A/N: Set after the Snow Queen is defeated. If you're curious, the song is Any Old Time by Artie Shaw. I heard it on the radio one night and couldn't get this idea out of my head after that! I hope you like it.
Emma sighed as she closed the front door behind her, kicking her boots off carelessly and dropping her red leather jacket on top of them. It had been a long day, the job of the sheriff in no way diminished even though the town was (for now, at least) villain-free. There was still paperwork, belligerent dwarves, parking violations, and a perpetually intoxicated Will Scarlet to contend with.
"Killian?" She called out, expecting him home by now from his job at the harbour. Their new house – well, three months new – was only minutes from the docks, and he always made it home before she did. When he didn't answer, she rolled her eyes and followed the faint sound of music to the living room.
She rounded the door, intent on calling him again, but her words died in her mouth when she saw the sight of her pirate, the fearsome Captain Hook, wielding a bright pink feather duster and swatting at the overhead fan while the soft strains of what had to be AM radio played in the background. She slapped a palm over her mouth to muffle her laugh, but the very embarrassing giggle – Emma Swan did not giggle, she told herself sternly – managed to reach him nonetheless. He swung to face her, an easy smile already on his face, and in one smooth motion deposited the duster on the couch only to sweep up a single red rose in his good hand. He held it out to her as he stepped around the couch, his smile only growing wider as he did until his eyes were absolutely sparkling with it.
Emma Swan did not swoon either, she reminded herself. But her knees felt a little weak as she looked at him.
"For you, love." He said in that voice of his, waggling the rose until she accepted it. "Happy anniversary."
"Killian, honestly." She said, feeling a blush creep across her cheeks. "It's not even the anniversary of anything yet."
"Aye, Swan, but it is." He looped his hook gently around her wrist and tugged her closer, so she had to tilt her head to look up at him as he spoke, so if he leaned down just slightly there wouldn't even be air between her smile and his… "You may not recall, but it was precisely a year ago today that you made a dashingly handsome pirate very happy by agreeing to be his wife."
"We still," She reminded him. "Have a month to go before the wedding."
Between fighting villains and Mary Margaret's endless plans for the ceremony, Emma was surprised their wedding wasn't ten years away. It had evolved from a small ceremony in their backyard with her family to an all out party at the town hall with the whole town attending, and she wasn't 100% confident that it wouldn't impossibly turn into something even bigger by the time the date rolled around. She just wanted to marry him, that was it. The hows and the wheres didn't matter. All that mattered was the "I do".
"Emma," His voice got very serious then, and his eyebrows descended from their teasing quirk to sit straight and firm above his blue eyes. God, those eyes. Even if she didn't love every other bit of him, she would marry him for those sea-blue eyes. "I never conceived of a future in which I would – could – love or be loved again, after I lost Milah, after I spent 300 years doing terrible things in the name of vengeance. But despite all the darkness cast upon me – despite all the darkness I brought upon myself – and between giants and ageless boys and witches and snow queens and The Dark One, you found me. You saved me. And not a day goes by that I do not consider myself the luckiest man in all the realms to be able to share a life with you."
"Oh, stop." Emma felt a blush spreading across her cheeks, but despite her teasing tone, he was still looking at her in that serious, devoted, I-have-eyes-for-nobody-but-you kind of way, so she looked up at him from under her lashes and whispered, "We saved each other."
He bent his head just a bit more, and captured her lips in his, kissing her so incredibly softly it felt like nothing more than a breath of sea air against her mouth. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, deepening the kiss, and his hand came up to tangle in her hair briefly before he pulled back. He paused a moment, breathing heavily, his lips centimetres from hers, and chuckled deep in his throat.
"Not to disappoint, love, but you well know we could be here all night at that rate." He placed a small, infuriatingly cute kiss on the tip of her nose, and straightened. "And the mark of a true captain is how sound he keeps his ship."
This was one thing she had quickly learned upon inviting Killian to move in: he was a stickler for cleanliness. She supposed it made sense, having spent years under the meticulous standards of the Navy, and even more years – hundreds of years – living in tight quarters with at least a dozen men at any one time. Still, she wasn't quite used to being the messy one, especially compared to Captain. Freaking. Hook.
"Even if this were a ship, I hardly think that dusting is going to make a huge difference."
"And that is why," He said, pecking her on the cheek before returning to his ridiculous duster. "I am the Captain, and you are the first mate."
"Oh please." She said over her shoulder, walking towards the kitchen. "Saviour trumps Captain any day."
His hearty laugh filled the house, and a smile lingered on her lips long after the sound had faded.
—-
Emma wandered back into the living room after dinner that night (which, granted, had been more special with a rose sitting in the middle of the table), wiping her hands on her jeans to rid them of the last traces of dish soap. Killian was standing on the coffee table, screwing a light bulb into their perennially burnt out overhead fixture, and she walked over to him to wrap her arms around his middle.
"Hi." She rested her cheek on the warm sliver of skin that flashed below his shirt, and peered up at him as she spoke.
"Hello, Swan." Amusement coloured his voice as he gave the light bulb one last twist. "Fancy letting me off this perch so I can embrace you properly?" She opened her arms but didn't move, forcing him to step down directly in front of her, their faces inches apart. She felt his hook press against the small of her back, and leaned into his chest gratefully, looping her arms loosely back around him. He traced a pattern on her back with his fingers and sighed lightly, happily, into her ear.
"Gods, Swan." He breathed. "I cannot wait to marry you."
"Mmm." She murmured, breathing in the scent of him – the warm spicy leather, the sharp rum, the briny sea air, and the pure Killian beneath it all. "I say screw the wedding and we just elope right now."
"Don't tempt me, lass." He said, his voice a few shades darker and tight with desire. She turned her head into his chest and grinned, and pressed a kiss into his chest. They stood there for an immeasurable moment, not moving, not speaking, and Emma knew that there was nothing in the world for which she would ever trade this moment. Nothing she had ever imagined for her life was as perfect as standing here, safe and warm in her pirate's embrace, the soft sound of his humming mixing perfectly with the sound of the radio.
"You know music?" She mumbled, not realizing how ridiculous it sounded until it was out of her mouth and met by his confused silence.
"Yes, Swan. I'm a pirate, not a bloody forest creature. I do know music."
"I meant how do you know this music?" She nodded in the direction of the radio and the song drifting from its speakers, which must have been released in 1940 if not sooner. He had been a live then, sure, but not in this realm. And even if he had, she could not imagine Killian Jones in any realm listening to Artie Shaw.
At this, his cheeks reddened slightly. "Well, love, we use this musical device at the harbour, and I find the music at this channel quite appealing."
Whoever taught him about radio channels and tuning the dial were going to get words from her.
"Killian," She groaned good naturedly, pulling back so she could look him right in the eye and let him see the mirth in her expression. Her pirate was a Big Band fan. Captain Hook was a Big Band fan. "You're already old enough to be my grandfather, you don't need to listen to the same kind of music too."
"I daresay you're overreacting, Swan." He flashed his crooked grin at her and raised one eyebrow.
"I'm dating a 300 year old pirate who listens to music that was popular 75 years ago." She raised an eyebrow back at him.
He said nothing in return, but instead drew her back into him, her arms reaching up instinctively to loop around his broad shoulders. Before she had a chance to ask him what he was doing, he started moving in a small circle in the space between the couch and coffee table. It took a moment, but she realized with a start that he was dancing with her.
The last time they had danced together had been in the Enchanted Forest, when half her mind was stunned with the sheer opulence of the ball, and the other half was worrying about fixing her parents' love story.
Well, maybe a small part of her had been focused on how Killian looked in his formalwear, on how solid and sure his hands felt as they led her through the steps, on how his eyes never left her face…
But they had been through so much since then, fought so many battles, faced so many foes, conquered so many fears…and they had still come out of it together. After all that, Emma could see this moment for what it was: not something startling and extravagant and extraordinary, but something pure and true and right for the two of them – a moment for them to be together, to hold one another, to follow one another through every step.
Choose a partner who knows what he's doing. Killian had told her that first time. That rang truer than ever now, as she thought about facing the rest of her life with him.
There was nobody else she would rather have by her side.
He watched those thoughts flicker in her eyes as he led her in a small set of steps, not following any real pattern but simply enjoying the feeling of her moving along with him, of feeling her body sway in time with the music and the light pressure of his hands against her waist. He saw her gaze turn from exasperation to surprise to recognition, and then soften. Maybe she didn't understand exactly what this meant to him, how he had thought about their first and only dance together every single day since they had returned from the Enchanted Forest, how those few moments he had been holding her and leading her had made him feel like a better man, an honourable man, for the first time in hundreds of years. How she had made him better by letting him in, how seeing her trust him had lit a fire within him to be worthy of that trust, always.
She relaxed further into him, nuzzling her head into the crook of his neck and sighing in pure pleasure. He brought one hand up to stroke her hair, their fluid steps dissolving into a gentle swaying.
"If ever you need me I'll be near. Any old time and any place that you may be." He whispered along with the song. She smiled softly when she heard his voice, and he could feel the curve of her lips as she pressed them to the side of his neck. He ran his fingers gently down the curve of her cheek to cup her chin, and tilted her face up to meet his, pulling her into a kiss that lingered well after the song had faded. She broke the kiss, pulling away with a shaky breath. He could feel her heart beating rapidly, pressed against his chest as she was. He didn't for a moment doubt that his heart was beating just as wildly.
"Killian…" Emma started, but trailed off when she realized there were no words to say what she felt. So she just smiled softly at him, because this was everything she had ever wanted, and he had given it to her.
"I know, Swan." He tipped his forehead to hers, smiling the same slightly incredulous smile, his eyes the same mixture of love and hope and disbelief because this wasn't supposed to happen for a pirate, for an orphan, for a saviour, but it had.
Against all odds, it had.
—
One month later, Killian's features lit up with that same smile, his eyes sparkling with it, as he watched his Swan, his saviour, let go of her father's arm and walk towards him in a soft white dress, her golden hair curling around her face like a halo.
The ceremony was outdoors, in the field where magic beans had once grown, and even though the entire town was there, when he thought back on it later, he could only remember the two of them standing in the pale green grass underneath the sun that lit up a whole new world of possibilities.
After the "I do"s, after he had stuffed cake in Emma's face and she in his, after David had clapped him on the shoulder and welcomed him to the family, he and Emma danced together for the first time as husband and wife underneath the twinkling lights of Granny's courtyard.
She had let Snow choose the music for their wedding, and he had agreed, not caring about the music – only that he was dancing to it with the woman who had given him his happy ending. But when the music started playing – when this song started playing – and he saw Emma's eyes sparkle with laughter and love, he knew she had requested that their first song be the very same one she had teased him about weeks before. She smiled softly at him and nestled her head into that same space between his neck and shoulder.
"I find the music at this channel quite appealing." She whispered into his skin, pressing a kiss to the spot where his pulse beat beneath it, feeling the beat of the heart that belonged entirely to her.
"As do I, love." He murmured back, pulling her tightly into him, listening to the words of the music – their song – and knowing that he would uphold them until the end of time.
All through the years, we'll stand together,
Sharing the tears and the stormy weather.
Any old time and any place that you may be
A/N: Thanks for reading! This is my first foray into fanfic in over 4 years, so let me know what you think! All comments and criticism are welcome.