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She tried so hard.
She tried to make herself believe she loved her husband. She tried to make herself believe she wanted a child. She tried all the things people told her she should want, because she didn’t know how else to live.
But it never quite fit, and this was a reality she thought she could never reconcile. Why didn’t it fit? Why didn’t the things that are supposed to make a woman happy make her happy?
Milah had thirteen brothers and sisters. She wasn’t the oldest or the youngest, just somewhere in the middle, unremarkable. Papa struggled to make coppers to feed them all, never having time for any of them except to shout or hit. Mama always looked tired and sad and scared, and Milah knew it was because there were too many of them, so many that Mama didn’t have anything left for herself, her children draining away at her life force, until she died giving birth to the youngest of them when Milah was only eleven.
She’d dreamed of adventures all her life. When she was small, she saw herself as Milah the Marauder, a bandit of the most infamous caliber. Milah the Marauder saw the world; she robbed the greedy and dined in the finest places, wore gold and silver and fell in love with a dashing, gorgeous fellow bandit who could rob and pillage just as well as she could, but touched her gently and whispered romantic poetry in her ear. Together they did everything they could dream of; the world was their oyster. They became wealthy and admired and talked about the world over. And they never, ever had any children.
But Milah the Marauder could never be. The reality was that she was just a skinny girl with dirty, torn clothes, and Papa told her she was lucky she could find anyone to take her in, even if it was the son of a coward raised by spinsters from the next village over.
Rumpelstiltskin was harmless, her older sister told her before giving her one of Mama’s old dresses for her wedding day. She tried to take solace in the fact that he had cowardice in his blood, so surely he’d never raise a hand to her, and he didn’t have anyone else to support, so even if he didn’t make much gold, she’d get the best of everything he had to offer. These were the silver linings she tried to cling to.
She was seventeen on the day of her wedding. She didn’t know how to tell her father that Milah the Marauder didn’t get married, and certainly not to a coward. She just nodded and smiled and thanked her Papa for finding her a husband, because she knew that’s what she was supposed to do.
Rumpel was not unkind. He was not violent. He was not threatening. But she was still terrified on her wedding night, terrified of what it meant to be a wife, terrified that she’d end up just like her mother, with too many children and a husband who cared little for any of them. That he’d hurt her if she didn’t do what she was supposed to do.
So she tried. She always tried. All her life, she tried. True, she had her ways of fighting fate. She found herbs from a witch outside of town, herbs she took for years upon years to keep herself from becoming with child. It was easier than telling her husband she was afraid of what children might do to her. What kind of a wife does not want a child? In all the stories of her world, happiness always ended with marriage and children, at least for women. That was what women should aspire to. Men, sometimes, could become pirates and assassins and bandits and rogues, but women? The only stories of women who eschewed marriage and family were of women consumed by hatred, lusting for power, not thirsting for excitement or adventure. These stories of women consumed by evil always had a cautionary element – she wouldn’t be like this if she hadn’t lost her love, if she hadn’t lost a child. No, women who didn’t want marriage and family, they were doomed to evil and damnation. If she told her husband she didn’t want him, that she didn’t want a child, what would he think of her? Would he stop being so gentle? Would he see her as a threat?
So she tried, and she lied. For years, she kept taking the herb, eventually starting to fear that maybe she’d be discovered. Rumpel steadfastly refused to believe she was truly barren, and every day, it seemed, he spoke more of wanting a family, and she pretended she wanted the same. She practiced wanting it in front of the mirror. She practiced wanting it when she was all alone, tried to convince herself it was the truth.
**
The Ogre War changed everything. Everyone started believing in their own imminent death, and that was the moment she started to think, perhaps, she should try harder to be who she was supposed to be. Wartime was when the most was expected of everyone in the kingdom, after all. She stopped taking the herb, and even though she was frightened when her husband got conscripted to fight in the war, a part of her wondered if it really mattered either way. They were all probably going to die, anyway. She’d play her part, she supposed. It didn’t matter.
It was not long after Rumpel left for the front lines when she realized she was with child. Her head and her stomach swirled alike, with emotions and nausea. She knew the witch had herbs to do away with the baby if she chose, but she feared what would happen if people knew she went that route. If her husband managed to survive the war, and he heard of her murdering his child, what would he do? She remembered a time her mother telling her father they should see the witch when she was pregnant yet again, and she remembered the cracking sound of Papa’s hand across Mama’s face at the suggestion. No, she couldn’t do that. That’s not what women were supposed to do, especially married women.
When the baby was born, she felt a pull toward him. Nature, she supposed, made it this way. She gave him a name she thought sounded exciting, Baelfire, passionate and strong. Maybe he could be all the things she could never be. He was lucky, she knew, for being born a boy. No one would find him strange if he decided he wanted to become a bandit.
She wasn’t a natural mother; she wouldn’t say that. But it was difficult not to feel affection for such a small and innocent creature. Most of the time, at least. Sometimes she felt like her mother, tired and drained and alone in the world, her husband gone fighting a war. She longed for Rumpel’s return, until the rumors began. She didn’t want to believe them, the idea of her own husband maiming himself to avoid the fight shameful. She also couldn’t deny how she envied him in a way – there he was, a man with a chance at real adventure, to get away and never come back, and he’d smashed his own leg to come back home. When he returned, he told her he did it for her, for them, and her own anger surprised her, so much that she told him he could have stayed, he could have died.
She left the baby with him and went out for a long walk, wondering why she felt so angry with her husband for not being dead. Milah the Marauder would never have done what he did, that was for sure, but she had no envy of death.
It wasn’t until she had to live for a bit longer with being the wife of the village coward that she began to understand her anger, her resentment for Rumpel. Everywhere she went, whether she was with her husband or not, she heard the whispers, and even though the revelation was slow, it burned her through her very core. The war ended, and there she was, still alive and living the life she never wanted.
She’d spent so much of her life trying so hard to do what she was supposed to do. She’d given up her dreams to do what she was supposed to do, to keep people from talking, from hating her. Even her own husband, she played her part for, giving him the child he wanted. It took time, and it didn’t come easy, but she did what was expected of her.
And Rumpelstiltskin? He’d brazenly defied expectations, gone to the length of self-mutilation to avoid his responsibilities. He’d refused to do what was expected, and now she and her son had to pay the consequence of humiliation.
It was a betrayal she could never forgive. She tried, though, she always tried. Never let it be said that she didn’t try. For years she kept playing house, but it was never easy. She knew she was never the ideal mother; she didn’t know how to be. She didn’t have fourteen children like her mother did, but she felt just as drained, just as hopeless, just as resigned.
And she could never give up her truest love: the desire for adventure. For a life that was rich and worthy of story and song. Nothing about her life made for a good story.
**
When Killian Jones walked into the tavern in her little town, her eyes couldn’t stay off of him. He was gorgeous, and adorned with leather and silver, with a charming smile and an entourage of friends who admired him. He told her about his ship, how he searched the high seas for treasure, and suddenly she felt young again. She felt like she did when she used to have real dreams. They gambled and drank and laughed, and she could not deny that she liked very much the way he looked at her.
But reality caught up with her quickly, her husband and her son finding her in that bar, pulling her away from someone she wanted to be near, someone who could tell her about all the things she’d never get to do but always wanted anyway.
That night, she lied in bed, wistfully trying to tell Rumpel they should go, have an adventure, be somewhere no one knew them, where he wasn’t the village coward, where they could have a fresh start. But just as it was when called to fight in the war, Rumpel had no passion in him, no fire, no desire to be anything other than what he was. He told her to try, if not for him, then for Bae, and she wanted to scream.
Didn’t he know that trying was all she’d been doing all these years? That she was sick of trying? That she wanted to live? But she didn’t say those things. She simply whispered that she would try.
**
It didn’t last. It couldn’t, not after a night of dreaming about Killian and his ship and the way that he looked at her. She found him the next day, and he smiled and charmed her and she found herself telling him everything. Everything she felt, everything she’d ever wanted, all her life. She even told him about Milah the Marauder, her childish dreams of being a bandit, something she’d never told anyone. She told him about how Papa never let Mama have any choice in the matters of her life, how she was afraid on her wedding night that her own husband would be exactly like that, so she played pretend that night and every night since. The words spilled from her so quickly she barely took a breath. She told him how she’d tried so hard for so long to be what people thought she should be, only to be a pariah anyway because her husband failed to do the same. Tears streamed down her face, but she squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to see Killian’s face while she spoke, afraid she’d see the judgment, afraid that judgment would make her stop even though she knew she had to tell someone before she burst.
But when she finally finished purging her fears and her dreams to Killian, and she opened her eyes, she didn’t see judgment.
She saw understanding.
His hand moved to her face, wiping her tears, and he told her that a spirit that craves adventure should never be stifled, that he could never stick to what people expected of him, that it would kill him inside, that he was surprised she did it for so long and yet still stayed so beautiful. He told her that he admired her courage in trying for so long, that he could never do that, that she must have some strong part of her that cannot ever be broken.
And then he told her she could come with him, that he’d take her away from all this. He even promised he’d allow people to think she was taken by force, saying that after trying so hard to keep up expectations, she didn’t deserve the town’s judgment now. She threw her arms around him and felt her heart swell with love. Maybe it was foolish, to fall in love with a man she barely knew, and a pirate at that. But he understood her, when no one ever had. And he said everything right.
He said they’d figure out a way to bring Baelfire, too, if that’s what she wanted, and she thought about it. She really did. But she felt guilt, leaving her husband without anything, knowing how much Rumpel loved his son, knowing he was more suited to being a parent than she could ever be, even if he was a coward.
Leaving Baelfire was the only decision that ever tormented her, but she tried to push the thoughts away. Her life with Killian was dangerous, wild, not suited for a child. She was not suited for a child, she began to realize, and though she loved her son, she felt that leaving him with his father would be giving him his best chance.
She tried not to think about her maternal guilt, but whenever she needed to, Killian would talk to her about it. He’d tell her they could go back for Baelfire whenever she wanted, that she just needed to say the word. But he never pushed.
Instead, he made sure himself that she had the herbs she needed to prevent another pregnancy, knowing she didn’t want that. He made love to her often and with both tenderness and passion. He also showed her the world, which they grabbed together with both hands. They found treasure, they saw wonders, they fought battles, and he called her his sweet marauder. Life with Killian was a dream wrapped in a fantasy, and she loved every moment of it. He could always see when she was sad or upset; he always did whatever he could to make her smile again.
Life was not perfect. She did not live without regrets. It felt cruel of fate that she only met Killian after so much of her life had already been taken away from her. And even if she believed that she and motherhood were an ill fit, she couldn’t stop loving her son. Baelfire had taken a piece of her with his birth, a piece of her that she could never get back. It wasn’t his fault, that’s just what happens with mothers and children. She felt guilt, though, for resenting him this piece of herself, this piece of her heart.
Rumpelstiltskin was a different story. Killian could always see through her, even on days she tried to pretend she wasn’t feeling down, and he’d try to make her smile again. Rumpel watched her live a lie for years and even in moments when she pleaded with him to try something new with their lives, he just told her to keep trying. With every passing day, she hated him more for stealing so much from her, and for having the nerve to shirk his own responsibility to meet expectations. Killian joined her in her disgust, his own judgment of Rumpelstiltskin sealed when the man refused to fight to get his wife back. A coward, just like she’d said. Not willing to fight for anything.
The years wore on, and she stopped thinking so much about her hatred. She lived with the guilt of leaving her son every day, but Killian’s love distracted her from thoughts of her first husband. They married, eventually, too, in the sense that he gave her a gorgeous diamond ring and declared her Milah Jones, saying she should have the family name of someone she loved dearly, and that night they made love surrounded by treasure from their latest haul, and after he read her romantic poetry as she lied naked and flush on silken sheets. It was the only kind of wedding night she could have wanted.
Milah the Marauder lived. She was respected by her husband and the crew of their ship, admired when she walked through town adorned in leather and silver and gold. She learned to clean and gut fish, to load cannons, to fight perfectly with a sword. She did all the things her old life never allowed. And she didn’t cook, or mop, or sew, or any of the insipid things people expected her to do before.
**
So it was a shock, then, when Rumpelstiltskin reappeared. A terrifying shock, as she learned he was The Dark One, that he’d transformed into a monster, and a powerful one at that. Killian insisted on taking him on, but she couldn’t let her true love die for her. She was ready to make a deal, even with a man she hated. She was ready to give him his damned bean and never see him again. She loved what she had too much to let it go.
But in the last moment, she made a mistake.
She told Rumpelstiltskin the truth.
The truth that only Killian could handle. The truth that her family would never tolerate. The truth that the townspeople would damn.
She had never loved Rumpelstiltskin, and when she told him, finally, after so many years of pretending to him, he ripped her heart out.
Her fears on her wedding night came true.
This is what happens to women who don’t do what they’re expected to do.
And as she lay dying in Killian’s arms, she realized she couldn’t wish it all away, even if it ended like this. His blue eyes were the last thing she’d see in this world, and for that, at least, she was grateful.
“I love you,” she whispered to the love of her life, before the monster who stole her existence crushed her heart into dust.