AN: The foreshadowing for Killian not giving up on Emma when she goes dark was strong in tonight's episode. So I wrote it.

The Villain Arc

The others have hidden away, plot ways to stop her, to bring her back to herself, but remains at her side. It amuses her, he knows, to have him there – her personal lapdog, as the sea witch likes to call him, with a sneer and eyes that flash with hatred. The second Emma decides he's no longer amusing, he knows that Ursula will end him before he can get away. Once, that would have sent him running, fleeing to save his own neck. But this is not once, this is now, and this is Emma. So while Snow and Dave and Regina hide and try to think of ways to talk sense into the Saviour, he follows her, loyal lapdog to the end.

"You're just as stupid as they are, you know," she tells him, when she and the witches and the Dark One call an end to their plotting for the night. Killian isn't allowed to sit in on those meetings, not when his loyalty is strictly to Emma, rather than what they hope to achieve.

"Stupid. I've never been called that before."

"Maybe not when you were Captain Hook," Emma replies, taking the seat across from him. She curls her legs up into her chest, rests her chin on her knee and looks at him. She looks as she always has – blonde and beautiful and dressed in a red leather jacket – but her eyes are different. There's a shadow to them now, a shadow matched by the one that mars her once white magic. The savior, well and truly tainted. "Captain Hook, he knew how to survive. He knew not to trust anyone but himself to have his back. But Killian Jones? He's a stupid man, all about self-sacrifice."

At first he allows the words to sting, but Killian knows Emma Swan. He knows her when she's filled with light magic and playing the role of savior, and despite her best efforts, he knows here when she's dark and tainted and filled with hatred for the whole damn world. He knows her voice, her expressions, and he knows what he's seeing in her now.

"Why, Swan, I think you might be worried for me."

Her head snaps up at the accusation, a sneer on her lips, but he knows not to look at her lips. He looks at her eyes, wide and green and filled with shadows, but also with that spark of fear. He remembers it well, from when he had stood under jagged ice the Snow Queen meant to use to kill him. She can have all the darkness in the world in her heart, but she can't hide the emotions that still manage to fight through.

And if she can worry… well, there is a reason Killian refuses to give up on her, even when all the pleas of her family fall on death ears, waved away with a hand and tumult of shadowed magic.

"Don't give yourself that much credit, Hook. I find it entertaining, how desperate you are for the dregs of my affections. It will bore me, and so will you" – she gets to her feet and walks up to him, settles herself on his lap. She does this often, and Killian always seems to let her. She runs her hands up his chest, sending goose bumps down his arms, and then pulls the collar of his shirt into a tight grip – "eventually. You'll bore me eventually."

He wants to ask her who she's trying to convince – him or herself – but she knows that he likes to talk, and so she silences him with her lips before he can do so. It's not like the kisses she had once given him – soft and full of promise. Her kisses these days are rough and demanding, orders for more. They're fighting tongues and clashing teeth, and battles for dominance that she refuses to lose.

Killian cradles her head with his hands, gentles the kiss, until he's just brushing his lips against hers, forcing sweetness and affection when all she wants is lust and passion.

She lets out an angry snarl and pulls away from him.

"I don't love you," she growls out, her voice angry. But her eyes are at odds with her words, because for the briefest moment, the shadows aren't there, and instead it's just pure, raw pain and the Emma that Killian is so desperate to regain. He sees that, and he knows for certain that those words are meant for herself, not for him. He lets himself look into her eyes for a moment, searching, and then he cups her cheek, pulling her into another of those gentle kisses. She plants her hands on his shoulder, and he prepares himself to be shoved back once more. It's how it always ends, when he does this. Whenever he's gentle, she throws him back with her magic, and he's left to wonder if it's the time when she decides he brings out things in her that she can't afford, not if she wants to maintain this new darkness of hers.

Her hands clutch his shoulders, and he freezes for a second in shock, because she's never done that before, and he's almost afraid that it's a trick.

"What are you doing to me," she whispers when he pulls back carefully. Her eyes are screwed shut, but a tear has escaped, trailing down her cheek, and he reaches up to wipe it away.

"Loving you, Emma," he replies, stroking her skin softly. "I'm afraid I don't know how to do anything else. Not anymore."

"Love is weakness," she says, eyes snapping open to glare at him.

"There was a time when you thought the opposite," Killian responds, and already his heart is aching, because he's losing her again. He saw her for a moment, the Emma he had fallen so in love with, but now he can see her vanishing again. He pulls her down, pressing their foreheads together, desperate to keep her, desperate to see those shadows dissipate again.

"That was before," she says, her voice becoming cold. "Before I learned the truth."

"What truth?" Killian demands, running his hand through his hair in frustration, because she's pulled away and gotten to her feet once more. "The truth that your parents aren't perfect? That they're human and they make mistakes just like the rest of us?"

"They lied to me!" she shouts, spinning so her back is to him. Then she lets out a sound of frustration and spins back. "They lied to me. Kept secrets and then lied right to my face, and you dare to try to defend them?"

"You're talking like those witches," Killian says, stepping towards her slowly. "And yes, what your parents did was wrong… but can you blame them? You're they're daughter."

"Yes, the precious daughter. The one they worried so much would turn evil, that they let me go to keep me good. Who does that Killian?" her voice cracks, and Killian reaches out, taking her into his arms, she fights his grip, but he maintains is, because when was the last time she called him Killian?

"Who does that?" she asks again.

"I don't know," Killian admits, because he hadn't quite been able to believe it, when he had heard the truth of Maleficent's past with Snow and Dave. "I don't know, Love. But I do know that you don't want this. Darkness… once you've let it in, it's very hard to get away from."

"Like you?" she asks, and her voice is muffled by his shoulder but it cuts him to the quick all the same. She pulls back, and this time he lets her, because he knows what comes next. "You and Ursula and how you ruined her because you were so selfish. You're one to talk about darkness, when you've danced with it for centuries."

"Aye," Killian admits, because lies are what got them here, and he won't be telling any more, even by omission. "Aye, let's talk about me. Shall we lay out all my sins, Emma? How I couldn't save my brother or Milah so I spent centuries destroying anything and everyone that I viewed as an obstacle to my revenge? And yes, that included Ursula. She was a good soul when I met her, and everything she is now I played a part in. Is that what you want me to admit?"

Emma steps back in surprise, so Killian takes a step forward.

"Yes, Ursula blames me for what she's become. Just as Regina blamed her mother and Rumplestiltskin and the author. Just as the Crocodile will blame his curse and Cruella will blame her past, and I blamed the Crocodile. It's all one vicious cycle, and I'll welcome you to it. Shall we blame your parents then, Love? Or do you want to blame me? Or we can blame Regina, who started this all. Really, take your pick."

"What are you doing?" Emma demanded, her fingers clenching and unclenching, and he knew he was walking a thin line, that at any moment she could unleash her powers on him, but he couldn't stop. This was the first time he had seen the true her, and if he gave up now…

What if he never saw her again?

"I'm asking who will be the start of your villain arc? Because blame is how we always start, Love. We blame someone, decide that if they were gone, we would be better. But it doesn't work that way. Because once that person is gone, that's it. It doesn't fix anything. So we look for another to blame. And then another, until it's a vicious cycle and remembering what started it all is nigh on impossible. And all the while, we ignore that it was our own choices that set us down our respective paths. That yes, someone did us wrong and pointed us there, but we made the decision to take that first step all on our own."

Emma stares at him with wide eyes, frozen in place. Killian takes another step forward, until they're touching, and he reaches out to twine a curl of her hair around his finger.

"So tell me, Love, who shall we choose as the beginning of you villain arc? I'll be there with you for it, because I don't know how to walk away from you. So shall we take that first step together?"

"You don't mean that," Emma whispers, and Killian leans down, brushes his lips against hers.

"But I do, Love. If this is the path you choose, then I'll help you down it… or you could do what I didn't. You can choose a different way."

Emma's lips twist up into a derisive smirk when she finally catches on to Killian's purpose, sees what he's trying to do.

"Let me guess – forgiveness? Isn't that how heroes are supposed to work? Forgive and forget, because everyone deserves a second chance."

"You do," he says when Emma turns her back to him, and his words make her pause. "You deserve a second chance, Love. And I know that you'll make the right choice someday. Because I see the best of you, and I know that it will come out on top. But I worry about what you might do before then, and if, when you realize this isn't what you want, if you'll be able to survive the doing of them."

"You don't know me," she says, keeping her back to him. "You like to pretend you do, but you don't. You're just a one handed pirate with a drinking problem, and I should have never let you close to me."

"Is this where I bore you then?" Killian comes up behind her once more. "If so, I would appreciate if you were the one to end me. I think Ursula would plan to make it hurt."

"Maybe you deserve for it to hurt."

"I very likely do."

She turns to him, her hand coming up, fingers bent like claws, and he braces himself for what he knows will come next. It's been done before, courtesy of the Crocodile, and he knows that it will hurt.

Pain never comes.

"Why are you doing this?" she asks, her fingers resting over his chest, her gaze glued to her hand.

"I told you, it's because I don't know how to walk away from you. I am in love with you."

She removes her hand from his chest, takes a step back, and he looks at her, expecting to see shadows in her eyes.

Instead he sees walls. Walls that are painfully familiar, because he's scaled them once before. The heart she threatened to remove skips a beat, because walls he can fight. Walls mean she has to defend herself emotionally. Wall mean something got to her.

Walls mean he got to her.

"You're lucky," she says, and her voice holds the same coldness as before, but this time he recognizes it as false. An attempt to maintain her charade, but already he can see she's unwinding. "You still amuse me. So you'll live to see another day. But I don't want to see you again tonight."

Part of him wants to argue, but there's still enough Hook left in Killian for him to know when he should walk away, if he wants to live to fight another day. So instead, he gives her the slightest of bows.

"As you wish," he replies.

Emma has turned her back to him, but he sees it stiffen at her words. He makes a note of that, and leaves the room.

Behind him, Emma sags against the wall, letting it support all of her weight, and wishes that she had it in her to let him die.

AN: There may be a sequel. Because he got to her, but she's still not good yet… so yeah, there's a good probability for a sequel. Let me know what you think.