iv. and I didn't know I was lost
It's bloody hot where he's laying, but he endures. The Snow White contingent are due at any moment and he isn't going to make a farce out of it before the deception even starts.
He hears their voices approaching and prepares to act the gentle and mild-mannered blacksmith he's been masquerading as. The shock in their voices at the decimation of the village nudges at a part of him, the one that he's always assigned as "Killian Jones." He ignores it in favor of the overlying purpose of getting to Storybrooke and getting to the Dark One. He's gotten used to stamping down on the man he'd been before Rumpelstiltskin.
It doesn't take one of the women long to find him. Her voice sets something vibrating at the back of his mind and he's even more on alert than he was. As the dead body is pushed off of him, he blinks in the sudden light. He recognizes Snow White from the posters that had surrounded her kingdom when she'd ruled long ago. His eyes cut across the other faces and lands on the one directly above him.
He's momentarily startled at the face he sees. Her.
He looks back at Snow to cover his shock. The face that he's come across far too many times now for it to be a coincidence belongs to the woman who has just found him. Again. He can see her blonde hair shining in the sunlight, just as its done each time she's revealed herself. He doesn't understand what this is. It's clear she doesn't recognize him.
He knows that there are some worlds that believe in the ability to be born again, but as far as he knows, those that belong to the world of the Enchanted Forest and its surrounding kingdoms don't have that belief.
He can't help but feel that the universe is trying to tell him something.
Which he ignores because the universe hasn't ever told him anything good, instead relying on his own instincts and interests.
As the four help him "get through his trauma," he can't help the sensation that hits his chest each time he looks at her. Emma. He finally has a name to give her.
Of course, given his history with Emma or her former selves, he should've known that she'd see through him. Finding himself tied to a tree, ogres on their way to feast, and Emma turning her back on him, he finally admits what he should've done long ago, maybe sine the first time he could remember seeing her.
She'd bested him. And yet, as he watches her interaction with the other women and the ways she doesn't back down an inch, it didn't feel like he'd lost at all, but that maybe he could come out ahead, forging his path with her. She's a reminder of his former self, of someone who'd really thought of the bigger and brighter picture.
Maybe he'll find himself again. With Emma Swan.
Author's Note: I kind of died out in the middle of writing this so I apologize for the open-endedness. I'm just personally happy that I finished this little short story. If you're up to it, I'd love to hear what you thought about it.