Starlight
"Come with me," he says at the end of the day; the light in his eyes that always seems to be there for her shining especially bright, and that wholly unfair smile of his playing at his lips.
They've reached the point in their relationship where they both know that's all it takes, a few words and a smile, and she'll go with him (go with him anywhere).
She loves him. It took awhile for her to get there, and far longer still to admit to being there at all, but he'd waited, patient and adoring and staring at her like she was the freaking sun whenever he thought she wasn't paying attention (she always was).
He'd been there from the beginning, or close enough to it; that insane, impulsive freaking explosion of a kiss in the depths of the rainforest, and he'd been hers, so hers.
He'd waited for her to catch up. (He'd known she would).
They were inevitable, he told her once, when she'd been freaking out and stupidly, furiously demanded to know why the hell he was so willing to wait for her to be able to love him the way he deserved, the way he loved her (passionately, madly, completely).
"Because you're Emma," he'd said, infuriatingly calm, the eye of her storm. "It took a few hundred years for me to find someone I wanted. You are all I've wanted for centuries. You and all your fire and your stubbornness and your wild heart. You're all I want. I waited three hundred years. I can wait a little longer for you to catch up."
"What if I never do?" she'd whispered, stung by the thought of it. "What if all my heaps of baggage and damage and trust issues are just always there, always in the way?"
He'd smiled then, unexpectedly; his face going soft when she'd expected it to harden.
"You will, love. You are not the only one with heaps. I got past mine, because of you. You'll pass by yours. And I'll be here."
"You say it like it's so easy."
He'd kissed her forehead, quick, like an afterthought, just a little thing he would do everyday for the rest of forever.
"It's not. But you're not afraid of a challenge."
No. And he knew that, knew her.
"We're inevitable, Swan," he'd smiled, squeezing her hand, just the once, before turning to the door, ready to leave (always knowing when and how far to push, and when to stop). "And I quite think you know it. Some day you'll even believe it. You'll get there."
(And she had).
He'd been upset, a few days before they married, when it had occurred to him that the tradition of exchanging rings on each other's left hand was not possible for him, for them.
He never lied to her, so when she asked him what was bothering him, he'd told her, not quite meeting her eyes, colour rising in his cheeks.
(Killian did not embarrass easily, but he always had worn shame quite openly).
She'd looked down too, not at his hook as he did, but at her own left hand, from which his diamond shone.
Without further thought, she'd taken the ring off, and handed it to him, extending her right hand to him in the same motion.
"I'd do it myself," she'd teased, "but you've always seemed one for tradition."
He'd stared at her like he wasn't quite sure she was real. "What are you doing?"
"I'm waiting for the man I'm marrying to give me my engagement ring back. On the proper hand, this time."
The light had started coming back into his eyes; the happiness with it. "Not quite traditional."
"Close enough to keep you happy. We've never been typical. But we're us, and that works. I want us to wear our rings on our right hands. Now give me my ring back."
He'd smiled as he'd done it, sliding it slowly, surely, onto her finger, caressing her hand as he did so.
She'd known they were okay.
They walk together now, wherever he's taking her, the same way they always do. Her left hand is intertwined with his right, so she can feel the coolness of the metal, the band she'd given him on the day they married.
(It's the only ring he wears now).
They go on adventures like these often, when they get the chance to. In a town of magic, there will always be more to find, more things to see, and they often take each other to share the discoveries. It's common enough that they never ask each other where they're going (they both know they're going together anyway).
They don't have to talk during these walks, though they usually do, about everything and nothing both. But sometimes, like this one, it's enough just to be near each other, and find that they don't need more than that.
She slows when he does, obviously nearing their destination, just off the beach, pointing her towards a dauntingly high rock cluster.
With an adventurer's heart, passed through generations, curiosity strikes. "Is it a cave?" she asks.
To her surprise, Killian shrugs in response. "Perhaps," he concedes. "But we're not concerned with what's in it than what's above. Hop to it, Jones. Need a boost?"
Eyebrow raised, she scoffs. "We're climbing this thing?"
For his part, he seems quite thrilled, the challenge written all over his face. "Aye. That won't be a problem?"
Grinning in spite of herself, she shakes her head. "Not at all."
Indeed, it's not an overly difficult climb, as daunting as it had looked from the start. Nature had been kind to those of adventurous spirit, with natural footholds and knots to grab all up the face of it. She'd figured as much, knowing that her husband would throw himself off of this thing before he'd ever put her into any real danger.
He's right behind her as they reach their summit, and watches as she looks around, curious.
It's cool to be up so high, sure, but she can't for the life of her figure out why he'd decided this spot was worth coming to. Looking back at him, she knows Killian will recognize her unspoken demand for answers.
He doesn't deny her (never will). "Look up, love."
She does, and loses her breath.
It had gotten so very dark during their walk and subsequent climb, and the sky above her would - should - be pitch black, but for the hundreds upon hundreds of stars shining on in the cloudless night.
"I've not been able to show you what the stars look like above the ocean," he muses behind her, only the slightest touch of melancholy in his voice. "This is very, very close."
"It's incredible," she breathes, reaching for him, pulling him close. "I've never seen the stars like this."
He places a kiss in that spot where her neck meets her shoulder, smiling into it (she can feel him). "You wouldn't have, city girl," he says, so affectionately. "I've seen New York City, far too much light pollution. I imagine your Boston doesn't lend itself to stargazing that well either."
She laughs. "No. Guess that's another good thing about staying here."
"One of many," he says quietly.
She only hums in agreement at that.
She can feel him shuffling around behind her, removing his coat to place it around her shoulders, then pulling her down to sit with him, snug in his lap, his arms wrapped around her.
"Henry told me once that you taught him to navigate with the stars," she prompts.
Killian beams, wearing the very proud stepfather look as well as any other. "And the boy learned very well at that, bright as he is. We'll have to bring him with us the next we come."
"Oh, so we're making this a regular occurrence, then?"
She feels his nod more than she sees it; can sense his smug grin. "I know when you love something, Jones. Often even before you do."
She has to give him that point.
Sighing, content, she wiggles in his arms, bringing herself closer to him still. "You'll teach me?"
Distracted by her movements, she catches him off guard. "Hmm?"
She laughs, the bubbly giggle she'd never known herself capable of before him. "To navigate using the stars."
"If you want to learn, you'll learn," he agrees.
"I want to learn."
"As you wish," he breathes, knowing her fondness for the phrase, making her smile.
"Is it hard? Or is it pretty straight forward, find the North Star and off you go?"
He splutters. "That might be how sailors do it in this world, love, but I can assure you, it was far more complicated than that in mine."
"It's important to you," she realizes. "At least enough that he who is never phased just got phased."
He huffs out a sigh. "We didn't have your… GP…ABC whatever that Henry's always going on about in the Enchanted Forest. We were lucky if we got our hands on a map. Often, the stars were all we had, our guideposts, our constant. Even all that time I spent in Neverland, with no where to go, no way to leave, days blending into years… we still had the stars. The sun would rise, the sun would set. It's a marker. In space, in time. In many ways, love, the stars kept us sane, kept us knowing who we were, and eventually, helped us find our way out. Aye, love, it was important. Still is, mind. I prefer not to be haunted by my past, but it remains part of me."
"That's why I want to know more about it," she says softly, touching his face, a comforting gesture.
He smiles at that, most of the hauntedness leaving his expression. "We'll bring the sextant next time, then."
"Excuse me?"
Snorting with laughter, he catches himself. "A navigational tool, love. You remember, back in Neverland?"
She groans, scrunching up her face with it. "Right. Forgive me, at the time I was a little distracted by my missing son and the psychotic teenager who'd kidnapped him to remember suggestively named sailor's guides."
He's still laughing. "Perhaps you just have a dirty mind, love."
"One to talk."
"Point," he agrees, cheerfully. "We'll bring the suggestively named sailor's guide next time, if that's what you want."
"It is. I've always liked learning about the stars."
"You have?" he asks, always, always so eager for more things to know about her.
"Yeah," she says, remembering. "I used to bail on science class a lot in when I was in school. Never did like the subject very much. But when they'd get to the part of the year where we'd learn about astronomy, I'd always show up. I liked to learn about the planets, the galaxies. The idea of how much is out there, and how big it all is. I always felt small, growing up, you know? Unimportant. But the days when they'd show us size comparisons of the universe, how small this planet is compared to the sun, how tiny the sun is relative to other stars… it's like we're all not even specks of dust. So insignificant in the face of everything else, that I guess the only significance any human has is that which we make to ourselves. We're not much, but we're what we've got. I liked that."
He hugs her just the slightest bit tighter. "You're everything to me," he murmurs in her hair. "And to your son, and your parents, and brother. That's its own kind of significance, don't you think? The kind that truly matters?"
She twists around in his arms, allowing her to face him. "Yeah," she agrees. "Love makes you matter, I believe that. And I've got a lot of love now."
He smiles, kissing her. "I'm glad you know it."
"What else would you learn?" he asks. "This world has so much knowledge to it, with your science and all. There's so much that you know and I don't."
"And much that you know and I don't, Mr. Sextant."
He can't help but laugh at that. "Fair enough. But I'm teacher next time, it's your turn now. Tell me something else."
Staring upwards, she tries to remember, letting the starlight bring her back in time, to looking at the stars as a girl, wondering about what she'd learned that day.
Memory sparks. (Looking at the past).
"We learned that the stars we see are actually so very far away from us that despite how fast light travels, we're seeing them from millions of light-years away, so that what we see is the stars as they were thousands of years ago… like we're looking back in time by looking up…"
Glancing behind her, seeing the fascination writ large on her husband's face as he gazes upwards, she grins, and continues on, letting his delight in anything she can tell him help her remember.
(Not a girl anymore, no, but a woman with someone to share the girl's stories with).
It's incredibly relaxing, to be out here with him. Perhaps not the most comfortable, on the hard rock, but it's Killian who is taking the brunt of that one for the team, as she mostly finds herself on top of him (not at all an irregular state of being). She feels damn near dozing off, actually, if not for the fact that she can feel a certain tenseness in the shoulder that her head rests on, telling her that her husband is still very much awake, with something on his mind.
She waits him out (owing him patience for the rest of their lives, she figures).
"Back in the Enchanted Forest," he finally says, "it was widely held that the stars were wish-makers. I was never prone to the sentiment myself, mind; I'd always seen the stars as a tool, not magic. You'd likely think it absurd anyway, with your science…"
"We wish on stars in this world too," she tells him, amused by the shared experience. "We may have even gotten the practice from our fairy tales, for all I know. I think there's a song about it in Pinocchio or something."
Killian scowls, as he typically does when August's fairy tale self is brought up. She touches him, soothing.
"Simmer down, pirate. I'm talking the Disney movie."
"The boy should've stayed with you…"
"Off topic, Killian. We were talking about wishes on stars."
After grumbling for a few moments longer, he finally settles. "I'd just wondered if you were the wishing type. Couldn't decide if you would be or not."
"You know, I am. You'd think that'd be a thing I grew out of, after wishing for a family so many times as a kid, and never having that come true… but I would still wish. Mostly on birthday candles. Wishes felt like they should be special, rare, once-a-year kind of things. I'd buy myself a cupcake or something, stick a candle in it, and wish. Wish not to be alone anymore. And on my 28th birthday, I wished it, and Henry showed up at my door and brought me to all this."
"Not so ridiculous, then," he says, somehow wistfully.
"Not at all. Especially not in this town. Hell, you're sitting with me. I could magic up anything you like."
He laughs. "Not all things can be magic'ed up, love."
She lets herself feel it then, the oxymoron that is a warm shiver of delight in the secret she holds.
"No, I suppose not. Guess that's what wishes are for, huh?"
"Perhaps."
She grins. "Let's wish right now! There's enough stars for it!"
"Jones…"
"I'm serious! Close your eyes, and wish."
"What happened to wishes being once a year things?"
"We're making an exception for this starry, starry night. Come on, Killian!" she pouts, prettily, knowing it'll get her her way. "For me?"
"You don't play fair," he mutters. "Alright. Eyes closed. Wishing. And done."
She's practically bouncing in his lap. "Now tell me what you wished!"
Delightfully, he's almost as offended as he was when she teased him about the North Star.
"I can't very well tell you what I wished! It defeats the purpose. Everyone knows wishes must be kept secret, love, or else they won't come true. Even in this world you must know that."
"You won't tell me? Not even if I guess?"
"You won't guess," he promises, confident of that.
"Oh well," she sighs, playing at disappointment, before intertwining their hands, letting herself have the moment of pleasure that she always does in feeling his ring, before guiding his hand to her stomach, hearing and feeling it both when his breath gets caught in his throat. "I guess I'll never know. Unless it does come true," she says, grinning. "Will you tell me then?"
"Emma?" he breathes, scarcely a whisper.
"Maybe you'll tell the baby. Though there's a design flaw for the next eight months. Difficult to talk to her or him without talking to me. Maybe if you're really quiet, when I'm asleep…"
"Gods, Emma," he says, staring at her, and to her very real delight, there seems to be tears in his eyes. "You're really…?"
"Oh, sorry, can't tell you. Wishes are top secret, y'know."
There is such joy to him when he laughs, and she thrills at it, beaming at him, into his kiss.
"I love you so, Jones," he tells her. "And our secret wish."
"Love you too, Jones. And our secret wish."
(It's a girl).
(They name her Skye).
(They love her with everything they've got).
(Sometimes wishes come true)
(And sometimes stars have a magic, all their own).
Author's Note: No idea. I wanted to do a holiday gift for all my CS readers. This came out of that. Hope you like it.
Snowing fans, one will come for you too. Just give me some time for it. (I know I'm late already. Stupid job.)
Thanks, as always, for reading.