Arthur holds the dagger tightly. "Perfect timing, usurper," he says to Killian. "Dark One, he has tricked my sword into accepting him and as long as it belongs to this usurper it can never truly be mine. Take his heart and crush it."
"No!" Emma exclaims. "Please. I'm begging you. I can get you the sword some other way. Please anything but this."
"He should have thought of that before he tried to steal the sword that is mine my right. Kill him, Dark One."
She plunges her hand into his chest. The look of torment in her eyes is far more painful to Killian than her hand clasped around his heart. She pulls it free, holding it carefully in her hand.
"Please don't make me do this," she pleads.
"At least let me say goodbye," Killian says. "If there is any piece of honor or compassion left in you, please, let me say goodbye."
"Very well. Make it quick."
"I don't know what to say," he says, taking her hand, the one not holding his heart. "I… There are things I need to say to Emma, to the real Emma. I guess I'll just say them to you and hope she can remember when she is ready to hear it." He draws her closer, trying desperately to draw strength from someone he isn't sure is there. "I'm not afraid to die, Emma, never have been really, but I'm terrified that this will push you further into the darkness. Please don't let it. Remember that anything you are ordered to do with the dagger isn't you."
"Oh I know who is responsible," she says, cold fury in her tone. "He'll pay."
"No," Killian says softly. "Don't make my mistakes. Don't waste your life on revenge. You still have your family and it may not feel like it now but you have a life worth living. Fight for that. Vengeance doesn't bring back the dead so fight for the living." He takes a deep breath. "I love you. I have for a long time. I would have died to bring you back and counted it well worth the sacrifice. Don't let the darkness use me to keep you enslaved."
"I think that's enough of a goodbye," Arthur says. "Kill him."
"Please, no!" Emma says, half sobbing. "I'm sorry," she adds to Killian.
"You'll be alright, Love," he says softly, steeling himself. He keeps his eyes locked on her face.
Agony flashes through him but he refuses to cry out, refuses to haunt her with that. His hand tightens on hers and his jaw tenses but he makes no sound. Suddenly her lips are pressed against his, soft and desperate, salt tears mixed with cinnamon on her tongue. It adds the desperate ache of wishing to the sharp pain of her hand crushing his heart between them.
He doesn't feel the magic building, or perhaps he is too distracted to notice until the flash of warmth and light rolls out from him and Emma. The pain from his heart immediately stops. Emma, real Emma, his Emma, starts to laugh but hasn't stopped sobbing either. She presses his heart back into his chest, a sudden sharp pain that he is far too happy to care about.
Emma's eyes fall on Arthur, his hands still holding the dagger that no longer bears her name. She turns away from Killian, snatching the dagger and pressing it against Arthur's throat in one fluid motion. Suddenly Killian's hand is there over hers, not controlling the knife, just warm and alive, steadying her shaking hands.
"It's time to let go of the darkness, Love," he says gently.
She looks back at Killian then again at Arthur and at her violently shaking hand holding the dagger to his throat. She shudders and lets the dagger fall through suddenly limp fingers. It clatters to the ground and she scrambles backwards away from it before sinking to the ground.
Arthur saw the fury on Emma's face and sees the look in Killian's eyes as well, the eyes of a man who would gladly kill Arthur himself and only stopped Emma for her own sake. He wisely decides that, today at least, discretion is the better part of valor and he runs.
Killian kneels beside Emma, pulling her to him in a gentle hug. Light enough she doesn't feel trapped, firmly enough so she feels safe. She sinks against him gratefully, her face buried against his shoulder, her body racked with sobs.
"It's alright now," he tells her.
"But I almost…"
"Don't torture yourself with that, Love. What matters is that you didn't. You gave up the darkness to save my life." He reaches back and starts gently taking the bobby pins out of her bun, careful not to snag her hair.
"I almost didn't."
"But you did. You did what no other Dark One has ever done. You chose True Love over power."
"I couldn't let you be the price of that power. But I hurt you anyway," she says, sounding utterly lost and broken. Her golden hair falls free from the bun she had worn as the Dark One. "I didn't mean to but I did and…"
"I don't care," Killian says gently. "What happened before, what the Dark One did, I don't care about any of that. You're you, and you're here with me." He flashes her a positively joyful smile, his joy tempered only by her sorrow, and she can see his honesty written on his face.
She kisses him and he wraps his arms more tightly around her. Here in his embrace, for the first time in months, she feels wanted, feels loved, feels home.