For the prompt CS + Devoid of Color.
If judging by appearances, anyone would have said that Captain Killian Jones was in his mid-to-late twenties – he still had a youthful glow about his smooth skin, and worry had not yet caused lines to form on his face, though it was true that in his life he'd had more than his fair share of stress and anxiety. In reality, Killian Jones was closer to seventy, and owed his youthful appearance to the magic of Neverland, which had kept him from aging during his decades of piracy after – well, he tried not to think about that. In all those seventy years, Killian had never seen anything but shades of grey, it was simply the way thinks worked in these realms. Those lucky enough to meet soulmates, their True Loves, said that color followed these individuals into their lives, but Killian was never sure he believed such stories. He knew that his hair was dark and his eyes were fair, but he had no idea that the former was the color of dark chocolate or a raven's feather with the sun shining through, had not the slightest inkling that his eyes were the precise shade of blue of the clearest seas on the sunniest of days.
The first color he saw was red – faded and dim, but there nonetheless, and it seemed like the most vibrant thing in the world to him. The red came from a woman's bodice, partials covered by a cascade of dark curls, but it caught his attention, and he looked at her with wonder. They spoke for much of the night, and he could tell that she longed for him to whisk her away on his ship, and he was sorely tempted. But she spoke of a young child, barely more than a babe, and he was loathe part a boy from his mother, no matter how much color she brought into his world. He stopped by the port as often as he could, always looking forward to seeing her in the tavern, watching her eyes light up as he told her tales of his travels. As the years passed, it grew more difficult to resist her pleas to take him with her, until finally one visit, she came to him not at the tavern, but at his ship, desperation in her eyes, and he knew her request was more than a fantasy shared over mead. He relented, and she sailed away with him the very next morning. From then on, Killian's travels were filled with color, and he noticed all of it – the color of the leaves in the trees, the way the birds' feathers caught the light as they flew, the way the sea changed from bright blue to darkest sapphire when a storm rolled in.
When Milah died, when she was killed, the colors began to fade back to grey, though Killian could not honestly say that he missed them. Milah, he missed very much, but he had no use for the colors if they were not pigmenting her skin, her eyes, her hair. Occasionally, he thought he saw flashes of the dullest colors, but he could not be sure that they were really there, and not just a figment of his imagination. He idly wondered if this happened to everyone who lost their soulmate, if they all lost the color too, or if it was simply his own heartbreak. Perhaps the memory of color would fade in time, just as he would surely forget the details of Milah's face and body – the little constellation of dark freckles on the left side of her stomach, or the way all her curls wound counterclockwise. He wondered what memories he would start to lose first, and what the last thing he would remember about her would be. It turned out that red was the last color to go, a vestige of Milah straining to hold on, and he would glimpse the faintest shades of it, most often in the sunrises. On days when he was feeling less miserable, he liked to imagine that the shades of pink in the sunrise were painted for him by Milah, a smile on the horizon just for him. And then one morning, even the sunrise was grey, and Killian felt certain he would never see the splendor of another one. That was a difficult day, for it felt like he had lost his last remnant of Milah, and he remembered standing at the bow of the Jolly Roger late that night after most of the crew had retired to the cabins below, and he thought about jumping off and letting whatever sea monsters lay beneath drag him to a watery grave.
In the centuries that Killian searched for vengeance, he nearly forgot about color altogether, lost in a world of grey that rather suited his mindset. Until he sound himself staring into a pair of shockingly green eyes that shone like a multifaceted emerald in the light. If Killian thought he knew color before, it was nothing compared to her eyes, nothing compared to the brightness she brought into his world. With hair he could have sworn was made from golden silk strands woven out of sunlight, and skin that was like the moon made into cream, Emma's presence gave Killian colors that he never could have known existed. He knew she saw them too, from the way she immediately tensed in his presence and her eyes narrowed suspiciously, and Killian wondered if she knew what the colors meant, or if she was simply in denial. He had to admit, beautiful though she may be, she was a bit prickly, and he could hardly imagine that this bold, stubborn, distrusting woman could possibly be his soulmate. No, it had to be some kind of malfunction, he had already found his soulmate, and she had been taken from him, no woman could ever replace her. He eyed Miss Swan with equal skepticism, and tried to charm her so that she might be more pliable, easier to take advantage of so he could get to the land where his revenge awaited. And yet something about Emma, her fire and passion and determination to return to her son, it sparked something inside Killian, and try as he might to tamp it down, he couldn't help but feel that there was something special about her.
As the weeks and months passed, Killian found himself falling, rather reluctantly, in love with Emma. He didn't want it – she was difficult and closed off, and quite the distraction from his revenge, but he began to wonder if there might be more to his future but revenge, or dying in the process of trying to achieve it. The more he gave in to his feelings for Emma, the brighter and more vibrant the colors became, and Killian found that some days he would venture down to the shoreline just to see what shade of blue the water was that day, lost in the new colors each sunset brought him.
Sunsets were all Emma, he learned, after they'd moved in together – she was never up to see the sun rise, not unless Killian nearly dragged her out of bed. And he rarely did that, he found it was not worth the grumpy groans and harassment he received in return. But sunsets were practically electrifying in her presence. The way the light caught the shine of her hair and turned it to pure gold and the colors danced across her skin, reflected in her eyes. She was beauty, a goddess standing beside him. He could never bear it if anything should take those moments, the colors of the sunset, Emma, away from him.
He thought, when he died, the colors would cease to exist, along with everything else. He had never been much of a believer in the afterlife, but he found himself in the underworld, so it seemed he had been mistaken on that front. The curious thing was that not everyone seemed to have colors in the underworld. From what he could gather, Hades had only some, and those few were dull and lifeless. Meg, the girl he rescued, had none at all, and he wondered if she had ever seen them or if she'd lost them. When he got Emma's message, something inside of him sparked hope. Ordinarily, Killian would not have had much hope that Emma would be able to achieve such a feat as bringing him back from the dead, but perhaps… did his colors, still as vibrant as ever, mean that there was still hope for him and Emma? He wanted to believe it, so very badly.
When Zeus restored him to life, Killian thought, for the briefest of moments, that he had lost the colors, because Emma stood all in black, and it occurred to him that maybe he was not alive after all, maybe he was simply a ghost, cursed to haunt Emma for eternity. But then he noticed the golden hue of her ponytail, and green of the grass, and he knew he was back for good, and he vowed to himself to make the most of every second with Emma, to marry her and be a family with her and Henry, and appreciate her more than he ever had before. It would not be a difficult task, he thought to himself, before he called out to her, and she ran to him, her eyes rimmed with pink from tears that had been shed.
They married at sunset, naturally, with the colors of the sky matched by the colors of Emma's bouquet and the pigment on her lips and brushed ever so lightly across her cheeks. It was only fitting that they be surrounded by bursts of every color, since that was what they'd brought each other in life, vibrant color. When their daughter was born, she was awash with color too, her skin all pink in its newness, a shock of dark hair like his, and green eyes like her mother. They named her Clara, for she was a new light in their lives, and they cherished her. He hadn't thought it possible, but Killian swore the colors grew even brighter the moment he first held her in his arms.
Killian never lost the color again, he lived the rest of his life in splendor, surrounded by Emma and their children (for Henry was as much his as Clara), and the light that they brought him. He remembered fondly when Henry and Clara first saw color themselves, and it filled him with joy to know that they had found the same kind of happiness that he had known. Killian thought on occasion of how lucky he was to have so many people that brought vibrance to his life, but he never considered that he might have done the same for others. He had not once thought that the first color he gave Emma was the soft pink of his lips, never realized that Henry noticed that the blue of his eyes grew brighter the day he married Emma, never once imagined that the colors would fade for everyone he left behind. But they did, for Emma most of all, and she knew that the precise shade of blue of his eyes and the exact pink of his lips would be gone from her world forever. The last color Killian saw was the bright emerald of her eyes, just as it was the first color she had given him, and it brought him happiness in the end.