#cursed!killian

chapter twelve

Emma exhaled a strangled gasp. She felt like she had been through a wringer--literally flattened and squeezed out until there was nothing left inside of her--and then a pulse of warmth and light had traveled through every part of her, like lightning pulling at her cells. The room around her seemed brighter and there was a quiet in Emma’s mind, peaceful and happy.

“What’s going on?” Regina asked. She sounded far away, her voice somewhere on the edge between suspicious and--what else--angry.

“That, Your Majesty,” Gold said, “was True Love’s Kiss.” He was all crocodile as he said it, his voice smooth and smug. When he smiled, it was not a pleasant expression.

“The curse,” Henry said. “Emma broke it.” He was smiling, and Emma grabbed him, squeezing him so tightly that he grunted, and there was a commotion all around them--

“Snow?”

“Charming?”

“EMMA!”

“She found us--”

“Did you ever doubt that she would?”

--and Emma found herself wrapped up in an embrace that squeezed her so tightly that she yelped in pain, being held by her mother and her father, her father’s hand cupped against the back of her head as he cradled her body in a group hug straight out of--well, a storybook.

“She saved everyone,” Henry said.

Mary Margaret’s--Snow White’s--hands cupped Emma’s cheeks. “I knew you would,” she said.

“Me?” Emma said. The peaceful feeling in her mind faded, just a bit. “I didn’t--”

“You did,” Snow insisted. David’s--Charming’s--hand was on her shoulder, rubbing the back of her neck. He couldn’t seem to move himself away from her, or from them.

“True Love’s Kiss only works,” he said, “if there is love and belief on both sides. And, Emma--I love you. We love you so much.”

“I just hope that now we can show you,” Snow said. She faltered for the first time as she said it, as though the weight of the better part of three decades was suddenly heavy on her mind.

“You believed,” Henry said. He was still smiling. “That’s what a hero does, Mom.”

“Henry,” Emma said, “I love you.”

“I love you too, Mom,” he said. Emma kissed him, hitting the crown of his head just like her mother had done--and she swore that, just for a second, she could feel that warmth pass through her again. The magic.

“Rumplestiltskin?” Lacey--Belle--dropped her bag and walked to him, nearly hurling herself at him instead of taking the last step, stopping herself and reaching instead for his arm. Her hand found his on top of his walking stick as she said, “I remember.”

Emma tried to extricate herself from her family--her family--waiting for his voice and the way it would say something stupid like “Hey, beautiful.”

Belle repeated herself. “I remember.” She said the syllables slowly, as if she was feeling each one in her brain and in her mouth before she spoke them. “I love you.”

Gold was very nearly in tears as he hugged her small frame. “Yes,” he said. His voice almost broke. “Yes, and I love you too.”

Where was Killian?

“Mom,” Henry said--

“What’s wrong with my brother?” Liam said.

“There will be time for that, Belle,” Gold said, and the way he articulated the words reminded Emma of that first meeting in her office--the way he sounded as though he was tasting them--his voice full of relish. It was creepy, and it meant nothing good. “There will be time for everything.”

The “later” was implied, but Belle heard it all the same, because she backed away, and that’s when Emma realized: Killian was still unconscious, comatose--cursed--on the cell mattress. Unmoving and even paler than he had been.

Emma went back into the cell and winced as her knee hit the floor, wanting to trace her finger along his jawline and settling for rubbing her thumb against his wrist.

Gold clicked his tongue and smiled, clearly unsurprised. “Why,” he drawled, “Hook is still under the effects of the sleeping curse. Naturally.”

Emma’s fingers reflexively curled around the dagger she still held as she reacted to his voice. Naturally. But there was no way, no fucking way this had been part of his grand plan--

Liam went at Gold, a fist already raised, and Emma grabbed his arm just as he tried to strike. She came up behind him and pulled him back. “Liam, no,” she said. “Not that I don’t applaud your initiative or anything, but--”

Liam glanced back at his brother. “He wouldn’t want this, would he?” He seemed to deflate slightly as he said it.

“No, kid,” Emma said. “He wouldn’t.”

Regina laughed. It was, truly, more of a snarl. “How do you feel about your brother now, Mr. Jones?”

And--dammit--Regina had read him correctly, because Liam flushed.

“I love him,” Liam said--insisted. “He has raised me as his brother with love and kindness for almost thirty years. He is my family, and I love him.”

“Perhaps,” Gold said. “But that anger and betrayal you still carry means that you cannot wake him. It must be her.” He lifted the tip of his cane two inches off the ground and used it to indicate Emma.

“Wait,” David--Charming--said. “Wait, is that Captain Hook?” His mouth opened to say more and--

“Charming,” Snow said, “now is not the time.”

Charming gave her a look that was fond but somehow grudging at the same time and Emma’s heart clenched at the affection there.

“I still have the bottle, Miss Swan,” Gold said. “I can offer you a deal.” The cane moved again, this time pointing at the dagger still in her hand.

He was calm, and he was composed.

But Emma could sense something beneath the layers. Liar. He was scrambling, Emma realized. His plan had failed, his grand big plan of several centuries was over, and there was still something he needed--something he wanted her to do, in exchange for the dagger.

Emma was not going to fall into his trap, or be ensnared in any more of his deals.

They would find another way.

They had to.

“No,” Emma said. “No, I’ve had enough of your bullshit, Gold, and don’t think for one minute that just because your magic curse grand plan didn’t work out I am not throwing your ass in jail for murdering Graham. You still killed someone, buddy, and in this world, that has consequences.”

Graham had died for this blade; Killian had crossed realms and time and still balked at using it. No way in hell was she giving it back to the Dark One.

Belle gasped. “You killed Graham?” She looked from Gold to Killian and back again. “This was all part of one of your plans? You knew this--” she gestured at Killian, dropping Gold’s arm “--was going to happen? Because Hook came for me in the asylum. He gave me a home. He was my friend.”

“He also tried to kill you,” Regina said. Gold growled.

“You locked me up and took away thirty years of my life,” Belle said, all five-foot-nothing of her with hackles up as she faced the queen. “He gave it back to me. I think--I think he changed.”

“Only I was given a gift: To wake up, for twenty-eight years, and not dread the day before it began" "...a life, and friends, and lovers, and none of it was real.”

“He did,” Emma said. She caught Belle’s gaze and held it as she said it again. “He did change, Belle. He is your friend.”

Belle’s expression looked suddenly very far away again, but not cursed; it was as if she was concentrating, searching through a mental catalogue of something until she found the answer.

“This is about the magic,” she said. She looked up at Gold. “Isn’t it? That’s what you meant when you said there would be time for everything later.”

Belle reached for Gold’s arm again. “Swear to me on your son’s life that this isn’t about the magic and I will believe you.”

Gold said nothing.

“Rumple,” Belle said, and she was pleading. “Swear to me. I will believe you. I still love you.”

Gold looked away.

Belle looked at Emma. “You said this was about Bae, and you weren’t wrong,” she said. “But in order to find Bae, he must need a tracking spell. And that means magic. That’s what he wants.”

“How would he bring magic to this world?” Snow White asked.

“There’s a lake,” she said. “In our land, we called it Lake Nostos. It has the power to restore--”

“What’s been lost,” David said. Charming. Whatever. “I’ve seen it. I’ve been there.”

“Assuming that everything in our land has a corollary here, there must be a well nearby that connects to the lake.”

“The wishing well,” Henry said. “It’s in the park just on the edge of Storybrooke.”

“That’s what he wants,” Belle said. “The potion must allow the waters of Lake Nostos to have power here. That’s how he planned to do it. Emma--you can’t let him. It’s wrong. And--”

“Hook wouldn’t want this,” Emma said. “I know. I won’t.”

She repeated to herself, almost like a mantra: they would find another way. They had to.

Emma stood beside her parents, her arms crossed over her chest, the dagger still in one hand.

David looked like he suddenly remembered something as he reached for his belt--the cuff clip he wore there. He handed the cuffs and the keys to Liam and said, “Cuff him.”

“Try it, dearie,” he said. “I’ve been imprisoned before.”

“There’s no magic here, Dark One,” David said. “And there won’t be. I think we’ll be able to hold you this time.”

“No deals,” Snow said firmly.

“Emma can do this,” Henry said.

“I--” Emma said.

“Emma,” Snow said. “We believe in you. So did Hook. That curse only works if you take it willingly. He wanted to save you, and to save Henry. He believed in you.” Her eyes were only on Emma, and on Killian. Her eyes with nothing but warmth and compassion and understanding and Emma had no idea what she was meant to do, or how she was meant to do it. “You know what you need to do, Emma.”

She didn’t. She fingered the ring around her neck and felt hopeless.

“I’m not okay with this,” her father grumbled, then grunted when her mother elbowed him.

“Mom,” Henry said in a loud stage whisper. “You have to kiss him. That’s how the curse works.”

Snow smothered a laugh.

“But--” Emma said. “He has--had--I’m not--”

My Milah. My dead lover. She knew I was motivated. Any port in a storm.

Emma stood motionless.

“Oh, dear,” Gold giggled. “Has the good captain infected you with his ghosts?”

Emma stiffened.

“Milah wouldn’t have wanted this. I would have done anything for her, but she wouldn’t have wanted this.” Think therefore on revenge, and cease to weep.

“He always did favor brunettes,” Gold said. He was taunting her, he wanted to make her doubt, and it should have worked--hell, five minutes ago, it would have worked; five days ago, it felt like, she hadn’t even met him yet, or Killian, and yet--

Emma closed her eyes and could feel it, the way his breath warmed her skin when they were close together, when he had been so close to her; she could feel it, the way it had been in his office, in Jefferson’s house--that moment between ‘what was’ and ‘what’s next’--and she wondered.

He had loved Milah. But--”It’s you. Don’t you know, Emma? It’s all for you”--and in her dream, it had been an inferno, the magic pushing everywhere in her body, the silver strands of light burning through her.

They’d known each other for five days.

But those moments still felt worth fighting for. She couldn’t lose him before she’d even had the chance to know him, or to know what it was that tied them together.

She already wasn’t the same person she had been before they’d met.

You should know better than anyone that Lost Ones recognize their own.

And she wondered.

“There’s hope, Swan. All you have to do is believe.”

What would it be like, to finally give in, to feel something instead of nothing?

“Just look at me, and believe.”

His lips were cold. Smooth, and cold, and Emma held her breath, waiting--

Waiting--

Come back to me, Killian.

And then she felt it, felt the moment he woke up even before he gasped.

(an inferno, burning everything in its wake as the energy rushed through her. It was raw and unfettered as it pushed every molecule in her body, electrifying her senses until she couldn’t feel anything but him)

“Swan,” he said, his fingers brushing against his mouth and his eyes wide open and so very fucking blue, “what did you do?”

Snow squeaked. Liam and Henry rushed for the cell door and Charming held them back.

But Emma wouldn’t know any of that until later.

She smiled. A real smile, the kind that lit up her face and her eyes and showed all of her teeth. “I’ve been wondering if I would like it,” she said.

His eyebrows went up, and he smiled back at her--a real smile, that softened his entire face. “So what’s the decision?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said, closing the infinitesimal distance between them, and there was the metal of his rings, cool as his finger traced the line of her cheekbone, and when his mouth opened and a sound escaped Emma wasn’t sure if it was him or her. She felt like she was being devoured, if the gentlest touch she’d ever felt in her life could eat her whole and make her crave it. It was everything--his fingers, the metal, his lips and tongue and the way he opened for her--

And it felt like magic.

Killian was breathing heavily, brushing his fingers against his mouth again, and she said: “It’s even better when you help.”

There were a thousand emotions flickering through his eyes, and Emma saw all of them: sorrow, remorse, understanding, desire, longing.

Love.

He was an open book.

Emma blinked. There was no way for her to look at him, to see him when he was like that, and pretend that she didn’t feel--all of it. Anything. Everything.

He smiled--a shy smile--and Emma realized that he saw all of those things in her, too. She leaned forward, feeling his forehead against hers when he met her halfway, his eyelashes fluttering across her cheek.

“What I wouldn’t give,” Regina said, “for another sleeping curse.” She sat on the cell mattress as if it was a throne. Her face was a mask of icy indifference.

Snow White stood in front of her, regarding her through the cell bars.

Emma tried to stand, but--

“Worry not, Swan,” Killian whispered, and she stayed with him, enjoying the weight of his hand on her arm.

“I agree with the pirate,” Charming said.

“Ah,” Gold sneered. “Twoo Wuv.”

“The curse is broken,” Charming said, ignoring him. “Neither of them can hurt us any more.”

There was a knock on the station door, a heavy object of some kind being battered against it.

“Open up,” Leroy’s voice called.

Snow walked to the door, slowly and with deliberation. “The curse is broken,” she agreed. She reached for the doorknob. “And now--we have a lot to figure out.”

“Together,” Killian muttered into her ear, and Emma nodded.

“Together,” she said, feeling the magic inside of her settle at the word; the inferno banked down to something warm and comforting and tied up between both of them, inextricable. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”

--

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful detective. She had long, blonde hair that curled just so at the edges of her face with skin as fair as snow. Her eyes glinted green, like emeralds in the sunlight, and the fall of her lashes was thick and dark.

Her name was Emma Swan.

Sheriff Emma Swan stood up, remembering at the last minute to turn off her oversized CRT monitor before she hit the light switch. On her desk there was a picture of her son; it was hand-drawn, in pen and ink. There was a pair of boots on the shelf behind her. One of them was missing a shoelace.

“I’m heading out, Red,” she called.

“Mmmm?” Ruby murmured, not looking up from her makeup mirror as she fluffed her waist-length, red-streaked black curls until she was satisfied with their volume. “You coming by later? I think Ursula’s got something new she wanted to try with the music tonight.”

“Tempting,” Emma said, “but no.”

“Belle’s gonna be there,” Ruby said, her dark eyes glittering. “And Will.”

“Poor Victor,” Emma sighed.

“Who said he wasn’t invited?” Ruby asked. She smacked her lips and blew a kiss.

“Yeah,” Emma said. “That’s my cue. Besides, I gotta go home first.”

Emma was very, very good at her job, even though there was one mystery she couldn’t solve: how to mend a broken heart. She had once believed in love--in True Love--but now she wasn’t sure if it even existed. She had been given up by her parents, Snow White and Prince Charming, minutes after she was born, sent through a magical wardrobe so that she would have her best chance--so that some day, she would find them again. She would break a curse, and bring back the happy endings.

But Emma Swan didn’t know any of that. All she knew was that she grew up alone, moving from city to city with no one on her side, and no one who knew her.

The logistics were the easy part.

Well--the logistics were the part that was less hard, because magic, it turned out, was a very funny thing. It had no rules but its own, and the more questions Emma had, the more she had to shake her head and move on.

You really could handwave away anything in Storybrooke by the simple expedient of magic being involved.

Cursed neighborhood in a thriving city? Magic.

Mary Margaret Blanhard as the only living heir of Regina Mills? Magic.

“Not really,” Mary Maragaret--Snow White--had said. “She is, after all, my stepmother.”

More surprising was the fact that Henry Mills turned up as the legal heir to Robert Gold.

“How,” Emma wanted to know, “did the curse know that Henry was his grandson?’

And the Blue Fairy just leveled a glare at Emma, a superior air about her--a Mother Superior air--and said, as if it should have been obvious, “Magic.” She still wore her religious habit, the one Emma had noticed at Graham’s funeral, and it clung to her curves in a way that suggested “magic” had a sick sense of humor.

She didn’t know it, sent away from her family to live in a land without magic, but Princess Emma was going to grow up to be the savior.

There was no justice system in the city equipped to handle the murder committed by Robert Gold or the Dark Curse committed by Regina Mills. Storybrooke was its own jurisdiction; a mysteriously unincorporated neighborhood with no relevant law enforcement agency except a small, understaffed sheriff’s department. Then again, the former residents of the Enchanted Forest--two words Emma still struggled to say with a straight face--

“If it helps,” Killian had said with a wry grin, “we always called it ‘Misthaven’ on our navigational charts.”

Of Misthaven, then, were perfectly prepared to administer mob justice against the two people most responsible for their current predicament. Turns out, a ride with a Dark Curse was a one-way trip.

“When someone casts the curse, it’s a sacrifice of one world for another,” Blue said. “That’s simply how the magic works.”

Of course.

Nurse Ratched was perfectly happy to keep them in her asylum for a continuation of her current pay--plus dental. Emma agreed immediately. Anything to make the goddamn dwarves subside and leave her the hell alone.

Snow White looked on serenely. Prince Charming regarded her with pride.

Emma Swan was no stranger to tragedy, but she eventually made her way to Storybrooke, and found herself a home there. She had a home, and friends, and a job that she loved, until, on her twenty-eighth birthday, the curse struck her. It was a day like any other: she got up, went to her office, took on a new case.

But then her best friend--her partner--was murdered.

It wasn’t like the salty, half-assed dinners she’d had in so many foster homes--instant soup, just add water.

“Instant family--just add magic!”

It wasn’t easy. (That’s not how the magic worked.)

But heroes, Emma had learned, didn’t do what was easy. They did what was right.

Emma knew that she had no choice but to pursue justice for her friend, and to punish the person who had committed the crime. But when Emma tracked down a possible lead to a bar on the outskirts of town, she didn’t find a suspect. She found an ally.

And she found out how deep the rabbit hole really went.

“Wait,” Emma said to her mother one night at dinner. “Let me get this straight: you’re the head of the Mills Organization.”

Family dinner.

“You’re a teacher,” Emma said. “And you’re just going to--”

“She was raised to be a queen,” David--Prince Charming--reminded her with a smile, and Emma scowled. She had really, really wanted to hit him in that moment.

It must have shown on her face, because her father laughed. “God,” he said, “you’re so much like her.” He said it with wonder and pride and a lot of other emotions Emma was still learning how to deal with.

The emotions were the hard part.

Well--the emotions were the part that was less easy, because Emma.

Family dinners and Killian sitting next to her, squeezing her knee under the table to let her know that he was there.

“So,” Emma said, “how rich are we, then? Like, King Midas rich?”

Snow looked at Charming.

Charming looked at Snow.

Something passed between them.

“It’s kind of a funny story,” David said.

The night that Emma Swan met Killian Jones, she didn’t know his real name, or who he was, or where he was from.

She didn’t know how much she didn’t know, or how all of it would change her life. All she knew was that her partner was killed on a case after she made a deal with her landlord to find what had been taken from him.

All she knew was that something inside of her recognized him, like she had known him in another time and place; as if she had known him from her dreams. From her future.

Nights were the hardest, the part where the logistics and the emotions all bound up in each other; the part where she wanted, needed, desired Killian, to have him with her and to be with him. It was overwhelming, but the only part of it that terrified Emma was the part where it didn’t terrify her at all.

That first night--that first time--it was hot and raw and unchecked, all of those feelings, all of those emotions, that Emma had been denying herself coming up to the surface. She could feel it in her breathing, in her heartbeat, in the way that he laid hands on her and in the way the magic flowed through her, and it shouldn’t have been possible.

That’s not how the magic was supposed to work.

He was reverent and it left her trembling. It was too soon, too fast, too much.

But she slept, sated and spent in the arms of her True Love, and she dreamed.

She walked along the rocky shoreline, tilting her head toward the sky and feeling the sunlight on her face, and she looked for him. The sky was a perfect shade of blue and the air was crisp and clean and it was a perfect quiet moment; there was no sign of him.

Emma closed her eyes and took a breath, counting three before exhaling, and she was in Granny’s. It was empty: a glittering jukebox lit up in the corner, the wall clock set at 8:16.

Another breath and another three count and Emma opened her eyes, feeling something inside of her. A point of warmth that was getting warmer and the asylum laid out in front of her. The blind janitor watched her as he mopped the floor.

“That’s not how the magic works.” Regina’s voice, disembodied and hollow, drifted down the corridor. “Magic here is...unpredictable.”

“You know this isn’t right, Swan.” The whisper felt like it came out of the warmth, the warm spot that was still getting warmer. “Trust your gut. It will tell you what to do.”

The sheriff’s office looked like a dungeon, the bars made of fire, and Emma exhaled; Killian sat in the corner. She called his name.

“Swan,” he said, gasping, his fingers going straight to his mouth, “what did you do?” He didn’t look at her. “Why did you do it? Why did you not take the deal for the potion?”

The fire began to spread. He didn’t see her--he couldn’t see her.

“Killian,” Emma said, “come back to me, Killian--”

Emma turned, concentrating on the warmth inside of her, and pulled.

She held him against her, their backs toward the water as a wave crashed and bubbled up along the rocky shoreline.

He blinked. “Emma,” he said. His hand came up toward her face, and she leaned toward him. Their foreheads touched and his fingers were in her hair and he said her name again. “Emma,” he breathed. “What did you do?”

“I kissed you, Killian,” Emma said. “I kissed you, because you’re my happy ending.”

Emma closed her eyes. One, two, three--

And woke, Killian sweating and shivering in her arms.

Killian Jones was a complicated man. He had wandered, and traveled, and suffered many hardships. He had been a slave, and a naval lieutenant. He had been a brother and a pirate and, some would say, a villain. He had given himself to vengeance and turned himself toward the darkness after his first love was murdered. He had willingly subjected himself to the Evil Queen’s plan, to the Dark Curse, in the hope that he might finally see his vengeance delivered.

For the first time in her life, Emma asked her mother for advice.

She’d always wondered what it would be like, to ask her mom about clothes or makeup or boys or--life. It never occurred to her that she’d need to ask about a sleeping curse.

“What was it like for you,” Emma said, “after dad woke you? From the--from the thing?”

“Oh, Emma,” Snow said. There was so much understanding, so much sympathy, so much empathy in the single word. It shocked Emma how much her mother immediately understood, and how much of a comfort that was. “Is he having the nightmares?”

Killian Jones--Captain Hook--had spent many years in Neverland, the home of the Lost Ones, and still had not realized that he, himself, had been Lost. Until he met Emma Swan, and found himself again.

They found themselves in each other.

It wasn’t easy.

She had a kid who believed everything was going to be okay. He had a brother with a lot of justifiable anger issues.

Emma had literally never in her life lived under the same roof as her parents.

“You never even got to spend a single night in the nursery,” her father said, and Emma remembered the page in the storybook, of Prince Charming fighting off a horde of Black Knights and nearly dying in the process, all while protecting the daughter in his arms.

“There were unicorns on the mobile over your crib,” her mother said, and Emma could picture it, the colors and the crib and the toys, the hopes and the dreams manifest in a single room.

Emma had never gotten to spend the night with her kid, either.

The loft, Mary Margaret’s loft, was barely big enough for two. It had not been designed for six.

Fuck logistics.

But the nights were the hardest.

Because when Emma and Killian were apart, that’s when he was afraid to close his eyes.

That’s when the nightmares were the worst.

The night they met, Killian told Emma about the Dark Curse, and her parents, and about a creature known as the Dark One, who had killed both his first love and Emma’s partner. The Dark One had lived for centuries, immortal, his powers seemingly limitless. But here, in Emma’s home, in Storybrooke and the Land Without Magic, the Dark One had no power. He only had plans. It was his curse that had brought Storybrooke into existence, and forced Emma from her parents.

It was his curse that, unbeknownst to him, would bring the savior and the pirate together.

It wasn’t the same, every night--every time.

But Killian had so many regrets; when he slept, it was as if his body became, again, that prison--until she found him.

She always found him. She found him, and pulled with her magic, and they would stare at the ocean.

Peaceful, quiet moments. Together.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he always said.

“Killian,” she always said. “You’re one of the strongest people I know. You’re a survivor.”

“The only one who’s ever saved me is you, Swan,” he said.

It’s you, Emma. It’s all for you.

“Any port in a storm,” she said.

“That’s just it, love,” he said. “I’m not in the storm, not any more. Not since I met you.”

And when they were together, she could feel it, the way that her magic would settle around them.

No one knew why--that wasn’t how the magic was supposed to work.

Twoo Wuv, Emma thought, and held him tighter.

The nights were the hardest, with the emotions. And the logistics. And the fact that there was no goddamn space in the loft--no doors, even. Four adults--two couples--and two adolescent boys, or near enough, and Emma learned very quickly that when her mother sent her on a grocery run in the middle of the afternoon to take her time and knock very loudly before she used her key.

Not that Emma didn’t find her own ways--The Rabbit Hole had doors that locked and a bedroom and an office with a large desk and that one time up against the hallway wall, in between the kitchen and the restrooms--Killian did, after all, still work most nights. But they always came home, after. They always spent the nights together, all under one roof. It was a family rule.

And then one night, as Emma kicked off her boots, as Killian helped her off with her coat, the door barely shut behind them, there was Snow White sitting at the table with cocoa and cinnamon and Scotch and rum. “We should talk,” Snow said.

“Pleasant conversation then, innit?” Killian muttered in her ear.

Henry was already using his cinnamon stick in lieu of a spoon but Liam looked suspicious. He was quiet and reserved and holding himself back, like he was afraid everything would shatter around him. He had seen everything he thought he’d known change twice in the space of mere days, but Emma was determined to do what she could to erase the haunted lost look from his eyes in the way that it never had been in hers, or in his brother’s.

“Everything okay, Mom?” Emma said, sitting down.

“Your father and I--” Snow paused and smiled. For an instant, her parents were the only two people in the universe.

Ruby had only fifteen minutes ago been throwing French fries at her in an attempt to divert Emma’s attention from Killian--but, gross. Emma didn’t need to see her parents like that.

“We think it’s time to make a few changes,” her father said.

Emma stiffened. It was an instinct, and the habits of a lifetime were not going to be broken by a few weeks of relative peace, but--her breathing hitched and her heart rate sped up and then she felt Killian’s hand on her knee, squeezing gently.

“Like what?” Henry asked, slurping his whipped cream. Henry had nothing but glee at his suddenly expanded family. It would shock her ten-year-old son to know that in that respect, Emma wanted nothing more than to be like him, her amazing, empathetic, achingly open kid who wanted all of them to have their happy endings.

One roof, three floors; the Mills Organization, and therefore Mary Margaret Blanchard, owned the building and all three apartments tucked into it.

“Okay,” Emma said. “But seriously, how rich are we? You sure it’s not, like, Midas rich?”

Her father laughed. “I’ll leave that to Kathryn,” he said.

“Kathryn really did go to Boston, though,” Emma said. “So that’s relevant how, exactly?”

“She was Princess Abigail in our world,” David said. “Abigail, daughter of Midas.”

Killian’s eyes lit up and his eyebrow went up and the corner of his mouth went up and Emma knew it was going to be trouble before he uttered a single word. “And why,” he said, “would you want to give up an opportunity like that?”

Snow let out an indignant sputter as she choked on her cocoa, but Charming laughed again.

“You of all people know why,” he said.

Killian’s arm snaked around Emma’s waist and he pulled them closer together. “Aye,” he said. “That I do.”

It wasn’t easy. It was too soon, too fast, too much.

But they found a way; that’s what this family did.

Killian wasn’t someone who trusted easily. Emma wasn’t someone who trusted at all. But they quickly realized that together was the best way to get through, to get justice for Emma’s friend and partner--and to break the curse. When Emma’s life was threatened by the evil Queen of Hearts, it was Killian who was able to defend her. And when Killian put himself in the way of a sleeping curse to protect Emma’s family, Emma was able to awaken him.

It was True Love’s Kiss, and it sent a pulse of magic through Storybrooke. Emma realized that her feelings gave her strength. She broke the Dark Curse. She found her family. She brought back the happy endings.

Including for Killian Jones.

Once upon a time, after a long day at her new job with her best friend, Emma Swan came home to the apartment she shared with her family. She pulled off her boots, stepping over them into the apartment, and hung her red leather jacket on the hook by the door.

Killian Jones--Captain freaking Hook--was sprawled out on the couch, his hand over his eyes. In his lap was a black-and-white speckled composition notebook; there was no sign of the work crew that had left a small pile of equipment in what was slowly becoming her--their--kitchen.

In the apartment she shared with her family--the second-floor apartment. The one that was currently being fixed up with extra bedrooms and talk of breaking through the floor to the flat below, to make a duplex.

“‘Ello, love,” Killian called softly, and Emma smiled.

She did that a lot more often now--the real kind, that made her eyes light up and showed all of her teeth--and her smile didn’t fade as she stepped into the living room and took the notebook out of his lap.

“He told you the story again,” Emma said, gesturing at the sleeping form curled up in the oversized chair and the goddamn domesticity of it--

“Aye,” Killian nodded, scrubbing his hand down his face as he sat up, and she still wasn’t used to it, what happened with his face when he got all soft like that talking about her kid. “Your boy spent the entire day working on it with Belle, and he was quite insistent. Seems to think hearing it will--”

“He worries,” Emma said. The lack of walls when sleeping upstairs left no room for secrets, and Henry did worry. He’d come up with the idea, to write down their story like a fairy tale, about Emma and Killian and Liam and their family and it made Emma’s heart hurt, sometimes, when she thought about all that Henry had brought into her life. “He just wants to help.” She paused, then: “Does it? Help?”

Emma Swan hadn’t been looking for someone who would give his heart to the world, or some True Love riding to her rescue. The only one who saved her was her. But she had always hoped that somewhere in the universe, there might be someone who would keep her warm when she was cold, feed her when she was hungry, and maybe--on occasion--take her dancing.

No one was more surprised than Emma when she found her True Love in the Storybrooke Sheriff’s station, when she kissed Killian Jones and saved him from eternal sleep.

No one was more surprised when she found her family that night.

“Hearing a story where I’m not the villain? Yeah,” he said. “It helps.”

“You’re more than that,” Emma protested. “You’ve got a mark in the hero column, at least.”

“I’m not so sure about that, love,” he said. “I don’t believe I ever--to use your phrase--rode to the rescue, or gave my heart to the world.” Killian’s words were teasing, but his eyes were serious.

“You gave your heart,” Emma said. “You gave it to me.”

“I did,” he said. “But you have given me use for it: a double heart for my single one.”

Emma grinned. She could always tell when he was quoting something.

“Shakespeare?” she asked.

“Aye.”  He smirked.  "I'm getting a mite predictable, then?"

"Maybe you should try something new, darling," Emma said, her voice a terrible imitation of his accent, and he laughed and stood up and pulled the notebook from her hands, placing it with some care on the couch cushion.  

Killian's voice was low and sleepy as he began to speak.

"'i fear / no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want / no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true) / and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant / and whatever a sun will always sing is you'," he said.  He pulled her until she was flush against him.  His finger traced the chain around her neck.

'"and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart,'" he said. 'i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)'."  He kissed her, starting at her forehead, trailing down to her mouth, and whispered against her lips.

“Dance with me, Swan,” he said.

And they all lived happily ever after. The End.

--

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.

The Tempest Act IV, Scene 1

Hand in hand with Killian, Emma led the small group along the dark corridor to the back of her house, smirking when Mary Margaret and David gaped openly as the stone doorway appeared in the wall and swung wide at her silent bidding, but smiling in understanding when Regina gaped openly at the workroom with its long table strewn with the ingredients and equipment for her spells. Hastily Emma gathered together several small glass bottles and linen bags, plus four engraved silver bowls and the star-strewn blanket Killian recognised from the night she’d given him his silver paw, tumbling them all into a wicker basket with a long, looping handle. Clasping the basket tightly she indicated for them to follow her and headed with a determined stride up the stone stairs that led to one of her towers. Not the library tower. The other one. 

The stairs wound up and up and up, curving through a blinding darkness that had the four of them stumbling and holding on to each other for safety, following Emma’s sure steps by sound alone. Higher and higher still the staircase spun, far higher than the one leading to the library, spiralling ever upwards until they were dizzy, until they had lost all sense of time or space, until what could have been hours or minutes or inches or miles later they stumbled, breathless and disoriented, into a chamber.  

It was a circular chamber, vast and echoing in a way that was surely impossible for any place atop such a tall tower to be, formed of seamless stone walls lined with unlit torches and illuminated by a faint, bluish glow from an unseen source. Emma set her basket on the floor and withdrew some long-handled matches from one of the linen bags. “We need to light the torches,” she said. “Normally I’d do it with magic, but I’d like to hold on to what little I’ve got.” 

Mary Margaret’s face creased in a worried frown. “Sweetie, are you sure we have to do this tonight? Can’t it wait until you’ve got more of your magic back?”

“Mary Margaret you remember what she said, the low magic is part of the plan,” David reminded her. 

“I know, but…” 

“It’ll be fine Mary Margaret,” Emma assured her. “If everything goes well—” 

“If,” muttered Regina.

“—then I’ll only need a bit of my own,” continued Emma, ignoring her. “I just don’t want to waste any resources. Just in case.” 

“Well, if you’re sure,” said Mary Margaret, and took the long, slow-burning match Emma handed her, striking it against the wall and gasping at the bright glare of its flame. 

As Mary Margaret and David lit the torches Emma and Regina spread the starry blanket over the centre of the floor, placing the silver bowls at each of its corners and filling each with sea salt and thyme and three dried nettle leaves. 

“Are you sure you don’t want any mugwort?” Regina frowned at the contents of the bowls. “Or at least a bit of cinnamon bark?”

“Nope,” said Emma brightly, though Killian could feel her tension. “Simple is better, I think.” She handed Regina a bottle of sea salt then closed her eyes and breathed deeply, centring herself as the other woman sprinkled the salt in a circle around the blanket. 

When the torches were lit and the circle prepared, Emma, Regina, Mary Margaret, and David joined hands and stepped as one over the salt circle and onto the blanket. The instant they did, the salt began to glow and energy sparked between their hands. 

“Don’t let go!” said Emma sharply as Mary Margaret flinched in surprise. “Whatever happens you have to hold the circle!” 

Emma bent her head and began to murmur in a language Killian had read but never heard, using the energy of the circle to boost her small store of magic. Soon smoke began to rise from the centre of the blanket, thickening and taking on the purplish-blue hue that still had the power to make his blood run cold, before dissipating to reveal a surprised and extremely displeased Cora. 

“What is this?” she snapped, scowling at the faces surrounding her, her gaze flitting scornfully over Emma’s and Mary Margaret’s before landing on her daughter. “Regina?” she frowned. “What do you think you’re doing?” 

“Stopping you, Mother,” said Regina. “As I should have done long ago.” 

“Pah,” spat Cora. “You can’t stop me.” 

“I couldn’t,” Regina conceded. “I have help now.” 

“Help? From the forest witch and her household spells? From Leopold’s doormat of a daughter and her very upright husband? That’s your help?”

“Not all of it,” said a deep voice that Killian barely recognised as his own. 

Shadows shifted between the torches on the wall as he stepped forward from his hiding place among them, and when the torchlight made him fully visible Cora’s face for the first time showed genuine fear. 

“You!” she gasped. “You’re— but— how?”

“You might well ask that,” said Killian coolly. “Though you needn’t look far for the answer. You did this.” 

“I— what?”

Killian smiled, a sharp, vicious smile, remembering Cora’s arrogance and her presumption, and the cold deliberation with which she had ripped his life to shreds. Part of him, the dark part deep inside, was going to bloody enjoy this.

“All these years you’ve been obsessed with that prophecy,” he said advancing on the circle as near as he dared, “You spent your life trying to interpret it and to find a way to thwart it, but my dear Cora what you have always failed to understand is that everything you’ve done, from the moment you found the first scrap of parchment, has only aided that prophecy in coming true.”

“Impossible.” Cora managed a sneer, but it was a feeble thing. “You know nothing of prophecies, or magic.”

“Oh, on the contrary darling, I know quite a bit about both. Prophesied events may come to pass or they may not,” he glanced at Emma, who gave him a small smile. “But whatever they do they don’t do it in a vacuum. People are inevitably involved and where there are people there is always a choice. You for example chose to involve me in all of this—” 

“I didn’t choose you, I was Shown.” 

“Perhaps, but it was your choice to destroy my life in an attempt to get me under your control. Had you left me alone I would have lived out my life in the navy, never even believing in magic. I would certainly never have met and fallen in love with a witch.”

Cora shook her head, denying his words, though he could see they had shaken her. “No. No, you’re wrong, I had to stop you, you were destined to meet her—” 

“I met her because you brought me to her forest and turned me into a dog,” retorted Killian. “You thought you were getting rid of me but it was only as a dog that I was in a position to stay close to her and protect her, and it was only as a dog that I could have defeated your wolves.” 

Realisation was breaking across Cora’s face, chased by horror. “You were as good as dead,” she whispered. “There’s no way you could have survived…” 

“Left to my own devices I surely wouldn’t have. But there was this connection I’d forged with a witch, you see, which allowed her to heal me. All of me.” He held up his left hand, whole and pulsing with a faint glow of magic. Cora took a stumbling step back, her fear palpable as she pressed against the barrier of the magic circle that held her. 

“That’s not possible—” 

“No indeed, I think we can all agree that it is quite impossible. And yet, here we have it.” He raised an eyebrow. “Tell me, love, why exactly did you take my hand in the first place?”

“I had a vision,” choked Cora, too deep in shock to attempt a lie. “I saw— I saw that she would need it. Your hand, your help. I saw—” she broke off on a strangled gasp, eyes darting all around, taking in the circle on the floor, the faces surrounding her, Killian and his glowing hand. The fear in her eyes turned to panic. “I saw this.” 

“And what precisely is this?”

“My end.” Her terrified gaze met Killian’s calm one. “Are you— going to kill me?”

Killian paused before replying, keeping his eyes fixed on Cora, allowing the silence to stretch out until she began to writhe. “I am not,” he said at last. “But make no mistake, this is your end.” 

“Cora Mills!” Emma’s voice resonated though the chamber. “Your actions have been seen, and now I offer you a choice.”

Cora jumped and spun around to face Emma. “A choice?”

“There is always a choice.” Emma's eyes met Killian’s, and he nodded. “You have shown you cannot be trusted to wield the High Magic. Your choice is to voluntarily relinquish it and work only the household spells, or to be cut off from all magic forever.” 

Cora’s eyebrows snapped together as the hot flash of her anger burnt away her fear. “You can’t cut me off from my power!” she snarled.

“Oh yeah?” retorted Emma. “Try me.” 

Cora sputtered indignantly. “With what magic?” she sneered. “You used all yours on Samhain, and my pathetic daughter’s isn’t nearly enough.”   

“That’s true,” agreed Emma. “I’ve got no magic left.”

“Then how do you possibly presume to—

“I don’t have magic,” Emma interrupted. “But he does.” 

Killian could sense the magic sleeping deep within the stones of the chamber, the same stones, the same magic, that had answered Emma’s desperate call mere days before, the magic that had healed his broken body and returned his stolen hand. He called to it now, and though he had no idea how he was doing so he pulled the magic into his hand and sent it on along the connection he shared with Emma, letting his magic flow into her as she had done for him. 

Cora couldn’t see the source of his power —its nature was too foreign to her— but she could sense magic flowing into Emma, could see her channel it, weave it, and everyone could see when that magic flared into a blaze of light that Emma deftly moulded into a fearsome blade, long and lightly curved, and sharper than any steel. 

She grasped this blade and held it before her as Cora herself began to glow, the energy of her own magic becoming visible as wisps of purple light that curled in gentle waves around her, linking her to the source of her own power. As Cora watched in growing horror these wisps wound around each other, twisting and knotting together to form a single rope roughly the thickness of Killian’s wrist. The rope drew taut beneath Emma’s blade, quivering in anticipation of her strike. 

“What is your choice?” Emma asked. “Will you promise to relinquish the High Magic?”

Hatred flashed in Cora’s eyes. “Never—” she hissed, grasping the purple rope and whipping it away, but Emma brought the blade down faster than the human eye could see and sliced the rope clean through, severing Cora’s connection to her power forever. 

Cora gasped then cried out in pain, staring at the fading rope with eyes dulled by uncomprehending horror. “No,” she moaned. “No you didn’t, you can’t! You can’t do this to me!” Collapsing into a heap on the floor, she clutched at the purple rope, fisting her hands into the starry blanket and pounding them against the floor as it faded away into nothing. 

Emma heaved a deep breath and let go both of Killian’s magic and the hands she held, breaking the circle. The glow in the salt winked out and David and Mary Margaret fell into each other’s arms, clinging tightly and whispering as they attempted to process all they had seen. Regina knelt beside her keening mother and cautiously embraced her. 

“Come, Mother,” she said gently. “I’ll take you home.” She stood and pulled Cora to her feet, raising her hand to poof them away but before she could Emma stepped forward.

“Wait,” she said, searching for the right words to express her feelings. It was— not precisely sympathy she felt; Cora more than deserved this punishment and the world needed protection from her, but Emma knew how devastating losing magic must be to a witch and her kind heart wished to help. She laid a hand on Cora’s arm. 

“You’re welcome in my shop any time,” she said. “You may not have power anymore but there is magic everywhere, and I have things that can help you connect with it, help you find your way again. Both of you,” she added, looking at Regina.

“Never,” snapped Cora, yanking her arm away, but Regina nodded. 

“Thank you,” she said. “In time, I think we might take you up on that.” 

“Take all the time you need.” 

Understanding flashed between her and Regina, then red smoke swirled and both Mills women were gone. 

Emma stared at the spot they had vacated, feeling relief and sadness and a mess of other things she didn’t have the energy to sort through. She heard Killian come up behind her, felt his arms wrap around her. His presence was so soothing, she thought with a sigh, turning in his embrace and snuggling against him, pressing her nose into his neck. 

“Well done, my love,” he murmured, kissing her temple. “How do you feel?”

“Gah, I don’t know,” she laughed. “Don’t ask me that just yet. Let’s just— is it weird that all I really want is a cup of tea?” 

“Not in the least,” said Killian solemnly. “Tea cures all ills. Come, darling, I’ll put the kettle on.”

💐💐 💐💐💐

Seven years later.

The 31st of October was a cool and misty day that year, with pearly grey skies and the scents of wood smoke and frost clinging in the chill dampness of the air. By its afternoon much of the mist had burned away, save for a stray wisp or two weaving out from the forest and down Hornbeam Street to curl around the windows of the apothecary shop where Emma hummed to herself as she arranged the Samhain candles on their elegantly carved shelf. She paused neither in her arranging nor her tune, not even turning around when she sensed what Killian would call “a disturbance in the Force” in the vicinity of the table behind her, laden with caramel apples for the trick-or-treaters. She did, however, smile at the sharp hiss that resulted from someone attempting to touch those very apples and encountering a protection spell instead. 

“Ow!” cried a small, indignant voice. “Mom! That hurt!” 

“Stop trying to snitch apples and it won’t hurt,” said Emma reasonably. She didn’t need to look to sense her daughter’s pout. “You can have one in an hour when everyone comes for tea.” 

“But I’ll want soul cakes then!” 

“So have soul cakes.” 

“But then I can’t have a caramel apple!” 

Emma finally turned around, biting the inside of her cheek to hide her smile at the mutinous expression on the small face, so like Killian’s and framed by his dark hair, brightened in their child by glints of red, but with Emma’s own green eyes. Eyes that were at present narrowed in frustration. 

“Life is full of tough choices, kid,” said Emma. “If the worst you ever face is caramel apple or soul cake, you can count yourself lucky.” 

“That doesn’t help,” grumbled the small girl. “Grownups never say anything helpful.” 

Rowenna Jones was many things: five years old (five and a half, she would insist), an apprentice witch, a gifted storyteller, the fastest runner in her kindergarten class, and the sworn enemy of her cousin Leo. What she most definitely was not, was anyone’s fool. 

Emma laughed. “That’s very true. You still can’t have an apple now.” 

“Hmmph,” said Rowenna, and stomped back to the corner —the same corner where her father had once spent his days curled up on his dog bed— and sat down at the child sized table and chairs that now occupied it. “I guess I’ll just colour then,” she said with the dramatic huff familiar to all long-suffering children. 

“You could help me arrange the candles,” suggested Emma. 

“No, they look good like that,” said Rowenna, after an appraising glance at the shelf. “Can I do some magic?”

“What magic do you want to do?”

Rowenna raised an eyebrow and the corners of her mouth quirked in an unconscious imitation of her father’s wicked smirk. “Can I hex Leo?”

“Definitely not,” said Emma. Nice bargaining technique, kid, she thought but did not say.  

“Welllll, can I practice lighting candles, then?”

“That you can do.” 

Emma took the practice candle from behind the apothecary counter and put it down on Rowenna’s table. “Remember to feel your magic first,” she instructed her daughter. “Reach out and touch it, make sure it’s welcoming to you, then pull it up through yourself and focus on sparking the flame.” 

The child’s small forehead creased in concentration and Emma watched carefully as she gathered the threads of her magic and focused them on the candle wick. After a moment the wick flared into bright flame and both Emma and Rowenna clapped. 

“Well done, sweetie,” said Emma, extinguishing the flame with her own magic and giving her daughter a one-armed hug. “Keep practicing. Try to do it without thinking so hard, remember that magic is as much feeling as thought. 

Determination settled on the child’s brow, yet another thing she’d inherited from Killian. “I’m gonna do it so fast, Dad and Liam won’t believe their eyes,” she declared. 

“There’s a goal,” said Emma. “You do that.” 

~~💐~~

Half an hour later Rowenna’s candle-lighting speed had improved noticeably and Emma had rearranged her shelves six times as customers flooded in to buy her wares. She was sold out of bread and cider and had given most of the caramel apples to trick or treaters. Even Alexandra came in for one, though she was now twelve and that morning had rejected the pink princess dress her mother tried to give her, informing Ashley that trick or treating was “for kids” and everyone cool was going to Gideon Gold’s Halloween party instead. 

“Well, I guess you’re not cool, then,” Ashley had retorted. “Try again next year.” 

So Alexandra bought her own Halloween costume with her babysitting money and went to the shop for a caramel apple and a chat with Emma. Who did a sharp double take at the sight of her.   

“Are you kidding me with that hat?” Emma demanded. 

“No,” grumbled Alexandra, hunching her shoulders under Emma’s disapproving stare. “It was the only witch costume the store had.” 

“You couldn’t have chosen a different costume?” 

“All they’ve got are princess dresses and like, sexy nurses which my mom would actually kill me if I wore.” She shrugged. “I’ve been a princess every year, I wanted something different.” 

Rowenna bit her lip as she watched this exchange, torn between her admiration for the older girl she idolised and indignation on behalf of witch-kind. “I like the dress,” she ventured. “It looks like what we wear for Samhain only black.” Her face brightened as she had an idea. “OH! Maybe you could make a leaf crown instead of a hat? Mom says some witches wear leaf crowns.” She looked imploringly at her mother. 

“They do,” confirmed Emma. “I could probably conjure one, if you like.” 

Not even Alexandra’s newfound adolescent sullenness could mask her excitement at that prospect. “Okay,” she agreed. 

“One condition,” said Emma. “You have to let me burn the abomination on your head.” 

Alexandra removed the pointed black hat she wore and handed it to Emma, who took it gingerly between thumb and forefinger. “I’ll be right back,” she said. 

“Look what I can do, Lex!” cried Rowenna, waving Alexandra over to her table. “I can do it really fast now.” 

Quick as the flash of the flame itself she lit the candle with her magic. Alexandra’s eyebrows rose despite herself. “That is pretty cool,” she conceded, and Rowenna glowed brighter than her candle. 

Emma returned a few minutes later carrying a delicate tiara woven of slender willow branches interlaced with hawthorn and red maple leaves, whose dark auburn shades suited Alexandra’s colouring beautifully. 

Alexandra’s mouth dropped open and then she squealed, completely forgetting that enthusiasm was for babies. “Wow!” she cried. “That’s so amazing! Oh, thank you!” Emma helped her adjust it to the perfect angle on her head and let the girl admire herself in the glass of the display window as she grabbed her besom broom to greet a new flock of trick or treaters. 

“Are you ever going to fly on that thing?” asked Alexandra, once the children had gone. “You’ve been saying you do for years, but I’ve never seen you.” 

This time Rowenna couldn’t stifle her scoff, not even to keep Alexandra’s favour. “No one actually flies on broomsticks,” she huffed. 

“Wha— really?” Alexandra gaped at Emma, who shrugged. “I actually believed you, you know!”  

“Sorry?” said Emma.

“You should be,” said Alexandra. 

~~💐~~

Soon Alexandra left to show off her crown to her friends and Rowenna returned to practicing with her candle. Emma watched with a soft smile as magic flowed through her daughter, smooth and steady and controlled with an instinctive skill that made Emma swell with pride.

Rowenna lit and extinguished the candle faster and faster until it was blinking like a strobe light. She giggled at the effect and the thrill of her magic, and Emma was just about to step in before she got too carried away, when Rowenna’s face brightened with an eager expression. She extinguished the candle and turned towards the door. “They’re coming!” she called. “Mommy, they’re almost here!” 

Less than a minute later the door opened and Killian strolled in, a small puppy with floppy ears and pale gold fur dancing energetically at his heels. Yipping excitedly, the puppy ran to Emma and bounced around her knees in a brief hello before bounding over to Rowenna and jumping in her lap to attack her face with enthusiastic, sloppy kisses. She giggled and pushed him away. “Stop it, Liam! Get down!” 

Emma put her hands on her hips and glared at her husband. “Did you let him walk the whole way?” 

“He wanted to!” protested Killian, slipping an arm around her waist and kissing her cheek. “You know he loves to explore the forest. And it’s easier than carrying him.” 

“Hmmph,” huffed Emma, sounding exactly like her daughter, though she softened into his embrace and curled her own arm around his waist in return. “Is he hungry?”

“I expect so.” Killian nuzzled her ear. “He’s a ravenous beast puppy, as you know.” 

 Emma sighed as he tickled the sensitive spot on her neck then turned in his arms and kissed him hard. “Can you watch the shop for a minute while I go feed him?” she asked against his lips.

“Of course, love,” he murmured, brushing her nose with his as they exchanged sappy grins. 

“Daddy, you can watch me light the candle! I can do it sooo fast!” called Rowenna, sensing that her parents were nearly done with the mushy stuff. There was no talking to them until they’d kissed at least three times, this she knew from lifelong experience.

“Well, that you must show me.” Killian planted a final quick kiss on his wife before turning his attention to his daughter, exclaiming in admiration as she lit the candle for him and giving her a proud hug.  

Emma scooped up the still-bouncing puppy and cradled him in the crook of her arm, scratching his tummy gently with her fingertips. “Time to change now, kid, if you want some food,” she said. Liam licked her chin then closed his eyes, shimmered gently with a soft golden light, and Emma was holding a plump blond baby boy with eyes the same grey as the clouds outside. Cuddling him close she kissed his cheeks with silly smacking noises and he gurgled happily, patting her face with his tiny hands and making her heart clench with love and a trace of awe. Even after six months she still marvelled at him, at the ease of his transformation and the pure instinct of his magic. Her family’s witch magic manifesting in her daughter was something Emma had expected, something she knew how to deal with, but a shapeshifting son whose eyes were always the colour of the sky had taken her rather by surprise. 

She blamed Killian. Who was more than happy to accept full responsibility. Who was, in fact, thrilled to have a son who preferred to be a dog. 

“After all, love, it’s far more fun to be a six month old puppy than a six month old baby,” he’d pointed out just the day before. “Considerably greater mobility, and that’s just for a start. Perhaps he’ll choose to be human more often when he’s a bit older.” 

Liam’s cheerful babble interrupted her musings. “Well, I hope you’ll have a nice long nap after your dad wore you out letting you walk all the way here,” she remarked as she carried him to the small room at the back of the shop. There she fed him and burped him, rubbed his back and hummed a lullaby until he fell into a doze, then laid him down gently in the crib she’d tucked into the quietest corner of the room and tiptoed away to begin the preparations for tea, hoping he’d stay asleep. 

The scrabbling sound of puppy claws on hardwood and Rowenna’s shrieks of laughter informed her that that hope was a futile one. Emma sighed and decided to let Killian deal with it. 

When she came back into the shop with her tea tray piled high with Samhain treats David and Mary Margaret were there, she seated on the floor cooing over a delighted Liam and he attempting to police the children’s table where Leo was already squabbling with Rowenna over her crayons. Emma surreptitiously removed the practice candle from within her daughter’s range of magic while Killian poured tea for everyone, heavily diluting it with warm apple cider for the children. 

“So how was your day?” Emma inquired of the room at large, once everyone had been served. 

“Ugh,” groaned David. “Don’t ask.” 

“Why, mate, what happened?”

“I wish I knew. It seems like Leroy managed to obtain Doc’s Miata—

“—According to Granny he won it in some sort of bet,” Mary Margaret chimed in.

“—and he’s been driving it around like a maniac all day,” David concluded. 

“Ah,” said Emma, deadpan. “So that’s what that red blur was.” 

David shook his head. “I know you’re kidding, but also you’re not kidding. He was pulled over for speeding six times, twice in fifteen minutes by the same officer. I finally had to put him in a holding cell to get him off the damn roads.” 

“Yip! Yip! Yip!” barked Liam in his tiny puppy voice, leaping out of Mary Margaret’s lap and jumping excitedly at the Main Street window. “Yip! Yip!” They all looked out the window to see Doc walking past, carrying a baseball bat and the air of one seeking bloody retribution. 

“Goddamn it,” growled David as he charged out the door. 

~~💐~~

David didn’t return. He sent Mary Margaret a terse text saying he’d see her at home that night, so after she finished her tea Mary Margaret collected Leo, wished everyone a happy Samhain, and took her leave.

Liam was sound asleep on Rowenna’s lap, draped across her legs in that boneless puppy way, but when Emma picked him up he yawned and shimmered back into a baby, snuggling against his mother and blowing bubbles of drool on her chest. 

“I’m gonna go put him down in the crib and hope he naps until closing,” whispered Emma. “Do you mind taking Wren back home with you?”

“What do you say, lass, shall we get the food ready for the bonfire?” asked Killian. 

“Yeah!” Rowenna jumped up from her chair. 

“Put your crayons away first,” Killian instructed, catching her shoulder before she could run out the door, “And don’t forget your jacket.” 

As Rowenna collected her crayons under Killian’s watchful eye, Emma slipped away with Liam, indulging herself in a brief cuddle before laying him in the crib, stroking his hair —the same colour and softness as his fur— until she heard Killian and Rowenna leave the shop. 

 She tidied up the tea things and took them into the back, and when she returned to the shop Regina was waiting. 

Emma gave her a hug, which she returned warmly. Regina had warmed considerably in the past seven years, finally out from under her mother’s controlling thumb and now four years into a relationship with one of Killian’s old university colleagues, a widower with a young son who, Regina had once confessed to Emma, had brought out a maternal side in her she’d never known she had. 

“How’s everything?” asked Emma. How’s Cora, she meant. 

Regina understood. “We’re doing a bonfire tonight,” she replied. “Mother lit the candles this morning.” 

“That’s fantastic!” 

“It really is.” Regina shook her head as a smile teased the corners of her mouth. “I honestly never thought I’d see the day.” 

“So do you think she’s really reconciled to everything?” 

“She still hates you,” said Regina bluntly. “And Killian even more. And I suspect she still tries to summon magic sometimes.” 

“Well, no one changes overnight.” 

“No. And she is getting better.” 

“That’s something, anyway.” 

“That’s something,” Regina agreed. 

“And… you’re happy, right?” asked Emma cautiously. Regina could still be prickly about her personal life.

But Regina smiled, wide and soft and genuine. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m happy.”

“Well, that’s what matters.” 

“I suppose it is.” Regina allowed herself a brief squeeze of Emma’s hand. “Well, you’ve got things to do and I should be going. I’ll see you again at the equinox?”

“See you then. Blessed Samhain, Regina.” 

“Blessed Samhain.” 

~~💐~~

That evening Rowenna, dressed in a miniature version of her mother’s ceremonial gown and with green eyes huge at the momentous responsibility of the task, carried the oak log to the smouldering pile of wood in the fire circle and carefully placed it on the top. It burst instantly into flame and she started backwards in awe and alarm, reaching for Emma’s hand. Emma took it, partly to reassure her daughter and partly to complete the ritual, speaking the ancient words slowly so Rowenna could follow along, her small voice quavering slightly but never faltering. 

Killian sat on the porch steps watching them, Liam gurgling happily in his arms and  his chest tight with pride and love and other emotions he couldn’t assign a name. Happiness was certainly one, he thought, and wonder.  

Emma and Rowenna finished their obeisance and Rowenna with a whoop of joy ran inside to get the food to roast in the fire. She returned less than a minute later balancing a tray of corn and squash precariously as she bounced down the stairs, and Liam began to squirm with intent.

“I suppose you want to go play,” said Killian. 

“Gurgle,” Liam replied.

“All right go on.”

His son’s body shimmered and glowed, and Killian’s arms were full of wiggling puppy. Liam covered his father’s face in wet kisses then leapt from his lap and raced out into the garden.  

“Be careful!” called Killian. 

“Yip!” barked Liam. 

Killian leaned back against the railing of the porch with a pensive sigh. The garden magic rose and swirled around him, ruffling his hair and tickling the sensitive spot just behind his ear. He laughed. 

“Hello,” he said. 

You’re thinking hard.

“Just reflecting on the vagaries of fate,” said Killian with a wry grin. “Wondering…”

Speak your mind, Killian Jones.

Killian chuckled. The garden magic had always understood him. 

“All this,” he said, gesturing to the fire, the feast, his family. “Sometimes I wonder what I’ve done to deserve it, that’s all.” 

You earned it for yourself, the magic whispered. You protected her. You loved her. You were prepared to die for her. You made this happen.

“Did you know?” he asked it. “Did you always know who I was… to her?” 

Yes. Who you could be to her. But the future is never certain. There is always a choice. 

“A choice,” echoed Killian, watching his wife and daughter tuck vegetables around the fire to roast and their son yip in delight as he chased the embers floating through the air. “I like that. It’s how it should be.”