The first time Killian Jones saw his headstone the sun was sinking on the horizon, a night wind blowing into the deserted churchyard. It was modest to match their modest life and income; a sailor's life brought little monetary reward. It gleamed white, fresh and new as it reflected the dying sun. His birth and death date were etched deeply above the words
"father and husband at rest".
He frowned at the epitaph. He would never be at rest. Gold had made sure of that when he had turned him. He had promised to help Killian survive his battle wound but omitted the fact that he would become part of the undead in the process. Killian had come back home, across the sea to the New World, to discover his family thought him dead.
"It's better this way." Gold intoned from behind him "You can't live with them anymore. You aren't human. They won't understand. They will stake you in your sleep or you will drink their blood that is the way of the world." It was the same arguement he had heard the entire journey.
Killian clenched his fist. "The only reason I wanted to live was to return to them. What is the point of life without my wife and child?"
Gold rolled his eyes he was centuries old, to old to care about human connections. "Believe me dearie there is plenty to live for."
Killian had ignored him and gone to Milah that night but Gold had gotten there first. Milah lay in a pool of her own blood her skin pale against the crimson; her eyes dark, too late to be turned even if Killian had wanted too. He cradled her in his arms despite the call of the blood, despite his growing need to feast and feed on something warm and living. He held her and wept. His anguish mixed with his hunger until he was more beast than man. When he heard the door open and the small gasp of a living body he turned his feral eyes to see his son. Jet black hair and blue eyes wide with shock and fear. The boys' heart sped up and it's throbbing called to him. Killian felt nothing but a need to eat and he screamed with the pain of it. He leaped past his son barely resisting the urge and ran.
That night he vowed two things; that he would kill Gold and he would never see his son again.
Killian hunted Gold across the globe, losing himself in his grief and revenge. He fed and pillaged and took what he wanted. He honed his skills and hid his pain behind smiles and charm. He became fierce and legendary but Gold continued to elude him.
Fate brought him back to the churchyard decades later. The church was gone and the graveyard twice as big, filled with stones and monuments to the dead. His headstone no longer gleamed and beside it there stood another.
"In death they were not divided." it proclaimed. He traced her name with his fingers and permitted the tears he had held back for sixty years to fall but nothing came.
"Pardon me young man." an elderly voice roused him. He looked up to see a man in his seventies smartly dressed in a naval uniform; an old Admiral in the young American Navy. Killian looked at his ramrod posture, his hair that was once jet black, and his blue eyes. There was no doubt that this was his son and the tears that had refused to flow came. John P. Jones squinted at Killian in the low light his eyesight faded from a lifetime on the ocean serving the British and then fighting them in the Revolution. He recognized something about the young man but couldn't put his finger on it.
"Sorry sir. I was just…ah…lost in contemplation."
"About a woman?" the Admiral winked. "At your age it's always about a woman." when Killian didn't respond the old Admiral sighed and turned to the headstones. "I am sorry to disturb your peace but I have come to visit my Mother and Father." he gestured to the headstones. He voice was conversational the sting of death softened by the long years. "They both died when I was a lad. They say I look like my father. He was a sailor too; had the ocean in his blood and it was the ocean that took him in the end."
Killian stared at the man that was his son and felt a fierce pride; a light sparked in his cold, dead, heart.
"Mother died in a horrible robbery. They say I walked in on it but the man fled and knocked me unconscious as he ran." John looked at Killian and offered a sad smile. "But that's all long past. I am sure you have better things to do than listen to an old sailor."
But there was nothing in the world Killian wanted more than to listen to his son.
He stepped closer. "Sir. I would very much enjoy hearing about your life."
The old man's blue eyes grew wide in wonder and then he shook his head.
"How strange." he muttered and he wished his eyesight were better so he could know for sure what the young man before him looked like. There was a tense silence and then Admiral Jones began recounting his life story to the young man. He talked and the man listened as the sun sank below the horizon, plunging the churchyard into a dim grey light. They might have stayed there all night if they hadn't been interrupted by a young woman with light brown hair and Milah's eyes.
"Grandfather!" she scolded as she shot a quizzical look at the dark and handsome stranger "Supper is laid and getting cold!"
He chuckled but didn't apologize for his tardiness- it is a privilege of age not to have to apologize.
"Would you like to have supper with us? I am sure my Amelia can lay another plate."
Killian ached to say yes but feared the sharp and younger eyes of the family. His son looked like him, had his eyes, his hair, and his cheekbones.
"Apologies Sir. I have another appointment."
The Admiral nodded and extended his hand. "Thank you for indulging an old sailor."
"The pleasure was all mine Sir." Killian shook his papery thin hand firmly and watched as the two disappeared into the dark.
The next time Killian visited the cemetery there was a third gravestone. A tall obelisk declaring the great deeds of Admiral Jones.
Killian's life changed that cool evening. He couldn't let go of his vengeance but he decided to cling to his humanity. He spent the next hundred years watching over the Jones family helping them from the shadows as often as he could. Anonymous gifts of money or scholarships, convenient jobs, keeping them out of harm. He focused on keeping the legacy his son alive. Slowly more gravestones grew around the tall obelisk. No matter how much he helped or how attached he grew they always died because that is what humans do in the end.
When Paul Killian Jones died on the Western Front it was in the arms of his great-great grandfather. The boy was nineteen. Killian couldn't keep watching them die so he stopped watching them all together. He left them to their war and went to resume his own. He had heard word that Gold was in Paris.
The chase continued as the world turned and became modern. The information age dawned and it was all moving too fast for Killian. He clung to his older clothes and manner of speech, anything to feel more like the man he had once been. Gold went to ground at the turn of yet another century and Killian, unable to find him, returned to his home town and the graveyard he had avoided for forty years.
The gravestone was mottled with black and orange overtaking the white stone and obliterating the words etched there. He reached out and traced the words with his finger murmuring her name.
"Milah."
He closed his eyes and thought of her face, her laugh, her warmth and kindness. The memory still so fresh after all these years. Vampire memory was less fallible than human and he could see every detail and line in her face. He no longer mourned her, he was too tired to mourn, too tired to do anything or feel anything but his vengeance. He turned away and stalked back to the entrance, lost in thought when he ran into a warm body.
"Umphf." the young woman rebounded off of him and fell into the grass. He looked at her blonde hair shining in the sun, her long shapely legs and firm torso. He noted with calm dispassion that she was very attractive and then continued to walk away.
"Hey!" she called out. "You could at least apologize!"
He turned and raised an eyebrow. "For?"
"For knocking me over!"
"You ran into me love."
"And yet I'm the one on the ground."
He shrugged and turned away.
"Asshole." she muttered.
"The name's Killian." he called back.
With nothing else to do Killian found himself roaming his old hometown. Boston had grown and changed in the almost 300 years since his death but some things stayed the same. A month later he was at the bar of a pub that was little touched by time when the blonde slid into the seat beside him. He was surprised that after their brief encounter he could so easily detect her scent.
"What are you drinking love?" he leaned in to ask.
She turned and her brilliant green eyes went wide. "You. are. a. stalker." she breathed.
He laughed. "Hardly. You sat next to me darling."
She grimaced. "This is my regular bar. My regular seat. I was here first so go find someplace else to get drunk."
"I have been coming here much longer than you lass. Trust me."
"Trust you. The guy that creeps around cemeteries?"
He smiled. He couldn't help it, she was a spitfire. Most women were cowed by his presence, their primitive mind instinctively sensing the danger that lurked behind his pretty face.
"Says the girl who was in the same cemetery."
She rolled her eyes and let out a puff of air before turning toward him fully. "I was staking out a grave."
He raised his eyebrow.
"I catch bail jumpers for a living. One thing I have learned- no matter how far gone a guy will always visit the grave of a loved one."
"How sentimental."
"Yeah so what's your excuse? I saw you. You were hanging out in the older section there is nobody buried there that you would know.
Killian threw back the rest of his rum. "You'd be surprised." he muttered and then rose from his stool. He gave her a little bow and left.
She was beautiful and intriguing but she was mortal and there was no point getting to know a mortal.
But fate seemed determined to throw them together. He ran into her twice more in the next few weeks and each encounter left him more intrigued. The third time she was exiting a police precinct in a tight red dress and heels. Her heel caught on the last step and he was there to steady her. She didn't let go of his hand and he felt her heartbeat thrumming and rushing at the contact.
"What a way to start our 4th date!" she joked
"Pardon?"
She blushed. "You know bar was the first, that bail jumper was the second, the docks was the third and this is the fourth."
He had been wrong, she did sense his danger, but instead of repelling it attracted her. Killian sighed and released her hand. He stepped away.
"Lass I am too old for you."
She snorted. "Please you have like 4 years on me tops. I'm a big girl. I can handle it."
Like lightening he pulled her into the dark alley and into his arms. He pressed her up against the hard brick wall and ravaged her mouth. She responded enthusiastically and he found himself getting lost in her kiss. It had been centuries since he had kissed someone with real emotion and the blooming in his chest scared him. He pulled away taking a moment to memorize her plumped lips and flushed cheeks before sweeping her golden hair aside and bending to her neck.
He bit down hard and she gasped in pain. He allowed himself a single suck, a single taste of her before pulling away. He left her slumped against the wall and hoped she had learned her lesson.
A few days later he got news of Gold from his contacts in Germany and Killian was thankful to have an excuse to leave the city.
In the end killing the old vampire was anti-climatic. It was a battle of wills and a stake to the heart; simple really. Gold melted into ash and Killian envied him his rest.
It's almost 3 years to the day when he returns to his grave once more. His vengeance complete he lies down on the ground and wonders if he could become ash just by willing it. He falls asleep trying.
She wakes him with a kick to his boots.
"Hey asshole."
He blinks groggily at her and curses the brightness of the sun as it reflects off her hair. She looks like an avenging angel and Killian can think of no better way to die (again).
"Swan." he greets as he sits up.
She lets out a frustrated groan.
"You know it took me awhile. But I figured it out. I mean all the clues were there it just took a belief in the supernatural to come to the right conclusion. I mean it's not everyday you meet a…well a…"
He grins at her inexplicably happy to hear her stumbling and irritated voice. "A vampire?"
She shakes her head, still not quite believing it. "Yeah that."
They fall silent. He brushes at the leaves and twigs on his clothes.
"Is this…uh…is this your grave?" He turns and looks at his own worn name the birth date unreadable and the word "rest" the only visible part of his epitaph.
"Aye. It should be." He sighs.
She gave a low whistle. "You really are too old for me."
He lets out a short bark of laughter and she settles herself next to him, her head resting against Milah's mottled stone. She turns her sea green eyes on him and suddenly he is telling her everything.
In all the centuries he has never talked to anyone about this, his life, his death and second life. She just listens, taking his hand in hers and absently rubbing his palm with her thumb as they talk. The afternoon turns to evening as his story comes to a close. And when he stops speaking she starts. She tells him of being orphaned as a child, of living in foster care, of being abandoned over and over, of a boy who promised her the world and left her pregnant and in jail. She spins out the tapestry of her short life and he discovers their common threads. He feels connected to someone for the first time in centuries and it anchors him in a strange and exhilarating way. They sit in silence as the darkness comes and Killian turns to her and gives her a long, sweet, kiss. They pull apart and rest their foreheads against each other breathing in slowly.
"Thank you." he says
"For what?"
"For making me feel alive."
She smiles at him and they kiss again.
She leaves him soon after, the cold chilling her bones in a way he can never feel.
When she returns to the grave the next day she finds a faint trace of ash and a wooden stake sticking out of the ground. Emma touches her lips and wonders if she imagined the entire thing. But then she sees two words newly and crudely carved into the ancient headstone of Killian Jones.
"Father and husband, at rest at last"
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Thoughts?