He's not sure if he's dreaming when he first wakes up. (Or at least not hallucinating, morphine drip and all.)

Emma Swan has been in his dreams since...well, probably since he caught sight of her when she went to turn in that deadbeat dad and when David had asked her how the arsehole got injured, she had cocked her pretty head and shrugged, not even bothering to hide the bruises on her left hand.

(It took him three more weeks to work up the courage to actually talk to the woman, but he had dreamed of her that night. Those golden strands thrown out on his bed. The red leather jacket she wore as armour abandoned across the carpet of his bedroom floor.)

So it's not surprising really, that his mind has conjured her image after his injury.

(He doesn't remember the bullet but he remembers the pain, searing through his left shoulder like a cleaver, renting muscle and bone and sinew.)

He's been in love with Emma Swan for a long time.

Not, as David likes to tease, since he first laid eyes on her. (Wanker.) Not even after their first conversation and her bold brush-off after he had punched the bloody bastard. It's not after numerous of his failed attempts to flirt and banter and generally get to know this woman who had him transfixed. It's not the first time they have a night on her couch and they argue over television shows. (Orange is the New Black is clearly better, he has his own feelings about the criminal justice system with his job and all.)

It is in fact, the fifth time they decide to waste time together but Emma looked tired: deep black circles under her unfairly green eyes and a sorta-grunt in greeting when she handed in her latest perp. It was the way her shoulders fell, that had him inviting her to his flat that night. The tiny nod without protest. The way he had sensed she was too…(exhausted, emotional, anything) to banter over movies or tv and instead he had made her hot cocoa with a generous dash and rum and simply read a opened up a book to read while she lounged on his couch. (He'd never forget how her hair looked that night, sprawled on his dark upholstery for the first time in riotous waves.)

It was how perfectly unawkward the quiet was between them. It had been how content she seemed to simply be in his presence while she was vulnerable, mug tipping precariously in her grip while she fought to keep her eyes opened. It was how she hadn't even argued when he spotted the molting purple bruise on her shoulder when she changed into pajamas (his clothes: Liam's hand-me-down t-shirt and a pair of his sweats three sizes to big for her). It had been the way she swayed her head into his shoulder as he applied antiseptic and wrapped a bandage around the bruise, simply resting and trusting that he would care for her at that moment.

It was the way she had looked, sprawled out on his big bed with her fair skin against his dark linens and the last of the light catching her freckles as she mumbled half-asleep when he wished her goodnight.

That, that had been the night he fell in love with Emma Swan.

But she woke as skittish as a colt and nearly fled in the morning, so Killian Jones resolved to do nothing about it. He was a patient man. He could wait for her to feel the same. (Pray she did so.)

And then, they slept together.

There had been rum involved. (Not enough to truly impair judgement, he wasn't a wanker. Just enough that his eyes were too slow to avoid staring at her arse as she turned and enough that she wasn't afraid to show him the mischievous smirk his ogling caused her and then-

Then she had kissed him.

Any man who had ever left her behind had clearly been dirt beneath her shoes. The woman kissed him, she kissed like fire and heaven and stars and lit him up from the inside and-

Was gone by morning.

Killian wasn't surprised by the disappointment he felt, by the shame that he had pushed her too far. He had known, in some dim part of his brain, as her fingers had reached under the waistband of his pants, that this would happen.

(But then her hand had enclosed around him, tiny but sure and fingers strong as she tugged and tugged until that voice had faded and there was only Emma. The beautiful lines of her body, the jagged scars on her belly he kissed. The wet, hot heat of her he felt even through a layer of latex that made his eyes roll into his head until he thought he might drown. The sality, addicting taste of her on his tongue and the way her hair tossed and turned from gold to silver as he pleasured her.)

He had tried. Christ knows, he had tried. He had texted and called and sent cat videos and silly emojis and banter about Stranger Things.

No response.

Until one day he got a call from AAMC that patient Emma Swan was hospitalized and he was her emergency contact and would he mind terribly coming down and-

He was off the phone and in the car before the receptionist had finished explaining.

And there she was, beaten nearly to a bloody pulp by some arsehole skip and crying, crying over being cruel to him with an IV in her slender wrist and her tears were cold and her eyes were gray and there was a black eye on the left side of her face blooming-

He swore that day that no matter hell or high water, he would never leave this woman. Even if he had to castigate himself into remaining friends, he would not ever abandon her.

("Killian, dude, this guy is pressing charges. He says you all out assaulted him before you cuffed him."

"...I have no idea what you are referring to David. He was drunk when I picked him up. Must have been some party."

"...You know you could just marry her and it would cause less problems.")

And then there were more movie nights. And take-out chinese became meeting at a local diner because (Killian, the grilled cheese here is to die for.) And dinner became her dropping off lunch at the station when he had sixteen hour shifts (Ugh, I can't believe I let tuna sit in my car for the drive here), and him dropping off pastries with questionable amounts of sugar to her when she was on a stakeout. (How does this possibly work, with your monstrously coloured car love?) And lunch became breakfast when they had slept together, again. No rum involved.

(Just the deep sensation of heat escalating through his body as she rode him, plummeting her body up and down his cock until he could swear the earth was on fire, he was on fire, and she was cumming, convulsing, tightening, and-gods, how that felt.)

And he woke up that second morning, half-terrified to find her gone only to find an empty bed. He had closed his eyes, wishing to dream a little longer of a world where Emma Swan was his, was in his bed, and unashamed and-

"Hey, twinkletoes. Ever getting out of bed? I can't get your stupid fancy machine to work."

-And opened his eyes, slack-jawed to find her standing at his door frame wearing only his shirt and scant less else, scowling at two empty mugs in disapproval. He must have made a face then because she went from glaring at the cups to glaring at him. "What? Do I have mascara on my face? Shit, I know I should have looked in the mirror before-"

He was on his feet and clutching her waist before his brain could catch up, an undoubtedly stupid smile on his cheeks. "You look ravishing, love. And I apologize on behalf on my uncooperative espresso machine. Allow me to make a cup cocoa for you to make up for it?"

Those lurid green eyes had dropped to his toes and Killian could swear his heart stopped beating, waiting for her answer. Would she run again or would she take a chance? Had he pushed his luck or-

She shrugged, still staring at his toes. "Make it snappy. I've been awake for like a bazillion years already."

And Killian threw back his head and laughed. (She stayed.)

So dinner became lunch and lunch became breakfast and breakfast involved him learning all sorts of facts about the indefatigable Emma Swan.

She could drink chocolate concoctions at any time of the day.

She was a foster child, a never adopted, never loved, never shown her true worth foster child. (For all his wounds, he praised the fates that he had Liam after she told him, even as his heart broke for her.)

She liked anything sugary or greasy or warm or really, it would seem, unhealthy. ("Killian, why is there kale in the fucking mac-and-cheese? Is this cauliflower?")

She had loved and lost, and he had done the same but as much as he missed Milah, Killian didn't think he had properly concealed his horror at the idea of a lover sending the second one off the plank. Milah had died loving him. Neal had...Neal had…

He was going to murder that boy if he ever met him.

And Emma didn't blink at his hand. She didn't scare when he told her about Liam and Milah and the way he felt he was sometimes cursed. (She had held him instead, a tentative touch at his shoulder devolving until he was weeping between her breasts and he clung to her as his anchor, solid and real and there.)

So somewhere down the years, he learned that she had the worst taste in music and the most beautiful twist of her hips if he hit her right there. She had lost a child and lost herself if he tongued her clit with a firm pressure with two fingers inside her. She got into bail bonds because she was good at tracking people and could make him speak tongues with her mouth. She surprisingly sung well but rarely and liked to be on top (unsurprisingly.) Until one day, Killian Jones had to take stock of everything he knew about Emma Swan and wondered if they were dating.

It was Ariel whom settled the debate.

(He loves Ariel, he really does. She's the best therapist an officer could ask for. She's caring and sensitive and always goes above-and-beyond initial hours and-

Is excruciatingly interested in his life.

"Killian, you know, Eric and I are having this mix tonight and one of my friends Mulan is coming and I think you two would really enjoy being friends."

"Ariel-I really, truly appreciate your commitment to the health and happiness of the Baltimore Police Department but I really, truly don't want to be..set up with someone."

"Oh but she's perfect. She's recently single and not high maintenance since you're like, half-married to work anyways-"

"Oi-"

"And really down to earth, which you could use since you can be a little bit in the clouds-"

"-Ariel I really-"

"And hot and you're hot too so-"

"-Ariel! Enough. I'm not...I'm not looking to date someone else right now."

Her eyes went wide and green and for all her faults and idiosyncrasies and general insanity, Ariel has always, always been perceptive.

Damn the seas.

"Killian?"

"...Yes?"

"Are you seeing someone now?"

"What? No. Of course not. As it were. I mean, not really. I just, I'm not in the current dating economy and-"

"-squeel It's Emma isn't it?"

"Wh-What?"

"OMG! I've been rooting for you two since you punched Victor. Eric has money placed on you two in the betting pool. How long have you been together? Does she know how you feel? Is she really sweet underneath the mask of apparent badass bitch?"

"Is she really...Ariel, what betting pool?")

So with, apparently his entire precinct betting whether they would end up together, Killian Jones had to admit to himself that he was dating Emma Swan. Even if the lady herself wasn't aware of it.

("And will remain, unawares, Ariel. I love the lass but she's as frightened as a-oh, bloody hell."

SQUEAL)

So Killian Jones had been quietly, truy dating Emma Swan for about a year before, well before he tracked down a child-smuggler and saw his eyes go red until they actually went red because he took a bullet in the side and apparently that's a thing and, well and then he's waking up from drugs and trauma. (He thinks)

Well, he's not sure he isn't dreaming. So, he says the first thing that comes to his addled mind because he thinks he might smell salt and did he mention he hates when she cries?

"Fancy seeing you here, love."

He's an asshole.

That's Emma's first thought.

He's alive and she loves him and she's an asshole.

That's her second, too fast for commas to be needed.

She's probably loved him since she told him about Neal and he clenched his jaw but never shut his eyes, and he's wounded in goddamn John Hopkins with it's disgusting coloured tile.

She wants to punch him. (She can't. He looks, like, too fragile.)

But even under heavy painkillers his eyes are so blue as he trains them on her and smiles, a slightly pained uptick of the mouth and, goddamn him. Goddamn Killian Jones.

"Fuck you Jones," She manages to hiss out in room 34A as she feels her throat clog and eyes well and-oh god no. "What the hell did you think you were doing, getting shot?"

Fuck, those are tears in her eyes.

Goddamnit. Fucking fuck all the fuckers and-

Emma knows Killian somehow senses her tears or whatever because he makes a noise of distress deep in his throat and tries to sit up, wincing as the bandages and IV and stupid drugs tie him down. "Emma…"

She's by his side before he can utter another word, pressing him back to the mattress with more gentility then she knew she had. "Shut up and lay back down. You're injured. Just. Stay. Or whatever."

Sniff.

Killian makes another stupid keening noise in his chest and reaches his less injured arm out until his knuckles stroke down her cheek. "But love…" The words seem heavy, hard for him to form even as his disjointed focus is on her. "You're crying. Please don't cry. I'll do anything…"

He trails off, showing her the wetness of her eyes on his knuckles and Emma shivers, her fingers wrapping in that slightly elongated hair of his neck without her knowledge as she leans over him, trying to keep her voice from shaking so badly. "Yeah well...don't end up in the ER again and we'll call it even."

Killian, Killian who likes awful talk-shows and old book, who nearly left, chuckles at her. His eyebrows rose into that ridiculous hair of his. "A little pot to the kettle isn't it love?"

He's an idiot. She loves him. He could have died. These truths bombard her even as she makes puppy-shapes out of the misfigured marble tiles of his room. "I don't care. You're...you're more important than me so you can't, you can't…"

She hates the way the liquid suffocates her, cutting off her words and making his forearm stiff as it tries to wrap around her back. As his fingers graze her spine so carefully like she were the one injured.

"Emma, that's not true." God, his voice. His stupid, perfect voice like it means exactly the words he says. "There is no one as important to me as you, lass so it must, at least be even."

He's making a joke so she tries to laugh but it erupts out of her throat like a sob and suddenly she is leaking, just spouting water out into his goddamn hospital bed and-

She loves him. Loves him. Loves him. Loves-

"Emma doll," Killian's voice is warm and soft. "Come here. Lay yourself down. No, this side is perfectly fine I assure you. You're exhausted love. Stop your tears. Oh, Emma, I'm here. I'm here."

She had waited half a moment for the LPN who had appeared at the loud sound of her shrieks to nod that it was okay to lie next to his unharmed left before snuggling into the bed, snuffling into his skin and drawing up covers as his arm curled around her shoulder.

"You and your wife cut such a cute image."

Fuck it all.