Resilient Hearts
By: Souris
Rated: T
"Once Upon a Time" angst/romance/humor. Captain Swan. SPOILERS through the preview of 3.19, "A Curious Thing"
Author's note: My thoughts on how things could develop for Emma and Killian over the course of the remaining episodes of Season 3, mixing together my wishes, vague filming notes and speculations for some random scenes. It follows 3.18 "Bleeding Through." I must give a huge tip of the (Jefferson's?) hat to InsertWordHere from the Television Without Pity forums for a particular theory that leads off this story.
Wharf shack
"What's more important? Your power or your son's life?" Zelena cackled as her hands tightened around Henry's throat. "Choose!"
Emma felt as if it were her own breath being sucked from her lungs at the awful sight of her son's life being choked from his body. Even knowing it wasn't real was no defense against the agony coursing through her.
Before she could move or speak, Henry was bathed in a white light - and then it was no longer him, but Regina. Zelena stumbled backward as Regina pushed her away with a surge of power.
"Sorry, sis." Regina smirked. "I just haven't been myself today."
"Henry's somewhere you can't hurt him," Emma snapped.
Fury flashed in Zelena's eyes. "Perhaps, dearie. But I can hurt him!" She stretched her arm toward Hook, and in a flash, his heart flew into her hand. She began to squeeze.
Emma gasped, feeling a stabbing constriction in her own chest. Her eyes caught his, dulled with shock and pain and loss. And then, without a conscious thought, she reached forward - and his heart lay in her hand, not Zelena's.
Zelena cried out in thwarted rage, then disappeared in a swirl of acrid green smoke.
For a moment, nobody moved. Emma stared at the pulsing red orb. Hook's heart. It was beautiful and terrifying, to feel its weight, to know it was his, that she held his life literally in her hand. She looked up and their eyes locked. The moment stretched.
"You going to keep it?" He managed a small smile, swaying slightly. "You can if you want."
"Killian -"
Regina huffed out a disgusted sigh. "We don't have time for you two's romantic mooning. Put it back and let's go."
Emma nodded. Still, she couldn't break his gaze as she walked toward him, carefully, as if she carried the most precious thing in the world. Perhaps she did.
She lifted it to his chest, but paused, her hands shaking. What if she did it wrong? What if she damaged it, broke it? Maybe Regina should put it back. His hand came up to touch hers, steadying her. "You can do it. But be gentle, love. You know I'm delicate." He grinned, and there was that familiar twinkle she'd ached to see for the past few days, the one that made her heart beat faster and her stomach flutter. She smiled back.
Snow and David studiously stared at the ceiling as if it were the most fascinating thing in this realm or any other.
Emma pushed his heart against and through his chest, their eyes fixed on one another as she moved forward, inside of him, slowly, so slowly. Their breath quickened. He let out a small groan as she fit it into the space where it belonged. There were no words to describe the sensation as his heart throbbed against her hand. For an instant, they stayed connected like that, joined, still, sensing nothing else in the entire universe.
"Well, I don't know about anybody else, but I feel uncomfortable," Regina remarked. Emma quickly withdrew her hand.
"OH!" Everyone's head whipped toward Snow at her exclamation of surprise. She looked toward David with wide eyes. "My water just broke!"
xxx
Hospital
Dr. Whale wrapped his stethoscope back around his neck. Emma had insisted on the checkup after they got Snow settled in a room, and she hovered outside the exam room. "Your heart's fine. Sounds strong," he told Hook. "No lasting damage." He moved toward the door, muttering, "I could probably open a cardiac wing in this place."
"Does that mean I don't get any Jello?" Hook called after him.
xxx
Granny's Diner
Three days later
Most of the party guests had gone home. Hook sat backward on a stool, elbows on the counter, watching Emma with her parents, Henry and baby sister. She looked happier than he had ever seen her.
Tink plopped down beside him. "They've run out of champagne. How do they run out of champagne with all this magic around?"
"Are you sure Granny isn't just cutting you off?"
"Shut up. Give me your flask."
He retrieved it from his pocket and handed it to her with an exaggerated flourish. She popped off the top and took a long swig. "I HAVE to get me one of these charmed flasks. Do you think Gold has one in his shop?" She took another drink. "How much rum do you think we went through in Neverland?"
He grimaced at the memories. "However much it was, it was never enough."
She acknowledged the truth of that statement with a small grimace of her own. For a moment, they sat in companionable silence as she followed his gaze with her own, shaking her head knowingly.
"Do you think there will ever come a time when I stop chasing that woman?" he asked suddenly.
There was no need to explain to her - or anyone in town, frankly - which woman he meant. Tink glanced at him and grinned. "You? Nah. Don't forget how long I've known you."
He couldn't help but laugh, and then stood up. "True. Good night, Tink."
"Don't forget your flask!" She held it out to him, but he shook his head.
"You keep it, love. For old time's sake."
"But - I couldn't possibly deprive a pirate of his bottomless rum!"
He gave a small smile. "Not a pirate anymore."
She blinked. "Oh. What are you, then?"
He shrugged. "I have no idea." He turned and walked out the door into the night.
xxx
Even without looking, Emma knew the moment he left the diner. She had felt the familiar sensation of his gaze all evening, a constant, warm whisper against her skin. He had been sitting at the counter talking with Tink, and now he was gone. And she felt ... colder. Somehow, she always felt colder when he wasn't around. Her eyes caught Tink's, and a word appeared in her mind: Go.
It was, indeed, time. A quick goodbye to her family, and she went.
xxx
She found him sitting on the bench by the side of the diner, looking up at the sky. He glanced at her when she sat down beside him, then back up.
"You know, the stars in this realm are completely different. I don't think I could use my sextant. I suppose I would need one of those, what did Henry call it, PMS?"
She laughed. "GPS. PMS is something very different." And, then, "Wait, are you planning on going somewhere?"
"Why, would you miss me?" The words were teasing, but his blue eyes were intense and searching as he dropped his gaze to her, and her breath caught.
"Yes."
He hadn't been expecting that, she could tell. He shook his head. "No, I'm not going anywhere."
"I'm not going anywhere, either."
"Not back to New York?"
"No. My home is here, with my family ... and the people I love."
For a moment, the air between them was electric and fraught with possibility. She thought about those moments in Echo Cave a year, a lifetime ago, when he had dared to go first, to bare his soul before her and the others with no expectation of anything but pain in return. After everything, she owed him - and herself - nothing less than the same bravery. He had crossed realms to find her, but, perhaps, the distance she crossed was even greater.
"You told me once that someday I would have to choose - and I chose Henry."
He nodded. "As you should."
"I will always choose Henry." She saw the sudden slump in his shoulders and hurried on. "But that doesn't mean I can't make other choices. It doesn't mean I can't choose you, too."
The hope lit up his face like sunrise, and she almost gasped at the sheer joy that sparked in those blue eyes. He looked so much younger. But then a shadow passed. "Are you sure? It's not because..." He trailed off, and his unspoken words hung heavy in the air between them.
"Because Neal died? No. I told you I was tired of living in the past, and I am. I've spent my entire life weighted down by the things that happened to me. I couldn't trust anybody or love anybody. I couldn't believe in a future with anything good. Even the things that were good, like finding Henry and my parents - there was so much pressure. Everybody was counting on me to be the Savior. That was the only thing I could be. That was the only thing I could have."
"Emma -"
She shook her head, wanting him to let her finish. She could see unshed tears glistening on his lashes and feel them on her own. "But you helped me see I could have something good and true, that my heart could heal. You believed in me. Neal was part of my past. I want to look ahead. So ... I was always going to choose you. I just had to realize that I could. That I deserved to."
And then they were in one another's arms, their lips finding each other's as instinctively and surely as they had once before.
That first kiss in Neverland had been like the bursting of a long-pent dam, an unexpected rush of desire that had threatened to pull her under with its power, turning her into a grasping, needing creature she didn't recognize and leaving her shaken to her core. It had taken every bit of effort she possessed to let go of him, to not succumb to her body's desperate clamoring for his. It had scared the hell out of her.
The desire was still there, without a doubt. She wanted him, as she had never wanted anyone, would ever again want anyone in her life. Her skin sang with the wanting of him. But this kiss, instead of drowning her, was more like flying. An exuberance coursed through her, and deep, dark places she hadn't even realized were inside her were suddenly open and filled with a weightless wonder, filled with light and joy and him. She didn't need magic to know he was experiencing the exact same thing, the boundless triumph of two battered, scarred, resilient hearts synching their beats into one shared rhythm.
So this, she thought, is what True Love's Kiss feels like.
No wonder they wrote fairy tales about it.