I'm so sorry for disappearing off the map for a month! Here is a much longer chapter to compensate for that. My laptop had some issues and spent several weeks getting repaired, and I was also having some personal difficulties. I don't think I'll making any promises about near updates in the future just to avoid disappointing you guys. I'll get them up as fast as I can with school and everything, though!
Anyway, on a happier note, I get to thank the wonderful Trish Tavor for the first time for being my beta! I am one lucky lady to have her looking over my work. If this chapter is good, you have her to thank!
As always, thank you to all of you for sticking with this ridiculously long story.
The Past
Roosters were crowing loudly and scratching through the dirt as Killian finally took Milah home. He couldn't help but think that 'home' was a bit of a glorified word, in this case; really, Milah and her family lived in little more than a stone hovel.
Milah walked more and more slowly the further they got from his ship. When they were but a few paces from her door, Milah stopped and turned to him desperately, fiddling with her hair again. It seemed odd to see that sign of vulnerability so frequently from someone Killian had always perceived as strong and confident.
"How long will you be in town, Killian?" She questioned with a pleading note to her voice.
Killian hesitated. He had planned to leave this very afternoon. Previously, he'd seen no point in staying in a pathetic little farming town for longer than necessary. The other issue was that he could never stay in any port for very long. As a pirate, and a pirate with a high price on his head, it was extremely risky to stay anywhere for more than a night or two at most. Still, he hadn't seen Milah for years, and she was so miserable. From the faintly hopeful expression on her face, Killian believed that he could very well break her if he said goodbye so soon.
"In a week's time," he told her, and it was worth it just to see the relief on her face.
"May I see you again tonight?"
Killian nodded. "It's likely that my crew and I will go to the tavern for the evening. Perhaps you could join us."
Milah's face lit up again. "Yes, I'd like that very much."
Then she threw her arms around him and planted a kiss on his cheek. "Thank you for everything."
Killian didn't have time to fully react, so instead watched her retreating form in a sort of stunned stupor. For a moment, he lingered by the door, curiosity about her family tugging at him. What was the man who had married her truly like? He knew that what he knew of him was horribly coloured by the lens of Milah's loathing. Still, that was all he had to go on, which meant that he was currently picturing a very old, stooped man with patchy white hair and whiskers. He had a limp, of course, and watery, dull eyes. Killian imagined him a bit like an ogre in terms of intelligence. Still, he supposed that the man inside must be very different. And what of the boy? Would he look like Milah? Would he have her beautiful eyes, grey as a foggy harbour at daybreak? Would he be as precocious as Milah had been when he'd met her, weaving stories of death and destruction with the relish only a true artist could have?
All he had to do to find out was step through the door. Hell, he was a pirate. He could break down the door and slay the pathetic old man, carry off Milah and Baelfire, and live happily ever after. But would Milah want that? He'd only known her for a fraction of their lives so far, and this new Milah he'd become reacquainted with the night before had changed from her old self. Still, there was something about Milah that was so open and easy to understand. Perhaps that was why he'd always liked her. Instead of hiding herself behind a front like much of the rest of the world, Milah's true self shone through with every word she uttered. She wasn't unafraid to show herself to the world, which was perhaps the ultimate bravery. No wonder she was so unhappy with her husband!
With a sigh, Killian turned back down the dirt path towards his ship. He had much to think about.
"Mallory!" Killian barked, pounding on his first mate's door.
After a moment, a faint groan sounded through the wood. Killian bit back his disgust. He had returned to a silent ship that he would have assumed abandoned if not for the snores from the crew's quarters. Clearly, his crew had taken full advantage of their night on land. It was a good thing that Killian was postponing their departure; he shuddered at the thought of disembarking with a crew full of hungover, irritable pirates.
Killian raised his fist to pound the door again, only to have his fist almost collide with a young man who was certainly not Owen.
"Who the bloody hell are you?" Killian demanded.
The young man - more of a boy, really - blushed to the roots of his hair. "Um..."
"He's just going," Owen cut in, finally reaching the door. He yawned a huge yawn as Killian took in his distinctly ruffled appearance and the dark circles under his eyes. "Just give us a second."
Killian tapped his foot impatiently as Owen kissed the man-boy farewell and sent him off with some pretty words, likely excerpts from his own verses. Then the lad slipped by Killian with his head down and a dopey smile on his face as Killian watched, unimpressed.
"I see you had a lively night, then?"
Owen grinned. "Oh, I had a delectable night. Indeed, I had a divine night. The man was like Ganymede. Or Apollo. Or any of those other mythical youths and gods you hear of in literature who were far too attractive for their own good and far too good at certain... activities. Other worlds exist, Killian. Do you suppose that these gods and mythical men are simply in another world that we could go to?"
Killian shrugged. "Theoretically, I suppose it's possible."
"Or perhaps they've come here already. Perhaps that was Apollo himself."
Killian thought back to the spindly, ungainly, blushing youth and had to hold back a derisive snort.
"As fascinating as this is, Owen, I was knocking on your door for a reason."
His first mate didn't seem to hear him, and instead began crooning out more of his verses:
"Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heap'd for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts when thou are gone,
Love itself shall slumber on."*
"Mallory!" Killian snapped. "Don't assume that you being my first mate - and also my mate - will keep me from punishing you if you continue this disrespect."
Owen sobered immediately. "Apologies, Captain. What can I do for you?"
Killian couldn't hold back a small smile of grim satisfaction. "Well..."
That night, Milah burst into the tavern with her eyes alight. Killian sensed the exact moment that she entered, as if something in the room had suddenly shifted. Perhaps it was her nervous energy; he could see her eyes darting over the occupants of each table in hope mingled with the visible fear of being let down once again. Killian understood the feeling. When a person's life is full of disappointments, one comes to expect only more disappointment. It was a relief to know that, for now at least, Killian himself wouldn't be bringing more misfortune to the life of his friend. In fact, a huge smile spread across Milah's expressive face the second their eyes met, and she almost ran to his table.
"Rumour has it that Airril is dead," she began breathlessly.
Owen, sitting next to Killian, choked slightly on his beer and began to cough.
"Who?" Killian queried, pulling out a chair for his companion. He made an effort to arrange his face into an expression of mild curiosity.
Milah paused for a moment, searching his face. "One of the men who attacked me last night."
"Oh," Killian said. "How unfortunate."
"Indeed," she agreed slowly, giving Killian a skeptical look that he remembered clearly from his childhood. "And the other one, Glyn, apparently had an... incident himself."
"Did he?"
Milah raised her eyebrows even further, looking up at him through her dark lashes in a way that made Killian's stomach twist. It was a look that spoke of reading minds and seeing through souls. It was also a look that told Killian that it was time to change the subject, lest he spilled all of his secrets unwittingly into the lap of the woman beside him.
"Milah, allow me to introduce my first mate, Owen Mallory," Killian drawled.
The two exchanged pleasantries as Killian now took his time to study the woman at his side. She was a vision of elegance, a queen in spite of her fraying cotton dress the colour of oatmeal. She sat with a poise that spoke of the expectation of better things. Her dark hair cascaded gently down her back, and Killian had to resist the urge to touch it to see if it was as soft as it looked. The wild curls contrasted with her dreamy, piercing eyes that were far too intelligent for a town full of imbecilic, illiterate farmers. She sat tall, with a long neck of creamy white, and yet her courtly posture - born of instinct rather than training - did not seem stiff. Milah was a woman at ease in her own skin, and it showed.
However, Killian was interested in more than her attractiveness. He knew she was beautiful; she always had been to him, even as a teenager just starting to discover his sexuality. No, he was interested in what was going on underneath all of that. She was no fool, which meant that she certainly knew that her attackers having "accidents" was no coincidence. Still, Killian was now feeling uncertain about his role in the "accidents". Very little showed on Milah's face to indicate whether or not she appreciated this intervention. Perhaps she would feel that he'd overstepped. Perhaps she now realized that the fairly innocent boy she knew had grown up to be a far less pure man, if she hadn't already realized that. She wasn't running away or rebuking him, but that could be simply due to the presence of Owen and the other people in the tavern. Her face was shuttered, and it worried him. Nevertheless, he wasn't sure that he could come to regret his decision to protect the woman beside him.
The Present
"What did you do?" Emma asked curiously. "Like, I know you killed one, but what about the other guy?"
She was expecting some sort of a snarky comment or innuendo, or, at the very least, a deflection, but it never came. Killian refused to meet her eyes, staring resolutely at the foliage surrounding them, but he answered her question.
The Past
Fortunately for Killian, Milah lived in quite a small town.
Unfortunately for her attackers, that meant that it took relatively little time for a certain angry pirate to track them down, particularly when he waved his sword around in a vaguely threatening manner.
In the daylight, Airril was much younger than Killian had anticipated. He had a face with remnants of baby fat still clinging to it, and sparse hairs grew over that baby fat in a thoroughly nauseating attempt at a beard. That and his stick-thin stature hinted at youth, as did his general maturity level, Killian mused derisively. He watched the man through his spyglass from the shadows of a house down the lane, feeling more and more disgusted with each passing second.
"Is he the one with the chicken?" Owen questioned, leaning against the wall beside him with enviable calm and catlike grace.
Killian grunted affirmatively, watching as the man slowly ended the poor creature's life. He suspected that he was dragging out the process for fun, unless he was simply clumsy with a blade.
"Ugly bloke," his first mate commented.
"Aye," agreed Killian, tucking his spyglass into his belt in a movement that was all business. "Shall we go make him uglier?"
With a shrug, Owen nodded, tailing behind him as he strode towards the door. He knocked on it once before inviting himself into the small hole of a house.
His entrance was accompanied by a cry of surprise from Airril accompanied by the sound of a dead chicken falling to the floor with a dull thud. Underneath that was the sound of a terrified gasp from a young red-headed woman in a rocking chair. Her green eyes widened almost comically at the sight of the two pirates in her home, and she gripped the armrests of the chair so tightly that her knuckles turned white within seconds.
"My lady," Killian said with a mock bow.
"P-please, sir, we haven't much money-" she began nervously.
Ariel's eyes darted around like a cornered animal, desperately searching for an escape route.
"-but you can have it all!" He finished quickly, hurrying to the woman's side. The gesture looked less like an attempt to defend her and more like an attempt to hide. Once again, disgust flowed through Killian.
"Mr. Mallory, kindly escort the lady outside."
The woman looked to Airril, her jaw now dropped. "Why? What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to mutilate your husband and leave him to bleed to death on your floor," Killian said conversationally, pulling his sword out from his sheath with a sharp hiss. "Perhaps I'll castrate him as well. It seems a fitting punishment for attempted rape."
"Rape?" The woman looked around at the men as if waiting for a contradiction. "I'm his wife, sir. I was happy to lay with him."
"Then clearly I'm not here on your behalf," Killian agreed with a feral smile.
The woman stared at her ashen-faced husband, who was now swaying on his feet. The grey face only made his freshly sliced cheek from the night before stand out all the more.
"Airril?" She whispered.
Owen moved towards her with a nod from Killian.
"Orianna, don't leave!" He begged as Owen pulled her to her feet.
That was all it took for the woman to start screaming bloody murder. Killian couldn't understand many of the words from underneath the screams and the tears, and he understood less once Owen had clamped his hand over her mouth.
"Mr. Mallory will explain the situation, my dear. You'll thank us soon enough," Killian assured her.
Tears were now running down Airril's face. "No, no, please, sir-"
Killian scowled. "Captain."
The man winced, falling to his knees. "Captain, have pity-"
"I am a man of honour," Killian reassured him, "and I do enjoy some sport. Perhaps I shall give you a chance to fight for your life..."
The blubbering man looked up at him with hope.
"Or, perhaps not, since you were too cowardly to give Milah a chance," he finished, slowly driving his blade through the man's stomach. The man cried out and, in a foolish move that again spoke of his youth, tried to stop the blade with his hands. He howled anew and drew them back, staring as they dripped blood onto the floor. The man fell to the ground with a grunt as Killian pulled his sword out.
"What next?" He asked coolly. "I could be merciful and finish things off, instead of leaving you here to bleed out slowly like a stuck pig."
He jabbed again with his sword and the man screamed.
"Or not."
Killian considered the man, deciding what to carve up next, when the woman came rushing back in with a piercing scream. Acting solely on reflex, Killian's sword came up instinctively to defend himself. The woman - Orianna, Killian remembered - had rushed in with far too much momentum to avoid the well-placed blade. For a moment, her dark green eyes connected with his blue in a look of mutual surprise. She let out a small cry, like that of a child in the throes of a nightmare, so soft that Killian imagined that he only heard it because she was right in front of him. He felt as though he were in a nightmare of his own, watching the eyes stare accusingly into his soul. Orianna. The name was hauntingly close to Lyanna's, he realized in that moment. It was not a comforting thought.
For a moment, Killian was struck with the mad urge to apologize. Hurting her hadn't been his plan. She was innocent, after all, merely here by an unfortunate coincidence. Surely, she didn't know what her husband was and what he got up to under the forgiving mask of nighttime. She was barely more than a child, driven by a mad impulse of heroism, and he knew she would die for it. She could die quickly or slowly, but, either way, her life was at its end, and it was his fault.
Then again, maybe it wasn't.
He'd tried to save her. If she was too thick to accept an act of mercy, what was he to do about it?
Still, his insides squirmed with guilt. Only a moment had passed, and yet it felt like an eternity under the scrutiny of Orianna's sickeningly blank eyes.
With a deep breath, he pushed the guilt away. He was a pirate captain, not a child. Everyone was doomed to die eventually; did it really matter if he'd put her out of her misery a little bit early? Perhaps he was doing the girl a favour; she was sure to find out about her husband's infidelity and monstrosity sooner or later. Perhaps she would condone it. Perhaps she was simply another townsperson who had added to Milah's suffering, taunting her for her husband's cowardice without knowing that her own husband's was just as bad. At any rate, her death would add to Airril's suffering, and wasn't that the point of this whole venture? This did nothing to besmirch his honour, he decided. It was regrettable, but that was all.
He still ended her suffering quickly, pulling his sword out of her and thrusting it back in, straight through her heart.
The light in her eyes faded before she hit the floor, and Airril let out another hysterical scream, even worse than the last.
"Shame, really. She was quite beautiful," Killian mused, nudging her onto her back with his foot. He allowed anger towards the man at his feet - and those like him that he had already encountered - to fill him and replace his guilt, providing fuel for his taunts. "Loud, but quite lovely. However did you manage to get a woman like her? An arranged marriage, no doubt."
Her small mouth was open in a permanent expression of surprise, blood trickling gently from her open mouth into her equally red hair. She looked even younger than Killian had initially thought. Stupid woman, running into a sword. At least he had rid the world of a fraction of its stupidity.
"Sorry, Captain, she bit me..." Owen said from the doorway in a hushed, pained tone.
"These things happen, Mallory," Killian dismissed him, tracing a tear down Airril's face with his sword for no other reason than his own satisfaction. As the man whimpered, Killian felt powerful. The feeling was frightening and exhilarating, filling him up and replacing any other lingerings of conscience.
"I think I shall leave you like this," he decided out loud. "You'll bleed out eventually. I punctured some pretty vital parts of you, you see. Perhaps the pain will diminish eventually, but I wouldn't hope for much."
Killian leaned down and cleaned his blade on the man's pants, before leaving without a second glance at the man and woman bleeding out on the floor. The man's pitiful sounds only served to further his increasingly good mood.
"Next?" Owen asked, still eyeing the dead woman sadly.
"Indeed," Killian agreed, slinging an arm around his friend's shoulder.
The next man was harder to find, since Killian had seen even less of him. Still, asking around was fairly successful, and Killian was fortunate enough to recognize the man from afar. He was out in the fields, standing against the setting sun. All that was visible was a rather bulky silhouette. Fortunately, that was all Killian needed to recognize the man.
"Shall we pay him a house call?" Killian muttered to his companion, already planning the details and revelling in the theatrics of it all.
The theatrics were somewhat ruined, though, by the older couple snoring from within the quiet house. Parents, Killian assumed. Actual living parents! His idea of a surprise attack - like an apparition from hell - went up in smoke.
"To the fields," he ordered his friend with a disappointed eye-roll.
Of course, that was easier said than done. Killian had wanted to go into the house for a reason; the second the man saw them coming, he was certain to run. Which left the two pirates the unpleasant task of crawling ungracefully through the fields of some plant or another.
"Just like old army days, eh, Killian?" Owen joked.
Killian declined to answer, still a bit put out by this change in plans. In addition, the bloody plants that they crawled through were tickling Killian's nose unpleasantly and causing his skin to itch. Having never lived on a farm himself, he couldn't remember being exposed to this particular hellish crop, but he was growing increasingly certain that he was allergic to something in this field. He tried plugging his nose discretely, but that only caused a sneeze to rush out of his mouth all at once in a horribly loud cacophony of noise.
"Who's there?" Came a gruff voice from further out.
Owen swore quietly under his breath. Killian would have sworn too, but his hands were far too itchy and he was far too busy scratching them. He'd have hives for sure. Enough was enough.
Killian climbed to his feet as gracefully as possible, which was only somewhat gracefully since he had to pause to extract some grass from his clothes. Fortunately, the farmer had already moved quite close to them in a challenge. This man was probably a decade older than Owen, with hair that was starting to recede in spite of his relative youth.
The theatrics of this appearance were diminished when Killian opened his mouth to say something clever, only to sneeze violently multiple times. The man took a moment to stare at him before he started to run. Fortunately, Owen had taken advantage of Killian's clumsiness and allergies to move behind the farmer and stop his retreat with the threat of his sword. The man turned slowly back around to face Killian, who advanced with the confidence of a man who knows he has nothing to fear.
Killian tutted softly. "It must be difficult to be outnumbered like this. Really, very bad form of us to do this, isn't it?"
Glyn started to tremble. "Yes. Believe me, I learned my lesson last night."
"No," Killian disagreed with a genial smile. "No, you didn't, because you ran."
"I did!" The man told him. "I swear."
"It's a shame you couldn't have learned that lesson earlier," Killian mused. "Did you always do the holding, or did you ever get a turn? It was a bad bargain, mate, if you got nothing for your troubles."
"Please. I never did! I swear. Honestly. And I'd never do it again-"
Killian exchanged a skeptical glance with Owen.
"Still," he added softly. "I think that you may have been the worse culprit in this scenario. Your mate's fun wouldn't have been possibly without you. I think that means that you deserve a worse punishment than your mate."
The eyes of the farmer grew panicked. "Are you going to kill me?"
"No, certainly not. I'm a fair man. I'll give you what you deserve. The question is, do you deserve no hands or no feet?"
The man stared before, predictably, trying to bolt. Owen stopped him easily, keeping him in a chokehold.
"What do you think, Mr. Mallory? Should we keep him from holding women against their will again, or keep him from running?"
Glyn was sobbing now, fat tears running down his weathered face. "Please, sir. If I don't have hands or feet, how will I farm? My family will starve, sir."
Crouching close to his face, Killian arranged his own face into an expression of mock-sympathy. "I suppose you'll have to explain why they're starving then. Who knows? Perhaps they'll kill you themselves."
Killian circled the man, enjoying the way his eyes followed his every movement. "I think hands."
The man sobbed even harder.
"Forgive me!" He begged, falling to his knees even as Owen maintained his hold. He grabbed the hem of Killian's trousers and let his tears fall over his boots. "Please, please, forgive me."
The words sparked an almost forgotten ember of anger within Killian.
The Present
"Why?" Emma whispered. She tried to keep her voice steady, but it was hard to entirely hide the horror she was feeling. She had seen moments of Killian's darkness. Still, this was a side of Killian that she was almost entirely unfamiliar with, except perhaps for the moment when he had shot Belle and stabbed Rumplestiltskin. It was a far cry from the flirty and charming man she had come to know.
For the first time, Killian risked a glance at her and clearly didn't like what he saw. He looked away, his jaw tightening minutely in a gesture that Emma realized she had become intimately acquainted with. He was stressed or hurt, perhaps even angry. She briefly wondered if she ought to be afraid of him, not for having feelings for her and relentlessly beating at her carefully crafted walls to force her to face her own feelings, but for being a... well, a villain. Killian's warning from the night earlier - "that man sitting there, you don't know him" - suddenly made much more sense.
The Past, 1810
Fog lay heavily over the graveyard, so thickly that Killian imagined that he could lay in it like a blanket. Of course, it wasn't as soft as it looked, and it was twice as wet, covering his mother's grave in thick dewdrops that trickled down her stone like tears.
"Evening, mum," Killian told the stone, laying a soft hand on the dew drops and allowing the cold to seep through his fingers.
Of course, the stone didn't respond. It never did, nor did the birds his mother had promised to send to him to sing. They never did when he came to visit the graveyard, which was every Friday night. Only crows cawed dismally, and Killian knew that they couldn't be the birds his mother had promised him on her deathbed, because his mother knew about singing. A crow would never meet her standards.
"I made a lot of money today," he continued softly, sitting down with his back to the stone. "I think I played really well. I could play for you, if you wanted."
Predictably, there was no response. However, Killian could hear gentle footsteps, which caused him to tense up against the stone and prepare to jump to his feet. For a mad moment of foolish hope, he wondered if his mother was alive after all and about to reveal herself to him. He picked up a rock next to the grave just in case, though, ready to mash the brains of anyone who tried to rob him.
The figure who emerged from the fog was not a robber.
"You," Killian hissed.
Edward Jones looked back at him. He looked terrible. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair overgrown, tangled, and matted, and his clothes filthy and hanging from his thin form. He looked more like a ghost than a man.
"Get away from me!" Killian snarled, backing into his mother's gravestone.
Edward recoiled as though he'd been slapped.
"Killian. I've been looking for you," he gasped hurriedly.
"Bollocks," Killian retorted angrily.
"It was a mistake to leave you. I figured it out-"
"Did you?" He snapped. These were the words he had longed to hear over a year ago, but now they fell on a hardened heart.
"Yes," Edward said hurriedly.
"What the hell do you want?"
Edward hesitated, eyes frantically scanning his son. "Forgiveness."
If he had said something like "a hug" or "a parsnip", Killian couldn't have been more surprised or appalled. The man who stood before him did not resemble the father he remembered. He was a shell, a scarecrow of a man. He was as broken as a ship against sharp rocks, all hard edges and missing planks.
"Please, son," he whispered, falling to his knees and grabbing at Killian's shirt before he could get out of his reach. "Please, I need you. I'm begging you. Forgive me. Please, forgive me."
For a moment, Killian couldn't respond. Forgive his father? He felt lightheaded at the prospect of having a family again, a real one that wouldn't hit him or yell at him. And yet... how could he forgive him after what he'd done?
"No," Killian replied, his voice striking at his father like physical blows. "You don't love me. You abandoned me. You left me alone on a bloody ship to work my way back here to a family that doesn't want me. I've had to live with Uncle Connor. I don't know if you recall how mental and violent he is, but I can assure you that it's only gotten worse with time. Mum would have hated you if she could see you now; you're pathetic. I hate you!"
"Killian, please," Edward's voice broke.
"No. I owe you nothing. I don't want to see you ever again. Get the hell out of my life."
And Killian had turned away, feeling hard as a stone statue and just as emotionless. The graveyard echoed with his father's quiet sobs.
Less than a fortnight later, Killian watched him die.
The Past
"No," Killian hissed, before angrily separating the man's hands from his arms.
He left him there, in that stupid allergenic field, no longer feeling powerful and exhilarated, but instead feeling empty and coldly furious.
The Present
"Your father came back," Emma said in amazement. "To-"
"To ease his own conscience," Killian finished firmly, disdain etched into every contour of his handsome face. "Nothing more."
It was clear that Killian needed to believe that for his own conscience, Emma couldn't help but think, but she was reluctant to push the subject at the moment.
Killian looked at her again, looking decidedly worn down, but with just a spark of angry pride. "Still want to hear more of the story, Swan?"
Emma hesitated for just a moment, but it was enough.
"That's what I thought," he replied, trying to sound smug and utterly failing. Instead, he just sounded angry. "I told you that you couldn't handle it."
Without thinking, Emma grabbed his arm and pulled him to a stop, forcing him to face her. "Hey! I didn't say anything!"
"Didn't have to," he retorted, eyes sparking. "Open book, love, remember?"
Emma made a noise of disgust and, to her surprise, Killian flinched minutely. Emma's temper was on the rise, but that helped to stop it in its tracks. She had to remember that this was Killian, the same Killian whose past, she had told him, didn't matter. Even more importantly, he was making himself vulnerable for her and risking a lot, all to satiate her curiosity.
"Well, if I'm such an open book, you should be able to tell that I get it. Remember when I told you that we understand each other? That still applies, even if you did some bad stuff. I get why you did what you did, even if I don't agree with it." Just saying it, Emma realized that these weren't empty words of comfort. Even if she should have been, she wasn't frightened of Killian. How could she be? In spite of everything, she felt that she could look at his motivations and situation and understand. She'd been in dark places herself, even if, admittedly, they'd never been that dark. Nevertheless, she suddenly knew with clarity that she still couldn't consider Killian a "true" villain.
Killian was silent for a moment, studying his boots with great interest.
"Go on, please," Emma urged. It came out almost as a question.
Now it was Killian's turn to hesitate, but after a moment of visibly steeling himself, he returned to his story.
The Past
The rest of the evening was filled with more tales of travel, treasure, and adventure. Milah's shuttered face slowly opened into a soft glow of excitement and passion that spurred Killian's stories on to become works of art.
At the end of the night, Milah pulled Killian aside.
"I know what you did to those men," she began softly, her face hidden in shadow.
Killian stiffened, preparing himself for the verbal attack and the rejection.
"And it was the bravest thing anyone has ever done for me. Thank you," she gushed, a smile spreading across her face that was radiant enough to light up the midnight sky.
And then, because apparently that declaration wasn't enough, Milah kissed him. It wasn't a chaste kiss, but a heated collision of hungry mouths and hungrier, desperate souls. The kiss left them both breathless and tingling.
"You'll be back tomorrow?" She whispered, her breath caressing his face like a second kiss.
"Of course," Killian murmured without even thinking about it.
"Good."
She was kissing him again, sending his heart fluttering like a lovesick schoolboy's. Perhaps there should have been a part of him worrying about the fact that she had a husband and a son, or the fact that he had just murdered two people and destroyed the lives of at least three others for this woman, but, for a moment, nothing mattered except for the ebb and flow of his lips against Milah's.
*credit goes to Percy Shelley (excerpt from "Music, When Soft Voices Die"