Part 2: Letting Go
When the Coast Guard had finally found him, he had been clinging to the rubble of the ship (oddly enough the very same part of the railing he had clung to the first day he boarded) for a couple of hours. His body was exhausted, after all, he had survived an explosion and a near drowning, but he was stubbornly hanging on. His mental and emotional state, however, was a different matter entirely.
"Sir?" The man with the crew cut was asking. Killian blinked and looked up, not really seeing him. "Can I get you anything?" The search-and-rescue ship bobbed thrice in quick succession as it crested over a few large waves, remnants of the storm that had destroyed the Rum Runner. A week ago, Killian would have been clutching onto whatever solid surface he could have found and trying not to wretch over the side. Now, he almost welcomed the turbulent motions of the sea.
It wasn't lost on him that he was finally cured of his fear of water once and for all. The medic was still staring at him like he was worried Killian would shatter like fine china at any moment. Maybe he was right to. He wondered if he opened his mouth if what would come out would resemble a scream or a laugh at this point. Instead, Killian opted to shake his head.
"Are you sure you aren't in any pain?"
Pain, what a laugh! I've known pain you can't even fathom. "Aye," he croaked, caught off guard by the way his voice sounded so foreign to his ears. Pull it together, Jones, or they'll section you and then you'll never be able to find her. The voice sounded eerily like Liam's.
How could he though? Inside, he felt like his tenuous hold on reality was slipping though his fingers faster than sand.
Find me.
Two words. All it had taken to completely unhinge him.
What had she meant? If it had been a dream, a miraculous vision, his guardian angel, or any other once in a lifetime experience, then perhaps he could have resigned himself over to that of lucky bastard. But her words had meant something more. They had given him the faintest, slimmest glimmer of hope that he might see her again.
"Sir?" The man was still hovering over him, his chiseled features etched in worry. Hadn't he ever seen a man experiencing a total reordering of his soul?
Killian's unfocused stare turned rapidly into a sharp glare. "I'm fine." Kindly bugger off, mate, I'm having a moment here.
"With all due respect, sir, you've been through a traumatic experience. You may be in shock. Perhaps, if you could tell me what you remember, it might help."
Killian bit back on the mirthless laughter that threatened to escape, and wrapped himself tighter in the blanket. Sure, let me tell you about the fact that I'm only alive because the most beautiful woman I've ever seen appeared out of nowhere and saved me. Then, she has the nerve to vanish without telling me how on bloody earth to find her, that is assuming that I'm not just hallucinating.
Well, that was the problem, wasn't it? It wasn't that he thought she might be real, it was that he was terrified that she wasn't. He was absolutely petrified over the fact that any second now he could wake up in a hospital bed and be told it was all just a dream.
"What happened to the others?" Killian asked suddenly, startling the medic with his announcement. Clearly, he hadn't been expecting Killian to start talking any time soon.
"The crew of your boat? They were picked up about half-an-hour before we found you. They were taken back on another ship soon after. Though," and here the man stopped to scratch his jaw, "not before they insisted we scour the area. They barely let us take them on board, insisting you were still alive. One of them, Big something, called you a tenacious old pirate, said you'd never give up without a fight." The medic chuckled and shrugged. "Guess they must have been right."
Upon hearing this, Killian was left speechless. It was a hell of a compliment. How was it that three men he barely knew thought he was worthy of such praise? Why did they care at all? They didn't owe him anything. Maybe it was a guilty conscious thing. Maybe it was just them doing their jobs. Surely it couldn't be because they had thought of him as a friend, as someone worth something. Killian hadn't mattered to anyone for a very long time.
Not since he was pulled from an early grave by an angelic savior.
The medic seemed to sense that Killian was in no immediate danger to himself, but that he really wasn't in the mood to talk. He moved away, not far enough for Killian to be left alone, but at least enough to give him some breathing room. Killian shrugged the blanket around closer, blocking out the evening chill and tried to keep his thoughts focused on the roar of the boat engine and the jerky bounce of the craft as it sped closer to shore. At least those things were solid, easy to dissect. He absolutely refused to think about what would happen once all of this was over.
Unfortunately, it was over far too quickly for Killian to process. Arriving at the Saint Augustine Medical Center, he was treated for a concussion, sea water ingestion, mild hypothermia, and some second and first degree burns. He was treated and released within two days. Two days after that, he was on a plane back home.
Through it all, his thoughts never strayed too far from a pair of striking jade eyes hiding a sadness that touched his soul. He should have been focusing on getting back to normal, to returning to his old life. But instead of facing reality, he found himself growing more and more obsessed over his ethereal savior each day. He wasn't entirely surprised. He was always a bit pig-headed about something once he got an idea into his head.
Over the last several years, Killian was certain his tenuous hold on his sanity would snap at some point. With what he had suffered, it would make sense. But that demand of hers, despite making him feel a level of determination bordering on psychotic, made him feel steadier than he could ever remember being. She needed him to find her. She wanted him. And he wanted her. His goal now was clear.
He didn't know how or why, but he would find a way.
….
Home. Never had that word felt more false upon his tongue. His apartment in New York was not home. It was a shelter, a domicile to rest in, but not a home. Killian hadn't had a home since he was a child. He had thought for a long time that he could make a home with Milah, but she was too free-spirited, always wanting to go new places, see new things. How he had ever talked her into marriage was still a mystery to him. But she had made him feel happy and fortunate. He always assumed that was home enough.
Returning to his previous life was like a daily exercise in torture. Nothing had changed about it, except him. Walking into his apartment felt like walking into a hotel room. Sleep was difficult at best, always filled with the same dreams. He was unsettled, feeling restless in his own skin. For days, he paced his apartment, furious obsessing over her features, the exact shade of green in her eyes, the depth of the clef in her chin, the number of freckles on her cheek. He attempted (poorly) to sketch her, to piece together her face from a million others, and each time he came up short. Nothing else mattered to him.
He scanned every face he saw on the street, poured over millions of images on the net, only to come up empty handed every single time. After all, how was he supposed to find a woman whom he knew nothing about? He didn't have a name, an address, a scrap of paper with a phone number…nothing. All he had was a vague hope that one day, he would just see her (standing across the street, at the counter of a coffee shop, in line at the grocery store) and all of this would just finally make sense.
She might not even be real, his traitorous thoughts whispered back to him.
She was real, he raged, simply because he needed her to be.
Nevertheless, a search of this magnitude required resources and his were rapidly running out. He knew he would have to go back to his life at some point. The thought of going back to that office now, though, left him with a taste like bitter almonds on his tongue. But he knew he had to. He had to do it for her.
It took him two full weeks before he could even think about returning to work. His friends and co-workers had all been informed of his accident, and everyone he met gave him the same pitying look that made him want to curse at them and run them through with a sword. Of course, he didn't do any of those things, but that didn't stop him from wanting to. It was a miracle he didn't need dental work after all the jaw clenching he had done in an effort to keep his mouth shut, when all he wanted to do was to scream.
It was a daily battle with his own thoughts. A civil war with his sanity.
How much longer could this go on? Until I find my Swan, he answered.
Since he didn't have a name for his savior, he decided to give her a nickname, because referring to her as 'mystery girl,' 'my angel,' or 'the most beautiful creature I have ever seen,' never had felt right. Like everything else about her, the perfect name suddenly just came to him right when he needed it most. He had been remembering the way she glided over the water, as if it were solid glass, or as if she was weightless. Her movements were so graceful, he was reminded of the swans that gathered in a pond near his apartment. So he started referring to his mystery woman as Swan. It still made him smile every time.
His work mates, even though they tried to be supportive, clearly thought he was crazy, blaming it on stress from the accident. Before the trip, he had been a jovial fellow, masking his pain with witty comments and a well-practiced smile. It had served him well his whole life. After all, what better way to distract someone from trying to get to know the real you, then to always show them exactly what they wanted to see—a charming gentlemen, completely at ease with his life?
Since his return, however, he found the mask didn't quite fit as well anymore. Often, they caught him staring at his computer screen, his face devoid of any happiness, and incoherently mumbling about swans. They were deeply troubled. Probably because he wasn't doing his job as well as he used to and it was hurting them.
Repeatedly, he was told to see a psychiatrist until he was nearly ready to scream from all their fake sincerity. And then, one night about four months later, it all came to a head.
"You need to talk to someone about this, Jones," Robin stated, while Killian was busy drowning himself in his third whiskey of the evening. Even drunk, though, Killian couldn't help but look up at the door to scan the faces of each new patron entering the bar. None of them were who he was looking for. They never were.
Killian scowled at his glass, having to forcefully remind himself that Robin was just trying to save his job and that punching him would very likely end with him ending up in jail and would mean another set-back in his search. "I'm fine, mate," he replied instead, giving the man his cheekiest smirk, and knowing Robin wasn't going to fall for it.
Robin sighed, "You know, we've left it for months, but clearly you aren't getting over what happened to you."
Killian clenched his jaw and tried very hard not to scream that getting over it was the last thing he wanted to do. Instead, he said, "I'm sorry my reticence is bothering you. Perhaps you should take your drinking elsewhere."
"Jones, I—"
"Don't. Just leave me be and let me deal with this in my own way," Killian growled, feeling a tightness in his chest he couldn't explain.
Clearly wanting to argue that Killian was not dealing with it at all, Robin chose instead to nod curtly and asked the bartender for his check. That's right, go on. I didn't think you were a friend. When Robin was gone, Killian let out a slow breath and asked for his own check, rubbing his chest hard to try and alleviate the pain.
He ended up calling in sick the next two days and working his way through two bottles of spiced rum before he could numb out the ache.
It was another two nights before he realized what had caused it. Somewhere, deep in the recesses of his mind, what rational part was left was screaming at him to drop this fruitless endeavor and get back to reality. It was screaming that Robin had been right, that they had all been right. He was going crazy and needed to get help before it was too late.
What the rational part of his mind hadn't yet realized was that it was, in fact, far too late for help.
Every night, he dreamt of his Swan. It felt like his dreams were the only reprieve he had from the pain in his heart. They went beyond just replaying their encounter. In them, he was taking her out on dates, watching movies together, cooking her a meal. Mundane, trivial things that he had often taken for granted when he was with Milah, he now found were far more important to him than he ever believed possible. He was living a pseudo-life with her in his sleep and he had never felt happier. It was only waking that was painful because he was certain that if he only could find her, he could show her just how much she was coming to mean to him. And if he couldn't, he thought he might not survive.
…..
It took another two months of searching the faces of every blonde he saw in the street, across the room, or standing in a line before he finally just couldn't go on. The painful longing for his Swan was making his chest feel as though he had left his heart at the bottom of the ocean. Perhaps she had taken it with her when she left. Either way, he knew he had to find a way to move past this or else he might as well have let himself drown that day, because what he is doing now is probably worse than the torture he put himself through after the loss of his brother and Milah. Waking up every day was getting to be so hard, he had seriously considered downing a bottle of sleeping pills and never coming back. Actually, it was the realization, staring down at the jar of little white tablets in his hand, that he was on the border of doing something irreversible that made him see the light.
He was either going to waste his miserable excuse for a life away on a madman's quest, or he could just give it up. Let it go.
Mike's words had come back to haunt him in the most painful way possible. He struggled with himself for weeks over the decision, but finally he accepted what needed to be done. He couldn't keep living this way.
Early the next morning, he called up the first therapist in the book, a Dr. Archibald Hopper, and made an appointment for Monday afternoon. Oddly, he thought the decision would leave him full of regret and despair, like he had let his Swan down, given up on her. But that wasn't what he felt at all.
He felt relieved.
And then he felt guilty.
That night, he drank another bottle of rum and cried himself to sleep, her name upon his lips.
Monday was exceptionally warm and sunny, and Killian decided he wanted to walk to Dr. Hopper's office and take advantage of the sun. It seemed like forever since he had noticed the weather. Spring had melted into summer, and now it was almost autumn already. How had that happened? Was he really so focused on her that he hadn't noticed anything around him? Feeling more confident than before about his decision, and bolstered by the beauty of the day, his mood upon arrival was better than it had been for the past six months. It was so good, he nearly cancelled the appointment. Instead, he greeted the secretary warmly and took a seat in the lobby to wait on the doctor, a barely-there smile upon his lips.
Dr. Hopper quietly listened as Killian recounted his tale, offering him an understanding smile when appropriate, but his eyes clearly indicated that he thought that Killian had simply imagined the woman and his subsequent actions were bordering on clinically obsessive. Expecting to be reprimanded for his actions, he was shocked when all Dr. Hopper asked him was why he decided to seek the help of a therapist.
Killian sighed heavily and looked at the ceiling, shifting into the couch as if it could swallow him whole. "I called because I realized that what I was doing was no different than when I first board the ship. I was clinging so tightly to the railing that I was making everything worse. Once I let go, I adapted to the boat and the water, and I realized that a lot of my fears were unfounded."
"The fear of drowning you mentioned?"
"Aye, but not just that fear, I guess. My fears went beyond just drowning," Killian focused his thoughts and chuckled. "You know how they say to face your fears in order to overcome them?"
"Yes," Dr. Hopper replied.
Killian's laugh grew louder. "Well, I'm pretty sure I've been doing nothing but facing them."
Dr. Hopper smiled sincerely and laughed a little. "I'm glad you are able to see the irony and be able to laugh about it. However, are you really certain that you have faced all of them, that you are overcoming them?"
Killian raised his brow at the man.
"I just mean that if you aren't being held back, why are you struggling to move on? Why haven't you been able to 'let go of the rails' as you put it, and find happiness in your life?" Killian blanched at the suggestion, feeling his anger rise up defensively. As if sensing his turbulent emotions, Dr. Hopper hastened to add, "I think you've done an admirable job of dealing with this. Sure, you've been a bit singular-minded over this woman, but most people in traumatic situations can't even bring themselves to get up every morning and keep going like you have. And not many choose to talk about it so frankly, most will just deny what happened to them."
"Oh, I'm definitely not in denial, that's the problem," Killian stated, staring back at the ceiling.
"Aren't you?"
"No." Killian turned to look at the doctor, his gaze sharply focused. "Everything I've told you really happened. She was there. She did save me. I did not imagine it."
Dr. Hopper closed his book and frowned. "Killian, you know that what you are saying isn't possible. And I don't think you are in any way delusional. However, that only leaves the logical explanation that what happened to you was a result of stress and extreme conditions. It's not uncommon for people facing death to imagine a presence with them, guiding them to safety even. I don't want you to think I'm discounting what you are saying, but I do want you to seriously consider the possibility that your experience might not be exactly the truth."
It was like he had been doused with ice water. Killian sat rooted to the spot, unable to speak. Once more he was at war with himself, both wanting desperately to believe she was real and waiting for him and wanting to just give in and stop struggling so damn hard.
With that last lingering piece of mysticism, Dr. Hopper concluded the session, asking Killian if he could come back in a week for another meeting. Reluctantly, Killian agreed, though he was certain Dr. Hopper would never believe him about his Swan. Killian reminded himself it didn't matter. He was trying to move on after all, and wasn't this exactly why he had decided to seek help in the first place?
He was so lost in his thoughts that he barely noticed opening the door to Dr. Hopper's office and stepping through until his body collided with that of the next patient and they both toppled to the ground.
"Fuck," Killian mumbled, picking himself up and popping his jaw back from the impact.
He heard a soft female voice also cursing. And then he looked down.
And his heart stopped.
It was her. Swan. She was there, sprawled on the floor and glaring in his direction. She hadn't yet looked up to meet him, seemingly more occupied with the contents of her spilled purse than that of the person who spilled it.
Killian's mouth went dry and all he could do was clutch at his heart.
"Hey buddy, aren't you even going to apologize?" She snapped, finally looking up to meet his eye.
And in that moment, everything fell into place.
He heard her sharp intake of breath and saw the flash of recognition in her eyes. "You?" She breathed.
"You," Killian repeated.
"It…can't be…" she whispered, rising unsteadily to her feet, never breaking her blinding jade gaze away from his. So softly he almost missed it, she added, "I dreamed of you."
Killian had no idea how to respond. He was torn between falling to his knees and crying and pulling her into his arms and administering a scorching kiss. All he managed was a broken, "Thank you."
She knit her brow, obviously confused, "For what? Dreaming of you? That's a bit egocentric, don't you think?"
He couldn't fight back the smile. She was just as feisty in real life as she had been in his fantasies. "Nay, lass. Thank you for saving my life."
Her whole expression changed, like he had suddenly given her an electric. "What did you say?"
Sucking in a breath, he decided that he couldn't keep the truth from her, even if she ran away. "Six months ago, I was in a boating accident. I nearly drowned. I haven't a clue how, but you saved my life."
She started to blink rapidly, as if her eyes were watering. Her mouth fell open but no sound came out.
"Lass?" He stepped closer, smelling the delicate scent of her shampoo.
She took a step back and shook her head. "That's not…that's not possible. How could you know about that?"
"Know about what?" Killian desperately wanted to reach out and touch her, to pull her closer, anything to stop the fear he saw in her eyes, because he was certain she was ready to run at the slightest provocation. And that was precisely why he hesitated.
"About my dreams," she whispered.
Killian was about to respond, when suddenly, the door to Dr. Hopper's office opened and a very confused man stood between them. "Miss Swan? Are you ready for your appointment?"
"Swan?" Killian repeated, and then his face broke into a huge grin.
She looked at him with a deep frown and put her hands across her chest. "What?"
He had started laughing and found that he couldn't quite get himself to stop, "Nothing, lass. Nothing. But the fact that your name is Swan is just too bloody much."
She gave him a look of pure loathing, and he could sense that being made to feel inferior was a sore subject. "Hey, look buddy. I don't know what your problem is but making fun of my name is—"
"No!" Killian shouted, laughter completely gone now, and his face falling into concern. Damn, I've gone and done it now. She's about ready to bolt. "No, that's not why I was laughing." He turned to the doctor and said, "You know what you said about irony and accepting the truth? Well, how's this for irony, doc? My mystery savior, my Swan, as I called her… this is her."
"Wait, what?" Both of them asked together, completely flabbergasted.
Dr. Hopper recovered first, ushering both of them into his office and away from the curious looks of the other patients.
Killian reclaimed his seat on the couch, leaving the Swan girl nowhere else to sit except next to him. So she chose to stand.
Turning back to Killian, Dr. Hopper asked, "Killian, are you telling me that the woman you've been imagining, the one who saved you on the ocean, is, in fact, Miss Swan here?"
Killian turned to look at her, really look at her, and nodded. "Yes, absolutely."
Dr. Hopper looked completely flustered, picking up a file folder and shuffling through some of the papers. "Um, Emma, I know this might seem highly unorthodox, but would you mind if I told Mr. Jones why you have been coming to see me."
Emma, Killian thinks, her name is Emma.
She huffs indignantly at the suggestion, but then looks Killian in the eye and for a second, he once again sees that spark of recognition there. "Okay," she concedes softly.
"Mr. Jones, Emma has been my patient for several months with an acute case of insomnia. She has told me that nearly every night for the past six months she has been having extremely vivid dreams about a man. A man she has never met or talked to in any way. She claims these dreams started when she had one particularly disturbing nightmare about a shipwreck and saw this same man drowning."
Emma collapsed onto the sofa next to him as Dr. Hopper talked. Killian had long since tuned him out, hyper aware of her presence next to him. His fingers twitched, aching with the need to just touch her once and reassure himself that she was truly there. She steadfastly refused to meet his eyes again and the need for her to really see him was driving him mad. All these months of searching and here she was, sitting next to him, and yet he felt as if she was oceans away.
Dr. Hopper was explaining more about what Emma had dreamed, but he didn't need to hear him tell her story when he already felt it in his heart and could see it reflected in her eyes. Somehow, someway, they were connected. She had dreamt of him, and he of her, and he knew that destiny or fate or some higher purpose had called them to be together. But she was so stoic and emotionless, he could tell she was trying to pretend it was all just a hallucination. Well, he'd be a bloody damned fool if he would let her go without a fight.
When the room grew quiet, Killian took the opportunity to say what has been on his heart since she kissed him and breathed new life into his body. "Emma, love, I know you don't know me, but I feel like I know you. I may not know your address, or where you grew up, or what you do for a living, but I know your heart. I know you've been hurt, left behind and abandoned, just like me. I see it in your eyes. I know how lonely you are because I've felt the same loneliness in my heart. We are connected, you and I."
His Swan finally looked at him, but this time, she merely rolled her eyes. She still wasn't trying to really see him. Swan, you've got to let go of the rails. "You really believe that we're soulmates or whatever? Isn't that a bit ridiculous?"
"Aye, it is. It's not that I believe in soulmates, Swan. It's that I believe in us, this bond we share. I knew from the moment I looked in your eyes that we were two parts of the same soul. And I would be eternally grateful if you would give me a chance to know all about the rest of you. What do you say, love? Take a chance on me."
She studied him for a minute, staring deeply into his blue eyes. He could see a million thoughts fly across her face. He tried to put all his sincerity, all his need for her into his gaze. It must have worked because for the first time since that initial connection, she finally looked at him. Her eyes softened around the edges, the defensiveness in her posture crumbled, and something very much like affection radiated from her.
There was a strangled cough from the other side of the room. Dr. Hopper adjusted his glasses and gave them an apologetic look. "Emma, Killian…I don't know what all this means. Frankly, I'm just as shocked as you are. But after hearing both of your stories, I have to say I think you two share an amazing connection. I think it would be a shame not to explore it. Now, Killian has declared his willingness to take a chance, but what about you, Emma? What do you want?"
Dropping her gaze, she turned to the doctor. Killian felt as though she took all the warmth of the day with her. She closed her eyes and her brow knit together in concentration.
With a slight smirk, Emma opened her eyes. Lifting a palm, she began to cup his cheek, running her thumb over the small scar there. It was so unexpected and such a tender gesture, his breath caught in his throat. It was like he was drowning all over again, but this time, it was in the deep green pools of her eyes. His mind instantly recalled the way she had touched him those months before, and he knew this was the same love that had magically saved his life. An impossible, improbable, deeper-than-the-deepest-sea kind of love, transcending the limits of reality.
Magic.
He smiled into her hand and for the first time in years, he felt whole. Raising his own hand, he placed it over her cheek so that they were finally connected, flesh-to-flesh and heart-to-heart. Despite his pulse thundering in his veins, at this moment, he was at utterly at peace.
"Okay," she replied, her face lighting up with a smile bright enough to rival any sunny day.
Killian returned the smile, running his hand around her neck, threading it through her silky soft strands of golden hair and pulling her closer in. He felt as if she had just offered him the sun, moon, and stars. "Okay," he agreed breathlessly.
There wasn't an ounce of hesitation as she closed the final distance and joined his lips to hers for a searing kiss. All at once, the ever-present ache in his chest, the one he had carried for so long he didn't even know he had, was gone. Fireworks exploded in his body, a celebration of the life long journey back to where he belonged. He could almost hear the ghosts of his past bidding him farewell.
Because there, against her lips, in her arms, was his home.
She was his ocean and he was her shore.
...
THE END
...
A/N- I don't know where this all came from, to be honest. I just thought it was an interesting concept. I don't know how successful it was, but I think it ended in a good place. Definitely different than anything else I've done.
Anyway, I thank you for reading, as always, and would love to know what you think.