A/N: This is written for Captain Swan AU Week. The first prompt was Alternate Version, so I decided to go with a modern AU where Killian is serving the army and meets Emma Swan while he's on leave. It's kind of based off of Dear John, even though that book wasn't the best, and it has a much happier ending. I suggest you listen to the album X by Ed Sheeran, it helped me charge through this fic. I hope you like it, and don't forget to leave a review!
. . .
He waits until the day he will see her again, waits for his days to be lit up again by her smile that is always tinged with a bit of sadness and to see the green eyes that are bright and clear but hold years of growing up too fast.
He waits for her.
. . .
Killian knows it was stupid to fall in love with a girl when he was on leave when he still had two years left to serve. But how could he not? She was beauty in every possible sense of the word. She had long golden hair and beautiful green eyes and she had a voice that sounded like a mermaid's song and he felt like she was trying to pull him under until he was robbed of breath, but Killian would think to himself. . .if he had to choose his own way to die, he'd rather it be by her hand than any other way.
Emma Swan. The name leaves a taste of sugar and cinnamon in his mouth whenever he thinks of it. She's a broken and damaged soul, the kind of soul that reaches out to those in kind and connects them to each other automatically. His fate has been intertwined with hers for over a year now, and he still remembers the first day he met her, walking down the boardwalk mindlessly and catching her eye while she passed him on her own way. Killian had turned and watched as she walked away from him, admiring the subtle grace to every move she made.
A week later, he had ran into her again and actually managed to talk to her. He asked for her name, and she gave it. He asked her if she wanted to go out for a cup of coffee, and she accepted. He asked if he could see her again, and she said she'd like that very much. By the end of the short two hours they'd spent together, Killian was already longing for the time he'd be able to see her again.
The next day he'd taken her out for ice cream, and it may have seemed a little childish but Emma liked the idea. And when Emma asked him what he did for a living, he announced that he was in the army. Emma's face changed in that moment, and if Killian dared to hope, he'd say that she looked rather disappointed.
"So you're on leave?" she'd asked, and he nodded in response.
"I've got a few more days left here," Killian informed her, feeling his chest constrict at the words leaving his lips. "But then. . .well, I've got to get back, don't I?" He let out a pathetic laugh and for the rest of the day they didn't mention it.
The few days he had left were spent with Emma Swan. He didn't dare touch her, and didn't even entertain the thought of kissing her, though he sometimes let his mind slip and thought of how pleasant the experience would be. Feeling those soft lips against his own. . .but then he'd catch himself and he'd force himself to stop thinking about it because he was leaving in a few days and he had no time to think about things like that.
The day that Killian had to leave, Emma knocked on the door of his apartment. He opened the door cautiously, wondering what she needed from him to come only a few hours before he left.
"When will I see you again?" Emma asked desperately.
Killian was at a loss. "What?" he asked, confusion coloring his voice.
"When am I going to be able to see you again?" Emma asked, her words coming out in a rush. "When will you be on leave again?"
"I. . .a few months," Killian told her.
Emma thrust a note in his hand. "Read it on the plane. Write to me." And then she leaned into him and planted a quick kiss on his lips before she disappeared down his hallway and down the elevator, out of sight and out of his building. Killian stood there in his doorway with a stunned look on his face and a blank mind, holding the note tightly in his fist.
On the plane, he does as she asks and reads the letter.
. . .
Six months later he sees her again. She's sitting in a pizza shop on the beach, wearing a pair of shorts and a white tank top with a bikini top underneath, and her sandals her blue with little flowers on them. She's sitting at the table reading a book with two pieces of pizza next to her and a bottle of coke in her other hand.
He doesn't tell her he's coming. He doesn't give her any warning in his last letter, though he talked very much about how exhausted he was and how much he was looking forward to seeing her soon. Soon. Not in two days.
Killian picks up a slice of pizza at the counter and sits down across from her casually, sighing loudly so she'd notice him and look up. Emma does, and she jerks up, sitting up straight and knocking her book to the floor that's dusted with a light layer of sand.
"You. . ." Emma stutters as she picks up her book from the floor, setting it on the table beside her and shoving her pizza away from her. "You didn't tell me you were coming!" She shoots up from her seat and hits him roughly on the arm, ignoring his cry of mock-pain that doesn't even make a difference because he's smiling and laughing at her. "You jerk!"
"I missed you," he says simply.
"I hate you," Emma tells him, sitting back down and looking at him with crossed arms and angry eyes. But he knows she isn't as angry as she wants him to think because she's got a little gleam in her eyes that gives her away. "If I'd known you were coming today, I would have dressed nicer. I would have set something up. I would have made an effort to be a bit more presentable than I look right now." She's rambling and she's fussing over her appearance, something he's never heard her done, and he thinks it's rather nice that she does it because of him.
"I missed you," he repeats, and then Emma's face clears. The reality of it all suddenly hits her. He's here. Emma gets out of her seat slowly and he stands as well and she kisses him softly. When he had sat in his cot at the base, he'd often wonder what his first kiss with her would be like upon their reunion. Would it be frantic and needy, desperately seeking each other's touch after so much time apart? Or would it be timid and shy, seeing as they've only kissed once before, and she'd ran away right after?
Killian thinks to himself that he doesn't care what kind of kiss it is as long as it's always her lips on his.
They sit down after their light kiss and they eat their pizza together. Emma cuts her second slice in half and splits it with him, a smile on her mouth the entire time. She's practically giddy, Killian realizes, and he's relieved to know that he isn't the only one feeling happy he's here now. Six months mean next to nothing now that he's sitting across from her and eating pizza with her like they do this every single day. And Killian wishes that one day, this could be their life for every single day.
. . .
He falls in love with her through her letters.
After he left the second time, they continue writing to each other. Occasionally, they share a phone call and Killian has to admit her voice is probably the best sound in his life right now, but the letters are more preferable to him. They're just so personal, and he keeps them in a small box just for him.
Her words flow smoothly, answering all of his questions about her life. She's an orphan, she tells him in a letter four months after he left that second time. But she found a family in sophomore year of high school with one of her friends David Nolan and his mother, and then David's current fiancee Mary Margaret Blanchard joined the picture a few years later. Killian tells her of his brother Liam, who was in the army as well before he was killed when Killian was only thirteen, and Killian promised himself that he would join the army as soon as he turned eighteen. And now, at twenty-one, he was doing exactly what he'd promised himself so many years ago.
Killian sometimes lays in bed at night and wonders to himself if he'd still have chosen the army if he met Emma before he was eighteen. Would he still enlist himself? Would he still dedicate his life to honoring his brother's memory?
He's scared to answer his own questions, so he tries to go to sleep and when he can't, he begins counting the days until he can see her again.
. . .
The first time they sleep together is the night Emma brings him to meet her foster family. David Nolan's mother, Ruth, is a warm woman with a nice home who welcomes him into her house for dinner without any questions that he can see, and Killian aches to be apart of this life every night.
David Nolan watches him wearily all night, much to Mary Margaret's displeasure, and she often tells him to relax his glare or he might burn a hole into the back of Killian's head.
After dinner, Emma and Killian go to Killian's apartment and they take out a carton of cookie dough ice cream and spray a bunch of whipped cream right on top without any bowls. They eat the ice cream curled up next to each other on the couch watching Beauty And The Beast. When the clock hits 10:30, Killian tells her she should be getting home soon. She simply tells him she wishes to stay with him, and when he tries to convince her otherwise, she takes off her shirt.
He doesn't argue with her after that, and they spend the night making love.
Afterward, Emma and Killian's bodies were intertwined together on the bed, her legs tangled up in his, her head on his chest with her arm flung over his bare chest and his arm around her shoulder, fingers playing with the golden hair that seemed to be illuminated by the pale glow of the moonlight streaming through the window next to the bed. They don't speak the rest of the night but Killian wishes he wasn't so scared to tell her he loves her, because oh, he loves her. But they live two separate lives and are only able to come together during short periods of time, and it isn't enough for him.
Killian wishes it was enough for him. He wishes he knew if she thought it was enough for her. As long as he knew the answer to that question, he'd tell her he loved her every single day. But then he realizes she probably feels the same agonizing pain of suspense he does, and decides it isn't fair.
They spend the rest of his visit suffering a quiet, longing pain.
. . .
When Killian announces that they've known each other a year and that means he only has one year left to serve, Emma is on the phone with him. She tells him that when he finishes his time in the army, he should whisk her away to some far-off place and they'll live by a beach in a quiet life with just the two of them, Ruth, David, and Mary Margaret.
Killian can't find the words to describe how much he longs to leave right now and take her away and give her everything she deserves. She deserves everything, and he can't give it to her, and he thinks it just might kill him.
"Have you ever seen Dear John?" Emma asks him suddenly, and her tone is nervous and fretful, and Killian can just picture her in the kitchen of her small house, curled up on a chair by the table as she curled the phone's cord around her finger.
"I have," Killian says.
Emma hesitates before speaking again. "Promise me we'll have a happier ending than they did."
"Oh, love," says Killian, "I bet my life on it."
. . .
She invites him to Mary Margaret and David's wedding, conveniently placed right in the middle of his next visit. He wears the one suit he owns, and even though it's a little tight on him because he got it when he was twenty and it's two years later, he wears it because he can't not go. Emma wears a red dress with strappy sleeves and a swishy skirt and it hits Killian that this is the first time he's ever seen Emma in a dress.
He wonders how many times she's worn a dress while he was away and the pain of not knowing what she's doing every day practically consumes him and he feels like he can't breathe but he simply smiles and kisses her cheek when he picks her up.
The wedding is sweet and Emma cries as her brother is married to the woman he loves more than anything, and Killian holds her close as they dance together, wrapping his arms tightly around her. They eat from the sushi bar and drink a little alcohol and share pieces of cake, and when the wedding finally comes to a close, Emma hugs David and Mary Margaret and they get a cab back to Killian's apartment.
They're both a little drunk and giggly and the moment Killian closes his front door, they're on each other. They trip over their own feet, and each other's, and fall onto the floor, laughing all the way down. Instead of getting up, they make love on the floor in front of his door. Afterwards, Killian is strangely craving a cigarette even though he hasn't touched them in three years.
Emma turns on her side to look at him, propping her head up with her hand and resting her elbow on the hard and uncomfortable floor. "Let's just stay here for the night," she says, the drunkenness still having an effect on her.
But Killian was also drunk so he pulled her naked body down on top of him and they were just drifting off to sleep when Emma muttered a garbled and short sentence, and Killian could have sworn she said "I love you".
The next morning, when he remembered it as Emma cooked eggs in one of his t-shirts that looked like it was swallowing her whole, he blamed it on the alcohol and didn't bother asking her about it. Chances were, she didn't remember either. And if she did, he was sure that any answer she gave him, whether it was a yes or no, would be too painful for him to handle.
. . .
The last letter he ever sent her was the longest one he wrote. It was three pages, and he signed it with 'I love you'.
He sent it with a heavy heart and a hopeful prayer sent up to whatever god was up in heaven.
She sent a letter back to him, disregarding all of his questions for her and everything he wrote to her in those three pages.
The only words on the page were 'I love you, too'.
. . .
Killian stood in the airport, still in uniform, bags in hand, as he searched for Emma. Where was she? She said she'd be here. This was the first time she'd come to pick him up at the airport, because it was the last time he'd be getting on a plane without her.
He kept standing on his toes, craning his neck to look for her, and when he finally saw that head of golden hair that he was desperate to run his fingers through, he almost collapsed to his knees in relief. Ruth, Mary Margaret, and David were with her, and Mary Margaret was beginning to show the first signs of pregnancy, but Killian couldn't tear his eyes off of Emma. He called out her name, and Emma's head snapped to him. She had been looking for him, too.
Her face broke out in the widest smile he'd ever seen her wear, and Killian could have sworn the sun was shining through her face. She abandoned her family standing behind her and took off in a run, pushing past the other people separating them. They didn't matter. He caught her around the hips and picked her up with her legs wrapped around his waist when she finally reached him and their lips collided in a rushed and greedy reunion.
Emma parted her lips from his, sighing his name against his mouth and Killian thought that he never wanted to hear anything else pass through her lips ever again. His name in her voice was all he ever wanted to hear.
"I love you," she whispered, her voice coming out like a sob, and Killian held her closer, though it seemed impossible, and repeated the words to her, over and over again.
When they finally joined Emma's family hands clasped together tightly, they were beaming at them happily. "So," Mary Margaret asked as they made their way out of the airport. "What's next?"
Killian and Emma looked at each other, smiling at the memory of a private conversation they had long ago, speaking of far-off beaches and private lives of just them. "What about the beach?" Emma asked, her eyes lighting up as she looked at Killian again, finally feeling like he was completely hers for the first time ever.