A/N: Just a quick one-shot that I was feeling as a brief creative outlet before my exams start next week. Enjoy x
Disclaimer: I do not own any aspect of OUAT
Killian Jones had been in love with Emma Swan ever since he helped her up in Kindergarten after Isaac Heller pushed her over in the sandbox.
He'd watched as she brushed the dirt off of her little white dress and then used his pudgy toddler thumb to wipe away the tears under her eyes. She had smiled shyly up at him, announced that they were best friends and then proceeded to drag him off to do finger painting.
He had often marveled at her strength, first noticing it shortly after she named him her best friend, when he cautiously asked why her name was Swan but her brother David and mother Ruth were called Nolan. Emma had pushed her shoulders back and straightened her spine telling him calmly that her mummy and daddy hadn't wanted her and that Ruth had adopted her when she was three, despite the fact that she had a son of the same age and lived by herself as a single parent. Killian had understood, he didn't have a mother either, but his had been lost to illness before he could even form memories of her and now all he had was his father (if you can call a man who spent almost every night out at the bars drinking and gambling away their money a father) and his brother Liam who was seven years older and idolized by Killian.
He'd told all this to Emma calling them 'kindred spirits' like the pirate and princess in his new favorite bedtime story, bowing and calling her milady, which made Emma giggle because of his, what she liked to call, funny accent.
They got married at four, Emma in her little white dress and Killian in his jeans and a white shirt, although it didn't last long because she cheated on him when Jefferson Hatter kissed her on the cheek. She'd told him fair enough and that they were better as friends; it didn't however stop him from loving her. In 2nd grade she'd beat up Edward Teach for trying to bully him; most boys would have felt emasculated by having a girl fight their battles for them, but he had watched in awe as she gave Teach a solid right hook that cost her a trip to the principles office and Ruth to take away her pudding cup for two days. He loved her so much, he gave her his to make up for it.
In 6th grade they moved up to high school which was the most terrifying experience of their lives. The kids were bigger, older, meaner, many looking for fresh game to pick on. They decided it was best to keep to themselves and their small group that now included David, Mary-Margaret Blanchard, Ruby Lucas, Robin Hood, Regina Mills, Eric Prince and Ariel Triton. It proved to be effective as people tended to leave them alone apart from the time Arthur King and his cronies tried to make Emma give up her lunch money. Killian was a firm believer in good form and told King he could stick his threats where the sun don't shine. In the end he had got a black eye, but Emma kept her money and Liam put Arthur down a peg or twenty. When she kissed him on the cheek, he fell in love all over again.
In 8th grade Killian's dad took off. He had been asleep and Liam out working a late shift to try and cover the electricity bill when his father slunk out in the cover of darkness. He had awoken to find his brother at the table making breakfast, explaining that Brennan had gone without leaving a note and they shouldn't expect him back ever. Emma had held Killian's hand as Ruth helped Liam through the legal proceedings of gaining custody for his younger brother. They won, only just, and the result was Killian moving into the Nolan's spare room while Liam enrolled in the navy in order to provide a steady pay check.
The day his brother left him, Killian had shut himself away in his new room, refusing to eat or talk and cried himself to sleep. He fell even more in love with Emma after he found his favorite breakfast of maple syrup soaked pancakes with fresh strawberries and orange juice, outside his door the next morning.
In his sophomore year he was miserable. He was finally ready to admit his feelings to Emma and ask her to go to prom with him, when he found out he was too late. Neal Gold was new to the school. He was rich, snarky and had a bad boy attitude (everything Killian wasn't) He'd noticed Emma's interest but put it down to curiosity over the new member of their year, however, he couldn't have been more wrong. Gold was the opposite of everything Emma had said she found attractive in a guy, yet it wasn't long before the two could be found near constantly joined at the lips.
The first time Killian had seen them was an accident, just using the short cut behind the bleachers after swim practice. It was there that he had seen Emma being crowded into the small space by Neal, at first he tried to step in to help get the creep off her, but the sounds that she was emitting quickly halted his steps.
Obviously some manner of noise escaped him as the pair both looked up to meet his gaze. Emma had attempted to say something, but he didn't want to hear it. Whirling around he stalked away, breathing heavily and trying to stop the image of the lovers wrapped around each other from being burned into his brain.
He didn't talk to Emma for months (even though they lived in the same house). She'd taken to hanging out at Neal's table with his equally rich and smarmy friends, giggling whenever Gold whispered something in her ear or swatting playfully at his arm. He'd noticed that she was getting into more trouble with the school and at home for her dropping grades and skipping class. Neal was becoming a bad influence and he had deliberately chosen not to bring up the time he's seem them pointlessly shoplifting at a convenience store.
He very much didn't want to go to Prom when the time rolled around but Ruby announced that it was a right of passage and that they would go as friends considering neither could be with the one they truly wanted to (Ruby was too scared to admit her feeling to Dorothy Kansas)
It turned out that he had a relatively enjoyable time dancing with his friends to the terrible music and getting sufficiently smashed at Regina's after party.
At 4am there had been a pounding on his door to match the pounding in his head. He pulled it open to reveal a tear stained Emma in her short, sequined dress, with her heels hanging from her index finger. Sobbing out his name, she had flung herself into his arms, holding on for dear life as he rubbed patterns into her back and murmured sweet nothings into her ear.
He got the full story when her tears had stopped inhibiting her speech. Neal had promised her the world, but in the end he'd only been interested in her virginity. The deed being done he'd kicked her to the curb, literally, and picked up anew with Tamara Hart.
Killian and David almost faced expulsion for what they did to Gold, however their grades and track record of good behavior managed to keep them safe and both got off with a weeks suspension and a second week of detention. In his mind it was totally worth it to see Emma smile again.
In their second year of college, Killian had rebuilt his courage and was ready once again to reveal his harbored feelings to Emma, but once again, fate had other ideas.
When he was twenty and she nineteen, Walsh showed up. He was what you would term as a decent guy, paid his share for pizza, bought Emma drinks and laughed at all of her jokes, but he gave Killian the creeps. True he was probably (definitely) biased, yet he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something off about the man.
Unfortunately they ended up stuck with him for the next two years and more.
Killian's graduation pictures were forever ruined by the images of their group...and Walsh. He was in every shot, sneaking in at the corners, or photo-bombing the back. Killian didn't even get and individual shot with Emma; he got the two of them and Walsh. Fortunately, Liam had been there to clap him on the back and drag him away from the happy couple with the excuse to Ruth that he wanted to take Killian for a private dinner to celebrate one of the Joneses actually making it through college.
It was during that meal that Liam told him it may be for the best to let go of his fantasy of Emma Swan and live the best life he could. It was harsh, but it was also what he needed to hear.
So Killian did just that, he bought an apartment in Boston and got a job at a company designing and building luxury boats. He knew that Emma was in the city as well, David and Mary-Margaret who were his next door neighbors told him as such and so it came that their group from kindergarten was kept together twenty years from when they first met.
It was difficult letting go, particularly with the reminder sitting right in front of him every Friday night, grinning at him happily as they recounted past endeavors, but all the while tucked into her boyfriends side. Eric, who worked with him, suggested that the best thing to do may be to play the field a bit. It wasn't an idea that Killian found appealing, he'd tried to forget Emma with a couple of women during college, but the encounters never lasted more than a month at most.
He thought he was cursed; doomed to spend eternity pining over Emma Swan and her golden curls and forest green eyes.
That was until he was twenty-five and he met Milah.
Milah was tall, dark and exotic. An untamed fire that drew him in, and he was willing to burn. It wasn't what you would call a healthy relationship; he wanted to settle down, while all she wanted was to keep on moving, he dreamed of a white-picket fence, she of endless, unexplored shores. They argued, they argued a lot, yet Killian was happy. For once he felt he had somebody who was willing to give back all of the love that he gave.
What he didn't expect was that three months into dating Milah, Emma broke up with Walsh.
Turns out he should have trusted his instinct. Walsh had proposed and, in a moment of uncertainty, Emma had asked for time to think it over. This apparently had enraged the man as he immediately started to close in, hand raised to strike. Big mistake. Emma was a top detective at the Boston P.D and had the man handcuffed faster than you can say 'flying monkey'. It tuned to Killian and the others to pick up the pieces.
He began to spend more time with Emma, like they had when they were Freshman in high-school; this lead to more fights with Milah, but he couldn't say that he minded too much when Emma glanced his way with a secret smile that belonged only to him.
It was on the night of his twnety-seventh birthday that things truly went to hell.
Emma Swan kissed him.
She wasn't drunk, he certainly wasn't. The pair were stood on his balcony over looking the sea when Emma suddenly grabbed him by the lapels and crashed her mouth into his.
Killian had frozen for a moment, knowing in his head that it was oh so wrong, but his heart screamed for him to grab on tight and never let go. Naturally, he did the honorable thing and listened to the stupid organ in his head.
He placed his hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her away, a second to late.
Milah had apparently seen the whole thing and believed that he intended to pull her closer rather than sending her back. She screamed at him, telling him that she always knew that he was in love with Emma, that he had never really loved her at all and that they were over.
She stormed her way through the guests and out the door. As Killian made to follow, a hand stopped him.
"Please don't go after her," Emma begged, "Stay with me."
Killian gaped at her, mouth wide open like a fish, "Swan what are you saying?"
"I'm saying stay here and be my...friend."
A wave of anger washed over him, unlike anything he had ever felt towards Emma Swan.
"Your friend?" He whispered, voice growing louder, "Your friend! Fucking hell Emma. I've never not been your friend, in fact you always had the option for us to be so much more, but no. You take my heart and stomp all over it like I'm less than nothing to you.
I can't be with you, and you won't let me be with anyone else...tell me honestly Emma; how miserable do I have to be to make you happy?"
He was practically screaming now, he knew he should stop out of a matter of propriety to his guests; yet she had opened a can of worms that had been festering for twenty-two years.
"I could never be happy if you're miserable," she answered softly, not meeting his eyes.
Killian scoffed, "Funny, that didn't seem to be the case when I was miserable for seven months when you were with Neal or for nearly three years when you were with Walsh, three fucking years Emma; I've been miserable ever since the day I found you and Gold behind the bleachers."
She was crying, and he hated it, hated himself for causing her such pain and it was that that brought his tirade to an end.
"Emma I loved you," he sighed, "I loved you ever since I helped you up in that sandbox when we were kids, and damn me straight to hell, I still love you now; but I can't be kept on this constant hook, just waiting for the day that you decide I'm maybe worthy enough to be given a second look."
"Killian-" she choked, reaching for him.
"You don't need to say anything love, you've never reciprocated my feelings and I don't expect that you ever will." He turned to move away, to open the door and deal with the impending shit-storm from his friends...but she said possibly the only thing that could have stopped him at that time.
"I love you too."
He froze for the second time that evening, slowly rotating to meet her watery gaze.
"What?" He asked, not daring to even hope for a second that this was real.
"Killian Arthur Geoffrey Jones, I have loved you for so long now, even if I didn't know it. I got it into my head that you would only ever see me as a friend or as the sister you needed to look out for. I got caught up with Walsh and Neal, yet all the time I was comparing them to you and how you made me feel. And I know that you have Milah and it's wrong of me to do this now but, watching you with her is like a knife in my chest, every time she yells at you I want to smack her in the face and tell her how stupid she is to ever belittle such an amazingly perfect guy. I would understand if you chose to walk away right now and never look back, just know I will always be here for you in whichever capacity you need me and that I wish that I'd never cheated on you with Jefferson when we were five because otherwise we'd still be married and I could kiss you right now without it mattering."
Killian was stunned, utterly stunned at her confession to such an extent that he could hardly speak, except for a few words.
"Milah," he said, watching as her head dropped and her shoulders sagged, tears collecting in her eyes, "...is nothing compared to you."
Her gaze snapped up as he surged forwards, colliding their bodies and their mouths at the same instant. Emma twined her arms around his neck, hands buried in his hair, as he practically lifted her off the ground with the force of his passion.
Inside, the crowd was cheering loudly, but neither one of them noticed, instead continuing to kiss in the moonlight.
Killian Jones was twenty-nine when he married Emma Swan for the second time (Jefferson Hatter was invited but only with his wife and daughter as his dates) They stood before the congregation of their closest friends and family at the end of the docks, where they swore to love each other until death do us part with the sun and the sea as their witnesses.
The minister barely had time to say 'you may kiss the bride' before Emma launched herself at her best-friend, now husband, who caught her readily and spun them in an easy circle before dropping her into a low dip, their lips never once parting.
In the soft glow of the sunset, and the brightness of his wife's eyes and smile, Killian fell in love all over again.
A/N: I hope you have enjoyed this ficlet that was far longer than I ever intended. I apologise for any mistakes considering I literally hammered this out as the ideas came into my head.