Emma was losing her beads.
The dream catcher string beneath her fingers was rough and familiar. The mesh almost wove itself, working slowly around the edges, layer by layer, row by neat row, until it was time to tie the final knot in the middle. It was just the beads that were giving her trouble. They kept disappearing from her sight as soon as they were worked into the weave.
When she realized one was missing from her peripheral vision, she would blink, confused, and seek it out. There it would be, in the left corner, a red bead, plain as day. When she shifted her eyes back to the weave, the middle of the dream catcher, the bead would disappear again. Look up, there. Look down, gone. Look up, there, Look down, gone.
It wasn't until a few minutes later that she realized the beads weren't necessarily gone. If she kept her eyes fixed on the middle of the dream catcher, and let her vision sort of blur, she could see little swirling spots where the beads should be.
_Oh, God, am I going blind?_ she thought. Frantic, she lifted her eyes from the cluttered work table and focused on a blank wall. Or a wall that should have been blank. Six or seven spots swirled in various places. Emma rubbed her eyes hard. _Ow, that kind of hurts._ Once the room faded back into view, the spots were still there. In fact, there was one particularly funny flickering spot on her left-hand side.
Emma quickly turned her head, trying to catch the moving spot, and noticed all of her dream catchers were rustling. Gently moving in the wind. Except that the air was still, silent. _Not so silent,_ Emma thought as she thought she heard someone talking as they moved down the hall. Or was that her imagination? No footsteps. Just whispers.
"You hear it, don't you?"
Emma jerked around to stare at the figure in the doorway. The Darkness. It was there. Always there, waiting for her to slip up.
"Let's go explore, shall we?"
The whispering filled the dark corners of the halls, skittered down stairwells, and playfully tapped the glass as Emma followed it. Louder and louder, growing more indistinct but more insistent at each step, until Emma was clasping her ears at the growing headache.
She began counting doors to focus herself away from the pain. One. Two. Three black doors. Wait, was she counting all doors or black doors? Because here was a green door in front of her. The door gently pulsed around the edges, and Emma could no longer figure out whether it was light on the other side of the door, or the trickery of her own vision.
Deep stabbing pains behind her eyes, a throbbing, pulsing headache. The pressure built and built as Emma opened the door and approached the closet in the room. The whispers seemed to come from inside.
A dagger. The whispers faded, and the pulsing in her head subsided until it was a low-level ache matching the purple pulse of the dagger in front of her. The Dark One dagger. Just lying there. Waiting for her to take it.
_No._ Emma thought. _I will not give into the darkness._
She turned away, and the whispers turned into a screech, with an echoing jab of electricity through her brain. Hit with a wave of nausea, Emma leaned against the cabinet door and closed her eyes. The darkness swirled with colors behind her lids, small white dots, a swirling white-gray mass in the lower left side, and on the right, a giant streak of black and white checkerboard.
Emma forced her eyes open, and saw the dagger right in front of her. The visual migraine faded, and the whispers gathered into the dagger, pleading to be freed. Exhausted, Emma reached out a hand towards the hilt.
Purple magic flashed, throwing her hand back, wrenching Emma's arm nearly out of its socket. The Darkness giggled behind her. "You didn't expect it to be that easy, did you?" Emma turned to look at it, too exhausted and nauseated to risk saying anything. "It's just a spell," the Darkness continued. "Crush it."
"No!" Emma cried. The whispers swelled, beating against her head, whining to be freed. Emma clutched her head and whimpered. The Darkness. The voices were being controlled by the Darkness. Through tears at the pain, she looked at her captor. "Get out of my head!" she roared, and fired a bolt of magic at the Darkness.
Emma swore she saw the Darkness smirk as he disappeared. The magical bolt zoomed past the fireplace, towards the door and Killian, who was standing there. Emma gasped and tried to draw it back towards her. She only managed to knock it off course, and Killian jerked back out of its path.
"Emma, Emma, are you all right?" Killian was running towards Emma, completely disregarding the fact that _she had just fired a magic bolt that should have killed him._ She lost her balance as Killian pulled her away from the closet door, and fell into his chest. "Emma, it's just us. It's just us two. What's wrong?"
The headache faded in Killian's arms, and when she was brave enough to open her eyes, the swirling visions were gone. But the Darkness remained, smirking in the doorway, reminding her that she had almost murdered Killian. "He's here. The Darkness. He's always here."
Emma pulled away and tried to focus on Killian's face. He stared back at her, concerned and frightened. "What do you mean, Emma? Who is here?"
Emma ran her hands up his chest, focusing on the feel of leather, and not the darkness over Killian's shoulder. "Ever since I came to Camelot, I have been haunted by a figure. A figure that represents the darkness that is tethered to me. It looks like Rumplestiltskin."
Killian's jaw clenched and his brow furrowed. "I'll kill him. Never mind my promise to Belle, I'll kill that gods damned Crocodile!" he yelled.
"Shh, shh, shh," Emma soothed, reaching out to run her hand through his hair. "Killian, it's not really him. It's the Darkness. But look, it's ok now, see?" Emma checked over his shoulder, and made sure her words were true before uttering them. "Killian, when I'm with you..." He took a deep breath at her hesitant words and started searching her eyes. "When I touch you..." Emma ran both hands through his hair, finger nails across his neck, and grabbed his lapels. "When I kiss you..." Emma urgently pressed her lips against Killian's, then leaned back a hairs breath to whisper, "...the Darkness goes away."
Killian's face turned cold. "That's why you've been so passionate, Swan. You're just using me to control the Darkness."
Emma's mouth hung open for a moment at a glimpse of her actions from his perspective. "No, no, Killian! It doesn't work with just anyone..." Killian looked at her from under his lashes, waiting for her words. "Killian, it only works because... I love you."
Killian's face softened and he quickly leaned forward to capture Emma's lips. "I love you, too, Emma," he whispered, and then crushed her against his chest to plunder those ruby gems. Emma responded enthusiastically, her hands roaming down his back, under his great coat, untucking his shirt from his pants. Killian sucked in a breath at the feel of her bare hands on his lower back.
"Emma," he panted, as she sought his lips. "Emma, I don't want you to do anything..." He groaned as her hands slid up into his chest hairs and curled against his heart. "...don't do anything you wouldn't, if not for the Darkness." Emma pulled back, and searched his eyes. "Emma, the Darkness is like a drug. It changes your thoughts, makes you want to do things you wouldn't normally do."
Killian stepped away from her. Emma's heart broke at the signs of their passion, from his rumpled hair to the untucked shirt and the obvious bludge in his leather pants. He swallowed, and continued. "Emma, I made you a promise." He took a deep breath. "You see, I believe in good form. I promised that when I won your heart, it wouldn't be because of any trickery. It would be because you wanted me."
Emma began to protest, and he silenced her with a light touch on her cheek. "I want to know you want me, this," Hook crushed his lips to Emma's, his hand on her ass pressing her warm belly against his swelling cock. He pulled away and waited for her eyes to open. "I want you to want me without the Darkness inside of you. I will wait for you to be just my Emma Swan again."
Emma's mouth turned down, but she nodded once. "What can I do? About the Darkness? It's worst when everyone is sleeping, and there's no one to talk to."
Killian frowned. "You can't sleep."
Emma shrugged. "Dark Ones don't need sleep. Believe me, I've tried. And Camelot doesn't have any sleeping pills, unless I want Regina to whip me up a sleeping curse." She gave Killian a small smile.
Killian grinned. "That's a problem we can solve, Swan. I'll get Henry to take shifts with me. We'll keep you company."
Emma let out a small laugh. "That's great, but you're both going to fall asleep on the job. I know keeping up appearances in King Arthur's court is going to be exhausting."
Cheered by her laugh, Killian perked up. "Well, you know I love a challenge. I'll just have to keep myself awake and occupied by making you laugh." He sauntered over towards the bed in the room, snagged a pearl necklace from the jewelry box with his hook, and proceeded to place the stand between his teeth whist spreading himself over the bedspread.
Emma giggled at him throwing his head back in an exaggerated manner. "What, too little chest hair?" he asked around the pearls. Emma laughed harder at his muffled garbled question. Killian proceeded to unhook a few more eyelets on his shirt, and tucked the pearls into his belt. They dangled dangerously close to the front of his pants, which were rather tight with the thought of Emma and himself in this bed. He struck a pose with one elbow up, hook on his side, and spyglass to his eye.
Emma laughed harder, and wiped tears from her eyes. "You look like you should be on the cover of Pillage and Plunder."
Killian grinned. "Oh, you mean that Playboy magazine David left lying around." He was rewarded with Emma's blush. "It had some rather interesting techniques in it. Which I will be happy to share once we get the Darkness out of you."
Emma leaned over and kissed him anyway. "Motivation. I like it."