He was tired. Suddenly, just bone-deep tired. So when he ushered Marion through the gate at Granny's, he gave her a small push and a smaller smile, and watched her back as she ducked through the tinkling door of the diner, flinching at the sound of the bells. As for him, the table out here would do very well. He could see them all inside, her shining head most visible through the blinds. A familiar ache bloomed in his chest at the sight of her, and he closed his eyes. It hurt, but it was better than the mad, spitting-bug panic he felt not seeing her.

Sitting. That would help. He backed into one of Granny's fussy chairs and lowered himself into it, crossing his legs to hold himself and his dignity together. He took out his flask but didn't drink. He had no bottom after their adventure and, frankly, here at the end of their journey he had no idea what else to do or where else to go. What had he instructed her to do – hours? days ago? – be in the here and now? He leaned into the heartache for a few beats, grimly loving the feeling because it meant she was near and alive.

Granny's door tinkled again. She was coming out for him. His Partner, he thought briefly. Not unexpected that she would seek him out but not notable either- he was too old for that kind of foolish hope, and too tired right now. He tried a smile for her, but it fell quickly. She curled into the seat next to him, grinning the new Emma smile he'd seen so much of in the last, long day.

"So, do you think Rumplestilskin is right? I'm in the book now." She waggled her eyebrows at this and he huffed her a tiny laugh through his nose. "He said everything besides our little adventure will go back to normal. Do you think that it is?"

Their adventure flashed through his mind, the endless complications. He saw her and what was, somehow, himself, lock stepped together in his cabin, all hands and tongues and twined legs. And even though he'd silently promised himself a gentleman's agreement to back off, he couldn't help but remind her : "He's right. Otherwise I would have remembered that damn bar-wench that I kissed."

She gave him eyebrow for eyebrow. "How would that prove anything?"

"I know how you kiss. I'd have gone after her." She remembered it too, he saw, as she took her own steadying breath. But he couldn't keep the sad truth at bay with wishing: "But I didn't. My life went on exactly the same as before." His shit-eating grin was tight and brief.

"Yeah. Must have been the rum." She was trying to tease him.

He couldn't keep her gaze. "Everything's back to normal." Without you, he didn't say. Because lord, what a maudlin creature he'd become. He raised his eyes with the part of him that worked harder than that and tried again. "You're a bloody hero, Swan."

"So are you." She said, eyes dropping to his chest. It was ridiculous, of course. He was a pirate, as they'd all carefully reminded him many times before, not a hero, and bloody hell he hated compliments. But she continued, and now in a voice that he'd never heard her use before – he'd heard in her voice panic, yes, and fury, steel, grief, desperation, mocking, but never…softness?

"I wanted to thank you…Killian." When she said his name his eyes dragged up to hers from their careful study of the tabletop, her cuff, Granny's fence...as though magnetized. She was looking at him with a gaze he'd never seen before either. After what felt like forever she continued, "For going back for me in the first place in New York. If you hadn't…"

He deflected. "It was the right thing to do."

But she wouldn't have it. She pulled back but held him with her eyes, and he watched her think, the gears rotating nearly visibly in her head. Something flashed through him as she did – a phrase from the maps in his quarters, their border inscription seen so often: Beyond This Point There Be…well, usually dragons or some such. He had always ignored the warnings, steering towards the new waters or waterfall or siphon with a grim glee. Is that where he was? he wondered.

Her voice, tender and nearly whispering, answered him. "How did you do it? How did you get to me?" She looked back and forth between his two eyes- her lie detector on. There was nothing to be done but tell the truth, and part of the truth was that he was too tired to do otherwise. In these deep waters he was all hope, all want, and there was nothing that he could do about it. "Well, the curse was coming. I ditched my crew and took the Jolly Roger as fast and as far as I possibly could to outrun it."

"You outran a curse?"

"I'm a hell of a captain." The ghost of his swaggering self emerged, and he was grateful for it, to steer him through this hard part. "And once I was outside the curse's purview, I knew that the walls were down. Transport between the worlds was possible again. All I needed was a magic bean." Easy, his shoulders said.

"Those are not easy to come by…" she tilted her head, ready for a good story.

But all he had was the truth. He thought of the Jolly, her wood, burnished rails silky beneath his palm, the smell of canvas and hemp and seaweed and fresh paint, the low creaking that sounded like home. His swagger stumbled in the grief of it, and he couldn't quite meet Emma's eye as he crossed that final bridge. But he had come this far, and, of all people he could share this with, it was her. This homelessness they shared, one of the reasons he loved her- he could tell her. "They are if you've got something of value…to… trade."

"And what was that?"

"Why, the Jolly Roger of course." He grinned his most winning grin. He didn't want…he desperately didn't want to make her sad.

And she wasn't sad. Something else happened inside her at his words. He didn't know what it was, exactly, but he saw it happen, as though watching something assemble itself, brick by brick, or maybe disassemble. In her new voice she asked, very softly, with some wonder and disbelief: "You traded your ship for me?"

And so, so sadly, hating to burden her once more with his love but needing, at long last, to give her the truth she'd been wanting, he nodded his head the tiniest bit. "Aye."

When she shifted in her chair all he could do was watch. He watched as she did not leave but instead reached for him, and he was so stunned he could only reach back, still watching, as she gently fitted her lips to his. He watched until her hand in his hair and the warm pressure of her lips made him realize it was real, and then he closed his eyes and kissed her in the here and now, kissed her with a slowness that matched the long road it had taken him to get here. He closed his eyes and kissed her.