Beat on (boats against a current)
(rated K)
Her voice is frantic, crackling through the speaker as soon as he answers her call, all harsh vowels and clipped syllables and some jumbled mess of the author and found a way to set him free and bastard's on the run.
He presses the phone closer to his ear, frowning in confusion, and asks her to slow down.
"Damnit, I—" Her voice cracks and something in his chest breaks with it. "I just need help, Killian."
His feet are moving before she even finishes her sentence, pounding out a rhythm against the docks as he tells her to stay put, he'll be right there.
He finds her in the middle of Main Street, pacing back and forth beneath the solitary traffic signal. She is almost sickly pale in the moonlight, doe eyes wide and wild. She tells him what happened, words flying a mile a minute, and he feels the blood in his veins turn to ice.
She released the author.
The author is on the run.
"We have to find him. We have to catch up to him before they do."
He swallows around the fear that is creeping up his throat and threatening to choke the air from his lungs, reaches for her instead, brushing the hair absently back from her shoulders, fingers tracing down the seam of her jacket.
"Emma, there's nothing he can do to you." His voice sounds rough to his own ears, raw and ragged with emotion, and she tilts her head to the side, brow creasing in confusion. "I swear to you, that bloody Crocodile won't lay a finger on you—"
"You think that's what I'm worried about? Rumpelstiltskin?" Her laugh is harsh, bordering shrill. "I don't give two shits what that sparkly elf wants to do to me."
His gut tells him that she's lying, but only a little bit, and it's his turn to be confused, because if's that's not what she's worried about, then what is it?
He doesn't have to wait long to find out.
"If they get to him before we do, this whole town could be in danger, not just me."
He realizes that she's right—of course she is—but he's much more concerned about her safety than anyone else's, and they haven't got a shot in hell of catching anyone if they run off half-cocked. He pulls in a steadying breath—his heart is too old for this, he's sure; one of these days, she's going to be the death of him—and begins to formulate a plan.
"There's little we can do about it at this hour, love, especially on our own." She opens her mouth to protest, but he doesn't give her a chance. "You should go home, get some rest. We'll regroup in the morning, when we have everyone together."
He almost misses the tic in her jaw when he says the word home, but he doesn't, and it's then he belatedly realizes that she's yet to reconcile with her parents.
"You're not going back to the loft."
It's an observation, not a question, and he watches as her chin lifts defiantly, shoulders squaring. She's got nothing but the clothes on her back, and he knows her better than to think she would go for a room at Granny's, which leaves her little yellow car as her only other option.
He sighs, bringing his hand up to rub across his forehead before dropping it down to rest lightly on the small of her back. "C'mon, then. Let's go."
It's a testament to how far they've come when she leans her head against his shoulder and doesn't ask where he's taking her.
He wakes with a start, groaning when the movement jostles at the crick in his neck. It takes him a moment to realize the bunk next to him is empty, sheets thrown back haphazardly.
His first instinct is to panic, to reach forward and press his fingers against the cool pillow, but then he catches sight of her boots still lined up at the foot of the bed, her jacket still thrown carelessly over a chair at the table.
He pulls in a breath, and it's then that he hears the creaking of the deck overhead, too measured and methodical to be anything but footsteps, and he pushes himself up out of the chair beside the bed.
The night is clear, cool with a touch of a southerly breeze. He can see her silhouetted against the bow, moonlight glancing off the flaxen strands in her hair. He approaches slowly, giving her time to collect herself if need be, but when he sidles up next to her, forearms coming to rest on the railing, she greets him with a small smile and dry eyes.
"I tried to be quiet."
"A good captain always knows when there's someone above decks," he teases lightly, and she snorts, leaning her shoulder against his.
"Do good captains always have such ridiculous lines?"
He slips his arm low around her waist, pulling her closer, humming his confirmation into the crown of her head. "Of course. It's how we gain the company of such beautiful women."
He feels more than hears her chuckle, just a quick puff of breath against his collarbone. "I don't doubt it."
Her words hint at something more, a story, perhaps, of a trip back in time with a man not so different, but not so the same; but he doesn't press. He knows his past and he knows the way her body looks in a corset and he knows what he had been privy to seeing in his own captain's quarters.
He slides his hand up the ridge of her spine, over the tension settled between her shoulder blades. "All right, love?"
She lets out a breath, a shaky exhale that mists in the air in front of them. "I'm just trying to understand."
Her eyes slip over the harbor, and he waits patiently for her to continue, fingers tracing absentminded patterns over the thin material of her shirt.
"They took a baby. An innocent baby."
He settles on his elbow, tilting his upper body so that he can look at her. Her eyes were dry before, but now they're glassy, her quivering bottom lip caught between her teeth. "They were trying to protect you."
She rolls her eyes up, an irritated huff leaving her lips. "I can protect my own damn self."
He doesn't fight the grin that quirks up the corner of his mouth, nor does he fight the impulse to reach out and thumb the single dimple in her left cheek. "Aye. And you do a hell of a job at it, lass. But think, for a moment. Put yourself in their shoes. What would you have done with Henry?"
"I would have loved him." Her answer comes, fierce and immediate, before the words have entirely left his lips. If her eyes were glassy before, they're nearly overflowing now, and she blinks several times in quick succession as she tears her gaze away again, and sharp inhale lifting her shoulders.
"I would have loved him," she repeats, softer this time. "Just the way he was. No matter who, or what, he turned out to be."
He doesn't have a reply for that, so instead of speaking, he leans forward, arm slipping around her hips and tugging her back against his chest. He holds her as they both look out over the water, lips pressing against her temple every so often, and tries not to count to number of tears that land on his forearm.
The first thing he's cognizant of the second time he wakes is the feeling of cool fingers ghosting over the lines of his face, combing back tendrils of hair from his forehead. A pair of lips press feather soft against the underside of his jaw, and he resists the urge to shift onto his side and return the affection.
"Careful, Swan," he murmurs as the tips of her fingers slip down the column of his throat. "Too many mornings like this, and you'll spoil a man."
He blinks open one eye just in time to catch her smile, and the accompanying shade of pretty pink that paints the apples of her cheeks, and he can't help but grin.
"Sorry," she says, though the glint in her eyes speaks a different sentiment altogether. His hand slides up over her shoulder, cupping the back of her neck to pull her down for a long, languid kiss, and he's not entirely sure he isn't still dreaming, caught in some fantasy world.
"No need to apologize, darling." His words are muffled when he presses them into the skin of her neck, and it would be easy—so, so easy—to lean forward, roll her back onto the bed and continue what he's started.
But there's an author on the loose, and her son will be calling any moment, he's sure, and he wants more for her—for them—than a narrow bunk on his ship.
He rests his forehead against her shoulder for a moment, catching his breath, and just as he's opening his mouth to speak, she beats him to it, nails scratching lightly at the base of his neck.
"No need to apologize, darling."
Her accent is terrible—all exaggerated vowels, dah-ling. A smile curves up the edges of his lips as he pulls back just far enough to meet her teasing gaze, head shaking. She grins, thumb reaching up to trace over his bottom lip, and he's struck by how intimate it is—this moment, just the two of them, less than half a foot of space between them. They're both fully dressed, her under the covers and him atop them, but it's still an intimacy he hasn't felt for a long, long time—never thought he could feel again—and something in his chest aches, that tender spot on his heart where all the weight of his love for her rests.
She has the power to break him, he knows, and that would be it.
There would be no coming back from Emma Swan.
It's terrifying and exhilarating, and he doesn't have the words to tell her yet—he doesn't think she would run, not now, but there's no way in hell he's risking it—so he swallows back the lump that's risen in his throat and tries for a smile instead.
"I'm happy you got her back."
He watches her gaze trail over the shapes of the ship that are achingly familiar to him. He could trace her in his sleep, he's certain of it, and as glad as he is to have her at hand once more, he knows he would've been content with the opposite outcome, as well.
It isn't a mast and rigging, or a gleaming mahogany deck that holds his heart anymore. The thrill of the fight and the fire of vengeance no longer heat his blood and set his heart racing.
The woman next to him, clasping his hand in her own, does all that and so much more.
Still, he smiles when she glances over at him, a nod in the tilt of his head. "As am I."
She slips her free arm up around his elbow—a comforting gesture, a familiar one, now—as they make their way down the gangplank and onto the dock.
"Maybe one of these days I'll get an actual tour." He catches her teasing smile, and it makes something in his stomach flip to see her happy, to think that he had any part in that happiness.
He hums his acquiescence. "Perhaps. You should know that pirates don't share their treasure with just anyone, however."
She snorts. "Good thing I'm not just anyone, then."
He merely grins, unable to deny her. He's unable to deny her anything, it seems, en route as they are to meet her parents for what will undoubtedly be an uncomfortable breakfast.
He'd be lying if he said there was anywhere else he would rather be.
They fall into an easy silence as they make their way to Granny's, and they're but a block away when she tugs him to a stop.
He glances down, a frown already taking form on his face. He doesn't get a chance to ask, however; in the next second, she's reaching up on her tiptoes, fingers against the line of his jaw. The kiss starts out gentle, chaste. But then he feels her tongue against the seam of his lips, and it's a little intoxicating, the way she tastes like rum from his flask, and the way the scent of lye from his sheets lingers in her hair and on her skin, and he can't help it when his hand finds its way to the back of her head, burying in the silky strands there. Her arms slip down around his waist, fingers tracing the base of his spine beneath the leather of his jacket, and maybe it's the feeling of their bodies pressed together from chest to knee that elicits that positively sinful sound from the back of her throat, or maybe it's the way he bites down—just the slightest bit, completely unintentionally—on the flesh of her bottom lip, but one way or another, he finds himself stumbling blindly towards the closest alley, dragging her with him, reaching out with his hooked arm to cushion her landing as he shoves her, somewhat bodily, against the wall. Her hands are fisted in the material of his shirt, holding him close, and it's a little bit Neverland and a little bit trip-to-the-past and a little bit something entirely new and different in a way that has his blood rushing and his heart tripping and his whole soul falling deeper and deeper. He feels it in her, too, the way she meets him move for move, the way her fingers press into his chest, just over his heart, and linger over the skin of his wrist and the pulse point in his neck.
It's like nothing they've ever shared before, and when they finally break apart, he takes careful measures to catalogue the flush that trickles down under her neckline and rises high in her cheeks, the way her eyes look when the pupils are blown wide and black with want, and he thinks that Emma Swan is beautiful all the time, but she is absolutely glorious when her lips are kiss-bitten red and his fingers are still twisted in her hair.
"You better not say something gentlemanly right now," she rasps, and the sound of her voice tightens his gut. "It might ruin the moment."
He leans down to press his lips against her temple, the curve of her cheek, the corner of her mouth. Their breath mingles together, and he's tempted to just say screw the bloody author, but he knows they can't.
"As you wish."
She leans forward, away from the wall, and for a moment they sway together, clutching onto each other. Her hand cups his cheek, and he leans into her touch, letting his eyes fall closed as his heart rate finally begins to return to normal.
"I thought gratitude was in order."
He blinks, looking at her in confusion, and her eyes tell him everything he needs to know. She's never been one for words, Emma, but he can read her like a bloody open book. Maybe there will be time, later, for long winded confessions and flowery words, but this is all he needs—his savior in his arms, her kiss still burning on his lips, and all the things she can't quite bring herself to say yet shining clear as day in the emerald of her eyes.
He feels gentle affection soften his expression, and he smiles—a real smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes. Her arms slip down once more around his, and he takes a moment to press a kiss against her forehead before they once again start making their way to Granny's.
"Anything for you, my love."