This is a one shot I posted on Tumblr a few months back and am just realizing never made it here. Set vaguely season 5ish, before we knew about 5b. Not beta'd, mistakes are mine.
He's surprised when she suggests it.
"I just thought…after everything…maybe…and it's such a nice day." She twists her fingers as she says it, a hesitant smile on her face. "Summer is short in Maine."
"I would never turn down an afternoon with you. Certainly not by the sea." He takes the two steps across the kitchen of their shared home, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and kissing her hair. "It's a lovely idea."
"Henry is with Regina. Do you think…" Emma winces, shrugging out of his touch and rubbing her arms. "Maybe I shouldn't."
Killian follows, not touching her but not leaving her alone either. Emma doesn't like to be alone these days, not since they got her back, but there are days the memories threaten to drag her under.
He knows. He's experienced it for himself.
"Of all the people in this town, Regina has the least room to judge. You defeated it. You didn't give into it. The darkness has no hold on you, love."
"Because of you," she says softly, turning her gaze up to his. She reaches up, brushing her fingertips over his cheek, her thumb trailing over his lip. Her smile is genuine as she steps back into his arms, stretches to kiss him. "Because you loved me enough to save me," she whispers as pulls back, her voice thick with tears.
"You saved yourself, Emma."
"You gave me a reason to. It was you, Killian. It's always been you."
He bends to kiss her again, painful memories pushing to the surface. The months without her, the months with her when she looked like Emma, sounded like Emma but wasn't Emma – they nearly broke him.
It's been a slow road back to being them. They live together now – someone had to look after her when the guilt nearly ate her alive. Those long weeks where it was hard to breathe he was so worried about her, when every time he woke and she wasn't in bed with him was a new nightmare, they nearly killed him.
But the tentative hope in her smile when she suggests an afternoon at the beach is another sign that things are going back to normal. That the Emma he fell in love with isn't gone forever, that the quiet, often withdrawn woman in his arms can be coaxed back into Emma's endless love and optimism.
You figured out how to take the darkness out of me once. You can do it again.
He remembers those words, will remember them until the day he dies – knows in his bones that his job isn't done yet. Until Emma is Emma again, he'll keep trying.
"Shall I call Regina and ask her to meet us with the lad?" She hesitates, but she nods after a moment, slipping out of his grasp. "I'll go change and grab some towels."
"All right, love." He smiles when she looks back from the doorway, glad to see a flicker of the old brightness in her eyes. They never had a summer to spend by the ocean before, but Emma's love of the sea is one of the many traits they share. He takes it as a good sign she wants to be near it – that she wants to be anywhere other than hidden in their home.
Regina agrees instantly when he phones her, voice full of hope. "Of course. I'll round up the boys and we'll meet you there." She pauses, and he can hear her breath catch, the hesitant question that comes next no surprise. "Is she…how is she today?"
"Better than yesterday. It was her idea," he says quietly, eyes on the hallway Emma disappeared down.
"I suppose that's a good sign. We'll see you soon."
"Aye."
"She's coming?" Emma still speaks in that quiet voice of hers, the voice he hates because he misses Emma's fire. He'd give anything to have her yelling at him, insisting he do what she say, anything other than the tentative way she says everything now, as though her words themselves might cause more damage.
"Aye, her and the lad and…." He stops, his words failing as he turns and takes her in. She's changed from her jeans into something else, some sort of garment too long to be a shirt and too short to be a dress. The fabric barely covers the curve of her bottom, and it's the most Killian has seen of her long, creamy legs since they got her back.
He swallows hard, his eyes slowly roaming up her legs. A patch of sunlight catches her across the shoulder, and the thin white fabric hides little.
Not that it seems there's much to hide beneath it.
"What…what are you wearing, love?"
Emma's cheeks flush suddenly when their eyes meet, but there's something else, a hunger he hasn't seen in a very long time. Oh, she tried before, but he couldn't, not when the darkness swirled in her eyes and twisted her lips into a seductive smirk of pure ice. But now she's looking at him like she used to, her tongue darting over her bottom lip and a hint of nervousness in her posture.
"A bathing suit and a cover up. For the beach."
"This is beach attire?" He takes a step closer, cautiously reaching for her, but she doesn't pull away as his fingers rub against the soft material at her shoulder.
"Well, it's a cover-up. To wear in the car. Usually you take it off at the beach."
He raises an eyebrow, his eyes darting back down to the ties visible around her neck. "Around others?"
She laughs, and if he wasn't so bloody happy to hear a real, true laugh from her lips, he might be offended. Instead he offers her a quizzical lift of his brows and waits for her to compose herself.
"I forget sometimes, still, how much you haven't seen. It's a bathing suit, Killian. I don't know what women wore to go swimming in your time…"
"Pirate, love. There was little concern for bathing attire."
"Maybe one day we can give that a try."
"Bloody hell." He buries his face in her hair, long and loose and golden once more. He breathes deeply, savoring the moment, Emma warm in his arms and allowing the embrace not because she's hurting or needs comfort, but because she seems to simply want to.
Her fingers stroke the back of his neck, threading into the slightly longer hair. He lost track of it when they lost her, failed to keep it cut to a respectable length, but he hasn't had the heart to remedy that situation since Emma seems to enjoy the new look.
"We should go," she finally says after they've stood in the hallway together for who knows how long, time falling away as it has a tendency to do. "Regina will be waiting for us. I packed a bag with towels and sunscreen. Go change. I left a swimsuit on the bed for you."
"When did you…"
"Before," she mumbles, the light going out of her eyes. "I was out with David, and I thought…I just never….we never got the chance. Anyway. On the bed. I'll be in the car."
She's gone before he can stop her, shoulders tense once more and he curses as he moves down the hall, entering their bedroom and stripping out of his dark jeans quickly. The garment looks normal enough, something called shorts according to Dave, but the fabric feels odd and makes an even stranger noise when he moves.
He spares a glance in the mirror at himself before hurrying back out the door. He looks positively ridiculous in the blue plaid, and he's making a racket with the fabric rustling, but if it makes Emma happy, he's happy.
She smiles when he gets in the car, and he decides he'll put on the stupid bloody too-short trousers whenever she asks.
They're the first to arrive, and though Killian keeps glancing at Emma with a distinct curiosity to see what this bathing suit business is all about, the smile on her lips as she leans back into the sunshine is far more alluring. The sea breeze tugs at her hair, and for one brief moment, it's as though the last few months have never happened – as though the darkness never swallowed her down.
"C'mon," she says softly, looping her fingers through his. She leans her head into his shoulder as they walk, carefully navigating the rocky beach to the one small strip of soft sand Storybrooke has to offer. The day is plenty hot, but the water is freezing this far north, and it keeps the small beach from being crowded.
Emma is quiet as she arranges the blanket and towels, fussing over it until he simply tugs her down with a smile. She laughs – it is damn good to hear her laugh – and kneels beside him, reaching into the bag she brought along. "Could you put this on my back?" she asks, handing him a plastic bottle.
"How do you expect me to…" He trails off, the question invalid as Emma strips off the cover-up to real what she's been referring to as a bathing suit and turns her back to him, gathering her hair over her shoulder. "Swan…"
He can hear how strangled his own voice sounds, but what is he supposed to do when she's sitting there in naught but a few pieces of fabric held together with a bit of string? This is more of Emma than he's ever seen before, her creamy, smooth skin on full display for the entire bloody beach.
She rolls her eyes at him. "Just enjoy it, Killian. Welcome to the twenty-first century. Again."
And suddenly, he doesn't care. He doesn't care that Emma is all but naked not a foot away, that anyone passing by may see her. All he cares about is Emma being Emma. She hasn't rolled her eyes at him, hasn't flippantly called him old in not so many words in so bloody long, that to hear it now fills him with lightness and warmth.
So he carefully pours a bit of the greasy substance from the bottle she handed him into his palm and rubs it across her back as directed. She explains the lotion protects her skin from the sun, though he's barely listened as his palm moves over her back, the hot sun warming them both.
The spell is broken with Henry's shout from further up the beach, and Emma springs to her feet to greet her son. There it is again, laughter and joy and happiness on her face.
They spend as much of the rest of the summer at the beach as they possibly can. It shouldn't surprise him that the sea soothes her, that afternoons on the sand and in his arms with her boy seem to heal Emma in a way no words ever have.
And on the final afternoon of summer, with Henry gone to Regina's for the evening and Emma smiling as they enter their home, Killian discovers his favorite part about her lovely bathing suits – how very easily they come off.