So baby love me
Before they all love me
Until you won't love me
Because they all left me
I'll be different
I think I'll be different
I hope I'm not different
And I hope you'll still listen
But until then
Baby I got you…

"Rolling Stone" - The Weeknd

Rolling Stone

It's all meaningless, he thinks.

The high he should be on right now, performing the last of his few sold out shows in New York City, should be immense. He should feel untouchable, unbreakable… invincible even. But he doesn't. There's this pit in the bottom of his stomach, this emptiness that not all of the money, all of the women or all of the finest liquor could drown out. His hand reaches for the bottle of rum and he twists off the cap, completely ignoring the glassware sitting idly by.

Well, he could at least try with the booze again…

He polishes off the bottle and coughs as it burns all the way down. That's when he hears it. That small breath of a chuckle behind him. Anyone else wouldn't have even flinched but he could've picked that sound out anywhere.

Because he had been dying to hear it again…

"Emma..."

She leans against his dressing room door with her arms folded, blond hair tousled perfectly at her shoulders and cascading over a simple, albeit short, black dress paired with the pair of leather thigh high boots that she knows that he loves. Her long winter coat rests on her arm while a VIP All-Access badge hangs around her neck and he wonders if she's finally stopped wearing his brother's ring around her neck.

"Killian…"

"You look… well."

"Spare me the pleasantries, Killian. Just tell me why you summoned me here."

"Summoned?"

She laughs as she tosses her jacket onto the nearby couch and perches herself on the vanity right in front of him, crossing her legs and letting her dress hike up ever so slightly. She's so close that he can smell her perfume. He closes his eyes and exhales shakily, remember how his sheets would smell like her for days. She holds up the badge around her neck.

"Robin fessed up that you're the one who sent me the passes, not Regina. Have you forgotten about my superpower already?"

"Yet you came…"

"I knew how much selling out shows in New York meant to you."

The smirk is gone and in its place is a look of genuine sincerity. He had Robin, his road manager, to send her a ticket on a whim. He didn't anticipate her actually showing up but of course she did. Because that's what the kind of person that she was. They had talked about this day hundreds of times: on their way home from yet another low-paying gig at a club, in their cramped studio apartment before even a glimmer of a record deal was in sight and when they spent the last of their savings to record the band's demo record. Of course she knew what this day meant to him.

What it meant to both of them.

Before he even knows it, his hands are sliding up her neck, tilting her face up towards him. How did he ever let her slip from his fingertips? It was the question that haunted him until this day. He wants her back. He aches for her in places that he didn't even know existed. He wants her to be his again but he feels her tense up in his arms and she shakes her head.

"Emma, please…"

"No… I'm not doing this… Not again."

She withdraws from his embrace and folds her arms across her chest. Her eyes are downcast, like she's afraid to look him, and his heart sinks a little. He's done this to her. All of the crap that he's put her through has brought them to this moment.

"It'll be different this time, Emma… I'm different this time."

She chuckles bitterly and he knows why. He's said this before, many times before. He can practically taste the repetitiveness on his tongue. She looks up at him and sighs wearily.

"That may be… Robin said that you were different… miserable even… but I can't seem to get your voice out of my head on the night that I moved out… do you remember what you said to me?"

"I said a lot of things that I regret that night…"

"You told me that you didn't belong to just me… that you needed to belong to the music and your fans and that I was holding you back. You couldn't be the musician that you wanted to be while being weighed down by our life together."

He always knew that he broke her heart but he knew that was the moment that it shattered. He could see it in her eyes that night, seeing all of the hope trickle out of her with that lone silent tear that rolled down her cheek. All of the fight that she had was gone and with a single nod, she walked straight into their bedroom, packed one suitcase and left without saying a word.

"Aye… but here's the crazy part… ever since you walked out, all I've wanted is to belong to you and only you, Swan."

"Killian…"

And there it is… a flicker of that spark that he thought that he had extinguished is back in her eyes. She parts her lips like she wants to say something else but she's stopped by the door swinging open. Robin peeks his head in and offers an apologetic smile to both of them.

"I'm sorry, mate, but you have that interview with Rolling Stone… the reporter is waiting for you in the next room."

"Give me fifteen minutes…"

"You're twenty minutes late as is, Killian…"

"Robin, please… I'm in the middle of something important."

With an exasperated sigh, Robin nods and exits as quickly as he came while Emma shrugs her jacket back on. He can feel her retreating back into her armor and he can't have that. She could deny it all she wanted but he saw that fleeting glimmer of what they had and he wasn't about lose it again.

"I should go… you shouldn't leave Rolling Stone waiting..."

"The interview can wait… this can't, Emma."

"You've worked really hard to get here, Killian… you should enjoy it."

She presses a soft kiss to his cheek, letting her lips linger a few beats longer than she probably meant to, and before she can reach the door, he reaches out and takes her by the hand. Feeling her fingertips lace with his, and how easily she falls back into that familiarity, warms him.

"I'm staying at The Bowery… Suite 1603. Please come…"

He knows that he has no right to ask her to take him back. She's probably got a laundry list of reasons to not trust a single word out of his mouth but she always saw the good in him, even when he didn't see it in himself, let alone deserve it.

And so he waits.

He waits for what seems like hours, pacing in his suite, taking slow swigs straight from the bottle of rum that he's nursing, and he soon realizes that she's not coming. Perhaps there are just some things that you just can't come back from and he would just have to learn to live with that. He sets aside the rum and throws his arm over his face, ready to surrender to the pull of the liquor and drift off to sleep, when a knock jolts him out of his stupor. He pulls open the door wide open and there she is. Before he can say a word, she presses a finger to his lips.

"Are you really ready for this, Killian? Because if you let me go again, I'm not coming back."

And without any sort of hesitation, he scoops her up into his arms and takes her into the bedroom, making love to her in a way that he never did before. Later, he assures her that he's never letting her get away from him again. Six weeks later, after the tour has wrapped, he makes good on his promise by taking her to city hall, where he makes her his wife. Robin makes a sly joke about the sound of a million girls' hearts breaking now that he was married but he doesn't care.

He's got his girl back.