She finds him at the spot she now thinks of as "their table" outside of Granny's, flask in one hand while the other rubs tiredly above his eyes. The knuckles of his newly acquired hand are an angry red and bruised and Emma wants to say, "Really? Not even a day after getting your hand back and you use it to punch someone?" But Emma bites her tongue and sits down beside him. She knows she doesn't look much better than him at the moment. Some of her hair has slipped from the carefully crafted ponytail, her shoes dangle by their thin straps from her finger, kicked off in frustration as a heel broke in her pursuit of Storybrooke's new thief Will Scarlet, and she mentally promises to buy her mother a new dress when she sees the torn and frayed pink material covered in mud and a little bit of blood from her scraped knees.
Emma sits down beside Killian and stares at him for a moment, but he continues to hang his head, dutifully avoiding her eyes so he doesn't have to see the disappointment on her face, because while their evening may have started out wonderfully, it had ended in disaster, and now he had to figure out a way to fix it.
"I've been trying to call you, but it kept going straight to voicemail," Emma finally says after a moment. Her voice is quiet and questioning, but not angry.
Killian sighs and pulls his cell phone from his jacket. He presses a few buttons and his frown deepens. "It appears not to be working," he says quietly, but his voice is hollow, as if he couldn't care less about the damn phone, as if he couldn't care less about anything.
Emma plucks it from his hand and sees the dark screen and sighs. "That's cause the battery is dead. I told you to remember to charge it."
"Apologies, lass," her murmurs, but it doesn't sound right to her ears. It doesn't sound sincere.
Emma sighs again as she drops his phone on the table between them. She reaches out and takes his bruised hand. She runs her thumb gently over his knuckles and she can tell from the tightness in his eyes and the scowl on his face that he is trying to hide his pain from her. "Why'd you do it?" She asks.
"Hit that Scarlet fellow? Because up until he showed up our date was going perfectly! Then he came and-"
Emma cuts him off with the shake of her head. "No. Why'd you get your hand back? Be honest with me. Please," she whispers.
Emma sees a thousand emotions flicker across his face at her question. He opens his mouth and then closes it as he rethinks his reply. "Because..." He pauses and shakes his head and slips his hand out of her grasp as if he's the one trying to put distance between then now (and Emma won't deny that hurts a little, especially after everything they've been through). He turns his hand over and stares at it with disdain clear on his face, as if the very thing had betrayed him (and knowing how conniving Gold can be with his deals, maybe it has). "Because I wanted everything to be perfect. I wanted to be able to really hold you for once. To hold your hand no matter which side you stood on. I wanted to be whole. I wanted... I wanted to be better. You deserve better than some one-handed pirate."
Emma's heart clenches in her chest because she knew he did this for her, but to hear him actually say it? Well, that just makes it that much more real. But the fact that he thought he had to do this to prove he was worthy of her makes her realize that she's not the only one with fears and insecurities. The guilt curls uneasily in her stomach because for all that he does on a daily basis to lift her up and encourage her and support her and show her how much her cares for her, she realizes that she has hardly ever done the same for him. She's terrible with words and opening up, has trouble showing people how much she cares because those doubts and fears of own always come sneaking in at the last minute to slam down her walls, and she knows it and it's made painfully clear how bad she has been at expressing to Killian how much he means to her when she sees the shame and despair in his brilliant blue eyes.
"Hey," she says with a sad smile on her face. "I happen to like that one-handed pirate." She leans forward and places her hand on his knee. "I've never cared about that, you know. I don't care if you've got one hand, two or none. I care about what kind of man you are. And the Killian I know is a good man. That's why I asked you out. Because you have always been there for me. You have always had my back and I can't even begin to tell you what that means to me. To have someone... stay. You... you make me feel things I haven't felt in a long time, or ever. And I like you. A lot. But this," she says with a sweep of her hand at him. "Whoever this person is tonight, isn't you. This isn't the man I know. The man I care about."
"You're right. I guess I haven't been myself tonight. And I promise I will fix it," Killian says dejectedly, but the sentiment is still wrong and she feels like he's not telling her something. She waits for him to continue, but he stays silent, eyes burning a hole in his hand.
"I think..." Emma begins. "I think maybe it would be a good idea to maybe take some time apart to think..." She sees the panic momentarily flair up in Killian's eyes when he looks up at her then, thinking that he's blown his first chance at being with Emma. And she sees more of the man she knows, but there's still something not quite right about the look on his face. It's not as open, it's not as giving. So she continues, voice oddly diplomatic, "I'm not saying this is over between us. I... At least I don't want it to be..."
And she sees the hope on his face as Killian quickly interjects, "Neither do I."
"Good." And she gives him a faint smile and the way he smiles at her reminds her of a similar exchange, only the last time it was a goodbye, whereas this time it is a hopeful promise.
"But before we give it another try, we need to figure out what we want and who we are. You said that I deserve better than a one-handed pirate, but honestly I'd rather have him than a two handed jackass," Emma says. She stands and brushes her hand against the soft leather of his new jacket. She looks at him pointedly. "Call me when the Killian Jones I know comes back," she says and pads softly down the cold sidewalk back to the loft.
He calls her the next morning and asks her to meet him at the pier around noon.
She spots him leaning against the rails of the boardwalk, overlooking the water. He's still wearing the clothes he wore on their date last night, but looking slightly more rumpled and it makes Emma wonder if he just crashed in bed and rolled out like this, never bothering to change or if he's been brooding around town all evening. Judging from the dark circles under his eyes and the way his face is pulled tight and wears a pensive expression, she suspects the latter. When he spots her however, the lines of worry on his face relax and his lips tilt up in a small relieved smile, as if he doubted she would ever show.
When he turns to her fully, the afternoon sun catches and gleams off the metal hook that has returned to his side. She looks up at him in confusion, trying to gauge his reaction, to see if he carries the sadness or anger of a man who has lost a part of himself again, but she sees none of that. When she looks into his eyes, she sees the façade he wore last night has gone and the soft, gentle smile that radiates love and devotion and pride, the smile he has only ever given her has returned, and her grin widens.
She reaches up and touches his cheek gently, rubbing her thumb over the scar there and says, "Ah, there you are. I missed you last night."
Killian chuckles and drops his head as he scuffs his boots across the wood of the boardwalk and does his tell tale anxious scratch behind the ear (which she finds absolutely adorable).
"My apologies, love. I was a bit busy acting like an enormous prat last night. And it turns out I may have been slightly cursed. Not that that is an excuse for my abysmal behavior. But that's over now and I'm back to normal," he says with a shrug. "I do hope you can forgive me for last night, though." His expression is open and earnest as he looks at her, as if he is trying to convey how deeply sorry he is.
Emma gives him a small smile as she sticks her hands in her back pockets, body drawing towards his like he has his own gravitational pull (and to her, it feels like he does because she just can't seem to pull away from him no matter how hard she has tried; and now she doesn't want to). "I forgive you, Killian. I'm sorry you lost your hand again," she says sincerely. "But if it's any consolation I'm glad to see you're acting like your old self now. Cursed-You was a bit of an ass," she says with a playful tug on the collar of his jacket.
"Aye, I was," Killian says with a rueful chuckle. "And I am sorry. But if you'd allow me, Emma, I would greatly like a second chance at courting you," he says with another nervous scratch behind the ear.
Emma smiles and nods, the adorable old fashioned idiot. "I think we are definitely in need of a date do-over," she replies. "I'd like that a lot, Killian."
And his answering smile takes her breath away. "Thank you, Emma."
"In fact," Emma says, looking back over her shoulder thoughtfully and then back around to him. "It seems like we've got a quiet moment right now..." She gives a little shrug. "Wanna cash in that do-over now before a snow monster or something comes rolling through?"
Killian laughs and nods. "I'd love to." He reaches out and takes her hand in his and quietly revels in the way Emma threads her fingers through his. Their shoulders brush as they stroll down the boardwalk.
The pair park themselves on a bench near a quiet section of the harbor, eating greasy, delicious fish and chips from the shack by the pier while they talk (and this feels much more them than the fancy dinner at Storybrooke's finest restaurant). They spend the afternoon telling stories from their respective lives, getting to know one another for the first time outside of a crisis. And as Emma sits beside Killian, laughing harder than she has in a long time as he tells her about the time Smee got himself stuck in the crow's nest of the Jolly Roger, she takes in the way his blue eyes sparkle and reflect the sunlight, the dimples in his cheeks wink at her when he laughs along with her, and the way he gestures casually with both hand and hook, she realizes she has never seen this man so at ease, so happy. And it makes her heart do a pleased little flip in her chest because she knows she is the reason for his happiness, just as he is the reason she has never felt more loved, or more content in her life.
When she gets home later that day, she tosses herself onto her bed with a pleased little sigh as she thinks about her afternoon with Killian and realizes that it was the best date she's ever had. And it has nothing to do with where they went or what the ate, and everything to do with him and how he made her feel.
And she thinks, "I can't wait for date number 2."