A/N: My creative muse doesn't care if it's 3 in the morning, it had a head-cannon so it wrote a fic.
One-Shot: Based on the scene in 2x12 with Killian in the hospital bed, where I noticed his bad arm is re-outfitted in medical-wear, and in which I realized that means Emma had the opportunity to see beneath the hook.
She hadn't expected to feel anything.
Of course they'd had to remove his hook; she was sheriff and he was a liability. She needed him bound and secure, all danger removed and all elements of this new situation firmly in her control.
Which meant of course she had to be in the room as it was removed and placed into her possession, she wouldn't trust that to anyone else.
She wasn't expecting the lurch in her heart as the faded leather was pulled away to reveal the misshapen limb beneath, it's scarred foreshortened exterior causing her frame to stiffen at the sight, the breath leaving her lips in a clipped exhale.
It wasn't a feeling of revulsion, nor even of pity.
It was a feeling of heart-clenching pain, and, even, of understanding —as if the pain he'd endured so many centuries ago had somehow etched itself a hollow in her core and become her own.
All at once both a symbol and a connection.
The bustle of figures swirled around her in a haze. Machines pumped and buzzed and spluttered, nurses murmured unintelligible sounds; the clatter of instruments and fumbling fingers.
She remained frozen, gazing down, breathing slowly, deeply.
And then the bustle was gone, the only sound in the room now the soft, steady, rhythmic tone of the heart monitor, calling out each life-sustaining beat.
She moved slowly to the side of the bed and sat down.
The marred limb had been covered in a soft encasing of rubber, lying motionless now at his side.
Her eyelashes fluttered briefly and a pained expression fleeted across her face. She quickly brought her eyes down to her lap, where nervous fingertips moved idly across the metal surface of the hook. Her body stiffened, fingers coiling around the curve in a tense, almost angry grip.
What the hell was she doing here? And why the hell should she be helping him? Even seeing him again brought back every natural feeling of frustration and repugnance. She should want nothing to do with him, mistrust him, hate him.
But she didn't.
And damn it if that didn't make it worse.
Her brows knit darkly at the apex of her forehead. She knew better. She had her own scars, every much as real to her and as constant a reminder of her past as the deformed attachment at his own side. She couldn't, and she absolutely wouldn't—
—He moaned lightly in his sleep—
She glanced up at his face, at dark eyebrows drawn together in the familiar pained expression of a deep, troubled dream.
The aching, painful understanding pulsed through her once more, an innate, inexplicable sense of trust creeping into the hollow it left.
Her hands clenched helplessly at the metal hook, as she gazed down at the man lying beside her. A lost boy, a pirate, a thief, love ripped from his life; a past so closely mirroring her own…
…Maybe—
—Killian's eyelids started to flutter open, the awakening, injured groan spluttering from his lips, till his gaze flitted suddenly back to focus on Emma.
And all at once the shutters were down, the walls back up. Emma lifted her chin to glare down at him, all steely resolve once more.
"Where's Cora?"
~Fin~
