"Daddy, is it morning yet?"
The soft words rouse him from sleep, coming from somewhere on his right. He rolls toward it, stifling a groan as he cracks open his eyes to peer at the little girl standing beside his bed.
"Wha'?" Killian manages.
"Is it morning?" she repeats quietly. "Mommy said not to give you your present until morning."
"My what?" He blinks away the sticky sleepiness in his eyes and finds the clock on the table. 5:02 AM. And he thought he was the early riser in the family...
"Your present. You're silly when you're sleepy."
He reaches an arm out and grabs her around the waist, pulling her up into the bed. "Come here, you," he murmurs playfully, and she laughs when he tickles just under her neck.
"'S still dark," Emma mumbles next to him. "Go back to bed, sweetie."
"Sun's coming up soon, Mommy," their little girl whispers. "Can I give it to him yet?"
"Aye, love. What's all this about a present?" Killian asks.
"It's Father's Day, Daddy!" she squeals just a bit too loudly, but her smile is too bright for him to be that upset. "I made you something!"
"All right," he sighs, pretending to roll his eyes. "I suppose you could give me a present."
She squirms off the bed. "I'll go get it," she says, racing out of the room with the energy of her four-and-a-half years.
"Sorry," Emma murmurs, nuzzling closer to him. "She's been working on it for a week, she's really excited."
"I can tell." He sits up, fumbling for the lamp on the nightstand. "I'm going to turn on the light, love, might want to turn the other way."
She yawns widely. "Nah, might as well get up and see your reaction."
He flips the switch just as their daughter bursts into the room, a square package clutched firmly in her little hands. She bounds over to his side of the bed and climbs up, over his legs, and settles between him and Emma.
"Happy Father's Day, Daddy!" she grins, handing him the present.
It's wrapped in thin tissue paper, covered in far too much extra tape and bright stickers that he recognises as part of her "collection". The things four-year-olds keep, he muses as he looks it over.
"Thank you, darling," he smiles. "Now, how do I open it, when you've decorated it so beautifully?"
"Just rip it!" she cries, lending a hand to help. The two of them manage to get all the paper off and Emma moves it aside as he takes in the gift.
It's a book, bound in thick brown paper which she's decorated with almost familiar gold lines and the words she wrote herself, half of them backward or incomplete, but legible nonetheless.
"The Story of Daddy and Me," he reads the title, and glances at his little girl. "You wrote me a book?"
She shrugs, clearly proud of herself. "Henry gets to have all the books about everyone, but he doesn't have any stories about me. So I made one, for the two of us."
Killian glances quickly at Emma, who's grinning just as widely as their daughter. "But what about Mommy?"
Emma shakes her head. "This is for you guys," she says softly. "Read it."
"Yeah, Daddy, read it!"
"All right! All right!"
He opens the cover and just stares at the first page. The words had clearly been written by Emma, neatly printed along the bottom of the page. But his daughter's crayon and coloured-pencilled pictures fill the entire rest of it. She had drawn a knight in shining armour and a princess with a pink crown standing together on a hill, blue sky covering the top half of the page and a castle in the distance. It looks like any scene out of the various fairy tale picture books he'd seen, except this knight has a hook in place of a left hand. His hook.
"Daddy?" she asks, leaning over to peer matching blue eyes into his. "Do you like it?"
He clears his throat and smiles. "I love it. Let's begin. 'Once upon a time, in a realm close to this one, a princess and her daddy, a brave knight, set out to have a great adventure.'"
He turns the page and it's another crayon masterpiece, this time with a dragon that nearly fills the entire space, with the tiny princess and knight beside it, their swords pointing toward the dragon's head.
"'They climbed a beanstalk, ("Just like you and Mommy!" she interrupts gleefully) sailed across a great ocean on the knight's ship, and fought a scary dragon who wanted to burn down the whole realm.'"
On the next page, though, the knight and princess are clearly in their own kitchen downstairs. Killian continues. "'But sometimes, they didn't get to go on grand adventures, but were stuck running errands or playing in their backyard or making pancakes for breakfast.'"
He turns to the last page, and has to force himself to read clearly, despite the lump that seems to have magically appeared in his throat. "'But as long as her daddy was with her, all their everyday fun was the best adventure ever. So they decided to go out for ice cream to celebrate. The end.'"
He leans over and pulls his little girl into a tight hug, blinking back the tears that he knows she's too young to understand. "Thank you, my little princess," he whispers into her hair. "This is the best book anyone's ever written for me."
"So can we make pancakes today?" she asks, jumping out of his embrace. "And then get ice cream?"
Killian laughs as he glances at Emma, who's stifling a yawn behind her hand. "Of course, princess. But maybe we should wait until the sun comes up before we start cooking?"
"Oh, okay," she agrees. "Can I stay here with you both until it's really morning?"
"Aye, you may." Killian turns off the light, though he can see the greyish whisperings of dawn that are just beginning to splash into the room from behind the curtains.
She dashes under the covers and snuggles onto the pillow between them, and in a minute she's yawning just as widely as her mother, as only the very young seem to be able to do.
"Daddy?" she asks sleepily.
"Yes, love?" He rolls onto his side in time to see her eyes drifting shut, the long lashes resting against her blushed cheeks, and he's sure she's the most beautiful little girl in all the realms.
Her lips barely move as she whispers, "I love you."
Killian leans forward and presses a kiss to her soft cheek. "I love you, too." But she's already asleep.
Dedicated to my father, who took me on grand adventures of our own, who always encouraged me to do my best, and who never wanted me to stop dreaming. I miss you. Happy Father's Day.