A/N: Hello, yes, I'd like a dose of Dark Swan manipulating love to her advantage, thanks.

.

Touch me, baby, tainted love.

.

It's wrong.

Everything is wrong.

The sparkle in her eye, the leather about her shoulders, the still air around them. He wants there to be chaos (he wants it to be like it was, really) her eyes should be as dark as her title, the wind dishevelling her hair, whipping the golden locks like the whipping of his heart. Killian's heart beats with whip-cracks, each snap one snap too many. The slow, winding lashes of his pulse until the final crack and pound against its cage had once been a sign of hope – and of her – all wrapped up in gentle touches.

But now?

She somehow looks free, and light and that in itself adds a gravity to her presence, as contradictory and strange as it may sound. The harsh lines of her jaw and her cheeks once were soft beneath his worn hand, and now they shine in the dim, dim night stillness making her seem cold and cruel. They are harder than they should be, golden shade and rigid skin around the round of her eyes and their brows.

The curse has been cruel with her, so she is being cruel with it.

Cruel isn't quite the right word, she looks like Emma – is Emma – and that in itself refutes the word, but – it's wrong and the problem all at once. She only half looks callous, still looks - and is - far too much like Emma.

There's a gentle lapping of the water on the sand around them, and it's the only sound until her feet, barefooted (for a change) and still small, begin crunching on coarse sand as she approaches him.

Out of instinct, Killian stands a little taller, his jaw jutting out, his fear under the careful cover of a cad, and a disguise that he hasn't pulled on Emma in a long, long time.

And for once he wishes they were not alone, wishes that her boy were here or her parents so that her focus was not solely on him. He doesn't trust himself. It's a sad old story, fearing once again not how the Dark One may physically hurt him, but that his heart has always been a fealty to someone else, and his heart has always been tortured at the whim of the sorcerer.

(Sorceress.)

"Killian."

He almost cringes at the way she says his name because it's too close, too similar. The soft and encouraging tone falling flat, as though whispered against something, as though hollowed out and the low, grounding bass of her timbre ripped from the word.

It loses its meaning.

(And yet, he hopes.)

He doesn't reply to her though, tearing his eyes from hers and feeling his jaw twitching under the strain it takes to not break. He had been weaker the last time few times he'd seen her, not quite sure what to make of the situation, unsure of where in amongst that blackness and obscurity her heart was and just how much it had been eclipsed.

The answer was a lot.

(But not entirely.)

She edges closer to him, moving gently and sure, her eyes never leaving his and never showing any sign of letting his reluctance to engage dissuade her.

He is trying so hard to not do this – to not fall. Because it is so easy to slip back into the darkness, so easy to let the lure of not caring overtake him, and the temptation of knowing that it would be her he would fall into, her that would drag him.

(Her that would still have him.)

And maybe he should fall.

"Killian."

Still hollow, still tainted. And he tightens his grip on the item in his hand.

"What do you want, love?"

He tries to put some edge in his tone, but it seems futile – they both know she will have the upper hand in whatever this is – and he succeeds a little but mainly his voice simply comes out exhausted. Killian had come here to escape the tension of the loft, their most recent hero gathering a failure, the Crocodile still unable (or unwilling) to provide anything new to go on regarding Camelot, their one true hope at fixing this. However, he should have known better – the water hardly being a place where he, the pirate, wouldn't be found. Still, he was surprised when she hadn't just popped out of thin air opting instead for the walk all the way up the beach, faltering only once or twice to see what he would do, as though he were skittish prey.

(He should have left.)

"What, am I not allowed to talk to you now?"

Emma's tone is so casual and intimate, that it's as though nothing has changed, the hint of the flirtatious grin on her face drifting into her words, as though she is simply teasing him as always. He almost wants to believe it – that she has sought him out for something else – but her voice still sounds so tinny to his ears – and her eyes flicker around them as though calculating, her eyes flickering on her prize.

And he suddenly realises that, of course, those are her intentions.

"I would happily welcome talk with you, Swan, but you must think I'm daft if you think I don't know why you're here."

He knows so plainly why she's here, it's gripped in his hand, the cold metal as unwelcome to him as the teasing look curving in her smile. To her credit, she doesn't ignore his comment, so much as let it feed her look playfully, the one that crawls into him in a not wholly unpleasant way.

She's much too close to him now though, moving well within arm's reach and for one brief moment Killian wishes he had never known who she was, overwhelmed with the need for her, but the other her, and if he had not known her, she would have less power over him.

This conflict seems to rage within him constantly – the distinction between who she was and who she is – knowing in his heart that she is still one and the same, yet not convinced by what he sees before him and what she presents before him as anything close to one and the same.

He is likely to never know where the line is, and she seems determined to never show him.

And he seems determined to find it.

Emma's fingers slowly meet the collared lapels of his jacket, brushing against them tenderly and without hesitation, not quite meeting his eyes, smile still half-lit on her face.

The action is far too familiar.

His grip tightens.

(In more ways that one.)

"Well, would it help if I said I've missed you?"

He laughs at that, a small, sick, sad thing because she's laying it on too thickly, he knows she's lying, and yet the fact that she knows it's what he wants to hear is smaller and sicker and sadder than anything else.

"Not particularly, no."

She adds another hand to his chest, the pair of them largely just sitting there on his jacket, running under the edges until she grips it a bit harder, the tiniest of movements, pulling him forward a little and pulling her up a bit more. Still, Killian remains still and every time she drifts a little closer, his chin lifts a little higher.

Emma, for her part, seems unfazed (probably because his hooked arm rests upon her waist). Inching forward, her nose hovers, never quite touching his jawline, testing his restraint like no other. But it's all wrong. Her hair tense and tied is a sight he's never seen, and as she lingers and her nose makes the faintest of feelings against him, he realises she even smells differently.

"Is this about what she said?"

This is in part why had hadn't wanted to be alone with her. He'd seen her before, but never just the two of them, never had the chance to bring up what had happened before. He wasn't about to ignore her confession – said in fear, in wind and in tears – but it was the last thing he wanted to talk about with the woman who was not quite her, not when he was so unsure which version he was speaking to. Or if Emma would even hear him.

Killian's hand coils a little tighter.

"She meant it, you know," her open mouth puffing little wisps of air against his throat and his jaw, sending unwelcome, conflicting thrills across his spine.

And it is taking all of his resolve.

For all that he cannot believe this is her, for all that her words and eyes lack so much, he cannot believe that this is not still the same woman who loves him. (He cannot believe she loves him). There are two different Emmas, but their organs - their hearts - one and the same, their hands still made of the same quiet touch, and he will go mad with despair if he does not concede that she is still one and the same.

That she is in there somewhere.

He pulls away for a moment, intent upon meeting her eyes with his, of making her rather than him feel uncomfortable for once.

"You mean, you meant it."

There is only one tell that tells him that the seriousness of his voice had any affect – she blinks. Just once. And the look that is on her face prior to and after the blink is unchanged, no sign at all of any feeling. But the blink, the quick snap shut of her lids, is enough.

And it snaps with a swallow of his throat.

What he hadn't been expecting was for her expression to change entirely.

No longer playing jovial and teasing, no longer forcing that angle. Instead, her eyes widen a tad, her expression softer, her lips sadder. Those infuriatingly familiar fingers, five of them find his cheek, their touch feeling like sorrow and apology and magic. Her mouth opens a little, gaping with unchosen words.

He almost believes it.

(Killian wants to believe it so much that he can't help but hope the real Emma is peering through.)

But her other hand, Emma's other five fingers, drift down his right arm and he tenses as the feeling through his leather and his shirt, muffled and barely there, do anything but the comforting gesture she is trying to make them seem they are.

And her fingers finally clasp around his, her eyes still beseechingly intent upon his own, hand cupping his face to ensure it's where his focus is. Part of him wonders what would happen if he just leant forwards and drifted his lips across hers – would it bring her back to him, or bring him into her, would they stand there fighting and choosing sides with their lips.

She may be lying about missing him, but he's definitely missing her, and even though each touch is a lie, he needs to believe that at some point they will stop being deception. Perhaps it is his touch that will help to do just that; perhaps her own are only half a lie.

He knows the looks she's giving him is not quite right, but once again he is struck by the inability to know the line. Is she faking this look, is she faking the tenderness on her face, or is this her and the other Emma is simply struggling to mask it entirely? Are the glittering traces of magic ingrained upon her skin distracting him from the truth pouring out of her?

His throat feels thick with the temptation, the yearning and the frustration. He could do it, he could simply lean across and remind this new Emma of what she is missing, and she only encourages him, fingernails brushing through his beard, eyes inconsistently remaining on his eyes or his lips.

Killian is all too aware of the fact that he's leaning into her, that the tilt of their bodies no longer shows him on the defensive, as he purely and simply misses her. It's like he's forgotten, like the feeling of his cold nose meeting hers erases situation and wavering from his mind now that he is so close, his eyelids dwindling shut as she opens her mouth to breathe openly against his own.

It's so tempting.

And in about three seconds he will give in.

(He should have known better.)

The fingers on his own suddenly begin to do more than just linger, sliding across his knuckles and rings and to the tips of his fingers, trying to uncoil them as silently as possible, trying to pry them loose.

Trying to unfurl the Dark One's dagger from his grasp.

He was under more than he thought he was, lost in the contemplation of reality and fiction, lost boy seeking lost girl. Killian's expression changes from one of pained scepticism, to a rising bitterness as he pulls away and back, the snapping of his heart a sick reminder of the harm – and maybe she is cruel after all as she lets out an almost pained sigh and a condescending, knowing smile at seeing the cocky distrust return to his expression. Her eyes once more meeting the dagger with a yearning that he wishes were trained on him.

So, not the real Emma then.

Emma's tone is still soft though, still trying to lure him under in some way, but the fingers around his are a sure sign he won't be pulled under again.

"The sooner you realise she's gone, Hook, the better."

He slowly draws his hand out of hers, the dagger still there, still refusing to change hands from his. Killian closes his eyes, squinting them to maintain focus, opens his mouth to say something, to bite back for the cold-blooded use of his feelings –

But she's gone.

Leaving him standing alone on the still quiet beach, with nothing, but a stinging heart and a dagger for his efforts, and the feeling that once again his world is askew. Because he knows he should know when she's deceiving him, Killian knows he shouldn't believe the way the darkness tricks him. But it would be easier if she was straight out malicious, if the darkness was palpable in her, would be easier if he could tell just by looking at her what was wrong and what was right.

It would be easier if it wasn't Emma.

And if he could believe she was truly gone.