THE END OR THE BEGINNING…
A/N: I really meant to write fluff, sorry. Some angsty spec fic ahead for 5X15...
She's a realistic person. Not one to get caught up in fanciful notions or sweeping romantic moments no matter who her family may be, Snow White and Prince Charming and the fairytale of it all. More of a prepare for the worst, don't expect the best kinda gal, she'd felt herself ready for any possible outcome.
She was wrong.
Finally alone with him, she had hoped for things to change, his distance, his sadness, and worst of all, his silence. But since they've been sitting together on this couch, she can count the words he's said to her on one hand. "Go ahead, Swan." Well, less than one hand.
With brows furrowed tight, he watches the movement of her hand as her magic does its work, healing and cleaning and setting things right with each pass of her fingers over his skin. When his eyes shut and she feels him lean a bit into her palm, she soaks up the contact, unconscious or not, he's seeking her out and she needs it more than he must realize.
It's over too soon and not soon enough, her magic not powerful enough to heal the wounds inflicted beneath the surface of his newly restored skin and mended leather.
"Killian, please talk to me."
"I don't want to hurt you, Swan."
"Whatever you need to say, I need to hear it. I can handle it."
Lie.
The heavy knock on the front door feels like a stay of execution.
Killian rises with her and she protests, but he shakes her off, mumbling something about needing to move around and not feel so confined. The hurt she feels at that is hard to ignore.
Although somehow familiar, the man towering in their doorstep is a stranger, but not for long.
"Liam…"
Too shocked to find her voice, she steps aside and watches as the two brothers move together to clasp arms, the younger incredulous and the older brimming with a confidence she can't help but envy right now. She can hear them speaking, but her eyes are glued to Killian.
His smile is so pure and full of everything she's been hoping to see from him since his rescue, transforming him even more than her magic from moments before. But this smile, it's not directed at her.
As Killian embraces his long lost brother, an unwelcome, foreboding uneasiness begins to flutter deep in the pit of her stomach. She wants to be happy for this reunion, for Killian, for Liam who will finally be given a chance to have a proper goodbye with his brother before they leave the Underworld.
She just wishes she could escape the feeling that she may be facing Killian's reason to stay.
/
He isn't, not really. He's just another choice. And standing here as night falls around them, with tears falling from her cheek, she finally realizes what she has to do. She has to let him choose.
She tells him she loves him.
She tells him she's sorry.
She tells him she understands.
It's breaking her apart from the inside out as each word passes her lips, but he she can see in his eyes that he knows she is speaking the truth.
He doesn't reach for her as she leaves. One step turns into two, into four, into ten, until she's running, running until her tears can't be distinguished from the rain slashing against her cheeks.
With no real destination in mind, she stops.
She waits.
/
She feels it before she knows, a tug on the tether that's been guiding her down here, to him. It's a tug, but not a pull, a silent nudge in the right direction.
So she begins to walk. One step turns into two, into four, into ten, until she sees him. And he sees her. And then they're running, finally back in the same direction.
He tells her he loves her.
He tells her he's sorry.
She tells him she understands.
It was all about choice and when given the chance, he chose her.