A/N: I got way behind on Once, and I'm only starting up again now. "The Brothers Jones" was a great episode with my very favorite kind of feels. Here is a tribute to Killian Jones, the hero he doesn't know he is.
He knows the ocean for its kindness. He knows how it rocks a ship like a cradle, how its salt will hide any tears that fall.
He knows the way the sun skims its surface like wings of a bird, how the wind ripples it like laughter.
...
He knows the ocean for its fury, for its vengeance, for the way the waves rise up in splendor and dreadful certainty. What goes up must come down.
Down, down, down.
His brother's body drops through the water like a stone.
For a long time, Killian thinks his own heart went with it.
...
He knows the ocean long before he sees it. It is the color of Liam's eyes.
...
Milah brings hope to his heart again.
What goes up must come down.
Another body in the ocean. Killian knows, this time, that he's lost more than a hand.
...
What goes up must come down.
Emma takes forever to love him and then loves him for forever after that. He doesn't deserve it. He doesn't. He's not a hero, he's a pirate, and the only thing that's never left him is the ocean.
He's a pirate, but what goes up must comes down. He falls for her harder than he ever has in his life.
...
In the end, he dies in darkness, but he tastes saltwater before everything goes black.
It's Emma's tears.
...
"Goodbye, brother," Killian says, and Liam's eyes are blue as ocean waves, the blue of home, and three hundred years have passed for Killian in all the realms, but he has never felt younger than he does now.
Don't leave me, he thinks, desperate and twelve years old again, the day his father does not return—
Don't leave me, Neverland and a demon-boy's mercy and Liam dying, dying, dying on land and sea—
Don't leave me, not yet thirty with Milah fading in his arms—
Don't leave me, in the giant's lair, when Emma locked him out of her heart—
Don't leave me, and he lets his brother go.
What goes up must come down.
It was the sea that gave him life and love.
It seems right that the sea would take it back again.