OUAT Oneshot: With Melting Heart and Laden Hands

[jesterladyfic]

Title: With Melting Heart and Laden Hands
by Jesterlady
Rating: PG
Summary: At the next Storybrooke gathering, Gold appeared at Killian’s side with a bottle of rum and Killian followed him.
Disclaimer: I don't own OUAT. The title is by CH Spurgeon.



With Melting Heart and Laden Hands

It had all started at Gideon’s birthday party. The entire town hadn’t been invited, but it was pretty close. Killian had spent his time since the invite arrived - cream paper with ostentatious gold ink - trying to convince Emma that it wouldn’t be a good idea if he went. He would likely start a fight and ruin the kid’s party and, despite harboring slight resentment against the adult version, he couldn’t blame the baby for having once killed his wife.

Emma had smiled and reminded him that he was a reformed hero now. Sometimes Killian really hated the word hero, even if he couldn’t deny an inner glow of pride when someone referred to him as such. He knew he wasn’t really a hero, not yet anyway. But that was exactly why he knew that even though the Dark One was reformed himself, their feud was too old and too bitter to let them be more than civil to each other. Barely that.

Still, there Killian was, holding a glass of punch - not even spiked - and making awkward conversation with one of the dwarves, for the life of him, he couldn’t remember which one. Killian had shown up early, had helped wrap a present - helped being a loose term considering his hook - and even brought the cake. Granny’s was now a kid’s paradise and all the little devils were running around, screaming and having the time of their life. It was amazing how many children there were in Storybrooke now that so many curses had been broken and true loves - or the mundane plain love equivalent - had been reunited.

Killian would normally have spent time at such a social function glued to Emma’s side, or at least David’s, but his father-in-law was currently occupied in being chief grill master and obviously extremely happy about it and Emma was holding court as savior/sheriff, listening to all the grievances that people hadn’t been able to corner her about before. In all truth as deputy, he should be there with her, but she’d ordered him away, telling him he was hovering and to go make some friends.

Friends. He’d probably stolen and pillaged from more than half the people in this town or their ancestors. Granted, he’d found a home here and a family and a purpose and he wouldn’t change any of that for anything. But in the quiet moments, the ones when it wasn’t just him and Emma and her family - and there were no monsters to defeat or quests to accomplish or curses to be broken - those were the moments when he remembered how far he still had to go on a path of redemption and how hard it was to change.

“A bit different, isn’t it?” came a voice from behind him and he couldn’t help stiffening.

That voice sometimes haunted his dreams.

He slowly turned to face his crocodile. Or Gold, the old fraud had asked to be called Gold - though apparently Belle still got to call him Rumple - instead of any of the other names he’d acquired over the years. Killian could understand that, he didn’t really like anyone other than Emma or his crew calling him Hook. The crew at least tended to add Captain in front. Sometimes Regina did it just to annoy him, but he knew how to handle that and dish it right back.

“Gold,” he said, his tone brittle. “Lovely party.”

“Small talk, really, dearie?” asked Gold mockingly.

“Better than stabbing you in the face with my hook,” Killian said too brightly.

“All in all, a grand concession,” Gold acknowledged. “But you look a little uncomfortable over here. Not enjoying the festivities?”

“They’re fine,” said Killian. “But as you said, it’s…different.”

“Parties have certainly changed from when we were young,” said Gold, shifting his weight on his cane.

Killian often wondered why he bothered with it and doubted he’d ever get a chance to ask him and get an honest answer. His time spent as the Dark One hadn’t afforded him the opportunity to really dig through his past lives - too busy seeking revenge.

“But your son is happy,” Killian said.

“Yes,” said Gold, a rare smile blossoming over his face.

Killian hated to acknowledge it was genuine and not one of the imp’s farces, but he had no other option.

“And Belle?” Killian said, questioning.

Gold turned to look at him and studied him for a second.

“Better than I deserve,” he said finally, then gestured. “Come on.”

“I think going anywhere alone with you is asking for trouble, mate,” Killian said.

“I swear on my son’s life you will not be harmed, pirate,” Gold said, rolling his eyes.

Killian sighed and followed, catching Emma’s eye and pointing vigorously between him and Gold.

She laughed, but he knew she got his point and if he went missing or was maimed any more than he already was, somebody would know about it. At least Gold couldn’t take his heart again; Emma had enchanted it against that. That was practically a town rule now; parents more likely to do that before even naming their child these days.

“Promises aren’t exactly your strong suit,” Killian muttered.

“Ah, but deals are,” Gold said as they entered the diner. “My deal is this: you follow and I give you rum.”

“I’m listening,” said Killian, looking down at his punch in disgust.

Gold reached behind the counter and pulled out a bottle and two glasses.

“As promised,” he said, pouring them each a generous amount.

“Granny know you’re pilfering her goods?” Killian asked, examining his glass closely.

“I am paying for use of the establishment,” Gold said casually. “I assume that means the alcohol.”

“You’re the one with a crossbow in your face if you’re wrong,” Killian said.

Gold tilted his glass back and Killian waited a full three minutes before joining him.

“That’s better,” Gold said once he did.

“Since when was rum your preferred method of dealing with things?” Killian asked.

“It’s yours,” said Gold, glancing sideways at him.

“And you needed me, why?” Killian asked, still suspicious as ever, even though Gold was reformed.

He’d watched Gold closely, Regina and Emma and the Charmings and Belle and Henry and every last citizen of Storybrooke had watched Gold closely. It had been a year since the defeat of the Black Fairy and none of them had detected anything other than the man’s personality flaws. Even Killian couldn’t fault him those.

“I’m not good with children,” Gold said instead of answering him.

“And?” Killian asked, not really understanding.

“It’s my son’s birthday party,” said Gold, somehow mocking Killian even when wanting his…advice, company, help?

“Yeah, I brought cake,” said Killian. “Are you worried about being a parent? Is that what this is?”

“Everyone here is a parent,” said Gold, spreading his hand toward the outside. “Somehow. Even you.”

Killian couldn’t help but feel slightly warm inside about that. It was true that Henry was treating him more like a father these days, even though it made Killian think about Bae more often than he wanted.

“Things change, people change,” Killian said finally and then spoke again, not sure why he was doing it. “You did…well, you did all right with Bae.”

Gold glanced at him sharply and then laughed.

“When I let him fall through a portal alone or when I let him get killed by Zelena? To which golden act of parenting were you referring?”

Killian had no idea why he was trying to reassure the Dark One about his parenting skills, but somehow he was.

“Before,” he said, gesturing with his glass. “Before me.”

“And how would you know that?” Gold asked softly, but Killian felt the undercurrent of danger in his tone.

“From Milah. And Bae,” Killian said, somewhat reluctantly.

“I doubt they would have much good to say,” Gold said after a moment.

“People say more than they think sometimes,” Killian said. “You can learn to read between the lines and hear the things they didn’t mean to reveal.”

“I certainly agree,” said Gold. “But our lives were bleak.”

“Yet you played with Bae every day outside even with your bad leg,” said Killian.

Gold’s breath caught and Killian pointedly didn’t look at him.

“He told you that?” Gold finally asked.

“Aye,” said Killian. “He was aboard my ship for a long time and we spent many a night charting the stars and swapping tales.”

“So you took that, too,” Gold said.

Killian did look at him then.

“I bear my guilt in many things,” said Killian, “and being a good parent to Bae is not something I can claim.”

“Nor I,” said Gold, somehow less threatening than a moment ago.

They raised an unspoken toast between them and drank the last of their rum and then Killian went back out to the party.

But it somehow became a pattern. At the next Storybrooke gathering, Gold appeared at Killian’s side with a bottle of rum and Killian followed him. They drank mostly in silence but when they did speak it was usually about the past. This happened again and again, though Gold and Belle began to travel every summer and so there were long months in between even seeing each other, let alone drinking.

It finally reached the point to where Killian instinctively showed up at the Rabbit Hole on Thursday nights and somehow Gold was always there. Killian didn’t question the pattern much after it had been established. It felt cathartic somehow, like every drink was a little bit of forgiveness laid on top of his desire for revenge, especially because he was free to talk about Bae with Gold in a way that he couldn’t with anyone else. Everyone else in Storybrooke knew him as Neal, the man who had broken Emma’s heart and become Henry’s father, and lived on in the young prince. None of them knew the young boy who had such promise and who had been so broken, and how much weight of responsibility Killian felt for that.

Killian finally got the answer to his question about Gold’s cane. It turned out the man used it as a reminder, much the same way Killian did with his hook. Even though Gold could walk without the cane, keeping it helped him remember the price of becoming the man he was today and let him keep a deliberate link to the man he had been before the Darkness.

It was during one of these drinking sessions that Gold finally confessed how he had been the one to destroy Milah in the Underworld. It had taken every last ounce of Killian’s will to not beat the man black and blue. As it was, they didn’t speak for almost a year, though part of that was Gold’s strategic - Killian marveled at how he’d planned a confession like that right before leaving town - six month trip to explore the parts of the realm Belle had grown up in and never gotten to travel. It took that entire year for Killian to accept it and move on, and that only with Emma’s help and some late night chats with David.

When next they met for drinks, it was hesitant and the air crackled with tension, but they managed it, only speaking a curt hello and goodbye. It was easier the next time and the next, until finally it was more or less back to the state it had been before that confession. Yet it still felt like a miracle to him every time Killian sat down next to his mortal enemy and didn’t attempt to rend him limb from limb.

Today they were in one of the booths instead of the bar and Killian was on his second glass of rum and feeling almost pleasantly relaxed - emphasis on almost. He and Emma had spent the day rooting out wild pixies from people’s houses and his bones were old enough and spent enough to need a night of leisure. So it was with a small measure of annoyance that he glared at Gold and the dagger in his boot.

“Could you tone that bloody thing down or lock it up somewhere? It’s giving me a headache.”

Gold glanced at him with a measured look.

“You still hear it,” he stated more than asked.

“Aye,” said Killian, rubbing his forehead. “Like that blasted noise off the television when Henry loses his signal, whatever it’s called.”

“White noise,” said Gold thoughtfully. “Can I assume your lovely wife also hears the dagger?”

“Aye,” Killian said again.

Gold waved his hand and the dagger vanished and, while the ache building in Killian’s forehead didn’t, something of relief followed.

“Do you remember anything else from your time as the Dark One?” Gold asked curiously.

“I remember what it’s like to have your impish voice in my head,” said Killian, glaring at him. “Talk about your ironies.”

“Becoming what you hate and having the manifestation of it still around,” said Gold, smiling mirthlessly. “Yes, I can imagine that would be very painful indeed.”

“No need to gloat,” said Killian. “It’s gone now, I just recall it, is all.”

“Well, good fortune smiles on you then.”

“Except when your bloody dagger is around,” said Killian.

“Wounds from our past are apt to stick around,” said Gold thoughtfully. “And I’m afraid you and I have had rather longer than anyone else here to accumulate them. In fact, I’m fairly certain only the good Blue Fairy can count years longer than us.”

He spoke of Blue contemptuously, but then Killian supposed that Gold would probably never get over his dislike of fairies in general thanks to his issues with his mother and Blue in particular for having been, however inadvertently, the means of him losing Bae through the portal.

Killian knew a bit of something about things like that.

“There are other fairies,” he said.

“Like your friend Tiger Lily,” Gold said sardonically.

“She was your friend first,” Killian said slyly.

“I suppose,” said Gold, but didn’t pursue the line of thought further. “In any case, the sad point remains, as ever, you are my oldest friend.”

He toasted Killian mockingly, but Killian didn’t take the bait because behind the words were truth and memories that he wasn’t entirely comfortable dealing with just yet.

“It’s Bae’s birthday next week,” he said instead.

“Yes,” said Gold.

“Henry and I were going to go sailing,” Killian said, then hesitated. “You’re welcome to join us.”

“Perhaps,” said Gold. “The lad might not want me there.”

“He asked me to invite you,” Killian said, rolling his eyes.

“Oh,” said Gold. “He is…kind. Like Bae.”

“Aye.” Killian shifted uncomfortably, unsure if he was ready to talk about this, but decided to do it anyway. “I wish…well, I wish I’d done more for him.”

“The subject of an endless debate we could have between us,” said Gold. “But I admit to being curious about one thing.”

“Yes?” asked Killian, an idea of what Gold would say lurking in his mind.

“Why did Milah not take Bae with her? Did you not want him?”

“I had no opinions on that matter at the beginning,” said Killian, fingering his glass. “Milah asked for sanctuary and I gave it to her, she never mentioned the lad. Not until later. We talked about going back for him many a time and I always wondered why she never did. The excuse of waiting till he was old enough got a bit worn after a while.”

“You might not appreciate my hypothesis on the matter,” said Gold dryly.

“Which is?”

“She valued her freedom too much to have to take care of someone.”

Killian wanted to argue, wanted to continue thinking his Milah had been perfect, but while he would always love her, he’d encountered too many different people and families since then to coat over her failings any longer. He’d changed too much.

“Perhaps,” he conceded. “Can I tell you something I thought I’d never say?”

“Please do,” said Gold, sounding intrigued.

“Milah was not perfect.” Gold snorted at that and Killian joined him. “If it were up to me, we would have gone back for Bae, if only to assuage my guilt at a child being left the way I was,” Killian continued. “But she wouldn’t do it and I think she was afraid because she knew you had always taken better care of Bae than she had and thought he wouldn’t want her because she had left him.”

“Bae forgave more easily than any of us always,” said Gold. “Even me in the end.”

“That’s where Henry gets it from,” said Killian. “But I think you were right about Milah being…selfish at the beginning. She tasted what she thought was freedom and the thought of anything else tying her to what she considered a prison was too much to bear.”

“Did she arrange that I would think she was kidnapped?” Gold asked.

“Yes,” Killian admitted. “She sent that woman to you to tell you. I think she wanted to prove you didn’t care so she wouldn’t have to feel guilty, but the duel…the duel was my idea. I do firmly believe that a man should fight for what he wants, even still.”

“Would you have given her back to me?” Gold asked.

“I would have let her leave if she wanted,” said Killian. “But if she still wanted to come, that would have been between you and her.”

“She would never have come back, even if I fought,” Gold said bitterly. “She never loved me.”

“She was fond of you though at one point, that’s why she married you,” Killian said. “She admitted that to me once. Said she admired that you were a good man despite the reputation your father’s cowardice had given you.”

“But reputation was everything to her,” said Gold. “When I came back from the war, she would rather I had died than be there for her and my son.”

“Perhaps,” said Killian, unable to justify that, even for his Milah. He’d thought long and hard about that over the years and, especially with the pain of losing Liam, he couldn’t imagine wishing anyone would die rather than be with him. “But then, she begged you to leave and you wouldn’t. Why not?”

“Because I was a coward,” Gold said frankly. “That part was true. It might always be. The idea of starting over somewhere, having to build a reputation for myself instead of the one my father handed down to me, was terrifying. It was easier to be Rumplestiltskin the town coward than whoever it was she wanted me to be. I’d tried, when I went to fight, and meeting the seer changed everything, but it never changed the fact I was a coward from the start.”

“We are shaped by the people who came before us,” said Killian, thinking long and hard about his own father.

“My father and I jumped through a portal to Neverland and then he abandoned me for his own selfish reasons,” said Gold. “And when my son wanted me to jump through a portal to save me from myself, I was too terrified to do it until it was too late.”

“Yes, well, you did spend the next couple hundred years looking for a way to get back to him,” said Killian.

“And when I found him again, I said the worse possible things to try and make it up to him,” said Gold ruefully. “I have tried and I will try to do better with Gideon, but I can never make up what I did to Bae.”

“Nor I,” said Killian, thankful as always, that at least Milah hadn’t known about what he’d done to her son. “I abandoned him to Pan, simply because he refused to believe I could change. And I thought I could, but I didn’t. He told me I had spent so much time hating you, I never realized I had become just like you. Emma helped me to truly see that, but I couldn’t accept it then. I wasn’t better than a fourteen year old child who had already sacrificed more than I could conceive in my black heart.”

“I have seen your heart, pirate, held in my very hand,” said Gold. “And the blackness there does not compare to my own.”

“Well, we started over, didn’t we?” said Killian. “Literally in your case. We’re too old for second chances, but somehow on our tenth or hundredth.”

“I know how Bae felt about you,” said Gold, changing the subject. “I felt it when he was absorbed in me. He liked being on your ship and even though it was a hard life, he liked learning from you and being with you. If it wasn’t for your connection to me, he would have stayed.”

“Oh,” said Killian stupidly. He felt somewhat unable to reply to that. “Thank you.”

“Thanks from the infamous Captain Hook,” said Gold, swallowing the last of his drink. “What days we live in.”

“Said the Dark Crocodile,” Killian replied faintly.

“I think it’s time to leave,” Gold said, smirking.

“You off soon?” Killian asked, throwing back the last of his rum and standing.

“Soon,” said Gold. “Belle desires to visit Agrabah and show Gideon, a whole new world, I believe is how she put it.”

Killian shrugged into his coat.

“Fair sailing to you. Unless you do come sailing next week.”

“And to you,” said Gold, not promising anything, but Killian wouldn’t be surprised if he did show up, for Henry’s sake. “Until next time.”

“Next time,” said Killian, and the concept no longer seemed bizarre, but though hard, somehow normal.