A/N: You know when you can't sleep until you get that idea out of your brain and write it into a fic? Yeah, well, this is the result of that. It was meant to be 100% brooding, despairing Killian, but then Henry somehow found his way to him and then it ended up with this sweet ending I hope you'll like. Reviews are welcome and rewarded with a virtual hug + a basket of cupcakes so go on, don't be shy :)

Can't take my mind off of you

And so it is, the shorter story,
No love, no glory,
No hero in her sky

David and Mary Margaret's invitation for him to spend the night with them was nothing if not genuine – he could tell from the way the prince's eyes held not pity for his clear miserable state, but a fierce sort of protectiveness, as if he thought the first step to getting his daughter back was making sure the pirate she loved for reasons he might be on the way to comprehend was safe, and didn't fall into an alcoholic coma. And perhaps he did. Either way, it was the thought that counted and while Killian appreciated the concern, he had to decline their kind offer.

He assured them he wasn't willing to let them go on searching for Emma without his assistance by drinking himself to an early grave. He had no business intending on leading that particular search party – he had only just started fighting for the heroes' side, of that he was acutely aware. Still, it would take more than the familiar lure of his drink of choice to keep him from moving heaven and earth, if needed, to find his Swan.

(Maybe he was slightly tempted by the idea, the lingering thoughts of his cowardly alter-self suggesting how it would be a much easier and less painful alternative, but he forbore on adding yet another thing for her parents to worry themselves over.)

But he just wouldn't bear to be in her home, not to mention her room, while none of them had the first clue on her whereabouts. He especially did not want to taint the sweet memory of her relieved smile and glistening eyes embracing him when she discovered he was not dead, tumbling them both into her bed with the grace and ease of her namesake as if they belonged like that, limbs tangled together and hearts happily beating in tandem – if there was anything that could get him through the days until he found her, it was the feel of her heartbeat against his chest, her bubbly, carefree giggle, and the way the saffron tints of the setting sun shone through her bedroom curtains and lit up her entire face, making her look every bit like the angel he had known she truly was from the moment he first laid eyes on her.

He would not allow his most precious memories to be tainted by the nightmares he knew he was bound to have, the last look in her scared eyes before she shoved him away seemingly burned into the back of his eyelids. It was all he would see whenever he closed his eyes, so no doubt the haunting vision would follow him in slumber as well, that is, if he somehow had the good luck of managing to get some rest at all that night – that he highly doubted.

So he proceeded to the courtyard at the front of Granny's instead, unbidden memories of his first kiss with Emma assaulting every single one of his senses as he sat on the very same table, the very same spot where it had taken place. He knew technically it was not their actual first kiss – not even their second – but he had always secretly considered it so. The kiss they shared under the twinkling string of lights of the diner bore a sharp contrast to their heated moment in Neverland and the day she had been too desperate to save him to comprehend just why she was giving in to Zelena's wishes and losing her powers as she kissed life back into his drowned body.

Those kisses had their own merits, of course, and while he couldn't recall exactly what the second one felt like, he was sure we would never be able to forget the passion and the urgency, the tender desperation that gave their actual first kiss a permanent special place in his heart - but none of them felt so much like a beginning, like a promise of a future, hence why he would always consider their third kiss the start of them.

His hand wandered absently to retrieve his flask from his pocket, a strong drink suddenly becoming a painful need – nearly more so than the need of feeling her by his side, snaking her arm around his waist and leaning her head against his shoulder before she caught herself, the for that exquisite feeling of holding her tight against his chest and nuzzling her hair, breathing her in until he was dizzy with the heady scent of her silky locks. Nearly more so, his woe-fogged mind chimed in with an afterthought, for it seemed those were needs he would not see quenched for an unfathomably long time yet.

"I guess this is exactly what grandpa was afraid of when he invited you to spend the night at the loft," Henry's jesting voice came up from behind him, the boy walking around the table until he placed himself on the chair he had been staring at, trying in vain to have Emma magically appear there through the sheer force of his will.

Henry looked the definition of grief-stricken when he met Killian's eyes, only to quickly avert his gaze to the starry canopy above them with a sigh. The sight made something inside him shift and he felt the air becoming impossibly heavier as he couldn't help but feel his own pain increasing tenfold at the sight of the boy's silent fear. It felt like it might have been days already, though he's vaguely aware it hasn't even been hours since he turned away from two despairing royals who, perhaps for the first time in their acquaintance, looked not one bit the regal token of leadership and strength, but simple, scared humans, if such a thing could ever be said of the eternally hopeful parents of a yet again lost girl.

He had been with them not a minute after Emma was gone, bounding towards the middle of the street where all of them were gathered around the infamous dagger that held the Dark One's name etched into its metal. Neither one of them seemed too eager to step forward and approach the cold, solid symbol of the Saviour's fall into the shadows.

Killian felt his blood simmering at the mere thought of it, but he couldn't keep himself from wondering if any of them dared to feel something other than gratitude to the cursed blade after she had sacrificed everything for them, for the reformed Evil Queen's happiness and the common peace of the entire town she knew could only be achieved if the potential most powerful Dark One yet vanished from Storybrooke.

And yet none of them had had the nerve to venture any closer to her dagger, except of course for the pirate and the truest believer who knelt together by the knife with heads bowed just a tad, their movements so perfectly synchronised they couldn't have achieved the same result had they rehearsed it ten times over. He could still remember the boy looking between him and the dagger with a newfound sense of solemnity in his stance while he, well, while he tried his bloody best not to fall apart in front of the one physical remainder he still had of his Swan.

He would not let her see his fear on the meagre chance that she might be looking down at them from afar, watching over her family – the very thing she had named him a part of once, making his poor old heart burst at the seams with disbelieving joy before it came together again, beating bright red and completely renewed of all its scars and broken shards, all because of her.

He would not let her see his panic, his agony – his total lack of anything remotely approaching a plan of action, that hollow sense of desolation he was experiencing for the first time since Liam's death.

He would not let her see him as a scared weakling for the second time on that wretched day.

Not when she needed him the most.

Not after she had finally confessed her love for him – and by the gods, he was still unable to really believe her words and the earnest look that accompanied them, or the strong squeeze of his hand held above her heart, the heart she silently promised would still be his even when the darkness was threatening to take hold of it – the heart that was, now more than ever, his to protect.

He would not fail her, he vowed inwardly as his fingers curled tightly around the handle of the dagger he spent his life looking for, the blade he would protect with his life until he found her – and he was going to find her.

He would not fail her like those who had come before him and made her heart a fortress in ruins hidden behind ancient walls, or so it was at the beginning of their story. He was fairly sure some major renovations had been undertaken to turn it back into a beautiful castle abounding with love and strength since then. Being the princess she truly was, he knew she deserved no less than to find a happy, safe home in her own palace, and he would be damned if he was going to let her lose who she was, her light, after going through so much to bring down her walls and pull herself back together.

If she was his happy ending and her job was to bring back every fairytale character's happiness, then he would bloody well make sure he wasn't robbed out of his own.

With a dismaying huff he realised some things never change, seeing as he was still the same old self-serving pirate who wouldn't let go of his precious treasure – the difference was that this time, contrary to what he'd told Dave when asked about his intentions with his daughter, he was more than willing to risk his life for his "loot." If darkness was the enemy he must fight to get to it, if death was the price he might have to pay to secure her safety, then so be it.

He had been so engrossed in his stretching train of thoughts then that his mind belatedly registered the smaller, warmer hand wrapping around his as they both lifted the dagger from the floor.

"We're going to find her, Killian. We've done it before and we'll do it again now. Together," Henry smiled, the truest faith in their shared love for his mother glimmering so bright in his eye one might have mistaken it for a stray tear on the verge of breaking out. Killian finally tore his gaze away from her name on the dagger to look at him and there it was, his other, living and breathing remainder of his Swan.

He didn't think, he just brought the boy to his chest and let his chin rest atop his head, his hand cradling the back of his head gently as he determined to made it his mission, also, to protect her son with his life too until she was back with them.

"Aye, Henry. We will."

If the boy noticed a suspicious hoarseness to his voice, or if Killian noticed a sudden moisture soaking through the front of his shirt near where his face was rested, neither of them commented on it.

"Killian? Are you even listening me?" His voice brought him back from yet another bitter reverie, tormenting flashbacks of the previous hours fading from his sight as Henry's concerned look came into focus.

"Aye, lad. I'm sorry, what were you saying?"

"I said we're all having breakfast together here tomorrow morning here," Henry said, nodding towards the front door of their family's favourite (and only actual option for a) diner. "To start discussing how we're gonna find mum, assign roles to everyone, you know the drill. And you have to be there?"

"Do I, now?" He couldn't help but give Swan's boy the same teasing lift of his eyebrow that never failed to get on their nerves, mother and son more alike than either of them realised.

"Yes, you do," Henry all but huffed out his response, crossing his arms across his chest, clearly none too amused by the pirate's rum-laced banter – not that he was any less insufferable when he was sober, actually.

"And why is that?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

"Perhaps to you, it might be. But unlike you, I'm not an expert on every fairytale ever written, so would you care to enlighten me?"

"That's true," Henry conceded with a not so humble shrug of his shoulders. "But you should still know you're the one who's got the best chance at bringing my mum back to being herself," he beamed at Killian, who was more than a little confused with the unexpected intelligence.

"I- I am?"

"Yessss," Henry hissed, apparently unable to hold back the annoyed eye roll he took after his mother. "You're her true love, Killian. And true love's kiss is the only thing that can break the Dark One's curse."

And that is the exact other reason why he had avoided spending the night at Emma's parents' place, where he knew Henry would find a way to convince Regina to let him sleep tonight. Not that his other strategy had worked out any better. In fact, the added volume of his flask and an entire bottle of rum (which he obtained from the closed establishment he was currently sitting outside of through means that couldn't really be called legal) had proved not enough to stop his mind from both reliving the last moment he looked into her eyes and mulling over the only known way to bring the Dark One back to who they were before.

It seemed there was no amount of alcohol in this realm that could stop Killian Jones from wondering, with no little amount of despair, whether his love would be enough to save the love of his life, whether his blackened heart would really be able to restore Emma's light, rather than extinguish it for good with his own darkness.

"Perhaps…" he trailed off, incapable of squishing all of the boy's hopes and stating out loud his near certainty that he wasn't worthy of being such a thing as the Saviour's true love. When the silence grew too dense, though, he had to risk taking a look at Henry's face and, instead of the worried uncertainty he was expecting to find there, he found simply an amused – and surprisingly patient, a trait not very common in the boy's family – expectation for what his next words would be. So he made sure to pick them with care, or at least as carefully as his unnerved brain would allow him. "Perhaps it would be best not to take anything for granted at this point, Henry."

"Don't worry, Killian. I'm not taking anything for granted."

When he swallowed hard as he started to consider how, or if, he was going to explain to him the real meaning of his reluctance, he felt Henry's hand clasping his shoulder firmly. The look on the face of Emma's boy was sure and confident at the same time that his smile was warm with kindness, and Killian realised with no small amount of pride that his entire demeanour was a reflection of all the wisdom he had in his incredibly young soul.

"We know my mum loves you. We only got confirmation now, but we've all known it for a long time now," he smiled at Killian, whose eyebrows shot up to his hairline at the statement.

"You have? Who's we?"

"Everybody knew, Killian." Henry shook his head, snickering at the pirate's cluelessness as to the one person he spent most of his time around. "Except for you, apparently."

Killian opened his mouth to protest, but closed it right afterwards, realising he really hadn't known for certain until that night. He had thought it a few times, yes, had hoped and asked any deities above to grant him that one wish countless times – mostly when he was alone at the Jolly's deck, looking up to Cygnus and seeing his Swan – but had he dared to presume she actually loved him? Not once, if he was being honest.

"And you love her too, don't you?" Henry asked him with the particular look that goes with a question that shouldn't really be a question, but is being posed anyway just for the records to show that it was ever asked directly and aloud. "Come on, don't be shy. You can tell me," he said, giving Killian a cheeky wink, and then biting the insides of his cheek to keep from laughing at the deep red that quickly spread over the pirate's face all the way to the tips of his ears.

"Of course I do, Henry," he sighed, finally looking up and into the boy's eyes. He held his gaze for a beat, willing him to see that while he had no doubt his feelings for his Swan were as true and as deep as his old soul had ever felt during his too-long life, the part he was uncertain about was whether that was enough – whether the capacity for love in his battered and weathered heart was enough to make him the one destined for the Saviour.

"I truly love Emma with all my heart."

"There you go – you truly love her. That's all it takes," Henry exclaimed, raising his hands in the air as if to emphasise the obviousness of his point.

Killian shook his head, resigning to the realisation that he would never be able to beat the Heart of The Truest Believer's faith in true love, knowing full well a great part of him hoped against hope that he was right. And honestly, what he wanted the most ever since having to watch Emma disappear within a wild tangle of dark tendrils whipping around her was the chance to be proven wrong in his pessimism, the chance to have his kiss simultaneously bring back the light inside her eyes, and the light in his life that he knew with a painful conviction would be missing until he had her by his side again.

"Hey, don't worry. You don't have to believe it – that's really my job around here," Henry suddenly said, a smirk on his face as he artfully disarmed Killian of his rum flask and his gloomy thoughts at once by taking his hand and pulling him up as they both stood up. "All you have to do is come along, help find mum of course, and then put your lips to work on hers – you know, like you've done countless times not caring at all if I'd get grossed out by all your cheesiness."

"Cheesyness?"

Rolling his eyes yet again, the boy began leading the pirate out of the diner and into the streets with an abrupt shove on his shoulders, which was even less gentle than Emma's when she resorted to her typical way of getting him to move whenever she caught him lurking and brooding around.

"I'll explain later. For now, let's just get you to bed. At grandpa's. And, uh- let's leave the flask out here, okay?"

Killian let out a quiet chuckle in spite of himself and quickly tried to stifle it with a drunken-sounding cough, still pretending to be begrudgingly dragged to David and Mary Margaret's apartment to humour the boy.

"Humpf. As you wish."