I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and I just wanted to say thank you so much for all of your reviews and follows and favourites and messages and just general support! We're coming to the end - and this is it. This is the last part of this ficlet. I really hope you've all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it and, for the millionth time, thank you.
I really tried to stay true to their characters and hopefully you agree with their reactions to this entire shit-storm finally (kind of) blowing over. Heads up: if you thought the angst was over as of the previous update - oh ho ho you've got another thing coming. And I hope it all makes sense. Please say it makes sense.
(I'm not at all freaking out over concluding this)
Enjoy.
Part Six: Departures and Arrivals
When Killian was seven years old, his father abandoned him.
He can still vividly recall the moment the awful realisation dawned on him, settling on his skin and burrowing into the marrow of his bones with an inveterate ache. The stale sheets, the billowing curtains and morning sun, the empty bed – it's all carved painfully into his memory. Irremovable. A scar that will never truly heal, irrespective of the care and attention he tends it.
More than any of that though, more than the salty smell of the sea and the sharp bite of the cold wintry air, he remembers the stillness. He will never manage to forget, as it finally occurred to him (the utter finality of his father's abrupt departure), how quiet it was. How eerily still the air became as he stared at the empty space and tried to piece together the irreparably fractured shards of his youthful naiveté.
Since then, he's come to define his losses by the depth of the silence that follows.
In the minutes that charted his brother's body being submitted to the sea, he heard nothing but the gentle wind and the lapping waves coaxing his only consistent anchor into hopeless oblivion. In the transient moment when Milah's heart was still crumbling, and her breath was a mere gasp for life, her demise had resonated in his chest, in his head, in his very soul – but never in his ears. Her stuttered breaths had been the only soundtrack, echoing for days after the ship was painfully empty of her presence.
Yet, as Emma's eyes flutter closed and he feels her life draining out of her (fine sand falling between helpless fingers), the silence is beyond deafening.
Everything fades out, everything except her lids slowly shuttering closed despite his fervent verbal and physical pleas for her to stay with him, to hold on – shaking her with trembling fingers, his voice rising slowly from its initial pathetic begging. For a long second, he just stares at her face; slack, pale, and peaceful. She could be sleeping if it weren't for the hot blood staining his hands and shirt as he crushes her against him and roars something thunderous into the crevice of her neck.
When he pulls back, he drinks in the shape of her face. His gaze trails along her eyes, her nose, her cheeks, her lips. They linger there, his heart racing as he tries to reconcile the fierce woman he knows with this macabre depiction. It's impossible to do; all he achieves is magnifying the throbbing between his ribs tenfold.
Which is precisely when the panic slams into him and he screams into the cavernous room, "Somebody help! Regina! Gold!"
Distantly, he can just make out the sound of their magical attempts to tear down the thick ice that obstructs the entrance passage.
There's a chaotic buzzing in his veins that drinks up the last vestiges of his attention, a tether around his heart that tightens so he feels a physical pull towards her limp figure. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a suggestion is voiced – one that sends his heart faltering, the world screeching to a halt on its axis.
It's impossible.
He's tried it before and it didn't work. Not to mention these past weeks have irreversibly damaged what little chance there ever may have been.
But it's the only chance he has, a dithering thread hanging loose amidst a cluster of missed opportunities.
Icy debris explodes behind him, several chunks of it hitting his back when he crouches to shield Emma from the airborne rubble. He hears people running towards him, their footsteps loud against the previously silent backdrop. But he cannot focus on them, not when he knows there is no time to waste. He's already wasted too much time just contemplating it.
Pushing some hair out of her face, he dips his head to kiss her.
Their lips brush, gently – tentatively. At first, there is nothing but heavy footfalls slapping an icy floor, panting breaths and worried questions piercing his head. Disappointment and grief clutch at his heart. Surely, it is breaking in tandem with his soul, cracks webbing out to encompass his entire being until he's certain that he'll shatter.
Then, of course, everything shatters. Clutching Emma tighter against him, he keeps his mouth moulded firmly to hers, pressing desperately in the hopes that she will reciprocate. For the second time that day, a blinding white light sears Killian's eyes, a light breeze rushing out from where their lips are touching.
Hope twines effortlessly around his hammering heart in place of the anguish.
Pulling back, he expects to find sparkling green eyes and a buoyant smile that's been dormant for far too long.
Instead, he's met with the startling image of Emma's untouched face. Her eyes are still closed, her jaw still slack, her blood still seeping out at a tortuously unstoppable pace.
"No," Killian breathes, cupping her face and tilting it towards him, "No, no, no!"
He could have sworn it worked.
He feels a presence at his back just before the others gather around them. David swoops down the instant he sees his daughter, his dusty blue eyes electric as they take in her dilapidated state.
"What happened?" he asks, gaze darting up to the man opposite him, "I thought you…" His voice drifts off and Killian merely shakes his head, looking over his shoulder with blurry eyes when he feels two more people crouch beside him. Regina is on his right and she assesses Emma quickly, a morbid expression settling over her typically stoic features.
"There's no time. I can heal her but it will be up to her to wake up – the Snow Queen did some serious damage," she tells them, rubbing her hands together. He's about to correct her as to the circumstances of Emma's predicament, but there's a far more pressing matter in need of their attention – namely, the blonde woman bleeding out in his arms. David beats him to the punch before he can utter a thing, nodding a wordless assent to the Queen who instantly places her hands over the wound.
He should tell them what saving Emma entails.
He should tell them that this is what Emma wanted – that Emma did this to herself for their benefit.
He should tell them Emma is connected to the Snow Queen – that saving her ultimately means saving their enemy and reigniting the vicious flame that had threatened to consume the entire town.
But really, what will that do? What other option is there?
Let Emma die?
The bile that rises in his throat at the idea of a world without her is enough of an affirmation that he's doing the right thing. They'll figure out what to do about the Snow Queen once Emma is safe. They may hate him for it, she may hate him for it – he's well aware of her agency and disdain for having her decisions ignored. But this is her life and he'll be damned if he lets her trade it for the defeat of the infernal woman behind them.
As Regina's pale hands hover over the damage, a pale glow begins to pulsate from her delicate fingers, twisting out to encompass the shredded skin and torn muscle. The white light grows to shroud the expanse of her injury, ebbing one final time before it disappears to reveal flawless skin under the blood-stained remnants of her shirt.
Seconds pass where they search for any signs of life. He's sure he will leave bruises on her skin with the way he's holding her. With bated breath, they watch and they wait.
Then a shallow, nearly inaudible inhale pushes Emma's chest out fractionally as she begins to breathe at a short, rapid pace. The tension snaps and Killian lets his forehead fall against hers as he exhales the heaviest sigh of relief he's ever endured in his life. It clogs his chest and rattles in his throat, a reprieve unlike any other.
Her eyes are still closed, she is undeniably unconscious – but she is alive.
She's still alive.
Which means…
Killian's eyes snap open, heat suddenly burning to life in the cockles of his soul.
He looks to Regina, "Do you have the remaining neutralising dust?" He barely recognises his own voice. Evidently, so does she. Looking slightly taken aback, she nods and pulls the vial in question from her jacket pocket.
Offering no explanation, he gently shifts Emma over to be cradled by her more than eager parents as he stands and, snatching away the glass container, strides towards the Snow Queen's crumpled figure.
He may not be able to physically hurt the woman but he can restrain her before she attempts to escape. He will leave his physical retaliation for later, when the enchantment connecting her to Emma is broken. For now, subduing her magic will be enough to stop her without hurting Emma.
"What are you doing?" Regina demands haughtily, snapping up and following him across the space.
"Finishing things before they can start again," he growls murderously, jerking away from her grip and kneeling beside the Snow Queen. He prepares to be propelled back, to meet some kind of resistance as he clutches her lace-covered shoulder and yanks her roughly onto her back. Instead, the Snow Queen sags against his hand, falling onto the floor with a muffled thump.
Her glazed eyes are locked onto some distant thing.
Her pristine dress is stained by blood; the sullied flesh beneath still visibly mangled.
Killian stiffens; open flask of neutralising dust still in hand as he regards her and struggles to find an explanation.
"What the hell is going on, Hook?" Regina demands again, her piercing gaze moving rapidly between him and the motionless woman beneath him. He stares at the dead Snow Queen for an undefinable amount of time, dumbfounded into silence as he recounts the previous events and comes up empty.
"Hook."
If Emma is alive, and she most definitely is, then so should the Snow Queen – the woman had made it very clear just what her curse had entailed. They were bound in every sense of the word.
"Hook!"
He still doesn't face her but he stands, fingers wrapped tightly around the small glass bottle.
"Is she dead?" he mumbles with a frown.
Regina narrows her eyes at him, "What?"
Finally, he twists in her direction, completely serious when he demands in a tone broaching no room for debate, "Is she dead?"
After several seconds of simply staring at each other, she (surprisingly) concedes and turns her attention to the Snow Queen. She opens one of her palms and points it in the direction of the body, closing her eyes and tilting her head back. Her brows pull together and she clenches her fist, dropping it when she turns to Killian with a shrug, "Yeah. She's definitely dead. She's not faking it."
"That doesn't make sense," he mutters, mostly to himself.
Again, he glances over his shoulder to where Emma is breathing softly in her parents' arms. Gold is saying something about getting them to the hospital as swiftly as possible so Dr. Whale can do his own medical examination.
Regina's fingers curl around his elbow and jerk him around to face her.
"Hook, what is going on?" she commands, authority ringing in her tone.
Numbly, he tells her, "She bound herself to Emma – the Snow Queen… she, uh – she performed a spell that allowed her to physically and magically link herself to Emma when she abducted her. It's why she left Emma alone all week. She wanted to poach as much power from her as she could. She was going to use her against us – break her and then turn her loose. The Snow Queen was going to kill me to do it and then she…"
Recognition flashes in Regina's deep brown eyes and she looks slowly from the pallid woman's slumped figure to where Emma is resting. Realisation trickles into her features and, with wide eyes, she stares back at Killian.
The woman is almost talking to herself when she says, "She sacrificed herself."
She refocuses on Killian and frowns, "But how is she dead and – " Regina cuts herself off, another wave of understanding visibly crashing over her and swallowing the rest of her sentence. A soft knowing simper makes its way across her face and he finds something about that irritable, given the circumstances.
"What?" he snaps.
Before she can say a word, Gold is beckoning them over. Dismissing him and the questions he still poses, Regina strides efficiently towards the group and he follows. One moment, they're in the cave – the next, purple smoke is dissipating from the air around them and they're standing in the hospital lobby.
The nurses squeak in fright but quickly register that something is wrong. As some disperse to fetch the doctors and others start to gravitate towards Emma's limp (but breathing) form, Killian tries to pull Regina aside. Somehow, though, the woman slips out of his grasp. Scanning the waiting room, now a hive of activity, he scowls when he does not find her. She must have left to... do whatever it is she does.
Then Emma is being lifted onto a bed and wheeled away and he can't help but follow, sidling up to her father as they walk along after it through the sterile maze.
8888
David finds him and tells him she is in a room, and that Dr. Whale has given her the all clear. They walk together in silence until they reach it and he follows him through the door with shuttered blinds.
Inside, he finds Emma lying on a white metal-wired bed, machines and wires strapped to her arms and chest, beeping periodically as they monitor her health. He swallows down the thickness in his throat when he sees that.
He doesn't have time to dwell on it though, because Regina walks in shortly after him.
Instantly he turns on her, face hard as he says, "What do you know that I don't?"
"Calm down, Captain," she derides, walking smoothly over to the furthest side of Emma's bed, taking up position at effectively the front of their little congregation. Mary Margaret and David exchange curious glances.
"What do you mean? What's going on?" Mary Margaret asks from her perch at Emma's bedside, her soft hands still clasped tightly around her daughter's fragile ones.
"Why don't you regale us with what happened first, Hook?" Regina says. He wants to growl at her, demand that she tell him what's going on, to explain why Emma is alive and the Snow Queen is not. But the woman is genuine in her inquiry and he realises that he hasn't actually explained what happened in the caves, not to a satisfying extent – they don't even know about the return of his memories yet.
"Hook?" David prompts, watching him carefully.
Taking a long bone-weary breath, he explains. He tells them about the linking enchantment, tells them about the Snow Queen's diatribe wherein she arrogantly expounded her plans for them all, tells them how he was on the precipice of death when Emma plunged the icicle into her own flesh, tells them how his memories returned in quick succession. His words begin to fail him after that; he struggles to chronicle trying to convince her to heal herself and altogether refuses to describe their failed kiss. He doesn't need to though. They all saw it firsthand when they were running in.
As his words finally drift off, his eyes stay locked on Emma – he doesn't want to know what they think of him now that they know he was helpless to save her from herself. David's hand is surprisingly warm on his shoulder, voice low and comforting.
"We're glad you're back," he tells him. In his periphery, he notes the gentle attempt at a smile.
However, his 'return' is not their most important concern. Later, he will deal with the ramifications of the past week and his subsequent behaviour. Right now, he needs Regina to explain herself.
She still has her eyes fixed on him when he looks up at her, patience waning thin.
"That's everything. Now, what do you know?" he grinds out.
Regina stares straight back at him, "When you kissed her, it appeared to work – correct?"
He nods stiffly.
"But it didn't. She was still injured until you used your magic to –"
"Actually," she interrupts with a finger raised, "It did work." Everyone in the room gapes at her and she nods, "True love cannot cure any and all ailments and certainly not self-inflicted physical injuries. But it can break curses – that is its specialty, that is where its power resides."
Regina catches Killian's gaze and holds it meaningfully, "When you kissed her, she was still linked to the Snow Queen. However, you broke that enchantment and made it possible for me to save her without saving the Snow Queen. So yes, your kiss actually did work."
His chest tightens at the notion and he continues to stare. After several seconds, he feels some of the eyes in the room turn in his direction. Heart beating heavily against his ribcage, he struggles to string together some kind of coherent response to the simple concept that his feelings are reciprocated (even after all of the damage he's done).
"It… are you sure?" he finally asks, inexplicably breathless.
Regina nods and his eyes drift from her face to Emma's again.
A rush of emotion strikes him deep in the crevices of his chest and he punches down the urge to crumble to the floor in a puddle of reprieve. Emma's not exactly alive yet, and she's certainly not out of the woods. As Regina continues explaining, her physical trauma was so severe that whilst the magic had tangibly healed it, her body's natural response is still in play; conservation of energy.
She is essentially in a coma until her body decides to wake up of its own accord. Nothing can induce that, it has to be of her own volition.
All they can do now is wait.
8888
He wakes up to the now familiar sound of the machines that monitor her. Peering at the heavily curtained window, he sees the beginnings of pale light streaming in and quickly deduces that it must be morning. It's safe to assume the nurses left him undisturbed overnight, since he does not recall being instructed to leave.
Parched and heavy-headed, he rubs his eyes roughly and stands. With one last lingering glance in her direction, he leaves the room in search of the generously named coffee machine. Mary Margaret appears at his side just as he's stirring the boiling watered-down contents, cup nestled deftly in the curve of his hook.
"Hi," Emma's mother greets, offering a half-hearted smile.
Killian's returning expression is tight and insincere. His interactions with the woman have never been particularly warm; her distinct lack of affinity for him has always been obvious. Yet now, she peers up at him with eyes the same colour as Emma's and he swears he sees something akin to affection and sympathy in their jade depths.
"She'll wake up, you know."
Her reassurance is hollow and he merely nods, voice flimsy and weak as he replies, "I'm sure she will, milady. All the more reason I should return to her room –"
"I know you hate yourself right now," she interrupts him brazenly, stunning him to silence, "And I know you blame yourself for what happened to her."
For a second he thinks she's going to affirm that statement with a condemnation. Then, she reaches out to place a small hand on his shoulder – the weight of it soothing him in a strange way. If the feeling resembles the same one he used to derive from his own mother's touch, he doesn't comment (though it certainly resonates).
Mary Margaret cants her head to the side, "But you should know that we don't. Blame you, that is. What happened wasn't your fault; nothing that's happened in the past couple of weeks has been your fault. We know that and… She knows it too. And she won't blame you… and I just though you should know that if you need to talk…" Her voice drifts off, the offer written across her open face for him to see.
Momentarily stunned, he just stares at the petite woman before him.
Eventually, her words sink in and he feels the deep creases in his face soften and retract. With a thick swallow, he forces himself to nod, incapable of grasping the sudden shift in their relationship – but also grateful. So grateful.
"Thank you," he croaks.
Mary Margaret squeezes his shoulder once and drops her hand, "No problem, Killian."
8888
Floating on a bed of water – that's what it feels like to die. Or at least, that's what she assumes since that's the only way she can describe what she's experiencing. Strangely enough, it is just as peaceful as she always suspected it would be. Although that may just be because she felt safe when the world faded away; content and warm and safe in his arms despite the fatal wound leeching the last relics of life from her body.
Her coherency astounds her. The fact that she can even remember the events leading to this strange, semi-conscious state is perplexing. Yet she doesn't question it, just accepts it.
She figures this will all be a lot less painful if she just accepts her fate.
After all, it means her family will be safe and that, in her mind, is all that truly matters – it is the only thing that bears weight where the balance between life and death is concerned. So she doesn't fight against the pull of the water as it laps over her skin in icy rivulets, slowly submerging her.
Soon, she will drown in it.
But suddenly, there is warmth. It spikes at her lips, spreading and unfolding to encompass her entire body. A thin film lifts from her limbs, and she can't say how she knows but she just knows it's the linking spell. Perhaps it is because of the magic in her veins that hums in recognition at the dearly departed enchantment. Or maybe it is the sudden onset of power, rushing back into her limbs as though it's snapping back after being stretched out across a wide space. Hell, it could just be the unexplainable feeling of singularity.
But she knows.
She just knows.
She cannot believe she didn't notice it before. Especially now, as a feeling like a heavy tether being severed crashes over her, and now she can move. Her autonomy is hers to control, her magic hers to employ and manipulate. Unfortunately, that elation doesn't last long.
Three things occur to her all at once.
Firstly, if the spell has been retracted, she doesn't have to die.
Secondly, if these waters keep climbing, she will die.
And lastly: she is unequivocally on the brink of death.
Instantly she begins to thrash against the soft waves, dragging herself up, fighting the icy water lapping at her skin with fierce desperation. At first, nothing happens and she just keeps sinking below the black swells. Then, however, it begins to work. Faces flash in her mind's eye and she pushes herself further, pushes until there is nothing but air and heat and light, blinding light, monotonous beeping, aching pain in every strained muscle and exposed nerve. Her eyelids snap open and she gasps, jolting up and hissing when she feels a stinging sensation in sporadic sections across her body.
The room is sterile and pale and the discomfort blossoms from needles and subsequent wires attached to her arms.
Her hospital room is shrouded in darkness, the curtains closed so as to keep out all light. The material cannot hide the thin beams of sunlight that filter down onto the linoleum floor though, and she frowns as she gathers her bearings.
Physically, other than a twinge of exhaustion, she feels fine. She kicks back the hospital blanket and pulls back her gown to inspect her body but there's nothing – not even a scar where she'd thrust the icicle into her abdomen. The skin on her stomach isn't even puckered. In fact, it almost looks smoother than it did before.
She frowns, studying the rest of her body. And when she finds nothing, she gently pulls off the wires and extracts the needles and rips away the stickers. The machines around her protest furiously but she needs to get up, she needs to see what happened, see if they truly managed to defeat the Snow Queen. If she did, in fact, manage to miraculously salvage the lives of her family and friends.
Their foe's twisted plan still echoes around Emma's head and she thinks she'll pass out if she finds out she failed.
Without warning, nurses pour into the room – her violently screeching monitors obviously having set off some kind of alarm system.
"Miss Swan," one of them says, clearly pleased to see her awake but nonetheless stern, "We're glad you're awake but you really should rest."
"I'm fine," Emma replies, only half-annoyed.
"At least wait for a doctor to examine you," another one adds, moving forward to usher Emma towards the bed. She digs her feet in and shakes her head, her inherited stubborn streak rising up to perpetuate its namesake.
"But there's nothing wrong with me –"
"Swan?"
Everyone in the room stops to look at the newcomer, but she already knows who it is. That voice has something swooping low in her gut, from shock or joy she isn't sure which. The nurses part enough for her to see him, standing in the doorway with startlingly wide blue eyes – like a blind man seeing the sun for the first time. His hair is a mess, like he's been pulling at it nervously, and his shirt is crumpled and creased, like he's slept in it.
The last time she saw him, his face had morphed into the most poignant expression she's ever seen him wear. That alone propels her forward, determined to erase it from her memory.
She shrugs off the nurses' hands and strides towards him without further preamble, launching herself at him when she's close enough. She buries her nose in his neck and breathes deeply, relishing in the way he finally finally returns the gesture, wrapping his arms around her with equal fervour.
"You're awake," he mumbles brokenly against her shoulder, and she sobs a laugh.
"Yeah. And you remember."
"Aye."
He squeezes her tighter and it's only then that she realises he is shaking, small tremors running through his torso and down his arms. They stay standing like that for a long time, long enough that the nurses have to cough to get their attention. Again, one of them tells her she needs to lie down, but she won't let go of him.
To be fair, he doesn't release her either.
He's drinking in her presence like he's trying to commit every infinitesimal fraction of this moment to memory. The nurses' voices die out when her parents appear behind Killian, their faces radiating joy as she finally catches sight of them. A wide grin breaks across her lips and she reluctantly withdraws from Killian to embrace David and Mary Margaret. Then Henry comes into the room and traitorous tears pool in Emma's eyes.
Unfettered joy grips her and she momentarily forgets about the Snow Queen's undisclosed state.
8888
When the nurses finally do coerce her back into the bed where she waits impatiently for a doctor to discharge her, she remembers. With wide eyes, she snaps her gaze in their direction and asks, "What happened to the Snow Queen?"
Henry nods eagerly, "You defeated her, Mom!"
In her peripheral vision, Emma sees Killian wince at the inadvertent dismissal of just what defeating her had necessitated. Her son makes it sound as though she dispatched the woman brandishing a sword the whole time. It occurs to her that they may not have told Henry what happened (sacrificial suicide is a hard thing to swallow for a pre-teen boy) so, internally swatting at the morbid connotations, she nods in relief.
She makes a mental note to ask about that later, when her son is either absent or otherwise occupied.
"She's dead, sweetie," Mary Margaret adds, taking a hold of Emma's hand in a surprisingly firm grip. When she looks at her mother, she catches the note of heaviness in her gaze and, with a glance in her father's direction, realises that they must know about what she did. They are sombre in a way that denotes their understanding of what exactly the Snow Queen's undoing had demanded.
She squeezes her mother's hand reassuringly, sending her and David both a tight smile.
Somehow, her gaze slides across to Killian standing alone in the corner of the room. He's watching her carefully, and though he still looks relieved, there's something leaden about his presence that makes her worry. His movements are unusually uncoordinated, his presence barely noticeable with how he's leaning on the wall next to the window.
Doctor Whale eventually arrives and clears her, and she snatches up her stuff and changes in record time, desperate to go home (she's always hated hospitals and this one has some particularly painful memories attached to it). In just over an hour, they are all sitting comfortably in the apartment. Regina has joined them, the woman displaying an unusual level of warmth when she greeted Emma, and now sits directly opposite her.
Killian silently inhabits the corner of the room, arms folded and eyes downcast, shadows falling across his lean frame.
The pit in her stomach grows deeper the longer he distances himself. She shirks it up to the overwhelming essence of the past twenty-four hours. After all, he has only just had his memories restored and it is the first time he's undertaken something so internally traumatic. She knows firsthand what it is like to think you know who you are and have that awareness ripped from you. And considering his already unparalleled predisposition for self-loathing, she can only imagine the thoughts and feelings simmering dangerously in his head.
They make small talk while they wait for Henry to depart, a wordless agreement that he doesn't need to be exposed to the harsh details of this scenario passed around the room with meaningful glances.
Eventually, he does fall asleep on the couch - entirely spent, his limbs splayed in every which direction as he snores contentedly into one of the thick cushions.
Emma smiles fondly at her son, yet she cannot deny the sense of relief that they can finally discuss what her son is not privy to.
Taking a seat at the dining table, she clasps her hands in front of her.
She directs her question at Killian when she asks in a hushed tone (Henry might still awake), "Have you told them everything... about what happened in the cave?"
He nods, walking across the room to lean against one of the wooden supports closer to her. There is still a sense of disenchantment in his presence, but she doesn't comment on it. Now is not the time, nor place (and Emma would prefer to confront him later, when they are alone and he cannot hide behind bravado and charm).
Regina turns to him, eyebrows raised, "Have you told her everything that happened in the cave?"
This startles Emma and she frowns between the two of them suspiciously.
"Wait, what do you mean?" she asks Killian, whose sullen expression has faded to make way for discomfort. His eyes dart between their faces and the floor, and he doesn't look like he's crossing his arms anymore so much as holding himself. Unmitigated alarm hums in her veins as she rotates her entire body on the chair to face him, "What is she talking about?"
"Well, aren't you curious as to how you're here and the Snow Queen is decidedly not?" Regina supplies.
Emma shrugs, "Her linking spell broke - I felt it happen. It was weird, and strangely liberating, but altogether weird. Why?" She looks around again, but everyone's eyes are on Killian who is glowering at Regina.
"Now is not the time," he growls, and the woman cocks an eyebrow in amusement.
"What? You want to wait until you get a special moment?"
"Regina," Mary Margaret hisses, silencing her with a warning look. Emma looks to Killian again, gaze probing. However, before she can speak, he's answering her initial question again, deliberately redirecting the course of their discussion; he only glances at her once, an underlying plea for patience written in the icy blue depths as they fix on her.
In the back of her mind, a voice snickers at her obliviousness, already well-aware of just what could be so important that he needs to wade through what it means before he can explain it to her. After all, they are two of the same, cut from the same cloth - and while he may be open about many things, there comes a time when even Killian Jones needs to take a moment to stop and take stock.
"Aye, I told them what occurred in the cave," he says.
Regina purses her lips at the deflection but mercifully says nothing else.
"And Henry?" Emma whispers, watching her son sigh slowly and shift onto his side on the couch, eyes fluttering all the while.
"He knows you defeated her and you nearly died in the process. We didn't think it was our place to tell him exactly how you did that," Mary Margaret says compassionately.
For that, Emma is thankful and her answering nod is saturated with that appreciation.
Silence falls across the group after that and she plays idly with her thumbs, everyone's gazes hot on her face. And she knows exactly why - the air around them so poignant it becomes hard to swallow. They expect her to explain herself, her actions deemed irrational in their opinions. Even the goddamn Evil Queen is appraising her with a look of muted judgement and curiosity. Taking a deep breath, Emma looks up.
"I'm not going to apologise," she tells them firmly, "Because I'm not sorry about what I did."
"Emma," her father chides, his dusty blue eyes reflecting just a hint of the anguish he must have felt when she was on the precipice of death. But she won't lie to them, and she won't coddle them with falsities. The truth has always been therapeutic, and she'd rather have them understand her motives than pretend to regret a decision she would make again in a heartbeat just to console them.
"I understand that you might be... angry with me for what I did," she tells them, catching Killian's eyes for a second (they burn with enough intensity to make her falter in her words), "But I did what I had to in order to save all of you - and, don't get me wrong, I'm glad you're upset that I kind of, uh... sacrificed myself... but you can't hold that against me when I know for a fact you would all do the exact same thing given the circumstances." Again, her eyes drift around their little congregation, holding the gaze of each person meaningfully, pleadingly. "I don't expect you to agree with my decisions in that cave," she says, and this time when she locks eyes with Killian, she holds them, "But I do expect you to respect them."
He doesn't drop her gaze, and she watches as his jaw locks, the sinew in his cheek spasming as he struggles to maintain a neutral facade. But there's pain in his eyes, written plainly across his face if you look hard enough. And of all the people in the room, it is him she feels she needs to convince.
Mary Margaret sighs, David rubbing his forehead beside her. The petite woman reaches across the table to grasp Emma's hand, pulling her attention from the pirate.
"Sometimes I hate how much you're like us," she says.
Emma returns her mother's tired smirk sluggishly, a bout of exhaustion dragging on her lids without warning. Mary Margret notices it quickly, smiling and standing up.
"You should get some rest - we'll talk about the rest in the morning."
She immediately protests, whining slightly when she frowns, "Noooo, I still have questions."
And she does, but the enervation coaxing her towards sleep won't hear it.
"Tomorrow," Mary Margaret assures her with a maternal smile.
Blinking lazily, she wipes her bleary eyes with the heels of her hands and reluctantly pushes her chair out. Regina moves too, offering some succinct farewells before departing; leaving Emma, her parents, and Killian all standing in the middle of the apartment, Henry snoring in the background. Naturally, Killian is the next to act. He mutters something about procuring a room at Granny's before it gets too late and tries to make his exit swiftly after but Emma beats him to the door, cutting off his route and waiting until her parents have retreated with baby Neal to their room.
Her hand finds the back of his neck and she cups it, shuffling closer to him. The affection must surprise him because his eyes dart to her extended arm in disbelief. She can't say she cares; losing him has had an irreversible impact on her ability to physicalise her emotions.
"Hey, you've been awfully quiet tonight," she murmurs.
After some hesitation, his hands run up and down her back, an attempt at reassurance no doubt. The action is completely negated by the hollow look in his eyes.
"Just tired, love. It's been a long... month."
It's a weak excuse and they both know it.
"Are you sure you're alright?"
He leans into her hand when she places it on his cheek, warmth glowing in his eyes behind the thin veil of disillusionment. His digits trace up her arm and he leans forward to kiss her once, a soft and tentative (almost hesitant) thing that makes her ache inside.
"Absolutely fine," he assures her half-heartedly when he pulls back, using a finger to tuck some hair behind her ear.
There's a beat of silence.
Then, she tells him as lightly as possible, "We have a lot to talk about."
She feels him go rigid beneath her touch, but he recovers quickly.
"Aye," he agrees, "Tomorrow. Right now you should rest, Swan."
He is undeniably right - near-death experiences, it seems, really take it out of a person. Her body is screaming at her to rest and she's fairly certain she'll be asleep until midday tomorrow. But she also cannot evade the residual despair that clutches her heart whenever she thinks of losing him again. Especially now that she's directly experienced one version of that and just barely escaped another. It fuels an unfamiliar feeling of boldness she is unequipped to stifle.
Emma's grip on his lapels tightens fractionally, "You could stay over? We've got room."
His eyes spark but he pulls away, shaking his head with a tight, inauthentic smile.
"Good night, Swan."
The flame in her belly dies in under a second and it unnerves her more than anything else. Because he's here and he remembers but he's still withdrawing from her. A litany of self-doubts rain down on her, but she doesn't voice them. They hang in the air, communicated by the almost indiscernible crease in her forehead and narrowing of her expression.
Killian, no doubt, registers it. For some reason though, he still turns around and leaves. Even if she does see undeniable traces of regret before his face disappears from sight.
"Good night, Killian."
8888
For such an early hour, her apartment is a hive of activity. David and Mary Margaret loiter around the kitchen, cleaning the remnants of breakfast and playing with baby Neal; Regina sits opposite Emma at the dining table alongside Belle and Gold. Technically, it's only nine o'clock but for social purposes - it's strange. Especially considering that, among her guests resides: the (formerly) Evil Queen, Rumplestiltskin and his wife (and real-life disney princess) Belle. All of whom are filling her in on the events she missed whilst she was otherwise disposed.
Basically what went on after she practically died.
Henry, thankfully, decided he needed to retrieve some much-adored books from his adoptive mother's house and left a short time ago, leaving them free to discuss everything.
"So you healed me?" Emma asks, pointing to Regina.
The woman nods, "Stab wound. Easy fix."
Emma drops back into her seat, turning over the past day in her head, "Okay, so after I... more or less fell unconscious, you," she gestures to the Evil Queen, "fixed my stab wound. Then what happened?"
"Then we took you to the hospital and the rest you know," Gold replies. Of everyone there, he is the least pleased about his attendance (Belle undoubtedly coerced him into coming). Which is strange, because it's not as though Killian is here to amp up the tension between them.
...Killian.
Emma's heart constricts as she scans the apartment again, but he hasn't miraculously appeared in the past five minutes. Although, they didn't exactly send out a public notice saying that this was when they were convening again. So, really, he could just be under the assumption that it's too early for his presence. Truthfully, she knows that's just an excuse.
He'd be here by now if he was coming; he's always been one for punctuality.
Trying to dismantle the feeling of deflation taking root in her chest, she looks up and asks, "Well that clears up everything that happened after. Does anyone have any ideas what happened to Killian?" She directs that questions at Gold, "One minute the Snow Queen was threatening him, the next he... remembered. And he was himself again. How did that happen?"
Distantly, she acknowledges a knocking at the front door which David disappears to answer.
The pawnbroker levels her with an impatient expression that disappears when Belle shoves him good-naturedly. He schools his features into something vaguely resembling forbearance and squints at her knowingly, "Isn't it obvious?"
Belle's voice echoes in her head: "In essence… this little boy was saved by her love... True Love."
True love's kiss.
"But I didn't - I didn't..." she sputters for a second, gesticulating wildly before she finally spits out the words in a blended string of nearly-incomprehensible vowels and consonants, "I didn't kiss him. I didn't do anything." Alternating her gaze between Gold, Belle, Regina and her parents, she searches for the answer there. Her answer, however, comes from the doorway.
"Only an act of true love can thaw a frozen heart and the same applies for glass shards, I'd venture," Elsa says, signature demure smile fixed upon her face. Behind her, Anna and Kristoff are sliding into the room as well, hand-in-hand as they waltz across the apartment to exchange pleasantries with David. Emma stands up instantly, walking quickly towards her friend.
"You're awake!"
She pulls the other woman into a quick hug, squeezing her briefly before pulling away, watching her affectionate expression with one of reciprocal warmth. However, there is something else laced into her large blue eyes, something like gratitude or maybe awe.
"Yes, I am - thanks to you, apparently."
"I didn't do much," Emma brushes off the appreciation with a diffident shrug, pointedly ignoring the looks she gets from her parents (no doubt, they dislike her downplaying the fact she nearly killed herself). Instead, she turns and walks with Elsa to sit at the table again. As they make their way across the apartment, Mary Margaret speaks up from the kitchen where she's putting away the last of the dry dishes.
"How are you feeling?"
"I'm fine," Elsa replies, "When the Snow Queen was defeated, all of her magic faded out of existence so, without her neutralisation curse, I recovered quite quickly. Thankfully, too, because Anna's been telling me we have some business to attend to in Arendelle."
"Don't tell me - Hans is back?" Emma quips sarcastically, thinking about the mutton-chopped antagonist from the film (for some reason, she has a particular distaste for that disney villain), but her friend's head whips towards her.
"Actually, yes. How did you know?"
Emma gapes for a long moment before she inwardly reconciles with the fact that she's dealing with fairytale characters and nothing is ever completely out of the realm of possibility. Even though she is the daughter of the famed Snow White and Prince Charming, she still often struggles to comprehend that there is a chance every single fairytale character she's ever heard of is in fact real (though it does make her wonder where the hell they pilfer the stories from in this world).
She shrugs, "Lucky guess."
Elsa gives her a strange look but dismisses the momentary confusion, taking a seat beside Emma.
"So, you were saying before that it would have been an act of true love?"
The other woman nods.
Emma shakes her head, "But that still doesn't explain how it happened."
At Elsa's probing look, she explains, "Well, I never... Uh. I hadn't kissed him. So how did i get the glass shard out and restore his memories if there was no kiss?"
"Emma," she begins with a tinkling laugh, her cadence gentle and authoritative, "true love isn't just proven in physical affection."
Anna pipes up from the side, "Trust me. I would know."
Elsa smiles brightly at her sister and turns her attention back to Emma, "Kristoff says you sacrificed your life in that cave to prevent the Queen from hurting Killian, yes?"
Emma nods numbly.
"Well, when you sacrificed your life to save him, you committed an act of true love. It melted the glass in his heart and, if what I've been told is correct, the memory spell using that same shard as an anchor." She dimly remembers, as she fell to the floor, seeing Killian drop. In her memory, she can just string together the image - watching from her periphery as he began to writhe, hand and hook braced at his temples, some unforeseen force wreaking havoc on his mind.
Everyone else in the room is silent, staring at her.
And it takes her a minute to realise why: she now has undeniable confirmation that, regardless of what she says or how she brushes it off, she is (to some unassailable degree) in love with Killian. It's something that, up until now, she's avoided thinking about at length - partially because she's never had the time, partially because it's a terrifying concept. She's been in love before, she's experienced love in all its form (friendly, familial, romantic) and it has more often than not resulted in heartbreak for her. So she's not surprised that everyone has simultaneously decided to regard her with a degree of wariness.
What surprises her is that she's yet to experience an overriding desire to run.
She waits for it as she sits there, waits for the panic to set in and the chain in her chest to jerk forward, propelling her out and away from everything that might hurt her. It never comes. There's only a strange sort of acceptance. It feels warm and comfortable and light in her chest. Not heavy. Not smothering. She feels content, acknowledging the truth and rejecting her autocratic tendency to throw up her walls.
Emma loves Killian.
And maybe it's because she's already experienced the previously unprecedented anguish of losing him but she cannot find it in herself to regret it - not when she knows with unmatched surety that wasting time denying her feelings is just that: a waste. David had once told her to live for the little moments, to use them to endure the worst ones. Sitting there, staring at the table as Elsa's words sink slowly into her brain, she yearns for more moments. With him.
She has every reason to be scared, and being scared isn't a problem. She realises that now with stunning clarity.
What is a problem is if she continues to let the overbearing fear of losing him dictate her actions.
Emma registers, as she looks up around her, that the room is still quiet - waiting for her inevitable flight instinct to kick in.
They are all too aware of her stunning propensity for circumventing anything remotely emotionally confronting. So she must surprise them when she shrugs and says to Regina, thinking about their endeavour to find another cure for Killian's affliction, "At least now you don't have to worry about teaching me Elvish."
For a second, they are dumbfounded. Then, with a slight smirk, Regina replies dryly, "Thank god."
8888
The situation almost parallels with their last exchange, Killian notes, as he strolls down the sidewalk towards Regina's mansion the next morning. He hadn't intended to seek the boy out but seeing him now, he decides that it is as good a time as ever to confront the inevitable. Henry sits unobtrusively on the pavement, a new book in hand, reading quietly. The kid always seems to be reading and something about that makes him smile; Liam used to love books. In fact, there's a great deal about Henry that reminds him of his brother - the unwavering faith in people, the fierce loyalty and love of family (biological relations or not), the ceaseless desire to do and be good (to, as Killian always parroted, abide by good form).
As he approaches, the lad's head rises. Henry spots Killian and promptly closes his novel, shifting it beside him and smiling a greeting at the pirate.
"Hey Killian."
"Morning Henry," he responds with a nod, pulling to a stop and taking a seat next to the boy.
"What are you doing here?" Henry asks after a moment.
Killian sucks in a deep, wary breath. There's an undercurrent to the question that suggests Henry knows where the pirate should be (with Emma). But he didn't come to talk about that or the bottomless pit of roiling emotions currently preventing him from actively seeking her out. In fact, he came because of a memory - one that only stuttered to the forefront of his mind the previous night as he sat tossing and turning in a restless half-slumber. A confusing, unexplainable memory that, at the time of its occurrence, had seemed trivial despite being unexplained.
Glancing once at his companion, Killian asks, "Why did you help me?"
Henry frowns.
"Sorry?"
"When I was still afflicted by the glass," he describes, "I came to you for aid. I was unapologetic towards your accusations yet you still told me everything I wanted to know about my lost memories." He turns to stare at the boy who merely shrugs in response as though he still doesn't really understand the question.
"Yeah? And?"
Killian looks away and rubs his forehead, grasping for the right words, "Well... why did you do that?"
Henry turns to study the pirate, soft brown eyes unnervingly observant as he stares. He has eyes like his father and they pierce him just the same way Bae's used to when it was just the two of them at the helm of the Jolly Roger, too knowing for a child, too wise for his age. After an extended moment, where Killian is fairly certain his heart is about to thump right out of his chest, the boy shrugs diffidently, "Because I knew you would come back. You just needed a push."
His only response is a befuddled look, and Henry sighs, looking out across the street as he tries to explain himself, "When I was throwing all those accusations at you, you didn't care. At all. I might as well have been speaking another language for all the reaction I was getting. But then when I mentioned my mom you got this - this look for a split second like you were sad or something. I don't really know how to explain it but I just guessed that even when you hated everyone and everything and you were doing really terrible things... you still cared about her. At least a little bit. And that's all I needed to see to know you were still in there, somewhere. And that maybe if I could get you going in the right direction, you'd get back to yourself."
Killian still remembers the way Henry had scrutinised him with a cautious, piercing gaze. Back when he'd been under the Snow Queen's thumb and she'd wanted him to bond with the boy. He remembers feeling a strange sort of obligation to protect him later that evening when she asked about him. And the more he talks to these people, to Emma's family, the more he realises just how much faith they had stocked in him.
Never once had they wavered, never once had they shunned him completely. It baffles Killian beyond all belief (no one has ever had such unswerving faith in him).
At length, he says (and he's not quite sure if he's talking to himself or to Henry), "But I hurt her."
Henry nods bluntly, "Yeah. You did - and don't get me wrong, I'm angry about that."
He turns to look at Killian again, sympathy edging his youthful features, "But I know for a fact that you're more upset with yourself than I ever could be. So I figure there's no point in lauding it over you, not when she needs you." Killian's head snaps in the kid's direction at the statement, but he merely nods reassuringly, "She does need you, you know. She won't admit it but losing you was really hard for her. I've never seen her happier than when she's been with you, so when she lost you it was really... not great."
There's nothing Killian can do but stare at the boy beside him, the same child whose age belies his understanding of the world. He thinks to himself, studying the way Emma's son watches the road in deep thought, that Baelfire would be proud (exceedingly so). It stirs warmth in him, his lips twitching and cracking into a poor (but nonetheless genuine) excuse of a smile. He thumps Henry gently on the back as he turns to him.
"Thank you, Henry."
Henry grins and shrugs, "No problem."
8888
It's all well and good that she's come to terms with her feelings.
But that doesn't change the fact that he's pulling away.
The next day, she scarcely sees him - even when they do happen to fall into each other's paths, it is brief and he is distant.
Then again, she is preoccupied with informing the town that their latest threat has been vanquished as well as sending Elsa, Anna and Kristoff back to Arendelle. She arrives home exhausted and before she can scrounge up enough energy to peel herself off the couch and seek him out so they can talk this out, she falls into a deep sleep.
Though she has come to terms with how she feels and her unequivocal desire to act on it, it hurts a little more with every passing hour that he's absent.
She wonders if perhaps he is overwhelmed by the revelation that has been unceremoniously thrust into their unprepared palms: that they possess the things legends are born from.
He's always been so smooth, the one who pushes for more, forces her to be open. Now, it seems that job has fallen to her.
In the back of her head, she's aware of the irony. After all the chasing he did, it's only fair she do a little herself. Maybe after all of this, they'll laugh about how much chasing they each had to endure.
But the longer he distances himself (one day turning into two which quickly morphs into three) the more she wonders, and the more the hope flaring in her stomach begins to die. Maybe he doesn't want her anymore, maybe he's still under the influence of the glass, maybe he's decided she's too much trouble because he had his mind plucked and his memories taken and then returned and he keeps getting put in danger because he means something to her. Maybe, maybe, maybe…
Eventually, her patience wears thin enough that on the third night she snatches up her coat and strides to the door.
Surely, knowing is better than this infuriating limbo they're stuck in.
8888
There is an untameable tempest of emotions in the very marrow of his bones - guilt and sadness and anger and disgust, a physical thing that makes him nauseous because he remembers every moment of his affliction. More importantly, he knows that he has no one to blame despite what they say because, even if the Snow Queen stole his memories and impregnated his soul with the blackest magic, she didn't take his heart.
That particular piece of him, and therefore his autonomy, was still very much in his possession, was still under his control. So, technically, everything he did (regardless of whether she orchestrated it) was of his own volition, and even if his regret spans the breadth of his heart and the depth of his soul, he cannot simply forgive himself and pretend nothing ever happened.
He should be happy, grateful, overjoyed and a thousand other things because he has everything within arm's reach just waiting for collection. There is family and friendship and belonging and home. There is a life that beckons him to claim it. Yet he can't - and he hates himself just a little more for it. For being weak.
The true love's kiss worked.
The only thing powerful enough to render curses useless and transcend realms and justify the most unspeakable of acts.
But…
But he doesn't understand because how could she still love him after everything? Surely, she just feels obligated to stand by him. After all, she deserves so much better. He believes with every fibre of his being that she deserves the sun and the stars and the moon and her family and friends and a life with someone who hasn't caused her pain and maybe that's the root of it.
Maybe he wanted to be the only one who never hurt her. The only one who never inflicted unfathomable pain, irrespective of good intentions.
Except he did.
He hurt her more than anyone ever had.
He broke her repeatedly and without mercy and he can't take any of it back. He can scream and shout and apologise until his eyes are bloodshot and his cheeks are stained and his throat is raw; it will never be enough. His own self-hatred is like an impenetrable wall keeping him from believing her advances. Finally, he thinks he understands just how difficult it was for her to let him in. The only thing is; he's not as strong as her, despite what she thinks.
She's confused that he hasn't taken her aside to profess his affections already, he knows that and he sees the way it disheartens her.
He's always had difficulty trying to identify the reason to his rhyme. This time in particular, he curses the lack of understanding he retains for his own mental infrastructure. Pulling away from her is an automatic response (albeit painful) despite being something he's never done before.
It might be because of the bitter taste in his mouth and he can't tell what's real and what's not real anymore and he almost lost her and this is more arduous than any journey he's ever forged before. It's harder than it should be. They love each other - it's been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt - but so much has happened that can't be undone. And he can't tell her about the true love's kiss; how is he supposed to explain something he can't even come to grips with?
Especially when that seed of doubt keeps blossoming, especially when he keeps replaying that terrible moment in his head where he thought he'd lost her - where he thought he'd failed. Trying to reconcile that pure untainted disappointment and grief with the knowledge that it actually did work is nigh impossible. He had resigned himself to the understanding that where she can have the world, he is nothing but dust.
It physically pains him to know that he can never be everything she deserves - she should have everything and anything, an infinity, but he can only give her a crippled, alcoholic pirate seeking redemption in jade eyes. She needs someone who has never hurt her. And he hates himself so much for hurting her, so much it haunts him - she haunts him.
Every time he sees her he can't shake the image of her tears, her screams, her blood (on his hands, clothes, staining his skin). He drowns in it like nothing else, scrabbles frantically for oxygen amidst an ocean of disturbing memories where she is in unfathomable pain.
For all that he has been designated the role of open lover in their tremulous relationship, he doesn't quite know how to voice the tangle of thoughts in his mind to her without spooking her.
A small, almost nonexistent part of him wants to spook her and send her running (as painful as it would be) just because he wants so much more for her than he can ever provide. Maybe it's selfish, maybe it's selfless - either way, he just wants her to be safe and happy.
The terror of losing her again and the mortification at the possibility of inflicting any more damage has him paralysed.
But he cannot avoid her forever, not in a town as small as Storybrooke. It takes three days of awkward encounters for him to muster up enough courage and, when he finally does, he forces his limbs to do his bidding; making haste to her apartment. He second guesses himself at least five different times on the walk up the stairs.
Finally, he reaches the door and lifts his fist to knock.
Except it opens before his knuckles can ever rap against the aged wood, revealing Emma. She is dressed like she's about to brave the cold night air herself. Her eyes widen as they land on him, surprise muffling the previously determined edge to her features.
A beat of silence follows where they merely stare at each other, and he drops his arm to his side.
"Killian," she greets breathily, her expression tight and wary.
He swallows the thickness in his throat and shifts awkwardly from foot to foot, answering her with a nod and an equally quiet greeting.
"Swan."
She chews her bottom lip and steps back from the threshold, gesturing for him to come inside. And he does, shuffling silently into the noiseless apartment and moving until he's standing by the kitchen, good hand braced on the counter. The door shuts with a firm click and he hears more than sees her follow his path across the room, only stopping when she is directly in front of him with her arms folded across her chest.
"So are we finally going to have that talk?" she asks, a quiet sharpness to her words.
Killian's eyes dart around her face, and he nods before glancing up to scan the room. When he meets her gaze again, it's to ask, "Is your family home?"
She shakes her head, "No. My parents have taken Neal out for the night and Henry is with Regina."
"Okay," he says, more to himself than her, trying to muster the same courage that propelled him to this point -
"Why have you been avoiding me?" she cuts him off, eyebrows drawn, lips tight.
"I wasn't -"
"Cut it out," she snaps, harsher than she's been all week - and he thinks perhaps she's had just about enough. Her voice softens marginally when she continues, staring at her shoes self-consciously, "I know that all of this is... overwhelming, but you can't just push me away." Green eyes drift up to meet his again and his mouth is dry for a long second. Then he's shaking his head almost imploringly.
"I'm not pushing -"
"Stop it, okay? I'm not stupid."
His mouth snaps shut and she takes a deep, shaky breath in what he assumes is an attempt to steady herself. Emma's gaze darts between his eyes, searching for a reason, probing for an honest answer as she continues, "You might be here but you're... you're distant... I've barely seen you since I woke up and I want to know why."
The silence is deafening.
"Why are you avoiding me?" she demands again, cornering him.
"Emma…" his tone is gentle enough to sound reluctant and she shakes her head, taking a forceful step in his direction.
"No. No, you don't get to avoid me. After weeks of hell, you don't get to do that without an explanation." He flinches when she mentions the pain he inflicted, and finds himself unable to tear his eyes away from her as her voice softens ever so slightly, belying the no doubt trembling impatience within, "You remember everything now, so I want to know why you're still avoiding me." Her eyes pierce him, penetrating and desperate and pleading. And then her brow furrows and her voice is barely a whisper when, tentatively, she asks ,"Is the glass still –"
"No. Gods, no," he tells her, quickly - and her face hardens all over again.
"Then, why are you pulling away from me?"
His hand makes an automatic path to his neck, running up over his scalp to pull at his hair as he turns away and begins to pace. His thoughts are an indecipherable mess, a snarl of strings that won't roll out, a toiling sea that just won't calm. It's humming in his veins; this restless need to communicate to her clashing violently against his self-ingrained need to isolate himself. His feet pad quietly against the floor, but he barely hears it over the blood pumping loudly in his ears.
"Emma, I can't – I won't – I don't deserve…"
"Deserve what?"
Her voice rises, gesturing wildly.
Killian spins on his heel, ice blue eyes blown wide.
"You."
Tilting her head, she tries to close the space between them; trying again to coax him out of this state he's hopelessly drilled himself into.
"Killian... What happened wasn't your fault."
He backs away, arms up, eyes red-rimmed, voice cracking in a physical manifestation of the infinitesimal fractures webbing across his entire being.
"But it was!" he yells brokenly, "You're right, I remember everything. So I remember everything I did, every line I crossed and I remember hurting you, I remember putting you and everyone you loved in danger –"
"So where does that leave us?" she screams back, her sympathy evaporating so quickly it gives him whiplash just watching the pendulum of her emotions swing back and forth between an incurable frustration and harrowing sadness.
"I don't know!"
"I've already told you it wasn't your fault!" Emma says angrily, throwing her arms out wide, "That wasn't just my way of alleviating your guilt on my death bed, you should know me better than that! What else do you need me to say? You saved me, we shared... we shared - you know…" She groans, rolling her eyes at her own inability to say it - which is precisely when he realises that she knows.
She knows.
Expression falling slack, in a mumbled disbelieving cadence, he asks her, "How do you know about...?"
He has just as much trouble saying at she does, like saying it will make it all the more real and it can't be real, it couldn't possibly be real. Which isn't to say he doesn't want her, or love her, but he cannot reconcile himself with the irrefutable fact that a piece of her hard sought-after heart belongs to him.
"For shit's sake, true love's kiss!" she yells, striding angrily towards him, "There, I said it. Now can we stop tip-toeing around it?"
"Who told you?" is all he can manage, his head still reeling because he distinctly remembers trying to muster up the courage to tell her.
Emma rolls her eyes in mixed incredulity and exasperation, "Besides the fact it was an act of true love that got your memories back?" His mouth falls open just a little more because he hadn't given much thought to what had caused his returned memories. If she notices his slack jaw, she doesn't comment - just ploughs on, mowing him down with her glittering eyes and impassioned voice, "Nobody had to tell me! I'm not stupid - what else could have removed the Snow Queen's linking curse?"
Shaking his head, he answers in defeat, "I don't know..."
As his voice drifts off, they merely stare at each other - caught irrevocably in each others' orbits, unable to disentangle despite this untouchable thing keeping them apart. And they're both tired - so so tired, yet even more unwilling to stop fighting against it, despite the fact that it's tearing them up inside. His eyes are still tinged pink and wet, and her cheeks are flushed, and they are both breathless from yelling.
She tries again, voice croaky from screaming at him "Killian -"
He cuts her off again, stammering and stumbling and grasping for a place to begin, "I'm not - it's - Emma - I don't..."
"We shared true love's kiss," she interrupts bluntly, making his heart stutter. The begging undertone of her words obvious enough that he has to swallow the angst that lodges in his throat (it only falls to the spot just beneath his breastbone, conglomerating in a thick uncomfortable ball that makes breathing painful), "Why is that not enough? Why am I not enough?"
"Don't you dare ever think you are not enough, Emma. You are more than enough."
He doesn't recognise his own voice, it is so vehement and strong even though he is crumbling inside.
"Then what am I supposed to think?" she asks with a sad shrug and wet eyes, "I have spent weeks wishing you would come back so I could do it all differently and now you're just going to turn away from me because you hate yourself too much to – to what? To love me? You loathe yourself so goddamn much you'd be willing to turn your back on me? Because that's exactly what you're doing."
"I'm not turning my back," he hisses, lines marring his forehead, "I'm just - I am struggling to see how you can even stand me after everything I did! I'm struggling to come to terms with how you can just forgive me like nothing happened –"
"No, you're struggling to forgive yourself. It has nothing to do with me."
"It has everything to do with you."
Emma shakes her head and takes a breath, a light flickering to life in her eyes as something dawns on her.
"No. No, it doesn't," she repeats quietly, crowding his personal space in a strange role reversal. Then again, this entire situation is role reversal and he's never been more empathetic to her plight than now, when he is the one trying to shove back the walls threatening to crush him - the walls erected and fortified by the Snow Queen's manipulation. He's never been more glad for someone's demise, the black hatred burning deep in his gut.
Emma unknowingly quells it with a flick of her eyes, her gaze dragging down his face, her hand reaching up to cup his cheek beseechingly.
"This has nothing to do with me," she says, almost like she's reassuring herself, "So what is it? Why have you been avoiding me?"
Her tenderness smothers him, her affection burning into his skin with a keen precision that makes him gasp for air like there's a physical weight on his lungs. He breathes deeply through his nose, mouth in a tight line.
She waits for him to answer, never moving her hand, never pressing the topic. She is patient in a way he will never understand or manage to adequately requite.
After a pregnant pause, pierced by nothing but his strained breathing, he lets the words fall out into the space between them.
"...I hurt you, Emma. I always thought - I always wanted to be better than all of them. All of the people in your past. But now I'm in the same league as every other person who has ever betrayed you, and I don't know if I can live with that."
With deeply furrowed brows, she cants her head and swipes her thumb across his cheek, "You're really not."
"But I -"
"You had no choice," she insists, shuffling forward again and placing her other hand on his empty cheek. His hand and hook reach up to loop around her wrists, but he doesn't bring them down, just holds on for dear life, anchoring himself in the green depths of her eyes.
"She didn't have my heart. I had a choice. I was well aware of everything I was doing."
"But it wasn't you - it was her distorted, twisted version -"
"That doesn't change anything -"
"It changes everything!" she nearly yells.
"It doesn't change the fact that you nearly died because of me," Killian's voice is almost inaudible, but she hears it all the same. Her grip on his face becomes firmer, enough to keep his head in place directly in front of her as she pulls him forward to press their foreheads together. She speaks with such quiet conviction, he's almost tempted to believe her.
"I did not nearly die because of you. I nearly died because of the Snow Queen. I'm alive because of you."
He sighs, "Emma -"
"I love you."
The world screeches to a halt, his mind going blissfully blank as he drinks in her closed eyes and sloped cheeks and she just said -
"I love you," she says again, firmer.
"You shouldn't," he answers automatically, his brain struggling to catch up to his mouth. Honestly, he's surprised he can even form coherent words when the woman he's been besotted with for just under two years finally tells him the one thing he's always wanted her to say. The timing is just all wrong though and she's only saying it because she wants him to stop blaming himself and -
"I love you," she repeats, this time opening her eyes and fixing him with a determined look.
Killian's heart seizes up before it begins to beat rapidly; violently enough that any minute it will surely erupt from his chest and fall with a heavy thud onto the floor.
"Emma –"
"Killian, I love you." She smiles and it's perchance the most beautiful thing he's seen in a long time because she looks so self-assured, like she can finally see herself through his eyes and she shakes her head and tells him, on an exasperated chuckle, "I want you, and I'd think by now you should know I'm stubborn enough that you can try to change my mind as much as you like. It won't change a damn thing."
There was a time when he thought silence measured the depth of his pain, his suffering, his loss. Except now he cannot help but feel the need to redefine that concept because her words echo in the quiet apartment, leaving nothing in their wake and his ears ring and for once he's not losing anything. He's gaining everything. For weeks, he's looked at her and seen what he broke (every scar he carved standing out as sure as though they were physically branded onto her pale skin). Now though...
Now, she's forcing him to look at her and see what else he's done: he's made her stronger, better, fiercer in every way possible. He sees it in her face, written plainly for him and anyone sparing the effort to look. Emma Swan is different because of him. The weight on his chest slowly lifts, leaving the barest of pressure that he mightn't ever be able to remove. But it's enough to peel away the layers of self-loathing and spur him to action.
He leans down to kiss her, moving his hand and hook to wrap firmly around her waist as he bruises his lips against hers.
She reciprocates instantly, moving her hands from his cheeks to drag her fingers through his hair, raking her nails down through his scalp when his tongue runs across the seal of her mouth. She gasps and he takes the opportunity it presents, deepening the kiss so it becomes something carnal and desperate - and then they're moving, shuffling awkwardly towards her bedroom with fumbling limbs and stuttered breaths. They don't reach the door before she's yanking his shirt off his shoulders, and he responds in kind by literally tearing hers off and pressing hot open-mouthed kisses to her collarbone, throwing the ruined material in some unimportant corner of the apartment.
Killian's hands roam her bare skin and he only pauses to pull back to stare at her, breathing heavily.
The words bubble up and out of his mouth, unbidden and unapologetic.
"...I love you," he gasps abruptly, "I've always loved you."
Again, Emma Swan smiles and leans up so their lips are brushing when she replies silkily, "Good."
He grins broadly for what feels like the first time in centuries.
8888
Later, she tucks herself carefully into the crook of his arm, head on his bare chest, his hand tangling gently in the ends of her hair.
It's quiet now, but that will end any minute - Mary Margaret and David are due home any minute, carting a screeching baby Neal. Which is a great reason to get up and at least collect their clothes from their scattered locations around the apartment and change into some pyjamas (if only for the sake of their dignity). But right now, she's just too comfortable to move; warm and secure and safe like nothing she's experienced in weeks or months or, hell, even years.
"I know you don't want to hear it," he breaks the silence, making her tilt her head up on his chest so she can see his face (his eyes are focused on her and she shivers at the way they loiter down the length of her body before rising to her face again), "But I am sorry. And I just needed to say that - at least once when you weren't dying."
Emma sends him a mildly stern look, "You're right. I don't want to hear it."
She noses into his chest, "But I forgive you anyway."
"For bringing it up or for the past weeks?"
"Both."
Silence descends on them then, wrapping around the small dimly-lit room. The moon casts a pale glow over them both, his face bathed in pale white light when she looks up at him again with a small smile. He's staring at the ceiling, still absent-mindedly playing with her hair, but he notices when she shifts her arm to prop herself up more. Swinging her leg over his hip, she slides on top of him so she can rest her chin on her hands where she locks them over his heart.
"I know there's still a lot of things - a lot of... unresolved pain that this doesn't solve," she blushes just thinking about the fact that she's draped over him and they're still both very much naked (he grins knowingly), "And I know you still don't completely forgive yourself even if I do, and I love you for caring that much. But we can work through it. I don't want to run anymore, and I don't want to lose this again. I can't lose you again." she mumbles.
"You won't. I'll not go anywhere unless you order me away - I swear," he returns, expression earnest.
There's a beat of silence.
"And I'm sorry too," she whispers, surprising him.
Killian's brows furrow, "For what, love?"
"For taking this long. For not realising how much I need you until I lost you," Emma murmurs, transfixed by the way his expression morphs from confused to something soft and pliable and loving. His fingers begin to trace up her spine and he cards his hand in her hair. With his trademark smirk, he rolls them over so he hovers above her.
He nudges his nose against hers, "I guess I can find a way to forgive you."
Then he kisses her, her smile dissolves into a pleased moan, and the world fades away.
One last review for old times' sake?
(No seriously, I'm so stressed because of how desperate I am for you guys to feel like you've gotten closure from this ending just tell me you didn't hate it/feel unsatisfied I do not usually beg like this)