Once Upon A Happy Beginning

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Make Him Be Honest

Killian

I can see Emma squeezing my hook. I wish it was my hand. I need to feel the soft comfort of her flesh against mine. She takes a sip of her wine as I bring my own drink to my lips. My wife drops her hand from my hook to my thigh as she squeezes it gently and runs her fingers in small circles. I wish I could reciprocate it, but she's sat on my left and... well... I wouldn't want to hurt her. Robin babbles in her high chair, next to where Zelena is sat, her attempted speech breaking through the uneasy silence that fell after Emma's words.

"We, well, Swan and I were thinking," I start, hesitantly, as I stab my hook into the stem of my broccoli to let myself cut through it. I always used to eat like this, using my hook as a fork, and whilst I've discovered more dignified ways of eating since, this is my family and I want to let my past self know he can be himself around them too. "We worked out, well it was mainly Emma, but we realised that there's a lot of things we remember about the Enchanted Forest that don't add up. If any of it can... can bring my baby girl back..." Emma squeezes my leg again; she's here. She's by my side. When I feel like choking up, Swan is always there by my side. 

Snow is first to jump in with a gentle reminder to take our time with this. She's right but she's also really wrong. For me, this was the worst period of a good two and a bit centuries of life. I lost my wife, and then my daughter, and then I as good as lost myself. She's right that we shouldn't rush into bringing all these memories to the surface, but she's wrong in that we need to. If there's any hope in bringing my daughter home, we need to remember this. 

"Mom, it's okay. We need to. We... we... we remembered that it was this Gold that took Elizabeth, not Rumplestiltskin."

Henry nods at us to continue: "Because he heard about the funeral."

"Yeah, kid, that's right. But it was, he came here to bring me back. Without Elizabeth, he travelled back in time to resurrect me. Why? I'm not really the Saviour anymore, we won the Final Battle." 

"Emma, you're still the Saviour. You still have light magic. You're still the Product of True Love." Regina says, pausing in her meal to look across the table at us. "Magic isn't simple."

"I think we've had several years to gather that." I tell her pointedly, wanting to keep anything rising into a heated argument. Which is something I know happens when Swan gets stressed. 

"Guyliner, please. All magic needs an equal opposite to it, somewhere in the realm. If that doesn't exist, it gets out of hand. Zelena has the Good Witch of the South, her polar opposite. I have your mother's pure heart. The Black Fairy has Blue. And the Dark One? He has you. Why do you think he bargains for babies? Because if there is any chance that the child is the Product of True Love, they are his equal match. For a long time, Rumplestiltskin was afraid of meeting his match. Of being weakened. Because for the Dark One, the opposite force is someone who doesn't control their power, but opposes it entirely. The Darkness is contained within the dagger. But the Dark One still requires an opposite, just as all magic does. And his opposite is you."

I think I'm looking at Regina like she has a second head. Emma, on the other... you know, is smiling softly. "As long as I'm alive, I can hurt him. I have the power to stop him."

"Bloody hell, mate. You married the girl that can get us our revenge?"

I glare at my twin in a silent message that I've told him numerous times now. That part of my life is long gone.

"But..." Zelena interrupts, "Forgive me if we're forgetting one small thing. Isn't that exactly why Emma wouldn't be resurrected?"

"But I would never kill him. I can't." Emma breathes. "If he dies, I die. Killian dies. He knows that with me alive to act as his opposite force, he'll live."