Tumblr prompt for Killian to reveal something about his past that Emma didn't know.
He doesn't say anything when she walks over to him, sitting down on the grassy slope overlooking the bay. He doesn't even move, really. Emma just watches him, aware that his earlier outburst must have had it's reason, must have been more than his growing affection for Henry. She lets him have his silence for a few moments, eyes scanning the strong line of his jaw, noting how he keeps clenching and unclenching, the muscles jumping attractively.
"So you want to tell me what that was all about?"
He doesn't respond, only keeps his gaze steady on the sea.
"Killian-"
"Long ago, when I was with Milah, she told me I was a father."
Emma didn't say anything. She couldn't really, with all the breath from her lungs having been sucked out suddenly.
"He died in childbirth, my lad."
At this he turns to her, blue eyes dark with grief as he catches hers, steady and unflinching in the memory of such a loss. She can't even imagine. So she does the only thing she can think to do in that moment. She scoots a little closer, her fingers entwining with his as she takes his hand.
"I'm sorry."
His smile is weak and it hurts her to see such a helpless expression on his face, to know that there's nothing that can soothe that kind of pain.
"I thought I was going to lose Henry too."
And her eyes are stinging with the tears all of a sudden, but she won't let them fall because she needs to be strong for him right now, in this singular moment. He needs her to be his rock this time. (He loves her son almost as much as she does and it makes her so much more sure of this thing they have together.) She moves just a little closer still, thigh brushing against thigh, shoulder against shoulder as she lays her head in the crook of his neck, looking out over the water again.
"We won't lose him. We'll protect him no matter what."
Review?