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Emma stared in horror at the small figure sitting where her husband had been moments ago.
She could have sworn there had been a promise that these kinds of things would stop after the final battle, but here she was, looking at something that should have been impossible.
Next to her, Gold cursed lowly.
“Where is Killian?” Emma asked through gritted teeth.
If he couldn’t give her a suitable answer in the next thirty seconds, she’d exercise her power as the local sheriff to shut down his shop of freaky magic tricks and prevent this kind of thing from ever happening again.
Gold cleared his throat. “You’re looking at him.”
“I’m what?” Emma did a double take, her eyes catching on the kid stood between them once more.
He was younger. A lot younger. Possibly nine, ten?
She noted his dark hair, and the kind of scratchy, practical eighteenth-century clothing he was wearing in faded brown that may once have been beige.
The boy seemed to realise he was being scrutinised, because he snapped his head up and said something lowly, the words incoherent. Frankly, Emma wasn’t even sure they were English.
“Sorry, I don’t understand,” she replied, doing her best to keep her irritation with Gold from bleeding into her tone. Even if he wasn’t Killian, he didn’t deserve her anger.
“I said,” came the familiar accent, “what the fuck is going on?”
He looked up at her then, eyes blue and sharp as a blade.
“Killian?” She asked, almost impulsively.
“Aye?”
Emma exhaled sharply, trying to ignore the way her heart was hammering against her rib cage.
There was no denying it; this was definitely her husband.
As Emma attempted to school her reaction, Gold shot her a ‘told you so’ look that she refused to acknowledge.
“Okay, Killian, you’re okay. You’re in the future. This is magic, but we’re going to fix it, okay? Can you tell us the last thing you remember?” She prompted, hoping he wouldn’t get too distressed about the circumstances before they could get some answers out of him.
Cocking his head to the side, he frowned. “Magic? Like… Ursula?”
He said something else then, in that language Emma couldn’t parse.
“Sorry?” She repeated, feeling like a fool.
It washed over her then, like a bucket of cold water: the realisation that in all their time as a couple, Killian had carefully skirted all questions about his youth.
They’d spent so long talking about her fucking childhood, and now Emma couldn’t summon up more than a measly “my mother died when I was young, and I grew up on a ship”.
How had she never realised that before? Guilt churned in her gut like thick sludge.
“It’s a prayer,” Gold cut in, working his jaw.
“What?”
“The words he just said. It’s a prayer to bless Ursula. His goddess.”
“Right.”
Killian had clearly had enough of waiting around, because he folded his arms rather aggressively to get Emma’s attention once more. “Excuse me, ma’am, but where is my brother?”
She would have found his impatience endearing if it weren’t for the cold dread running down her spine at the question.
On the list of things she never thought she’d have to do, explaining his brother’s centuries old death to her husband in child form was right up at the top.
“He’s, um, ah…” She stumbled over her words, wincing at her own lack of composure. “Remember-remember this is the future, so he’s not here right now, okay? It’ll all make sense to you as soon as Gold puts you back to normal.”
Emma turned to glare at Gold, who held his cool stare in response.
Fuck him for being so composed.
Killian must have seen the truth in the pause she left, because he scoffed lightly before deciding to turn to Gold instead. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” the other man said curtly, bending to pick up the object that Killian had knocked off the shelf; the one that had started this entire process as he did so.
Several years ago, Emma would’ve thought he was just being matter of fact, but after getting to know him, Emma knew that Gold was intentionally avoiding Killian’s eyes.
“Oh.” Killian nodded once, but it was clear his mind had shut down.
The discomfort in the room was almost palpable by the time Gold finally said, “Luckily for you, I know how to get your husband back, Ms Swan, but the antidote will take an hour to brew. I trust you can babysit him until then?”
The attempt at a joke landed poorly, the humourless laugh she tried to give sticking in her throat.
She wanted to make a fuss, insist that he stayed, because he was not leaving her to deal with child Killian Jones, not when he probably knew more than she did about his background.
Not when she didn’t have a clue how to help him, and she was supposed to know him best, and God forbid that revelation hurt.
She couldn’t voice any of that, though, because Killian was right there, pressing his lips together and doing what must have been his best attempt at trying not to cry, and Emma wasn’t going to make this any worse than it already was by picking a fight. “Sure. My parents’ place is right around the corner, so I’ll take him there.”
“Wonderful.” Gold’s answering smile was razor-sharp, but she could tell that this version of Killian scared him as much as he scared Emma.
Somehow, the shared feeling helped to settle the whirlwind of emotions tearing through Emma’s nervous system just enough.
Firing off a quick text to her mom (“magic emergency, coming to yours asap”), she turned to the young boy, and mustered up all the false confidence she had. “I’m gonna take you to get some food and drink, kid. Are you okay to come with me?”
“Who are you?” Killian blurted, not moving from his position on the hardwood floor. Emma could hear the man she knew in his defiant tone, see him in the way he raised his eyebrows like he was challenging her.
She tried to think back on all those forums she’d stalked back when Henry had first entered her life.
Relate to them. Let them know you’re on their side.
Right. She could do that.
Slowly dropping to the floor and sitting across from him to make herself seem less threatening, Emma took a deep breath. She fumbled in her wallet, producing a picture of them on their wedding day that she kept in it. “I’m your wife, Emma. This is the future, remember?”
He took the picture into his small hands, and Emma couldn’t help but notice the blood and dirt trapped under his nails as he did so. “This is an awfully small portrait.”
That startled a chuckle out of her. It was probably best not to broach the topic of technology, so she made a noise of agreement. “Yeah, it is.”
“Can I trust you, Emma?” There was an edge to his voice, and Emma knew she couldn’t fuck this up if she wanted any semblance of control over the situation.
“Yeah, you can.”
“You don’t work with Silver?”
“No, I don’t.” She didn’t even know who Silver was. (She filed that away as something to ask Killian later.)
“Okay,” he exhaled, his shoulders finally relaxing.
Emma waited, but her superpower didn’t go off, so she guessed that was the best she was going to get.
Killian looked up at her then, his eyes rimmed with something else. “Did Silver kill my brother?”
That, she could answer.
“No,” she said firmly as she slid the photograph back into her purse. “Your brother died an honourable Captain in the navy.”
“Oh.” Killian let out a quiet, choking sob, closing his eyes briefly for a moment before straightening up again and steadying his breathing.
It felt like someone was stabbing Emma in the stomach as she watched such a young kid, Killian, no less, stitch his composure back together in a matter of seconds like he wasn’t allowed to feel.
Like tragedy was as familiar to him as his own name.
And maybe it was; Emma certainly didn’t have a clue.
“My apologies, ma’am.”
“Emma. And it’s okay.”
“Emma,” he repeated softly.
“Hey, listen, you might not be hungry, but I could do with some food right now. You ready to come with me?” She pushed herself up off the floor with a little less dignity than she would have liked, punctuating the end of her question by offering him her hand.
After an agonising pause, he took it with his left one and rose to join her.
His left hand.
Oh, fuck.
Emma had to look away before she said something she’d regret.
They walked mostly in silence, partly because it wasn’t a long walk to her parents’, and partly because she was certain they were both reeling too much to function properly.
Thankfully, he didn’t try and run, which she’d take as a win for now.
They made their way there down back alleys, Emma figuring that they’d be less overstimulating than Main Street, especially when Killian wouldn’t even know what a car was and Emma was not in the right frame of mind to successfully deliver a road safety lecture.
She heard him sniffling as he followed her, and it took an enormous amount of willpower not to make another attempt at comforting him, but she knew Killian well enough to leave him to calm himself down.
Thankfully, Snow answered the door after one knock, the question she must have been preparing since Emma’s text came through dying on her lips at the sight of Killian. “Oh.”
“Mom, this is Killian, de-aged to… nine?” Emma guessed, willing her mother not to overreact. In hindsight, maybe she should’ve included more details in that message.
”How long…?”
She knew the follow-up inquiry Snow was about to make, and she grimaced at the lack of answer she had. “Gold’s working on it. Shouldn’t be too long.”
Next to her, Killian bristled.
“I’m twelve,” he spat, after another curse in that language.
Both Emma and Snow failed to control their expressions at that.
He was twelve?
She’d presumed he hadn’t had the best upbringing (troubled kids recognised troubled kids, after all), but if this was a twelve-year-old… well, he was scarily malnourished, to put it lightly.
“Of course you are,” Snow said smoothly, opening the door. “Please, come in.”
Emma had to practically push Killian through the door as her mother flitted back into the living room and hissed something at David.
David nodded, but his eyes still went wide when they landed on Killian, an incredulous laugh bubbling out of him. “Holy…”
“Sit down, sit down,” Snow encouraged, shooting a warning glare at David to control himself. “David, go and put some soup on the stove, will you?”
“Wh—” Her father seemed rather put out at the suggestion, but Snow’s sharp “now!” had him bustling off into the kitchen.
When she noticed that Killian was still standing rather dumbstruck in the hallway, Emma made a show of sitting down on the sofa to indicate that it was okay, and Killian quickly shut his mouth from where he’d left it open gaping at the living room set-up and followed suit.
Emma tried to see it through his eyes: the multitude of colours, patterns and sheer space. It would’ve been hard not to become overwhelmed by it all.
Snow joined them on the couch, adjusting the hem of her dress a little too vigorously as she did so. “Sorry, I imagine things are very different where you’re from, Killian.”
Killian glanced around the room once more, like he hadn’t just been paralysed by the sight of it all. “They are, ma’am.”
“Where are you from?” She followed up with a slightly too innocent smile.
“Tirulia, ma’am, but I don’t live there anymore.” He looked down at his calloused hands, fiddling with the more threadbare of his sleeves.
Snow latched onto that immediately. “Well, where do you live now?”
Killian shifted against the sofa cushions, the first indicator that he was growing annoyed with her pestering. “Um, I don’t live anywhere, ma’am. I work on a ship.”
“What sort of work do you do?” Her mother just had to ask.
The reply was too sharp, too fast. “I do whatever the captain tells me to.”
“Mom…” Emma internally cursed for not interfering sooner.
“It’s okay, I’m not testing you. You won’t get in trouble or anything! I’m just curious,” Snow backtracked, her friendly smile never wavering.
Killian nodded, clenching his jaw momentarily before speaking again. “May I speak freely then, ma’am?”
“Of course!”
He glanced at Emma for reassurance. (Some feelings must have lingered from his adulthood that made him capable of trusting her so freely, since he’d been slowly gravitating closer to her as the conversation went on. She didn’t want to think about what that meant about Killian’s relationship with his in-laws; that was an avenue to explore another time, but it warmed her that even now, he subconsciously held her in such high esteem.)
Once she’d given him the go-ahead, he was quick with his insult. “You must know what it means to be a child working on a ship, even with that royal accent.”
Emma found herself smirking at the indignation in his tone before his words fully caught up with her.
You must know what it means to be a child working on a ship.
Her knowledge of historical child labour was shaky at best, but she knew enough to realise what he was implying.
At best, he’d been dirt-poor and left with little other choice but to provide cheap labour.
At worst…
At worst, he’d been forced to.
Words like kidnapping, coercion and slavery wormed their way to the front of her mind, and Emma didn’t want to extrapolate, but it had sounded like Killian was suggesting something worse than being a paid cabin boy.
“I… I’m so sorry,” Snow practically tripped over herself to make amends with him. (She must’ve come to the same mental conclusions that Emma had.) “I didn’t mean to offend you, Killian, really, I- I...”
He shrugged. “Everyone treats me like shit. Comes with being damaged goods.”
Those words landed like a fatal blow because the way Killian said them, he wasn’t looking for sympathy, or admonishment, or any form of attention: he was just stating what was a fact, to him.
Emma’s knuckles went white from the fist she was making with her hand. The fist she wanted very much to pummel into whoever was responsible for this.
Killian must have sensed the way the mood had dropped, because he tried to make light of it. “At least I’ve got my br… well.”
“What about your parents?” Snow, the ever-optimist who was becoming increasingly horrified, pressed. “Where were they?”
“Mother died. Father fucked off after the payout.”
Snow inhaled sharply, causing Killian to startle.
“Oh, I apologise, ma’am. For the poor language, I mean. I don’t… my good words aren’t in this tongue.”
“Soup’s ready!” David called from the other room, stepping out into the living room with a pleased little smile that was incredibly jarring to Emma. “I didn’t even spill any.”
“Hold on,” Snow didn’t even look at him, which told Emma just how seriously she was taking this. Good. “This tongue?”
“The pirates don’t speak my mother’s language, and they don’t teach us nice words,” Killian explained slowly, like he was beginning to grow self-conscious. Once again, he tried to remove their focus from the negatives and allow them to see the so-called positives. “At least in the future, I’m not a pirate.”
From his position, David snorted, unable to read the room. “Yeah, right.”
“David!”
“Dad!”
Killian slumped back against the couch, like his strings had finally been cut. “Well fuck. I thought I couldn’t break any more, but future me sounds really fucking broken.”
Emma’s heart shattered for this child, her husband, her Killian.
She wanted to shake him, to hold him, to say look at your life here. It’s worth it, I promise. It’s worth sticking around for.
I like you better broken, she desperately wanted to explain. We wouldn’t have met if you weren’t, and we wouldn’t have healed each other.
But looking at him, she knew none of it would help. He wouldn’t believe her, because it would be too dangerous for him to.
Emma knew because she remembered that feeling all too well.
“You’re not a pirate anymore,” David tried to make up for the blunder, grasping at straws. “And you… you’re great at duels, in the future. The best I’ve ever fought.”
“Really?” Emma couldn’t tell if he was putting on a front, or if the words had actually made a dent in his mood, but the claim perked Killian up ever so slightly. “Snakes always tells me ‘cause I favour my left-hand, I’ll never be any good.”
“Because you…” Snow echoed, cutting herself off before she could get to the crucial part.
Killian’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “What?”
Emma felt like she’d just swallowed glass, because she couldn’t save him, couldn’t save this little boy, from what had happened to him.
And maybe, selfishly, she didn’t even fully want to, because she needed the man he turned into.
How fucked up was that?
She could see her mother regretting all the grudges she held against Killian, her father mentally taking back every joke he’d made at Killian’s expense.
In the festering silence, her phone buzzed.
“It’s Gold. The antidote’s ready quicker than expected,” she remarked, even though it felt like he’d taken his sweet time. “Looks like we won’t need that soup after all.”
David sighed. “Good.”
Silently, Emma agreed.
She missed her husband, and she needed answers.