The Jolly Roger rests in the still, mirror-like water in a place a day's sail from Storybrooke, our home. After everything the Black Fairy had put us through and we had survived, the idea of anchoring somewhere beyond trouble, ordinary and magical, proved too hard for this old pirate to resist.
The luminescent light of the moon flooded the cabin we lay in. Emma's body and my own are tangled in the same light quilt hand-stitched by Granny, Storybrooke's very own seamstress and culinary extraordinaire.
My insomniac mind won't allow my eyes to shut or miss a single glimpse of the sleeping marvel next to me, my…wife.
Emma Swan, the savior of my world…my gorgeous, strong Emma.
The nearness of her makes me wish I still had two hands to hold her rather than the one that remained.
Then again, I've done that before and it came out with mixed results. The Croc…Rumplestiltskin had taken my heart for it and she'd been the one to put it back, literally.
Anyway, back to the present.
I close my eyes and concentrate on the vibration of her beating heart just centimeters from mine. A single, unison collection of rhythmic thumps sends ripples of long overdue satisfaction to every corner of my soul.
I stroke her relaxed cheek. Soft to the touch, glowing without the help of a single ray of moonlight.
"Tell me this isn't a dream." Emma's eyes begin to flutter open.
I keep thinking the same thing myself.
"It's no dream, Emma, my love. It's real. It's only you, me, and the moon." I reassure her, a smile on my face I am enjoying.
My mind refuses to think of the future and ignores the past. It's only, here, with the only woman I could ever love more than life itself.
I'm in the moment.
"I love you, Killian." Emma runs her smooth hand across the rough stubble on my chin.
Instead of words, my lips touch her forehead with the gentleness of a butterfly's landing.
"The stars our out, Love." I point to the flecks of white that pepper the sky around the moon.
The realization that we were in our own secluded world had freed us both to be who we were and where we were. How we looked or what covered us didn't matter. Even if someone had inhabited our world, they would've never been the wiser of our presence. The cloak of Emma's magic had kept us unseen and unheard. The "unheard" part mattered the most.
She eases herself up to face me on her elbow.
"I hear they're beautiful." Her focus is on me alone.
An overused, cliched compliment fights to escape my mind but turns out to be too slow. My wordless lips are faster than my words.
The scenery of what was above decks for us to admire exited my mind when she pulls me to her.
More time of being lost in each other follows.
My head hits the pillow not long after, this time.
The bright warmth of a morning sun and strong kiss on my lips pull me from my sleep.
"We missed the stars, didn't we?" Emma's fingers run through my tousled hair.
The stars paled in comparison to how she made me feel.
"No, Darling, we didn't. A sky full of the brightest stars can't capture my attention the way you always do." I reach of her hand and kiss her fingers.
I pull her closer to me, I need to feel the warmth of her skin on my shoulder.
"Would you call me a bad person if I said I could stay her and never leave?" Emma's words came out partially muffled by the curve of my shoulder.
She'd read my mind.
"No. You read my mind, actually. If I could keep us here, I would." I tried not to laugh.
"How I ever get to be such a lucky man?"
Emma wedding band grabbed a single ray of sunlight, casting its glare onto the ceiling.
"Great minds think alike, what can I say?" Emma's gaze fell onto the wedding band on my good hand.
She pulled away from me and untangled herself from the blanket, exposing her bare back. Slipped the black tuxedo shirt I'd worn days before.
"No fair. You look better in my shirt than I do. With a memory like this one, I'd be in trouble if I wore it in public again. It's all yours." I pull myself up to a near upright position, the overwhelming glare in my eyes stopped me.
Emma's silhouette in the doorframe of my cabin entrance coerced me into a confession I never thought I would say out loud.
"You had me before you kissed me the first time, in Neverland. I never told Cora that you had me from the beginning. I couldn't admit it to myself back then, but I can admit to it now."
The black shirt floated back to me like a black ghost, had I not known her legs had been their engine, I would've thought it enchanted.
In a pose that I knew I'd memorize, her eyes softened to a shade of vulnerable I made a point to appreciate.
"How did I already know that?" Emma's voice raised just above a whisper.
Not a single body part moved when she reached for my hand.
"My turn, Killian." Our bands met.
I tightened my grip in response to what I'd seen in her eyes.
"If I had to relive everything again, I would. From the moment we met each other when you were tied to that tree up this moment. It puts it all into perspective." Emma lifted my arm so that she rested in its void.
I considered the events that made us "us". From enemies, where we'd tried to kill each other, to friends after I'd brought her back from New York. From friendship built during an adventure into the past to lovers after trading my ship for a magic bean to save her. My spoken vows looped in my head and I had meant every word. She'd had my heart and always would.
I, too, would never change a single event.
The physical warmth and love of a woman like her can put every piece of the past, down to the smallest fragment, into the proper perspective.
I hadn't caught my mind in time when it wandered to the future.
"Where do we go from here, Love?"
Her eyes fall on our rings and on the horizon, visible through the windows of the cabin.
"A family of our own." Emma rubbed the stump of my left arm.
"You, me, Henry, and a baby of our own."
I found myself seeing the same vision in my head, a vision I'd never considered before Emma had entered my life.
Excitement and pessimism fought in my head.
"I like the sound of that. With my devilish good looks and your magic, she'd be the 8th Wonder of the World."
Her head rested on my shoulder, in a heavy way, at first.
"I remember giving birth to Henry thinking that he'd be the only child I'd ever have. Now that I have you and Henry, I'm not alone. I want a child with you."
Pessimism overpowered optimistic excitement.
If Mila never conceived in the time we were together, how could it be possible for me to make Emma's hopes a reality?
What if I failed and let the woman I have died for, in the past, and would give my life for, in the future?
The touch of her fingers touching chin and turning my head to face her pulled me from the thought.
"You're too quiet."
The concerned expression darkening her face forced back the temptation to lie.
"What if I can't give you the child we both want?" I held back the rest of the thought.
The scent of baby powder filtered into the cabin and the cooing of a baby echoed in my ears. The scanning of my cabin revealed that no child had been there.
From the worried look in her eyes and stiff posture, she hadn't experienced any of it.
The strangest part is that it had passed as fast as it had come.
"I have faith it will." Emma relaxed.
Before I could argue she spoke up.
"I don't hope it will happen because I know it will. Have patience."
Her sense of optimism shoved away anything that deemed our new hopes impossible.
The dual gurgling of two starving stomachs finished the conversation, at least for the time being.