She's the one trying to conquer the darkness. But he's the one who's scared.

As he closes the distance between them, Killian Jones is terrified beyond belief that something will go wrong. He's terrified that the darkness will be too much for her and Merlin to handle, that it won't work like so many things haven't in the past, that she'll come back crestfallen and heartbroken, breaking his heart. But in this moment, as his eyes meet hers, he knows that he can and will be nothing but brave. For her.

"You'll return by nightfall, right?"

She gives him a lazy smile. "Yes. We go get this spark… thing… and then I'm working my way back to you, babe."

She tilts her head and the smile widens in the way that it does when she thinks she knows something he doesn't. What she doesn't know is that every time she's slipped one of these into conversation, he brings it up with Henry for clarification a few minutes after, hoping to surprise her with a reference in the near future. He's been waiting for the grin to end all grins that it will bring, the grin that means she's just as smitten with him as he's been for her all of this time.

They draw closer to each other, and Emma's eyes go wide. She relates the plan to him once again – how they're going to put Excalibur together, find the spark, get the darkness out of her – but all he can think about is her gaze, and the anticipation behind it. She's as eager to see this through as he is – but for very different reasons. She's doing this for her family, and for them, but he wants it done for her. He's fended off the worst of pirates, snow monsters, and green-tinted witches, but her demons are the one thing he can't fight. It tears him apart that he can't do this for her, especially when his own demons have haunted him for years upon years.

He slips his hands into hers, feeling the warmth of their touch snaking up his arm. "Be careful, Emma." There's so much more that he wants to say, but the words are too dense to begin to pull apart into sentences. She pulls him in for a kiss, and as their lips meet, he feels it again. He's loved before – loved and lost – but no one has ever meant as much to him as she does, except for maybe his brother. He can't lose her. He presses his forehead to hers, trying to convey everything that his heart is singing through this one gesture, before realizing that he can.

Killian reaches down to his chest until his hands close around it. He rubs it once between two of his fingers, instantly feeling the ache of the memories in the back of his mind, and then takes it off. He sees her alarm immediately, and resists the urge to smile.

"Calm down, Swan, I'm not proposing." He has something much, much bigger planned for that moment – and when it happens, they'll both be ready.

He can't remember the last time he's taken the ring off – after Liam died, it was his lifeline, the only thing keeping him sane despite the rage in his heart. When he'd set off down the wrong path, it had been his one tether, reminding him of where he had come from. He hadn't been a good person, but loving Emma had changed that. He'd never forget his brother, and all that they had been together, but now he has a new tether keeping him grounded.

He tells her what it means to him and watches her emotions shift. She settles on understanding – she peers up at him with a sad smile.

"You know I can't die today. I'm immortal." There's that confidence again.

It doesn't mean I'll ever stop worrying about you, Emma.

Killian drops the ring into her palm and closes her fingers around it. "The Dark One is immortal. Emma isn't. Bring her home to me."

When he looks back at her, he realizes he's gone a little too deep. The past is the past, and he won't lose her again. This will work. She needs to know that he believes in her.

"At the very least, it's a reminder that you've got a piercing-eyed, smoldering pirate here who loves you." It's meant to be a quip, something to take the subject off of his murky past, but then, he sees it.

That grin. The grin he's been waiting for ever since her heart found its way to his and pulled him out of the dark. All his attempts to learn the ins and outs of the talking phone and Netflix could not have possibly prepared him for the genuine happiness in her eyes and her smile, nor for the passion surging through both of them when she pulls him close to her for another kiss.

This kiss is different from the first. Before, he was worried, clinging to her like he was afraid he'd lose her right then. Before, he was anxious, feeling the love pulsing between their lips but wondering if it would be enough to save them and her.

Now. Now, he has no doubts. He feels something thrumming in every nuance of this kiss, in the airy sensation building in his stomach. She makes him whole, in a way that no one has since his Liam. He has to believe that everything will be okay, because it has to be. They've been through too much for this to be the end, and they both know that.

They separate, but it feels like they're still connected, an invisible cord pulling them together in an incomprehensible but irreplaceable way. So this is love.

She tells him she loves him, and it's all the validation he will ever need. Even as he backs away from her, he turns to look at her one last time, and his heart throbs.

How did I manage to fall so hard for Emma Swan?