Summary: Intending to return to Neverland after his quest for revenge comes to an abrupt end, Killian Jones finds himself in Duodenary, a realm whose existence allows Neverland, and the people therein, to live forever. After months of trying and failing to find a way to go home, a princess comes looking to him for help.
Notes: Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to read/review/favorite/follow. I really appreciate it! This little story was a labor of love, and I hope you've had as much fun with it as I have.
It's all very stereotypical, really.
Emma, being anxious to get home, had rushed to the helm, casting off immediately for Duo Twelve. The Jolly Roger, of course, heeded her wishes, as if Emma had been alongside her since the Royal Navy had cracked a bottle against her graceful hull. There in the Gear, it was a simple matter to sail home, crossing out of the gyre with the last of the pixie dust he'd found in the belly of the ship. They'd stopped momentarily in the harbor of Duo Eleven, where he'd last left his crew, Killian anxious to leave them a message.
Only then did it occur to him – to both of them – that only a few days had passed. When he told Smee to kick the crew into gear –
"These clock metaphors are really sticking to you," Emma had said.
"You're rubbing off on me, Swan."
– and make their own bloody way down the coast to Duo Twelve, Killian thought of the centuries. Nearly three of them. Long, lonely, gory, dissatisfying…toppled in as many days by the woman at his side.
When he tells her as much just as they're docking in her home harbor, Emma stands on his toes and kisses his cheek. He giggles like a proper fool.
From then, it was a whirlwind, sweeping introductions, joyous declarations of true freedom from the darkness infecting Neverland, leaving only the gentle flow of time behind. It was already nearing the anniversary of their break from the dreadful realm, and so the celebrations, he's told, are more raucous than they've ever been. Killian had been content to ride it out, to melt into the shadows, and to wait in the empty wings of the castle while the celebrations went underway. To perhaps entice Emma to do the same.
Needless to say, when he finds himself rather the main event of a grand ceremony, he begins to wonder if he left Neverland with his sanity intact.
"You're literally just walking down an aisle, getting a thing, and sitting down beside me," Emma says. She stands before him, doing one of the two dozen buttons on his vest. The coat they've given him is much like his own, only with intricate, blue stitching crisscrossing up along the collars and cuffs. He feels rather like a decorated water fowl, starched and primped within moments of the end of his life. And though Emma neatly buffs the wrinkles from his shirt and vest, she pops one side of the collar of his coat, and runs her fingers through his hair until he's certain it's a right mess. He grins down at her, despite his whinging, and she grins back, tucking her fingers into the hairs at the nape of his neck.
"Seriously," she says. "It will take like five minutes. How is this hard?"
"I must say, Swan, I'm a fan of much more private celebrations. Far more satisfying, far less clothing."
Emma flicks his ear, kisses his chin before she pulls back. "Too bad, Jones. You're a hero, now. Heroes get rewarded. And not like that."
Killian quirks a brow.
"At least…not until the 'works start."
He frowns. "The 'works?"
"You'll see."
He only nods, and coaxes her to place one last, chaste kiss against his lips before she disappears, likely taking her place at her parents' side.
Parents, he thinks. Royalty.
Killian had never had much pleasant experience with either. But David and Snow shine the way Emma shines. Their story is unconventional, to say the least – a princess-turned-thief on the run, falling violently in love with a shepherd posing as a prince. More than once, in the days since they arrived, Killian had found himself snatching decadent treats from the kitchen from beneath the noses of the chefs, only to find Snow doing the very same.
"Bandit," she'd said, the first time, with a smile.
"Pirate," he'd answered, trading the berries he'd taken for the chocolate drink in the Lady's hands.
"Emma's favorite."
David had been more difficult to charm, but only by steps. He'd shown the Lord his ship, all the while conveying, with as few words as possible, that Emma held power over the helm in their relationship, so to speak.
"Emma told me you nearly died for her," David had said.
"I'd do it again," Killian had answered, red creeping up his ears and down his chest.
And that had been that.
Now, on the eve of the celebration of Duodenary's freedom – even more meaningful than ever before – he's to receive commendations, likely a medal of some kind, in front of a great deal of the citizens of Duo Twelve. Again, as the rustling behind the great, oak doors before him grows louder, Killian mourns his fearsome reputation. There's no hiding it now. Or so Emma had said –
"You're a good man, Killian."
"So you say, love."
– just the night before. Small price to pay, he supposes, for the chance to remain at Emma's side. He would have given much more.
At the third blast of a dreadful sextuplet of horns, the doors before him are opened, and he struts as naturally as he can down along the aisle. Suddenly, Killian feels as though he's forgotten how to use his legs. Each step is a concerted effort by his hips, his knees, by the lead he feels has dropped down into the toes of boots. Looking up at Emma doesn't help much, either. Though he doubts the crowd around him notices, he's certain she sees the heft in his gait, what with the laughter sparkling in her eyes. He narrows his eyes, playfully, and, well, his feet do cooperate a trifle more.
When he stands before the Lady Snow, he's surprised to find anxious boredom replaced with a powerful knot rising in his chest. The expression on the woman's face is not only grateful, but accepting. He looks over to David, and finds that the soft, pale blue of the man's eyes reminds him of Liam. Rather suddenly, he knows he's found a family, one that will last.
"Captain Killian Jones," Snow says, loud enough for all to hear, her voice echoing sonorously throughout the cathedral of a room. "We, as a Duo and as a realm, thank you for your unflinching loyalty to a realm that is not even your own. By the time granted me by the twelve Lordships of Duodenary, I offer you an honorary seat in our court, so that you may always have a home with us."
Snow pauses, then, and steps down from her throne. Killian stands frozen, terribly unused to the attention. When the Lady smiles at him, however, his gut gives him a rest, and he breathes, counting up to twelve and back down again.
"We grant you this Timepiece," she continues, and pulls a simple, gleaming wooden box from behind her back. The only intricacy is the crest, carved from jade and accented with onyx. It catches the light falling in from the six o'clock windows, bounces it in gentle rainbows along the wall to his right. She places it gently in his hand, making certain he has a sure grip before she says –
"So that you may always know when you are, and when you're going."
She takes another step, then, and finds that, unlike her daughter, the Lady Snow smells of sharp earth, the tang of metals, the faint, sour notes of tender, spring fruits. Killian notices, if only because her hands come up to frame his face when she comes to stand before him. She pulls him down, just far enough to kiss his forehead. He's certain his face is flaming red, and he can't help the demure smile that falls over his lips.
"And we offer you our friendship," she says. "That you may never be alone."
Killian's bottom lip wobbles. A glance at Emma shows much the same.
"Do you accept these gifts, as we have presented them to you?"
He nods, whispers a broken Aye before the hall erupts into cheers. Luckily, he's only to endure it for a few moments more before the Lordship and their people break out of their formation, and begin mingling to music that seems to fall from the rafters. He stands rather awkwardly in place until Emma glides down the stairs, and takes the box from his hand. Only now does he notice the rich, white fabrics draped over her person, the graceful, delicate flower crown adorning the free waves of her hair. Either she was wearing a coat before, or he was too occupied with her lips, and with his own anticipation, to take stock.
"Not so bad, right?" she says. "See, look."
He looks down when she opens the box, and the Timepiece inside appears rather simple, if not expertly made. Closer inspection reveals that the hands are spinning.
"Think it's broken, love."
Emma rolls her eyes. "Will you just pick it up."
He regards her skeptically for a moment before he removes it from its velvet setting. The hands spin faster – two of them, he realizes, both of the same length. Where once they were both black, now one appears a fathomless shade of blue, the other redder than rubies. Both the blue and the red settle on the number twelve.
"I'm the red," Emma says. "You're the blue. They're pretty rare. I made this one, though, so hopefully it doesn't, you know, blow up in your face."
He's certain she expects him to laugh, but Killian simply breathes, once more in awe of the simple purity of the magic she wields.
"I think Timepiece means something different to us than it does to you," she says. "Judging by your face."
"It certainly does," he answers, with some measure of awe. She takes it from his hand, then and sets the pin into his vest. It's a comfortable weight over his heart, and he vows then and there to always keep it on his person.
"Except for when you're naked," she says.
He smiles, fondly. "Aye."
"I wouldn't take it to swim, either. I mean, I'm sure it would be fine, but who really knows."
"Aye, as you say. Although, rarely do I swim with a stitch of clothing."
"Maybe not to bed, either, the pins might – "
"Swan, are you being purposefully difficult?"
"I'm rambling until you kiss me."
Killian smiles, and leans down, until his lips are very nearly flush with hers. Here in this room, where spindling architecture melts from practical corners into elegant statues, where stained glass depicts the creatures of the waters and of the forest, where people of all sorts wear silks and cottons, dancing to instruments that make the most curious, twining sounds, he simply kisses the woman that he loves. And she kisses him in return.
"As the lady commands," he says.
Emma laughs.
As the darkest part of night approaches, the festivities begin to make their way outside, where – and he's heard this several times, having an inkling, but not entirely certain what's in store – the people will watch the 'works. He and Emma alike have about reached their limit, mingling their way across the room until they stand near the doors. She leans against him, looking up and into his eyes. They have a long, silent conversation, one that's entirely inappropriate for the children running underfoot.
"About to sneak away, aren't you?"
Snow and David appear out of the crowd as they move out of the doors on the other side of the great room, where a balcony tapers down into gardens filled with flora and fauna of all sorts. He'd taken a peek when they'd danced their way about the room. Rows and rows of flowering trees, fountains made of stones he's never seen before, all glittering beneath the galaxies that turn in circles and circles, up in the sky above.
"Aye, your Ladyship," Killian says. "I believe the Jolly Roger may have even a superior view from the waters."
David eyes him skeptically. "I don't doubt it."
Snow rolls her eyes at her husband, pulls at the gleaming, golden buttons on his vest until he looks down at her.
"You kids go have fun," she says. Killian bites his tongue, remiss to remind her that, in fact, he likely has a century or two on the both of them, on everyone in this very room and in the gardens adjacent. "Be careful of the spray."
Killian frowns. "The spray?"
The Lady looks to Emma, then. "You haven't told him?"
Emma shrugs. "Better seen than heard, you know?" She turns to Killian, hand sliding rather boldly up into his hair. "I can't believe you've been here for so many months and haven't heard of the 'works."
"I've heard of them, darling. It seemed something I could neither steal nor barter with, so I didn't bother learning much else."
She rolls her eyes. This expression, he realizes, she gets from her mother.
"Pardon us, your Ladyship," Killian says, then looks to David. "Your Lordship. We'll see you both on the morrow, aye?"
"You will," Snow says.
The royal couple begin to retreat when Emma pinches the skin at the nape of his neck.
"Ow?" he says, mildly affronted. The Lady Snow stops to looks up at him, amused. Killian exchanges a silent conversation with the Lady before he looks at Emma. "What?"
"Don't you have something to say to my father?"
He's confused for just a moment, before it dawns. He sighs, long suffering, and looks beseechingly at the Lord David. He fiddles with the timepiece pinned to his blue, brocaded vest. He pulls Emma tighter into his side, thinking of where they were then – when he'd made the promise to self-deprecate to her father – and where they are now.
"You're smarter than I by spades, your Lordship," he says, with a grim monotone.
David laughs. "I want to hear this story."
"I fear the tale in its entirety would be inappropriate – "
Emma yanks the rest of that very sentence straight out of his mouth with a well-placed smack to his gut. David looks at him sharply, but Snow, again, is only amused. She drags David alongside her, plying him with gentle fingers and strong opinions. In moments, they're alone, the rest of the people having left the room with their Lordship. He and Emma alike let out a sigh of relief.
"To the Jolly then?" she says.
He smiles, grins really, freely, unburdened. He takes her hand with his hook, wriggling it gently beneath her fingers, and answers –
"Aye."
"I can't believe you have six of these coats."
Killian laughs, even as Emma snuggles down into the fabric. They've the lot of his coats –
"All. Six," she says.
– laid out beneath them, a mattress of sorts.
When they'd escaped the festivities at last, Emma had tightened her grip on his hook, practically dragging him down to the docks, where the Jolly Roger's moored out in the deepest of the three basins in the harbor. He was alarmed, to say the least, when a pale, blue grass, appeared to be crawling its disastrous way up the hull.
"Creeping eelgrass," Emma had explained. "You have to ask it to let your ship go when you want to set out to sea."
"You're bloody joking."
"Ask politely, it lets go faster."
He'd whinged spectacularly as they crossed the gangplank. But then, of course, she'd kissed the complaints off his tongue. She'd taken great care in removing his decorative garments. At least, until she'd had him down to his pants, and had nearly thrown him down the stairs to his cabin to speed the removal of his boots.
Impatient, he'd catalogued. Because he could. Because he had the time.
Emma had made rather feverish love to him in his own bed, rising above him and into the shafts of starlight filtering in through the portside window. And he to her, trying desperately not to think of how she'd felt in his arms only days ago, shivering with pain, serving as little more than a tool, as a conduit, for exactly the same sort of darkness that took his brother, that took his Milah. He'd found his release with his hand clutching at her neck, with his wrist pressed into the small of her back, breathing the hurt, and the fear, out against her neck.
After several long moments of recovery, he'd made to take her again, just by the window, where he could whisper endearments in her ear, where he could perhaps tell the eelgrass to bugger off. Only, Emma had rebuffed him, and he had lain, spread eagle upon his bed, watching as she quested for something to –
"It cushions us from the splinters," Emma says.
Now, they lie above deck, bare to the noontime winds. He's made love to woman on the deck of his ship before, but never has he reclined simply to watch the stars, to keep a weather eye on the sky as his love fiddles with the leather beneath them.
"Pardon, Swan, but what splinters? Are you implying the Jolly is in need of repair?"
"Fine. You can lay your bare ass on the wood, and scoot around just to prove there aren't any."
"Perhaps she could be sanded down a bit."
The ship creaks beneath them, and he reaches out to pat the planks before he turns back to Emma, beckons her back in to the circle of his arms. She's quick to comply, to turn so her back is against his chest. Killian breathes, and watches as she rises and falls against them. With one of his coats bundled up behind him, he's propped just enough to see the castle jutting out above the canopy. It really is marvelous, he thinks. Not so marvelous as the sea, but as telltale magic shimmers in the air, the stone begins to gleam, rippling in the wake of the gentle display of power.
"What are we watching for?" he says.
"There are three kinds," she explains, quietly. "Waterworks, clockworks, and fireworks."
"The latter I'm familiar with."
"Waterworks are like…" He can hear the frown in the sound of her voice as she gestures vaguely. "…they draw the water out of the harbor, in all sorts of shapes. They kind of wiggle – " At the word wiggle, she does the very same in his arms, and he can feel yet another rush of desire in the pit of his stomach. " – in the air and then rain water everywhere, hence the spray my mom was talking about. Only for like a second, though."
He hums, thoughtfully, and catches her hand as it moves to gesture once more. He fiddles with her fingers, noses a bit of hair away from her neck so he can place a tender kiss beneath her ear.
"And the clockworks?"
"Well," she answers, quieter still, turning her neck up and into his lips. He smiles, and kisses her again before he reclines, and lets his cheek rest against hers. "They sort of…I don't know, they mess with time."
"Sounds dangerous."
"Not like that. It's just in a bubble. Fireworks are over in a second, and so are waterworks. Imagine slowing them down."
Killian does imagine it, for a moment, but it in his long life, he's come to understand that imagining a spectacle rarely competes with the selfsame sight.
"And when shall they start?"
"Like forty-seven seconds from now."
"Like forty-seven seconds," Killian laughs. "Shall I ever possess the internal clock of a Duodenarian?"
She laughs in turn, but shushes him. He can feel her squirm with anticipation, which does nothing for the tightness in his belly. He longs to turn her around, to settle above her, to watch her writhe beneath him with the light of the great and many galaxies above warming ever so slightly at the tender flesh of his back.
"Here it goes," she says, and a moment later, he hears a piercing whistle, before the fireworks explode overhead. He's seen them before, of course, but they're truly something to behold. All colors, all sorts, all shapes and sizes. After a few minutes, though –
"Four minutes and eighteen seconds?"
"Two minutes and fifty-three seconds," she counters. "Your clock is slow."
– he can feel the ship begin to tremble over ripples in the water. Emma reaches back and turns his chin, just as the water coalesces into something of a long, sinewy dragon. It arcs in a silent rush through the air. It twists above them, and Killian is quite certain he's never seen anything so magical in all of his days. He tells her as much, and she only laughs, delighted, commanding he watch. A different sort of magic begins to rise through the air. It's something like a globular mirror, reflecting the stars above. It too fractures when it reaches the height of a great, blue green firework. The water creature turns in a perfect circle just along the edge of the growing color. And time does, in fact, begin to slow in the sky. The water turns, but no faster than the second hands of a clock.
"Exactly as fast as second hands," Emma tells him.
The great, aquatic beast turns like an Ouroboros, the blue and green sparks behind it creeping outward, propelled by the force of the central explosion. The mirror-like shards of time fracture and fracture, over and over again, until they glitter like pixie dust. The spectacle drags on, and Killian is certain he's never seen anything more beautiful, anything more captivating.
"How do you lot keep this realm a secret?" he wonders aloud.
"I have no idea," she says.
It's perhaps eight seconds more –
"Eleven," she corrects.
"'S close, eh, Swan?"
– before the shards of time fizzle out at last. The firework fizzles out, and the creature in the skin spins thrice more, each time faster than the last, before it too explodes. Water droplets smelling of salt and ash spray the county over. He watches as Emma covers her face, and laughs, curling in on herself. Killian has spent many windy evenings catching the spray of the sea on his face, so he merely blinks against the water the falls directly in his eyes. He feels thoroughly refreshed when the last of the droplets sprinkle over the ship.
"Emma," he says, breathless. "That was marvelous."
"Right?" she says. "There are three more just like it."
The second, as it turns out, is much like the first, only with an eel, the sort that twists again and again into the shape of an S before it rains down like the first. The third and fourth set a terrible knot in his belly, the former being a tall ship, much like the Jolly, and the latter being a Swan, what spreads its wings in a glorious display before it too rains, warm and sweet, upon them. He's unbearably chuffed by the time the sky quiets. Swan, too, seems pleasantly surprised.
"I can't believe he did that," she says.
"Your father?"
She nods, and turns on her side, pulls on his shoulder until he faces her. He wonders if she means to ask him something, to tell him something, but she only smiles, and he in turn. They lay in silence for a long while. Here in the dark, as the festivities across the way die away, and as even several of the stars wink to sleep, he can hear the hiss of the grass against the ship, and the lap of warm, salty waves against the hull. He can hear every breath that Emma takes. The sails are secured in the masts above them, but he can still hear the breeze tinkling through the rigging. Somewhere on the other side of the harbor, a foghorn blows, muted by a distance, and by the moisture that rises in the air, up from the sea.
Killian thinks that she means to sleep like this, and she seems content, but just when the bugs on the shore, those signaling the hours before morning, come to life, she shifts closer, and looks up at him from beneath her lashes.
"You remember the Rise?" she says.
He smiles, softly. "There are days I think of nothing else, love. Of the look on your face. Never before have I known a woman so passionate."
She blushes, and reaches up to fiddle with the charms that still hang around his neck.
"Maybe…" she says. She nibbles on her lips when she pauses, and he longs, rather fiercely, to kiss away the curious tilt to her mouth. "You know, creatures still go to Neverland when they die. Maybe when we…" She gestures, and he frowns, thinking sourly on her death. "…well, we can go too."
Killian regards her silently for a moment before he guides her gently to her back. She settles comfortably in the warm indentation left by his own body, and he atop her. He falls into the cradle of her thighs, but presses no further. He looks to her eyes, to her mouth, to the graceful arch of her collarbone. He looks to her hair, spread in gently wavelets down over where he rests his elbows. He looks to the dimples in her cheeks when she smiles, and the charming dent in her chin.
"My love," he says. "We can do whatever you wish. But in the meantime…"
He sighs, then, lays a brief kiss against her lips before he settles his ear against her chest, where her heart beats, strong and measured. Now, when she breathes, he rises like the tide, and falls back to her when her breath ruffles over his hair.
"We have plenty of time," he says.
She weaves her fingers through his hair, pulls one of his coats to drape over them. She kisses the top of his head, and he's quite certain he's never been so content.
"You think so?" she says, half taken by sleep already.
"Aye, Emma," he answers. "All the time in the realms."
With nary a discomfort, Killian Jones falls to sleep atop his true love, the Timepiece ticking away softly somewhere in the heap of leathers. The Jolly Roger creaks, and the waves of the harbor swell, stirred by the magic of true love. The currents of the Clockwork yet turn, the Gear yet still. The magic of time flows inward from Neverland, and the creatures bearing its mark flow back. All as it should be, he whispers –
"I love you."
And she answers, as ever –
"I love you too."
– in the gentle, timely realm of Duodenary.