Out of habit, blue eyes shot open bright and early. Their reward? A beautiful, blonde goddess who had shifted in her sleep and turned to face him, one hand tucked under her cheek, the other just barely brushing against his stomach. Their legs were still slightly entwined, and Killian wished he could freeze this moment. The calm before the storm. He knew the moment that he moved, it was all over. He would get dressed and take the yacht back, hopefully without disturbing Emma, and then he'd wake her up only to break her heart.

So he didn't move. Not for several minutes. He just looked and admired and tried to burn the radiant image into his eyes.

And he thought.

He thought about how overdramatic he was probably being. Maybe she wouldn't care. Maybe she would forgive him. She shouldn't forgive him, as far as he was concerned. He had lied to her. It had been before he found out just how much she didn't need that in her life, but even when he'd had the opportunity to come out with it then, he hadn't. Because he was a coward, and he could use the excuse that he didn't want to lose her all he wanted — because it was true — but that didn't change the fact that he'd still been dishonest with her.

He also doubted she wanted the type of attention being with him long-term would bring. She wouldn't want that for Henry, especially. And could it really work anyway? He'd never been one to do long-distance. Hell, he didn't even do relationships. Neither did she for that matter. They were both in uncharted territory, and how could it possibly work?

With that awful possibility in his head, he carefully slipped from between the sheets and pulled on a pair of pants. Rounding the bed, Killian pressed a kiss to her forehead and turned to go back on deck, but just before he could get to the stairs, he heard a soft voice behind him.

"Where are you going?"

Upon hearing her voice, he froze, almost as if he had been caught in some kind of crime. If he couldn't even keep his composure until he told her, he was going to be screwed when he did tell her.

"Oh, I…was just going to take the yacht back. It's early yet. You should go back to sleep, love."

"Or you could just come back to bed?" she suggested in a flirty tone, patting the bed beside her.

"I will…just as soon as I get this back and tied up, okay?" He attempted a smile, but he knew it was awkward and his eyes were completely void of a smile.

"Yeah, okay." She wanted to ask what was wrong, but she was afraid of the answer, so she kept her mouth shut and burrowed further into the pillows. He turned and left the moment she made it clear that she wasn't going to press him, and a million things started running through her head, mostly that he regretted the previous night or felt weird about her telling him she loved him, even though he was the one who said it first completely out of no where.

Emma didn't want to jump to conclusions, but she wasn't stupid. There was something going on.

She nearly drifted off to sleep again before he returned, the motion of the boat moving over the water lulling her back into a nap, but when she felt the bed dip, she was wide awake, ready to get this conversation over with.

"What was all this, Killian?" she asked quietly, her back to him. "Why did you do all of this for me?"

"Because you deserve it. Because I love you. Emma—" He placed a hand on her arm, about to ask her to look at him, but he didn't have to. She was already turning over onto her other side to face him, sheet pulled up to cover her breasts.

"What happened? Are you leaving early? Was all this just to soften the news?"

"I'm not leaving early, Ems, but I do have something that I really need to tell you."

Her expression only grew more concerned hearing that, one hand coming up to gently touch the side of his face.

"Just tell me then. You're scaring me, Killian."

Fuck.

He swallowed, and it felt like shards of glass cutting into the back of his throat. His mouth had gone so dry in a matter of seconds that he wasn't even sure he could speak.

"Emma…"

"I swear to god, Killian, if you don't just tell me —"

There were tears pricking the corners of her eyes, pooling there, ready to fall at a moment's notice. Like she was expecting bad news, expecting to be hurt. And he wished that he could prove her wrong, prove to her that she didn't always have to expect to get hurt by the people she loved.

"I was not entirely truthful that night we met, love," he started quietly, gaze faltering now that he was coming out with it. He was ashamed, and it was showing. "What I told you about me, about what I do, was a bit of a…" Lie.

He gave her a moment to jump in if she felt so inclined — if she wanted to start yelling or grilling him with questions, but she just stayed quiet, eyes trained on him, and he could see her determination not to let those tears fall when he looked back up at her.

"It started as a way to stay anonymous, to…see if you would still like me even if you didn't know who I was or what I did or how much money I had. I thought you were beautiful, and I'll be honest, I wanted to sleep with you. That was my intention until I realized that you were special, which took all of five seconds of talking to you." He grinned then, trying for a smile from her end, but he still received the same stoic look.

"Once I knew I liked you, I wanted to tell you the truth, but the longer I put it off, the harder it was. And then I found out about Henry, and I didn't want to drag him into this. I didn't want to drag you into it either, but I love you, and I fully plan to stay committed to this relationship after I leave here, and in order to do that, you will get dragged into this."

"Get dragged into what, Killian?" she asked, finally breaking her silence.

"You have to know that I never lied to you about anything else. How I feel about you, how I feel about being with you and Henry…I never lied about any of that," he insisted instead of answering her.

"Dragged. Into. What?" she asked again, this time more forcefully.

Killian couldn't get the words out, and he had known this would happen, so he was prepared. Grabbing his phone, he quickly opened the internet browser and handed it to her, a Google search of his name already up on the screen.

Emma had been about to yell at him for continuing to put it off, but then he handed her the phone, and her curiosity took over. She'd be the first to admit — with Henry a close second — that she wasn't the best when it came to the internet. She never had time for it, and if she needed something, she could just ask someone else to do it for her, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to understand why he was showing her that.

Now, she understood.

He wasn't working for the movie, he was in the movie.

How could she be so stupid? Why hadn't anyone else realized this? What was she even supposed to do now that she knew? The shock of it wasn't as harsh as what she'd been expecting when he finally revealed what he hadn't told her, but it was still quite debilitating. Just the realization that she'd been lied to for quite a while was a smack in the face after everything she'd told him. For once, she'd been honest with someone, poured her heart out and not allowed herself to push him away, and look how it turned out.

Further investigation displayed several popular photos to her, and of course, they were with women. Of course. Emma knew they were old, from before, but it didn't matter. She didn't want to see them.

"Here," she said quietly, handing his phone back to him.

He held his breath the entire time she was scrolling and reading, and it startled him when all she did was simply hand him the phone back. He waited, expecting her to say something, but she said nothing at all. She looked…ashamed. It killed him.

Without a word, she held the sheet tightly to her and swung her legs over the side of the bed, looking to the floor for her shirt before remembering where she'd deposited it the night before. Killian realized what she was after and immediately stood, mumbling an almost inaudible 'I'll go fetch them' before disappearing up the stairs again.

With him gone, Emma felt the full force of her emotions wash over her, and it was all she could do not to cry. There was no point in crying about it. So he wasn't exactly who she thought he was — big deal. He still loved her, right? You could still love someone and lie to them, couldn't you? Or did she just want to believe that so it didn't hurt as much?

Despite her efforts, her eyes were teary, and when she heard him coming back, she quickly dabbed them with the sheet, smearing a bit of mascara into the creamy white.

Killian considered tossing her clothes onto the bed behind her but ultimately decided that he would rather face her now than leave her to her thoughts for any longer. He kneeled in front of her after setting her things beside her and took her hands in his.

"Emma, I nev—" His words faltered for a moment when she finally made eye contact, and he realized she may have been crying or was about to start. "I never meant to hurt you."

"You didn't hurt me," she replied, voice slightly cold in tone as she steeled herself against any further emotion. "I need to get dressed now and get home, though."

Her hands pulled back from his, and she was up in seconds, grabbing her clothes and making her way to the bathroom with the sheet dragging behind her.

This wasn't going at all like he thought it would, and he couldn't decide it was going better or worse. He honestly had no clue. She was easy to read, and that hadn't changed, but some part of him would have preferred yelling and name calling to the steely calm that she was giving him. Perhaps some time to cool off was all she needed, time to process. She knew the real him, not the him that was portrayed in the media, in the articles she could now read or the pictures she could now see. If she believed what he said when he told her he hadn't lied to her about anything else, maybe there was hope.

Patiently, he waited at the top of the stairs for her.

Impatiently, she dressed and splashed water on her face.

It was no time at all before she was walking toward him again, and neither of them said a word as he took her home. He kept almost starting the same sentence over and over again, but he could never fully commit, and she was too busy looking out the window to notice.

When he pulled up outside of her place, he fully expected her to lunge out of the car and run to her front door, but she barely even acknowledged that they had come to a stop.

"Thank you," were the first words out of her mouth after that impossibly long stretch of silence between them.

He almost asked 'For?' but it didn't seem appropriate. And his mouth was still dry as a desert.

He never asked, and she didn't tell him. What she did do, however, was lean across and kiss his cheek before she slipped out of the passenger seat and disappeared inside, leaving him more confused than ever about their situation.

Was that her way of ending things?

Was he going to hear from her again? And if so, how long would it take her to decide she wanted to talk to him? Dozens of questions, none of them with any answers in the foreseeable future.

With a heavy sigh, he put the car back into drive, pulled away from the curb, and headed back to his hotel room to tell Graham the news.