…

Truths Unsaid

…

Emma Swan has known how to spot a liar since she was kicked out of her first foster home. Because when somebody promises to love you forever and then rips it away, you remember it. And Emma has remembered every detail of that first lie just as vividly as it had happened the day before.

When she was a child, all she had wanted was to feel special. So she had called it her super power, making all the other kids at the group home gather around and watch as she won every single game of two truths and a lie. They'd all ask her how she did it and she'd just smile and shrug and leave them wondering if maybe she really did have some kind of super power.

She never told them that it was all just perception and observation – that the tick of a jaw or the slight downward turn of an eye could give anyone away.

As she'd grown she'd built her repertoire, constantly learning all the signs of betrayal. It hardened her heart and her resolve to never be lied to by someone she could care about. She remembers house after house rejecting her and then she remembers Lily and her subtle lies, Neal and his selfishness. She remembers the feeling as though she had been kicked in the gut and left to tend to her own injuries alone again and again.

She had come to expect the lies rather than hope for honesty and, in the end, she had simply given up on the thought of something better out there. She accepted her fate of unhappiness and solitude.

That is, until she met him.

Killian Jones lied to her straight off the bat. He gave her what she expected straight up and then worked the hardest she has ever seen someone work to make it up to her – to spend every moment of his time in her presence proving that there is something different out there. Something true.

Sometimes she wishes that she had met him sooner, or that she had given into the insatiable urge to rip his leather off and have him press her up against the nearest flat surface. But most of the time she is ridiculously happy that everything has happened the way that it has, that she gets to have him now all to herself. She's never felt quite like this about a man in her life. She's played the part, sure – reckless partner, ruthless lover – but it's only now that she's stopped playing a character and started to embrace all that she can be as herself. She trusts him, yes. But more than that, she trusts herself with him.

He's reassured her that he's a survivor, that he'll fight for his life and for hers and her son's so that they can never feel the unhappiness that secretly tugs on them , trying to lure them back under. And she believes him. After every rotten thing in her life, she damn well believes him. She can feel him give himself to her every time they kiss, can taste his sincerity and sense him tearing at her walls with delicacy and finesse. He makes it so that it doesn't hurt anymore, so that her world feels right in all the wrong and crazy.

And that is how she immediately knows. The second he breaks away from her with a tortured, "Goodbye," being ripped from his reluctant lips, she knows two things. The first is that she has been lying to herself and the second is that he has been lying to her.

The realisation hits her like a freight train. She loves him. She bloody loves him. And then it hits her that he loves her so much that he can't tell her something horrendous is happening outside the walls of the sheriff's station. He can't bring himself to tell her why his strained whisper sounds so permanent.

And it breaks her that she can't give him all her time.

It's not until they're standing on the docks and the snow has finally settled, everything deadly silent, that Emma understands.

Her whimper cuts through the air as Killian's heart is squeezed, the Dark One baring his teeth as he threatens the life of the pirate while holding Henry behind him. The words escape her in a torrent that she can't stop, can't quite understand, "Please, please, don't do this. Please leave him. Don't hurt them. Please." Her knees feel weak beneath her, but she won't fall, "You won't remember this, but we've been in this situation before. In the past. I asked you to not let your son's death be in vain. Don't let all the good he did for you go to waste. Settle this another way. I am begging you."

Rumpelstiltskin smirks as he squeezes the heart again, Killian crying out in pain while Emma nearly sinks to her knees, the tears freezing on her face as she cries. "What does it matter, Miss Swan? He's still under the spell. He will only see the things he hates about you."

Belle is off to the side, the Snow Queen having lifted the spell of shattered sight from the people that Gold had requested, but she's still looking at Rumple like she doesn't know what to make of him, like she's still seeing him through shattered eyes. There's a moment where she seems to make a decision, pulling a dagger from her satchel and holding it up. "Don't do this," she says firmly, speaking to her husband over the knife's edge.

The Dark One breaks his concentration for a moment to cluck his tongue and roll his eyes before squeezing the heart in his hand once more.

Belle's eyes widen as realisation crashes down on her, gaze flicking from the dagger to Rumple as her breathing deepens in rage. And then it all happens in a blur of people she loves and a cloud of purple smoke. Belle rushes at her husband, dagger held high, poised to strike at the same moment Henry pulls himself free of his grandfather's grip and kicks him from behind. The cloud goes up and when it clears, the dagger is buried in the ground and Henry has fallen backwards.

Emma lets out a shaky breath, rushing forward to Killian who is lying in the snow, his lips blue with cold, "Killian, come on, wake up." She rubs at his chest, desperate and needy, "Please come back to me. Come one. Please." She presses her lips to his, running her fingers through his hair and knows that it won't work without his heart, knowing that it won't work while he is under the spell of shattered sight. "Please," she begs again, her forehead resting against his as his fading breaths puff out against her cheek. "I love you. Please."

"Mom?" she hears Henry call out to her and knows that she should be listening, that she should be holding him close to her too.

She looks up, her eyes meeting her son's and then following his gaze to the ground where there is a very red and very alive heart beating in the snow, having been knocked from the Dark One's grasp as he's vanished. "Oh god," she cries, reaching out for it and not even thinking as she plunges her hand into Killian's chest.

His eyes fly open, hatred still lingering in his deep blue irises, but Emma doesn't give him a chance to think, doesn't give him the option to refuse her, swallowing his shocked gasp as she presses her lips to his. She knows the feeling, knows how the magic pulses and pulls, how it turns everything upside down for a moment and she can't help but laugh as the magic between her and her pirate bubbles up and boils over, the tears sliding down her cheeks in happiness now.

She looks up, watching the curse break, shards of glass dissipating into nothingness as an almighty cheer can be heard from the town. But nothing else matters, not one thing. Because Killian is looking up at her like he loves her again and she wants nothing more than to kiss that stupid smile off his face for the rest of eternity.

She tucks Henry under her arm and invites Belle into their embrace too, her heart breaking for the woman who chose to love a monster.

For a moment, nothing else exists as they catch their breaths.

…

There's a party at Granny's of course, food served up as the drink flow freely, everybody holding their loved ones just that little bit closer than they had before, revelling in everything good about the family and friends, because there really is so much more good than bad.

Emma catches Killian's eye from across the room, the pirate having found himself with the Merry Men while Emma had spent some time with her family. Snow touches her arm when she sees where her gaze is directed and nods at her, "You should go be with him."

She smiles, hugging her mother for the umpteenth time, and makes her way through the crowd. She wordlessly reaches out for his hand, linking her fingers through his and walking them to the back of the diner, through the door that leads to his room.

The barely make it two steps before Killian's tugging her into his arms, his lips descending on hers and taking her breath away. She moans as he guides her back up against the wall, savouring every moment of him that she had almost had taken away.

She waves her hand through the air, wrapping them in a cloud of white and bringing them up to his room in a second. He doesn't hesitate in removing their jackets, throwing them somewhere behind him as he pulls her against his chest. "Gods above I love you," he whispers as though it's a secret and she loves that this is the first time he's said it.

Her breath catches in her chest as he captures her lips again and again. Fingers moving up under her shirt and running across her heated flesh. She smiles when he breaks away, simply gazing at her for a moment. "What?" he asks.

Her fingertips run across his stubble and massage the back of his neck. "Nothing," she shrugs, "I just like hearing you say it."

He says it a hundred times over as the night rolls on, presses it between her thighs as he lays kisses at her core, he brands it into her ribs and her hips and her palms, worships her until she can't breathe. And every single time she smiles because every single time she can feel the honesty in it and she knows that it is true.

…

Thoughts?