A/N: Conclusion!
The title inspiration this time comes from when Gerda finds Kai on the Snow Queen's lake, trying to spell out "eternity" (evigheden in Danish) in splinters of ice as part of deal with the Snow Queen to win his freedom. When she melts his heart, they dance and the pieces are caught up in the dance; when they tire of dancing, the pieces fall down to form the word.
The Snow Queen is actually a beautiful myth. You should check it out. After reading this. Of course.
It was the cruelest punishment. With no exaggeration, nothing that Emma had done to steel herself prepared her in the least to see him, her beautiful pirate, in that awful white gown. She'd avoided it for weeks, begging off visits to the hospital with work on the cases (Snow Queen and library vandal/thief/liar to the mayor).
But now, with the Queen defeated, the vandal mysteriously vanished, she had no excuses left, and her mother had practically dragged her to the ward.
He was smiling, in the midst of telling some story or other to the rest of the patients, gesturing with his hook. It hurt too much to look at him, almost too much to be here, but she willed herself to keep going forward, just talk to him, Snow had begged, he's in there, he's in there as much as Charming was when he was in the coma. Emma had fought, argued, even thrown a tantrum like a child (in her mind, thank you very much, she was an adult), but in the end the recognized pain in her mother's eyes and her father's soft He looks for you was what had sent her through the door.
One of the others looked over at her, and so he turned, dropping his story in the middle. His eyes lit up, and for a split second she saw him, her Killian and David was right, he was looking for me, but then a confused storm welled up and took the recognition from his eyes. But he was still happy to see her, even if he had no idea why, and so much like a puppy he bounced eagerly out of his seat to rush over and take her hand with a flourish.
"My lady sheriff," he announced, bowing deeply, and the rest of the patients giggled a little. It was clear he worked his charismatic magic here, so at least the witch had left his personality intact. Emma wasn't sure if that was the twinge that went through her, or if it was because his hand was so cold. "David told me you might be paying a visit to talk to me about the events of my forgetfulness."
She bit through the thickness in her throat to manage, "Yes. If you don't mind, I'd prefer to do it in private?"
Another giggle went through the crowd, and Killian turned to wink and wiggle his eyebrows suggestively. "Absolutely, lass. Anything for the prettiest lady in the room." A round of sighs and more giggling followed them down the hall.
He, ever the gentleman, allowed her to enter the room first, before following her and closing the door. It was a dismal little room, sterile and white like every hospital room, decorated like every hospital room or maybe nursing home: bed, night stand, bookshelf with the Classics no one actually read, small table and two chairs against the only window. She moved towards the light, hoping to put some distance between herself and Him, but he followed right after.
"So? Did you discover anything? Find out why I don't remember anything?"
It was just like David, to feed him a lie and not tell her a single thing about it. "Um, well, we found a woman, who we think is responsible." Not a total lie, but concealed enough.
"A woman?"
"Her name is Sarah. Sarah Fischer. Does the name ring a bell?"
She turned to look at him, for just a second, figuring she could handle that, but his brow was furrowed in concentration and out of the brightness of the "gathering area" and the adoring attention of the crowd, he looked positively forlorn. "Sarah Fischer… Sarah… snow… I…"
Suddenly, violently, he moved toward the window—the other side of the table, thankfully, though he brushed her hand as he passed by and oh, how she wanted to gather him in her arms and hold him—and slammed his hand down on it, rattling the pieces of a puzzle strewn there and knocking a few of them to the floor. It was one of those distraction activities, "measuring your progress" but really it only kept you busy for a quarter of an hour so the nurses could deal with the screaming patient down the hall. Emma knelt to collect the fallen pieces.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. I just… I get so frustrated. I feel so close to knowing something, and then it slips away again and I'm more lost than I was before because now I'm trying to grasp the feeling of trying to remember at all. Like when I see you. I feel like I know you, sheriff. And no one will say anything about it, but I know that it's true. Is it true?"
He turned back from the window to find her carefully fitting the pieces of the puzzle back together, her fingers trembling a little, but maybe he was just imagining that. "It's such a stupid thing, I must have been trying to put together that stupid puzzle ever since I've been here, but every time I get to close to finishing it I just can't focus, or I find the pieces are all wrong and I have to take it apart and start over. Guess I'm more broken than I thought. "
When she looked up at him, her eyes were filled with tears, and her lip was quivering, and oh, Killian, Killian, Killian, "Killian," the word finally burst forth in a half-sob half-desperate plea, come back to me and she grabbed for him, pulling him close and burying her face in his neck, understanding that he would have no idea what was going on but just maybe, like his attempt at the kiss in New York, maybe maybe maybe it was worth a shot and if her mother was right and he was in there somewhere maybe, but even if not he still looked like her Killian and felt like her Killian and right now that was the only thing keeping her on her feet.
It took her a moment more of ugly, loud sobbing to gain control of herself, but when she did and tried to pull back, she found his arms wrapped around her holding her pinned crushed against him, and she realized her hair was damp, and salt was dripping down her forehead and she pulled back and somehow she knew.
His mouth crashed into hers, in a heady disorientating fraught attempt to fill the void of hours, days, weeks of not touching her, not seeing her, not knowing her, and she didn't know whether they both were crying or it was just the leftovers of a pathetic breakdown on her part but at the moment she didn't care because he was here.
"You came back," she whispered, raggedly, still pressed against him, still clutching him to her like a sailor drowning, and wasn't that just appropriate she thought, because she had been drowning with her Captain.
"I will always come back," and he kissed her again, and everything was right again, in a way it hadn't been since that night in the sheriff's station.
They curled up on his bed, just soaking each other in, the completed puzzle, a picture of a swan in a crown, forgotten on the table.