Killian takes a deep breath and valiantly tries to stop being angry at himself. He knew this was a bad idea. He knew he would spend a sleepless night, hell, many sleepless nights because of it. He knew he should have said no. But when she looked at him, with that questioning, almost pleading expression in her eyes, he just couldn't. He never could say no to her. There's the main problem with his life summarized in one sentence, he thinks, frustrated.

It's also the reason why he is awake in the middle of the night, lying on the far corner of the bed, his back turned to the source of his sleeplessness. She is far enough away that he cannot really feel her presence, but just knowing that she's there, within arm's reach, is driving him mad. He can hear her breathing. Sometimes she starts to snore softly, then stops abruptly when she turns around. She's quite a restless sleeper, as it turns out.

He's debating with himself whether to turn around or just stay where he is. The soft light coming in through the blinds is barely enough to see anything anyway. He knows he shouldn't, knows it will make it just that much worse but he turns around anyway. He was always quite the expert at torturing himself.

She's turned to him and he can't breathe for a moment, because she just looks stunning in her sleep. The worry that seems to be etched into her features permanently is gone, her expression relaxed, peaceful.

He wants to reach out and touch her face. He wants to draw his hand through her hair and feel the softness of the golden mess. He wants to wake her up and kiss her senseless. He wants to hold her to him and never let her go. He wants to tell her how he feels and hear her say the words back to him. He wants, wants, wants, with such an intensity that it scares him.

He turns around again, and tries to get his tumbling thoughts back under control. He's such an idiot. And to think that he believed the last year to be torture. Lying awake at night, alone in his bunk, thinking about her, wondering what her new life might be like. This is so much worse. To know that she is there, but still to be unable to touch her. He realizes with a start that his hand is clenching and unclenching into a fist, and he stops the movement and takes a deep breath.

He shuts his eyes tight and tries to think of something else, anything else. He pictures the calm waters of the ocean at peace. The smell of the sea after a storm. In his mind's eye, he sees the Jolly Roger and it brings him right back to the present.

He sits up in bed and leans against the headboard, frustrated and angry with himself. No sense in pretending he will catch any sleep tonight.

He's debating whether or not to get up when he hears soft footsteps approaching the door. He tenses and reaches for the bedside table, where his hook should be, but of course it's only the damn fake hand he's been wearing ever since he came back to this land. His hook is safely hidden away in one of the many pockets of his coat.

The door opens slowly and he hears a small voice calling out to him.

"Dad?"

He gets up quickly, tries not to wake Emma in the process and takes Henry back to the hallway with him, closing the door very carefully behind him. He kneels in front of the boy, putting his hand on his shoulder.

"Everything okay, lad?"

Henry looks a bit sheepish, like he doesn't want to admit what's bothering him.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just had a bad dream and I couldn't sleep. I know I'm not a kid anymore and I didn't want to disturb you, but it was really scary and it just seemed so real and I couldn't sleep."

Killian squeezes his shoulder reassuringly.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Henry nods hesitantly and the two of them make their way downstairs to the kitchen. Killian grabs a glass from the cupboard, grateful that he remembered the location from the previous night, when he and Emma roamed around, trying to get familiar with the place. Their place.

He fills the glass with water and hands it to Henry, sitting down next to him at the kitchen table.

"So, tell me about your dream."

Henry narrows his eyes, struggling to remember the details. "It was really, really weird. There were all kinds of fairytale characters like dwarfs and fairies. And an evil queen. But she wasn't really evil, just kind of misunderstood. And she was also my mother. But it wasn't mom. And you had a hook for a hand instead of your prosthetic. But all of that wasn't the scary part."

Killian waits, but Henry doesn't go on. He is just about to say something when the boy continues after all, his voice small and scared.

"Remember when you told me the story of the emperor who dreamed he was a butterfly and then he wasn't sure anymore if he wasn't actually a butterfly dreaming to be an emperor?"

Killian doesn't have the faintest idea what in the seven realms the boy is talking about, but he nods anyway.

"It was like that. I woke up and it felt like my life, this, was a dream and nothing was real."

Killian can tell that Henry is close to tears, the experience clearly frightened him.

Suddenly, the boy jumps up from his chair and embraces him. Killian is too surprised to react at first, but then he draws his arms around him and returns the hug. He feels his shirt getting damp, Henry is crying into his shoulder.

After a while, Henry pulls back, still sniffling. Killian ruffles up his hair fondly.

"Always remember that I love you, no matter if you're an emperor or a butterfly."

He's not sure where that came from, exactly, it's not really his place to be saying something like that to Henry. Still, he feels an undeniable connection to the boy. He's Emma's son, after all. Milah's grandson. God, when did his life become so complicated?

He just wants Henry to be happy. More than anything, he wants this thing between them to be real, instead of a bloody curse.

He catches himself wishing, not for the first time, that the curse had wiped his memory as well as Henry's when they crossed the town line. That maybe he could have been granted a week, hell, even just a day, of thinking this is his life.

Henry smiles up at him. "Thanks, dad."

Then he walks back up the stairs, treading carefully on some steps as if he knows exactly which ones will make a noise when stepped on.

Killian looks after him for a long times, his heart filled with a longing he thought he'd buried for good centuries ago.

The early hours of the morning are dawning already by the time he finally makes his way back to the master bedroom.