A/N: I'm sorry, did I say "action"? I meant ANGST. Action pushed to Chapter 8. Let me know if the characters don't ring true in this chapter.
Killian sat on the bench by the school, watching the boats. They weren't doing much more than a lot of bobbing up and down, but it passed the time. A distant bell let him know that Henry would soon be joining him. His mouth began to water.
"Killian! I knew you'd be here today."
"Master Henry. How exactly did you know that?"
"It's kind of my thing. Emma can tell when people are lying and I know what people are thinking. And today you were thinking that you wanted some chocolate."
Henry pulled the Kisses out of his bag and tossed them Killian, who snagged them expertly with his hook. Henry then pulled a sandwich out of the bag and began to eat his lunch, while Killian eyed the small silver package he'd removed from the now open bag. He held it between his thumb and forefinger, raking his middle finger against it to free the confection from the delicate foil. He looked back at Henry and raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, sorry." Henry looked embarrassed for a moment, as he quickly unwrapped a little pile of chocolates for Killian, using his empty sandwich bag as a plate.
"So, what would you like to know today?" Killian began munching on candies, contentedly.
"Um. Well I was wondering, why did you come to Storybrooke? Are you going to have an adventure here? Because it's not really a very exciting place." Henry sounded as if he were trying to break the news gently.
"A cursed town in the midst of a land without magic isn't exciting?" Killian deflected.
"Well, what I mean is, there's not really a lot to pillage. I don't think there's any treasure or anything."
"Well that's where you could be wrong. The definition of "treasure" is specific to the individual. I've got all the gold I need. I've come here for other things. Things that someone like you might not consider valuable."
Killian trailed off, wondering how long he would have to offer vague, unsatisfying answers until Henry gave up.
"That's too bad. I was hoping you'd be able to find a bunch of gold here. That would be exciting."
Henry finished his sandwich while watching the water. Killian was surprised, and relieved that the boy was silent. He was hoping to find Gold as well. He had succeeded in tormenting the man a bit upon his arrival. But Belle's progress was giving him an ache in the pit of his stomach. His thirst for vengeance had impeccable timing, piqued again just as he'd found the most pleasant distraction. He referred to an image of night before, picturing Emma naked in his bed, peacefully draped in his bed sheets.
Killian suddenly felt uneasy, and quickly bid Henry farewell. Henry opened his mouth as if to say something, but decided against it, and simply waved goodbye.
Killian wandered away from the school through alleys and side-streets. He recognized a familiar emptiness that would only be filled by an eyeful of Gold's suffering. He paused in the alley across from Gold's shop, just in time to watch Belle approach the door, sheepishly. Killian lingered in a shadow, eyes glued on the shop as Belle entered. His heart began to pound in his neck as he waited, unmoving, trying to will his eyes to see through the walls, or his ears to detect a hint of anguish.
Much to Killian's delight, Belle stomped out of the shop in a huff soon after entering. She wrapped her sweater around her waist, indignantly and scowled as she walked back towards the center of town. A moment later he heard the loud crash of breaking glass inside the shop. Gold was angry. This was promising.
His eyes were diverted from the shop when he heard the shuffle of a footstep close by.
"Hook?"
It was David's voice. Of all the times he could be walking past Gold's shop, thought Killian.
"David." Hook growled. He held his ground and left his malice apparent.
David slowed to a stop, his hands in his pockets. He glanced at Hook, then back at Gold's shop.
"Everything all right here?"
Hook bit his lip and smiled maniacally, rubbing his forehead with this good hand. It was all he could do to stop himself from lashing out against David, physically. But the man was Emma's father. He chuckled at the absurdity of that reasoning. He was within 50 feet of the crocodile, worried that Emma wouldn't return to him if he traded blows with her father.
David stood and watched bits of Killian's inner turmoil mix with the self-loathing grin on his face. For a moment he felt something for the pirate. He thankfully did not know the depths to which his soul would have sunk if he had lost Snow, but he guessed that despite the pronounced differences in their personalities, he would have found himself in a similar situation.
"I'm going to walk away now." David began to leave, then stopped, and sighed loudly. He turned towards Hook, almost against his will.
"Hook. You've had your chance to be self-destructive. Now you're in Storybrooke. People have stuck their neck out for you. Emma has stuck her neck out for you." He looked as if he wanted to say more, but instead he turned and walked away, briskly.
The lights flicked off in Gold's shop, and Killian was left standing alone in a dark alley. His mouth was dry and he was hot behind his eyes. He turned and stalked towards his ship, gritting his teeth and wishing he could fault David more for trying to guilt him out of revenge. It would have been easier if David hadn't thrown Emma in his face.
Killian took the long way home. He wasn't sure how long it had been since he had last eaten, but it felt like there was a hot coal in his stomach. Eventually, he counted his paces down the dock, reaching his hand out to find the invisible mooring line that would lead him to his invisible gangplank. He hardly paid attention as his ship blurred into view around him, and was halfway across the deck before he realized something was there that didn't belong.
"Killian." Emma was perched on the rail of his ship, enjoying the solitude offered by a cloak of invisibility. She had arrived almost a half an hour earlier, and poked around a bit before becoming increasingly uncomfortable with snooping.
Killian's body tensed in surprise while his heart warmed automatically at the sound of Emma's soft voice saying his name. The darkness he had so recently been wrestling reared inside him like a hissing cobra on the defensive.
"Emma Swan. Back for more so soon, or was it your duty as sheriff to search my ship today?"
Emma could immediately see that Killian was wounded, and lashing out because of it. She looked him over with concern, unhappy with his tone, and therefore ignoring everything he said. She slid off the rail and walked to him.
"I brought you some dinner. Come on."
Emma set off to the galley, which she had found during her earlier exploration. Killian eyed her, his breaths feeling heavy, then followed slowly behind. She unpacked a paper bag, setting his dinner on the table, opening up a variety of take-out containers from Granny's, and a half-empty bag of Hershey Kisses. She unwrapped the plastic silverware and put it in front of him, then sat back to watch him navigate his meal with one hand. He was very adept, but the process still appeared to be arduous.
Killian ate in silence, pretending that his earlier near-episode with Gold was just a result of hunger, and would be cleared up by the end of the meal. Emma sat and quietly looked around at the galley, absentmindedly eating chocolates. Killian watched her slowly unwrap a kiss with her delicate fingers. He snatched it from her as she lifted it towards her mouth. She rolled her eyes and quickly unwrapped several candies for him.
"I wouldn't have pictured you as the motherly type." He looked her over, approvingly in this new light.
"Yeah, me neither. It hasn't even been a year."
"Henry's at least 10. Is there something I don't know about aging in this realm?"
"I didn't raise Henry. I just birthed him. He came and found me when he realized the town was cursed."
"Well, well. Whether you raised him or not, that in itself would convince anyone he was your son."
Emma looked wistful.
"I guess so. I'm trying to catch up. I wish I could freeze him right now and spend a couple more years trying to get the mom thing right."
Killian's head was lowered, but he looked up at Emma through his eyebrows with a serious stare.
"I could take us to a place where you'd never run out of time." It was yet another string of words Killian's mind didn't recognize. Another gut reaction to fatigue, and Emma's close proximity.
"Neverland." Emma looked directly into Killian's eyes. "From what you've told me, I don't think I'm ready."
"Ready for what?" Killian questioned.
Emma hesitated. She had noticed the food had calmed him down, but there was still a shadow lurking in the back of his eyes. She proceeded with caution.
"Time brings about change. If there's no such thing as time in Neverland then I would be stuck the way I am now, for a very, very long time."
"What's wrong with that?" Killian asked, sharply.
"I've got some things to work out." Her eyes flicked up to Killian's when she mentioned things. "I wouldn't want to have any regrets. I wouldn't want to know what it was like to dwell on them for an eternity."
"You do realize I'd be there to distract you, don't you, love? I think we could find some pleasing ways to pass a decade or two." Killian chided her, playfully, uncomfortable with her honesty.
"Sure. Until you figured out a new plan to kill Gold. How exactly did you keep track of whether he was still even alive while you were there?"
"I don't want to talk about it." Killian looked away, his mood darkening, instantly.
"You brought it up. So what did your time in Neverland get you? A couple of lifetimes to plot revenge? That doesn't sound like such a paradise."
Killian was sitting with his chair pushed back onto two legs, his foot on the table. He glared at Emma now for behaving as if she were familiar with his pain. The anger from before coiled in his chest again, ready to lash out.
"You have no idea what I lost. Rumplestiltskin tore out her heart, and I watched her die in my arms. It's not something one can simply shrug off." Killian's voice was dead and low. He had leveled his chair and looked ready to rise out of his seat with anger.
But Emma was prepared to go blow for blow, verbally. She was overtired from the night before and her emotions had been running hot all day.
"At least you know that she was taken from you against her will- that she chose you," she hissed back at him. "I've had someone die in my arms too. I know what it's like to feel so powerless. I wonder if I could have done something differently, every goddamned day. But you know what stings just a little bit worse? Having anyone and everyone you love walk out on you."
Emma was standing now, the lamplight softly illuminating the flush in her cheeks and a fire in her eyes.
"Do you know what happens in this realm when your boyfriend turns you in to the cops while you're in possession of his stolen property? You go to jail. And do you know what happens when you have no family and you have a baby in jail? They take it away from you. Where do I go to get vengeance? Should I hunt the bastard down and kill him because he didn't love me? Why not, right?"
Sarcasm bled through the question.
"And Regina has apparently spent her entire adult life trying to kill my mother and father. Because of her stupid curse, they sent me here and I got raised like an orphan. Then she poisoned Henry instead of me. Should I kill Regina? You're damned right I should, except she's the adopted mother of my son. So instead I have to take her side because I'm the only one who believes Henry when he tells us that she's genuinely trying to change."
Emma's voice had risen slowly, until her speech was officially a tirade.
"And speaking of murderous assholes- now despite every attempt I've made to get my fucking life together, I'm in love with Captain Hook, a story-book pirate who is spending afternoons with my son, and evenings planning a homicide."
Emma slapped her hand on the table, open palmed, to punctuate homicide.
"So, no, I don't think running off to Neverland would help me forget how bad it feels to lose something. Look at you. You're living proof that it's not even possible."
Emma breathed in, finally, echoes of her own words now able to reach her ringing ears. She knew she had said aloud that she was in love with Hook, but she was not phased. She'd known it since the moment she found Killian Jones, just as she'd always known it was doomed for failure, like every other emotional attachment she'd ever formed.
She glanced down at Killian's expression. His face was a portrait of sadness, and his eyes were focused past Emma, at some spot on the wall. She stalked out of the galley and up the stairs to the deck.
"I'll walk you home, love." Killian called out after her, snapping back to reality.
"I'm going to get my bra." Emma shot back.
Killian's mouth twitched, involuntarily. He hopped up from his chair and scurried up the stairs to the door of his cabin to block any possible escape. Emma was shining the flashlight along the floor, looking for her lost undergarment. Killian entered, and lit a lamp, quickly. He then turned to Emma, putting his hand on the flashlight to take it away from her. Her cheeks were glistening with moisture and her eyes were red. He took the flashlight out of her hand and set it down, then reached up to cradle her cheek in his hand.
Emma had been right about a good many things, and there was nothing he could say to her now that wouldn't sound argumentative or ingenious. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek, gently. He wanted to send her off his ship, away from another scenario that would end in more hurt, but his body never responded correctly to the decisions he made when they were together.
Emma closed her eyes, cataloguing another moment in the part of her mind she escaped to when she felt like there was nothing good left in the world. She reached her hands up to touch Killian's face, drawing him down from her cheek to her mouth. She then grasped his collar as she backed into the bed, pulling him down, over her.
They spent what felt like hours in his bed, neither one saying a word, communicating with soft moans and digging fingertips. Emma had watched the darkness dissolve out of Killian's eyes as he first leaned in to kiss her. If this was the only way to rid him of it, then this was the only time they would ever both truly be happy. A tear sprung to her eyes after their final ascent, unnoticed by Killian, who was still wincing with pleasure.
She stayed as long as she dared, but she wanted to be home before Henry woke up. She carefully gathered up all her belongings, removing every trace of herself from the room. Killian stirred just as she was slipping out the door. She walked down to the deck, and off the ship, slowly. She was just reaching the sidewalk when he caught up to her. He walked close beside her, quietly, until she hooked her arm through his. This made him smile.
They were both deep in thought, wondering, imagining, hoping for a beautiful resolution to their night, but preparing themselves for a bitter end. With their minds so engaged, their eyes became lazy. Neither of them noticed the figure with the cane lurking in the shadows of the library.