Those Three Little Words

CS Genre: 4b canon divergence from 4x23

There are some moments in life that stand out in such stark clarity everything else pales in comparison. Moments where it feels like everything hangs in the balance; whatever happens, life will never be the same. Moments where time seems to slow down and it suddenly becomes achingly clear what's really most important. Moments where one feels the pain of regret over lost opportunities that can never again be reclaimed.

Emma lived one such nightmare moment in a cobblestone alleyway in the middle of Rumple's and Isaac's psycho alternate universe. She watched in horror, unable to move, almost unable to scream as she watched an evil version of her father plunge his sword into Killian's back.

As she watched the shock wash over his face, and then the light slowly drain from his eyes as he reached out to her one last time, she could have sworn she felt a physical pain in her own heart.

No! He can't be gone, not yet. Not when our life together had just begun! Not before I've had a chance to tell him how very much I love him.

Up until five minutes ago, it had been a fantastic day. She'd woken up in her tower, chained down, barely able to stand straight thanks to the shackles on her wrist. It was the same as every morning for as long as she could remember; she'd lost track of how long she'd been stuck in Rumple's nightmare world (she totally owed him a punch in the face when they all got out of this).

But it hadn't been half an hour later that Henry and Killian had arrived to save her. Two of the men she loved most in the world had done it; they'd found her and freed her.

Rumple had certainly done a number on the alternate universe version of her pirate, making him timid, easily frightened, unsure of himself. But no matter what Rumple had intended, he couldn't change the fact that the man standing before her, the man slowly crumpling to the ground was Killian Jones, the brave, selfless hero who would literally do anything for the ones he loved.

Oh gods! He'd just sacrificed his life for her and Henry, two people he'd only just met. It couldn't end this way. It couldn't!

Emma swallowed back the sobs that threatened to tear from her throat. She had to get Henry to safety; that was what was most important. She'd be damned if Killian died for nothing.

"Mom, come on!" Henry urged, pulling at her hand. "We've got to go!"

Emma held her ground, crouching down (far less than she used to have to) until she was eye level with him. "Listen to me kid. Go find your other mom. Do whatever you have to to stop that wedding and get Regina and Robin to share True Love's Kiss. We have to get back to reality."

Henry hesitated for a second. "What about you?"

"I'll be fine, especially if you and Regina get us home," Emma said. "but I can't leave him there, bleeding out on his own. Don't worry. I can handle your evil grandparents."

Emma's heart pounded as she saw her parents advancing on them, ready to pounce, ready to kill. Henry still looked reluctant to leave her, but she gave him a nudge. "Please kid, you've got to go!"

Henry nodded, and then sprinted in the opposite direction.

Time for "Operation Distract the Evil Versions of My Parents So Henry Can Get Away." Yeah, she really needed to leave the naming of the operations to Henry.

"You wanna pick on someone?" Emma said, looking around for something, anything she could use as a weapon. "Pick on me."

"Brave," Snow said in a cold, silky voice. "Foolish but brave. You do realize, don't you that you will die just like your one handed lover back there? And then I will find your little brat, and I can assure you, since you've made this all so very difficult, his death will be long, drawn out, and exquisitely painful."

Emma felt her mama bear protective instincts flare to life and with it, she felt a familiar buzzing energy just below her skin. Magic? How was that possible?

However she'd gotten it back, now was not the time to ponder it. Now was the time to act. Extending her hands in front of her, she focused on her fear for Henry's safety, her desperation to protect him. The pure light of her magic shot forth, knocking both versions of her parents to the ground, both giving her looks of confusion.

"Yeah, slow painful death is not on the itinerary for my son. Ever." she said.

Snow and Charming lay stunned on the ground for a moment, but all too soon, they got back to their feet, clearly ready to resume the battle. Emma set her feet, taking up a defensive posture, knowing she needed to stop them, but unwilling to truly hurt them. They were, after all, her parents.

Snow rushed her, and Emma let her instinct take over. She called up the strongest blast of magic she'd used yet, feeling satisfaction as it left her hands, collided with her parents, and suddenly they both disappeared in a poof of white smoke.

She wasn't sure where she'd sent them, but it was far, far away from her and Henry. Hopefully she'd bought the kid enough time to save the day.

Immediate danger neutralized, Emma turned her attention to Hook. He lay still, so very still, crumpled on the ground, his hand still extended to her. Emma fell to the ground beside him, lifting his head and placing it gently on her lap.

"Come on Killian," she whispered, "this can't be it! You can't be gone! Please. Wake up, Hook, open your eyes, come back to me!"

He remained still, not moving. Emma put her hand up to his nose, hoping against hope….

There it was! A tiny puff of breath, barely discernable but, it was there. Emma sighed in relief. It wasn't too late; she hadn't lost him yet.

Looking down at him, she gently carded her fingers through his hair, caressed his face, as the tears she'd been fighting back since seeing him stabbed finally welled over.

"Killian," she said, her voice shaky, "I need you. I can't make it through this adventure, any adventure without you. I don't want to try. There's something I have to tell you, something that's long overdue. Something I should have said to you all the way back at the beginning, that night we came back to the future and you told me you gave up your ship for me. But I've been so afraid, and I couldn't do it, but now…Killian, I don't want to tell you like this. Not while you're unconscious, not when you can't hear me. You have to wake up, give me a chance to avoid making one of the biggest mistakes of my life."

She looked down, half expecting to see his beautiful baby blues looking up at her. He'd always, always been there for her when she needed him. She could trust him, could count on him. Her heart was safe with him.

But as the moments passed, he remained still, silent, his eyes closed. If anything his breathing became weaker, his pulse threadier. He was slipping away.

He'd always been there for her. Maybe it was time…maybe it was way past time…she did the same for him.

The fact was, there was something she could do, something he'd tried to do for her back in New York. It was risky. If she tried it and it failed, her heart might shatter into a million pieces that could never be reunited.

But if she didn't, she'd lose him and her heart would be destroyed anyway. She had nothing to lose.

Emma cupped his face in both hands. "Killian, I swear to you I'll say this again when you're awake, when you can hear me, but it looks like the first time is going to have to be like this."

She leaned down, her heart racing, and then stopped when her lips were a whisper away from his. She closed her eyes, let her feelings for him fill her, suffuse her, radiate from her. Let herself believe this would work.

"I love you."

And with that declaration, she closed the distance between them, capturing his lips with her own.

The effect was instantaneous, like electricity, like every bit of magic she'd ever used flowing through her at once. The rainbow shockwave that surrounded them tinted the world in light and color, the force of it all slamming Emma to the ground.

She heard one single word. "Swan?" before everything went black.

~c~s~c~s~c~s~c~s~c~s~

Someone was calling her name, shaking her shoulder, tapping her face. Slowly Emma swam from the depths of sleep and broke the surface.

The first thing she saw was blue.

Killian leaned over her, looking terrified.

"What happened?" she asked, slowly sitting up, letting him support her shoulders and help her. "Where are we?"

"It's over Swan!" Killian said with the broadest smile she'd ever seen. "We're back in Storybrooke, or the outskirts of it at least. The Crockodile's bloody nightmare world is destroyed."

And suddenly it all came slamming back to her—being chained in the tower, her rescue, her parents confronting them, Killian…"

She gasped, looking up at him, reaching for his face. "You're alive!"

He leaned down and kissed her gently. "That I am, and it would seem I have the most astonishingly amazing woman ever to walk the planet to thank for it."

She remembered the kiss, the True Love shockwave, him calling her name.

"It worked," she whispered in awe.

Looking around at her surroundings, she realized that for some unaccountable reason she and Killian had been brought back to the town line, and they currently sat in the soft grass just beside the Storybrooke sign. "And Henry must have succeeded as well. He must have found a way to destroy the alternate universe."

Killian reached up and slowly stroked her face, shaking his head, a gentle smile on his face. "No, love, that was you. That was all you. When you kissed me, I woke, and then the world shimmered around us. When the shockwave cleared, here we were, back home, safe and sound. You are bloody brilliant."

Emma's heart swooped, stopping for a moment before racing. If the kiss had worked to this degree that meant…

She shook her head, smiling at him. "No, Killian. We're bloody brilliant. That was a True Love's Kiss we shared."

Killian surged forward, his intent clear, but Emma stopped him before his lips could connect to hers. He gave her a puzzled look. "Swan?"

"Trust me babe there is some serious hot and heavy making out in our near future, but there's a promise I have to keep first," she said with a smirk, before suddenly becoming serious. Why was this so hard? Why, even now, after they'd shared a kiss proving their love was so strong it could destroy curses, did she want to run away from those three little words?

Emma took a deep breath, gathering up all her courage. She'd made him a promise and she damn well meant to keep it. Letting out her breath, she looked directly in his eyes, and then laced her fingers with his, needing him to anchor her through this.

"Killian, there's something I've needed to say to you for a long, long time," she said.

He smiled at her, his eyebrows raised as he gave her a tiny, encouraging nod. He knew what she was thinking, what she was feeling; he always had. It would be so easy to chicken out, but she was done hiding from him, hiding from her own feelings.

"I love you," she said simply, but with a conviction that rang through the forest around them.

His eyes softened, and she would swear she saw the sheen of tears in their depths. He brought his hand to her cheek, his fingers slipping through her hair, as he slowly brought her to him. "And I love you. Always and forever."

With that, he closed the distance between them, their kiss slow, gentle, unhurried, a declaration of a love far too deep to be expressed in mere words. Emma lay back in the gentle grass, bringing him with her as the kiss went on and on.

This was real, this was right. This was home.

Emma had no idea how long they lay there, languidly kissing, gently caressing, breathing each other in, healing each other's deepest wounds, but finally he pulled back, and then gently laid his forehead against hers.

"You sacrificed yourself for Henry and me," Emma whispered, feeling a tear slip from her eye. "Gold did his best to make you a coward, but you still were willing to die for us, two people you barely even knew."

He kissed her softly once more and then caught her tear with his thumb. "My love, there's no world, no version of reality, where I would hesitate to do anything for you. You are my world, my heart, and no bloody curse or warped storybook could make me forget that."

She kissed him this time, her heart so full she was convinced it must have stretched to twice its normal size. Long moments passed in blissful silence, the only sound around them their lips pulling apart and seeking each other out again and again.

"Thank you," she said, finally, breathlessly, after she pulled back. "But can we please make you almost dying a one-time thing?"

Killian laughed, getting to his feet and then offering her a hand up. "No promises, Swan," he said. "If it comes to a choice between you and your lad or my own life, I'll chose the two of you every time. But I will vow to wait another several months before finding myself in a position to need your True Love's Kiss again."

Emma huffed and then grinned as he laced his hand with hers. "Guess I'll take what I can get. So now what?"

"Now," he said, "we return to town to make sure everyone else fared as well as we did, but afterwards…"

She smirked at him, loving the devilish grin he was currently sending her way. "Afterwards?"

"Afterwards, perhaps we find a secluded corner where we can get to that 'hot and heavy making out' you promised.

Notes:

-Happy Friday everyone! I must apologize for this one. I knew there would be some inevitable angst, just given the moment in the show this story took place, but I had hoped to turn the corner into fluff sooner than I ended up doing. But hey I gave you a TLK (and several other kisses) as well as 3 ILYs—2 from Emma and 1 from Killian, so that counts for something, right?

-Up next: 5a deleted scene: After the Camelot ball and Emma healing Robin, Emma seeks Killian out for comfort. (This has the potential for angst as well, obviously. Just fair warning!