I have zero self-control and a lot of you wanted an epilogue so here's a little something-something about the after (P.S. I adore each and every one of you)
Epilogue: Midnight Interludes
Sometimes, he has nightmares.
There are nights where she will wake to the sound of his stunted breathing, his fists clenched amongst the sheets at his side as he jerks restlessly from side to side. On these nights, when there is no light in the room but that which is cast about by the pale moonlight filtering in through the curtains, and he unintentionally drags her from her slumber, she reaches over to him.
Her hand finds his shoulder, and she shakes him gently from his terrors.
The way his eyes snap open, wide with fear and despair, makes her heart seize. For the thousandth time, she feels an unmitigated hatred for the Snow Queen. Even three months after her demise, her poisonous touch still lingers on his soul.
As Killian's gaze finally slides across to find her face, his ragged breathing begins to slow. His heart is still thudding loudly in the silent room, and her palm drifts from his arm to rest over it. She tries to saturate her gaze with as much understanding as she can as she shuffles closer to him, propping herself up on her spare arm so she can look down on him. She uses her free hand to brush some hair from his forehead.
He's still just staring at her, almost like he finds it physically impossible to tear his gaze away.
And Emma attempts a tight smile, "Same one?" she asks gently.
Killian nods, just barely discernible through the darkness.
Every time it is the same - or so he tells her.
It took a week after the first one for him to finally spit it out, string the words together for her. At first, when he'd begun waking in the middle of the night, he'd simply crushed her to him until the tremors had stilled and the exhaustion had pulled him mercifully back into the familiar clutches of sleep. Then, finally, after some coaxing on her part and a week of sleepless nights, he had managed to murmur his deepest fears, vocalise the nightmare that haunts him relentlessly.
"It always starts with losing you," he had whispered across to her, his fingers drifting through the ends of her hair, "You die again, and again, and again and each time I… I can do nothing but watch. I'm paralysed." His lilting voice had begun to crack then, and she had taken it as a sign to nuzzle closer, reassuring him without words that she was in no danger. Naturally, his arms had tightened as he'd continued to talk.
Though she's never experienced the terrible nightmare herself, she can picture it clearly in her head. His voice ringing in her ears as she thinks about what follows her repetitive demise.
After he loses her, he loses himself. In his nightmare, he is helpless to the Snow Queen's influence. The way he describes it; he is a marionette doll, his actions are completely out of his control as though his limbs are attached to invisible strings and he is merely observing them. He has a front row seat to watching himself destroy everything good in his life again. From her to her family to her friends and this beloved little town.
Then comes the amnesia. Though he doesn't actually forget anything, he physically sees the memories fade - the images disintegrating to dust that falls between his fingers like fine sand. Until eventually he cannot see anything but blackness. Until there is nothing left and the panic closes around his throat like a vice because his eyes can't pierce the black curtain shrouding the mental image of her face.
She is jerked back to the present when he shivers.
Trailing her eyes down his face, she watches him screw his eyes shut in an attempt to ward off the no doubt vivid flashes of his nightmare.
There's only one thing that helps at times like these.
"Hey, you're okay," she reassures him, all tender notes and softened eyes, cupping his cheek so he looks at her.
He swallows, eyebrows drawing together, "Do you mind?"
Emma shakes her head with a small smile, tracing her fingers down his neck and asking the same string of questions that always initiate this small consolation only she can offer him. It's no trouble to listen to him retell their tale anyway. Sometimes, it's even nice to hear him recite it at her prompting.
"How did we meet?" she asks, feeling success rise comfortably in her chest when his mouth tics up in a lopsided smile. His eyes rise to the ceiling, tracking patterns into the roof.
"You found me under a pile of corpses in the Enchanted Forest and promptly held a dagger to my throat."
His amusement is tangible, level with her own as he rubs his palm up and down her spine. Their eyes meet for a second, and they both chortle just thinking about the decidedly unstable beginnings of their relationship. The world quiets again and he nods lightly (there is the faintest ribbon of desperation laced into the action), urging her to ask more. Because he needs to be sure he remembers.
"When did you first realise you liked me?" she asks teasingly, poking him in the ribs.
Killian purses his lips thoughtfully, visibly grasping for the moment in his head.
When he lands on it, his eyes spark to life.
"When you questioned my plan to wait until the giant fell asleep. I remember I was bandaging your hand," he snakes his hook around her wrist and brings said hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles before continuing, "and you said we needed to knock him out. I was already intrigued, had been from the moment you tied me to that blasted tree. But when you revealed your plans for the giant, you were so unflinchingly audacious… I realised I actually enjoyed your company."
"You said I'd make a hell of a pirate," she murmurs, leaning down to kiss his shoulder. She doesn't push herself back up, just settles her cheek on his warm skin and falls into his side. He turns to encircle her waist with his arms, resting on his side so they are face-to-face (or as much as they can be with their height difference - her nose nudges at his neck).
"I meant it," he replies, kissing the crown of her head.
It continues like that for some time, her questions, his answers - his heart slowing to a calm, steady beat beneath her ear.
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"Where was our first kiss?"
"Technically the Jolly Roger but for us… Neverland," he replies, smirking and leaning down to capture her lips in a similarly heated exchange. When they break apart, he breathes against her cheek, "I believe it went something like that."
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"When did you start to think that maybe I reciprocated?" she inquires, slightly curious if his answer aligns what she knows in her heart to be the moment she let herself reconcile with the inevitability of what they possessed (though perhaps not the depth or strength of it).
He brushes back an errant strand of hair from her face, "At the town line. When Pan cast his curse. You said -"
"Good," she echoes at the same time he does, lips and toes curling simultaneously as he tugs her just a little closer.
It seems they are in agreement on that.
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She grins just thinking about the answer as she asks, "What happened when you found me in New York?"
Instantly, he chuckles, chest rumbling so they both shake a little on the bed. He tells the tale as though regaling a fond memory, even though - if she remembers correctly - it wasn't too pleasant for him.
"I tried to kiss you and you responded by kneeing me in the groin. Strangely enough, it was exactly how I'd pictured for our reunion," he says sarcastically. She rolls her eyes and flicks him in the arm.
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"What happened to your ship?"
Without ever choosing to, her voice has become hushed and serious.
His eyes pierce hers with an intensity that burns, branding her with the emotions that rest there - just beneath the surface but plain enough for her to see.
"I traded it for a magic bean so that I could find you and bring you home."
Her eyes never leave his.
"Why did you trade it?"
Killian's nose nudges against hers, lips just hovering over hers before he tilts forward to whisper in her ear, "Because I love you." His mouth lands against the underside of her jaw then, kissing a trail up to the corner of her lips where she waits until he pulls back just enough for her to twine her fingers in his hair and answer.
"I love you too."
Her chest swells with emotion as he stares at her, drinking in the image of her face.
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Though there are still days where he struggles with himself, with the memories of what happened, with the hatred he harbours for himself; days where his heart clenches in his chest and he swears he's losing his mind or his soul or maybe both. There are other days, an infinite number of them, that counteract the darkness.
For every moment he spends in self-decreed anguish, there are a dozen more where she is there to pick up the pieces and tape them inelegantly back together. She is steadfast at his side, comforting and supportive - it's as new for him as it is for her (she's never had to be there for anyone other than Henry and briefly Mary Margaret). But for him she tries. She reminds him that she loves him, that she forgives him, that she needs him - and somehow, that helps. It breaks through the haze of regret, sobering him up in an instant so he doesn't spend days trying to avoid her.
They work in tandem to heal their recently accrued scars. He labours painstakingly on piecing together the fractured shards he broke, soothing her fears when they do choose to rise. Because he is not alone in his pain, and there are times when she wakes to an empty bed and forgets that he is only in the adjacent bathroom brushing his teeth or in the kitchen making coffee or at the docks working his new job. Mornings stapled by her panic and age-old fears.
There are times when only his hand twined in hers will calm the maelstrom of emotions wreaking havoc in the cavity of her chest.
They need each other in ways that they simply didn't before. It's crippling and liberating all at once, to have someone to depend on, someone to need with an unfettered love that swells in their chests and clogs their throats.
But they make it through - not unscathed, but alive. And together.
And, she thinks, maybe that's all that really matters.