Emma woke up, slowly stirring at first, blinking her bleary green eyes a few times and then bolting straight upright with a rush of adrenaline as soon as she realizes that she had been sleeping. The sunlight's streaming in through the window, giving away the dawn of a new day and wasted time that she could have spent on trying to save Killian.
"Oh God. Oh God, how long did I sleep?! How did I even sleep?" She panicked and looked at the clock that only said nine in the morning and then looked back to Killian with wide eyes, who was still sitting by her side on the bed in the same position that he'd been in when she'd fallen asleep. It was his presence next to her still that was the only thing that calmed her racing heartbeat.
"Not nearly long enough. You'll wear yourself out like this." Killian smiles at her softly and as she remembers how to breathe properly, the scene before her sinks in.
This was something she could get used to. Waking up next to him and hearing his voice first thing in the morning. If only it were under different circumstances and she could roll over closer to cuddle against his body.
"I'LL get worn out? What about you? Did you even sleep at all?" Her words are slurred with drowsiness as she resists the urge to faceplant back into the pillow. She keeps telling herself over and over to get up and make coffee but her body is unwilling to find the energy to move anymore now that her quick rush of adrenaline and panic was wearing off.
"Why would I need to sleep when I don't have a body to get exhausted?" Killian responded with an arched eyebrow and the only response that Emma could manage was a weak shrug. Hadn't she just been thinking about that last night? Last night was a blur of caffeine jitters, painful emotions and frustration to the point of making her lose her mind.
Shaking her head a few times and noticing some of her long, blonde hair was tangled, she urged herself up and her body somehow made it out of bed and over to the coffee maker as she tried to wake herself up. She couldn't afford to be tired right now, she had to hop on the caffeine and think straight to get everything sorted out.
Ever since she found out the truth about Killian, she rarely saw him walk anywhere. She'd just turn around and he'd be across the room in an entirely different spot or right beside her and while it unnerved her because it was unnatural and only called attention to his condition, she'd been getting used to it. Expecting it even. So when she turned around in the kitchen and he was still in the same spot on her bed staring at the wall, it came as a bit of a surprise. For a few moments, she just watches him. He almost looks frozen, his bright blue eyes taking the light shade of ice in the morning sun are transfixed at the wall.
Except, there's nothing on the wall. Tacky wallpaper was all that covered the space besides two windows that showed the main street of the town outside. Listening to the coffee maker hiss and bubble to life, Emma tries to follow his sight to see what he sees that holds his attention so captivated. Failing to see anything but rooftops out the window, she walks over and her hand reaches out to pull the curtain back further when Killian's suddenly right beside her.
His eyes hold a bit of panic as does his voice, "What're you doing lass?!"
However, it all happens in a split second and quite frankly, scares the shit out of Emma. It's too early in the morning to literally have ghosts popping up and shouting at you and if Killian were to have stereotypically yelled "BOO!", it would have scared her all the same.
"What are YOU doing?!" She shouts back, pressing a hand over her hammering heart. "The COFFEE is supposed to wake me up! You don't need to give me a heartattack!" She takes a deep breath, her eyes wide and at the very least she's now wired and wide awake for a few seconds.
"I..." For a second he seems taken aback, looking at the curtain that she was about to touch and then back at the blank space of wall. "I thought you were... Nothing. Nevermind." He backs off quickly, scratching behind his ear the way that he does when he's nervous or embarrassed. The way that he had before he tapped his lips to ask for a kiss on Neverland and the way that he had when his leg bumped the table during Regina's seance. The little motion is so endearing to Emma that she almost forgives him for giving her an early morning fright.
"No, it's not nothing, you acted like I was about to touch a bomb. What were you looking-" Emma gets cut off by her cell phone ringing but as she crosses the room to answer it, she looks back suspiciously at Killian. "What were you staring at?"
The screen on her phone is lit up with 'Henry' and she looks to Killain, waiting for him to answer but his lips remained sealed shut as he gestured to her that she needed to answer the phone and she could only roll her eyes.
"Hey kiddo, how was your night?" She wonders if her voice even sounds normal right now but perhaps Henry spent too much time around Killian because he does the same thing as the pirate and completely ignores her question as his voice bubbles over the line.
"Mom! Regina told me Killian's a ghost? Why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you tell me? I could have helped!" And Emma almost facepalms. How did Regina find out already? She couldn't be angry with Regina for telling Henry however, the kid at least sounded excited and relieved that his favorite scandalous babysitter was still around in one way or another. Was the entire town gossiping? She hadn't exactly asked Ruby to keep it secret and if she worked the morning shift today and made the mistake of telling one of the dwarves, there was a good chance that every single person in Storybrooke already knew.
"Henry, it's just weird and I figured sitting down and talking about it could wait until after it was fixed. I'm sorry kid, I didn't meant to leave you out." She apologized over the phone but guilt still gnawed away at her. She thought that after Henry got his memories back she wouldn't have to hide things from him anymore but here she was sneaking around all over again.
"Yeah but mom, I could have helped ghost-safety prepare the room!"
Emma actually does rub her forehead, not even knowing how to respond to something like that this early in the morning. "He's not a baby Henry, it's not like we can go around and put rubber tips on all the sharp edges."
"No, no, I mean getting rid of all of the iron and salt!"
She blinks a few times and takes the phone away from her ear so she can look at it and be reassured that she's actually having this conversation and not having some bizarre dream. "Salt? Why do I need to get rid of salt?"
Henry's voice was exasperated on the other line as if he were the adult talking to a child. "Salt can hurt ghosts mom! Don't you watch Supernatural?"
If Emma's morning was going to start with heartattacks and Henry's jabbering about one of his TV shows, she was going to need that coffee maker to hurry up. "Henry, he's not a, he's not...well, He's... OK, I'm not exactly sure what he is but OK, alright. If it'll make you feel better I'll throw out the salt."
A few more nods and "mmhms" from Emma and her and Henry hung up, allowing Emma to make her coffee and momentarily forget about Killian staring transfixed and worried at the blank wall again.
ONCE. UPON. A. TIME. -
Not sure why, but when Emma finally got to pour herself coffee that morning, she pulled out two mugs and filled them both with coffee, topping them off with a dash of sugar and cinnamon before carrying them both over to the table in the living area of the room to set one down in front of Killian. It's only after she takes a few sips of her own and gets the first taste of that fresh, recharged feeling that comes with it that she looks down at the second cup and softly says, "Oh. You can't even drink that, can you?"
It had been a thoughtless reflex to make Killian a cup of coffee in the morning along with hers and she blamed it on her tired and weary mind but deep down, it had just felt right. The two of them together in the morning, making coffee to share, starting their day together...
Now, her coffee cup was drained and she reached for Killian's untouched one as they sat on the couch together with a pen and notebook, trying to make a list of every object they could think of that they'd have in common and how to make it wearable. Emma giggled over the idea of finding one of the pairs of handcuffs that she'd handcuffed him with but after a few seconds of giggling, she realized that they might be a serious idea and added them to the list as well. Most of the other objects were lost on the Jolly Roger, trapped in another realm and she knew they wouldn't be able to get to them in time.
The wooden box is open in front of them, revealing the few treasures that the pirate held so dear to him that he wore every day and she can only wish that any of them meant something to her too. It'd be so easy. She picks up one of his rings, the one he always wore on his ring finger and she smiles slightly as how gaudy and out of fashion it was but still somehow managed to look good on him. He pulled off man-rings the same way that Johnny Depp pulled off wearing a broken wooden spoon in his hair.
Turning the ring over in her hand that she's still holding, her fingers brush over the engraving of a small flower on the sides. A flower so similar to the tattoo on her wrist and she looks down at her wrist while holding the ring. What were the chances that one of his prized possessions before they even knew each other was a ring with that flower on it? What were the chances of the one tattoo she chooses being the same one that a pirate in a far off land wears around his finger? It was no chance, but destiny, and she almost wants to keep the ring for herself.
She's mulling over the thought of his hook instead when it happens. The hook was such an obvious pick, the first sign of trust between them when she handed it back to him in the Enchanted Forest to climb the beanstalk. It was what she confiscated from him in the hospital and locked in the desk drawer of the Sheriff's office. It was a weapon but also an essential part of him, a part of him that he constantly used to pull her closer or to play with her hair and the fond memories she has of it makes her smile but she also knows that she's seen him take it off entirely too often. Hooks are too conspicuous and if he someday needed to put his fake hand back on, the option would be gone.
She misses seeing his jewelry, hook and jacket on him. He seems too bare without them, not like himself, and if she had known that seeing what was in the box would take them away from his appearance, she would have left the box untouched. The black sleeve of his shirt hangs over the holster attached to his wrist that the hook fits into and for the first time that she's looked at him, he actually looks handless. With the hook, he was never truly without a left hand, just without a conventional one. He was never less of a man to her because of it and why didn't she take the time to appreciate things like that about him when she'd still had the chance?
A groan escapes from her, thinking that the only things she ever sees him keep on is his necklace and rings. And that earring. She perks up, looking at the tiny crystal hanging from his ear when the radio clicked on and she looks up at it in confusion. The channel was set to the station with the Good Morning Storybrooke crew on in the mornings but now it was just static.
With a raised eyebrow, she turns to look at Killian. "Seriously? Are you going all poltergeist on me now?" But Killian's eyes are transfixed on the radio as well, not hearing her at all as she tries to talk to him and going paler than usual if possible. She tries to not let the fear that something is wrong overtake her as she snaps her fingers in front of his face to get his attention. "Killian?"
He instantly jerks his attention back to her and the fear she was trying to hold back overtakes her at the heartbroken and lost look in his eyes, a look that was getting too familiar for the two of them and she hates seeing. It's the only thing that she hates more than the fact that she can't touch him, reach out and grab him and shake him right now to keep his attention on her as he starts to look to the radio again. "Killian!"
"Emma!" His voice is a hushed whisper compared to the way she'd almost shouted his name and he looks back and forth between her and the radio. "Wait. I'll assume you can't hear that?"
"Hear what? The static? Is that what's spazzing you out? It's normal, it's just what happens when a channel goes off the air. Technology and all but-" As she's talking, she gets up to go and turn the radio off if it's really bothering him that much. To be honest, it's bothering her too, the scraping noise is grinding on her nerves and sending chills down her spine and she can't help but think back to every bad ghost movie that she's ever seen. Couldn't spirits communicate through technology? Wasn't that what White Noise, Poltergeist and The Ring were about?
Maybe Killian's kinetic energy, or whatever it was that was keeping him visible to her, was just going haywire and affecting the actual energy around them now. But she has no idea how close to the right answer she was when Killian's next words make her blood run cold.
"It's Liam."
Liam? She'd only ever heard of one Liam before.
"Isn't...Liam Dead?" She asks even though she knows the answer, even though she doesn't want to hear the answer, even though the answer is so clearly written in his pained blue eyes at hearing his brothers voice again after being lost for centuries. Buried emotions that he kept locked away for so long, covering his loss with a life of piracy were floating back to him. Memories faded and forgotten were becoming clearer and it was getting harder for Emma to hold his attention over the temptation that the other world was offering him. How could the woman who constantly pushes him away compete with the chance for him to reunite with his brother?
Brakes screeched to a halt in Emma's mind. Other world. Other. The after life, the spirit world, the Others that Rumplestiltskin had tried to warn them about had to be other souls trying to reach out and drag Killian to them where they thought he belonged. And only one thought went through her mind after that. That they were NOT going to win. He belonged here, with her, not with them. Panic seized her as she grabbed the radio to turn it off. It's metal was ice cold to the touch and sent a jolt of foreign and unwelcome energy through her as the static died down to a fizzle and in her mind she hear a soft Irish accent too similar to Killians and yet so different, whispering for his brother to join him.
Not happening. She turns and throws the radio as soon as her hand touches it and the voice rushes through her, letting it crash through the window and hearing it hit the street and shatter outside and not caring about how much Granny charged her to repair that.
"How did you do that?" Killian's voice sounds from behind her and she turns to find him so close behind her that she almost waves an arm through him as she turns. Her heartbeat starts to slow down now that he's looking at her, fully focused and not being entranced by the siren call of his dead loved ones.
"Do what? Break a radio? I'm actually pretty good at breaking appliances. You should ask Mary Margret about what happened to her toaster." She almost lets out a relieved laugh, but out of the fire and into the frying pan.
"No, get rid of the door." He responds and things only seem to get worse and worse as she dreads asking, but asks anyways.
"What door?"
"That... Well." Killian nods towards the blank stretch of wall but pauses with uncertainty lingering in his voice. "It was there. Red."
Suddenly the way he had been staring at the wall made sense, and the way he acted like there was a bomb near the curtains if he had thought that she was going to get near the foreboding door. The impulse to take a hammer and destroy the wall where he's looking is high and a tempting idea. As was the idea of taking him and running and locking him away in the magical back room of the pawn shop but she knew both ideas were only stalls and not solutions. The hourglass that let their time left together slowly slip away was now empty and their time had run out. Hearing the dead and seeing doors to the afterlife were the sure signs of that, there was no other explanation.
"We're out of time." Her thoughts slip out of her mouth and Killian doesn't need to hear them, he's probably known that they were out of time the second that he set eyes on that damned door while she slept last night. The fact that he'd stayed by her side instead of letting his curiosity draw him away at least showed Emma that he was fighting this the best he could.
She runs back to the notebook but her heartbeat has tripled in speed and she can't focus on the words scribbled across the pages. Grabbing the box of his belonging, she dumps it upside down on the couch to rummage through them and the ring with the flower on it rolls across the couch and onto the floor. Singling itself out, calling to her the way that the one ring to rule them all called to- No. She was NOT going to get lost in thought thinking about Lord of the Rings right now.
"Swan." She hears Killian's alarmed voice a split second before she hears the click of the TV turning itself on and the same static that the radio had. The second it flicks on, his eyes dart to it and his voice sounds through the room again in a deeper, more urgent tone laced with panic. "Emma."
Her eyes flash away from the TV to Killian for only a second before looking back to it. "It's not really him Killian." Her voice was firm and confident even if she wasn't sure. For all she knew, it very well could be Liam Jones on the other end of that static, trying to reach out and reclaim his little brother. But her liedetector was going off like haywire even without being able to hear the voice or words and a stronger hunch told her that it was something in the afterlife, a reaper or something of sorts, trying to manipulate and trick Killian, dragging him through with temptation just to keep the balance maintained. The balance could go buy a cheap hooker and screw itself for all Emma cared.
"Killian, don't listen to him." She pleaded with him and this time her voice wavered on the last note, broken by the idea of not being able to grab him and keep him here physically. If he chose to go through that door, there'd be nothing that she could do to keep him here anymore.
"Killian." Repeating his name like a prayer, knowing the strong connection that it forged between them to use his real name.
Killian's eyes blinked and looked down at the floor, looking more ashamed than heartbroken. His eyes can't seem to meet Emmas and when he opens his mouth she dreads the words coming out. He looked like a man standing down his last battle, broken and defeated, unable to go on and she can't handle looking at the strong willed pirate like that.
"It's not Liam." He looks everywhere but at her and there's a long pause before he can muster the courage to finally look her in the eyes. "It's Milah."
Something in Emma snaps at the name. Over the days, everything inside of her had been breaking and shattering into painful pieces and clawing at her heart. But this snaps in an entirely different way, the snap of a fire crackling to life and bursting to vicious life. Anger consumed her like wild flames that they'd use Killian's first love as bait.
"No." Her voice was deeper, darker than she remembered it being and even Killian looks surprised by the venom laced on the single word. He tries to whisper her name but she can't focus on anything except looking at him, the man who had fought for her for so long, the man who seemed like he would do anything for her including cheating death. It was her turn to fight for him and a long dead ex wasn't going to win.
"No. Killian, look at me, remember the echo caves. Remember what you said and what it meant." She strangely felt like she was in the echo caves herself, having to admit her dark secret that would tear her open and wear her emotions on her sleeves. It was like turning her back on a sword, leaving herself vulnerable to attack. But if Killian was the one to wield the sword, she felt safe to turn her back on the blade. She trusted him with her life before, and now with her heart.
"She may have been your true love once, but you can have more than one. I'm... I'm your soul mate." First she had to admit to being a mother, then a savior, then a lost girl and now a soul mate. When she made her New Years resolution, this wasn't quite what she had in mind. "Your ONLY soul mate." She holds up one finger and flicks it between the two of them. "Stay here with me. Don't you dare go near her."
Killian tilted his head at the demand and his eyes have a strange sparkle to them. The only thing that he had truly needed to choose Emma over Milah was the declaration that she actually wanted him here with her. His lips twitch up into his trademark smirk and he bows towards her with only one thing to say. "As you wish."
As soon as the words are spoken, the TV instantly turns off and somehow the dark screen is even more foreboding than the static. Killian notices as well and Emma starts to notice a drop in the temperature in the room, slowly declining.
Alright, the Afterlife didn't like being ignored: memo received.
"We have to do something. I have to call Regina, Rumplestiltskin, the Blue Fairy, someone! Maybe they can help put up some sort of force field around you until we can get this figured out." Her heart ached at the idea of him essentially being inprisoned but nowhere near as painful as if she lost him all together. The man was a pirate, surely used to his fair share of being arrested and even if he hadn't been before he met Emma, he sure should be used to handcuffs by now.
Turning to grab for her phone, her eyes land on that ring again and she grabs it instead to take a closer look at the flower. "A flower is a symbol. Symbols. Symbolic. Literally a symbol." She muttered, feeling like she was losing her mind and putting entirely too much faith into a coicidence. "Where did you get this ring from? Why?"
"You're seriously asking my shopping opinion at a time like this?" He responded in disbelief.
"No!" Emma yanked back the sleeve of her shirt and showed him the flower tattoo that she knows he's seen a hundred times before but only now, his eyes are looking back and forth between the tattoo and ring and trying to put the pieces together. "What if this ring is what we need? Do you ever take it off?"
"Well, no, but..." Killian sounded like he was holding back, trying hard to not get his hopes up like walking on thin ice. "I don't even remember the day I got it. Just switched around treasure as I found it until I liked a set. Then I set sail to Neverland and, well, not many jewels there."
Her ringers were going numb now as her breath started to ghost in the air and the temperature continued to drop. "This might be the best chance we've got."
"And what if it's not? A flower's common Emma. We both also own leather jackets and tall black boots." He points out and it's not just himself that he's concerned about. If the ring fails, he'll simply move on to the afterlife where he may or may not continue to have an existence. But it'd leave Emma alone in this world, being left behind again and feeling guilty and responsible for believing in something to save him that failed. He couldn't let that guilt land on her shoulders and crush her.
"I'll MAKE it sentimental then." The fire still kindled inside her with determination burning in her eyes. "We're soul mates. I'll admit it, OK? But that means we're going to be together. Forever." Her mouth was moving and speaking without thinking this through. "If we already know that we're going to be together forever then... Don't you dare laugh at me."
She draws a deep breath into her lungs to steady herself for what she knows she has to do. Her mind finally realizes that her heart has been finally speaking it's mind and she barely registers the feeling of carpet beneath her as she drops down on one knee in front of Killian and offers his ring back up to him. "I know this isn't exactly conventional but...when Are we ever? Marry me?"
ONCE. UPON. A. TIME. -
AN: I couldn't choose between Liam or Milah so I went with both of them and I feel like while they were both important, it may have been too much to squeeze into this chapter and made it seem a bit chaotic and rushed.
Thank you so much to everyone who takes the time to comment or leave suggestions. I already had the ring planned but I really loved the idea left about the handcuffs so I had to try and give them a shout out. The Ghost Whisperer idea was also really cute but I'm not sure my attention span would make able to handle how much longer this fic would be if I added the obstacle of amnesia in.
I'm really sorry to everyone who has cried over this (especially you in public), I really hope I can do justice to the happy ending to make the pain worthwhile.