I won't let them break you down
And I won't hear the empty sounds
I'm hopelessly pretending that I know the answer
Angel's light and neon fires that burn so cold through your desires
And all you are is all I need to know...

"Not Broken" - Goo Goo Dolls

Beast of Burden

Her hand hovers over the door before she can bring herself to knock. It seems absurd to knock on the door to the bedroom, their bedroom, but she does anyway before entering. It no longer feels strange to think of it as their bedroom and she had fallen into the familiarity of falling asleep every night with her back pressed against his chest and his arm draped around her waist.

She tossed and turned for hours when he didn't come to bed last night.

She finds him sitting on the edge of the bed and he looks up at her with those blue eyes that she could practically drown in. She sees anger and she sees hurt but underneath all of that, she sees love. He still loves her just as much as he always has. She sits down next to him and puts her head on his shoulder, a gesture that she's done a million times before and she half expects him to bristle at it but all he does is sigh heavily. He's still upset but not enough to deny her.

"Are you still not speaking to me, Killian?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"Anything… anything would be better than you not talking to me."

She missed him. Even though he had been home, he hadn't really been present, letting his anger keep him closed off from her. She missed him last night in bed, she missed how he always managed to find ways to touch her and most of all, she missed hearing that deep but soothing baritone of his voice.

"Why does it matter? You clearly don't see the value in talking to me and you definitely don't want to confide in me."

He rises to his feet and her body aches at the loss of contact. This was why she didn't tell him about her visions. She wanted to avoid this very conversation. She wanted to enjoy the time, however little it may be, that they would have together. She wanted to leave him with good memories.

"You think this was about me not wanting to confide in you?"

"What else would it be about?"

"I didn't want my fate to be a burden on you!"

"A burden? You could never be a burden to me, Emma!"

His voice is uncharacteristically sharp, frustrated and incredulous by her line of thinking, and she shuts her eyes, attempting to force the tears back. He holds her face in his hands and then he's kissing her like his life depended on it, because that's what this was. He had once told her that she was his happy ending and the last thing that she wanted to do was to take that away from him.

"You've already gone through so much, Killian… how was I supposed to tell you that future that we fought so much to have was never going to happen? How was I supposed to tell you that you were going to lose me?"

"I'm not going to lose you, do you understand? I told your father once that I would go to the ends of the earth or time for you and I meant it. You risked everything to bring me back and now it's time for me to do the same for you."

The way that he says it, with that amount of conviction, makes her believe and she holds onto him tighter than she ever has before and she wants to fight. She wants to fight for her happy ending because she deserved to be happy.

She deserved him.

He comes back to bed that night and for the first time since the visions started, she sleeps soundly.