Author's Note: I should have been working on at least three other fics instead of on this, but apparently the egregious lack of CS in the finale spurred my muse like nothing else. Oops?

Takes place the night of Killian's return; title borrowed from the Owl City song of the same name.

Enjoy!

if my heart was a house (you'd be home)

She stops halfway up the porch steps, stilling when she feels the gentle resistance of his hand in hers.

"Killian?"

When she glances at him over her shoulder, he's staring at the front door with an expression akin to apprehension. He looks vaguely worse for wear – certainly, resurrection will do that to you – hair mussed, dark circles under his eyes as he considers the door, but before the concern has a chance to flare up in her chest, he's blinking, blue gaze refocusing as he turns to her.

"Sorry, love?"

She squeezes his fingers. "Everything okay?"

"Fine," he responds automatically. She snorts, throwing him a pointed look, until he shakes his head. "It's nothing. It just seems… different, is all."

"The door?"

"The house."

Emma contemplates what she can see of it – the broad wood doorway, the tall windows to the dining room. "I guess it's not as charming without that red tint from the Underworld."

"I've been here prior to dying," Killian says wryly. "And I was the one who picked it out, perfectly undecayed, remember?"

A thread of unease winds its way into her gut as she steps down a stair to stand at his level. She bumps his shoulder with hers softly. "Then what is it?" She remembers, with perfect clarity, the feeling of scaly leather against her skin, of the cold haze around her mind as she betrayed his trust, time and time again – and felt not a prick of guilt, until later that is.

This house is tainted, she expects him to say, but instead his lips curve in a slow smile. "I've never been here with you."

With you. Alive, warm and breathing at her side, neither cursed nor battered to hell. "I guess I haven't been here with you either," she agrees, and she feels him squeeze her hand in return before he turns and leads them up the rest of the steps.

The door opens with a jangle of her keys. It's just as she left it: a dejected mess. She'd barely had enough energy to keep herself presentable, much less her place, but she's not the least bit chagrined by the clothes strewn all over the living room or the haphazardly repacked bag of toiletries sitting on the coffee table. When he spots the box tucked against the near wall, a simple Jones scribbled across the top in shaky script, his jaw clenches in her periphery, and she knows he understands.

"I, uh, rearranged some of the furniture," she says in lame way of distraction, though it takes her quite a bit of effort to tear her eyes from the box as well. The buttons on her jacket slip against her fingers until she takes a steadying breath. "The way it was reminded me too much of, um…"

"We should go furniture shopping." He says it with such boyish eagerness that she can't help the fond smile from breaking across her face. Her cheeks still feel stiff from disuse, or maybe it's just lingering soreness from just a few hours ago.

"I don't think there's much by way of an IKEA around here."

"If that's what I think it is, I imagine Marco's will do just fine."

"You want to get an entire house of custom furniture?" she laughs, rolling her eyes. "I'm not sure if the even the doubloon-to-dollar exchange rate will cover that."

"Perhaps he'll allow me a discount for having just returned from the dead." It isn't his words that make her turn around, pausing in hanging her coat, so much as the tightness of his voice. Her heart squeezes with sympathy before she notices him crouching low to the floor, rummaging through the cardboard box holding his possessions, next to which he appears to have neatly folded his jacket.

The sight of her sole coat suspended from the rack near the door seems even sadder until he brushes at her side, holding his original leather in one proud hand.

"Much more comfortable than Dark One magic," he tells her, mouth twisting ruefully, and hangs his jacket on the wall next to hers. Black against black, it's not the most aesthetically pleasing sight, but Emma finds herself suddenly unable to swallow; she wonders, briefly, if she can find her red signature somewhere in the clutter.

Heaven knows he's seen enough of her tears without her getting emotional for no reason, though, so she ducks her head to furtively rub her eye. "You know what else is comfortable?" she finally manages. "Pajamas."

She makes to snake around him to the living room, to the pile of clothes that is her provisional closet, but he catches her wrist with his hook before she can cross the hallway. His brows are furrowed, humor flickering through the dark gleam of his eyes.

"You can't be serious."

She scoffs. "What?"

"How much time are you planning to waste searching for those bedclothes of yours, Swan?"

Despite her best efforts, tongue between her teeth, she suspects the expression on her face is coy at best. "What exactly are you trying to say?"

"I'm merely trying to help you keep the promise you made to me." His hook rubs through the fabric at her waist, but instead she feels the air of a musty cavern and rusting iron bars. Her throat tightens, but she looks up at the light touch of his fingers around hers. "The one on the roof, remember? You promised me that, as soon as we defeated Hades, you'd sleep—"

"—for weeks." She shakes her head, pressing her palm flat to his. His skin is warm, calloused, and she watches their hands intertwine with desperate focus. "I remember."

He's here. He's alive – we're alive, and we're here, together. The heat of him, reassuringly solid, grounds her to the moment where he gently tugs her closer, nearly flush against him, his breath a slow exhale that trickles gooseflesh down her neck.

She shivers, clenching his hand tighter.

"So you understand, then," he murmurs. "I'm merely trying to save you time."

"Always have my best interest in mind, do you?" she asks, tilting her head to look up at him. He smiles, a soft, precious thing, like she hangs the stars in his sky and her hat in his heart, like he's torn between always and forever.

"I love you," he says simply.

She absorbs that for the space of a moment, a warmth spreading through her chest like sunshine beating in her veins.

And then, her eyes stinging, she cups his cheek and leans up on her toes, kissing him on the mouth with everything she can muster.

And it's everything. Her heart full to bursting, she kisses him as if she's seeing him for the first time all over again, a miracle of light on the worst of rainy days, clinging to him like a lifeline in a storm. His stubble scratches her lips, her fingers, his unkempt hair stiff from the downpour as she presses her other hand to the back of his head – but she doesn't care. Nothing matters, nothing exists but the salt of his skin, of his tongue and his heady seaside scent, his arms wrapped full around her to press every line of her body against his.

It's not a slow kiss, but it's not rushed either. There's a quiet urgency that beats through the both of them – a reality of here, together, and now that transcends the shock and joy from their moment by his grave into an appreciation for everything that truly means. Like how he sucks in a quick breath before pressing his lips more firmly to hers, as if he's loathe to waste a single second of their time together (I have all the time in the world flashes through her mind, and she moves to clutch his collar with renewed force). Like the tremble that runs through his body when she runs her fingertips down the column of his neck, past the ghost of the scar that had taken his life, past his shoulders to rest over his softly thudding heart.

Alive. Alive and hers again, despite everything.

She feels his arms shift, and then he's lifting her from low, forcing her to wrap her legs around his waist for support as he winds his arms around her torso. He must be exhausted, she knows – the last few weeks haven't exactly been easy on either of them – but she doesn't complain when the new angle allows her to deepen the kiss, his mouth moving gently under hers, her arms tightening around his shoulders to keep him in place.

That is, until he starts walking as if heading to the stairs.

"Really?" she says, but it comes out barely a breathless whisper against the curve of his mouth. He carries her as though she weighs next to nothing, as though he hasn't only been alive for a single evening, and though it's stupidly dangerous, she lets him slowly make his way up the stairs with her in his arms – one step at a time, carefully, never once pausing for breath. When they reach the second floor landing, she finally pulls away, but her attempt at squirming down from his grasp proves next to pointless.

"You're seriously going to make me lose you again because of physical strain?"

He grins up at her, a touch winded, eyes darkened in the shadow of the hallway but glinting with mischief all the same. "After everything I've lived through, do you honestly think I'll go down from this?" But his steps are quicker down the corridor, past the door to what will be Henry's room (and Emma won't be glad for the reasons why he's staying with his other mother tonight, but she appreciates that he is all the same), past the spare room and the bath and another door she thinks is a closet, down to the room at the end of the hallway. The one that overlooks the front yard and its picket fence, with its own bathroom and a walk-in closet she finds overkill for two people used to spaces a fraction of the size. The one with the dark wood four-poster bed that had seemed far, far too large, too empty just for her, but feels just right when she tumbles onto the sheets in the cradle of his arms.

She swallows, suppressing a smile up him. Where the dim light from the window lands, his skin all but glows, his hair falling around his face, his expression more tender than anything she had once thought she'd ever see. The pad of her thumb smooths the creases next to his eyes, fits into the dimple in his cheek, traces his collarbone to hook into the edge of his shirt. This isn't the first time they've shared a bed, and if she has her say, it certainly won't be the last – but it is the first time they've shared this bed, the one in their home in the world of the living. And after all they've been through since the last time he touched her, neither tinged by darkness nor death, the difference is everything.

"Swan." He breathes it into the space between them, and it lingers in the air like the echo of a prayer in a chapel. And then he's leaning down, kissing her deeply, until the last traces of heartache slip from her chest and all that's left is a feather-light, fluttering longing for something that is, at last, in her grasp.

Her hands are steady, sure down the path of his buttons, yanking the tails of his shirt from his pants so she can push it off his shoulders. Along the way, her fingers catch the straps of his brace and make quick work of them too, a tangled mess of limbs as he makes an attempt at her shirt at the same time – though he manages only the first few buttons before his clever mouth is working a path down her jaw, her neck, to the inside curve of her shoulder. As he gently pushes her up the bed, his lips worry a mark into her skin, beard rough around the velvet of his tongue, and she lets her head fall back into the pillows, sighing with pleasure, forgetting all about the eager course her nails had been scratching down the rough hair of his chest.

"Killian," she murmurs, and his quiet groan in response has the heat swelling between her thighs. One by one, the rest of her buttons come apart under his fingers, though the coolness of the room barely has a chance to graze her before he's there with his mouth, hot and wet just on the edge of her bra. He cups her waist as she arches her back to meet him; by the time he finally slides his tongue under the lace, circling a hardened nipple, she's practically squirming for his touch.

"Such a convenient contraption," he muses against her skin as he slips his hand between her shirt and her back, unlatching the clasp with unnerving ease. His fascination with modern undergarments is something she's capitalized on more than once (definitely more than once), but at the moment she honestly can't be bothered. With a huff, she slides the shirt and straps from her shoulders, dropping the garments off the side of the bed unceremoniously. The elastic comes out of her ponytail, too, for good measure, though the way she shakes her hair out to fan out under her head could possibly be condemned as excessive.

The gleam of appreciation in his eye seems especially bright tonight. "Impatient as ever, love."

"I'll make it up to you later," she tells him, just to enjoy the smirk that spreads across his face.

"I'm holding you to that," he says, pulling his necklace up and over his head. Both it and his rings, which he's somehow managed to remove one-handed, fall onto the nightstand with a clatter, although Emma has a feeling they'll be making their way to the box downstairs before long, and then he's swiftly returning his attention to her unclothed form. Splaying his hand across the flat expanse of her belly, he dips his head again to run his tongue up the peak of a breast, drawing her tight and hard into the wet heat of his mouth. His fingers graze the other lightly, too lightly, and too briefly – rather, with a thrill, she feels him flick open the button of her pants, and she struggles to contain a gasp as he slips under the thin cotton of her underwear. His thumb skims her clit, a sole finger tracing the parted flesh between her legs with an agonizing slowness that has her widening her knees, bucking her hips into his palm with every sound that escapes her lips.

"So perfect," he hums, switching his mouth to her other breast. But he keeps teasing her, barely any pressure where she needs it most, where the ache is throbbing a desperate rhythm between her thighs, building with every firm swipe of his thumb, and it's when she realizes he has absolutely no intention of helping her along with the rest of his fingers that she finally pulls him up by the hair. She doesn't speak, instead sitting up, reaching for his belt buckle with dangerous intent; for all that her hands are shaky with need, she manages to yank both his pants and underwear down to mid-thigh in one go. The sight of him, hard and erect, has a wave of heat pulsing southward in a heartbeat, though he doesn't allow her much time for staring when he shifts to pull his last bit of clothing off and then immediately gets to work on hers.

When she collapses back onto the bed, sheets cool against every bare inch of her skin, he sits back on his haunches, takes a long moment to the sight of her laid out before him.

"I was right," he breathes. "Zeus's afterlife pales in comparison to you."

She's fairly certain she's blushing, in spite of everything, though that could also be the throbbing heat of her anticipation, or of the sight of him naked and on his knees. His broad shoulders, the hard line of muscle in his chest, the dark path of hair that runs down to where his cock hangs, heavy and hard between his legs – he's not such a bad sight to behold either.

"Come here," she says finally. He leans down and she kisses him, slow but deliberate, one hand carding through his hair, the other gripping the damp skin of his back, relishing in the solid warmth of him. He rests an elbow near her head, but his good hand is everywhere, running the length of her body until it curves around her behind, smoothing down her thigh to hook her knee up to his waist. It pulls her up just enough for the slick heat between her legs to graze him, hard and thick and silken when she arches to meet him halfway. A second passes where she feels nothing but the exquisite ripple of bliss, rocking her hips against his and savoring the slide of his cock against her heated flesh, until he tears his mouth from hers with a growl.

"Protection," he mutters darkly, and, when she comes to herself, she curses. They fumble with the drawer to the nightstand, though she suspects she's doing more harm than good trying to do it upside down; after he emerges victoriously with the thin foil package, he wastes no time in fixing himself before returning to her side. She barely allows him to get situated before reaching down to encircle him in her hand, stroking the length of him with deliberate precision – once, twice, reveling in the soft weight of him in her palm – eliciting the most delicious strangled noise from the back of his throat. Although she suspects there's a long list of things he'd like to do tonight, there's one thing they both need first, more than anything, and it starts with him lowering his hips, lining himself up between her legs with the help of her hand.

"Emma." It's a broken, pleading whisper. She takes a shuddering breath, pulls his forehead down to rest against hers, and then, in one long, smooth motion, he pushes forward and slides home. The feeling is almost too much to bear, so hot and thick and full, her heart thudding so forcefully she's afraid it might burst out of her chest.

"God, Killian." She clings to him with every fiber of her being, watching his blue eyes squeeze shut, his face contort as he carefully pulls out and buries himself back into the tight heat of her body – so perfect, so agonizingly perfect, but far, far too slowly. "Killian, please."

He sets a rhythm, unhurried, unrushed, giving them both time to savor every little movement, every tiny shift in the way she tenses around him. Every time he fills her, a spark of heat jolts from the place they come together, saturating what feels like every nerve ending in her body with a burning, white-hot glow, and when his hand starts roaming the span of her body again, pausing to anchor her leg around the small of his back, it spreads her so deliciously that the moan tears from her throat before she even knows it's there.

It's that sound, that tiny, ruined noise, that seems to spur him into action. He finally begins to move faster, breath hitching against her cheek, quiet pants warm and sweet with every thrust. Every once in a while, his movement causes his chest to drag along hers, and the feeling of his coarse hair scraping at her nipples has her writhing beneath him. She's close, she can feel it. Between everything – his soft groans, the sweat of his skin against hers, the way he bites his lip in concentration and watches her like she's the only thing that matters in his world, and he's here, here with her, and he's not going anywhere – she's beyond overwhelmed. It takes only a moment of his fingers dipping between her legs, rubbing tiny circles into her flesh with a new bout of agitation, for her to breathe his name, every muscle tightening with a surge of heated pleasure as she falls apart under him. He comes barely a heartbeat, barely a thrust after she does, shuddering in her arms with a broken gasp as he buries himself deep, clutching her waist so forcefully she's nearly positive she's going to wake up tomorrow with his fingerprints branded into her skin.

They remain tangled, wrapped in the fading daze of sex, for what seems like a long time – long enough for the bliss pulsing through her veins to subside into a satisfying hum in her blood, for him to pull his damp forehead from hers with a lazy, content smile. She feels like a sweat-slicked, boneless mess, but his gaze is nothing short of undyingly reverent. For that and other reasons, it takes a while longer for her to find her voice to speak.

"I've missed you," she whispers, her voice breaking despite the shaky smile she sends him in return.

"Let's try to keep that from happening ever again," he says.

She tries her most teasing grin, although she's so exhausted she wouldn't be surprised if it looked like a grimace. "What, the sex?"

"Definitely not that," he chuckles, pressing a gentle kiss to her temple, and then, with regret, moving to extricate himself from her limbs. She watches, sleepy-eyed, as he disappears into the bathroom for a moment before joining her back at the bed. The way he tugs the blanket over and around her feels as though he's tucking her in, but the picture of innocence ends when he climbs in between the sheets to nestle close at her side, wrapping his arms around her waist. Despite the tragedy of the day and the looming threat of the entirety of Storybrooke's magic, which she knows they'll have to be up in only a few hours to deal with, it's the warmest, most peaceful she can remember ever having felt in her life.

"I can't believe you ever could have wanted to replace this bed," he murmurs, voice low and muffled against her hair.

Even though she's closed her eyes, she still manages to roll them. "I guess it has its perks."

"I don't think you need to fill this house with new furniture," he says sleepily, the way she knows he gets right before he's about to enter the throes of unconsciousness. "I think you need to fill it with new memories."

"Our house," she amends with a tiny thrill. She feels rather than hears him exhale, a pleased little sigh that burrows deep in her chest, lodging squarely in the space within her heart. A slow breath later, and he's gone to the world, chest rising and falling with the cadence of sleep. She's right at the precipice of incoherency herself, but she manages to articulate one last thought.

"I think we're off to a pretty good start."

It's a quiet whisper to a quiet room, answered only by the sound of his soft breathing, but it comforts her as she snuggles closer, pressing her face to his chest and gradually falling asleep to the gentle rhythm of his heart.