A/N: I'm a slave to a slow build... especially when it comes to romance.
Please don't hate me. I never meant for this fic to be this painful.
"Being the mother of his child doesn't obligate you to him, Emma."
When next Monday rolled around, Emma sat at the kitchen bar, staring listlessly at nothing in particular. She fiddled with the empty bottle in her hand, rolling it in small circles on the counter, contemplating the words she'd heard spoken to her a week ago.
They'd been haunting her ever since.
Killian's voice echoed the statement over and over, playing in her head like a broken record, and his words struck a disconcerting chord within her, one she hadn't realized even existed. She refused to believe the truth in those words, that radically presumptuous sentence, but the seed of doubt had been planted, its roots sowing into her mind, growing wild and rampant and dangerous.
"You're going to Neal because you think that you owe it to him, or to Henry, or maybe even to yourself. You do not have to be with him simply because he's the father of your son."
Who the fuck did Killian think he was, anyhow? He had no right to say that to her.
"Tell me, then, tell me that you want to be with Neal because you truly love him and it has nothing to do with a sense of obligation."
Of course she loved Neal – he was the first person she loved, the first person to love her, and she would always be grateful to him for that, for opening her eyes to the wonders of love, for giving her a sense of belonging, a sense of home. It had nothing to do with obligation.
Emma warred against Killian's assumption, turning his words over in her mind as she dissected them into tiny pieces, finding every possible way she could disprove his wild allegations. He was wrong because he couldn't be right, couldn't have so easily uncovered a truth that even she hadn't considered. The possibility that maybe, just maybe, Killian did know her that well settled uneasily with her.
"You and I, we understand each other."
When Emma had said it, she'd meant for it to manipulate him, to goad him into helping her save her town, save her son. She hadn't known how painfully accurate that sentiment was – not when they sought solace with each other on Neverland, nor when she found herself sneaking away to the Jolly Roger every Monday night.
And now, she was quickly coming to realize that Killian knew her better than she even knew herself, that he understood her on a deeper psychological and emotional level in a way that no one ever had before. Not Neal, not Mary Margaret... nobody.
It was unnerving and terrifying. He was a pirate and pirates weren't supposed to be empathetic or understanding or caring or intuitive. But he wasn't a pirate when he was with her, wasn't Captain Hook – he was simply Killian Jones.
It was enough to make her almost miss him. Miss his smug, playful smile and soft touches. Miss his turbulent eyes, dancing with mischief and twinkling with amusement at some humorous secret that he wasn't going to share. Miss his hushed tone whispering into her ear, promising her everything and meaning it.
"Aren't you going to be late for your appointment?" Neal's voice sounded from the couch, breaking her free of her painful reverie.
Her eyes moved to the clock. It was almost 6.
Her heart skipped a beat, her gut twisting into painful knots.
Killian would be waiting for her, expecting her, like he did every Monday night. But she couldn't go to him, not anymore, not when she was trying so hard to fix things with Neal, to do right by Henry, to be a happy family. She snubbed the hurt, forcing it back down into the pit in her belly where she stowed all of her repressed emotion, compartmentalizing like she'd been doing for the past 30 years. She swallowed down the wanton desire that thrummed at the edges of her heart, an ache that she refused to give in to, refused to let blossom into something dark and twisted and treacherous, urging her to go out the door and back into her pirate's arms.
Emma smiled at Neal despite the hollowness in her chest. "I thought I'd stay in tonight."
"Skippin' a week?"
Emma ran a finger along the lip of her bottle, thinking over her words before choosing them, trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to convince Neal that she was happy, that she was content, that she was in the place she'd always wanted to be.
She pushed herself up from the counter and walked over to the couch, her heart clenching with an indescribable emotion when she saw Henry and Neal sitting together. Father and son. A family. A family she'd never had and always wanted. "Nah, I think I'm done seeing Archie – I've gotten all I need out of therapy."
"You sure?" Neal asked, concern lacing itself in his tone, and he shot her a dubious look.
"Yeah. I have everything I need right here, with you and Henry. Isn't that right, kid?" She stood behind Henry and ruffled his hair, smiling when he brushed her hand off with mild irritation, giving her a look that whined Moooooom.
"Can we have a movie night and order pizza?" Henry looked at her with hopeful eyes, bright smile lighting up his face with a childlike innocence she wanted him to keep forever, one that she'd wanted to give to him – give to him with a family.
She shrugged, "I don't see why not."
"How about Peter Pan?"
Emma and Neal shot Henry matching looks of incredulity, neither able to immediately respond.
"I'm just kidding, Mom," Henry rolled his eyes with a grin, laughing internally at his own joke as he hopped up from his seat on the couch and ran over to the shelf, scanning over the movie titles with a finger.
Emma didn't find it funny. Not even a little bit. Peter Pan would only remind her of Neverland, and Neverland would only remind her of Killian, and that would lead down a dark and tempting path, one she didn't want to travel, scared of what she might find waiting for her at the end.
As Henry thumbed through their DVD collection, Emma sat down beside Neal, cozying up to him as she tucked her legs underneath her. She felt cold – she always felt cold – and she buried herself in his side, seeking his warmth, wanting him to chase the cold away, to appease the icy gust that spread over her.
But his warmth wasn't enough, wasn't the same, just wasn't quite right – it was a placating warmth that soothed her skin, but it did nothing to assuage the chill that settled in her bones, in her chest, in her heart.
Neal, oblivious to Emma's emotional turmoil (Killian would've noticed, Emma mused bitterly, hating herself for the unbidden thought as it crept to the forefront of her mind), beamed at her, his eyes crinkling with his wide smile as he wrapped an arm around her and planted a kiss to the top of her head. "I'm glad you're doing better. I promise you I'll do whatever it takes to get you to trust me again. We can make this work, Emma, we can be a family. I know we can."
And oh, how her heart ached at the word.
Trust.
"Try something new, darling. It's called trust."
Killian was everywhere, in everything – a constant, lingering reminder plaguing her thoughts, and she wanted to scream and cry because she couldn't get him out of her fucking head.
Emma smiled sadly as she leaned into Neal's touch, seeking his warmth and finding none.
"Yeah," she lied, "me too."
Tick-tock
5:47
Killian hated clocks.
He waited expectantly in his room, blue eyes flicking to the clock every few minutes as 6 o'clock drew nearer, body buzzing with anticipation, fingers crawling with an unappeasable itch, needing to touch her, to feel her, to hold her close. He busied his restless fingers with the tedium of sharpening his hook, trying to ignore the bud of fear and anxiety that bloomed in his gut, morphing him into something unstable and ugly and dark.
Tick-tock
5:54
She'd be here, like she'd always been there, like she always would be there. Killian tried to convince himself, feigning a confidence he didn't feel, comforting himself with the illusion that she couldn't keep herself away from him, that she was drawn to him as he was to her, that what they shared meant something.
Tick-tock
6:08
So maybe she was running late – it was a brisk November and the weather was unseasonably cold, snow already starting to fall in the quaint town, slowing her down as she made her way to his ship. He whittled away at his attachment, the metal sharper than it'd been in centuries.
Tick-tock
6:17
Killian was now polishing the metallic hook, shining it for the first time since he could remember, jaw clenched so tightly it ached. His eyes were focused far too intently on the gleaming metal, and the harsh glare of reflected light stung his eyes, causing them to water. Or, at least, that's what he told himself as he disregarded the ache in his heart – the anger, sadness, loneliness, and agony that burrowed in his chest.
Tick-tock
6:39
It still wasn't too late. She might show up, suddenly changing her mind as she realized she needed Killian, much as he needed her, and that it wasn't just about the sex. Sure, what they had was complicated and messy and dishonest, but it was theirs and it meant something. Emma would show up at any moment and hesitantly knock on his door, and he would open it with his smarmy, cocksure grin, and she'd throw herself in his arms and kiss him with the passion of a dying woman.
She'd be there, like she was always there, like she always would be there.
Tick-tock
7:07
He grabbed the damned clock from his nightstand as it counted the passing seconds, taunting and mocking him with each and every tick. He clutched it with trembling fingers as red-hot wrath ate at the edges of his vision, tunneling his focus on the bloody fucking ticking hands of that stupid bloody fucking clock. With a tortured yell, he angrily threw the offensive object across the room with an alarming strength, wanting nothing more than for that awful ticking to stop. It connected with the wall with a sickening crack, splintering into fragmented pieces as it fell to the floor.
Tick-tock
Killian hated clocks.