#the way this ask had me scrambling through my desktop blog to find posts and then i realised that i dont like my desktop theme

[psalmsofpsychosis]

"#Batman resists his own insanity so it spreads to e v e r y t h i n g around him"

You can't just say this and not elaborate in great detail. PLEASE elaborate oh my God. I do agree but I want to hear every single thought you have about this topic.

Btw, I'm the same Anon who asked -- or not really asked but more so talked -- about Batman and Joker's soulmate sort of bond.

AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN WITH "COMBINING JOKER'S HEAD WITH BATMAN'S BODY"???????

I was thinking along the lines of the concept version and how they could never be satisfied like this, united in one body. What is the result of mixing chaos and order? What is the result of mixing the act of forgetting the past and fixating on it? What do you get through combining the ideology of making everything matter and taking all meaning away?

The result is that the pure concepts become stained and dull, pushed away from their original function, losing their purpose to oppose each other.

Becoming one entity is the act of becoming complete (concepts being stained) and losing the thing that made them them. Batman and Joker were never meant to unite in this way with overlapping voices, finishing each others thoughts and sentences and it SHOWS. I'm in love with their grotesque obsession with each other that borders on love and punishment. Their desire to win and conquer the other for good but never being able to because losing one side takes away the purpose of the other.

That's why I'm so, so, SO disappointed with how the Batman Who Laughs turned out. Where are my identity crises? Plural, because this could never be an one-and-done kind of deal. They became OneTM, inentionally or not, but BeforeTM, they were always wondering what it would be like. Batman could try to get closer to Joker's mental state but never fully experience it, same with Joker. But now they are OneTM and then what? Batman is just the Joker with Bruce's memories and face. I can't begin to describe how boring that is. That's like if DC made a "Deadpool kills the Marvel Universe" story only they used Joker instead of Deadpool.

Do you see my vision? Can you feel my pain? I wanted to psychoanalyse that asshole with my amateurish psychology knowledge but they only gave us a watered down Joker who makes other Batmen less interesting upon contact. WHERE ARE THE IDENTITY CRISES?? WHERE IS THE DIFFICULTY IN MAKING A DECISION?? WHERE ARE THE LENGTHY MONOLOGUES ARGUING BACK AND FORTH OR CONTRADICTING EACH OTHER ALL THE TIME??? The Batman Who Laughs is basically Two Face but without the wall seperating Harvey and Two Face. Joker!Batman should be unable to do anything or constantly switch between Bruce and Joker or save one life and then turn around and kill it. Like, where is the complexity? Why the hell is that guy only a murder machine?? That was neither Joker nor Batman's whole purpose??

Tell me all your thoughts, my friend, while I'm here spinning in circles and going insane. I'll never get out of this alive, you'll still find me ruminating on this on my deathbed.

I swear, if you give an absolute banger of an answer again, I'll come and start living in your walls.

Have a nice day!! :)

ANON LOVE OF MY LIFE, i'm shoveling all the insides of my walls out as we speak, you can move in by Wednesday morning—

Like, the way i felt every single word you said in my bones. You are so right, and there are a couple different points here and it's gonna get longer than usual so i'll separate each thought thread to avoid drowning in lé brain soup.

• Re: batman resisting his own insanity, i feel like i have simultaneously talked about this in 7986 different ways and haven't said anything about it at all 😂 possibly most of it has been discord ramblings. Long story short, the spine of his narrative to me is that he actively resists his own humanity and in extension of it, his evil. He wants to be good. But there's also immense psychological/emotional/physical price we pay whenever we make these kind of choices; whatever we disown and banish to our subconscious, we project out into the world and unto the people around us. The load you refuse to carry will be carried by the people around you, because at the end of the day /someone/ has to carry it, it doesn't just disappear into ether. So, in a way, for Batman to remain good, to remain a hero, someone else has to be bad. The extent in which Batman keeps his goodness "pure and untainted" dictates the horrors created around him— and particularly the creation of Joker. I say creation because the existence of Batman as a concept absolutely necessitates the existence of Joker. In a way Batman does create him, and it's true that with Batman gone Joker and half the evil in Gotham would be gone too, not because Batman is an evil presence— but precisely because he disowns his own evil.

And the thing is, in the specific context of Joker, it has become this almost loving, adoring symbiotic relationship; Joker has willingly shaped himself to fit the outline of an evil that Batman needs to defeat, he has become the sin that Batman can overcome so he can stay a saint. I actually have a draft on this that i never finished, a meta about how all the coloring choices in Joker's design eerily resemble the different color stages of a wound and the bruising after, how Batman almost feels like Jesus with Joker as his side wound, Joker being the price he pays and the pain he goes through for his martyrdom in order to stay pure, for his idealogy to have any form of meaning and significance, Joker being his very own holy suffering.

We fundamentally understand reality in form of contrasts, internal ones, external ones. As you very well pointed out, without an innate sense of contrast, we cease to have any form of coherent grasp on different concepts, and they start to sort of become noise, they become nothing. Would you truly understand what a day was and grasp it as a concept if it wasn't followed by a night? So like, what i'm saying is, people around Bruce/Batman become what he needs because they love him and they want to help him keep his narrative, the structure of his psyche intact. They help him stay 'him' by taking on the burden of what he doesn't want to be, he subconsciously shapes them in the image of what he needs to uphold his identity as a good person. This is why Alfred becomes Joker to save him, this is why Selina is the more socially acceptable pretty Joker that Bruce can actually marry and bring to his family, this is why Joker and Batman feel like they can never escape their narrative, their roles and their performance. It's the reason the moment Batman lurches to kill The Riddler in "the war of jokes and riddles", Joker stops his knife with his hand. It's their defined roles, and the greatest act of love that noone except Joker would show him. Joker says "I'm the sacrifice. I'm the evil, i'm the one who kills, i have made this choice so you can make yours. You're the good one. If you become evil, it renders both your efforts and my sacrifice meaningless, and i can not allow that to happen." And it's a truly fascinating dynamic really, for all that Joker has and hasn't done throughout the Batmanverse history, when it comes to Batman he's irredeemably selfless. Everything he does regarding Batman is to keep Batman's sense of goodness and heroism intact, and in this context he's more pure than him. Everyone around Batman wants him to kill, perhaps rightfully so, they mean well. But Joker says "i'll bear all the unbearable evil so you dont have to, and we both acutely understand that without my existence you mean nothing. I will be the monster so you dont have to." And honest to god there's a heartbreaking affection to this, something noone else will ever be willing or want to offer to Bruce, not to this extent.

in 'the war of jokes and riddles' Bruce tells Selina that "what separates him from utter evil is a hand on his knife. Joker's hand." like bro, he knows. In a deeply twisted and gutwrenching way Bruce knows that noone loves him the way Joker does.

• Re: combining Joker and Batman's heads and bodies, i was thinking.... two concepts maybe?? 👀 one is more like the Dullahan myth, in which Batman loses his head but he isn't carrying it, Joker steals it. And then Joker loses his head and Batman has to keep it and he's forced to use it. It'd be an insanely fun concept; the Dullahan myth can be interpreted as the idea of death of self by supposedly losing all that would make you human; your thoughts and memories and logic, etc. Except that you still have a heart, and a body, and they're not exactly cooperative. It'd be fun to have Joker's mind trying to tame Batman's heart and body, each fighting and singing their own song, same for Batman. A version of the myth has Dullahan carrying a human spine in one hand, and i mean, the possibilities are endless!

But also another concept would be: two frankenstein monsters lmaooo, same sense of discordent internal landscape, same sense of ideological tension and conflict, but also someone's gotta [tw mentions of gore] chop chop them and sew their body parts together, and that can be another interesting element added to their fucked up dynamic ✨️ it can also be Joker as Dr Frankensten and he sews parts of himself to Batman in order to save him!

• Re: Batman Who Laughs, oh girl (gn), i have nothing to add that you haven't already said more beautifully than me. There's so much emotional nuance and complex philosophy that could've gone into that concept, it's certainly one of the hardest Batman story variations to pull off, and weirdly enough, the people who dont directly aim for "Batman becomes Joker/Joker becomes Batman" stories often tell a better more intricate tale about that transformation than the people who straight up shoot for the concept. One of the things that always sends a chill down my spine is the ending of Batman: Europa, in which Joker is terrified and screaming as Batman laughs and lurches for him; that's the dynamic, that's the Batman who laughs, and the most unsettling part of it is that, Batman doesn't change. He doesn't have to. On a core level he is quite frankly a bit fucked up, it's not a stretch for Batman to be evil, and that's why his goodness is meaningful. Cue Nietsche's quote, "Of all evil I deem you capable: Therefore I want good from you. Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws." Batman is not a good guy entirely, and that makes his goodness a conscious choice with so much weight and worth and significance. I dont think a lot of DC people understand this.

With Batman Who Laughs, the name kinda sums up the take unfortunately; it's a superficial interpretation that falls flat on its own face because the writers couldn't be assed to explore how a chemical combination of Batman and Joker's narrative would unfold. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ as with any potent chemical reaction, the mixture is highly unstable and unpredictable, and that's the fucking fun of it. There's gotta be tension. I do think Batman and Joker can very well mix, i do think they can make a seamless fusion, but i dont trust any canon DC writers to handle the characterization well in a way that doesn't bore you out of your fucking mind. You gotta make a new person and you gotta capitalise on the core components both Batman and Joker share; their incessant sense of idealism, their need for purity, their volatile emotions and their aggression, their need to individuate from their context and deviate from the norm, take the third way out narrative wise, their philosophical and intellectual bend, their immense grief, their need to be oh so special and different 😂 they actually have a whole lot in common, this is why they're perfect enemies!

But yeah, writing that personality fusion is very hard because it's such an emotionally complex context and most DC writers have not felt a single emotion in the past 35 years aflhdtdhlf

Anyway yep i love your brain so SO much Anon, hope you have a wonderful day ❤️💕 and dont forget to tell me what ya think!!

[icecubelotr44]

To Every Thing a Season (11/16)

Summary:   After witnessing the tragic murder of his brother Liam, Killian Jones is more determined than ever to discover the secrets of time travel. Fast-tracking his education at Storybrooke University, Killian is assigned a lab assistant, one Emma Swan. Together, they find a way to break through the veil of time so Killian can set things right. But what will be the price for changing the past, and is it one they’re willing to pay?

Rated:  T, for violence, some dark themes, angst, and whump

Art credit/link: The totally awesome @optomisticgirl made imagesets for all the chapters and @ab-normality made a video and a gifset for this fic.  You can find the imageset for this chapter above and here on @optomisticgirl‘s blog.  The video is linked here and on @ab-normality‘s blog here and the gifset is posted here!

Beta readers: The as-always wonderful @nothingimpossibleonlyimprobable, thanks so much for all of your help and cajoling and reassuring!  And a huge thank you to the spectacular @spartanguard who stepped in to help beta read as well!

A/N:  Written as part of the 2017 Captain Swan Big Bang Challenge.  You can catch up with all the other fics that are complete by following @captainswanbigbang and/or subscribing to the Group Collection on AO3 and/or the C2 on FFN. This is complete in 16 parts and will be posted every Thursday from now until its completion. And yes, there is a happy ending after all this… just so you know.

Word count:  ~ 5,400 (80K+ Total in 16 chapters)

From the beginning: ao3 | ffn  

Current Chapter: AO3 | FFN

Chapter 11: To Rend and to Sew

Emma’s chin dropped to her chest in defeat and she automatically reached out to Killian, her fingers grasping his shoulder.  In support or in warning, she wasn’t sure, but she was sure that he needed to know that she stood with him.

Whatever Killian did next.

She didn’t have long to wonder; the way Killian’s shoulders slumped in defeat at Gold’s voice told Emma exactly which way his temper was going to fall.

Inwards.

“No, sir,” he mumbled, powering down the laptop.  “Just running some tests on the viability of the equation.  As you can see, we’re ready to go as soon as I can calculate the coordinates of your trip.”

“Good, good, never doubted your resolve for a second,” Gold snarled genially - as if that was a tone of voice that made any sense whatsoever - and smirked at Killian.  “I believe you’ll find my own mathematicians have provided us with proper coordinates.  You may, of course, double check them.  I’d like to schedule our test for tomorrow at 10AM.”

Emma’s hope soared for a moment.

“I will, of course, provide the proper security detail for the evening.  Wouldn’t want any of your colleagues to sabotage your work, now would we?”

Emma’s hope deflated like a popped balloon.

“Of course not,” Killian didn’t sound like he was agreeing with the man.  Spinning the chair around, he climbed out of the cockpit and accepted the flash drive from Gold’s outstretched hand.  “I’ll just double check these tonight.”

“You do that.  Meet me here tomorrow morning, captain; we have work to do.”

Emma watched Gold stride out of the room with all the confidence of a man who knows how utterly he’s won.  There were two huge, intimidating men flanking the door, glaring at the four students.  There were suspicious bulges at their hips and Emma wondered how they’d gotten approval for that.  But then she remembered - this was Gold.  As soon as the door closed behind Gold, Killian slumped into a chair.  His head dropped into his hands and David dutifully looked away, busying himself with the tools spread across the lab bench.

Mary Margaret folded up the tarp as quietly as she could, a gentle smile in Emma’s direction.

Neither of them was leaving Killian nor her, and that settled something in Emma that she had never even noticed was broken.

“I’m sorry, Killian,” she whispered.  “I thought that he’d be gone or we would have found a way to get you here earlier.”

He shook his head, still cradled in his hands, and Emma saw his fingers tighten in his hair.  “It’s not your fault, luv,” - he pulled hard at the locks - “I should have found a way to rid myself of that demon long before this.”

“What do you want to do?”  Emma’s fingers tangled with Killian’s, gently prying them loose from his hair and wrapping them in hers instead.

Killian just shrugged.  “What can we do?  Double check that the numbers aren’t going to drop us in the middle of the harbor or the Empire State Building and hope that he doesn’t do too much damage.”

“You don’t have-”

“-of course I do!”  Killian interrupted so loudly that David and Mary Margaret both jumped.  “He bloody well owns my soul until he gets this damned trip out of the way!  He may as well have torn my heart out of my chest, using my work to force his wife back into a marriage she clearly wanted no part of.  I… I don’t know, Swan.  I’ll survive it, somehow.”

Emma hugged him close, scratching her fingers through his hair the way he liked.  It had never failed to soothe him before.

It worked again.

Killian seemed to finally melt into her embrace, but he was silent for long enough that Emma started to worry about what he was thinking.

“Let’s just go home, luv.  Make me forget about this for tonight.”

That she could do.

Emma watched, sadly, as Killian paced around their apartment the next morning.  He alternated between pulling at his hair and huffing angrily.  “You know, Jones, a girl might get offended in a situation like this.”

Killian startled, looking over to where Emma was lounging in their bed, the sheet - and only the sheet - just barely covering her.  “Swan, I…” he stuttered out as he stared.

“I'm just teasing, Killian,” she let him off the hook.  “We're going to be late if we don't get going.”

“The bloody wanker can wait,” he growled, stalking over to her.  Emma was sure that his mind was completely distracted from the importance and the dreadful implications of the trip he was about to make.  And then her mind was consumed by him and whatever time they were supposed to be wherever escaped her.

Gold's disapproving glare when they finally showed up made it more than worth the delay.

Killian pulled her tightly into his side and held her close, and all of a sudden it was real.  He was doing something today - reasons be damned - that no one had ever done before.  There were so many things that could go wrong, so many ways that she could lose him in the blink of an eye.  

Would she even know it?  

Would she be able to tell if something had backfired, or would he just wink out of existence like he was going back in time and never be seen nor heard from again?

What would happen to Liam if he didn't come back?

All of a sudden, she was clinging to him tightly, stricken by what this all meant.  Emma wanted nothing more than to whisk him away from all this, squirrel him out of the lab, out of Maine, hell, out of the country - anywhere that he couldn't climb into his machine and risk his life without her.

“Swan?” he asked quietly, holding her closer when all she could do was shake her head.

She couldn't worry him, now.  Not when he was about to make history.  Not when he needed every thought to be concentrating on making the calculations and the machine work perfectly.

Anything less and she'd never forgive herself.

“I'm just thinking about how much I'm going to miss you,” she whispered, conjuring up a shaky smile to put him at ease.

It didn't really work.

“I'll only be gone an hour or so, luv, just long enough to make sure that the temporal shift doesn't skew to one side and bring me back before I've left.  That would be a disaster.”  He smiled wryly,  “Though I'm sure that two devils as handsome as me wouldn't go amiss in your world, hmm?”

Emma rolled her eyes.  “In your dreams, buddy.”

“No, Swan,” he leaned down and whispered in her ear, “in yours.”

She couldn't help the chortling laughter that bubbled out of her.  “You're ridiculous.”

“And you love me for it.”  He smirked at Gold who was glaring outright at them.  “But in all seriousness, Emma, I'm going to be back in a jiffy.  Don't worry about me.”

Emma nodded, smiling less shakily this time, and reached up to wrap her arms around his neck.  She brushed her lips over his chastely, mindful of all the eyes in the room.  “Come back to me, pirate,” she whispered.

“Always, luv.”

She breathed out her insecurities, her fears, as best she could.  “Good.”

Killian nodded and stepped out of her embrace.  Emma felt the loss immediately, a chill coursing down her spine that something was going to go wrong.    She shivered involuntarily, stepping up to the desktop computer and initializing the recording devices around the room.  

Killian stepped up to the webcam and introduced himself and the project he'd been working on for so many years.  Emma was only half paying attention, trying to concentrate on the program that would track Killian's keystrokes and progress for posterity.  This was so important to him - and now, to her as well - that she wanted everything to run smoothly.  His accented voice washed over her as he continued to move around the lab and explain his process, calm and collected as he introduced David to the camera.

“We're ready to go, luv,” he came up behind her, toggling the pause button on the recording.  “Are you all right?”

She nodded, turning to wrap him up in the biggest bear hug she could manage.  “I will be.”

“Okay, then” - he turned to Gold - “get in and buckle up.  Try to stay out of the way.”

With a smile back at her, Killian flipped on the cameras again then climbed into the machine.

Emma was petrified that this was the last look she'd get of him, and she had to stop herself from scrambling into the cockpit after him.

Then the hatch closed on the two travelers and Emma listened to the machine beginning to whirl to life.  The noise was deafening, and the papers in the lab fluttered around in the wind that the moving parts kicked up.

A moment - and a blast of air that nearly knocked her off her feet - later, and it was all over.

The lab felt cavernous, the large gaping area where Killian's machine had been looming empty.

It was real.  It was done.  Emma didn't know what to do next.

Robotically, she flipped off the cameras and turned to where David was standing, a bit slack-jawed, himself.

She collapsed in his arms, shaking and terrified.

Killian's mouth opened and shut repeatedly, unable to take in any oxygen as he gasped like a fish on land.  It felt like someone had punched him in the stomach and then rearranged his insides with a grade school education in anatomy.  His eyes were watering and his knuckles were white with the force of his grip on the seat.  It took an interminable amount of time before his lungs remembered they were supposed to work, but when they finally responded to his panicked pleas, his eyes were watering and his ears were ringing.

Gold didn't sound much better, hunched forward against the harness straps that had secured him in the seat behind Killian.

"Bloody hell," Killian finally murmured, his words echoing throughout the tiny cockpit.

Gold leaned backwards in his seat, his face red with the exertion of breathing.  "For once, Mr. Jones, I concur."

Killian sneered.

"The equation is green," he mumbled to himself.  "When we open that hatch, we'll know if it worked or not."

He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to rectify the momentous nature of what had just happened with the abject terror that filled him knowing that he'd brought Gold back to exactly the time he needed to do whatever nefarious deed he planned on.

Killian prayed to whoever was listening that he had misjudged the man.  That he wasn't in the process of making the biggest mistake of his life.

A few moments more to make the world stop revolving wildly around him, and Killian managed to turn the large wheel lock to unseal the hatch.  He opened up the heavy door and looked out hesitantly.

Green shrubbery and tall trees filled his line of vision.

He'd done it!

Killian didn't know how to react, didn't know what to think, didn't know what to do next.

The computer powered down, entering sleep mode in order to charge for the return trip.  He reached over to grab the braeon key that catalyzed the reaction, but his fingers grasped empty air.

"Oh no, dearie," Gold snarled as he tucked the key into his jacket pocket.  "There's no way I'm going to let you hold onto this and leave me behind."

Killian felt like all the air had been sucked from his lungs again.  That was the only way home.

"I may need your help, still.  So I'll just hold onto this, shall I?"  The reptilian man cackled.  "You wouldn't want to risk getting home to your dear Miss Swan, now would you?  Leave her all alone in this big, bad world?"

Killian was already shaking his head when Gold twisted the knife just a little bit more.  "I could always tell myself to make her life miserable in a few years.  Who knows what kind of havoc I could cause."

He couldn't breathe again.  He just nodded dumbly, following Gold out of the machine and double checking the surrounding area to make sure no one would stumble across their landing site.

"I'll do whatever it takes," he said, completely defeated.

Gold laughed again.  "I do so love it when they say that.  Let's go."

Killian followed him out of the woods to a lost-looking little beach house.  The sound of the waves crashing against the shore assaulted his ears, for once not bringing him the peace that he had always found by the ocean.  There was only one thing he wanted now - to go back in time again and restart the day, refuse to help Gold and take the consequences of that as it may come.

He had a feeling that a lifetime of fighting to get the rights back to his machine would be far less stressful than the time he was about to spend in Gold's employ.

"We'll remain here for the evening and get a fresh start in the morning.  We have a bit of a journey left to reach my Milah and my son.  And then you'll do as I tell you, or I'll leave you here to rot."  Gold didn't wait for a response, only bent over to retrieve a key from under the step and went inside.

Killian wandered down to the beach and collapsed into the sand, curling in on himself and shaking.

He wanted to go home.

He wanted Emma.

He had to work with Gold if he ever wanted to see her again.  If he didn’t, or if he waylaid the damned crocodile in any way, who knew what he would do to Emma before Killian even met her.

A world without her in it wasn’t worth getting up for in the morning.

Killian sat out on the sand until it was too dark to see, stumbling his way up to the boardwalk and collapsing on a picnic table bench.  He couldn’t - wouldn’t - go into the house with that monster.

He’d rather freeze.

The clipped steps of dress shoes on wood woke him early the next morning, his jacket draped over him and the sun shining in his eyes.

He was shivering.

“Good morning, captain,” Gold sneered.  “I trust you’re ready?”

“I’m ready to pay the price and get this over with.”  Killian blinked rapidly to clear the sleep from his brain and tried to focus.

“Good.  After you,” Gold gestured towards the car.

Killian rose to his feet as gracefully as possible and shrugged his way into Liam’s jacket.  The weight of the leather on his shoulders felt just a little more heavy today, just a little like he was trying to avoid his brother’s disapproving glare.

Bugger off, Liam, he thought angrily at the apparition yelling at him in his mind, I’m doing what I bloody have to.

Gold pointed Killian towards a flashy cadillac, the leather of the seats squeaky and pristine as he slid inside.  It was all he could do to keep staring ahead, chin up, and not drop his head in utter defeat.  He was going to do whatever Gold asked of him, and he was just going to have to live with that.

He needed to get back to Emma.

They drove through town after town, city after city, and Killian wondered idly why Gold had chosen the spot and time he had if they were just going to have to travel so much when they got here.  Surely, he could have calculated it bet-

They drove into New York City proper, all the skyscrapers and people crowding Killian in and suffocating him.  

Oh.  

Couldn’t exactly land a time machine in the middle of Times Square and hope the better part of half a million people didn’t notice it sitting there.

Gold pulled into a parking garage finally, cutting the engine and leaving the keys on the seat.  “No one would dare take it,” he assured Killian.

Killian wished someone would.

Gold led them into a small bar, ushering Killian into a booth near the back and dropping a picture down at his place.  “We’re looking for her.”

Killian stared at the surveillance photo, his breath caught in his throat.  

Milah.

Neal’s mother.

The free spirited woman who had raised the only boy in Killian’s school who hadn’t looked at him like he was a freak.

The woman who had insisted Killian call her by her first name and who had given him a place to hide his insecurities and his bruises when his father’s drunken stupors had cut a little too close to the quick.

Milah Gold, it turned out.  Not Milah Cassidy.

“I… I know her,” he managed when Gold asked him what the problem was.

The man smirked.  “Not yet, you don’t.”

“What do you wa- what are you going to do to her?”

Gold slid into his side of the booth, watching the door with more interest than Killian.  “I’m going to make sure that I don’t lose my son,” was the cryptic answer he offered.

Killian wanted nothing more than to take off at a sprint, steal the car Gold was arrogant enough to leave unlocked and unattended, and race back to his machine.

But Gold had the key.

And the power to destroy Emma’s life.

So he sat in the booth, mapping out all the possible ways this could go terribly and horribly wrong.  He knew, he knew, that he should never have trusted Gold.  He should never have let the University compel him to work with the man.

They sat in the bar for hours, picking at greasy food and sipping at alcohol that burned Killian’s throat.

And then he saw her.

Even as a young lad, he’d thought Milah was beautiful.  Her long, dark hair and the mystical look she held in her eyes, brimming with secrets that he’d wanted to know.

She was younger than he remembered her, of course.  But she wasn’t quite so stunning now - he could see how being Gold’s wife weighed her down, took some of the shine from her, and made her seem sad.  Lost.  Hurt.

And Killian was going to play a part in breaking her even further.

Milah sidled up to a group of men who had been at the bar for nearly as long as Killian and Gold.  They were raucous and fun, loud and bawdy.

Nothing like the man with whom he was sharing a table and everything he remembered the woman in question to be.

They watched her all evening, Killian feeling more and more nauseated at the sinister smile that morphed Gold’s features as he was clearly plotting his… their next steps.

And then suddenly, she was leaving, and they were following.

Milah strode out of the bar like she was living the dream, still riding the high of her evening.  But as they followed her down streets and across alleys, Killian could see the weight of the world, her responsibilities, settle back on her shoulders.

He caught sight of a newspaper in a magazine rack as they flew past.  He and Neal were only 5 years old right now.

“Why tonight?” Killian mused out loud as they paused at an intersection, never letting Milah get too far ahead.

Gold chuckled darkly.  “Because at this very moment, I’m having a very illustrious dinner with the police commissioner, the governor, and several congressmen who will be able to vouch for my whereabouts with no chance of someone impugning their testimony later.”

Killian’s heart dropped somewhere in the vicinity of his knees.

“I’m not going to-”

“-you’ll do whatever I damn well please if you ever want to get home.  You don’t exist in this timeline, dearie.  I can erase you and no one will ever know the difference.”

Killian started to shake.

This was very, very wrong.

They finally caught up with Milah as she ducked down an alleyway to cut across the block.  Gold reached out and snagged her arm, spinning her around before Killian could call out a warning.

“Rob… Robert?” she questioned, recognizing him even with the fifteen years of lines and depravity etched onto his face.

“Run,” Killian whispered.  “Milah, you have to run.”

But she didn’t know him.  She would never know him now.

“No, I… what’s happened to you?” she asked Gold.  “You should be across town.  And you look so old.”

“That’s not important.  What is important is where you’ve been.  And what’s going to happen next.”  Gold sneered.

Killian pounced, grabbing Gold’s arm and tearing him away from Milah.

“Run!” he urged again.

Gold moved surprisingly quickly for an old man, twisting out of Killian’s grip and yanking his arm backwards until he was shackled to a dumpster.  “I’ll deal with you next.”

“Don’t hurt him,” Milah begged, clearly not understanding what was going on as she hadn’t run.  “Please, Robert, what do you want?”

“I want to know why you thought you could never have a family with me.  Why you’re going to run off and steal my boy away from me?  Can you tell me that, dearie?”

Milah blanched.  “You can’t… you can’t know that.  I haven’t…”

“Not yet,” Gold shook his head.  “But you’re going to.  And then I’m going to lose everything that matters to me.”

“Every… you mean Neal?  You’re going to…” she trailed off when Gold pulled out a wicked-looking dagger.  “I’ve already got him where you’ll never find him.  I may not know what you want with him, but I have him.”

“Oh, I feel a proposal coming on.”

“Neal in exchange for our”-she nodded at Killian-“lives.  Deal?”

Gold sidled up to her, and Killian couldn’t hear what he said, but Milah’s shoulders drooped.  “He’s with John and Michael.”

Gold cackled.  

“Do we have a deal?” she asked again.  “Can we go our separate ways?”

Gold giggled again, and a chill snaked down Killian’s spine.  “Perhaps, perhaps.  Just one question.  How could you leave Neal?  How can you just let him go?”

“Because I’m miserable.”

“Why were you so miserable?”

Milah looked a little thrown by the past tense, but then Killian could see the anger rise up.  “Because I never loved you.”

Killian had a split second to realize what was happening, the dagger shooting up to bury itself to the hilt between her ribs.  “Milah!  No!”

She staggered backwards a step and Killian reached out, only just able to pull her back against him as she fell.  He fell with her, cradling her head as if to keep her safe.  This was his friend’s mother, not much older at this moment than he was, bleeding out in his arms.

He had a second to look down, to see how frightened she was, and then she went slack in his arms.

Dead.

Gone.

“You may have gotten what you wanted here, tonight, Gold, but you’re nothing but a coward!”  He rose up, tugging at the cuff around his wrist until the pain centered him.

Gold just shrugged.  “I’ve gotten what I wanted.”

“And now, what?  You’ll kill me, too?”  Killian’s entire field of vision was filled with red.

But Gold shook his head.  “I’m afraid that’s not in the cards for you, sonny boy.”  He reached forward and unlocked the cuffs.

Killian surged up and wrapped his hands around Gold’s throat.  

“Kill me and I’ll crush this,” Gold held out the key to the machine.

Killian let go, stumbling backwards.

“I need you alive.  You’re the only way I can get back to my son.  My son who will have grown up adoring me and only me.”

Killian growled, but he stood down.  “I will find a way to take you down.”

But Gold just giggled again.  “Good luck with that, dearie.  We were never here.”

Killian watched, helplessly, as Gold slid on a glove and reached into a pocket, pulling out a plastic sleeve and dropping a license on the ground.

“And now the police have a plausible suspect.  Let’s go, captain, I need a ride home.”

Killian followed Gold back across the city, head bowed, feet scuffing the sidewalks.  He tore off Liam’s jacket as soon as they were back at the car, balling it up and throwing it in the backseat where he couldn’t look at it.

Milah was dead.

Left behind in some cold, dark alley for the rats to find.

“Pull over,” he whimpered, shocked at the sound of his own voice.

Gold must have realized what was going to happen, because he didn’t question Killian, just signaled and pulled off to the shoulder.

Killian barely made it out of the car before he lost the meager contents of his stomach.

“Hurry up,” Gold hissed, pulling back onto the road before Killian had even shut the door.  “And don’t mess up the car.”

He couldn’t get warm.  He couldn’t stop shaking.  He couldn’t stop replaying Milah’s last moments through his head.

It was all he could see.

Gold drove them straight back to the beach house, parking the car in exactly the same spot and dragging Killian - and Liam’s jacket - from the interior before tossing the keys back on the seat.  He pulled Killian down the path through the woods back to the time machine and manhandled him into the seat.

“I trust you know the calculations to get us home?”  It wasn’t a question.

Killian might have nodded, he must have done something to convince the man that he wasn’t about to blow them both up.  Gold inserted the key and triggered the reaction before buckling himself into his seat.

Robotically, Killian dogged the hatch and turned to the computer.  He input the coordinates to return them to the lab, waited for the equation to turn green, and sent them back to an hour after he’d left Emma in the lab.

Part of him hoped they wouldn’t make it.

Emma paced.

And paced.

And paced.

She knew exactly what time Killian had calculated that they would return - knew it down to the minute and the second - but still, she paced.

Because any number of things could happen, and she would never know.  She just wanted him back in her arms and away from Gold and his shady dealings.  She just wanted Killian wrapped around her on their boulder, watching the sunset and forgetting everything about time travel and murdered brothers with elusive killers and rich, influential men who got their power from manipulation

She just wanted Killian, and nothing else mattered.

David sat calmly at the desk, watching Emma warily every time she got too close to him,  as if he were afraid she was going to pounce.

The door opened a few moments later and Mary Margaret and Ruby sauntered in, grabbed Emma by the arms, and manhandled her to the cafeteria for a late breakfast.  Emma glared at David - who was intelligent enough to look sheepish - but she allowed herself to be led out of the lab.  

Emma wasn’t even sure what they put in front of her, but she ate it automatically, her mind never really leaving the lab.  Killian would be back in 22 minutes and 14...13 seconds, and there was no way that she wouldn’t be waiting for him and whatever damage had already been done by Gold.  It was strange to think that whatever Killian was doing at this very moment in his time had already been completed in Emma’s time however many years back they had traveled.

It made her brain hurt.

How long had Gold kept them in the past?  What had he done?  What had he made Killian do?

Were they coming back?

The girls finally let Emma go with a few minutes to spare and she sprinted the entire way across campus.  David was tinkering with something at one of the lab stations, the only clue that he was getting anxious were the constant glances between his watch and the clock on the wall.

Two minutes and 47...46 seconds.

Emma sat at her desk.  Then stood by the supports for the machine.  Then moved to David’s side.

15 seconds.

5 seconds.

Time.

Nothing happened.

Emma shot a worried glance over to David, watching him glance down at his watch again and then to the computer that was monitoring changes in… well, something that Emma still wasn’t entirely sure of.

Two minutes.

Five minutes.

Ten.

Nothing happened.

Emma felt faint, wondering if, for the first time in her life, she was going to pass out.  David had shoved a chair into her knees moments before, forcing her to sit and put her head between her knees.

It didn’t help.

And then she felt as if she were frozen, as if everything that she knew was shifting around in her head.

Twelve minutes in, the air in the room started to crackle with energy and a gust of wind blew everything around the room.

They were back.

Emma hadn’t had the time to pick her head up when she heard it.

An animalistic scream came from within the capsule, long and drawn out and terrifying in its intensity.  She knew that voice anywhere, but had never heard that much pain coming from one individual in her entire life.

Killian.

She raced to the hatch, burning her hands on the still-hot metal as she grasped the dogs and yanked them open.  The screech of the lock inside echoed in her ears, but she was too busy screaming for Killian to hear it.

Finally, finally, the door pulled back and Emma had the barest of seconds to react to Killian before he was collapsing in her arms - shaking, sweating, and gasping.  The scream she had heard seemed to be the last noise he was capable of making as he went boneless and dragged them both to the floor - half in and half out of the cockpit.

“David!” she screamed, trying to roll Killian face-up so that she could see what was wrong, so that she could look at his face, so that she could do anything to get the sound of his pain out of her head.

Then she smelled the blood.

It was a sickly sweet smell, the hint of copper lost among all the other metals in the lab and leaving her gagging.

Where was it coming from?

Killian?

David finally reached her side, working against the tetany of Killian’s muscles as he tried to stay curled in the ball he’d fallen in.  Together they managed to drag him out of the machine and lay him flat, his head cradled in Emma’s lap.

His hand.

Oh God, his hand.

Emma leaned to the side and lost the meal that she’d consumed less than an hour before.

What was left behind where his left hand should have been was a mangled mess of… meat, was the only way Emma’s brain could process it.  It was a bloody mess of muscle and bone and blood, all crumpled up beyond recognition.

Killian groaned once, an approximation of her name, and then went limp.

David reached automatically to check a pulse, smiling shakily at her before he dove for his cell phone.  Emma barely registered him speaking with someone as she curled over Killian protectively, pulling him closer and whispering softly, nonsensically, in his ear.

She was vaguely aware of Gold climbing out of the machine, looking down at Killian and her dispassionately, and then stepping over Killian’s prostrate form as if he were something disgusting that Gold didn’t want to get on the bottom of his shoes.

If Emma hadn’t been so concerned with keeping Killian close, she would have leapt at him.

The old man paused suddenly, mid-step, and seemed to shudder much like Emma had moments before they returned.  His hand shot down to his leg, clutching it as if he, too, were in pain, and then he took a few stuttered steps forward.

“It worked,” he breathed.

Emma didn’t care.

Gold did have one parting shot for them before he limped out of the room.

“You’ll have to come up with something that doesn't incriminate me, Miss Swan. Or I'll shut this whole project down and your boyfriend will never save his brother.  If Killian survives the trip to the hospital, that is.”

  Tagging: @gusenitsaa​, @katie-dub​, @kiwistreetswan​, @lenfazreads​, @xhookswenchx​, @killian-whump​, @eala-captian​, @kmomof4​, @onceuponaprincessworld​, @couldnthandleit​

[ber39james]

7 Essential Time Management Skills That Will Improve Your Life

Time is the great equalizer—everybody gets the same twenty-four hours each day. Making productive use of that time can mean the difference between getting things done and scrambling to keep up. These time management tips will help you streamline your day and work smarter.

1Do a time audit.

Do you get to the end of every workday and wonder where the time went? Maybe you wonder why you didn’t manage to accomplish as much as you’d hoped you would. You could be wasting more time than you realize. There may well be a discrepancy between how you think you spend your time and how you actually spend it. A time audit can be an eye-opener!

Here’s a simple method for conducting a time audit.

Get some sort of timer that you can set to go off every thirty minutes. (The alarm app on your phone could do the trick.)

Begin the timer and go about your day. Try not to think about the timer—just let it run quietly in the background.

When the timer goes off, write down what you’re doing at that very moment. Be honest! If you’re checking Facebook or sending your best friend a funny text, own up to it.

Set the timer for another thirty minutes and repeat the process until the end of your day.

Review how you’ve spent your time. How often were you caught doing something that wasn’t productive?

Try conducting an audit every day for a week to get a good overview of how you’re spending your time. (You can vary the time between check-ins so that you don’t begin to anticipate the alarm going off every thirty minutes.) If you find that you’ve been spending too much time checking your email, scrolling through your social media feed, or chatting with co-workers, you’ll know exactly where you have to make adjustments.

2Block out distractions

Now that you have a better idea of what’s distracting you, it’s time to block that thing out. If social media is your downfall, for instance, try a productivity app that blocks online distractions. FocusMe, Cold Turkey, and SelfControl are a few available options. If you’re working on a writing project, try going into fullscreen mode to prevent yourself from opening tabs or answering desktop notifications.

Speaking of notifications, turn them off. Unless it’s critical to your job, odds are good you don’t need to be alerted every time a new email comes in or someone interacts with you on social media.

3Schedule yourself

Worrying about how you’ll fit all your tasks into the average workday can put a serious strain on your productivity. When we’re stressed, we struggle to stay productive, which can lead us to work longer hours to meet deadlines. Who needs that?

To-do lists can become overwhelming if you’ve got a lot to accomplish. Instead, use your favorite calendar tool (or even a good old-fashioned datebook) to schedule yourself. You might set aside an hour for answering emails, two for researching and outlining that important report for next week’s meeting, one for a lunch date with a colleague, and so on. If you have a shared corporate calendar, all the better. You can remind your colleagues to interrupt you only when absolutely necessary if you have time blocked off for important tasks. (See tip five!)

You’ll be surprised what time blocking will do for your productivity. For example, if you’re in the habit of answering emails as they come in, you may well be interrupting your own workflow to do it. That means that after you’ve dropped everything to answer that email, you’ll have to take extra time to reorient yourself to the task you’d been working on before it came in. Scheduling yourself allows you to set your priorities in advance and avoid being distracted by less important matters.

4Avoid multitasking

You may think you’re good at multitasking, but odds are you’re wrong. When you divide your focus between tasks, you’re actually diverting attention from one task to another and using more brain bandwidth. You’ll perform better if you give your full attention to one task at a time.

Grouping similar tasks can also keep you in the right mindset. You might, for instance, group your writing tasks together and do them during one particular block of time. Administrative tasks can fall into another time block. Need to be active on social media? Cool. Block time for using a scheduler like Buffer to queue up your posts for the day so you won’t feel the constant need to check in.

Here’s a tip: Keep a small notebook handy when you’re working. When you suddenly remember another task you need to do (“Whoops! Did I schedule my electric bill payment?”), jot it down. That way, you won’t forget that important thing, but you won’t interrupt your jam, either.

5Insist that others respect your time.

You know that meeting you were asked to attend that had almost no relevance to you? The one where you had nothing to contribute? That’s an hour of your time you’ll never get back. Get out of those do-nothing meetings. Every meeting should have to justify its existence, and every meeting organizer should have to justify your required attendance, especially if not attending the meeting would ultimately make you more productive.

The same goes for chatty coworkers. You have a right to work time free from unnecessary interruptions, so ask for it. You could say something like “I have a lot of trouble concentrating sometimes, and interruptions take me out of the flow when I’m working. Could we save chit-chat for when we’re off the clock?”

6Keep your “call to action” in mind.

What do you want to get out of that phone call you’re about to make or that meeting you’re about to schedule? You need to know what you’re asking for, or at least what you hope to achieve, before you dive in. Otherwise, you’ll end up spending time in conversations and meetings that aren’t ultimately productive.

Take a few minutes after meetings and phone calls to reflect on whether you achieved the outcome you were hoping for. If you didn’t, plan your next steps so you can attain it. You’ll be more prepared when the opportunity to address the issue comes around again.

7Get enough down time and rest.

Taking a break when it’s crunch time may seem counterproductive, but one study found that lack of sleep is costing the U.S. workforce $411 billion annually. You’re not at your best when you’re sleep-deprived.

And don’t shy away from taking your vacation time. Skipping vacation is actually bad for your health. Not only that, but taking time to relax can make you more productive. When you’re well rested and refreshed, you’re far more likely to tackle your tasks with focus and enthusiasm.

Now, go out there and get things done!

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