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WASN'T LOVE, LOVE.


Chapter 46: Energy.


The darkness enveloped him, a loud ring filling his ears and threatening to split his head in two. His hand ran over his hair, finding the painful wet spot in the base of his head. The sticky substance covered his hand, slowly making its way down his neck. He shook his head, trying to regain some consciousness, trying to take ahold of his own senses. Slowly his vision came back as his body began to be aware of his surroundings. His back was still pressed against the wall, he had hit a drawer, his left arm was awkwardly trapped between it and his own body, he tried to push himself up, but his legs seemed unable to cooperate, and his jaw hurt badly. Taking a shuddering breath he placed his only hand on the wall and propelled himself up, the scene in front of him blurry. Snow White was trying to calm down Prince Charming, her hands on his shoulders. Both of them were unaware of him moving, with a bit of luck he would be able to leave unnoticed.

He wasn't a stranger to violence. For several lifetimes he had been dedicated to fight, to confrontation. But now he knew that if he wanted to ever have a chance with those people, with this family, he couldn't act violently -no matter how many times they hit him. They were Emma's parents and she needed them, she needed their love, she had craved it during years.

So he just opened the door next to him and went out, placing his feet on every step of the stair with great care, the metal under his feet foggy. Emma was in the kitchen, fondly talking to their daughter, her back at him, eating and smiling at the chattering five years old, but he couldn't listen to her words, the loud noise in his mind blocking everything from the outer world. Killian walked to the bathroom, closing the door behind him before Emma could notice his presence, he looked at his image in the mirror and cringed. It was awful. He was awful. The blood had begun to travel down his back, and his forehead. Emma couldn't see him like that, it would pain her, so he closed the latch, grabbed a clean towel and pressed it to his head. His legs were shaking. He sat on the toiled, waiting for the dizziness to stop.

He would not leave Emma, he would never leave Ruth, and he wouldn't give up Henry. He had a family to keep together. In moments like those he missed his rum. His fears had been true. His eyes drifted to his useless stump, resting in his lap, worthless. He was just that for the couple above, despite his efforts he was a useless one-handed pirate. Maybe it was for the best. Maybe his family deserved something more, something else than an orphan pirate, a pirate that had lived too much, a man who had wasted several lifetimes. Maybe Emma could find someone better, someone who could be loved by her parents and their children. Killian closed his eyes, falling back into the darkness.

-OoO0OoO-

Emma turned around; David and Mary Margaret were in the stairs, both of them seemed angry. She had wondered why the two of them had that sudden urge to discuss with Killian the changes of the living arrangements –now that David had moved in- but now seeing their faces she knew there was something else going on.

"What's going on?" Emma fixed her eyes on them, on the way David's eyes scanned the room, the way Mary was holding him back, her hand on his abdomen. She had felt something wasn't entirely true in David's earlier explanation on why they were going to talk with Killian alone, and now they were acting just weird.

"Where's Killian?" David asked, clearly avoiding her question.

"In the bathroom." Emma ate another mouthful of het scrambled eggs. "What's going on?"

"Nothing we can't solve." Mary Margaret answered with a tight smile. "We should get ready for work."

Emma furrowed her brow, it wasn't a lie, but she could see she was hiding something.

"I'm gonna dress for school Mama." Ruth jumped from the stool, hurrying to the room chewing her last piece of apple.

Emma hurried after her glancing one last time at the pair at the top of the stairs, once behind the curtain she sighed taking from the hands of her little daughter the pink princess dress. "No costumes for school." The girl pouted.

Once Ruth was dressed –with totally normal clothes- Mary Margaret was already dressed waiting for the two of them to walk to the school. "Let's go."

Emma glanced at the bathroom door, her heart itching inside her chest; something told her to stay, her eyes met David's who was drinking the coffee Killian had ready for them. "You're going to be late."

"Henry's waiting Mama!" Her husband needed her.

Emma glanced back at the closed door tempted to walk over there and check him, but Ruth was right, Henry was waiting, and she let the little pirate tug her out of the apartment following Mary Margaret, her heart beating madly because she hadn't kissed her husband goodbye, and they always kissed goodbye –and good morning, good afternoon, good night or good whatever they could think of.

But for once Emma let it be, she walked out of the apartment, the door closed by David, and it felt as if she had just betrayed Killian, but Ruth was running down the stairs and she followed her, reaching the bottom of the stairs just as Mary Margaret opened the front door.

The teacher was smiling at the little girl who ran to greet her brother who was waiting next to the apartment's door, taking his hand and walking ahead of them. Emma smiled too, it was her dream, and it was happening just before her eyes, her babies were together, and they adored each other.

"Tell me, how you met Killian?" Mary's question made her smile.

"I've already told you."

"Details." The raven haired woman nudged her playfully. "Come on Emma."

It was true, she had explained the general facts of her life to her new friend, but now that their friendship was strong she felt like opening up. Her family had welcomed the fair woman in their hearts, so she decided that telling her their love history –it sound weird in her mind, despite she couldn't call it otherwise.

"Neal had left me to pay for his crimes, I had given up Henry and I was just out of jail, famished and totally lost. I had an old car, but no money." Emma smile faltered. "The woman who had been in care of my case –a lawyer- found me this job as a waitress at Killian's ship."

"And you fell for each other?"

Emma laughed nervously shaking her head. "I wanted to wait for Neal, Henry's father, at first I wanted to tell him, to find him, I was hoping he would come back for me, but meanwhile I needed money so I took the work." She bit her lower lip, wondering if it was okay, if the other woman wanted to know those crude details. "So at first I fought it, but slowly our friendship grew and my feelings changed until I noticed I was totally in love with him."

"I want to know it all Emma, with more detail."

Emma glanced at Mary Margaret, her face and voice were playful, friendly, but her eyes told a different story, she wanted to know details, as a judge would in a court. Despite it she focused her eyes in the kids and kept talking.

"At first Killian was pissed because the lawyer forced him to take me in, but despite it he took care of me." She side-smiled remembering how Killian swore he would not allow her to lack from anything. He had kept his world. "He discovered I wasn't eating those days I wasn't at work; and he made sure I had always something to eat and money to spend. Then after a couple of moths a group of man tried to –well they attached me, and he saved my life, I ended up in the hospital."

"Someone attached you?" The teacher's eyes were wide open. "Oh my Emma!"

Emma was trapped in a hug that apart from awkward –damn they were in the middle of the street- was far too out-of-place, so she pushed the other woman away. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Yes, I'm- I'm sorry. Keep talking please." Mary Margaret smiled nervous. "You were saying he saved you."

"He did, and then I was completely convinced that I was some kind of little sister to him, someone he cared but not loved, not like I wanted… you know, to be loved. Then he found out I lived in my car, and forced me to move to the ship with him until I could find my own place."

Emma observed how the woman cringed visibly. "How old were you?"

"I was twenty." Mary's face contorted. "No, no. I had my own room." Emma fixed her gaze on the pavement, glancing up to the kids now and then. "Some nights I woke up crying because I missed Henry, I felt horrible for giving him away. Those nights I crawled to his bed so he could hold me." She looked up to find unshed tears in Mary's green eyes. "He was so caring, and loving, never asking anything -I didn't want to leave him and I was afraid he would, that someday he would decide he wanted a woman by his side –not a girl- and then made me go, or that somehow he found out I wasn't worthy of him." Emma laughed nervously. "You know, if I hadn't had him by my side I would have put walls around my heart, banishing any hope to feel again." Emma kicked a stone on the way and blinked fast, trying to stop her tears from falling. "So we lived together as friends. Until I kissed him one day."

"Mama!" Ruth waved her goodbye before changing her mind and running back to kiss her before disappearing in the school playground. Henry hesitated, and then embraced her middle and with a 'see you' and ran after his sister.

"Then you married?"

Emma was thrown out with the question. "Eh? Oh! No. He insisted I needed a place of my own -some foolish idea of him, he wanted me to grow- and I played along, putting it off as much I could, but finally I found the place and we renovated it together until it was perfect." They sat on a bench facing the playground. "I moved there alone, and I missed him so much." Emma smiled feeling the blush spreading to her face, not daring to look at the teacher. "As much as he missed me, because at the third night he came to make sure I was fine and we-" Emma took a big gulp of air smiling like a lovesick teenager. "We made love for the first time."

"You two had never-"

Emma blushed. "Four years and we- we don't until that day, he and his gentlemanly ideas and ways you see." She rolled her eyes. "So he moved into the apartment, and one day he asked me to marry him, I said yes and we did." Emma held up the swan and the wedding ring. "The wedding night we found out I was pregnant. I have never seen my husband happier. He giggled and cried during hours, I couldn't calm him! Most mornings I got up with him talking to the baby bump, caressing it or just singing to it. And the day Ruth born, hell, he was so nervous! You should have seen him."

Mary Margaret touched the swan engaging ring. "It's gorgeous, but why a swan?"

"It was my surname. Emma Swan."

"It looks expensive." Mary held her hand observing it.

"He loves gifting me things like this. I don't like to be pampered like that but he insists that when we go to parties and gala events I must wear them." She sighed taking her hand from the teachers grasp. "You should see my jeweler, is more fit for a queen than an orphan."

"You love him."

Emma smiled closing her hand over the claddagh simple pendant that meant he was hers, he was her love, her friend and he was loyal to her. "We love each other so much." She never dreamed of feeling like that, not even when she was a little girl alone in a dark room with a random foster family, dreaming to be a princess. "I know it's weird, but if that true love thing is true, he's mine, and I'm his true love."

Emma found herself in another hug, but this time she didn't pull away. "Don't worry, everything will be alright." The fair woman released her, her lower lip trembling and her green eyes shining. "You see, yesterday night David and I-"

"Miss Blanchard, may I have a word?" Regina's annoyed voice interrupted them. Emma glanced at her watch and cursed, she was late. Mary Margaret held her arm, preventing Emma to leave.

"Of course." The teacher smiled defiantly.

The mayor seemed to weigh her options, and with a snare walked around the bench to talk to Mary. "I wanted to talk to you about my friend Kathryn. But more specifically, I wanted to talk to you about her husband David. You don't belong together. He's not yours, he's taken, find somebody else."

"I haven't done anything."

"Really? So he just got up and left his wife on a whim?"

"Oh! No he didn't do it in a whim." Emma was surprised of the defiant stare in her usually shy friend. "He remembered he wasn't happy with her. He's going to divorce."

Regina opened and closed her mouth like a fish out of the water, struggling to find the right threat for sure. "Well, listen carefully, dear, cause it's in your best interest. Stay away. He's in a fragile state, he doesn't know who he is or what he's doing, and you're this close to wrecking multiple lives. So, before you do something that can't be undone, let him remember who he was."

Mary Margaret stood up, making Emma stand with her. "I assure you Regina that he knows exactly who he is. He was confused before, not now."

Regina pursed her lips in a thin line. "Then be ready to face the consequences." The dark-haired mayor stormed away, her heels clicking along the pavement as she walked towards her car.

Emma looked amazed at the usually calm and pleasant teacher. "That was great."

"I know." Mary Margaret smiled and kissed her cheek. "Class time, see you at night."

Emma stood there stunned; David was very good if got those changes in Mary Margaret, one night with him and she was a totally different woman, full of confidence to the brim.

She took her phone and dialed Killian's number, the photo on the screen displaying him holding Ruth in his arms, both of them with equal shining perfect blue eyes and bright childish smiles. But the phone rang and rang and he didn't pick it up. Emma decided to go back to the apartment at check him when her phone rang, she opened it. "Killian darling I was-"

"I'm Graham, the clerk had reported some items missing, and you should check it out."

"Okay." Killian would have to wait a lithe longer, perhaps he was in the shower or busy at work after all.

-'/:/:/:/:lS(õ.õ)Sl:\:\:\:\(º.º)/:/:/:/:l¿(õ.õ)l:\ :\:\:\'-

David, James, Charming. He wasn't sure which his name was any more, but he was pacing the little apartment. Killian was still in the bathroom, and didn't answer. A part of him, the part that considered him his only friend was concerned and guilty. The part that was Emma's father -the part that had hold a baby Emma in his arms, and lost his memories just to get up in Snow arms last night- her father- wanted nothing but punish the pirate that had made love to his daughter that morning, with them in the house, that man who had touched, defiled, tarnished his little baby Emma.

David knew they were married, oh yes, he knew it too well and it made his blood boil, because he knew too that Killian was Captain Hook, a pirate, a man who used those around him to his own purposes -a man in whose eyes he had seen adoration for Emma- a man who was nothing but the worst scum in the Enchanted Forest.

A pirate.

Charming, the father, could only see an older man tricking his daughter so she broke the curse.

His phone rang and for a second he started dazed at his own device, Mary Margaret written on the screen, he had to look into David memories to work out the way to use the phone. And the damn voice of David used it to remember him that his friend was in the bathroom not answering and that there was a blood stain in Mary Margaret's room wall. It was awful to have two sets of memories colliding in his head.

"David?" Snow voice made him smile.

"Snow." He had missed her so much.

"How is he doing? Is he okay?"

He breathed hard, knocking again at the bathroom door. "He's still not answering, a coward it seems."

A soft humming responded him from Snow's side of the line. "Maybe he's not there." David tried to force open the door, but he had it blocked from inside. "Did you saw his face this morning? He was terrorized. I think we can trust him."

"Killian is just a pirate, pirates have no code, no honor, no nobility –that's why he can't be trusted Snow!"

David could almost feel Snow smile. "I think he has been helping us all, can't you see it?"

"Please! He's not here out of any nobility; he's not here for Emma!" Charming stood up. "He just wants the curse gone."

"I think we must listen to him."

"Did you remember what happened with Regina? She how far she has gone!" David shook his head. "You pitied her and only got harm in response."

"David, I've spoken with Emma, she loves him, she thinks it's true love." He knocked on the bathroom door again. The man Emma loved, his friend was there. "I've talked with Henry too this morning, they –Killian and him- were working together so Mary Margaret and David fell in love and our curse broke, so we could remember, so Emma could had her parents back."

David placed an open hand on the door, trying to remember every conversation, every exchanged word. "He pushed David towards Mary Margaret." It was true, he had been helping David to sort his feelings towards Mary and Katherine.

"Yesterday I was crying, just before you came, he held me, he told me you love me, he told me we could be a family."

"Why does he want the curse broken?"

"Don't know, but he deserves at least the opportunity to explain himself."

"Okay." He sighed. "I love you Snow."

"I love you Charming."

He closed the device and knocked one last time, Killian's phone began to ring on the kitchen counter. He took it, curious. There was an Emma photo on it, she was smiling, wearing a red dress and some expensive looking diamond necklace, she seemed the princess she truly was in the capture. Instead of 'Emma' it displayed 'my love', and it made it, it made Charming remember all the times David had caught Killian staring with awe at Emma, all the times he had made a small tender moves towards her, loving details that only someone who truly loved like him could see. That man -pirate or restaurant owner- loved his daughter.

So he kicked the bathroom door open, to find him lying on the bathroom floor, blood covering the white tiles.

0O0o0O0o0O0o0O0

Emma ended up in Granny's, her shift was off and she had been out of the station all day, not avoiding her boss, but being glad that she hadn't have to face him. She still felt like throwing up every time the image of the pair –mayor and sheriff- came into her mind. Apart from that every time she was about to check her husband something happened and the deputy was needed. She just wanted to buy some takeaway from Granny and then head home. It was her turn to cook, but she wasn't in the mood tonight, she was tired. All day long something had bothered her, making her stand on the edge, and Killian's phone was off.

She opened the door, her eyes finding the figure of her boss, the sheriff standing in the middle of the diner. "Emma! What can I get you?" Ruby asked approaching her with her notepad.

Graham turned around, it was clear in his eyes that he wanted to speak, he wanted to explain himself, but there was no need. He was Regina's and she was Killian's, she didn't care who he visited at nights, besides it tonight Emma Jones was distracted by the feeling that something was wrong about Killian, she was tired and needed to go home. So that night wasn't for confrontation. "Nothing."

She turned around feeling all the eyes on her as she walked towards the diner's exit. Something hissed pass her, something sharp that landed right next to her head, a dart, Graham had thrown her a damn dart.

"What the hell? You could've hit me!"

"I never miss. You've been avoiding me since last night, when you saw me-"

"Leaving the Mayor? And yes, that is a euphemism. I'm not avoiding you, Graham, I just have no interest in having this conversation. It's your life – I really don't care." She really didn't care, damn, that man was crazy, first his obsession with Killian, then that unsettling way of looking at her, and now he was trying to kill her? She pushed the door open and left the diner and Graham followed her outside, of course.

"If you don't care, then why are you so upset?"

She rolled her eyes, still walking. "I'm not upset."

"If that were true, you'd be at the bar with me, having a drink, and not running away."

"I'm not running away, I just wanna go home with my husband and my daughter."

"The husband that mistreats you?"

Emma stopped then pointing a finger at him as her other hand rested on her hip, she was far done with all the damn concern of the sheriff.

"We are fine. And your affair with the mayor is none of my business. Really."

"Look, can we please talk about this? I need you to understand."

"Why?" There was nothing to understand. She didn't need to understand anything. Because she didn't feel anything for him, he was handsome, but nothing more, Killian was far more alluring and had that aura of danger that still made her wake at the knees when he looked at her with desire. And Emma loved Killian Jones.

"I don't know. Maybe so I can understand?"

"You need an analysis, go talk to Archie."

"I want to talk to you." Emma turned around, looking at him with her best 'no way buddy' eyes. "You don't know what it's like with her. I don't feel anything! Can you understand that?"

"Bad relationship? Yeah, I understand a bad relationship. I just don't want to talk about yours." She had a bad relationship before Killian, one that leaded her into losing her son and losing her hope, her happiness, until Killian picked up all the broken shards of her heart and healed her.

"Look, I know you and Regina have your own issues and… And I should have told you about that before you took the job."

"Yeah, why the secrecy? You're all adults. You can do whatever you want."

"Because I… I didn't want you to look at me the way you are now."

Emma blinked twice. "Why do you care how I look at you?" He was just a man that happened to have an affair with a single woman, there was nothing wrong in it, she wasn't jealous, it was just that she didn't like to know that maybe Henry was suffering somehow because of it.

"Because."

"What?" Emma raised her eyes from the floor, Graham was just in front of her, his lips brushed hers with her words, it made her belly twist awkwardly, and then he kissed her. One of his arms held her against him and his other hand held her head still as his lips caressed her tenderly. She felt something hot and pulsing coming out of her, rushing through her veins to her lips, slipping into him leaving her weak, not dazzled as she usually felt when Killian kissed her thoughtfully, but drained, exhausted. Lazily, she shoved him away.

"What the hell was that?" She asked trying not to lose her balance.

"Did you see that?"

"How much have you been drinking? That was way over the line." Killian was going to be mad.

"I'm sorry, I must"

"What? You what?" She regained some of her strength. "Kissed a married woman out of the blue?"

"I need to feel something."

Like hell, if he needed sex he should go to his mayor, not her happily married deputy.

"Listen to me, Graham. You are drunk and full of regret. I get it. But whatever it is you are looking to feel, I can tell you one thing – you're not getting it with me."

She walked across the street and left Graham alone. She needed her husband now, she was scared; that kiss had stolen something from her, something she wasn't aware she had, not a piece of her heart, but as if some of her vital energy had been sucked out of her very soul.


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