Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

For being hell, the underworld, purgatory, or whatever his family wants to call it, the place is cold.

A red tint covers as far as the eye can see. And what he sees is a hopeless version of Storybrooke. Underbrooke, he jokes to himself. Where he grew so used to seeing Moe’s roses in the flowerbeds outside of his shop, instead dried up dirt from knocked over planters are in the doorway of an abandoned shop. The clock in the tower above the library lays dismantled in the middle of main street and there’s smoke coming from just about everywhere. Granny’s sign is broken, hanging six feet from the ground by a few frayed electrical wires. It reminds him of a story he heard once where a sword hung above a throne.

“Ooohhh…” a voice breathes out in glee. He jumps away and turns to face the person who snuck up on him, eyes wide.

A woman with wild blonde hair and glossed over eyes grins at him. Teeth shaped like fangs peer out from under her lip, twinkling at him even in the red haze, and he shivers. The thick wool coat he wears helps minutely to keep out Underbrooke’s cold but did nothing to stop the chill from the woman.

“You just smell delicious,” she says, practically giggling as she speaks. She inches forward, head stretched ahead of her body, and sniffs again even as he tries to move away. “And you’re alive!” This time there is no mistaking that he is in danger the longer he’s around the woman.

Despite her lack of eyesight, her sense of smell is keenly aware of his movements as she follows him as he tries to maneuver around her, her body turning to follow his every action.

“It’s been so long since I’ve had someone alive!” She licks her lips, mouth still open in a wide grin, and he pictures a napkin around her neck and fork and knife in her hands. “And what’s your name, dear?”

He swallows. The woman has him trapped. His back is against the broken fence of the diner – Granny is meticulous about how her dining institution looks and would be offended to know this is the state its in – and her arms are extended on either side. There’s no telling what her capabilities are. She’s already proven a stellar sense of smell, and he can’t afford to attribute that just to heightened senses from her loss of sight. For all he knows, she may be a werewolf.

“Henry,” he answers. His mind is thinking too fast to even care that his voice cracked. It’s been happening more and more over recent weeks and while he gets embarrassed if he’s around friends like Grace or his moms, he has grown used to it.

“Henry,” she repeats, her voice extending every letter of his name like it’s its own word. He almost mistakes her for a snake with the way she sticks her tongue between her teeth and bites. It’s then that he realizes he’s either going to actually die in Underbrooke or he can make a go for it.

He finally manages to get away from the broken fence around the diner, his backup snagging only slightly with a quick ripping sound barely heard over the woman’s cries and makes his way into the street. “Breathe into this for me, at least!” he hears her call behind him. Instead of looking back, he rushes forward.

*

The underworld is an odd place, he decides. The souls here have jobs and duties and go about their days like they lived in Storybrooke, not caring that the clocktower remains in the middle of the street or that everything seems to be smoking and no one actually needs to be doing anything that they’re doing. There’s a line for the singular telephone booth in town and everyone who walks up to it seems to be leaving messages or crying or just adding to the hopelessness of Underbrooke in general.

He takes a hurried glance at the people in line not wanting to stay around longer than he has too. Hopelessness, he quickly learns, is contagious in Underbrooke and hope is his ticket home. The usual places are devoid of anyone he knows, both a blessing and a curse. He’s lost more than a few good people over the years and while a part of him would love to see them again, he thinks it’s better they’re not here.

Well. He hopes one person is here.

His feet bring him to the playground by the ocean. The bench by the ramp to the sand is occupied by a person who lays across it with a leather duster over his face and a pile of black under his seat. He makes his way past the figure, past the swings and the jungle gym, to the sand where he and his dad sword fought.

The memory burns in his mind, both feeling like yesterday and like forever ago. He supposes both could be true, since he lost a year because of the Wicked Witch and his memories are all jumbled still.

He didn’t get a lot of time with his dad. Neal was as much a surprise to him as he had been to the man, one of Emma Swan’s best kept and closely guarded secrets. What little time they spent together consisted of Neal letting him steer the pirate ship they stole, sword fighting across Storybrooke, and…

Henry tilts his head to the side, stopping suddenly in the sand.

Try as he might, Henry can’t think of much else they did together. Was their relationship really that shallow, was time an enemy that stole his father from him before they could really dive deeper, or was the missing year and two sets of memories messing with his recall?

A weight settles in his stomach like when he eats too much food and feels sick instead of content. It isn’t right, he thinks. He just found his dad only to be pulled away without memory of it all and then to find him again right before he died. It isn’t fair.

He continues walking, eyes on the water and seeking the calming rhythm of crashing waves to ease his nerves, coming to the edge of the retaining wall. Except there are no waves. Even on the calmest of days in Storybrooke, the water still lapped at the shoreline or against the docks in the harbor gently. Yet, as he leans over and looks down, the water in Underbrooke is eerily still.

“I wouldn’t tempt fate, lad.”

Henry jumps again at the unknown voice, though this time he’s grateful that the person it came from has kept their distance.

“Who are y–”

As Henry turns to face the stranger, his foot slips on the edging of the wall and he suddenly finds himself falling back into the water.

The stranger is quick, a reaction time that Henry wishes he had when he played a few of his videogames, and with a jerk of the straps of the backpack over his shoulders, he is upright once more. There is another tug on his backpack straps and the stranger pulls him forward, away from the water and over to the swings.

“Wh – what just happened?” he asks. His mind is reeling and he chances a glance back at the water. Calm just moments before, it now rages like a storm and is unleashing hell against the retaining wall he just stood atop.

“That, lad, was you almost being lost to Acheron.”

Henry faces forward towards the man pulling him as far from the water as possible. He only sees the back of his head, covered with thick dark hair, and his arm extended back to Henry’s backpack strap. It’s only as he notices that it’s not a hand holding onto him and his backpack but a hook that he trips.

“A little further. Keep up.”

Henry stumbles as he tries to right his footing, the man not stopping to let him regain his balance. He watches as the stranger leans down and picks up a discarded leather duster from the bench without his pace faltering. The pile of black underneath the bench begins to move as they stride away from it.

The end of the street that they step onto is empty. Henry almost thinks that there’s not a soul in sight but he isn’t well-versed enough in the ways of Underbrooke to see if that’s ironic or not.

Growing up in a town full of fairytale characters, coming from a family full of them, and now being stuck in Underbrooke, Henry can only assume whose hook this belongs to.

“Captain Hook?” he asks hesitantly. He’s sure his gulp is audible as the man swiftly turns around to face him.

Disney’s Peter Pan got it wrong. Captain Hook didn’t walk around in a long red coat with a ridiculous feathered hat or sporting a long curly mustache.

There was leather – a lot of it. And his shirt was left mostly unbuttoned, giving Henry a glimpse at more chest hair than he ever wanted to see on another person in his entire life. Instead of the maniacal mustache from the animated feature, this Hook has a clean cut of facial hair along his jaw and over his lip. His eyes are narrowed at Henry, sizing him up as if he just asked to join his crew, and Henry realizes that his eyes are the same color blue he hoped Underbrooke’s waters would be.

“Aye, I see you’ve heard of me. Yet I have not heard of you.”

He contemplates for a moment. Henry has met his fair share of villains since his mom broke the curse. Some of them had a chance for redemption, others were a lost cause, but one thing they all had in common with the heroes was that their story tended to be different from the ones he grew up with. So while a part of him is cautious around Captain Hook, he supposes he owns the man something for not letting him fall in the water. No telling how he would have gotten out of that one.

“I’m Henry Mills.”

Captain Hook continues to scrutinize him in a way that makes Henry fidget. It’s as if he’s waiting Henry out, trying to see what else he’ll see under the gaze of a fearful pirate captain, eager to know all his secrets. And Henry realizes that’s exactly what the captain’s doing.

“What’s Acheron?” he asks suddenly. Captain Hook raises an eyebrow at him, appraising him for a moment longer before he settles his hand on the buckle of his pants.

“Acheron is the River of Lost Souls,” Captain Hook answers. Henry gapes and turns his head back to the water he almost fell in. Its raging is beginning to calm but what he finally sees is the water for what it is – a dark green color that is highlighted by spots of lighter hues dodging in-between one another, swimming around – some in desperation and some in hopelessness, but all looking for someone to end the loneliness and join them.

One more, the water seems to whisper to each other.

“A touch from Acheron and your soul is stuck forever. There are a multitude of damnations one can face here forever but that has to be the worst.”

He can’t help but ask, “Why?” The water is entrancing but not for the same reason as before. While it previously lured him with the promise of calm, now he wonders about the souls stuck there forever.

“They have no hope of escape or chance to move on. While being damned in this purgatory is hell in its own right, at least some of us have the… freedom to not be locked in one place.” As he speaks, Captain Hook gestures to the pile of black at his feet.

Only at his acknowledgement did it become obvious. The pile of black formed a shape before Henry’s very eyes. He begins to notice the curves and spaces within the pile, one of black iron that looks to weigh more than the man attached to it. A slight shake of Captain Hook’s foot allows a rattling to fill his ears for the first time.

A pile of chains.

Captain Hook puts his foot back on the ground, the shackle around his ankle shifting enough that Henry hears a quiet ring of the chains.

“Some of us are damned to carry the weight of our sins with us everywhere we go.” Henry isn’t able to recognize the tone in the captain’s voice – regret, maybe, or bitterness, he’s not sure. His eyes are still stuck on the pile at his feet and he wonders how he didn’t notice it sooner. “But what I’m curious about is how someone living has been placed in the Underworld.”

He blinks. He suddenly doesn’t remember the last time he blinked. Has he been doing it without notice the entirety of his time in Underbrooke or did the people here not have to do that? Did Underbrooke townies have to eat or drink or sleep? Was there a night in a place like Underbrooke?

“Lad?” Captain Hook asks. He’s snapping his fingers in Henry’s face a few times before he blinks himself back to focus. “Lad, you have to stay with me. You’re alive and you’re not supposed to be here. The longer you’re down here then the more you’ll forget about yourself. You need to leave before you’re stuck here.”

Henry jerks back. “No! No, I can’t leave!” He shakes his head at the captain.

“That was not a request but an order,” Captain Hook growls and comes closer to him. The man didn’t scare Henry before but the low timber of his voice and the fire in his eyes, so much like Hook has his own personal hell inside of himself, shrinks Henry back as he swallows. “You need to leave now.”

The thought of leaving – after everything he went through to just get here – churns Henry’s stomach. He isn’t leaving without his dad and Captain Hook or not, he’s dealt with worse villains he’s sure, his own mom included. He survived a sleeping curse and Peter Pan who was clearly the villain of that story.

Wait.

He thinks to himself that if Pan were the villain, Hook has to be the hero. It’s like Star Wars: there has to be a balance. If there is a hero then there is a villain and since none of his time in Neverland hinted at the Darlings actually existing, Hook was his only other option. Heroes always have a soft spot to help someone in need. If Hook knew what he came down to do, then he’d help him.

Captain Hook hasn’t moved away and his face is still pinched in a fierce scowl.

Henry takes a deep breath. “I’m looking for my dad. I need to save him.”

*

Hook’s chains are clanking with every step he takes. The raging waters of Acheron must have quietened some of the sound because it rings loudly in his ears as they make their way through the cemetery.

He’s glad that, at the very least, he was right about Hook being a hero. Hearing his tale of woe, of finding his father just to lose him and wanting to save him from his unjust fate, tugged at something in Hook. The only thing he hasn’t figured out yet is why, if Hook is actually the hero, he has a long run of clanking chains following his every move in Underbrooke.

The cemetery still holds the red haze the rest of Underbrooke does. He supposes it’s just how the Underworld works – devoid of color, joy, and hope to keep everyone here in a state of stillness.

As they walk, Henry notices some tombstones are pushed over while others are cracked and some are intact. “What do they mean? The different states?”

“Hm?” Hook hums for a moment. He turns back to Henry and sees his attention on the cracked tombstone of someone named Gaston. “Oh, that, aye. You see, a crack down the middle from the top means eternal damnation. There’s no hope of moving on to one place or another. That crack is irreparable and you’re stuck here.”

“Does your tombstone have it?” Henry asks before thinking. His eyes widen and he waits for a scolding from Captain Hook but the man looks amused and raises an eyebrow in his direction.

“Aye,” he says, “Mine does as well.” He motions with his hook for Henry to follow and he does. The jovial appearance Hook wears slowly disappears and despite trying to keep it going for Henry’s sake, he’s smart for 13, almost 14. He knows when adults are lying or keeping up a façade.

A few rows over and past a couple funnels that aired smoke from hell into the underworld, Hook brings Henry over to a tombstone.

“Killian Jones?” he asks. He turns up to Hook and finds the man’s eyebrows pinched. Try as he might, Hook’s pain is plain as day on his face when Henry glances at him.

“Aye, Killian Jones. While most people know me by my more colorful moniker, it was the name I was born with and thus the name I’ve shamed these chains to.”

“Will you always have them?” Henry asks.

“Aye.”

“Why?”

“I’ve not been a good man, Henry,” he admits. Hook stands there in apprehension, waiting for Henry to run away. But Henry’s mom is the Evil Queen. It’s kind of hard to beat that in terms of evil, though Rumple – his grandpa – may have surpassed her. If his family consists of some of the most evil people from the Enchanted Forest and he’s forgiven them, he doesn’t see why he can’t extend that same courtesy to Hook.

“Trust me, you’re not the worst,” he replies instead.

“Lad, I’ve spent three centuries on a mad quest for revenge that didn’t even work. Bloody hell, it was all for nothing. A man does not hold onto his anger and his desire to kill for three hundred years without others becoming collateral damage.”

Henry eyes him warily. He thinks it’s something he gained from Emma, or maybe it’s because he’s the Truest Believer, but he doesn’t think Hook is all that bad anymore. Evil doesn’t recognize it’s evil.

“If you really were still a bad guy, you wouldn’t have saved me. You wouldn’t be helping me or telling me all this right now,” Henry tells him. Hook stares at him for a moment before reverting back to his confident and unbothered posture. “Besides, my mom’s the Evil Queen.”

At that, Hook sputters. “What.”

Henry grins up at him. “Reformed now. She’s one of the good guys.” Or, she’s trying to be one. He knows it’s not easy for his mom either. Decades were spent wrapped in her plot for revenge and once she got it, it left her unsatisfied and angrier. But she’s trying her best to be good for him and he can appreciate that, even if she still slips every once and a while. He heard someone say it’s a journey, not a slope and the image makes sense in his head.

Behind Hook’s tombstone and over to the side a few is a pushed over one. “What does that mean?” he asks as he makes his way over.

Graham Humbert.

Henry staggers back a step before he rushes forward and kneels beside the fallen stone.

Graham was a good man. There was that awkward moment when he told Henry about kissing his mom – which he later found out to be both moms – but other than that, he only holds fond memories of the once huntsman. For a long time, Graham was his only friend and then the first one to believe him about the curse. When everyone else made it seem like he was crazy, and when Emma was still in denial, having Graham’s support meant more than he knew to vocalize. It inspired new hope in him that he could help Emma break the curse.

And then he died because Regina crushed his heart and it was the first major loss he felt in his life. Sometimes he wonders if he mourned Graham harder than he did his own dad and then feels silly. Who mourns someone else more than their own dad?

Yet, faced with Graham’s tombstone in Underbrooke, it doesn’t feel so silly. He had a few good moments with his dad but Graham was his friend. He spent more time with Graham, as limited as it was, than with his dad yet he was down here for only one of them. Grandpa Gold did say that it is with his author’s power that he’ll be able to bring his dad back. He warned that it’d only work on one soul to allow them to cross back over to the land of the living, but Henry is the author. Surely he could figure something out, right?

Hook’s hand lands on his shoulder in what he supposes is a comforting gesture but instead the weight adds to his heavy heart. Graham was a good man and he didn’t deserve to be damned to Underbrooke forever. He couldn’t tell his mom.

“Ease your heart, Henry,” Hook says. “The stone was pushed over intact. It means he’s moved on and is in a better place.”

Tears fill his eyes and Henry sighs. Hook pats his shoulder and the weight that sat inside him only moments ago has disappeared. He missed Graham. He was easygoing whenever he caught Henry sneaking out and they had a few lunches at Granny’s together but he deserved to move on to a better place and he was glad he had. He lifts his gaze from the stone.

“What do the other ones mean?” he asks. Standing up, he continues, “The ones that are standing but don’t have a crack. What does that mean?”

Hook pauses. “It means they have unfinished business. They are here in the underworld, as good as damned like the rest of us, unless they are able to solve their unfinished business.”

“Well, that’s easy then!” Henry says. “I’m my dad’s unfinished business! I can still save him!”

There’s a twitch at the corner of Hook’s mouth and he nods. “Aye, you still can. What was his name again?”

“Neal Cassidy,” Henry says as they resume their walk amongst the tombstones, glancing at the names etched across each one. “But I guess if it’s your birth name on it, it’ll say Baelfire.”

“What?”

Henry stops walking and looks to his right, expecting to see Hook but finds nothing. He looks behind him and sees Hook has paused a few steps back, face set in shock but eyes grim.

“Your father is Baelfire?”

He doesn’t know how to react to the news that Hook knew his dad. The pirate tells him of how he fell in love with his grandmother Milah, how she joined his crew to escape the life she felt trapped in, even if it meant leaving behind her son. Their walk resumes as Hook talks, his eyes far away as he speaks and his only hand clenching and unclenching every so often. Rumple, in a fit of rage and revenge against them both, crushed Milah’s heart and took his hand.

It isn’t any secret that his grandfather is an evil guy, perhaps the worst of them all, but to hear how he just ripped the heart of his once love out of her chest and crushed it without a second thought of remorse, well, he wonders if Belle knows the true story. She has always been nice to him and looks for the best in people as much as he does, but he’d hate the same fate to fall on her.

Hook shares how years later, he taught his dad to sail when he was a boy, how he believed that he would do right by Milah and raise Baelfire like she wanted to go back and do so much. And how Hook let his own thirst for avenging her and the rejection by Baelfire to fuel his actions.

“I let him go, Henry. I knew it was the best course of action if he were to leave my ship, the safest one for him, but it was still myself who offered him up to Pan on a silver platter, and he was stuck in that godforsaken place nearly as long as I was.”

“I hate Pan,” Henry mumbles. The grass in Underbrooke is as stuck in a perpetual state of near dead as everything else and when he kicks at it, dirt flies up in front of him. “He manipulated me into giving him my heart.”

There’s a look in Hook’s eyes again, that one he had by the water when he was trying to figure out something about Henry, and he doesn’t know what the pirate is looking for this time.

“The heart of the truest believer,” Hook whispers, more to himself than to Henry. He only nods. “I’ve heard of why he wanted you. Don’t take this the wrong way but I’m surprised you made it out of there alive.”

For what feels like the first time since he entered Underbrooke, Henry smiles. “My family saved me. They’re all heroes, or at least trying to be ones.”

Time in Underbrooke works differently, similar to Neverland, he assumes. He hasn’t been here for even a day yet Henry feels as if there’s been weeks of separation between him and his family. The chill of this nether realm hits his bones again and he sighs, pulling his coat tighter against his body. How much time passed back home? Are they even aware he’s left?

The tombstones become a bit of a blur for a while and their walk has to have extended into miles by now. At one point, Henry stops walking, catching Hook’s attention. The pirate turns to look at him, eyebrow raised and mouth open to ask a question but Henry curls his hands into fists, digs them into his pockets, beats him to it. “What are we looking for? We’ve been walking around here for hours!”

Hook scrutinizes him but Henry turns away. All he can see is tombstones and no exit in sight. What was he doing in here? He had school today and Grams gave him a project on the efficiency of homing pigeons during war and he spent weeks expanding the topic to go into their abilities of navigation and how they were used to pass secret messages and –

“Lad?” a voice calls to him.

Henry blinks.

Turning his head reveals that Hook moved to stand in front of him, both a hand and a hook on his shoulders but Henry feels neither for a moment. He blinks again.

“Huh?”

“You need to stay with me, lad, alright?” Hook says in a quiet voice. His stare is intense and Henry can’t look away, has no desire to break his focus.

“What’s going on?” he asks but his voice sounds far away, like it came from the tree line and not his own throat.

“Stay focused, Henry. Can you do that? You want to find your father. Neal. Baelfire. Remember that. Hold on to the reason why you’re here. Do not lose hope. Aye?”

Henry is numb but he nods. Hook looks him over again before shedding the leather duster from his shoulders and placing it over Henry’s. The jacket weighs more than he thought it would have and when he digs his hands into the pockets, he feels gold coins in one and a flask in another. It’s still warm from the pirate who gave it to him and Henry takes a moment to revel in it. It feels like it’s been ages since he was this warm.

His mind is still a little fuzzy because he doesn’t think that the pile of iron binds following Killian looks as long as it did before, but instead he focuses on the clanking chains around Killian’s ankle becoming a steady beat as they walk.

“What’s happening to me?” Henry asks. He doesn’t like not knowing things. He was the one who figured out Storybrooke was cursed, he was the one who brought his mom home and figured out who everyone’s Enchanted Forest counterparts were. He’s the author – he should know where this was going!

Underbrooke is not to be underestimated, he realizes, and he’s in way over his head.

His grandfather told him he would be fine, that once he found his father, he would be able to come home. All he had to do was write it so in the storybook, along with his father’s name, and he’d be able to come home. Memory loss and brain fog were never mentioned as a warning from his grandfather. He searches his mind and realizes that he wasn’t warned of Acheron either. How could his grandfather send him in so unprepared?

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Killian explains. “You’re still alive. Your soul belongs in the realm of the living and since you didn’t die, your soul didn’t enter the Underworld the way everyone else’s does. So you’re being pulled between realms. The longer you’re here, the harder the pull to the Underworld will be and soon enough, you won’t have enough life left to allow you to go back, however you plan to do that. Your memories will be gone because they didn’t pass with you and you’ll be left here forever, never knowing what your unfinished business is.”

Henry almost tells him that he’s the author, it’s supposed to be in his power to do that, but Killian stops at two pushed over tombstones.

Milah Stiltskin.

Killian’s hand reaches over to touch the fallen tombstone and there’s such a loving reverence in his touch that it reminds him of when Gramps cradles Grams’ cheek and he turns away.

“Milah’s unfinished business was with her son. She regretted leaving him and wanted to know he was alright.” Killian looks up from Milah’s tombstone and smiles sadly. “I’m glad to know she learned he did well for himself.”

His stomach lurches. This man clearly looked towards his dad as a son or a brother or just someone important and Henry didn’t know how to tell Killian the truth.

Yeah, my dad was fun when I met him. Ten years after I was born because he was too scared of facing his dad that he sent my mom to jail for his crimes and didn’t even know I existed because my mom had to give me up and she waited around for him for two years in Tallahassee but he never showed.

Not really something he wants to tell a guy still mourning his lost love.

“I’m sorry you didn’t get to say goodbye to her,” Henry manages. Killian stands and shakes his head.

“No, I did. We made our peace and I only hoped she would find her closure.”

“But you still love her. Why didn’t she stay for you?”

The blue of Killian’s eyes seems sharper and he doesn’t know how to interpret it. He nearly apologizes but the pirate doesn’t let him. “When you love someone, really love them, you want the best for them, whether that includes you or not.”

Henry finds his gaze stuck on the pile of chains by Killian’s feet, forever shackled to his ankle for the sins he committed while he was alive. “You didn’t want her stuck here forever. You wanted to give her her best chance,” he says.

“Aye.”

The tombstone beside Milah’s, the one also pushed over, has the name hidden by dirt. Henry walks around Killian and kneels beside it, curiosity drawing him closer.

Cool to the touch, Henry brushes away the dirt before snuggling back into the heavy duster over his shoulders. It chases some of the new chill away but unlike before, not all of it. He claps his hands together to get the dirt off his palms and finally looks at the name.

Baelfire Stiltskin.

No.

“Wh-what?” Henry asks. Underbrooke shakes beneath his knees and Henry feels his vision spinning around the name on the tombstone. The pushed over tombstone.

“No, no, no. This can’t be right,” he rambles. His head looks up to Killian, praying it’s a mistake or this Baelfire isn’t his dad. He has three John’s in his grade and two Danielle’s. There has to be another Baelfire then. His dad was in his arms when he died, when he jumped in front of Zelena’s magic to save him even if it meant his own demise. His dad used his last breaths to apologize that they didn’t have more time, that he regrets not being there for him, wishing things could have been different. Wouldn’t that mean he was here? Henry comes from a family of heroes – surely his dad would have known they’d come after him and waited, right?

How is he not enough to be his dad’s unfinished business?

Silence envelops him and Killian. They sit at his father’s tombstone for some time and the only sound that meets his ears is his own breathing as his eyes refuse to move from the tombstone.

Apologies, quiet and sincere, come from Killian but Henry doesn’t have the energy to respond.

Camelot had been a quiet place too, allowing him to think about the many ways they could rid his mom of the darkness she so selflessly took on. She had nearly gone insane during that time, always speaking to an unseen figure and restraining herself to the point of pain so she wouldn’t use magic and tempt herself to the darkness. But the darkness liked the pain. It prodded her until she was forced to use her magic to save one of their own and the power that came from that was too much.

True Love’s Kiss didn’t work because of this. So they spent months in meetings with Merlin’s tree and Arthur’s round table to dispel the darkness from his mom’s heart. It was after freeing Merlin from the tree that he first heard whispers of the Underworld.

Souls who have passed but have left behind unfinished business were trapped there and waiting to be freed. Merlin mentioned banishing the darkness to the Underworld since they couldn’t cure his mom of its curse. Ultimately, they were able to reunite the two halves of Excalibur, a feat that seemed impossible before, and the darkness was gone. Yet the Underworld stuck in his head.

After everything his father said to him as he died, Henry thought his father would wait for him in the Underworld. He would be the unfinished business. If anyone were to help him save his father, it would be Grandpa Gold – Rumpelstiltskin.

But Gold said he couldn’t abandon his future son like he did to Bae, and that they couldn’t bring back someone from the dead. Henry argued – he was the author and he should be able to bend the rules and write a new story. It went against what the sorcerer’s apprentice told him to do, but this was a minor situation. After this, he would go back to recording stories as they were. So he planned with Gold to come to the lake in the middle of Storybrooke, a gateway to the Underworld that could only be unlocked by someone who had been there and returned, and he called the ferry for him. Gold wished him luck as Henry met the boat in the lake, the moon reflecting off of the dark surface of the water.

All that hard work and his dad isn’t even here.

*

They wind up back on the bench Henry first saw Killian sprawled across. The two of them sit side by side, Killian’s chains clanking against one another whenever he shifts his foot, and they watch the uneasy waves of Acheron.

“How’d you die?” Henry asks.

“Bloody crocodile,” Killian says. He turns to Henry, a bitter grin on his lips. “Thought I finally defeated the Dark One, you see. Had my hook dripped in dreamshade and stabbed the crocodile right in the heart. When he pushed me away, his arm hit my hook. Sliced his wrist but also sliced my side.” The laugh that comes from his mouth is dark and full of anger. Henry assumes it can only be at Gold besting him. “Ironic, isn’t it? My life in piracy began with dreamshade only to end with it as well.”

“He was trying to protect me,” Henry admits to Killian. “My dad. He died saving me and I came down here to save him but he’s not even here.”

“Best time to get you home then, lad,” Killian says. There’s a sadness to his voice that wasn’t there before and Henry wonders if he sees his father every time he looks at his face. “How do you plan to do it?”

Henry hesitates.

Back in Storybrooke, everyone knew he became the author. They all knew he refused to change their stories, had locked away the pen in a secret place no one thought to look. But he didn’t know what would happen if people in Underbrooke knew who he was. Killian watched his face and sighed.

“There’s an apartment I know of. It’s abandoned and no one has stepped foot in it beside myself in the years I’ve been here.” Henry raises his eyebrows when Killian says this. “It’s private and safe, so you may keep your secrets, whatever they are.”

Where Killian leads him to, funnily enough, is the loft.

He doesn’t remember the last time he stepped into the loft. They only just recently returned from Camelot before he went on his mission to save his dad. In fact, he wonders if his bedroom upstairs is the same…

Henry rushes up the stairs and sees his bed covered in a white sheet. That’s weird, he thinks to himself. He’s only ever seen abandoned homes have their furniture covered in movies. Except, the loft isn’t abandoned. Grams and Gramps just made him pancakes this morning. He only just cleaned his plate and was looking forward to playing one of his videos. The name slips his mind now, something about duty or calling for someone, and he scratches at the side of his head as he tries to remember what console he played it on.

Did he always sleep upstairs in the loft? A part of his mind remembers another bedroom, in a large white house, but that can’t be right. He’s only ever lived in apartments, none of which had any green space for him to play in.

A shaking motion rattles him to his bones and he thinks it an earthquake. As he blinks away the fog that overtook his mind, he realizes that it’s Killian, his wrists on his shoulders, shaking him.

“Stay. Focused.”

Henry swallows and nods but Killian doesn’t remove his wrists.

When the fog comes over his mind, he doesn’t even know it’s happening and that thought alone terrifies him. What if he can’t break out of it? Does he remain in Underbrooke for the rest of his life, no idea how to get himself to cross over? Tears fill his eyes and he wishes he were home with his moms. This trip to the Underworld, this mission to save his father, wasn’t worth it.

“Listen to me, Henry, alright? I’m going to stay here. Whatever you need to do, your secret is safe with me. I will make sure you get home, got it? I promise.” The earnest look in Killian’s eyes reminds him of his moms when he was in Neverland, how they refused to let him lose hope and continued fighting to get to him.

“I’m the Author,” Henry whispers. Killian steps back in shock and stares at him.

Most of the people he encountered from the Enchanted Forest knew they were fairytale characters. Nearly all of them had their cursed memories from being in Storybrooke and, while they still believed they were of their own free will, recognized that someone had the power to pull their strings. He wasn’t sure how to explain this to Killian but the man only nods his head.

“My many centuries let me learn much about our realm.” He nods at Henry. “From what I can tell, you are much better than the last author.”

Henry shakes his head and shrugs his backpack onto the covered bed, sneezing at the dust that flies up. “Tell me about it. Anyone’s better than Isaac Heller at this point.”

The book he pulls from his backpack isn’t the one he’s grown so fond of. Instead it is a blank copy from the mansion on the outskirts of Storybrooke, a vast number of untouched copies available at his fingertips. Despite all the adventures in Storybrooke since the curse broke, he still hasn’t been added to the storybook. He figured for his own adventure, he’d need his own book.

The pen calls to his fingers and he soon clasps the magical item, pulling it from the depths of his bag. It glows as he holds it up and Killian stares from his spot in the room, one eyebrow raised and his mouth slightly ajar.

“Magnificent,” he whispers to himself. Proud, Henry straightens up.

He brings his bag, book, and pen downstairs to the table with Killian following behind him. Being in the loft is a solace similar to the way the leather duster is that still sits atop his shoulders. It’s not the same as actually being in the loft, but there’s an effort made to be comfortable and Henry reaches for it with all his being. Comfort, like warmth, is rare in Underbrooke.

Killian stands beside the table with his hand on his sword, eyes darting to the door and the windows as Henry opens to the first page, pristine and white without a single word. He glances at the pirate’s protective stance, the only man he’s met besides Gramps that’s kept his word, and bites his tongue as he writes.

Disappointed but now full of knowledge, a portal opened in the Underworld to bring Henry Mills home.

The words shine on the page and with a twinkle become solid black ink. Muscles tense in anticipation, Henry waits.

Yet nothing happens.

No whirling vertex appears like the one that stole him away to Neverland. No spinning hat like the one that took his mom and grandma. No door, no Narnia wardrobe, no Harry Potter portkey – heck, he’d even take a DeLorean if it gets him out of here. But there is absolutely nothing.

“Everything alright, lad?” Killian asks, only chancing a glance back at him before returning to inspecting the entryways. Who knew what would happen if the souls down here could sense his power?

“Uh, yeah! Just another minute!”

At the end of his adventure, a portal opened to bring the Author home to Storybrooke.

Only Henry’s breathing fills the silence of the loft and he is met with crushing disappointment as yet again, nothing happens. He falls to his seat, head in his hands, and desperately tries not to cry.

Grandpa Gold told him this was how he was to get home with Neal. That his Author powers would allow him to get home since they couldn’t use the ferry again. Did Grandpa Gold know it wouldn’t work?

No, he couldn’t have. This was a mission to save his son, he wouldn’t jeopardize that after spending years and traveling realms to save him.

But in the back of his mind, hollow words belonging to the prophecy that hung over Gold’s head rings in his ears. The words refuse to come to him and try as he might, nothing he did could bring back the memory of hearing what it was. When was it that he heard it again? Was it in Neverland when –

“Bloody hell.”

Henry looks up at Killian to see the pirate looking over the paper he wrote on. At the top, his writing begins to disappear and Henry cries out. He rushes forward to rewrite the sentences, hoping that maybe if they stay there, something will eventually happen. When he tries, his hand moves of its own accord and Henry gives into his abilities. He closes his eyes and lets his pen write.

Killian sucks in a breath next to him and as Henry finishes writing a short passage, he sees a picture begin to form on the next page. It’s his family, the one he left to go on this pointless mission, and they’re all together in this loft, home in Storybrooke, and trying to find where he went.

A sob catches in his throat and Henry slams the pen into the book before slamming it shut. Killian is hesitant before he wraps his arms around Henry’s shoulders but once he does, the waterworks don’t stop.

He cries. He cries for his family and for leaving them behind without saying goodbye. He cries because he is stuck in this godforsaken hellscape for the rest of eternity. He cries because he loved his father so much and risked everything to save him but his father didn’t love him enough to stay for him and God, is this what Mom felt like?!

He has no way to get home, no family in Underbrooke to stay with, and no idea what he is going to do next.

*

Thankfully, Killian has an idea.

It’s not one that will get him home but it’s one that brings back a spark of hope. As the truest believer, he knows hope is the most important thing he can hold onto right now and it seems Killian knows that too.

The pirate guides him to the line at the telephone booth. Still as long as when he last visited, whenever that had been, and the hopelessness threatens to burn out the flame of hope he’s lit inside. He tugs Killian’s duster tighter around his frame, the jacket doing more to keep out the emotions of Underbrooke and the chill than his wool coat even attempted.

“Excuse us,” Killian says gruffly. He isn’t afraid to flash his hook and, while it doesn’t get more than a disinterested glance, the line does back up a few paces. They cut to the front and once the woman leaves the telephone booth, they squeeze inside.

“What do I do?” Henry asks. Killian hands him the phone and looks over at the numbers, pressing the zero and then turning to him.

“When the operator picks up, tell them who you wish to speak to. It only works one way, so they can’t respond, but this will be the best way to communicate with your family for now.”

*

Be it mother’s intuition or her powers as the Savior but Emma knew the moment that Henry disappeared. He didn’t disappear in the normal sense like kids do when they sneak out in the middle of the night.

No, Emma awoke in the middle of the night with a gasp and her heart clenching painfully tight in her chest like it had when Cora reached in to take it. An emptiness settled over her in a way that brought her back to being the hospital room with her ankle shackled to the bed and arms with no baby.

Three days later and the empty feeling continues to grow in her chest and she forgot what it felt like to breath without it being painful. Every second without her son is another crack and twist of her heart.

Storybrooke has been searched far and wide with both magical and non-magical means. The locator spell Regina cooked up yielded no results, neither did the one Gold did either. Her mind tugs at her whenever she’s with Gold though and she knows that he knows something. He refuses to move his point, no matter Emma’s methods, and it irks her that he could leave her son out alone and without a care for it. His own grandson.

Sleep eludes her and Emma finds herself staring up at the ceiling of the loft and feeling colder than she had since she was 16.

Mom…

Emma sits up in alarm. Her eyes search the upper room of the loft with no results. She swore she heard her son’s voice.

Mom…

Again, Emma looks to find nothing, both upstairs and downstairs. She settles herself under the covers again and believes herself to be going crazy. She’s been hoping to hear his voice so much that she is starting to drive herself insane.

Mom… Henry. I’m…

A tightness closes over her chest and Emma loses her breath. It is her son. He’s trying to communicate from wherever he is, which is certainly not Storybrooke, and Emma closes her eyes so she can focus solely on the voice in her ear. Magic comes to life at her fingertips as she works to strengthen their connection.

Mom, it’s Henry. I’m so sorry about everything. I was trying to find Dad and bring him back but he’s not here. I’m so sorry. I tried to write myself out of here but it didn’t work. I’m with Killian and he’s trying to help me but we don’t know what we’re doing or how to get me out of the Underworld.

Her breath leaves her throat in a loud gasping sob and Emma feels the tears streaming down her face.

“Hen – Henry,” she whimpers into the dark of her bedroom. Her magic tickles and Emma puts all of her power into her message. “Henry, kid, I love you. It’s going to be okay. I’m going to get you out of there. I love you. I’m coming.”

She waits in silence and listens but no other message comes through. Kicking the blankets off of her body, she rushes down the steps to her parents room, not giving a care in the world that little Leo just fell asleep.

“Mom, Dad, I heard him. I heard Henry,” Emma says in a rush. She’s shaking her parents awake and they blink up at her blearily. She repeats herself twice before it clicks in and then they shoot out of bed.

“Henry?!” David exclaims.

“Is he alright? Where is he?” Snow chimes in.

Reality crashes down on Emma. As wonderful as it was to hear her son’s voice, she doesn’t know where to go from there and tears well up at the thought. Her boy, her brave boy with more faith in his pinky than most people have in their bodies, stuck in purgatory. Alone. “The Underworld.”

*

Emma sits at the table in the loft, a cup of hot chocolate clasped tightly between her hands, and her stare set straight on the wooden top.

“What exactly was said?” Regina asks for what Emma swears is the millionth time. The response is robotic now. Emma played Henry’s message in her head so many times that she memorized the lilt of terror in his voice, the waver on some of his words, and the panic at the end. Her little boy was scared and alone in the Underworld and she had no idea how he got there or how to get him.

“Wait, did you say Killian?” her mom asks. Emma stutters, trailing off instead of finishing her repetition. When her gaze meets her mother’s, Mary Margaret is gone and Snow White has taken her place. There’s a fierce protectiveness to the way she clenches her jaw and Emma recognizes the glint of a hunter in her mother’s eyes.

“Yeah, that’s what Henry said.”

Regina throws up her hands, “Well that’s just great. Our son has made a friend with a doomed soul that we know nothing about.”

“That’s not exactly true,” Snow interrupts. Emma furrows her eyebrows. Killian must be someone her mom knows from the Enchanted –

It dawns on her then. The man who posed as a blacksmith who escaped Cora’s massacre and pleaded for help. Who she almost left tied to a tree until he told her –

“Killian Jones,” Emma groans.

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

Snow shares a look with Emma before answering Regina. “Captain Hook.”

*

Being in Underbrooke is like one never-ending day. There’s no night but there’s also no sun. The town, or whatever this place is, is lit up enough under the red haze that it constantly feels like midday. Henry thinks his time here would be going easier if he could separate it into days, kind of like Neverland, but he’s learned that nothing in life is easy.

After visiting the telephone booth, or haunting booth as one person called it, Killian ushered him back to the Underbrooke version of his family’s loft.

“Do you think she got it?”

“Regina? Aye, she’s got magic and if she –”

“I wasn’t talking about Regina,” Henry interrupts. He’s been in Storybrooke for so long that he forgets not everyone knows the details of his complicated and intertwined family history. “Regina adopted me when I was a baby.”

Killian huffs out a laugh. “I’m glad to hear that, lad.” He scratches behind his ear and Henry realizes that Captain Hook, the Captain Hook, is sheepish. “I was a bit frightened to hear that Regina and Baelfire were both your parents. I feared his stint on Neverland turned him dark.”

Henry nods and swallows back the idea that even if Neal wasn’t evil, per say, he still wasn’t as good of a man as the idea of him Killian put on a pedestal.

“If Regina is your… adoptive mother, then do you know who your birth mother is?”

“Yeah!” There’s a pep in Henry’s step as he pulls off the bedsheets over the furniture, turning his head away to avoid the dust. “My birth mom is Emma Swan. She’s the Sav–”

“Swan?” Killian asks. The catch in his voice is interesting, as is the grin that threatens to quirk up at the mere mention of her name. Henry eyes the pirate, not sure what he’s thinking of concerning his mom.

“Yeah. Do you know her?” He’s aware of the time his mom and Grams spent in the Enchanted Forest, and the fights in Storybrooke with Cora…

…and Hook.

How could he forget that Hook still was a villain? What did he think earlier? The rule of balance? But if Peter Pan and Captain Hook were both villains, then who was the hero in Neverland? And Captain Hook hasn’t seemed like a villain since meeting him in Underbrooke. Then again, he did have the pile of chains that followed him around with every step he made.

What did he hear of last of Hook in Storybrooke? Was it when he arrived on his ship with Cora? He struggles to remember even as he searches his mind for an answer and his fists clench the sheet in his hands.

Why was he holding this sheet? Was it his turn to do wash today? Ugh. He hated doing the wash. When he lived with Emma in New York, they always just shoved it into the machine but David likes to separate the whites from the colors and the –

Killian coughs and Henry blinks.

For all the tales he heard of Captain Hook, seeing him flustered and blushing was not one.

He observes Killian scratching at the back of his ear again and fights back a grin. Did Killian have a crush on his mom?

“Aye. We’ve had some… interactions, you can say.” He smirks slightly and gives Henry a teasing wink. “I think I left an impression.” Underneath the teasing, Killian’s eyes hold a fondness that makes Henry wonder what exactly went down between the pirate and his mom.

The bedsheet crumples in his hand as he thinks of his mom. Agitation crawls up his spine like a family of spiders reaching a perch, and he shivers. The urge is there, heavy in his chest, to go back down to the telephone booth, to hog the phone and keep talking until his voice is hoarse and then just breathe in and breathe out so his mom knows he’s alive. He figures if he waits long enough and tries hard enough, she’ll be able to get a message back.

“Do you think she heard me?” he asks. “Do you think my mom heard my message?”

“Do you believe she did?”

He has to. If he doesn’t believe she heard it then he doesn’t have a chance. Grams once said that believing in even the possibility of a happy ending is a powerful thing and right now, that’s all he has. Belief and hope and faith in himself and his family to save him.

“I do,” Henry answers resolutely.

Killian grins like Henry made the right choice and he’s proud of him. “Then I do too. Between the Savior and the heart of the Truest Believer? I doubt there’s anything you’ll fail at.”

*

Killian makes him share stories about his family and his life in Storybrooke. Maybe it’s not fair to say makes, but he heavily encourages it. Henry is tired and it hurts to talk but Killian asks for stories and he obliges.

After the first line of questioning from the man, he realizes what he’s doing. Killian is trying to make sure he doesn’t forget and to give him more time before his mom saves him. If he remembers, then there’s still a chance.

When Killian notices the beginnings of a brain fog overtaking his mind, he changes the subject, his line of questioning bringing Henry’s head back to a moment of clarity. Despite how much he talks, he doesn’t thirst for water and his mouth doesn’t dry. It concerns him for a moment but he reassures himself that he’s still alive, albeit in limbo, when his chest still rises steadily with his breathing and Killian’s does no such thing.

The storytelling isn’t one-sided, thankfully. He’s always been open and honest with the people he meets but being in Underbrooke has left him raw and vulnerable and he’s afraid he doesn’t have any more layers to pull back for their impromptu show-and-tell. Killian recognizes this and tells Henry of his time in the royal navy, of his turn to piracy, the different treasures he found. He also tells Henry of his mistakes, the things he regrets. How he wishes it didn’t take him making peace with Milah, breaking her already crushed heart with the truth of his life after her murder, to recognize how far off the path he’d fallen from being the man he once hoped to be.

“How come you have the chains?” Henry inquires after that particular story. Though he hasn’t had the chance to explore all of Underbrooke, he’s seen enough to know that Killian is the only person with a pile of chains following him.

Said chains jostle when Killian readjusts himself on the recliner in the living room of the loft. He rests his unshackled leg across the knee of his shackled one and plays with the rings on his hand. A ruby red jeweled ring hangs from his neck, the shiniest of them all and unlike two of the gawdy pieces that adorn his fingers.

“I made a deal with the devil,” Killian says.

“I thought this wasn’t hell.”

“It’s not,” Killian says. “But it might as well be for some of us. And Hades may not be the devil but he acts like one.”

He hesitates for only a moment before asking his next question. “What was the deal?”

Killian is a master at hiding his emotions – most of the time, at least. He guesses the man was a killer poker player without even needing to stack the deck. But his veneer cracks and Henry practically sees the bitterness that’s taken home in Killian’s expression.

“I was destined for Acheron when I came down here,” he reveals and Henry’s stomach drops. “My list of unfinished business is far longer than most that come down here and there are some things that I will never be able to complete… But I struck a deal with Hades. If I were to be stuck down here, then let it be with anything other than Acheron. A sailor’s love is the sea and a dangerous temptress she is. But I wouldn’t let her swallow me.”

“So you made a deal and he gave you the chains instead?”

“Not exactly. First, I was a chew toy for Cerberus.” Killian uses his hook to lift his shirt and despite the state of limbo, there are scars littering across his ribs and stomach that are fresher than the ones Henry sees curling around to his back. He drops the shirt back down after a moment. “Once Cerberus got bored, Hades figured he’d use me.”

“What did he do?”

“Replaced my hook with a chisel. When I didn’t carve the names of innocents to bring them to the Underworld, he gave me a carving all for myself.”

He isn’t sure if he wants to see it or not. Killian waits for his approval before using his hook once again, this time to roll up the sleeve of his right arm. There’s a jagged scar across his forearm and amongst it is the shape of a disarrayed heart. Redness lines the edges of the scarring and Killian hisses as his shirt sleeve brushes against it. If he looks carefully, Henry could mistake the scar for a tattoo.

His eyes fall to the chains, a tinny sound filling the apartment when they rub against each other from Killian’s movements. “How did you end up with the chains then?”

“Hades didn’t get the kind of reactions he wanted from me. Figured it would hurt me more to see the weight of the sins I can’t wash away.” Killian observes the chains and closes his eyes, taking a deep breath.

When he first saw Killian at the bench by the water, the chains were a threat of black without a form. They haunted Killian’s being like a shape in the shadows waiting to pounce. Then, they took up the entirety of the space beneath the bench. Now, in the light of the apartment, the large mass looks small settled in its pile by his feet. If his mind hadn’t been playing tricks on him all day, he’d think there were less links on the chain.

“Do you regret it?” Henry asks. His eyes are feeling heavy and he figures that days have gone by in Storybrooke. His body is feeling the exhaustion and although it doesn’t need food or drink, it wants sleep. But will he wake if he sleeps?

“Until very recently, yes.”

That catches his attention. He sits up from where he began slouching on the couch and meets Killian’s gaze straight on.

“I’ve lived three centuries, Henry. That’s more life than any man should live, but it was all I knew. After spending some time down here, I don’t think I’ve felt a lonelier existence in all that time. Acheron would be a terrible fate, yes, but worse so is being alone forever.”

“You don’t have anyone else down here besides Milah?” Though Milah moved on, surely Killian had family. He told Henry about his brother so his brother had to be down here too. “What about Liam?”

Killian’s smile is quick but sad. “I was able to reunite with him, and it was more than I could have ever hoped for. He would have stayed here with me, not allow himself to move on, but he deserved better.”

“You wanted him to have his best chance…”

“Aye.”

It always comes down to best chances. Henry almost finds himself sick of the idea. All anyone did when they were trying to give someone else their best chance is get hurt. Would it be better to not do that? But then he wouldn’t have both of his moms and all the family he gained in Storybrooke and maybe a little pain is worth it in the long run.

He lets out a yawn, his eyes fluttering closed, and tries to sit up again only to relax back into the cushions.

“Rest, lad,” Killian whispers. Henry can barely keep his eyes open but he feels something being draped over his body.

“I don’t want to,” he tries to fight back but his words are more of a mumble than a defiant roar. “I’m scared.”

“No need to worry,” Killian says. Iron links click and clack as the pirate moves about the room. When Henry feels the couch dip beside him, he knows its Killian. There’s a gentle press on his shoulder and Henry submits to it. His head falls onto a pillow and the hand on his shoulder doesn’t move. “Sleep, and I’ll protect you.”

*

“Is there a way to the Underworld?” Emma asks the moment Regina enters the loft.

“Yes,” Regina begins. “But we’re not doing it.”

“I think that should be up to us to decide,” Snow cuts in, David nodding his agreement at her side.

Regina rolls her eyes. Emma can practically hear the sarcasm in the action. “Well that’s all fine and dandy but I meant that we don’t have the means.”

David crosses his arms and Emma imagines this is what her father looked like in the Enchanted Forest. A united front with her mother as they planned to take back their kingdom from Regina. “What do you need?”

“The blood of someone who died and has come back to life.”

Emma perks up. “Yes, we can do it.”

“And how do you imagine we can? Do you have a vial of someone’s revived blood in the cabinet next to the cinnamon, Miss Swan?”

She ignores Regina’s remark and turns to David. Her pleading eyes asking for his understanding and she knows before she even utters her question that he will help. “Dad. You died. Back in the Enchanted Forest when Mom cast the Dark Curse until she shared her heart and brought you back to life.”

Realization dawns on both of her parents and Emma feels the hope in her chest begin to flutter.

“Will it work?” David’s eyes are focused over her shoulder and there’s such a desperation to his voice that makes Emma want to cry. She forgets sometimes, since she was only a baby when it happened, but her parents know what it feels like to lose a child and not be able to save them.

Their hopes, however, come crashing down with Regina’s minute shake of her head.

“I’m afraid not,” she reveals. Her words twist Emma’s heart. Henry is her son too and she wouldn’t be turning down an opportunity to save him, no matter the cost. Emma had been on the receiving end more times than she can count of how far Regina would go for Henry. “You died, yes, but to reach the Underworld, you need to have been there. You weren’t dead long enough for your soul to leave your body and enter Underworld. Your blood won’t work.”

Silence rains down on the group in heavy piles. Shoulders are tense and faces are downtrodden. The only other way for someone to go to the Underworld is if one of them died with unfinished business and she is really not in the mood to have to save two souls.

Her knowledge of the Underworld is limited and if she hadn’t been able to merge the two parts of Excalibur to get rid of the darkness, she would have run herself through with the sword and be damned there herself. Anything to get rid of the darkness and make sure no one else could become the Dark One.

The words, the title that Rumpelstiltskin proudly paraded around for centuries, are a key turning a lock. Her mind floods with the possibilities and her mouth doesn’t work fast enough to voice them all.

“Gold,” she manages.

“What?” Snow asks. Her hand drifts down to Emma’s shoulder, a comforting gesture through the confusion, she supposes, but Emma barely notices.

“Gold is the key. When he was dying, I took on the darkness. There has never been two people who were the Dark Ones alive at the same. He died and came back. We need Gold’s blood.”

*

When he sleeps, he dreams of nothing. The comforting hand on his shoulder is a tether keeping his soul grounded and calm. It doesn’t compare to when one of his mothers sits by his bedside when he’s sick but it’s a close second.

When he wakes, his senses come rushing back. First is the itchiness of the white bedsheet over his frame. The borrowed leather duster he wears still holds most of the warmth but he appreciates the gesture of the sheet. Next, he notices that the pillow his head rests on is situated on top of Killian’s knees and that the man hasn’t moved an inch since he fell asleep.

“Killian?” Henry calls, groggily. He slowly sits up and turns to him.

“What is it, lad?” Killian’s worry is familiar. His voice tilts down an octave and his words are rushed in the way his moms get when they think some new storybook villain has appeared in town and he gets involved.

“I need to find a storybook.”

He explains on the way to the author’s mansion that his writing isn’t taking when he tries in the new book. Although the book he brought is sharing the stories from Storybrooke, the last being his grandparents hovering over research books, his own stories aren’t translating across realms. “If I can get a storybook from Underbrooke, then maybe what I write in it will be able to get to my family. We have the telephone booth, but with this we can sort of get two-way communication.”

Killian stumbles behind him, his foot caught on a chain link, and calls out, “Underbrooke?”

The name slipped out. He honestly didn’t even mean to say it, but he’s been letting the name go around in his head this entire time that he didn’t even think.

Now that Killian questions it, Henry isn’t sure where Underbrooke came from. It sounds like a play on words and Henry repeats name under his breath. His eyebrows are pinched and his eyes drift far away as he tries to remember but nothing comes to him. Did he give this place that name or is it officially called Underbrooke?

“Underbrooke, huh?” he hears someone repeat next to him. The person’s face is a blur but Henry feels a blue-eyed gaze narrowed at him. The voice continues speaking, “Underbrooke – kind of like Storybrooke. That’s where you’re from, isn’t it Henry?”

Henry shakes his head and blinks hard. Killian’s face comes into focus and he’s become used to the expression on it to know his mind drifted off into the brain fog. “Sorry,” he apologizes but Killian waves him off.

The mansion dipped in the red haze brings about an unease that settles between his shoulder blades. A foreboding presence greets them at the door and for a moment, he worries that Isaac Heller has died and his unfinished business is revenge on Henry for taking his job. But the mansion is empty and the cobwebs prove its unuse.

He accesses the secret room with the empty storybooks the same way he did back home. Killian’s amazement and wonder at Henry’s ease makes him feel cool. The idea that anything he did could impress Captain Hook was definitely something he’d tell Violet and Grace when he got home.

Storybooks in Underbrooke are dark with worn leather that flakes off at the slightest hint of the wrong touch. Its pages are as black as the night sky and his pen trembles when he lifts it to write. The glow has returned and Henry feels the warmth in his fingertips. He imagines that warm tickle is what his moms must feel when they use their magic – their light magic.

He warned Killian as they walked up to the mansion when happens when he gives into the magic of the pen and writes but he can still see the apprehension in the man’s posture as Henry’s eyelids flutter shut and his hand whips across the page.

It’s a few minutes before he opens his eyes again but Killian is giving him that look like he’s never seen anything as cool as this and he grins at the man.

“What do we do now?” Killian asks.

Henry shrugs. “We wait.”

*

Gold is nowhere to be found. The location spells they’ve attempted only give dead ends from promising leads.

“It’s the residuals of his magic,” Regina told her. “He doesn’t have it anymore but the magic he cast while he did is still lingering. For God knows how long.”

Still, he was their key to getting Henry back so she resorted to her bail bonds tactics. Computer softly playing an old Fall Out Boy song in the background as she searches, she almost misses the flickering of pages. It’s as ‘Our Lawyer Made Us Change the Name of This Song So We Wouldn’t Get Sued’ fades into ‘The Kids Aren’t Alright’ that she hears the book.

Her head swivels fast and her eyes search for a boy with brown hair and the brightest smile in the world. Nothing but empty space meets her. She figures her mind must be playing tricks on her, her search for her son driving her to insanity already, but her magic tugs at her fingertips. It calls to her to go to the book, pulling at her gut. And Emma Swan always listens to her gut.

When she makes her way over to the countertop, Henry’s storybook is open but the tale the page tells isn’t one she’s heard before. The picture on the opposite side is still forming and at the shape of his head, Emma comes to tears. She knows. She already knows that her brilliant boy is finding a way to talk to her, to let her know what is happening to him.

The words appearing on the page tell her the story of how Henry contacted her from the telephone booth. Her blurry eyes lose track of her sentence but her fingers gently run down the side of his face drawn on the opposite page. Five days without her son feels like a lifetime. She gives herself a few more minutes admiring his drawing before sucking in a breath and steeling herself to return to her search for Gold. He would not slip through her fingers.

*

The storybooks quickly become a way to communicate and it exhausts the lad. Time passes differently for those stuck in the Underworld and what may have been just a few hours wherever he’s from has been stretched out in the timeless expanse of this hellscape.

In what’s quickly become a ritual, Killian covers Henry with a bedsheet and lets the boy get some uninterrupted rest after using so much magic with the pen.

Henry isn’t the first child he’s seen in the Underworld. He’s been unfortunate enough to see those poor souls, lost so young and not understanding where they are. If he had a heart, he supposes it’d have clenched up at the sight. Henry, however, is the first child in the Underworld who’s alive.

Or the first anyone who’s alive.

There had been rumors in the past of a couple separated by death until one made a deal with Hades to restore life to his lover. There are variations of how the tale ends, some romantically and others tragically, but the truth is buried as far deep as hope in this hopeless place.

Except for Henry.

With every breath Henry takes, he instills more hope in Killian than he’s had in centuries. The lad has loved ones – bloody powerful loved ones at that – fighting to get him home and he realizes that perhaps there is still a chance at salvation. Not for him, he thinks glumly as he looks at his sins physically manifested around his ankle, but for others.

He hates the chain.

He’s not sure if it is Hades doing or his guiltiness overwhelming his mind but he swears that every link on the chain has a name inscribed on it to remind him of a life he stole or an act he committed to remind him of how vile he was. There’s Jameson who he sliced through with his sword when he saw him hovering over the captain’s treasure. And there’s Franklin who he tied to the mast upside down before tossing him overboard for trying to take a woman while she was passed out (that one he feels was justified and isn’t miffed at having it around his ankle). There’s also Mikey who –

Killian’s eyebrows scrunch together and his eyes narrow as he inspects his chain. The link he dedicated to Mikey, the guy who he killed for stealing his rum, isn’t where it usually sits. He’s spent enough time in the Underworld to know the exact listing of every piece of his chain and who he dedicated it to that he’d know when one was missing.

Shaking his head, Killian wants to laugh at himself. He must be going crazy if he thought a link went missing. The weight around his ankle never changed and he hadn’t seen the man in over a century and a half. The ship for finding closure with that unfinished business has sailed.

He may not be able to wash his hands of his blood or free his ears of the clanking every time his chain moves, but he will do what he can to save Henry.

Bags are starting to form under the lad’s eyes and Killian wishes he could take over those writing responsibilities so he didn’t have to wear himself out all the time. But that’s not how magic works, especially powerful magic like that belonging to the Author. He learned his lesson early in his quest for revenge when he met the Apprentice.

When he checks outside the loft window, Killian groans quietly. The line for the telephone is dwindling but he balks at the idea of waking Henry from his peaceful slumber. When he wakes later, Killian will just cut the line again and threaten with his hook if anyone were to cause a problem.

Still…

His eyes turn to Henry’s sleeping form.

The Author’s pen in Killian’s hand acts like any other writing device. There’s no magical property to be felt or price to pay for what he creates. He simply writes Henry a note in case he wakes up, rips the page out with his hook, and leaves.

It feels smaller this time, he decides. Last time he was able to leave his chain out on the sidewalk, the hurry to get in contact with the lad’s family too important to care about whatever punishment may befall him if the wrong person tripped on it. But now he wants no distractions so he hauls the chain into the telephone booth with him and closes his eyes before picking up the receiver.

Killian is no stranger to speaking to himself. He lives – lived – on a magical ship at sea that really didn’t need a crew so when he required time for himself, he’d sail out to the North Sea by himself and anchor for a few weeks. Speaking to himself kept him sane on the water. Speaking in the telephone booth with no one to respond to makes him insane.

Once connected to who he wants to speak to, he licks his lips and opens his mouth.

*

Sssw…

Emma flicks her wrist out beside her ear. Her eyes are stuck on the page of an old tome, probably the fourth she’s inspected in the last hour alone, and the buzzing in her ear from whatever fly got into the loft is really pissing her off.

Sssw… Swan…

Her head jerks up. Hook?!

His voice rings in her ears the same way Henry’s did and she sits up straight, her back wrought with tension. All that followed Hook was trouble so if he is the one contacting her then something must have happened. She waits for his voice again and while doing so, she drags the storybook over to her and begins flicking through the pages, looking for some sort of sign that Henry is okay.

Swan… Bloody hell, I hope you can hear me through this blasted contraption. Love, your boy is okay for the most part. But I need to be honest with you. He can’t be down here much longer. I’m doing what I can to help him remember but the Underworld has a powerful pull and his lapses in memory are becoming more frequent. If he can’t remember then there’s no way to bring him back. Right now he’s exhausting himself writing in that damned book. I understand it’s helping you both communicate and your boy finds a comfort in it but we need to figure out something else because –

Emma swallows. Her hand writes his message furiously as he speaks and when he stops suddenly, she worries that their connection has been broken. All she understands from Henry’s stories is that there’s a telephone booth that allows the undead to communicate with the living. She pulls at her magic and lets the warmth fill her.

“Hook?” she asks hesitantly.

She’s not sure if he hears her but he resumes talking almost immediately.

Bloody hell, love, how could I forget?! Swan, I do hope you’re listening. If not, I’ll return later and say the same. I have another way for you to communicate with your boy and it’s a great deal better than that book.

*

Emma’s only been on the Jolly Roger once before, when they stole the ship from Hook back in New York. The ship hadn’t been happy then and they experienced rough seas all the way back to Storybrooke.

Yet the gangway beneath her feet pays no mind and Emma can feel the sadness in the enchanted wood of the ship before her. She’s not sure how but the Jolly knows her captain is gone and the idea that it has been in mourning, let alone in the harbor with no one allowed aboard through the magical enchants, for years tugs at her heartstrings. Before Henry came back into her life, she never would have paid mind to the feelings of a ship but magic has changed her.

Her own reaches out to the ship and she feels a gentle nudge in the way a cat bumps its head against its owner’s hand. Curiosity seeps into the wood of the ship and Emma takes a deep breath, looking around the harbor to ensure she’s alone, and whispers the password Hook whispered in the Underworld telephone. “Alice.”

The enchantments part and Emma steps through the gap. Magic wraps around her like curtains billowing in the wind, calming her racing heart. The Jolly knows she means no harm this time and the boards are welcoming and dry despite the heavy rain last night.

It takes her a few wrong turns before she finds the captain’s quarters. The room is neat and organized. The bed against one wall of the room is so nicely made that she bet she could bounce a quarter off of it. His desk has one lone piece of paper on it and while her curiosity begs her to read it, she instead focuses her task on finding what she needs.

“I need to speak quietly,” his voice said in her ear, volume just above a whisper. “There’s a necklace beneath my mattress. The charm on that necklace acts as a key. Use it to open the vault behind a painting of a cottage. In it you will find a small conch shell. You may need to wield that wonderful magic of yours, love, but you should be able to use it to speak to your lad.”

Emma finds the key with relative ease but the vault not so much. Hook has three pictures of cottages on the walls of his ship and the one that could actually hold the vault still has a fake panel over it. She swings the portrait out, slides out the fake panel, and inserts the charm into the lock.

His vault, like much of everything in his cabin, is neat. There are a few pieces of parchment paper, a drawing of a beautiful woman, a modest ring, a dirty rag, and a conch shell.

Magic tickles at her fingertips and Emma expects an electric shock when she touches the coral shell but all she feels is warmth. The shell is tiny in her grasp and it hums quietly pressing vibrations into her palms. Her eyes close as she cradles it and her mind thinks of Henry; how much she misses him and how much she loves him and how much she wants to bring him home.

She hesitates for a moment, not sure what to do, and then holds her palm close to her mouth and speaks.

“…Hook?” she asks no one.

“Swan?”

The conch shell glows in her hand. She stares in wide-eyed shock as his breathless voice repeats, “Swan? Is that you?”

The Jolly sways pleasantly on the harbor and Emma swears that it hears his voice by the soothing motions. A spark comes from her fingertips. Her lips are dry and her jaw drops open as she stares at the shell in shock. She fumbles through her words but manages to say, “Yeah, Hook. It’s me.”

“Bloody hell, love. Miss me?”

She huffs out a laugh, bittersweet to its core. The last time she saw Hook, they’d been in New York. Emma told him of Rumple’s idea to get back to Storybrooke so he can cure himself but Hook turned her down.

“I don’t trust that bloody crocodile. He’ll save his own skin and leave me to perish an even worse fate than this,” he spat. Black lines were visible under the tear in his shirt. She bit her lip worriedly. As much as Hook had been a pain in her ass, he wasn’t all bad. Seeing Neal reminded her of the pain that came with giving Henry up, the pain that came from Neal’s betrayal. If she faced the kind of heartbreak Hook did, she doubts she would have done much different before. But now she has Henry and she chooses to do better.

He was a lost soul, perhaps even a lost boy of Neverland, and his mission had been complete. She saw glimpses, in the Enchanted Forest, of the man he could be. The man he once was. He told her no lies while they were on the beanstalk and truly meant to betray Cora and be at their aid. He saved Aurora’s heart in the midst of their climatic battle and, once he shot Belle – not to kill, she reminds herself. The man had been alive for three hundred years and she was no fool to believe she beat him fairly at the portal or that he was anything but a perfect shot – he gave no trouble aside from an innuendo here and a flirty remark there.

“What can I do?” she asked him quietly. His blue eyes were light, pale, and his head lolled haphazardly to the side so he could meet her gaze. Distrust filled his eyes and his shoulders stiffened at her inquiry. Three hundred years alone just to die slowly amongst enemies, she realized. “Hook, you told me once to trust you and now I’m asking you to do the same for me. I’m not your enemy.”

He coughed and gave her a smile similar to the one he offered in the hospital a few days prior. Grim and bitter and knowing he had no positive outcome ahead. “Hasn’t seemed that way, love.”

“Yeah, well, a pirate hellbent on revenge makes things a little difficult.” His smiled sadly and looked beyond Emma to the open door of the building, his eyes on the New York harbor. Her eyes followed and she weighed her options. Neal and Henry were working together to get Gold good for the ride back on the pirate ship, one they’d take with or without the ship’s captain.

The sounds of grunting turned her attention back to Killian who was attempting to sit up, with great effort. Emma rushed to wrap his arm over her shoulders and her own around his waist. “Easy there, big guy.” She felt rather than saw his mouth open, ready for a comment, and she turned her head to glare. “Don’t. Now where are you going?”

“If I’m to die, I want the water to calm me.”

Emma struggled to bring Killian across the street and down the block to the harbor. It took a good fifteen minutes and for once she was grateful that New Yorkers didn’t question the oddities of other inhabitants. She found a bench that looked over the smooth waves and gently placed Killian down on it. He heaved out a sigh and took a deep breath.

“Smells disgusting,” he remarked.

She shrugged. “Welcome to New York.”

A bit of color returned to his blue eyes but not enough to settle her worry. The black lines began to extend to where his shirt opened, more buttons undone than done. He told her, back on the beanstalk, about this particular plant of Neverland and how it poisoned one’s system until it reached their heart. There was no cure for it, aside from a water on Neverland but once one drinks from it, their soul is chained to the island forever.

He had a haunted look in his eyes when he told her the story and she figured he learned most of it from first-hand experience. Judging by the proceeding dark lines on his chest, he didn’t have much time left. She wondered how badly it pained him to die the same way he saw someone else he cared about go.

“Go to your boy, Swan. Don’t let him worry,” his voice rasped.

“And leave you here to die alone?!”

Alone was cold and frightening. Alone was empty. Alone was hell.

She knew that well enough over her childhood and well into adulthood. It sucked. And while her and Hook weren’t on the best of terms, she couldn’t bear to leave him to die by himself.

“I’ve got the sea with me. That’s all I need,” he murmured. He lazily turned his gaze up to where she stood beside his bench. “Be with your lad. I’m okay.”

There was something in his voice. A resignation and a wistfulness. So she nodded and turned to walk away. But she paused. When they met, he told her his name. Killian Jones. She wondered when the last time it was that someone else actually uttered his given name and pondered the thought that, now with his revenge complete, he’d want to leave this world as himself instead of the moniker he held on for far too long. “Goodbye, Killian.”

He turned to her in surprise, his mouth dropping open. Awe filled his features along with a gratefulness she’d never seen before. “Another time, Emma.”

She left him at the bench, his eyes back on the water, and made to meet her son at the Jolly Roger.

*

Emma would be lying if she said she never thought of Hook after that. When Tamera followed Neal to Storybrooke and kidnapped Henry to Neverland, she wondered if things would have been easier with Hook guiding them. Neal, Rumple, and Regina constantly butted heads as her parents tried to keep the peace and Emma just wanted to find her son. Neal’s brilliant idea of squid ink on Pan worked, but they hadn’t been able to capture the shadow yet to leave. So they lost Henry again and found themselves making trips into the Dark Hallow for days, unable to see Pan’s shadow floating overhead.

By the time they were able to defeat Pan, they’d been gone from Storybrooke for almost two months. And they realized Pan hadn’t really been defeated, just switched bodies with Henry. It took them another couple days before they realized and by that time, Pan cast his dark curse.

When her parents found her and Henry nearly a year and a half later in New York, breaking their curse with a memory potion, Emma remembered the last time she was there and the pirate she helped say goodbye. She wondered what happened to him after they left and how differently some things would have played out if Hook had truly turned tide and accompanied them on each mission.

Would Neal still have died? Would Henry have still gone to the Underworld by himself to save his father if there had been someone else, someone who knew Rumple the best of them all, to stop him?

Emma’s always hated the butterfly effect but the whisperings of how different things could have been still echo in her ear.

She laughs softly, disbelievingly, and the conch shell rattles in her palm.

“Hook – thank you. For looking out for Henry and for the conch shells.”

His voice is tinny when he talks. It holds a quality that he’s speaking through a can, a faint echo wrapping each word. “The Underworld is a dreadful place. I’m glad I found him when I did.”

“Is he okay? You – you mentioned something about a lapse in memory?”

Her eyes focus on the glowing conch in her palm, the only lifeline she has to communicate with her son. Hook’s voice flows over her and she takes in every word with rapt attention. Blood pumps in her ears as she hears the state of her son’s wellbeing and a sob claws at her throat, desperate to come out. But Emma refuses to make a sound, worried that any interruption could sever the only tie she has.

“Have you figured out how to get him?” Hook asks.

“Yeah but… I’m not sure how feasible it is.”

“A pirate always finds a way, love,” he says and Emma sinks onto his bed, a small smile on her lips. His voice is a comfort to her as well as his ship and so is his blunt honesty of the situation. Fluffing the truth did nothing to cushion the pain, she’s learned. It only hardens the impact. She’s grateful that, despite their past, he is looking out for her son and working with her to get him home. It’s a glimpse of the man she saw on the beanstalk, cleaning her hand and wrapping it with his own scarf, flirting but always looking to her to establish their boundaries and where to go next. “What is it?”

“We need Gold.”

“Is there no way you can do it without the damned crocodile?”

A loose thread on his blanket pulls her attention and her fingers wind around it. It seems so unlike the Captain Hook she knows to have anything out of place and she wonders if he was in the navy back in the Enchanted Forest.

“Unfortunately, not that we know of,” she says with a sigh. “And he’s currently MIA so add that to the list.”

“Bloody hell.”

Her lips quirk up. “My thoughts exactly.” She pauses, swallows. “Can... Can I speak with Henry?” The conch glows in her palm yet she hears no sound. Whatever Hook began to say, he stopped himself. “What is it? Is he okay? Hook?”

“Aye, uh, sorry about that, Swan.” Hesitance colors his words and the worry in Emma’s chest spikes up again. “The lad’s resting right now. The book has really taken a lot out of him and I loathe to wake up. I can, if you desire to speak with him, but I believe it’s best he rests some more.”

It breaks Emma’s heart to agree but she will do whatever to takes for her son to be okay. Hook promises to use the conch the moment Henry wakes and tells Emma where to find a chain in his captain’s quarters to put the conch on.

Hook comes up with the idea of forming a stable environment for Henry. “Perhaps a routine will do well to keep Henry from those memory lapses,” he says after his suggestion. Emma agrees – anything that could help is something worth doing. So they settle on a plan which consists of Emma calling in for mealtimes, morning wakeups, and bedtimes. Of course she plans to speak with Henry in between, as will the rest of his family, but setting these plans in place is what matters most.

In all honesty, it feels a lot like what co-parenting with Neal would have been like if he were alive. Probably not as easy, she figures, because Neal didn’t think things through as well as she did.

For some reason, neither of them wants their call on the shell phone to end. Hook is with her son and can actually tell her the truth of what’s going on without finding a way around it to protect her. It’s a connection she can’t bear to break. She assumes Hook continues talking with her because it must have been years since he’s talked to another person – or at least one that’s an adult.

When they’ve run out of things to talk about without it seeming obvious they wish to continue speaking, they say goodbye. She isn’t brave enough to ask and he’s got a self-loathing streak as tall as the beanstalk that he probably doesn’t think himself worthy. It’s all little things that their prides won’t leave aside. So they bid farewell, Hook promising to say her name the moment Henry wakes, and Emma stares as the glow of the conch shell slowly fades until its gone.

Her magic feels the sadness that rolls off of the enchanted wood of the Jolly and she places one hand on the wall, hoping to offer a calm sympathy. She’s never worked her magic with other enchanted objects before and she focuses on doing her best.

Emma closes the vault, slides the fake panel back over it, and swings the portrait shut to cover its secret. She casts one last look around the cabin and her heart feels heavy. She regrets leaving Hook on that bench, especially after they found out that Gold’s potion did save him. But Hook wouldn’t have taken it and at least in New York, he died on his terms.

The thoughts of what could have been and how things would be different if he survived ring in her head and before it can overwhelm her, she heads up the stairs and back to the town.

*

Emma Swan lives up to her title of Savior. Killian knows this firsthand.

He doesn’t remember much about dying. He knows what caused his death, and he remembers the moments up until his last breath, but things get fuzzy in the last few seconds.

He does remember Emma’s kindness. A kindness he didn’t deserve but she still offered to him. She brought him to the water to let him leave in peace even after he declined her offers of help, offers to figure out how to save him. She let him die how he wanted and he would be eternally grateful.

The weight around Killian’s ankle feels lighter as he moves swiftly about the loft, eyes glancing up to Henry’s bed every so often to see if he’s awoken.

For the first time in centuries, there’s a bounce in his step that has nothing to do with revenge. He feels light. He has hope.

Hope, though, is a dangerous thing in the Underworld.

Hades’ presence is lurking around every corner, ready to strike. Nervous energy fills Killian’s bones. During his venture on the street earlier, he saw a daisy emerging from the cracks in the sidewalk and he paused long enough for a lost soul to bump into him. His stumbled forward and if he had a heart, it would’ve broken at the realization he stepped on the flower. But he figures it was for the best. If Hades caught wind of that, Henry would be in even greater danger.

So Killian sits by Henry’s side as the boy sleeps and waits.

“Henry?” Emma whispers.

Killian sits up, pulling the conch necklace from around his neck. “Swan. Is everything alright?”

“Hook?” she questions. “Sorry, it’s morning and I hadn’t heard from Henry so I worried…”

“Aye,” Killian says with a sigh. He runs his hand over his face and looks over at the sleeping boy. “Time moves differently here. It doesn’t feel as if much time has passed. I’ll wake your boy.”

He stands but pauses at her soft voice.

“Thank you, so much. I – I really appreciate it, Killian.”

Aside from Henry, the only other time someone used his name in the last three hundred years had been her, when he was dying. Though he has no breath in his lungs, he feels as if it gets caught in his throat. He swallows hard and gently shakes Henry awake.

“Lad, there’s someone who wants to speak with you.”

“Dad?” he replies sleepily. Killian’s face pinches and he gives the tired boy a sad smile.

“Sorry, no. But it is your mother.”

Henry sits up and blinks wildly, eyes darting around the loft. “Is she here?”

Killian sits beside him and offers the conch shell from his necklace. “Apologies, Henry. She’s working on how to get to you but in the meantime,” he says, lifting the conch to their eye level, “you can communicate with her whenever you want through this.”

“A shell phone!” he exclaims, grabbing the conch and cradling it carefully in his hands, eyes wide in wonder. Killian doesn’t understand a single thing Henry is saying but he nods blankly in agreement. “How do I talk to her?”

“Henry?” Emma’s voice calls out. The conch glows an orange that makes Henry gasp. Killian pushes the conch closer to Henry’s mouth as the boy scrabbles up on his knees and sobs in relief.

“Mom? Mom!”

“Oh, Henry,” Her voice has a watery quality and it doesn’t take much effort for him to realize she’s near tears. “I’m so sorry, kid. We’re working so hard to get you home.”

“I’m sorry I came here,” Henry sobs. Killian looks at the boy, the same one who had been facing the uncertainties of the Underworld with a bravery his bloodline would be proud of, and is reminded that he’s still just a kid wanting to go home. Henry settles back down on the bed with tears slowly trailing down his cheeks. Killian hesitates before wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

Henry practically collapses into his side but is careful not to jostle the conch. He holds it with such gentleness that Killian’s chest aches. It brings him back to the days when he was convinced his father didn’t actually sell them into servitude and that he’d come back. If he just left the candle lit and wished upon the blue star then he’d be back. Although it never happened for him, he prays to every deity he knows that the same fate is to not befall Henry.

There is little Killian can do to offer the lad and his mother privacy, especially when the boy hasn’t moved from his side, so he tunes their conversation out to the best of his abilities.

Although his ears perk up at the mention of the crocodile, he hears enough to know nothing’s changed on that front and focuses on what’s happening in this odd little town outside of the loft. The line at the telephone booth has doubled in size, the souls that use it for hauntings nowhere in sight. In fact, he can’t recall a time the line looked that long.

“That’s a lot of people,” Henry says beside him. Killian turns his head to see Henry clutching the conch as he peers down at the line.

“Everything alright with your mother?” he asks. Henry nods.

“She told me your plan while I’m stuck here. Grandpa Gold is still missing but she’s still looking for him.” The boy hesitates before holding out the conch to Killian. “My other mom is going to call around lunch.”

Killian looks at the small hand in front of him and takes the conch shell. He can see the boy deflate and instantly realizes the desperate need to hold onto whatever connection he has to his family. Sliding his hook under the string of the necklace attached to the conch, he slides it over Henry’s head. “Would hate for you to miss such important calls.”

They share a grin. Then Henry’s eyes slide back over to the line outside the window. His eyes rove over the people and Killian can practically see the wheels turning in his head.

“So the people here… they’re stuck in Underbrooke because they have unfinished business?”

“Aye.”

Henry turns back to Killian, one side of his mouth quirked up in a smirk. “Want to help them move on?”

*

“GOLD!”

Emma’s voice echoes around the pawn shop. Baubles cover every inch of counter space and there’s a thin layer of dust already accumulating atop them. The blinds are drawn closed and only the faint layers of sunlight can make it through the shadowy shop.

“I know you’re in here, Gold! Show yourself!” Her eyes dart to the dark corners of the shop but he doesn’t appear. Her magic flickers at her fingertips and she does her best to keep it under control. She needs Gold. Leroy and Doc were watching the shop and sent her a signal the second they spotted him enter through the back.

“Come out here and face me you coward!” One of the front windows cracks, her rage overcoming her as she yells and she takes a deep breath. The last thing she needs is to let her magic run wild and accidentally hurt Gold when he’s how they get Henry home.

“I do hope you plan on paying for that,” Gold says as he slowly emerges from the back of the shop, his cane aiding his movements.

When they went to Camelot to rid herself of the darkness, they left Gold in Storybrooke in his magic induced coma. They couldn’t risk him somehow funneling the dark magic back to himself. No longer a Dark One, he was a mere mortal. He could no longer hide behind his power or threaten others to do his bidding. It brought her a sick satisfaction for all of the three days he’d been awake when they returned until she learned what he helped Henry do.

“You!” she calls, voice rough and deep, so much anger wrapping around a single word.

“Yes. Me.” Gold stands with his hands on his cane and with an air of nonchalance that snaps Emma’s restraint. She rushes over to his, grabs the lapels of his suit jacket, and shoves him up against the wall. His cane clatters to the ground beside them.

“Why did you do that to Henry?” she hisses.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he answers. She shoves him against the wall again.

“Why did you let him go to the Underworld?!”

“He wanted to go, Miss Swan. My grandson missed his father and wanted to save him. Who am I to deny that?”

“You deny that when it’s a death sentence!” She pushes him back and lets him stumble to regain his footing, bending to grab his cane. “How could you do that to your own grandson? To Baelfire’s son?!”

Gold sneers, his teeth sharp and looking every bit the crocodile Killian nicknamed him to be. “Don’t you dare speak my son’s name. You have no right. He died because of you!”

“He died because of Zelena!” Emma glares at Gold, feeling hatred climb her throat and her fingertips tingle. “And now you’ve sent his son on a one-way ticket to the Underworld.”

Gold rolls his eyes. “He would have gone with or without my help. This was the safest way, Miss Swan.”

“The safest way would be not letting him go, damn it!” Her palm slams down on the counter beside her and the glass shatters. Blood begins pooling in her hand almost immediately but her focus remains on Gold. “You are going to help us get him back.”

“Quite the assumption, isn’t that?” he says in response. He flicks his head to the side to move hair out of his face and Emma seethes. “I believe you’re on your own with this.”

“Hell. No.”

“Ironic choice of words.”

She steps into his space and lowers her voice. Her tone is lethal and she watches without any glee as the man before her gulps. “You’re going to help us, Gold. You opened the portal the first time for Henry and you’ll open it again for us to bring him back.” He opens his mouth to retort but Emma grabs his jacket again and shoves him back against the wall with one hand, her other reaching for the pocketknife in her jacket. She flicks out a blade and holds it to his neck, watching Gold squirm slightly under her grip. “If I have to slit your throat and drain you of all your blood then I will if it means saving Henry. Do not tempt me, Gold.”

“Cut as deep as you like,” he spits at her. “But you can’t make me bleed. Only I can.” Emma gasps, stepping back and shaking her head. “Oh yes, you best believe it, Miss Swan. Call it a parting gift from my time as a Dark One. I needed some securities in place if I were to survive in a town full of heroes.”

Emma barely hears his words as black curls the edges of her vision. Her breathing is stuttered and she drops her pocketknife to the floor.

Their one chance. Their only chance. And Gold won’t help. She knew he took his heart out before letting go of the darkness, and that he set certain charms in place that would last at least a lifetime before wearing off. Magic wouldn’t work to convince him. He held all the power to save Henry, to save his grandson, and he wasn’t doing it.

“You may be mortal now,” she begins, shaking in anger from where she’s bent over in the shop catching her breath. “But you’re more monster now than you were before.”

“I have an unborn son, Miss Swan. I will not do anything that could jeopardize him losing me and if that means preventing the prophecy from taking place then so be it. I failed my first son once and I won’t fail with another.”

“Twice,” she corrects. Gold tilts his head in her direction and glares at her. “You failed Neal twice. Once when you abandoned him as a boy and again when you sent his son to be trapped in the Underworld alone.”

Gold rolls his shoulders to stand straight, gripping the cane so tight his knuckles turn white. “Your son wanted to be with him more than you. Now he has an eternity with Baelfire.”

The laugh Emma lets out is humorless and full of pain. “You don’t even know, do you?” she says. She walks back over to Gold and points a finger at him. The blood that dripped down it dries on her skin. “Neal moved on. He’s not in the Underworld. He wasn’t there when Henry arrived.”

“What.” By the way Gold blinks at her statement, Emma can tell she hit a nerve. She glares, lets her lips curl up in anger, and steps closer.

She hisses, “You weren’t worth Neal staying around. He has no unfinished business with you.” She gives him an empty, bitter smile. Tears glitter in Gold’s eye as he searches for words in his heartbreak, distraught that he’ll never see his first-born again, and she says, “You and I though? We have plenty of unfinished business.”

Gold does his best to blink back the tears and regain the collected exterior he always projected. He swallows and tilts his head the slightest bit up at her. “We are done here, Miss Swan. Leave me, Belle, and our son alone.”

He turns his back on Emma and disappears into the back of the shop. She drags her feet out the door and shakes her head at Leroy and Doc waiting outside the shop. The emotional toll of the revelation she’s been handed is enough to exhaust her but she can’t go back to the loft and the reminders of her son and the fact she can’t save him. And that’s how she finds herself on the dock, feet at the bottom of the gangway of a majestic ship, whispering a name.

*

Writing in the storybook for other people and helping them complete their unfinished business is a relief to Henry. The more he writes for others, the less he feels like he’s forgetting.

There are still moments though. When Henry talks to Stealthy and he mentions Snow White, he can’t remember why the name sounds so familiar. The dwarf talks of her notoriety in the Enchanted Forest and how she tried to help him and his brother escape the jail cells. His head itches as if it’s trying to fetch the information and can’t find it.

Killian stands next to him and he leans over, informing him that Snow White is his grandma. He tells him that she also goes by Mary Margaret and she used to be his schoolteacher and she’s the same age as his mother because she was locked in a curse for nearly three decades, and Henry nods his head as if it all makes sense.

He writes for Stealthy and lets him know what his unfinished business is, all the while trying to figure out the oddities in his head. A curse? Snow White? This is all stuff made out of fairytales. And then he looks down and sees a magic pen literally writing in a fairytale book and it makes him dizzy.

A hook – a hook – on his back brings him back to focus and he looks up, staring at the face of a pirate.

“Henry,” the pirate says. He bends down next to his chair and keeps his voice quiet. “I need you to take a deep breath. Close your eyes and don’t think about anything.”

He wants to yell and scream and ask how this stranger knows his name. He wants to know where he is and why everything looks so red and why is he sitting at a table in the middle of the street with a line of people in front of him and with a crash clocktower no one pays attention to and –

The hook presses slightly harder into his back and Henry sucks in a breath, closes his eyes, and clears his mind.

When he opens them again, Killian is knelt next to his chair, worried. He swallows, scared, but still needs to know. “Did it happen again?”

Killian nods. “Aye.”

“Am I running out of time?” he whispers. But Killian shakes his head and moves closer, keeping his voice low so only he can hear him.

“Your mother is doing everything she can to make sure she gets to you. I’ve yet to see her fail and she’s not about to start.”

The confidence and surety in Killian’s voice sends a wave of calm over his shoulders. He knows a lot at 13 but adults know more. Especially adults that have been alive for over three hundred years. Killian hasn’t shied away from telling Henry the consequences of an extended stay in Underbrooke and if Killian’s not worried about his mom saving him, then neither should he.

The rings on Killian’s fingers glimmer and for a moment, Henry swears sunlight has made its way to Underbrooke. However, a quick scan just shows more of the red haze he’s become accustomed to. He watches as Killian pushes aside the storybook he’s been writing in and pulls out his other one from his backpack. “Why don’t you check on how she’s doing?”

He nods and takes the storybook from Killian’s hands, the one from the world he belongs to, and flips through the pages. He stops when an image begins to appear on a blank page.

His mom is standing in Grandpa Gold’s pawn shop and she had him pressed against the wall with a knife to his throat. Chuckles echo in his ear and he turns his head to see Killian’s amusement at the drawing. The pirate raises his eyebrows, his smirking broadening, and shrugs. “Your mother is a formidable force, lad. Anyone who crosses her should be sorry.”

When Killian’s eyes go back to tracing the drawing in the book, he watches him. Killian always speaks of his mom with a fondness in his voice and like he’s amazed at everything she does. He’d bet that Killian probably thinks his mom could force the sun to shine just because she willed it.

His nose scrunches up as he turns back to the book. Yep. Captain Hook definitely has a crush on his mom.

“I can’t believe you have a crush on my mom,” he teases. Henry comes from a family of True Love – his mom is literally the product of it. One doesn’t live in Storybrooke and become the Author and not be a fan of happy endings, even if it feels weird to see it happening with his mom.

Killian coughs beside him and Henry takes a small bit of glee at unseating the captain once again. Even with the chains he drags around Underbrooke, Killian rarely looks unsettled. The pirate narrows his eyes at Henry but it doesn’t diminish the grin on his face. “I’m a big fan of your mother, of every part of her. Especially when she’s threatening the crocodile.”

“Mhmm,” Henry hums disbelievingly.

“I know my limits, lad,” Killian says, his voice suddenly serious. Henry meets his gaze and sees the pained expression on the man’s face. “I’m trapped here for eternity. No matter how I feel about anything, I won’t subject your mother to that truth. She doesn’t need that weight on her shoulders.”

Henry shrugs. “True Love conquers everything though.”

He watches as his words land and Killian shifts uncomfortably from where he still knelt beside him. There’s a look that crosses his features, dark and sorrowful and full of more hurt than Henry thought someone could hold and he realizes his mistake.

Maybe Milah was Killian’s happy ending. His True Love. And she moved on without him.

His mouth opens, an apology on the tip of his tongue, and Killian shakes his head. A small smile plays on his lips. “I don’t have a True Love, Henry.” His hand reaches out and taps the book. “Let’s put this away and see who else we can help, aye?”

“Killian?” a voice calls, faint. They look at each other, searching for who must be calling for him when the voice repeats itself and Henry looks down at the conch around his neck.

“I think my mom needs your help,” he says. He takes it off and hands it to Killian. “I’ll wait here.”

*

The Jolly Roger greets Emma like an old friend. She feels no resistance as she moves through the magical barrier and it rocks gently, soothingly, under her feet.

Killian’s cabin is the exact same as the first time she entered, the only exception being the wrinkles she left in his blanket. All she really wants to do is curl up in the comforter and cry but her son needs her and she needs to figure out a new way to get him home.

She stops resisting temptation and falls back on the bed, legs dangling over the edge, and takes out the conch shell. Her voice doesn’t even sound like her own when she calls out for him twice before his answers.

“Swan?”

A sob rips from her throat.

“I failed him.”

“Now that doesn’t sound like the Emma Swan I know.”

She groans, slamming her hand against the comforter. “Killian. I’m not joking.” She sucks in a haggard breath and sniffles.

“Neither am I,” he says. “We checked the book. I saw you found Rumple.”

The snort she lets out is broken and frustrated. What luck that did her. “He won’t help.”

“What?” Disbelief colors Killian’s voice in a way that shocks her to her core. If there is one person in all the realms that hated Rumpelstiltskin the most, it was Captain Hook. “Not even for Baelfire’s son?” he asks.

“No,” she admits through tears. “He was told a prophecy once that a boy would reunite him with his son but that boy would also be his undoing, so he figured if he got rid of Henry, he wouldn’t have to worry about the second half of the prophecy.” Killian breaks into a rant of words she’s never heard before and she can only assume it consists of various curses.

“He may look a man but there is nothing human left in him,” Killian growls. The conch in her hand grows so brightly and shakes in her palm so violently that she fears it might break.

“Killian – Killian,” she says, but he doesn’t seem to hear her and she watches helplessly as the conch cracks. “Killian!” He finally pauses and all Emma hears is his deep breathing, the conch glowing in time with each exhale. “You need to calm down or the conch is going to break.”

“Apologies, Swan. I’d hope the coward would have been brave enough to help for the sake of his grandson.”

“Yeah, well you’re not the only one.” She breathes deep in an effort to calm herself. Any heightened emotions might be enough to break the conch and she has no idea if there’s any way to fix it if it comes to that. Her cheeks are sticky from where her tears tracked down and she wipes at them hastily with the sleeve of her sweater. “There’s no way to get to Henry now.”

“Come on, Swan. Isn’t your mother the epitome of hope? Even your boy has more hope than you right now.”

The breath that leaves her lips comes out sounding like a huff of laughter. “Yeah, well it skipped a generation.”

“I find that hard to believe,” he murmurs. “I saw you at the lake when Cora tried to take your heart. It’s in there, deep down.” She hums noncommittedly. They’ve spent days searching for a way into the Underworld and their own answers pointed back to Gold. Without the ability to get his help, or even force it from him, Henry was stuck there. Tears burn at the back of her eyelids again and she breaths out shakily, willing herself to remain calm.

Killian’s voice breaks through her thoughts and for a moment, she forgot he was on the other end of the conch. “What was it that Rumpelstiltskin was supposed to do?”

“We need his blood to open the portal to the Underworld. Only someone who’s died and come back to life can open it and he’s the only one who’s done that. His protections from when he was the Dark One are still in place and there’s no way to get it from him.”

“Wait, did you say you need his blood?”

Her eyebrows furrow and she wonders why he’s so shocked at that detail. Blood is a common ingredient for dark magic and for someone who’s chased down a way to kill Gold for centuries, he should know that.

“Yeah…” she answers, confused.

“Bloody hell, love,” Killian exclaims. The elation in his voice only confuses her more. Her eyes stare at the glowing conch in her hand.

“Why are you so happy? Did you not hear what else I said?”

“No, no, no, no,” Killian says. She can hear the smile in his voice and honestly ponders the thought that he’s gone mad. “You don’t need the crocodile. I have what you need.”

“Uh, in case you forgot, you’re dead in the Underworld. Unless you can open the portal from your end –”

“No, I can’t. But I have – had – what you need. You’ll need to go to my ship.”

The Jolly rocks in the water and Emma sits up in the bed, one hand pressing against the wall to steady herself. She imagines this is a ship’s equivalent of a dog wagging their tail. “Uh – I’m… I’m already on it.”

Silence follows her statement. It weighs on them like a thousand unspoken words and she knows he wants to say whatever statement is at the tip of his tongue but he holds back.

“You are?” he chokes out in disbelief. She rolls her eyes and stands from the bed.

“So what do you have on here that’ll help?” Regina’s words slip into her mind and she really hopes Killian doesn’t have a cabinet full of vials containing the blood of his enemies.

“You’ll have to go into my vault. You still have the key, yes?”

“Got it right here,” she says, her hand reaching up to the chain she never took off of her neck. Her fingers pull the necklace off and once she reveals the hidden safe, she slides the key into place and opens it. “What am I looking for?”

“There should be a bloody rag there.”

“I see it.” She searches his room for something to grab it with and comes across a short scarf.

“Aye. That’s what you’ll use.”

She frowns as she carefully picks up the rag, dark red staining the beige cloth. It reminds her of a potato sack. “Not that I’m not grateful but you happened to keep a bloody rag of Gold’s because…?”

His answer is short and anger peaks out from underneath his words. “Because that’s the rag I wiped my hook with after I stabbed the crocodile when he crushed Milah’s heart in front of me.”

The silence that follows this time is heavy and suffocating and Emma regrets even opening her mouth. As much as she’s come to rely on Killian in this, and as much as she knows about his thirst for revenge, there’s still a plethora to uncover. She places the conch on the desk and gently folds the rag into a small square before wrapping it in the scarf.

When he speaks next, his tone is apologetic and she feels guilt build in her stomach.

“Cut the rag in half, that way you have one to get home.” He sighs quietly, the conch’s glow fading slowly. “I have to be honest, love, but I have no idea if it’ll work.”

“But it’s hope,” she offers.

“I knew you had it in you,” he says softly. She’s glad he’s not in front of her to see the way she rolls her eyes as her mouth turns up in smile.

She eyes the content of the vault, the drawing of the woman he spent centuries avenging. “I – I don’t know if it’s even possible but is there anything you want me to bring to you? Since I’ll be going to the Underworld anyway.”

The conch doesn’t glow. She wonders if he thought their conversation ended and left, and then she wonders how one even ends a connection on a shell phone. A sigh fills the quiet of the cabin and she goes to close the vault when he finally speaks.

“My mother’s ring,” he says quietly.

A glittering silver band with a small jewel sitting atop it catches her interest. It’s modest and so unlike the large gems she saw on the rings he wore. The jewel looks like a diamond but when she picks it up, it gleams like the entire rainbow is held inside of it, reminding her of the rainbow of colors that flushed Storybrooke when she broke the first curse. It’s beautiful.

She considers putting it on her finger but decides against it. No one in Storybrooke is able to keep a secret and the rumor mill would go crazy at the sight of a ring on any of her fingers. Plus, she doubts he wants Gold to see it, lest he knows it belongs to Killian and considers doing something nefarious to it. So she opens the chain that holds the vault key and slips the ring onto that, putting the necklace back on and tucking it under her sweater.

“I have it,” she says. “It’s safe. Is there anything else?” Her fingers play with the drawing of Milah and she goes to pick it up.

“That’s it, love. Thank you.”

Instead, she shuts the vault with the drawing in it, covers it up, and glances around the cabin, eyes settling on the wrapped cloth. “Thank you, Killian. I’ll go see Regina so we can get ready to open the portal. She’ll want to talk to Henry too.” She licks her lips and closes her eyes, cradling the conch to her chest. “We couldn’t do this without you.”

*

Henry doesn’t notice it until they’re walking down the streets of Underbrooke but Killian’s chains are quieter than they were before. The pile curls around his leg with every step but the pirate doesn’t pay any attention to them. He swears still that it has lessened too but Killian shoots that idea down.

“The weight of the chains is the same, lad,” he says as he directs them to the park. “I have far too many sins to be forgiven.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Henry says. They pass a sprawling area of tombstones in every state and he studies them. “Does Hades have a tombstone?” he asks.

Killian looks back at the cemetery but continues their walk. “No, he doesn’t.”

“Why not?”

“If Hades had a tombstone, it would make him a soul in limbo. He wouldn’t be the ruler of the Underworld and he’d lose his magic.”

His eyes catch Killian’s hook before he gestures to it. “Hades gave you the chisel and wanted you to put names on tombstones. If other people can put names on tombstones, why hasn’t anyone tried that with his?”

Killian is silent. He opens the gate to the park and lets Henry through first before he follows. “It’s only ever been a rumored possibility. The only known way to defeat Hades is through the Olympian Crystal. However, if writing his name on a tombstone worked, the Underworld could be thrown into chaos. No one knows what happens to it without a ruler. And if it doesn’t work, whoever conspired against him would face a fate far worse than I did.”

“No one’s ever tried?”

“You need an object specially enchanted by Hades to mark a tombstone. He keeps those close to his chest, lest anyone try to use it for escape.”

They pass a playground, the lake right around the corner, and there’s kids playing there without a care. He frowns. For as long as he’s been in Underbrooke, he forgets it isn’t full of just adults. Maybe he should stick around and help them too.

Why shouldn’t he stick around? He can’t think of any reason to not. Afterall, he’s just like those kids – stuck in Underbrooke and without a family. Lost boys and girls need to stick together.

“Bloody hell,” Killian growls. Henry turns to him and sees a fierce glare marring his features. He follows his gaze and sees a figure standing in front of the lake just feet away. The very lake they were heading towards.

The figure stands straight, wearing a thick black coat with the collar upturned. His skin is a sickly pale color and his red hair looks dull, fading into the red haze that covers Underbrooke.

“You didn’t think you could plan an escape and I wouldn’t know, did you?” the figure asks, smug.

“Hades,” Killian hisses. He steps forward, his arm extended out in front of Henry. The hook at the end of his wrist is angled towards Hades. “He doesn’t belong here.”

“Ah, ah, ah,” Hades tuts, “I think I’m the judge of that – literally.” Henry chills at the grin that appears on Hades’ face and steps back, further behind Killian.

“Let him go home.”

Home? Henry’s eyes dart from the man standing protectively in front of him to the imposing figure by the water. Why are they talking about home? Isn’t this his home?

His head swivels, looking in every direction, searching for the kids at the playground. The other lost ones. The ones without a family. They were his home, weren’t they? Lost ones stick together. He doesn’t know anyone else. All alone in the world, he needed to go to other kids like him.

“Look at him,” Hades says. He’s smirking and his hair hints a blue color along its tips. “It’s too late.”

The man in front of him turns, eyes frantically searching his for something he doesn’t find. A hand and a hook rest on his shoulders. “Henry,” the man says, anxious. “I need you to focus. Close your eyes and take a breath. Henry, focus on me, aye?”

Henry watches the man in front of him, his mouth moving faster than he can comprehend the words. The man closes his eyes and mimics a deep breath, repeating himself and urging Henry to do the same. So he closes his eyes and does that.

His eyes open and Killian has his head ducked a few inches lower to meet his height. By the worried look on his face, Henry doesn’t even have to ask to know what happened. He can see Hades over Killian’s shoulder, cocky and taking great pleasure in the scene that just unfolded before him.

“You can stop this, Captain,” he offers. Killian stands and turns, keeping Henry completely behind his back. Henry grabs for the back of Killian’s shirt, needing something to steady himself as waves of dizziness pound at his temples.

A popping sound echoes in the quiet park and Henry feels a quick gust of wind blow his hair off his forehead. To the side is a large, white tombstone appears. Blank. A sizzling sound comes next and he looks down to see Killian’s hook glowing.

“Write his name,” Hades says. “End his suffering. Let him keep the memory of his family so one day he can move on.”

“I would never,” Killian spits out in response.

Hades pouts, Henry gasping as his hair transforms to a fiery blue flame. It is harsh and uncontrolled, whisps shooting an inch out from his head. For being fire, all it does is bring cold. The already chilled air of Underbrooke drops to freezing with Hades flames free.

Henry squeezes his eyes shut as Underbrooke swirls around him, his breathing shallow and harsh.

He wants to throw up and he’s not sure why. His hands are clutching the shirt of a stranger and the red grass that should be on the ground is spinning and there’s a man by the lake with blue flames for hair. None of it makes sense. Not the tombstone in the park and not the man in front of him having a hook for a hand.

“Oh look,” the blue haired man taunts. “It’s happening again. He’s so close.”

The man in front of him glances over his shoulder, face tight. “Henry. Close your eyes and breathe. CLOSE YOUR EYES AND BREATHE.”

“You won’t be able to save him, Captain.”

“I can damn well try, Hades.”

Hades laughs. His heart is racing and he doesn’t know how someone could be laughing when the tension in the park could be cut with a knife. Dread fills his body and he’s not sure how he anticipates it but he sees the blue haired man flick his wrist and then the captain protecting him is flown from his grasp and against a tree.

“KILLIAN!” he yells out on instinct. He isn’t sure where the name comes from or why he cares about the man Hades just tossed aside, but the sight makes his heart drop to his stomach as the man lays on the ground, unmoving.

“What’d you do to him?!” he cries.

Hades waves off his concern, stepping closer to him. “He was just getting in our way.” Henry backs up, stumbling and falling to the ground as Hades makes a chisel appear out of thin air. His hand waves and it floats, moving closer to the blank tombstone. “Since he doesn’t like obeying orders, I’ll have to do it myself.”

The chisel finishes writing out Henry Mills when a voice yells out weakly.

“NO!”