#captainsparrawan

Memories of having been left by the man who promised her a home. That might be the only memory of her that he knows, and it might be the only one he will ever know, but something in her eyes (oh the countless times he found himself figuring them out) told him that there's more to her than just Neal. Of course.

Memories of having known the majority of her life that she had been abandoned on the side of the road as an infant...

Of the fear of the discovery that she was carrying a child and that its first visions might be of the grey ceilings and walls of her jail cell...

Of being too young to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders, and of being alone doing so...

Of not touching the baby, of not having even the guts to look at it, to know, to see for the first and maybe the last time...

Maybe the queen was right. That she's happier without the memories of pain, and abandonment... and him. And he knows it in himself, in the deepest recesses of his dark heart that it was the most selfish thought he has ever had when it comes to Emma. But he should be allowed of this liberty now, shouldn't he be?

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The sun was hot and prickly on her skin. She was standing on muddy ground, and just beneath her feet were corpses, still, and malodorous, and gut-wrenching. But the corpses were not what stole her focus--it was that of a pair of too blue eyes staring up at her from the ground. A drastic contrast to the dead that was surrounding him.

And then something made her heart pick up. He smiled. 

There's something wrong with this. He wasn't supposed to smile. The fear in his eyes were replaced with unrestrained mirth and then, she was shaking her head in disbelief, unable to form words.

"Emma," he breathed, and as if the wind willed to carry his voice, it reached her ears loud and clear. He stood up, dusting himself off with one hand while the other one was hidden beneath layers of cloak. "Remember? This was where we first laid eyes on each other."

"I--I don't..."

"It's fine, love," he replied patiently, that smile never leaving his face. She felt her own breath hitch as another wave of nostalgia filled her. "Let me fill you in. Did you know that what brought you here was the fear of losing your mother again?

"And yes, you found her. Them. You found her and your father. You have a family, and you're on your journey out of this realm and back to your child, Henry."

He smiled to the ground, reminiscent. "I am not certain whether I was making said journey harder or easier for your little band of princesses, but you made it clear to me that I had no choice but to bend to your will.

"And bend I did... and more."

And then they were standing in front of a humongous, beast-looking, green tentacle that scraped and impaled the skies above them.

The man, he appeared to her when he rounded the monstrous beanstalk. His gaze was trained to what's hovering above them. "You were looking for directions, I gave them to you. And it cost me a lot, especially when I was supposedly siding with Cora--

"--Cora?"

"Your enemy," he supplied with a shy smile.

"You're a villain," Emma muttered, mostly to herself.

She felt more than saw how his face crumbled at the word, and she felt her heart drop. "Were... and I paid the consequences. But I never regretted choosing to accompany you up that beanstalk."

He met her eyes and there was something there, something that's vaguely familiar.

--a hook, a giant, a compass, a handcuff, and then a lie. But not from the pleading and hurting man, but from her...

--a skidding car, a hospital bed, "I'd pick you."

--a big ship silhouetting the horizon, a blossoming hope in her chest.

--darkness, loss, humidity. Neverland. Neverland.

And then they were standing on some clear patch in the middle of a forest in God knows where. She was holding a flask of alcohol in her hand while the man, there was a pained expression on his face as he faced away from her.

"I saved your father, Emma," he said in a voice so low she thought her mind was making them up. "I saved David. You know, you might not remember but he and I were not friendly with each other. But I have to agree when he said that I was only in this sodding island because of you.

"I never told you that... but here, this was where I first realized how bloody deep I've fallen for you, Emma Swan. You could never begin to fathom how deep."

He touched his lips, and her fingers itched to touch hers, too. A reminder, a tingling feeling just beneath the skin, a fire in her chest too bright and warm and relentless.

She began feeling a leaden weight in her chest, heavy and burning. It's painful and it made her breathing ragged and hard, and her heart beat erratic.

And then they were in the dark. There was a coldness that was seeping through her naked arms. It took her a few seconds for her eyes to adjust into the dimness, and what she made out, she could not make out good.

But what she saw clearly was the dark shadow of the man in front of her. His shoulders were slumped and his posture lacked its bravado. "Out of all the memories, this one might just be the most painful to be forgotten... at least to me."

There was silence, and the darkness threatened to eat her whole. So she broke it. "What happened here?"

"This was where I bared my heart to you, Emma Swan," he said. "To save Neal, to save the man that might just be your happy ending."

"Why?"

"Because I... never thought I could move on from Milah, from my revenge..." Emma watched as his face fell, and she could hear his heart break as if that were even possible. This was painful for him, that much she could gather. But why was he doing...? "That is until I met you."

For her. He was doing this for her. This man, this man that she barely knew, he was doing everything for her to remember. This man, Hook. Captain Hook. 

Killian Jones.

"Emma, come home. Come home to us."

Killian.

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Emma woke with a start, a hand clutching her chest, and sweat trickling down her forehead. She reached for her bedside lamp, trying to return her breathing to normal. Her mind was fuzzy and on overload, but one thing was clear to her:

She remembered, every sound, every touch. She remembered him. the way he touched her with gentleness as if she were fragile, the most precious treasure he had ever come across in all his three centuries--as he had repeatedly told her whilst he adored every inch of her skin with his mouth, and his fingers...

Her hand reached to find nothing, no one beside her. Her first thought was that he came and went as quick as the night that had brought him there. Her eyes snapped open and as her vision adjusted to the bright light coming from her window--what time is it? Nine? Ten? One?--she found what made her heart sink to her stomach.

She tried so hard not to panic--he might have just gotten up earlier, gone to the bathroom--but all her years spent waking up to an empty bed made her think she's just another one night stand. And for all those meaningless affairs she had had in the past, she was glad about being just that. But now, well... now, she actually felt dreadful about the thought that he was just in it to bed her.

That's ridiculous. He did everything from Neverland to finding you and you still doubt his intentions. Nobody goes that far just to guarantee a fuck.

She shook her head and sat up, the sudden movement making her world spin and still for a moment. She spotted discarded pieces of clothing when she looked around, mostly on the floor, but some had made it atop her nightstand. She looked down on the floor beside the bed and saw his shirt, rumpled and buttons missing.

Relief came flooding in her chest like a dam, knowing the simple fact that he's just there. That he had indeed stayed.

The thought that he had somehow become accustomed to the quirks of this world, from clothing to technology, made her smile to herself. The ends he would go to just to try and make her happy will never cease to amaze her, partly because no one had ever done that for her before. And after that 'crossing realms' feat, anyone that could compete would be having little to no chance of winning. 

She picked up the white shirt, her grin widening as she saw the first half of the buttons missing, while the bottom half stayed intact. "Slow down, love. We have all night."

She shivered as his voice, as clear and as liquid as the moment he breathed it to her ear, caressed her. She put the shirt on her, not even caring about buttoning whatever was left of it. She got up, feet on the cold ground, and wandered to the empty kitchen, seeing the ghost of him that left the cup of coffee on the counter. She smiled.

She went to make herself one, too, quietly, thinking about how, at first, he had disliked the taste of the strange dark beverage and that had insisted on putting too much creamer and sugar that it just became creamer and sugar with coffee. 

Her thoughts halted as an arm snaked around her waist, the touch both electric and heated that she couldn't help the soft sigh that escaped her. She was pulled into a hard and bare torso, a gentle chuckle vibrating through his chest and onto her back. "I quite like that shirt, I should have said," he breathed, close to the skin of her neck. "But I should also say that I like it on you more." He ended his sentence with a feather-like touch of his lips on the skin just below her ear and she couldn't help but melt into him.

She turned around in his embrace to face him, a smirk on her lips that made him tilt his head in confusion and amusement. "I'm sorry," she said, but not quite as apologetic and sincere as it should have. Her finger trailed from his neck to his chest, smiling as she noticed the way his breath shallowed and hitched, his too blue eyes widening a fraction as her finger lingered on a particularly painful-looking bite mark along his collarbone.

It was just unfair how good he looked in the morning, with his hair sticking up in a way that made him look more attractive. And with that sinfully dark smirk, damn, and it made her just chuckle to herself knowing that she had held herself out on this. 

Even in that state, even with absolutely no space between their bodies, she could tell that his jeans were hanging sinfully on his hips and that it would only be a tug that would undo it.

"I like that," he said, his tone dark and rough, but still managing to be soft and adoring.

"What?" she asked distractedly.

"The way you look at me," he replied, lust and want rich in his voice. "Like you want to kiss me, push me against the counter, ravish me. Careful, love. I just might do the exact thing to you."

The way it seemed like his voice got darker with each word just made her weak in the knees that she was actually thankful that he was holding her steady with his arm. But even with that, she managed to taunt him. "I'd like to see you try, pirate."

He growled, deep and guttural that it rumbled on her chest, before he caught her lips in a brutal kiss. So different from his demeanor from that of last night, but just as passionate. He slid his other arm around her back to pull her even closer as her hands slid up his arms to rest on his cheeks. His thumb circled the skin of her stomach, making her moan softly on his lips. He took that opportunity to plunder her mouth with his tongue, unforgiving.

And she would have gone through with where they were going, if it weren't for the imminent threat to their family that's just around the corner. They had already allowed themselves a night off, she wouldn't risk dusting it off again.

It took almost all of her will to pull herself from him, but not without a quiet whimper. "Killian," she said as he, instead, attacked her neck with teeth and tongue and lips and it made it almost impossible for her to pull away again. "Killian, we need to g--oh!" she accentuated as his teeth closed on a particularly sensitive skin on her neck.

He halted, his lips hovering over her skin, as his quick and hot breaths fanned over her. She felt his shoulders sag in defeat as he raised his head to meet her eyes. She cupped his cheek with a smile, running her other hand through his hair. "Come on, we have to go, remember?"

He nodded, meeting her with a smile of his own. Letting go of her seemed physically painful for him, but he managed to unwind his arms from around her waist, but not before stealing a quick kiss. She tried to look offended about it, but she miserably failed to hide the smile on her face.

She made to turn around to start packing, but he caught her wrist and pulled her back into him.

"Emma, I--

"I know."

And she did, she really did. After everything, she finally saw what it was that kept him going, coming back to her. She finally found out why. She finally knew how it felt to feel what he's feeling. After everything, she finally knew.