Part 4: I'm in love with poisoning.

notes; thank you to all those who've left reviews on this fic, i deeply appreciate it!

The treehouse he found was deserted.

It was not completely so, but clothes, toys, books and other ornaments were scattered haphazardly about the levels of rooms. Someone had picked through the items and taken only what they would need and what held meaning to them. Emma's dark green outfit with the patched elbows obviously didn't for it lay across the bed, forgotten and gathering dust. Wherever she had gone, she would not need it.

In a fit of rage, he jabbed his hook through the wooden paneling of her bedroom wall. It was a child's design, so it fell to pieces under his blow.

Killian was surprised it still stood at all but stiffened, forgetting his wonder. Something else was out here. He saw the glow from between the flower laden boughs of the trees and he grit his teeth, searching.

"Come out! Whatever beast you are, show your face!" He shouted to the tree line.

With a bird's glide, the shadow slid between the trees and revealed itself to him. Killian felt his heart pound in his chest, whether with surprise or anger, he could tell no difference.

The shadow looked like her.

Its green eyes glowed more luminescent than those of the young Emma, but it held her shape, as if her shadow had not aged a day and nor had she. This was a place of magic. He had no doubt that when Emma left it, whenever that was, she had left it as he had years before: as youthful as she'd been when she arrived.

He almost laughed then, at his stupid dead brother who had stubbornly believed Emma had lied about her parentage. Years had passed in Misthaven and Killian was much older, but Emma had stayed the same.

Creatures did not have parents.

"Why are still here? Did the Swan girl cast you out?" Killian asked.

If shadows could smile, this one would have. "She did not cast me out. As someone who has been, so many times before, it is no wonder you would assume that."

The shadow spoke nothing like her. It was a darker, older sound. It did not remind Killian of Emma, but the form...With his eyes closed, he could forget for a moment that she was not here.

Killian stabbed at the dark shape, trying to make it disappear.

"Do not play games with me, wraith. Whatever you are, I will slay you."

The shadow still could not smile, but it laughed. It rang Killian's ears with the sound of discordant bells.

"As you've slain your crocodile? I will take your threats seriously when they are more than declarations spat from a weak man's mouth."

The words hit their mark, yet Killian still stood. His hand ached where it no longer was, reaching out to grasp with fingers that could no longer touch, as ghostly as the shadow that swallowed the night before him. Words could not compare to that pain.

Seeming to sense this, the shadow swayed before him and said, "So you have come to be my companion in Emma's absence?"

Malevolence took hold, cruelty sharpened by the wits of a man used to reading in between words.

"So, she did abandon you. How unkind. Where did she go off to, then?"

The shadow met him blow for blow. "A place you will never be able to follow."

"What do you mean, shadow?"

It waved its ghostly hand, grasping at the still air, and then clasped its hands together and rested its head on them. With a deep yawn, it asked, "Do you dream, Captain?"

Killian jerked back in bemusement.

"Dream? Dream of what? What do you dreams have to do with this place – wherever Emma has gone off to -?"

The shadow cut him off with another wide yawn, this time with a hiccup that might've been a laugh. "Dreams bring you here, and dreams keep you here. You dream of darkness and so that is where you will stay. Here – in the darkness."

The words bound him. Magic creeped over him with vines he could not cut away with a simple slice of his sword or even a sawing of his hook. The vines held him down, choking. The shadow spoke truth, and it chilled Killian, ice burning away his anger and leaving a cold determination instead.

"I will find a way."

The shadow lifted its hands in fake surrender. Killian blinked and saw Emma's vicious smile in the shadow's response.

"Like I said, I will believe you when you do it. Words mean nothing, Jones. They're just…"

It paused long enough that Killian noticed that all was silent around him. No animals cried. No grass crunched or bugs chirped.

"…ashes on the wind."

No wind whistled through the trees.

All was silent.

In Manhattan, there were no islands of trees with boughs stretching towards the skies and covering the dirt, plants, and flowers on the ground in dark shades. There were no wild animals brightly feathered and colorfully furred. Mermaids did not swim in oceans of white foam and clear green water. Cougars did not pounce from the shadows.

No one could fly and hear the sound of drums beating.

Manhattan held no Baelfire and no King.

Instead there were tall buildings that carved dark shadows on the dirty concrete. The only wild animals to be found were the pigeons, squirrels, stray dogs and cats and diseased rats that littered the subway – and all wore the same grey tinge of the city. Mermaids were a fantasy. Any cougars were zoo escapees, put down before they even had the chance to pounce.

If you could fly over the city, all you would hear was the noise of hundreds of thousands of people breathing, living, and dying.

In Manhattan, Baelfire did not exist, nor did a King, but William Cassidy and Emma Swan got along in the city just fine.

William – Baelfire as Emma still called him whenever they were alone and not creeping out of the custody of cops and social services – loved the city. He loved everything about it from the bad street food, the stores of the cheap knockoffs that he insisted they buy, or steal as was often the case. Any money they had was stolen too anyway. As was their home.

The first thing Emma taught Baelfire was how to hotwire a car. It was something her shadow taught her during her years on Swan Song, laughing the whole time as it insisted that Emma didn't need it there. Where could she drive on these islands anyway? Emma had whined, and as always, her Shadow had given in.

Baelfire took to it as well as Emma did. He stole the little yellow bug they called home, though finding a place for that home always proved difficult. Parking in Manhattan wasn't easy to find.

So, they found someplace else.

"Remember that road trip movie we saw?"

"You mean, the one with Britney Spears?"

Baelfire blushed. He'd really liked that movie, more than Emma even. He must have a thing for blondes. The thought made her blush just as red as him.

"Emma, we should go on a road trip," he said.

"Where?"

"Anywhere!"

Anywhere.

Anywhere became everywhere. In New Jersey, they spent two whole days at the Six Flags theme park because Baelfire threw up the first day and they had to find someplace to shower anyway.

"Flying is much harder on your stomach than this," Emma insisted as she led him away from the ride.

"Flying is fun. This is terrible," Baelfire had said.

Emma hadn't argued. Baelfire could be as stubborn as her. But the second day, she did have to tease with an "I was right, I was right." It was about honor. She couldn't leave it unsaid, could she?

Baelfire had stubbornly refused to sit with her on the ride for two whole rounds, but the third time, he squeezed in beside her before the light haired boy she was talking to even had the chance.

After Jersey, they lost themselves in DC.

"My father had statues like these," Baelfire admitted, sitting on the steps of the Lincoln memorial. "But they weren't like this. They didn't mean anything except that he'd taken it from whoever had them first."

Baelfire didn't often speak about his dad, but Emma hated him from what little he said. She'd seen enough monsters on TV and had met enough when she was in the foster system to know what he was. Baelfire didn't have to say it. Emma saw the way his hands would clench and the tears he never let fall.

Sometimes, her hands would clench too, balled fists of hatred that she'd love to hit his father with if she got the chance. He should be glad she would never get the chance. Baelfire was never going back there.

Together, that was the promise they made as they hopped from state to state in their little yellow bug with the worn leather seats that were too small for them to sleep in comfortably unless Emma put her feet up on Baelfire's shoulder, which she always did even though she still woke up with a crick in her neck. It was just funny to see him roll his eyes every morning.

"Your feet smell," he'd say.

Poking him with her toes, she'd reply, "So does your breath."

It was their thing.

As was this or, at least, it had become so since Baelfire turned 16 and kissed her over the birthday cake they paid for with money they actually earned from Emma's diner job in Ohio. It seemed fitting then. A true moment never to forget. It made it worth it, this world that she hated - loving Baelfire made it worth it.

Together, they'd make this world their own and while William went to school instead of Baelfire flying around islands and Emma was the King of nothing but the little yellow bug, it was worth it because together was their thing.

"They've made it to Kansas," the Shadow said.

The rock beneath him offered no support to his back, but with his hook dug into it, at least he felt steady enough not to fall off when he reached for the Shadow, a pointless attempt to wring its translucent neck.

"What the bloody hell is Kansas?" he said as he dropped his hand. The Shadow would not be caught by him if it did not wish to be. He learned that lesson the time he wrapped his fingers around its wrist and it dropped him off a cliff into the roar and crash of the sea below. Even drowning beneath the waves, his own blood pounding in his ears, he could hear the Shadow's teasing laughter.

"Catch me if you can, Captain."

He'd learned his lesson, but that didn't mean he had to stop trying. He would not be swayed from his course by the devilish, warping ways of the Shadow.

Still, he was changed in other ways. No longer did he pace the island, ignoring the Shadow's taunts. He'd lost that battle, but it was a loss for the Shadow as well.

It knew he would listen for one reason only: news of Emma.

"Shadow," he warned, bending his knees as if to leave.

The Shadow would follow. It always did. The threat only made it laugh, but it was a battle they played out all the same. Who would break first?

Today, it was Killian, it seemed.

"Tell me," he half-begged. He hadn't heard news of her in days. Hadn't seen the Shadow either, only his own wraith haunting his every step around the island and his every tangled thought – of escape, of revenge, of Rumplestiltskin. Of Emma.

Always of Emma because the Shadow would never let him forget her. This world of twisted trees, vicious predators, and fire bright moons remembered her touch and even with his own smothering it, he still found her in every long ago broken branch. In the spear heads tossed carelessly to the ground, darkened with old blood. In that treehouse that still stood despite the storms that blew hard enough to shake the foundations of his ship and leave him trembling in his cabin, sweat on his brow colder than the rain that fell on the sea.

"Kansas is –" The shadow perked as if listening to the wind. There was something like laughter in its call, which the Shadow answered with one of its own. "– as boring and nondescript as the last few places they have been, but they like it there."

With every "they" the Shadow drove the point like a stake into the places that he held dear: his memories of Milah, his brother, his mother. People he had lost, who had brought him to this place of loneliness with only the Shadow for company.

Had Emma felt this way once? It was a question that plagued him as all the others did, but it was her seeming happiness that drove him to madness. He didn't understand it. He didn't understand why she could have it when this land's magic wormed its way into his soul and stole the last of it from him.

You dream of darkness and so that is where you will stay. Here – in the darkness.

Perhaps he was weaker than her. She had found her escape from the darkness, found her happiness, and maybe it was his weakness that prevented him from doing the same.

Still, he would not accept that. He remembered her eyes when she'd announced herself - it was a look he'd known then, and knew better now. It was the (no more appropriate word than) shadow that encompassed this island and always had, and it was the very same shadow that he felt pulling at him. He was tethered to this land as much as she was. She may have left the patched outfit behind and flown off to a world of, of cars and Ferris wheels and packaged food, but that blackness had reached into her heart and he knew it would never let go.

Darkness always found a way.

In his vision, he watched a heart crushed to ash, but for once, it is his own held in the palm of - who, he could not see, his sight darkened.

The Shadow laughed and Killian had the eerie feeling that he had heard the sound before.

In another life, perhaps.

They never get caught. Emma at 19 and Baelfire at 17 still looked like what they were: two kids on the run, but it was as if Emma had some magic left because as close as they came at times, she always seemed to find a way out.

She even punched a truancy officer once in Missouri, desperation clawing at her until she ended up clawing back. It wasn't luck that Baelfire was there with the car and she ran fast enough that the truancy officer never even got the chance to catch their plate, still laid out when he disappeared in their rearview mirror.

It had to be magic.

Emma felt it in her fingers, pulsing in her blood, beating in her heart. Every time Baelfire smiled, Emma felt it beg to be set free.

Sometimes, she'd consider letting it, but he was so happy in this land without magic that she couldn't steal it away. In this world, happiness was hard to find. She would not be the one to take his, especially when it fed into her own.

But the magic called to her, drawing upon her memories of Swan Song and tilting them on their head. Moments imagined of storybook tales come to life, all the while set to the beat of that ticking clock, growing louder every time she tried to focus on these wisps of dreams.

Dreams of beanstalks and giants waiting at the top.

Dreams...

She fell asleep and woke up on the beach of Swan Song.

It was different there now. The dark night felt heavy like a thick winter blanket that she just couldn't seem to pull off no matter how hard she struggled. It hurt her eyes to look up at the bright moon. The light was sickly – it made Emma sick.

She ended up on her knees, throwing up into the rough crystals of sand that pricked her hands while she tried not to choke on her own breath. Stomach twisted into a pretzel, she looked up.

There was a ship floating in the bay. A ship she knew like she knew her own skin and Baelfire's smile. She looked for her Shadow, but Emma knew her no longer, so Emma was not surprised when she couldn't catch her Shadow within her sight.

Gathering her strength, she stepped towards the black water. She would not bow to its darkness. As much as Swan Song had changed, she had been King here too long to let it take control of her. She dove into the water and it parted for her as it always had.

No mermaids tore at her ankles, but she could sense them in the water. Predator sizing up predator. It was a fight they would not win, not now that she had the water snaking through her hands, almost solid enough for her to wield.

The magic came back to her easy, for now she knew with certainty that it had never left. She'd landed on the beach as Emma Swan, runaway. When she alighted on the ship's deck, it was as a King.

The pirate on the deck never would have stood a chance had their eyes not met. If he'd kept his gaze low to his sword handle a moment longer, she would have summoned that black sea and taken him down under. If he'd kept his gaze low a moment longer, she wouldn't have seen the blue of his eyes.

The same blue she hadn't thought of in years.

He was older, but not so much so. She'd aged more than he had. Time did not pass in Swan Song, so there was no telling how long he had been here.

"Shadow, you've taken a new form. Is this some new spell of yours?"

"That's not my name," Emma said, the sudden question drawing fury, hot, racing, and boiling her blood.

"Aye, lass, and what is it?"

He sounded bored. More so, he sounded dangerous. When he revealed his hand, Emma was more wary than surprised to see the hook where his hand had been.

"You know my name," she said. "Your brother accused me of playing games, but that's what you're doing right now, isn't it? Playing a game?"

"Games," he murmured, eyes shutting. "Is that what we're doing? And here I thought I was dreaming."

Silence coiled around them until his laugh broke it, barely a breath's length of sound. "You've grown old, Emma."

Emma crossed her arms around her chest and the wind came with her, spinning in her hands. Killian's eyes opened and narrowed.

"So have you," she said.

"That I have, but we can't all remain as youthful as you. Although I must say I am surprised. I thought demons to be ageless. You have proved me wrong in that assessment."

Emma scoffed. "I'm not a demon."

"No?" He sniffed and said, "So, you are just a murderous witch."

"Murderous? What the hell are you talking about?" Emma demanded.

He tilted his head to study her. "You must know what you've done. I'm not stupid, Emma."

"And you must be because I have no idea what you mean."

"Are you to tell me that this isn't another one of your games? Or are you trying to convince me that my brother's death was not something you knew would occur."

Emma sputtered. The air calmed around her, a gentler breeze that was still cold enough to freeze the sweat on her skin. Shivering, she said, "Your brother's dead?"

"Your antidote came with a price. Magic always does. He died the moment we left here."

"I didn't know," Emma said as he stalked towards her. His hook wasn't raised, but she saw the darkness in his eyes and knew it was meant for her. And she felt too weak to stop it, too weak to do more than stand there, shivering.

"I didn't know," she said and shut her eyes.

When they opened, Baelfire lay beside her on the motel bed. His snores were not the comfort she always found them to be. In the dark of the room, cold metal caressed her skin, its sharp point inching closer.

In the dark of the room, she closed her eyes and saw his eyes, light dimmed blues staring back.

Killian awoke in a sweat. It wasn't unusual, nor was the green at the edges of his vision. But the blonde hair, close enough for him to curl around his hook, was new. The face, sharper, older, but still with the remnants of the girl he briefly knew. The form was much different - womanly, almost.

He'd remembered the eyes correctly, the sunlight within the green. Strange how he found light in a look so dark. Oh, he'd been right about the shadow. It clung to her the moment she'd stepped onto his deck.

There was a malevolence in the way she held herself and she hadn't changed at all, or so he thought.

"I didn't know," she'd whimpered her plea. Demon or Witch, evil in the form of a girl she may be, but he believed her. Trust did not come easy to him, but he believed her.

He shook his head and walked to the deck without bothering to dress. Looking out over the sea and to the island, he searched for any sign of her, but he could find none except the drumming in his ears.

Magic. It had to be. Magic always had a catch. Perhaps this time it would catch her instead.

She wasn't scared to dream. He had not put that kind of fear in her. As terrified as she'd been when she awoke, it didn't take more than a wracking of her memories - no, it was easier than that for her to bring his face to mind in that moment where he'd grabbed her and begged, with tears in his eyes, for her to save his brother. In that moment, jealousy had nearly taken her, a darkness she'd never thought would touch her in Swan Song. His touch had scared her enough that she could still recall the warmth of his hands, and that touch had been enough to shake unwanted memory from the clutches of forgetfulness.

However, it was something stronger than warm fingers that had her helping him. She'd wanted to do something good. Something that no one had ever done for her, but it was stupid to think it wouldn't backfire on her.

Things always did.

She'd killed his brother. Somehow, with that water, she'd killed him. All she had wanted was to do good. She might as well have let him die.

"Emma, do you want me turn out the light?" Baelfire asked, looking at her with concern.

"Might as well," she said and laid down to sleep.

She wasn't scared to dream, nor was she afraid when she awoke on Swan Song again. The night felt deeper, somehow, though the moon was just as bright as before.

Her steps were on automatic, taking her to the water. She touched a bare toe to the cold water. Getting wet was totally not in the cards for tonight.

Instead, she walked across the surface. Her magic kept her afloat and lifted her aboard the ship easily.

He was waiting.

"Evening, Emma," he said with a grunt.

Emma had politeness drilled into her by an overbearing, "Jesus sees you taking more than you should" foster father, so she offered Killian a "Good evening," as well.

"How did you get back to Swan Song?"

Emma asked this from the opposite side of the deck. She was safe there. There, the magic flowered. The closer she stepped to him, the more it would jump out of grasp.

"I flew, of course."

Grinning wildly, he scratched his chin. "Or did you mean something a little more philosophical? I came here in search of revenge."

Emma tugged the magic to her protectively. Licking her lip, she said, "Revenge against me, for your brother."

"Don't believe yourself special, Emma. You weren't the only reason, but yes, it was that memory that spurred me on."

Emma crinkled her brow in thought. He was leaving a lot unsaid. Not lying exactly, but not the truth either. He'd come here for her, not just the memory, and despite herself, despite his words, despite sense, she felt...special.

"Thinking hard, are we?" he asked, drawing her eyes back to him.

He'd stepped closer and she hadn't even noticed.

"If not to kill me, why did you come back? Revenge against someone else?" She narrowed her eyes. "The person who took your hand?"

His gaze flickered away from her and it was subtle, the step he took back. Still, Emma noticed. She spent enough time, while shoplifting with Baelfire, watching for the tiniest movements that could mean their capture. It was impossible for her to miss the discomfort in his step and the far off look in his averted gaze.

"Took something more?"

His returned look was fierce.

"Something more, yes," he said.

She'd get no more out of him. It was probably time for this dream to end. She could pinch herself awake - or dive into the water and wake herself with the cold.

Words came instead.

"I thought it would cure him," she said.

"The path to hell is paved with good intentions. Or so they say in your world."

Emma laughed, but it choked out quickly. "How do you know that?"

"Don't lose your pretty head, Emma, I've never been to your world. I have heard...stories."

Emma knew only one person he would hear stories from here. Did her Shadow count as a person? Was her Shadow still even hers?

"I'm sorry," Emma said finally.

His look took her from her dream once again, but she didn't awake scared.

She clutched at her pillow, rolling away from Baelfire. Everything felt dim around her, just that much sadder.

He didn't dream of her for a very long time. Of this he could be sure, the chiming of the bell from that godforsaken island waking him every morning at the same time. It was ten days or so of this before he started recording the days to paper.

It was a year and a half before he stopped.

The Shadow still kept him up to date on Emma's activities. More and more however, he felt like he was only getting a small part of the story.

More and more, he felt choked by those past dreams.

"What are you thinking about, Captain?"

The Shadow glided over to where he paced the floorboards of Emma's treehouse. It never remained dusty for it was his favorite place to think. Think of her and remember his reasons for coming here. Remember himself. This island sought to steal all that away from him and leave him not only trapped in the darkness, but happy to be encaged.

"Emma came to me in a dream," he admitted.

Over the years spent here, he'd come to recognize the Shadow's shifting tones. He listened intently for it now, looking for any twists in its words that would say more than the Shadow meant to.

Reading between its lines was a difficulty.

"Did she?" An uptick on the 'did.' "And what did she say?" The 'what' was said sly and slow as if he would not notice the Shadow's eagerness.

"How did you know she said anything at all?" he asked, covering his razor sharp focus with a more curious tone.

"Perhaps, she told me. Or maybe I just like to watch you talk to yourself in your sleep."

Killian stiffened. He'd never thought himself safe, not anymore, not from these islands' beasts or its Shadow, but he thought he had at least privacy.

His chest lifted in a quiet laugh. The Shadow had become a better watcher than his own.

The Shadow's carefully worded blow hit him hard, but he recovered with a gracefulness he'd perfected. Smiling, he said, "Maybe I should return the favor."

"Oh, yes, maybe you should."

The tone had a strange seductiveness to it that the Shadow had never used before. He raised an eyebrow, but let it pass. It was something to think about later. After all, he had the time to do so, and right now he was on a mission.

"Emma confessed that she didn't mean to kill my brother and that she did not know of the water's true nature."

The Shadow cackled.

"Do you think she really did not know? Oh, Captain I didn't think you would be so naive."

He tensed. "Naive?"

"Who do you think she learned of that spring from? I taught her all she knew of this Island, but she was too busy...'playing games' to pay much attention to my warnings, just as your brother paid no mind to hers. A terrible cycle to be sure."

To be sure.

Too busy playing games. At once he felt both rage and a deep and terrible aching in his chest, melancholia unshakable. Playing games all by herself on this lonely island, no parents to speak of - she'd been reclaiming a childhood stolen from her. It was a revelation that only made him bitter, not at her, but at the loss that bonded them.

It had been sunny when he first arrived here, but no less dark.

"Captain, are you alright?" the Shadow asked sweetly, concerned.

Caring was not in its nature. Its sweetness hid the poison underneath.

"I have seen better days," he said, waving out at the clouded sky.

He imagined what it would be like to see the sun for once.

"How is it that you are able to leave this island?" he asked, not for the first time.

"For the same reason you cannot. When I dream, Killian, it is of brighter days than yours."

"You don't sleep," he argued. They both knew that to be true.

"But I do dream."

He imagined it winking. Imagined Emma winking at him, not as the child she was, but the older teen of his dreams. It was a strange vision, and for a moment it was blinding.

He lifted his gaze to see the sun pouring through the clouds. He tried to focus on it, but the clouds drifted back in quickly, caging the light again.

When he looked at the Shadow, it had its ghostly arms crossed on its chest. He imagined a pout on Emma's face, but was not quite sure the look was just right.

"Brighter days than mine," Killian affirmed and looked back at the clouded sky, searching for that light in the dark.

It would not leave her be.

The dreams did, but not the magic. It came to her in the smallest of moments. The bell on a convenience store door would startle white and yellow sparks out of her fingertips that she'd clench into her fist, desperate to hide the sight from Baelfire, from herself.

At night, if she lay on Baelfire's chest for too long, listening to the beating of his heart, her comfort would turn disquieting. Instead of a heartbeat, she'd hear drums. She'd recall the embrace of her Shadow, her arms so much colder than Baelfire's. Shuddering at the memory, Emma would feel her body lift away from his. Flying away from him, drawing her back to her Swan Song.

She couldn't bear clocks or watches. The ticking would give her a migraine of the likes that Excedrin couldn't help.

Once, Emma lashed out, unthinkingly letting loose all of her rising power in one fell swoop.

Frantic, she'd called Baelfire to bring the car around. They had to go, she said, and he didn't even question her, just grabbed the bags out of her hands and stuffed them in the trunk. She left enough money behind to cover the cost of the broken clock, but she couldn't leave behind the memory of those shattered pieces, glittering like a sandy shore on the cheap green carpeting.

It would not leave her be, and after a while she didn't want it to. The magic thrummed inseparable from the blood pumping through her veins. Her magic had always been her sanctuary before Baelfire came and took its place, but if she couldn't hide from it any longer then it was better to just embrace it.

Better to leave Baelfire in the middle of the night and climb to the roof where she'd lay, floating above the concrete while she stared at the stars in the sky, looking for the right one.

She didn't have plans to return to Swan Song but still she searched, the magic's call irresistible.

It sounded in her ears, a song whose beat she recognized, but she could not remember the words.

When he awoke standing on his deck, he knew that he was dreaming and that Emma had returned. He felt her just beneath his skin, like a spindle drawing his thread in.

He stayed where he was instead. She always came to him and he had no desire to venture beyond the semi-safety of his ship. Danger lurked in dreams. He had no use for more of it when he could see Emma skating across the water towards him.

She was safe in those dark waters, but he was not. The reality of that threw him.

He'd thought a lot about their shared dreams in the past few years, but had never posed the question of whose dream it was, perhaps because he'd been so sure it was his.

That left another question: Why was she safe here and not he?

He slid to the floor of his deck to ponder this and by the time she arrived, he still had not reached a satisfying answer.

"Emma," he greeted.

She touched down on the deck with a heavy gasp and he lifted his eyes to her to find her soaking wet. And older still, the youthfulness gone replaced by a flush of womanhood.

"Took a dip in the sea?" he asked, staring at the thin shirt clinging to her form. The night was warm, but she shivered in what he supposed were her night clothes: a sleeveless shirt and torn pants whose frayed edges rose above her knees. Emma may have left this land, but she still wore her clothes as wild as the untamed jungle.

"A mermaid pulled me under," she said. He detected a note of embarrassment in the way she tucked her hands behind her back.

"They will do that, but so long as it's only one of them and you watch for the teeth, you'll be fine."

She lifted her right hand up and it dripped with blood.

"I forgot to watch for the teeth," she said.

There was something light about the way she said it, self-deprecating instead of the defensiveness of their earlier dreams.

Killian felt lighter, too, like he could lift off the ground if he wanted.

"Here," he said, drawing to his feet and slipping his hand into his coat to grab his flask. It had been a while since he'd drunk from it but when he popped the cap, the rum smelled as potent as ever.

She did not move except to pull her bloodied hand protectively to her chest.

"Let me help," he said.

She shook her head. "I don't need it. I'll just wake up."

The dream world tightened around them in mockery of her words. She quivered on her feet and her eyes shifted restlessly. Reflected in the moonlight, she looked like some kind of star come to life, albeit a bleeding, soaking wet one.

"You know as well as I do that we are slaves to this magic. Just as you very well know that mermaid bites are poisonous. Let me clean the wound."

"With alcohol," she scoffed, eyeing his flask.

"Yes, Emma, with alcohol. It'll be a bloody waste of it, but I won't have you dying on my ship."

She stepped forward, a challenging tilt to her chin, shoulders thrown back and he was caught by a rogue reminder that she was older. Womanly.

He blinked long and hard while she walked forward and said, "What a sacrifice. Alright, buddy."

Emma moved to his side but stopped just a few feet across from him. Hesitant. He started to move his hook aside to clarify that it wasn't a threat in this moment, but that wasn't what had her frozen. Instead, her eyes were on his face.

He cleared his throat.

"I promise this will only hurt a mere moment," he said and closed the distance between them.

It was only after Killian took her hand that her shoulders dropped and he could see the strain of the poison, already taking its toll on her.

He sighed and poured the rum across her hand.

"What the hell!" she cursed, tugging back in his grasp. He didn't let her go. "A mere moment, my ass," she followed it up with.

Colorful enough phrases to match the shades of red in her cheeks.

Her hand was slick with blood so he released her momentarily to pull out a scarf from his pocket as well.

"Your coat come with lollipops, too?" she asked upon seeing it.

It was strange to hear the humor in her voice, stranger still to return it with a delighted grin.

Hadn't he wanted to kill her?

He lifted Emma's hand again and started to wrap the thin fabric around it. She saw the problem with this arrangement at the same time he ducked his head and started to tie the ends into a knot with his mouth.

"Watch it with the teeth," she said, voice breathy.

Her freckled arms trembled but the water was practically dry on them, the heat of the night having burned it away.

"I am always careful with them," he replied and tightened the knot one more time.

She trembled again and he was caught, another rogue thought of the innuendo he did not intend with his response.

The innuendo she heard.

Dashing the thought, Killian said, "The Shadow tells me you have been traveling."

"My Shadow?" she said and searched the skies as if expecting the creature to swoop down upon them. As if wanting it to.

Interesting. Her Shadow, she said, but he knew its magic to be a darkness quite different than her own.

It sucked in the light, whereas she reflected it. Her skin glowed and when she could not find the Shadow and turned her head back to him, her green eyes shimmered.

Emma put distance in between them, suspicious and accusing in her question of, "Why would she tell you that?"

"The creature has to say something to keep my attention."

She closed her mouth, brow furrowing into a confused frown. He'd shocked her into silence.

Shocked himself, too, in fact. It was an admission he would rather not have made. The details of his time spent here were between him and the Shadow.

Her Shadow.

"Does she not tell you of me?"

"No," Emma said quietly. "She never visited when..." She trailed off only for a moment, her gaze flickering. "She always stayed on her own when I was with William."

"Your traveling partner?"

"My friend," she said.

Her blush said more than her words.

It was easy to slip back into his hatred, watching the corners of her mouth lift and her eyes brighten at William's name. Easy to remind himself that they were not simply dreaming partners, but tied together along a line of hatred that ran so deep within him as to replace his very blood.

He recalled the boy's clothes in the treehouse, but Emma's patched outfit had been so boyish itself that he'd never noted it as strange.

"The boy left here with you." The sharp jerk of her head confirmed this. "Perhaps one day I'll join you both," he said.

A hiss whistled through her bared teeth.

"Is that a threat?" she demanded.

He could feel her magic swell, but he fought against it. He wouldn't bow to her. Whether it was his dream or hers, he'd been in this land too long to fear death at her hands.

Killian discarded that fear the same moment he sent Milah's body down to the depths of the sea.

Grinning, he said, "I am no threat to him."

He blinked, laughing in the face of the wind that she let loose, stumbling back and awake. He was in his cabin with no sign of her or that wind that ripped at his skin for the brief moment she caught him in it.

She was gone, which was for the best - for her. For him, it was a defeat, letting her slip out of his grasp. A self-defeat.

But he'd won something this evening. A name to her happiness and the flush of her cheeks. It was only when Killian began to settle back into his sleep that the rogue thought deemed it safe to enter his mind.

She'd blushed for him, too.

For days, she'd been holding Baelfire close to her. At every opportunity, she'd grab his hand or poke his side or just watch him while he restocked the shelves at the supermarket they worked in.

For weeks, she waited for Killian to arrive while her magic built up, ready to burst at any given moment when she lost Baelfire to a crowd and the fear spiked.

She'd known from the beginning that their encounter would turn to shit. Emma hadn't needed the mermaid's bite to tell her that. She awoke in Swan Song in the middle of a storm, not knowing what side it would hit her from, just waiting for it to blow her away. But she had ignored the warning, and for what? The rum that he'd burned across her wound.

The smile Killian gave her when she'd joked with him. Joked with the man who had come to kill her and who had destroyed her world the moment he and his brother invaded Swan Song.

What the fuck, Emma?

She found herself asking that question more and more and Baelfire began to notice. He was always easy with his smiles, but from the morning she awoke with those teeth marks on her hands, they began to lessen, replaced with the frowns she hadn't seen for years. She could see the wheels turning in his head, leading him down a dark path that she wanted to protect him from.

But as everything she wanted, it drifted out of reach.

When her dreams sped her away to Swan Song again, she didn't just race across the water like hell nipped at her heels, she pounced on Killian with the fury of the devil he claimed her to be.

And yet, he was the one who caught her off guard. Pinned beneath her magic and her knee, he laughed.

He waved at his prone form. "Yet you say you're no demon," he said and laughed again, scraping his hook against the wood.

"You're the monster, not me," Emma said though doubt crept in at his words and at the sight of her shaking hands, glowing with white light.

"I must admit, I was surprised to see you bleed the same color as I. Your Shadow on the other hand does not bleed at all. Even when I hold my hook to its throat..."

He was faster than she gave him credit for.

"Just. Like. So."

The curve of his hook rested beneath her chin and she breathed heavy against it. Her mind scrambled for a way to pull away without slicing her own throat. The bite remained when she awoke, so a wound like that would surely kill her.

And then who would protect Baelfire?

She pressed her knee harder into his chest and he winced. Instead of dropping his hand, he held the hook a little higher, the pointed edge that much closer.

They were at an impasse.

"Leave William out of this...whatever this is."

"Whatever this is? Emma, you know very well what this is," he said.

But she didn't, not when Killian looked at her and his blue eyes swelled with something more than hatred and beyond the echo of the bleakness she'd felt when he'd left.

The drumming turned to silence when he was around.

"Leave him alone," she said. She relaxed her weight on his chest a fraction. Tilting his head to the side, he considered her but did not drop his hook. Emma swallowed against it. "He's not a part of this."

"But he's a part of you," Killian said.

He drew back his hook

"And you want to destroy me? All of me?"

He shrugged.

"I made a vow that I intend to keep."

Killian sounded tired as he said it, but something clicked in her head. She heard a voice, her own but different - older, scared - "Killian, come back to me."

They both twisted at the sound of the bell ringing out across the islands.

"I'm right here," he whispered in response.

She couldn't possibly have said the words aloud. It wasn't her. Killian looked just as bewildered as she felt, just as disoriented.

"Can you hear the ticking?" she asked, lifting off of him.

"When can I not hear it?" he asked drily. "Its noise is incessant. What a strange building to have on your island, Emma."

She folded her arms over her chest. "It isn't mine. I don't know any Storybrooke. It's not even a real place."

She had checked once, googling it when she dreamed of its library doors opening, an old fashioned elevator inside, leading down to...she never knew, waking up before she reached the bottom.

"Perhaps the Shadow dreamt it up."

Her Shadow hated it more than Emma ever did, so Emma shook her head. It would have erased the building from existence if it could.

Besides, her Shadow didn't dream. It always left that to Emma, even laughed when she suggested her Shadow catch some sleep as well. It was shrill laugh, now that Emma remembered it. Her memory played tricks, but her age gave her perspective. It was a colder sound than she thought it at the time.

"I created this world," Emma explained. "So, maybe I did dream it, once upon a time."

"Well can't you get rid of it? It's making my time here particularly unpleasant." He grunted as he rose to his elbows. "Time, time, time. Immortality is worse when you can count down the hours you've spent living a half-life."

Killian breathed out a tired sigh and lifted up so he could brush his hair out of his face. His eyes flickered shut and did not reopen.

Hesitantly, Emma asked, "Are you looking for a way out?"

He turned familiar dim eyes on her. "Is there a way out? Or is this just some childish fantasy I'm harboring? Perhaps your Shadow is right and I will never escape."

"But -"

But what? He just tried to kill her. Multiple times he'd terrified her and yet, she almost wanted him to escape. It didn't sit right with her that he should sound so defeated. He did say that he'd made a vow, and though she knew that included her, she couldn't stop feeling like it was wrong for him to stay in this dark place. Swan Song wasn't his and it showed. Killian belonged somewhere else, and it was a whispering thought that said he belonged somewhere kinder.

Somewhere in the light.

"I escaped," she said. "And according to you, I'm a witch, a demon, the whole shebang. A monster can probably do it, too."

"That sounds like encouragement, Emma."

There was no teasing in the tone, nor menace, but still she flustered.

"It isn't. I was just pointing out the flaws in your argument."

"Point taken."

He smiled and the ticking sounded louder. His words echoed and so did his smile, a vision that seemed about as real as this dream.

She blinked at him, eyes fluttering and he stared back, his blues bright and round with the same vision as her.

A beanstalk beside them, a giant's castle behind them. A dream within a dream.

An anvil dropped into the pit of her stomach and she felt queasy and cold. "Just leave Bae alone, alright," she said, stumbling backwards.

His eyes widened, mouth parting slightly, and that was the last thing she saw before he disappeared and her room returned.

"We need to talk," Baelfire said on his 24th birthday as he dragged an icing covered finger across her cheek.

Emma smiled. "About how if you do that again, I'll bite your finger off?"

"You won't."

He smirked and leaned across the motel couch to kiss her cheek. Its cheap plastic covering squeaked over the sound of her sigh. Her face went hot as he licked the icing away. It wasn't uncomfortable - they'd been together for almost a decade now, not counting Swan Song, but she felt like the kiss didn't belong to her.

Like he wasn't her Baelfire anymore.

Her breath choked up. They needed to talk always meant leaving. In every movie, every show, all it meant was goodbye.

Leaving. It had been so long since she'd been left behind, she almost forgot what it felt like.

"I know you've been upset lately, so I have an idea. How about we get out of here?"

We. She blinked and her slipping fingers crumbled the cake in her hand.

"We just got here," she said.

"No, I meant, how about we get out of this - this life. We've got some money. We could move somewhere. Settle down."

She snorted. "Like where?"

'Neverland?'

Never-where? She had only ever heard that voice - the voice that was hers but not her - in her dreams, no, nightmares with Killian. She was definitely going crazy, but there wasn't time to think about that when Baelfire stole a piece of her cake out of her hand, dropping more crumbs to the ground.

Smiling around the mess, mouth still mostly full, he said, "Well, I've been thinking. We've never seen Disney."

Emma laughed. "You can't live at Disney."

His response was serious. "No, but somewhere close. Somewhere near there." Grinning his shy grin that reminded Emma of the boy he once was, the one that tolerated her magic but loved her world's plainness so much more, Baelfire added, "I hear Tallahassee is nice this time of year."

From underneath his thigh, he pulled out a slightly crushed envelope.

"Happy birthday, Emma," he said, almost a question as Emma dropped the rest of her cake on the plate and wiped her hands on her t-shirt before taking the envelope. The edges smeared with chocolate as she peeled it open because he'd gotten the bright idea to actually lick it closed, but it was worth it when she pulled out the two plane tickets to Tallahassee, Florida.

"I saved up a little bit here and there. Really, I was going to buy us a new car, but then I thought, it's garbage anyway, we could just leave it behind and get a new one wherever we go."

His smile was brilliant when he said, "I can see that you're happy. You've got that half-smile on her face. So, we're going, aren't we?"

Emma felt her half-smile turn into a real one. Two tickets to Tallahassee, not one, but two.

Together was still their thing after all.

"Are you not keen to return, Captain?"

Killian glanced up at the Shadow as it slipped out of the darkness of the skies. It had never travelled to his ship before. At least, not while Killian was there or, by its own admission, awake.

"To a place I cannot reach?" He split into a cheery smile. "Quite."

He turned away from the Shadow and stared back out across the Island's sea. It had been days since she called her boy "Bae," with the same loving tone that Milah had when she mentioned her son.

Bae. Baelfire.

Somehow, some way, Milah's son was alive and travelling, nay, cavorting with Emma Swan.

So many lines drew Killian and her together. It was hard to decide whether it was some trick of fate, destiny, or of something stronger that he had yet to decipher.

As much as he had yet to decipher what it meant that she had found happiness with Bae and left behind this land with him. For him, most likely; Milah had said her son was as much a dreamer as her and Killian had seen it in the boy's sad brown eyes, rounded with dreams that his mother would leave that bar and Killian behind and stay with him instead.

Mere dreams, and dreams were not meant to last.

Nightmares were a different tale. Nightmares haunted through the long waking hours, eating away at your strength until you entered sleep with nothing between you and its devouring jaws.

What was Emma then? A dream or a nightmare?

She'd found Milah's boy, loved Milah's boy with a strength that left Killian winded. She'd have done much worse than bruise his ribs had he given further voice to his threat.

Might have even killed him.

Killian laughed to himself, uncaring that the Shadow hovered beside him, watching, because he and Emma understood each other.

She'd have risked the slice of his hook to protect her love, and it was that very reason he bore the sharp appendage. Love.

He stabbed his hook into the railing of his ship. His hand ached with phantom pains. For so long, he'd felt nothing of it, but with Emma's plea - with Baelfire's name falling out her mouth, so familiar, loving and caring - the pain had come back as so many things had.

Killian lifted his remaining hand, staring at the last sketch Milah had made of her son and of herself, a future torn away with her heart.

He thought of Milah's smile, that beautiful smile that he couldn't picture without his eyes on the self-portrait she'd drawn while he'd ran his fingers through her dark hair.

Killian could not remember its texture.

So many things had come back, but he felt at a loss.

His purpose had become muddled. The single minded focus he once possessed for revenge against Emma...he did not know what to do with it now.

She hadn't meant to kill his brother. She was out of reach. She was with Baelfire.

Three reasons to abandon that quest, yet his mind wanted to cling to it. It had driven him for so long: news of Emma giving him sick sense of hope.

Now all he had was a bloody knife to kill Baelfire's father and the Shadow that lingered at his elbow, waiting.

"I spoke to her again. Did you know?"

The Shadow positively thrived with the excitement Killian expected of it. Ever since he had told the Shadow of his first dreams, it had taken what it probably thought to be sly means of trying to ease Killian's mind enough to reveal more of them.

"Know what?"

Killian grit his teeth. "Baelfire."

"William is the name he prefers." The Shadow tutted but then added, "But I suppose since Emma deemed you worthy enough to hear it, he would not mind you calling him that. Emma is very important to him, probably the most important thing in his life."

The Shadow was goading him. It pricked needles at his spine, sharp reminders of their tangled web. Kill the girl who unwittingly killed his brother and leave Milah's son all alone in the world? Or leave his brother unavenged and allow Milah's memory to live on with her son?

"What else have you been holding back?" he snapped.

"Shall I reveal all my secrets and ease your mind?"

Killian deadpanned. "I'm sure not a one would ease my mind."

"But there would be no more secrets between us. Wouldn't you like that, Killian?"

It wasn't goading any longer. Instead it lilted with seduction. Again, it was a strange tone that sounded even less like Emma than it normally did, but even more womanly.

"Secrets? As there were no secrets between you and Emma? She called you 'her Shadow' but you belong to no one except the darkness."

The Shadow waved him off. "But isn't that where she belongs as well? She killed your brother and will do the same to Baelfire if you let her. She may not mean to, but darkness does not mean to snuff out the light. It just...does."

There was light in Emma's eyes. Light that even the darkness could not touch.

Still, he believed the Shadow. After all, the road to hell was paved with good intentions and with winding paths lined with all the bad ones.

"So, will you save him, Shadow? Or leave him to die?"

The Shadow laughed. "The answer is up to you."

He did not trust the Shadow. Hell, he didn't even trust himself, but with finality, he replied, "Save him."

The Shadow's laugh was mocking, but when it flew off, shouting, "As you wish," all he heard was his own voice.

His lips burned with a phantom kiss. Touching his hand to them, he stared out across the sea as silence fell around him. The clock's ticking had stopped. It was a dismal comfort, the heat on his lips the only thing that felt right.

It watched them carefully as they prepared themselves. Emma's laughter was brighter than it had been for years. Had it known what signs to look for, it would have nipped this in the bud before it began.

After all, that was its job.

The Shadow itself had other thoughts on the matter, but its thoughts were not allowed fruition. It had a job and as much as it would rather nip this in the bud with those pruning shears the housewives on Emma's TV loved so much, it did its duty.

It allowed the anger to ripple through its shape, change it into what it once was before settling down into the shape it was forced to have. The look of a young girl long since gone.

Years on this world were such tiresome things. All they did was steal whatever they could get their hands on. However, the Shadow respected that, from a thief to a thief.

It kept watch as it always did and when Emma sped off in her car, towards their supermarket no doubt for her long shift, the Shadow waited for Baelfire to take the walk he always did.

That's when it swooped in.

"Hello, Baelfire," the Shadow said, floating into his path.

The boy - man at this point stepped back but the Shadow moved into its path before he could sprint in the other direction. He was trapped in the dead end alley.

It could be worse.

"I am not here to hurt you," the Shadow said to Baelfire's raised fists. It was not a lie. The Captain had said to save him, and the Shadow was only doing what he'd asked.

And perhaps some of what he hadn't asked.

"I'm here to save Emma."

This caught Baelfire's attention. "Save her from what?" he snapped.

"The very same thing you would have saved your father from. Magic, of course."

Baelfire scoffed, but the sound was uneven. "Emma doesn't need saving from magic. Not here."

The Shadow ignored him. "You must have noticed. You're losing her to it. In her dreams, she travels back and little by little, it welcomes her home."

Baelfire remained quiet, so the Shadow went on. It was built for this, to open the wounds wide enough for it to slip inside.

"That world is no longer safe for her to return to."

"Why not?" Baelfire demanded.

It was cute in a way that even the Shadow, mere black dust pulled together by magic, could understand. He wanted to protect her, fists still raised as if he could hit the Shadow out of existence.

"There is a new darkness there. The land responds to the people that walk its shores and swim its seas, and the person that walks there now…he would kill her if given the chance."

Baelfire grimaced. "I wouldn't let him."

"Of course, you wouldn't. So, you know what you must do."

His brow furrowed. His face was so open with his emotions, it was no wonder Emma loved him so much. She could pick up a lie better than she wielded her magic, even, and Baelfire could never lie to her.

It would make this much easier.

"What do I need to do?"

"What are you willing to do?"

"I don't understand…"

"In order to protect her, you have to be willing to do anything."

The shadow almost teased the words but resisted. That would only make Baelfire suspicious, and the Shadow needed him kept off his guard in order for this to succeed.

"I will do anything. Just tell me what it is."

The shadow smiled, but he wouldn't be able to see. Only it could feel the way its shadowed cheeks drew up in a smile that it had been so long since it had seen in the flesh. Baelfire was not the only one far from home.

"You have to kill the dreams."

"How do I do that?" Baelfire asked eagerly.

"There's only one way to kill a dream like hers. You have to destroy the source."

Fed up, Baelfire practically growled the next words. "Just tell me."

"Her love for you. It keeps her tethered to her magic. All you need to do is destroy that love, and she'll be free to live her life."

"I can't…" He stammered as the Shadow knew he would. It was prepared for his weakness.

"You do want her to be free, don't you? Or do you wish her to go back to the dark?"

Baelfire stiffened. The Shadow had never had any use for tears, but it did enjoy them. That it still had in common with its owner.

Yet, Baelfire did not let his tears fall. A pity, really.

"You don't have to worry, Baelfire. I'll keep watch over her."

The Shadow drew out the silence between them, gave Baelfire time to come to terms with whatever decision he had made. It watched carefully, the expressions that flitted across his face until his jaw jutted out and he stared at the Shadow with eyes that were looking further on.

"I always have," the Shadow said and took off, gliding through the air. It would not go far. This was the part the Shadow always liked.

The Shadow dreamed, too, and heartbreak had a way of making those dreams sweeter.

Wrongness was a familiar feeling to Emma. Her whole life had been wrong, a nightmare fairytale that Disney would water down and make her a lost princess needing to find her way home instead of an orphan with no home to speak of.

Tallahassee. It would be home.

And yet, the thought felt wrong as she unlocked the door and stepped into their motel. Baelfire wasn't there, but he often wasn't when she came back to whatever motel they'd holed up in for that week. He liked his walks and he didn't really recognize the time.

Something about wearing a watch turned him off.

She set her bags down on the bedside table and went to wash her hands, all the while the itch under her skin mounting past the point of bearable.

Emma didn't notice the envelope until she went to turn on the TV. It was taped to the screen. Baelfire had scrawled her name across it in messy letters. He'd never got the hang of writing letters that weren't pure chicken scratch.

Ripping it off the screen, she tore the letter open. It didn't occur to her to connect the tension in her heart to the letter until after she read his words.

And then nothing really occurred to her at all.

Except as she came back to herself and noticed the letter lying on the floor at her feet, she remembered the black lines on Killian's brother as the poison winded its way through him and she had to check her hands to make sure it wasn't dreamshade in her veins.

It wasn't.

So the heartbreak was as real as his words.

His "Sorry, but I think that it's best that we don't go to Tallahassee. I've rethought some things, and I'm sorry Emma."

Sorry, Emma.

She still had the tickets. She still had the car, but Baelfire was gone as he had come, out of her life like he'd stepped through a magic portal, into a better, Emma-less world.

A flash of light sparked in her room, and another and another. By the time the magic ceased its violent outburst, trails of fire scorched the walls and her fingers were lit with a lightning unlike that of any storm she'd ever seen.

They never got caught. Together, they were safe.

Alone, Emma ended up sitting in a jail cell for arson.

Together made her bitter. More so, when they did inventory of all the belongings she had on her when she was caught - cash, her car keys, wallet and that envelope that should have burned with all the other things in that hotel room.

"Two tickets to Tallahassee, eh?" the clerk said with a huff. "You won't need that where you're going."

Emma silently agreed. She wasn't going anywhere at all.

She looked down at her chained wrists and stared at her palm, waiting for the magic to return as she instinctively knew it would not. It was gone. Wherever Baelfire had gone, it had gone with him.

Gone, and it wasn't coming back.