So last night after reblogging a gifset of an interview with Jennifer Morrison where she spoke about magic and how it took on so many different forms on OUAT and compared it to how we view magic in the real world, I was drowning in feels, so I decided to make a Captain Swan fic with that idea in mind. It's just a one-shot, but this is what I came up with after struggling all day to figure out how exactly to write this conversation about magic between the two of them. I just sat down and wrote it, so it's not perfect, but it was a great outlet for my feels, so I enjoy it, and I hope that you do too!

"How did you stop the self-destruct?" Killian asked, a question that had been in the back of his mind since he'd arrived back in Storybrooke only to discover that he would be embarking on an entirely different journey. Emma diverted her eyes from his, chewing on her lip nervously, as if she were somehow ashamed of the answer.

"Regina and I, sort of….absorbed it?" she answered after several silent moments passed between them.

"Absorbed enough power to wipe Storybrooke off of the map," he said, unable to believe her words. But when she nodded, it seemed he didn't have a choice.

"I have magic. Back in the Enchanted Forest, Cora tried to rip out my heart," she explained as his own heart suddenly began to race at the mere thought. He turned his eyes to the sea, knowing how well Emma could read him, even when he thought he'd retreated so far into himself that no one could. "But she couldn't," Emma continued, reaching out to place her hand on his arm so that he had to look at her. When his eyes met hers, he could see exactly why she had hesitated in telling him. She was silently pleading with him, searching his eyes for any indication that he would look at her differently because she had magic. "I didn't know that I had it until that moment. I've used it only a couple of times since then, not because I wanted to, but I had no other choice. So when it seemed like there was no hope left, Regina and I thought that if we teamed up and absorbed the magic together, it could work."

"You don't owe me any explanations for why you chose to do it, Emma," he said softly. "I took the only hope that was left. It's my fault that you had to make the choice in the first place. If I had just—"

"No. You don't get to do that," she interrupted, pulling him away from the helm so that his entire body was facing her. "You don't get to blame yourself. You came back. You're giving us…giving me…the way to save Henry. You're the hero in this."

"I'm not sure 'hero' is the right word, Love. I've been a villain for a very long time," he replied sadly, turning his attention back to the wheel.

"When I discovered that I had magic, I didn't know what it meant," she said after a moment, changing the subject as she turned and paced to the edge of the ship and back again. "The only magic I'd ever seen came from two people who I considered to be villains. So what did that mean for me?"

"You, of the infinite number of people and creatures I've encountered in my long life, are the least villainous of us all, Emma Swan," he said without looking at her, feeling her eyes on him. "But magic is power. And in the hands of a villain, power always ends in corruption."

"What about you?" she asked, green eyes practically glowing in the dark beside him.

"What about me? I was given power. I had the power to do to another person what happened to the woman I loved, and rather than refuse that power, I used it for my own personal gain. I had a magic bean with the power to save others from certain death, and my first choice was to save myself." His voice was low, dark, a reflection of the identity he had assumed over the last several centuries. "Villains like me can't be trusted with a constant source of power like magic."

"What if I told you that you have a constant source of magic?" she retorted, taking him by surprise as he cocked his head in her direction but kept his eyes forward. "Killian," she said when he didn't look at her. It was the first time she'd ever said it…called him by a name that he hadn't heard another person say since Milah's death. The moment he heard it, he couldn't look away from her. He had to see her, to take in every detail that he possibly could, as if he hadn't already. From the stray curl that kept falling into her eyes despite her attempts at pulling her hair into a tie at the back of her neck to the emerald green shade of her eyes that even the most exotic of lands wouldn't have a name for. He had to know her, every inch of her, because for the first time in what felt like an eternity, someone saw past Captain Hook. She saw Killian Jones.

"Indulge me," he said with the hint of a smile.

"When you're standing at the helm, and the wind is blowing, the smell of sea takes over your senses, and there's nothing but open ocean out in front of you, how do you feel?" His eyebrow furrowed in his confusion as to how this particular question related to magic, but he answered nevertheless.

"It's a feeling unlike any other I've ever known."

"It's freedom, right? A freedom that you couldn't possibly describe. The raw power of the sea coming up against a ship that moves whichever way you direct it. And when you and your crew set sail for a new land that you'd never encountered before but that you knew would greet with you with undiscovered dangers and possible death, you faced it not with fear but with exhilaration. Why?" He didn't answer because he could see that she already had an answer for him, a direction in which she was trying to lead him. "Magic. It's all around us. It's in the sea, in the ship. It's in the power that you feel when you move that wheel two notches to port and it moves exactly the way that you wanted despite the waves fighting against it. It's in the bravery that you summon to face new worlds…that you've summoned to take this journey back to Neverland. You don't know where it comes from, you can't see it, and you can't possibly put it into words. That's magic."

"What about this?" he asked, stepping towards her and stopping with his chest pressed against hers, their faces nearly touching. He could feel her breath hitch in her chest, their hearts come to beat in time. "Is this magic, Emma?" She blinked rapidly, but she couldn't have looked away from him if she'd wanted to, nor could he look away from her.

"I've heard it's the most powerful magic of all," she said softly, her breath hot on his cheek. He placed his hand on the back of her neck, tilting her head up and closing the space between them as their lips met.

It was as if he'd been dead and was suddenly revived without any warning. One single shock that started in his heart and was sent streaming throughout his body…straight through to his soul. He'd been stumbling through the dark for 300 years and in one moment, had opened his eyes to the brightest light he'd ever seen, blinding but brilliant. When they finally separated, every nerve ending in his body pulling him back towards her like an unstoppable force of gravity, he stepped back to see her, to see everything…and it was as if he'd been given new eyes…a new life. He could see the magic she spoke of…could feel it surging through him. But it wasn't the kind of power that he'd seen commit so much evil. He felt as if he could accomplish anything, could face any foe, could fight any battle. But he wasn't compelled to. All that he wanted, all that he needed was to be in her arms, to look into her eyes, and to spend every day for the rest of his life loving her with all that he had. Magic may have been all around him, a part of him, but the most powerful magic of all was standing right in front of him, and for the first time in his life, he could finally see it.