Together in Grief
Emma hadn't known she was holding her breath until he'd appeared on the periphery of the graveyard. The sudden pull to look for him had come pointedly and from where she stood - with Henry by her side - she could see he had spotted her too.
She'd wondered if he'd come. She knew Killian was grieving too; she just couldn't be sure whether he'd seek oblivion in the bottom of a bottle rather than being here. She understood that, she'd thought about it too.
Though caution marks his face, he closes in on her and comes to a halt beside her and Henry with a subtle nod of acknowledgement.
Emma can't help but hope he isn't thinking the same as everyone else; 'Poor Emma. How hard it is to lose a lover.'
They hadn't been lovers in over a decade and in the brief weeks she'd been reunited with Neal, she was guilty of imagining what it would be like to be loved again by another. To let herself be loved again, by the man now stood beside her at his grave.
Except she doesn't feel guilty, not even a little bit.
Of course, she still has feelings about Neal. He was her first love, and that always meant something, but he was also the person who had led the construction of the person she was today; broken and unable to trust - not even her own heart. Sure, she had already been damaged when they had met, but his betrayal, his abandoning her, his leaving her to suffer the consequences of his crime; Neal had broken her.
So, yes, he was always going to be her first love but true love...?
'If it can be broken, it means it still works,' Emma didn't know if she still worked or not.
She'd spent plenty of time convincing herself otherwise, but recently she'd felt like she knew herself less and less and when she looked properly, she discovered she liked the different her. The her that had something to smile about.
At the sound of a sharp intake of breath, Emma turned to Killian again, her hands flexing on Henry's shoulders as she spots the unshed tears in his eyes.
"You okay?" She says it before she can think and wants to take it back just as quick.
"No." Killian replies - his eyes set determinedly on the coffin - and her lips twitch at his honesty, "You?"
"Nope." His lips twitch too.
Their quiet for a moment as more people arrived – The Lost Boys have lost one of their own – and Emma has the strangest urge to hold his hand.
"I'm glad you came. Wouldn't have been right without you." She says instead.
At that, Killian finally looks at her again, a hint of disbelief in his eyes, "I wouldn't have missed it."
Emma nods in response and replies simply, "Good."
And when a hand comes to rest at the small of her back, Emma doesn't flinch; instead she trusts that it will stay.
A.N. Some Captain Swan angsty-goodness amongst the grief of Neal's death.
Jessica.