AN: This was a prompt sent by Anonymous: Snow Charming or Henry find Killian sleeping in Emma's bug and then he sleeps at the loft until they find Emma.
I might have made this sadder than necessary. Enjoy!
David finds him.
Killian's splayed out in the backseat of Emma's bug, hands crossed over his chest, jacket torn off from a fitful sleep. When the door opens and his legs spill out, hitting the pavement, the two of them stare at each other for a long time.
"What the hell are you doing?" David asks eventually, but the question comes out as broken as Killian feels.
He doesn't tell Dave the real story. The story of how he had woken in the middle of the night, and for just a moment, he'd forgotten. How he had reached for her, and how the world seemed to be ending all over again when his hand came up empty. He'd found one of her shirts in the drawer of his wardrobe, had laid in bed and clutched it as if it could bring her back. There were too many pieces of her on the Jolly. Too many memories of holding her as they slept, of the sun shining against her skin as she leaned over the ship's railing, of her laugh echoing off the gangplanks.
He'd gone for a walk to clear his head, trying to forget the way finding one of her hairs on the pillow had reduced him to tears. The cold had begun to set in after an hour of wandering the town, but Killian couldn't imagine returning to the Jolly. Still, he had wanted to feel close to her, somehow, and it wasn't his fault Emma had never been too prudent about locking her car...
Instead, he says the first thing that comes to mind, still a truth in and of itself:
"It smells like her."
He's certain Dave has never looked at him with such sorrow. "Come on." he tells Killian, offering a hand. "Let's get you inside."
Mary Margaret and Henry, to their credit, don't bat an eye. The former greets him with a sad smile, simply placing another mug on the counter as she pours some coffee. And the latter pats Killian's shoulder as he sits down, an action so like David that Killian would laugh under different circumstances.
They eat breakfast in silence, all of them feeling the presence of her ghost at the table. But somehow being together makes it almost bearable, makes it almost possible to imagine the return of mornings when Emma will trump down the stairs with her hair a mess, drinking coffee and eating strips of bacon between readying herself for the day.
There's something comforting, Killian decides, about being in a room of people who share in your loss.
They spend the day alternating between reading page after page in endless books and scouring Regina's vault for anything that might be of value. The sun changes position without their knowledge, their eyes going blurry from staring at the various fonts for too long, their necks aching from being held at odd angles. When Neal begins to cry in the early hours of the morning, Mary Margaret decides it's time they all attempt to get some sleep. (Killian has to choke down his surprise and relief when David says something about setting him up on the couch.)
Mary Margaret bids a quiet goodnight as she eases a now sleeping Neal into his crib. David leaves the room for a moment, returning with a pillow and comforter, offering them out to Killian.
It's Henry who reaches for them, almost managing a smile when the two men look to him in confusion. "You should take the bed." he tells Killian solemnly, as if
knowing the weight of what he's offering.
Killian protests, but the boy inherited his mother's stubborness, and it's for this reason he begins making his way up the stairs to Emma's bedroom. He enters with caution, as if expecting her to be laying in bed, unaware of all the fuss she's caused, merely asleep this whole time.
He surveys the room sadly, a memorial of Emma's life here, of the life they'd been building together. Killian lays on the mattress and pulls the covers over himself, remembering the last time he had been here, Emma's smiling face over him, the I love you caught in her throat-
The sheets smell like her. But in her house, with her family around him, sharing in the heaviness of his heart, Killian can almost bear it.