I keep imagining what it would be like when these two are officially together. Sigh, Captain Swan. It was really such a bad idea to discover you, Killian Jones. Like, a really bad idea.

And I realised I'd better start putting disclaimers: Only the idea for this story is mine, sadly. Also, chapter 3 for Star Lights will be up, hopefully, on Sunday.

ENJOY.


SURPRISE

.

Killian Jones fancied himself a cunning man. Honestly, he always believed he was naturally smooth, sneaky and suave at the same time. He was a pirate, for goodness' sake. He was supposed to have this in his blood. You know, the genius and the slyness of it all. But this self-belief was very easily crushed when his true love, the brilliant blond-haired Emma Swan, had this ridiculous ability to discern whether he was telling the complete truth or not. At the start, even though she bested him, he dismissed this gift of hers as just intelligence and strength of the mind, at being able to know when someone was lying to her. But as he got to know her much better, he came to see that she was not only able to know when a lie was told to her face, but when someone was hiding a partial truth from her. Therefore, ever since she became officially his – both in heart and in the legal sense, he had learned to always be as honest with her as he possibly could.

Now, it was a week leading up to Emma's birthday. From the time Killian and Emma became romantically involved, they celebrated that day together, many beautiful memories were created, and she was never alone again. He knew she was happy, and he was very much content as well. But there was one thing he really wanted to do for her that was incredibly, enormously, gigantically difficult in his terms.

He wanted to surprise her.

For her birthday.

He got the idea from the very first time he found out it was her birthday and they weren't in a relationship yet. He wanted to see the look on her face when he surprised her because she was so easily unsurprised by so many things that the task of giving her a shock, should it be a success, would prove to be a worthwhile one.

Unfortunately, he couldn't even plan something without her knowing. She would work in the Sheriff's office from time to time, so she knew nearly all his whereabouts – not that she needed to or wanted to, but she just did. He was, however, very resilient that year – darn it, he wanted to give Emma a surprise, and he would get it done no matter how hard it would be.

So that one morning, with seven days remaining until Emma's birthday, Killian woke up extraordinarily early with renewed resolve to make it happen. He had to make a plan, and he had to think of one fast. Emma's back was towards him, so thankfully it was easy for him to lift the blankets, slide out of the bed and fasten his hook back on and–

"Hook?"

BANG!

The wardrobe door Killian had quietly (or so he thought) opened was accidentally banged shut when he was unexpectedly startled by Emma's clear voice breaking through the darkness of the dawn that still surrounded their bedroom.

"Yes, darling," he breathed softly, leaning over her side of the bed. "Go back to sleep."

"What are you doing up so early?" she asked, eyes still half closed. She still wanted to sleep, and he was glad for that – he would have no chance to do anything unless she was asleep. This woman had better go back to sleep so he could execute his newly made-up surprise plan, which he had just randomly made up in seconds before she suddenly called him.

"I just felt like waking up," he answered truthfully, "I'll be back soon, I'll take a walk or something."

Yeah. Or something.

"This early?" she asked again, her words slurring a little now.

"Don't worry, love," he replied. "It's not that early."

And it wasn't, because it was almost 5 o'clock in the morning. He resumed changing his clothes and set out, knowing that he had to do it now or otherwise it would really be never.

DING DONG!

Inside, the Charmings were still fast asleep, although David normally set his alarm clock for 6 A.M. Killian had arrived at their doorstep just four minutes before David's alarm rang, and that was reason enough for David to feel annoyed at the person who would disturb him and his sleep.

Captain bloody Hook.

"Hook," David muttered, sighing. "What do you want? It's morning, and yes you're part of the family now, but there's still no reason to–"

"I need your help to surprise Emma."

"To what?"

"I am going to give Emma a surprise. And I need your help to make it happen."

"You want to surprise her?"

"Aye, that's what I just said!"

"For what?"

"Her birthday!" Killian said, his voice rising in volume now. To heck with it, Mary Margaret was probably awake too already.

"You want to surprise her? Now this is news. But, if I'm not mistaken, her own mother says that she doesn't like them."

"Such an encouraging person you are. She probably didn't like them because no one's ever tried to do anything like that for her."

"What is going on?" Mary Margaret asked, rubbing her eyes, one hand on her hip, eyeing her husband and Killian. "It's 6:09 in the morning and both of you are bickering in my house. There had better be a good explanation for this."

"Hook says that he wants our help–"

"–Emma's birthday, and so I want to surprise –"

"–told him that it will be tricky to surprise a woman, not to mention–"

"–not been surprised before, so she deserves–"

"Okay, STOP," Mary Margaret held up both her hands at each man, clarity reaching her eyes. "Firstly, both of you need to stop trying to talk over each other. No wonder Emma gets migraines when the two of you start having conversations."

"Secondly," she continued calmly. "Surprising Emma is the only thing I got out of the many words you uttered over the course of the past minute. And truthfully…"

David eyed Hook, then shifted his focus back onto Mary Margaret.

"I think it's a great idea," she finished, to which David just sighed heavily and shrugged, while Killian's face broke out into a smile and he approached his mother-in-law gratefully. "So you'll help?" he asked eagerly.

She had her arms crossed, but Mary Margaret was smiling. "Of course we will. What's the plan?"

"It's simple, really," Killian began, until he finished telling David and Mary Margaret about what he wanted to do.

"Well, I have to admit that it is just something very simple," David acknowledged. "It's definitely doable without her knowing – we just go about doing what we normally do every day."

Except, it really wasn't as simple as that, and it definitely wasn't as easy as David said it would be. Killian headed back home right after their conversation, realising that the longer he was gone, the more Emma would suspect that he had something up his sleeve. It was a Saturday, and because Emma would sleep in a little longer, he needn't worry that she would be awake yet.

Emma normally checked in at the Sheriff's office on weekends when she wasn't working her other job at the newly-opened café in town, so she left their apartment on cue at 10:00am. Mary Margaret knocked on their front door minutes later, reporting that the people whom they wanted to invite to the surprise party would all be present. However, the plan was derailed – very easily, in fact, by Mr Gold, who apparently thought that because Emma was incredibly busy at the station, it would be best to execute the plan on the day itself. How he decided that he could just butt his head into this surprise party planning, Killian really didn't know. All he knew was that he went ballistic at that, because they had barely two hours to get everything ready, and it wasn't even Emma's actual birth DAY, but Mr Gold had taken the authority of inviting all the people in town to their apartment for the surprise party that very evening. He didn't think everyone could fit in there in the first place. (Other people would have laughed about this, but Hook really didn't think it was funny)

Of course, Emma, being Emma, became suspicious the moment she heard people whispering about a party at her apartment that evening. If Killian knew about that, it would have really only affirmed the irritated emotions in his mind about the fact that Gold was really just trying to sabotage the entire operation.

His operation.

Which, he did know that Gold was being a nuisance. The whole plan was going to fail, and he knew it. No matter how much Mary Margaret and David tried to help pretend nothing was going on, he knew Emma would see through their act.

People began ringing the doorbell of their apartment, and the moment he opened the door at the twentieth ring to be greeted by Red, he (as politely as he could) excused himself, locked the front door, and headed towards his ship, the trustworthy Jolly Roger, waiting for him at the docks. Very fortunately, Emma did not cross paths with him, and she arrived at their apartment building a few hours later to discover all the townsfolk gathered, lining their way up to the front door of her apartment. Was a party really happening here? What party?

She was confused for a moment, then it clicked in her head.

The crowd pleasantly let her through, and she unlocked the front door, thinking there would be some great brilliant surprise, but the house was empty. She called for Hook, but he was clearly not in. Mary Margaret and David appeared at the front door, and she asked them if they knew where he was, but they didn't (or pretended not to).

Where was the hooked man?

This was unusual, at least. She really thought she had figured he was planning some surprise party for her birthday in advance so she wouldn't suspect anything. Why else would all the people in town be at her house, especially since she actually heard people talking about it?

"I'm going to go find where he is," Emma announced. "And I know exactly where he'll be."

She arrived at the docks faster than she expected, because she had been running. She didn't quite understand what was going on, and she was going to ask her husband what in the world he was trying to do.

She approached the Jolly Roger, but within steps, she realised there were lights. Tiny candle lights, lit all over the sides and the surface of the deck – there were small candlesticks, big ones, thick ones, thin and tall ones. Her jaw slowly began to drop. Even his proposal wasn't as amazing as this – although that was probably because he so spontaneously asked her to marry him, and she didn't even need to think twice about whether it was a romantic setting that he was proposing in, because all she knew was that her answer was yes, and she was getting married to Captain Hook.

When she finally stepped foot on the ship, there he stood, leaning against the main mast, wearing his complete pirate outfit – red vest, boots and all. His silver hook glinted in the moonlight, and her lips began to curl into a smile so sweet and genuine that he knew his plan was successful after all.

She was wearing her usual get-up – jeans, high boots, and her red leather jacket; and she was the most beautiful woman in the world to him, all over again.

In his one hand, he held up a cupcake – one of a larger size, with two candles on it. He wanted to fit many more, since the two candles weren't an indication of her actual age, but he quickly realised the entire cupcake would crumble in his hands if he attempted that.

"Killian Jones," she voiced his name, and he grinned at her, acknowledging the true look of surprise on her face when she looked around the deck. He was truly proud of himself for accomplishing this – and most of it on his own, to boot (well, he did last-minute call David in to help him, but that was it, really).

"Emma Swan," he returned, still very much liking her original last name even though he had taken to calling her 'Emma Jones' at times, which she actually did enjoy, because he only called her that to annoy her, and go figure, she liked being annoyed by him nowadays.

"Happy Birthday," he breathed, presenting the cupcake to her, lifting it up to her head level. "I'm a week early, but surprising you had to be done one way or another, and it seemed that it had to be today."

She approached him, eyes glinting with tears of gratefulness that he was hers, and that he did something so beautiful and romantic for her. This pirate couldn't be trusted sometimes, but it really was for all the right reasons some other times.

"I'm truly surprised for the first time in my life," she admitted, smiling broadly at him. "Thank you."

He winked at her. "You're surprised and happy – it's more than worth it," he whispered. "Now blow out your candles and make a wish."

She bent down and blew out the candles immediately without halting, and then reached up, placed an arm around his neck, and kissed him.

Killian deepened the kiss, and their lips connected passionately in a moment that he wanted to remember for eternity. Hundreds of lights from the candles surrounded them, and it felt more magical than anything else he'd ever seen or experienced. Emma smiled against him, and he smiled back, both lost in each other's gaze.

To her, this wasn't just the best birthday ever; it was much more than that.

She giggled, something he didn't often hear from her. Waves of joy and happiness radiated from within her, and she closed her eyes briefly, wanting to record that very moment in her realisation that no one, no. one. Had ever done this for her.

No one but him – Killian Jones.

But then again, that's who he was to her – he did things for her no one else would. He became a constant in her life the moment he chose to come back to help her all that time ago. At the end of the day, he was the only one capable of surprising her.

And he really did.


I've always thought that Hook has the potential to provide a lot of comic relief, but also to show his capacity to love and be the most romantic man in the universe – particularly to Emma.

I hope this story encapsulates that.

Do let me know if you enjoyed this!