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It went like this; one father, one son, one corpse.
The thing was, there were two things Killian Jones knew to be true.
One: Killian had always known he would die at either the hands of the sword or the sea. When he was a lad, he would spend hours watching the ocean waves and dreamt of drowning beneath each rising tide; he would envision his breath quickening, his vision blackening, and his sense of control disappearing. And when he wasn’t dreaming of the sea, he was dreaming of death by steel. Maybe that was why he had so gratefully followed his brother into the Navy – it had felt like a call to arms, a spiral which traced its way all the way around to his end, one consistently drawn line to another.
The second thing Killian knew to be true, without a shadow of doubt, was that he was never meant to be a father. Killian didn’t remember much about his mother – she had died when she was far too young, and himself even younger. But he did carry one thing of hers around with him; her tarot cards. They were old and worn – half the cards missing, with bent corners. And yet, Killian had carefully carried that deck of cards around with him in his jacket pocket his whole life, as if they were his mother itself. If he were being honest with himself, Killian would admit that he couldn’t remember the shape of his mother’s nose, or the colour of her eyes, but he could tell you the shape and weight of the empress card like the back of his hand.
He didn’t know how to use them. Not really. He thought of them as a guiding hand however, and their word as law even if he wasn’t quite sure of the meaning. And after his brother’s death, he’d longed for comfort – for a warm embrace and his mother’s hand in his hair, so he pulled those worn, battered cards out from beneath his jacket and sat on the floor.
If he concentrated hard enough, Killian thought he could remember his mother closing her eyes and pulling cards – fate laid before her. So, Killian sat back, closed his eyes as tightly as he could, and thought of what he wanted. He thought of Liam and his loneliness after his brother’s death, he thought of his mother and his longing for her comfort that had never left him, and he thought and he thought and he thought of fathers, and sons, and brothers, and whether he’d be alone his whole life.
He flipped the first battered, bent card he felt compelled too, and before him sat a crumbling tower.
Ruination.
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Since Killian had no father and no brother anymore, all that was left for the card to answer was the call for a son. Killian didn’t need to be told twice. That crumbling tower that sat before him was an answer in and of itself of what kind of man he would be.
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So, he’d tried to live alone. And yet, he’d loved Milah, as hard and as fast as he could. A part of him had hoped, hoped so strongly, that his love for her would overwrite that haunting card. He had heard tales all his life of a love strong enough to conquer any curse, and after all, what was Killian if not a curse? So, he’d loved her – loved her as intensely as he could until the only world he saw was the expanse of her lungs; her breath the air, her heartbeat the roaring thunder, her hair the crashing waves.
But she’d died too, and when she’d left, Killian felt as though he could scarcely breathe. And he’d realised; he could never subject himself on anyone ever again. Because that crumbling tower, and sparking lightning would follow him until death itself knocked on his door, and he’d be damned if he took anyone else he loved down there with him.
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It was inevitable really, that he would fail Baelfire after that. After he had proven fate right for the second time, and Baelfire’s pleas still rang in his ears, Killian had looked down at that sketch of Milah and for the first time, dreamt of burning that damn thing. He never did in the end, but he’d flipped it over all the same, so he would never have to look at the face of the woman who he’d loved and failed twice fold.
Over time, he’d known the back of that paper better than the shape of her jaw.
There was something to be said about how everyone Killian loved, became nothing but pieces on a scrap of card in the end.
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Because there was a rule to rot; if left untreated it would bloom and creep in unwanted to all sorts of structural foundations. Yellow-coloured lumps of fungus would grow; cobweb-like strands would hang from surfaces and litter the floor until all you could do was scrape and scrape and scrape. If left untreated long enough, the very rot itself would seep into the building and crack slithers of veins across the foundation until all that was left was a decaying pit.
Killian had taken all of that grief and pain and locked it within himself until it flowered white with mould; his ribs a home for the speckled white and yellow that crept over his heart. He could never really bring himself to scrape it all away – he’d made a home in grief for so long that he felt as if the very foundations of himself would rattle away if he didn’t keep it clutched as tightly as he could. So, there he lived, half man, half rot – half thing.
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Then, he met Henry Mills.
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The first time Killian had met the lad, he’d been addled in a hospital bed. His ribs had hurt, his back had ached, and something had pounded in his head like a hammer to a nail that he couldn’t quite temper. He was a stranger in a strange new land with nothing of his future before him.
Afterall, Killian Jones had never been an unobservant man. He may not have known what the metallic vehicle that thundered towards him was, but Killian knew without a shadow of doubt that he shouldn’t have been in front of that monstrous thing. And yet, as it charged down the road – the rain on Killian’s face, and the scream of the crocodile in his mind – Killian couldn’t really bring himself to care. There was a bone deep ache that made Killian long for rest; for the comfort of his mother long since dead, and the gentle press of his brother’s shoulder against his own. So, he didn’t move.
He should’ve known better really. He’d always known he’d die by either the sword or the sea, and that mysterious vehicle was neither. So, instead, he was trapped in what he supposed was a hospital bed. And as the bright lights flicked above him, the doorway creaked open, and a small boy crept in. That was where Killian Jones met Henry Mills for the first time.
Killian watched. Watched as the boy quietly shut the door behind himself. Watched as the boy furtively looked around. Watched as the boy caught his eyes, clocked that he was awake, and froze.
“You’re awake,” the boy stated. His hair was messy in a way that only ten-year-old boys were able to achieve. The sides half up, cowlicks along the top of his head, and a permanent aversion to a comb. There was a clock that ticked over Killian’s head, a beeping in his ear from some strange machinery to the left, and by the Gods Killian was tired, so all Killian could say in response was:
“Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to talk to strangers, lad?”. He didn’t mean to be curt, not really, but he also didn’t really have it in him to be kind – to play with the boy’s curiosity, when all Killian really wanted to do was to complete the rot that lived inside of him and leave. Killian watched as the boy’s brow furled and his nose wrinkled. In that second, he reminded Killian so strongly of Milah and Bae that his heart felt twice the size of his chest – an arrhythmia he didn’t know how to contain.
“But you’re not a stranger. You’re Captain Hook!”
“And yet, you’re still a stranger to me”.
Killian watched as the boy huffed. His seemingly tiny fingers wrapped around his jacket, and the beeping in Killian’s ear felt louder and louder. Then, and without warning, their conversation ended. A shouted; “Henry!” bellowed from the hallway, and that little boy with Milah’s nose turned his head to the sound. He left without a word, and all Killian could do was stare at the bright lights overhead and think to himself, Henry, then.
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Then Henry got taken to Neverland.
Somewhere between the hospital bed and Neverland, Killian had grown fond of the boy he’d barely known. There was a weird period of time where Killian wasn’t actively being hunted down, but also wasn’t entirely welcomed by anyone. He seemed to permanently exist in some sort of sense of statis. He was hesitant to go back to his ship – the Jolly, a symbol which heralded his past with Cora to the distrusting townsfolk. So, he spent most of his time in what he supposed was some approximation of an inn.
The seats were rubbery, the tables sticky, and just like at the hospital, the lights were bright and overarching in a way that gave Killian a semi-permanent headache no matter where he sat. Still, he’d found that despite the harsh glares he’d receive and the slightly cold food, Killian could nonetheless buy a cup of tea for the extortionate price of a pair of diamond earrings. He’d felt like he’d spent most of his days in that inn. Just watching as his tea grew cold and the clock ticked past. Killian couldn’t remember the last time he’d spent so long in a place that aged. In a place where time actually passed, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it all now that he had it – all the threads of time that kept slipping past his fingertips.
So, he began to draw. Milah used to draw whenever she was bored, and Killian couldn’t help but reach out to her in his mind as his fingertip touched the fogged-up glass window beside him. He traced patterns aimlessly – labyrinths his mind concocted that went nowhere at all with no exit in sight. Until, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a tangled head of hair bent over a table at the front of the inn. Henry’s own finger was pressed against the glass, and Killian watched as Henry looked back at Killian’s aimless mazes and copied them himself.
He turned to Killian once more, gave him a toothy grin that was far too kind for a sad, angry man like Killian, and then drew a small smiling face that beamed right at Killian. He thought maybe that was part of why he did it; why he’d offered to go to Neverland. Because yes, he did it for Bae – for the future they’d lost – for Milah, for that great big crumbling tower that he thought maybe just once he could solve. But also, a small, miniscule part of himself that he’d tried to snuff out, did it for that toothy grin, and the little smile Henry had traced on the window perpendicular to Killian’s own lost swirls.
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The second time Killian had really spoken to Henry, Killian was the stranger and Henry the one left behind, alone in a strange place with strange new people. It made something within Killian ache for reasons he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to analyse. He couldn’t help the intrinsic desire to seek the lad out. If nothing else, he thought that perhaps they were kindred spirits. Always one step behind everyone else and running around aimlessly for some sign of normalcy that they were never granted.
So, on the second occasion, Killian went to him.
When he’d come across Henry, the lad had been sitting on the floor of the docks – his shoes just centimetres high of scraping the sea. Killian had nothing but a rope in his pocket, the knowledge of their awkward car ride between them, and the desire to be a different man. He’d thought that perhaps the least he could do was entertain Swan’s son. It was his fault after all, that Henry had been taken from his home – forced into a foreign town where his name half lived on everyone’s tongue.
So, he’d sat down beside him. That boy he’d only half known – but the sum of two people he’d loved dearly. The son of another he’d thought maybe he could love one day. If he’d tried.
(Because Emma Swan had magic after all. Was the manifestation of True Love itself - all the goodness in all the realms. And, Killian thought, if anyone could beat that wicked, cursed card that lived inside his jacket pocket, then surely, it would be Emma Swan.)
“Henry,” Killian smiled softly as he crouched down to sit beside the boy. Henry looked back curiously at him but didn’t say anything – didn’t criticise Killian or tell him to move, so Killian took that as a win in his book. He’d remembered being a twelve-year-old boy after all – all grit and teeth, and a temperament more prone to lashing out at any adult around him than anything else. So, Henry’s silence was, if anything, a distant welcome.
“Did my mom send you?” Henry scoffed. Killian watched as he pointed his foot – the tip of his shoe brushing ripples in the water – and all Killian could really feel was the cold chill that had come in from across the sea. Henry’s nose had started to turn a shade of red, and his fingers looked as if they were clutched as tightly as possible to the docks – as if Henry would float away if he were to let go.
“No. Done something you should be in trouble for, lad?”
“I hate it here,” Henry whispered, and Killian thought he could almost hear Henry’s teeth grinding against one another, “I hate that my mom keeps going off with weird people I’ve never met before. I hate how she keeps trying to make me spend time with people I don’t know. I hate how the mayor keeps looking at me like she’s sad whenever she sees me, but she doesn’t even know me.”
Henry kicked his feet again, and Killian heard the sound of gulls crying. A high and bellowing screech that bounced off the silent port.
“I just want to go home.”
“Aye,” Killian replied softly back – his tone to match Henry’s, “That’s understandable, lad”. He nodded, and Killian thought of all the things he’d wished for as a boy of twelve who’d missed home. Of all the different ways Liam had tried to fix that deep longing that lived within Killian, that he’d carried around with him like a dead horse. Killian shifted slightly to the side, and reached deep within his pocket to find the chord of rope he knew lived there.
“I can’t fix that for you, Henry. But perhaps I can distract you?” Killian watched as Henry scuffed his shoe once more across the water and sighed before he looked warily at Killian. It was funny, Killian thought, the ways in which teenage boys were always half guarded and half fragile things. Or perhaps that was only himself and Henry – a commonality that existed between them just like strangers was a title they could both bear around Storybrooke.
“Now, how familiar are you with the Stevedore stopper knot?”
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They’d spent the rest of that afternoon trading the small piece of rope back and forth. And as Killian showed Henry how to pass the tail end through the bight and tighten the turns, he’d thought something within the both of them had settled.
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A few days later, Killian had watched as Henry tied a Stevedore stopper one handed – his left hand placed down as a break rather than an aid. Killian felt lost at the sight; at the thought of how Killian himself had leant how to tie that very same knot under his brother’s guidance. How now there was some part of Henry that Killian could look at and point to and go ‘That was me. That was my influence’. He'd never seen such a direct parallel between his life and another's in centuries.
And as he thought of that crashing tower, that foredooming lightning, and that inevitable ruination, it terrified him. Because the thing about Henry Mills was that he made Killian feel like he had brand new walls rattling around in his chest. All that fungus disappeared and discarded – the disease and mould fettered out.
Killian didn’t know what to do with that.
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So instead, Killian sat around Storybrooke and thought of all the things he was, and wasn’t, and no longer could be.
It didn’t matter how long Killian had spent in Storybrooke; he’d always felt one foot out of place. The chairs still too rubbery, the tables too sticky, the lights too bright, and everywhere he went the world just felt loud. He didn’t know where he fit within it all.
When he had been a younger man, he’d found excitement in new lands – a call for adventure that he’d begged to answer. Now? Now Killian just felt weary, and tired, and every one of his passing years he’d accumulated in Neverland. He didn’t know who he was anymore. He’d spent centuries focused on revenge, and now that he wasn't hunting for it, he felt jettisoned. A piece of driftwood on a rising tide; flotsam with nowhere to go. When he stared in the mirror, it was a stranger that looked back.
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A week later, Killian sat beside Henry as the boy devoured a grilled cheese. For weeks, food had tasted like ash; every crumb a foreign substance that made him long for a home that no longer existed. And yet, as Henry carefully looked Killian over and offered him up the second half of his grilled cheese, there was a warmth that filled Killian that he thought made up for the ashen taste in his mouth.
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Things, however, changed after Henry’s memory had come back.
Suddenly, Killian wasn’t just the kind stranger with a rope in his pocket and stories of Henry’s father. But instead, he existed somewhere between that man and the story book villain of Captain Hook. Perhaps somewhere closer to that frail, battered man in a hospital bed who’d shot Belle. It was as if they were in limbo. An in-between state that neither knew how to navigate, where Killian both was and wasn’t the man Henry thought he had been.
To Killian, it was as if they were strangers for the third time.
“You’re Captain Hook,” Henry had sighed. They’d always seemed to start these conversations at the docks. The waves a silent observer, as Henry’s shoes touched the tip of the water. Killian leant his weight back on his hand so he could stare at the clear sky and think of everything he’d wished he could’ve done differently.
“Aye. I am”.
“But you’re also Killian”.
Killian nodded absently and stared at the sea; the crashing of waves that rocked the nearby boats, and Killian longed for his ship like a man longs for air. He thought distantly that Henry would have probably liked the Jolly; would’ve enjoyed all the crawlspaces and the hidden areas much like his father before him did. He supposed he’d never find out.
“I don’t know how I feel about Killian being Captain Hook,” Henry said as he rocked his feet back and forth, and very consciously didn’t look Killian in the eye, “Killian was my friend. Captain Hook shot my grandma. And maybe Captain Hook helped me get out of Neverland. Helped me get home. But I didn’t talk to him. Not really. So, Captain Hook wasn’t Killian to me. And I liked Killian”.
And maybe that was all that mattered. Maybe Killian couldn’t be something familial to Henry – that looming tower a warning in and of itself - but perhaps he could be Killian. Perhaps that could be enough.
“I liked Killian too, lad.”
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So, the days went by, and Henry kept tying Stevedore stoppers.
He’d pass the tail end across the standing end and continue until he’d made two complete turns. And all the whilst, his left hand stayed stationary on the end of the rope.
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Things seemed to work well between Henry and Killian. Killian knew exactly who he was in relation to the lad, and he made sure to never broach upon that role of being Hook-Killian-Dad, but instead stayed firmly within that safe category of Hook-Killian-Friend.
The lights at Granny’s stayed too bright, the chairs too slippery. But every Thursday Killian would split a grilled cheese with Henry, and he’d sit and think about how maybe life was worth living now. How maybe there was a new adventure out there, as long as he had Henry by his side.
Naturally however, that crumbling tower came crashing down anyway, and Emma became the Dark One.
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Killian didn’t know what to do. He’d felt lost and alone, and far too separate from reality to really be there for anyone. But whilst Killian had lost a lover, Henry had lost a mother. So, at night, Killian would rage and weep and throw books across his cabin in the Jolly, but during the day he would sit next to Henry side by side at the docks and wish for a different reality. One where he was stronger and could be there for Henry, and not just silently sit beside him and dream of different times.
Henry had taken to circling homes in the paper. Dreams of a better future in bright red ink that stained his hands and bled through the pages. Killian couldn’t find it within himself to stop the lad. He’d started talking about multiple bedrooms, and bathrooms, and front porches, and a place for Killian by his side as if that was where Killian belonged.
“I’m not your father,” Killian had said – both an apology and a plea. Perhaps he could’ve been in another life. If he were a different man, with a different future and that looming collapsing tower didn’t forebode over him like an awful omen.
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Killian would later learn that that didn’t necessarily mean that Henry agreed.
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And so there they were; one father, one son.
And Killian died at the hands of a sword anyway.
One corpse.
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The thing was, as a lad Killian had grown up around farmland. He was used to the bellowing smoke that littered the skies after harvest - the idea of taking what once was and starting anew. He was familiar with the concept, but perhaps Killian’s fault was that he had always been a man of the sea first and foremost. Perhaps, Killian thought, that’s why he hadn’t seen that foreboding, crumbling tower for what it really was.
A scraping of the structural rot.
Because the thing was, there was a rule to rot. To treat it, you first had to split the whole structure open. And, as Killian stood there in the Underworld, Henry Mills before him, Killian felt as if his very lungs had been carved out from him and laid bare on the ground. He’d hoped he’d done it; subverted the card that wrote his fate. Or maybe he’d fulfilled it in the end – the complete dissolution of everything he’d known for something greater. A rebirth of sorts. Either way, he supposed it didn’t matter now. Not with Henry beside him, and the thought of the future between them.
Killian wasn’t sure it was fair really. That all along Henry Mills had been his crumbling tower, but as he thought of that ten-twelve-thirteen-year-old boy, Killian couldn’t help but think of how proud he was of the lad. All half man, half boy now. And maybe, Killian thought, it wouldn’t be too bad to be something like Hook-Killian-Dad. Now that they had the future, and that crumbling tower of rebirth before them.
So, he’d scraped off the mould; the blooming flowers, and the hanging cobwebs, and he began to build something anew.
He went home.