May 21st, 2012:
"I don't know what's-" Milah's in the other room, shuffling through a cabinet, and when she stops mid-sentence he almost doesn't notice.
He smells blood in the air, a pungent, sudden burst of copper, and it stings his eyes, and for a moment he doesn't understand what that means.
In a sudden, frantic motion, he propels himself away from the doorway and into the next room.
She's lying on the floor. There's a man standing over her, dark coat getting even darker with her blood. He's holding a knife, and Killian almost wrestles it out of his hand- but there's a sickening feeling in his right hand and all of a sudden he can't feel his fingers.
Her blood is still spilling out of her chest, and there's no time to be fighting this man, and his face is so familiar to Killian and it's all too much and Milah's absolutely covered in blood and he can't focus on anythiing, the whole world is blurring around him and-
May 23rd, 2012:
Killian still can't feel his fingers.
He can't feel much anyway, but he notices the absence of his hand more than some other things. Milah's family has visited him in the hospital, all of them saying how it was such a horrible thing to happen, and how it wasn't his fault and there was nothing he could do, and he honestly didn't hear the rest after that because it was all lies anyway.
He should have protected her. He should have saved her. He knew now, who the man had been. Who the murderer had been.
Killian rolls Milah's wedding ring between two fingers and forgets he once had two hands.
June 17th, 2012:
Killian meets Emma for the first time at Milah's funeral.
It's the middle of summer and the sun is prickling through his suit, and there's yellow and green everywhere he looks. The heat is stifling. Damp, golden air hanging over him as though unseen clouds were about to drizzle rain over them.
Emma Swan is a police officer. She has a brother, David, who's older, and his wife Mary-Margaret, and one day she might want a kid, and she lives alone and likes the color red.
But he doesn't know any of that right now.
All he knows is that she's tall, butter-blonde curls tumbling over her shoulders like leaves on the wind and bright blue eyes that remind him of Milah.
July 12th, 2012:
They date for a month and a half, until Killian can't take those sea-blue eyes watching him across the table anymore and kisses her. Emma is very much like Milah, blue eyes and fiery spirit and steely anger, and he can almost feel something for her.
Emma reminds him so much of Milah, in fact, that he takes her home with him. They fall into bed, damp with sweat and summer air, and they stay there all night.
She falls asleep with her head on his shoulder, butter-blonde curls tossed haphazardly about her head and his pillow.
Killian doesn't sleep. He stares blankly at the ceiling above him, searching fruitlessly for some sign, some signal that would point him in the right direction.
He doesn't find one.
August 15th, 2012:
They continue on in the same way for weeks. Emma introduces him to her family, to her brother and her sister-in-law and her best friend Ruby. He seems to make a good impression, even though he couldn't really care less.
The weather changes, golden-green summer beginning to fade into wind and grey and bright orange autumn.
Killian keeps looking for Milah's killer, in city records, in underground circles, in any place available.
He finds nothing and curses the man who'd led him down this path.
October 31, 2012:
Killian finds an old marriage certificate, a decade old, for Nye Gold and Milah Delaney. She had told him she was married when they began their affair, but he had been young and foolish and reckless and willing to do anything for this marvelous, beautiful woman and so he hadn't cared.
Her husband, apparently, had.
He goes home and kisses Emma, and for a moment his elation mixes with lust and he almost cares for her in the way that he should.
January 3rd, 2013:
The winter has come, all silver and grey and washed-out pastels. Emma curls up next to him on the couch and her eyes are startlingly pale. The heating gets shut off on accident, and so they huddle for warmth.
That leads them to the obvious solution, and when she whispers 'I love you' into his ear, he kisses her fiercely.
Later on, the haze of warmth and joy will make her forget he didn't say it back.
February 27th, 2013:
Killian finds Gold, finds a trace of him at least, and he visits Milah's grave for the first time since her funeral.
Emma finds him there, and the look on her face almost hurts him, but she walks away and he can't bring himself to care once she's gone.
Two days later, that trace turns into a full-blown trail, and Killian is gone for a week. When he comes back, Emma is furious and they fight mercilessly for an hour.
She grits her teeth in the end and tells him he's an idiot and did he even know how worried she was?
He can't bring himself to feel sorry.
March 5th, 2013:
Killian buys a gun, a black pistol with nine bullets. He only takes the nine, sees no need for any more ammunition once this job is done.
Emma knows he's hiding something, he knows, and she's trying to be respectful, refuses to ask about it, and not for the first time he finds himself wishing he could treat her the way she deserves.
He smoothes his good hand over her hair and presses a kiss to her forehead. She shivers and takes his hands in hers.
Winter is leaving, but they're both so cold they don't believe it.
April 23rd, 2013:
Killian finds Gold's hideout. He hears it from a man who heard a rumor taken from a whisper heard by a man. But it's more than he's had before.
Emma is angry at him, is desperate for some sort of recognition from him. She has always deserveed better than this, and he marvels that she's stayed so long. That she's waste this much of her life on a broken, apathetic man.
She is standing in front of him, tears sliding down her face, stony and resolute and a little bit broken. All he can hear in his head is that last sigh, blood bubbling up from Milah's lips, and he thinks for a moment that Emma is going to scream, but her resolve cracks, and instead she turns, collecting her things to leave. At the last moment she turns, though, and whispers back at him,
"Go back to your ghost."
It chills him in a way nothing has since Milah's death.
The next night he hunts down the address, finds the man who began the rumor. He brings the gun, and the man quite quickly gives Killian the ral address. Two bullets gone, one before, one after.
He gets to the building, and Gold has a guard posted at every door.
Emma is walking back to David and Mary-Margaret's apartment when she realizes she's lost her watch. She turns back, retracing her steps.
Killian takes out the guards one-by-one. Five bullets gone, one for each guard and two for the weasel with the address.
Emma finds her wallet in the middle of a crosswalk. It must have fallen out of her pocket earlier, and she thinks no more of it.
Killian walks down the hallway, silent and tense.
Emma bends down, fingers brushing the dirty ground.
Killian pushes the door open cautiously.
Emma wraps her fingers around the fabric.
Killian finds two more guards. Four bullets in the room, two in, two out of the gun.
Emma sees a bright light speeding towards her, and she drops her wallet.
Killian stares contemptuously at the ever-growing pool of blood at his feet. Gold makes as if to flee, but Killian shoots him before he gets the chance. A straight shot, one bullet to the heart.
One bullet in, one bullet out.
Emma is looking up at the sky, and she can't feel a thing. She doesn't think that's good, but her thoughts are getting fuzzy and she can't remember and Killian, she thinks of Killian.
Killian holds up his bad hand, making sure Milah's ring on his finger is the last thing Gold sees. The older man sputters and chokes on his own blood, and Killian tries not to think of how similar his death and Milah's sound.
Emma's thoughts fade away, and the blood around her begins to dry. The driver left long ago, but passers-by have crowded around the poor, pretty dead girl, to marvel at how young she was, and how her blonde hair is tinted red with her blood.
Killian leaves, goes home. Home to his apartment, and he resolves to call Emma. To apologize.
Because he's free now, really. Finally, totally, free. Milah's ghost, Gold's life, all gone.
It's over now.
He gets home, locks the door behind him. There's a message ligght blinking on his house phone, and he presses play as he goes into the other room. It's Mary-Margaret's voice, thick with tears and she's saying things, things Killian doesn't want to hear because Emma can't be dead.
Emma can't be dead.
Only she is and he knows it. He knows, deep down, that it's his fault. Somehow, at the root of it, it's his fault. He looks at the gun on the kitchen table and briefly considers using that ninth bullet on himself.
He doesn't.
He goes to the police station and calls Mary-Margaret. He tells her he's sorry. Tells her he loved Emma, even if he didn't always. He hangs up and pulls out the gun.
He hears shouting, distantly, sees the officers from the corner of his eye, and he smiles. There are no tears in his eyes, and a smile on his face as he raises the gun in his hand.
The bullet drives itself into his chest, the brilliant white ceiling of the police station turns blurry above him and Killian smiles on as the life fades from his body.
May 21st, 2013:
The roses in front of Killian's apartment should be blooming soon. Emma had planted them back in October, telling him his life could use a little color.
David could use some now. His days are repetitive, grey and stone, his nights stripes of watery half-light and suffocating shadow, and he misses her. He misses Emma's blue eyes and glad smile, Killian's distant kindness and perpetually-mussed hair.
He misses them both.