Author's note: So this was supposed to be a one-shot, but I wanted to do something from Killian's perspective. I don't have plans to do more, but I didn't have plans for this one, so you never know. Thanks for reading!
"Like seeing the sun for the first time."
This wasn't the most poetic way he'd overheard love at first sight described, but it was the one that stuck with him the most. Especially poignant after long nights on his knees, scrubbing parts of the ship even her captain wouldn't go near.
Most days that first glimpse of morning sun, rising over the water as though it'd spent its absent hours safely tucked beneath the surface, that first taste of sea air coating his lungs, that first and only quiet moment before orders rolled in like the tide, were all that kept him going. They dared him to hope that better things awaited, in another time, another place. Dared him to believe, however nonsensical such an idea might be, that perhaps there was a version of him, somewhere, that'd fallen on better fortune.
When he saw her, after she'd raced down the corridor, not watching her way, and crashed into him with all the grace of a battering ram, every coherent thought left his mind. Save one.
"Like seeing the sun for the first time."
More than this, it was as though order had been restored to the universe, his life's purpose scrawled across an emerald plain. Whatever she asked of him, he'd gladly give.
When he'd helped the boy commandeer the Jolly Roger, Killian knew it would be the bravest thing he did that day. When he helped shoot a dragon from the sky, he knew it to be the most dangerous threat he'd face in his lifetime. And when sunlight itself closed her hand around his wrist, when the breath of her instruction grazed his neck, he knew his heart would never beat at quite the same pace.
But the time was gone too soon. Shy smiles and fluttered lashes and "very" close turned to the rush of battle and a clash of swords and "I never did like pirates."
Terror drained the pigment from her once radiant face—but why should such a woman take pain from his demise?
A sharp exhale. A final glance.
And then the light went out.
—
When she finds him again, after he's awoken in the loft, wincing for the phantom dagger lodged in his back, after the echo of a single syllable has struck him more deeply than any mortal weapon could, when she sends them toppling onto her bed, pinning his hands above his head with a light laugh he commits quickly to memory, he makes a point of apologizing for the panic he caused.
She lets him up from the position he wasn't about to protest, and for a moment she can't quite look at him. "When I…watched you die," she tugs on his jacket collar, her gaze reaching his, "I was afraid I was never gonna get the chance to tell you something."
A confession, once buried deep, now reads like prose across an emerald page, and Killian can't help his smile.
"Tell me what?"
It's on the tip of her tongue, he can feel it—and gods, it's been a solitary truth too long.
"That…I…" she smiles, and it's like a thousand he's worn since he met her. Then something shifts, "…want to thank you…"
He can't deny the cloud of disappointment he's certain crosses his eyes, steals the grin, if only temporarily, from his lips. But he understands her better than most. He knows what she came here to tell him and why she's still afraid. But feelings exist before they're formed into words, and Killian can wait to hear them.
Because he knows.
And he's not going anywhere.
They have all the time in the world.