AN: Okay, let me stop you here, if possible, to give some disclaimers about this potential garbage. It's based off the mid season 3 finale and follow up episode , when Hook comes to bring them back. It's basically all canon (Hook shows up, tries True Love's Kiss, tries the memory potion, etc,) but ultimately, he can't quite convince her to trust him enough to take the potion, so he manages to meet her on the rooftop of a building (high enough to be a deadly fall, in theory), and then comes this little one-shot.
I admittedly stole and referenced a lot from season 1's Heart Of Darkness, but it was just so damn adorable that I couldn't help it.
To attempt to clarify my writing style for this particular story, I kinda took a different approach to my usual style, and personalized a few things, and it's possibly a bit hectic and confusing, but so is life. It's a poor interpretation of the chaos that is a human's (at least for me) thought process in an unconventional situation. I tried to clean it up slightly and throw some italics to help decipher between fact and opinion, but the writing kinda ran away with me, and I actually don't completely hate it.
Another warning: I will admit that the Emma we all know and love probably wouldn't have responded to some of this quite the way I've dictated, but I'm lazy. I had an idea, and a spot to put it, and since it doesn't really affect anyone anyway, I was willing to take some liberties. After all, isn't that what most fanfiction is about? Taking liberties, shifting plot or characters or motivations or emotions or whatever suits your fancy to make a story that comes from you?
Feel free to leave a review if you want, but don't feel pressured to if you don't.
And just in case it's necessary, let me leave a disclaimer: I don't own anything but my own messed up mind, the pen I wrote this with, and the computer I typed it with.
To her horror, he stepped to the edge of the roof. She wanted to reach out, try to pull him away, but she should be worried about his sanity, right? He might just throw her if she got too close, or pull her with him, maybe. Logically, she couldn't trust him, right? Somehow, she didn't think he would do that to her. A part of her did kind of trust him. That almost scared her more than his current stance.
Hesitantly, she took a step forward. "Okay, let's just calm down, buddy. Think about what you're doing,"
He gave a weak smirk. "I know exactly what I'm doing." He slowly reached into the pocket of his coat, withdrawing the strange bottle of liquid. That damn bottle. "You don't trust me, and I understand that. You never really have," More riddles. She wished she understood what he was talking about, but he was right. She couldn't take the chance that she was wrong about him. She had to think of Henry, right?
"Let's not be dramatic," she said, reaching a hand out, trying to remain calm.
His gaze became fixated on her outstretched hand, and a wry smile came across his face. She guessed it was another one of his inside jokes. He shook off whatever thought had been distracting him, looking to the bottle, then to her face. "I know you can't trust me. But you don't have to." He gingerly stepped even further back, glancing over the edge. "Take the bottle, after I jump, there's no harm in you drinking it, right? I can't hurt you if I'm dead,"
There was something inside of her, screaming against his last statement. He wouldn't do this, right? This was crazy! Unfortunately, her superpower wasn't detecting a bluff. "Come on. Back off," she tried to quell the panic rising, the lump growing in her throat.
He shook his head. "Swan, please!" His breaking voice tore at her. "Listen to me, this is important! Promise me you'll drink it when I'm gone." She couldn't understand why he was so calm about the fact that he was prepared to jump off a freaking building! Just so she could return to some strange life that she had no memory of. A life that made no sense. It couldn't be real.
"Why is it so important to you that I remember whatever this is?" she asked, pleading for him to step away from the ledge, to think rationally. This couldn't be real, right? Why would he risk his life for something that wasn't real? Was he genuinely insane?
"The only thing I care about is that you don't forget who you really are. You deserve to have your family, to know that you're loved." He offered a small smile.
"I have a family. Henry loves me," she argued. She was losing him. He was genuinely going to do it, wasn't he? Even if she didn't promise. He was that confident.
"You have more family, and so does your boy. You have to remember, please," he held the bottle out again, begging her to take it.
"Why would you sacrifice your life just so I could remember?" she still didn't take the bottle. If she did, he would do it, whether she agreed or not.
He shifted slightly closer to her, giving her a nervous smile. "Because I love you."
She just stared at him, mouth open. How could he love her? She didn't even know him. He himself had said she didn't trust him, so how could he love her enough to do this for her. If her truly knew her, how could he love her? She could feel tears prickling her eyes, and she tried to force them back, along with the uncalled for sob pushing at her throat. She could see nothing but truth in his eyes. He genuinely loved her. Though he'd been hesitant, she knew there was no doubt in his mind about how he felt. Whatever past he seemed to think they had, he loved her.
Her next though came out loud, but she didn't put up much of a fight to stop it. "No has ever done anything like this for me before." She shook her head, trying unsuccessfully to remind herself that he was crazy and couldn't be trusted. "No one's ever been willing to die for me."
He offered the bottle once more, a sad sort of smile playing on his lips. "No one you can remember,"
She stared at it, long and hard, trying to remember why she'd been so reluctant to just drink it. She looked at him and received an encouraging nod. She reached out, putting her hand on the bottle, not quite grasping it completely.
"Thank you," he whispered, closing his eyes and leaning back.
"Wait!" she shouted, fear ripping through her as she nearly lost him. She grabbed the lapel of his coat, pulling him from the edge, closer to her. His eyes shot open, and he searched her face. A thought went through her, though she couldn't be sure where it originated:
About bloody time.
He opened his mouth to say something, but she beat him to it, bring her lips to his, effectively cutting him off. He was surprised at first, like she had been when he did it to her, but instead of pulling away, he leaned into the kiss. It was slow, but somehow familiar. Though it wasn't like the kiss he'd surprised her with previously, she knew this feeling, this taste. Against what she knew was her better judgment, she allowed herself to feel, instead of think. Suddenly, she was surprised when she was nearly knocked off her feet by a wave of power that seemed to originate from them.
She pulled back, closing her eyes as she was suddenly assaulted with memories. Memories of abandonment, of heartbreak, of loss. But more importantly, memories of family, of friends, of love. Names connected to faces, voices, moments. It all came back. Suddenly, she also remembered what had been happening on this New York rooftop. Her eyes flew open, and she breathed a sigh of relief at the pirate, still standing there, awestruck. He was studying her, awaiting her reaction. Better not disappoint.
"Apparently neither of us could handle it." That was all she said, raising an eyebrow, licking her lips.
It was all he needed. His eyes went wide and his face broke into a beautiful smile. "Did you miss me?" That was all he said, raising an eyebrow of his own.
And that was all she needed. She threw herself into his arms this time, allowing herself to sink into his embrace, soaking in his presence. He was here. He'd found her. He loved her. She knew it would take some getting used to. He was her True Love! Man, her dad was gonna be mad. Her mom was gonna be disapproving. Henry would be…
"Henry!" She pulled away from his arms, not completely, just enough to reach into her pocket to withdraw her cell phone. Right as she was about to find him in her contacts, the phone rang. Before even looking at it, she answered.
"Hey, Emma, I'm sorry to bother you, but your son insisted that he had to call you." She recognized the voice as one of Henry's teachers. "He said it was really important."
"Okay, thank you. Put him on." She spoke impatiently, and Killian pulled her closer.
"Mom! Did you feel that? Do you know what happened? Do you remember?" Henry's voice sounded in her ear, and she could tell it had worked on him. He was excited, more excited then she could ever recall him being in this life.
"Yeah, I felt it, kid." She assured. "Do you remember?'
"Yeah!" he said. She could practically see him jumping. "We have to go back! We have to help them! Do you know how it happened?"
Emma looked up at her pirate. He was listening intently to her half of the conversation, apparently still impressed with her phone. He looked slightly confused, but he gave her a smile and a nod.
"Yeah, Hook came to get us. We're going home."