Author's Note: I'm a bit nervous, because this is my first OUaT/Captain Swan story (and I haven't written anything in six months...). I've started this ship only three weeks ago and had to get up to speed in a weekend-marathon with my sister. xD Hopefully, I didn't mess up too bad. Oh, and I took the liberty to give the Shadow this particular power. No idea if that's actually possible but for my story, it is.
Disclaimer: I own neither the show nor the characters. I don't earn any money with this piece. I just do it for fun.
There are a thousand tiny sparks drifting through the air and Emma drags in a ragged breath, the heavy weight of a strange kind of magic pressing down on her. She rolls to her knees, her eyes darting around the cave but the Shadow is nowhere to be seen, and yet...
With one hand on the hilt of her sword, Emma stands up, steps around a boulder and stops dead, her heart skipping a beat at the sight before her. He's still as a statue, eyes closed and head tilted back, and something is wrong.
A shudder runs through him, he turns slowly, blue eyes focusing on her, and there's something about his eyes that does not feel right, a brightness to them that's not supposed to be there.
"Swan," he says, and his lip curves up on one side. "You were bloody brilliant, lass." He moves towards her and Emma's hand comes up, a warning, and he frowns. "What's wrong?"
She shakes her head, nothing is making sense, and for a heartbeat she falters, wonders if the magical residue is wreaking havoc on her ability. Her momentary hesitation costs her. Before she can stop him, Hook reaches out and grabs her wrist.
Emma makes to step away, but he holds on, slides his other arm around her waist and pulls her flush against his body, her back to his chest, her head resting on his shoulder.
"Everything is alright." His lips brush her ear and she shivers. Nothing is right, everything is wrong, he is wrong, and she almost chokes on the knowledge, the certainty, rising from deep within.
It looks like him, sounds like him, but it's not him. "You are not Hook."
He chuckles, a dark and sinister sound, and tightens his hold, the tip of his hook digging painfully through her jacket into her hip. Her body freezes, as if on ice.
"Very good, princess," he murmurs, and his hand releases her wrist, trails up her chest, along her throat to her jaw, and his fingers grip her by the chin. "Unfortunately, you're too late."
It's nothing more than a hiss, an underlying threat she feels slithering along the rises of the bones of her neck, and an inner voice tells her to move, run, attack. Emma slams her head back, twists his arm aside and yanks free, raising her sword as she whirls around to face him.
"Where is he?" Her body may tremble, but her voice does not.
He smirks, a flash of teeth. "Right here." Then his eyes grow cold, starting to glow with that eerily light she knows all to well, and she feels like the ground is opening up beneath her. "But so am I."
There's a pause and then he lunges at her.
It's a battle Emma doesn't know how to win. Hook, no, the Shadow, fights to kill, and even though she knows, she should do the same, she can't bring herself to do it, because, somewhere in there is the real Hook, she can sense him behind those bright eyes, can sense him struggling against the Shadow's power.
A particular brutal hit knocks her off her feet and the sword out of her hand, and she clenches her teeth as pain rushes through her. He presses on, the hook coming down, and she won't be able to block him, not this time.
But the fire of steel slicing across her throat doesn't come. Instead he buries the hook in the ground next to her head, and something flickers in his gaze, the color changing back and forth between white and blue.
"Hook?"
His jaw clenches at the sound of his name, and from the corner of her eyes she can see his fingers clawing at the ground.
"Emma." He's fighting, and she wishes she could do something, anything, to help him. "Take...the dagger. You have to...kill me."
Emma stares at him, her head spinning. No. There's another way, has to be, she will find it, and-
"No." He jerks his head. "There's...no other way."
Words get caught in her throat, her heart pounding in her chest, and her hands come up, one brushing against the dagger at his side and staying there (because, dammit, he's right), the fingers of the other twisting into his shirt.
Hook smiles, and it's a bit wistful, a bit sad. "I trust you...love."
Suddenly, his whole body convulses, his face contorting into a cruel sneer, and he's gone. The eyes of the Shadow promise a painful death as he grasps at her hair, and Emma takes a deep breath.
It's only a matter of seconds, maybe even less - time has no real meaning in Neverland anyway. A flick of her wrist and the dagger slides free. When she plunges it into his chest, Emma can't help the tears that escape from her eyes.
With a howl, he wrenches away from her, his fingers trying and failing to pull the dagger out. Vines start to spread from the wound, over his clothes and beneath it, covering his whole body in a fine layer of silver. He's writhing, cursing her and Hook, and despite the tears, Emma smiles grimly.
Then he freezes, and she has barely time to shield her head before he explodes in a cloud of silver dust, his body crumbling to the ground.
When the dust has settled, silence greets her, and she has never felt more alone and lost. She wraps her arms around her legs, trying to hold together what's left of her, but the cracks are already there, and she's falling apart at the seams.
"Emma..."
His voice startles her, hope flaring inside her, but it dies just as quickly when she drops to her knees beside him. The ground is hard, littered with silver dust and sharp stones, digging into her shins through her jeans, but she pays no attention to it.
Blood's pooling beneath him, he's turning pale, he's bleeding out, and Emma wastes no time taking off her jacket to hold it against the wound. Hook groans weakly and she bites her lip as she feels another onslaught of tears coming.
"Sorrysorry, I'm sorry. It will be okay, Hook, just...hold on."
But it won't be okay, and they both know it. Smiling faintly, Hook slowly reaches up and lets her hair slip though his fingers, one strand after the other, his eyes never leaving hers.
"You are beautiful," he murmurs, and Emma gives a choked laugh. "Only you would flirt in a situation like this."
His eyes turn serious, burning with an intensity that almost frightens her, and her breath catches somewhere in her throat as he strokes her cheek with the tips of his fingers before sliding his hand to her nape, pulling her down.
"No flirting, Emma," Hook tells her quietly, his mouth close to hers, and then he's kissing her, stealing her words and breath like the pirate he is.
Neither of them expects the wave of raw power that washes over them, pushing them apart.
With dizzying force, Emma is thrown back, and it leaves her stunned and winded, with a blurry vision and something simmering just beneath the surface of her skin.
She stumbles to her feet and blinks rapidly, trying to clear her vision, and when the cave comes back into focus, so does the man lying a few feet away from her, bruised and battered, but very much alive.
Hook is staring at her, watching her with eyes the color of the stormy sea, and the humming in her bones grows stronger.
True love, it whispers to her, a faint tickle in the back of her mind, and Emma closes her eyes as magic shows her what her heart has always known, since the day they met in the Enchanted Forest, when she had felt a warmth stirring in her chest that she'd been missing for far too long.
She's been trying to ignore it, deny it, too afraid to accept what fate's offering her, but true love always finds a way, even if it had to use a few tricks (pirate) to sneak past her walls and defenses.
Emma has loved before, Neal, Graham, and losing them left scars on her heart that will never fade, but it'd been nothing against the crushing fear that had seized her heart at the thought of having to kill Hook, of losing him forever.
A light weight settles on her shoulder and she opens her eyes, and for the first time, she sees with her heart and not just her eyes.
Hook trails his hand from her shoulder to her neck, his fingers tracing the length of it with his fingers, the warmth of his skin seeping into hers, and she doesn't pull away.
His eyes darken, his fingers sliding up her chin and when he presses them against her lips, tracing their outline with his calloused fingertips, Emma is left breathless.
Slowly, Hook leans in and cups her cheek, his ragged breath fluttering over her face, his mouth hovering over hers, and then he stops, and Emma realizes, he's letting her decide, it's her step to take.
And she takes it, rests her hand on his chest, where his heart lies, fingers curling into the tattered edges of his shirt, and pulls him down, closing the gap between them.
When their lips meet, heat surges through her, and her hand flexes against his chest, her nails digging into his skin through thin fabric. He shudders, wraps his arm around her waist, and deepens the kiss with a low growl, the sound edging all the way down her spine.
She gets it now, understands why it always has been, and always will be, Hook and no one else. He chose her, even though she abandoned him and never gave him a real chance. It was him, who came back to her and put his 300-year-old-thirst for revenge aside to help her.
But most importantly, he always found her, no matter in which realm they were.
- END -