His heart is thundering loudly enough to almost drown out the noise of the car engine. Killian has to fight to sit still, keep quiet, avoid distracting David as the truck roars along the familiar road. It's difficult when his entire body is humming with adrenaline, when every heartbeat is a reminder because it sounds like her name.
Emma. Emma. Emma.
The last time he heard it this clearly was when he was lying in his cabin, listening to the waves bumping against the hull of the ship and his heart beating in his chest. It had been slower, then, steady and reassuring in the dead of night.
Right now, it feels like it's trying to batter its way past his ribs.
"We're almost there," David says. He sounds and looks focused, jaw set in familiar determination, but when he glances across at Killian, his eyes are calm. Steady. "Don't worry. It hasn't been that long, and Emma's tough."
Killian bites his lips and clenches his fist, because he knows he'll regret whatever he might say right now. He knows that Emma Swan is as tough as they come. He knows it hasn't been that long, even if it feels like a lifetime since that last glimpse of her before the world crashed down around him.
But he also knows that being tough is no guarantee, and he knows that sometimes it only takes an instant.
His fingers curl tighter, nails digging into his skin. His heartbeat pounds in his ears: Emma. Emma. Emma.
He can't lose her.
"We'll get her out," David says.
Something in Killian snaps. "How do you know that?"
"Because I have faith," David tells him, still infuriatingly calm, eyes intent on the road. Killian wants to scream. Liam had faith in the king. Milah had faith in Rumplestiltskin's sense of honour. Faith has brought nothing but betrayal to him and those he has loved.
"Faith in what?" he demands, voice under tight control, although he can still hear the scream behind it, waiting to break out. "Life? This Elsa woman? Because—"
"In Emma." David's words shut him up. "She won't give up on us. She never has."
It hits him like a gut punch, followed by a rush of what almost feels like shame. How could he forget? He's had faith in Emma Swan ever since the day he witnessed her stand up to Cora, even though things like faith and hope were only vague memories to him at the time. And since then, he's seen Emma and her family beat the odds over and over. David is sitting right here, not dead of dreamshade or stuck in Neverland. He's right here, not stuck in the Enchanted Forest while the woman he loves is in another realm without so much as a memory of him.
But he still can't silence the voice reminding him that he had faith in Liam, too. And there's another, darker one, tallying up his past crimes and reminding him that he doesn't deserve any of the light that has come into his life lately.
He grits his teeth against that thought and forces a steadying breath into his lungs. It doesn't matter. He doesn't matter. What he's done doesn't matter. Emma deserves far better than to die in a cave, alone and freezing.
"Aye," he says. And then, because he knows that behind his calm front and optimism, David is worried too, he adds, "I know. We'll find her."
David manages something that's almost a smile.
They arrive at the wall moments later, and then they're running and David is pulling out the black device to talk to Elsa.
When he hears "turning blue", Killian's carefully-built up calm shatters again. He's distantly aware of his own voice, yelling Emma's name as he strikes the ice with his hook. He's beyond precision now, all but hurling himself t the ice wall again and again, until David stops him. He looks around, frantic, trying to find a crack in the ice or perhaps an opening further up, but to no avail.
Elsa is their only hope. David tells her so, and Killian has to look away and grind his teeth together to keep from screaming. Magic. It always comes down to magic. The one thing he doesn't have and can't acquire, the one thing that could have saved everyone he has ever lost. Instead, magic has taken everything from him, and it looks like it's about to do it again.
And once again, he can't do a bloody thing about it.
He doesn't catch what David says to Elsa. His heart is still pounding in his chest, and he can't process the words through the fear that's gripping his throat. He feels like he's frozen, unable to breathe, unable to speak, his throat and chest full of ice. Pain lances through his left arm where his skin meets the brace, and out beyond it, even though he knows there's nothing there to feel it. He wants to run, disappear, fall to his knees, scream until his throat is raw. Not again. Please, not again.
But David moves, and gives him an expectant look, and then Killian sees it: a blue glow, an odd flurry of light, peeking through the ice wall.
It's magic. And it's working.
The light grows brighter, and then the ice begins to shatter and he's peering through an opening, heedless of the shards of ice still flying around him.
She's there, looking pale and weak, but she's up on her knees and she's moving her head, and the ice in Killian's chest melts away in a rush as he calls her name again.
Elsa helps her – helps her – to the opening, and then Killian can reach her. She reaches back, falling against him, and he wraps his arms around her and breathes again. Her hands are icy cold and she only manages a jerky nod in answer to his question whether she's okay, but she's alive, and she's here in his arms, and his chest feels too small to contain his heart. It's still hammering out her name, a wild, joyous rhythm in his veins now.
But she's still freezing cold, and he has to get her out of here. When he relinquishes his hold a little, she stumbles, so he lifts her up into his arms to carry her to the truck. To his amazement, she doesn't protest; her arms stay draped around his neck, her head drooping against his shoulder. Navigating the icy path back to the road is harder this way, but he does it in record time regardless, his muscles barely feeling the strain of her weight.
He bundles her into the back seat of the truck and grabs the blanket David told him about. Climbing in beside her, he does his best to drape it around her, a difficult task in the cramped space and made more difficult by his hook. Emma tries to help, but her fingers are too cold to hold anything; she isn't even shaking, and Killian knows that's a bad sign.
He throws propriety to the winds and settles in beside her, stretching his good arm around her shoulders to rub some life and warmth back into them. She leans into him, and for all that she's ice cold and her touch sends a shiver through him, he pulls her closer still.
David glances at them when he's encouraged a reluctant Elsa to sit in the passenger seat of this strange vehicle and climbs in behind the wheel himself. "Emma? How is she?"
"She'll be fine." Killian is as sure of that now as he is of the tides changing each day. "But we should get her to a fire."
The engine roars to life as David gets them under way again. "No fire at the loft, sorry," he says. "But we have more blankets, and heaters once we get power back."
"Hot soup and tea," Elsa adds, casting a worried glance at Emma over her shoulder. She seems to have changed her attitude rather drastically since imprisoning Emma in the first place, but she's the reason why Emma is here with him right now, so Killian's foremost feeling is one of gratitude. Besides, he's hardly one to judge.
So he smiles at the lady and inclines his head. "Some grog, perhaps."
"Ugh," Emma says, speaking for the first time. Her voice is a little shaky, and he thinks that her facial muscles are probably still too cold to allow her to talk clearly, but her voice is unmistakably Emma. "You."
But she moves, reaching one arm around him. Her hand is ice cold against his side, but he presses in with his arm anyway, wishing briefly that he had another hand with which to hold hers and warm it. But Emma seems content with the situation as it is, shifting her head a little to rest more comfortable against his chest, and for a moment, it's almost too much. It's for warmth, of course, but it's more than that. He felt it the moment she glanced at him after they pulled her out of that cave, right before she'd thrown her arms around his neck as if she were drowning. He'd almost lost her, and she knew what it meant. And she'd almost lost him, too.
They're halfway to the loft when she starts shivering, which he reports to David as a good sign. Emma, of course, promptly scoffs at him, but her hand flexes against his side and he chuckles and keeps massaging life back into her as best he can. For his part, David only voices relief and some encouraging words, and from what Killian can see of his face in the rearview mirror, he doesn't look at all disapproving at seeing his daughter draped across a pirate in the backseat.
Killian swallows and looks back down at Emma, tugging the blanket a little more tightly around her.
Henry is already waiting for them, full of questions and worried looks. David introduces Elsa and sends the two of them ahead to light some candles and gather all the blankets they can find. Emma nods when asked if she can walk, but her sluggish movements and the time it takes her to even get out of the car say otherwise.
"There's no need, love," he tells her.
She looks at him as if considering, but it only lasts a moment before she gives a weary, shaky nod and concedes. He carries her into the building and up the stairs, still a little surprised at how much she's letting him do for her, because they both know that she could walk if she really had to — which, for Emma, usually means that she will.
He deposits her in the chair Henry indicates, and she surprises him again when she reaches not just for Henry's hand, but for his as well. The lad takes it in stride, focused mostly on his mother, but Killian has to fight the urge to lean forward and bury his head against her shoulder again. Yes, she's cold, and she almost froze to death, but he knows Emma. She's had some close calls before. She's never wanted him around like this afterwards.
She's never let him help take care of her.
But she's letting him now. She has a shaky smile for him when he retrieves the heating contraption from the bathroom, no quips about the twenty-first century this time. She rests a hand on his arm, thumb grazing over where his sleeve meets the brace. She leans into him and he can't help it, his arm tightens around her and he presses the lightest of kisses to the top of her head.
Once Snow returns and gets past the surprise of Elsa – and Killian will admit to some private amusement at the suspicion on her face when she sees the beautiful woman her husband has apparently brought home – there's a barrage of questions and explanations. Snow comes over to join them, but when she gets a proper look at Killian, her brow furrows. Before he can even begin to explain just why it is that Emma is half-lying on him, Snow is already shaking her head and apologising while she fetches him a chair.
And then he sits and recounts the day's events for her, helped occasionally by Elsa, who volunteers a few words about what took place inside the cave. Emma is no help at all, except in reassuring her mother when she asks if she's okay.
"Oh, yeah." She has a sleepy smile on her face, and Killian is relieved to see that some colour has returned to her cheeks. She squeezes Snow's hand, head still resting against Killian. "I'm good."
She drifts off to sleep a while later, her fingers curled around his arm, her hair tickling his neck and chest. She's breathing gently now, no longer shivering. His arm is still draped around her, and it's everything he's wanted for what feels like a lifetime.
He knows that there will be another crisis tomorrow. Elsa's sister is still out there, the ice wall is still out there, and that's only today's leftovers. There is always another crisis.
But she's here in his arms, and his heart is beating out her name, slow and steady. Beside that, nothing else matters. For the moment, for this moment, all is right with the world.