Sometimes, you try to change. Sometimes, it's not enough.

"Please, don't hurt my papa, Alice pleads, and you want to tell her that it's useless, that all her efforts will just be vain, that Gothel won't listen to her, but you can't, because the pain that hits you is too big and terrible to be just ignored. He is a good man, she adds, just wanting her father not to be hurt."

No, I 'm not, you think, because you know your daughter is wrong about you, so wrong. Not since a long, long time. Not since Neverland. Maybe it happened before, maybe I stopped being a good man after Liam died.

And then, Gothel had a grin, as if she already knew what you were thinking just right now.

It looks like she is really having fun right now, and if there was not this pain in your chest, you would surely send her a look full of hatred and you would try to signify to her that you will get revenge on her, that you will make her suffer as much as you can.

(Except that you won't, except that you did change, for Alice, and you're not the same man anymore. You're not anymore this pirate who wanted to get revenge on Rumplestiltskin, after all, when you came to see him, you didn't even try to kill him, because all you cared about was your little daughter.

Well, this is what you're telling to yourself, because you're still not sure it's the case, because you know yourself, and you know that you're still this pirate you used to be. The one you became again some hours ago, the dual proved it well.

Because you feel again in your chest, with the pain, the same hatred, the same rage, which animated you for centuries against the Dark One.

You're afraid you're becoming the same man again, the one who was cruel enough to abandon a young boy to the Lost Boys.)

The witch said a sentence which was going to haunt you for years.

Literally.

Not good enough.

Gothel's "Not good enough" freezes you, because there is a part of you, that you desperately try to ignore, which thinks that maybe, she is right.

Not just because you didn't make the good choice once, not because you let yourself be taken in this stupid battle for honor, but because, maybe, all your efforts were made for nothing.

Maybe that you never really changed, and that, even if you do try to be a good father for Alice, as you do since ten years, it will never change who you truly are.

Maybe you're not good enough.

Or maybe that it's even worst.

Maybe you're just not enough.

And then, you hear what Gothel is saying, and all your body is frozen with horror.

This is not the curse itself that terrifies you, it's something else, something more terrible.

She is going to take Alice from you.

The witch, the evil woman, the monster, is going to take your daughter from you.

Just because you did one mistake, just because you took too much time in going back home, just because you made one detour.

Just one ! The first one in ten bloody fucking years !

You don't have even time to think about it, or to try to react, or to fight back against her, because she sends you away, out of the tower, and she takes from you what could have helped you free your daughter from her personal Hell, and you scream.

Then, Alice screams too, and calls for your help :

"Papa ! Please, save me !"

And your heart breaks, because you know as hell that you just can't save her ! You're not a hero or a savior, you're just a survivor, and maybe a father too. A good one, or you hope you are, but the only thing that is sure, is that you're failing your daughter.

You're failing someone, again, as you failed Liam and Milah, when you couldn't save them, or Baelfire, when you abandoned him in Neverland.

You're failing her, and it's killing you.

Maybe that you're the failure.

Maybe that all your efforts were not enough, maybe that it will never be enough.

Maybe that the witch is right, maybe that what you did for Alice, all of this, is not enough and will never be, because it will never erase all the bad things you did.

Maybe that some things never change, no matter how hard you try to do this, to change these one, to change who you are.

Maybe that, after all, people never change...