmare?" Emma asked, "Why?"

"True Love's kiss doesn't kill the Scourge. It feeds it."

Killian shifted uneasily as tension spiked in the room. To his credit, David, baby in hand, shouldered up to him.

Belle cocked her head to the side. "How is that possible, True Love's Kiss was the strongest magic of all."

"Birthed from the strongest emotion," Gold noted.

"It was weak," Emma said, as much to soothe Lillian as to question Gold, "injured. Maybe it was just too much for it."

Emma turned to him for reassurance, but found only doubt on Gold's face.

"It was weak the first time around," he replied, "it held that Hook for years, but your 'love' didn't destroy the Scourge then, now did it?"

"Gold?"

"Think it through, Miss Swan. It wanted Hook to kill me so it could control the Dark One and absorb that power. It's logical the same principle applies to a," he hesitated, hissing his next words in Killian's direction, "true lover."

"Except the Scourge would gain access to the strongest magic conceivable, True Love," Belle whispered.

"Dearie, the first time around, your love didn't save the world. It just about damned it."

Catching on, Regina put satisfied hands to her hips. "I knew the pirate wasn't strong enough to take me on alone. It was feeding off you two idiots the whole time."

"I don't understand," said Killian with a note of suspicion. "If we were dying, if the Scourge was immune, how are we still alive? I certainly don't feel possessed by a memory devouring monster, and I can now say with some confidence that I do know the feeling."

Gold pointed to the girl. "Lillian we know, for certain, wasn't taken."

Lillian stared up at the ceiling, "Because I'm useless?"

"Oh, please," snapped Gold. "The Scourge, which thrives on human pain and darkness, turns up its nose at a soul who's seen the fall of all the realms? No. After that display below, it's clear to me that the Scourge didn't take you because it couldn't."

Emma pieced it together first. "Because she's the product of true love."

"It may have the advantage when it controls a lover's heart, but from the outside, love is a nigh impenetrable shield. The very same magic that protects you protects her."

Lillian lay unnaturally still for reasons Emma suspected had nothing to do with her near paralysis. She didn't know?

"I don't have magic," the girl replied.

"Not the way you drink your feelings, no. But happily for you, it doesn't work that way. As for the captain, his incessant capacity to escape the consequences of his own stupidity worked out in our favor."

Killian rolled his eyes, landing his gaze on the baby, who gurgled happily at him. He tried to return a tight smile, but something too cold for children settled on his face and he looked away.

"As much as all other evidence would point otherwise," continued Gold, "that display confirmed his freedom. He resisted killing the Savior up until the Scourge perished, but that was a battle of spirit and willpower. Intertwined as they were, when one burned, so did the other."

"The burns on your arms," Emma said, gently pulling Killian to her. He pulled back the sleeve of his left arm and she rubbed a hand over his warm skin, but Killian made no sign of discomfort.

"They weren't physical wounds, but wounds of the soul. While Lillian bled blood the captain bled memories until True love's kiss restored him, as it did the girl."

Regina, still skeptical, frowned down at Gold. "So Hook, completely without magic, just fends off the scourge with his brain?"

"As Miss Swan said, it was weak and injured."

"Aye," Killian sighed, tugging his sleeve back into place. "I'm the helpless mortal who needed a lovely damsel to come to my rescue. Now that we've established I'll not be slaughtering the townspeople, might we get to the other matters?"

"Right," Emma replied, turning to Lillian. "The cannons, they're out of dust."

Lillian, however, stared off, still lost in thought. Emma put a hand to her cheek to regain attention.

"Lillian, the cannons in the hold—"

"Long Tom and Samus?"

Henry let out a snicker at Lillian's reply. Killian just looked confused.

"Do you have any dust left?" Emma asked.

"No," Lillian frowned, "whatever stores we had must have been washed away in the last attack in Neverland."

"But if we go back there, could we get more?"

"I could show you the best places to harvest but, like this, I'm of little help."

"That's help enough, we're almost all veterans of the island now. We'll figure it out."

At that, Gold spoke up, "Harvesting, I can handle."

"Harvesting isn't the hard part," replied Lillian, "It's the pirates."

"Shaking in my boots," replied Killian, wiping some imagined smudge off his hook with his shirt sleeve.

Henry, Belle and her parents all gave nods of encouragement. Regina threw her hands up in resignation, but gave a patronizing smile of acceptance.

"Alright, then," Emma stated, drawing courage from going on the offensive for a change. "Next stop: Neverland."

Chapter Text

(Storybrooke: Present)

Killian took it as a small victory that, this time around, they at least had a way to and—more importantly—from the island, but determining its present dangers had the group clustered around the cabin table for some time while Killian and Lillian compared hastily sketched maps of their Neverlands. It surprised him to learn how much the timeless island changed between Pan's defeat and Lillian's escape. According to her, few souls survived on the island, the rest slaughtered by these "pirates" she hissed about, the very ones who murder Henry. (Killian wondered if it was bad form to retaliate against men for crimes they've yet to commit.) This sat ill with him as the only pirates he knew in Neverland were his own crew, none of whom he left behind alive, which implied whomever Lillian met must have arrived after they rescued Henry. They flew no discernible jolly roger, only bold crimson when it suited, and so he couldn't yet tell if he'd encountered this band before.

"The Piccaninnies?" he heard Henry say, and his attention snapped back to the conversation. "They're there too?"

"They were there," Lillian stressed the past tense, "but died long before I arrived."

"Wait," Emma slid a little closer to the table, tracing a finger over a harsh 'x' indicating the tribe's camp on Killian's map. "We marched all over that island, how did we not run into them?"

"They'd have been no aide to us, love. Best for all that we eluded each other."

"Plus, Piccaninnies hate pirates," Henry snickered.

At last, that infernal book got something right.

"But if they're all dead," Henry added, curiosity drawing him closer to Lillian, "how are you Tiger Lily?"

She blinked rapidly, apparently not expecting the question. "It's just a code name."

A tilt of Emma's head signaled a flare of her super power, but when she spoke, she addressed the whole table, for which Lillian seemed grateful.

"So, who stays and who goes?"

-0-

After much discussion, all agreed Henry would stay behind, though Henry insisted he was no safer in town than aboard the ship. He argued until Killian, at Lillian's instruction, retrieved plans for the Scourge cannons. Regina, confident she could replicate the weapon—with some brute labor from the dwarfs—agreed to remain with Henry to arm the town. Mary Margaret volunteered as well, though Emma was unsure if it was for the benefit of her brother, or to mediate between the dwarfs and Regina. Everyone else aboard would go to Neverland.

The particulars settled, her parents stepped out of the cabin, phones in hand, already coordinating preparations with the rest of the town while Henry, Gold, Belle and Regina disappeared to the shop for the appropriate supplies, leaving Emma alone with Lillian and Killian.

"You know I can tell when people are lying, right?" she stated.

Lillian pressed her lids shut, nestling back into her pillow. "If you're referring to Henry's question, it wasn't a lie, just not the whole truth."

"And?"

Lillian opened her eyes again, but lay there, lips drawn tight together in a way that said she absolutely did not want to talk about it, to which Emma responded with a casual look of having all the time in the world. She must have accepted her complete immobility made any real avoidance impossible and caved.

"The potion you took to evade the Scourge all those years ago? It was supposed to wear off, to buy time until a shield strong enough to keep out the Scourge could be cast over the castle. Under its protection, your memory returned in safety, but never in its entirety."

"Why?"

"Your magic," came Killian's unexpected response.

Emma's gaze trailed to Killian's, where it met a sympathetic, almost guilty softness.

He knew.

"The documents I found in the cabin," he offered without pressure, "correspondence between David and Henry, ferried between the realms while the boy was in Neverland. It's how I found out about Lillian. I didn't understand the more curious exchanges until now."

His hand found hers, curling their fingers together. "In the future, she can't remember either of us, can she?" he asked Lillian.

Emma's eyes widened at the girl. "But you said—"

"When you forgot about him, you forgot about me, too," she replied.

"While I was pregnant?"

"You knew you were having a child, but little else. Once you delivered, you forgot even that. You never even picked a name."

Emma couldn't imagine the terror of waking up every day, mysteriously pregnant, no memory of conception. Not a sweet thought of Killian, not even his hand, for comfort. No features to meld together in tiny replica. No, just a cold, cramping fear of so many unknowns—in some ways, not unlike her last pregnancy—and bad memories flashed through her mind: jail cells and tear soaked pillows and I can't do this alone.

"You might sense lies now," Lillian continued, "but in the world I knew, you couldn't see the truth. Your magic blocked out anything related to those forbidden memories—you couldn't even see me if I stood in front of you."

-0-

(Enchanted Forest: Future, 10-15 years)

Lillian sat in a tree, back against the trunk, tiny legs stretched along a narrow branch, while the sun set over the forest surrounding the former dark castle. The first spray of stars shone against velvety cobalt as the horizon swallowed the reds and pinks of the sinking sun. At only six, she'd found an affinity for high places. Fenced in by the castle shield, she pretended, if she climbed just high enough, she could leave her life on the ground and find a new one somewhere among the stars. That was how one got to Neverland, wasn't it? By the stars?

"Lillian?"

She looked down to see Henry, who casually leaned his own back against the tree, dressed in his best dinner clothes (she still in her roughest outdoor garb). Her branch was high in the sky for a child, but only slightly above eye-level for the tall prince. He was fully grown, could have pulled her down without much effort at all, but he made a show of folding his hands behind his head as he watched the darkening sky.

"Don't call me that," she snapped back.

"It is your name."

"I don't have a name. Momma never gave me one."

"True, we don't know what Mom wanted, but Grandma thought long and hard about what to name you."

Lillian slid off the branch and caught it with the crook of her knees so that she hung upside down, arms crossed, coming face to scrunched-up face with Henry. "And she picked funeral flowers."

"You don't know much about lilies, then. There are many types: Daylilies, Pink Stargazers, Tiger Lilies—those mean courage—"

"—How do you—"

"I read. A lot. You should try it sometime instead of running off and scaring Grandma and Grandpa," he teased, tugging at one of her braids. "There may be a life-sucking monster out there ravaging the realms, but family dinner is still served promptly at seven."

"I don't want to go to dinner."

No. Not at that long table of steadily decreasing numbers. Nothing but an empty chair herself to the one pair of eyes she most wanted to see herself in.

"It isn't fair to you, I know. I wish I knew how to fix it, but I know it's not by keeping you away from each other." He offered both hands to help her down. "At least come back to the castle. Take a tray in your room tonight, if you have to. We'll talk to Grandma about it after dinner."

Her stomach grumbled at the thought of food, but she held out as a matter of pride.

"I do like tigers."

Henry bowed deeply, with great flourish, "Your servant, Milady Tiger Lily."

Giggling at his theatrics, she put her hands on his forearms as he outstretched them again, ready to jump down. She paused, however, as an old grey and red scarf floated through the trees. It flopped to rest around Henry's shoulders and another voice broke through the quiet.

"Tiger Lily?"

Lillian's spine stiffened as her mother jogged into view, cloak drawn tightly around her against the first chills of nightfall, blonde waves catching in the breeze. Emma spared only a passing, though relieved glance at Henry, focusing instead—Lillian's young mind couldn't believe it—on her.

"Like Peter Pan Tiger Lily?"

In her shock, her leg muscles gave way and Lillian fell. Henry's reflexes kicked in, catching her and swinging her down.

"Momma?" she blurted as her feet hit the ground, knees buckling. Henry kept her upright until she found proper footing.

But this Emma didn't hear. Apparently thinking Lillian too scared to speak, she spoke to Henry.

"How did she get out here?"

Henry stumbled over his words, torn between confusion and joy.

"She's fine, Mom. Just… lost."

Emma knelt to her eye level, taking her tiny hands in her own.

"Sweetie, where are your parents?"

Lillian had often practiced what she would say to her mother if and when she should ever remember her, but as she stared into Emma's eyes, her stomach weakened, her jaw clenched shut and her throat turned too sore for words.

"You don't have any, do you?"

Lillian managed only a trembling shake of her head.

"Then come with me, Tiger Lily. Come eat with my family tonight."

-0-

(Storybrooke: Present)

"When you heard that name," Lillian said, "it stuck with you. It gave me an identity in your eyes, one that didn't threaten your sterilized memory. I played along, let you believe what you wanted. Grandma and Grandpa hoped it would be enough to build some kind of relationship, something that might start to chisel through whatever barrier protected you from us. They believed you'd remember. Somehow. Until the day they died."

A sudden clench in Emma's throat had her involuntarily scanning the room for something to drink before she realized it all lay somewhere at the bottom of Storybrooke harbor. Logically, she knew her parents had died for her to become queen, but to hear it out loud hit her harder than she'd expected.

"But Tiger Lily was a bedtime story to you, the details largely forgotten by morning. And so each day we met again, my face foreign to you until I said those magic words, until I wasn't sure which was worse—you never knowing, or you always forgetting. So, when I grew up enough, I gave up and left for Neverland."

Emma clutched Killian's hand tighter. Another child, orphaned in every way that mattered.

That's why Lillian had no loving memories of her when Emma searched her mind, she didn't have any. All of Lillian's memories of her were soaked in pain.

Lillian didn't say any more, but Emma understood the sudden blue in the girl's eyes and let go of Killian. She stretched forward and wrapped her arms around Lillian as best she could, hugging her as she wished she had been during her years in a system of empty looks and shallow affection and hollow holidays. She pressed her lips to the girl's hair line, as she would have wanted to have been kissed on missed birthdays and bad days. She knew she couldn't make up for a lifetime of silence and neglect, but she could love intensely now, in this moment, lost girl to lost girl.

A soft knock at the door had Killian on his feet. He opened the door only slightly, giving Emma and Lillian privacy as he exchanged whispers with David. The door closed with a click and Killian turned to them with a tired smile.

"Well, lass," Hook said, "Regina is going to be a little while restoring the damage to the ship and your grandmother thought you might like to experience the magic of indoor plumbing before we set sail. I know it's rude to notice this sort of thing, but you look like you could use a shower."

-0-

From the rail of the ship, Emma and Regina watched Henry and David on the dock, setting Lillian into a wheelchair while several of the fairies stood formation around them. Mary Margaret lifted the chair brakes, wheeling her back toward town, the whole group followed with smiles and waves.

When Regina took her leave to inspect the blackened main mast and tattered sails, Emma headed back down to the captain's cabin, where Killian was under strict orders to remain for his own safety. She found him at the table, making notes on his Neverland map.

She slid her hands into her back pockets, at a loss for what to do with herself and in any other scenario she might have considered shin-kicking him for tossing all the booze.

"Just when I start to think I'm maybe getting the hang of this parenting thing," she nervously babbled "something like this happens and I start to wonder if I'm really cut out for it."

"Swan?" Killian set his parchment down and rose, his strides sure and easy again as he walked toward her.

"I abandoned another kid," the back of her throat strained at the words "after everything I put Henry through, I abandoned another kid."

"You did what you had to do to save her, just as your parents did with you." He threaded an arm around her. "You couldn't know your magic would react so. Though, I must admit a measure of surprise that my demise should have such an effect on you."

"Why should that surprise you?"

"This time travel nonsense is bloody disorienting. It was only days ago you were ready to leave for New York."

"And now we're the proud parents of a disgruntled teenager."

"She's far older than that."

"Say what?"

"Lillian. She was in Neverland a long time before coming here." His brow rose as if he thought he was saying something she already knew.

"How long?"

Killian took his time to reply. "Respectfully, I think it better if I don't say. I don't want anything that happens between us to be from a sense of… obligation."

Emma laughed at the word, but realized at a grit of his teeth and a subtle sway away from her that she'd accidentally touched a nerve.

"Killian, you think all this," she leaned into him to close the gap he had created. "Is because I feel obligated to a timeline?"

"I don't know what to think," he dropped his head slightly, touching hairline to hairline. "Lately I feel as if these future selves of ours made all the decisions, lived out all the best bits, and we are left to deal with the aftershocks."

"They also lived out the worst bits," she countered and placed hands on either side of his face, brushing thumbs along his jawline. "Hey, this has nothing to do with the future or Lillian or any of that. You've been there for me when it mattered most, sometimes before I knew I needed you. That's a thing I'm not used to."

"Swan—"

"Learning this thing wanted you, wanted to kill you, I realized I couldn't lose you. And when you were dying in my arms, I realized there wouldn't be anyone else because I'd never get over you."

She wished she had Killian's eloquence. Sure, she could bluff with the best of them, but this kind of stuff, honesty of the heart, she always did best over a few—okay, copious—shots of whatever she could get her hands on. She was a realist, not a romantic.

"I don't know how else to say it, I just know you're it, Killian."

Both arms encircled her now, holding her to him as he leaned in, but she put a gentle hand to his chest to keep from brushing lips before she could finish.

"But I also know that she's it too. I can't choose between the two of you. I can't lose you and I can't abandon her to fade into nothingness. She gets a happy ending too."

Tears blurred her vision, but she saw his lips curl in pride.

"Of course, love," he replied. "Between the two of us there's hardly a law of man we haven't broken. Perhaps we should have another go at the laws of time."

When he leaned in again, she didn't stop him, but tugged his collar to her as their lips met warm and soft and, for the moment, happy.

Chapter Text

(Neverland: Future)

In the cavernous dark of Skull Rock, low-burning candelabras flickered, the piles of soft wax beneath them testament to another night—endless never-nights—of searching for a way through the savior’s walls, for a way to send Henry home. Aged pages crinkled under Rumplestiltskin’s fingers as he flipped through a worn tome, pulled from a decimated Oz, its margins crammed with notes in Zelena’s immaculate hand.

He tapped a finger on an ancient passage, discerning “courage”, “wisdom”, “love” and “innocence” and his hands twitched at the memory of digging, digging, digging. He could do this, take the reins of time into his own hands, but for the Ripple Effect. Blast the Ripple Effect. If distracting Snow White was a pebble in the smooth pool of destiny, defeating the past scourge would be an avalanche. The infinite realms rescued from destruction all pouring infinite realms of possibility into the timeline. Interweaving streams of decision and repercussion, chance and mischance.

Ripping apart time served him no purpose if he lost everything again in the alterations. He had to be sure…

He left a finger there and flipped open another book and there, among diagrams of baubles and pendants—four gems and four witches and the complicated craft of amplifying magic—he discovered why Zelena couldn’t kill Emma outright all those decades ago. With the magic of happy endings bottled up inside her pendant, amplified, a witch of Zelena’s talent could not only change the past, but change fate. She didn’t just need Emma stripped of her magic, she needed Emma’s magic.

Rumple’s eyes drifted to a pedestal nearby, where two candles burned, not for light, but for lights lost. He watched their flames dance slowly in the still night air and longed for a time when he burned no candles.

-0-

(Storybrooke: Present)

As Gold zipped the last of his necessities into a duffel bag, the door chimed. He followed the sound through the curtain from his office to the shop. Belle crouched behind one of the counters low enough that just the top of her head showed above the countertop, but his attention fell to the center of the store, where Lillian sat in her wheelchair, her chain and hook in her lap. Her hair lay loose about her shoulders, not deep brown but red-gold.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“The others are next door getting ice cream,” Belle began, oblivious to his confusion. “I thought I’d stop in and see if I couldn’t find a replacement for Lillian’s broken chain, but none of these are the right weight.”

Belle stood, her movement swirling dust motes in the shaft of light around her and a slice ran through Gold’s gut. Light from the window poured in on her as if through stained glass, coloring her features with hues as if from another world. Her dress was wet and dark with blood. Her eyes, dull against the too-pale cast of her skin. Her fingers, blue, picked through a display of simple chains. Gold looked from Belle to Lillian and back, neither showing any regard for the revelations around them.

Not another world, another time—a vision, evidence of the ripples they had caused already shifting time beyond the paradox—weakening it until his future-sight glimpsed the world beyond. A world where Lillian Jones still lived and Belle Gold did not.

“Rumple?” Belle asked when he stayed silent too long.

He needed more clues and so, in a play for time, did the very last thing he wanted to do in that moment.

“Perhaps I can help,” he offered a hand to the girl.             

The broken chain clinked as Lillian lifted it from her lap. She held the hook tightly, but at an encouraging look from Belle, handed it over. When the smooth metal dropped into his palm, Gold felt faint warmth in it, not from Lillian’s body heat, but the distinct hum of magic. When he looked up from the steel in his hands, the light outside shifted, like a cloud passing over the sun and, as the light on Belle darkened, the wounds faded from her body.

More. He needed more.

“A simple fix,” he replied. “I have the supplies in back. Belle, would you mind?” He waved between the girl and the back room. Belle took the handles of the wheelchair and marched the girl toward the back room, but even before they cleared the curtain, Gold froze them in place, body and mind. They did not see him peel back the protections around the weapon and when he did, his own face floated in miniature above the piece in his palm. Gold marveled briefly at the sight of his own face, scaled with the putrid green of the Dark One, staring up at him, ageless, and yet darkened by years of struggle, years of despair, years of life after Belle.

“Listen close, Dearie,” his other-self cooed, “and both Belle and Henry will make it out of this alive.”

-0-              

(Neverland, the Jolly Roger : Future)

“If you ever do anything to endanger Henry’s life,” Rumplestiltskin hissed, “I will wipe you from existence.”

Lillian struggled in her chair at the captain’s table, feet sealed against the planks of Hook’s—Henry’s—ship.

“I didn’t ask him to come after me!” The girl spat back. 

“And yet he did, as he always does. So you are going to stay here, where you won’t get him or anyone else killed. You’ve done enough damage.”

She tried to stand up, but the angle of her legs wouldn’t allow it. “If I could go back and undo it all, I would.”

“But alas,” Rumple glanced at the mess of journals splayed across the table, the hook atop a stack at her side. He leaned forward and snatched it up. Lillian lurched for it, but he held the hook out of her reach. “Time magic doesn’t grow on stalks, or you’d be long gone.”

The girl stilled in her chair. “Gone?”

“All magic comes with a price. The price of burning the Scourge in Storybrooke and resetting the past is that your parent’s futures would flow far, far away from each other.”

“Away? But everyone said it was...”       

“True Love? Everyone says many things to a grieving child. But tell me, if it was true love, wouldn’t she have remembered one of you by now?” Rumplestiltskin played with the hook, rolling it between his hands and letting the steel bend beams of light about the room. “True love’s power can indeed overcome anything, but while Hook may have had some misguided devotion to your mother, she saw him for who he really was. Only after the Scourge took hold of him, drained him of every ounce of darkness, did she fancy herself in love with him.”

He turned back around, hiding the hook behind his back. “You see, Lillian, you are an unintended consequence of the Scourge. A fluke of fate. Killing the scourge might very well kill you.”

“I don’t care,” she shot back. “I’d do anything to undo all this.”

He turned away from her, feigning interest in something to hide the dance of his fingers over the weapon. “Careful, Dearie. That sounds dangerously close to an oath.”

“It is.”

Excitement boiled under Rumple’s skin as, unseen by Lillian, the hook warmed and gleamed with magic.

-0-

(Storybrooke: Present)

“The hook you hold in your hand,” the visage of Gold’s future self explained in the stillness of the pawn shop, “is enchanted with the same magic as Zelena’s pendant and, like that pendant, will trap and amplify magic—in this case, the magic of another generation's savior: Lillian Jones. Magic cannot be wholly destroyed, so when the girl dissolves at the resolution of the paradox—”

“—Her magic will drift off into the air—,” Gold echoed.

“—and capturing it will make you the master of fate in this realm. No one, no Scourge, no whim of fate will take Belle or Henry from you again.”

Confidence swelled in his chest, lured out by the promise of a plan, the promise of protection, the promise of power.

The future Rumple continued.

“Zelena’s curse on the pirate’s lips, while ridiculous, accomplished one goal: she captured savior magic at its most voracious state, in a moment of self-sacrifice. You must do the same. The girl knows Hook’s survival means her death, and it will, but not for the reasons she believes. The price is the same as Zelena’s: once this talisman tastes her magic, Lillian’s life force will be bound to it, reduced to a powerful fuel to force whatever destiny you direct for whomever you wish.”

He couldn’t help but look to Belle then, held stone still by his magic. A dimple nestled at one side of Belle’s lip, as it always did in moments where he’d done something to make her proud. If she knew his thoughts now, though, how it would fade, as would she into the cold whim of destiny, and so he focused on the memory of blue hands and dead eyes and he let the monster loose.

Gold released the girls from their brief pause and they disappeared behind the curtain. He took only a moment to gather his nerve before following them.

“I must thank you,” he began, with a nod to Lillian, mustering every attempt at sincerity as he stepped through the curtain. “If I’d had my way, you and your father would be dead, as would my every hope of protecting my beautiful wife and for that I cannot be more grateful.” He took Belle’s hand and squeezed it. “I know it isn’t much, but a common show of gratitude in this realm is to purchase a treat. How about you two join up with your grandparents for ice cream on me. The repair shouldn’t take very long and I can bring the piece back to you when I’m done.”

Belle beamed, dimple deepening, but Lillian shook her head and said, “I don’t let that out of my sight, if it can be helped.”

“Fair enough,” he replied in an accommodating tone.

Belle slipped her hand, kneeling down to Lillian’s level. “I could go and bring you back a cone while you wait,” she offered. Lillian nodded her assent. After a brief recitation of Any Given Sundae’s menu—none of which made any sense to Lillian—the girl opted for simple vanilla and Belle practically skipped out of the shop.

“I do owe you an apology,” Gold added when the clang of the bell signaled Belle’s exit. “I underestimated your parents, but then, I suppose even the Dark One is blind to some things,” he paused for sincerity. The lies slipped so readily from his tongue.

“But I wouldn’t worry too much about this fate business, with your mother so determined to save you—”

“She already has,” Lillian cut in.

“Pardon?” he replied, feigning confusion.

Centuries as the Dark One left Gold a master of the darker sides of the human psyche and every faint tremble and tell of the girl’s body echoed a wrestling in the depths of her soul. She spoke in just above a whisper, mumbling more to herself than to Gold.

“I wanted to hate her for cocooning herself in her magic, for leaving me out, but love—true love—is a two-way thing, isn’t it? I was so willing to blame her I never stopped to check my own heart. Maybe it wasn’t just her magic standing in the way, maybe it was me. Me and my rage.”

“Touching, but a little beside the point now that you’re here and now.”

The girl pulled at her fingers. “In the future, you told me this was a suicide mission because my parents weren’t true love. I believed it because I wanted to, to believe she was this creature who never truly cared about him, or me, but they proved us both wrong. So long as they both live, I’m safe as I can be, aren’t I? They can stop worrying?”

“Of that, I cannot be sure,” he lied even as a flare of danger that shot up his spine. Love was one of few forces fate knelt to. “Have you told them this?”

She fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. “Knowing you’re wrong about such a thing and admitting you’re wrong are two different beasts.”

“Sounds like you might need something stronger than ice cream to settle the nerves,” Gold pulled open a cabinet to reveal a shelf of choice liquors. He picked up a clean glass and a bottle of rum and set it before her.

She was about to refuse when the door chimed again. He set the hook and chain on the table before her and whisked out of the office before she could lodge further protest.

“Ah, Ms. Swan,” he said as he cleared the curtain. “I thought you’d be with the ship.”

The shop was, of course, empty; the bell rung by a trick of magic, an excuse to leave an emotionally distressed alcoholic alone with a treasure trove of hard liquor—laced with memory potion—brought into existence just as he opened the cabinet and, by the clink of glass he heard in the office, delightfully effective.

Returning to his office, he found the girl in a daze, the bottle open and the glass still in her hand. He waved it all away. She swayed in her seat as the potion worked its magic, but wiping her memory wouldn’t be enough; he needed it replaced. He stepped up next to her wheelchair and leaned into her ear, whispering lies, muddling memories and fabricating facts.

“You’ve held books of time and prophecy in your hands,” he pressed, “smelled the dusty paper, heard the creak of its binding. The price of saving Hook’s life is to forfeit your own.”

Lillian drank in his words. As she did, her features greyed and her skin paled until her whole being faded slightly, a mere ghost of a girl sitting in her wheelchair.

The bell rattled again, this time for real, and a family of footsteps found their way to his office. He fixed the chain with little more than a thought and made a show of settling the chain around Lillian’s neck just as Belle poked her head back in, followed by Henry and the Charmings. Belle handed her a cone with more scoops than the waffle cone should structurally allow and the girl blinked rapidly, as one awaking from a daydream. Faded fingers wrapped around the cone, the girl whispered a thank you and Belle smiled, oblivious that she had handed the girl her first and last ice cream cone.

Chapter Text

(Storybrooke: Present)

Emma sat at the head of the captain's table, arms crossed, staring into her bowl of rocky road that was now more soup than scoop. Mary Margaret and David leaned elbows on one side of the table, each idly sucked on a spoonful of the sundae they shared between them. Killian sat next to them, digging cookie dough chunks out of the paper bowl balanced in his hook. (Pirates and their buried treasure, she thought.) Belle sat across from him, sipping a milkshake, Gold and Regina next to her. Lillian sat at the far end, Henry leaned on the bed behind her, both nibbled at cones long drained of their cold concoctions.

Emma had only managed a few bites before the conversation turned to Lillian and ancient books and laws of time and, unfortunately, ice cream only lifted her spirits so far. Gold babbled some gobbledygook about the price of magic and a life for a life.

"A one-for-one trade," echoed the memory of Belle's phone call and Neal collapsing in a screaming heap. She finally snatched her spoon from the table and sorted nuts from marshmallows to keep from punching something.

"Screw fate," she snapped. "I messed up time once and it worked out, I have to believe the same can happen here."

"You set time back on course," Gold corrected, "This is derailing it entirely."

"I don't care! It can't have her!" Emma shoveled a mostly-melted spoonful into her mouth.

Gold opened his mouth to say more, but a whisper from Mary Margaret cut him off.

"Glinda."

"Glinda?" Emma put a hand over her mouth while she worked on a chocolate covered nut.

"Who?" asked Lillian.

"The Good Witch of the South," Regina's voice held the slightest twinge of a sneer. "If there's an expert in fate and prophecy, she's it—when she isn't playing magical hide and seek."

Gold grunted, "Present company excluded."

Mary Margaret's free hand slipped into Lillian's with a comforting squeeze. "She's the reason we came back to this land. She knew Emma could defeat Zelena, maybe she'll know something the Rumplestiltskin of your time missed. If the ship really can jump realms—it can't hurt to ask, can it?"

Killian pushed his spoon around his bowl, the freed dough bits looking suspiciously similar to a battle formation aimed at Gold. "If she wagered on Emma, that's faith enough for me."

A smile curled on Henry's face and Regina, after only a beat of reflection, stood up to leave. "With Zelena gone, blondie should be back in Oz. You'll need maps. I'll bring you everything I brought over from the last curse."

"Welcome to the right side, Your Majesty," said Hook, offering his bowl, "ice cream?"

"Keep pressing me, pirate."

Gold's head quirked to the side in a display of poorly bridled sarcasm. "And is the town to simply duck and cover while you're on this fool's errand?"

"Gold's right," Emma emphasized her words with waves of her spoon. "We hit Neverland first, arm the town, then head for Oz. If this trip is a waste of time, at least the town will be able to defend itself."

With a sigh, David slipped an arm around Mary Margaret and pulled her closer to his side. "Oh for the days when we could toss the bad guy in a cell and lock the door."

"A cell," repeated Emma, and a thought struck her. "Lillian, ever heard of Pandora's Box?"

Lillian wiped the stickiness from her hand with a wet nap. "Yes, and I can name all the people who died trying to use it. Humans just aren't fast enough, the scourge flies faster than magic."

"So does the Jolly Roger," retorted Killian. Lillian lifted an eyebrow at him, Killian challenged with a quirk of his own, and the two descended into a silent argument of brow twitches.

"Capture the scourge?" spat Gold.

Emma tossed her spoon into her scraped-clean bowl. "Just long enough to find an out for Lillian. Did you have it or not?"

He gave her that squinted look that implied she was about to do something particularly stupid—that is, the right thing. "Dangerous business, Ms. Swan, trying to trick time."

"Not trying to trick it, trying to buy it," she replied. Gold's obvious distaste only soured, so she leaned over the corner of the table they shared. "If this was Henry, this wouldn't even be a discussion."

"How right you are," he hissed, and for a moment she thought he might poof straight out of the ship, but the ancient piece materialized in his hand. "Satisfied?"

"For now," she said with a mental note to herself that she might have been too hasty to reign in Killian's rage against the man, but tabled that thought and turned to Henry. "Kid, you should start saying your goodbyes."

"I need something before we set sail," Lillian announced as she made to get up, but found her legs still too shaky to stand. Hook jumped to his feet, caught her weight and eased her back into the chair.

"Let me," Killian replied. "What do you need?"

"In the lockbox. You'll know it when you see it."

Killian strode over to the compartment and unlocked it with little fanfare. When he pulled it open, he blinked twice, then laughed as he stuck his hand into the lockbox and pulled out the heavy weight of the golden compass.

-0-

With Henry, Snow, and Regina safely ashore and waving their last goodbyes, Hook took to the helm. David and Emma stood to his side, supporting Lillian between them, the compass in her hand.

Gold and Belle held to the railings as the Jolly Roger pulled out to sea and turned in a wide arc. The ship picked up speed, circled once, twice, three times. A recess formed in the water, swirling away until a portal opened in its depths. Hook steered into it, diving deeper and deeper into the ocean. The water curled around the ship like a tunnel and the view from within it otherworldly. The girl called out commands and Hook maneuvered the ship; the tunnel warped around them. Gold could see, far above, the sunlight that filtered through the surface of the ocean, but the ship sped through too fast to make out more than the blurred forms of large sea creatures in the waters above.

Gold looked to Belle, her eyes so full of wonder that she couldn't pick just one spot to stare at, and so slowly twirled around the deck, looking here and there and back again, her pale skin glowing in the muted light.

He would not risk a future without her.

-0-

With a heavy groan, the ship rose out of the water, listing and bobbing until it found its seat in the sea. Killian saw the dreaded skyline of the infernal island in the distance. He felt a flush of magic flood the ship and he singled out the Crocodile.

"Cloaking spell," Gold replied to the unasked question. He magicked himself a new outfit, like the battle gear he wore in search of Henry, and dropped Pandora's Box into a satchel at his side. "And I'll be keeping an eye on this."

Lillian disentangled herself from her mother and grandfather to slip her arms over the ship's wheel. "The safest way to harvest dust is to fly over the treetops and rappel someone down."

Killian set arm and hook on either side of her waist to steady her. She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her hands around the wheel, but the Jolly Roger remained in the water. She huffed and pushed herself away from the wheel; Killian casually took her into his arms.

"We will have to walk it then," Killian began, as if the flightless ship caused no more than a minor inconvenience, "sail as close to the Pixie Woods as possible, take the rest on foot—"

A puff of smoke clouded his vision, even as Killian spoke. When it cleared, he found himself dead center in the Pixie Woods, Charming next to him, looking equally clueless. Gold, in front of him, sniffed a sound of annoyance and dug in his satchel.

"Or just puff us here," he finished.

"Here," Gold said, tossing what looked like a coin purse to each of the two men. "Each of these will hold a silo of grain. Or dust, as it were."

Charming carefully peered into his bag, as if he feared some forgotten terror might fall out. "What about the girls?"

"Still on the ship. Neverland is hardly wheelchair accessible, I'm not risking Belle in a Neverland I don't know, and the Savior is far more capable of protecting them right now than either of you. So you two pack mules get the job. Now hold them open."

Killian and David glanced at each other and resigned to the Crocodile's wishes. With a few wiggles of Gold's fingers, the trees above shook and, slowly, trails of glittering green snaked down out of the branches, curled around them, and slipped into the open bags.

-0-

At Hook's sudden absence, Lillian, left on her own two feet, swayed off-balance and slammed onto the deck. The frustration of her own near-helplessness boiled over and she beat a hand against the deck.

"Damn it, Gold," Emma hissed, quickly bending to hoist her back up.

"The chair," said Belle, helping Emma to pull her upright and brace her against the wheel.

"I'll get it," Emma volunteered. Belle's shoulder replaced Emma's, and Lillian watched as her mother rattled down to the captain's quarters.

She watched with a subdued fascination that lingered even after Emma disappeared below. Lillian had spent years hating the woman—running from her—but now a warmth washed over the sore spot in her throat, the sore spot in her soul, and she tried to pinpoint the moment her heart had changed, but the further back she pulled, the foggier her thoughts turned. She shook her head to clear it. What did it matter, whichever way this ended, she either lost her father to the scourge or her life to the coffers of time. Her survival came at the price of so many others, but his saved so many others. If they couldn't see the bargain, well, she would make them see it.

"Belle," said Lillian, "Will you do something for me?"

"What?"

Lillian slipped a hand into her coat a pulled out a folded parchment. "When I… In case I don't…"

Belle almost laughed, giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "You're going to be fine, Lillian."

"Then there's no harm," Lillian pressed, extending the parchment further.

"All right," agreed Belle, who took it and slipped it into her own coat pocket.

Emma returned then, lugging the wheelchair up the stairs, but stopped as her eye-line cleared the gunwale. "Problem."

Belle circled an arm around Lillian and turned her to look out over the sea toward the island, where a black ship under a blood red flag sped straight toward them.

Pirates.

"We're safe," assured Belle. "Rumple cloaked the ship, they can't see us."

But even as Belle spoke, the black ship shot forward—impossibly fast to any eyes that hadn't seen the Jolly Roger in action—and turned broadside as it neared. If the other ship could even guess their general position, their blind fire might blow the ship or the masts to shreds.

Emma glanced behind the Jolly Roger and saw the wake that trailed behind them. "They may not see the ship but they know we're here." She dashed aft to whirl a small powder cannon into place.

"I'll put distance between us," Lillian called.

She turned the wheel to take full advantage of the winds. She'd never admitted it out loud, but she never particularly liked sailing, could never extend her senses to the ship nor read the play of the wind on the canvas, nor follow the myriad calculations that kept the ship on course. Lillian believed it only a grace of the wind the ship ever went anywhere when Henry took his hands from the wheel and left her to sail alone. Oh, but when the ship took to the air, when the Jolly Roger flew, unbound from the friction of the ocean and leapt up from the horizon to the open sky…

But they weren't in the air, they were in the ocean, and so Lillian pulled herself against the wheel and, if she could not will it into the air, she would will it through the waves with all speed.

The air picked up around them, billowed the canvas, and the ship dashed off through the Never-Sea. She took a deep breath to bolster her nerves before glancing back to check on the other ship.

It had kept up, sailing right behind them.

Blasts erupted from the other ship. The Jolly Roger rocked hard as shot met its hull. It lurched and rolled in the water. Emma returned fire, but the small gun in inexperienced hands fell far off course. Lillian turned the wheel, trying again to guide the ship out of harm's way, but as it tried to pull away, the Jolly Roger lost speed and rode lower and lower into the water.

"We're taking on water," Lillian warned.

The other ship moved closer, riding up next to them. Lillian saw black figures at the gunwale, black bows drawn over the side and all air left Lillian's lungs. Her limbs locked, her chest still as stone, and everything within trembled, not with fear but with the vision of Henry's broken body.

"No," Emma shouted and dove for Lillian, pulling her down and away from the wheel. It spun wild and sent the Jolly Roger bucking beneath them. Belle grabbed the wheel to steady the ship even as she crouched, but too late.

Lillian winced at the sound of her scream as a score of bows snapped at once.

Chapter Text

(Present: Neverland)

"What does that say?"

The snake of the glittering green dust from the branches above to the open bag in his hand so transfixed Killian that he almost missed the prince's question.

"What?" he replied, and David motioned at words, apparently in a language the prince didn't know, scratched into the bark of a tree nearby. "It says 'never say goodbye'," he translated. "One of Pan's rules."

That somehow amused David, because he breathed a laugh. "What, like 'Goonies never say die'?"

"Goonies?" Killian repeated.

"It's a movie about a group of kids who go hunting for pi—" David's eyes widened and he adjusted the grip on his bag. "Nevermind. You'd hate it."

Killian rolled his eyes back up to the streams of dust. "Pan hated the word and harsh penalties met any boy who let that word pass from his lips."

"It's a magic word here," the edge in Rumplestiltskin's voice underlined his annoyance at the distraction. "One Pan didn't want used against him."

"Why?" David asked. "What happens—"

As David turned his face to Rumplestiltskin, an arrow burst from the trees and flew so close to the prince's face that its black feathers brushed his cheek. Killian dropped his bag, having only the one hand to unsheathe his sabre. David drew his own sword with a wild twirl and, when it deflected another arrow, Killian suddenly realized the advantage in the pompous flourishes of the prince's style.

"Gold!" yelled David, but Rumplestiltskin wasted no more than a dismissive flick of his wrist on the matter, his attention on the dust. A shield of magic rose from the ground, encircling them on all sides, rising well above their heads, and cutting off access from the woods. The dust, however, continued to float down through the opening above.

Dark heads bobbed in the jungle beyond and legs crashed through the underbrush, but the wall held their attackers at bay. Magic crackled as they rammed fists and feet against the shield. Killian couldn't make out faces, only forms against the dark cast of the forest, but he saw the tips of arrows take aim and the snap of another volley.

Three arrows slipped through the shield as needles slip through silk.

David, still very much on guard blocked one. Killian only barely avoided another aimed at his knee. The third, however, found its mark—in the distracted Rumplestiltskin's heart. The ancient wizard looked more perplexed at the failure of the shield than the arrow sticking out of him. He moved to remove it, only to find he couldn't, his body immobilized by a familiar gleam of magic. The trails of dust slowed and died away.

"No," Rumplestiltskin snarled, "Squid ink".

-0-

The shouts of the pirate crew rang loud in Emma's ear, drowned only by Lillian's ragged breath beside her as they slammed against the deck. Belle screamed and Emma expected, at any moment, the pirates to swarm the deck of the Jolly Roger, but the ship only bucked and lurched. The roars of the other crew faded with each unsteady sway of the ship. Emma slid against the ship's side and braced for the final keel of the ship into a crash of waves that would swallow them into the sea, but it never came.

"Emma? Lillian?" Belle called, strain in her voice.

Emma pushed herself to her elbows and looked to the helm, expecting to find a bloody and dying Belle. Belle did crouch against the wheel, her fingers white around the ancient wood, but eyes as bright and vibrant as ever. Emma looked around, but didn't see the masts of the other ship above them. Canon shots burst, but in the distance and she wondered if another ship had drawn the pirates' attention. Ever so slyly, Emma peeked above the gunwale. When she saw no sign of the black ship, nor any sign of the ocean, she jumped to her feet and leaned out over the gunwale. The ocean lay far below them, the enemy ship but a smear on the blue expanse. Red-feathered arrows stuck out of the side of the ship, which must have rolled on its side just before the arrows flew, catching the full volley meant for the women. Water poured from a breach below the waterline, and in her relief, all Emma could think was that Killian would be pretty pissed at that.

"We're flying," she blurted instead.

"What?" Lillian pulled herself up to lean over the gunwale. "There must be some dust left in the veins that feed the dust through the ship. It won't last very long."

"Why didn't it work before?" asked Emma.

"Because dust is only part of the equation," Lillian scrunched her eyes shut, as if fighting a sudden headache. "Faith, Trust, Pixie Dust. It takes all three to fly."

"And you've lost your faith." The way Belle spoke, it was not a question. Emma saw something pass between Belle and Lillian then.

"Wait, you're not doing this?" said Emma, waving a hand to take in the whole of the ship.

"Doesn't matter," Lillian rapped the wooden rail with a knuckle, then reached for the wheelchair that had rolled up against the gunwale in the last lean of the ship and settled herself in. "She apparently has more than enough to spare."

"I'm flying it?" squeaked Belle and the ship rattled and dipped. Lillian kicked the chair brakes into place and let down a leg to keep from rolling away.

"Happy thoughts, happy thoughts," Lillian urged. "Like not plummeting into the ocean"

Belle used her hands to climb up the great wheel until she regained her full height. She took a few calming breaths and let her muscles release. The Jolly Roger shifted in its path, rose and, though it flew off-kilter in a wobbly sort of path, it neither gained nor lost altitude.

Lillian coached Belle on the basics of flying the ship, careful not to touch the wheel herself, but Emma's mind was on Belle's words. Lillian lost her faith? Emma wondered. She wanted to grab Lillian, to lock her down and force the truth out of her, but with the attack they only narrowly escaped, she knew one thing took precedence.

"We need to find the guys. Now."

-0-

Killian licked a bead of sweat from his upper lip as he wheeled and dodged another volley of arrows. David drew his bag shut and shoved it into a coat pocket. Killian did the same, snatching his own from the ground with his hook and dropping it into his deep leather pocket between parries. Killian had no clue how much they had gathered and he suspected they would need every pinch they could take, yet their escape route lay upwards, though they had no trees within their small circle.

He'd seen Tink use the dust to fly, maybe…

"It won't work on me," rasped Rumplestiltskin, as if sensing Killian's thoughts. "Pixie magic is worse than fairy magic, where I'm concerned."

"Killian, look up!" David commanded, and Killian glanced up to find dark forms climbing branches above. He and David could barely hold off the arrows, they couldn't handle the interference of swords.

If they were going to run—or rather, fly—they had to go, now, without the Dark One.

After their long and storied, history, Killian had no qualm leaving Rumplestiltskin to whatever fate these men intended for him. They couldn't kill him without the dagger, and even then, it was no less than he deserved.

But with this scourge on the loose, it was precisely the Dark One they must protect, lest the scourge find him and, through him, destroy all the lands. Again.

An arrow whizzed past his shoulder and he turned back to the fight. A branch above crackled and a form leapt down next to Killian, a boy—a Lost Boy by the look of him—but one Killian didn't recognize, though that wasn't unusual. Lost Boys tended to disappear when they displeased Pan and so the young faces in Pan's camp had always been a flux of new faces to Killian. Despite the distance he had just jumped, the boy recovered instantly and came at him, fast and surprisingly brutal, even for a Lost Boy. Though a head and shoulders shorter than Killian, when their blades collided, it was the captain who fell back a step. More rustling sounded from the branches above, the boy lunged again, and Killian lost more ground. As he stepped back again, something brushed against his back. Thinking another opponent had dropped down, Killian whirled around with his hook, but instead of another Lost Boy, he caught a rope ladder that had slipped through the treetops.

He thought their enemies had dropped it to send more of their number, except that, at one of its lowest rungs, was tied the glittering beauty of the golden compass.

Emma.

Killian whirled once again and threw the ladder to David with his hook. The ladder continued to lower, pooling at David's feet.

"David, you take him," he ordered, motioning to Rumplestiltskin even as he parried another blow from the Lost Boy.

"Killian—"

"I've fought Lost Boys longer than you've been alive, Dave. Now go."

At a lull in the volley of arrows, David stepped onto one of the rungs and used his body weight to tug it twice. The ladder began to rise upward and, as it lifted the prince, he threaded his arms through the ladder, swung over to Rumplestiltskin, and grabbed the man from behind with both arms. Several arrows shot toward the two men. David shifted his weight, using Rumplestiltskin as a shield, and the arrows sunk into the dark imp's gut.

"Sorry," David apologized.

Whatever Rumplestiltskin grumbled in response, Killian didn't catch because, at that moment, several more forms dropped into the circle and Killian's instincts kicked in, his attackers a blur of weapons before him. He swung sword and hook and boot in a whirl of practiced chaos as David and the Dark One flew into the air. Steel came at him from all sides, yet he deflected, the sword master in him anticipating strike after strike until the last rungs of the ladder swung over his head. He leaped for it, catching his hook on the lowest rung, and kicked away any limb that dared detain him. Arrows shot toward him, but he rose so fast that none touched him.

Only then, as he pulled away in safety, did he let himself look at the faces below.

Faces he recognized.

"No," tumbled from his lips, and his heart could have dropped out of his chest and shattered right there on the forest floor.

-0-

"Killian!" Emma called as she and David hefted the last of the ladder rungs over the side of the ship. Even Lillian rolled over to help pull her father to safety.

"Emma," he replied when his feet finally found the deck, and his arms circled her neck. She stood there, held him, and breathed him in, happy to have him back in one piece.

"David filled us in while we pulled you up," she informed, and kissed just beside his ear.

David gave Killian a brotherly pat before he stepped away to help Gold, who lay on his back, still frozen stiff, and rolled slightly with every sway of the ship. He grumbled a thank you as David set him on his feet, though he seemed slightly less than grateful when David nestled him against a mast and tied a rope loosely around him to secure him, "Just in case." At Gold's urging, David plucked the arrows from his torso, the wounds they made healed almost as soon at the tips came free.

The ship dipped deeply then and Belle let out a nervous, "Lilliaaaan!"

The girl looked between her father and grandfather. "Dust?" she asked and David tossed her his bag. She immediately rolled back toward the quarterdeck, crawled out of her chair and up the few steps to the helm. She flipped open a compartment and tossed several handfuls of dust inside.

"Go," Emma said to Killian, "help Belle. Next to Lillian, you're the one with the most frequent flier miles."

She expected a confused brow at the reference, or one of his sly-tongued jokes, but Killian only looked at her, red rimming his eyes, before dutifully stalking toward the helm. Emma scrambled after him, quickly recapping the attack and their escape. Wordlessly, Killian took the helm. No sooner did his fingers touch it but the rattling of the Jolly Roger faded to soft groans, the ship straightened, and they soared through the air, smooth and true.

"Ready to head home?" Emma tested.

"We do that and the other ship might follow us," warned Lillian, pulling the bag strings tight, then knotting them.

"So we blast them out of the water, then head home," she replied.

"No," Killian said, simply, but with an iciness he hadn't commanded in a long time.

Emma moved closer to him. "Killian, what is it?"

"The men that attacked us, I know them. They were my crew. Men I fought alongside, men I trusted my life with, men who trusted me in return. And now they attack me."

Emma wanted to circle an arm around his waist and pull him out of whatever cloud hung over him, but given the situation, she settled for placing a hand on his lower back. "Your crew, from Storybrooke?"

"No," he replied, "the half I lost to the Echo Caves."

"The Echo Caves?" she repeated. "Pan's prison?"

"Whatever magic pan cast over that place would have died with him," called Rumplestiltskin over the winds of their altitude. "If he did hide your pirate vermin down there, they'd be free vermin now."

"Though maybe a bit ticked at being left behind," muttered David.

Killian swept the ship into a graceful arc, turning it toward the other side of the island. "Perhaps," he conceded. "But if I can find them, talk to them, offer them passage away from Neverland, they may yet stand down. I owe them the chance. But first we have to check out the caves."

Lillian, still sitting on the quarterdeck, looked up at that. "The Echo Caves? They completely collapsed. There's nothing there."

"If we can find the slightest clue as to how they survived, lass. It may help."

The Jolly Roger sped through the air and Killian brought the ship so low over the jungle, the hull nearly brushed the treetops. A sea of trees spread out in every direction; birds, startled by the odd invasion, chirped and fled away in haphazard formations. They sailed on until the leafy canopy abruptly broke away beneath them, a sheer drop into a deep sinkhole that swallowed an expanse of land far wider than the ship, and ran so deep that they could not see the bottom. Gazing down into the vast darkness gave Emma the uneasy sensation of falling in and she found herself grasping on to the railing around the ship, if only for the comfort of something solid and secure.

"Told you," said Lillian.

They made slow circles around the sinkhole, but it proved too deep and too dark to find much of use. Emma focused her magic into an orb of light and dropped it down the expanse, but it flickered for only a few feet below the mouth of the hole before fizzling out. She was about to try again when the ship jerked higher into the air as a large ball of flame flew past Emma's face, just missing the side of the Jolly Roger. Several more flew from the edge of the sinkhole, as if thrown by massive catapults. Killian evaded them, but not without jostling the team about the deck. Rumplestiltskin groaned his protestations as he, helpless, bumped against the mast. Belle scrambled to his side, using the rope to steady the two of them as best she could.

"If nothing's down there," wondered David, "what are they protecting?"

As if in answer, the trees shook as the ground rumbled and the edges of the sinkhole crumbled further, chunks of dirt and stone tumbled into the vast expanse.

A sharp and slicing screech sounded from deep below, echoed over and over by other calls and Emma knew the speed with which Killian tore the Jolly Roger away from the grave of the Echo Caves had little to do with protecting their collective ear drums.

From the darkness of the sinkhole swarmed first a flurry of large black hawks, then a number of winged forms, something akin to bats, but the size of airplanes. Only when they cleared the hole and took to the sky rose a head out of the darkness—massive, dragon-like and attached to a long body that slithered into the air—until black wings unwrapped themselves and flung open with a deafening screech.

Emma only barely contained her horror at its size, dwarfing even the jumbo-bat. But when three more dragons shot out of the hole, each even larger than the first, Emma's mouth dropped open, her legs went weak, and she wondered if she, too, had lost the ability to fly.

Chapter Text

Scourge, in Neverland, Lillian thought as the rushing wind ripped at the sails and rigging above. Never had a single instance of the Scourge appeared in the Neverland sky before the attack that drove Lillian back to Storybrooke, yet she watched a cloud of the dark creatures sweep toward the ship. The bigger they were, the faster they flew; though the birds burst out of the caves first, the bats overtook them, and then the dragons, faster still, shot past. However, the Jolly Roger, flying by Killian's skill and Belle's insurmountable faith, flew just beyond their nipping jaws.

Was this her fault? Had her intervention forced the Scourge to find a foothold in another realm? No, even in the timeless land, draining a host took time.

"Decades," Lillian surmised. "To be this big and this many, they've been here decades. Maybe centuries."

David grabbed for ropes from the rigging to hold himself up in the wild wind of the speeding ship. "Centuries? Then why attack now? Why not attack us when we went to find Henry? Or get Hook before he left Neverland?"

"Pan wouldn't let a creature like this fly free on his watch," Rumple grumbled through frozen lips. "And whatever he couldn't control, he captured."

"Captured, and threw in the Echo Caves," Emma finished. Worry creased her brow, and she glanced back to Killian. "If they've been stuck in there all this time with that thing…"

They'd already flown so far and so fast that the island was little more than a haze in the distance. The ship lurched as Killian swerved the ship to keep the island within view. Through a clenched jaw, he growled, "It wasn't a prison, it was a feeding trough. Every lost boy who displeased Pan, every member of my crew who disappeared on the island, fed like kibble to that thing."

Emma grabbed a wooden beam to steady herself. "When it said it met Killian, it wasn't talking about when he met Pan, it meant when we went to the Echo Caves. That's how it found out about Storybrooke."

Despite the artfulness of Killian's maneuvers, Rumplestiltskin, still lashed to the main mast, slid this way and that way with every abrupt arc.

"And when Pan died," Rumplestiltskin continued. "His barrier fell and unleashed the scourge on perhaps the most fertile feeding ground in all the realms. Then, when it ran dry, it sought a new feeding ground: Storybrooke."

Lillian crawled to the gunwale to look out, and in the black forms that chased them them, she saw Lost Boys, pirates, and Picaninnies—centuries upon centuries of pain flying frenzied behind them.

That's how the realms had fallen so fast, she realized, it already had its own army. Even more, the whole time Henry had thought his crew safe in Neverland, they'd slept under the very watch of the enemy. In that moment, she saw the deadly patience of the Scourge. After all, what better way to keep an eye on its ultimate prey, the Dark One, than to lure him to false safety? To hide behind the masks of its pirate pawns until it gathered the strength to take him on?

And now they'd just flown him straight into its nest, paralyzed. Worse, if it killed either of her parents, their paradox broke down and the Jolly Roger dissolved back into the flow of time. She would never be born, but her horrific world would certainly be reborn, darker than ever.

"Belle, Killian," Emma called, and her sudden push for action broke Lillian from her thoughts. "Keep us going as fast as you can. Dad, you get Gold below deck."

David immediately ran to Gold and cut him free as Emma hauled Lillian's arm over her shoulder, then hefted her across the deck to one of the cannons. Quickly, but gently, she set her to the ground and dropped the bags of dust in her lap. "Lillian, you load."

Emma dashed back to help David haul Rumplestiltskin down the hatch. Loading the first cannon took almost no time at all. When she'd finished with the first cannon, she crawled across the deck to reload the other.

She had just slipped the full canister of the last cannon back into place when her father called from the helm.

"Lillian, what are they doing?"

Lillian looked up at the trail of scourge behind them. The dragon forms remained intent in their pursuit, but the group of bats looped back on themselves, diving into the cloud of birds. She'd never seen so many scourge in one place and from this distance—going so fast—she couldn't clearly understand what exactly they were doing. Attacking each other?

David and Emma bounded up the stairs and back onto the deck. David immediately took to one of the cannons while Emma stopped to hand Belle Pandora's Box.

"Do you know how to use this?" Emma asked.

"Yes," Belle nodded.

The ship slowed as Belle let go of the helm to take the box in both hands and one of the dragon scourge zoomed above the canvas with a triumphant screech. Belle quickly opened the box and held it up, but the dragon pulled away. Quickly, David whirled his cannon on the beast. The refreshed supply of dust gave the cannon greater power and greater reach and the prince and caught its wing in a swath of flames. The creature shrieked and flapped madly in effort to escape, but the fire spread its length and width and it soon crumbled to ash.

The other dragons pulled away, stunned at the power of the little ship.

"See?" said Lillian, "it's just too fast."

Belle closed the box, put a hand to the wheel and the ship again picked up speed.

"Fast, yes, but also afraid. The beast also wouldn't come near us. With that box open, I doubt they will touch a soul on this deck."

"Then double back," Emma ordered. "If we can't grab a big one, maybe we can grab a little one."

Lillian protested and surprised herself at how much of Henry's vocabulary fell from her lips, but her father still swept the ship into an abrupt arc toward the cluster of creatures.

The shrieks of the scourge as the Jolly Roger dove into the fray multiplied and compounded until Lillian could barely think but for the pain in her ears. Several of the smaller forms dove at them, but as soon as Belle open the box, their cries cut off and they disappeared into the little box. Two. Five. A dozen. Twenty. Lillian lost count. When the others tried to fly away, Killian drove after them. True to Killian's observation, none came willingly near the box, but they scooped up Scourge all the same. While the box sucked up the smaller scourge, David and Emma filled the sky with flame, sending no small number of bats and birds spiraling in a blaze.

A soft laugh escaped Lillian's throat as the mass of creatures suddenly dispersed, but the laughter caught in her throat as she turned back to find the dragon forms back on their trail. Belle and Killian sped the ship toward open sky, but the dragons did not immediately follow. Instead, they swooped down on the smaller scourge, catching them in their claws or snatching them out of the air with their black teeth.

"Are they feeding on each other?" asked Emma. "They can do that?"

"I've never seen it before," Lillian replied. "But then, they've always needed numbers to survive, right now they need speed."

All too quickly the fight dwindled to two of the dragon forms tumbling through the air, until one clamped teeth into the other and a great howl sounded. In one breath, the victorious dragon swelled to a mammoth size and let loose a sharp roar that rattled the ship.

-0-

Below deck, Gold strained against the magic force holding his limbs still. Worse than his paralysis, though, was the silence of his foresight. In this land beyond time, he couldn't see the future, couldn't see the outcome of this battle or its effects on time, and the blindness drove him mad with worry.

Gold scoffed at the irony. To think the ship he'd hobbled onto centuries ago now, and the selfsame pirate at whose feet he had begged, stood his salvation against the screaming darkness. Gold had left him handless to live out his short days a cripple, and yet Hook survived time and again what all logic, all sanity, demanded it should have destroyed him. What's more, he had clearly passed the same trait to his spawn, who had knocked at death's door how many times only to be tugged back, time and again, and twice by Gold's own hand!

Charmed lives, the two of them.

But no more.

He entertained no delusions that the pirate's newfound heroism extended beyond the benefit of the Charmings. He knew Belle stood no chance with Lillian at the stake. Gold could not let this one chance to end the threat slip by, to secure Belle, and Henry, and all of his hopes. He would strip the luck of the pirate from the girl even as he ripped the light magic from her bones. With that power, in his hands, amplified, he could end the nightmare with little more than a wish, and, as price, rip the very possibility of Lillian from the timeline even as he ensured the certainty of Belle.

A price he was more than willing to pay, if he could only arrange it.

Like a waking limb, Gold felt sharp tingles all over his body as the ink wore off and magic slowly returned to his body. He flexed his fingers a few times, reveling in freedom again.

-0-

Belle and Killian tried to pull away from the creature, but it shot after them, blindingly fast. Black teeth clamped down on the side of the ship with such force that it jerked the ship and knocked David and Emma to the deck. A white flash of magic burst from the ship and the shock of it knocked the massive creature back. The others on the ship watched in amazement, but Lillian had seen a scourge overcome the same magic, the same ward cast above the castle years ago, and knew it would only take time for a scourge of this strength to overcome the barrier.

As Emma and David jumped back to their weapons, Lillian crawled to the open hatch.

The wood creaked as Lillian swung herself over the edge. She braced to hit the floor hard, but when she fell into the dim of the hold below, arms caught her mess of limbs and she looked up into the brown eyes of Rumplestiltskin.

"The cannons below," she begged, "please!"

"But of course, Dearie."

In a blink, he poofed them to the hold. He'd barely set her feet to the floor before she scrambled for the twin cannons and dumped dust into their canisters. As she pulled herself up and found her grip on the heavy weapons, the back end of the ship fizzled and two portholes large enough to admit the lips of the cannons formed in the hull. A third opened between them to give her a view out the back of the ship to the creature writhing in the air.

Lillian heard the crackle of fire and felt heat at her back so intense that her shirt instantly clung to sweat. She looked over her shoulder to find Rumplestiltskin a few paces behind her, a fireball in one hand, Pandora's box in the other.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Reminding you why you are here," he rasped. He opened the box just long enough for one of the little scourges to escape, only to immediately disintegrate in the bright of the flame before so much as a scream escaped it. "Your parents are so set on saving your life, they're blinded to the fact there may be more scourge out there. And if there are, every moment we waste chasing false hope to Glinda's door may mean countless lives, and there will be no time portals this time to bring them back. Are you really going to let them risk the world for you again?"

Lillian hadn't forgotten, but for a brief moment, she had believed. Believed in her mother. Believed that the spark in Emma's eye was the spark of the savior magic that had brought back so many happy endings and, despite her own desperation to end the monster, Lillian had glimpsed the script of her own happy ending. The dragon took another swipe at the ship, this time with its tail. The Jolly Roger rocked and shuddered and Lillian clung to one of the cannons as another bright crack of light blew the beast back again.

"There is but one way to truly protect them, only one way to know, for sure, if these are the last of the scourge. You have the shot you came for now, take it."

Lillian lifted herself on shaking legs, her arms strained from holding herself up and her head full of dreams of sailing under the stars with her father and her family in a world where she had only one name. Hope beat boldly in her heart. What exactly had reawakened it, she could not tell, but therein lay the tragedy, because, thanks to the meddling of the Dark One, as far as Lillian Jones could remember, hope, with all its pretty words and warm tingles, had left her an orphan.

Thus, when another swipe of the beast's tail crackled against the port side and one last flash of white took the brunt of the blow, Lillian knew time had run out, and that her world of two names could only end with a world where she had no name.

"Do it," she ordered.

The ball of flames in Rumplestiltskin's hand grew so bright and so hot, it felt as if it pulled the very air from Lillian's lungs. He shoved it into the box and smiled at the faint screams of the scores of scourge within.

"Your move, Dearie."

Lillian turned herself again to face outside and he massive scourge, almost as if it sensed the massacre, dove back toward the ship, screaming. She set her hands on the cool metal of the massive cannons and, with a scream of her own, let her rage ignite.

-0-

Twin streams of fire burst from the cannons. The ship lurched and groaned at the added stress, evoking surprised shouts above board. The dragon tried to roll out of the way, but the flames merged, snaked through the air, and struck. The scourge took the full force of the fire straight down its belly. The howl it let out shook the ship to its bones. Lillian kept pouring more and more of herself into the blast and the flames grew brighter and hotter even as her own body paled and faded and Rumplestiltskin did not need future-sight to see the ghost forming before him. Even Neverland in all its insolence could not hold to a child that would never be.

But still she kept firing.

She fired until the scourge, fully aflame, spiraled toward the sea. It tried in vain to dip blazing wings, but water could not douse this rage.

Lillian dropped to a knee, so faint that Gold could see straight through her, to the hook that still dangled from her neck. The wisps of her magic seeped from her, caught in the air like the smoke of a snuffed candle. The hook glowed then, bright and warm, drinking in her ghostly brightness until nothing remained of her but the hook itself. Then it fell heavy against the deck.

Gold reached for the hook, reached for the weapon that would, at last, secure his happiness. But even as he did so, the massive, screaming fireball of a beast, shot up from the water. With one final cry, it rammed the Jolly Roger so hard, the hull broke open, and the hook slipped away through split planks down to the open sea.

Outside, the dragon wrapped its flaming wings around hull and masts and canvas until the faithful, dreadful pirate ship and the scourge of the realms crumbled into a smoking scar across the Neverland sky.

Chapter Text

(Neverland, Present)

The hull of the ship groaned and gave under the crush of flaming wings. Belle's screams pierced through the crackling collapse of the Jolly Roger and Gold's hands flew through the air of their own accord, stealing the lot of them away in a whirl of his own smoke. He willed them to the island's shore, where they watched the ship crumble under the beast's embrace. David restrained Hook, as if the pirate could do anything, and a light left blue eyes as a burning sail broke away from the dying ship and drifted down to the water.

The scourge must have sensed their escape then, because it whipped its head in their direction, but a sudden, massive blast from the ship consumed the beast whole, and from that blast burst a golden white ring of light. Gold surmised the magic flames had caught the stores of pixie dust the girl left in the hull and found it apt that, in killing the old ship, the dark beast triggered the final blow. The inferno burned hot, but all too quick, and soon ash of both scourge and ship crumbled to the ocean below, leaving nothing but smoke across the sky.

The bright ring of light persisted, and spread on through the air in all directions, gaining momentum.

"What is that?" Emma asked.

"The end of our adventure," Gold replied.

Emma spun on her heels and looked up and down the length of the beach. "Lillian?" she called to the empty sand. "Where's Lillian?"

Gold didn't turn his sight from the light. "You know where she is."

Hook, regaining himself, shoved the prince away and whirled on Gold, looking every inch the pirate he'd faced all those centuries ago—sinister and murderous. Hook dove at him just as the arc of light washed over the island and bright golden light flooded Gold's eyes.

-0-

(Storybrooke, Present)

When his sight darkened back to reality, Gold stood not on deserted shore, but amid the bustling motion of Granny's diner. Decorations from the Charmings' potluck still hung from the walls. A mismatched menagerie of half-eaten side dishes still covered the counter. Most of the town still clustered around the tables or milled about with their overloaded plates. Mary Margaret and David still stood in the back with the baby, chatting with their well-wishers. No one spared him more than a casual glance (or the not so casual glare), nor seemed in the least concerned about the threat of the Scourge.

He looked around the room, the puzzle pieces of the myriad futures spilled out before them. Days ago, they'd drifted by him, blackened by the shadow of the Scourge. Now they pushed in from all sides, bright and boundless and blissfully ignorant of the miserable future they would never see.

Gold smiled.

So she had done it. The girl had killed the last of the Scourge, had dissolved that horrific branch of the future even as the Scourge sought its last gasping effort to destroy them. The resolution of the paradox rewound time to the point of its divergence, returned all of the player pieces back to the moment Lillian arrived in Storybrooke. Only she would never come, not now, not in her own time. Sealing all of her power, all of her potential, into that battered steel swept Lillian from time as a child stolen from a cradle.

He winced at the memory of steel slipping through flame. How close he had come.

"Rumple?" Belle called, and he turned to find her at the diner's door. "Sorry I'm late," she said, and quickly slid into a chair. As with the others, she seemed to have no memory of the flight she'd endured but moments ago. Stiffly, Gold followed and took his own chair as Belle launched into the details of her day, same as she had done before, but he nodded along as if hearing it for the first time.

The diner's bell rattled again and Emma burst through the door.

"Mom, Dad, I missed you," she blurted as she hugged her parents, just as she had done a week ago. She then pulled them into a booth to unveil her adventure before astonished eyes for a second time.

"What do you think they'll name the baby?" Belle asked, taking his silence for discomfort.

Gold pursed his lips to keep from growling. His eyes flicked to the gurgling baby, to Prince Neal. Twice over now, that name reminded him of how close he'd come to restoring the past that should have been, one where his Neal yet lived, and the chance had slipped through his fingers.

With the hook, with all of the components still within his reach, he could have remade Zelena's spell and then, with little more than a wish, he could have saved Bae without repercussion.

He could have had a family again.

"Excuse me," he whispered, and rose from his chair. "I find I need some air."

He whisked out the door before Belle could even respond, but the night air did little to cool his building anger. Anger that demanded action.

He would pour all his effort into finding the talisman, dredge the whole of the NeverSeas if he had to to find it—and if he couldn't, he would rip apart Oz until he uncovered the books of time and skin himself another savior.

The diner's bell rattled again and Belle stepped out of door, wrapping her coat tight about her at the chill.

"Rumple. What's wrong?"

With his back to her, Gold schooled his face. He'd find a way to explain this to Belle, when the time was right—when time was set right—but for now, he tugged down his jacket in effort to compose himself and ran a hand down to smooth his suit jacket.

Belle's voice cracked slightly. "You're not… you're not getting cold feet, are you?"

He turned around at that, gentleness in his voice, "No, of course not."

Belle crossed her arms against the cold and rubbed hands up and down her arms until a crumpling sound from her coat stopped her. She put a hand into her pocket and withdrew a parchment.

"What's this? Did you leave me a note?" She asked as she opened the parchment. Her face fell as her eyes skimmed the words. "Oh no, Rumple. I think someone's in trouble.'"

She pushed the parchment at him and Gold took it, but knew his mistake at the sight of the signature.

Above her name, in sloppy letters too big to miss, Lillian had scrawled the very word forbidden by Pan, forbidden because it harkened back to the land before Pan's corruption, to the dreamland where children outflew their fears until sadness subsided. But no one lived in Neverland then and when child and island had to say their goodbyes, the insolent island sent them away, and kept to itself all the tales of their adventures as secrets only to be shared again with those who returned to soar in its skies once more. That was how the island protected itself and that was how, by sheer accident, Lillian Jones defeated the Dark One with the last rule she ever broke.

The timeless magic of the island, freed now from Pan and Scourge, defied the paradox as a toddler flouts bedtime, followed the word back to Storybrooke, and stole from Gold's thoughts every last trace of the hungry darkness and the adventure of the girl who would never be.

The parchment crumbled in Gold's palm as the magic fled, forgotten by both he and Belle as the skittering magic swept the evidence away.

Belle blinked several times before her eyes flicked back up to Gold. "You okay?" she asked, "You left so suddenly, I thought…"

Gold shook away his clouded thoughts, remembering only the vague need to breathe at the impress of emotions. With the memories gone, the emotions faded. "I'm fine. I just… needed some air. It seems to have done the trick."

Belle slipped her hand into Gold's. "Then come back inside, Rumple. They'll be announcing the baby's name at any moment and I don't want to miss it," she said, and tugged him back toward the door. "What do you think they'll name him?"

"Truthfully, I haven't a clue," replied Gold, and stepped into the light of the diner.

-0-

The door had barely rattled shut behind the couple before Killian and Marian rounded the bushes outside Granny's. Killian fought to keep his eyes open as they walked toward the diner's light. Though she'd taken the news of her kidnapping surprisingly well (and he'd had enough experience with the subject to fancy himself a reasonable judge), the adrenaline from their trip had drained from his system, leaving only aches and exhaustion behind, and he yearned to crawl upstairs to his bed. He felt more than tired, like he'd lived weeks, not days, since falling through the blasted portal.

With the brightness inside, he could see the party still in full swing, see that it stood between him and the stairway, and he just didn't have it in him to plaster on a polite air long enough to make it through without casting a dour shadow on the festivities.

He stopped at the stoop and extended an arm to direct Marian in. "This is Granny's. Emma's already inside. She'll help you sort the rest."

"You're not coming in?" she asked.

"She's been stuck with me for the better part of the week. Too much of a good thing, you know," he said, pointing out Emma at her booth through the window. "Best I give her a moment with her family."

"Family," Marian echoed. When her eyes dropped to the ground, Killian almost took it all back, but Marian spared a soft smile of thanks and disappeared through the door.

Once the door fully shut, Killian lumbered over to a garden table, pulled out his flask, and popped it open with his teeth. He tipped his head back to sip his rum, but when the the first spicy shot hit the back of his throat, the words "not a victory," echoed in his ears so boldly, he thought someone had spoken. He sat forward to look around the garden patio, but found himself completely alone.

Thinking better of it, he capped the rum.

Granny's bell jingled again after a little while. Killian looked up expecting Marian, but Emma sauntered toward him.

"So, do you think Gold was right?" she asked as she walked toward the table.

Too tired even for this dance, the truth soon spilled from his lips; what he'd given to bring her back, to bring her home. Then his brain almost melted at the shock of her lips as they touched his his, and a familiarity warmed him. As well it should, he reasoned; he'd kissed her before—twice, technically. Yet neither of those had been so soft as this, so vulnerable, and it was that tenderness that he knew without knowing. He'd have dwelled a little longer on the mystery, but Emma tilted her head, deepening the contact, and his higher brain functions fell silent.

In the end, he simply blamed the rum.

Chapter Text

(Storybrooke, Present)

Emma swayed from one side to the other, Killian matching her every move in a subtle dance. He leaned back and her mouth chased his until she leaned so far forward that she very nearly slipped out of her chair. Their lips parted only long enough for the both of them to breathe and break into smiles. He threaded fingers through her hair, the tips grazing her ear. Her smile widened as he leaned in and caught her lips again, but something about the way his arms curled around her neck caused her heart to squeeze, sharp and sore.

She'd felt this very embrace before. Tasted adoration on his lips. Watched undimmed joy dance in his eyes. Heard the weightless lilt in his song.

She pulled back abruptly, breaking the kiss.

When had she heard Killian sing?

A sharp breath pulled her back to reality and the memory dissipating like a dream scared off by the morning alarm.

She groaned to herself. She was way, way too tired if she was hallucinating about Killian going acapella rock star, but the moment left her on edge. Her magic brimmed beneath her fingertips, ready to fly at the first sign of danger.

"Swan, what is it? Did I-?" Killian bumbled.

"No, not you. Sorry," she grazed a soothing hand down his arm, unsure of if it was him or herself she meant to calm. "Just a weird feeling all of a sudden—like I left the oven on."

Killian traced the dimple at her chin with his thumb. "I remind you of an oven. I suppose there's a compliment in that."

Her fingers danced down his sleeve and across his hook; black soot smeared across its once mirror smooth surface, as if it had sliced through the flames of Hell itself. It even felt warm to the touch. Body heat from their embrace she supposed.

"I mean I feel like something's off—like we're missing something."

The pirate paid no attention to it, his eyes solely on hers and she wondered if he sympathized more than he let on.

"What are we missing, love?"

She curled her fingers around the battered steel, and placed her other hand over his.

"I don't know, but I wish it would come to me soon," she mumbled.

No sooner did Emma voice these words, but light flowed through her fingertips and the hook gleamed with her power. Then, just as suddenly, the magic swept away in a puff, like seeds blown from a dandelion, and danced away in the night air. With them drifted away all her tension. Something inside released, a tight muscle somewhere in her heart, and her shoulders relaxed.

She, of course, could never have guessed that the same magic that returned the players back to the start of their second adventure through time also returned he enchanted hook. Neither could she have known that such a wish made by such a woman with such an object might reset fate and release its captive power.

All she knew was that the battered hook now glimmered with pristine steel, and her stomach growled in relieved hunger.

Only in the passing years, in certain chance moments—the play of the sun on a little girl's braid or the glint of light off the chrome of a wheelchair—would the lightest drift of a thought cross Emma's mind that some unspeakable something lay just out of her reach of consciousness, but every time she grabbed at it, it dispelled.

Even the Jolly Roger, especially the Jolly Roger, taunted her memory when it bobbed in the docks as if it held some sly secret it could never speak.

(She'd have thrown her empty beer bottles at it if she wasn't convinced Killian would protect it bodily.)

No, not until much later did Emma realize what she had missed. Not until she lay in bed, Killian asleep next to her, a tiny form curled on his chest.

It wasn't her happy ending that snuggled against the hairs of the pirate's chest. Not to her mind. No, what had been taken from her, and what Lillian had never had, arrived now like the first rays of a clear dawn: a very happy beginning.

Emma stroked the babe's cheeks. The little girl yawned herself awake and cracked open newborn eyes.

"Hi, Lillian," Emma cooed. "I'm Emma. I'm your momma."