A/N: I have an insane amount of Captain Darcy feels from last night's episode so I decided to put them into words. If you know how obsessed with books and Jane Austen I am, you'll know I just had to write this.
Surely you must know, it was all for you
They end up going for an evening stroll afterwards. She makes him walk her to the docks under the excuse of wanting to see with her own eyes that the Jolly Roger, the ship he had traded to find her in New York, was really back. But as curious as she was to see his beloved ship, what she really wanted was a quiet moment to talk to him about what he had said earlier, that she was his happy ending.
The problem is, now that they are here she half regrets her chosen excuse after realising how the complete stillness of the place seem to amplify the slight shaking she can't keep from her voice. There's not a single sound disturbing the peaceful scene around them, only the gentle lapping of the waves on the shore and Killian's steady breathing. She counts the seconds between his intakes of breath silently in her head, letting the calm rhythm slowly soothe her mind.
She did want a quiet moment and that's precisely what they got, so she decides to stop distracting him with endless jokes on the whole ship-in-a-bottle situation and get to the heart of the matter. Summoning all her courage, she manages to ask if he really meant what he said without sounding too nervous, quickly adding that she thought there were plenty more things he needed in his happy ending when he turned those too blue eyes of his to find hers, boring into her soul like he seems to do so effortlessly.
"Surely you must know, Emma. You are my happiness," he tells her with a smile so soft she knows that's the one he reserves especially for her. It seems unfathomable how this man, the literal Captain Hook incarnate, can be so much of a Mr. Darcy without even knowing. Speaking of, she thinks she might just have found a way to convey her feelings for him as best she could.
"You know, sometimes I think you might be the living version of few more fictional characters besides Captain Hook."
"You mean like Rumplestiltskin also is?" He huffs, his voice sounding more bitter than intended, and he averts his gaze to the moon glittering over the water.
"You're nothing like him, Killian." She stops and gently pulls his arm to make him face her, wishing he could see himself the way she does. He responds with a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes and kisses the top of her head before taking her hand and resuming their stroll. She knows she has to tell him, he needs to hear it from her more than ever after the day's events, so she decides to keep going even if what she has in mind is not the most straightforward way of showing how she feels about him. "Well, I was just wondering, have you by any chance heard of a Mr. Darcy of Pemberley? You remind me of him sometimes."
"I'm afraid I haven't, Swan. Perhaps that's a realm I haven't been to?"
She can't help the chuckle that breaks free from her lips. "No, Pemberley is not a realm, it's the huge place he lives in."
"Is it located in your land, then?"
"Pemberley doesn't actually exist. Although, I heard there's some people who re-created it in England and you can visit it, but that's not the point. He's not real." She would find the sudden surprise on his face comical if she wasn't struggling to let the words out. "Mr. Darcy is just a character in a book I used to be crazy about when I was younger."
"Didn't you tell Henry the exact same thing when he tried to convince you all the fairytale characters are real?" He tells her with an amused smirk on his face.
"If Mr. Darcy is a real person somewhere then I'd definitely like to meet him," she says absent-mindedly while an unbidden smile comes upon her lips as she remembers reading and re-reading the novel untiringly when she was only a teenage girl looking for hope anywhere she could find it.
He clears his throat and gives her a pointed look that reminds her of a particular moment in a tavern, many years and a time portal ago, when he had been too concern about her methods for keeping his old self occupied to keep his nonchalant act.
"Don't tell me you're getting jealous again," she teases him with an eyebrow wiggle that mimics his own.
"I'm not a jealous man, Swan," he informs her quite matter-of-factly. As if she couldn't tell there's not a hint of truth on that statement.
"Just like you're not sentimental either? Tell me again what you gave Ursula so she could find your ship."
He shakes his head in defeat and opts for a quick change of subject back to their original topic, though the little smile he tries to suppress does not escape Emma's notice. "It sounds like this book is quite special to you, love."
"It is. Ingrid showed it to me when I was living with her," she says, feeling him rub small circles on the back of her hand with his thumb in silent reassurance.
"She said she fell in love with the story because there was something a bit magical about it. I remember I almost started laughing when she said that. You know, back then I thought the idea that a book could be magical in any way was absurd, but now - now I'm a believer thanks to Henry." She hears his light chuckle and sees the words point proven written in bold letters on his forehead before scrunching her nose at him in retort. "She insisted I gave the book a chance saying it might just restore my belief in happy endings. I borrowed it from her and it turned out she was more right than I ever admitted to her. Even though it wasn't a fairytale kind of story, it still gave me hope every time I read it again. It's got one of the most beautiful happy endings I've ever read, actually." She looks up at him with a smile and he presses a kiss to her temple, releasing her hand and tucking her closer into his side as they keep walking in the cool evening breeze.
"Perhaps I should read it then," he says in a casual tone that almost causes her to trip over some pebbles. She gives him a quizzical look as her brain tries not to go into short circuit processing the idea that Captain Hook might actually want to read Pride and Prejudice. "What? It's clearly an important part of your younger years. I told you, I'd love to know more about your beginnings, Emma."
"I'm sure Belle will have it in the library if you really want to read it." She leans her head on his shoulder, needing to hide her face while she tries her best not to blush too hard with his constant interest in knowing everything there is to know about her.
"So, this Mr. Darcy... he doesn't have perms, too, does he?" He asks her in a genuinely intrigued tone, and she can't hold back an extremely unladylike snort before telling him in all seriousness that Mr. Darcy most definitely does not have perms. "Good. The last time you described a character I was supposed to be you didn't paint a particularly appealing picture. I hope this man has at least half of my dashing looks."
"Oh, he's really handsome, at least according to Elizabeth Bennet. That's the woman he marries at the end of the book." She adds when he tilts his head to the side in that adorable way of his. "He is brave, loyal, and very mysterious, too. It takes you a while to figure him out. You see, he hides behind a cold façade at the beginning, but he turns out to be the most caring, loving man, who simply had to face some hard times in his past. And it takes you completely by surprise since almost everyone's been misjudging him from the start, especially Elizabeth. He's a true hero, and he proves it many times along the way even though some people are still too stubborn to see it."
"Is that so, Swan?" He asks, raising that ridiculously expressive left eyebrow of his at her. She nods and gives him her best innocent smile before looking away and taking a deep breath. There's still a very important parallel between Killian Jones and Mr. Darcy that she needs to tell him about.
"He also never gives up on winning the heroine's heart, no matter how many times she turns him down, until she falls in love with him, too."
Emma can feel her cheeks burning, the chilly bite in the air doing nothing to help her keep her cool. The words are out now and she can only hope he knows this is as close to an answer to what he had told her earlier as she can get.
(She hopes his expertise in reading her like an open book also applies to deciphering her cryptic language.)
He smiles and lets go of her shoulders to take her hand again and place a soft kiss on her knuckles. "Sounds like a fairytale to me," he says, and while he's still smiling there's an unmistakable note of longing in his voice and she knows why before he even speaks again. She almost regrets having this entire conversation when she realises the same fears of earlier have returned to further haunt his mind. "Do they live happily ever after?"
It makes her heart sink deep in her chest to see how afraid of losing her he is, not that she's that much different when it comes to the possibility of losing him. But with Killian it's all the more heartbreaking because his fear comes from the way he still sees himself, from his self-deprecating and untrue notion that he's still unworthy of a happy ending.
He thinks he's retained too much of his old ways to deserve a hero's denouement, but Emma knows his has been a real hero's journey more than any fictional character she's ever read about, and she'll make it her mission to help him read his own story through to the swan song with the all the hope for the happy ending she knows they are entitled to have.
"What do you think?" She asks him in a serious tone, forcing his steps to come to a stop once again. She doesn't take her eyes from his face as he lets out a deep sigh, wraps his arms around her waist, and pulls her closer until he can lean his forehead against hers.
"I hope they do," he breathes out against her lips.
"They do. Trust me on that one."
He finally looks into her eyes and she can see his worry gradually fading away, his features softening with a smile that tugs at the corners of his mouth, and she has to blink a few times to convince herself she's not imagining it when his entire face - especially his eyes - starts to light up with a faint glow of hope. Then his gaze drops to her lips and she can feel it all over her skin, from the hairs on her arms and neck that instantly stand up to attention to her curling toes, when he kisses a thousand promises of happy endings and forevers into her very soul.
"So tell me, Swan. What are the others?" He asks her later, when they are only a few feet away from reaching the slip where the Jolly is docked. "You said there were a few characters I reminded you of, in the plural."
"That's going to have to wait," she says with a wicked grin, moving closer so her chest is fully pressed against his and he can hear her whispered words. "I believe a nightcap on a certain ship is long overdue..."
"Emma - " His warning tone does absolutely nothing to hide how his pupils are already blown wide, and it's all he can to chase after her when she bites her bottom lip in that way she knows drives him crazy and sprints towards his ship the next second.
The tale of Westley and Buttercup was a story she would have to tell him about another time.
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