#csrr20

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Please, I need you to hear me.

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The tower is dark and long abandoned, the last witness of a long-forgotten time.  There are crumbling, colonnaded steps, and climbing ivy, and fading sunlight through a roof half-missing, as she starts to climb up. 

There are whispers.

She remembers it well.

  The whispers are not human, they are wind and plant leaves and memories murmuring, shadows of days gone by, echoes of voices heard long, long ago.  

  She shudders as she climbs, as rain starts to fall, as lightning starts to strike, but she gets to the top, finds a door, and a chamber behind it, a chamber with a ceiling, and no holes in its walls.

She nearly cries in relief for this shelter from the wind, and the cold, and the icy deluge.

  And then she hears a voice.

She remembers it well.

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We met by neither chance nor fate.  

But I didn’t know then.  How could I have known?

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“What are you on the run from, then?”  The voice is bitterness and gallows humor.  “Money or love?”

  He steps into the light and she can do nothing but stare.  

She can’t question why another person has chosen the same refuge in the same storm, can’t answer him, can’t speak.  She is neither afraid nor wary, she doesn’t draw her sword, doesn’t attack, doesn’t run.

  He is part of this moment.  It belongs to him as much as it does to her.

He looks at her, mocking, acerbic, yet something else, something….

She remembers it well.

  His eyebrows rise as he waits for an answer, as she breathes through this sense of belonging and destiny, because for so long she has fought the powers of predestination (people will tell you who you are your whole life) , and yet this feels so right; until she shakes her head and pulls back her shoulders and says, “Both.  Of course.”

  He smirks.  

“Both,” he quietly says to himself, nodding.  “Of course.” He looks up, and she sees his eyes, cold and calculating and very, very blue.

“And none of it has to do with the fact that this very tower,” he starts walking towards her, stops just short of her face, “this tower, hidden from plain sight by a powerful spell,” ---so close, too close, she can feel his breath, a whisper of menace--- “a spell I paid for in blood - is the tower where I keep the spoils of my victories?”

  He lifts his left hand and she feels cool, sharp metal against the side of her neck, something curved and yet pointed, she remembers it well.

  “Tell me, then,” he goes on, deadly venom wrapped into softly spoken words, “how did you find me?  There are easier places to pillage and plunder.” 

  The answer is as simple as it is innocent, a storm and a path and a promise of shelter, but she knows in her bones that it is not the truth.

Because the truth is that she found him because he was here for her to find.

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I remember you, love, all painful breath and dripping wet defiance, run down and exhausted, but fire in your eyes.  You stood in my secret chamber like you belonged there, like it was your birth right to rip apart spells and magical barriers, and I was so furious, my love, because you were magnificent.

I thought you were a thief.  I thought you had run me to ground to part me from my treasure, from the only meaning of my wretched life, and I didn’t know, because I could not see.

  But I do remember.

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“Does it not get lonely?”

  He looks up, his eyes wide before they narrow down to slits, and his jaw sets firm.  “I think the time for questions is over. Love .”

The last word is a poison arrow, shot with lethal precision, and her breath hitches.

  She is shackled to a wall.  She remembers it well.

He has clapped her legs in irons and chains, but also lit a fire, and now the chamber is lovely and warm.  He has given her bread and cheese and even a blanket, before sitting down in a chair by the fire and pulling out a flask.

  He has told her his name is Captain Hook, and laughed at her when the name did not register.

He has told her he is a pirate, feared across oceans and realms.

He has told her he returns to this tower for three months once a year.

  She has told him her name is Emma Swan.  It might as well be.

She has told him she is on the run because she wants to be free.

She has told him she belongs to no one but herself.

  He nodded at that, and looked around the nearly empty room, and she remembers, remembers looking at him and seeing something so lost, and so broken, and so very alone, and the question just popped out.

He is angry now.

Her question has hit home, found its mark in a place that should have been hidden.  The way he says love is a whip lash.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers, and wonders why she still is not afraid.

She knows he is lonely.

She knows he is sadness and heartbreak and pain.

She knows that this moment is the hinge upon which her life will turn.

  She remembers it well.

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The way you sat there, shackled and tethered and sorry for me.  For me.  

I thought I would perish from the pain of it.  I thought it would rent me in two, split me down the middle until all my useless insides spilled out.

That’s how much it hurt, love.  This small bit of empathy you offered, I thought it would be the end of me.  But I didn’t see it then.

All I knew was rage and fear.

  And then -- you stayed.  You stayed and you talked to me as if I was--- a person.  Not a pirate. Just a man. You never asked to be unchained, you waited.  You knew I would release you, eventually.

I remember your eyes when I finally did.

No accusation, no judgement.

I thought I would perish from the kindness instead.

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His eyes are dark, like storm clouds, as he unlocks metal around her ankle, days later.  

He stands up as the chain falls, and waits, his shoulders pulled back, his breathing uneven, as if it is a great effort to keep himself still.

She remembers it well.

  She gets up and his eyes follow her without blinking, as she shakes out her limbs and then walks up to face him.

His breath catches and stops.

  “Killian,” she says, keeps her voice soft and her gaze straight.  Then she lifts up her hand and lays it over his heart.  

His breath rushes back in a stuttering gasp.  Their gazes lock.

“I am not leaving.”

  He leans forward, presses his lips to hers with force, with desperation, while his arms wrap around her, while his hand clutches her waist, her neck, her hair, while he sounds like he’s choking, or sobbing, or both.

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That was the moment, love.

The moment that changed my life forever.

I didn’t know then. But I do know now.

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“What are you thinking?”

  He smiles at her, fingers lazily running up and down her warm skin, as she looks up at him.  But he doesn’t answer.

She remembers it well.

Bees are buzzing and the air is warm now; sun on this hillside, with their horses grazing in the distance, and the tower far behind them.  He puts his arm around her, pulls her into his side, his hand warm and sure, and kisses her gently.

  “Come with me, love.”

  It’s so different, the way he says ‘love’ now.  It’s a gift, not a curse.

  “Become a pirate?”

He smiles again.  “Become whatever you want to be.  On my ship. With me.”

She thinks of vast oceans and endless horizons and wraps her arms around his waist.  He kisses the top of her head.

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“You never told me what you were running from,” he says gently.

She looks up.  His eyes are so soft, his hand so warm on her shoulder.  

She remembers it well.

  “I wanted to live my own life.”  She sighs. “There were plans, for suitors and weddings and prospective heirs, even, and I wanted no part of it.”

He is quiet for a long time while he rubs her back gently.  

“Plans for suitors and heirs?”  He whispers to himself and then goes quiet again. For endless minutes she listens to buzzing bees and chirping birds and his shallow breathing. When he finally speaks, his is voice low and careful.  “Emma? Heirs for what?”

She looks at him, unblinking and steady, and her voice does not shake as she says, “Bloodlines and empires and the fate of the realm.”

He pales next to her, and his voice becomes a whisper, as he asks, “Love?  Are you the heir to the throne ?” 

She shakes her head, takes his hand, looks straight at him.  “Not anymore.”

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I remember the way you said, “Not anymore.”  Like you were sure of yourself.

Like you were sure of me.

Like the fate of your world wasn't contained in these two words.

I had not yet realized the magnitude of this gift you were giving me, had not yet felt the weight of this decision. But there you were, in an overgrown meadow with the sun in you hair, and out of all the paths you could have chosen, you chose mine.

I remember how you smiled at me.  How you told me you’d come with me to the end of the earth.  How I couldn’t breathe, because that was the moment.

The moment I knew.

  I never should have let you go.

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The palace feels large and foreign and empty.  It is no longer her home. Her steps echo on the stone stairwell to the throne room, large and ornate and built to impress.

But hollow.

She remembers it well.  

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There should be people.

It is just past dawn, the best time to sneak in through the kitchens and up the back stairs to the main gallery, but it should not be this empty.  There should be people.

Not many, but some.

There are none.

Her steps echo louder now, amplify, multiply, until they drown out her heartbeat.

  And then she enters the throne room.  

She remembers it well.

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Her parents sitting at the far end, looking tired and grey and so full of fear.  

Before them a woman, dressed in silk and in diamonds, sparkling and ominous as she slowly turns her head.  And smiles at Emma.

In her right hand she holds an apple, blood-red and shiny.

  The Evil Queen has come down from the mountains.

  “Emma,” she says, her voice honey and venom, “so good of you to join us.”

And with a flick of her left wrist, Emma’s parents slump over, dead.

There’s no chance to react.

She remembers it well.

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I should have gone with you to say your good-byes.  I knew it the moment you did not make our rendezvous.

I never should have let you go alone.

  I remember the moment I got to the palace. I knew in my bones that I was too late.  The place was so empty, so quiet, so still.

  I remember the throne room.  I remember the King and Queen, dead at the far end, and the cracked flagstone floor, i remember the apple.

A blood-red, shiny apple, missing one bite.

I thought I would perish from the sheer pain of it.  I thought this, this would finally end me.

  And then I felt----

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There is nothing else to remember.

Except how to breathe.

. . .

So please, please listen, because I am here now.

And I need you to hear me, because I love you, because I need you, because we were meant to be one, we were meant to be one , 

and as long as either one of us draws breath, my love,

we will be.

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-/-

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She wakes up into a shower of rainbow-colored light.

Sound and smell and the feeling of a hand on her cheek nearly overwhelm her before she even opens her eyes.  But when she does, she sees him, ragged and dirty and dripping wet before her, laughing and crying at the same time.

  And she says, “Killian?”

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-/-

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They will tell this story often, for years to come.

  The story of how a princess without freedom found a pirate without a heart.  The story of how they found themselves in each other.  

  There are winding paths in this story, and a man following a heartbeat out of a throne room, a heartbeat that echoes through the flagstones, through the stone walls, along endless paths winding between hope and despair.  There are cliffs in this story, and a roaring ocean beneath, and a pirate who doesn’t hesitate.  

  At this point in the story the pirate always smiles, and says, “I do know the ocean.”

  He does not tell the story of how he dove off the cliff and the water closed around him like a dark, icy grave, churning and roiling like an angry, living beast.  Does not tell how he finally washed up inside the cavern, nearly dead and so hopeless, so broken, so afraid. How he looked at her sleeping in a cold glass coffin, and told her Their Story-- 

because he needed her to hear that he had loved her from the moment she had come into his life.

  That he just hadn’t known.

  She is the only one who knows this part of the story, because this part belongs only to them.

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But they do tell of the kiss that woke her, of the greatest magic of all.

  They will tell this story often.  

They will tell it to the crew of their ship, grinning as hardened pirates wipe their eyes.  

They will tell it while they fly a skull and crossbones, and later, their own flag.

They will tell it after they trade their ship for a boat made for nothing but the pleasure of small waves on warm summer days.  

They will tell it to their children, tell it to their grandchildren. 

  They will tell this story.

Someday.

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-/-

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. But back in the cave, Emma sits up, rubbing her eyes; while Killian laughs and cries and kisses her with abandon, lifts her from that cursed glass coffin and sits down hard on the ground, with her in his lap.

His hands are shaking, and she has never seen anyone so glad while tears stream down his cheeks.

  He looks at her and she thinks of all the moments she remembered, all the moments which brought them here, and she leans forward to kiss him, because he’s here, because she needs him, because she loves him, because they were meant to be one, and they are.

  They are.

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❤