Once comes back tonight! Have a new chapter while you're waiting, I hope you enjoy. Also, a reminder that this fic goes AU after 2x09, and won't follow canon in the new episodes. Thanks for all the reviews; it really makes me happy to hear you like it.
Life goes on. Emma goes back to work, doctor Hopper gets Killian to take O&M classes at the hospital, and he spends mornings there, learning to live in a world of darkness. In the afternoon, the two of them take long walks together, and spend their evenings watching movies with Henry. It feels almost the same as before, but when Emma allows herself to dwell on the past, she's always fiercely nostalgic, and she does her best to hide it from Killian.
A month passes, and the second Gold walks into the police station, Emma knows he's about to turn her world upside down again.
"Miss Swan."
"What do you want?" Emma asks, instantly angry, standing up from the table and walking over to him.
"Careful, dearie, or I might not tell you what I found out", he says, managing to sound threatening even with a smile on his face.
"You found a counter-spell?" Emma asks breathlessly, all her defiance gone.
"Not exactly."
"Then what?"
"Another magical hat", he says, and Emma frowns.
"Weren't they all gone?"
"It shouldn't concern you how I've procured it, you just need to decide if you want to take it and go back to the fairytale land", he says, and there are chills running down Emma's spine at the thought of going back to that place.
"I don't understand what does that have to do with Killian."
"Think, miss Swan. If he remembers, his sight returns. But it works the other way around too."
"The lake!" Emma exclaims, and suddenly feels a bit lightheaded. He's dangling the answer in front of her face, but she's fairly certain he won't hand over the hat without a price. "I bring him the water from the lake, and he'll be able to see again, which means his memories will also return."
"Like magic", Gold adds with a small smile.
"What do you want in return?"
"You owe me a favor once more, miss Swan", Gold says, and Emma nods slowly.
"Can I think about it?"
"Let me know by tomorrow morning", he says curtly, and then he's gone as suddenly as he had appeared.
Emma stands in the middle of her office, closes her eyes and tries to figure out what to do.
She gets home a bit later than usual and finds Killian alone in the kitchen, doing the dishes. It's like she travelled back in time and stumbled upon a scene from a year ago when that week he was supposed to stay turned into a month and he somehow ended up living with her and Henry for good.
"Where's Henry?" She asks from the doorway, watching his profile in the dim light coming from the hallway and thinking how there never really was a question of whether she would go or not. It's only a matter of time, because she doesn't want to owe Gold another favor if she can help it.
"Doing his homework", Killian answers and puts the last plate to dry.
"Good… that's good", Emma says lamely, and his head turns toward her, his eyes zeroing on hers like he's got some kind of a sixth sense that tells him exactly where she is. It's been happening a lot lately, and if she's being completely honest, it's freaking her out and breaking her heart at the same time because every time his eyes meet hers she feels both like someone punched her in the gut and offered her hope.
"What's wrong?" He asks, coming closer, finding her hand and entwining their fingers while Emma refuses to look up and stubbornly stares at his collarbone.
"Nothing's wrong."
"Then what's right?" He presses her gently, and she just collapses forward and wraps her free hand around his waist, saying nothing, just inhaling his scent and telling herself that she's doing the right thing.
"I just really miss you", she finally says, and she knows that he understands by the way he lets go of her hand and wraps both of his arms around her tightly, but doesn't say that he's there or any such nonsense. She misses her pirate, and he just isn't him.
"I know sweetheart. I know."
Emma walks into Gold's shop next morning with a sword hanging from her waist, and her father following close behind. She hadn't had a wink of sleep last night, watching over Henry and Killian and showing up at her parents' place before 6 a.m. She knew they would try to stop her, but she needed to tell someone where she was going in case she didn't come back, in case they needed to take care of Henry and Killian. But, instead of stopping her, they both offered to go with her, and she barely managed to convince Snow to stay, telling her that Henry needs her more than she does.
"Your attire means you're accepting my offer, then", Gold says, and Emma nods stiffly.
"Yes. You get one favor, I get a way in and out of fairytale land. Deal?"
"Deal. I didn't expect you to take your father with you", he says, and there's a fine undertone of mockery in his voice.
"As if I'd let her go alone", David tells him, glaring at him.
"How do we get back?" Emma asks, anxious to cut the chit chat and start this journey before anything derails her.
"I open a portal again in twenty-four hours, at the same place you come in. If you're not back, I'll keep trying every day at the same time for a week, and after that I'll assume you're dead and that you're not coming back."
"Wonderful", David mutters and Emma just nods.
"Get ready, dearies", Gold says and throws the hat on the floor, the portal opening instantly, and Emma jumping in after her father, thinking all the while of only one thing: Killian finally looking at her and recognizing her as the woman he loves.
Exactly twenty-four hours later, Emma and David are laying on the floor of Gold's shop, dirty, tired and hungry, holding hands and breathing heavily as if they had just run a marathon.
"How was your trip?" Gold asks pleasantly, and Emma gets up slowly, feeling a hundred years old and completely defeated. She exits the shop without a word and starts walking home, leaving all the explanations to David.
She needs to figure out how to tell Killian that she had failed, after disappearing on him without explanation.
He meets her in the hallway as soon as she unlocks the door and comes in, and the fact that he looks pissed off instead of hopeful is a small blessing she hadn't expected.
"Have you gone completely round the bend?" He asks her, crossing his arms in front of his chest and leaning against the wall.
"Can I see Henry before you bite my head off?"
"Did you ever think about what would it do to him, you just disappearing, without telling him or me where are you going?" He steps in front of her when she tries to get past him to Henry's room.
"Killian, please, I just want to see my son", she says, her voice small because she's so ashamed that she upset them both and then came back empty handed, with nothing that would help them forget waking up yesterday morning and finding her gone.
"I can't believe you would do that to him", he says and steps aside, and Emma realizes she'd rather stay here and fight him than face Henry just yet.
"I didn't have a choice", she yells at him, knowing that Henry can hear her but knowing she needs to say it. "If I had told you what I was about to do you'd try to stop me, and you would succeed. You would tell me that Henry having a mother is more important than your sight or your memories, that there's no guarantee that the lake is still there or that it's still got the power to heal you, and that I should just stay here and wait. I know you like the back of my hand, I know every single thing you would say, and that's why I just left. Henry is important to me and I love him more than anything, but I love you too, and I know you would do the same if the roles were reversed, so I did what I had to do." She's breathless by the time she's finished, and she's pretty sure she heard the door of Henry's room opening, but right now she's too focused on what she wants to tell him to let it distract her. "I spent so much time fighting these feelings for you, telling myself that you'd be a bad influence on Henry, telling myself we're fine on our own, all the while knowing that you're the missing piece, and that I'm not only denying myself happiness, but Henry too. You've been a better father to him than I had ever hoped for, and I knew he would be okay with you while I was gone. I wasn't abandoning him, I was leaving him in your care, knowing he'd be just fine."
Killian looks stricken, and Henry comes out of his room and wraps his arm around Emma's waist, pressing his face against her hip. Emma embraces him and runs her fingers through his hair, but she keeps looking at Killian, watching emotions playing across his face as he tries to grasp what she's saying to him.
"What do you think, Henry? Do we forgive her?" He finally says, and Emma laughs, although it comes out more like a cross between a gasp and a sob.
"Of course", Henry says and smiles at her, and Emma leans down and kisses his head.
"Well then, how was your trip?" Killian asks, trying to ask the most important question without asking, and Emma can see he's desperately trying not to get his hopes up, and failing.
"There's no lake anymore", Emma says softly, and it's like a light goes out in his eyes, and they go back to looking as dead as they in fact are.
"What happened to it?" Killian asks, but it's clear he doesn't really care.
"As much as we could gather, there was an earthquake or a magical equivalent of one, and that entire part of the fairytale land is gone."
"And now you owe Gold another favor", he says, shaking his head and brushing past her and Henry on his way to the living room. The sound of very loud rock music fills the house and Emma knows he won't talk to her until he's ready, and she'll have to stay away until that happens unless she wants to risk a severe headache.
"Henry… I was completely sure I would come back", she tells him, and he nods.
"I know. Killian wasn't so sure, though", Henry tells her, giving her absolution easily even though she doesn't deserve one.
"I know, kid. I know."
The atmosphere in the house is strained all through the day, even Henry ceasing his usual chattering at lunch and dinner. Emma does the laundry and is about to do some cleaning but then realizes that the house hasn't been this spotless in weeks, and it's a clear sign of exactly how upset he was with her absence. She used to find it so hilarious that he would clean when he was stressed or worried about something, scrubbing the floors within an inch of their lives and dusting everything until you couldn't find a speck of dust anywhere. He amazes her more everyday with the way he's adapting to being blind, and for the first time she wonders if he could be happy even without sight.
He finally talks to her as she's getting ready for bed, applying the night crème and sighing as she settles under the covers. She watches as he comes out of the dark bathroom into the dim light of the room, shadows playing over his face as he crosses to his side of the bed without any sign that he can't see where he's going.
"I dreamed about you last night, and I remembered your face", he says, and Emma is wide awake instantly, her heart starting to beat faster and faster, spellbound by the sound of his voice as he talks. "You were standing in bright sunlight and your hair glowed like a halo, and you didn't say anything, just smiled and looked at me. You had on jeans and a red jacket, and there was a sword in your right hand, and a compass in your left. I thought you were the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, and then I woke up and you were still gone. It felt like I was the only person in the world, completely alone in the dark, without any hope of finding either light or other people ever again."
"I'm so sorry", Emma says, scooting closer and wrapping her arm around him. "I'm never gonna do that to you again, I promise", she says, feeling sad for what she put him through, and ecstatic because he remembered her face and thought she was pretty. It's beyond silly, and it shouldn't mean so much to her, but it does.
"Don't make promises you're not certain you can keep", he tells her softly and turns his back on her, her hand sliding off him.
Emma returns to her side of the bed and stares at his back for a long time before she falls asleep, wondering why is it that she always manages to screw everything up.
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